Page 92 of Two Couples

Every day, I spent time talking to her. I let the caregiver into the house—the stranger who helped her with the toilet as well as her bathing and prescription meds. Even in this, I was an afterthought, possibly not entirely necessary.

I wasn’t doing this for kudos. But I was clinging to the pathetic hope that spending every day with her, reading to her, trying to start conversations, gently turning her in the bed, massaging her feet, filing her fingernails, and cooking the best food I knew how, would stir up some long-buried affection for me. Some appreciation. I didn’t want to expect those things, but I hoped for it all the same. She must know she was in her final days. Did she really want to leave this world without acknowledging that she’d loved her only son after all?

Of course she’d resented how much I looked like my father. When the wound of his leaving was fresh, I kind of got it, even as a kid. But I thought it would fade. I thought she’d get over him, move on, and realize what she had in her son.

It never happened. At least, not yet. To make it worse, I looked more like him as I got older. And because the pain of his leaving never subsided, I continued to anger her with the slightest unwelcome gesture or word.

I continued my devotion and hope for three more weeks. Then, the caregiver told me my mother needed to be in a facility where they had more resources to help her. Within two days of entering the care home, my mother was gone. The moment I saw her chest sunken and still, I was overcome with grief for everything that could have been but was not. And now, it never would be. I tried to tell myself she’d done her best with the experiences that had entered her life. Even though her best meant nothing for me, I was a man, I could manage this. I didn’t need Mommy’s love and approval.

Repeating this to myself accomplished absolutely nothing. I was bereft.

My sister was the executor of the estate. Despite my missing-in-action father, my mother still had a solid financial situation—a lot more than I’d realized—through careful management of what her parents had left behind. She still owned our childhood home, the mortgage paid off, and she had a shocking amount of money in her investment account.

At least she’d prepared for this, taking care to offer us more financially than she had emotionally. Because even my sister, the golden girl, the star, the most beloved, hadn’t escaped the effects of my mother’s slightly twisted mind.

It turned out my mother did not plan to finally show me love after her death. She did plan to show what she’d demonstrated every day of my life—I sickened her. She’d cared for my sister, but even in death, she thrust me out of her line of sight. The estate was split, with eighty percent to my sister, and twenty percent to me. Maybe I should have been happy with the twenty percent. But it hurt. More than I could ever explain, it hurt. My sister didn’t get it at all. In her view, she’d been tormented every day of her childhood, therefore, she deserved the larger share.

Still, I hoped I could scrape my twenty percent into purchasing a home, something I’d never had. Dreaming I’d finally feel settled, I moved to the place that had called to me since our sole family vacation there when I was eight years old, just two months before my father left us—Lake Tahoe.

Before I got around to locating a cabin that was fit for full-time living, or a small condo, I met Jordan Reyes. It took us less than a month to fall in love. And when she showed me that house her mother had built for her, I felt like finally, good fortune was coming into my life. Not only had I met the first woman I’d truly loved, I was being handed a spectacular, brand-new house where the two of us could live happily ever after. I not only had a home, at long last, I was loved. When I showed the house to my sister Emily, she turned around and took it from me so fast, my head literally spun. She went to Linda, offering above market value.

Emily’s timing was perfect. Linda wanted to be rid of the house. She knew Jordan had a man in her life, and she wasn’t going to provide a home where Jordan could start life without her, even if it was only two hundred feet away. Emily was eager to buy.

But that house should be mine! It is mine. I’m moving in there next weekend and Emily can just try to kick me out. I’m not leaving that house alive. That’s how much I know it was meant for me.

SIXTY-EIGHT

SAMANTHA

Eighteen Years Ago

At the age of eleven, I was expected to look after Celie. She was eight, so it wasn’t like having responsibility for an active toddler. I was capable and Celie was mostly self-sufficient. My mother told everyone this.

“It’s good training for babysitting,” my mother said. “And Celie’s a well-behaved child. It’s not like it’s work, or too much responsibility to keep an eye on my sweet girl. She’s smart, too. So I know I can trust her to follow the rules, to stay safe, and listen to her big sister.”

Our family was renting a condo right beside the sandy beach of Lake Tahoe. There were strict rules that Celie and I were never to leave the deck with its four steps leading onto the sand. The edges of the lake were shallow, but that didn’t make it safe.

“Make sure she’s never out of your sight,” my mother said. “You’re a good swimmer, but Celie’s still learning and the smallest misstep could be tragic for her. You need to watch her at all times!” Celie couldn’t swim at the age of eight because she’d thrown tantrums every time she was taken to swim class. She hated getting her face wet and hated water that was even slightly cold. She screamed when the teacher took her into the swimming pool and my mother couldn’t bear to see tears on her sweet baby’s face. Now, it was my job to guard her. I hated it.

When no one was around, Celie treated me like her servant. If I did anything to object, she ran crying to our mother with a story containing a single thread of truth and enough lies to weave an entire piece of cloth.

We were sitting on the deck, looking at the lake. I was reading a book and Celie had arranged her Barbies all over the built-in bench. The sun was warm and blindingly bright and our skin was covered with sunscreen. I wore a floppy hat to shade my book while I read. Celie wore a hoodie, with the hood up, because she was cold, even in the sun on a July afternoon. Our parents were napping. Their naps were the result of lunch at a lakeside restaurant that included colorful drinks with fruit stuck on the straw, and a whole bottle of wine. They were yawning before we unlocked the door to our condo.

“Beach Barbie wants to go swimming,” Celie said.

“We can’t leave the deck. You know that.” I turned the page in my book, not bothering to look at Celie who was standing too close to me, breathing too loudly. “Get a pan and fill it with water in the kitchen.”

“She wants to go in the lake. Like that girl.”

I still didn’t look up. It didn’t matter what some other girl was doing.

“Her Barbies are swimming,” Celie said. “She even has a boat. I don’t have a boat and I want to share hers so my⁠—”

“We can’t leave the deck while they’re taking a nap. Stop bothering me when I’m trying to read. You know the rules.”

“I’m not going swimming. Just Flora and Persephone and Meredith.”

“Stop talking! I’m trying to read. It doesn’t matter what that girl is doing and it doesn’t matter if only the Barbies are going in the water, you can’t leave the deck. So don’t ask me again. Don’t even talk about it.”