Illusions of Love (27 page)

Reading the paper one Sunday in April when Julian was about nine, Martin looked out through the French doors to the garden and was filled with an indefinable yearning. It was spring. The flowers were bursting into bloom, filling the air with a heady fragrance. The seasons were changing, life was racing by, and Martin felt as if he were being left at the side of the road, a passive onlooker. Stepping outside, his feeling of frustration grew. Why had he allowed himself to be stifled? Why did he let his wife and mother control his life?

The fact that the accusation was unfair just made him angrier. He knew in the beginning he’d encouraged Sylvia to run his home just as his mother had run his father’s. He had believed that this was all he wanted. He had been certain that any other longings would be satisfied by the children. Well, they weren’t, and he found himself furious at Sylvia whether it was her fault or not.

Tossing down the paper, he walked upstairs, just past Julian and Amy’s rooms to the bedroom he shared with Sylvia^ He stood for a long moment observing her.

“Hi, darling,” she said when she realized he was there.

“What have you been ” I want you to get the children ready to go to the house in Tahoe,” he said impulsively. Maybe a change of routine would put him in a better mood.

Sylvia, shocked by the anger underlying his request, wasn’t sure how to respond.

“Martin, darling,” she said finally, ‘it’s too early for Tahoe and the

children are “I don’t give a damn, Sylvia it won’t hurt them if they miss a few days of school.”

“Darling, I really don’t understand any of this.”

“That’s just the trouble,” Martin said.

“Why do you need to understand? Why can’t we just once do something because I feel like it? And I feel like going to the Lake.”

“Martin, I think you are being unreasonable. I can’t get the house ready that quickly, and besides I want to find out why you are so angry.”

Martin clenched his fists before answering. Good fathers and husbands controlled their tempers, but suddenly he wasn’t sure if he still wanted those two roles. Still he would try. Taking a deep breath, he tried to explain, praying that Sylvia would understand the need for excitement and adventure that he couldn’t express, that he was trying to assuage with this small, unplanned family trip.

“Sylvia, I am not angry. At least I’m trying not to be. I just thought it would be a good idea if we could get away. What would be so dreadful if you and I went up without the children and let Bess bring them up in a few days?”

“Really, Martin, as much as I would love that, I think we should be here when the children get out of school. If you think about it, darling, you’ll see that’s the right thing to do.”

Martin didn’t care about doing the right thing, but the idea of a spontaneous little vacation had been ruined anyway, so he decided to give in.

“You’re right,” he said.

“We’ll go when we planned.”

“I knew you would agree, Martin, darling.”

Martin spent the next two hours hitting tennis balls as hard as he could from the ejector.

On the fifteenth of April, precisely as planned, Martin checked twelve pieces of luggage into the car to drive to the airport. They always flew to Tahoe because Amy got carsick on long trips. They reached the airport in plenty of time only to discover the plane had been delayed by fog, which did little to improve Martin’s spirits. He snapped at Sylvia when she suggested coffee and yelled at Julian when

he refused to play cards with his sister. At Sylvia’s urging, he agreed to take Amy to explore the airport shops, but when they came back with enough bubble gum, Hershey bars and comic books to last a lifetime, Julian began asking, “When are we going to leave, Dad?”

until Martin blew up, shouting at his son to shut up until they were on the plane.

“Martin, I don’t think it at all necessary to speak to Julian that way,” said Bess, for once breaking her own rule about interfering.

Sylvia tried to stay out of the argument, but as Martin’s voice rose she tried to calm him, whispering that Julian was still a little boy and they would be going soon anyway. Martin realized that he was acting childishly, but his bad mood didn’t lift until they finally landed in Reno.

Almost from the moment they arrived, Martin felt as if he had been let out of jail. As soon as the children had gone to bed he drove Sylvia down to the Cal-Neva lodge, where she played roulette and Martin shot craps. Then they danced until one in the morning and caught the last show of the Hawaiian revue. By this time Martin was a little drunk.

Sylvia was still acting wary, uncertain of his temper, when he announced she had never looked better and he couldn’t wait to get her home to bed.

