Lies and Other Acts of Love Read online

  Ben ventured a smile. “No, no. It’s just that one of his partners is on trial.”

  “Tax evasion?”

  “They wish. Drug trafficking.”

  I felt myself wince. “Yikes.”

  Ben nodded. “Yeah. So he’s probably going to lose his license, and Dad needs someone to work and something to boost the firm’s morale and reputation in town.”

  I smiled broadly, putting my finger in my dimple. “So, like, the prodigal son and his blushing bride?”

  Ben grabbed my arm and pulled me back into bed, kissing me passionately. “A new grandchild probably wouldn’t hurt either.”

  When I walked downstairs later for a snack, I got the distinct impression that the rest of my family wasn’t having as good an afternoon as I was. D-daddy was in his wheelchair, raising a banana to his mouth with a trembling hand, staring out the window toward the ocean. Usually when I saw him, I wondered what was going on in his head, if he was thinking or remembering, if he knew where he was. But, that afternoon, looking into his blank face, something inside me just knew he was gone.

  Louise, Sally, Lauren, Martha and Mom were sitting around the table in their gym shorts and socks, hair wet from showers, while Lovey was sipping coffee, lipstick on, looking fresh and rested.

  Louise was saying, “But if I have to go on another blind date, I’ll absolutely lose my mind. Can’t people just accept that I’m fifty-three and single? It’s not a disease.”

  Lauren laughed, her green eyes sparkling, smoothed her blond hair back into a ponytail, and said, “That’s good for you, but I could never be happy without a man.” I realized that something felt off, like a dress that shrunk just the tiniest bit in the dryer. You could still wear it, but it didn’t lie quite right.

  Mom was saying, “Well, then we better get dressed and start cruising for men—” when I interrupted.

  “What’s going on in here?”

  “What do you mean?” Mom asked in that strained, high, faux-happy voice she uses when she’s trying to hide something.

  “Oh, forget it,” Lovey said. “Darling, I’m moving to assisted living.”

  She said it proudly, distinctly, with her head held high.

  Sally’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Momma,” Lauren said. “I still say you’re plenty healthy, and you don’t need to leave your home where you’re comfortable.”

  The tears were running down Sally’s face now.

  “Stop it right now, you two,” Mom scolded. “If she’s ready to be out of that house, then she’s ready to be out of the house.”

  “Yeah,” Louise chimed in. “It’s just a house.” She turned to Lovey. “Besides, Momma, I hear that assisted living facilities are basically country clubs now.”

  “Oh my gosh!” Sally exclaimed through the tears. “You aren’t getting rid of this house too, are you?”

  “Honey,” Lovey said, “you’re making me feel terrible.”

  “No!” Martha exclaimed, shaking her head furiously, the sun reflecting off of her shiny jet-black hair.

  Lovey shook her head. “I’m not selling the beach house.”

  I still hadn’t said anything. But to say that some of the best memories of my life had happened around Lovey and D-daddy’s breakfast room table wasn’t an exaggeration. Those long talks with the women of my family, popping Hershey’s Kisses into our mouths, had shaped so much of my growing. I thought of my room at Lovey’s house, the twin bed where I’d snuggled under the duvet while she recited bedtime stories by heart. And the way her house smelled . . . Even though she never hung her laundry on the line to dry, her linen closet smelled like what I imagined sunshine must.

  But, in the past several years, that house had changed for me. I’d walk in now and see D-daddy, confined to his chair in the dark living room, the TV dancing with movies that he loved as a young soldier, and nurses milling around bringing medicine, feeding him juice, checking his blood pressure. I wanted to pretend things were the same as always. But there was no mistaking that old age permeated.

  Ben walked down the stairs, that steak still in his hand. As he reached the bottom step and smiled to say hello to us, he looked at the faces of my aunts and mom, pointed back upstairs, and said, “I don’t think I got enough of a nap.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Lovey said. “You’re family now, for better or worse.” She sighed. “I’m just telling the girls that I think it’s time for Dan and me to move to assisted living and sell the house.”

