Blame: A Novel (23 page)

Oh, Audrey. Even if I wanted kids, I don’t deserve them, Patsy said. And don’t argue with me. It’s not something I can explain.

You deserve kids as much as anybody, and you might change your mind.

I won’t, said Patsy.

If Audrey had pushed her, Patsy would’ve said she’d chosen a career over having children, but really, the accident had complicated her desire for children. How dare she have a child when she’d killed someone else’s? She saw a time in the future when people would say, You know, she never had any children of her own, and that gave her a small shot of satisfaction, to imagine the sacrifice made and acknowledged.

After digging up the thick, soil-encrusted rhizomes, the women broke them apart, the interior root a startling creamy white.

Well, I’ll be blunt, Audrey said. I can only say these things before you marry, never afterward. I find May-December pairings unseemly. Men with women their children’s age, and women wanting daddies and money. To me, marriage is between equals who can build a life together. I’d want equality, parity. And I’m too selfish. I could never take on someone else’s family. I’m willing to think that you two have your own reasons. But I have to put this on the table.

Audrey, I want to spend what time I can with Cal. What time there is.

Time? Time you have. Thirty-five, forty years. Longer than you’ve been alive! Cal may seem old to you, but he’s not even sixty-five! Look at our father. At ninety-two he knows the balance in all his accounts—it’s the great-grandkids’ names he can’t keep straight. Cal’s here for the long haul. You have to be sure he’s what you want. You’re at such different stages in life. You’re really coming into your own—why hide your light under a rosebush in Flintridge?

Actually, Patsy said, the age difference works in my favor. Men my age are so competitive. They don’t want an equal, let alone anyone smarter. At Berkeley, guys said I was too opinionated. Or take Brice—he’d say, go easy on the polysyllables, Pats, they make a guy feel dumb. Cal’s beyond all that. He wants me to have my career. And he’s not fusty at all. Brice is far fustier than Cal.

Amen, sister, cried Gilles from inside the house.

Somebody woke up, Audrey said.

Also, I don’t know another straight man who’s as relaxed around gays.

Cal doesn’t care about that. Audrey motioned Patsy farther into the iris bed so Gilles couldn’t hear. But my life is no place for a thirty-two-year-old. Golf, library luncheons, hospital benefits. The geriatric card leagues loom. That’s our gang, Cal’s and mine. The time may come when you want
more
. . .

I can’t imagine what
more
might be, said Patsy. Cal is simply the best man I’ve ever met. He’s never been anything but affectionate—and steady. Shows up when he says he will. No on-again, off-again crazy-making stuff.

But those are mere fundamentals. Why would you get near a man that doesn’t show up or makes you crazy?

Patsy pried a thick corm from the dirt. Still, I have yet to see anything I can’t tolerate.

You will, you will. And it will probably be what you most admire now. His goodness might eventually grate on you. You might want him to pay less attention to the wounded birds of the world and a little more to you. His children wish that.

But he and I are on the same page there. Part of sobriety is helping others.

Cal does like to help people, Audrey said with dryness. But you don’t strike me as someone who needs it.

Me? Are you kidding?

What do I know? Audrey said, stabbing the ground with her trowel. You’re determined, and you’ve been very patient. I would hate myself if I didn’t speak up and you were unhappy down the line. But that’s it. I’ve had my say. And don’t think you can’t come complaining to me, because you can. I’ll never say I told you so. No marriage is perfect, and you’ll need an outlet.

Expect it, Patsy said, and, ducking under the brim of Audrey’s hat, kissed her soft, pale cheek.

I had my beautiful years, Gilles said. I would look around, Patsy, and nobody had eyelashes as thick, or such lips. Only babies had skin like mine. I used to look at my arms and think, How come I was so lovely—me, of all people? But then these disgusting wiry hairs popped out on my legs and I thickened up all over. So repulsive. Mother told me I would look like Auntie. Terrifying.

But he’s great-looking.

In that gross, thick-necked bull elk kind of way. You know, he was a beautiful boy too. Have mother show you pictures. I don’t know how the pervs missed him. Maybe they didn’t.

