Molly sat across from her at the table, bedraggled, her hair wet and matted, dark circles under her eyes. “Yes, let’s talk about respect,” she was saying. “Respect for your husband, my father, Daniel’s father. Let’s talk about that. Since we’re talking about respect.”
“Why did you make such a fuss about the rain? It’s about a hundred degrees out.”
“Mom, it’s disrespectful to Daddy to invite Karl to Ruby’s bat mitzvah. That’s what Daniel is upset about. And so am I.”
“That’s ridiculous. Karl was your father’s friend.”
“He’s your friend.”
“Am I not allowed to have friends now? What is wrong with you two?”
Molly offered her mother a cup of tea, which Joy accepted. She did not want tea. It would make her have to pee. And the kitchen was humid and hot. But she could see Molly trying to be civil. It was important to be civil. She had tried to teach her children that.
“Look, Mom, you can’t bring him to the bat mitzvah, okay? You just can’t. It wouldn’t look right. I mean, it’s only been a few months. It might, you know, embarrass Ruby.”
“Ruby? You mean it will embarrass you two, although god knows why.”
“You think he can take Dad’s place?” Molly said, all pretense at civility gone. “Well, he can’t. Ever.”
She was shouting now, and Daniel stomped down the stairs to join in: “The body is not even cold. How can you do this to us?”
Joy looked away from them, her two beloved children, yelling and stamping their feet like toddlers. Graying toddlers. She tilted her head back and looked at the ceiling and wondered if it might fall in and shut them up.
“What has Karl ever done to you?” she said softly.
There was silence, just the thunder, closer now, and the rain on the roof.
“Did you know that Karl asked me to live with him?”
“See?” Daniel said to Molly. “See? I told you.”
“Mommy! You can’t. You’ll turn into a caretaker.”
“Your father liked Karl. Your father would have wanted me to have some companionship. Your father would be ashamed of you both.”
They shifted uneasily.
“Yeah, well, still, it’s just…” Daniel’s words trailed off.
“And whether I choose to live with Karl or not,” Joy continued, “one thing I can see clearly now. I cannot stay in this house one day longer. I am not welcome. I do not belong.”
And she marched out, slammed her door, and began packing.
52
Duncan smiled and smiled, but he did not say much. If he was overwhelmed, he could hardly be blamed. His family had gathered around him from the four corners of the earth, as Gordon put it. There were grandchildren, too, Gordon’s kids, now quite grown up: one of them, the daughter, in college; the son engaged and holding the hand of his fiancée. Freddie was overwhelmed, so why shouldn’t her father be? None of it seemed quite real. Laurel and Pamela wore colorful sundresses, not identical in pattern, but complementary, and identical enough: four spaghetti straps cutting into four plump white shoulders. Freddie, who was wiry and always had been, who wore gray and always had, knew she looked a little dreary beside them, a caterpillar beside two butterflies. Her brothers were somewhat more soberly attired, but still in vacation costumes—and they did seem like costumes to Freddie, the golf shirt and white pleated Bermuda shorts of her brother Gordon, a similar golf outfit on his wife; the jeans and big silver belt buckle, the chestnut-colored cowboy boots Alan wore. But they probably thought she was in costume, the same costume she’d worn since the age of six. Jeans and a T-shirt. Only the grandchild generation looked right. Perhaps because they were at the Third Street Promenade in a pedestrian mall filled with other young people.
Freddie wearily followed the group into another shop. They seemed to be drawn to chain stores that also had outlets in their own countries. Duncan was a bit pale, but he shambled along behind them.
“Are you okay, Dad?”
He did not answer, but smiled, grabbed her arm to steady himself.
“Well, I’m exhausted,” Freddie said. “Maybe we should go sit down somewhere,” she said to her siblings, all of whom were trying on sunglasses.
They wanted to sit outside. It was winter where they lived. Wasn’t the sun beautiful and warm here in Los Angeles?
The beautiful warm Los Angeles sun beat down upon them. Freddie never sat in the sun as a rule, and certainly not in July. The air, even in Santa Monica, so near the beach, was blazing hot, dry as dust, and still. But her siblings were ecstatic. What a good time of year they had picked. What a perfect vacation. They began to trade tales of vacations that had gone wrong. Food poisoning, sharks, terrorism, cyclones, earthquakes.
They did not mention heart attacks. But that’s what Duncan had. The paramedics came and hustled him away in an ambulance. Freddie sat next to him, holding his hand. The rest of the family followed in a caravan of rented cars.