Twenty-two

Libby,

I’ve been thinking about you and hope you’re doing well. The weather’s warm here and the sunset was beautiful last night. I had two kayak tours yesterday, one with 4 macho guys who were body-building, extreme-sports types, so I’m relaxing today. My 50-year-old body was pushed to the limit.

I found some information on grief counseling in the Chicago area and thought I’d pass it along. I hope you’re not offended, I don’t even know if this is right for you, I was just doing a little research and thought I’d let you know. Just in case.

He gave me phone numbers and web addresses for two options and signed his e-mail, Love, Patrick.

I wasn’t sure I was ready for something like that, but felt as if he’d put a hand-knitted afghan around my shoulders. I looked at one of the counseling sites, for people who’ve suffered the loss of someone significant: a parent, sibling, spouse, child. It said that participants share their experience and learn about the grieving process. Although grief is a normal human experience, it said, everyone experiences grief in his or her own way. Our group helps you cope with your loss and understand the feelings that come with change. We can help you regain your balance as you learn to accept your life in a new way.

Balance would be good, I thought, and sat staring at the counselors’ faces on the website: Rebecca, a thin, older woman with curly blond hair, and Henry, a gray-haired man with a kindly priestlike face and rimless glasses.

Patrick,

Thanks for the info. I’m not offended at all. It was sweet of you. I’m trying to get back on an even keel. It’s not been easy but of course it’s all still fresh and tender. I read one of the websites and am giving it some thought.

Michael and I are going ahead with our wedding plans. We’re getting married on my father’s birthday in seven months. My father would be very happy about this. Or maybe I should say he is very happy about it—who knows? I never believed in stuff like that before but I can’t stand to think that he’s just gone.

Libby

*   *   *

I’d only known Michael a couple of weeks before I invited him to join me at my parents’ house for dinner. This was an unprecedentedly bold and uncynical move for me so early in a relationship, but that’s how right it had felt. I’d been on the phone with my mom one day, telling her how I’d met him, and there was apparently an uncharacteristic enthusiasm in my voice that perked her up.

“Well, Libby, he sounds delightful,” she’d said. “Why don’t you bring your new boyfriend over for dinner on Sunday so we can meet him?” I hadn’t even bristled at the word “boyfriend.”

She’d gone all out, as if entertaining the monarchy. You’d have thought I was a forty-year-old spinster with a face full of unfortunate moles, wearing elastic-waisted pants and orthopedic shoes.

Lamb chops glistened juicily on each plate, surrounded by brightly colored al dente vegetables with an artfully arranged sprig of parsley on the side. She’d set the table with her Irish lace tablecloth, linen napkins and china, and created a centerpiece with a single gardenia floating in a glass bowl surrounded by votive candles. Martha Stewart had nothing on my mother.

Michael smiled approvingly at the plate before him.

“I can’t remember the last time I had lamb chops,” he said.

Actually, we’d had them over the weekend at Ditka’s. I caught his eye and smiled, hoping it wasn’t early-onset Alzheimer’s.

“What business are you in?” my father asked.

“Real estate,” Michael told him, and they were off and running with the do-you-know conversation, since my father was a real-estate attorney. It seemed they had a lot of acquaintances in common and mutual opinions of them all, if Michael were to be believed. After the lamb chop comment I wasn’t sure, but he acted very sincere, and he and my father were bonding. I was pleased.

My father’s fine, white hair was neatly combed and he wore a mustache that had changed from black to white in my lifetime. Age spots spattered the slackened skin of his hands, which shook faintly as he cut his meat. But he was always in motion, my dad: reading, gardening, golfing, working on the computer. My mother diagnosed it as ADD.

“Libby’s got a great little business going,” Michael said when they’d exhausted the directory of real-estate personnel in the greater Chicagoland area. “It’s quite a success story, I’d say, leaving a successful corporate job to start something new. That’s a pretty gutsy thing to do.”

He beamed at me. I chafed at my parents’ isn’t-that-wonderful smiles, feeling as if I were twelve instead of fifty, but in spite of myself a blush rose from my chest under Michael’s admiring gaze, as if the teacher had just given me a gold star.

“The lamb chops are great, Mom,” I said.

“Yes, delicious meal, Kathryn,” Michael said, pushing his wire-rimmed glasses up onto the bridge of his nose. “You should have a show on the Food Network. You could call it Cooking with Kathryn.” When he smiled, lines pleated the corners of his soft brown eyes.

“How about Dinner to Die For?” I said.

“Or Kathryn’s Kuisine, with a K,” my father said.

“Oh, you guys,” my mother said. Her cheeks were rosy with pleasure. A hint of blue eye shadow tinted her lids, and her pearl earrings matched her necklace.

“More lamb, dear?” she asked my father.

“How am I going to keep my girlish figure if I have seconds?” he said, as he always did. “But this is the best lamb you’ve ever made.”

I smiled at this exchange, the predictability of it.

“It’s the best lamb I’ve ever had,” Michael said. “I’ll have more, if you don’t mind.”

She popped right up and put two more chops on his plate.

The way to my mother’s heart: ask for seconds.

Mom and I cleared the table as Michael and Dad got into an enthusiastic discussion about the ’85 Bears, another shared passion, it seemed.

“The Bears were the most dominant team in football that year,” my dad had said.

“If they’d beaten Miami they would have had a perfect record,” Michael responded.

“Who was your favorite player from that team?” my father was asking as Mom and I carried plates to the kitchen.

