The Three Weissmanns of Westport

21

Betty died the next week. The infection had gone to her heart. The cottage, so small, loomed huge and empty around Annie and Miranda. The sky lowered.

Miranda wandered from room to room in the cottage in the night, the moonlight tinny and weak. She made her way up the stairs. She remembered the night she had stood at the top of the steps and watched her mother sleep. The night of cicadas. There were no cicadas now.

Her mother had been so small and pale.

She looked at the bed, her mother's bed, empty of her mother.

"Oh, Mommy," she said out loud.

Or was it Annie who had said it? Annie was somehow beside her. They were lying in their mother's bed clinging to each other.

"Mommy," they said. "Oh, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy."

"Now, you see?" said Felicity. "You have provided for your stepdaughters very generously."

Joseph said, Yes, that was true. Betty had left them everything. The apartment and the settlement would all go to Miranda and Annie.

"As it should," he said.

"Well, should, could, would — it's all thanks to you. Thanks to you and your sense of what's right and just, Annie and Miranda are heiresses now," Felicity said. "God bless them."

Joseph nodded. His girls would be very comfortable, it was true.

"I'm so glad I was able to be supportive of you and your relationship with them. Family first, I have always said."

Even so, he asked Felicity not to accompany him to the funeral.

"Family first," she had repeated rather severely, but Joseph did not answer. He poured his own drink that night and took it with him into his study and closed the door.

Annie and Miranda took a break from crying for a cup of coffee. Annie noticed the coffeepot in her hand, the cups she put out, the good ones, the ones Betty liked. She tipped the pot and the coffee flowed in an arc to the cup. Why? she wondered. Why did the coffee bother? The phone rang. It was a cousin from Buffalo. She gave the information: Tomorrow. Riverside. My apartment after. Yes, thank you so much. She really was. I know you do. I love you, too. Her coffee was cold.

"We're orphans," Miranda said. She began to cry again.

Oh, Miranda, must you? But Annie cried, too, and held her sister tight.

They had done nothing that morning but call people on the phone, informing, arranging, crying. They had slept all night curled together in Betty's bed.

They drank their coffee and sat quietly, worn out.

"I'll sort of miss this place," Annie said after a while.

Miranda scratched her head with both hands, pulled her hair violently away from her face, made a peculiar half-sigh, half-groan, and said, "I'm staying."

And then she told Annie.

"And Leanne felt the same way for months, but she didn't say anything, either, because, really, it's, well..."

"Embarrassing?" Annie was shocked. Did things like that happen, just like that? "Just like that?" she said. "Just like that?"

"You think I should have done an apprenticeship? Yes, just like that, just like that, the way any change happens, any realization, any... well, any falling in love."

"I don't do things just like that," Annie said. "I do things gradually."

"Good. Then you can fall in love with a wonderful woman gradually."

"Oh, Miranda, you know what I mean. It's just... well, I'm surprised, that's all. And I guess I feel a little betrayed."

"It's not like I joined the Confederate Army."

"And I'm worried, too," Annie said. "I mean, is this another one of your stunts? Because, Miranda, there's a little boy involved."

A dreamy look came over her sister's face. "Henry," she said.

"You're not doing this just to get to Henry, are you? That would be really sick."

"You know what?" Miranda said, giving her a kiss. "For once, you don't have to worry about me, Annie. You really, really don't."

Annie wondered if that could ever be true. She said, "I guess I'm really happy that you're happy, Miranda.

"Mommy knew," she added after a while.

"Knew what?"

"About Leanne, I think."

"Maybe." Miranda drummed on the kitchen table nervously for a few seconds, her lips pursed, tears running down her cheeks. "Maybe. She knew a lot."

Miranda and Leanne had decided to stay in the cottage together with Henry. "And guess what?"

"What?" Annie was worn to the bone with surprises. What could really be a surprise except death, always a surprise, that inevitable surprise?

"Leanne and I are getting married."

"Oh, for God's sake, Miranda."

Miranda smiled. Innocent. Ingenuous. Enraging.

"I thought you didn't believe in marriage," Annie said. "What, you only believe in gay marriage?"

"I believe in this marriage."

The simple sincerity of her words, the naivete, struck Annie. She could almost feel her mother's finger poking her back, her whispered Go on, be nice, you know how your sister is...

