Eligible (43 page)

Yet so insistent was Mrs. Bennet that twenty minutes later, at her urging, Kitty and Mr. Bennet had begun the almost five-hour drive to Chicago with what Mrs. Bennet chose to believe was the goal of either preventing the couple’s nuptials or, if it was too late, of separating them and transporting Lydia back to Cincinnati alone. Mary, in the meantime, had been tasked with calling Chicago hotels to check for reservations under Bennet or Ryan, a search that by late Sunday night remained fruitless.

Shortly after Mr. Bennet and Kitty’s departure, Mrs. Bennet had swallowed the expired Valium and retired to bed, and this was where, at ten-thirty
P.M.
, Liz found her. The older woman was weeping with a vigor that appeared unsustainable, yet the voluminous scattering of tissues across the bed, nightstand, and nearby rug suggested that she had been at it for some time; indeed, of the four tissue boxes sitting atop the mattress, two were empty, one was half-empty, and one was as yet unopened but clearly waiting to be deployed. Mrs. Bennet herself was surrounded by flotsam that included a cordless phone, two remote controls (when Liz entered the room, the television was showing an infomercial for a spray-on sealant), a partially consumed three-ounce chocolate bar, a king-sized package of Cheetos reduced to orange crumbs, and a preponderance of throw pillows; on the nightstand were a lowball glass and a bottle of gin. Mary, who had opened the front door of the Tudor and led Liz to their mother’s lair, now stood just inside the room with her arms folded. Liz approached the bed and sat, setting her hand on her mother’s arm. “Hi, Mom.”

Mrs. Bennet shook her head, her cheeks florid and damp. “She’s so pretty,” she said in a mournful voice. “I don’t know why a pretty girl would go and do such a terrible thing.”

“I really think Ham is a good person,” Liz said. “Remember how he helped me clean out our basement?”

“Are there people like this in New York?”

“There are transgender people everywhere,” Liz said. “And there have been throughout history.”

Both in the San Francisco airport and then on her layover in Atlanta, Liz had via her smartphone learned about the
kathoey
in Southeast Asia and the
salzikrum
of the ancient Middle East. Also, she now knew to refer to it as a gender reassignment rather than a sex change, she knew that Ham might well not have had “bottom” surgery (based on her own observations, she strongly suspected he’d had top), and, in any case, she knew to be embarrassed for having asked Mary if Ham had a fake penis; it was, apparently, no less rude to speculate about the genitals of a transgender person than about those of a person who was nontransgender, or cisgender.

As far as she was aware, Liz had, prior to meeting Ham, regularly interacted with only one transgender person, a sixty-something woman who was a copy editor at the magazine where Liz and Jasper had been fact-checkers. Surely, if Liz had learned that anybody in her social circle in New York had eloped with someone transgender, she’d have greeted the news with support; she might even have felt that self-congratulatory pride that heterosexual white people are known to experience due to proximate diversity. So why, she decided, should her feelings be any different for Ham? Especially now that she understood and could disregard the slight evasiveness he’d shown the time Liz had asked about his upbringing in Seattle, or Kitty’s taunting implication that Liz was ignorant of Ham’s true character. Which she didn’t believe she had been, Liz thought. In the air over the wheat fields of Kansas, Liz had concluded that if a Cincinnatian could reinvent herself as a New Yorker, if a child who kept a diary and liked to read could ultimately declare that she was a professional writer, then why was gender not also mutable and elective? The enduring mystery of Ham, really, was how he managed to stand Lydia’s company and how he now planned to do so for a lifetime.

“Five of you,” Mrs. Bennet said, and a fresh wave of tears released themselves. “How is it there are five of you and not one can find a nice, normal, rich man to settle down with?”

“Mom, we’re healthy,” Liz said. “We aren’t drug addicts. Things could be so much worse. And with Dad having been in the hospital, doesn’t it put something like this in perspective?”

“Does Ham get up in the morning and say, ‘Today I’ll wear a dress. No, trousers! No, a dress!’ ”

“I’m pretty sure he’s a guy all the time, Mom. Just think of him like you did before you knew he used to be female.”
Used to be female
—Liz had a hunch such a phrase ought not to be uttered by her newly enlightened self, though she’d check online.

“Mom, you should go to sleep,” Mary said.

“I’m waiting to hear from your father,” Mrs. Bennet said, and Mary said, “He and Kitty are probably going to sleep now, too.”

Mrs. Bennet glared between her daughters. “How selfish you all are,” she said. “Doing what you like without regard to how it reflects on our family name.”

“Okay, I’m done here,” Mary said, and Liz stood, too.

“Mary’s right, Mom,” Liz said. “You should sleep.”

