FINN WASN’T GOING TO broach the subject himself—a difficult one in any marriage. If Vanessa didn’t feel they needed to talk yet, so be it. But he also wasn’t going to touch her, not with so much water under their bridge. How could he tell her his fingers went numb when she reached for his hand?
“It’s not even sunrise,” she said, when he was quietly milling around. “You’re up already?”
“A lot to do. Why are you awake?”
“Because I went to bed at a reasonable hour. Come on, stay in for a few minutes. The eggplant will keep.”
“Can’t. But you rest up,” Finn said. “No need for you to jump out of bed.”
Another day, another, and another.
A tortuous week went by like this, a week! Finn kissed Vanessa in the morning and at night, talked to her about the day and the children, made little jokes, asked questions about dinner and lunch, if she wanted to go to town or if she needed anything, but otherwise exchanged no intimate words with her.
More worryingly for Finn, there was something pale about Isabelle. Not physically; she was as robust and healthy as ever; she was blooming, soft, warm, but there was something pale in the way she embraced him, how she responded to him, the way she touched him, the way her fingers stroked his bearded face. There was something almost ghostlike in her caress. She wouldn’t say, and Finn couldn’t define it. It gnawed at him.
On the eighth day after Vanessa’s return, on a Monday morning around nine, a dusty and sweaty Finn came inside to grab a glass of orange juice. The rest of the family were still outside. He and the girls were getting ready to drive to the market. Vanessa came out of the bedroom, dressed, made up, brushed out, smiling. Almost smiling. There was something anemic in her smile, too. What an effect Finn was having on the women in his life. Her arms were full of folded towels. Was she washing towels again?
“You’re up and about,” he said. “It’s so early.”
“It’s not early,” she said. “It’s late.” She put down the towels and walked to the island.
He downed the orange juice. “Well, best I return to it,” he said.
“Finn,” said Vanessa. “I know this is hard for you. I understand.”
“It’s not that hard for me.”
“You’ve done the best you can—”
“I appreciate that.”
“No, wait. You’ve done the best you can. I want you to know that I forgive you.”
The glass hovered in Finn’s hand.
“You forgive me?” he repeated.
“Yes. I know you’ve been afraid to talk to me, afraid to face me. It’s a terrible situation. I take some responsibility. You needed me and I wasn’t there for you. I was unwell.”
“Yes, I suppose I forgive you for that,” he said.
“It’s very important to forgive each other,” she said. “So we can move forward.”
Finn’s thumping heart was drowning out his thoughts. “I don’t know what moving forward means for you, Vanessa. Or even what it is you forgive me for. I haven’t asked for your forgiveness.”
“You don’t need to. I give it to you unbidden. I haven’t been myself the last few years, but I am much better now. I have the tools now, and I’m using them, and I will continue to improve. I want to be a good wife to you. I want to be a good mother.” She was businesslike and non-inflecting, as if she thought that’s what he admired, that’s what he wanted. But because he knew her, he saw by her clenched jaw and quivering fingers how fraught and wound up she was just under the surface.
He opened his mouth to speak, but she stopped him.
“I know you can’t admit to things,” she said. “We both know what it is.”
“You might need to spell out what it is I can’t admit,” said Finn. He steadied himself. His hand clenched the glass hard enough to break it. He relaxed his hold on it, breathed deeply, set it slowly on the table. “If we are going to have this conversation, let’s have it. But don’t minimize it.”
“I know you’ve found comfort in the arms of another woman,” Vanessa said in a monotone, as if she were reciting the grocery list. “There was a time in my life when that discovery would have destroyed me. I once thought I would never be able to live through that kind of betrayal or forgive you for it. But I don’t think like that anymore. I don’t feel that way anymore. Because I know that I have betrayed you by not being there when you needed me—in every sense, not just the physical one. I don’t want to reduce our whole marriage to one small mistake on your part. I have made mistakes myself and as I said already, for them I am deeply sorry. I went away because I wanted to make myself better. I didn’t want to issue you an ultimatum. That is so childish, and we are adults.”
“You’re well enough to issue me an ultimatum, Vanessa? By all means, issue away.”
“They don’t work. If two years ago, or three, you had given me one, if you’d said, Vanessa, be the way I need you to be or else, I don’t know if I could’ve done it.”
“I did ask you to be how I needed you to be,” he said. “And you most certainly didn’t do it.”
“I couldn’t! But now I can. Because I want to save our marriage. That’s the most important thing to me. But there is no way to do that—”
“You can stop right there,” Finn said. “There is no way to save it.”
“That’s not true. Of course there is.”
“There is not.”
“I want to save our marriage,” Vanessa repeated, her voice faltering but dogged, “and there is no way to do that if she remains in our house. Even if you stop your dalliance with her.”
Finn was merciless in his response. “You’re saying that to save our marriage she must leave?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“Sounds like an ultimatum to me, Vanessa. I thought you were too grown up for that?”
“It’s not an ultimatum, darling. It’s a path forward.”
“That’s what an ultimatum is!”
“No, no, no,” said Vanessa. “A path forward is a reasonable and rational course for two people with a shared history to proceed down, along one common road.”
“It’s no use arguing about the definitions of words,” said Finn. “What you’re proposing, I cannot do. It’s neither reasonable nor rational.”
“Of course you can!” Vanessa chose to misunderstand him, though this time with a white face. “She taught us everything we need to know.” Vanessa spoke fake-brightly. “She gave us the tools and taught us how to use them. We can do the rest. No, no, darling, please let me finish. We can hire help, we are not broke anymore—we have five vehicles and a tractor! We can hire people to work for us while we enjoy the fruits of this wonderful farm. And she is always going to land on her feet. She makes money doing her horse things, doesn’t she? And if you really feel we can’t make the farm work without her”—her hands were spasming—“then maybe you can meet with that nice man at Electric Boat who offered you a job you turned down and say you’d like to reconsider.”
