The Comfort of Lies (15 page)

“Then how come Lucas and I didn’t have bar mitzvahs?”

“Jesus, who cares?” Lucas said.

“Is Hebrew school what you wanted, Max? More work every day after school?” Nathan made the sharp right into his parents’ driveway. “I remember having to schlep two different bags of books to school. Not fun, my son, not fun.”

“You never even gave us the choice,” Max said.

“What’s up with this?” Nathan looked to Juliette for support. She stared back with a deliberate blank face.
You’re the full-fledged one, the real one; you answer them.

“When Josh Simons had his bar mitzvah, he made three thousand dollars!” Max opened his arms, hands up, as though weighing the money. “Three thousand!”

“Oh, so it’s about money.” Again, Nathan tried connecting to Juliette with his eyes. Again, she blank-eyed him. Now he sent another message, this time with his eyebrows and a small tilt of his head, which in husbandspeak translated to “What? What’s wrong?”

His eyes were full of questions. Juliette turned away.

 • • • 

Juliette’s in-laws’ house smelled of thick Hungarian Jewish food. Smothered red peppers. Gizi’s Passover version of stuffed cabbage. Chocolate-walnut torte—a miracle of silky dark chocolate and matzo meal.

Gizi took Max’s and Lucas’s faces between her hands in turn, studying each boy for a moment before kissing him, first on the right cheek and then the left. Then she turned her attention to Juliette.

“Sweetheart.” Gizi smiled as though the sight of Juliette warmed her through and through. “Look at you.
Szép.
Gorgeous. My son is the luckiest man in the world.”

Juliette bent down and kissed her mother-in-law’s downy cheek. Gizi’s skin was barely lined, despite using only Vaseline and a few concoctions, as Gizi called them, on her face. Juliette showered her with bottles of juliette&gwynne products, but Gizi simply lined them on the glass shelves in her bathroom as though they were sculptures.

“Darling,” she’d say, “I love them. Look how beautiful!” Meanwhile, Gizi stuck to the wisdom passed down from her mother: Wear a hat outside in every season. Spread Vaseline on your skin when it’s damp. Gizi had been the inspiration for Juliette’s business: when money was tight for her and Nathan, Gizi counseled Juliette to use honey and avocado mixed with a little olive oil on her face.

“Mama.” Nathan gave his mother a tight hug. He loved his parents without reservation. When he let go of Gizi, he stood behind Juliette and squeezed her shoulders. “Does or does not my wife get lovelier every year?”

Nathan’s hands weighed on her like iron bars.

“You okay, darling?” Gizi wrinkled her face and peered at Juliette in concern.

“Who’s not okay?” Avraham walked in, drying his hands on a towel. “Ah, my boys!” He grabbed Lucas in a bear hug and then gave Max a smacking kiss.

“Everyone is fine.” Gizi put a hand behind each boy’s back. “Go. We set up the living room.”

Set up
meant that Avraham had placed snack tables next to each comfortable club chair and loaded them with sodas Juliette never allowed the boys to have, and chocolate and nuts she’d never give them before a meal.

“What can I do?” Juliette asked.

“Keep me company while I finish.” Gizi grabbed the towel from Avraham. “You. Take your son for a walk before dinner.”

Juliette knew this meant that Gizi worried about how much Avraham
would eat and how high his blood sugar would be after the meal, so she wanted him to get exercise.

“Come on, Dad.” Nathan put his arm around his father. “Let’s leave while they’ll let us.”

Dirty pots, scraped-out bowls, and wooden spoons caked with batter covered every surface in Gizi’s kitchen. Juliette’s in-laws hadn’t changed a thing since they bought the house when Nathan was ten. Gizi hated change. Each time Avraham suggested remodeling, she’d flick a hand and say, “Next you’ll be remodeling me!”

“Okay, what is wrong?” Gizi handed Juliette a sponge. “Get the wineglasses, please. I must wash the dust which has built up since last Passover.”

Gizi’s overly formal speech, as unchanged as her house, reflected the English for Immigrants course she’d taken so many years before at Brooklyn College. Juliette dragged the old metal step stool to the pantry. She handed down the precious Ajka Crystal glasses. Her in-laws had collected the Hungarian crystal one piece at a time. Juliette found it incongruous; first people ran from their homelands to escape persecution, then their homes became shrines to those countries. Nathan called it the power of cognitive dissonance.

