A Long Thaw (17 page)

Looking back over her life, she worried about all the wrong things.

Of her children, Rachel had been the one to draw the most concern. She had always been such an emotional child, while Allen was steady as a rock, just like his father. Even when he’d taken so long to marry, it hadn’t worried her. She knew Allen would settle down eventually: he was just that type. And he was a man, so Mary never saw the rush.

Rachel was a different story. She came home from school on weekends smelling foreign, her long hair ratty and unkempt. She sewed patches on her jeans and looked like a ragamuffin. After college, she joined the Peace Corps, spending two years of her life in villages whose names Mary couldn’t even pronounce, multiplying the length of her nightly prayers. When she finally returned, she brought home a Canadian husband her family had never met. He wore a ponytail and spoke so quietly that Mary had to keep asking him to speak up. She hadn’t liked him one bit.

Which just goes to show you. Henry had turned out to be such a good man, such a sweet, attentive father. And Mary’s own son had become a deadbeat and a liar.

Like that, Mary remembers how she worried when she saw Abby reading
The Bell Jar
when she was in high school. Abby had been such a quiet thing in those days, sitting in a chair off to the side while the grown-ups chatted, book in hand. Mary wasn’t sure of the story herself, but she knew about that poor Sylvia Plath. The woman had had two small babies when she’d stuck her head in an oven, all because her morbid poetry wasn’t making her famous enough. Those babies had grown up in a world without their mother. They didn’t care whether she was famous – which she was, after she died and it didn’t matter any more. Mary said all of this to Rachel at the time, but she was pooh-poohed like a meddling old busybody. Abby was introspective and smart and sensitive. There was nothing to be concerned about. It was just a book. And perhaps Rachel had been right: Abby had turned out just fine. More than fine.

Now, Mary thinks,
Who worried over Juliet and Hannah and Lilly?

Allen came to her late on the night Deirdre kicked him out of the house. Mary peeked out of a side window, panicked by the banging at such a late hour, and saw his truck parked in the driveway. She clutched her robe at her throat as she let him in, still fearful of the news he was bringing. He staggered inside and she didn’t even scold him for driving in that condition.

Once he had assured her that everyone was all right physically, she had made a pot of coffee and the story unfolded in her kitchen, filtered through his drunkenness and his heartache. She struggled to follow it as it didn’t resemble any she’d heard before and tended to jump ahead and twist back on itself and ultimately get lost in his sobbing.

The gist was that Deirdre was leaving him. It was hard for Mary to imagine the impetus for such a foolish declaration, and she tiptoed around but didn’t ask directly. Some things should not be discussed outside a marriage. She trusted that Allen was a good man; there were certain things he could never be guilty of. Deirdre was being unreasonable and she assured Allen that he could reason with her. A woman with three children, Lilly only a few months old, was not going to up and leave a hard-working, dedicated husband. It was a bluff, a drama created to scare him into falling back in line. Mary was certain of this, even as Allen shook his head slowly and blubbered.

She had to help him to bed that night. She tucked him in and smoothed the hair across his forehead as he cried. She hadn’t seen him this way since he was a little boy, crying over the loss of a toy or a game. Back then, she would make him take a nap, telling him he was just overtired; it wasn’t worth crying over.

She couldn’t say that to him that night as he wept over the impending loss of his family. ‘I can’t live without them,’ he sobbed, and she sat on the edge of the bed, patting his hand until he fell asleep.

Over the next few months when, unbelievably, Deirdre did take the girls to California and Allen had to get a lawyer, Mary remembered those words. It kept her up at night. She called him every day, terrified when he didn‘t answer right away. She asked Henry to spend time with him. She and Rachel took turns cooking him dinners, yet every time she saw him he looked skinnier.

Many months later, when he said he couldn’t fight it any more, Mary didn’t say a word. The divorce was finalized and visitation required Allen to travel to California. Allen filled out again, the colour returning to his face. He started dating. This wasn’t the life Mary had envisioned for her son, but she was relieved at least to see him living it again.

