The Blessings (7 page)

But she is pressed against him now, moving her mouth to his chest. Knowing that he's going back to the hospital, that they have only this brief window, makes it somehow more exciting—sort of like having an affair. She strokes his crotch, lightly at first—imagining he's someone else's husband, a rich, distracted lawyer, maybe, stopping by her house on his lunch break—and feels him rising under her hand. He fumbles with his belt, then lifts her off the bed and they have sex standing up, his hands gripping her hips and her back pressed against the closet door. He comes quickly, with a loud, long moan.

Then he flops to the bed and whistles through his teeth. Kate joins him, curling on top of the unmade sheets. He gropes one limp hand in her direction, but she says, “It's okay, I'm good,” and kisses his cheek. Her former self would have been insulted. It used to be a point of pride that they both have orgasms every time—
equal opportunity sex life!
—but today she has bigger goals in mind. She glances at her husband's face, and it looks soft. Happy, Kate thinks. She lets her eyes close, satisfied. Through the open window, she listens to the sounds of life rising from the street. A blast of hip-hop from a passing car, a motorcycle engine gunning. She feels him dribble down her thigh and thinks:
All those babies
. Then:
I'll have to wash the sheets
. It's no small undertaking—she pictures the damp sheets draped to dry all over the apartment—but it was worth it, she thinks, as Patrick heaves a heavy sigh. Kate opens her eyes. She finds him staring at the ceiling, all contentment drained from his face, and realizes then that she has no idea where he is. Her husband is right beside her, and she has no clue what he's thinking. Being in bed together in the middle of a Friday, listening to the world outside the window, should feel stolen, special, but it feels lonely.

She puts her hand on his chest, tracing circles with her fingernail. He speaks to the ceiling. “Are you picking up something for the party?”

“Party?”

“Max's birthday party,” he says, turning toward her on the pillow. “Tomorrow. You didn't remember?”

“Of course I remembered,” she says, bristling, and she did. She just can't believe he's talking about it right now.

“Maybe you could go over a little early—”

Her hand stops moving. “Why?”

“To help,” he says, an emphatic note in his voice. “In case Lauren needs help.”

I need help
, she thinks.
We need help.
She sits up and picks her shirt off the floor. “Not a problem,” she says, and for the second time in an hour, she starts putting on her clothes.

It is Max's second birthday and of course there's a party, though this particular celebration feels insanely difficult and soon. But it's important, Kate knows, to keep acknowledging these things. Especially in Patrick's family: Every event is celebrated, big or small. Holidays, Little League games, the all-family August vacation to the Jersey shore, where even this year they dragged themselves through the motions, eyes watering, staring out at the ocean and blinking, passing John's children back and forth. They are committed to keeping these family traditions alive, as if to abandon one would grind the entire machine to a halt. But since John's death, every little thing is loaded: recalibrated to accommodate his absence, experienced without him for the first time.

Kate stops at the little grocery on the corner, selects a few tubs of ice cream from their meager selection, then drives to John and Lauren's—now just Lauren's—out in Chestnut Hill. Kate has never really clicked with John's wife; it's hard to imagine them being friends in real life, to see Lauren hanging out with the Bryn Mawr girls. But who knows? At this point, Kate's college friends might have more in common with Lauren than with her. When she and Patrick first started dating, sorting out the who's who of his family, she was amazed to learn Lauren had converted when she married John. “You mean, converted
for
him?” Kate said, incredulous. It seemed so subservient—so
wifey
. “You would never want that, would you?” she teased. Patrick swore to her he wouldn't. He said he wanted a more modern marriage, didn't mind that Kate wasn't a good cook like his mother and his sisters, but sometimes Kate detects a look of disappointment, or just plain confusion, when she serves him another plate of takeout Chinese.

Kate turns off Germantown Avenue and starts winding through the leafy green streets. She dredges up an ignored, unsolicited piece of advice her mom once gave her:
You want to know what a man expects from his wife, look at his mother
. The kind of line Kate would have dismissed as regressive, ridiculous, at the time. She starts down Lauren's block: the sloping lawns and electric fences, the big houses made of glass and stone. Just a half hour outside the city, but it's like another world. At least these are the tasteful suburbs, Kate thinks, not the depressing cookie-cutter ones made of clapboard and strip malls. Although really, aren't all suburbs depressing? Unoriginal, lacking in character? She would hate to live in a place like this.

