The Widower's Tale (34 page)

Had he resented that celebration more than he knew? They'd gone to Harvest, the totally overpriced restaurant where you were likely to see half your professors with their spouses (which was sort of like seeing them in their underwear, no matter how curious you thought you were). The food was pretty great--even if you couldn't have wine because places like that would have carded the pope--and he and Clara had split the check without any weirdness. Clara looked incredibly pretty in the candlelight. They'd gone back to the apartment and drunk champagne in his bedroom, naked.

Turo had knocked on the door at 2:00 a.m., wanting to borrow the car. Robert had said no, not at that hour. Turo hadn't seemed pissed, but the next day he teased Robert mercilessly about his "little wife."

"Been there, done that, right?" Robert teased back.

"On the contrary, my friend.
That
scene I reserve for the future."

"Your mail-order bride, once you secure the hacienda?"

"Ouch, man."

Robert had grinned at Turo across their kitchen table. "You started it."

"Hey. Clara is a catch. You know it."

"So come on. You have to be shagging that eco-babe. Miss OTF?"

Turo had looked puzzled for a moment, then whistled, long and low. "Robert, my friend, I thought you knew me better than that. Miss Tats and Manifestos? I do not mix business with sex. NFW.
Negativo
. Nyetzka."

They cracked up. Though he couldn't say exactly why, Robert was secretly relieved that Tamara was just a colleague to Turo.

As if guessing at, and misinterpreting, Robert's relief, Turo leaned across the table and kissed him on the forehead. "You, you are the closest thing I have to a wife these days. Perhaps I lie in wait for the end of your cozy duet with the estimable Clara. One day perhaps she'll wake up beside you and think you're not good enough for her."

Turo had rolled a joint; against his better instincts, Robert had shared it. By nine o'clock, he'd eaten a bag of cashews that were meant for a stir-fry later that week and fallen dead asleep. Clara had been hurt--just a little, she said in the e-mail he found next morning--that he'd forgotten to call her. Hadn't they had a wonderful anniversary?

"It was perfect, totally sweet," he'd said, calling her as soon as he got the e-mail. But maybe that had been the beginning of the end.

And maybe the end of the end had also passed without his fully knowing.

As so often throughout his childhood, Robert heard his mother downstairs, switching off the lights. She was almost always the last to go to bed.

Staring at the ceiling, he marveled at the radiance cast by the snow surrounding Granddad's house. He began to consider that maybe his mother had never recovered, deep down, from her own mother's sudden, premature death. Maybe her amazing efficiency, her professional cool, was like loneliness turned inside out. This grandmother Robert had never known was remembered by everyone as a colorful, universally loved, almost heroic figure, her death extra-tragic because her life had been so
special
. They'd talk about all the plans she had yet to fulfill. The tragedy to Mom--and Clover--nobody said too much about that.

Jesus, he thought now, to have lost your mother way too early--and then a daughter before she was even your daughter? What the hell could Robert know about living through stuff like that?

Granddad and Robert's father sat at the heads of the table. Robert sat between Sarah and his cousin Filo; across the table sat Mom, between Lee and Turo. Clover was between his dad and Norval Sorenson, Mrs. Sorenson on the other side of Sarah (Rico wedged between them).

Robert figured they had Sarah to thank for his father's failure to stage a conflagration. She'd organized a buffet in the kitchen so everyone could fill a plate and proceed to the dining room, where the table was a traffic jam of goblets, water glasses, candlesticks, flowers, and dishes of relish.

Once they were all in their places (was this Sarah's elegant script on these tiny red cards?), Granddad stood. He always dressed up for holidays, but this time he looked downright flashy: his shirt green like the inside of a dinner mint, his orange bow tie so huge it resembled an explosion. He waited till everyone was looking at him and said, "Thankful yet again. We do this over and over, don't we? Year after year. And isn't that
something."
He laughed. He glanced at Sarah.

