After Melanie Read online

Denise, sitting with Judith in the café, had seen the pain that flashed across her face as she watched David walk by, holding the hand of another woman’s child. That pain, she thought, was but a symptom of a darker contagion to come. She feared its impact on Brian, on herself.

  ‘We should move up our wedding date,’ she told Brian. ‘Why should we wait?’

  ‘You’re right,’ he agreed.

  They would preempt all danger and outrun the storm that threatened his parents and hovered darkly over their own future.

  Brian watched his father butter a roll and set it aside. Only a short while ago, seated at this same table, he had listened patiently to David’s explanation of his relationship with Nancy. Listened and pretended to understand. He listened to David now, but his patience was exhausted, his understanding strained by resentment. Why had his father delayed that promised conversation with his mother until she saw him strolling down Fifth Avenue with Nancy Cummings and her daughter? That silence had poisoned his mother’s perception, ignited her suspicions. He could not blame her.

  David passed him the buttered roll which Brian set aside.

  ‘It was your mother, of course, who had the strength to speak about it, to ask me directly about my relationship with Nancy,’ David said as the waiter placed platters of steaming ravioli in front of them.

  He poked at the pasta he did not want, aware of Brian’s annoyance and aware, too, that it was justified. Judith should not have been the one to initiate that painful conversation. He should have had the courage to talk to her before she saw him with Nancy and Lauren and jumped to dangerous assumptions.

  ‘And you told her the truth?’ Brian asked.

  ‘Of course I told her the truth. I have nothing to hide.’

  ‘And? What will happen now?’

  Brian dared not speculate about his mother’s reaction, dared not phrase the questions that haunted his dark imaginings. How angry had she been? How hurt? Would they separate? Would they divorce? The very words caused his stomach to clench, his heart to grow heavy. He had lost his sister; he did not want to lose his parents as well.

  David smiled bitterly. ‘The sky did not fall. We are, for all intents and purposes, as we were. Alone and together.’

  ‘But at least now there is more honesty between you.’ Brian spoke slowly, awkwardly. These were not words a son should offer his father.

  ‘Yes. I was honest. Your mother keeps her own counsel.’

  Judith’s secret would remain her own. A mother did not burden her son with such a revelation. She would never speak of Jeffrey Kahn to Brian. Nor would he, of course. He called, too loudly, for a glass of wine, looked questioningly at Brian who shook his head. He did not want wine. He did not know what his father meant. He did not want to know.

  ‘So you will go on as before?’ he asked.

  ‘For now, yes.’ He did not tell Brian that he and Judith slept in separate rooms. His son would discern as much when he and Denise visited. Or perhaps not. Everything was in flux even as everything seemingly remained the same. Decisions were in abeyance. For now they were going on as before, living together, sleeping alone.

  Brian felt a rush of relief. He wanted the home of his childhood to be undisturbed, his parents’ marriage, however damaged, to endure.

  ‘And Nancy?’ he asked. ‘You and Nancy?’

  ‘She will continue to be part of my life. Judith – your mother – understands that.’

  ‘Understands and accepts it?’ Brian’s tone was sharp with anger and disbelief.

  ‘For now, yes,’ David repeated.

  For now. Clearly, for his father and his mother both, now was not forever. There was a before. There would be an after.

  ‘All right,’ Brian said. But it was not all right.

  They finished their meal in silence. David drained his glass of wine and asked for another. They did not order coffee.

  ‘My love to Denise,’ David said as they parted, and Brian nodded.

  What would he tell Denise? he wondered as he turned the corner. The truth, he decided. The honesty that had eluded his parents would be the cornerstone of their marriage. There was, and would be, nothing that he could not or would not share with Denise.

  TWENTY

  A burst of heavy heat, as summer drifted to its inevitable end, tented the thrift shop in lassitude. The fans revolved too slowly and the room was dimly lit to prevent the bright unshielded ceiling bulbs from adding to the oppressive sultriness. The pitcher of cold water on the front counter, available to thirsty customers and staff alike, grew warm within a half hour and had to be replenished. Even on pay days and on the bi-weekly arrival of welfare checks, there were few customers. The factory and hospital workers were on vacation or haunting air-conditioned cafeterias and coffee shops. Only a few regulars drifted in to sort their way through the clothing on the long tables or to finger the lonely garments that hung limply from twisted wire hangers.

