Things Unsaid: A Novel (3 page)

“You know, Julia”—how she hated it when her mother called her that—“until now we were the successful Dr. Bob Whitman and his socialite wife: yours truly. So you’ve never heard
me
talk about money. Only your father. Money, money, money.” Her mother twisted repeatedly at a huge diamond ring, at least two carats—that was just a guess—whenever the word
money
was mentioned. The ring must have been purchased some time ago, though. After one of her parents’ corrosive interchanges. She knew that groove in her mother’s finger as if the ring had carved out a resting place in her own flesh.

“I didn’t marry him for his money,” her mother said.

But didn’t you?
Jules thought to herself. And on this visit all her parents had talked about was money.

“But this!” her mother continued. This was her way of making Jules feel guilty. But Buddhism had been a paradigm shift for her. Or so she hoped. All those years practicing meditation had soothed and comforted her. Yet Buddhists also had an intense sense of obligation: to avoid bad karma. So there was still a price to pay. She had swapped Catholic guilt for Buddhist obligation.
Damn both of them! Neither is going to get me out of this mess!

Jules sucked in her breath. Clutching for calm, she made her voice quieter and tried again. “Didn’t you worry about this before, Mother?” Her right eyelid twitched as she watched Joanne fidget with the paper napkins.

“Your father won’t face his problems. You’ll have to deal with him. He just pays the minimum interest due. He’s always envied your position at Stanford. Or should I say
former
position at Stanford.”

Jules flinched. Of course her mother would have to open old wounds.

“After all we sacrificed for you kids—everything we could give, mind you.”

“You both need to downsize, and fast, Mother. With Joanne and Andrew we can come up with something, I’m sure. Can’t we?” she asked, turning to Joanne. Her sister looked down and took a huge bite out of her tiny tea sandwich, silent. Was anyone else in the family able to see that an emergency intervention was called for?
Hello? Hello? Anyone seeing what I’m seeing?

“You’re the oldest,” her mother said, ignoring her. “And I want you to know I really don’t want anything done for my birthday.” She patted Jules on the cheek, gently, as if she were a little girl again. “Save your money, sweetie. For more important things. I mean it. I just want to hang out today and have a nice visit with my number one daughter.”

When the picnic was done, Megan stood on one side of her grandmother, towering over her, and Sarah planted herself on the other. The two teens smacked their lips loudly against their diminutive grandmother’s cheeks. Jules’s mother gently touched her face where their kisses had landed, looking at Jules, pausing for dramatic effect. Jules remembered her mother stroking her cheeks when she was a child.
When did that stop?

They shopped until her mother said her blood sugar was low and her feet hurt. Just like her Grandma Paulina’s disequilibrium—
debolezza
in Italian. They all knew to be careful when she was feeling this way.

“What about my two sweeties?” her mother said when they had gotten her safely home. “Going to give your favorite grandma a lot of honey for her birthday before you go home to dress up?” They leaped at her obediently, shopping bags in hand.

Before Joanne and the girls left, Jules bent over Sarah and Megan and kissed them good-bye. Whispering in Sarah’s ear, Jules confided, “Now, Grandma has to be the center of attention. You know that. So let’s try to make sure she is in a good mood tonight.”

Sarah’s eyes widened. “But Grandma’s always in a good mood. Like this,” she said, gesturing to her grandmother’s cheerful face, and she flashed a toothy smile. Jules imagined two different women: her mother and her nieces’ grandmother. Or perhaps her mother had stopped being a mother and had decided to devote all her energy to her second chance to love, this time as a grandmother.

When her granddaughters were out of sight, Jules’s mother started fuming. She was a fig leaf—concealing her anger while leaving pretense exposed for everyone but her own family. “It’s
my
birthday … but it doesn’t feel like it at all. Go out to dinner tonight without me.
Forget about the old lady. I just want to be left alone!” she yelled. She started to get undressed, twisting, yanking, and then pulling off her new taupe cashmere sweater. A birthday sweater from her, for her. Very expensive looking. Jules felt herself sinking, as if she had been punched in the stomach. She reached out to her mother—now half-naked, with just a bra and panties on—and with all her upper-body strength, she hugged her, half wishing to push the air out of her mother’s lungs so she couldn’t scream anymore, maybe not even breathe.
You know, a strangling sort of embrace
.

Jules looked over her mother’s shoulder at the beautiful, silver-framed photo prominently displayed on the credenza. A recent photo of Megan and Sarah. Megan reminded Jules of her sister at about the same age. Sarah, thirteen, was a different matter. Organized and careful. Zoë was four years older than Megan and would probably follow in her footsteps and be a psychologist. She used to love how Zoë always wanted to go to her office and watch through the one-way glass window as she tutored kids.
Like mother, like daughter
. Jules fought back tears, but felt their sting anyway.

“I’m not an old lady so don’t treat me like one,” her mother barked, shrugging her off.

