The Widower's Tale (37 page)

"Actually, it's not me. It's just that Turo's mom screwed up on his latest money transfer. Or the bank screwed up. We're okay for December, because I covered him there, but just in case he's not square by next month ..."

"What are grandfathers for?" I said, slicing into a fat, succulent ravioli. What a relief: a problem I could solve.

"Thanks, Granddad. I promise to pay you back. With interest."

I waved my hand. "Don't be absurd. We'll tend to that now." I took a check from my wallet and filled in a sum that struck me as a bit excessive--but I'd been hearing for years that rents in Cambridge had gone sky-high.

During the remainder of our meal--including the gelati du jour, a heavenly pairing of mango and butter pecan--Robert told me about his next round of courses. I was pleased to hear that he would be taking a literature course. "Latin American magic realism" would not have been my first choice (and perhaps revealed a bit of undue influence from his roommate), but how I looked forward to catching a glimpse of my grandson with his nose in a book that was not filled with graphs, molecular diagrams, or chemical formulas. Over my decades at Widener, whenever I strolled through a reading room of brilliant children engaged in the mastery of science, I might wonder how many of them were destined to become engineers of weaponry or even widespread destruction via computer. When I saw them deep in a volume of Fielding or Cheever, I felt a naive surge of comfort, as if this were proof that the world, whatever its troubles, was still protected by the human heart.

On Thursday, the
Grange
arrived late, due to the relentlessly nasty weather. I was grumpy, because I could not risk running when the roads were nothing but slick, wet ice. The milk intended for my cereal had gone sour. And I had just hung up from my latest attempt to reach Sarah.

I took the paper in, microwaved my last cup of coffee, and opened to the Opinions page. My eye traveled immediately to the Fence Sitter's column.

"Move Ye on Over, Goodwife Martha!" was the title of her offering that day.

A resounding "Thank ye" goes out here to our very own crack historienne, Laurel Connaughton, for bringing off the first-ever Historic Matlock House Tour last weekend, competing bravely with a bout of weather to rouse old Noah from his nautically appointed coffin. Kudos, Laurel! Her efforts have netted an as-yet-to-be-disclosed sum (reportedly in the low but respectable five-figure range) designated as seed money for a school program to be titled "Who Says History Is a Thing of the Past?" Cumbersome, maybe, but we get the idea, Laurel, and like it we do--those of us who care about the heritage of our fine, well-aged town. Let a rowdy round of
Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!
, complete with seven-musket salute, ring forth in thy name this coming Fourth. (Captain Jim Cusak of the Regulars, are ye reading this?) Now, let me take a moment on my humble colonial soapbox to single out as well our longtime citizen Percival Darling, one of the generous folks who opened their wainscoted parlors to history mavens, architectural voyeurs, and those who just wanted some inspiration on primo bathroom fixtures and wall coverings (that would be you, Jessalyn Paine!). But how I do digress! Percival Darling (may we call you Percy after lo these many decades?) is someone I neglected to felicitate earlier this year when he saved the proverbial day for Elves & Fairies by opening the doors to his old barn ... once the haven of his talented ballerina of a wife, Penelope (may she rest in peace, especially knowing that the smallest dancers are romping in her graceful footsteps). Some of you newbies might not know that Percival's daughter Trudy Barnes, the renowned oncologist at St. Matt's, grew up in that magnificently quirky old house into which you set foot last Sunday. Percy, a heartfelt thanks for returning to the fold after so many years during which we hardly knew ye. Welcome back, comrade!

And now, segue to the succotash chowder recipe I've been promising the chefs amongst my readers....

There are those who wouldn't give a freight train's hoot to see themselves trotted out in the Cheez Whiz prose of a local bigmouth like Mandy Pinkerton.
(Felicitate
my derriere.) And God knows, some poor souls probably relish such attention. Not (as you can guess) I.

I threw down the paper and cursed, on the one hand, my generosity and, on the other, my gullibility. Together, they had landed me in a capacious cauldron of hot water (or lukewarm succotash chowder; imagine!). I knew precisely what lay in store for me after a star turn in the town gossip column. It meant an even greater loss of privacy and rounds of giggles for the next few weeks in every commercial establishment from Wally's Grocery Stop to the wine store in Ledgely. This, at this moment, I did not need.

To hell with the mannerly make-believe world of Matlock. To hell with my resolve, my respect for others' "boundaries" and "feelings."

I picked up the phone and dialed Sarah. When I heard the beep, I said, "Sarah, if you don't call me today, I promise you that I will handcuff myself to Rico the next time he leaves the bloody preschool in my backyard, if that's the only way I get to see you. Enough of this duck-and-cover. Enough of--"

"Percy."

"Sarah." I nearly wept at the sound of her voice, my name in her voice.

I heard her sigh (and not romantically). "Oh
Percy."

Old heart hammering, I waited.

"Percy, here's the thing. I know you feel you've done what's best for me, and I know objectively that you're right. But I had been hoping ..."

I waited again.

"Hoping for my situation to change with this commission. I know it's naive, but I thought it might put me in line for a job, somehow, with benefits or ... Because of Rico, I ... Jesus. The more I say, the stupider I'll sound."

"Talk, Sarah. Talk. Tell me the time of day. Tell me about the weather. The mud on your shoes. Sound stupid. Just try."

She told me that she had heard from Dr. Wang the previous afternoon. The pathology of the tumor was complicated. There would be more surgery, but it might come later, after other treatments, with each treatment another doctor. All of them--procedures, doctors--would cost the moon.

"That's not important now."

"Of course it is. Of course it's
important."
She paused. "Or are you richer than I think you are? Is money a footnote to you? Are you the tweedy professor with a closet full of Krugerrands? A well-aged trustafarian?"

