Lionel reserved a train car. He and Olga secured five trunks of provisions to the luggage ties. Miss Louisa and Miss Lainey brought coloring books, story books, and crayons but April and Andrea ran up and down the car hiding behind seats, shouting, and occasionally falling down. Jimmy joined in their mischief and when he caught one of them, pinned her to the bench and tickled her. Jo, the nursemaid, rocked little Kathleen on her knee.
Kay smoked Marlboros and watched the scenery, reliving her evening with George. First, Fats Waller’s rent party, then the Cotton Club, then home, feeling his closeness in bed. And finally, his fervent hug.
Jimmy returned to his seat. April and Andrea settled, pointing out the window and babbling. Kay showed them pictures from Raggedy Ann’s Alphabet Book, her mind still elsewhere.
At the station a man named John Becker awaited them. His beard reached the top pocket of his overalls. He drove a Model T flatbed. The children and their caretakers jostled and shivered in the back.
The woodburning stove at Bydale radiated heat, which spread through the house. While Miss Louisa and Miss Lainey escorted the girls to their bedrooms, and Lionel and Olga stocked the larders, Jimmy and Kay consulted in the front room with John Becker, who opened a large sketch pad in which he had drawn the house and property. “Tennis court.” He pointed to an open area and added charcoal strokes. “Swimming pool.” He pointed again. “Corral. How many horses?”
“Two, for now.” Jimmy glanced at Kay.
John nodded. “Barn.”
“You’re a builder,” Kay deduced.
“Landscape architect,” Becker corrected her.
“John studied classics at Harvard,” added Jimmy. “We took Ovid and Virgil together, then he moved on to Petronius while I lingered in Hades.”
“Which turns out to be not too shabby, from what I can tell,” said Becker.
“Landscape architecture was an afterthought, right John?” said Jimmy. “But don’t worry, Katharine—”
“Kay,” she corrected her husband. Katharine now felt like a discarded dress, ill-fitting and out-of-date.
“Don’t worry,” said Jimmy. “John’s meticulous in everything.”
“Especially in my genitives and ablatives,” said Becker.
“Ah, yes, Latin grammar,” said Kay. “Such a fond memory.”
“You studied Latin?” asked Becker.
“Of course,” said Kay. “Early church music and all that. I remember precisely three words. In vino veritas.”
“Just one sentence,” Jimmy told Becker, “but she learned it well.”
Becker laughed as April came bounding down the stairs. Little Andrea followed, shouting. Miss Louisa tromped after them but they were faster. Andrea ran to Kay and grabbed her skirts, cringing.
Kay clapped her hands. “Girls!”
Andrea stopped in her tracks. So did Miss Louisa.
“You can be down here,” Kay told them. “But no wildness. The grown-ups are trying to have a conversation.”
No sooner had she uttered these words, however, than the wildness resumed. Andrea jumped on a bench, shouting. April tried to grab her.
Miss Louisa struggled to calm them. “Now, Miss Andrea, you know that’s naughty.”
Jimmy walked across the room, took Andrea in his arms, and placed her on the floor, kissing her forehead. “Let’s go into my office,” he suggested to Kay and John.
They closed the door of the bedroom that Jimmy had designated as his office. Kay and John sat on a leather sofa. “Kay, why don’t you take charge of the décor,” proposed Jimmy, settling into an armchair. “Make this place your sanctuary.”
“We need a piano,” said Kay. “A Steinway.”
Becker scratched his head. “Not an easy find around here. New York. Maybe New Haven if you can abide a serviceable secondhand instrument from Yale. But first we refinish the floors, paint the walls.”
She looked at her husband. He nodded. Your call. “Let’s prioritize the floors, then,” said Kay. “I’ll try out pianos in New York.”
Jimmy walked briskly these days. Kay took long strides to keep up as they trudged together through the naked, frozen woods, talking about their plans for the house and considering Becker’s suggestions.
“What’s the hurry?” she asked, panting.
“Race up the hill, beat the chill,” said Jimmy.
She looked down. Don’t fall in the gorge. Don’t fall for George. “It’s just that… I remember when we used to stroll more andante. When walking wasn’t just about getting there.”
