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  Lorraine appeared moments later in a white sweat suit, her eyebrows looking as if they had been painted on with a Sharpie. “I got here as fast as I could,” she panted. “I ran up five flights of stairs. I knew he would be okay. I knew he would be okay.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Mother,” Victoria said testily. “There’s still a long way to go.”

  “He’ll be fine. I just know it.” Lorraine eyed Victoria. “My God, you look awful.”

  “Thanks, Mother. So do you.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. You’ve been through so much with them. It must be overwhelming.”

  Victoria knew her mother meant what she said. She regretted her nasty rejoinder about Lorraine’s appearance. “I’m sorry, too, Mother,” said Victoria, astounded with the comfort she took from her mother’s apology. “You have no idea what it’s been like to see my Gregory lying here, tethered to all these machines.”

  “He’s my Gregory, too, you know. My only grandson.”

  Victoria was transfixed by the monitors chirping. “Do you hear this, Mother? This is all I’ve known of my child for the last month until an hour ago when he talked to me. When he woke up he wanted to know what happened. Thankfully he doesn’t remember any of the bad from Thanksgiving night.”

  “I’m happy for him about that. I’ve been thinking a lot about things while I’ve been next to you at Gregory’s bedside. I woke up, myself, only I do remember the bad between you and me. What happened to us?”

  Forty years of sadness and hurt swept through Victoria like a tsunami. She glared at her mother.

  “I don’t know, Mother. You didn’t like me. I never knew why. You said such mean things, it made me sick.” Victoria caressed Gregory’s cheek tenderly. “This could have been me. I kept thinking about throwing myself off a building every day for a month. I was so sick, Mother. It’s a miracle I’m alive. I wouldn’t have survived if I hadn’t gotten help.”

  “I never knew,” Lorraine said.

  “Of course you didn’t know,” Victoria said bitterly. “You, Daddy, my brother. None of you cared whether I lived or died.”

  “That’s not true,” Lorraine recoiled. “Victoria, please believe me. I cared.”

  “Then why were you so awful to me? What did I ever do that was so terrible? All I wanted was for you to like me.”

  “I was mad at you. I was jealous. I was a fool.”

  “Mad at me for what?”

  “I knew they loved you more than me.”

  “Who?”

  “Your grandmother. Your father. My mother couldn’t wait to get away from me; she couldn’t wait to get back to work.”

  “Grandma went to work to get away from Grandpa. She wanted her own life and her own money, which is how she came to send me to college. It had nothing to do with you. Not everything is about you, Mother. And what about Daddy?”

  “He lit up when he saw you like he never did with me. Even before you were born, he massaged my stomach so lovingly when I was pregnant.”

  “Is that why you poisoned him against me?”

  Lorraine moved closer. “I didn’t mean to do that. Please believe me.”

  “You treated Daddy like crap. That’s one of the reasons he drank. The more you nagged him, the bigger his martinis. He let you abuse him, and I hated him for that. Thank God he got sober and learned to stand up for himself. I like the man Daddy is today.”

  “Believe me, Victoria, not a day goes by that I don’t regret how I treated your father. I understand why he left. I don’t blame him. I can’t bear the thought of losing you, too. What can I ever do to make it up to you, Victoria?”

  “It doesn’t have to end like that for us, Mother. Just tell me you’re sorry. Tell me you like me. Show me that you care. That’s what I want from you.”

  Gregory moved again, trying to whisper. Victoria took his good hand.

  She said, “Do this, Mother. Help Gregory. He’ll need a lot of help and a lot of love. Be with him. Read to him. Listen when he talks and make him know you understand.”

  “I promise I won’t disappoint you, Victoria. I promise.”

  Morris arrived, a trench coat draped over one arm, his other around Carolyn’s waist. Carolyn, a dark-complected woman with soft features, stepped back, but Morris took her firmly by the hand and led her toward Gregory.

  Victoria held her breath. Lorraine and Carolyn had never been together in the same room. Victoria knew that Lorraine had never recovered from being left by Morris. The more he gave in to her demands for alimony and the Abington house—anything to buy his freedom—the more it hurt.

