He paused. “Five days after I proposed to you,” he said. “Timing’s a funny thing, isn’t it?”
That was five months ago. Ben had proposed to me during a trip to Paris. He had known about Maddie for five months? That was longer than he had said yesterday. Had time collapsed for him? His engagement, the realization that he had a little girl. Everything melding into one long day. On one side there was our life, which we considered happy. On the other was this brand-new blessing, which could tear that life apart.
“I started to tell you that very night, but you were working late on the Porter case. And when you came in, you said, and I remember, get me a bottle of B-Minor and don’t say a word until I’ve had half of it. You fell asleep after half of it.”
“So it’s my fault?”
“No, I was just trying to pick a time that it wouldn’t hurt you.”
“What happened?”
“You have this wide-open face. And we were having so much fun planning the wedding, getting ready for London.” He paused. “And then I guess I couldn’t find a time that seemed like it wouldn’t hurt you.”
I took a breath, softened to him. He probably should have stopped talking then. But he didn’t. We never stopped talking, did we? It was what allowed us to say the thing that stuck. In the moment before we said the wrong thing.
“I know it’s hard to understand why I kept Maddie from you. But it’s hard for me too. It’s hard to understand why Michelle kept Maddie from me for so long.”
“Doesn’t it make you mad, Ben?”
“It makes me fucking furious and it has been rather difficult for me to deal with.”
Which was when I remembered seeing them on the street, Michelle’s hand on Ben’s back. He didn’t look furious.
“I look at Maddie and I think, regardless of what Michelle did, I don’t want to lose another second with her.” He paused. “And I’m grateful to Michelle that she did tell me.”
He cleared his throat.
“And now I’m telling you. I love you. And I’m going to do whatever I can to make things right for us.”
I could hear how much he meant it—and I felt myself moving toward him, toward understanding. Which was when he started to talk again.
“Let’s figure out how to get past this. I didn’t do anything intentionally deceitful. It’s not like I was unfaithful,” Ben said.
Unfaithful. What a choice of word. As if there were one way to make someone lose faith. Adultery. That was Ben’s measure of what was unforgiveable. It was what my mother was doing—with an impotent man. It was what my good brother was running away from so he didn’t allow himself to do it to my other brother. Ben wasn’t guilty of that. Except weren’t there other unforgivable things you couldn’t turn back from?
Last week I had known Ben. I had trusted him to tell me the truth, to ask me the questions that made me feel like I was moving closer to the truth. That was the trust between us.
“You still there?” he said.
I told him I wasn’t.
Then we got off the phone.
I went downstairs and made a cup of hot water with lemon, then I went upstairs and into Finn’s room, but it was dark. Maybe he was still at the bar. Either way, he wasn’t there now—his bed made, his bag on top of it.
I moved down the hall. There was a soft light coming from Bobby’s room. Margaret and Bobby in there together—reading, talking softly. They didn’t look unhappy. They looked comfortable.
That left my parents’ bedroom. The door was wide open. The door was never wide open when we were children—the bedroom was my parents’ sacred space, none of us daring to enter.
My mother was already in bed, her curls swept back off her face. Her radio was playing softly—a twin on either side of her, both of them sleeping. She put her finger to her mouth. “Whisper,” she said. “And tell me you have wine in that mug.”
“No, hot water and lemon. Do you want a little?”
“Only if the hot water and lemon magically turns into wine.”
I nodded and took a seat on the edge of the bed, motioning to the twins. “Are they sleeping with you?”
“They are sleeping with me,” she said. Her voice low, like in demonstration.
I smiled. I couldn’t help it. In a long, unruly day, this was the nicest thing she could do. My mother was acting exactly like my mother. Bossy, serious. It made me feel calm. So why did I decide to reward her by being mean?
“No Henry tonight?” I said.
She smiled, giving me a look that said it wasn’t okay and, also, that she forgave me. “No. Not tonight. He’s in rehearsals.”
“Good for him.”
“Good for San Francisco, actually,” she said. “Henry is one of the most beloved conductors in the world. He ran the New York Philharmonic, and was chief conductor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic before that. He has changed the template for what an American orchestra can be.”
“That sounds like an exaggeration.”
“It’s an understatement. He’s mentored scores of prominent musicians. And he’s brought contemporary American music back into vogue in this country. You should look up his bio on Wikipedia. Don’t take my word for it.”
I nodded in a way that said I’d get right on learning all I could about Henry. If get right on it meant never.
She paused, deciding how to shift gears. “Your fiancé called me,” she said.
I nodded. “That seems to be what he’s doing today,” I said.
“He’s very torn up.” She shook her head. “I told him it was between the two of you. That I loved him, but I love you more and I support whatever you decide together.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“I did tell him not to call your father, though.” She shrugged. “I doubt your father will think it’s between the two of you.”
I knew she was right. My father would be furious at Ben, not for keeping the kid from me, but for getting himself into that situation in the first place, for not being responsible enough to stop it.
“Dad tells me you paid a little visit to Jacob McCarthy today,” my mother said.
“He knows?”
“Of course he knows. Jacob called him as soon as you left there.”
Jacob was a tattletale—why did that surprise me? Of course he was. The man lived on licorice.
“He wanted to make sure Dad wasn’t having second thoughts,” she said.
I perked up, hopeful that my father was going to see the error of what he was doing, just by being asked. Maybe Jacob’s call would trigger a new conclusion. One where Jacob moved the hell away.
“He’s not having second thoughts. This is what he wants. What we both want.”
“Then why were you avoiding me today?”
“I had a feeling you weren’t in the mood to be pleasant,” she said.
“I don’t like Jacob, Mom. I have a bad feeling about what’s going to happen to our vineyard, to everything Dad worked so hard for, that you both have.”
“Fine, but do you actually think you’re going to change your father’s mind?”
“No. I’m just hoping he’ll at least wait until he’s in a position to make a better decision, one that he’s not making under duress.”
She laughed. “He’s not under duress.”
“Does he know about Henry?”
She nodded. “Yes.”