My Husband's Sweethearts (14 page)

I spend part of each afternoon with Elspa.
We've been trying to create a plan to get
Rose back. I've come to think of Elspa as
articulate, full of wise perceptions that catch me off guard.
But when it comes to her parents, she shuts down. She
hems and haws. She's vague. She talks in clichés about
tough love.

She sits on the bed in the guest room, fiddling with the
zipper on her sweatshirt or the spiral of her notebook,
and I pace, asking questions as gently as I can, but get
nowhere.

I know that her parents live in Baltimore. She describes
them in harsh terms—her mother was "gruff and
distant," her father was "mostly just not around." She's
also given me abbreviated descriptions of crack houses
and her drug connections. She's written a lot in her journal,
but she doesn't want me to read it. "I'm a terrible
writer. It's all so clumsy. I'd be embarrassed." But she also
refuses to paraphrase it.

The afternoon that ends up being our last spent with
me as social worker/therapist goes like this.

"You told me before that you never signed anything.
What's the custody arrangement?"

"It's all informal. There weren't ever any lawyers.
Lawyers would only make my parents uncomfortable."

"That's good," I tell her. "No lawyers—that's a good
thing." And then I pause. "But it would also help if I
knew them a little better before we ask for your daughter
back."

She nods, but says nothing.

"Don't you have any specific memories? Any at all?
What's wrong with you?" I snap. I've been so full of memories
these days in my role as tour guide that I just can't
imagine how she can't find one—just one—to offer
me. Until now I've always thought I was pretty good at
drawing things out of people, but Elspa refuses to be
drawn out.

She's silent as she stares out the window for a minute,
maybe two, and when she turns back to me, she's crying.
And I know that she has memories, of course. She's choking
on them, drowning in them. I sit down next to her.

"Let's just go," I tell her. "You can call them and tell
them you want to come for a visit. Maybe the ride down
will make you able to help me help you. We'll do one of
those road trip things. Can you call them up?"

She nods.

"And we'll just have to do our best," I say.

She nods.

"Okay then," I say. "We have a plan. It's not much of a
plan, but it exists." I stand up and cross the room. My
hand is on the knob when she stops me.

"Wait," she says.

"What is it?"

"Is it okay if we do this soon? I mean, sooner rather
than later. I can't hold off. It's too much. What if it doesn't
work? I have to know . . ."

"Okay," I say. "Okay. Call your folks. See when we can
come."

She sighs, wipes her eyes with her forefingers and her
nose with the back of her hand. "I will. I think I'm ready."
She looks at me. "I'm ready."

When I walk out of the room, I head to the dim
kitchen. I don't turn on a light.
Am I ready?
I ask myself.
Am I ready for any of this?
I feel like I'm in over my head.
I need something sweet and comforting. I open the fridge
and stare inside. Am I going to help Elspa get her daughter
back? Who is Elspa? Have I been taking my husband's
son on a tour of his father's life because I want him to
know the man before he dies? Or am I doing it for myself
now? Wasn't I just fantasizing about him in a jean jacket
at a high school football game?

The fridge offers only a few light yogurts. They won't
do the trick. I open the freezer and pull out the heavy artillery—
triple-chocolate Häagen-Dazs. I put two pints
down on the counter.

I turn around and there's my mother, sitting in the
almost-dark, a bowl of ice cream in front of her.

"You, too?" she asks. Her makeup has sagged a bit
and makes her look older than she is.

"Yep. Nothing's easy right now."

"It's like that sometimes," she says, delicately eating
her ice cream. She has always been a dainty eater, never
overloading a spoon, always pursing her lips. "Life comes
at you in waves. How's Elspa?"

"She's ready. I think," I tell her vaguely. I start spooning
up the ice cream—a few scoops of each. "Did you
teach me this?"

"I taught you everything."

"Some things I chose not to learn, though."

"Really? You think?"

"I don't think. I know," I tell her.

"We're not so different."

I sit down across from her and sigh. "Let's not have
this discussion."

"Well," she says. "There is one marked difference."

"What's that?"

"You're more generous than I am."

"I don't think so. I mean, you would have forgiven
Artie already. That's a form of generosity, one I can't quite
muster."

"Yes, but here's the secret. I would have forgiven Artie
because it's easier."

"Easier? You're crazy."