Miranda held up an unopened box of saltines for Annie to see.

"Her crackers," Annie said.

They had a good cry, a noisy one in which they held each other and rocked back and forth like old men at prayer, then reverently, wordlessly, opened the box and ate crackers with almond butter spread on them.

When Miranda told her that she was staying on in the cottage with Leanne and Henry, Annie did wonder what was to become of Aunt Charlotte. Would she have to go on the auction block along with her chairs?

But Aunt Charlotte was going somewhere much more pleasant, and close enough for Leanne to see her every day. She was moving in with Cousin Lou.

"You can't do this," Rosalyn had said when she heard Lou's plan. "You hardly know the woman. This is not an old-age home, Lou."

But Lou was adamant. To take under his wing a woman who, it turned out, was the fourth cousin many times removed of Mrs. James Houghteling was something he could not resist.

"Like family," he said with relish.

Mr. Shpuntov, followed by his attendant, shuffled past them, headed for the kitchen.

"And a friend for your father," Lou said.

"Lou, for God's sake, what are they going to do together? Play handball? This really is the limit. Beyond the limit. We don't even have enough room."

"We will," he said. "Once we move into that lovely old house in foreclosure on Beachside Avenue."

"The Maybank house?"

"The Maybank house. The house I just bought."

The funeral home was not far from the Central Park West apartment where Joseph and Felicity were still living. They were not scheduled to move out until the following month, and he had offered to have people back to the apartment after the funeral.

"Betty would have liked that, I think," he said to the girls.

"Betty is dead," Annie said.

They were going to Annie's apartment instead. The French professor had returned to Paris the week before.

"Well! If Annie's got her place back, and Miranda is staying in Westport with her bankrupt lesbian lover, maybe we should buy our apartment from them," Felicity said when she heard this, remembering how the Cape Cod house had appreciated. "I'm sure they'd be reasonable. I mean, it's all in the family, after all."

"Maybe we should not," Joe had replied.

And so Felicity returned to her search for a downtown loft with a doorman.

Betty had died young enough to have a full house at her funeral, Joseph thought as he entered the funeral home. He wondered if he would have the same opportunity, and felt a bit sorry for himself, believing as he did that he would die so old that none of his friends would be alive to attend the service. He recognized everyone — couples, widows, widowers, second-marriage couples, grown children, grown grandchildren. So many people from his life with Betty. They all greeted him with a mixture of grief and curiosity. How was he taking it? they wondered. Not well, he wanted to answer. My Betty is gone. I let my Betty go. Instead, he gave a stoic smile and a warm handshake here, a lingering and meaningful meeting of the eyes there, a hearty hug, a brave kiss. I let my Betty go, he thought through his tears. And she is gone.

Lou said nothing to Joseph, just gave him a handshake, then grabbed him in a tight hug. Rosalyn asked about Gwen.

For a moment Joseph could not think who Gwen was.

He saw Annie and Miranda. He noticed how like Betty they looked, though they looked so different from each other. Annie's boys were there. They left their mother's side and came to his. They called him Grandpa Josie.

The girls followed. They cried in his arms.

Everyone is here, he thought. And no one.

Frederick Barrow came to Betty's funeral, too.

"I hope you don't mind," he said to Annie, embracing her. "I know it's awkward — Felicity and all. But your mother was a wonderful woman. And..." He paused. "So are you," he said, pausing again, then: "'Life's but a walking shadow.'"

Annie tried not to cringe. Cringing at a man expressing his condolences, even with a slightly insensitive quote from Macbeth, was ungracious. But surely one was allowed to be ungracious on the day of one's mother's funeral? One was certainly numb. One alternated between vacant silence and bitter tears. One quibbled mentally with quotations. One laughed. One was utterly out of control. And one cringed.

Well, so what? she thought. My mother is dead. Why doesn't everyone go away and leave me alone without my mother?

Frederick ducked his head, almost shyly, then lifted it. His eyes sparkled. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

Was it possible that Frederick was flirting with her, on the day of her mother's funeral? She made a motion to move away. He took her hand. "Annie," he said hoarsely, "I mean it. I know now is not the time. I'm truly sorry about your mother. But I also wanted to tell you that I know I haven't been... well, I haven't exactly behaved the way I would want to... but I'd like to pick up where we left off... try again..."

