Marie Sexton - Coda 06 - Fear, Hope, and Bread Pudding (3 page)

Chapter Three

Date: December 21
From: Cole
To: Jared

Merry Christmas, sweets. How are things in Colorado? I hope it’s white and bright and merry. I hope Santa brings you everything you ask for, and I hope Matt finally lets you put his handcuffs to good use.

Phew! Give me a minute to think on that mental image a bit more…. Stimulating, to say the least.

Now, I suppose it’s my turn. I know I’ve barely written over the last year, but there hasn’t been much to say. We’ve been traveling a lot. We’re in Berlin now, although we leave for Munich tomorrow. My mother is supposed to meet us there. I’m sure she won’t show—she never does—but George swears she’s coming. Honestly, it’s hard for me to care too much. I had one wish for Christmas, and it won’t come true. Jon and I still aren’t fathers. The truth is, I’m terribly, terribly depressed, so much so that I probably shouldn’t even be writing this email. I shouldn’t be sharing my lack of holiday cheer. Jon and I continue to wait for word from Thomas. The longer we wait, the more helpless I feel.

You told me a few months ago that the last thing you and Matt would ever want is a child. You said dealing with the dog was as much as you could handle. I understand that. I really do. I know the two of you are happy simply to have each other. Your lives are already complete, and I envy you for it. Is it selfish of me to want more? I love Jonathan with all my heart, and I adore George, but I can’t help feeling that there’s something I’m missing. Something profound. I have so much to give, Jared. Not only money or things, but love. I have so much love in my heart, and not enough people to share it with.
It’s cheesy, I know. Even I roll my eyes a bit when I read back over those words, but it doesn’t change the truth of them.

A few months ago we were in Lucca, Italy. Have you been? It’s delightful, not crowded like Florence or Venice or Rome. Inside the old city walls, it still feels quaint and charming. Beautiful young people stroll along the streets. The women are all casually exotic. The men wear skinny jeans and shoes without socks and ragged American Tshirts with silk scarves around their necks. Jonathan teased that he’d finally found the one place in the world where everybody dressed like me.

But I’m rambling.

The old battlements still surround the city, and on top of them is a lovely path. There are trees and parks and picnic benches and even a cafe or two. It was a bright, warm morning, and Jon had gone out for a jog. I was walking alone on the ramparts when I saw a child. I think she was two or three. She was gathering chestnuts with a man who I assume was her grandfather. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen chestnuts when they fall from the tree, but they’re in a spiky green shell. The man would hit them with his stick to break them open, then he’d point and say, “There it is! Get it, get it!” And she’d run and grab it and drop it into the sack he held, and then she’d yell, “Encore! Encore!” It was so picturesque, like something out of a movie. So perfect, and all I could think was, that should be George. George deserves a grandchild. And yet, I still haven’t succeeded in giving him one.

I have to change the subject, or I’ll start to cry again.

I talked to Angelo a few days ago. He rarely calls, but when he does, he always manages to surprise me. He hopes to work with foster kids. Did you know that? Teenagers specifically. Not as a foster parent, but he’s considering joining the Big Brother program as a mentor. I told him it was a wonderful idea. After all, he can relate to those kids in a way most of us can’t. I also convinced him to let me pay for him to go back to school. He doesn’t have lofty goals. He just wants to take a class or two at a time, to expand his horizons a bit. I think it’s commendable, and I’m thrilled to be able to help. He was reluctant to take the money at first. He kept saying it was too expensive. Well, it’s only money, for heaven’s sake. What good is it if I can’t spend it on people? Then he spent an hour fretting about how he’d pay me back, trying to convince me to accept monthly payments. There are no words for how little I care about being repaid. I finally made him a deal. I told him that if I’m ever down to my last hundred dollars, I’ll come to him and he’ll be obligated to give me everything he owns. But I told him that until that happens, we’re even. End of story.

Oh. And I made him promise to babysit when we come to Coda, just to make him squirm. I swear, I could hear the panic in his voice. Of course, that brings me back to the adoption. It’s too depressing to think about.

 

Take care, sweets. May your holiday season be better than mine.

