Love Walked In (28 page)

“I was delusional,” her mother said matter-of-factly, “The color of the hotel drapes meant one thing, the expression on the face of a chambermaid meant another. There was a man”—she broke off, looked at Clare, then started again—“a stranger I thought was someone else, a man I’d known years ago.” She drew her arms tightly around herself. “Thank God he turned out to be decent. He didn’t—hurt me, although I might have scared him half to death.

“Once, I thought about killing myself,” she went on. Clare felt suddenly cold. “More than once. But once, I got as far as slinging a belt around a light fixture.”

Her voice cracked. “Oh, Clarey, all I did was sit staring at it. I don’t think I was close at all, not really.” Hearing this should have made Clare feel better but, instead, she felt herself grow colder, pull away. She managed to nod. Her mother went on. “And the maid just took it down without a word or a glance, coiled it up like a snake and set it on the dresser.” Her mother seemed amazed, as though this were the truly shocking event.

“It ended with my knocking on room doors in the middle of the night, asking crazy questions. People slammed their doors, called security. But one woman, her name was May, she took one look at me and pulled me inside. Can you imagine that? The compassion of it?” Her eyes grew misty.

The woman had used her computer to find a psychiatric facility nearby. “Not a madhouse,” said Clare’s mother. “A good place, thank God.”

And some doctors had given her medicine and others had coaxed her into talking, and it had taken a while for her to come back to herself.

“And the minute I could, I called. Home, first. Then, Martin’s. Then, around. Friends. Damn holidays, though, so many people were away. The Merry Christmas messages on their answering machines felt cruel, like slaps. I was still so dull from the drugs; we hadn’t hit the right balance yet. Finally, I called Martin at work, and they told me he was dead and that you, Clare, were with Cornelia.”

She shook her head, as though shaking something off. “Anyway, I found you.”

Then, as Clare watched, her mother began to cry, first silently, and then with panting, jagged sobs. “I am so sorry, Clare.” She repeated it several times.

Clare pressed herself against the back of the sofa; the image of her mother in the car, crying and saying she was sorry for everything, flashed into her mind.

“Stop crying. Please, stop.” Her voice was a rough whisper. She saw Cornelia straighten and put a hand on each arm of her chair as though preparing to stand.

“I don’t like that crying, Mom. Please, stop.” Clare’s voice was growing shrill.

Her mother stopped. Clare could see her wiping her face, swallowing her sobs. Then her mother turned to Cornelia. “I want to thank you. For everything. I know Martin—” She broke off. “I know Clare needed you. Thank you.”

Cornelia’s eyes filled with tears, and she shook her head but didn’t speak.

“I’m better now, Clare,” said Clare’s mother, “and I want to take you home.”

Of course, thought Clare. Of course this is what would happen. It’s what was supposed to happen. Her mother would come and take her home. But a wave of nausea rolled over her and, with it, the old raging, spinning storm of fear. “Cornelia,” Clare said faintly, and Cornelia was there kneeling in front of her, her arms tight around her. Clare felt as though Cornelia’s arms were the only thing keeping her from blowing away.

“I can’t,” Clare gasped out. “I can’t go yet. I’m scared to go. I can’t.” Cornelia rocked her and said, “Shh, it’ll be OK, honey. It’ll be OK.”

Clare heard her mother stand, and she looked up. Her mother’s face was desolate, but Clare couldn’t go to her.

“I’ll get a hotel. I’ll come back in the morning. We’ll talk then, OK?” Her voice was so sad. Terror shot through Clare.

“No,” she almost yelled. “You can’t go away again.”

Cornelia said, firmly, “No. Let me go talk to my mother. You’ll stay with us.”

When she was gone, Clare’s mother pulled Clare onto her lap, and Clare curled up there, and they sat that way for a long time. Clare didn’t want to talk. She only wanted to be held in these arms that were the first arms ever to hold her, against the familiar shape of this body. If they didn’t speak, just touched, her mother could be the woman Clare was safe with, the one she’d always known.

It
was my mother’s mother, a woman dead since my mother was twenty years old, who’d done it. Who’d put the hard bewildering fury I’d heard on the porch that night into my mother’s voice. Into her heart, too.