  Ben pulled out a chair and sat down beside me like this conversation was crucial to his future. “You can’t sell the house!” Ben chimed in.

  I glared at him, completely thrown by the unsolicited opinion.

  “One of the best memories of my life is in that house,” he said.

  Mom laughed. “What are you talking about?”

  “It was the first place Ann and I told anyone we were married.”

  Lovey smiled. “There are scandals and then there are scandals. When your granddaughter dumps her hedge fund manager fiancé and marries a musician she has known three days, that would fall into the category of the latter.” She glanced over at Ben, who was laughing. “No offense.”

  He squeezed D-daddy’s shoulder. D-daddy looked at him blankly, and I wondered if he knew who this man was sitting beside him at the breakfast table. “Do you remember what you said?” he asked D-daddy.

  “What he said?” Louise asked skeptically.

  Lovey laughed. “Well, sort of. He said, ‘Mm.’”

  Everyone around the table laughed, including D-daddy. That one-syllable grunt, maybe even more than his infectious laugh or quick wit, was the thing we all associated most with our grandfather and father. It meant he didn’t approve of what you were doing, but he loved you, so he’d deal with it anyway.

  “When she walked through my door holding the hand of a man I’d never seen, when we were all planning parties for her and Holden, I’d like to say I was confused,” Lovey said. “But when you’ve been around eighty-seven years, there’s not much left to confuse you.” Lovey smiled adoringly at Ben. “But I loved you right off for how you talked to Dan and shook his hand and factored him into the equation.”

  Ben put his arm around me and pulled me close. I dropped my head on his shoulder, willing the tears not to come to my eyes, wishing that things could go back to the way they had been when I was little and D-daddy was so alive.

  “I’d heard so much about him,” Ben said. “I felt like I knew him already.”

  That rarely emerging voice piped up from the end of the table, shakily, but D-daddy’s no doubt. “You couldn’t have heard too much about me because I hadn’t heard a damn thing about you.”

  Then D-daddy laughed and we all joined him.

  “My thoughts exactly, Daddy,” Mom chimed in, with a glee in her voice that only comes from D-daddy having a good day.

  “But, Jean,” Ben started, innocence in his voice, “you handled the news so beautifully.”

  “Oh, you weren’t thrilled?” Lauren teased.

  “All I said,” Mom interjected, “was that we needed to have a wedding. I’m the mayor, for heaven’s sake. People expect things from me.”

  That was the least of it. In reality, Mom had thrown a hissy fit like I’d never seen. The first words she said to my husband were, You got married? You stole the privilege of having a wedding for my only daughter?

  “A wedding is a golden opportunity to get ahead in the polls,” Martha said, laughing.

  “And just think,” Lauren said, looking at Ben. “That special day led to this special day.” She pointed at Ben’s now completely black eye, and we all laughed.

  Ben looked down at me. “I’d take a million black eyes if it meant getting to be with you forever.”

  I smiled at him. “Well,” I said, “good memories aside, I think
wherever you feel most comfortable is where you should be, Lovey.” I paused. “Where are you moving? Have you started looking for places yet?”

  She waved her hand as if to say that this was a minor detail. “Well, there can’t be more than a place or two that’s even tolerable.” She took a sip of the tea in front of her on the table. “Speaking of,” Lovey said, “when are you two settling down and getting out of that RV?” Lovey shook her head. “It’s rather unseemly.”

  I smiled at Ben. “Should we tell them?”

  “Oh my God, you’re pregnant!” Louise exclaimed.

  I could feel that cloud unwillingly pass over me, but I smiled it away when Mom said, a panic-stricken look on her face, “She had three rum punches yesterday afternoon. I should hope not.”

  “No, no,” Ben said, wrapping his arm around me tighter, knowing I would be upset from the baby comment. “You want to tell them?”