“I will not do that. But even if I did reconsider, you don’t seem to—”
“Where is that company based?”
“Connecticut,” he replied dully.
“Connecticut! Well, there you go! We don’t know Connecticut, but I hear it’s lovely. Can’t be that different from Massachusetts. We’ll move.”
“And your family?”
“We’re not responsible for them permanently, are we, my dear?”
“Your parents and my parents? Yes, Vanessa, we are.”
She moved toward him. He backed away. “Vanessa, I—”
“Finn,” she interrupted, folding her hands in prayer. “We are husband and wife. You’re the father of my babies. And Finn . . .” Vanessa took another step toward him. “I want us to have more babies. I want us to try again. I know how much you wanted it, how broken you were when we lost him and how sad that I didn’t want to try again. I wasn’t well then, darling. But I’m better now. I want to have more children with you. I want you to have what you want. I love you. I want to make you happy. I know it hasn’t always been easy for us, but I promise you, I’m going to build us a different life. I’m going to do my best. I’m not going to stay shut in. You’ll be able to tell me things.”
“You want me to tell you things?” Finn said.
“Yes—please!”
“I can’t stay with you, Vanessa,” said Finn. “That’s what I’m telling you.”
“Of course you can! We hit a rough patch—”
“A rough patch that’s lasted eleven years,” he said. “We’ve been married not even fifteen. Some rough patch. More like rough road through and through.”
“Finn, I wasn’t well! You must forgive me for that. I forgive you for her.”
“I don’t want your forgiveness for her,” he said. “I don’t want it and I don’t need it.”
“Well, I don’t know what you’re thinking,” Vanessa said, her calm demeanor faltering.
“I think you do.”
She was biting her lip furiously. “You’re Catholic!” she said. “Catholics don’t get divorced.”
“Now I’m suddenly a Catholic.”
“Through and through.”
“We have ourselves a problem,” Finn said.
“No . . .”
“Vanessa, I don’t know if I can be any clearer. I will try. There is no path forward for me without her. I need you to hear me because I don’t think you’ve been listening. She is my present and my future. I’m sorry.”
A thin bitter pause hung between them. Vanessa’s eyes were frantic, desperate, like a drowning woman looking for a lifeline.
“How is your brother, Finn? How is Lucas?”
“Swell. He got married and moved to Florida. I’m sure you’re very broken up about missing his wedding. But then, you missed your own sister’s wedding, so my brother’s would hardly have been a priority. Do you want to make more small talk about Lucas, your favorite person? I have work to do.”
“Do you remember what happened to you?” she blurted. “Do you remember why? Your mother was broke! She gave you up, she sold you because she couldn’t pay her bills.”
“Who are you planning to sell, Vanessa, Mae or Junie?”
“That’s not what I’m saying—”
“Oh, I know what you’re saying, and I know exactly what you’re trying to do,” Finn said, putting his palms up to protect himself. “Stop it.”
“Lucas is your proof, Finn, that the very core of who you are has been grown around a dissolving vine,” said Vanessa. “All your life you’ve tried to reorder yourself into a different man. I’ve witnessed your struggle firsthand. But how can you reorder yourself if deep in your heart you know you’re altering yourself around a lie?”
“Olivia and Earl raised me,” Finn said. “And they have nothing to do with this.”
“You’re right about that—they most certainly don’t,” Vanessa said. “Because they’re still married, forty-five years and counting. But you know who does have something to do with what’s happening here?”
“Stop.” Finn wanted to slam his hands over his ears. It was only through a supreme act of will that he didn’t.
“Tadhg McBride, your real father, the man whose genes you carry, whose legacy presses down on your shoulders. The man who left your mother and his children to pursue whatever it was that moved his heart. It was hard to stay, hard to make money, hard to raise a family, hard to make the right choice. So he up and ran. He pulled up anchor and sailed away, la-di-da! Sick and dying babies, penniless pregnant wife, desperate need, nothing mattered to Tadhg except his own desires.”
“Vanessa!”
“You wanted to talk? I’m talking. Let me say what I have to say and then you can think whatever you want about it.”
“I am not going to be defined by my non-existent relationship with my vanished father,” Finn said, his fists clenched, his teeth gritted, not looking at her. “I don’t know him. I’ve never met him. He is nothing to me.” He couldn’t stand to look at her. She couldn’t help what she was doing. It was venal but effective. She wanted to go out with guns blazing.
“Yes, I know,” she said. “Your whole adult life—consciously and subconsciously—you have tried with all your formidable, intimidating, extraordinary strength to be the exact opposite of everything Tadhg was—an indigent, an alcoholic, a non-provider, a degenerate gambler. You have carried him inside you like a stone. Your heart was so full of secrets you managed to weigh me down with them too. I knew you were hiding something, and my own heart drowned under your unshared burdens.”
“Still blaming me for your old troubles, new Vanessa?”
“Are you still blaming Tadhg for yours?”
“Nope. I never think of him.”
“Bullshit,” she said. “You know what else? In my list of paternal curses, I forgot to mention the most important of all. Yes, Tadhg was all those things. But you know the main thing he was, Finn?”
“Vanessa, for fuck’s sake, stop it!”
“He was a man who deserted his family. That’s the flag your real father carries through life. Through his own, and Lucas’s—and yours.” With tears in her eyes, she stood back and glared at him defiantly. “So as you contemplate throwing me out of my house—and by the way, does this include just me or my children, too?”
“Just you.” Finn could barely form the words.
“Think about what kind of man you really are. Are you your father? Or are you a different kind of man? Where is your place, Finn Esmond Evans McBride? Is it with the Tadhgs or the Earls of this world?”