"Easier in the long run," she says. "A kind of giving in
to it all. Also, I have a huge advantage over you. I was
born in
my
era where we expected men to be weak, to
cheat. We expected that we would have to forgive them
for this. We're lucky that way."

"That doesn't seem very lucky."

"You women today," my mother says. "You have high
expectations. You want a partner—an equal. My generation,
well, we knew that men could never be our equals. In
the ways it matters most, we're stronger. Go to any nursing
home. Who's there? Women. Almost always women.
Why?"

"Well, war, for one."

"War, okay, I'll give you war. But, frankly, it's women
because women know how to survive. It's what we do. We
have more inner strength, and all those years that men
thought they were superior, it wasn't true. It was something
we allowed them to believe, because they're weak.
And then women's lib came along—and don't get me
wrong, I love women's lib—but they messed up the whole
charade."

"It was a bad charade," I tell her.

"It had its bad sides, I know. And, Artie, well, he's the
generation between us. That confused generation of men
for whom nothing they'd learned in their childhood applied
anymore. They suddenly had to acquire skills they'd
never practiced. Listening. Intuition. Tenderness. Patience
with shopping, an interest in home decor. Sad to see them
caught in the crosshairs, isn't it?"

"I don't feel sorry for them."

"What I'm saying is simple. We didn't expect much of
men, so it was easier when they failed us. And it was easier
to forgive them."

"But they don't really deserve to be forgiven. Not always.
Not my father."

"Your father," she says, raising her spoon in the air as
if poised to make a crucial point. "He was who he was.
Who couldn't forgive him for that?"

"I haven't," I tell her. "I still blame him for leaving us."

She pauses then. She leans toward me. "Make sure,"
she says, "make very sure that you're blaming the right
man for the right crime."

"What does that mean?"

"You know what it means."

"No, I don't."

"Guilt is nontransferable. You can't make one man
pay for the accumulated crimes of another," she says,
scraping her bowl to get the swirls of triple-chocolate. "I
hear they do that in China, but this is America."

"In China?"

"Yes, China." She picks up her bowl, walks to the
sink. "In China, a son inherits his father's crimes. It's true!
And it's another reason why I like being an American.
Everyone gets a fair shake," she says, rinsing her bowl.
"You should take some lessons from my generation. And
try not to confuse fathers and sons." She stops in the
doorway. "I'm heading home for the night." She claps her
hands and from one of the corners of the room, Bogie
comes skidding toward her. Lifting him up, she points to
the light switch. "You want this on?"

I'm stuck on the phrase "try not to confuse fathers and
sons." Is she trying to tell me something? That's another
thing about her generation of women—they say things
without saying them. They speak inside their words.
There's a language hidden in their language. Does she
wonder what my afternoons with John Bessom are like? Is
she suspicious? My mother has always been suspicious of
men and women being alone together. Maybe this, too, is
generational. "No," I tell her. "Leave the light off. I don't
mind being in the dark a little."

"See, neither do I. We
are
so much alike!"

A few days later, I take John to the spot
where Artie proposed on the Schuylkill
River. It's the natural progression of the
Tour d'Artie, but I feel a little uneasy. I'm still haunted by
my mother's comment, "try not to confuse fathers and
sons," but even more so by the comment that crimes are
nontransferable. What did she mean by that one? I could
ask her, of course, but I'm not up for another one of her
conversations, and I'm not convinced that she would
work as her own translator.

John and I watch the crew shells pacing back and
forth, the rhythmic dip and sway of their oars. It's windy
and warm. There's a swift breeze off the water.

I'm supposed to be relating the story of the proposal. I
seem somewhat stuck, though, and I'm afraid my silence
is becoming too dramatic. "I'm not sure where to start," I
confess.

"What time of year was it?" he asks.

"Winter," I tell him. "The edges of the river were
crusted with ice."

He can tell this is coming out a little strained. He says,
"We don't have to do this right now, you know."

"Who do you think is the stronger sex—emotionally—
men or women?"

"Women," he says without hesitation.

"Are you just saying that because you know you
should?"

"No," he says, looking at me squarely in the eye.

I'm thinking how easy it was for my mother's generation
to claim that men were stronger than women. "Are
you being condescending?"

"Are these trick questions?" he asks narrowing his
eyes. "How am I supposed to answer?"

"Are you part of the Generation of Confused Men?" I
ask with a nervous fluttery gesture of my hands.

