I Like You Just Fine When You're Not Around (30 page)

“I loved my wife, Judy; I would never have left her. But you had to know your mother from an outside perspective to understand.” Jeff Jenson looked up, examining the edges of his thoughts. “We spent a lot of time together, just the four of us.”

Wendy stroked the box that held her mother's inner life and said, “Your brother, the one that was friends with Dad. Is he still alive?”

“He's not. But he wasn't the piece that kept the group together. It was the girls who made the effort. They organized everything. I think Judy felt almost the same way as I did about Hallie. I swear. You just couldn't not love her. She was light and laughter, your mother. You girls must remember that.”

Wendy nodded. “Her clients at the clinic loved her. She was a tough parent. She had to be. She was both mother and father.”

Dr. Jenson looked a long moment at Wendy and Tig and said, “Two years before Dan died, Judy and I discovered we couldn't have children. There was no fixing it. No working around it. We talked about adoption, but the life went out of Judy when she learned of our fertility difficulties. She went into a terrible, black depression. We tried all kinds of therapy, medication, even—God help me—electroconvulsive therapy. Nothing helped.” Dr. Jenson licked his lips. “My wife loved Hallie, looked up to her. Hallie used to come, help out at our place, take Judy out. The night I brought home the tickets to see
A Little Night Music
, Hallie was there. Judy loved musicals. I thought, here's a chance to get her out of the house.” Dr. Jenson's story sputtered and stopped.

Clementine started to fuss and Wendy said, “Go on.”

“Judy gave me this blank look and quoted one of the songs in the show. ‘Every Day a Little Death,' she said. ‘I don't care. I don't care about going. Take Hallie. Just leave me be.' I'll never forget it. I got so angry with her. I wanted her to fight for us, even just a little.” Sighing, he said, “I'm sure she suspected how I felt about Hallie, but she also knew how much I loved her.”

Dr. Jenson placed both hands over his eye sockets and rubbed hard. “Maybe it's not right to say this, but your mother and Dan had a tumultuous relationship. Dan always wanted her to quit the clinic, stay home with Wendy. He thought Hallie's job reflected badly on him. He came home later and later at night. It crushed Hallie's spirit; she saw her own interest in working as a weakness, evidence of her lack of femininity.” He dropped his hands and focused on Tig. “I'm not making excuses for our behavior. I want you to know how it was for us. We were young. We didn't understand consequences yet.”

Tig said, “I really don't know if I want to hear this. I know I have to. I guess what I really wish is that there wasn't something to know.”

“The night of the show, Dan was on a business trip, due to return home late. He never cared if Hallie and I did something together. He knew I wasn't a threat to their relationship. So, Hallie got a sitter and we drove into the city. We reasoned it would do us both good.”

Wendy asked, “Did you make it to the show?”

“Yeah, the musical was terrific, a setup of misplaced desires and unrequited loves. It was like a mirror for me. After the show, we had dinner, drinks. More drinks and a long walk in the park.”

Tig said, “I think I know what's coming.”

Wendy touched Clementine's fat sponge of a foot and tucked it into her blanket. To Tig, she said, “Remember how cautious Mom used to be about us dating? Then when we were older, how she took us in for birth control? Mom wasn't taking any chances. I didn't lose my virginity for two years after getting those pills.” Touching Clementine's hair, she added, “That's irony for you.”

Tig said, “Mom used to say, ‘Even the most immune can go astray. Best to plan for the unplanned.' I always thought it was a stray dog thing. Too many puppies and kittens. I never thought she was talking about me. That I was the unplanned thing in her life.”

Dr. Jenson said, “No, Tig, you've got that wrong. Your mother was immediately regretful about our intimacy, but she never, even for a second, felt you were a mistake. She never acknowledged that possibility. She saw you as Dan's, through and through. There was no discussion. Since we didn't know for sure, you were Dan's daughter and there was no way to prove it otherwise.”

Wendy said, “Go back to that night. What happened when you got home?”

