The Ranch

Chapter 5

For the next three days, Bill and Mary Stuart's paths rarely seemed to cross. He worked until nearly midnight every night, and it was beginning to feel as though he lived at the office. But Mary Stuart was used to it now. She had been more or less alone all year, and this really wasn't any different. The only change in the past week was that she no longer had to cook dinner. She was getting thinner as a result, and in the past Bill would have worried about her, but as things were now, he didn't even notice.

And on the day before he was scheduled to leave, Mary Stuart called him at the office, to see if he wanted her to pack for London. She assumed he would, as he had never packed for himself before, but he said he was coming home that afternoon to do it.

“Are you sure?” She was surprised, it was as though she didn't know him anymore. Nothing he did, or wanted from her, was the same as it once had been. But their son had died, and as far as he was concerned, it was her fault, or at least that was her reading of the situation. And as far as she was concerned, they were no longer the same people. “I don't mind packing for you.” It seemed the least she could do, and it would keep her busy. She was still trying to absorb the fact that her husband was leaving for two or three months. It had only just that day really hit her. With the exception of her trip with Alyssa, she was going to be alone for the entire summer. And in some ways, it scared her. It underlined the distance between them that he didn't want her staying with him in London. He claimed it would be too boring for her, and it would distract him. But in years past, there would never have been a moment's doubt about her going. “I don't mind packing for you,” she said again on the phone, but he insisted that he needed to pick his clothes himself, as he wanted to be very careful about what he wore in court in London.

“I'll be home at four,” he explained, sounding pressed. Leaving his office for several months was complicated, and there were a million details to think of. He was taking one of his assistants with him, and had she been younger and more attractive than she was, Mary Stuart would have come to the obvious conclusion. As it was, she was a heavyset, intelligent, but very unattractive woman in her early sixties.

“Do you want dinner at home, or would you rather go out tonight?” Mary Stuart asked, feeling depressed, but trying to make it sound festive. It was as though there was no pretense between them anymore, not even the illusion of closeness, and it somehow seemed more acute now that he was leaving.

“I'll just grab something out of the fridge,” he said absently, “don't go to any trouble.” They had both come to hate their awkward, silent dinners, and she had been relieved when he preferred staying at the office, and working late. And as a result, they had both gotten thinner.

“I'll get something cold at William Poll or Fraser Morris,” she said, and went out to do some errands. She had to buy a book she knew he wanted for the plane, and pick up all of his dry cleaning. And as she hurried east toward Lexington she was suddenly glad that she was leaving in a few weeks. Despite the chasm between them now, it was going to be incredibly lonely without him.

She picked up some dinner at William Poll, got the book and some magazines, some candy and gum, and she had all of his clean shirts hanging in his dressing room for him when he got home from the office at four-thirty. And he went straight to his packing, without saying a word to her. He was busy taking suitcases out of storage bins high above his closet. And she didn't see him again until seven o'clock when he appeared in the kitchen. He was still wearing his starched white shirt from work, but he had taken his tie off, and his hair was a little ruffled. It made him look young suddenly, and the painful part of it was that he looked so much like Todd now, but she tried valiantly to ignore it.

“All packed? I would have been happy to do it for you,” she said softly, setting out dinner on the table. It had been another hot day, and it was nice having cold meats to put out, and not having to cook dinner.

“I didn't want to give you a lot of trouble,” he said, sitting down on a high stool at the white granite kitchen counter. “I don't give you much happiness anymore, it doesn't seem fair to give you the work and the grief, and not much else. At least I can stay out of your hair and make things easy.” It was the first time he had even acknowledged their situation, and she stared at him in amazement. When she had even tried to say something to him a few days before, she had met a wall, and he had completely ignored her. She wondered now if he had actually heard her.

“I don't expect you to stay out of my hair,” she said, as she sat down across from him, and her eyes looked like pools of dark chocolate. He had always loved looking at her, loved her looks, and her style, and the expressiveness of her eyes, but the pain he had seen there for the last year had been too much to bear, and it was easier to avoid her. “Marriage isn't about keeping your distance. It's about sharing.” And they had. They had shared joy for nearly twenty-one years, and endless grief for the last year. The trouble was that they hadn't really shared it. They had each grieved silently in their separate corners.

