Love’s Price
Laura’s calm facade has cracked open like a discarded chrysalis. Cocooning grief takes flight. We sit on the patio and I watch her revisit dashed hopes and dreams that never came true. She comes to rest on a bitterness that neither one of us knew she had in her.
“How could he do this to me?” She beats her fists on her knees. “How could he be so selfish? I made him the total focus of my life and he left me in this ugly way.” She spits out the word ugly like a nasty pill.
God give me the right words.
“Fred loved you Laura. I don’t think he was able to think past the pain he must have been feeling to understand how awful this would be for you.”
“I know. He told me over and over that I would be better off without him, but it’s not true.”
“No, it’s not true.” Do I believe what I just said? Laura walked on eggshells for years to keep from doing anything to trigger Fred’s dark moods. It will take time for her to get to the place where she’ll remember the boy she fell in love with, the goofball she told me Fred used to be. The only thing I can do is try to distract her.
“Let’s talk about the next few days. You really do need to call your family.”
“Ugh. Dee the reason Fred and I moved away from North Carolina was to get away from my family. I love them but they all had opinions on how Fred and I should cope with his illness.”
“Well...”
“Oh God, Dee, I don’t want them to know he committed suicide.”
I almost tell her that they don’t have to know, but I have such strong feelings about keeping these kinds of secrets. How might my life have been different if I had been allowed to know I had a father and a twin sister in Spain?
It’s not the same. Laura doesn’t owe anybody this ugly truth, not while it is still raw. That’s what I’m here to do, help her figure this out.
“Okay, let’s think about this. Who are you closest to in your family?”
“My brother.”
“Is he someone you can confide in? Would he help you deal with the rest of your family?”
This turns out to be a brilliant plan. Laura’s brother James grew up with Fred. He’s the rare intuitive male who doesn’t need to have the details spelled out for him. He’s also the family peacemaker, understanding and respectful of the idiosyncrasies of the Scotch-Irish Montgomerys, but equally protective of his sunny-natured, open-minded baby sister.
I listen as Laura works out the details of the next few days with James. He will inform the family of Fred’s unexpected passing and assure them there is no need for them to travel to California, a foreign country as far as they are concerned. He will avoid mentioning that Laura plans to have Fred cremated and laid to rest in California. As an only child, Fred has no family. His parents died in the big Outer Banks Hurricane in 1933, when he was in his twenties.
Laura’s concession is that she will visit her family for the holidays.
“I know they are going to want me to move back, but I won’t do it.” In an uncharacteristic gesture, she juts out her chin. As much as I love the old Laura, I think I will have much to appreciate about the new Laura I have just glimpsed.
R
Father Mike is at the house every day helping Laura make all the arrangements. He so clearly has the situation firmly in hand that I don’t feel bad about suggesting to Laura that it’s time I go home. I’m a little hurt when she agrees so quickly.
As I drive down the lane, Valerie’s Pontiac convertible is parked in the driveway in front of the Glass House. If she and Andy ever do get pregnant, that car is going to have to go. I pull up behind her car and see her silhouetted in the long, narrow entryway that leads to the most attractive feature of the house--the spacious interior atrium with floor to ceiling glass on three sides.
An Eichler home redefines the way people live in a house. Light in the atrium flows to a large, open living and dining area and spills out to the back patio. Three bedrooms are located on one side of the house behind the atrium’s only solid wall. The fourth bedroom in front of the house has full access to the atrium. Shoji screens can be pulled for privacy, but if they are left open, anyone approaching the house can see clear through to the back patio through a window Valerie inexplicably chose to add in front.
A smallish galley kitchen serves a dining area, and a large garage and small hobby room book-end that busy space. Andy and Valerie must be planning to fill this house with a sprawling family of children who don’t care to eat much. The kitchen, well appointed as it is with all the latest appliances, seems like an afterthought. That fits; Valerie isn’t much of a cook.
Bring the outdoors in! That tag line does a pretty good job of explaining the raison d’etre of an Eichler. What’s less clear to me is why this appeals to Valerie. As she leads me through the house, pointing out the recently installed terra cotta-colored ceramic tile on the floor and the new mahogany wood paneling that warms up the living and dining room, we end up in the spacious corner bedroom that opens onto an inviting private patio.
