Crazy in Love (23 page)

Nick held me tight, and he didn’t let go.

FIRST THING NEXT MORNING
we took a swim, then drove to the hospital. Honora dozed, her bed cranked to a sitting position, the morning paper spread across her legs. Nick stopped in the doorway to her room. I saw him register astonishment, and although I had grown used to seeing Honora in the hospital, I realized that for Nick it would be a shock. He, like all of us, had thought her the picture of health and strength. Having seen her attached to tubes, the heart monitor, and an oxygen machine, I thought she looked fine today.

Nick stood beside her bed, lowered his head to kiss her. “Sleeping Beauty . . .” he said.

Her eyes opened, and she beamed. With a pang I remembered how she had smiled at me and Clare the night of her heart attack; that smile had been just as full of welcome and delight.

“Nicky! What are you doing here? Georgie, why didn’t you tell me he was coming?”

“I’ve been away too long,” Nick said. “It’s only for the weekend, but I had to come home.”

“Poor lambie, you’ve been homesick,” Honora said. “Well, certain of us here have been going crazy without you.” My mother and my husband exchanged knowing, significant glances, as if they knew something about me that I could never hope to understand.

“Are you okay now?” Nick asked.

“I think so. I have to say, I feel appallingly weak, sleeping all the time, no desire to move. I’ve gotten addicted to television. I watch the morning talk shows, the noontime news, a couple of soap operas, then a rerun of
Weather Woman
. I made a pretty dashing heroine, I must say.”

“Do the nurses know you were Weather Woman?” I asked.

“I’ve let it slip out to a couple of them. One of the young residents wanted me to autograph the newspaper’s weather report.”

“Still famous, and you filmed those shows how long ago?” Nick asked.

“Must be twenty years. Gad, thirty years, some of them. I’ve been remembering that time. What else is there to do in here except watch TV and relive your life? Anyway, I was thinking about Woods Hole, how those scientists made me out to be the Painted Lady of meteorology.”

“They were envious of you,” I said.

“Some of them were, but others enjoyed feeling superior to me. It was a very difficult place to live, Georgie. I don’t know if you’re aware of that. Everyone rallied around your father, treating him like a member of the club, no doubt feeling sorry for him having to put up with my frivolity. I think that’s what came between us. I’ve been thinking about him a lot in here.”

“It didn’t seem that bad,” I said, dazzled by the intimacy; this was not at all like Honora. Nick and I sat at the end of her bed, like children gathered around the feet of a great storyteller.

“I’m glad we sheltered you from it. I used to be afraid for you, being my daughter. Clare was fine; Clare was an excellent student, always tops in the class. Everyone said she took after her father. But you never wanted to go to school. Your grades were good, not great. You always wanted to stay home, or spend a school day pawing through tidal pools on Nobska Point.”

“But you were always strict about making me go to school.”

“Yes. Now, looking back, I so admire your imagination and the fact that you didn’t fit the mold.
Then
it terrified me. I thought you had to do all the conventional things, and do them well. You read more books than the entire third grade, but I was so upset when you got that C in arithmetic.”

“I remember that.” Honora had set me up with a little desk and an abacus, and she had made me spend one hour after school every day adding and subtracting. I was always better at subtraction.

“Why do you think she wanted to stay home?” Nick asked.

“I’ll tell you why,” my mother said, looking straight at me. “She was afraid something would happen if she wasn’t there to look after our house. She thought her father and I would have a fight that would end our marriage, or that one of us would simply disappear. I knew that, Georgie. Even back then.”

“I always wanted us to be together. Poor Dad,” I said.

“Yes, poor Timmy,” Honora agreed. “I can’t get him out of my mind. He died so early. To me, he will always be a young man, even though he died in his forties. He would be so proud of the Swift Observatory. And my God! Of his latest grandchild! Give the old grandmother a kiss and let me congratulate you, Nick.”

Nick obliged, getting his arms all the way around her in a good hug. I watched him from behind, the way his suede pilot’s jacket hiked up over his pants, revealing his blue pullover sweater. His waist looked so narrow. “In London I was thinking of you here in the hospital, and Georgie mad as hell at me for going without her. I never thought I’d come back to a homecoming like this.”

I smiled, happy he considered the news about the baby his homecoming. He seemed to have forgotten Mark Constable.

“Well, I told Georgie I don’t think she should be driving until the fainting stops. It’s much too dangerous.”

“I agree,” Nick said. “You know, she drove herself home after she fainted here yesterday?”

“I had to get home fast, to wait for your call,” I said, knowing the excuse was feeble, that all of us were imagining the crash and wreck.

“We won’t even honor that comment,” Honora said.

“Just don’t do it again,” Nick said.

I imagined the pleasure my pregnancy would bring to Honora, all the things it would give her to worry about: whether I was eating properly, whether I was gaining too much weight or not enough, the adverse effects of swimming on the mother and unborn child. “Thank heavens I established the Swift Observatory before I got pregnant,” I said. “I don’t see why I can’t continue as before.”

“What about your grant increase?” Nick asked. “I thought John told me those funds are earmarked for travel.”

“That’s true, but he said it was a no-strings-attached proposition. I get the money whether I travel or not. I think I’ll go back to my telephone system, conducting my interviews over the phone.” What about the fact that my best interviews, with Mona Tuchman and Caroline Orne, had happened in person? I dismissed that thought.