Gilles slept, and Patsy sat with Audrey in the garden room, where Audrey talked and talked. Talking was her métier. It momentarily eased her anxiety, which was tremendous, and she was good at it. She talked about her childhood in Boston, of Cal and her marriage and all about Gilles. He was such a sweet and beautiful baby, it was all I could do not to put him in dresses.

Patsy kept her apartment at the Lyster for the time being. She gave her tenants another year’s lease on the Pomelo Street house. Now, driving through Audrey’s neighborhood and Sarah’s, she watched for
FOR SALE
signs and a house she and Cal might want to buy.

Patsy’s father came down to meet everyone. He and Cal knew people in common, businessmen in Bakersfield and some AA lions.

Sure this is what you want, Pats? her father said.

It’s what I want, she said.

I won’t state the obvious. But I do wonder what the rush is.

Gilles, Patsy said. We want him at the wedding, Dad. Gilles is the rush.

•

Cal and Patsy drove up to Montecito on a cold, clear wintry afternoon to have dinner with his older daughter, Roberta, a cardiologist, who lived with her surgeon husband and their two-year-old daughter Minnie in a white stucco-and-glass Modernist hillside home above the Pacific.

Roberta and Patsy were close in age—Patsy was younger by three years. Audrey had put in a good word on Patsy’s behalf, so Roberta was inclined to kindness. Together in the kitchen, the two talked about Gilles.

I like Dr. Truescorff, Patsy said. Gilles loves her.

I met her when I was down, said Roberta. She’s superb.

The child of beauties, Roberta did nothing but scrub her clear skin and blow-dry her thick brown hair—no makeup, no perm. She was brisk in the way of doctors, athletic and precise, setting the table with an appealing economy of movement, tossing the salad with small, precise rotations.

Gilles also said many good things about you, said Roberta.

I wish March liked me half so well.

Yes, March, Roberta said. Well. I’ll see what I can do.

The ocean had a metallic sheen; the islands were dull blue. Patsy had almost this view from the fire camp barracks, still less than a year ago.

Roberta handed her a glass of sparkling water.

•

Cal said, It’s time.

March was home for the weekend. And the boys were gone.

Cal had asked March to help him cook; despite her vegetarianism, they made his staple meal, steaks, baked potato, garlic bread, and set the table in the kitchen. Patsy sat across from them. March perched sideways on her chair, poised to bolt. Cal gave Patsy a bright, hopeful look.

How do you like Thacher? Patsy asked, about her boarding school in Ojai.

March gazed off to one side. I have to go to the bathroom, she said, and left.

Cal and Patsy waited, and when she didn’t return, Cal went looking for her. Soon Patsy heard their voices. March’s rose.

I don’t have to.

Just send me back to school, then.

But, Dad, she’s a murderer. She killed two people, in case you didn’t know.

He took her deeper into the house, out of earshot. Patsy sat at the table for a while, then walked around the kitchen. She didn’t know where they’d gone and didn’t want it to appear as if she were looking for them, so she walked down to the barn and patted Cinder’s humid muzzle and put her cheek against the mare’s dusty coat. But Cinder was not an affectionate horse and drew away to nose her feedbox for stray crumbs of rolled corn.

•

Gilles said, She’d hate anybody Auntie chose. She hates everybody, anyway. Ever since that dog.

Audrey said, Do all the right things, and someday, with luck, she’ll see that you behaved admirably. That’s the best you can hope for.

Cal said, She’s probably one of us.

He meant alcoholic. Restless, irritable, and discontent. Only she had not yet discovered the magic potion that would make her at home in the world.

Silver said, Her mother has recently died, and her father, whom she needs very much, is choosing to love someone else instead.

But I would never—

I am telling you what feels true for her. So you can be cognizant of her suffering. Which is enormous, and real.

Patsy began to boom with guilt, that familiar grimy darkness.

Silver’s low voice persisted. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get married. Or that she gets to call the shots. But you need to be aware of what she’s going through.

All right, Patsy said. But it hasn’t even occurred to her she might be gaining a mother. And one who’s not strung out on pills and alcohol, someone who can actually pay attention to her and love her.

She has a mother, Patsy, Silver said with discernible curtness. Her mother may be dead, and she may have been a terrible drug addict and
alcoholic. But that’s her mother. You will never be her mother. You may, in time, be a friend. If you play your cards right and wait her out.

