Come Pour the Wine (42 page)

Nicole got off the bed and stood by the window, then turned around and looked at Janet. “Mother … I’ve decided to go to Columbia. Mark and I are taking an apartment …”

Why do we always think of our children as
children?
They grow up and make a life of their own. Hadn’t she done that? Nicole had told her before that they might live together. How stupid she’d been to hope she would come back from Europe and live at home … Strange, she’d never given a thought to what
her
mother must have felt the day she left home for New York. Raising your own children makes you understand your parents better … sometimes very late in the day.

“Will you stay ’til the semester starts, Nicole?”

“I don’t think so … Mark and I want a place of our own. I’m just happy Jay will be here.”

“Me too. But that’ll only be for a little while. This year he’ll be a junior. Well, no matter … welcome home, darling.”

When Nicole moved her things out Janet knew that was the end of a part of her life. This would never be home for her daughter again. Birthdays, holidays, visits, of course, but now home for Nicole was Mark, and rightly so. But there was no denying the emptiness Janet felt. She
should
be growing old with a husband. She needed Bill at this moment almost more than at any other time in her life. She needed
someone …

Janet sat behind the steering wheel of her Mercedes, waiting for the garage door to open. She drove in quickly and immediately closed the door with the automatic genie. Somehow she still hadn’t conquered that small fear of coming home alone. Hurriedly she took the grocery bags and let herself into the kitchen. Now, in the familiarity of her large kitchen, she felt relatively safe. Putting the bags on the drainboard, she walked through the living room to the entrance hall, reached for a hanger and was about to unbutton her coat when the front doorbell rang. There was a moment of mild panic. Nobody came to her door at nine-thirty in the evening. Apprehensively she called out, “Who is it?”

“It’s me, mother.”

A sigh of relief as she let Nicole in. “What brought you to Westchester in the middle of the week?”

“Mark and I wanted to visit the family, which includes you … Where have you been all afternoon? I called the shop and Renée said you had left early.”

Janet smiled at Nicole’s reprimand. The roles seemed rather reversed. That was a question she must have asked her daughter a million times in the past while Nicole was climbing over the hill, growing up. “Well, darling, it was one of those days. I … I just decided to play hooky. That little hobby of mine is a great diversion, but I needed to get away and … Well anyway, I went marketing and then decided to stop off for an early dinner on the way home and take in a movie. It’s the maid’s day off, and I thought it was about time I had one too. Besides, I hate cooking for myself. So. That’s the sum total of all my wickedness.”

Nicole sat on the large sofa and looked at her mother’s face, wondering if the moment was right to tell her why she’d
really
driven to Westchester. But somehow she couldn’t seem to get up the courage … not just yet. Playing for time, she asked, “Do you have any vodka?”

Janet suddenly knew this was not going to be the casual visit she’d expected. Nicole seldom drank; it had to be serious. “How do you want it?”

“Over ice … why don’t you join me?”

“Okay, think I will.”

She handed Nicole her drink and sat down across from her. “How’s Mark?”

“Fine.” Then there was a long period of silence.

“It seems you’re having a little difficulty telling me why you’re really here. It doesn’t have anything to do with you and Mark, does it?”

“God, no, mother.”

“What then?”

Nicole took a slow sip. “Mother, as you know, dad’s been living in that furnished apartment, but he isn’t happy …”

Janet frowned. What did that have to do with her? “Then why doesn’t he get a place he likes?”

“That’s what he wants to do.”

“Well, what’s holding him back?”

Swallowing hard, Nicole said, “The furniture.”

Again a frown from Janet. “The furniture? I don’t understand what this is all about. Why doesn’t he call in a decorator and furnish? He did it before we were married.”

“That’s just the point, mother—”

“Nicole, just
say
it.”

“Well … daddy feels as though he has no anchor. He wants to surround himself with some familiar things, things that have memories. What I’m trying to say is, if you don’t mind, could he have the den furniture? It would mean so much to him … as though he had roots of some kind …”

It was too unbelievable for words. Bill missed his furniture! Things from his bachelorhood days. He even needed that to round out his present life. Having that furniture would definitely, of course, bring back his youth. She forced herself to sound calm. “Of course, if the furniture means so much to him, why not? It was his.”

