Pictures of Us Page 6

  Shit. I had forgotten about the barbecue my parents usually hosted, although I wasn’t sure how. We’d gathered there every year since before Emma was born, with Nell and my brothers attending whenever they were around. The barbecue was a given, a comfortable tradition that revolved around homey food and relaxation in my parents’ backyard, whatever ball game was on and the light, pleasant buzz of a couple of beers consumed in the first of the summer heat. Hell, it was one of the times I took my traditional photographs of Mom and Dad and the rest of the family.

  Michael sighed, his brow knotted in frustration. I nodded permission, and he said, “This year we’re skipping it.”

  “So what’s the big drama?” Emma asked. She’d pulled her knees up to her chest, her heels balanced on the edge of her seat, and now she wrapped her arms around her legs. In the gold shimmer of the evening sun through the window above the sink, her eyes burned with questions and newborn anxiety.

  Michael cleared his throat, and when the silence stretched out too long, I gave up and reached out to hold his hand. His fingers tightened around mine, and I sat up straighter.

  “Do you remember that someone called the other night? A woman?” I began. God, it was hard. Speaking the words made this whole situation real, not just some disturbing dream Michael and I had shared.

  Emma nodded, but she was frowning already. Beside me, Michael shifted. I swore I could feel his pulse speed up, his muscles going taut in preparation.

  “She was a woman Daddy used to know. A long time ago, before we were married,” I hurried to add. “Daddy and I…Well, that’s not important, really. But what is important is that this woman…”

  The tears were unexpected, a hot rush in my throat, and I swallowed to hold them back.

  “We had a child together, Em,” Michael finished. His voice was rough, but it was strong. I squeezed his hand as he went on. “She never told me about it. What I mean is, when we separated, I didn’t know she was pregnant. I guess she had her own reasons not to tell me. But now—”

  “You have a…a kid?” Emma broke in, her soft mouth trembling. “Some other kid, with some random woman?”

  “She’s not some random woman,” Michael said, and I flinched at the sharp edge of his tone. Or was it the words he’d used? “Sophia and I had a relationship, but it didn’t work out in the end. I loved your mother—”

  “Then why were you with someone else?” Emma wasn’t crying, but she was panicking. Her voice had gone up at least an octave, and she was hugging her legs so tightly to her chest her fingers had left marks on her bare calves.

  “It’s complicated.” I got up and walked around the table, and she let me draw her into my arms. She was trembling, running hot with adrenaline and emotion, and I stroked her hair the same way I had when she was a toddler curled on my lap after a fall. “What’s important right now is that this…boy would like to meet Daddy. All of us, actually.”

  She shook her head as if she could make the knowledge disappear, but then she asked, “What’s his name?”

  “Drew,” Michael told her. I met his dark, tired gaze. “He’s twenty, and he lives in Boston. That’s where we’re going Memorial Day weekend. To meet him. I owe him that, Emma.”

  “You owe…?” She pushed away from me suddenly, and then out of the chair, the tears finally coming. She was gulping, shuddering, caught somewhere undefined between the child she’d been and the young woman she was becoming. I reached for her, but she flinched and ran for the door, shouting over her shoulder, “Well, I don’t! God, I don’t…And I’m not going!”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “WHAT’S WRONG WITH EMMA TODAY?” my mother asked on Sunday. She was icing an angel food cake, and she glanced up from the counter, spatula in hand, to look at me. I was shredding lettuce for a salad—she’d decided on a casual lunch to celebrate Dad’s birthday, since he wasn’t big on crowds or what he called “making a fuss,” and next year he would be seventy-five. Mom was already planning to make a fuss then, whether he liked it or not.

  “She’s fifteen,” I said of Emma, keeping my tone light. “Something’s always wrong at that age, remember?”

  Emma had barely left her room on Saturday. I hadn’t even heard her stereo, which meant she’d probably been huddled in bed with her iPod. She’d emerged at one, taken two cans of diet soda and a bag of chips up to her room, feet heavy on the stairs, and at dinnertime she’d come to the table only after Michael had called her for the third time, and then had sat hunched over her plate of pizza, stony and silent. She hadn’t showered, so her hair was lank, and she was wearing an old blue sweatshirt of Michael’s.

