Indiscretion (40 page)

BOOK: Indiscretion

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I carry my glass back inside and remove the envelope from my suit jacket draped over one of the kitchen chairs and walk into the library. The fire is still going, and I stoke it with a poker. Verdi fills the room. The flames leap higher. I take the photographs and the envelope and toss them all into the fire. I stand there waiting until every trace of them is gone, making my silent apologies.

T
hat was years ago. I still think about Claire. About Maddy. About Harry and Johnny. They are never far from my thoughts. In my mind, they are still there, laughing, young, untainted. Maddy and I are old now. She is slowly dying in the next room, breathing on a respirator, a shrunken figure curled up on the bed, attended by round-the-clock nurses, the curtains drawn. She never could quit smoking. There was no point in arguing. She asked to come up here from Florida to die, and I consented. It was the last thing I could do for her. So I hired an ambulance to drive her the whole way while I followed behind in a car.

“Thank you for everything,” she wheezes. I sit holding her tiny hand in the darkened room, trying to be strong for both of us but knowing that she is secretly relieved to be finally released. I have done nothing for her, while she has been everything to me. “It’s all right, my love,” I whisper. “You rest. It will all be over soon. You will be with them again soon, I promise.”

And I know in many ways she already is, on her mouth the faintest trace of a smile, welcoming the peace that has been denied her for so long. These last decades of her life had been a sort of hell for her, and not for the first time had I wondered how God could create someone as fine and pure and beautiful as Maddy, only to torture her. It was cruel. It made no sense. It was like the artists who were gassed in the Nazi concentration camps. All those poets, musicians, dancers, people who after years of study, years of sacrifice so they could spread hope and enrich life, were killed, cut down, their voices lost forever. Why? What is the point of having special gifts unless you are allowed to use them?

Maddy had done nothing wrong, yet she was the one made to suffer. I know deep in her heart, she partly blamed herself. “If only I hadn’t gone to Mexico,” she had screamed countless times. I told her it was not her fault, that it had nothing to do with her, but she could not bring herself to believe me. Her doctors had attempted to do the same but with similar results. The human heart needs to burden itself, to take responsibility for its losses, otherwise it will explode.

I
scatter Maddy’s ashes over the pond too. There are only a few people in attendance. Ned and Cissy join me, but Ned is no longer able to carry the canoe by himself. I hire some young men to help with that, grandsons of friends. They paddle me out to the middle of the pond, and I weep silently while I gently throw the powdery remains over the water. I am surprised by how light and insubstantial they feel. These had once been the person I had loved most, her skin, her eyes, her hair. All reduced to powder. To nothing. Dissolving in the water. Gone. And yet I know this is where she wanted to be more than any other, and I am happy that I could bring them together in death at last.

The next day I have her name and dates added to the cenotaph alongside those of her husband and son. I comfort myself to think that, if there is a heaven, they are reunited now. It is what I pray for, at any rate.

I have lived with ghosts for years. The ghosts of Harry and Johnny, the ghost of my father, and, even while she was alive, the ghost of Maddy. They haunt me, unable to truly die because they are still alive in memory. They are my heroes, my North Star, and I have been trying to follow them my whole life. At the end, I am left with the pain of what might have been. We make so many right decisions in life, but it is the wrong ones that can never be forgiven.

Acknowledgments

I
would like to thank many people for their help in the creation, both directly and indirectly, of this book. First of all, I want to thank Sharyn Rosenblum, who was a good sport and agreed to read the unfinished manuscript more from common decency than common sense, and who then opened so many doors. I would also like to thank, in no particular order, Chris Herrmann, Joseph Lorino, Charlie Miller, Brendan Dillon, David Churbuck, Chris Buckley, and Bill Duryea for their friendship as well as their helpful feedback. I would also like to thank Margaret Douglas-Hamilton, who threw open her beautiful home in Lakeville, where I wrote much of this book. I have also been lucky in the people I have had working with me to make this book a reality, especially my agents, Britton Schey and Eric Simonoff at William Morris Endeavor, and, of course, my prescient, diligent, patient, good-humored, and wise editor, Henry Ferris at William Morrow.

Last, I want to thank my mother, Isabella Breckinridge; my sister, Alexandra; my stepmother, Barbara; my late father, Arthur; my son, William; my daughter, Lally; and my beautiful wife, Melinda, for all their love and support.

About the Author

C
HARLES
D
UBOW
was born in New York City and spent his summers at his family’s house on Georgica Pond in East Hampton. He was educated at Wesleyan University and New York University. He has worked as a roustabout, a lumberjack, a sheepherder in New Zealand, and a congressional aide, and was a founding editor of Forbes.com and later an editor at Businessweek.com. He lives in New York City with his wife, Melinda; children, William and Lally; and Labrador retriever, Luke. This is his first novel.

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Credits

Cover design by Mary Schuck

Cover photograph © E Duarte / Getty Images

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

INDISCRETION. Copyright © 2013 by Charles Dubow. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

ISBN 978-0-06-220105-8

EPUB Edition FEBRUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780062201072

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