“Andante, I don’t recall,” said Jimmy. “Maybe andantino. Or rubato, on occasion.”
“Andante,” insisted Kay. “Even largo. When you still wanted to be a poet.”
“Who says I gave up on that?”
They looked out over the frosty, leafless landscape, a study in shades of brown and gray with patches of white. She remembered the spring day when she had first come to Bydale with Jimmy, the bright leaves shimmering in the breeze whispering of rebirth and expectation. Now those leaves were gone and the birds had winged their melodies to a warmer climate. Yes, we age, the trees told her. Our leaves fall and the birds no longer chirp in our boughs. But we’re still standing. She mentally mocked her cheerlessness. Silly, sentimental trees! She was far too young to be attributing such long-suffering, mawkish ponderings to the vegetation of her Connecticut getaway. Her skin was still smooth, her step sprightly. For the young, life was not supposed to be about resignation, but dreams.
Jimmy rubbed his arms to warm himself. “Do you imagine,” he asked, “that because I’ve managed to find merit in my banking activities, I’ve lost my sensitivity to language, or beauty?”
“You don’t talk about poetry, these days. Or opera, for that matter.”
“I’ve been focusing on providing you and the children with a certain quality of life.” He offered her a weary, accommodating smile. “But let’s see if we can’t invite poetry back into the mix.” She thought her husband courageous and stoical. “My poetry and yours,” he added.
“Mine?”
He nodded. “You have an enviable talent, Katharine. Kay. What you need is exposure. You’ve written enough music to fill an evening. The problem is, no one has heard it. Why don’t we rent a stage? The Grand Ballroom at the Hotel Astor has excellent acoustics. We can post an ad in the Times. You’ll perform your best pieces and two or three classics, and we’ll see what kind of response we get.”
His offer moved her, more for its intent than for the opportunity. She took his hand.
That afternoon their distant neighbor Benjamin Fairchild drove up with a salted ring-necked pheasant. Olga stewed it with puréed carrots, which she served with rice, baked asparagus, and a stout Bordeaux. Jimmy and Kay decided to allow the children at the dinner table. “After all,” said Jimmy, “the family that eats together—” he searched for a rhyme.
“Cheats together?” tried Kay.
Jimmy shook his head. Not quite what I was going for.
Jo snuggled the sleeping infant, Kathleen, in a rocking chair. Andrea picked at her rice. April refused to eat altogether. “I hate pheasant.” She rose to look in the pantry. “Do we have cookies?”
“April,” Kay said, “come back to the table and eat what we offer.”
April rejoined them but crossed her arms refusing to eat. Andrea threw a bread roll at her, laughing.
“Miss Louisa. Please,” said Jimmy, giving up.
Miss Louisa removed the children to the upstairs den. Jimmy refilled Kay’s wine glass and rose to place a record on the Victrola.
“Ah,” said Kay raising her glass as her husband regained his seat. Rachmaninov’s swelling strings might not be a panacea, but they were a damn fine Band-Aid.
That night, Kay and Jimmy again shared a bedroom. This time, though, Bydale failed to shine its magical torch upon them. He desired her with an earnestness she had not experienced in years. She acquiesced. It amounted to playacting but it was also a release.
Their lovemaking left her feeling torn and guilty. Torn, because she had married Jimmy with hope in her heart and retained a remnant of that optimism. Guilty, because she visualized another man. She lay on her stomach, but he noticed her shaking as she burst into a muted sob, her face in her pillow. “What is it, love?” He stretched his arm over her trembling shoulders.
She turned onto her back. He ran his index finger over her cheek. “Oh, darling,” said Kay, “I fear I’ve been a terrible wife. And mother. I’m so sorry.”
Jimmy moved his finger to her lips. “Hush. You’re every bit the wife I had in mind. And our children are receiving a first-class upbringing.” He stroked her hair.
Kay peered into the darkness. She tried not to think about the failure that the evening’s dinner en famille represented. She tried not to think about George Gershwin. About his embrace, that twinkle in his eyes, and the way he used the piano as an extension of his soul.
She tried.