The temperature had dropped to the low forties. Very cold for October, despite the sunshine they’d had earlier for their picnic. They were all meeting at the Crab Pot, chosen because of its spectacular views of the water. Joanne had made reservations weeks ago and had requested birthday balloons, singing, and a special cake. And they had preordered oysters Rockefeller, their father’s favorite, as a way of including him in the celebration for the birthday girl.

Jules looked down into the water as they made their way to the restaurant entrance. It was almost pitch black, with no moon. Jules could faintly detect whitecaps in the dark night sea. A storm was coming.

“See that lighthouse over there?” Al asked, pointing in the direction of the light flashing in an arc over the bay. Jules had never liked Al, even less now that he was Joanne’s “estranged” husband.

“Megan just won first prize in a sculpture contest for her interpretation of that lighthouse, combining the themes of water and air, using old deep-sea diving headgear and astronaut suits formed from aluminum foil. She called her sculpture
What Lies beneath the Surface?
”

Jules could hear the pride in Al’s voice. For a moment, just a moment, she understood why Joanne had been attracted to him almost twenty years ago. But he was not the same person anymore.
Then again, neither are any of us
, she thought.
Maybe
he
can help pay for some of the bills
.

Clacking on the boardwalk planks, her mother was the first to speak, walking up behind her and Al: “I didn’t even want to remember my birthday, you know. I wanted to stay home … alone.”

“How
dare
you say that to us,” Joanne said, overhearing their mother’s whining, her voice rising unexpectedly as she caught up with them and they all walked into the Crab Pot.

“But Grandma, don’t you love blowing out candles?” Sarah asked, reaching for her grandma’s hand. “And you’re so lucky to have so many candles—eighty. I wish I were you.”

Her mother cupped Sarah’s face and gently planted a kiss on her forehead. “You are the dearest grandchild anyone could have. If I had known grandchildren would be so much fun, I would have had them first.” She grinned and turned to hug Megan, too. Jules guessed this was so Megan wouldn’t be jealous. She winced.

“Why can’t we have fun now? Just try, as if we were a real family,” Joanne said. The same old script. Hanging her head low so no one else could see her smile unfolding, Jules held her breath.

“That sounds good,” her father said unenthusiastically as waiters came in carrying balloons.

When dinner was done, and the birthday cake was brought in to loud singing from other customers in the restaurant, the girls were at their grandmother’s side.

“You can do it, Grandma,” Megan said. “Blow them out.”

Leaning slowly towards her granddaughters, her mother tapped the top of her head against Sarah’s, then rubbed Megan’s cheeks. “Sweeties, after Julia leaves, we’ll go to Seattle and do whatever you like. I’ll give you some spending money. A girl has to have what she has to have, I always say.”

Sarah wrinkled her brow. “But Grandma, Auntie just got here and you’re already talking about when she’s going to leave. And why are you talking as if Auntie Julie isn’t here?”

Their grandma’s eyebrows jerked up. “Well …” she began, sputtering, not quite losing her voice. “Go ahead. See if I care,” she finally said to no one in particular, gazing unsteadily ahead. Then she turned to Jules, face-to-face, locking onto her eyes: “And remember what I said. You hear me? Don’t do what your father did to his brothers.” Her mother’s voice sounded close to breaking.

Her father sank lower in the banquette, looking out at the water’s view. “Now, Aida, we have three kids. It’s too much for one of them to bail us out alone.”

Joanne squirmed and looked at Al, who refused to meet her eyes. “Mom, I can take out a loan. Somehow. You’ve been the best mom ever. That’s the least I can do. Jules shouldn’t do this all alone. And Andrew needs to pitch in, too. I don’t understand why he didn’t even show up for this!”

Jules was astonished that Joanne looked genuinely perplexed at Andrew’s absence. He never came to visit.

“You two really should move in with me and the girls,” Joanne continued. “I don’t know why you keep turning me down. We would be really cozy together. And we would have quality mommy-daughter time.”

“That
would
be sensible, Mother. You can be that much closer to Sarah and Megan,” Jules said, exhaling deeply.

“You … you got us into this mess,” her mother said, glaring at their father. “And Julia, you have only one child. Joanne has two and Andrew has two—or is it three?—and is expecting another one. And sweet Joanne, don’t take this the wrong way, you hear me? I couldn’t think of anything I would like more than to live with my favorite child. No offense to you, Jules,” she said as she turned to glance at her, as if she were joking. “But your place is just too small for your dad and me. I need more space, so I don’t have to be in the same room with him. And my mother lived with us and I swore I wouldn’t do that to my kids.”

Wonderful Grandma Paulina, her mother’s mother. Like mother, like daughter?

Jules liked to refer to her mother as “Grandma” in front of her nieces. It sounded safer and softer. Like her own grandma.

Grandma Paulina Longo, a Sicilian emigrant, immigrated to the Bronx as a young married woman. A huge gnocchi in a floral-printed housedress, no more than five feet tall but about two hundred pounds and diabetic. Jules’s Grandma Paulina had named her first child after her favorite opera,
Aida
, a tragic tale of vengeance and fury.