My Father's Wives (6 page)

When the car stopped my head jerked away from the window. There was an ache in my neck from the uncomfortable position in which I’d slept. I looked over at Claire and there was no doubting it now: there was anxiety in her eyes.

“Shall we go in?” she asked in a voice I could tell was trying to sound natural.

I sighed. “I suppose we should.”

I would leave it to her from here. However she would raise it, whenever she was ready, whatever she had to say, I would listen. Of
course I had questions; I would probably always have questions. But first, I just wanted to hear what she had to say.

Claire took my hand as we walked through the parking lot and I could feel her palm was clammy. Claire’s palms are never clammy, just as her hands never tremble. Everything was wrong. It was as though I didn’t even know her. This couldn’t continue. I was just about to stop and demand to know what in the hell was going on when a strange thing happened: In the reflection of the restaurant window, I saw my daughter’s face.

Phoebe was smiling, that wonderful crooked smile she inherited from her mother, where it’s as though a light has been turned on inside of her. The only explanation I could think of was that I was having a breakdown, hallucinating, here outside the window and perhaps in the house as well. Was it possible I had imagined all of it? The noises in the bedroom, the man with the ponytail, my daughter in the window; were they all in my mind? That is what I was wondering when I came out the other side of the revolving door.

And then I saw my mother.

She was seated in the first booth on the right, with Phoebe beside her, looking out the window. Across from them both, sucking on a maraschino cherry dangling from a stem, was our friend Betsy Buchanan, who looks so much like Claire I once mistook her for my wife and fondled her behind. I shook my head at the madness of it all. Then I looked up to find Andrew running toward me at top speed. Behind him was Angelo, beaming with his arms open wide. My friend Simon and his family were behind them, and all around me were faces I recognized, even Bruce, and Sandra, the flight attendant, with a bottle of beer in her hands. And then, just as Angelo reached out and grabbed my face with both hands, I realized what was happening.

“SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!”

I turned to Claire as Angelo kissed me on both cheeks, and she was laughing with tears in her eyes. Her mother was handing her a glass of wine, and music was playing and everyone was cheering and I was being
pulled backward and I realized it was Andrew so I scooped him up in one arm and squeezed him hard. Phoebe arrived next and I got on one knee and hugged her with my free arm while holding her brother in the other. “Happy birthday, Daddy!” they both said, again and again.

I stood up without letting go their hands, which felt warm and sticky. My mother gave me a kiss. Betsy Buchanan rubbed her hand against my cheek, smiled mischievously, lingered an instant too long. “Happy birthday, you handsome devil,” she said.

“All right, everybody!” Angelo yelled above the din in his heavy Italian accent. “The celebration begins! Let’s eat!”

The music turned louder as Bruce approached carrying two drinks. He handed one to me. “Happy birthday, big fellow,” he said.

“Belvedere?” I asked.

“Damn right.”

I took a long sip. It was cold and the lime was refreshing. “How long has this been going on?”

“I’ve known at least a month,” Bruce said. He motioned at Claire. “She worked hard on this. Just about drove me crazy with scheduling, but she did a good job.”

I took another long sip, finished the drink, motioned to Angelo that I needed another. “A month?” I asked, turning back to Bruce. “She’s been putting this together for a month? How did she keep it from me?”

Bruce put his arm around my shoulders. “My friend, you
are
a little oblivious sometimes.”

“Am I?”

Bruce roared with laughter. “Come on, I’m busting your balls. She kept it from you because that’s what women do.” Angelo handed me another drink, and Bruce tapped me on the cheek. “Here’s Helen,” he said.

Bruce’s wife smiled sweetly and tugged at the sleeve of his shirt. “Come on, now, just because you’re the boss doesn’t mean you get to monopolize the birthday boy.”

I leaned across and gave her a kiss. “Thanks for coming.”

“We wouldn’t have missed it,” she said.

Bruce still had his arm around me. “Johnny can’t believe Claire managed to pull this off without his having any idea,” he said.

Helen smiled again. “Your wife is something else,” she said. “I don’t think there’s anything she couldn’t pull off if she set her mind to it.” Then she turned to Bruce. “Now, you leave him alone and let his friends give him a hug.”