There was Josie staring blankly into the distance, standing alone. Why was he alone? Where was Betty? Where is my mother? Annie wondered. I want my mother. The room was too warm. Frederick wanted to pick up where they'd left off.

She withdrew her hand. "How is Amber?"

"Amber?" he said dismissively. "Amber's off on her honeymoon."

Annie backed away in confusion. Amber was on her honeymoon. Frederick had taken hold of both her hands. They might have been dancing. She watched Miranda sobbing on Charlie's shoulder. She wanted to sob on Charlie's shoulder. But Amber was on her honeymoon. "On her honeymoon? By herself?"

"Of course not by herself," Frederick said, obviously annoyed at the interruption to his earnest declaration. "She's with Evan."

"Evan?"

"Ah, Evan, my wayward son... But 'let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments...'"

Annie clapped her hands on her head. Perhaps Frederick was insane. That had never occurred to her. The marriage of true minds indeed.

Frederick laughed. He couldn't help it. She was the picture of bafflement. "'Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!'"

Macbeth again? she thought automatically, then: "But Amber and Evan..."

"Quite a scandal, you're right."

"Jeez Louise. " Annie thought: Frederick, whatever your missteps, in spite of them, because of them, you must be reeling. I am reeling. Are you reeling, too? She wanted to sit down. She tried to focus on Frederick. "Are you okay? I mean..."

Frederick thought for a moment. He pursed his lips in a small, private smile, shook his head slowly, and said, "Truly? I think it's a match made in heaven. Those two will give each other a run for their money."

"But what about... well... the baby?"

A short, ugly laugh, though Frederick was no longer smiling. Annie was sorry she'd asked. Just to satisfy her curiosity? What if something awful had happened, a miscarriage, say? And what if there was no miscarriage? Your own son raising your baby, his baby brother? Very Tobacco Road.

Frederick said, "The baby, eh?" He looked at her closely. "You mean Gwen's baby, of course."

Annie said nothing. Her mother was gone. She had no mother.

"Gwen's baby is due next month." He gave her a sharp look with those eyes. No twinkle this time.

Annie forced herself to smile. "Well!" she said. She supposed she would never know exactly what had happened. But there was to be no Frederick Jr., of that she was sure. How liberated Frederick must have been that his mistake turned out to be a mistake. She imagined him discovering the news — an abortion? A simple lie?

Whatever Amber had done or not done, had said or not said, Annie realized suddenly that she didn't care.

"Things don't turn out the way we expect sometimes." Her voice held more meaning than she had anticipated.

Frederick raised an eyebrow.

"Things end," she said. "Don't they?"

"Pity," he said.

He kissed her cheek, back to his good humor, unruffled by the messy lives of others, even his own children's, even, especially, the mess of his own life. He smiled. Frederick's smile was magnetic, she could still feel its pull. But it was a magnet that had a switch, a convenient toggle to turn it on and turn it off. Frederick was always safe, drawing to him only as much as he wanted, giving back only as much as he wanted to give back, a self-sustaining, self-sufficient circuit, a private Marxism of the soul. Frederick could afford to have a twinkle in his eye.

Will he say Comedy of Errors? Annie wondered.

"A veritable Comedy of Errors," he said.

Annie thanked him silently for the "veritable." It would sustain her when she mourned his absence. For she mourned his absence even now, as he stood before her.

"I have to go," she said.

Annie held her sons in her arms, first Nick, then Charlie, and felt their broad, manly shoulders shake with sobs. She stroked their heads, her hands absorbing the shape, the warmth. How could she stop? She clung to them. During the funeral ceremony, she sat behind them, refusing to take her eyes off them. She remembered them as children, tiny children, asleep on the big bed in Betty's apartment, Charlie clutching his rabbit and a stale bagel, Nick in a basket. Betty sat upright between, looking first at one, then the other. For hours.

Miranda sat down beside her, took her hand.

Roberts sat quietly on her other side, his long legs tilted off to one side.

"I will miss her forever," Annie said. Her children's heads were beautiful. She could see them through her tears.

"Forever," Roberts said. He put his arm tenderly around her and drew her close. "It's true. You will."

As the cantor chanted his wailing ancient words, Annie cried loudly, as loud, even, as her sister. Then she rested her head on Roberts's steady shoulder and cried some more.