The Three Weissmanns of Westport (17 page)

Annie thought she heard a catch in his voice. Do not weaken, she told herself.

"I've been calling you," Josie said, his voice hurt.

"I know." She glanced at the three pink memos with his name on them sitting on her desk.

"Well, never mind. Now you've called me back. How are you girls? How's your mother?"

"Look, I just need to get into the apartment. Mom wants the standing lamp from the bedroom." Annie hesitated, then said, "From
her
bedroom."

There was silence.

"Josie?"

"Okay. Right. I'll have Ozzie bring it down for you. Any day you say."

Ozzie was the handyman. Annie wondered if Ozzie missed her mother.

"That's okay," she said. "I have a key. I just wanted to let you know."

"Mmm," Josie said. "Well, actually, I had the locks changed."

Annie said, "What?" but she had heard him.

"It just seemed prudent," he said.

"Jesus, Josie."

"I know."

"Prudent? Jesus."

Then neither of them said anything. And neither one hung up.

"I'm sorry, honey," Josie finally murmured. "I'm so sorry."

Annie was in her office. It was a small room in the back of the building on the ground floor. There was a window that faced a wall covered with ivy. The window needed to be washed. Her back was aching. She hadn't gone swimming in a week. It was getting too cold, even with a wet suit. Maybe tomorrow she would go to the Y. She thought these things, noticed the shaft of thin city light that slanted in through the window and landed on her desk, but what she really thought was
Oh, Josie. Josie, how could you?

"When are you coming?" he asked.

"Saturday."

"Right. Okay."

"Okay."

"Okay."

Annie thought, This is the man who brought me up, the man who was a father to me.

"Look, have dinner with me, okay?" Josie said. "You and Miranda?"

Annie was about to say no when he added in a truly pathetic voice, "Please?"

Now she and Miranda were driving into the city to pick up a useless lamp and have dinner with a useless father-manque.

"I hate him," Miranda said. "Why are we doing this?"

"Beats me. I weakened, I guess. His voice . . . it was heartbreaking."

"Hmmph." Miranda crossed her arms and held them against her chest, pouting. "I think men are big babies."

"Infantile grandiosity. I've always liked the sound of that. Rolls off the tongue."

"But real children aren't grandiose. They're actually grand. Look at Henry, for example."

Annie pictured Henry on the floor of the living room, four adults gazing adoringly at him as he pushed a car in circles. She remembered, too, a moment later in that same day. Henry had fallen asleep with Betty on the couch. Kit and Miranda, returning from a walk, had just come up the battered cement steps, leaving the door from the outside to the sunporch open. Annie was at the window facing the sunporch, picking dead roses from a bunch Kit had brought them a week earlier, and she was just aware of them, in the corner of her vision. They stood, one on each side of the door. Kit put out his hand and touched Miranda on the shoulder, a gentle, single, petting motion, like the soft swat of a cat. And they had both laughed softly and privately.

Annie wished she had not witnessed this scene. It meant that much more worry. She had always worried about Miranda. Even when Miranda was riding high, Annie had kept an eye on her younger sister. It was a remnant of childhood--a wariness of her sister, who demanded so much and seemed to devour the bulk of their parents' attention. It was also a source of power for Annie, a self-protective self-importance that translated into an almost prim protectiveness of Miranda. She had understood this even as a little girl. If Annie did not look after Miranda, what other role was there for her? Only resentment, and resentment was such an uncomfortable sentiment. Annie loved Miranda, found her impossible not to love, and very early on she had discovered a way to love her with dignity: worry.

Such good friends, Annie told herself when she saw Kit and Miranda that day from the sunporch. Friends, she thought again, trying to convince herself. And then, unable to hold out against her own eyes, the admission: lovers. She'd felt suddenly envious of Miranda and sorry for her all at once.

But as soon as Kit and Miranda came into the living room, it was as if the handsome young man at her side vanished. Miranda stood before the sofa, her face, that lively, determined face, shifting, suddenly and beautifully. A transformation, Annie thought at the time. Peace, she thought. Miranda at peace. And she had followed her sister's gaze, an almost palpable emanation of simple, complete happiness, to its destination, a small child, blinking, sucking his thumb, his pretty mouth curling in a smile around his little fist.

"How is little Henry, anyway?" Annie asked now as they drove against the shimmer of the setting sun.

Miranda said nothing.

Perhaps she had not heard. Annie glanced at her silent sister, profiled against the window, her sunglasses hiding her eyes.

Impassive, wordless, Miranda turned to face the window and the passing prickly November woods beyond.

Annie did not repeat the question.

Josie was meeting them at a tiny bistro they had all liked "when the family was intact," as Miranda put it. "He could have chosen a more neutral place."

"I don't think he wants to be neutral."

"Fat chance," Miranda said.

"That he can be or that he wants to be?"

"I don't know, Annie. Why do you always have to make so much sense? You know what I mean."

And Annie, after a moment of reflexive annoyance, had to admit that, yes, she did know exactly what her sister meant.

