If You Lived Here (13 page)

“Six,” I say. Maybe he can find a way to get out of it.

“We’ve got the Kapner funeral at four. I’ll come at six-thirty.” He gives Keely a magnificent smile. I never imagined he’d be such a good actor.

Martin kisses Keely on the nose, squeezes Abe’s shoulder, then disappears out the door. He hasn’t looked at me once. I glance over to Abe. He’s noticed.

Hay covers the back lawn of Lindi and Richard’s house, simultaneously sopping up the mud and adding to the “barnyard” motif. Now that the clouds have cleared, rays of sunshine sift down through the trees and a fresh breeze blows in from the beach, offering what might be the last cool evening before summer. Keely’s guests race here and there, offering carrots to lambs, petting the calf, riding the pony. Besides picking up the birthday girl at school, my job centered on getting her to the party by five-forty-five. That accomplished, I stand by the hors d’oeuvres table with Abe, Theo, and Theo’s girlfriend, Anna-Sophie, sipping martinis out of jelly jars. All around us, children hurl themselves after chickens, their parents trailing at a distance like cowboys trying not to spook the stock. We discuss vodka.

Anna-Sophie says, “I don’t choose my liquor based on the shape of a damn bottle.”

Theo, who divides his time between struggling as a painter and struggling as a musician, considers Anna-Sophie, who is Dutch, to be enormously sophisticated. Sometimes her condescension makes him petulant, though. He whines, “Well, I
like
Absolut.”

Abe grins. He says, “And I
like
that bottle,” but he’s just making trouble.

From across the lawn, I spot Martin. He has changed out of his suit and put on a blue work shirt, the faded blue jeans he wears hiking, and a cowboy hat from some Halloween. He heads up the lawn in the direction of Keely, who is bobbing on a dappled pony. If he’s seen me, he hasn’t shown it.

The sight of Martin in his cowboy gear serves to shift the conversation. “There’s Tex,” says Theo. Martin lifts Keely from her pony and holds her in his arms while talking to a couple of cowboys I don’t know. Keely has slung her arm around Martin’s neck and wears a look on her face that says, “This is mine.” I used to feel that way, too.

Lindi motions to me from the open front door of the house. In bla—

tant disregard of her barnyard theme, she’s wearing a pink and green Lily Pulitzer pantsuit underneath an apron that says “If Mom’s Not Happy, Nobody’s Happy!” I excuse myself and hurry over. “Can you get people to eat?” She sounds huffy.

“Sure.”

Lindi rubs her hands against her apron, glancing out across the lawn. “I’ve been telling Richard for fifteen minutes,” she says, scowling, tipping her head toward her husband, who, though usually mild-mannered, now stands by the pony ride braying like a donkey.

I walk from group to group, summoning people to eat. I’m good with crowds, discreet and direct at the same time. It’s a skill you master in my business. Eventually, I come upon Martin, who has left Keely with her father by the ponies. Martin’s talking to our accountant, Jim Daltry, and Jim’s wife, Mave. He looks so amiable and thoughtful. He’s a good man, a man anyone could love. A wave of feeling for him sweeps over me. I think: We can find a solution, he and I. I say, “Hi, guys. Y’all go on over and get something to eat.” My eyes rest on Martin.

The Daltrys smile and nod. Martin, without even glancing in my direction, turns and walks off. I feel so cold. I want to take a hot bath, be anywhere but here. Mave and Jim stare at me. They’d have to be idiots not to wonder. I squat down, gazing out at the children scattered on picnic blankets, already taking bites out of honey-slathered biscuits. “I just can’t get over these children,” I say, and, inside, I tell myself that this time next year, my boy will be here, too.

By eight-thirty, most of the guests have departed. Keely, with smears of icing on her chin, crouches under a picnic table with her brother Sauly, an open box of Legos lying on the ground between them. Their father sits on the front porch, strumming a guitar and singing “Sugar Magnolia” with Nathan, his blue-haired eighth-grader. My mother has gotten a ride home with a friend who lives in Landfall. Abe, Theo, and Anna-Sophie have taken off in Theo’s beat-up van. While the farmer from Scotts Hill leads the lamb into its pen, my sister directs one of the waiters on where behind the house to put the hay bales. I’m sweeping hay into piles with a rake. I didn’t see Martin leave.

Lindi wanders over to me. “You know what bugs me?” she asks, reaching down to scrape at the mud that’s splattered the pink embroidery at the bottom of her slacks.