Perhaps cognitive dissonance described Juliette’s marriage. Her love for Nathan collided with the painful knowledge of Tia. She’d papered over the dark side of their marriage.

Gizi placed one glass at a time in a warm vinegar and water bath, using a small rubber tub she’d placed in the sink.

“So, no answer to my question?” Gizi prodded.

Juliette didn’t bother pretending ignorance. Her mother-in-law sensed the undertones of life with uncanny accuracy. Even when she didn’t know what was wrong, she sniffed to the heart of troubles like a bloodhound.

Juliette rummaged for a suitable answer. Certainly she wouldn’t say the words pressing at her lips:
You have a granddaughter. Her hair and eyes are the color of dark walnuts. Just like you.

“I’m feeling blue, but it’s nothing serious,” she said. “Premenstrual.”

Her mother-in-law took measure of Juliette. “I thought you seemed a little bloated.”

Wonderful. Juliette’s period had ended the previous week. So she was getting fat along with everything else. “Thanks.”

Gizi tipped her head. “Oh, Juliette, you are already so beautiful and blessed. I think you can afford a few days of extra salt in your system.”

Juliette gave her mother-in-law a hard hug. “I’m going to change. Then I’ll help you some more.”

The guest bedroom reserved for them was barely large enough for a dresser and a bed—the only furniture in the room. Juliette ran a hand over the carved headboard. It banged against the wall with the slightest movement, as Juliette learned the one and only time that she and Nathan made love in this room. There was the time he’d suggested they use the floor, but Juliette didn’t think there was enough space for them to lie down, even one on top of the other, and she was terrified of getting stuck in some awful position.

How could she stay in this room with him? Everyone went to their bedrooms early, leaving Avraham to watch television at an audio level unbearable by anyone but him. The kids had a small TV in Nathan’s old room, where they slept, Gizi fell asleep by nine thirty, and she and Nathan read, entwined side by side, in the barely full-sized bed.

Not for the first time, Juliette wished she found solace in alcohol. It was a shame that chocolate and sugar didn’t induce sleep.

 • • • 

Ajka Crystal shimmered on the Passover table; the already crimson glasses even deeper-colored, filled with blood-red wine. Emerald bowls held cooked peppers. Browned farfel kugel rested on cobalt platters. Candles flickered. Avraham read from a tattered Manischewitz Haggadah. Max asked the four questions in his breaking voice. Avraham hid the
afikomen
for the boys to find after the meal. Traditionally, only the finder of the hidden matzo got an award, but Avraham never gave anything to just one grandson.

Juliette felt as though her heart might crack in half. She loved her in-laws, but she thought she might explode from not wanting to be in their apartment. The walls of the already small dining room seemed as though they were getting closer to the table. Nathan’s knee repeatedly hit hers under the table. Each time she drew away, he made contact again.

Nathan became expansive around his mother and father. She could feel his want in advance, imagine him pressing against her in the tiny bed, still trying to change her mind about lovemaking in Brooklyn. He’d be wrapped around her all night, and there would be no place for her to go.

“A wonderful meal, Mom.” Nathan turned to his father. “We’re lucky men.”

Avraham nodded. “I know. Make sure that you know.”

Did Avraham and Gizi know about the difficult time she and Nathan had gone through? Had he told them anything? Their love for Nathan wasn’t without awareness.

Gizi reached over and patted Nathan’s hand. “He knows, he knows. We have a family from heaven.”

 • • • 

Soon after they ate the last macaroon, Juliette grabbed Nathan and dragged him into the tiny guest room. Their still-packed overnight bags sat on the lumpy bed. Tea-colored lace curtains drifted with the air blown up from the radiator. Heat and the smell of lemon Pledge mixed to a noxious thickness.

“I want to go home,” Juliette said.

Nathan looked at her as though she spoke in tongues. “What?” He cocked his head to the side as if he might understand better.

“I. Want. To. Go,” Juliette said. “Tonight. Now.”

“Are you crazy? We wouldn’t get home until after one in the morning. What’s wrong?”

How could she say that she couldn’t bear to sleep in that cramped bed with him? That she didn’t want to breathe his air or be awake all night with no place to go. If she got out of bed, no matter how quietly
she tried to creep, within minutes Gizi would appear, offering a world of comfort she didn’t want.

