Jennifer Haigh (11 page)

They stood there a moment, staring at each other. The snow was still flying; at first glance Frank's head seemed dusted with it, as though he'd hiked all the way from Cambridge. How curious, what aging did to redheads. Sprinkled with silver strands, his hair looked slightly pink.

"Hello, Frank," she said lightly, as though she'd run into him at a party."Goodness. What are you doing here?"

"Don't mind me," he said."I'm just the taxi service."

Next door the Marshes' porch light came on. Well, naturally: Barbara Marsh was a shameless gossip, and Frank's voice was loud enough to be heard in Lexington.

"Please come in," she said—quietly, hoping he would take the cue.

Inside he stamped his shoes vigorously, though they looked perfectly clean. "Sorry to barge in on you, Paulette. Avis muffed up Gwen's reservation, so I figured I'd give her a lift."

Gwen looked anxiously from one parent to the other, as though expecting the worst.

Frank eyed Paulette from top to bottom. She'd forgotten the way he looked at her—looked at every woman, in fact, who crossed his path."You look good," he said.

Paulette flushed. "You too." Then corrected herself: "You're looking well." In fact he looked exhausted, his skin drooping around the eyes, as though he'd been sleeping poorly. Or maybe he—like herself, like everybody—had simply aged.

"Where is everybody?" he barked. (Was he hard of hearing? Was that the problem?) "No Billy yet?"

"I expect him at any moment," Paulette said.

There was an awkward silence. Frank looked around the room, at the Christmas tree in the parlor, the crackling fire, the champagne flutes waiting on the sideboard.

"Well, thanks for bringing Gwen," she said.

"None needed."

Do you have plans for dinner?
she nearly asked, but Frank spoke first.

"I should get back on the road, I guess. I'm meeting someone downtown."

Of course: he had a woman waiting. Didn't he always? "All right, then," she said briskly. She opened the front door. In the distance she heard a crackling noise, tires on gravel. The roads had just been cindered.

"That must be Billy now," Paulette said.

Frank turned to look. A car was approaching, a silver Mercedes with New York plates. At the entrance to the driveway, it slowed and signaled. Then it accelerated suddenly and roared down the street.

"What the hell is he doing?" said Frank.

"It isn't Billy," said Gwen, who'd followed them outside."It can't be. Somebody had the wrong house."At the corner, the red taillights turned and were gone.

They sat at the kitchen table, the wind howling at the windowpanes. Paulette had drained her second glass of champagne. Gwen had barely touched her tea.

Paulette glanced at the clock. She hadn't seen her daughter in a year; now, after a tense twenty minutes, she had resorted to babbling about the neighbors. Did Gwen remember Phillip Marsh, Warren Marsh's younger brother? She didn't? He may have been younger, Scott's age. He was engaged to be married in the spring. Paulette had read the announcement in the
Globe.
Listening to herself, watching the expression—or lack of expression—on her daughter's face, she felt herself sink into despair.
Heavens, this is dreadful.

She set down her glass. "I'm sorry to go on and on. There's no reason you should care about any of this. Tell me about you, darling.

Have you—" She was just tipsy enough to say it. "Is there anyone special in your life?"

The change in Gwen was astonishing. Her face flushed. She squirmed uncomfortably in her chair."Mother, I—" she began haltingly.

Just then, the doorbell rang.

"I'll get that," Gwen said, springing from her chair.

Paulette rose, half disappointed, half relieved. Had Gwen been ready to confide in her? Or—and this was far more likely—to storm out of the room in a fit of pique, casting a tense mood over the entire holiday?

She followed Gwen to the front door. "For heaven's sake, what is that noise?"

The sound tore through the foyer like a very loud lawn mower.

Gwen opened the door. Scott stood on the sidewalk in a ratty old sweater, no hat or coat. The van idled loudly in the driveway.

"Good heavens," said Paulette."What on earth happened?"

"We're dragging a
something
," Scott said, with a sheepish smile.

"Oh, dear." Paulette didn't catch what the
something
was; she was looking at her son. He had always favored the McKotch side, not the Drews; his features weren't as fine as Billy's, but somehow this made him more attractive. He had the kind of blunt, masculine good looks Frank had, minus the luxuriant hair. In recent years she'd noticed Scott's hairline receding, which saddened her. Perhaps to hide his bald spot, he'd grown his hair long and shaggy. She guessed he hadn't had a haircut in months.

"It happened back on the pike. We're lucky we made it." He bent to kiss her cheek. A stiff wind blew through the open doorway.

"Oh dear," she said again, eyeing the flowers on the hall table.

The icy wind could be devastating to her orchids."That's unfortunate.

But, darling, you need to close the door."

"Just a sec. Guys, are you coming?" he shouted out to the van.

"Grandma wants to close the door." He turned to his mother."Where's Bill?"

Paulette and Gwen exchanged glances.

"Your brother's running late," said Paulette. She was certain it had been Billy's car they'd spotted. Why on earth had he run away?

Paulette brought out platters of oysters and laid them on the table. At the center of the table was the steaming soup tureen and the pink poinsettia (its plastic pot covered in
purple
foil) that Scott's wife had brought. Paulette had accepted it graciously, moving aside the nineteenth-century Scroddleware pitcher and bowl that usually occupied its place.

The family assembled around the table: Billy at the head and Paulette at the foot, the children and Gwen on one side and Scott and Penny on the other. "Heavens, you look chilly," Paulette said to her daughter-in-law, who invariably showed up in a summer blouse; after three years in Connecticut, the girl still didn't own a sweater.

Billy rose to fill their glasses with a lovely pinot gris he'd picked up at the wine shop in town.
So that's where you ran off to
, Paulette said when he explained.
Your father was so disappointed.

