Mating for Life (3 page)

On the next page she saw a familiar scrawl.

Your children are gorgeous, your cottage is magical and you, of course, are a queen of all things. Love, Edie.

Liane experienced a moment of surprise, because seeing Edie's writing made her realize how many years had passed since any of them had seen her.

Edie had
not
been boring. Liane had loved Edie. They all had—even Fiona, who had never liked any of Helen's friends but had spent more time with Edie as a young child than any of the girls, since Helen had toured more back then. There had been some sort of falling-out between Helen and Edie, though, and she had disappeared from their lives around the time Fiona graduated from high school. Liane remembered this because Edie had come to the graduation and Helen had refused to speak to her. Liane had never asked Helen what had happened, and now she wondered why not. They had called her “aunt”; she had been Helen's best friend.

Liane looked down at the writing and remembered the time Edie had taken her, Ilsa, and Fiona on an “expedition” to catch caterpillars, which she had somehow known would make cocoons in the jars, which would then turn into butterflies, which the girls would then release at dusk. “Why at dusk?” Liane had asked Edie. “You must always release butterflies at dusk,” Edie had said, her voice full of the mysteries only a woman like her could fathom. She had long hair she braided around her head like a crown and she always wore swishy skirts and an anklet that tinkled when she walked.

Liane closed her eyes. She remembered more: Ilsa's jar
hadn't produced a cocoon. Her caterpillar had died. Later, Ilsa had told her she'd switched hers because she'd known something was wrong with Fiona's—and that Fiona would hate to fail at producing a butterfly. “But didn't
you
want one?” Liane had asked Ilsa. Ilsa had shrugged. “Not really. It felt wrong. And anyway, not as much as Fiona probably did.” Liane felt like she was the only person who knew that Ilsa really did love Fiona. She thought perhaps she should tell Fiona about the butterfly, but also that it was too late.
My sisters don't like each other.
She realized this, also, as she continued to follow the loops of Edie's cursive script with her eyes, and thought about how strange it was that there were truths that could exist in families that everyone ignored, even though they were devastating.

Liane closed the book, stood, and went into the kitchen. She opened the cupboard closest to the stove and grabbed a box of spelt flakes and raisins. She scooped kefir onto the cereal. Then she saw her mobile phone sitting on the counter and brought it with her to the side porch. She thought about not calling Adam, but instead she did. She should have before now. It had been days. There were no missed calls, no texts from him, nothing.

“What are you doing?” he asked, as though they had talked a few moments ago.

“Eating breakfast.”

“Ah, and you didn't want to dine alone.”

“Well, no, not really. I just realized I hadn't called to tell you I arrived safely and thought you might . . .” She was about to say,
be worried,
but stopped, because it wouldn't have been true, and what Adam said next confirmed this.

“I figured I would have seen something on the news,” he, ever the pragmatist, said. “I thought you were probably wrapped up in your work and I didn't want to bother you.” Pause. “Getting a lot done?”

“Yes,” Liane lied. “A ton.”

“Good. As am I.” There was another pause. Then: “I miss you,” Adam said. “The bed feels even bigger without you.” They'd just bought a king bed together, which seemed to have been or was
supposed
to have been symbolic of something, but in the end all it felt to Liane was vast. She couldn't imagine it feeling any bigger than it already did. In the night she was so far away from Adam she felt alone. When he moved, she couldn't feel anything. “I went out to that new restaurant on the corner with Jeff and Brynn,” he said. “It was awful. You would have laughed. The waiter didn't even know what burrata was when we asked him.”

“Well, why did you ask him if you already know what it is?”

He didn't say anything.

“I should probably get back to work,” she said. “I miss you, too. See you next week.”

She put down her phone and looked at her cereal. Outside, she could hear crickets and bullfrogs and a distant boat. The sound came closer and she found herself channeling Helen, clucking her tongue against her teeth.