I shake my head, pushing the hay here and there. I’m wondering where Martin’s gone, what we’ll say to each other later.

“Childocentricity.” “What?”

“Parents who don’t notice any kid but their own. I say, ‘Your Alexandra is so adorable, the way she grips that saddle when she rides the pony.’ And they’re supposed to say, ‘Oh, well, Keely is just the cutest thing running after those chickens.’ But, instead, they say. ‘Yeah, Alex seems like a natural on a horse.’ Like Keely doesn’t even exist.”

“Keely is so cute the way she runs after those chickens.” “Thank you. That’s convincing.”

I swat at the hay with the rake, unable to look at Lindi. After a moment, I feel her arm go around my shoulders. “What is it?”

I hate to ruin her evening, but I can’t lie to her, either. I tell her what’s happened. When I finish, I say, “I need this baby.”

Lindi looks like I’ve just disclosed a plan to amputate my arm. “You don’t even know this baby,” she reminds me. “You’d give up Martin for a kid you’ve never even met?”

“I want to be a mother,” I say. “You should be able to understand that.”

Lindi looks down and kicks at a clod of dirt with her sandal. “That man is so selfish,” she says, suddenly bitter, as if Martin’s character has caused problems for years.

“He’s not selfish,” I remind her. I can be honest on this point: He is a good man. But recognizing that fact makes the situation worse. The self-pity wells up through my body like the soft mud pushing through the scattered rem-nants of hay. “He’s got his sons. He doesn’t want more. I’m just a stepmother.” I start to cry. Lindi guides me down the driveway. We stand by the mailbox. I keep my head down, embarrassed by the thought that the waiters will see me. “I’m like a hungry person,” I say. “I can’t wait anymore. This little boy needs me. And I need him more than I need Martin, Lindi. I do.”

Lindi puts her arms around me. “I know,” she whispers in my ear.

She holds me. I could stay in her arms for about a year. After a while, I say, “Do you remember all those times I called you? First, when I was so frustrated because Martin wasn’t ready to try, and then, later, after he agreed, and I kept miscarrying?”

Lindi’s hand smooths down my hair. “Once you called from the bathroom. You had the bloody toilet paper in your hand. You were crying so hard, I couldn’t understand anything but ‘I’m bleeding!’ I thought you’d been attacked.”

My laughter slows the weeping. “You never told me that,” I say into her shoulder, which is wet from my tears.

Keely screams. Lindi jerks away, leans over to look beneath the pic-nic table, then sees that Keely and Sauly are fighting over the Legos. “Meltdown,” she says.

“I’ll go on home.” I wipe my nose with a wadded-up napkin I’ve found in my pocket. “Tell those guys good-bye for me. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She takes my hand. “You going to be okay?”

I nod. Lindi squeezes my hand, turns, and walks back up the lawn. The roads are empty as I drive home. I feel dazed, woozy, and remember I didn’t sleep last night. It’s hard to believe that I cooked with Mai this morning. It’s hard to believe that so much could happen in one bad day. The night is clear. A few stars twinkle in the dark patches between streetlights, sending signals that none of us can understand. Then I pull into the driveway. Martin’s car isn’t there.

After my bath, I phone Theo’s and Anna-Sophie answers the phone. “Are you looking for Martin?” she asks. She always sounds suspicious.

“Um. Yeah.”

A hand goes over the phone and I hear the inaudible rhythms of peo-ple talking. Then Theo comes on. “Hey, Shelley.”

“Theo, can I talk to your dad?”

“What’s going on with you two?” I’ve rarely heard him so agitated. He’s the goofy, easygoing little brother, the one who forgot to go to his

own high school graduation. But he’s clearly annoyed by this news, or by the fact that our troubles slipped past him.

“What did he tell you?”

“He asked to spend the night here.” Theo sounds accusatory, as if his father has broken the rules. Theo, not Martin, is the one who has girl trouble. “Tell me what happened,” he demands.

“Nothing happened. Can you put him on the phone, please?”

“No. He doesn’t want to talk to you. Shelley, are you having an affair?”

I have to laugh. Ours are not such ordinary betrayals. And it’s kind of cute, Theo acting like a concerned adult. “Of course not,” I tell him. I feel resentful, too. I don’t want Theo talking to me like I’m the child. He can’t go six months without breaking another poor girl’s heart. Don’t talk to me, I want to say, about affairs. “Look, we had a fight. It has to do with the adoption. It’s no big deal. Let your dad tell you so himself.”

