The Road Taken (32 page)

“Oh, God,” Joan said. She put her arms around him. He was wearing fake breasts and a corset and felt like a hard-bodied female mannequin. She was afraid she was going to cry. “I’m leaving now,” she said. “Tell your friend Happy Birthday.”

“Do you want me to put you in a cab?”

“Oh no, no,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the house for Thanksgiving.” And then she fled.

Chapter Forty

Rose and Ben had a good group for Thanksgiving that year, even though Maude and Walter had not come because they were celebrating with their children and grandchildren in Bristol. I have such a mob, Maude had exclaimed, and of course there was the problem of Walter’s arthritis, but they promised to come for Christmas. Daisy wasn’t so well either, but she had insisted on coming to New York to prove she wasn’t dead yet. Daisy had discovered a lump in her left breast while taking a bath. You just didn’t think about cancer, you didn’t look for it, and you didn’t talk about it, until it came along and stunned you. During the biopsy surgery the doctor had found the lump was malignant and had removed the breast. When she woke up in the recovery room and put her hand where her breast used to be her whole life was changed.

They didn’t give her chemotherapy, and there was no such thing as reconstruction, so she went home to her family, put a prosthesis into her bra, and waited. She’d had a radical mastectomy, which took away not only the breast but the muscle in front of her armpit and the lymph nodes in her chest. “So my armpit is a little higher on this side,” she said, smiling bravely. Joan and Peggy wished she wouldn’t talk about it; it gave them the creeps. It could happen to any of them. Ginger, of course, wanted to know everything. Cancer was mysterious, personal and fearful, but there was something about facing danger that made Aunt Daisy want to share. She took the women aside, she confided in them, she seemed so desperately gay that somehow it made it worse. “I’m all stitched up like Frankenstein’s monster,” Aunt Daisy said, “but I’m alive.”

There was only a fifty percent survival rate for breast cancer. Aunt Daisy smiled and drank champagne with Uncle Hugh and Teddy, and they made her laugh.

Life is so short and so filled with terrible things, and I’m so glad to be here with my family, Joan thought. When her eyes met Hugh’s across the room she knew everything that had happened last night would be a secret from the people who would never understand. For her, it was over. She had not taken any pills today, and in a few weeks when she had the courage, she would give the rest of them away to someone who wanted them.

The children were watching television. Markie had recently turned ten, and for her birthday Joan had sent her a cute little disco dress with a silver skirt, but of course Peggy hadn’t let her wear it. She was dressed like a boarding school girl. If I had any say about this, and I soon will, Joan thought, I wouldn’t keep putting her in front of the TV set; I’d give her something good to read. You hardly ever saw children read anymore, it was sad. It was Peter, of all people, who had surprised everyone by his interest in books; he had been getting good grades at Columbia and he said he wanted to become a writer.

“He got his talent from his father,” Peggy said, looking fondly at Ed, “not from me, that’s for sure.”

Nobody denied it, although Joan, who rather enjoyed that everyone accepted Peggy’s modest statement, didn’t think writing advertising slogans was exactly Henry James. She looked at Markie longingly. She could come into New York to visit me and I’d take her to the theater, she thought. I’d take her to museums. She has such a limited little world.

The room was softly lit, the turkey smelled appetizing, or perhaps it was the stuffing. Joan hadn’t cooked in years. When was the last time? That farewell dinner she made for Trevor? Of course Peggy was discussing recipes with Rose, and telling her cute things the kids had said and done, pulling out her credentials. Joan went to get another drink. Look at Peggy, she thought, how smug she is. Smug and yet threatened. The modern world is coming, Peggy, and you have no idea how close it is. You think I’m nothing; you think I’ve wasted my life. Even with my interesting job, you and Mom—yes! Mom—look down on me; it’s always Peggy the good one, Peggy the real woman, Peggy who’s making everyone proud. Here’s poor Joan, the misfit forever, who couldn’t even bring a date to Thanksgiving dinner.

The world is going to fall apart, Peggy, Joan thought, and you will be left wondering what happened. Look around you, look at everything, and realize you can never know how a story will end. You never understood me.

She felt the truth trying to burst out of her skin, a kind of birth, the start of the new life for all of them. What could ever have made her think that once you had a baby you could get over it and forget about it? Peggy wasn’t the only one who had lost a child. Let me tell you about my gift, Peggy, Joan thought. You never thanked me for anything, in all our lives, but now you will.