Josie had not yet arrived, but their table was ready, their usual table; he must have requested it, for the restaurant was busy. They sat and waited, neither of them sure what her feelings were. Then he walked in, and they were overcome by waves of love, embarrassment, and penetrating anger.

He looked older and younger at the same time. What is that about? Annie wondered. She had not seen him in months, and here he was, her Josie, smaller somehow, grayer, thinner, but his step was so jaunty, the way he moved his arms, so light and carefree. How dare he be carefree when her mother could barely walk beneath her load of care?

"I miss you girls," he said.

"Whose fault is that?" Miranda said.

Joseph stared at his two daughters, his little girls. Miranda sat with crossed arms, her lower lip jutting out, the way she had when she was truly a little girl. She glared at him, which was on the whole less unsettling than Annie, who did not even look at him. Oh, what had he done? His whole life was gone, just like that. Betty was gone, Betty and her picnics. It had been their joke, that she turned everything into a picnic. She turned everything into an outing, even a trip to the motor vehicles bureau to turn in the license plates of their old car. Oh, we'll go together, she had said. Let's go to the one downtown! We'll take a walk along the water, see the ships like the tourists. It's not a picnic, he had said, as he so often did. They could have had such a nice old age, an old age full of unlikely picnics. But picnics were old-fashioned entertainments, and he wasn't ready for his old age. Felicity had reached down a firm young hand and fished him out of that murky bog.

"I don't think it's legal to lock Mom out of the apartment," Annie said. "And if it is legal, it's not ethical, Josie. It really isn't."

"But your mother agreed to it," Joseph said. "I discussed it with her."

"I beg your pardon?" Annie was really shocked. Betty had never mentioned it.

"What possessed her to do that?" Miranda said. "And why do you want the locks changed anyway? It's not like we're going in there to ransack the place. The place that is her home, by the way."

"Oh," Joseph said vaguely. "It's just protocol. Anyway, I'm living there, and I need my privacy. I'm entitled to my privacy, aren't I?" He looked at them, hurt.

"Well, you're entitled, anyway," Miranda muttered.

"I just want to have a nice dinner," he said. "That's all. A nice dinner."

They had always come to this restaurant for their birthdays, ever since Annie was ten years old and Miranda eight. It was a grown-up restaurant, and they were each allowed a sip of wine.

"A bottle?" Josie said. "White, right?"

Yes, white wine, Josie, Annie thought. They would come with their mother and settle into their seats, order their pretend cocktails with jolly red cherries floating on top. Then the doors of the restaurant would fly open and there would be Josie, his overcoat and briefcase, artifacts from that exalted, distant place, the office. And he would bring Annie a bouquet of anemones for her birthday, white roses for Miranda. The waiter would fetch a pitcher of water, and the flowers would adorn the table, bright and important.

What would Josie do this year? Send flowers? Forget that he had ever gotten the anemones and roses? Either way, it would be heartbreaking.

Next to Annie, Miranda sighed, wiped away a tear. "Fuck," she said softly.

The food came and the girls picked at their
moules frites
.

"That's your favorite," he reminded them. He felt sick and barely touched his steak. He ordered another bottle of wine and wondered what he could do to make them understand. It was something that had just happened. One day he had been laughing at one of Betty's comments, walking to Columbus Avenue to get Tasti D-Lite with her, the next he was so in love with Felicity he could hardly speak. He had fallen in love in a way he could barely credit, a heart-pounding, urgent, hopeless way. If they really loved him, these daughters of his, they would rejoice for him, rejoice with him. I am reborn, he wanted to cry out. He wanted to drink champagne and celebrate. He wanted Miranda and Annie to join him in a toast. A toast to life. His life.

But he looked at the girls, and he saw he would have to drink that toast alone. They loved their mother and he had hurt her. But he loved their mother, too. That's what they didn't get. He noted that it was much easier for him to say, even to think, that he loved her when he referred to her as "their mother," rather than Betty, but he did love her, their mother. He would always love their mother. But things change.

He sighed, and both girls glared at him. Well, he didn't really expect them to forgive him. Not in this lifetime. They were hurt, they were angry. Fine. He got it.

"I understand that you're angry," he said. "I'm not a fool. And I'm not perfect. I understand that, too. But I love you both, and I'll always be here for you."

His voice was shaking with emotion. There were tears in his eyes.

Annie shook her head in disbelief. Was he kidding? "You threw our mother onto the street," she said loudly. "With no money. None. Do you understand that, too?"

Joseph looked nervously at the surrounding diners.

"Look," he said, lowering his voice. "There are steps. Steps you take. You know . . . in a"--he lowered his voice even more--"divorce."

"You can't even say the word? Divorce. Divorce, divorce. Ugly cruel mean-spirited divorce. There. Okay? Clear?"

Annie's face was hard and furious. Joseph glared at her. She had always been so sensible, a calm, rational person--like him. But being reasonable obviously had a cold side to it, too.