"Isn't every generation of men confused? Isn't that
our trademark?" he says, cocking his head to one side.
He's winning this argument by seemingly disarming it.

"You're just doing that thing again," I tell him.

"What thing?" he asks.

"Where you're telling me what you think I want to
hear or, worse, what you think I
need
to hear."

He pauses as if searching his motives. "I really didn't
know that there was such a thing as the Generation of
Confused Men. Was it written up in
The New York Times
Magazine
or something?"

"My mother made it up."

"Oh, right. Okay then." He clears his throat. "I may
be part of the Generation of Confused Men," he says
sincerely. "I am confused, most of the time, and I find that
women don't help clarify things. Is that a straight enough
answer?"

I nod. "It wasn't a fair question."

"But, hey, look, your mother should write up an article
for
The New York Times Magazine.
She's got a catchphrase.

That's all you need these days."

"I'll let her know." I turn away from the river and look
at John. "We're here. This is a spot on the Tour d'Artie.
Ask me another question."

"Not about who's stronger, men or women? Not a
Battle of the Sexes stumper?"

"No, not one of those."

"Okay," he says. He shoves his hands into his pockets
and looks down at his feet, then back at me. "Was Artie's
proposal rehearsed or spontaneous?"

I know this should all be very emotional for me in
terms of Artie and our past. And it is, but not in the way I
expected. Somehow telling John all about Artie is a relief,
something I've come to rely on. On the one hand, it seems
important to John. He takes everything in. He listens to all
the details of his father's life. He stares at me with rapt attention,
and I feel like he is getting to know his father, that
some of what I say is burrowing into his heart and taking
root. And, on the other hand, I feel like I'm handing it
over to someone—not like handing over a burden of
memory, though after each visit I feel lighter. It's more like
having someone to share this with.

"He seemed spontaneous, but Artie rehearsed important
things. He climbed up from his bleak childhood by
acquiring a certain smoothness. Sometimes I could see
through the veneer. Sometimes I couldn't."

"When the time comes," John says, "I don't want to
profess my lifelong love for someone in a calculated way. I
want to be overwhelmed, compelled." He looks out over
the Schuylkill, the wind rippling his shirt.

"You're right. No veneer is best. Just the truth. Artie's
veneer got him in trouble, actually. He knew how to fake a
moment so he did, again and again, and those moments
added up to a life of petty crimes."

John looks at me, confused.

"Small crimes against the heart." I shrug. "I don't
know—maybe they even ended up accumulating into
some kind of felony."

"What do you mean?" John asks, but I pretend I
didn't hear him and head back to the car.

*

We head to Artie's favorite diner, Manilla's—a run-down
place in St. David. We sit in a corner booth. "Artie liked
this place. It's where he came to think," I tell John.

At first he's confused. "He had all of that money and
he would come here to think?"

"This is the type of place where he felt comfortable," I
explain.

We order all things diner—greasy, sugary, creamy. Our
fingers and lips take on a shine.

While dipping my fries in a chocolate shake, I say,
"Tell me something about your life."

"I grew up the way boys do—Boy Scouts, losing at
Little League, people who refused to tip me on my paper
route. Not much by way of ideal role models, all information
about women and love and sex dredged up from all
the wrong sources. My life was typical."

I realize now how cagey he's been about his own life—
past and present. There have been any number of moments
when it should just naturally pop up, but now that I think
about it, his life stories never have. Instead of telling a story
of his own, he asks a question about Artie, about me, about
Artie and me together.

I try again. Maybe he's just being modest? "Tell me a
story of your own childhood."

"Like what?"

"Something," I say, "anything."

He thinks a moment. "A story from my childhood.
Anything. Something. Okay . . . Well, I have this one story
about a man named Jed." And he recites the lyrics to the
theme song from
The Beverly Hillbillies
. I flash on
Granny, Jed, Jethro, Elly May and that poor uptight
banker and his austere secretary, and I wonder about the
story that John's not telling me.

"I know," I say, and then I hum the part in the opening
credits where they're rolling along in their old truck full of
junk under all the palm trees.

"So you already know this story?" he asks, faking astonishment.

"It sounds vaguely familiar. Did you once take a three-hour
tour on a tiny ship called the
Minnow
?"

"Yes, actually, and you should know that I didn't fall
for Ginger. Mary Ann was the real catch all along."

"I think you can divide men into two categories—those
who fall for Ginger and those who fall for Mary Ann."