“Joan,” Teddy said gallantly, pulling out her chair for her. She was seated next to Aunt Harriette’s husband, Julius, with Aunt Harriette on his other side. Teddy was next to her, and then Uncle Hugh, as if they were a couple. Rose did not believe in man woman, man woman, at table, or in separating couples; in her opinion people liked to sit with the person they had come with. I wonder if I’ll ever bring anyone, Joan thought.

She smiled lovingly at Markie, seated across from her, next to Peggy, with Angel sitting next to Ed. Markie had known she was adopted since she was tiny, so that fact, at least, would not be a shock. The sight of little children next to their parents, all dressed up, hair neatly combed, trying to behave themselves, made Joan dissolve into sentimentality. We won’t tell Markie who I am, Joan thought. It would upset her, and she wouldn’t understand. I know Peggy will agree.

Daisy was next to Rose, beside her husband and son and daughter-in-law, with their children lined up, and Ginger was next to Ben, with Peter on her other side—the young people, Joan thought. I’m not with the young people, I’m not with the parents, I’m still just Joan alone. Suddenly her seating place at the long table depressed her. She tried not to think about it. Was this what it was like to come off speed, to be tearful with love one minute and miserably sorry for yourself the next? She was glad there was wine, and drank hers right away.

Harriette had just had a face-lift. People talked about those things these days. Julius had said he didn’t understand why Harriette wanted to go through so much pain, but Harriette had insisted. Now she seemed too young to be Rose’s sister.
“L’chaim,”
Aunt Harriette said to Julius, raising her glass, beaming; the gracious matron now, no longer a pariah at her family’s holiday table, no longer trailing, like sultry smoke, questions about whom she had left behind.

“L’chaim,”
Julius said. He cocked an eyebrow at Joan and looked proud at how his wife had taken on his culture, and he and Joan then raised their glasses too. She was ready for her second already, and he poured it for her.

“Would you say grace, please, Ben?” Rose asked. Except for Christmas they were not a very religious family, but Thanksgiving with its opulent bounty was one of the occasions when they would have felt guilty not to have given proper thanks.

Everyone bowed their heads. “Thank you, Lord, for this good food and for the joy of having so many of our family with us to share it,” Ben said.
“Amen,”
they all murmured.

“And I would like to say something,” Peter added. They all looked at him expectantly, with some curiosity. He raised his glass. “To peace,” he said. “To the end of this unjust and terrible war.”

Peggy and Ed looked alarmed for an instant, as if their political son had brought something unnatural to the dinner table. Then they smiled in a frozen way and raised their glasses too. After all, they had worried about Peter being drafted, and they had rejoiced when he was saved. They certainly didn’t want their son to be killed or maimed or taken prisoner, but on the other hand, this was the first war in their lifetime that people objected to out loud, the young people demonstrating in the street discomforted them, and it didn’t seem quite right to discuss this at Thanksgiving. When Peter had joined the student protesters at Columbia in the spring and closed the school down, they had thought of making him leave. Joan thought Peggy and Ed were lucky Peter hadn’t said, “To withdrawing the troops,” but they probably knew that.

“Hear, hear,” Joan said to be obnoxious, and Peter smiled at her.

Peggy and Ed, she thought: Mr. and Mrs. Follow the Leader, Mr. and Mrs. Status Quo, Mr. and Mrs. Hold on to the Fifties. She had never been particularly interested in Peter because he was a young boy, but now, especially since he had told her he had been planning to skip the country, she had begun to like him a lot.

They ate and chattered. More wine was opened. When the selection of pies appeared after everyone was already stuffed, they all oohed as if they were surprised, but of course there were no surprises at Thanksgiving, at least not in the food department. When everyone finally left the table Joan sidled up to Peggy.

“Come up to my old room with me, will you?” she whispered.

“Why?”

“I want to tell you a secret.”

“Oh?” They went up the stairs. “You’re getting engaged,” Peggy said.

“No, no. Come on.”

Joan’s old room was a mess, of course, because there were guests staying there. But the flowered wallpaper, faded now so the petals were white and only the vines held their color, was from their childhood. Peggy sat on the bed.

“I’ve kept this secret from you for over ten years,” Joan began. “But now I have to tell you.” Peggy looked at her curiously. She didn’t seem concerned; Joan had always kept a lot of things private. “It’s about Marianne,” Joan said.

