Admission (72 page)

“The strange thing is,” she said, “that I kept waiting to feel better about it. I knew it would be hard at the beginning,
but I thought, you know, in time I’d feel better. Even a tiny bit better, even very gradually. But it never happened. I think
it went the other direction, actually. I had to work harder and harder just to not think about what I’d done. And the baby,
of course. And I live in this world of seventeen-year-old kids, you know? Every year, they’re always seventeen years old.
And then one year he was seventeen, too. It just… it made it very hard.”

“Yes,” Mark said. “Losing a child is the hardest thing.”

“But what happened to you is different. Everyone who knows what happened to you feels compassion for you.
I
feel compassion for you. She was taken from you against your will. If you’d had a child who died, there would have been compassion,
of course. But there’s no compassion for a mother who gives up her child. We’re on our own. We can’t even feel compassion
for ourselves.”

She was, by the end of this, speaking through her hands. Her fingers smelled faintly of bleach from the laundry. Her voice
came in jolts, every word produced only with effort. All this time, she realized, she had thought vaguely of the two of them
as equally pained. Now she understood that she had been jealous for years:
Poor Mark, deprived of his child by her lunatic mother, prevented from being the father he was born to be.

“I’ve wronged a lot of people,” she said, as if she were just now reviewing the lists. “But mostly you.”

“Well, I doubt that,” he told her. “But I accept the apology. I only wish you’d felt you could share it with me.”

“You had enough on your plate.” Portia sighed. “The whole Cressida situation was just tearing you up.”

He smiled suddenly. “Cressida is coming to spend her gap year with me. Marcie is beside herself. She applied to Newnham for
law but didn’t get a place. I’m hoping, if she likes it here, maybe she’ll want to stay for university in the States.”

Portia nodded. “That would be nice.”

“Maybe you’d help her with her applications,” Mark said, suddenly a tiny bit shy.

She laughed. “I’d be glad to. If I’m still here.”

Mark looked at her sharply. “You’re leaving Princeton?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Is it work? Or”—he gestured vaguely at the kitchen—“this?”

“I don’t know. Neither. Or both. It’s just something I’m thinking about.” Portia got up and went to the sink. She splashed
water on her face and dried it off. She noted that she was no longer crying. “I suppose I’ll need to get out of this house,
at any rate.”

He looked astonished. “Well, we ought to come to some kind of agreement,” he said carefully. “You’ve been getting our letters,
of course.”

She shrugged. “I’m sorry. I haven’t read them. I’ll listen now if you want to make a proposal.”

Mark ran a hand through his graying hair. The ring caught the overhead light and winked gold. He seemed to be thinking something
through, and it occurred to Portia that the proposal he was now assembling might not be the same one as in his attorney’s
letters.

They talked until late, and through another pot of PG Tips. After the first hour, she went to find a legal pad, and they made
the necessary decisions.

“How’s Helen?” she asked as he was getting ready to leave. She felt quite brave, saying this.

“Okay. Very crabby, actually. She’s on bed rest.”

“Oh?”

“Preterm labor. She had lofty goals of finishing her Woolf book, but she can’t concentrate. So she’s ended up watching a gruesome
amount of daytime television, which sends her blood pressure shooting up and makes the whole situation worse.” He smiled at
this. To her own surprise, Portia smiled, too.

“You’re going to be all right,” he told her, picking up his 1820
Prometheus Unbound,
which Portia had retrieved for him from upstairs. “I’m not sure how I know that, but I know it.”

“Thanks,” she said, smiling awkwardly. “I actually think so, too.”

“And we’ll… I mean, I would like for us to still… you know, be in touch. Be friends.”

For the first time that evening, she lied to him. “Of course.”

He looked relieved.

“I really am glad about Cressida,” Portia said.

“Yes.” Mark shook his head. “But you know, you always told me it would work out eventually. You said if I waited long enough,
she would come to me. Remember?”

“I said that?” said Portia, stunned.

“You did. You said it for years. And you see, it was true.” He reached out and pulled her against him, a tight but thoroughly
unromantic hug. She could smell the old-book smell of the Shelley close to her cheek. “Maybe yours will, too,” he said quietly.

“Maybe,” she said. But that was a lie as well.

“Do you know what it means to leave a thing unfinished?” This is the question pondered by the title character of my favorite
novel, MY NAME IS ASHER LEV. Like Lev, I have given much thought to this question, which is at once a universal question and,
I believe, an inherently Jewish one. For Jews, after all, the world is broken, and hence imperfect. Part of our mission as
human beings who love and believe in our G-d is to act in accordance with tikkun ha-olam, to repair and restore the broken
world with goodness and decency. This should be the mission of every life, Jewish or not.

A
s far as Greenfield, Massachusetts, she had no real intention of making the detour, but there was something about the Vermont
border, drawing closer, that got her thinking. She wasn’t in a hurry, now. She had taken a calm, measured leave, signing papers
in an impersonal legal office on Alexander Road, depositing the check they gave her (drawn, it pained her to note, on the
joint account of Mark Telford and Helen Garrett) in a new account of her own. In the end, she had been the one to relinquish
the house, taking away her things, finally pulling out of the drive in her overstuffed Toyota. She had allowed herself to
be feted by her colleagues at a dinner in Lahiere’s, to which even Corinne had come, and even Clarence, though he was very
careful, very, very careful, to be vague in his good wishes. As far as she could tell, the stated reason for her departure—that
she had decided to return to New England, spend quality time with her mother, and help care for a newborn who had, somewhat
mysteriously, joined the household—was not being challenged. Clarence, it seemed, had indeed contained the truth.

vermont welcome center, read the sign just past the border. Portia knew exactly what was in there: maple syrup, cheese, photographs
of cows, cows, cows. Get used to it, she thought, suppressing a smile. It amazed her to be back, and not just visiting. Susannah
was amazed about it, too, but she was also overwhelmed, caring for Alice and caring for Caitlin, who was also caring for Alice.
Only a month earlier, Frieda had made good on her promise to move out, and Portia’s mother wasn’t going to decline the help.

