Mary was trying out German sentences on him. She suffered through several. Bruno gently corrected her mistakes and coaxed her through the structures that were still confounding her. “Shoot! I can’t!” But Bruno insisted she could and so they bumbled through perhaps a paragraph of painful niceties. Anna noticed that even with the extra month of classes, Mary’s German was still less feasible than her own. And then Anna noted that it was shallow of her to notice that.
The chatter remained mostly superficial. Bruno praised Mary’s progress and then, in a faux scold, forbade her from speaking English in his presence from that point forward. From now on, German only! Nur Deutsch! This made Mary blush. She waved him off and gave in and cut another slice of cake for herself. “I really shouldn’t,” she said, “but it tastes so good!” Anna hadn’t eaten any cake beyond those bites she shoveled into her mouth in order to avoid having to answer Mary’s questions. She wasn’t sure she could stomach a whole piece. But Mary was right, it did taste good. Mary saw her eyeing the cake. “You want me to cut you a piece?” Anna didn’t answer. “Okay, I’ll cut you a piece.” Mary put a slice on a plate and pushed it over to Anna. “Lots of icing because the icing is the best part!” Mary winked. Anna picked up a fork and took a hesitant taste. She took another. She’d never been someone who self-medicated with food. No, that’s what the sex was about. If food were her drug of choice, she’d be the size of a house. I need a lot of soothing. In the moment, though, she could see the draw. The icing was the best part. You can hide a lot of sadness inside a pink sugar rosette.
Mary and Bruno talked about Tim. Bruno asked if Tim and Max had any interest in going to the transport museum in Lucerne. Bruno had promised Victor he would take him. As ambivalent as Bruno had always been toward Anna, he’d never been anything but attentive and paternal to his children. His children, Anna thought. In the last month Bruno had done what any good father might and channeled his every spare effort into figuring out what would best distract Victor from his grief. No one wants to see his child suffer. But Bruno and Anna alike knew that there was nothing that could be done to prevent Victor’s pain. At best, they could assuage it or mitigate it or curb it for a time. So going out for pizza and kicking the soccer ball around and visiting the train museum and attending every ZSC Lions game on the schedule and promising winter trips to Zermatt for skiing and planning summer vacations to the Bodensee for swimming and boating served only to take the boy’s despair and put it on hold. But pain is an impatient customer. It wouldn’t be long before it demanded attention.
“Oh, Max would love that. Are there trains or just airplanes or—what’s there exactly?” Mary blathered. Either it was the extra piece of cake or the second cup of coffee or something else entirely, Anna didn’t know. But she was rambling, and among the many things that made Anna nervous (in general and in that specific moment), Mary’s jabber was one. Bruno affirmed that yes, the museum had trains in its collection. “Wonderful. Yes, I’m sure they’d want to go. You know Max. He loves the trains! Just like Charles.” As soon as she said it, Mary wondered if she shouldn’t have. Mary looked at Anna for affirmation. Was it really okay to talk about Charles? In the present tense?
“It’s okay, Mary.” Anna bowed her head and looked at her cake as if from it she could draw resolve and strength. “No, really. It is.” She raised her head and nodded. “You’re right. Wherever he is, I’m sure he still loves trains.” The table observed a solemn moment of remembrance and then moved on to other talk.
Mary took charge of the conversation. She kept it breezy, so bright it felt frivolous. Five minutes passed and Bruno and Mary had moved from Max and Victor to Tim and the team to the Gilberts’ plans to spend Christmas in Uster. “It’s the first time we’ve spent it away from home!” Mary pined. Bruno took her to a slight but firm task.
“Where your family is. That’s home.” Mary accepted this minor dressing-down with a nod of understanding.
IT WAS THE NIGHT before Polly Jean’s birthday and Anna lay awake in bed. She had been begging sleep to steal her for three hard hours. It hadn’t. The slats on the shutters were open but the windows closed. There wasn’t a moon. Clouds blocked out all starlight. The air was ominous.