to me, so I had trouble mustering the enthusiasm for it that everyone else demonstrated. “You must be gearing up for Princeton,” I said. “Tell me what ludicrous uniform they have you wearing.” Joe had graduated from Princeton in ’63, five years before Charlie, which meant their major reunions were always on the same schedule.
Joe shook his head. “I’ll be sitting this one out. Not quite the right time, if you get my meaning.”
“I’m sure you’ll be missed,” I said.
“I tell you, Alice, I never thought I’d be a person who got a divorce.”
“Oh—” I wasn’t sure how to respond. Lamely, I said, “Well, it does happen.”
“May I be candid?” he said.
“Of course.”
“I find myself curious about how much of our family’s trouble is out on the grapevine, if you will. I wouldn’t want people to think—It seems that it’s more commonly the husband leaving the wife in these situations, but that isn’t what happened. I won’t say Carolyn and I haven’t had our problems, but I really was blindsided.”
I feigned ignorance. “Joe, I’m so sorry. That sounds very difficult.”
We looked at each other, and the thought crossed my mind that he might cry. He didn’t have tears in his eyes, but it seemed he was holding his chin firm, possibly clenching his teeth. He and I had never spoken anywhere close to this personally. Between Milwaukee and Halcyon, I had been in his presence perhaps a hundred times—after our wedding, Priscilla and Harold had thrown an enormous cocktail party at the country club for all the family friends who hadn’t been invited to the wedding, and I was pretty sure Joe had even been at that—but in eleven years he and I hadn’t talked about anything more provocative than the new roundabout on Solveson Avenue, or the temperature of Lake Michigan.
I said, “Joe, I hope you realize that all families have problems, even in Maronee. You aren’t the only ones. And I think everyone knows there’s only so much we can control even in our own lives.” I suspect it was less what I was saying than the mere fact of my continuing to talk that allowed Joe to pull himself back from the precipice of tears; already, he looked significantly less shaky.
“I appreciate that.” His gas pump made a clicking noise, and he withdrew the nozzle. Gesturing to his car, he said, “I’m headed to Madison to spend the day with Martha.” This was his younger sister, whom I knew from Halcyon. “I used to really crave free time,” he continued, “and now I have more than I ever could have wanted. The weekends have become just brutal. Be careful what you wish for, I suppose.”
“Well, you’re welcome at our house anytime. If you’d like to come over and watch the ball game with Charlie, we’d be delighted to have you.” This was probably not a wise offer—would Joe dropping by make Charlie even crankier?—but he seemed so despondent, and I didn’t know what else to say. And really, the fact was that Joe and Charlie had known each other their entire lives; they were more like cousins than friends.
Joe pointed toward the interior of the gas station and said, “I’d better pay. It was good to see you, Alice. Thanks for listening to a sad sack.”
I said, “You know, maybe you
go to Reunions. A change of scenery?”
“I’ll think about it.” He waved. “Give Chas my best.”
WHEN CHARLIE, ELLA
, and I arrived at Priscilla and Harold’s for dinner, the house was alive with Blackwell energy. Our nephews Geoff and Drew were out on the front lawn playing ring toss, and Charlie couldn’t resist stopping to join them, so Ella and I continued inside without him. It was hard to believe that Ella was the last of this generation of Blackwells; the next babies would be the children of her cousins. Harry, who was Ed and Ginger’s oldest son, was now twenty-one and would graduate from Princeton a few days after Charlie’s reunion; Liza, who was John and Nan’s older daughter, was finishing up her junior year at Princeton and would be spending the summer interning at a fashion magazine in Manhattan; and Tommy, Ed and Ginger’s middle son, was finishing his sophomore year but at Dartmouth rather than Princeton, which gave rise to much teasing about Dartmouth’s general inferiority and the lack of activity in “Hangover,” New Hampshire.
In the front hall, Ella hugged her grandparents, then immediately vanished with her cousin Winnie, presumably to the basement, which was where the cousins who still lived at home convened around a pool table, the older ones sharing various urban legends—after one such dinner, Ella had become briefly fixated on the idea of spontaneous human combustion—and also teaching the younger cousins dirty words. While riding back to our house at Thanksgiving, Ella had proudly announced, “I know what penis balls are.”
Near the staircase where Charlie and I had married, I exchanged kisses on the cheek with my father-in-law, who said, “Alice, I’m terribly sorry to hear about your grandmother,” and I said, “I’m happy to report she’s much better today.” I leaned in to greet Priscilla, who didn’t so much air-kiss as not kiss at all; she simultaneously brought her chin toward you and angled it off to the side, never even puckering her lips, but I couldn’t take it personally because she did it to everyone. This time, however, as I approached, she gripped my wrist, keeping me close. Against my ear, she murmured, “I’d like a word with you.”
Harold went off to fix drinks just as Jadey emerged from the dining room carrying a marble tray of food, saying, “Maj, if I were a cheese knife, where would I be? Ooh, that scarf looks great, Alice. How’s your grandma?” Jadey had picked out the scarf for me during a shopping expedition a few weeks before; it was from Marshall Field’s and had a turquoise background with gold paisley.
“Jadey, surely you don’t plan to put out all that cheese at once,” Priscilla said. “You’ll spoil everyone’s appetite.”
Breezily, Jadey said, “Oh, we’ll save what doesn’t get eaten, and the sirloins look super, so worry not, those’ll be devoured in
a second.” Over the years, Jadey had served as an example of how to behave with Priscilla—to be chipper and oblique, to sidestep questions without necessarily answering them, and to never directly challenge or contradict.
“My grandmother’s had an amazing turnaround,” I said. “She’s almost her normal self.”
