Elisabeth’s goodbye kiss was a promise to me; a promise that despite her marriage, I would never be alone. I would always have someone willing to listen, not judge; sympathize, not urge me to action. And I would do the same for her.
Two years later—almost to the day—she was dead. The harsh Welsh climate was too much for her; doctors ordered her to sunny California. Aubrey whisked her away, but she died of pneumonia, Mother and Aubrey by her side.
I would never stop missing her.
So lost in my thoughts, I didn’t realize that we were home until we were turning into the private drive of Next Day Hill. There was a new man on duty, but he recognized us and pressed the lever for the gate to open. As the gates closed, two black cars that had been following us—reporters and photographers, I realized—parked outside. I sighed. Now we were well and truly home.
“Mama, is this where Grandma lives?” Jon was climbing over me, eager to get out. “Can you please move?” He gave me a playful shove, so I did. I pushed myself out of the car; Land and Jon scrambled after me. We walked up the steps, the boys scampering ahead.
The door swung open; my mother appeared. Before I could blurt out my apologies for leaving her all these years, and for bringing photographers back to her home, she had me in her arms. “Welcome home, my daughter,” she sang out. “Anne, Jon! And you must be Land!” She released me, reaching for the boys. “I haven’t seen you since you were a baby, when I visited you in England. Do you remember me?”
“No.”
My mother laughed. She threw back her head and laughed. This was no sad old lady, as I’d imagined her; no Miss Havisham surrounded only by memories, grieving her life away. No. My mother looked ten years younger than she had when I’d last seen her; she was trim, stylish in her own club lady way, although her hair was still corralled in that severe Edwardian manner. But she was electric with energy and drive; it was I who felt old and feeble, exhausted by travel, overwhelmed by being back in my native land.
“You look terrible, dear,” she confirmed my assessment, shaking her head at me. “You’ll have your old suite again, of course, and the boys can go up in the nursery. There’s room for your nurse—where is she?”
“She had to come on the next boat; there were things she had to arrange before sailing.”
“Of course, of course. I can’t imagine the chaos over there! Charles is here already; he drove straight through from Washington overnight. He’s upstairs, sound asleep.”
“He is?” I was stunned; I hadn’t expected to see him so soon, and, ridiculously, I longed to powder my nose and put on a fresh frock before I saw him.
Mother must have sensed my bridal jitteriness, because she suggested I have a glass of brandy first. So I followed as she marched down the hall into what used to be Daddy’s office, but which was now redecorated. No— reborn.
Flowers bloomed in vases; the stuffy leather furniture was replaced with comfortable chintz. There was a Picasso on the wall, which worked surprisingly well with the cabbage roses of the fabric. Where Daddy’s enormous banker’s desk had been was now a delicate French writing desk. It was piled with papers.
“I thought you’d be surprised.” Mother’s eyes twinkled.
“Surprised? I’m lost. Is this the house of the very proper ambassador’s wife?”
“No, it’s the house of the very busy former suffragette.” She laughed, and the boys laughed with her. She bent down to hug each of them. “Oh, I won’t be able to get enough of these two! Do you want some cookies? Milk?” She looked at me, and I nodded.
“Get those children some cookies, would you, dear?” She turned to a young woman who appeared out of nowhere. The girl nodded and ushered the boys toward the kitchen.
“Who was that?” I couldn’t seem to move my legs, couldn’t sit down—even after my mother gestured to a comfortable armchair.
“Oh, that’s Marie. She’s part of my staff.”
“You have a staff?”
“Of course! One needs a staff when one is about to become acting president of Smith College.”
“What? Mother—when?
“Naturally, the world situation is making the search for a new president more difficult, so I was asked to step in during the interim. The college has so many ties, you know, overseas. We cannot turn our backs on our friends, and I’m going to see to it that we don’t.”
“Mother, it’s just me you’re talking to—you don’t have to make a political statement!”
“Oh, goodness! Did I? I’m sorry, I suppose I’m practicing!” My mother laughed, and I laughed along with her. I was so happy for her, so happy she was busy and engaged and not grieving, as I had imagined. I shouldn’t have, I realized; when had she ever stopped long enough to give in to an emotion?
But she seemed so different now. She reminded me of Charles, that was it; they both had that purposeful gleam in their eye, a secret, a goal, that only they could recognize.
“What do you think of Aubrey and Con?” I asked, abruptly changing the subject to one that had been festering in my mind for a while now. Elisabeth’s widower had married her youngest sister in 1937.
“I think it’s wonderful. Aubrey was lost, the poor man. Widowers always have to remarry, have you ever noticed that? Women are fine on their own, but men… anyway, Con will keep him on his toes. She needed a project like him.”
“And what about love?”
“Oh, they love each other, Anne! I’m not sure that’s the most important thing in their case, however. Not like with you and Charles. If you didn’t have love, I’d worry more about the two of you. But Con and Aubrey, they’ll be fine.”
“Thank you. I think.” I sipped my brandy and, despite my resentment at her breezy attitude, knew she was right. “But Elisabeth—isn’t it disloyal, somehow?”
“Elisabeth is gone, dear. The living have to live.”
“But it’s as if she never married him at all—it feels as if they’re erasing her, somehow.”
“I don’t think that’s true, dear. Not for them.”
I shook my head. Mother reminded me of Charles in other ways as well. I was the caretaker, I realized; the caretaker of the dead and of their memory. If no one wanted to think about Elisabeth, then I would. If Charles didn’t want to remember Charlie, then I would have to remember him for the both of us. I admired both my mother and my husband for their energy, their dogged focus on the future.
I also, for the first time, pitied them. For despite the pain of loss, as time went on, the memory of those I’d loved warmed my heart more than grieved it.
“I’m glad you’re so happy for them,” I told my mother. “And I’m very glad about your appointment, Madame President! Now, where are you keeping my husband?”
“Upstairs. Dinner is at eight, as usual. I’ll have something sent up for the boys; I’ve already prepared the staff. Now I must run off to a meeting.”
“Of course you must.” I embraced her, delighted and proud, even as I felt myself unable to keep up with her any more than I was able to keep up with Charles. The world was falling to pieces around us, and all I wanted was to find somewhere to hide myself and my children from the wreckage. While my husband and my mother came running out, arms open wide, to make something good from it. Something worthwhile.
The only problem was, I knew that their definitions of “worthwhile” were dramatically different.
“I MIGHT HAVE KNOWN,” Charles said that evening. “Your mother. What did she say, about not turning her back on those overseas again?”
“Just that. Nothing more.”
“Nothing more? She said it to spite me. She’s never forgiven me for taking you away to Europe.”
“That isn’t Mother,” I said crossly as we dressed for dinner, turning away from each other, oddly shy—or uncomfortable, I wasn’t quite sure which—in our state of undress, after the weeks apart. He was in his boxers, pulling up his dress socks over his lean shins and snapping them into their garters. I was in an ugly, utilitarian slip, and I felt that way—ugly, utilitarian. After three pregnancies, my figure was losing its elasticity. I had a definite pooch to my stomach now, and my breasts sagged, even as we both hoped for more children.
For some reason, our reunion had not gone well. Almost from the first hello, we had snapped at each other.