“He says you’re getting divorced.” “He said that? When did he say that?”

“Just now. He says you want it. There’s another guy, right?”

“No!” I try to sound firm, but I can hear my voice failing me. “I told you, it’s about the adoption.” He doesn’t answer. “Will you tell him I want him to call?” He still doesn’t answer. “Theo! This is not your problem, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Tell him to call.”

Next, I phone my mother. Martin and I are supposed to have brunch at her house tomorrow with Lindi and Richard and their kids.

“Hello?” Her voice sounds like something buried under a blanket. Sometimes, my mom’s up till all hours watching reruns on Turner Classics. Other times, she’s in bed by nine-thirty.

“Mom, I’m sorry I woke you. I’ll call back in the morning.” “No, I’m not awake,” she says, and then, “Asleep.”

“Martin can’t make it for brunch. I just wanted to let you know.”

This information fully wakes her. “Did someone die or something?” It’s an old joke, and not even funny anymore, but I appreciate it. It took her years to accept that her daughter had married a funeral director. If someone asked her about Martin’s profession, she used to say, “He runs a small business,” and hope they’d drop the subject. Then her husband, Cal, got sick and Martin became the one my mother turned to with her grief. Her anger, really, though she would never call it that. She and Cal had been married for only two years. He’d just turned sixty and she was fifty-four. They went to the theater together, gave parties, played golf. And then he had his stroke. Just slid to the kitchen floor one day before they’d even finished breakfast. After that, he couldn’t feed himself, couldn’t use the toilet, couldn’t say a single word. He lingered for ten years. I felt bad for Cal. I wouldn’t wish a death like his on anybody. But I felt worse for my mom.

“Nobody died,” I say. “It’s just Martin and me. We’re separating or something.”

“What are you talking about?”

Of course, it’s a shock. People expect some preparation for marital disaster, something more like a hurricane than an earthquake. My mother did not see it coming. We didn’t even see it coming. People say that hav-ing children can bring a fragile marriage to the brink. In my experience, not having children can tear apart even a strong one.

“Martin’s staying at Theo’s.” I’m only capable of providing facts. “Oh,” she says. My mother can say more with one syllable than most

people can say with a thousand words. Why don’t we have lids on our ears? Why can’t I block the sound of the pain in my mother’s voice?

“Shelley?”

“I’m still adopting this baby. I could leave for Hanoi as early as next month.”

“Can’t you just—”

“Mom, I can’t.” I have to get off the phone. “Shelley—”

“Please!”

When my mother married Cal, she moved into his place in Landfall, an exclusive gated community on the intracoastal waterway. You can’t get a house in Landfall for less than a quarter of a million dollars. Cal’s place

cost a lot more than that, but he’d retired from Procter & Gamble with something like $7 million, so it didn’t matter. He bought this hideous Italianate thing overlooking the waterway, spent a year converting it to a less ostentatious Cape Cod, then met my mother on the golf course and married her. They had a couple of catered affairs with cocktails on the slate patio and a buffet by the pool, then Cal had his stroke.

I find my family already congregated on the patio, sitting on lawn chairs under the shade of the big dogwood. Lindi and Richard, decked out in starchy tennis clothes but looking worn from last night, sit drinking screwdrivers out of tall glasses with little orange wedges stuck on their rims. Keely sits with her knees drawn up to her chest, her face in a picture book. Nathan, with his blue hair, slouches in a chair facing the pier and the little rowboat that he and his brother used to take clamming. Sauly, the middle child, is stretched out on the ground, arranging things in little bags. My mother fiddles with the flowers on the table. She sees me first when I appear around the side of the house. “Sweetie! Hello! I need you to help with things.”

My mother always moves fast. When she was thirty years old, she found out my dad had cheated on her and she filed for divorce the next day. When she was fifty-four, after dating and dumping God knows how many men, she met Cal and married him a month later. She’s so impatient that, at sixty-seven, she still takes the stairs two at a time. Now, she hustles me up to the house and inside the kitchen door before I even have a chance to wave.

“I haven’t said a word,” she says, pressing me onto a bar stool. “I called Martin this morning.”

“That’s a word, Mom.”

She blinks. “I mean to them,” she says, vaguely pointing out the door. “Lindi knows.”

My mother starts spooning fruit salad from a Tupperware container into a big glass bowl. “I had to talk to Martin.”