  ‘I don’t know why we’re bothering to open,’ Suzanne complained to Judith.

  ‘I know,’ Judith agreed, but she was relieved that the shop did open, that she had a place to go, that the routine that was holding her life in place had not been disturbed.

  Emily entered late one afternoon, the baby fully awake and sheltered in the cloth sling that rested between her mother’s breasts. Seeing Judith, whom she now recognized, Jane’s tiny rosebud mouth blossomed into a smile, but she made no sound. Emily wore a pale-blue cotton shift, a once-shapeless thrift shop purchase that she had tapered so that it fell in graceful folds around her slender body. It was loosely belted with a sash of crimson silk that matched the ribbon that tied back her silken smooth black hair.

  ‘I am here to find some undershirts for my husband,’ she told Judith in a very soft voice, as though the request for such intimate garments was an embarrassment.

  Judith led her to a table across the room. The previous afternoon, a white-haired woman, recently widowed, had carried in two shopping bags bulging with her late husband’s underwear. A separate Bloomingdales bag had contained pristine packets of singlets, still in their cellophane wrappers.

  ‘We thought he was getting better. I bought these undershirts because we thought he was getting better. And he was such a particular man. So clean. He never wore anything that was stained. So I wanted to have everything new and ready for him when he came home from the hospital. Only he didn’t come home,’ she had told Judith, her lined cheeks very pink, her eyes bright with unshed tears.

  Judith had struggled to find comforting words. In the end, she had only murmured her thanks for the contribution. ‘Someone will put them to good use,’ she had assured the woman who had shrugged and shuffled out of the shop.

  And they would be put to good use. Emily was delighted that they were brand new. ‘Some things, you want them to be new,’ she said in her stilted English. ‘Things so close to the body. My husband, James, he is very clean, very particular.’

  Judith smiled to hear the young Korean wife echo the words of the elderly Jewish woman.

  She took the few bills Emily counted out, thrust them into the register then led the young woman into the back room and gave her the cotton robe that had belonged to Sylvia Kahn.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Emily said, fingering the soft apricot-colored fabric, holding it against her body. ‘But I can’t afford it. I can’t spend money on something like this.’ She blushed, ashamed of her poverty, or, perhaps, of her craving.

  ‘It is a gift,’ Judith assured her gently. ‘My gift to you.’

  ‘But why?’ Emily asked.

  Judith hesitated. She could not tell Emily how important their brief encounters were to her, how seeing the baby offered her moments of sweet pleasure. ‘It pleases me to give it to you,’ she said at last. That at least was true. ‘Allow me to do that.’

  Emily bowed her head in appreciative acquiescence.

  ‘And there is something else.’ She handed Emily Jeffrey Kahn’s card.

  ‘Doctor Kahn? Who is this
Doctor Kahn?’ Emily asked.

  ‘Doctor Kahn is my friend,’ she murmured and hesitated at the word. Was that what Jeffrey Kahn was to her? Friend. The very word seemed inaccurate but she could think of no other. Lover? No, of course not.

  She and Jeffrey were not, and never had been, and never would be lovers. They were friends, companions in grief, thrust together into an accidental intimacy, a dangerous coupling that was never repeated, that never would be repeated. She had tried to persuade herself that it could be easily dismissed, easily forgotten, but that, of course, had been a fragile fantasy. David’s reaction when she had tried to speak of it, to explain it, had taught her as much. ‘Jeffrey Kahn and I,’ she had managed to murmur before David recoiled. She did not blame him, but she was tired of blaming herself.

  She smiled wearily at Emily. ‘A friend,’ she repeated. ‘A doctor. An ophthalmologist. He has a grant and he wants to hire a medical student to assist him in his research. I told him about your husband. If James is interested, he can call Doctor Kahn.’

