The Darlings (24 page)

She went to a lot of fancy parties in those days, and it was at one of those fancy parties that she met Carter Darling. After their first date she thought that he was a bit of a snob, and also that it was inevitable that she would fall madly in love with him. She did. They got married at City Hall, and afterward went for a long, champagne-soaked lunch at La Grenouille with friends. She wore an elegant white shift and matching jacket from Valentino that she thought made her look like Mia Farrow at her wedding to Frank Sinatra at the Sands. There was no honeymoon because Ines was already pregnant with Merrill and feeling too nauseated to travel.

For a time, she worried that she might eventually fall out of love with her husband, or he with her. They had married so quickly, and so young, and were from different worlds altogether. Yet over the years, they were able to form a partnership that felt more functional and aligned than any of their friends' relationships. They never fought about money or where they would live or how the girls would be raised. Perhaps they should have, Ines thought sometimes, because then they might have felt more like lovers than business partners.

When he did ultimately fall in love with someone else, Ines didn't consider leaving as a real possibility. Where would she go? And how could she ever do that to the girls? They were a family. Staying with Carter was a selfless decision, and the right one. Or so she told herself. The fear that it was neither cut her to the core.

“Mom?”

Ines shut off the shower.

When she emerged from the bathroom, Merrill was perched on the edge of the bed like a pigeon. Her face was fresh, a clean-scrubbed pink. Her golden brown hair was pulled back from her face in a ponytail, clean and girlish. Though Ines imagined she wasn't, Merrill looked rested, as she would on any other weekend in the country. It was an illusion, of course, but Ines was grateful for it. Seeing her children suffer was more than she could bear at this point.

By contrast, Ines looked like shit.

“How are you doing, Mom?” Merrill blinked at her expectantly. She looked concerned but not disapproving. “I think dinner's ready.”

Ines sighed and disappeared into her walk-in closet. From inside it, she said, “I know. I'll just be a minute.”

“Are you going somewhere?”

“What?”

“Your suitcase is out here.”

“I haven't decided,” she said. She could sense that Merrill was on the verge of saying something but thought better of it.

“Where would you go?” Merrill said, after a minute of silence. “Back to the city? Or somewhere else?”

When there was no reply, Merrill said, “Mom, could you please come out of the closet? Have you spoken to Dad?”

Ines emerged from the closet. In her hand was a cashmere turtleneck.They both stared at the open suitcase, which was lying on the rack beside the bed. The lid was propped against the back wall, revealing a half-hearted attempt at packing. Absently, Ines pulled the sweater over her head without bothering to put on a bra. In the naked sunlight, her body looked old, like some external force had been sucking at her skin until it had started to come lose off her.

The truth of it was that she was terrified to leave Beech House. Carter would return to Manhattan in the morning, and both he and Sol had expressed how important it was for her to go with him. “I need you, Ines,” Carter had said. It had been so long since he had assigned her any importance that she found this almost heartwarming. Then Sol had said: “It will look bad if you're apart. Anyway, what would you do out here all by yourself?” The two of them stood there like a team. They had rehearsed their pitch beforehand, she realized, her heart hardening. She was just part of the plan's execution.

The more relevant question, to Ines anyway, was what would she do with herself in Manhattan? She couldn't visualize it. Should she stay home and watch television, waiting for Carter to return and tell her their life was ending? That the lawyers' fees would bankrupt them? That he was going to disappear to some country with no extradition treaty, and she would see him again only on the television screen?

She would go to the gym or to the deli or to Starbucks, where un-doubtedly she would see an acquaintance who would stop her and ask after the family and, if they were particularly tactless, express sadness over Morty's death. Or, after Carter's mistress was inevitably interviewed on television, they would say nothing to her but simply duck their heads and pass by as though they hadn't seen her. That's what she would do if she were they. What could she possibly say to anyone now?

She realized, as she considered these actualities, these threads of what would now be her life's fabric, that there wasn't a single person in the world she wanted to see. She would make a lifetime of avoiding the people she had once worked so hard to befriend. Even getting coffee at the deli around the corner would be a gauntlet run. She would have to wear a hat and slip in and out, unnoticed. She'd be embarrassed to be anywhere—
even the deli
—like some sort of Hester Prynne. And this was all before the press got wind of everything. This was the beginning.

It would be easier to avoid all that in the country. Days could be whiled away at Beech House, checking on the temperamental boiler, instructing the staff, inspecting the hedgerow. Ines always felt purposeful when she was there. It wasn't that the tasks were important or could only be accomplished by Ines herself (most of it, admittedly, could and often was delegated to a third party: Carmela or John, an interior decorator, a gardener). But rather, their value lay in the fact that Ines was good at them, and it brought her pleasure to be able to look back on the day and see tangible evidence of what she had accomplished. The apartment in the city, contained as it was within a fully staffed building, ran itself. A relief on most days, but on other days, days when she was alone, the apartment's self-sufficiency made her feel obsolete, like an outdated coffeemaker relegated to the back cupboard.

Beech House was a place of suspended reality, filled with manicured lawns and porticos and putting greens. Like all summer homes, it had no real purpose. During the summer season, its residents could pretend that the question that pressed most heavily upon their minds was
Golf or tennis this morning?
Weather discrepancies—impending rainstorms, unseasonable chills—sent everyone into frantic caucus. Even the tasks that Ines clung to as purposeful were, for the most part, manufactured. No one needed an arbor by the swimming pool, for example, and the mudroom furniture didn't need to be repainted nearly as often as it was. These banalities were merely meant to occupy her, allowing the time to pass gently. Ines could lose herself for days there, even weeks, like Alice down the rabbit hole.