The next morning he was up at eight, rested as if he’d had a full night’s sleep. He left Sylvia in bed and went down to breakfast, where he was thrilled to find he had the children to himself.

Boy, they are gorgeous kids, he thought as he looked at them over the rim of his coffee cup.

“Dad, can we go on the higher slopes today?”

Julian asked, seeing Martin’s good spirits.

He looked at them for a moment. They were damn good skiers, better than most kids their age, but he knew Sylvia didn’t think they were ready for the advanced trails.

“I don’t think so, Julian, not this year,” he said.

Why not. Dad? “

Amy chimed in, “Yes, why not, Dad?”

“Because I really don’t think you’re quite ready for it.”

Upon which Julian protested, “I’m not a child any longer and I’ve been skiing since I was four.”

The, too, Daddy,” Amy said.

What they said was true and like most indulgent fathers he found it hard to say no.

“We’ll just go up and tell your mother,” he said, giving in.

Sylvia was yawning as they came into the room.

“How did you sleep, dear?” Martin asked.

“Just great,” she said. Then, noticing the kids, she added, “Have you all made plans for the day?”

“Well, the children are anxious to get in some skiing.”

“Darling, would you forgive me if I didn’t join you? I’d like to be lazy today and I think Mother wanted to go into the village a little later.”

“I wish you would,” Martin said. But before he could say more to persuade her, Julian and Amy pulled him from the room. Julian figured the less time they spent around their mother the less likely she was to find out they were planning to try the upper slopes.

It was only a short drive to the ski area, where they took a gondola to the top of the mountain. The kids were beside themselves with excitement and Martin had to restrain them so that he could check their bindings.

Finally they were ready for the descent. Amy quickly manoeuvred her way in front, shifting from side to side with neat parallel turns. She felt very grown up and hoped she could stay in front of her father and brother for the whole run. She concentrated on turning just at the top of each mogul, trying to maintain her speed. Then she looked back to see how far behind her brother was. The moment of curiosity proved disastrous. The edge of her ski caught on some ice and she lost her balance, still going over thirty miles an hour. She toppled over and over until she hit a snow bank.

Martin saw her fall and his heart nearly stopped. He skied up to her and when he saw she was unconscious he yelled for Julian to get the ski patrol. Lifting her head

gently, he implored her to wake up, speak to him.

Slowly she opened her eyes, but there was no recognition in them. He wanted to die. Martin had no idea how long they were there, but it seemed like an eternity before the ski patrol arrived with the sled.

“She is going to be okay, Dad,” Julian said as the medics lifted her.

Martin put his arms around his son, grateful for the boy’s attempt to comfort him. They waited until Amy was bundled into the sled, then followed the patrol down the mountain.

At the Squaw Valley emergency room Martin called Sylvia. When she heard Martin’s voice on the phone, she knew something was wrong.

“Sylvia,” Martin began, ‘don’t get upset. Amy has had a little accident. “

Swallowing hard, she asked what had happened.

“Well, she hit her head.

But I’m sure she’ll be all right. “

“Where are you?” Sylvia asked.

He told her and she said she’d be there immediately.

Martin and Julian were waiting in the hall when she and Bess arrived.

“Where is she?” Sylvia asked, trying to hold back her tears.

“She’s been taken upstairs.”

“How badly is she hurt?”

“The doctor told me she has a slight concussion.”

“Concussion?” Bess and Sylvia said at the same time.

“Yes,” Martin almost whispered.

“How did it happen?” Sylvia asked.

“We were coming down from the Gun Barrell,” Julian began.

“Gun Barrell?” Sylvia gasped.

“I can’t believe you took the children up there.”

Bess, who rarely criticized her son, couldn’t resist saying, “Martin, that was totally irresponsible.”

“Get off my back. Mother!” Martin snapped.