She realized she wasn't hungry anymore. She left her cereal and went to the bookshelf, intent on finding another book to read because she already knew she was going to be taking another day off from her thesis. It would need to be the right book, one that would say something about her, just in case the Reading Man was checking out her book spines the way she was checking out his. (Halfway through the day before he had moved on to
Tropic of Cancer,
but then replaced it with
The Sound and the Fury
again. She wondered why.)

Tropic of Cancer
was there, on the bottom shelf. Her father's, Liane remembered, picking it up and opening the cover, to where he had written his name: Wesley Robert. She remembered he had suggested she read it when she was only eight, the same year he had died. He had seemed strangely
urgent about it, and now she supposed she knew why. “This is my favorite book,” he had said. “I always wanted to share it with you.” Liane was a good reader from a young age, and so she had tried because she adored her father. But eventually she had to concede defeat. “I'm sorry, Dad, but I have
no
idea what this book is supposed to be about.” “That's okay, Li. It's probably a guy thing, anyway.”

She flipped through the pages of the book. A passage was underlined.
“There are no more books to be written, thank God,”
she read aloud. Wesley had wanted to be a writer, to pen something similar to his favorite book, and there were times when he would not sleep, seemingly for weeks on end, emerging from the study only to ecstatically declare it was going well and pour more coffee or brandy. Then the crash would come and he would shred the pages while Helen begged him not to.

He seemed to give up in his final year, and Liane often wondered if that was why he had ended his life, or if the giving up had just been a symptom. But she would never know exactly why he had taken the kayak out onto the lake in late December, why he had weighted himself with rocks, why he had slid into the water to sink down, down, down into the icy depths. He hadn't left a note and it had taken her years to accept this. She had searched the cottage every summer. And she wasn't sure, as much as she loved and missed him, that she would ever be able to forgive him for not saying goodbye to her, for not leaving her fatherly instructions in some form. Instead, there was a boat in the shed and the feeling she got when she thought of him, one she had never been able to properly define: some combination of nostalgia, sadness, inadequacy, and disappointment. And the fear, of course. The Big Fear, that one day the darkness (more specifically, manic depression) would catch up with her, too.
My life right now doesn't feel happy enough to be able to avoid it.

She picked up another book: Martha Gellhorn's memoir,
Travels with Myself and Another,
about her marriage to Hemingway. It was Helen's, dog-eared and old. When Liane opened it, there were many passages underlined. One of them:
I knew enough to know that no woman should ever marry a man that hated his mother.
She went to replace the book on the shelf, and that was when she saw the ring. An engagement ring, unmistakably so. A solitaire on a white gold antique scroll band, just languishing on the shelf.
It must belong to one of Helen's friends
. Liane held it between her thumb and index finger and watched the stone catch the light prettily. She needed to text Helen and let her know it had been found so whoever had lost it could stop worrying.

But first Liane slid the ring onto her finger, forcing it slightly. Then she stared at it and tried to decide if it looked right or not.

It did not.

She pulled the ring but it stuck at her knuckle. She pulled again. Nothing.

And then there was a knock at the door.

Another knock; another futile pull at the ring.

At the door stood a man of about Helen's age. He had a gray beard, brown eyes. He held a burlap bag with handles and there were various forms of roughage poking out the top. “I'm Iain, the neighbor,” he said, as though there were no other neighbors he could possibly have been.

“Hi, Iain, I'm Liane,” she said, trying not to sound disappointed.

“Your mother told me.” He seemed oddly nervous. “Anyway, I have a cottage up the road, and a big garden full of spring greens I can't possibly eat, so I let your mother know I'd drop some by for you and she thought it was a good idea.”

“Thank you very much; I'll put them to good use. I love salads.” He handed her the bag and they stood looking at each other.

“Would you like to come in for a coffee or tea?” Liane asked, because she felt certain he was waiting for some sort of offer, or at least that he didn't want to go. He seemed to be studying her carefully, taking in her face.

“Tea would be perfect.”