C
OLE
,
my father, and I arrived in Munich on December 22. A flurry of activity ensued. Cole insisted we have a tree, never mind that Christmas was only three days away. We spent hours in the markets. They were amazing, as Cole had promised. He spent the first day searching for gifts and decorations for our tree, but my father and I were more interested in the food. There were toasted candied almonds and gingerbread and stollen and hot mulled wine with brandy that warmed us from the inside out. Halfway through the first day, my fingers were frozen and sticky and my mind comfortably muddled from the alcohol. My father’s cheeks and nose were bright red, and he began to weave a bit as he strolled between the stalls. Cole rolled his eyes indulgently and sent us back to the condo.

“Besides,” he said, “I can’t buy gifts for you when you’re standing right next to me.”

 

“Don’t go too crazy. We still have to get it all home.”

Grace wasn’t due in until Christmas Eve night. Despite his continued insistence that she wouldn’t show, Cole went out of his way to prepare for her. He spent hours agonizing over her gifts, finally settling on a cashmere shawl and some shockingly expensive jewelry. I’d expected him to be nervous about seeing her, maybe even angry at my father for inviting her, but as I watched him pick out the necklace and bracelet and matching earrings on the evening of the twenty-third, I realized he was cautiously optimistic. He hid it well beneath a layer of disinterest, but it was there nonetheless. It was like waiting for word from Thomas, fear and hope equally weighted against each other, two sides of the same coin. I pictured it being flipped into the air, turning over and over as it traveled up to the peak of its arc, then falling back down. It spun in the void, alternately flashing bright anticipation and a dark warning of disappointment. Which side would land facing up was anybody’s guess.

Cole waited for a phone call all through the morning of the twenty-fourth. As the seconds turned to minutes and the minutes to hours, his control began to slip. He fidgeted and went about the condo rearranging the Christmas decorations as if they somehow held the key. He checked the clock often. He was like a kid waiting in line to see Santa even though he was terrified of facing him.

“She should have called to cancel by now,” he told me in a whisper as we cleared the table after dinner. I couldn’t tell which side of the coin was flashing at that moment.

The ring of my father’s cell phone reached us from the other room. His words were muffled as he answered, but a minute later, he came into the kitchen to make his report. “Her plane has landed. She’s waiting for her luggage. She figures she’ll be here in about forty minutes.”

“Oh,” Cole said. Nothing more. He sounded small and lost, disarmingly childlike. He began to wring his hands, looking around the room for something to occupy him. He had far too much nervous energy. Either he could give it rein and drive us all crazy, or I could try to distract him. Sex wasn’t going to work, partly because my dad was standing in the room with us, but mostly because it would take far more time than we had to get him to relax enough to enjoy it. Instead, I poured him a glass of wine.

“Go sit down,” I said. “I’ll take care of the dishes.”

When I was finished, I found Cole sitting on the couch with an open book in his hand. It didn’t take me long to realize he wasn’t actually reading it. He wasn’t turning pages. He was simply staring at the words. I suspected it was easier than staring at the clock. My dad was flipping through the channels on TV, undoubtedly searching for something in English.

I sat next to Cole and put my arm around him. I tried to pull him toward me, to urge him to let go and relax against me, but he wasn’t having any of it. He stayed rigid against the arm of the couch, so I settled for rubbing my hand up his back.

“Do you need anything?”
“Stop making a fuss, Jonny. I’m fine.”

An absolute lie, but I wasn’t surprised. I kept rubbing his back until he gave up the pretense of reading. He closed his eyes. His shoulders slumped. Nothing more than that, but it was the closest I’d get to surrender for now.

“I haven’t seen her in six years,” he said at last.

It probably felt like an eternity. I kissed his temple. I searched for something to say, but I had no idea what he needed to hear. That it would be fine? Except maybe it wouldn’t be. That I loved him no matter what? He knew that already.

The doorbell rang. Cole glared at my dad. My dad stared back at him, a silent challenge in his eyes. It annoyed me, so I solved the problem by answering the door myself.

I’d never seen so much as a picture of Grace. My mental image of her had been of the ultimate stereotypical rich bitch—tall and regal and stunning, platinum blonde hair and eyes that flashed disdain.

I was wrong on every count.

