The Wally Lamb Fiction Collection: The Hour I First Believed, I Know This Much is True, We Are Water, and Wishin' and Hopin' (243 page)

“Would you
like
to be more than just friends?”

I shrug. Remind her that Tracy and I are both up here temporarily.

“Daddy, you live in Connecticut and she’s in Rhode Island. That’s not exactly insurmountable. Is she already in a relationship?”

“Nope. Divorced, no kids.”

“She’s Asian, isn’t she?”

“Half. Hawaiian on her mother’s side.”

She gives me a mischievous smile. “She likes you, Daddy.”

“Does she? What makes you say that?”

“I could tell from the way she was looking at you on the ride back here, and at that place where we stopped to eat. Not to mention that she went with you to the airport in the first place.”

“Well, Detective Oh, it just so happens that she had business in Boston yesterday anyway. Had to drop off some report at the New England Aquarium. So we carpooled. I gave her a ride there, and then we drove over to Logan to pick you up. Now what’s that Cheshire grin for?”

“It’s the twenty-first century, Daddy. People don’t usually ‘drop off ’ reports in person these days. They e-mail them in an attachment.”

“No kidding? Well, then, I guess she
must
have the hots for me. Can’t blame her. You know what a chick magnet I am.” I dish out our food and bring it to the table. “Come on, detective. Breakfast is served.
Mangia
.”

We sit. I eat my eggs; Ariane takes a bite of banana. She asks me if I’ve heard from Andrew lately. “Couple of days ago,” I tell her. “Says he’s doing okay.” She tells me she wishes he was coming to the wedding. “Yeah, well, he’s still struggling with your mother’s . . . lifestyle change. I guess it’s just as well.”

She nods. Puts her bare feet up on the empty chair between us.

“You still like going barefoot, I see.” She nods, says the bottoms of her feet are so impervious by now, she could probably walk on hot coals. “Yeah, well, best not to test
that
theory,” I tell her. I reach over and grab her big toe. “This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home. Remember?”

She smiles. “This little piggy had roast beef, this little piggy had none.”

“Must be a vegan,” I say. But she’s teary again. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, tell me.”

“It’s just that . . . my baby won’t have a daddy to play that with.”

“No, but he’ll have a granddaddy.” Neither of us mentions the obvious: that I’ll be doing my grandfathering long-distance. Still, I don’t want to push it—the idea of her moving back.

Ten minutes later, I’ve finished my breakfast and she’s had all of six little bites of her Cream of Wheat. I’ve counted. Well, I can’t really blame her. Even with sugar on it, it’s like eating wallpaper paste. We get up, carry our dishes to the sink. When she says she’ll do them, I tell her no. She’s my guest.

“Hey, Daddy?” she says. I look over my shoulder and see her over by the Mapplethorpes again. “You’ve met Viveca. Right?”

Ah, Viveca. I figured we’d be getting around to her sooner or later. “I have.” I put the last of the dishes in the drying rack. Start scouring egg off the frying pan. “You have, too, actually. Remember that Whitney Biennial show that your mother had a piece in when you guys were kids? We all went down to New York City for the opening, stayed overnight in a hotel?”

“I think so. Was that the trip when we went to the NBA store and that guy yelled at Andrew for trying to shoot three-pointers?”

“Don’t remind me. One of his wild shots from downtown almost wiped out a whole display of team mugs. I saw that ball go flying and thought I was going to be buying about a thousand bucks’ worth of broken ceramic. Ah, yes. Those fun Oh family outings.”

She’s wandering the living room, going from one piece of art to another. “That was a really big deal that Mama’s work got selected for that show. Wasn’t it?” she asks.

“It was. But yeah, that opening was when we all met Viveca. She came up, introduced herself. Told your mother she was interested in representing her. And the rest is history. The big commissions, that article in
Newsweek
that put her on the map as an up-and-comer.”

She comes back to the kitchen. Leans against the counter next to me. “You don’t like Viveca, do you?” She’s watching my face in profile, studying my reaction to her question.

“Hey, she’s letting me stay here, right? So I guess she can’t be all bad.”

“No, seriously, Daddy,” she says.

