“I don’t know what I’d do without you guys,” Tom said. I felt Vince attempting to turn him toward the house and I moved in tandem, but Tom stopped, his glassy eyes gazing out on the ocean. “Oh God, oh God,” he muttered.
Janis Joplin began to howl again.
The sound seemed to sober Tom up. Or I thought it did anyway. “Damn dog. I told Maggie to keep her at the house.”
Vince and I both stopped stock-still and looked at each other.
“She never listened, that one. Not once. Ten years and she never heard a word I said.” He fixed his gaze on the ocean once more, apparently mesmerized by the sight of the waves crashing. Then his eyes narrowed, his mouth firmed. “Maybe she’s better off dead.” Then he laughed, the sound sharp and high-pitched against the sudden silence.
“Yeah,” he said, pulling suddenly, furiously, against the hold Vince and I had him in and breaking free. “Everyone thinks I got off easy. Well, she’s the one. She’s the one who got off easy!”
Chapter Thirteen
Maggie
The daughter I never would have
The beach house was the only place I ever found any peace. Fire Island has that effect on most everyone. Probably because there are no cars, no hassles and no worries except how to best spend the day. There weren’t even that many people, mostly because the only way to gain access to most of the island is by ferry. Keeps out the riffraff. The day-trippers. Even kept out my family, in some ways. My mother never understood why Tom and I bought a home off the mainland. But then, my mother never really did understand anything beyond her own suburban existence. Which was probably why I rarely saw her or anyone in my family after I married Tom.
Even Tom loosened up at the beach, kicking back with his fishing rod, catching up with friends and cooking with me when we entertained there, which was often. It was as if the house brought us back to ourselves, who we were outside of our upscale Manhattan existence.
Sometimes I even imagined that house could save our marriage.
I remember the first time we brought Francesca there. She was fourteen at the time, and in the few years I had been married to Tom, I hadn’t really had a chance to bond with her. I thought it was because she lived down in Florida with her mother, but when she came to the house during our first summer there, I learned otherwise.
The truth was, Francesca hated me, probably from the first time she met me, just months before I married Tom. I can only guess that she saw me as some kind of rival for her father’s affections. To Francesca, I was the reason Tom’s trips to Florida were so infrequent, though I was sure his lack of attentiveness happened way before I came along.
The irony of it all was that I understood Francesca’s sorrow every time Tom withheld his affections. Understood why his financial generosity and benign indifference were not enough.
Still, I tried that weekend she came, not knowing it would be both the first and last time I shared our oceanfront home with her. I even painted one of the bedrooms purple, knowing it was her favorite color, stocked the house with her favorite foods and the CD player with her favorite music. We shared that in common, too—a love of music. And though our tastes were different, I knew her love of Madonna’s rebelliousness was right in tune with my own rock and roll youth.
Of course, Francesca refused to see that she and I shared common ground, spending the weekend roaming the beach with the friend she had brought along, searching for adventures that didn’t include me and Tom. I couldn’t blame her. Hadn’t I been the same way when I was her age? I guess part of me was surprised to find myself in the role of shunned parent. And a lot of me was hurt by the hatred I saw in her eyes.
Not that Tom noticed any of it. He kept to his routine of fishing, cooking and relaxing. Even taking off on an all-day offshore fishing boat tour right smack dab in the middle of the weekend his daughter was there.
She never came back again.
By the time we put her on a plane back home, I was relieved to see her go. But my relief was only momentary. When Tom and I came home that night to our New York apartment, I realized that I had been hoping to gain in Francesca and Tom the family I had alienated myself from.
And reminded me that I was more alone than ever.
That winter, I dreamed of having a child of my own. Of course, that wasn’t going to happen. I had agreed to Tom’s no-more-children rule when I agreed to be his wife. I had thought I was sure at the time. Tom was so certain he’d even had a vasectomy a few years after Francesca was born. After spending that miserable weekend at the beach with her, I couldn’t blame him.
Still, that didn’t stop the longing in me.
Of course, Tom could have had his surgery reversed. But, as he reminded me whenever I brought the subject up, I had known what I was getting into.
I suppose I had, but everyone changes.
Not Tom. Tom had already figured out his life, what he wanted, who he was. I had left my own behind—my job, my family. I couldn’t blame Tom for the fact that I had quit my dead-end career in radio. Or that I rarely went to see my family. Those were my choices, but when I made them, I was still figuring out what might make me happy.
In hindsight, I’m not sure a child would have made me happy. Maybe it was a passing fancy. I’ll never really know. But I knew I needed something to soothe