She was older than I expected. Cole and I were both closer to forty than thirty, and yet somehow, my mental image of Grace had always been of a woman not quite fifty. I realized with a shock that she was of course closer to my father’s age, probably almost sixty, although she still looked damn good for her age.

My next surprise was how very much she resembled her son. Or how much he resembled her. They had the same caramel skin, the same cinnamon hair, the same slim build, and most striking of all, the exact same eyes—not only the color, or the shape, but also the same mingled sense of dread and excitement.

“Hello,” she said. “You must be Jon.”

She held her hand out to me, and I shook it. She was wearing soft leather gloves that probably did very little to stave off Germany’s frigid temperatures. I eyed the well-tailored coat she wore, and the jewelry that flashed at her ears. Her hair was pulled back into a tight knot, and I could see that her diamond earrings were too large to be tasteful. It was with a sense of vindication that I realized there was one thing I’d been right about—she cared a great deal about her appearance and about the luxuries her son’s money could buy.

“I am,” I said. “It’s nice to finally meet you.” It was a platitude, and it came out with an edge, a bit too much of an emphasis on the word “finally.” Her smile faltered. I wasn’t sure if I felt guilty or smug.

I stepped aside to allow her in. Her smile was broad and genuine as she shook my father’s hand, and then she turned to Cole.

He stood completely still, his expression unreadable. She stared back with the same lack of visible emotion. Six years, and it was immediately clear that neither of them knew how to behave.

She broke the silence first by stepping toward him, her arms out as if to hug him. “Cole, honey. I’m so happy to see you. It’s been too long.”

He stopped her short by taking a step backward, away from her intended embrace. He took her hand instead. “Six years. I’m surprised you made it at all.”

She blinked. I couldn’t tell if she was fighting tears or searching for a barb to throw back at him.

“Never mind,” he said. He squeezed her hand and stepped forward to kiss her cheek. They were about the same height, albeit only because she was wearing low heels. “I’m sure you’re exhausted from the trip,” he said, letting her go. “You should sit down. George, will you get her bags? Jonny, take her coat. I’ll get you a glass of wine, Mother. I assume you’d prefer white?”

“Whatever you have open is fine.” She perched on the edge of a chair as if she expected to have to run for the exit at any moment. “How was your flight?” my father asked.

“Fine, thanks.” She smiled nervously at him. Cole had once hinted that she’d had plastic surgery, but her face didn’t have the stretched-plastic appearance of some celebrities. Nor did she have the overly plump lips I’d come to associate with collagen injections. If she’d had work done, it had been done tastefully and in moderation. “Has your stay been nice so far?”

She asked the question of my father, but he looked pointedly at me. It was like when I was a kid and my Great Uncle Henry had visited and my father had scolded me to be nice and talk to him even though he smelled like mothballs and had underarm hair that was so long it often stuck out of his shirt sleeves. I couldn’t quite manage to smile, but I tried to force my face into a friendly expression. “It’s been good. The markets are wonderful. Have you seen them?”

She shook her head, but her attention wasn’t on me. Cole had come back in from the kitchen with a glass of wine in his hand, and her eyes immediately locked on him. “No, although I’ve heard about them. Cole and his father came here for Christmas once, didn’t you?”

He held the wine out to her. Not a glass of the red, which we’d been drinking. He’d opened a bottle of white for her. “We probably did.”

She took the glass. Her gaze never left his face. “You must have been about twelve.”
He turned away from her to join me on the couch. “I’m sure I don’t remember.”

Of course he remembered. How could he not? “Weren’t you with them?” I asked Grace.
She tilted the wine to her lips, apparently debating her answer as she sipped. When she spoke, it wasn’t to me. She seemed to be addressing the glass in her hand. “I don’t believe I was invited, but Cole talked of nothing else the next time I saw him.”

“It was nothing,” Cole said. “I barely even remember it.” “Of course,” she said.

They both looked away, up to the corners of the rooms, as if they might find an answer there, or an escape. As if there might be directions as to how they should each behave. The air felt heavy and oppressive—not with anger, as I’d anticipated, but with the grief of unhealed wounds and unspoken apologies. It was painful to watch them. I turned to my father and saw my own bewilderment mirrored back at me.