The tradition was for each person to stand, starting with Granddad, and name something he or she was thankful for that year. Ordinarily, Granddad issued thanks for a "not" (not living in a nursing home, not having a child in Iraq, not being senile or not knowing if he was). This set the tone for a David Letterman kind of list from everyone else.

This year, however, Granddad said, "Everything. With a codicil here and a caveat there, I am thankful for everything." He sat down.

Robert's mother and Clover looked stunned, almost alarmed. Filo and Lee giggled. Lee was up next.

"Um, that I got onto A-squad soccer." ("Stand up," whispered Clover. Belatedly, he stood and then sat.)

Robert's mother was thankful for his father. Turo was (obsequiously) grateful for the invitation to dinner. Mr. Sorenson was glad to have a bookstore in the black, Clover to be loved by "both of my wonderful families" (never mind the dark expression on her sister's face).

Robert's dad sprang to his feet and held both arms out, like a conductor. "Call me unimaginative, but I'm just going to echo my sister-in-law. As my son might say, I am one righteously fortunate dude."

Mrs. Sorenson was thankful for a year of good health and prosperity in a world where so few people enjoyed either. Rico, after his mother whispered something in his ear, said, "I love turkey!" Laughter, agreement, fond gazes.

Then Sarah stood. "I am a woman who counts her blessings daily, yet I did not know how blessed I could be until this fall: until this enchanted place came into my son's life and, because of it, Percy came into mine."

"Yowza," Robert whispered. Then he was on his feet. "Yeah, well, Granddad, she's right. You're the man. This is the place. To you." He raised his goblet, though the thanks weren't meant to be toasts.

Arms rose. Robert's dad said, "Hear, hear." Glasses clinked.

And then everyone began talking all at once, lifting knives and forks, and like a symphony, the feast began.

Robert turned to his forgotten cousin, Filo, and whispered, "I sorta screwed up there. You want your turn?"

"Jeez no," she whispered back.

"But tell me what you're thankful for. You have to tell someone or it's bad luck."

She put her mouth close to his ear. "That my dad's getting married again."

Robert leaned forward to see her expression. She was serious. "You would not have said that."

"Duh," she said. "I'd have said I was thankful for getting to go to horseback-riding camp last summer. Which was here, with Mom. And it was really great. I'm going to do it again next summer. After the wedding."

Robert had actually forgotten the Todd news, which he'd heard from his mom. He glanced at Aunt Clover. She looked happy as could be; Turo was flirting with her in a courtly way (Fred Astaire ascendant) while Mr. Sorenson looked on, bemused. They were talking about the pros and cons of woodstoves. Was Turo capable of thinking about anything other than carbon emissions?

Granddad was teasing Filo about her newly pierced ears. She kept reaching up to touch them. "Do people mistake you for a gypsy?" he was saying. "Many people think they long to be gypsies, without the slightest notion of what that actually means. Let me tell you a thing or two about gypsies."

And then, to Robert's left, Sarah spoke. "Are you really on the path to becoming a doctor? Because I've looked at that tree house and I'm skeptical. I think you're a born artisan."

This close, she had shockingly fantastic eyes: blue but also gray. Atlantic Ocean eyes. She had a lot of lines around those eyes, half worry, half laughter. Wild, wiry hair, like Clover's but dark. A big, Carrie Bradshaw nose.

"You think so," said Robert.

"Know so," said Sarah.

"Tell it to my parents, who probably expect a return on their investment. And for the record, I was the contractor, not the designer."

She looked at him steadily, smiling.

"You're giving me that 'oh to be young again' look," he said.

"You're right," said Sarah. "Because I started out sure of becoming a lawyer. Change the world by changing the rules. But I had a smart, intrusive mentor, this sculpture teacher in college. He convinced me that, in the end, the rules--those kinds of rules--don't budge. Or not much. Most of the time, the rules change the lawmakers more than vice versa."

"So I've heard." Robert glanced at Turo. He was debating something, intently, with Dad and Mr. Sorenson. "But with medicine, the diseases don't treat the physicians. And physicians work with actual people, not words meant to, like, regulate those people's lives. People, sooner or later, they do budge."

