The Perfect Son (11 page)

Harry reached around with his other hand and touched the girl’s shoulder. Another of Harry’s embarrassing habits: if he touched a person’s right side, he had to touch her left side and vice versa. Something to do with balance. The girl seemed not to notice or care.

A pair of crows cawed, and the drizzle now smothered his windscreen, impeding his view of the children. The scene on the playground took on an oddly dreamlike quality. His son, who had never—to his knowledge—expressed interest in girls, was in love. And those feelings were reciprocated. Truth be told, he had never expected teenage Harry to have a girlfriend. Did that make him, Felix, shallow and judgmental? Yes, it did. Because here was a beautiful teenage girl who could accept what Harry’s own father could not.

Why had he promised Ella he’d make his life all about Harry? Clearly, he wasn’t wired for parenthood. Maybe he should forget the tasks Ella had assigned him and go into the office to do what he was meant to do: put together deals.

Felix had been a working stiff his whole life and had never once used up his quota of paid holidays. He’d been earning a salary since he’d taken up carpentry at sixteen—Harry’s age.

“Coming from money doesn’t mean a bloody thing,” Pater had always said. “I don’t care if you want to follow in your grandfather’s footsteps and be a banker. Haven’t you studied the Great Depression in American history? You need manual skills so you can provide for your family whatever the situation. You don’t want to be some slacker sponging off the welfare state.”

Slacker was not a word associated with the Fitzwilliam name, even though Mother had happily lived off the family inheritance for decades. Felix had never been a slacker, nor was he about to become one.

He glanced at his watch. Three hours to school pickup. Should he head to the office? Eliminating travel time and the obligatory chat with Nora Mae, that would leave two hours at his desk. Less if he ended up in a confrontation with Robert. Hardly worth going into work, then.

What he did need to do, however, was exit the parking lot before Harry turned and spotted the Mini. After all, it was evident that he had not tortured his son.

His phone chimed with a text from Ella.

You need to collect your dry cleaning. Forgot. Sorry to give you one more thing to do. Feeling pretty useless and exhausted. Dr. Beaubridge was a ray of sunshine, wasn’t he?

Felix texted back:

He’s an arrogant prick. Every time you look at him, imagine a giant penis.

Ha! That’s a good one!

Had he made her laugh? When was the last time he’d made her laugh?

Going back to sleep
, Ella typed.

Good night, Sleeping Beauty.

He started the engine. Back to the errand-running plan, then. He should begin with the dry cleaner’s before he forgot to write it on his to-do list. Wait. Where the hell was the dry cleaner’s?

NINE

The nurses had dimmed the lights at her request, but Ella couldn’t sleep. Light found its way into her room, seeping under the door and through the venetian blinds. After seventeen years of sharing a bedroom with Felix, she, too, could no longer sleep with the slimmest crack of light. He had trained her well. The nighttime sounds of Duke Forest—the occasional owl hooting, deer padding up to their bedroom doors to nibble her azaleas, raccoons nosing around—were replaced by traffic, sirens, and trolley wheels squeaking along the corridor. She missed her woodland garden; she missed her morning power walks with their elderly neighbor, Eudora. She even missed their house, which she’d condemned to Katherine as a twisted fairy-tale nightmare cottage after a record number of copperheads had slithered out of the forest and onto their patio one spring.

Ella had wanted to live in the country, in a modern colonial with a wraparound porch and enough land cleared for a sun garden, despite being vehemently opposed to clear-cutting. Felix had been the one who’d lusted after the 1950s fixer-upper bungalow trapped on the edge of civilization.

She had never liked that dark, hidden house, and now all she wanted was to hear the birdsong in the forest—the wood thrushes, the mockingbirds, the eastern whip-poor-wills, even the jeer of the blue jays. The shadows from the trees, the flickering sunlight that lay across her bed mid-morning, the Monet-inspired bridge that led over the creek to their front path—she missed them all. And soon her camellias and hellebores would be blooming.

There was so much to look forward to, if only she could get home.

Dr. Beaubridge had told her to be patient, but relearning basic self-care was slow and demoralizing. She wanted nothing more than to rise up like Lazarus and go pee unaided, but the effort tied her to the hospital bed with imaginary ropes. All day she’d felt suspended in a weird in-between state of existence. Her mind would tell her to wake up, shake off sleep, move, and yet her body refused to cooperate—except for her heart, which danced a never-ending rumba.