When I was a kid, eleven or so, about the time I began to wear “Cornelia” like a rash, I’d asked my mother what she could have been thinking. Why had she named me after a great-aunt whose chief claims to fame were having perfect attendance from kindergarten through graduation and inventing an apple bundt cake the secret ingredient of which was chicken fat? Why hadn’t I been named after my maternal grandmother, for instance? Susan. Susan I could have used.

And I’d seen it then, just a flash of glinting, diamond-hard anger. Heard it, as well, when my mother snapped, “I didn’t spend two seconds considering Susan as a name.” When my mother smiled and said in her ordinary voice, “And perfect attendance is no mean feat,” I had let it drop, believing the early deaths of mothers to be reason enough for anything and a mystery best left unfathomed by the likes of me.

And that was part of it, the early death, but not the most of it. The most of it was what came before the death.

“She was a drunk,” said my mother bluntly after I’d left Clare and her mother at Mrs. Goldberg’s and run home to find her stoking up the fire in the fireplace like a person killing something. “Today, they call it self-medicating.”

My father walked into the room to hear this, and he said, angrily, “Cornelia, don’t.”

“I didn’t,” I said. And I hadn’t. But I did want to know, to have the moment cracked open like that smoldering log, so that I could see whatever fire was inside.

My mother straightened, and my father went over and took the fireplace poker out of her hand. “B,” she said tenderly, “it’s all right.”

My grandmother had been a drunk, a wild one, but even when she wasn’t drunk the wildness could take her over like a demon. She’d yanked the shelves out of the refrigerator once, letting what they held crash to the floor. When my mother told me this, she didn’t even blink. This and more. This and worse.

“I swore nothing like that would ever touch this family,” and her whole body tilted forward when she said it, so great was her ferocity. It was the scene in
Gone With the Wind
, Scarlett raising her fist into the air, Georgia in ashes around her, the morning sun turning the world red.

When she said that, I understood. I saw the truth all at once, like an image on a movie screen, how this single statement, my mother’s resolve, ran like a strong, rigid seam through the foundation of this house, through the supporting walls and wooden beams, and through the upbeat normalcy of every single day.

My mother walked out, then, and my father sat down beside me, staring into the fire.

“It’s what she’s been protecting us from all this time,” I said with wonder in my voice.

My usually mild father shot me a look and said, almost viciously, gesturing around the room, “Did you think all this was for free? Happiness isn’t what happens when you whistle along, pretending bad things don’t exist. No, don’t say anything, Cornelia. I know that’s what you think goes on in this house. But you’re wrong. Happiness is
earned
, like everything else. It’s achieved. The problem is that your mother’s made it look too easy. Which is exactly what she wanted.” It had to be the longest speech he’d ever made to me. When it was over, he pulled my head toward him and kissed me. He stood to leave, then turned back.

“And invite Clare’s mother to stay. Toby’ll double up with Cam.”

“It’s OK with Mom?”

“I don’t know if it’s OK. But she’s already vacuumed, dusted, cleared out a couple of drawers, and changed the sheets.”

When
I went to bed that night, there was too much in my head to let me sleep: Viviana, Teo, Clare, my mother, and my grandmother jostling for space, struggling to get heard, sending their voices echoing. So when, without a word, Clare came in and lay down next to me, I was still awake and, without a word, I rubbed her back until she fell asleep.

“I
said, ‘Hayesy, get thee to a winery!’”

Linny and I were in a café downtown eating lunch. I’d seen a flicker of panic cross Clare’s face when I’d said I was going out for a while, but she and Viviana needed time alone. And, at that moment, I craved Linny like other people crave cocaine. You know those movies in which a vagrant breeze blows their lines of white dust to the floor? All that frantic scrambling around on hands and knees? Like that.

“Did he obey?” I asked.

“He did not, the recalcitrant brat. Took off for what’s-his-name’s house instead. You know, that president. The name escapes me.”

“Thomas Jefferson.”

“Bingo. Turns out Hayes worships Thomas Jefferson, says he’s a genius. He quoted this long thing some guy said about him to a bunch of Nobel Laureates eating dinner at the White House. Something like, ‘There are more brains in this room than have ever been assembled here, except for when Jefferson dined alone.’ Dined alone. I remember that part.”