Bruce pounded me on the back. “Have fun tonight,” he said, and the two of them disappeared into the crowd. Knowing Bruce, they were headed for the bar.

I took another long drink and surveyed the room. It really did appear everyone I knew was here. Even my neighbor with the yappy little dog. Claire must have worked hard to pull it all off, and without my suspecting a thing. Couldn’t help but make me wonder what else she could pull off, as Helen had said, if she put her mind to it.

Then another hand was on my shoulder and I recognized it from the touch. Claire always comes from behind me, gently laying her fingers on my neck. I closed my eyes and focused on her hand against my skin. Was it still trembling? Was it still clammy?

“I thought I was going to lose it completely in the car,” she said.

I turned to face her. She was Claire again. I mean,
really
her. Not the stranger who was so anxious before, with trembling hands and damp palms. This was my wife. The woman who could keep anything a secret from me but promised she never would.

“Thank you,” I said. “This is great.”

She frowned. “You don’t look happy.”

“Just a little overwhelmed.”

She leaned close and kissed me on the lips. Hers weren’t dry anymore. “Enjoy,” she said. “Everyone is here because they love you.”

Then she turned to greet another guest, I think a teacher from school. I caught Angelo’s eye and he walked over, holding a filled glass in his hand. “You look like you need another one of these,” he said.

I smiled. “My friend,” I said, “you have no idea.”

WHEN I WOKE UP
the sun was shining.

I was sure I had set the alarm but clearly Claire had turned it off, in fact yanked the plug out of the wall; the digits were flashing midnight. She would never have done that if she hadn’t spoken to Bruce about it. It was a statement, from them both, that I needed the rest. Neither of them knew just how right they were, or why.

In my closet, I pulled my iPhone out of my jacket, which was hung sloppily on the door. Ninety-four e-mails. Those would have to wait. I typed a quick note to Bruce.
Slow start today. Hoops a little later than usual
. Then I went into the bathroom and switched on the radio by the sink. It was tuned to the news station for weather reports and headlines, but I didn’t want those. I clicked from AM to FM in search of music and found an old Motown tune I like, even though I always get most of the words wrong.

I was in the shower singing Motown, clearing shampoo from my eyes, when I saw her: Claire, outside the shower door, naked. I could barely see for the steam that fogged the glass, but I recognized the
look. Claire doesn’t often initiate but when she does it is usually pretty creative, like this, much better than what I do, which is grab or grope her at the least realistic times, like when the kids are playing in the kitchen or company is expected in ten minutes or her parents have just visited. Now she was outside the shower, naked, and all I needed to do was open the door.

But I could not.

I could spend a lot of time trying to explain the reasons I could not and probably still not fully understand them all myself, but in the end that didn’t make much difference. Sometimes you only need to know one thing for absolute certain and right then I did: No matter what, I could not open that door.

So I had a dilemma. If I rebuffed an offer this brazen it would make a statement I wasn’t sure I was ready to make; I was not prepared to have Claire think I never wanted her to do this again. I didn’t know where this day was leading, but if Claire was going to continue to be my wife I wanted her to be naked and smiling outside the shower as often as possible. What I needed was a way to push this moment off until I could further figure things out. So, I did the only thing I could think of. I opened the shower door, stuck my head out, made my face as miserable as I could, and said in a sickly voice: “Honey, I was throwing up half the night!” And just like that, it was done. I had broken the most important promise I ever made.

Meanwhile the look on Claire’s face changed immediately, and just as quickly she was gone. If there is one thing my wife cannot handle it is vomit. One time Phoebe contracted a stomach virus and Claire nearly moved out of the house. Like the dutiful mother she is, she cleaned up around her daughter, but she wore a surgical mask and rubber gloves, and even so she herself threw up after every cleanup.

If you had told me two days ago that I would be lying to my wife in order to get out of having sex, I would have said you were deranged on both counts. But there I was, in the shower, water scalding my neck
and shoulders, lying and alone. And in no mood anymore to sing along with the music.

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, DOWNSTAIRS,
Claire was at her writing table flipping through a magazine. She frowned when I entered wearing a suit and leaned away when I approached her. “What are you doing?” she asked.