I started lining up dishes in the dishwasher while Mom decorated individual pavlovas with fresh strawberries and hand-whipped cream.

“He’s adorable,” she said.

“He is, isn’t he?” I prized the way he fit in.

“Dad gave me a thumbs-up,” she said and I laughed.

“I didn’t see that.”

“Well, he didn’t do it so you could see it, silly. But it’s obvious he likes him.” She poured coffee into her sterling silver carafe, which I hadn’t seen since Jimmy Carter’s presidency. Was she going to offer a dowry, too?

“Do you think you have a future with him?” she asked.

Normally, here’s how this conversation would have gone: “Jeez, Mom, relax, I hardly know the guy.”

Mom: “Well, you have to consider these things.”

Me: “I’ll consider it after I find out his last name and make sure he’s not on the sex-offender registry.”

Mom: “Oh, I’m sure he’s not.” Said with no irony. “I think he’s a good man.”

Me: “You’ve known him for twelve minutes. They’re all good men for twelve minutes. Let’s give it at least an hour. I’ll get back to you on that.”

But that day I said, “Maybe,” in a high-pitched, girly voice followed by an appalling giggle, and Mom’s eyes had danced with happiness.

Fast-forward to another dinner, not even a year later—chili and cornbread served on everyday china and plastic placemats.

“Do you think you and Michael have a future together?” she’d asked as she scraped dishes into the sink.

“This is our future, Mom.”

Little did I know.

“Men like him don’t grow on trees,” she said. “I just think you should consider it.”

“He’s not going anywhere. We’re good.”

“Well, just don’t expect him to be perfect,” she said. “At your age you need to be able to compromise.”

“What does that mean? And what makes you think I don’t compromise?”

“I’m not saying you don’t compromise some. But at your age, people are more set in their ways.”

I stopped loading the dishwasher. “Jeez, Mom, quit saying ‘at your age,’ would you? I’m not that old. I don’t even have an AARP card yet.”

“I know, I know. But you’re not getting any younger. And it’s not that easy to find a good man, especially at your age.” I set down a cup. Hard. She looked up. “Sorry. I just mean that you’re not a teenager anymore. And fairy tales are for children.”

“You think I’m expecting life to be a fairy tale? That train left the station some years ago, don’t you think?” I rinsed a few more dishes. “Are you afraid I’m going to chase Michael away with my demands of perfection?” She didn’t respond. I watched her as she cut large hunks of lemon meringue pie and lifted them onto small blue plates. “I’m not expecting a fairy tale, Mom,” I said.

“Just accept that Michael’s human, honey. And that there are no perfect people.”

What the hell? “I don’t expect people to be perfect.” She didn’t argue, but the air was heavy with her opinion. “I guess I missed the rule book that tells you how to act when you get to be my age.”

“There’s no need for sarcasm,” she said and I felt rebuked, just as if I were twelve. “I just want you to be happy.”

“Yes, me, too.”

“Pour the coffee, would you please?” Conversation over.

The pie had three inches of pearly white meringue that was browned lightly on the waves and swirls. We carried it with the coffee into the dining room, where the men were once again doing an ’85 Bears postmortem. It was their tradition by now.

“Hmmm, talking about the Bears for a change?” I said, and three heads turned to me as if choreographed. I looked at each one and laughed. “What?” I said. “Just thinking we could talk about something else.”

“Well, okay,” my father said, “let’s talk about when you two are going to get married.”

“Dad! Jesus. What is this, an intervention?”

“Don’t you think it’s time?” he asked.

I looked at Michael, who was not only unfazed but was unsuccessfully attempting to suppress a smile. I cocked my head at him.

“Did you put him up to this?”

He laughed. “Don’t look at me. I’m an innocent bystander here.” He forked another piece of pie into his mouth.

“Nobody put me up to anything,” my father said. “It’s just a reasonable question.”

“How is it I still have to answer questions like this at my age?” I looked at my mom but she ignored me.

“Because you’re still my little girl,” my father said. “No matter how old you are. So why not get married? You’ve been together for, what? Five years?”

“One,” I said. “Not even. But we’re not twenty-year-olds, Dad. And it’s not like we’re going to have kids. I’m in my forties, remember?” I was forty-nine. “And Michael’s pushing sixty—”

“Fifty-eight,” Michael interjected.

“I know very well how old you two are,” my dad said. He looked at Michael. “Well, I didn’t realize you were sixty.”

“Fifty-eight,” Michael said.

“Well, anyway, I know you’re not going to have babies, but why not get married?”

“Michael,” I said. “Would you please tell them we’re happy the way we are?”

He looked up, fork poised over his plate. “We’re happy the way we are.”

“I’ll tell you what,” I said to my dad. “When Michael and I decide to get married, you’ll be the first to know.”

“Well, good,” he said, and that seemed to be the end of it.

I’d taken a big bite from the large slice of pie in front of me but now there was a mist of silence hovering over the room. I looked around the table. Then my dad had said, “Do you think it’ll happen before I die?”

I’d wondered when I’d stop feeling like a teenager at my parents’ dinner table. I remembered sitting at that very table thirty-five years before, answering my father’s questions about who I was hanging out with, where I was going, what college I should go to.

It seemed as if nothing had changed, except that I was ten pounds heavier and my hair had a forest of silver threads running through it. Oh, and then there were those fucking hot flashes. A trade-off, I guess, for no longer having pimples. But if I had to pick the lesser of two evils, I couldn’t do it.