“Do you like this room?” She has an odd expression on her face, tentative.
“It’s very nice.”
“It’s big, don’t you think?” She folds her arms across her chest and give me an encouraging smile.
“It’s big.” I nod, and head for the door.
“Look, Mom, it has huge closets!” Valerie does a little presentation dance. I’m waiting for a ta da! Instead, she scoots ahead of me to point out the proximity of this bedroom to the second bathroom.
“And look at this; there’s a little hallway that leads to this bedroom and bathroom. When you shut the door, it’s almost like a separate apartment.”
“With no kitchen.” I’m getting an inkling of where she is headed.
“Yes, but, there is something else I want you to see.” We cross through the atrium and the family room into what the plans labeled a hobby room, but Valerie calls a studio.
“Look at the light in this room, Mom.” Valerie is doing a sales job on me. I’m just not quite sure what she’s selling.
“Okay Valerie, spill it.” Valerie has one of those open faces that play emotions frame by frame. Her expression clicks from wide-eyed, what-do-you-mean surprise, to grimacing you-got-me guilt to determined okay, let’s-get-down-to-business acceptance. She puts a finger to her lips and raises her eyes to the heavens, searching for the right way to ask me the question I’ve just figured out she wants to ask.
“I would like you and Roger to think about moving into the Glass House with Andy and me in December.”
R
Roger’s reaction to Valerie’s outlandish proposal is not at all what I expected. It just points out how really different we are. When Valerie suggested this cozy arrangement my response was, you’ve got to be out of your mind! Fortunately, I’ve learned not to say the first thing that pops into my head. Instead, I said something like, “Well, that’s an interesting idea. Let me talk to Roger about that.” One of the nice things about having a husband is that you can blame them for decisions you’ve already made. But Roger is siding with Valerie.
“Think about it, Dee,” Roger gives me his most persuasive executive smile. “We don’t have a better plan right now. We’re paying pretty high rent here for a place we don’t like very much. How much does Valerie want us to pay?”
“Nothing.”
“Well there you go.”
“Roger, have you thought about why Valerie might want us to do this?” Roger’s own son was raised by his mother in Israel. Except for a couple of short visits, Roger has never lived with his kid. He hasn’t put in the time analyzing motivations for behavior that I have.
“I imagine they’d like some back up troops to help when Carlo and Gunther hit them with cease and desist orders every time they turn around.”
I hadn’t thought of that. It did seem that the odd squad felt freer to intimidate Valerie than they did me. Even though Valerie had courted their disapproval, when it came she was easily disheartened.
“Dee, we might be able to help Valerie and Andy settle in and turn things around. Your neighbors aren’t really odd. That house is odd.”
“They aren’t my neighbors.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I actually love that house. I think it would be fun to live there for a while. But look at it from the neighbors’ point of view. It is so different than anything they’ve ever seen.”
“There are whole neighborhoods of Eichler homes in the Bay Area. People are on waiting lists to get into them.”
“There are very few that have been custom built on merged lots in the middle of an established neighborhood by young people who have different ideas.”
I hate it when Roger uses his executive ability to present an argument for which I have absolutely no answer.
We spend days discussing the pros and cons of what I am now framing as an extended visit with our married children. Roger sees it as a rollicking big adventure. He talks about helping Andy build a brick barbecue grill off the back patio. Good idea honey, I tell him, if we can’t disarm the neighbors with our charm, we’ll smoke ‘em out and kill ‘em with your jalapeno-stuffed hamburgers.
Weeks later, we are still struggling with this mental shift.
“Why do you think Valerie wanted to build such a big house?” I pose this question to Roger to see if he has a perspective that is different from mine.
“I don’t know what her intentions were when she drew up the plans originally, but now that she’s married I imagine she’s thinking she and Andy might fill up the rooms with kids. It’s an ideal floor plan for a large family.”
“Valerie is 34 years old. I can’t imagine they are going to have a big family. They’ve been married close to a year now and I’ve heard no talk of babies.” This makes me sad. I think it makes Valerie sad too.
Roger crosses the room to where I’m sitting on the saggy couch I hate more every day. He rubs my shoulders and says softly, “You know Dee, there are a lot of different ways to form a family.”