I was surprised by all the people that were going in and out of the store. “Let’s just sit here,” William said. There were iron rod tables and chairs spread out at safe distances, and because the weather looked like it would rain at any minute they were empty. But we sat at one of the tables, there was a roof over it, and William said, “Perfect.” He kept checking his phone.
“What are we doing here?” I asked. “I mean, I’m fine, I’m just surprised that—”
* * *
—
And then—oh dear God!!—our daughters were walking over to us, both of them waving their arms wildly. “Mom!” they called; they almost screamed it: “Mom!” And people turned to look at me. “Dad!” They yelled this and walked toward us, waving their arms over their heads, and I could not believe it.
I could not believe it.
Chrissy and Becka walked to the table—William and I were now standing up—and they put their arms out and made hugging motions; even with their masks on, I could see their happiness just beaming forth.
I have never seen anything as beautiful as those girls. These women. My daughters!
They were laughing and laughing—and William was beaming behind his mask as well, as he glanced at me. I said, “William! You planned this?”
“We all did,” Chrissy said. “We wanted to surprise you, so we did.”
They sat down at the table, and William and I sat down, and we began to talk, oh, we talked and talked and talked. They had flown from New York to Boston and then rented a car and driven up from there. Becka said, “We didn’t trust our driving skills to drive all the way from Connecticut,” and I understood. Both girls had been raised in the city and had learned to drive late in their lives. They had reservations at the hotel in Crosby, William had helped arrange all of this. “We had to come now, before the numbers start going back up,” Chrissy said. “So we did!”
“Oh my God,” I kept saying, “Oh my God.”
Then I said, “Becka, why do you look so tall?” And she said, “Oh, it must be my sneakers, you haven’t seen these,” and she stuck her foot forward to me and I saw that the sole of her red sneaker was very thick.
She had bought them online. Then Becka said, “Mom, I have to tell you about these pajamas I ordered online. They came from a really reputable place, and made in the U.S.” But, she told me, when they arrived they looked like what people in concentration camps had to wear; they were really wide-striped, and every time she put them on, or even when they were just lying over a chair, she could not get it out of her head how they looked like concentration camp uniforms, and so she had written the place and told them, and they couldn’t have been nicer, and they even took them off their website, and then they sent her a different pair of pajamas, solid dark blue.
Sitting there, the four of us: Chrissy speaking to her father, me speaking to Becka, then we would all speak together. There had been almost no one on the plane. They had ordered a truck at the rental place—this made Chrissy bend over in her chair laughing—but when they went to pick it up they decided to take a real car instead. They pointed their hands in the direction where the car was, but it was too far away to see.
Finally they went and got into their car and followed us to Crosby and we drove to the one hotel in town, where they checked in. The hotel lobby was big and empty, and so we sat in different corners of it and kept on talking. Always with our masks on. Chrissy said, “Mom, this town is so cute.” And Becka said, “It really is.”
Then we drove ahead of them to the house, and we had dinner on the porch—this is why William had objected to putting the plexiglass back up, because he knew the girls were coming—and we kept talking and talking and talking. They loved the house. I was astonished at how much they said they loved it. “Mom, this is great, it’s so funky,” Chrissy said, sticking her head inside the door—but she would not go in, she only stayed on the porch, where the windows were open. “You guys should paint the walls white, oh, that’s a brilliant idea,” she said, turning to us with her eyes shining.
“Oh yeah,” Becka said, “paint all the walls white. And also the mantel—just everything. Make it all white. What a place, you guys.”
“Your father just bought it,” I said.
“You did?” They said this at the same time, turning to look at William. Then Chrissy said, “Oh, what fun! It’s really adorable.”
* * *
—
I do think this: I do think it was the happiest I have been in my life.
* * *
—
Then Chrissy told us that she and Michael had bought the house in Connecticut from Michael’s parents—she and Michael were not going to return to New York. “There’s no need to,” Chrissy said. “We’ve grown used to the place, so we’re putting our apartment on the market.”
I was surprised. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
And she shrugged and said, “Well, I just did.”
Becka was still in the guesthouse, but she was going to move to an apartment in New Haven. She was thinking about going back to school.
“What kind of school?” William asked, and she said she wasn’t sure yet. And then she said, “Okay, okay, law school. I took the boards and did really well, you guys! I’ve applied to Yale.”
“Jesus,” William said.
“I know,” Becka said. “Let’s not talk about it anymore.”
* * *
—
On Sunday afternoon, as they were getting into their car to leave, I said to them, “Dad and I got back together.” And both of their faces looked stunned. “You did?” They asked this almost at the same time, one speaking over the other. William had already said goodbye, he was standing on the porch. “You did?” Chrissy was the one who repeated this, and I was sort of surprised at how surprised they were. Chrissy got into the car behind the wheel, and Becka said, “Mom, turn your face away,” and she hugged me, we were both of course wearing our masks. William and I waved to them as they drove down the steep driveway.
* * *
—
I noticed that I did not feel sad. William said, “Let’s take a ride,” and so we did. We wended our way around the small roads along the coast, and I said, “They left an afterglow,” and he looked at me and said, “Yeah, they did.”
* * *
If I had known what it would be like the next time that I saw them— Well, I did not know then.
* * *
—
It is a gift in this life that we do not know what awaits us.
Six
i
And then it was November and the election took place. I feel no point to recording all of that. I will only say that it was a very tense time for me, and also for most of the country.
* * *
On Thanksgiving, William and I decided to have beans and hot dogs. For some reason we thought this was a wonderful idea. We had red kidney beans from a can and two hot dogs each, and I made an apple pie, and the day felt so cozy. I remember that day so clearly.
* * *
My brother had told me that he was going to Vicky’s house for Thanksgiving; he did that every year. And I said to him, “But it won’t be safe, Pete. She goes to church without a mask,” and he said not to worry, he would wear a mask and it was just the kids, and their kids, who were going to be there. “But that’s the problem,” I said. “All those people.” And then I stopped, because it came to me that for my brother, who spent day after day after day of his life alone, Thanksgiving had been special to him always, because of Vicky and her family. When we were kids we would go to the Congregational church and have their free Thanksgiving dinner, and even I remember that the people there were nice to us on that day. I understood why it was important for Pete to go, so I stopped. And we just chatted about whatever we chatted about, and that was that.
* * *
A week after Thanksgiving my sister had the virus. Her youngest daughter, Lila, called to tell me, and she was crying. “She’s in the hospital and we can’t even go see her. They’re putting her on a ventilator.” I listened, and I spoke to my niece quietly, but I could not console her. I asked if her mother could speak on the telephone and Lila said, “No,” but the next day I received a text from my sister, and it said, Lucy this is not fun and I do not think I will make it.