“We haven't shared much of anything lately, have we?” he said sadly. “I guess I've been too busy at the office.” But it wasn't that, and they both knew it. She said nothing as she watched him, and he reached out slowly and touched her hand. It was the first gesture of its kind in months, and there were tears in her eyes as she felt his fingers.

“I've missed you,” she said in a whisper, but all he did was nod. He had felt it too, but he couldn't bring himself to say it to her.

“I'm going to miss you while you're away,” she said quietly. It was the first time in their marriage they would be apart for that long. But he had been so adamant about her not going with him. “It's such a long time.”

“It'll go quickly. You'll come over next month with Alyssa, and I hope to be home by the end of August.”

“We'll be together two days in two months,” she said, looking at him in despair, and slowly pulling her hand away from his. “That's not exactly the stuff of which marriages are usually made, at least not good ones. I could stay at the hotel and fend for myself during the day.” They had enough friends in London to keep her busy night and day for months, and he knew that. And it felt awkward suddenly to be begging him to let her be there.

“It will be just too distracting,” he said unhappily, they had been over it before and he had been definite about it with her. He did not want her coming to London, other than for a brief weekend with their daughter.

“I've never distracted you before,” she said, feeling like the supplicant again, and hating both herself and him for it. “Anyway… it's a long time… that's all. I think we both know that.” His eyes suddenly bore into hers, and there was a question in his eyes as he watched her.

“What do you mean by that?” For the first time, he actually looked worried. He was an attractive man, and she was sure that there would be plenty of women running after him in London. But she couldn't imagine that he was worrying about her. She had always been the perfect wife, but he had also never left her for an entire summer, after a year like this one.

“I mean that two months is a long time, especially after the year we've just had. You're leaving for two months, maybe more… I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to think about it, Bill.” She looked worried as she watched him, and then he startled her even further.

“Neither am I. I just thought… maybe… we could use some time apart, to get a grip on things again, to figure out what we do now, and how we put back all the pieces.” She was amazed to hear him say it. She hadn't even been sure he would have been willing to acknowledge how totally they'd come apart in the last year, let alone the fact that they needed to put the pieces back together.

“I don't see how being apart for two months is going to bring us any closer,” she said matter-of-factly.

“It might help clear our minds. I don't know… I just know that I needed to be away from you, to think about something else for a change, to lose myself in work.” She was startled when he looked up at her, and she saw tears in his eyes. She hadn't seen him cry since the day they'd picked Todd's body up at Princeton. Even at the funeral, he had looked stern, and she had never seen him cry since. He had been hiding behind his wall for all this time, and this was the first time he'd ventured out from behind it. Maybe he was upset about leaving too. At least that was something. “I wanted to be alone to work over there, Mary Stuart. It's just that…” His lips trembled as his eyes filled with tears, and she reached for his hand again and held it gently. “Every time I look at you… I think of him… it's as though we're all irreversibly bound to each other. I needed to get away from it, to stop thinking about him, and what we should have done or known or said, or how things could have been different. It's almost driven me out of my mind. I thought London might be a good way to change that. I thought leaving you behind might be good for both of us. You must feel the same way about me whenever you see me.”

She smiled through her own tears then, touched but dismayed by what he was saying. “You look so much like him. When you came into the kitchen a little while ago, you startled me for a moment.”

He nodded. He understood perfectly. They were both haunted. He was sick of the apartment, the occasional mail that still came for Todd, the room he knew was there but never stepped into. Even Alyssa looked like Todd at times, and he had had his mother's eyes and smile. It was all so unbearably painful.

“We can't run away from each other to escape the memory of our son,” Mary Stuart said sadly. “Then it's a double loss for us, we not only lose him, we lose each other.” In fact, they already had, and they both knew it.

“Will you be all right while I'm gone?” he asked, feeling guilty for the first time. He had told himself it was so sensible leaving her. He was going to London to work, after all. But in fact, he had been relieved at the opportunity to escape her, and now it seemed awkward and stupid, yet he didn't want to change it and take her with him.