Sorry I missed him
, said Billy.
Maybe next time.

"This is delicious, Mother," he said, and everyone agreed. Sabrina, uncommonly helpful, cleared the soup bowls while Paulette brought in the goose she'd stuffed that morning. She did not explain that the rest of the meal—the gingered carrot soup, roasted vegetables, a nice crusty bread—had come from a gourmet shop in town. Years ago such cheating would have been unimaginable. Paulette was an excellent cook, and during her marriage she'd entertained a great deal.

Her grandmother's table seated eight comfortably—ten if Frank, amid much cursing, put in the extra leaf. Now, cooking for a crowd was out of the question. Scott's children were picky eaters, and Gwen, as always, ate like a bird. Both her sons loved her cooking, but could polish off a meal—an entire day's work—in ten minutes. Altogether it seemed more trouble than it was worth.

"You'll never guess whom I saw at the symphony," she told Billy as he cut into the Yule log."Your old friend Lauren McGregor."

Billy handed Scott a slice of cake."No kidding. She's in Boston?"

He blinked twice, rapidly, but his face was impassive. Billy never lost his composure, but Paulette knew her son.

"Andover, I believe. Her husband works downtown. He's a banker of some kind."

"I didn't know she was married."

Paulette eyed him intently, surprised by the shift in his voice.

"Oh, yes. And they have two children."

"No kidding," Billy said again.

"I wish you could have seen her," Paulette added impulsively.

"Really, she hasn't aged a day. She was always a beautiful girl." Why was it so easy, now, to say this? Because it was all in the past, the girl safely married to someone else?

"She was hot," Scott agreed."You blew that one, Bill."

"I suppose I did," Billy said mildly, unflappable to the end."Well, good for Lauren." He nodded across the table to Gwen. "What happened to your glasses?"

"Your sister had her vision corrected," Paulette said."Doesn't she look wonderful?"

"Wow," Billy said."What prompted that?"

"I'm taking a trip," Gwen said."To Saint Raphael."

Paulette looked at her, flabbergasted. "Gwen, that's
marvelous.

Why didn't you tell me?"

"Mother, I just got here." Gwen turned her attention to her plate, picking at her cake.

Paulette chose to ignore her surly tone. It was just like Gwen to bore them with talk about work when something truly interesting was about to happen. She couldn't decide whether Gwen did this on purpose, or simply couldn't help it. Maybe she truly didn't know what was interesting and what was not. It made Paulette wonder what else Gwen wasn't telling.

"There's great scuba diving down there," said Scott, his mouth full. Since marrying Penny, his table manners had degenerated gravely.

Paulette couldn't understand it, particularly since Penny's, surprisingly, weren't all that bad.

"That's why I'm going," said Gwen.

Paulette frowned. Gwen's interest in scuba diving had always alarmed her. She blamed it entirely on Frank, who for Gwen's eighteenth birthday had paid for scuba classes at the YMCA.
She loves the water
, he'd told Paulette, by way of justification.
Jesus Christ, Paulette. It's the only thing she loves.

"You're diving without me?" said Billy.

"What am I supposed to do, wait until you retire?"

For several years Gwen and Billy had taken an annual dive trip together, giving Paulette nightmares. She'd been relieved when Billy, busy with his practice, discontinued the tradition. If God had meant her children to breathe underwater, he'd have given them gills.

"Goodness, how adventurous," she said lightly. "And you'll be traveling with . . . ?"

"Nobody," Gwen said."I'm going alone."

Paulette set down her fork."Do you think that's wise?"

Gwen shrugged. "I have a week of vacation coming. Use it or lose it. It expires March first."

"But, dear." Paulette forced herself to smile."Wouldn't it be more fun to take a girlfriend along?"

Gwen seemed to consider this seriously. "I don't think so," she said finally."I think I'd have a better time by myself."

"Well, I just don't think it's
safe
," said Paulette. "Scuba diving alone!"

"I wouldn't be
alone."
Gwen spoke extra slowly, as though Paulette were a cretin."There's a whole group, and a dive master."

"What in heaven's name is that?"

"An instructor, Mom. Geez. You act like I'm going up on the space shuttle."

Her grandson laughed. Dishes were passed.

The scene at the table seemed eternal: each in his usual chair, Grandmother Drew's silver and china. The wineglasses had been a wedding present. Like the platters, the soup tureen, they'd outlasted the marriage they were meant to commemorate. As they raised their glasses to toast the season, it struck Paulette that she had been divorced for twenty years.

The thought returned to her later as she rinsed the glasses at the sink. A strange feeling gripped her. Her heart raced; for just a moment the lights seemed to dim. She thought of her own life slipping away, her family dissolving and disappearing; little Gwen carried off, swallowed up; the sharks and octopi surrounding her, humans who resembled them waiting on shore.

Paulette closed her eyes. She'd experienced such spells before.

Her doctor called them panic attacks, though Paulette wasn't so sure.

The night before her father died, she'd felt a premonition not unlike this one; she'd known with a deep certainty that the end was near. Her father had been old and sickly, and there was nothing to be done; but this case, surely, was different. She ought to take action.

She ought to call someone. She thought, irrationally, of the carpenter Gil Pyle, whose business was fixing things. Perhaps he would know what to do.

It's Christmas Eve
, she told herself. Reasonable people were occupied with their families. Besides, what on earth would she say?

Gwen is going to the Caribbean all by herself. Something terrible is go
ing to happen.

Breathing deeply seemed to help, and in a few minutes the feeling passed. When it did, she dialed Frank's number. Gwen had always—well, sometimes—listened to her father. Predictably, there was no answer. She supposed he was spending the night elsewhere. Or entertaining a woman at home, too busy to pick up the phone.