Ella closed her eyes and imagined the softness of her goose-feather duvet. They’d brought it back from London in the days when you could check two fifty-pound bags for free on a transatlantic flight. They used to return home with such precious loot: Dr. Martens, chocolate, candy, Wellington boots, English bone china . . . Would she ever have the strength to travel again?

She had done nothing for two days; nothing had become her new normal. If she had the energy to care, she would be crazier than a shit-house rat. Maybe she was already, since whenever she slept, in snatches, she heard, smelled, and touched her mother. Not a single haunting or symbolic dream in twenty-three years, and now her dead mother was flesh and blood living in Ella’s subconscious.

Maybe she needed a brain stent.

How were the boys coping this evening? They were so different, her guys: Harry, tactile and demonstrative; Felix, someone who lived life with hands firmly in his pockets—unless he was reaching for her. Felix had always been a tender lover, a generous lover who took his time. When had they last hugged with passion, not obligation? And whose fault was that—who was the one who’d reset the ground rules in the bedroom? She might just as well have spray-painted
back off, buddy
on the bedroom walls.

Ella picked up her cell phone and hit “Favorites.”

“Hello, darling,” Felix said. After all these years, his smooth, quietly sardonic English accent still surprised her, still warmed her with desire. Even now, when she was confined to a sterile hospital room.

“I was missing you.”

“Me too,” he said.

“How’s homework going?”

“I have a double single malt in my right hand. Does that answer your question?”

“You don’t have to supervise. Just check his assignment notebook, write due dates and deadlines on the dry-erase board, and vaguely oversee.”

“Vague isn’t in my repertoire, Ella.”

She smiled, imagining his lips on her breasts.

Ice chinked against his glass. “How can he accomplish anything when he won’t sit still?”

Ella sighed as their shared moment slipped away. “It might look as if he’s not working, but movement is part of Harry’s thought process. He literally cannot think if he sits still.”

Felix slugged his drink. “How the hell does he manage in school?”

“Legally, the teachers have to let him get up in the middle of class, so I established a code word to make it less distracting for other students. Then he goes outside and runs a few laps.”

“Oh,” Felix said. She could almost hear him frown. “I should have known that, shouldn’t I?”

“No, Felix. We chose to be on different tracks because we did what works for our family. Life isn’t perfect, but we’ve been managing, haven’t we?”

Three days ago, she wouldn’t have asked that question because she wouldn’t have cared how he answered. But this evening, here in this ugly hospital room that wasn’t dark enough for sleep, it mattered. She wanted it back—her life. All of it, the way it was.

Felix seemed to be walking around; a door closed. “Why did you never leave me, Ella?”

“Why would you ask that? I love you.” How could he doubt her?

“Is marriage really that simple?”

“It has to be. How else would couples survive? Marriage never runs on an even keel. We love each other and we’ve created a life together. What else matters?”

“Do you ever wonder what might have happened if we hadn’t both been on the Tube that day, in the same carriage, six feet apart?”

“Of course not. It was destiny and it led to Harry.”

“Right.” Felix drew out the word as if he were trying to make sense of it. “Do you want to speak with him, say good night?”

“Not just yet.” Ella held the phone as close as she could. She had to compose her next sentence with care. Felix was overly sensitive about anything he classified as criticism.

“I’m pretty anxious—about everything. You worry,” she said quietly. “A lot. How do you cope?”

“One has to face one’s demons and keep going. Channel the British war mentality.”

“I’m not British.”

“Close enough.” He hesitated. “We will get through this, darling. Despite your cardiologist and his God complex.”

“You’d have one, too, if you held people’s hearts in your hands.”

The void slunk back into place and threatened to swallow her whole. “I’m pretty beat. I should talk to Harry. ’Night, Felix.”

“’Night, Ella.” Felix paused. “Harry! Come talk to your mother.”

And Felix was gone. Ella rested the weight of the phone against her cheek and waited.

“Mom! How’re you feeling? How’s the food?”

“Crap and crap. How’s school?”

“Awesome. Everyone’s being fantastically nice. And I got one hundred five percent on that calculus test.”

“One hundred five percent?”

“Bonus questions. Didn’t you get my texts?”

“Sorry, baby. I must have been asleep.” He’d sent so many, and she didn’t have the energy . . .

“That’s okay. I wondered why you didn’t answer them, but Dad said they keep you busy in there. So. Whatcha doin’?”

“About to go back to sleep. I’m training for the world sleep record.”

Harry giggled. “Mom . . .” She knew that tone. He had a secret. “Remember the new girl in tenth grade?”

“Sammie Owen?”