“I'll be fine,” she said with more nobility than truth. What choice did she have now? To tell him she'd sit home and cry every day? That it was more than she could take? It wasn't. She was almost used to it. In fact, Bill had abandoned her when Todd died, emotionally anyway, and now he was just taking his body with him. She had been alone for a year, in truth two more months wouldn't make much difference.

“You can call me whenever you have a problem. Maybe you should stay in Europe with Alyssa for a while.” She felt like an aging aunt being foisted off on relatives or sent on cruises. But she knew she would be better off at home, than languishing alone in hotels around Europe.

“Alyssa is going to Italy with friends, she has her own plans.” And so did he. They all did. Even Tanya had her trip to Wyoming with Tony's children. Everyone had something to do, except for her. All she had was a short trip with Alyssa, and he expected her to spend the rest of the summer waiting. It was extraordinarily presumptuous of him, but given what their life had become, it no longer surprised her.

They picked at the food she'd bought without much appetite, talked about some things she needed to know, about their maintenance, an insurance premium that he was waiting for, and what mail he wanted her to send him. He was expecting her to pay the bills and take care of most of it. He would have precious little spare time while he worked on the case in London. And after they'd talked for a while, he went back to their bedroom, and packed the rest of his papers. He was in the bathroom taking a shower when she came in, and when he walked into the bedroom, he was wearing a robe and his hair was damp. He smelled of soap and aftershave, and for a moment, seeing him that way gave her a jolt. He seemed to be relaxing with her a little bit now that he was leaving. She wondered if it was because he was sorry to go and it made him feel closer to her suddenly, or if on the contrary he was so relieved it made him careless.

And when they went to bed that night, he didn't move close to her, but somehow, even at a distance, he seemed less rigid. There were things she would have liked to say to him, about how she felt, and what she still wanted from him, but she sensed that despite the slight warming of the cold war, he was not yet ready for her to bear her soul, or tell him how she was feeling about their marriage. She was feeling bereft these days, incredibly sad, and oddly cheated. She had been cheated out of a son, and Todd in turn had been robbed, or robbed himself, of his future. But it was as though when the spirits took him away, they took his parents with them. It would have been nice to be able to say that to Bill openly, but knowing that she would barely see him for the next two months, she didn't think it was the time, or that he was ready. And as she lay on the other side of the bed, thinking about him, Bill fell asleep without saying another word, or putting an arm around her. He had said all he was able to say for now, earlier in the kitchen.

And when he got up the next day, he was in a hurry to get organized. He called the office, closed his bags, showered and shaved, and scarcely had time to glance at the paper over breakfast. She had made eggs and cereal for him, and the whole wheat toast he ate every day, and then gone to get dressed herself, and she appeared in a black linen pantsuit and a black-and-white striped T-shirt. As usual, she looked like a magazine ad when he saw her.

“Do you have a meeting today?” he asked, glancing over the paper.

“No,” she said quietly. There was a pain in the pit of her stomach.

“You're awfully dressed just to sit around at home. Are you going out to lunch?” She couldn't help wondering why he cared, he was leaving for two months anyway. What difference did it make what she did now?

“I didn't want to take you to the airport in blue jeans,” she said, and with that, he raised an eyebrow.

“I wasn't expecting you to take me. I have a limo coming at ten-thirty. I'm giving Mrs. Anderson a ride. They're picking her up first, and actually Bob Miller is coming too. We were going to do some work in the car on the way to the airport.” They couldn't bear to lose a single moment. The human robots. Or was it just an excuse to get away from her sooner?

“I don't have to go if you'd rather not,” she said quietly, and he picked up the paper again and went back to reading.

“I don't think it makes much sense. It'll be simpler to say good-bye here.” And less embarrassing. God forbid someone would ever think he loved her. Or did he? The faint humanity he had shown in the same room only the night before seemed to have disappeared, the wall was up again, and he was hiding not only behind it, but also behind the paper. “I'm sure you have better things to do today. The airport is a mess this time of year, it'll take you hours to get back into the city.” He smiled at her then, but there was no warmth in it. It was the kind of smile you'd bestow on a stranger. She nodded, and said nothing, and when he got up, she put their dishes in the sink, and tried to keep herself from crying. It was so strange watching him leave, going through all the procedures and plans, and almost before she had come to terms with it, he had rung for the elevator and his bags were on the landing. He was wearing a light gray suit and he looked unbearably handsome. And it had been tacitly decided by then, she was not going to the airport. She stood in the doorway watching him as the elevator man took his bags, and then took a discreet step back so he couldn't see them.