“I’m worried sick as it is. I don’t need your recriminations.” With

that he walked away, leaving Sylvia to find out where Amy’s room was. She started upstairs, still furious. Skiing with the other families wasn’t enough for Martin. He needed to show his children what a free spirit he was. Never mind if they were not ready for the upper trails. When she reached Amy’s door she braced herself for the sight of an unconscious child, but when she went inside she found Amy propped up in bed with a big bandage around her head.

“Hi, Mom,” she said.

Sylvia almost fainted with relief.

“How are you, darling?”

“Great, Mom. I just got a bump on my head.”

“Are you sure? You’re not just saying that?”

“No, Mom, really.”

The doctor confirmed that the Roths had a great deal for which to be grateful.

After a few days of observation, Amy was sent home as good as new, but the accident left Sylvia and Martin with scars that didn’t heal so quickly. Though they didn’t discuss it again, Sylvia felt he had foolishly risked the children’s lives. For his part, Martin resented her silent accusation. Even Julian sensed the tension. One night at dinner he rose to his father’s defence, answered the unspoken question by saying, “You know, it wasn’t Daddy’s idea to come down Gun Barrell and it wasn’t his fault Amy had an accident. She was doing great, in fact she was in the lead.”

Sylvia felt ashamed of her attitude, and when they flew back to San Francisco she tried to leave the incident behind her, but she knew it had made one more crack in the now battered facade of their marriage.

As long as he lived Martin would always remember the day Julian graduated from high school. For the first time he realized how hard it must have been for his own parents to see him grow up and go off to college. Sitting in the bright sun, Martin took Bess’s hand and squeezed it as he watched his son walk up and receive his diploma.

Seeing the gesture, Sylvia smiled. Martin seemed happier these days, less restless, or so she liked to believe. But if she had been able to read his thoughts this bright June day she might have felt less serene.

As the headmaster began his speech, Martin could not believe that it had been decades since he had sat on the same platform facing the audience at his own graduation. Where the hell had his life gone? In September it would be Julian’s time to set off for Yale but Martin knew he would have a much easier time. With no quotas, and admissions based mostly on grades and college boards, it was unlikely that Julian would find himself in a suite filled with tweedy antiSemites who thought college was just a place to play sports and drink beer. But even with all of his problems at Yale, Martin would eagerly have relived those years. His mother stirred at his side and he glanced at her, shocked to see how much she had aged in the last months. She was approaching seventy now, and that fact frightened him too.

In many ways Martin knew himself to be a lucky man, but he found himself more and more often forgetting where he was and reliving the past. And the past meant Jenny. Despite his best intentions he kept remembering their year together in New York. He saw her running across

the room to him, bending over the stove, throwing back her head in uninhibited laughter.

As the band struck up Pomp and Circumstance’, Martin dragged himself back to the present, feeling as guilty as though he had actually been with Jenny, kissing those red lips and brushing back her thick, wavy hair.

As Julian started off the stage, Martin wanted to cry out to him, Enjoy it, son, it goes so fast. Was it really only eight years ago he had been playing Little League, only five years ago they had gone trout fishing without either Amy or Sylvia? Martin blinked back tears as he made his way through the crowd to congratulate his son.

Two years later, when Amy graduated, Martin found the memories even more overwhelming. Tuning out the headmaster’s dull speech, he let a kaleidoscope of pictures run through his mind: Amy at five, whizzing past him on her new two-wheeler, “Look Dad, no hands’; at six, swimming the length of the pool; at eight, going camping and falling in the poison oak; at thirteen, winning the piano competition and coming home on top of the world, convinced she could do anything.

That night when Amy came into his study to show off her long white prom dress, Martin had trouble believing that this was the same little girl he had watched grow up. He kept remembering how he had walked the floor with her when she had scarlet fever. Could this be the same child in floating chiffon with her hair twisted up on her head, soft tendrils framing her face?

“How do I look. Dad?”

Not Daddy any more.

“Like my beautiful princess. Who gave you the orchids?”

“Mark Rosenthal. He’s taking me tonight.”

Martin realized he should have known. She and Mark seemed to have been going steady since the cradle, but now they were no longer little.

“What time will you be home, darling?”