“Yeah. I think she likes me. You know, like
likes
me.”

“I hope you’ve asked her to a movie or something.”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“Sweetheart—this is one of those cases when you should act first, think later. What if you hesitate and someone else asks her out? Do it. I dare you. No, I double dare you.” Ella stopped to breathe. Such exhaustion. “How are you and Dad getting along?”

“He’s a little scary as Mr. Mom. Cuts the crusts off my sandwiches.”

“Ask him not to.”

“But he’s trying really, really hard, and I don’t want to, you know, upset him.” Harry gave a Harry sigh, which was more of a warp-speed snort. “When’re you coming home?”

“We’re shooting for Saturday. Have you talked with Dad about the sleepover?”

“No, I figured I’d cancel it.”

Harry clicked his tongue, a tic she hadn’t heard in a while. Was he regressing? Were Felix and Harry not trying hard enough to connect? Her heart picked up its pace, pounding as if through a megaphone.

“Ask Dad what he thinks. He might surprise you.” Maybe she should interfere, issue them a hold-the-damn-sleepover directive.

“I dunno, Mom. Me and Dad? We’re like that Simple Minds song you played for me the other week, ‘When Two Worlds Collide.’”

She and Harry were always sharing music. Ella closed her eyes and listened to the dissonant bleep of her monitor. “You should play Dad some Simple Minds.”

“Why?”

“Just something from way back when . . .” But she couldn’t grasp the memory. Even thinking drained her energy. “Listen, baby, I’m fading. It’s been another action-packed day for us cardiac patients. Finish up your homework and get to bed.”

“’Kay. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Ella lay back down, but within seconds her phone trilled with a text alert.

can you ask dad about the sleepover

No.

please
☺☺☺☺

Nice try. Answer still no. This week you and Dad have a special assignment: figure out how to deal with each other without me playing piggy in the middle.

She flopped back. Texting was exhausting.

suppose he yells at me

Dad doesn’t bite, you goon! He’s just a little quirky.

i’m a lot quirkier

Yes and no. Dad needs a lot of support right now. Be nice. HUGS. xox

The pale gray bubble came up, the one that meant Harry was still typing. Ella groaned. She never said no to Harry, but she needed rest. And really, if Felix was willing to put his life on hold, Harry had to meet him halfway.

If she was ever going to get home, she had to start listening to her body; she had to start rethinking life as a woman with a heart condition. Katherine had nailed it when she’d told Ella to stop worrying about Harry and put herself first. She needed to unlearn her mothering instincts, become a bad mother. And she needed to believe in Felix, trust that he could be the father she’d always hoped he would be.

The gray bubble was still pulsing. Harry had more to say, and she was making the decision to ignore him. Midconversation, and she turned off her phone. The worst part? She had no guilt.

TEN

Harry gobbled a large smiley-face cookie—crumbs shooting everywhere—and stopped briefly to slurp hot chocolate. He swallowed with a gulp before hunching forward to resume his maniacal munching. Felix watched. Could his son not slow down to eat? In fact, could he not slow down for life?

The Mad Hatter had been Harry’s choice, not his. Felix would have preferred a café with less buzz and fewer students, but at least they had a satisfactory view of Duke. Parts of the campus always reminded him of Oxford.

Felix crossed his legs and brushed a piece of lint from his thigh. Fifteen minutes until they had to leave for Harry’s after-school voice lesson. Plenty of time to ask about the girl and throw in a quick tutorial on table manners. Should that preempt the condom conversation?

“Dad, I want to—”

“Harry, please. Not with your mouth full.”

The waitress squeezed past to deliver a plate of scrambled eggs, home fries, and toast to the old geezer sitting next to them. Breakfast food at three thirty in the afternoon? How utterly absurd. Maybe it wasn’t just his son who confounded him. Maybe it was people in general.

“How’s your girlfriend?”

Harry’s chin jutted up in a salvo of tics. “I-I d-don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Cute, blond, mismatched Converse. Five foot four, if I had to guess.”

“She’s not really . . .”

“You’re not doing that casual hookup thing, are you? You do know that’s how kids get STDs.”
Or AIDS, like your uncle.

“Dad. I’m not interested in flings.”

“So how does she fit into your life?”

“You really want to know?” Harry blushed.

“No, Harry.” Felix scratched at the label on his small bottle of Perrier. “That’s why I asked.”

“I think she’s, like, amazing.” Harry paused to clear his throat. Of all the tics, this one bothered Felix the least. It could easily pass for an allergy symptom. “But she has serious family stuff going on.”