“I'll call you,” Bill said, looking like a kid again, and she had to fight back tears as she watched him. She wanted to tell him that she couldn't believe he was leaving, without a single loving gesture to her.

“Take care of yourself,” she said awkwardly.

“I'll miss you,” he said, and then bent to kiss her cheek, and without meaning to, she put her arms around him.

“I'm sorry… about everything…” About Todd, about the past year, about the fact that he felt he needed a two-month break from her while he worked in Europe. About the fact that their marriage was in shards around their feet. There was so much to be sorry for, it was hard to remember all of it, but he knew what she was saying.

“It's all right. It'll be all right, Stu…” He hadn't called her that all year. But would it? She no longer believed that. And they would be apart for two months now. She knew instinctively that they would only get farther apart from it, not closer. He was so foolish to think this was what they needed. If anything, it would make the gap unbridgeable in future.

He took a step back from her then, without kissing her, and looked down at her with immeasurable sadness. “I'll see you in a few weeks.” All she could do was nod as the tears began to course down her cheeks and the elevator operator waited.

“I love you,” she whispered as he turned away, and then he turned as he heard her. But he only looked at her, and nodded, and then the elevator door closed silently behind him. He hadn't answered.

When Mary Stuart walked back into the apartment, the force of her loneliness took her breath away. She couldn't believe how awful it had felt to see him go, and know that he wouldn't be home for months, that she wouldn't even see him except for a few days with her daughter. At least she had that, but even so, it felt like the end of their marriage. No matter what he said, the fact that he needed time away from her, and that he was no longer able to respond to her in any way, told its own story.

She sat on the couch and cried for a while, feeling sorry for herself, and then she walked slowly into the kitchen. She put the dishes in the dishwasher, and put the rest of his breakfast away, and when the phone rang she almost didn't answer. She thought it might be Bill calling from the car, telling her he had forgotten something, or maybe even that he loved her. But when she answered, it was her daughter.

“Hi, sweetheart.” Mary Stuart tried to sound brighter than she felt. She didn't want to tell Alyssa how unhappy she was that her father had left. They had had enough unhappiness without Mary Stuart complaining about her marriage, particularly to her daughter. “How's Paris?”

“Beautiful and hot and romantic,” she said. It was a new word in her vocabulary, and Mary Stuart smiled, wondering if there was a new man in her life. Maybe even a young Frenchman.

“Am I allowed to ask why.?” she said cautiously, still smiling.

“Oh, it just is. Paris is so wonderful. I love it here. I never want to leave.” But she was going to have to in a few weeks. They were giving up her apartment when Mary Stuart came to Paris.

“I can't blame you for that,” she said, glancing at Central Park from her kitchen window. It was pretty and green too, but it was also filthy and full of muggers and bums, and it was definitely not Paris. “I can't wait to see you,” she said, trying not to think of Bill leaving an hour before. By then, he would have been at the airport. But she doubted that he'd call her. There was nothing to say, and she had made him too uncomfortable with her display of emotions. She had gotten the message very clearly.

But at Alyssa's end there was a strange silence. Her mother hadn't even noticed.

“Have you gotten organized a little bit?” Mary Stuart had asked her to get some maps together for their driving trips. That part of the trip was Alyssa's assignment. The rest had been taken care of by Bill's office. “Did you get the maps of the Maritime Alps? I heard about a great little hotel just outside Florence.” But still there was no sound from her daughter. “Alyssa? Are you all right? Is something wrong?” Was there a problem? Was she in love? Was she crying? But when she spoke again, Mary Stuart could hear that she wasn't. She just sounded very awkward.

“Mom… I have a problem…”

Oh, my God. “Are you pregnant?” She was nearly twenty years old and it would have been a calamity Mary Stuart would have preferred not to face, but if she had to, she would go through it with her.

But Alyssa was outraged at the suggestion. “Mom, for God's sake! Of course not!”

“Well, excuse me. How should I know? So what's the problem?”