“I believe the guy who said it was a guy called John F. Kennedy. Heard of him?”

I sat happily watching Linny devour a catfish sandwich for so long that she finally said, “Cornelia?”

“I’m just basking in your presence.” I beamed at her.

“I thought you might be,” said Linny, licking her finger. “I said, ‘Hayesy, get thee to a winery! Cornelia wants to bask in my presence.’” Linny got serious. “Listen here, lovey. You won’t lose her, you know. You’ll stay friends, keep in touch. She doesn’t live that far away.”

My friend Linny, she wouldn’t hurt me for all the stars in the galaxy. But every word she said—lose her, friends, keep in touch—stung me like a wasp. When it came to the subject of Clare, I was a person with no top layer of skin. Even the air burned.

Linny must’ve seen this, because the next thing she said was, “But could we put the issue of Clare aside for a moment?”

I nodded my gratitude. “You want to talk about Hayes?”

“We have been talking about Hayes,” said Linny coyly. “Remember? Get thee? Thomas Jefferson? Dining alone?”

“Linny.”

Linny pursed her lips and gazed off into the distance. “Like. We’re in like. Lots of like, even. And I can envision it going in a good direction.” She moved her hand like a plane taking off. Then she snapped to and touched the end of my nose with a touch that was almost a bop. “But what I see there, on that face? We’re not in that.”

I leaned back in my chair, flabbergasted. How did she do that? “How do you
do
that?” I asked her.

“Omniscience.” She shrugged, all modesty. Then she said with sudden seriousness, “Not Martin. You haven’t looked back and realized…”

“No.”

“Thank God for that,” said Linny fervently, because despite her general tongue-in-cheekiness, Linny can be as fervent as anyone when the situation calls for it.

She eyed me. If I’m an MRI, Linny is a superdeluxe-souped-up-superfabulous MRI, one that sends its magnets resonating smack-dab into the unexplored hinterlands of a person’s soul. I composed my features into a mask of inscrutability, feeling like a suspect trying to beat a lie-detector test.

“Oh,” she said, finally and decisively. “Well,
that’s
not without complications,” and coolly took a sip of ice water. Damn that Linny anyway. She grinned. “But welcome to the land of the living!” Then, she tilted back her head and warbled,
“I could cry salty tears. Where have I been all these years?”
Etcetera. Etcetera. When sung properly, it’s not a short song, especially if you hum all the in-between instrumental parts, which, naturally, Linny went ahead and hummed.

A smartly dressed man at the table next to us leaned over and asked politely, “And how long can we expect
that
to go on?”

I gave him a helpless look. “If she weren’t unstoppable, I’d stop her.”

“Ah,” he said. “Then we’ll leave it up to the Lord.” Which was either deliriously funny, or I was just delirious.

When my fit of girlish giggling was over, I kicked Linny under the table. “The waiter’s coming. Hatred just dripping off his face. Do you want to get bounced before the pecan pie?”

“Ooh.” Linny recoiled. “A dripping waiter. Cornelia, you should be appreciative of how appreciative I am of the music you make me listen to.”

“I’m appreciative of your appreciation; it’s your use of it as ammunition I don’t appreciate. Shot with my own gun. Anyway, that’s not how it was.”

“Humph!” Linny humphed skeptically, which I suppose is the only way to humph. “How was it?”

“I didn’t come to my senses one day and see the light, not a light that was already on. There was no light
to
see, and then suddenly, on the car ride down here, there was light.”

“Like Genesis.
Creatio ex nihilo
,” said Linny dryly, fiddling with her fork.

“Yes!” And I began a passionate launch into my transubstantiation metaphor, of which I was enormously fond and which, had I not been in an excited state, I would never have exposed to Linny’s scathing glance. But I was in an excited state, and so not only launched but failed to taper off forlornly anywhere close to quickly enough.

“OK, could we put aside the religious imagery now?” asked Linny. “Because, frankly, it’s freaking me out. Here’s the deal: You’ve been in love with Teo since you were old enough to be in love with anyone, or probably before that, and you just now figured it out.”