She led him inside. In the kitchen, she poured water from the cooler into the rusty-topped kettle, making a mental note to get Helen a new one, even though she knew Helen would say that despite the rust it was a good kettle and there was no sense in throwing it away. She found herself sharing this with Iain, her observation about Helen and the kettle, and he said, “Absolutely, that's Helen to a tee, and then she'll either start using your new kettle as a planter or a watering can, or give it to someone else. Anything to save the old one from the landfill—because she doesn't believe they actually recycle anything, you know.”

“Oh, yes, I know. Would you like to sit on the side porch?”

“Sure. You should wrap those greens in a towel and put them in the fridge, though. They're very delicate.”

She examined him again. Well-groomed, face weathered in an appealing way, eyes crinkled at the sides. He was looking at her, too, with that same surprising intensity, as though he had met her somewhere before and was trying to place her. She felt self-conscious and lifted a hand to scratch a nonexistent itch on her face.

“Oh,” he said.

“Oh?”

“You're wearing . . . an engagement ring.”

“
Oh
. Right. Yes. It's . . .” The true explanation was too ridiculous, so she said the thing that made the most sense and was technically true. “I'm engaged. To my boyfriend, Adam. My fiancé. My fiancé, Adam.”
Fiancé. My fiancé, Adam.
Did it or did it not fit?

No. It does not.

“Wow. Well. That's . . .” He cleared his throat. He was still looking at the ring. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” The kettle had started to screech. She opened the cupboard above the stove that held the spices and teas. “Green, mint, rooibos, chai, Earl Grey, English Breakfast, or something called Youthful Detox?” she asked.

“Oh, the detox, please. Perfect.”

She put two bags in the chipped green pot, grabbed two mugs, and headed toward the porch.

“So,” she said when they were seated across from each other on the black iron bistro set with the faded red and gold cushions. “Have you had a cottage here long?” Then she sipped the tea and grimaced. “Geez. This stuff is terrible.”

“You get used to it. And I've been here since last summer. Two places down from here. I'm in the Bachmans' old place. They retired and moved to Mallorca.”

Liane nodded as though she knew this. Then she leaned in, tried to be subtle. “What about the cottage on the other side of us? The one next door. The Castersen place. Did they sell, too?”

Iain shook his head. “They just started renting the place out. For this June and July, to the same people. The man there now is named Laurence Something-or-other. He's a writer. He's working on something. Although he told me he's a bit blocked, so he's been doing a lot of reading, trying to spur himself into action, I suppose. I brought him some greens last week and he told me a little about it. Apparently it's his third novel and he's afraid of having a midcareer slump.”

“Oh. A writer?”

“I haven't heard of his books. He says he doesn't write sci-fi, but it sounds like it to me. His first book was short stories and his last book was . . . let me try to remember . . . something about the end of the world being in a hundred years and everyone knowing about it, the exact date of it and everything.”

She looked down at the ring on her finger. “Well, I guess that doesn't have to be sci-fi. Maybe more just a study of human nature. It
is
pretty interesting. What would you do if you knew the world was going to end in a hundred years? Would that change anything for you?”

Iain looked thoughtful. “I really don't know. Selfishly, probably it would change nothing for me. But then again, for my daughters and sons it would. Not much point in having kids, right? Or more of them, in my one daughter's case. Maybe that would be liberating.”

As he spoke, she wished for a moment that Iain was Helen's type. It would be nice to have someone like him around. “Liane's mother is a free spirit,” Adam had once said to his own parents, employing his usual tact. “You know how it is in show business.” “She's not in show business, she used to be a folksinger,” Liane had said to him later. She wasn't sure why Adam's words had made her feel so angry. Maybe because he'd said what he'd said in the same way a person might say
Liane's mother is a mental patient
. But he was right, of course: the reality of this free-spiritedness was that Ilsa's father was an ex-lover of Helen's who lived in Paris and whom she had met while on tour; Wesley had stumbled into her life during a visit to an ashram in India (Fiona and Ilsa had stayed with Edie, and Helen had been away for weeks because she was experiencing some sort of career/existential crisis); and Fiona's father—well, no one was exactly certain who he was, least of all Helen.