Alyssa took a deep breath and launched into a long, complicated tale that sounded like one of the stories she had told in third grade that went on forever and had no ending. What it boiled down to finally was that a group of her friends were going to the Netherlands and they wanted her to go with them. It was a rare opportunity, and they would travel into Switzerland and Germany, staying with friends, or at youth hostels, and then Italy, where she had planned to meet them later. But the whole earlier part of the trip had just been organized, and as far as Alyssa was concerned, it was the opportunity of a lifetime.

“That sounds great. But I still don't understand the problem.”

Alyssa sighed. Her mother was so dense at times, but at least not always, like her father. “They're leaving this week. They're going to be traveling for two months, before we meet in Capri. I could give up the apartment now, and go with them except…” Her voice trailed off as Mary Stuart understood. She no longer wanted to travel around Europe with her mother. It was understandable certainly, but it was also a huge disappointment for Mary Stuart. It was all she had in her life at the moment. And she had hoped for a healing trip, alone with her only daughter, her only child now.

“I see,” Mary Stuart said quietly. “You don't want to go with me.” And then she cringed at her own words. She hadn't meant it the way it sounded.

“That's not it at all, Mom. And I'll still go with you if you really want to. It's just… I thought… this is such a great opportunity… but whatever you want…” She was trying to be diplomatic about it, but she was dying to go with her friends, and Mary Stuart knew it would be so much more fun for her. It didn't seem fair to stop her.

“It sounds wonderful,” her mother said generously. “I think you should do it.”

“Are you serious? Do you mean it? Really?” She sounded like a little kid, jumping up and down in her Paris apartment. “Oh, Mom, you're the best. I knew you'd understand… but I was afraid you'd think… I…” And then Mary Stuart suddenly understood even more, but it didn't really shock her.

“Is there a gentleman included in this plan?” She could hear it in her daughter's voice, and it made her smile, although it also made her feel nostalgic,

“Well… maybe… but that's not why I want to go with them. Honestly, it's just such a great trip.”

“And you're a great kid, and I love you. You owe me a trip in the fall. We'll go away somewhere together for a few days before you go back to Yale. Is that a deal?”

“I promise.” But Mary Stuart knew it wouldn't be the same, she would be anxious about her friends and starting school, and coming home again. She would be easily distracted. The trip through France and Italy would have been wonderful for her, but the trip through the Netherlands with her friends would be a lot more fun for her daughter. And Mary Stuart had never hesitated to sacrifice herself for her children.

“How soon do you leave?”

“In two days, but I can get everything done.” They talked about how she would ship things home, and payments that had to be made. And Mary Stuart needed to wire her money. She told her to buy traveler's checks with it, and how much to get, and they talked for a long time about the details of Alyssa's travels. And then her mother asked her if she was still planning to go to London.

“I don't think so. We weren't going to go to England at all, and when I talked to Daddy the other night, he said he was going to be really busy.” He was avoiding all of them, not just his wife, but his daughter. It was of little comfort to Mary Stuart to hear it.

When they hung up, Mary Stuart sat looking out the window for a long time, at mothers and children hurrying toward the playground, and the children running there while the mothers sat on benches and chatted. She could remember those days now, as though they had happened only the day before. She had spent every afternoon in the park with her children. Some of her friends had gone to work, but she had always felt it was more important for her to be at home, and she was lucky that she had always been able to do it. And now they were gone, one grown and on her own and traveling around Europe with friends, the other to a distant place in eternity where she hoped she would one day see him again. Believing that was all she had left to hold on to.

“Take care of them,” she wanted to whisper to the mothers she could see far below. “Hold on to them while you can.” It was all so short, and then it was over. Like her marriage. That was over now too. She knew it for sure, had for months, and had refused to see it. But when she thought of the way he had gone, the things he had left unsaid, and the way he had walked away from her when she told him she loved him, there was no longer any doubt in her mind. And she didn't even have the comfort of thinking it was another woman. It was no one, it was him, it was her, it was time, it was the fact that tragedy had struck them, and they hadn't survived it. It was Life. But whatever had done it, she knew that her marriage had died. All she had to do now was adjust to it. She had two months to try freedom on for size, and see how she liked it.