  Lorraine said, “Hello, Morris. You two are well, I hope.”

  “Yes. Thank you,” Morris said.

  “I guess you heard Gregory’s waking up. Although there’s a long way to go.”

  “For everyone,” said Morris. He looked at his ex-wife compassionately. “For everyone.”

  Victoria said, “Look, Gregory.” She gently turned his head. “Look at all the people who love you.”

  Victoria wondered why she wasn’t happier. She thought, My son is waking up. My father has a woman who loves him. My mother wants to make a fresh start. My husband wants to … My husband wants to …

  Everyone toasted Gregory’s awakening with a bottle of sparkling cider Morris had brought. Victoria went through the motions, but the feelings of disconnect between her and Martin wouldn’t go away, and left her with doubts about whether Gregory, like she and her husband, would ever fully recover.

  61

  “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” droned a bass baritone voice. “Captain Sean McBride speaking from the flight deck.”

  “What’s he doing, making an announcement now?” Jonas asked Gracie and Jennie. “We haven’t even pushed back.”

  “Shush, I want to hear,” Jennie said.

  “A storm system has stalled over the Delmarva Peninsula. We’re going to skirt the storm by heading farther east than usual before we turn south. That will add a good forty-five minutes, maybe an hour, to our flying time today.” Jonas strained to understand the pilot’s words. “The flight will be choppy for a while, but we’ll do all we can to keep you comfortable. It’ll be another fifteen minutes until we leave the gate, so I suggest that anyone who might want to use the restroom do so now. The ‘fasten seatbelt’ sign will be on for quite some time once we’re airborne.”

  Jonas, a confirmed white-knuckled flyer, sat on the aisle, Jennie to his left, Gracie in the window seat. “Just what we need,” he said to no one in particular. Gil, directly across the aisle, next to his Aunt Margo and Uncle Eddie, was absorbed in his book, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which Jonas had read the previous evening. Jonas noticed Gil mouthing the words silently.

  “Choppy for a while” turned out to be an understatement. For the next three hours, Jonas felt like he was strapped to a paint-can mixer. Every few minutes, he glanced out Gracie’s window to reassure himself the wing’s rivets weren’t coming loose.

  To distract himself, Jonas read Review of the Chemistry of Plants and Animals, a study guide he had downloaded from the Internet. In fifty-six pages, it reviewed what had taken Jonas four semesters of organic and biochemistry and a lifetime of immersion in neurobiology to imbibe. Each section felt like swallowing butter. As he tried to take it all in, he wondered, How did I ever learn all this?

  Fortunately, the material was dense enough to keep him occupied through the worst flight he had ever endured. Finally, as he was starting the section on proteins, the jerking stopped. The Atlantic Ocean peeked through billowing clouds, and the left wing rose ever so slightly as the plane turned south. As soon as the seatbelt sign went off, a parade of ashen passengers lined the aisle waiting for the restrooms.

  When the plane touched down in San Juan, the passengers applauded, except for Jonas, who felt so relieved that he wanted to offer a sacrifice on the nearest altar. Most of the travelers wandered around baggage claim in shell-shock. Jonas
and Jennie saw Stan and Marta.

  “There he is,” said Jennie, catching sight of her father. “Don’t you think Mom and Dad look well?”

  Stan and Marta, now in their mid-seventies, still appeared hardy, although Stan had more pigmented spots on his ruddy forehead and Marta’s arms and legs were considerably less beefy. Gracie and Gil gave their grandparents big hugs.

  “Hi, sweetie,” Stan said to Jennie.

  “How long have you been here?” Jonas asked Stan.

  “About an hour, give or take.” Turning to Gracie and Gil, he said, “I can’t believe how big you two are getting, especially you, young lady. I think you grew two inches in the last month. How are you, Jonas? How did everything turn out with your patient?”

  “I’m glad you asked. It’ll be good to talk with you about that. Maybe over drinks tonight or tomorrow.”

  “Tonight or tomorrow? I’m dying of thirst right now. Besides, there’s something I want to discuss with you. As soon as we’re settled in our room, I’m changing into my shorts, making myself a rum punch, and settling onto the nearest lounge chair. I hope you’ll join me.”