“Hallie was determined to tell Dan about our encounter and to say goodbye to me. To tell Dan that she and I would never see each other again. We agreed to do it together, and then sever all ties. When we opened the door, the sitter was gone, Wendy was asleep in her bed, and Dan was on the couch. He had paid the sitter, and died suddenly and peacefully. Sudden cardiac death. The best and the worst way to die. No symptoms until there's death.”

The details of the night so long ago washed over the two sisters. So much could happen while sleeping, or even before birth, that determined so much. Tig wanted to say something, anything, but just couldn't sort her emotions from her thoughts and get it together enough to make a sentence.

Dr. Jenson went on, “You're probably thinking I was glad about this. You know: an opening. But no door was ever open to me where your mother was concerned. Our infidelity clinched that. And, as it turned out, nine months later—” Dr. Jenson held the ticket up. “—give or take a few weeks, you showed up. Hallie never had the chance to confess, tell Dan she loved him, say she was sorry. That was the end of any kind of relationship we might have had.”

Wendy said, “Did Mom ever say anything to anyone?”

Dr. Jenson's energy for the conversation seemed to leave him. “I think she talked to your Aunt Edith. It all seems so pointless, in a way. So much lost joy. Your mother was loyal and believed in black-and-white rules. No shades of gray. After that night, she shored herself up and took on the future. She devoted herself to helping my wife until she died from breast cancer in 1980. She expanded her veterinary practice, and gave every last piece of herself to you and Wendy. She said I reminded her of her weakness. Taking time for herself was always a limitation in her mind. After we were both single, she wanted to wait until you girls were grown, to try out being together. She wanted to be loyal to Dan.”

Wendy said softly, “I don't want to be unkind, Dr. Jenson . . . Jeff . . . but maybe she didn't love you in the way you loved her. Maybe she knew Tig was the daughter of Dan Monahan, but couldn't bear to hurt you, knowing what a tough time you were having.”

Dr. Jenson rolled up his sleeve. “I have the twin to that bracelet of hers you're wearing. The one she wore until it slipped off her wrist, along with her memory.” He held out his arm. A silver ID bracelet, heavier, more masculine than the one Tig wore, slid down his wrist. He angled it to her so she could read the words:
I would let you know.
“Hallie had these made for us.”

Tig said, “Oh my God. Why would she choose to be alone, all these years, if she could have had you?”

Dr. Jenson stroked the words engraved on the silver band. “She once told me she wasn't going to invest in anyone she didn't give birth to. She was afraid to love and lose, after Dan.”

Tig didn't look up. She couldn't bear to see his face, to think he might be telling the truth. “My mother wouldn't do that . . . wouldn't have deprived me of a life without a father. She may have been guarded, determined, but never thoughtless and cruel.”

“Your mother doesn't have a thoughtless or cruel bone in her body. You've got to understand the time. My wife was alive, her husband was dead. There was no insurance money. She had to make a livelihood. She was afraid a scandal would hurt her business, hurt her children. Leaving my wife would have killed Judy faster than the disease that ultimately took her life. I couldn't leave, and Hallie wouldn't have had me. That's the truth of it.”

“What do you mean, no insurance money? We had trust funds from the insurance money. Both of us. It paid for our college. I invested that money.”

Dr. Jenson said, “I was an MD without a family, without anything to bankroll but a widow with two little girls. I always felt it was an honor to invest my money that way. I still do. I promised to never voice my fantasies of having a daughter if she let me stay involved, even from a distance.”

After another lengthy pause, while the fireworks that had seemed to be spitting and popping over their heads melted and dripped to their shoulders, Tig looked at her sister, who stared at Jeff Jenson.

“You made our lives so easy and we never knew,” Wendy said. “How will we ever thank you?”

“What about after Wendy and I had lives of our own?” Tig asked. “When you were both single and there weren't children to consider?”

“By then, your mother had healed, moved on, had a back story and was sticking with it. She said there was no way of ever knowing the truth, so why open up a question that would never be answered? She wanted you girls to have strong identities, and she thought questioning who your father was would threaten that. She wouldn't even date me, saying that would be cruel to me, being around you, Tig, and never knowing. She didn't let other people vote.”