She went out for a walk that afternoon, and thought about all of it, about Alyssa traveling with her friends, and Bill being in London for two months, and she realized something she had always known and somewhat feared, that in the end you're alone, just as she was now, without them. It was up to her to pick up the pieces, to go on, to make peace with what Todd had done, and learn to move past it. Tanya had been right when she was in town, she couldn't hide from it forever. Maybe it wasn't her fault after all, but even if it was, she couldn't continue to wear his death like a shroud until it killed her.

She went back to the apartment, and as she walked in, and set her handbag down, she knew what she needed to do. She had known it for a long time, and she had never had the courage to do it. She would have preferred not to do it alone, but it was time. It almost felt as though he were waiting for her, as though he would have approved and wanted her to do it. She opened the door to his room, and stood there for a long time, and then she opened the drapes and the blinds and let in the sunlight. She sat down at his desk, and began opening drawers, and at first she felt like an intruder going through all of Todd's papers. There were letters and old exams, and assorted memorabilia from his childhood, and an old note from Princeton about his eating club initiation. One by one, she went through his drawers, and then, fighting back tears, she went out to the kitchen. There was a stack of boxes there and she brought them back to Todd's room, and as soon as she began packing them, she started crying. But it was almost a relief to give in to tears. She spent hours in his room that night, and the phone never rang. Bill never called. He was supposed to land at 2:00 A.M. London time and would be at Claridge's by 3:30. He had no idea what she was doing, and he had told her long since to do whatever she wanted.

It took her hours to pack his room, and when she was through there was nothing left. She had packed all his clothes into boxes, and kept only a few special things, like his old Boy Scout uniform that she found put away on a shelf, his favorite leather jacket, a sweater she had once made him. The rest was to be given away, and the papers and books she was going to put in their storage vault in the basement. She had left all his trophies lined up on a shelf. She wanted to find a home for them, and she had taken all the photographs from his room, and spread them around the apartment. It was as though he had suddenly shared something with them, as though he had left them a gift, yet another memory. She put an especially nice photograph of all of them in her own room, and another of him in Alyssa's bedroom. It was two o'clock in the morning before she was through, and it was all done by then. It was dark outside, as she stood alone in the stark white kitchen. She could almost feel him next to her, she could still see his face, his eyes, hear his voice so clearly. Sometimes she thought she was forgetting, but she knew she never would. Todd was so much more than the sum of his things to her. None of that mattered anymore, it was all gone, and what really mattered would be with her forever.

She took the dark green bedspreads off the beds, and put them in the closet to send to the cleaners, and she made a mental note to change the drapes. She had never noticed how badly they had faded. It was sad looking at his old room, it seemed so empty and so bereft, with boxes stacked everywhere all around her. It was as though he was moving somewhere. But he was already long gone. She was a year late putting away his things. She was a year late saying good-bye to him, but in the important ways she had. He would never be forgotten, and things would never be the same again. It seemed only a matter of time before she would be packing the rest of the apartment.

She looked around for a last time, and gently closed his door again. The next day, she was going to have the Goodwill pick up the things to give away, and the service manager take the rest of the boxes down to the basement. And as she walked slowly back to her room, she thought of everything that had happened in the past year, how far they had come, and how alone they all were. Alyssa was in Europe with her friends, Todd was gone, and Bill was in London for the summer. And now she was here, putting away memories, and letting go of her older child, her first baby. She looked long and hard at a photograph of him as she stood in her bedroom. His eyes were so big and bright and clear, and he had been laughing when she took the picture. She could still hear the sound of his laughter. “Oh, come on, Mom… hurry up…” He was in a wet bathing suit in Cape Cod, and he'd been freezing. He was pretending to strangle his sister, it was all in good fun, and he had run halfway down the beach afterward with the top of her bikini, with Alyssa running after him, clutching a towel and screaming. It seemed a thousand years ago, when there was still more to her life than just memories, and an empty apartment.

Mary Stuart didn't get to bed till several hours later, and when she did, she lay dreaming of all of them, Alyssa was saying something and shaking her head, and Todd was thanking her for packing his things for him. And when she looked up, she could see Bill in the distance, walking away from her, and as she called after him, he never turned around and looked at her, he just kept walking.