  I hadn’t pressed the issue of us driving up to Cambridge, and neither had Michael, although we’d made it clear that we were willing to talk about Drew, and what she was feeling, whenever she was ready. When she asked when we could discuss Jesse’s party, instead, her eyes direct and her voice flat, I’d dropped my napkin on my plate and walked out of the room.

  I had been that self-centered at her age, and I knew it. My mother would agree, and there was no question that she would say so to anyone within hearing distance if I brought it up. That knowledge didn’t make Emma’s sullen resentment any easier to stomach, and Michael was sick about it.

  “What if she hates me?” he’d said, sitting beside me on the front porch swing that evening when she’d gone back upstairs. “What if this destroys our relationship? Drew may have some of my DNA, but Emma is my daughter. Emma and you are everything to me, Tess. Everything. How am I supposed to feel about all this? There’s no choice to be made, if that’s what he’s asking.” He’d squeezed my hand as he said it, and when I glanced at him in the velvety dusk, his eyes were bright with tears.

  Curling into him, tucking my head into his shoulder, I’d simply pushed off the gritty porch floor with one toe, sending the swing into motion. No matter how deeply he felt something, Michael was still a guy, and he rarely cried. One of the last times I’d seen tears in his eyes had been the day Emma was born, in fact, when the nurse had handed her over, squalling and pink and furious. That night I was afraid that if he started, he wouldn’t be able to stop—and that I wouldn’t be able to comfort him. I was hardly able to comfort myself, and certainly not my daughter.

  We’d agreed not to bring up the subject today at my parents’, either. It was Dad’s day, and Michael’s mom had been invited—she and my parents had become friends long ago, which was an unexpected pleasure. More than polite in-laws, they enjoyed spending time together, and in the past couple of years my mother and Maureen had made a tradition of spending a weekend or two together either in Manhattan or at the beach, shopping and eating out and, I suspected, discussing their children with the fond, if critical, interest of mothers.

  My brother Matt had arrived today with his wife, Robin, and their two little boys, since they would be at the shore over Memorial Day. Will, the baby at thirty-nine, was in Virginia, and Nell had to work, although Jack had come, hoisting a six-pack of my father’s favorite beer and a new book about some famous physicist for him to read. It added up to too many people, too many potential questions and far too many uncomfortable possibilities.

  My mother, of course, wasn’t going to accept my offhand answer about her granddaughter at face value, though. Since we’d practically had to drag Emma out of the house, I wasn’t exactly surprised that Mom had picked up on her mood. She’d taken a book onto the back porch nearly the minute we’d arrived an hour ago, and hadn’t reappeared since.

  “She seems upset, Tess, not just moody,” Mom said, licking strawberry icing off the spatula. “Anything going on?”

  “It’s okay, Mom.” I finished the salad with a generous handful of sliced green pepper. Opening the fridge to put the cucumber away, I spotted a few Polaroids of Mom’s latest dresses stuck to the freezer door with magnets, and inspiration struck. “We had an argument about what kind of dress she wanted for this dance she’s been invited to, and I think she’s going to ask you if you’ll make
her something.”

  My mother licked another smear of strawberry frosting off her index finger, then smiled. She’d retired years ago after working as a children’s-wear designer, but she hadn’t stopped designing clothes or sewing.

  “I can probably manage something. Especially something that won’t remind one of Britney Spears on a particularly trashy day.” She set the glass cover over the cake plate and opened the door to the back porch. “I’ll go talk to her now.”

  Oh, good. I swallowed my discomfort as I leaned into the fridge to grab the platter of Chinese chicken salad, but just then Eli and Owen slid into the kitchen in their socks.

  “It is so mine! Give it back,” Owen shouted. His round face was red with fury.

  “It’s mine, you booger,” Eli taunted him, scrambling past me, holding a battle-scarred Spider-Man action figure above his head.

  Mom grabbed it up neatly and tucked it in her shirt, between her breasts, just as Robin and Matt appeared in the doorway, humiliation and frustration warring on their faces.