What I was doing was getting out of the house. My head ached from the vodka and the confusion. I knew I had decisions to make and questions to ask, but I wasn’t in any condition to ask them.

“Jonathan,” she said when I didn’t reply quickly enough, “get
back
into bed.”

“I can’t.”

“Are you kidding? You’re
sick
! Don’t even think about going anywhere except to bed. I’ll bring you up something to eat if you want.”

“I have a meeting I absolutely cannot miss,” I said. “If I was shot in the leg I would have to hop into the office,
that’s
how important it is.”

Lying, again. So easily, in fact, that I felt unnerved; breaking lifelong promises shouldn’t be quite so unmonumental.

Claire still looked skeptical. “I don’t think I like this.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “A little run-down and too much vodka at the party, but the sleep helped and now I actually feel hungry.”

Claire looked me up and down, then nodded slowly. “Okay, I’ll make you some toast,” she said. “That’s what you need, dry toast and a banana.”

“And coffee.”

“I’m making you
tea,
” she said, and smiled faintly. “I need you better.”

I sat down at the table and took out my iPhone. So many e-mails. “How were the kids this morning?” I asked.

Claire was watching the toaster. We have the world’s slowest toaster, but she insists the quality of the toast is worth the patience. “Adorable,” she said. “They were so excited to look at all the pictures from the party.”

I felt a pang in my side, the rueful mourning of something fun that I missed. I am acutely aware that Phoebe will only be nine for so long, and Andrew six. Every day that passes, every laugh I miss, is gone forever. “Where’s your phone?” I asked.

Claire turned away from the toaster with a puzzled expression. “What?”

“I want to look at the pictures.”

Her expression did not change. It was difficult to describe the look. I wouldn’t call it panic and I wouldn’t call it guilt, but I’m not sure there is a better word either.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, trying to sound casual. “I’m not allowed to see your phone?”

The toast popped. “You know I just can’t handle how sick you were last night,” Claire said, lifting the bread with her fingertips and dropping it onto a plate. “I’ll e-mail you the pictures. What time is your meeting?”

“One this morning, another late in the afternoon.”

“I think if you absolutely have to go then you should spend the night in the city.”

A chill ran down my spine.
The city
. I forgot all about the phone.

“You need to rest,” Claire continued. “When you’re done with your meeting just get a hotel room, order room service, and go to bed. You don’t need to be on the train surrounded by all those people or in a car in ridiculous traffic.”

“Maybe I will,” I said, picking my iPhone up from the table. “Maybe I will.”

I opened an e-mail, typed in Bruce’s name.
You in the city tonight??

His reply came in less than a minute.
Can be. You in?

I took a bite of the toast.
Can be. You up for it?

This time it wasn’t fifteen seconds.
You bet your ass
.

“WHY CAN’T YOUR DAD
clean his own windshield?”

That was the seminal question of my childhood. At least, it is the first of its kind I can recall being asked, and it was followed by more than I could keep up with, but you always remember your first.

What I remember most is not how it made me feel, but how my mother made me feel about it. Really, it is
that
which is most significant about the whole thing; it was the first time I recall my mother explaining life to me in a way that made it seem less daunting.

It was Lee Marshall who asked the question, at Yankee Stadium. Lee was the prettiest girl in our second-grade class, which at the time meant nothing to me at all. She was also the daughter of one of the richest men in New York, Robert Marshall, who traveled about the city in the back of a Rolls-Royce. Lee’s father’s wealth was of no import to me at age seven either; I was just impressed by his Yankees tickets.

Lee invited me to join her family in their box seats for a game during the World Series. We rode in the back of Mr. Marshall’s limousine, me in my Yankees jacket and matching hat, Lee in a dress you might wear to a dance. It was game six, which proved to be among the most famous in history: Reggie Jackson slammed three home runs and the Yankees clinched the championship. But what I remember most, amid the din that only fifty thousand New Yorkers can create, was Lee turning to me and saying: “My daddy says your dad wants to take all of our money and give it to the men who clean the windshields when you stop for red lights. Why can’t he just clean his own windshield?”