Cameo Lake (23 page)

As soon as we lay quiet, feeling the vibrations grow still and our
pulses slow, the walls were breached and it all came back. Our separate guilts would now and forever be blended by our common sin.

“If we ever do this again, may I suggest we use a bed?”

I chuckled, amazed that either of us could make a joke. Amazed and certain that there would be no third time.

Thirty-one

I
t was harder than I could have imagined to leave. In a few short weeks, Cameo Lake felt as familiar and beloved to me as my own neighborhood. As I bundled up clean and dirty clothes and searched under beds for missing sandals, it felt like a safe harbor from the anticipated turmoil of my return to Providence. As much as I would associate Cameo Lake and this cabin with the anguish of Sean's betrayal, it would equally be the place where I had found some comfort.

I pressed thoughts of last night out of my head with fingertips. The scotch had left me queasy, the memory of last night made me dizzy with the vertiginous dance of guilt and joy. One minute I could blame Sean for driving me into another man's arms and the next be grateful to him. In lockstep with those conflicted thoughts was the steady tramp of knowing I might have done it anyway. At once I dropped onto the glider and burst into tears. I wanted to be with Ben yet I didn't trust my feelings, so certain that they were born of Sean's betrayal. I wanted to heal my marriage, but at the same time I didn't want to because it would mean losing Ben. The weeping ceased and I went into the bathroom to be sick.

* * *

The last thing I loaded into the SUV was my laptop. I had packed it into its protective case, inadvertently reminding myself of Ben putting the flute back so carefully. Treasured items. We had agreed, in the first gray light of day, that we would say our goodbyes then. We would not prolong something which neither of us could reliably say wouldn't be the last time we would see each other. In the hours when we had held on to each other, we had not talked about a future together, only our futures apart. “What will you do?” we had asked each other, and agreed that our central problems needed to be resolved before we dare trust this new thing between us. We didn't say it, but it was implied. Ben was waiting for Talia to die. Until then, he was entailed, voluntarily, willingly. As for me, I needed to decide, with Sean, if our marriage was worth holding on to. If Ben stayed a part of the equation, I could never decide fairly.

“Go home, Cleo, figure it out and whatever course you choose I'll abide by. And be happy for you.”

How had we come to understand each other in such a short time?

I intended to head straight down to Narragansett but didn't. Grace had taken the kids down there, so I knew that my house in Providence would be empty. Empty except for Sean, of course. I needed to talk to Alice, but I needed more, in that moment, to see my home. To sniff the air of my territory and lay claim to it. I'd head down late, join the family at suppertime, and after the dishes were done and the children put to bed, talk to Alice, divine from her the path to take. She had guided me through the difficult ordeal of making funeral arrangements for my parents. “A child shouldn't have to do this,” she said, although I was twenty-one and had never felt like a child. She agreed that we shouldn't delay the wedding, scheduled for less than two months later, stood up against those who raised an eyebrow: “This child needs stability and joy.” Even while my mother was still alive, Alice had mothered me. It hurt very much now to imagine life without her advocacy. If Sean and I split, how would she divide her love? He was blood, I was not.

* * *

After the muted colors of the cabin, the brightness of my kitchen seemed glaring. Everything seemed smaller than memory and it took me a few minutes to adjust my perceptions. The house was neat, a little dusty but not horrible. I dragged the overstuffed bags into the laundry room and loaded the machine. That done, I wandered back through the kitchen to the living room. On the floor, in front of the CD player, was a CD jewel box. We'd been replacing LPs with CDs for years and I vaguely remembered Sean buying the Interior Angles' first album, the one with “Frozen Heart.” The box on the floor, lying there like a dueling glove cast down in challenge, was that CD box. Defiantly I put the CD into the player and let Ben's music loose in my empty house. I walked upstairs to the bedrooms and pulled open Sean's bureau drawers. They, too, were empty. Without any discussion, Sean seemed to have decided that I planned to throw him out. Or had decided he wanted to go.
You will never, no never, be lost to my mind. Frozen forever in my heart.

Leaving the washing machine agitating through the first cycle, I climbed into my own minivan and backed out of the driveway. I needed to see my children and I needed to see Alice.

The traffic wasn't too bad at this time of day on a Saturday. The beach traffic was all heading home and the traffic heading for the beach was thin. I felt the strain of all the driving I'd done this day in the back of my neck, and I hoped that Siobhan would be there and give me one of her back rubs. When I turned down the short street where the cottages were, I could see that only Alice's Oldsmobile was in the drive. Everyone must have gone to the beach and suddenly I was afraid that I would be locked out. The back door, though, was open and Alice was in the kitchen. She was making a pot of tea, almost as if she'd been expecting me. “Hello, Cleo.” I fought back tears as Alice unselfishly gathered me to her in a big hug.