“Well, let’s just say she’s not really my cup of tea. But don’t let my feelings color yours. I think you’ll like her when you get to know her. Your sister does.” Okay, she says. She’ll keep an open mind. “Good. Hey, let’s go sit down for a minute, okay?” We move back into the living room, face each other on opposing love seats. “Now about this baby you’re having. What are you hoping for? Boy? Girl? One of each?”

Her eyes widen. “Oh god, I’m not sure I could handle twins. But don’t multiple births run in families?”

“Sometimes. But I wouldn’t go out and buy doubles of everything just yet. You’d run more of a risk of that if you’d had in vitro. Have you had an ultrasound?”

“Next month,” she says. “My doctor says they only do it earlier if it’s a higher-risk pregnancy. Women over thirty-five.”

“Well, you’ll know soon enough, but I think you can relax. Odds are you’re having one, not two.”

She asks how her mother and I felt when we found out we were having twins. I tell her it was a surprise, but that we were excited about it. Why mention how upset Annie was at first? “In fact—”

“Oh, jeeze!” she says. “Excuse me, Daddy.” She gets up and rushes to the bathroom off the kitchen. To drown out the sound of her retching in there, I reach over and put the radio on. They’re playing some old song I half-remember.
It’s a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack
. . . . There’s a flush. She opens the door looking pale and miserable, poor kid. But she flashes me that brave smile.

“You okay?” She nods. Sits back down. When I ask her if she lost her breakfast, she says just a little of it. “Well, that’s good. Are you still up for the beach, or do you want to take a rain check?”

“No, let’s go. If I have to vomit again, I can do it there just as well as here. Puking at the beach will be a new experience.”

“Well, I know one thing, kiddo,” I tell her. “This baby’s going to be one lucky kid to have such a damned good mother.”

“You think so?”

“Oh, I
know
so. Name one thing you’re
not
good at.”

“Dieting,” she says. “Delegating responsibility at work. Remembering to water my plants. Oh, and keeping boyfriends. I wasn’t too good at that.”

It breaks my heart to hear her say that. I want to tell her that she surrendered too soon to this artificial insemination thing—that a lot of people are in their thirties before they find someone, settle down, and have a family. That if what she wanted was a traditional marriage, the right guy might very well have come along. But I hold my tongue. This is an argument I might have used if she’d talked to me about her plans
before
she got inseminated, which she didn’t choose to do. So now it’s a fait accompli—this baby whose father is some nameless, faceless Brazilian guy who sat in a room with a skin magazine, did his thing, and sold them the spunk they injected into her.
It’s a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack
. Can’t argue with that.

“You know,” I tell her, “if you want, you could always come back home to have the baby. Stay with me at the house and—”

“Daddy, you’re
selling
the house. Remember?”

“Just say the word and I’ll take it off the market.”

She shakes her head, says her life’s out there in California. And besides, she doesn’t expect Annie or me to juggle our lives because of her. “But I
was
thinking that maybe Mama could come out and be there for the delivery. Stay with me for the first week or so when I come home with the baby.”

“I bet she’d be happy to do that,” I assure her.

“Well, first things first,” she says. “I haven’t even told her I’m pregnant yet. I’m a little nervous about doing that.”

“Don’t be, Ari. She’ll respect your decision. I’m sure she’ll be very happy for you once she gets used to the idea.”

“Hope so,” she says. She stands, says she’s going to go change for the beach. But halfway up the stairs, she stops and looks back at me. “Daddy?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you think Mama was a good mother?”

The question comes out of nowhere. “Well, why don’t
you
tell
me
?”

“No, she was,” Ari says. “I just wanted to hear what you thought.”

“Because?”

No reason, she says. She was just wondering.

While she’s up there, I pack her a snack in case she gets hungry while we’re at the beach: another banana, a granola bar, a couple of paper cups and the ginger ale. I wish I’d bought a plastic bottle instead of glass, but I can wrap it in a towel and it should be fine. . . .
Was
Annie a good mother? Yes, overall. Sure, the kids frustrated her sometimes—Andrew more than his sisters. There were those evenings when she’d meet me at the door when I got home and start her litany of complaints before I could even put down my briefcase and take off my coat. But I couldn’t blame her. I was so work-driven back then. I’d leave the child care to her pretty much, then try to spell her on weekends. It got harder for Annie once she started making her art. She’d be upstairs with them all day long when what she really wanted was to be down in the basement working on those shadow box things she was doing. . . . And it wasn’t like she’d had much role-modeling to draw on either. Her own mother had died so young. And after her father hit the skids and they removed her from the house, those foster moms probably weren’t the best role models, either. But given all that, Annie did fine by our three. . . .