“I don’t want to talk about Marianne,” Peggy said. “It’s Thanksgiving. What’s the matter with you?”

“And Markie,” Joan said.

“Markie
what?”

It was like the moment you had finally jumped off the diving board into a frigid lake, there was no going back even though you knew the cold would swallow you. “After Marianne . . . died,” Joan said, “I thought you would never forgive me. I thought you would never be able to get out from under your grief and have a life. I loved you, Peggy, and I wanted us to be sisters again. And then, finally, I figured out how to make it all better.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Do you remember Amanda Key?” Joan said.

“Who?” Then Peggy’s face got pale.

“A very bony woman,” Joan said. “With a deep voice like a man, and an old-fashioned hair net that made you want to laugh. Or at least it did me.”

“You?
How would
you
know her? Where is she? Has she come to make trouble?”

“Don’t be silly,” Joan said. She sat next to Peggy on the bed and took her hand. It was a completely unnatural gesture because they had never been either loving or demonstrative toward each other. Peggy was taken aback by this sign of reassurance, and turned a look on Joan that was so bewildered and full of anxiety that for an instant Joan thought she might be wiser to back off. But she couldn’t; not now, she had already gone too far. She was under the water and swimming for the surface.

“I knew her ten years ago, at the Parkway Adoption Agency.”

Peggy pulled her hand away. “I don’t understand.”

“Markie’s parents weren’t killed in a car accident,” Joan said. “I made that up so you wouldn’t know. I gave you the best thing I had, Peggy. I did it to save our relationship, and maybe your life. I gave you Markie.” Peggy was just gaping at her. Obviously Peggy didn’t get it. “Markie’s mother was me,” Joan said.

“You?” Peggy’s bewilderment turned to disgust. She looked at Joan as if she were contaminated. “How could you be her mother?”

“Just look at her. She looks exactly like me. Don’t you remember when I disappeared? I became pregnant, I had a baby, I gave her to you. I set up the whole thing. I had that woman call you.”

“Dr. Suddrann . . . ,” Peggy murmured stupidly. “He said . . .”

“I’m sure there was no Dr. Suddrann in the emergency room when Marianne died, Peggy. I made him up. I wasn’t even there. You had me wait for Peter and you were so upset you couldn’t even remember anyone’s name.”

Peggy sat there stunned. Then she gave a feral sound, part gasp, part growl, from the primitive core of her being. She jumped up and moved away from her sister. “You were pregnant and you didn’t know what to do with the baby so you gave her to me?” Peggy said. “And now you want credit for it? If I believed you, and I don’t know if I do . . .”

“You believe me,” Joan said calmly. “The records are sealed but we can always take a blood test.”

“A blood test only proves who the parent
isn’t
!”

“I feel quite safe.”

“Why are you telling me this, Joan?”

“Because I want to share my daughter.”

“Share her? You aren’t even her mother. I was the one who brought her up. I nursed her through her fevers, I worried about her, I dried her tears, I taught her, I put her drawings on the refrigerator door, I went to her school plays. You’re just a slut who got pregnant without being married.”

“So were you, bitch, as I remember,” Joan snapped. “I was at your shotgun wedding.” This wasn’t turning out the way Joan had planned.

“I hate you!” Peggy screamed. “I always hated you. You ruined everything you touched. You killed my daughter and now you want to take my other daughter away.”

“No, I don’t.” She truly hadn’t expected Peggy to be so upset. She supposed now she should have, but it had not occurred to her. She tried to turn it around and make it get better again. “I didn’t get pregnant accidentally,” Joan said. “I did it on purpose, to make a baby for you.”

“Then you’re even crazier than I thought,” Peggy said.

“We were all crazy. It was a terrible time.”

“Does Mom know this?” Peggy asked.

“No.”

“You didn’t tell anybody?”

“Who could I tell?”

“Who’s the father?”

“Nobody you know.”

“I guess he didn’t want any part of you.”

“I never told him. He was just the seed.”

“What kind of a woman are you?” Peggy asked, in that same tone of disgust that tore at Joan’s heart and made her want to hit back.

“A good woman,” Joan said.

“Ha.”

“I thought you’d thank me,” Joan said. She hadn’t expected her voice to come out sounding so lost, like a little girl’s. She realized she had always wanted Peggy to love her, and Peggy never had, and never would. Even their warm suburban weekends had been a sham; both of them pretending, trying, holding on to the family bond they had made and wishing the weekend were over so they could be alone.