"I wish I were. But I can certainly lend you money until we straighten out this business about your insurance." Oddly, her anger couldn't touch me. I liked that word,
trustafarian
, and was mildly tempted to ask where she'd heard it.

"Percy, we are talking thousands and thousands of dollars. Add a few more thousands. I'm already up a creek for not having insurance in the only state that punishes you if you don't."

"You will. I'll see to that."

"My situation is complicated--"

"Oh, Sarah, whose isn't?"

"There are reasons I might not be eligible for that state insurance everybody talks about."

I'd heard rumors about our newfangled state insurance system, but I'd paid no attention, skipped all the articles in the paper. What if Sarah couldn't be insured? I thought about my retirement account, the second mortgage (half of Trudy's medical training) on which I still had a few years to go. I began to wish that, like my father, I
had
fussed over rare books and put away a cache to sell at a moment like this.

"Percy, I have an appointment to see your daughter next week."

Trudy, I thought. Trudy would solve this conundrum. "I'm very glad to hear that," I said. "What day?"

"I'm going to this one alone. I'm driving myself in. Don't even begin to protest."

I was standing in the kitchen, barefoot. I realized that my feet were freezing. I looked down. Lord but they were ugly, too.

"All right," I said. "But let's see each other this weekend. Take Rico to ... Did you know there's a museum dedicated to knights and armor, in Worcester? I'll drive us there on Saturday."

"Knights and armor? Oh Percy."

"That's what you need. Armaments. Chivalry! What do you say?"

In the following silence, I could hear her striving to push me away. I could also hear myself winning. I clenched the fist that wasn't holding the phone.

"I can't seem to figure out what I need," she said. "Except, okay, you."

Right after Poppy's death, at least for a year or two, my habits changed. I locked the doors at night. I stopped drinking. In town, I limited myself to one cheeseburger a week. I played a lunchtime game of squash, on Mondays and Wednesdays, with Earl, my colleague in reference who covered physical science. All I could think about was how much my daughters now needed me. Needed
me
. If necessary, I would live forever.

For the last few weeks of that summer, none of us went near the pond. Helena devoted herself to getting the girls out of Matlock as often as possible. She took them to museums, to Crane's Beach on the distant North Shore, to the mall for clothing safaris. The sound of my daughters' laughter returned to the house, in small rare bursts, by the time they were back at school, back in the buffering, benevolently selfish company of their friends.

For a time, they seemed to really like, even treasure, each other. Rarer than the sound of their laughter was the sound of sibling strife. They spent more time together in their rooms. They did homework together, both at home and at the library.
Silver lining
, that filigreed cliche, ran like a tremor through my head. In the pleasure of their harmony, I found a new source of guilt.

One night that September, I came out of my bathroom to hear them talking, in earnest tones, through Clover's open door. I stood in the shadow of the hallway and listened.

"If we were religious," said Clover, "we would believe that Mom's spirit was still alive. That she was around us, maybe hovering over the pond or something like that. That we'd meet her in heaven."

"But we're not," said Trudy. "We don't believe in God."

"Well maybe I'm not so sure."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I think Mom and Dad just don't get the spiritual thing. It's like a kind of blindness."

"Didn't," said Trudy.

"Didn't what?"

"You mean, Mom
didn't
get the spiritual thing. She's not around to get anything now."

"Don't be so sure," said Clover. "I get these vibes sometimes, at night. Like, if I'm out by the pond. I go down there, sometimes, if I can't go to sleep."

Dear God, I thought--and caught the irony at once. But would I have forbidden Clover from trying to commune with her lost mother? I had noticed that her recent reading included Hermann Hesse and C. S. Lewis's
Screwtape Letters
. I'd held my tongue until I saw her carrying a paperback copy of
Waiting for God
, by Simone Weil. She told me that one of her teachers had recommended the book. She seemed defensive, so I asked nothing more.

"You don't, like, go in, do you?" asked Trudy.

"That would be too creepy."

"Is it scary?" asked Trudy. "Like, do you think she's a ghost?"

"I think she's a presence. A presence specific to
here
. Like, I don't know, a warmth. Is that a ghost? Define
ghost."

"Well, whatever they are, I don't believe in ghosts any more than God. Science would have proved their existence by now." But after a pause, she said, "Though I almost wish I did. I'm kind of jealous that you do."

This pierced me to the core (a pain I deserved for eavesdropping on my children). Even losing Poppy would not tempt me toward some warm and fuzzy notion of afterlife reunions or the wishful nonsense of ghostly apparitions. But if Clover saw her as "a presence specific to
here,"
then I must do all I could to remain
here
. I could see that Trudy, despite her defiantly practical nature, her faith in the empirical above all else, would also feel bereft if--as so many people had suggested by now--I moved my precious little family closer to the city.

Matlock, back then, was not the hothouse of affluence it has since become, yet Poppy and I together were barely able to afford our mortgage, taxes, and the never-ending maintenance of our Methusalean home. Poppy's income from her dance lessons had been smaller than mine, but it had mattered.

From that moment on, I watched every penny, kept a budget, and tried not to let the girls notice (though I'm sure they did) that I steered them toward less expensive hobbies and summer activities. They never went to sleepaway camps, and we took our vacations at the summer homes of friends. (Helena, bless her, took Clover and then Trudy for two weeks in Paris after each girl graduated from high school.) I swore that nothing would budge us from our house with a barn by the water.

For all my economies, however, I'd stubbornly hoarded that barn. What would have happened, I wondered now, if I had shared it long before Evelyn's call--if it had evolved, comfortably, perhaps shabbily, into a local dance school run by someone else, into the office of an architecture firm, a law practice, a dental clinic? What else, other than posses of noisy toddlers, jungle gyms, tree houses, and Sarah, would be different now about the life I led? What else would I have missed?

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