IN THE HALL
outside their mother’s room, Mary said, “I guess all these years, Lydia has been projecting her secret same-sex attraction onto me.”

Liz looked at Mary. “Do you really think that?”

“She has no idea how mean people can be because usually
she’s
the mean one.” The pleasure in Mary’s voice was undisguised. “Living her whole life as this skinny, cutesy blonde—well, she’s about to learn.”

“I don’t think most people who meet Ham have any idea he’s transgender,” Liz said. “Although it also doesn’t seem like either of them is trying to hide it.”

“Exactly,” Mary said. “Because Lydia doesn’t know any better. And trust me, this is the kind of gossip that spreads like wildfire.”

“Lydia and Ham are living their truth,” Liz said. “More power to them.”

IT WAS DISPLEASING
and confusing to be back in her childhood bedroom again so soon after leaving, and especially after its fumigation with chemicals whose ostensible harmlessness Liz was not entirely convinced of. Though she’d been away from Cincinnati for only four nights, Liz also felt a strange envy for the version of herself who had formerly inhabited this room and had, however unwittingly, enchanted Darcy. The net result of her time in California, she feared, had been to decrease his affections. Though moments had seemed promising, something between them had come loose when she’d canceled breakfast and asked him to drive her to the airport.

She thought of texting him to say she’d made it safely back and wished he’d asked her to when he’d dropped her off. But what if, at this very moment, he and Caroline Bingley were sharing a laugh, standing close to each other, with Caroline looking bitchily gorgeous in an expensive frock?

The timing of it all was dreadful yet somehow unsurprising—that on the cusp of finally having an honest conversation with Darcy, an interruption would come from her family, and with the whiff of scandal attached. It was in Liz’s opinion a mistake to see symbolism in one’s own life, but still, the necessity of her abrupt departure from California felt almost punitive; she wondered if she was being karmically reprimanded for her previous treatment of Darcy.

Sleep overtook her eventually. But even then, woven throughout the night’s dreams, her remorse did not abate.

WHEN LIZ ENTERED
her mother’s bedroom in the morning after a run and a shower, it was nearly nine o’clock and her mother was on the phone.

“You should check again,” Mrs. Bennet was saying. “They might have gotten there right after you left.”

It was difficult for Liz to envision her father and Kitty in Chicago. Were they driving up and down Michigan Avenue or wandering on foot around Navy Pier and Grant Park? Were they loitering by the closed courthouse or entering restaurants, showing photos of Ham and Lydia from the screen of Kitty’s phone? Or were they simply, as seemed most likely, in a hotel room, watching television?

“For God’s sake, Fred, you need to find her,” Mrs. Bennet said. “I didn’t sleep a wink last night.” A few seconds passed before Liz realized that the phone call had ended and her mother’s most recent remark was directed at her.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Liz said.

“What’s it called when they slip pills into girls’ drinks?” Mrs. Bennet said. “They do it at fraternity parties. I wonder if that’s how Ham got her to Chicago.”

“Mom, I’m sure he didn’t give her roofies.”

“Here’s a question for you: Which locker room does Ham use when he swims? Because no one at the Cincinnati Country Club would want to change into their bathing suit around a person like that.”

“Ham can put on a bathing suit at home,” Liz said. “There are ways around it. But I bet he uses the men’s locker room. Just think of him as a man, Mom.”

“Lydia will never be able to have babies.” Mrs. Bennet scowled at Liz. “And at the rate you’re going, neither will you.”

“Lydia and Ham can adopt. Or”—it was impossible not to think of Jane—“there are other options.”

Mrs. Bennet shook her head. “When people adopt, God only knows what’s in those genes.”

“God only knows what’s in any of our genes,” Liz said, and Mrs. Bennet drew herself up into a haughty posture.

“I beg your pardon,” she said. “Your father and I both come from very distinguished families.”

“STILL NO WORD
from Lydia?” Jane said.

Liz had brought her laptop and phone to the backyard and was sitting in an ancient patio chair with flaking paint. She said, “Since they didn’t take their cellphones, I assume they’re not planning to be in touch until they get back to Cincinnati.”

What Jane did then was surprising: She laughed. “Lizzy,” Jane said. “Of course Lydia took her phone. She’d sooner lose a limb.”

As soon as Jane said it, Liz realized her sister was correct. “Wow,” she said. “I’m an idiot.”

“I feel like I should be there,” Jane said. “But Mom would take one look at me and know, and this doesn’t seem like the right time for her to find out.”

“You don’t need to come home. Mom’s driving me crazy and Mary’s MIA, but I don’t know what there would be for you to do.”

“It sounds silly, but I keep picturing Ham’s goatee.”