Allen’s truck is in front of the house when Mary gets home from church. She releases her seatbelt and reaches for her purse on the seat beside her. Before opening her car door, she takes a deep breath.

He has salted the walk, she notices, as she heads for the porch. He sits on the top step and moves aside while she unlocks the house. She steps through the door and still he’s said nothing to her. She turns. ‘Well, come in. You’ll catch a cold.’

She doesn’t have to say it twice. He scrambles to his feet and follows her in. He tries to help her with her coat but she shoos him away, annoyed. She’s always hated the overcompensating of men when they think they’re in trouble. She and Bud fought so little during their marriage, but he had brought her apology tulips once when they were courting. She had thrown them onto the ground. ‘Forgiveness can’t be bought,’ she’d told him. From then on, anytime she’d looked at a vase of flowers on her table, she’d known they represented his love for her and nothing else.

Mary hangs her coat on the hook near the door and starts to make tea. This is what she does every winter Sunday following Mass. She decides she will not offer to make him a sandwich or coffee or get him anything special. But since she’s already boiling the water, she takes two mugs down from the cupboard.

She thanks him for salting the walk; he asks if the neighbour boy she hired is doing a good job with the shovelling. They huddle over their mugs at the breakfast table and she waits for him to get to the meat of it, of why he has come. Today.

‘I’ve thought a lot these last few weeks,’ he says. ‘About what you said to me.’

Mary blows on her tea.

‘Do you think Juliet would talk to me?’

‘Are you asking me to plead your case to her?’

He sighs. ‘No,’ he says, defeated.

‘I’m not saying I wouldn’t be willing to get involved. I’ll do anything I can to bring you together. I’m just not sure it would work.’

‘What would you suggest?’

‘I think you need to go to her yourself. And be prepared for her anger. She might not be as willing to accept your non-answers as the rest of us have had to be.’

‘The rest of you. You mean Rachel.’

‘She has the right to be upset. She and Henry loaned you money back then.’

‘I paid them back!’

Mary scowls across the table at him.

‘I know.’ Allen looks down at his hands, gripping the mug in front of him.

‘What was the money for anyway?’

‘It was so long ago,’ he tries.

Mary sips her tea and shakes her head.

‘I got into some debt,’ he says. ‘Part of it was a lawyer. I did try to see what my options were, but there weren’t many.’

‘I just don’t understand that, Allen.’ In the years since, Mary has known several divorced couples who have come to various custody agreements, whether they wanted to or not. ‘Is it because she took the girls to California? Something about the laws from state to state?’

‘That’s part of it.’

Mary isn’t sure what to believe. ‘Your lies have been so detailed, Allen. All the stories you told us about visiting them.’

‘That was the life I wanted. I wanted it to be true. And sometimes, talking about them like that, it felt true.’ Allen finishes his tea.

Mary carries their empty mugs to the sink and looks out of the window. The snow is piling up. It has snowed steadily through January and into the first week of February, without enough sun to melt the previous accumulation. The drifts at the end of the driveway are ten feet tall. ‘Looks like it’s going to be a long thaw,’ she says, turning on the faucet.

Abby’s surprised to hear Deirdre’s voice on the other end of the phone. She rushes through the pleasantries, although sweetly, and asks after Juliet.

‘I’m having a little trouble,’ Deirdre says, and begins to explain, giving Abby more information than she wants about her finances.

Abby can’t imagine her own parents asking her for money. She has never felt responsible for them; it has always been the other way around. Abby has always known she can count on them for anything. She tries to imagine what her life would have been like without that safety net. Exactly what Juliet hasn’t had.

It isn’t just Allen: it’s Deirdre too. It’s hard to say who had done the most damage – the one who had left or the one who had stayed. Juliet had been such a carefree, open child. Now she is guarded and, Abby hates to say it, fucked up. Mostly when it comes to Jesse. She’s so tough in the rest of her life and so infuriatingly weak with him.