Also, Carter had bought it just for her. Back in the days when he would do anything for her. She could have had a less expensive house, or one requiring far less work. But this was the one she wanted. And what Carter wanted, or so he had said at the time, was to see her happy.

If Ines had a choice, she would stay there in perpetuity.

“Your father's going back into the city tomorrow morning,” Ines said. She sat down at her glass-topped vanity table. Its triptych of mirrors reflected her features, dark and defined, at three angles. She looked at herself, and then at her daughter, and they locked eyes. “He wants me to go with him.”

“I think that's probably a good idea.”

Ines sighed. She glanced away from the mirror and out through the darkened window. “I was hoping we could all enjoy the weekend out in the country,” she said. She began to brush her hair. “It's so rare that we're all together.”

“Mom,” Merrill stood up. She crossed her arms over her chest. She was all elbows and eyebrows, sharply impatient. “We can't just pretend this isn't happening.”

“That what isn't happening?”

“This whole mess with the firm. I'm not a moron, Mom. I'm a lawyer. There's going to be media attention soon, and indictments and all the rest.”

“Yes, thank you, Merrill, for bringing your legal expertise to bear.” Ines's eyebrow arched as she pulled her hair back into a severe knot at the nape of her neck.

Merrill's eyelid's flickered, but she didn't take the bait. “We have to rally behind Dad,” she persisted. “There has to be some kind of family unity.”

Ines stopped fussing with her hair. “Don't you dare imply that I haven't stood behind your father. There's a lot that you don't understand.”

“Then explain it to me,” Merrill said, her eyes large and plaintive. “Please, Mom. If you don't come into the city, where will you go?”

“Are you asking me if I'm leaving your father?”

Merrill glanced away. “I guess. It's not like I wouldn't understand.”

Ines felt a welling up of guilt, the way she used to when Merrill was young and she and Carter had had a row. Whatever frustration she had felt for her daughter had subsided, and was replaced only by a tender sadness. “You know I love you all very much,” she said, “but I'm not sure—I'm not sure I can get through what he's putting me through right now.”

Without warning, Ines started to cry. Though Merrill was startled, she tried not to show it. She realized that she had almost never seen her mother cry, except during old movies. Ines didn't cry for personal reasons. She was too efficient for it. She had buzzed through Merrill and Lily's weddings with greater equanimity than the caterer.

Ines also rarely confided in anyone. Merrill often wondered if her mother saw a shrink—God knows the rest of them did—but knew better than to ask. If ever she needed to see one, now was the time.

Ines rose and came over to the bed. They sat side by side, mother and daughter, not looking at each other but feeling the other's closeness. Ines wiped back her tears with one hand and then patted Merrill's thigh. “I promised myself a long time ago that there were two things I wouldn't do to you and Lily. I wouldn't talk badly about your father, no matter what, and I wouldn't leave, no matter what. He's not always made it easy, you know. Your father's a great father. He's not always been a great husband.”

“Why did you stay with him then? Please don't say for us.”

“Of course for you.”

Merrill wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. “Mom, all I want is for you to be happy. And I know Dad hasn't always been a great husband. Honestly, there were times where I expected you to leave him and I was surprised you didn't. But right now . . . well, it seems like a really bad time to hold him accountable for some of his, you know, his indiscretions. There's going to be so much bad press when the news comes out about Morty's fund. If you leave him, it won't look good.”

Ines stiffened. “If I left your father, it wouldn't have anything to do with the firm. Not really.” She hesitated, but couldn't help but continue. It had been so long since she had been able to speak about this to anyone. “He should have told you this. Will you promise to keep this to yourself? Lily doesn't need to know about this unless it becomes an issue. But I want you to understand it. Maybe that's selfish, but I want someone to understand. I don't have anyone to talk to.”

“Understand what?”

Ines paused. When she spoke, her eyes were closed and her hand floated to her mouth, as if her words embarrassed her. “That your father is having an affair. It's been going on a very long time.”

“I know, Mom,” Merrill flushed uncomfortably. They had never spoken of it, never even alluded to it, before now.

“Do you understand who the woman is?”

“I always . . . to be honest, I've sometimes wondered if it was Julianne.” Merrill paused. “Oh, I see,” she said, nodding. Her face opened up as though she had just realized something important that had been eluding her for years. “I see why that makes this more complicated.”

Ines snorted. “Oh, sweetheart,” she said, shaking her head. “It's so much more complicated than that.”

What struck Merrill most about the conversation that followed was her mother's tone. It was neither angry nor hurt, but simply pragmatic, as though she were explaining the order of the world to a child.

When she finally appeared in the dining room, Ines looked radiant. Her hair was pulled neatly back and her makeup had been carefully done. Her cheekbones had been stenciled in with blush and bronzer, and she looked full of life. She wore a scarf tucked neatly around her neck, its crimson folds lending color to an otherwise black outfit. If she had been crying, no one could tell. “I'm so sorry to have kept you waiting,” she said graciously to Sol and Marion.

Everyone was so relieved to see her that conversation resumed with a new buoyancy, as though it were any other Thanksgiving. Ines talked the most, engaging Sol and Marion in chitchat, pulling her chair around to talk with Lily and Adrian. The only person she didn't speak to directly was Carter.