  “Give me half an hour to burn off my adrenaline with a quick jog on the beach,” Jonas said. “I just spent the last three hours worrying that the plane was falling apart. You probably had it worse between the flight and the waiting.”

  Stan said, “Please thank your brother for getting everyone rooms on the beach. Oh, there he is. I can’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve seen him.” Stan greeted Eddie and Margo warmly, leaving Marta and Jonas standing by the baggage carousel.

  Marta said, “I know that Stan wants to talk with you, Jonas, so I’ll be sure to give you two time and space. And don’t feel you have to apologize about what happened with you and Jennie the other night. That’s between you and her.”

  “Dammit, she told you?” said Jonas, angry at Jennie and embarrassed that Marta knew about their spat. That Jennie had talked about it with her mother felt like a betrayal.

  “Mothers and daughters talk about their children all the time; you must know that. You don’t think what she said came as a surprise, do you?”

  Jonas sighed. “I guess not. Well, the good news is that I’m working on ways to connect with Gracie and Gil.”

  “I knew you would. They’re great kids. You’re a lucky man. I’m sure you and Stan have a lot to catch up on. You know there’s nothing you can’t tell him, Jonas. Nothing.”

  Marta must have seen the look on Jonas’s face, because she backpedaled quickly. “I’m sorry. That didn’t come out right. I didn’t mean to imply anything. It’s just that he loves you like a son. He only wants you to be happy.”

  “I don’t look happy?”

  “Everyone knows you’ve been on edge since Thanksgiving. For what it’s worth, Jennie felt horrible about jumping on you about Gil and Gracie. She really didn’t want to kick you when you were down, but there’s never a good time—”

  “It’s okay. She was right, and I spoke with both kids.”

  The fifty-minute ride to the resort over bumpy roads felt like being back on the plane. Jonas’s motion sickness continued for an hour. As he headed to the beach for his run, he caught a glimpse of Stan lolling on a chaise longue, tumbler in hand, looking like a man without a care in the world.

  62

  Can I get you one of these, Jonas?” Stan said, tipping his glass in Jonas’s direction. “We have all the ingredients. Have a sip; I’ll never finish it.”

  Jonas looked at Stan’s glass, from which a pineapple chunk and a maraschino cherry protruded. “No thanks,” he said, pulling over two deck chairs. “Eddie wants to have a drink before dinner. If I have one of those things now, I’ll be asleep in five minutes.”

  After an awkward silence, both men began speaking at once. Jonas said, “After you, Alphonse.”

  Stan took a sip. “No use beating around the bush.”

  “Beating around the bush,” said Jonas, squinting in the afternoon sun. “I wonder where that comes from.”

  “It’s a hunting term. You rustle the bushes near where the birds nest, to flush them out, so the shooters can get at them.”

  “That doesn’t sound like much fun for the prey.”

  “It’s better than bushwhacking, spraying the bush with buckshot. At least the prey has a chance to get away.”

  “Maybe I should have one of those,” said Jonas, pointing at Stan’s glass. “That way, the prey won’t feel it so much.”

  “Jesus, Jonas, relax. You look like I’m going to perform an autopsy on you.”

  “Well, can you blame me? I didn’t exactly expect Marta to come out swinging.”

  Stan broke into a wide grin. “She’s like that. All women are, don’t you think? Do something that threatens their children, as they see it, and you might as well be facing a firing squad.”

  “So you’ve been on the receiving end yourself, Stan?” Jonas smiled. “You should have seen your daughter in action.”

  “She comes by it honestly, that’s for sure. You weren’t around to see Marta and Jennie go at it when Jennie was Gracie’s age.”

  “Good Lord. That must have been something!” Jonas looked at Stan’s cigar. “Pass me one of those things, so I can think better,” he said. Both men laughed, but the truth dawned on Jonas; it was getting late in the game for Stan. Who else besides Marta could he confide in? Jonas borrowed one of Stan’s favorite therapy lines and said, “I can tell there’s more you want to say about that.”

  “Correction, my son. There’s more I want to say about that to you.”