"Or die." Sarah had a great laugh. She laughed from deep inside, the way a singer would laugh.

"There's a business to medicine, but that's something else." He sensed that his mother was listening in. Except when she'd asked him to fetch a load of firewood that morning, they hadn't spoken since the trip to Ledgely. He couldn't tell if she was avoiding him, but boy was she avoiding her sister. (Would everything feel different now if Granddad hadn't forgotten the wine?)

Next to his mother, Lee looked completely bored. He was trailing his fork through the gingered yams and humming Coldplay. Robert leaned across. "So hey. Want to go cross-country skiing with me and Turo? Tonight?" To Robert's surprise, Granddad had mentioned the ski-and-boots dilemma to Mr. Sorenson, and he'd brought along three pairs of skis and boots.

"Never done that," said Lee.

"Piece of cake," said Robert. "The trail out back is mostly flat."

"Cool." He resumed sculpting his yams.

Robert said, "That's great about the soccer team."

"Yeah."

"You still doing the soup kitchen thing with your dad?"

"Yeah. Building my character." He smirked.

"Seconds, anyone?" Robert's dad announced. "No one's holding
me
back." One by one, people stood, holding their plates. They groaned and went through that ritual of saying they shouldn't but it was all just too good....

As Robert stood, his mother called to him. She'd gone to the living room to put a log on the fire. "Robert, could you help me out a minute?"

She was using the tongs, trying to maneuver the log into place. As she handed the tongs to Robert, the brief look she gave him was sad. She said quietly, "I was harsh with you last night. I'm sorry."

"Mom, forget it. You were right about a lot of stuff."

"Sometimes I think I'm too right for my own good."

He lowered his voice. "So give Aunt Clover a break, will you?"

She stood up and looked at him. "That is not a matter for negotiation between us. Between you and me."

Robert's dad entered the room and said, "Hey, you two. I made enough for everyone to eat themselves into a stupor. Get with the program!"

Obedient, they took their plates to the kitchen.

And somehow, through dessert and coffee, and more dessert, and the sky going dark, and a dozen more logs thrown on the fire, no one got into a fight.

The only tension, possibly experienced by Robert alone, was when his dad brought up the latest story related to the DOGS. Another suburban home, but this one out near Northampton. The entire facade of a very large house had been papered, seamlessly, with pages from the
New York Times
(allegedly taken from stacks in the garage). One by one, the sheets had been staple-gunned to the clapboards and window frames. Across the vast expanse of newsprint, someone had painted, in lime green, ALL THE NEWS THAT'S FIT TO PULP A FOREST.

Granddad laughed wickedly. "The crusaders appear to be migrating west."

Robert's mother sighed. "The crusaders appear to be getting redundant."

"A bit sophomoric, that one," said Mrs. Sorenson.

"They might have had an easier time wrapping the house in toilet paper. Same message, less effort," said Mom. "And really, newsprint these days is largely postconsumer, isn't it?"

Robert made every effort not to look at Turo, but then Turo spoke. "You're forgetting about the inks and their by-products--and have you ever seen a plant that creates 'recycled' paper? Or smelled it?" Turo's smile was arch. "You'd be deluding yourself to think it's a process low on energy or pollutants."

Robert felt a pulsating heat in his cheeks and forehead.

"One more incident like that in Matlock," said Clover, "and Katy bar the door. I hear the selectpersons have started a fund to hire an investigative team."

"Ooh,
CSI
in Matlock! Way cool, dudes," said Robert's father.

To Robert's horror, Dad actually winked at him. The smile Robert returned made his face feel like a rubber Halloween mask.

He knew there was no way Turo had been involved in that particular mission, at least not in terms of his presence. This made the whole DOGS operation suddenly more real to Robert. At one point, he had entertained the notion that Turo was it, the whole shebang. Like one of those circus musicians who plays a dozen instruments at once.