That’s what I don’t know how to do. No card I play seems right.

She needs room, Patsy. Lots and lots of room.

•

The wedding was set for an April day in Audrey’s garden. The day before, as Audrey and Patsy were puzzling out the dinner seating, Brice came into the kitchen. His highness requests your presence, Pats.

Gilles was in his bedroom, whose French doors opened to the brick patio and swimming pool. With hives again from a drug reaction and a large Kaposi’s lesion on his neck, he was hiding out from the florists and rental people.

You rang, your honor? she said.

Sit down, Patsy, he said, his voice low. Here, where I can see you. I have an amends to make to you.

I doubt that, Patsy said. You are my angel.

No, listen. And let me talk. He settled a dark, bottomless gaze on her. Way back when Brice and I were fixing up your apartment, Brice talked so much about you, I decided that you and Auntie should get together.

Oh you did, did you? Patsy gave his bedspread a playful tug.

Don’t interrupt, he said. Aunt Peggy died, and Mother said Auntie would marry again within the year, ’cause that’s what he did after Marjorie. Didn’t let the bed get cold. Even before I met you, I decided you were It. In person, you were even better than I thought, so gorgeous and tall. No, let me finish. There was difficulty at the beginning, like the
I Ching
says. I’d talk about you to him, and he wouldn’t bite. I’d talk about him to you, and you’d look bored. I told him he should take you out. No go. Then I said you had a bad boyfriend and needed cheering up—that caught his attention. So I hauled us all up to the club when he would be there, and he finally asked you to go riding. I made him come to your student party, and it was my idea to invite you to his house for dinner.

Aha! So absolutely no free will was involved! Patsy said.

Auntie became willing, but nothing was his idea. He was in a fog. I probably could’ve foisted Rajid on him and he would’ve gone along with it.

Then I can only be grateful to you, Patsy said, for foisting me instead.

Yes. But, Patsy, I wasn’t really thinking what might be best for you. I never thought that it would actually take. I’m afraid I railroaded you into something you might regret, and I feel terrible.

Don’t be ridiculous.

No, seriously, Patsy. You don’t have to go through with it if you don’t want to. Nobody would hold it against you.

Patsy burst out laughing. Now you tell me!

I feel so responsible, said Gilles. Seriously.

Cal and I—we’re grown-ups, remember?

I was playing a game, Patsy, like I was in a movie, like
The Parent Trap
.

And it worked! she said. Thank god.

But maybe your painter was better for you. Or someone else would’ve been. Gilles, agitated, shook his head. Auntie’s so straight, Patsy. And so old.

Not that old, Patsy said. Not even sixty-five.

Also, I feel really bad for March.

•

Patsy had a restless night, roaming her bedroom, reconfiguring her history with Cal. She didn’t worry about or even credit Gilles’s alleged meddling; it was her own meddling that concerned her: How dare she invade the Sharp family circle and cause the girl distress?

Deep in the early morning, Patsy resolved to give Cal up, for March’s sake. She would sell her house, quit her job, and move to London or Paris, some true city of refuge, where she wouldn’t run into her victims’ family in the produce market and teenage girls wouldn’t call her a murderer.

She must have slept through the alarm. The sun was up when she awoke. She recalled her decision to cancel the wedding, but not the emotions or logic that fueled it. Cal’s call came as she lay on her bed; his kind, lovely voice summoned her back to the crush of last-minute details and ongoing heartbreak. Her wedding day.

•

Forty people came for the ceremony, and all but one stayed for the dinner. Mark Parnham slipped out after the kiss. Her father, reunited with Genie, shared a table with Burt, reunited with Bonnie, and their kids.

All of Cal’s children were there, dressed up and kind to Patsy—even March, who allowed and returned a rustling embrace in the receiving line. Roberta, whom March revered, had come down with little Minnie, taken March shopping, bought her a lavender voile dress.

The newlyweds did not go on a honeymoon, because Gilles’s condition was so grave. He was down to a hundred and five pounds, always fatigued. He sat in the sun, wrapped in the old rag in a wheelchair on the patio, and spent hours in conversation with Brice. Patsy and Audrey saw them by the pool or fig tree, Brice taking notes on a yellow legal pad.