Abby didn’t exactly have it all figured out. She’d given up on Ryan, tired of waiting for him, wanting him to be the first to let his guard down. Maybe he’s been doing the same, as if they were playing a game of emotional chicken.

But the situations are totally different. Jesse is a complete sleaze-ball. Abby told Juliet what he’d said when he let it slip that she’d been fired, how he’d behaved. And here he was, sitting at their breakfast table again, obviously having spent the night. Which, of course, makes Abby the bad guy for speaking out against him while he and Juliet were on the outs. Abby had experienced this sort of thing in high school; she should have learned. Certain women will always put their man first, no matter how much of a loser he is. Abby’s disappointed to find that Juliet is one of those women.

Abby’s mother and Aunt Deirdre were the kind of women who wouldn’t have been friends as girls. Deirdre was a lot younger than Allen. Younger, even, than Abby’s mother.

Deirdre was the only mother Abby knew who still wore a two-piece bathing suit. She painted her nails at the beach, complaining when the sand got into the polish. When everyone else was eating ice cream, she’d sigh and shake her head, pinching at the flesh of her tummy as if it explained everything.

Abby’s mother wore dark one-piece suits with a racer back. She was fit, with smallish breasts and wider thighs. She ate ice cream and never wore make-up. She had long dark hair that rarely saw a pair of scissors. It was soft and unruly, left wild or tied into a French braid.

She once caught Abby poking at the soft rolls of baby fat on her own tummy. She grabbed Abby’s wrist. ‘Listen to me,’ she said. ‘Deirdre is a silly woman.’ It was the meanest thing Abby had ever heard her mother say about anyone.

Abby doesn’t want to relay the message, but she can’t very well leave it on a Post-it. There will be questions.

‘Deirdre called?’ Juliet throws her coat over the back of the couch. Jesse walks to the fridge as if he lives here.

Abby nods. ‘She said to tell you she was having trouble coming up with the rent.’

‘I just sent her money last week!’

Abby shrugs, her discomfort made clear by the shrinking of her posture.

Juliet grabs the phone and punches numbers angrily. ‘Deirdre, what did you do with the money I sent?’ She shifts her weight. ‘Last week. Or I sent it ten days ago. It went out on a Saturday.’ She switches the phone to her other ear. ‘I’m sure. Let me talk to Hannah.’

Her tone softens, but she’s still rushed. ‘Hey, Han, did you and Lilly get those cards I sent last week? . . . Really? They had those quotes on them like we saw at the store in Quincy Market when you were here?’ She chews her thumbnail. ‘Of course I believe you. Jeez. Calm down. I guess there’s some problem with the mail.’

Abby pours herself a glass of water as Juliet gets off the phone.

‘Jesse, you mailed that stuff on Saturday, right?’

Jesse takes a seat at the kitchen table. ‘Yeah. Stuck it all in the box on the corner.’

Juliet scrunches up her face. ‘It makes no sense. Last time I went to the ATM, I saw my balance. She had to have cashed it.’

‘Call the bank,’ Abby suggests. ‘If someone stole it, you might be able to get that money back.’

Juliet finds her bank card in her purse. ‘But how could someone steal it from a locked mailbox?’

‘Do they have a locked mailbox in California?’

‘No.’ She waits on hold, cursing thieves. ‘And the cards to my sisters have cash in them so there’s no getting that back.’

Abby sits at the table, watching as Juliet paces. She explains everything to the person on the phone, then listens. ‘Okay.’ Pause. ‘Okay.’ She covers the receiver. ‘The cheque was cashed,’ she tells them.

‘Ask where it was cashed,’ Abby suggests, and Jesse looks up at her. Abby’s glaring at him. His eyes dart away.

‘Boston? That makes no sense,’ Juliet says, into the phone.

‘You son of a bitch.’ Abby shakes her head and Jesse smacks the table with his fist.