Would you like some tea? Hot water bottle? A piece of cake? How about some oatmeal? I could make you eggs, darling.

“I’ll drive,” Juliette said.

“Forget the driving. Give me one reason for this insane idea.”

Juliette rummaged for something, anything, to say that would get her out of there. Her head was cracking open. Anything could fall out. At least driving at night, the boys would sleep. Nathan would sleep.

“I said I’d drive.” She’d drink ten coffees if necessary. “I just have too much work waiting. I need to go. I need to wake up and get right to work.”

“It’s Passover, for Christ’s sake. What am I supposed to tell my parents? The kids?”

Juliette walked over and looked straight into Nathan’s eyes. “I don’t care what you say. Just get me the hell out of here. Now. I mean it. Now.”

Whatever he saw in Juliette’s eyes made him walk out of the room and announce their new plans.

She dodged her in-laws’ questions and confusion, almost changing her mind when faced with their hurt. Juliette might have stayed if she could stick the boys in the guest room while Nathan and she slept in the twin beds in Nathan’s old room, but there was no way that the boys would share a bed, and it wouldn’t fly with Gizi and Avraham, anyway.

The expressions they’d worn as Nathan packed the car haunted Juliette during the silent ride home. Leaving had given Gizi confirmation that her intuition was on target, but if they’d stayed, Juliette would have let out the scream she’d been holding too long.

Nathan drove.

They arrived home at two in the morning.

The boys stumbled into the house as Nathan and Juliette carried in the luggage.

“G’night,” Max mumbled as he sleepwalked up the stairs.

“Good night, sweetheart,” Juliette said. “Good night, Lucas.”

Lucas grunted. He’d not spoken a word since leaving his grandparent’s. His silence and rigid shoulders let her know that she’d wrecked his plan to visit the Museum of Natural History with his grandfather. Even at fourteen, Lucas still loved wandering through the marble halls filled with dinosaurs, plus they’d planned to see
Cosmic Collisions
, a space show at the planetarium.

After they brought the last load into the house, Nathan turned to Juliette. They were alone for the first time since leaving his parents’ house.

“What’s going on with you?” Frustration turned Nathan’s eyes into slits. Impossibly, he seemed to tower over her. Anger made him seem bigger.

When Juliette didn’t answer, he stepped forward and bent his head to her. “What, I ask you,
what
was so important that insulting my parents seemed like a good idea? I kept quiet back there because I didn’t want to upset them more than we already had. And in the car, I held back for the kids. Now—now it’s just us.”

Juliette stepped back. “It had nothing to do with your parents.”

“That barely matters, does it, since it’s their house we walked out of?” He slammed Max’s backpack to the floor and then threw his keys on the entrance table.

“Stop,” she whispered, “you’ll upset the boys.” She moved Nathan’s keys from the table to the bowl meant to protect the wood from scratches.

“Now you’re worried? After your little stunt, nothing will bother or wake the boys. What time is it? Four in the morning?”

“It’s only two.” Juliette walked out of the entry and headed to the kitchen.

Nathan followed her down the hall. “Where the hell are you going?”

She stopped short and turned. “Watch your mouth. I’m not one of those googly-eyed girls who worship you.”

“Jesus, what’s going on, Jules?”

They stared at each other. Nathan’s eyes searched for what Juliette
wasn’t saying. Rushes of words came to her, but they all stopped at her throat. Once she told him the truth, everything would change. Until then, no matter how awful she felt, they were still the four of them: her, Nathan, Lucas, and Max. After she brought Savannah into the conversation, the girl became family, and they’d never be the same again.

“Why are you so angry?” he asked. “You’re not making any sense.”

She said the only thing that could make any sense at all. Maybe if she leaked a hint, she’d get a clue as to whether or not Nathan had seen Tia, if he knew about Savannah. “It’s her,” she said.

“Her? Who is her?”

She was relieved that his question seemed genuine. “That woman. The one you slept with.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“Was there more than one?”

“You’re talking about Tia? Seriously? That’s why we left Brooklyn? What the fuck, Juliette?” He dug his hands into the side of his head and shook it back and forth. “Are you having some sort of traumatic flashback?”

A great loneliness overcame her. Being alone with knowledge of such great proportions threatened to sink her.