  “Eli.” Matt was glowering, and Robin’s lips were pressed into a tight line as she marched six-year-old Owen out of the kitchen.

  “It’s all right,” Mom said, smiling innocently at nine-year-old Eli, who was staring in shock at his grandmother’s neckline. “I have the toy in question, and I’m sure that after a little discussion the boys will work out a way to share it. If not, there’s always some weeding that needs to be done.”

  Matt muffled a laugh as Eli’s eyes widened, and a moment later he followed his father into the living room without an argument.

  “Boys are so easy to manipulate, aren’t they?” my mother said with a grin, extracting Spider-Man from her blouse and squinting at him. “I was always a Batman fan myself.”

  I snorted, and just then Dad and Michael walked into the kitchen, sniffing the air like a pair of puppies. “When are we eating? I’m starved,” Dad said, putting his arm around me and squeezing. “How’s my gorgeous daughter?”

  “Fine, Daddy.” I stretched up to kiss his cheek. It was cool and papery now, which was always surprising, but it smelled like him—clean, with a breath of sandalwood. I had an urge to throw my arms around him, climb into his lap, let him sort out everything, or at least pretend to while he whispered soothing nothings against my ear.

  If I closed my eyes, I’d be seven again, or twelve, or sixteen, standing in the kitchen where I’d grown up, with all its familiar scents—the hydrangea through the window, my mother’s Chanel No 5, the sharp odor of the cat litter on the basement-stairs landing.

  Nothing had changed, and everything had. I wasn’t that little girl anymore, but I remembered her, the moments she’d wanted nothing more than the comfort of her parents’ reassurance, and God, what I wouldn’t give for that now. The trouble was, there was a lot more at stake than passing a test or being chosen as a soloist in the spring ballet recital. It was my marriage, my child, my life. And not for nothing, my parents’ love for Michael.

  They adored him. Oh, at first they’d been a little wary—he was new in town, he was heading off to college and from the beginning we’d been attached at the hip like a couple of long-lost twins, scarily obsessed with each other, all hands and eyes. We’d been so young when we’d met, which was easy enough to admit now that we weren’t, that it was sometimes curious they hadn’t protested our constant togetherness more vigorously, although my mother had had her objections that first year.

  Of course, Michael had been a good kid, and he’d become a wonderful man. I gave them credit for recognizing everything I loved about him, and for loving him themselves like another son. If that changed because of something that was as much my fault as his…

  I couldn’t even follow through with the thought, and when I realized my cheeks had gone hot and my throat was choked with tears, I had to wriggle out from beneath my father’s arm, pretending a sudden need to find a soda in the fridge.

  “Let’s eat, huh?” I said as brightly as I could manage, still facing the cool inside the refrigerator. “Michael, you want to go grab Emma?”

  The silence hummed with tension, but finally Michael said, “Mom, should I round up the boys, too? I think they ran outside.”

  I took a deep breath and found my mother’s dark blue eyes narrowed at me in concern. Dad had his finger in the icing bowl, oblivious, so I simply smiled and carried the platter of chicken salad into the dining room, where Robin had set the table.

  The windows were open, and a warm breeze blew the old muslin curtains away from the sills. Minerva, Mom’s oldest cat, was curled on one of them, her orange tail flicking in and out in a lazy rhythm.

  “There are days I prefer cats over kids,” Robin said from behind me. “And I don’t really like cats.”

  I laughed, although the sound was a little rusty in my throat. “They’re good boys. They’re just…boys. Of a certain age.”

  She made room for the platter I was still holding by moving a pair of tarnished candlesticks to the sideboard. As always, she was crisp and pressed today, in clean khakis and a thin black sweater, black loafers on her feet, her auburn hair straight and glossy, tucked behind her ears. I was never sure exactly what it was she did for a living, except that she worked in administration at Rutgers and it seemed to suit her—or at least, my impression of her. Robin liked to organize, to file and label and give things a place. Parenthood had been tough for her in the beginning. When she’d had Eli, she’d spent as much time labeling Baggies of breast milk as she had cuddling him, and she was obviously much more comfortable with the former.