“No,” I said feebly. “Transubstantiation,
creatio ex
—forget it.”

“Forgotten. So what are you going to do about it?”

I told her about Ollie and Edmund and the Westermarck effect and how, if she’d forgive the mixed metaphor, with all the fish in the sea, no way Teo would dip into the Brown family well again—come on—and why risk losing his friendship, and about the purely sororal light in which he viewed me, and how anyway, sororal light or not, I just wasn’t his type. All of that stuff.

“He’s not your type either. Which apart from meaning you’re blind and insane, also means maybe there’s a world where types are rendered meaningless, and you are now living in that world.”

“You think I should tell him. I knew you’d think I should tell him. It’s not that simple.”

“Just say this,” said Linny and, to my horror, she began humming the opening bars of “Night and Day,” which I took as a sign that I should throw money on the table, hustle her hastily out of the café, and think about what she’d said, later.

It’s one thing for your best friend to uncover, with an annoying lack of effort, the deepest secret your heart holds; it’s quite another for a near-stranger and, if you’re being honest, semiadversary to do the same thing.

I guess it was inevitable, a heart-to-heart between Viviana and me. The obligatory female-bonding scene, the cozy, shoes-kicked-off chumming-it-up over a bottle of Chardonnay with Aretha Franklin belting out “Respect” in the background. But despite the inevitability and obligation, or maybe because of them, this was precisely the scene I’d been avoiding.

Look, I was glad the woman was alive. Of course I was. I was so glad she’d come back to her daughter. But I wasn’t the first person to hold on to a dream long after it had turned to dust in my hands, and my dream of raising Clare had been the dream of a lifetime. I would let it go, drop my handfuls of dust and get on my way, but if it was hard for me, if the process filled me with a private, searing grief, who amongst you would blame me?

I loved Clare. Loved? I love Clare. Don’t forget that.

“I love Clare.” I told Viviana, too.

It was late. I’d been curled up in an armchair with my old copy of
Anne of Green Gables
and a glass of wine (a shiraz, just for the record) when Viviana had walked into the room. She looked better than she had a couple of days ago, less frail, more life in her eyes, and her pale face had taken on a smooth translucence, like sea glass, as if she’d undergone a sea change of her own. Ariel’s song again, but in reverse. This was a woman who’d been drowned and come back from drowning. These are eyes that were her pearls.

“Would you like a glass of wine?” I asked Viviana. She shook her head.

“Can’t,” she said. “My medicine.” Then she corrected herself. “My medication.” There was the faintest note of bitterness in her voice.

“Is it—awful stuff?” I asked, tentatively.

“It brought me back,” she said briskly, and I understood that the edge in her voice was meant for herself, not for me. “Back to Clare.”

We talked about Clare for a while and, as she had in Mrs. Goldberg’s parlor, she thanked me and, as they had in Mrs. Goldberg’s parlor, her thanks cut me to the quick.

“Please,” I said, my voice shaky, “don’t thank me. I can’t stand to be thanked. As though I were just anyone. A kind stranger. I love Clare.”

“Yes, I see that. I see that you’re not just anyone,” she said softly. Then, she said, “Can I ask you a question you absolutely don’t have to answer?”

I smiled. “Well, when you put it that way, why not?”

“Were you in love with Martin?”

This took me off guard, but I said, “No. Almost.” I shook my head. “Not even almost. But I really, really wanted to be, for a while there anyway.”

“I’m glad. I’m glad you didn’t lose the man you were in love with.” I could hear the relief in her voice. Then she said, “I can’t believe he’s dead.”

And I realized when she said it that I hadn’t thought about how Martin’s death was also something she’d come home to. Of all there was for her to absorb, there was his death, as well.

“Does it hurt?” I asked.

“I think it does, some. But mostly what I mean is he seemed like a person who couldn’t die.”

I knew what she meant.

“He was so replete, so handsome and charming, always saying the right thing. He seemed untouchable, like a famous person or a character in a book. Maybe he began to seem that way because of all the distance we put between each other over the years.” Then she gave a wry laugh. “No, he seemed that way when we were married, too. That was the problem.”