  Emily stared at her, stared at the card, then placed it carefully in her purse. ‘You are so kind. I cannot believe how kind you are. You are like a miracle in my life.’ She grasped Judith’s two hands in her own and lifted them to her lips. Judith, in turn, touched her cheek and then rested her fingers on the baby’s brow. Sunlight, streaming in through the only window in the small room, brushed their faces with a fleeting radiance.

  Emily left, purchases in hand, the belt of Sylvia Kahn’s apricot robe dangling from a plastic bag. She glided through the thrift shop, smiling at Suzanne who was busily sorting through a carton of newly donated china ornaments.

  Judith joined her and, working together in perfect agreement, they decided to discard a chipped china pug dog but clapped their hands when they discovered an intact Lladro flautist.

  ‘A thrift shop reward,’ Suzanne said.

  ‘Among others,’ Judith agreed. She thought she might buy the Lladro, perhaps start a new collection, but she did not.

  They ordered ice cream sodas and sipped them together, as they discussed a new public television series they were both watching. She and Suzanne had, Judith realized, as she drove home, drifted into friendship.

  The heat-heavy days passed slowly. Customers were few, but antique dealers in search of treasure and an occasional jeweler ferreted through the jewelry that Suzanne kept in a small safe. The Lladro flautist sold within a day for a very good price to a woman who collected ceramic sculptures.

  On a particularly hot afternoon, a pink-haired woman who owned an upscale jewelry shop in town shrieked loudly over her discovery of amber earrings and a necklace to match. Judith knew that she would place them in a velvet-lined leather box and price it high. She was angered when the woman haggled over the very modest amount Suzanne asked.

  ‘We do this for charity, you know,’ Suzanne said coldly.

  ‘I am in business. I am not here for charity,’ the woman retorted.

  Suzanne remained firm, her price was accepted, and Judith flashed her an approving smile. Suzanne smiled back. They were increasingly in sync.

  A trio of girls, students at the nearby extension unit of the community college, wandered in and headed to the racks on which vintage clothing hung. Mini-skirts hugged their bodies and exposed their sun-reddened thighs. Their bare arms were sleek with sweat, their T-shirts were too tight. Their trebling laughter shattered the summer silence. They tried on evening gowns of yesteryear, argued amiably over a wildly colorful wrap dress, draped stoles of gossamer fabrics over their shoulders. One by one they disappeared into the corner concealed by the plastic shower curtain, the improvised dressing room, and emerged in improbable and ridiculous finds which they proudly modeled. They giggled, tossed out derisive comments and hugged each other in foolish delight. There was laughter and applause for a very short, pale girl who had swathed herself in folds of pink tulle, a discarded bridesmaid’s dress.

  Judith watched them, overwhelmed by an unexpected melancholy, a flare of too familiar resentment. She knew its source. Her daughter would never idle away a summer afternoon with a group of laughing, carefree teenaged friends. She stared at the girls who pirouetted in front of the sun-streaked mirror in their ridiculous costumes.

  Why should they be alive when Melanie was dead?

  The viciousness, the irrationality of the thought shocked her. She averted her gaze from the happy trio, seized by a new determination. She had to stop wallowing in her own untamed grief and envy, she told herself firmly, reprovingly. It was wrong. She would have to wait for time to pass, for time to ease her pain, mitigate her anger. Time was what she needed. David’s words echoed in memory. ‘We need time,’ he had said and belatedly she agreed. She willed herself to patience, to reluctant acceptance and amused admiration for these vibrant, giggling girls. She smiled at them and told them how pretty they looked.

  The pink bridesmaid gown was purchased as well as the colorful wrap dress, and Suzanne, on impulse, tossed two of the stoles into another bag for the girl who was empty-handed.

  ‘Come again,’ she told them. ‘We have some wonderful gently used clothing.’

  They warbled their thanks and left, hurrying back to stifling classrooms and courses taught by very bored perspiring teachers.

  ‘We never would have sold those stoles anyway,’ Suzanne told Judith apologetically.

  ‘Of course not,’ Judith agreed.

  That afternoon, as she prepared to leave, she suggested that she and Suzanne should confirm a date for lunch at the new salad place.