"And those who fall for the Skipper," he adds. "That's
a very specific type."

"True," I say. "Good point." I'm disappointed that
John won't go quid pro quo. But I tell myself what matters
is that he's going to stick to the plan. He's here to learn
about his father's life. Why should I expect him to reveal
anything about himself? That's not part of the deal. I
don't press.

And how can I blame him really? I still find myself
skipping over the most intimate details—like that first kiss
in the Walk-through Heart. I'm not sure why. Does it feel
like a betrayal to reveal too much? Or worse, I worry that
I don't want John to see how soft I still am, how tender,
toward Artie. And why is that? Because I'm not ready to
show that softness, because I'm afraid I'll never be able
to toughen up again? Or is it because I don't want John to
know how much I still love Artie, and one of my greatest
fears, that I'll never get over Artie? I know it's okay to
think John is handsome, even charming. He is. It's a simple
fact. But aren't I flirting with him (maybe in some instinctive
way that's beyond my control) when I don't
reveal how deep my love for Artie runs—flirting by
omission?

And I also know I haven't been telling him the truth
about Artie—the whole truth. He knows about Artie's betrayal
by now—he's seen the Parade of Sweethearts—but
he doesn't know my own story. This is a sin of omission, too.

I decide to get it over with, to come clean. I blurt,
"Artie cheated on me. I left him. And then when I found
out that he was so sick, I was still on the road. I'd been
away for six months."

John doesn't hesitate. "I noticed that you seem set up
in the guest bedroom," he says. "I figured something had
happened."

"It makes things complicated," I say.

He stops, puts his elbows on the table, and leans forward,
closer to me than I expect. "Human beings are
complicated," he says softly, as if he's confessing to his
own faults. His eyes have the beginnings of these beautiful
creases, and he seems bigger at this close range—more
muscular. And again I imagine him before things got
so complicated. I imagine him in a jean jacket, just a high
school kid, and I imagine myself then, too. What if we'd
crossed paths? What if we'd known each other way back
then? What would we have thought of each other? I lean
back in the booth, distancing myself. I'm frustrated, frustrated
that I've seen him in my mind like this again—like
I've given in to some weakness.

"I think you should know this about him," I say. "You
haven't settled down yet. You're, what? Thirty? And
clearly you could have found someone by now and made a
commitment. I mean, there have to have been women . . ."
I'm stammering a bit. All of this is coming out harsher
than I mean it to, but I don't stop. "I mean, you strike me
as a charmer, like Artie a little in that way, and if—"

"And if what? If the nut doesn't fall far from the
tree . . . What are you getting at? Maybe I just haven't
found the right person. This goes under what category of
the Tour d'Artie exactly?" He's annoyed.

"It's just that I want you to know his faults."

"So I don't repeat them."

I nod.

"Because I
strike you as a charmer
. . ."

I don't want to agree, but I've just said these exact
words and I nod again, reluctantly. Actually, I see John as
someone who might fudge receipts or shuffle funds with a
little light kiting, as we auditors put it—he's not an outright
thief; I don't think he'd have the stomach for it. But
he's capable of fraud—of the easily rationalized variety—
nonetheless.

"I'm not anything like Artie Shoreman," he says. "I
mean, I don't think you know me well enough to make
that kind of leap." I've insulted him. I'm sure of it. We sit
there in silence for a few minutes. He takes a few more
bites of a BLT and then pushes it to the side. "Do you
want to talk about what's going on now? With Artie?"

"What?"

"We've stuck to the past. We've stayed true to the
Tour d'Artie. But, well, what I'm saying is that things are
hard for you now. If you want to talk about that, it's okay.
We can veer away from the official tour. You can take off
your official badge. You know, stop pointing out the monuments
for a little while."

"I don't have an official badge," I say, deflecting.

"Okay," he says. "That's fine, too. We can stick to the
plan." He looks around the diner and then sighs and
looks at me—really looks at me. He looks at me as if he's
trying to memorize my face, here, in this diner, in this moment.
I have no idea what I must look like. Confused, I
suppose. Is there also a Generation of Confused Women?
Am I part of it?

"I know why Artie liked this place," he says, and then
he picks up a napkin and dabs something off my cheek—
ketchup? Milkshake? How long has it been there? "This
diner is art. It just doesn't know it."

"That's the best kind of art," I say.

And he nods.