Kate pulls into the long, horseshoe-shaped driveway and parks by the door, shifting her sunglasses to the top of her head. She grabs the ice cream, gone slightly soft in the heat. It's a perfect day for a party, sunny with a breeze, but the house looks closed. On the porch, a tricycle is lying on its side, dirty pink-and-white streamers drooping from the handlebars, and the welcome mat is crooked, the mailbox crammed with coupon circulars and junk mail.

“Oh!” Lauren says when she answers the door, holding Max on her hip. “Hi.” She glances over Kate's shoulder, as if expecting the entire party to file in behind her. She's wearing a purple terrycloth bathrobe, way too bulky for a day like this. Her face is bare, her uncombed hair pinched back in a plastic clip. Patrick had advised Kate not to call first—Lauren was known to refuse help, sometimes not even answer the phone—but seeing her now, Kate wishes that she had.

“Just me,” Kate says breezily. “I came a little early to help you get ready—not that you need it, I'm sure!”

She isn't sure. In fact, something about Lauren seems unnervingly fragile, like a vase with tiny fissures running just beneath the surface. One that had been splintered into pieces and reglued—one wrong tap and the whole thing could come apart.

“How's the birthday boy?” Kate says, giving Max a poke. He is sucking on two fingers, wearing only a diaper, bright purple juice staining his chin. Lauren just stands there, as if unsure what to do next, so Kate says briskly, “Where's my girl Elena?” and takes a step inside.

Lauren trails behind her through the living room, barefoot, murmuring, “It's a mess in here. I know.”

“Oh, please!” Kate says, taking quick stock of the place. The TV is playing
Beauty and the Beast
. Cheerios are sprinkled on the coffee table, toys splayed on the floor, a sparkly tiara and an armless doll. It feels too dark, too cold, for a sunny summer Saturday. The air-conditioning is blasting, the shutters closed. And there's a smell—a baby smell, but not a good one. Stale and damp, like wet saltines. As she walks through the house, Kate feels concern, but at the same time a corresponding sense of purpose. She glances into John's office, the desk of gleaming mahogany, and wonders if it's been touched since the night he died. Patrick had described the scene to her later, as well as he was able: how John took him inside, shut the door, and explained his family's financial plan for the next twenty years: stocks and investments, Catholic school tuitions, funds for college, for Elena's wedding. The desk is still covered with neat stacks of papers, a gold pen on the green blotter, as if frozen under glass.

In the kitchen, Kate shoves the ice cream in the freezer. The dishwasher is gaping and there is a juice carton sitting open on the table, three sticky place mats, burnt toast crusts, a bag of limp blue balloons:
Party Pak!

“Aunt Kate!” Elena yells, racing through the back door, and flings herself around Kate's legs, face pressed into her knees.

“Hi there, cutie,” Kate says, scooping her into her arms. Elena is a gorgeous little girl, with dark hair and big violet eyes. She has Lauren's coloring—enviably tan, unlike the rest of the family, Kate included, who are pale and prone to sunburns. Elena starts fondling Kate's jewelry, a raft of slender gold bangles shivering on her wrist.

“We're swimming,” Elena says. She is the only one dressed for a party, in a pink dress and jellied sandals.

“Really?” Kate says.

“Not swimming,” Lauren says. “Cleaning the pool.”

“We're cleaning the pool,” Elena dutifully repeats.

“Oh,
are
you,” Kate says, thinking: At least that might explain the bathrobe. Max starts whimpering to be put down. “Let's go see what you're up to, shall we?” Kate says, and they all troop out of the kitchen and through the back door, an ungainly procession, Max squirming in Lauren's arms and Elena with hands wrapped tightly around Kate's neck, digging into her thighs with her hard plastic heels.