  ‘Tomorrow?’ Suzanne said at once.

  Judith was surprised at the alacrity with which her suggestion was received. She had half expected to be refused.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The next day they drove together to the pleasant new restaurant, its walls papered with whimsical dancing flowers, its glass-topped tables and spindly white-legged chairs not unlike garden furniture. It was very distinctly a woman’s refuge, flooded with light, the soft-voiced servers in long gauzy skirts, gliding gracefully across the room, balancing trays laden with brightly colored salads and fruit smoothies in tall glasses. Asked if they wanted a window seat, Judith, too swiftly, refused. Suzanne looked at her quizzically.

  ‘I’m taking a vacation from people watching,’ Judith explained. ‘You never know whom you might see.’ She laughed at the absurdity of her own words. There was no danger of seeing David on a weekday afternoon in this suburban village.

  Suzanne nodded and studied the menu. They ordered and smiled at each other. Although they were at last comfortable with each other in the thrift shop, they felt a tentative unease in such neutral surroundings. Judith struggled to find an opening, but it was Suzanne who began their conversation.

  ‘I’m glad we’re doing this,’ she said. ‘Although it’s taken us long enough. How long have you been working in the thrift shop?’

  Judith thought for a moment. ‘Since early spring. Late March maybe. The beginning of April? I really can’t remember.’

  She reflected now that the months had swept by with a swiftness she had not anticipated, each day punctuated by incidents and relationships she could not have imagined. She thought of Jeffrey Kahn. She thought of Emily. She thought of the confidences offered by weary customers, Consuela’s pride in her grandchildren, the exchanges with the younger volunteers, their impromptu tea parties at which they drank from abandoned mugs and stirred their drinks with tarnished spoons.

  ‘That’s about right,’ Suzanne agreed. ‘I must admit that when you first came, I never thought you would last past a week. A lot of our volunteers drop out pretty quickly, you know.’

  ‘I’ve noticed,’ Judith said. ‘Altruism has a very brief life.’

  Their iced tea arrived and Suzanne trailed a finger across the frigid edge of the glass. Her nail polish was a dull bronze, and Judith thought it an attractive shade even as she realized that months ago she would have scorned it as she had scorned everything about Suzanne.
Why had she been so intolerant, so swift to judgment?

  ‘I myself wasn’t sure I would stay on,’ she continued. ‘It was Denise, my son’s fiancée, who sort of bullied me into it. With the best of intentions, of course. She thought I was too much alone, that volunteering would be good for me. I said I would give it a try because I knew that she and my son had worried about me since my daughter’s death. And, to be honest, I was worried about myself. So I agreed to give the thrift shop a try, although I didn’t think it would work out. I thought that I would be uncomfortable with the volunteers who were so much younger than me and even with …’ Her voice trailed off.

  ‘Even with me, I suppose.’ Suzanne smiled as she completed the sentence. ‘I understand. I myself didn’t feel very comfortable with you when you first began volunteering.’

  ‘Why?’ It surprised her that she had caused any uneasiness in Suzanne, who had seemed to her so cool and controlled, so confident of her decisions.

  ‘I’ll be honest. A kind of envy. I saw you as someone of my generation, who had done all the things I had not done, who had everything that I myself wanted. A career, a husband, a son whose life was on track.’

  ‘And a daughter who died,’ Judith added drily.

  It was, she knew, an unfair weapon, but it was safer than telling Suzanne that her envy was misplaced, that Judith’s marriage was endangered, her son’s life peripheral to her own, and that her career now seemed distant and stagnant to her. Within months her sabbatical year would end with little to show for it. Her marriage was bounded by uncertainty, her present and her future shadowed by grim and compounded losses.

  Surprisingly, Suzanne reached across the table and lightly touched Judith’s wrist.

  ‘I know. Nothing can compare with the death of a child,’ she said very softly. ‘But your daughter’s death was a medical tragedy. It was not a loss for which you feel responsible. My own loss fills me with guilt.’ She spoke slowly. Her voice, always modulated and always commanding in that very modulation, drifted into a whisper.