“Might I point out that so do you?”

“But what if that’s all there is? What if it’s just a connection of need?”

“Does it matter? Harry, your life will be filled with women. Don’t overthink first love.”

“Suppose it’s not first love?”

“Suppose you take a risk and find out?” As he did when Ella got pregnant.

“Dad, what was it like when you met Mom, when you first saw her?”

Felix glanced up at the decorative red light fixture hanging above their table. “She was beautiful. It was passion at first sight.”
And a whole lot of lust.

“Not love?”

Someone behind them coughed. Felix frowned and leaned across the table.

“That took longer. Your mother also had ‘serious family stuff going on’ the first time we met. Your grandmother had just died, and Mom left London shortly afterward to go home and be near your grandfather. We didn’t really get together until five years later, when she returned for her thirtieth birthday. It all happened quite quickly after that.”

“Wow.” Harry bobbed in his chair. “Mom never told me that bit.”

“Which bit?”

“About you meeting and then being apart for five years.”

“What exactly did she tell you?”
And which part did she leave out?

“That she fainted on the Tube, and this handsome Englishman raced to her rescue. It sounded very romantic.”

“Indeed. Although I’m not sure about the handsome part.”

Ella, as pale and delicate as a fairy in an Arthur Rackham illustration. Ella, so vulnerable and needy. That moment she’d started to crumple, to sink without a sound, he’d barged through the rush-hour crowd so he could catch her before she hit the dirty floor of the carriage. Thought had drowned out all reason: “No, you can’t die. I haven’t met you yet.” He’d wanted to keep her safe, protect her. Had he? Had he done any of those things?

“Did you have many girlfriends before Mom?”

“I thought we were talking about you.”

“I’m curious, Dad. You and I never talk about this shit.”

“Unlike you and your mother, I choose to not talk about my feelings, Harry.” Felix’s left foot tapped the floor. “To do so makes me intensely uncomfortable.”

Felix pulled out his phone to check his messages before remembering he’d taken a leave of absence from work. Robert still copied him on everything, but Felix was forcing himself to not engage. Either you were in or out, working or not working. He had never felt so redundant.

“But did you date women? You know, before Mom.”

“Of course I did. I was twenty-seven when we met.”

“So?”

“So?”

“Other women?”

“Harry. I’m not good at relationships.” Felix looked round to make sure no one was listening. The tables were far too close together. Anyone could be eavesdropping. Harry thumped his elbows on the table and leaned forward, eyes wide and eager. “Let’s put it this way: yes, I dated a lot of women. Some beautiful, some smart. But I never understood them and they never understood me. I tried to do what a boyfriend was supposed to do. Compliment them, be chivalrous . . . But your mother was different. From the beginning.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.” Harry grinned. “C’mon, Dad. Boy talk.” He twitched through a grimace and blinked compulsively. “It’s all a big mystery to me. Girls aren’t exactly rushing to date the weird guy.”

“You’re not weird if you hide it.”

“That’s not going to work for me. I’m more of a what-you-see-is-what-you-get person.”

Felix picked up his Perrier and finished it in three swallows. “Maybe you could try harder to disguise the tics.”

Harry didn’t answer. He merely knotted up his napkin.

This was why confidences were bad, very bad. It was too easy to say something that could be misconstrued.

“Your mother understood me.” Felix sighed. “That was the difference.”

Harry glanced up through his hair. “What you mean is that she accepted you the way you were. Warts and all.”

“I suppose.”

“So you didn’t really hide anything from her. Did you?”

Had Harry just outmaneuvered him? “We should leave in ten minutes.”

According to MapQuest, the singing teacher lived 3.4 miles from the Mad Hatter Café, and they needed a few extra minutes to park. How he’d been talked into voice lessons that cost fifty dollars a week was beyond comprehension. According to Ella, singing was another form of therapy, but surely they had spent enough over the years on the neurologist, the child psychologist, the psychiatrist, and the medications. For six months straight, when Harry had been taking a drug that didn’t exist in generic form and had to be ordered from Canada, his prescriptions had cost more than the mortgage. Much of Harry’s care had not been covered by health insurance. Certainly not the acupuncture and the biofeedback. Ella had become something of an expert in alternative medical treatments for Tourette’s. None of them had worked.

Harry jiggled from side to side, then drained his hot chocolate, literally holding the mug upside down for the last drop. Felix drummed his fingers on the table. If only he had emails to answer.

“Dad, did I thank you for my sandwich today?”

“No.”

