I make the image larger: it’s a bunch of people at a party on the banks of the Ashley River. Steam rises from roasting oysters, and people stand around sipping beer under dripping Spanish moss. I spot Mirabel, and she looksamazing—sporting Farrah Fawcett blond layers and a hot-pink trapeze dress with white leather booties. She’s laughing with a couple—the man tall and blond in a blue seersucker suit, the woman red-haired in a fitted Jackie O. blue dress. The man, woman, and Mirabel are dressed very sharp and look a thousand times more interesting than Ted. In fact, Ted stands near the large grill contemplating the oysters. He looks the same as he does now, only a little less gray.
Ted and Mirabel would have been married around this time. (He came from an old moneyed family with a large trust fund.) And Philip would come along about three years later. But who is this handsome couple? Something tickles in the back of my head. Philip saving the photo, so close to that night he went to Mirabel’s for dinner...
My phone rings, jolting me from my thoughts.
“Ian?”
“Hey, Lizzie. I’ll keep this short because my international phone plan sucks. I’m worried about Dad.”
“Is he ok?” I ask, alarmed.
“Oh, yeah, sorry I should have clarified. Physically, he’s fine. But you know he’s never been super-talkative. Lately he’s been downright withdrawn. Like he just wants to sit in his study and read articles about Ralph Waldo Emerson.”
“How isn’t that normal?”
“He’s not hanging out with people. He’s stopped giving guest lectures at the university or doing any of his morning nature walks. Also, when I stopped by to check on him the other day, he was eating aTwinkie.”
“Okay, that is weird.” Dad didn’t even eat the cake at my wedding reception.
“Yeah. Anyway, I just wanted it to be on your radar.”
He asks me how I’m holding up, and I give him a brief update.
“Good. Just please, continue to take care of yourself, sis.”
After the call, I slump back on my pillows, half-heartedly stroking Lucy. Perhaps I should have gone back home to Indiana. Guilt washes over me. Dad might need me.
Why didn’t I think of him?
Dad was a distinguished English professor specializing in American transcendentalism. And not at a little failing college like Willoughby, but at Notre Dame. He published only in the most prestigious American literature journals. If his colleagues were as terrible as mine, he never complained.
He wasn’t particularly emotional or affectionate. And yet, I knew he loved me.
How did I know?
On the fourth-grade playground, I accidentally hit Janice Falls in the face with a dodgeball, and like a banshee from hell, she pummeled me. I came home humiliated because the whole classsaw my underwear in the scuffle. Dad took me out for ice cream. Of course, he never bought ice cream for himself, and he said very little as I cried and retold the whole story and licked my cone. But he sat by me, and he listened, and I felt better.
Dad and Mom were a pair. She was a no-nonsense hospital nurse. She cleaned all the time. Like, you couldeatoff our bathroom tiles. She loved us, but she was a “tough love” sort of parent. There was no babying. Resilience was everything. We had to drink a full glass of milk every morning. No exceptions. Good strong bones and all that.
Obviously, Dad and Mom weren’t the romantic types, but they loved each other like crazy. Mom would pull something out of the oven, like her lasagna—cheese, noodles, and tomatoes put together with perfect precision. Dad would walk up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders, his nose close to her neck. It wasn’t a hug. He just seemed in wonder at her scent, and Mom’s lips would curve into a soft, happy smile.
In graduate school, when I returned from Haworth heartbroken, Mom listened, letting me cry on her shoulder for a full five minutes before telling me that Wes was a “stupid weasel,” and I should never cry for more than five minutes over such a person. Shamefully, I couldn’t keep my tears to the allotted time, so I wept softly in my bedroom until Dad knocked on the door:Do you want to go out for ice cream?
Mom and Dad couldn’t have been more different and yet they were perfect for each other.
I realize now how much she grounded my academic Dad in so many ways. Underneath my preoccupation with my own grief and widowhood, I’ve worried about him and what he’s doing without her. Her constant cleaning, her perfectly arranged lasagnas, her scent—it all anchored him.
I stare at my phone. Dad doesn’t text out of principle. He prides himself on staying “technologically disconnected,” as heputs it. I think it’s a transcendentalist thing. Emerson didn’t text.
I call him, but it goes to voicemail. I leave a message telling him even though I’m in London, he’s on my mind, and I love him. I tell him my neighbor, Edith, is caring for the pretty orchid.
Henry:Are ya’ll there yet?
Me:Yes, but jet-lagged. Can we talk tomorrow?
Henry:Holy hell, have I hit some walls with your MIL. Piece. Of. Work. Will 6:00PM London time work?
Me:Sure