  I smiled halfheartedly and, bracing myself for the reaction, said, “We’re moving to Salisbury.”

  “Salisbury is a lovely town,” Lovey said. But I could tell her mind was somewhere else.

  • • •

  Lovey always says that some things are out of our hands and that, if we’re going to make it through this life, we’d do well to figure out what those things are.

  “I think it’s very mature of you to be so grown-up about your grandmother getting rid of her house,” Ben said, as he crammed his shorts and T-shirt into my beach bag.

  I shook my head. “It’s only on the outside because, inside, I’m an absolute wreck.” Then I shrugged, thinking of Lovey. “But, you know, there isn’t anything I can do to change it, so it’s probably best to just face it.”

  Ben wrapped me in that warm, sweet-smelling hug that had become my life preserver the past few months. “It’s going to be okay, you know. It’s going to be hard, but, at the end of the day, this is what’s best for them. And we’re all going to have to get on board.”

  I sighed. “I know.” I kissed him, leaned back and said, “So, speaking of getting on board, when are we moving to Salisbury?”

  Ben grinned. “What are you doing tomorrow?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Then I need to get out of here immediately. I have some tanning to do.”

  I should have stayed pale. I should have suggested that we go ahead and leave the beach so we could get a head start on house hunting and unpacking.

  On my way to the bathroom at the club that morning, I nearly turned around and walked the other direction when I saw Holden. But we were the only two people in the empty ballroom, so I couldn’t very well act like I hadn’t seen him. I ventured a wave and turned sharply to the right, like I was headed out to the terrace.

  “Could we talk for a minute?” Holden called.

  I looked around, as though he could possibly be talking to anyone else. I was going to say no. I was going to walk back out onto the beach where my family was telling old stories and attempting to skim board, wobbling and falling down like children learning to walk.

  I was going to, that is, until Holden said, “Come on, Annabelle, I think you owe me.”

  He was right. I called off a wedding three years in the making with a thirty-second phone call and zero explanation. I owed him.

  We walked inside the bar, chandeliers off and seating areas completely empty. I sat down on the couch, and he sat down right beside me. “Holden,” I said. “Can’t you sit across from me in the chair or something?”

  If he heard me, he didn’t let on. “Ann,” he said, “I made a huge mistake letting you go. I want you back.”

  I laughed. “Holden, no offense, but I’m pretty sure I’m the one who let you go.” I shook my head. “I’m married, for heaven’s sake.”

  He snickered. “Please, Annabelle. You knew the guy for five minutes. Don’t tell me you’re happy with some washed-up, old musician.”

  I could feel the anger rising up my spine, vertebra by vertebra, as Louise would say. You could talk about me and you could talk about my choices. But when you talked about my man, things got dicey. I stood up, and I knew he could tell I was angry. “I’ve had enough of this. Maybe you should have been worried about me a little more when you had me.” I wanted to walk away then, but I couldn’t resist throwing one more jab before I turned. “Ben has the good sense to know how to hold on to what he has.”

  “I was immature and stupid, Annabelle. I’ve done a lot of growing up since then. I realize now that I should have treated you better.”

  I wanted to stomp away, but I stopped and turned back toward Holden, noticing that he was wearing the Vilbrequin bathing suit I had given him for his birthday my senior year. It was like knowing a bag of chocolates was in my pantry. I wanted to close the door and lock it away, but I couldn’t resist finishing it.

  “I should have fought for you then,” Holden said. “But I was too ashamed. I let my pride take away the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

  I rolled my eyes, realizing it was difficult to look haughty in a somewhat sheer linen cover-up and flip-flops with bows on them. “This is never, ever going to happen, Holden, so I suggest you move on. It took meeting Ben to realize what I had been missing out on all this time.”

  It was a cold, callous statement, and, as soon as it came out of my mouth, I wished I could roll it back up like loose toilet paper. I wanted to say something more, to amend that horrible judgment, tell Holden that we did the best we could. But I knew that, in his mind, if the curtains were fluttering in the breeze, I needed to slam the window or it was going to come open again and again and again.