And hey, it’s not as if
I
was Father of the Year. Things would come up at work and I’d end up missing one of Ari’s recitals or Marissa’s gymnastics meets. One of Andrew’s Little League games or, later, one of his wrestling matches. The night the twins graduated from high school, I remember, there was a crisis with one of my patients, and I ended up getting there late. Annie was so pissed at me, she hadn’t even saved me a seat. I missed the speeches, but at least I was there to see them get their diplomas—sitting by myself up in the balcony of the auditorium. It didn’t seem to bother the kids, but Annie gave me the silent treatment for the next couple of days.

I’m just not sure why, out of the blue, Ariane asked me that about her mother. Is it nerves? Hormones? Or maybe she’s promising herself she’s going to be a different kind of mother—less high-strung, less fly off the handle. Fear of the unknown; that’s probably all that she’s feeling. Annie felt that, too. And when she was in labor, she was mad as hell. . . .

We’re in the delivery room and her labor’s not going well. “Do you see what you’ve done to me? We’re never having sex again! . . .”

But as soon as Ariane was born, she was crying tears of joy. And a few minutes later, when things became touch and go with Andrew—the umbilical cord had gotten wrapped around his neck—she pleaded with the doctor to save her baby. By the time we took them home from the hospital, she was madly in love with those two kids. Possessive of them, even, when my mother came up to help. Mom had planned to stay two weeks, I remember, but she went home after the first one. They’d had a fight while I was at work. “In all my years, no one’s ever spoken to me like that,” Mom told me when I was carrying her suitcase out to the car. She was in tears. “I was just pointing out that they’d be safer on their stomachs when she put them down, and she turned into a crazy woman.” Being a mom just took Annie some getting used to, that was all. Some fine-tuning. It wasn’t the first time she had had one of those little bouts of hers, and it wasn’t the last time either. But when she’d get like that, I’d remind myself about all the upheavals she’d had to weather as a kid. Unexpected change was what always seemed to rile her up. Frighten her. I think that was what was always underneath that anger of hers: her fear. I wonder if Viveca’s ever seen that side of Annie.

“Daddy?” Ariane calls down. “Do you think I need a sweatshirt?”

“No, you should be good.”

But when I go upstairs to change into my trunks, I stuff one into my backpack for her just in case. She’s still my little girl. I like taking care of her, and I love it that she’s here. . . . And hey, I can understand why, when she’s ready to have the baby, she’d want her mother to go out and help her instead of her old man—that maternal thing. But I’m a free agent now. If Annie can’t swing it, I could go out there and pitch in. . . . Okay, Grandpa, you’re getting ahead of yourself. First let’s see how Annie reacts. I just hope she’ll be as cool with it as I
said
she would be. Should I call and give her a heads-up? No, it’s Ariane’s news. She should be the one to tell her.

Let’s see. Do I have everything? Sweatshirt, towels, snacks, sunblock. The beach chairs are already out in the car. I guess that’s it. I grab my stuff and walk down the hall. Poke my head in her room, but she’s not there. “Ariane?”

“In here,” she says. I follow her voice to the unused bedroom where I’ve stashed those paintings I hauled up here. When I unpacked the car after I got here, I stacked them against the wall, but Ari’s laid them out on the king-size bed. “Have you seen these, Daddy?” she asks. “They’re amazing.”

“I not only saw them,” I tell her. “I brought them up here.”

“
You
did? Why? As a favor for Viveca?”

“Nope. She doesn’t even know about them.” She looks at me, confused. “You know that ramshackle old cottage out in back of our house?”

She nods. “Andrew’s secret clubhouse.”

“It was until your mom caught him and his friends messing around down there and had me board the place up,” I remind her.

“I forgot about that. God, when they’d come back up from there, they reeked of weed so badly that you could almost get high from the fumes. Didn’t someone die at that old house once? Drown in a well or something?”