  Still, I liked her. She was friendly, if not exactly easygoing, and the few times I’d been alone with her—Christmas-shopping once, and at the beach when the guys had the kids in the water—we’d gotten along perfectly well. Matt loved her, so we did.

  There it was again, that loyalty, even if it was more of an effort than a given. And I didn’t want it to be an effort for anyone to love Michael.

  Keeping Drew a secret wouldn’t be possible, of course. Not in my family, or in Michael’s. Especially Michael’s—how would his mother react to the news that she had another grandchild? And his sister? They were blood, if that mattered to them. And what if Drew asked to meet them?

  No, we had to tell them, and we would. But the cloak of denial felt so good, a coat on a cold, windy day, and removing it was going to sting. Not today. Soon, but not today.

  The boys skidded into the room, both slightly sweaty, in bare feet now. Owen sported a jagged streak of dirt on one cheek.

  Robin heaved a sigh as she herded them toward the bathroom. “Wash up, guys. This isn’t a picnic.”

  “It’s not a bad idea, though,” Jack said, appearing in the doorway, just as flushed as the kids. He’d obviously been chasing them around the yard, and my mother gave him a fond smile as she carried in the garden salad and a plate of warm rolls.

  The next few minutes were the usual chaos, as everyone found seats and began passing plates amid a jumble of voices and laughter and the occasional protest from the card table, where Eli and Owen were seated. My mother and I made at least half a dozen trips back to the kitchen, for pepper, more napkins, a new glass of milk for Eli, another serving spoon, and I didn’t have even a moment to gauge Emma’s mood. She’d followed Michael into the dining room without a word and taken a chair next to my father, and a stab of concern pierced my calm when I sat down next to Michael and noticed Emma’s head bent toward Dad in conversation.

  Michael laid a hand on my thigh beneath the table, his fingers warm and solid through my linen pants, and for a moment I leaned into him, letting our shoulders bump.

  “Relax,” he murmured, and I had to restrain myself from rolling my eyes. Beside me he was strung taut, and the purplish smudges under his eyes were a giveaway that he hadn’t been sleeping well.

  I hated this, all of it. Telling myself the meal was almost over, right here at my parents’ table—and on my father’s birthday. Avoiding my mother, when
I usually talked to her on the phone every day. She’d called me yesterday, wondering if we were still coming to Dad’s birthday lunch, and I’d hung up the phone miserable, like a teenager who knows she’s about to get caught smoking or cutting class any day.

  I helped myself to some of the vegetable frittata Robin had brought, as the conversation swirled around me. Jack and my father were arguing about baseball, something about the designated hitter, and my mother was quizzing Eli about school. Robin asked Michael’s mother about the trip she was planning to Ireland, and Maureen shook her head at the price of airfare. I sat back, watching Michael pick at his chicken salad, his eyes on his plate, and then looked at Emma again.

  Teenagers could always eat. She was still upset. It was in the set of her shoulders, the curtain of hair she’d allowed to fall over her face, even the clothes she’d chosen, an old white button-down over faded jeans. She’d forgone makeup today, and her only jewelry was a pair of plain silver hoops she’d gotten for her birthday a few years earlier. But she was forking up chicken salad and some of my mother’s macerated raspberries, working her way toward the roll she’d slathered with butter.

  At least she wouldn’t starve.

  She glanced up when she felt my eyes on her, and I tried a smile. She wasn’t having it. Stabbing another chunk of chicken with her fork, she lowered her gaze, her mouth tight. Right then, I would have sold my soul to go back to the days when reconciliation could be bought with an ice-cream cone or the trillionth rental of a Mary-Kate and Ashley video.

  “Tess? You are coming, aren’t you?”

  I forced my attention back to the table, where my mother was staring at me with a frown.

  “Coming where?” I said, moving food around on my plate before I got scolded for not eating.

  “Next weekend, the barbecue. Nell wants to discuss the wedding plans and show us some pictures of dresses for you and Liza. She’s going to come, too.”