“Well, we’ll find out.”
Briefly she touched my hand, and as she pulled it away I took her hand in mine, and she let me. We sat in the sun holding hands.
* * *
—
After a few moments Becka asked me, “Mom, so you’re going to live the rest of your life up there on a cliff in Maine?”
“I know,” I said, turning my face to her. “I know exactly what you’re asking. I’ve been wondering that myself.”
Becka said, “Well, it’s a cute house. I mean, it could be worse.”
“Oh God, it could be a lot worse,” I said. Then I said, “Your father loves it there because of his new family and all the parasites and potatoes—”
“I know,” Chrissy interrupted. “That’s all he talks about when he calls these days.”
I thought, Oh God, William. But I continued, “So your father is happy there, and I’ve made some friends. Bob Burgess for one, I think he’s one of the best friends I’ve ever had.” I described him briefly, his sweet bigness, his baggy jeans.
Chrissy looked at me then, and she smiled almost playfully. “Are you going to have an affair, Mom?”
“No,” I said seriously. “He’s married to a minister, she’s a good woman, I think he’s a little afraid of her—”
“Why?” Becka interrupted this time.
“Well, he sneaks cigarettes when she’s not around.”
Chrissy actually laughed at this. And Becka said, “Wait—how old is this guy?”
“Oh, my age I’d say.”
“And he has to sneak cigarettes behind his wife’s back?”
“Yup,” I said.
“Mom, that’s crazy.”
“Well,” I said, “you know, we all make our choices.” But as I said that I wondered if it was true—if we really did make our choices—and I thought of that thing I had seen on my computer one night about there being no free will and that everything was predetermined. So I said, “I guess we make our own choices, I don’t really know.”
Chrissy turned to look at me. “What do you mean? Mom, you just sat here the other day talking me out of a choice I probably would have made, so how can you say you don’t really know if we make our own choices?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know if I believe it or not.” I paused. “I don’t really know anything.” I added, “Except how much I love you and Becka. I know that.”
Chrissy looked straight ahead. “Mom,” she said softly, “you know a lot.”
* * *
—
Becka spoke again. “Well, we were just thinking— Okay, I’ll just say it. We wondered if Dad manipulated you into going up there for the pandemic to get you back with him so he doesn’t ever have to be alone again.”
“Seriously?” I was really surprised, and then I remembered how Lauren, Becka’s therapist, had told Becka years ago that William manipulated me, and how I had never understood it.
I said to them, “He took me up there to save my life. He got you guys out of the city hoping to save your lives as well.”
“Oh, we know he loves us,” Becka said. She added, “And we love him. But why did he take you to Maine and not somewhere else? Probably because of Lois Bubar, and that worked out for him.”
I felt a tiny sense of alarm go through me, because I had had that thought myself, after William had met with Lois the first time.
Becka continued, “And you know that saying: Women grieve, and men replace.” After a moment she said thoughtfully, “I’m just not sure Dad’s always trustworthy.”
“In what way, exactly…?” I started to ask.
* * *
—
But then Chrissy suddenly said this: “I’m hungry.”
She said that!
* * *
—
I stood up and said, “Let’s find a place to eat.” So we left the park, the sun had come out brightly again, and on Madison Avenue was a place with tables outside, and we sat down in the sunshine and Chrissy looked at the menu and then she said to the waiter, “I’ll have a chicken salad sandwich.”
“Me too,” I said. And Becka shrugged and said, “Okay, then. I will too.”
We sat there talking, and after a few moments Chrissy said, “That coffee made me have to pee,” so she went inside with her mask on, and while she was in there Becka said to me, “Mom, the guy had blackheads on his nose.”
“What guy?” I asked, looking around.
“Chrissy’s guy—the guy she was thinking of having sex with. When she saw him yesterday he had blackheads on his nose. And then he got really, really pissed at her.”
I looked at Becka, who looked back with a shake of her head. “She said she hadn’t seen the blackheads on Zoom.” Becka added, “But it wasn’t because of them she didn’t do it. I mean they didn’t help. It’s because he got so scarily mad at her.”
I said, “Thank God,” and Becka said, “Right?”
And then Chrissy came back and the sandwiches arrived and I watched Chrissy eat hers—slowly, but she kept eating it. When she was done with the first half, she looked at her plate and said, “Well, I might as well,” and she picked up the second half.
God, this relieved me.
* * *
—
I opened my mouth then, because I was just about to say, Kids, listen. Your father had cancer. But I stopped myself; I thought how he had not told them, and so I should not either. And just as I was thinking this, Becka said, musingly, “It seems like Dad always needs to have secrets.”
I was taken aback, and after a moment I said, “What kind of secrets?”
Becka shrugged and said, “Well, I don’t really know specifically anymore. It’s just that’s why we’re a little bit worried about you being back with him.”
* * *
—
I paused, considering this. “I don’t know if he has any secrets left. And honestly, girls? It doesn’t matter anymore. He and I are not young, we’re not going to be young again. And we get along fine.”
“Just fine?” Chrissy asked.
“Well, more than fine. I know who he is now—I mean, to the extent that anyone in the world can know him.”
The girls nodded. “All right,” Becka said, just as Chrissy said, “Okay, Mom. As long as you’re happy.”
* * *
—
So we sat there at our table on the sidewalk—the sun shining down on us as though it would shine on forever—and we talked more, and then finally we left, and the girls went to get their train back to New Haven; they would come back in a few days to see their father. We hugged on the sidewalk. “Bye, Mom,” they both said this as their Uber pulled up to the curb, and they stepped into the car.
* * *
—
I stood for a moment, watching them drive away. I thought how different they—and their lives—had become from what I had expected. And I thought: It is their life, they can do what they want, or need to do.
* * *
—
And then I remembered that one time, when I was pregnant with Chrissy, I had looked down at my big stomach and put my hand over it and thought: Whoever you are, you do not belong to me. My job is to help you get into the world, but you do not belong to me.
* * *
—
And remembering this now, I thought: Lucy, you were absolutely right.
vi
When I got back to the place I was staying in, William called, filled with sadness about his lab and his apartment, and then he said, “Lucy, can I come over and spend the night with you? I don’t want to stay in this apartment tonight.”
“Of course you can!” I said. “I have tons of things to tell you!”
* * *
I thought then about how when I first met William he had taken me on dates. He would take me to a real restaurant! I had never ever been to a real restaurant. And he would pay for me—so easily, he pulled out his cash and paid for me. And then we would see a movie. Once a week we did this. A movie! I had never seen movies in movie theaters until I went to college, but we would go each Friday night, to dinner and a movie, and he would toss a piece of popcorn into my face as the movie began.
This man had brought me into the world, is what I am saying. As much as I could be brought into the world, William had done this for me.
* * *