Their backyard, Kate has to admit, is heaven. A deck for entertaining, an in-ground pool. A row of shade trees lines the back of the property, fluttering gently in the breeze. This is the upside of life in the suburbs, she concedes: the space. Lately the apartment on Spruce Street has begun to feel even more cramped and small, too small for married people who are dealing with difficult things. A small apartment works only if you're purely happy, Kate decides. Fertility drugs, ovulation predictor kits, sympathy cards—you need a whole house to accommodate things like these.

Lauren sets Max down on the lawn and he starts racing around in circles in his bare feet. “Not too close to the pool,” Lauren says. Her voice is toneless, on autopilot.

“Not too close, Maxy!” Elena yells, still clinging to Kate's neck.

Kate squints at the pool, assessing the situation. A metal pole with a net on the end rests on a lounge chair, but the cleaning appears not to have begun. The entire yard is looking neglected. The grass is long, the flower beds ragged. The pool water looks slightly green, the surface of it strewn with things—dead leaves and bugs and God knows what else.

“This looks like a royal pain,” Kate says. “Are you sure you want to bother, Lauren? The summer's almost over. Why don't you just cover it up?”

“I can't,” Lauren says. “I mean, I have to. It'll be fun for the kids.”

Kate watches her gaze drift from the pool, to the deck, to the unkempt yard, all the things that had once been exciting now a worry, a burden.

“Plus it's hot,” Lauren says, touching her brow, as if saying it reminded her to feel it. “They'll bring their suits.”

On the lawn, Max is still running in circles. Elena is trying to pry Kate's sunglasses off, breathing warmly on her cheek. Lauren just stares at the water.

“Well, okay,” Kate says resolutely. “In that case.” She turns and looks at Elena. “Let's do this.”

“Let's do this,” Elena repeats.

Kate plops the little girl down on a lounger, places the sunglasses on her face. “Here—you be the lifeguard,” Kate says, feeling every bit the part of the breezy, take-charge aunt. She picks up the metal pole and holds it away from her body, trying not to smudge her white capris, and starts skimming it along the surface of the water, guiding debris into the net. Brown leaves, a candy wrapper, bits of paper. She dumps a small pile of trash on the side of the pool and Elena applauds.

Lauren is still staring vacantly at the water; Kate wonders how to tactfully suggest she go straighten up inside. “What else needs to be done, Lauren?” she says. “I've got this covered, if you need to deal with the food—”

Lauren shrugs. “I don't, really. Everyone's bringing something.”

“Right,” Kate says. She dips the net back in, catches a soaked brown feather. “What are you having?” she asks, just to keep her talking. She's reminded of how you're supposed to deal with people who have had concussions, keep them from falling asleep.

“Oh, you know,” Lauren says, and in the same flat tone runs through the menu: lunch meat and rolls, macaroni salad, pink fluff, deviled eggs. Kate can picture every bit. The ham rolled into glistening pink scrolls, eggs sprinkled with paprika, the pink fluff—which looks exactly as it sounds, a bright concoction of fruit and marshmallows that the entire family inexplicably loves. All the usual things, the summertime things. She had to admire this about the Blessings: They were consistent.

Kate dumps another pile of wet slog on the side of the pool. Elena cheers again. Kate hasn't felt this useful in weeks. Then Max veers off the lawn and goes running toward Lauren, flinging himself around her knees. She reaches down absently, picks him up, and drops onto a lounger, holding Max on her lap. Then she loosens the top of her robe and, without looking at Kate, says: “Don't judge.”

“Oh!” Kate says, taken aback. “Oh, it's fine! No judgment.”

But it's strange. Max looks way too big to be nursing, his two-year-old head at Lauren's breast, bare limbs draped over her lap like a sloppy pietà. Kate averts her eyes. She focuses on the pool, gliding the net through the water, while Elena wanders over to the trash pile and kneels beside it, Kate's expensive white sunglasses sliding down her nose.

“Thank you,” Lauren says then, and Kate isn't sure what she's being thanked for. She glances at Lauren, who nods at the pool.

“Oh, please,” Kate says. “Not a problem.”

“It's good that you're so independent,” Lauren adds.

“Is it?” Kate laughs.

“I've been staring at this pool for days. I couldn't do it.”

“Oh, sure you could have.”

“I've never done it before.”

“Well,” Kate says, “there's a first time for everything, right?”