“It was perfect. Thanks. But you don’t have to cut the crusts off. Really.”

“It wouldn’t be perfect with crusts on.”

“But I like crusts.”

“Then it wasn’t perfect, was it?”

Harry frowned. “Can we just leave this at ‘Thank you, I really appreciate what you did for me today’?”

Felix tried, and failed, to process the idea that a sandwich with crusts left on could be perfect. Mother had always insisted on crustless cucumber sandwiches made with soggy white bread.

“I . . . I also wanted to tell you that I’m canceling my birthday sleepover,” Harry said.

Felix sat up. What sleepover? Ella hadn’t put
sleepover
on his to-do list, and there had been no talk of a sleepover before the heart attack. Of course, he wasn’t even supposed to be in town this weekend. Had Ella and Harry planned something and not told him?

“It doesn’t seem right with Mom in the hospital, and it doesn’t seem fair to you.”

“What day was this planned for?”

“Friday night.”

Felix glanced at his watch. “How many boys are we talking?”

“Five. Plus me. And Ginny and Stella, who were going to be picked up by eleven. And I would’ve invited Sammie, but I guess it’s irrelevant now.”

Felix nodded and almost said,
Too bloody right.
Nine teenagers, and he couldn’t cope with one. But what if he could pull this off? Might it tie everything up with a bow? Might Ella accept that he’d fulfilled his promise? And if that happened, might the incessant worry about failure be replaced with a mission-accomplished mindset?

“You should invite Sammie.”

“What?”

“Harry, life has to go on. Mom would want you to do this. You’re only going to turn seventeen once.”

“Seriously?” Harry shot up; heads turned. Felix made the down-boy-down motion with his right hand.

“Okay! You’re the best, Dad. The best!”

“Harry,” Felix dropped his voice. “Please sit down.”
People are staring.

“You’ll need to organize cake and pizza and lots and lots of soda!”

Felix regretted it instantly. “How much is lots?”

Sitting in the music teacher’s front room on a ridiculously low, sagging sofa, Felix gave up trying to read the
New York Times
. He refolded it, tried again to cross his legs—which was impossible given that his bottom was inches from the ground—and listened. Harry didn’t sing much when he was in the house, but Felix was painfully familiar with the warm-up exercises. Even in a classroom setting, they sounded like a cat being strangled.

Zak, the teacher, began strumming an acoustic guitar while Harry jabbered away about school.
And I’m paying for this?
A discussion followed on the importance of thinking ahead for the switch to modality three at the end of the third line in “Pony Street.” Elvis Costello’s “Pony Street”? Tom had been a big Elvis Costello fan. Once, he’d taken Felix to see Elvis perform at the Royal Albert Hall. Felix sat up.

Then Zak started playing real music, and the unfaltering voice that accompanied him was Harry’s. From the front room, it was impossible to imagine that such a powerful voice—clear and rich—belonged to a teenager with vocal tics. Felix never indulged in what ifs—because really, what was the point?—but he couldn’t stop the thirty-second fantasy: What if his son had never developed Tourette syndrome? How different would their lives, his marriage, have been?

Felix closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the music had stopped. Harry emerged, head bobbing, and tripped over air. His voice folder and sheets of music drifted to the floor.

“Keep up the good work, Harry. Same time next week,” Zak called out, as an attractive young woman with pigtails walked in carrying a guitar case.

“Hey, Harry,” she said, grinning.

Harry, who had been down on all fours, shot up with his arms full of paper. “Hey, Rach.”

“Harry,” Felix said, “please take two seconds to put those back in your folder before you drop—”

Too late.

Rach giggled. “You klutz!”

“Tell me about it.” Harry laughed.

“Here, let me help,” she said.

“Nah. I got it. My dad can help. Go have your lesson. The clock’s ticking.”

“Nice to meet you, Harry’s dad,” Rach said, and disappeared into the music room.

Harry was back on the floor, trying to retrieve a piece of paper from under the upright piano, where there was dust and God only knew what else. In a house this dilapidated and rickety, mouse droppings and dead cockroaches were likely candidates.

“Aren’t you going to ask what I think?” Felix said to Harry’s backside.

“Sure, Dad. What did you think?”

“Not bad. Except for that note you missed at the end of the third verse. And there was a bit after the second verse when your voice wobbled.”

Harry stood, laid out all his pages on the piano stool, and stuffed his folder in an annoyingly haphazard way. “That’s why I didn’t ask,” he said quietly.

They drove home in silence, except for Harry’s vocal tics.