“How do I think about this?” Tig asked desperately. “Should I be angry? Because I feel angry.” She wiped her nose with her arm. “Who am I mad at? You? My mother? How can I be mad at a woman who can't recall if she's had lunch, let alone remember who my father is? Hell, most of the time she only remembers she had Wendy.” Dr. Jenson handed his handkerchief to Tig, and she looked directly at him. “Maybe you're the one I'm angry at. If you wanted a child, why didn't you fight for me?”

He opened his mouth, closed it. Tried again. “I've been fighting for you by staying close, all this time. Respecting someone's wishes that are directly opposed to your own is the hardest thing to keep on fighting for. It's been a battle, Tig.” Charging ahead, Dr. Jenson said, “For years there was no way of knowing, but times have changed. Science is accessible. There is DNA testing.”

Tig put her hands out, dual stop signs. “Whoa, slow down. I need a break.”

Dr. Jenson, looking all of his sixty-some odd years, said, “Of course you do. I'm sorry. This is a terrible shock. I never truly believed this conversation would happen.”

Tig examined Dr. Jenson's face, the slope of his nose, the turn of his lips. Were those her ears? Did she have his hairline? “I don't know how I feel about any of this, if I even want to know you,” she said. “I sure don't want evidence that says I have to know you.” Tig stood and made a move for the front door.

Wendy yelled out, “Where're you going, little sister? Back to live with Mom? Off to Hawaii to mess with Pete, or maybe to Alec's to promise him half a life? It's time for the Monahan women to stay put and let some people in. Grow up. Live a real love.”

Dr. Jenson looked from sister to sister.

“Oh, I know what you're thinking,” Wendy said to Tig. “Who am I to talk? But I'm making progress. Clem and I, we're a match made in utero. Just like you and me. We're stuck with each other, and I'm sick of you. Let's bring in some new blood.”

• • •

Tig did return to the nursing home that night. She walked slowly past the birds and the front desk, past a nursing assistant helping a man, all sinew and ghost-like skin, onto a commode chair. The privacy curtain rolled on oiled ball bearings and hissed into place as the nurse pulled it around their shoulders. On silent feet Tig nosed the familiar door open, stepped into the smell, part home part disinfectant, that she now associated with her mother. Tig saw that someone had braided her mother's hair, and a white rope of it curled at her neck in line with a blue vein that ran, bashful, beneath the neck of her light blue pajama top. With her mother asleep, the baby doll quiet in her arms, Tig could see her mother as others saw her. Old. Dry. Peaceful.

Tig unclasped the silver bracelet, warmed from her body, and slid it onto her mother's wrist. She latched the spring-loaded clasp and let the bracelet find its place nestled between condyle and joint.

Slowly, her mother opened her eyes. “Oh, you're here.”

“Hi, Mom. I just left Jeff Jenson.”

“Hmmm. Lovely man.”

“Is he my dad?”

“Your dad will be home and then we can eat. I'm just going to close my eyes for a second.”

“Do you think I should tell Pete I love him?”

An exhale from the back of her mother's throat sounded as disappointed as if her mother had remained awake and said,
Don't be silly. That ship has sailed.

As Tig left the room, she ran into one of the night shift nurses she had come to know from her own midnights at Hope House. The nurse was old herself, a Norwegian woman through and through. No nonsense, few words, all business. As a greeting the woman said, “What d'ya know, Tig?”

“Well, for one thing,” she said, “that Alzheimer's patients only give up their secrets in the movies.”

The nurse nodded. “True story.”

Since Pete had left and Thatcher had no one to run with, Tig had started walking Thatcher through the neighborhoods that bordered her home. She varied her routes and waved at the familiar faces peeking out windows: a jowly basset that lived with the equally jowly retired science teacher, the bouncing boxer with the talkative, gardening nurse. If she was walking the sidewalks, Tig could tell herself she was wasn't really hiding. People were everywhere.

When she called Alec and suggested they meet on a trail near Hope House, he'd said they were already there. Erin had picked out a dog at the Humane Society, and they were tiring him out. Once Tig arrived, it didn't take long for her to relay the entire saga of Dr. Jenson and her mother.

“That's quite a story.”