Nicole smiled. “Oh, mother, you’re the most understanding woman in the world. And daddy will be so grateful—”

“I’m sure. You tell him I’ll arrange to have the things sent as soon as possible so he can get settled … In fact, tell him I want him to have his bedroom set too. I think that will be very comforting for him … like old times.”

Nicole didn’t hear the sarcasm under Janet’s light tone. Wasn’t tuned to it. “Oh, mother, you’re marvelous. I only hope I’m like you—”

“Thank you, but forget my virtues. After all, I ended up with this lovely house.”

After Nicole left, Janet stood in the center of the living room and listened to the silence. Her eyes wandered around from one furnishing to the next. Everything had been selected together, with love. Tonight Bill’s presence was overwhelming. She looked at the sofa and in her mind’s eye saw him stretched out on it. The echo of his words rang in her ears … “You did a hell of a job” … “By God, I’m the luckiest man in the world to have a wife like you” … “Sure as hell love you.” That was eighteen years ago when they’d moved in. Only eighteen years. When … at what point had he realized the love was gone? My God, how fragile the string was. It could be severed so quickly. And the lie, that dreadful lie … ’til death do us part.
But then, my love for Bill changed too, didn’t it? … it certainly did after I’d been discarded like an old shoe.
She was unaware that tears were streaming down her face. She poured herself a full tumbler of vodka, then slid slowly to the floor, bracing herself against the sofa. Having taken the first drink, she poured another. “I hope you suffer every moment of your life as I’m suffering now,” she said into the silent house. Her hand shook as she picked up the bottle to refill the glass, but the vodka was gone. She threw it against the fireplace and watched the glass shatter into pieces …
like my life …

Unsteadily she got up, stumbled to her bedroom, fell across the bed.

It was two in the morning when she lay spent. All the tears were dry on her cheeks.

Slowly she got up and went to the bathroom, washed her face and got ready for bed. She wished she had a sleeping pill. She’d taken them until the doctor warned her, “Janet, I’m not going to renew the prescription. It’s going to be tough for a few nights but you can’t go on using them the rest of your life.” Why not, doctor, what difference does it make?

Usually she folded the quilted bedspread carefully, but in the early hours of this morning she yanked back the corner and slid into bed under the electric blanket. Her body was chilled. She lay in the dark staring up at the ceiling, the thoughts of the past months running through her head like a broken record.
Enough, Janet. Chew it up and spit it out… he’s out of your life, can’t you get that through your stupid head? You’ve gone through this a million times
…
the same old thing about what you should have done, what you didn’t do. Well, Bill, you’ve taken plenty, now you want the roots? You want your furniture back so you can relive your wonderful past? I’m only sorry I hadn’t thought about it in the beginning. I don’t want one thing, not any part of it. You’re going to get your furniture and your paintings. Now I’ll do something for myself. You’re still in every nook and cranny, but no more… Everything will be sent to auction and I’m going to buy what I want … this is going to be my house once and for all … I will not longer allow you to be a lingering
—
haunting
—
part of the future.
Each time he sat in a chair, or lay on that couch … well, let his conscience take care of it … she’d waste no more time on such draining emotions as resentment, anger, bitterness….

Looking at his things, Bill felt they didn’t represent his bachelorhood days at all, but rather a part of the past that he still shared with her. He’d even, for God’s sake, taken to sleeping on her side of the bed….

With the hanging of the last of the new draperies, Janet felt Bill was finally exorcised … a ghost of her own making, finally gone from her existence.

She walked from room to room of the newly furnished house. It looked just the way
she
wanted it to … whites and beiges … tubs of green plants, the walls covered with pastel prints and contemporary paintings, the wood pieces antique. At long last she, too, belonged to herself.

That night when she slept in her new bed, past memories were, finally, put to rest.