We spoke of the children, of course, waiting until the water was
boiled and steeping in the Brown Betty before getting down to brass tacks, as Alice always called the facts of any situation.

I looked at her as she sat facing the backyard. I thought she looked pale, too pale for someone two weeks at the beach. The lines so deeply embedded in the face of a woman who had raised six children to adulthood and lost three more in infancy were like the telling lines in the cross section of a tree. Did I imagine new ones creasing deeper into troubled cheeks? Aware of my scrutiny, she turned to look at me.

“Your hair wants cutting.” Second-generation Irish-American, Alice's inflections had a shadow lilt to them. Her life, built in an immigrant community bounded by Church and neighborhood, hadn't allowed for much development. Now her neighborhood had changed complexion and the Irish were no longer deprecated newcomers. Others had taken their place on the low rung of the New England caste system. In Alice's life beyond her family, only the Church had remained a constant. We had moved her a few years ago into a two-family house a street from ours when her neighborhood had been all but abandoned and become unsafe. She owned the house and rented the top floor to an African-American family, the Carlsons. They were young and I worried that they would soon be moving into their own house and we'd be looking for new tenants before long.

“I know, I'll get it done next week.”

“You've got to take Sean back.”

I was surprised at that, at the swiftness of her coming to the point. It hurt that Alice was so obviously misunderstanding the real issue.

“Alice, this is his choice. He's the one who left. He's the one who—”

“As did his father before him.”

“So you think that makes it all right?”

“It's the way of a man.”

“That's a pretty outdated concept, Alice. A woman doesn't need to tolerate her husband's infidelities.”

“We marry for life in my family.”

“Not in mine. Some things are not acceptable.”

“You accept a great deal if you want a happy home. Men have needs.”

“I never denied Sean his needs, as you so quaintly put it.”

“It's more than just sex, Cleo. It's the boredom. They need change.”

“Is that what Francis told you. He needed a little change?”

“If you want a happy home, you overlook it. It means nothing to them.”

“Was your home so happy for having tolerated Francis's behavior?”

Alice poured tea for us both, holding the strainer just above the rim of the cup. “I was respected.”

“Not by your husband.” I was instantly sorry. I remembered Francis mostly with fondness, but not once did I ever hear him speak to Alice gently. It was always, “Get me this” and “Find me that.” Never once did I hear him praise her except for a good Sunday dinner, and then a perfunctory and predictable “Good dinner, Alice,” generally followed by a discrete belch.

With no question of divorce, Alice had stayed with him. Helped him go up the ladder of success by pinching pennies, keeping her house so clean it was a showpiece despite the cheap furniture and having baby after baby with him. Never denying him his needs. And still he wandered. Not quite blatant, but never entirely discreet. The way of a man.

“When a woman can point and say, ‘These are my children, this is my house, this is my husband,’ she is respected. Francis wasn't an easy man, but he did love me. And Sean loves you.”

“Sean said that?”

“Not in so many words. But he's not happy.”

“You mean he's not happy with me?”

“That's not what I mean. He's unhappy he's caused this . . .” She hunted for the word. “. . . this disturbance. Trust me, I'm his mother and I know it.”

“I'm glad it makes him unhappy.”

“He wants your forgiveness.”

“I gave it to him once before. I'm not sure I have it in me to do it a second time. Besides, I'm not sure he does want my forgiveness.”

“I know my son.” As if we were discussing what to have for dinner,-Alice sipped her cup of tea. Then set it down in the chipped saucer. “Would you and Sean please go talk to Father Pete? He's a good confessor and surely can help get you two back on track.”

“Alice, I'm going to tell you what I'm sure Sean already has. Father Pete is a million light years away from being able to help us. He's ninety if he's a day, and celibate.”

“That has no bearing.”

“No, in your world, of course not. But even so, he's not even a counselor.”

“Marriage counselor you mean? Well, maybe not by license, but he's counseled many a couple into remembering their vows.”

The word
vows
pained me, knowing my own breaking of the marriage covenant, knowing the words of the marriage service say nothing about tit for tat. Keep thee only unto him unless he screws his secretary. I shook a little more sugar into my cup of tea and kept my eyes on the process. Could I have ever imagined that I would so deliberately break my vows? Was it deliberate or liberating? And yet, when I thought of Ben, thought of what we had done together, I didn't get any sense of retribution, of imposing some kind of punishment on Sean. It was a separate thing altogether. Beyond the physical act, there was an ineffably sweet memory of fulfilled emotional need. Sitting here at a small kitchen table in a rented cottage with my mother-in-law, I was filled with fear, terrified that I would imbue my relationship with Ben with qualities which were born of my marital turmoil, and hence, not to be trusted. How could I ever know if what I felt for Ben was real or the product of anger, disappointment, and the willing arms of a new friend?

“Alice, I promise that we'll get counseling. But I don't think I can live with Sean right now.”