  “He’s going to hurt you, Annabelle,” Holden called as I walked out of the empty bar. “Everyone thinks so.”

  I wanted to laugh indignantly, but the words pierced right through me, the spear he had thrown in retaliation for the arrow I shot. It was the first time I had considered what it might be like to be without Ben, how devastated, confused and completely alone I would be if he changed his mind. That was the benefit of being with someone like Holden. He was good on paper, decent husband material, and if it all went down the tubes, then, oh well. My attachment was minimal.

  But to think about being without Ben was like losing my limbs. I loved him with a ferocity I’d never known before. I would look at him when we were lying in bed at night, him peacefully snoring beside me, and I would consider the fact that he was a good deal older. And I would start to panic. How would I ever live without him? How would the breath enter and leave my body if Ben wasn’t there to regulate it?

  And then I’d think of Lovey and D-daddy.

  And I couldn’t sleep a wink.

  Lovey

  Bring Her Back Up

  My momma named me Lynn because it could be a boy’s name or a girl’s. She wanted me to grow up to do big things with my life, and she thought that having a name that could have been a boy’s would make people take me more seriously.

  But, it didn’t much matter because, once Annabelle was born, she changed my name altogether. When she was a child, I used to say to her, “Oh, I love you,” and, with those muddled little toddler syllables running together like they do, she would say back, “Oh, Lovey.” From then on, that’s what practically everyone called me.

  I kept thinking of her as that tiny girl, sitting on the floor in the den at Dan’s feet, playing with makeup in my bathroom, riding her bike around the front, circular driveway. The memories of this house were so pronounced for me, such a normal part of my daily routine, that I couldn’t imagine being without them.

  That’s why saying you’re going to move to assisted living and actually doing that same thing are very different matters. If I had ever been anything for my daughters, it was steadfast. I was brave and fearless. And if I wasn’t, I never let it show. Maybe it was old age, the instability of it all, the loss of balance, the lack of memory, the persistent pain of the process o
f breaking down. Or perhaps it was removing the man who had made me feel invincible for all this time and throwing me into the river without so much as a float. But being alone in that house with him all night, every night, was the most terrifying experience I’ve ever had.

  Every snore or gasp of breath convinced me that I would peek over the foot of the bed to see the man I had loved more than myself cold, blue and gone from me. Every creak down the hall or rustle of leaves from the trees was someone coming in to rob us, and, slow and decrepit from age, I couldn’t get to the gun to defend myself—though no one could deny that my shot was better than the sheriff’s. Every cell phone beep or TV flicker was the smoke alarm going off, and, though I may have been able to get myself out, my husband was a sitting duck.

  “Oh, Momma,” Lauren said gaily, sorting through a drawer of memories in the den, “surely we can get rid of some of these old clippings or letters or crumbling photos.”

  “I know!” Louise chimed in. “I can take all these old photos and scan them into one file so you can access them anytime you want.”

  “Or, I can have them all printed into one photo book,” Martha said.

  I nodded slowly to appease them, but knowing as well as my right from my left that I could never part with these things. Clippings of my girls’ names appearing in dance recitals might not have seemed worth saving. But they were my memories. These drawers, overflowing with old bankbooks, receipts and never-filed photos were all I had left to hold on to.

  I heard the front door creak open, and Jean called, “I’m here!”

  I shuddered. Jean was the least sentimental, most cutthroat of the bunch. She would have dumped my drawers with all their memories into one black Hefty bag without a second thought and just left them right there on the street like a squirrel that has been run over.

  “Momma,” she said, “it’s fine to keep all your stuff, but you can’t move it all into a nine-hundred-square-foot assisted living apartment. It’s not possible.”

  “I know,” Sally said. “Why don’t I take all of this home with me, and I’ll organize it into a couple of scrapbooks for you so that it’s all together.”