There wasn’t, quite, a plan, only a semiprecise intention for the future, which included Caitlin commuting to Hanover and
Susannah and Portia taking care of the baby. Susannah hadn’t really engaged with the longer implications of this, but Portia
certainly had: Caitlin, she was sure, might be happy to share the care of her child, share even Alice’s affections—but she
would not give her up. And, of course, she should not give her up. She was going to graduate with a Dartmouth degree and a
four-year-old daughter, and off she would go to live and work and raise her child, and that was as it should be. And Susannah
would have to find, at last, some real thing of her own. And Portia, also, some real thing of her own. But not today.

Today she had driven north on the well-remembered road, passing all the well-remembered landmarks, but by the time she crossed
the border she had begun to feel a distinct gravitational pull: east, across the river and the state line, past a red barn
and a hex sign, into the woods, and on down a dirt road absurdly named Inspiration Way. She drove without a real—or at least
an examined—objective, only a gradual and building sense of being drawn in. But as Portia actually passed the homemade sign
for the Quest School she suddenly remembered to be several things at once: embarrassed, for one, and of course guilty, and
not a little worried about how she would be received.

To her surprise, there were other cars on the dirt road, three of them backed up and waiting where the drive ended at the
small parking lot. This was not unrelated to the fact that something seemed to be happening at the school. Cars were being
directed into a field and parking in an obedient line along the ground. Beyond the barn, an open-sided tent fluttered over
rows of folding chairs. Portia would have liked to turn around, but there was no way to do it until she reached the head of
the line, and when she did, she saw to her chagrin that John was stationed there, greeting the drivers. He looked entirely
shocked to see her, and she decided she had to say something first.

“I think I’ve come at a bad time,” said Portia. “I had no idea you had an event. I’m going to come back.”

“It’s our graduation,” he said, frowning.

“I’ll come back,” she said again.

“No, stay. If Jeremiah knew you were here, he’d want you to stay. I mean, if you can stay.”

There were two cars behind her now. She pulled her own out of the way and cut the ignition. When she got out, he was already
beside her.

“I don’t want to take you away from your post,” she said awkwardly.

“No, it’s all right. I have great faith that our guests will be able to figure out where to park. I’m amazed to see you, you
know.”

“Oh?” said Portia, as if this were not entirely clear.

“Well, I just thought, you know, that was that.”

“I’m sure you were angry,” Portia told him. “And entitled to be.”

“Yes, a little,” he admitted. “But mostly at myself. I mean, disappear on me once, shame on you. Disappear on me twice, shame
on me. I have no idea what’s going on with you. I guess I felt, if you wanted something from me, you know where I am.”

“I do know where you are.” She laughed and held up her hands. “As you see.”

He smiled, too. He was a little slow on the uptake, it seemed. He said: “I see.”

John looked at the car. It was jammed within an inch of its life.

“You always pack this light for a visit?”

“I’m moving to Hartland for a bit, to stay with my mother. Remember that baby she was talking about adopting? She was born
two months ago. She’s called Alice. I’m looking forward to meeting her.”

“How long is ‘a bit’” asked John. “Like, the summer?”

“Like, indefinitely. I’ve left Princeton.”

He looked at her intently. “The university? Or the town?”

“Both. Don’t look so surprised.” She couldn’t help laughing. “It’s not the end of the world. I needed a little shaking up,
that’s all.”

“But… what are you going to do? Will you work at Dartmouth?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Well,” John said, considering, “you could always write a book. Doesn’t everyone who leaves Ivy League admissions write a
‘
how to get into college
’ book?”

She laughed. “I guess. But does the world really need another one?”

“You could help us,” he said, suddenly very serious. “We have twelve kids who are going to be seniors in…” He checked his
watch. “About an hour and ten minutes. We have no idea what we’re doing. They could use a little guidance.”

Cars were rolling past them, Volvos and hybrids, some of them gently rusting, their backseats full of kids and coolers. They
reminded Portia of the families she had grown up with: women alone with Asian daughters, women in pairs, an “It’s a Small
World After All” of ethnicities. In the field beside the great barn, kids were running and screaming. The chairs in the open
tent were in neat rows, but no one was sitting down yet. In and around the barn, students and adults and children were everywhere,
drinking cider and setting up picnic tables, playing volleyball over a sagging net. She saw Deborah, talking intently with
a couple of parents, gesturing so hard with her glass of cider that it sloshed dangerously around the rim. Then she noticed
that Jeremiah was one of the volleyball players, leaping and slapping next to Nelson, who had—as Jeremiah did not—the grace
of a natural athlete. They high-fived each other after every spike.

Portia could feel the late afternoon sun, dry and hot. She tipped up her face and closed her eyes and smiled. She was letting
herself consider what John had said. She was letting herself consider a few things, actually.

“Why don’t you stay?” he asked her. “Come to graduation. Stay for dinner. We have a potluck. We have a band coming later.
You can see Jeremiah. I know he wants to thank you for what you did.”

Portia looked at him, newly alert. “What do you mean?” she said, barely audibly.