  The late afternoon sun had turned the South Atlantic into a dappled orange reflecting pool, reminding Jonas of Fridays on Dr. Fowler’s couch. If the guard were going to be changed, this was as beautiful a spot as any.

  Stan took a big swig of his drink. “To understand Jennie, you have to understand Marta and me. How much has Jennie told you about us?”

  “Not much. Just that the two of you were crazy about each other right from the beginning and moved heaven and earth to be together.”

  “That’s the party line. Has she said anything else?”

  Jonas said, “No.”

  “Which means Marta never told her.”

  “Never told her what?”

  “Understand, Jonas,” Stan said. “What I’m about to tell you goes no further; maybe Jennie, that’s up to you. And Marta doesn’t need to know I told you. Agreed?”

  “Sure, Stan. Sure.” This certainly wasn’t the grilling Jonas had anticipated.

  “When Marta and I met,” Stan began, “neither of us were prepared for what happened. My father was a rabbi; Marta’s father was a Eucharistic minister. No one would have picked us for each other. No one. But what we felt for each other was so strong, there were no words for it. We were young for our age, so naïve. It wasn’t anything like the era in which you and Jennie came of age. Back then, young people couldn’t live by themselves and experiment relationship-wise without seeming loose.”

  Jonas moved closer.

  “You know, we met at the airport during a snowstorm. I was going to a wedding in Kentucky. Marta was going home, but that’s not the whole story by a long shot.” Stan took off his Panama hat to swat some fruit flies. “After finishing in Lexington, I met up with Marta in Louisville. Marta told her family she needed to return to Switzerland early to prepare for exams. She and I snuck off to the Brown Hotel in Louisville. I remember the place like it was yesterday. The lobby reeked of so much booze and cigarette smoke, it felt like a gin mill. Once we were alone, we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. It felt like being possessed.

  “Since both of our families were religious, we were sure they’d be furious, but neither of us was prepared to break with our families. They meant too much.

  “After Louisville, we flew to New York, and I saw Marta off on her return to school in Switzerland. She didn’t have enough money to come back to the States anytime soon, and I was in analytic training and bar
ely supporting myself. So, we weren’t sure when we’d see each other again.

  “We wrote constantly. There was a trunk line her hospital maintained for international calls, so we managed to hear each other’s voices, but only for a few minutes at a time. Then, I got a call at six o’clock in the morning one Saturday. She was hysterical.”

  Jonas knew exactly what had happened. “Oh, no,” he whispered. “Not that.” He maneuvered his chair to face Stan head on. He wished he’d taken Stan up on the drink offer.

  “You have to understand, Jonas. To Marta, abortion meant murder, end of story.”

  Seeing beads of perspiration forming on Stan’s forehead, Jonas offered him the napkin from under his drink.

  “There we were,” Stan continued. “Two kids; we barely knew each other. All alone in the world.”

  “Jesus, Stan. What did you do?”

  “We decided we’d be better off away from home, where no one could bother us. That Monday morning, I called the director of my psychoanalytic institute to ask about suspending my training while I attended to important family business overseas. I told no one other than my training analyst.

  “The plan was for me to go there and we’d get married discreetly in some nondenominational chapel. Married! Can you imagine that? We hardly knew each other. I begged and borrowed enough for the airfare. Marta found us an apartment next door to one of her friends. We had no plan. Except for the rent money Marta earned teaching at a girls’ finishing school, we had no income. I had no working papers. We had nothing.”

  Stan continued, “Marta had two close friends: Jausienne Moriellion, a nurse at the university hospital—she lived with her parents in a chalet with an in-law suite; that’s where we lived—and Anne DePaquier, a fellow medical student who was married and had young twins.

  “Anne and Marta persuaded Professor Christian Mueller, the equivalent of the Dean of Students at Marta’s medical school, to find me a part-time job as a lab assistant earning five Swiss francs an hour, which was a lot of money back then. Mueller introduced me to Professor Georges Van Claire, the chief of psychiatry at l’Hôpital de Cery and the head of the Lacanian psychoanalytic institute in Lausanne. I’ll never forget Van Claire, so stocky and inscrutable. He looked more like a ski instructor than a psychiatry professor.