Of course there was someone else. Suddenly they, as a couple, made sense. Libby could see how Melissa had lasted so long held at arm’s length. She had found company out there at the cold edge of Tom’s fingertips. Libby stood up and took the two steps to Melissa’s chair, hugged her hard. Melissa startled, then went limp in her arms.
“I cheated, I don’t deserve a hug,” said Melissa into Libby’s shoulder.
“He knows, right? So I’ll let Tom hate you for that one. When it comes to love, I’m not exactly rigid about things. I was with someone a long time ago,” said Libby. “She was married. Sometimes things don’t work. You want them to, and they just can’t.” She remembered two rings sitting on her bedside table. She remembered watching someone else’s wife climb from her bed, put those rings back on. Libby had wanted to hide them, bury them in the dirt of her ficus tree, as if it were the rings that compelled her to leave each time, to stay gone longer, to never come back. What if someone had told Riley it was okay to leave her husband?
“Tom knows, but he doesn’t seem to even really acknowledge it. It happened a year ago, and he acts like it never happened. Or that it has nothing to do with us. Or maybe that I don’t. I’ve become a piece of furniture. He’s obviously so angry, but sometimes it feels like he’s been angry for years. And now I’m losing him, and you guys, and my entire life. We haven’t even told the kids.”
Libby moved back to the chaise so she could look her in the eyes. Melissa drew her knees up to her chest, rested her chin on them.
“He doesn’t get to decide how this goes,” said Libby. “You get to be in our lives, no matter what.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t even be telling you. We decided not to tell anyone until the fall, but—I just don’t want you to think that he’s being adamant about the house for no reason. This is a piece of your family.”
“You know it’s okay to get divorced. It’s okay to want to be happy,” said Libby. Melissa sniffed and blew her nose on a cocktail napkin. She smiled.
“You could say the same thing about marriage.”
“Well, I never really thought it would be an option for us, so—” Libby picked up a puzzle piece, black and speckled. It belonged to a building in the skyline.
“Sometimes it’s better to let go than to hang on to the idea of something. My idea of my relationship will never be the reality. Maybe the idea of being single is what you need to let go of,” said Melissa.
“I don’t know.” Libby slowly moved the piece over building after building in the half-assembled image. “I like being free.”
“Lonely, empty freedom.”
“How did this become about me? You’re dumping my brother; this is about you.”
“One, he’s dumping me. Two, you are in a relationship that actually works, with someone you love. Just stop being such a chickenshit.”
Sometimes courage isn’t enough, thought Libby. Sometimes you can take all the risks, and it still doesn’t go the way you want.
“Do you love the other guy?” she asked.
Here Melissa’s chin knotted for a moment, she started to say something but stopped. Instead she nodded and shrugged. She began to sigh, but it caught in her chest.
“I love Tom more, but at a certain point it doesn’t matter.”
“That’s so fucking depressing.” Libby picked up the deck of cards and looked over her game, realizing she had played it as far as it could go. “Want to play Spit?”
“Is it too early to start drinking?”
“Never. You’re on vacation, and your kids are at home. Go ask Gwen what she wants. She’s reading in the great room. I bet you money she turns you down.”
“Why? Is she on some cleanse?”
“I have a theory.” Libby held up the deck fanned out and whispered from behind it. “She’s been sleeping a lot, she hasn’t been drinking, and she said something about honey being pasteurized.” She holds the cards to her lips a moment. “I think she’s pregnant.”
“No. I was thinking her figure was looking a little more hourglass lately. I should’ve guessed. You think she’ll keep it? I don’t want to miss a Willoughby baby.”
Melissa put her head in her hands and started crying all over again. Libby stood up and patted Melissa’s shoulder, waiting for her breathing to slow, for the shudders to ebb out of her. She offered her a cookie. Poured more tea in her cup. Then went into the dining room to the sideboard, pulled out the whiskey, and returned to the rug room and the puzzle. She unscrewed the cap and poured a good swallow into Melissa’s tea.
“A hot toddy cures all. Don’t worry, Mel. We won’t let you miss anything. You’re stuck with us.”
Melissa smiled weakly and took the mug from Libby’s hands. Though Libby could see in her eyes Melissa didn’t believe her. They both looked down at the puzzle, the San Francisco skyline at dusk, the only high-rises for a hundred miles.
TWENTY-THREE
ANOTHER OCTOBER
It is the packing up, the putting away that their mother has avoided, that has kept her here a month and a half past her usual departure. The smell of leaves is strong. The oaks in the meadow are yellow now, their leaves almost translucent, moist, reverting to the full, pulped look of spring, tender in their fading, in their falling. The grass has gone gold, and over it come the leaves that give it a skin, a surface that undulates like water. The water is golden now in the afternoons with the lower sun, and then it turns fast, going gray and finally black with the quickening darkness. Their mother has left it all, each pillow and mattress, each chair, all in their summer spots.
She is with him here; in the city he will be gone. He lingers here: his feet propped on the porch rail, his hands wrapped around the binoculars, his slapping feet with long toes that thump and shush along the great room floor as he chooses a spot for his afternoon nap. He was a cat always asleep in the sun.