Jason ran off the football field, sweating from practice, but he paused when he looked up at the bleachers and saw a lone man sitting there. Jason watched as the man got up and approached him.

“How are you, Jay?”

Jason didn’t answer, only continued to look at his father’s face. His hair was streaked with gray.

“I know you’re still angry at me, Jay, but couldn’t we at least talk?”

“We’ve nothing to say to each other.”

“I think we do. In spite of what you think about me, Jay, I’m still your father, and I love you.”

“Really? Well, you have a strange way of showing it … really weird.”

“Can we sit down and talk, please?”

Jason shrugged. “Did your shrink tell you it would be good for you to have a heart-to-heart with your son?”

Bill winced. “Let’s sit down.”

They sat on the first wooden bleacher, Jason remaining stiff and silent.

“Jay, I know you can’t understand or forgive my leaving your mother but—”

“No, I can’t, can you?”

“Not altogether … no. But I’d like you to understand there are some people who should never get married.” That wasn’t what Bill had wanted to say, at least not in those words, but Jay was making it damned hard for him.

Jason rubbed at the stubble on his cheeks. “Then why did you marry mom?”

“I’m going to be honest with you, Jay … I didn’t want to.”

“But you
did! …
Why?”

“Because I loved her.”

“You loved her! I don’t
get
any of this … I really don’t. It’s a little too complicated for me. The point is, you
did
marry her. How come?”

“The problem was I fell in love with her. At first I fought against it, but then I realized that the only way I could … well, have her was to marry her.”

“You should have fought a little harder. It would have been better if you hadn’t gotten married. You’ve hurt her, hurt her badly, and I’ll never forgive you for that. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is. And I’ll tell you something else, since we’re being so man-to-man honest. I thought you were the greatest person a guy could ever have for a father, but you sure turned out to be a dud …”

And so saying, the deep hurt buried in him now welled up and he found himself crying.

Bill held him close.

“Why couldn’t you have loved us, dad … why?” He put his arms around his father’s shoulders.

“Because I’m a pretty weak and selfish man who was never able to find himself … Jay, I don’t deserve your love. I’m sorry I hurt your mother, she’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Jason wiped away the tears. “Then why don’t you try and make it up to her by coming home?

The only way to answer that was with the truth, painful as it was. “Because it wouldn’t work … Let me try to tell you why. You see, things don’t just happen today or yesterday. It happens very early on. I’m not blaming my parents anymore for what I am. They did the best they could. There comes a time when you have to stop putting on blame, come to terms with the good and the bad in yourself and try either to change or learn to live with the things you don’t like in your character. The problem is that I never did that. Without going into all the heavy psychological reasons, the result was that I felt trapped, even in a good marriage. I didn’t know who the hell I was, and I was afraid I’d never be free enough to find out.”

“Are you happy now, living alone?”

“I don’t know, Jay. Maybe I could be if I didn’t feel so much guilt. If we could be friends—no, more than that, father and son—maybe then I’d have an easier time finding myself. I want you to forgive me, but more than that, to love me. I miss you, Nicole and your mother. It’s asking too much for your mother even to like me, but you’re my son. I want to do things with you … have you come and visit. I’ve been very damn lonely without you, Jay—”

“What about other women, dad?”

He looked closely at his son. “Occasionally, Jay, that’s all. But it doesn’t mean anything. I’m an adult male and so are you. Men need women from time to time. That’s the nature of the beast.”

Jason sat looking out to the empty ball field. He had tried hard as he could to hate his father. But now, as they sat together, he could only remember the good things, the things he’d shared with his father … Little League ballgames … the time they’d gone down the rapids. His father hadn’t left his mother, not really … He wouldn’t have been able to stay married to anyone. Was his father to be blamed for the things in his past that had loused him up? Jason didn’t honestly know the answer, but there was one thing he no longer questioned. He knew his father was a weak man, he loved him. And weak as he said he was, it still, Jason sensed, took a lot of strength to do what he had done today. Jason had rejected him, and if his father hadn’t cared he wouldn’t be trying to make it up now.