“Well, if you want to continue traveling, I think we can arrange it,” Nick said. “We could hire a nanny to help with the baby.”

“I was so lucky, having Pem to help with you and Clare,” Honora said. “In Woods Hole we had a series of housekeepers, some of them perfectly fine but others dreadful. The problem was that none of them stayed long enough for you girls to get attached to them. Pem, of course, was terrific. Once we moved to Black Hall, our families seemed to merge.”

“It feels that way now,” Nick said, his voice a little thick.

“The doctor tells me I can’t keep Pem with me any longer,” Honora said. “Did Georgie tell you that?”

“I know. It’s hard to believe.” Nick said. He watched Honora intently, knowing the subject was hard for her; his eyes looked as sad as hers, and I loved him for it.

“Well, to hell with the doctor,” Honora said. “I’ve given it a great deal of thought, lying in here. I have always intended for Pem to live on Bennison Point all her life. She has the right—she and my father bought the land, built the houses for us to enjoy. I want her at home.”

Although Honora’s decision thrilled me, I knew I had to speak carefully. Maybe she wanted to be talked out of it; I remembered her frustration with Pem before her heart attack. The bed-wetting, the sandwich-hiding, the bathing scene, Pem’s pugilism. “What about your health, Mom? The doctor said that having Pem around might be too stressful,” I said, even though, deep down, I didn’t believe that was so—we could hire someone to help feed and bathe Pem.

“She’s my mother, and we’ve been together for all these years. I think it would be more stressful for me to put her in a nursing home. That I will not do.”

Nick cleared his throat. In fine lawyerly fashion, he liked to hear all the facts before giving his opinion. “On the other hand, mightn’t Pem get better care at a nursing home? We all love her, and we hate to see her sad or unhappy, but she’s in pretty bad shape. This morning she made toast for herself, carried it into the living room, went to the window, forgot she had made the toast, went to the kitchen to make more. The toaster wouldn’t work the way she wanted it to, so she held down the lever until it started to smoke, and she blew a fuse.”

“She did? You didn’t tell me,” I said.

Honora held up her hands, to stop the discussion. “I know all that. That’s why I make her breakfast every morning. She’s just forgetful.”

“She could have started a fire,” Nick said. “What if we hadn’t been there? If the fuse hadn’t blown, the house might have burned down.”

“If, if,” Honora said. “The point is, I’m always there. When I leave the house, it’s after Pem has been fed, and then I turn off the kitchen appliances at the fuse box.”

“And you hide the gin, and you lock the gate to the street, and you make her go to the toilet before you leave,” I said, thinking of some of the things I had vaguely noticed but not considered significant.

“That’s a lot of work for someone who’s just had a serious heart attack,” Nick said. “And I’m not sure anyone you might hire to help out would be willing to take on what amounts to twenty-four hours a day of babysitting.”

Honora’s stony expression convinced me to change the subject. “Well, it’s a beautiful day out. Nick picked the best weekend in weeks. It’s just like autumn.”

“That’s right,” Honora said, glancing out the window at the blue sky. “You two get going. Thanks for visiting, but I want you to have a really super day together.”

“I’m sorry if I upset you,” Nick said, standing at the head of her bed. “But I love you, and I want you to live a long time. I think you should follow your doctor’s advice.”

Honora squeezed his hand, smiling up at him. “I’m just afraid it would be a half-life if I had to think of her in one of those places. I don’t think I could manage it.”

“I think you’d adjust,” Nick said, and I wanted to pull him out the door, to make him stop trying to convince Honora that Pem belonged in a home. I wanted our family together, so badly that I might have sacrificed Honora’s health to do it.

NICK’S MOOD CHANGED DRASTICALLY
. Entering the hospital, we had been happy, in love. Leaving, he looked cross. He glared at me for spending too long in front of the gift shop’s showcase. We drove slowly home along side roads. We had traveled this way often before. I stared out the window, feeling sad, wondering what Nick was thinking. He drove with a little frown on his face.

“Were you shocked by the way she looks?” I asked after a while.

“Yes, I was,” Nick said. “Seeing Honora like that changes everything. It gives you the idea nothing is permanent.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” I said, thinking of my old fears of being left: fears that belonged two days in the past, before Nick came home from London.

“You should have thought of that before you kissed the photographer,” Nick said.

“Nick!” I leaned across the gearshift to touch his wrist. The wrist was taut; he gripped the wheel with both hands. “Nick,” I said again, in a softer voice.

Nick stopped the car in a dusty turnaround beside a salt marsh. He continued to grip the wheel, as though he were still driving. Although it wasn’t hot, Nick’s black hair curled sweatily at his temples.

“Are you telling me we’re not permanent?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I’m upset. Honora was fine when I left for London, and now she’s in the hospital—it’s got me thinking. Maybe I should ask what you’re telling me,” Nick said. “Last night I walked in on you having dinner with another man. That’s weird enough, but it’s no big deal—I know that. But I can’t believe you kissed him, Georgie.”

“I’m sorry.”

“This is serious trouble. We’ve been playing a little—you always worrying about Jean and me letting you. It’s unrealistic. Do you realize how guilty you’ve made me feel about her? The entire time in London. If she came to work wearing a pretty dress and I happened to notice, I felt guilty. She rubbed my shoulders at the office one night, and I felt guilty.”

“She rubbed your shoulders?” I asked, wondering whether a backrub was more innocent than a kiss.