The Sixteenth of June Page 13

  “She stood there forever,” he said, shaking his head, and the guys chuckled. “I mean, seriously. Forever.” And they laughed appreciatively. But then she nodded and smiled, he told them, and he slipped the ring onto her finger, and she was hugging him, the crowd clapping. “And what’d you do after?” Nick, a programmer, asked. “Well, we were supposed to go to dinner,” Leo replied with a grin.

  It was mostly true, especially the part about her standing there, taking her sweet time. The sidewalk was cold and hard, and Leo had resisted the urge to shift his weight.

  She had not smiled.

  He held the velvet box up to her, and the speech he’d rehearsed sailed right out of his brain. “I know it’s been a rough year,” he started, trying to keep the box from shaking. Nora waited politely. He felt the pebbles of the sidewalk in the joint of his knee. “A rough year,” he repeated, his mouth dry, a cardboard cave. “But, Nora, will you marry me?”

  A look of incredulity passed across her features. He saw her call it back, the decision to not be exasperated. Her features reassembled, and then she gulped, swallowing something. Doubts? Grief ? Annoyance? What emotion had Nora choked down? She finally nodded, more to herself than to him. Okay, she seemed to say to herself. Okay.

  “I should be getting back,” he calls out to the caterer.

  “Oh, one more.” Her voice is playful. Samantha glances at him from where she is arranging piles of cocktail napkins in fanned stacks.

  “Do you want to call anyone?” he asked when they got back to the apartment, adrenaline still pumping through his system. He wanted to call his parents right away, his brother, his friends. He wanted to broadcast the news to the world. “I mean, we have dinner reservations at the Striped Bass, but it’s okay if we’re late.”

  “Oh.” She pulled off her scarf. She regarded the phone on the counter between them. “Oh, I don’t know.”

  He ended up making calls from the bedroom while she lay on the couch, staring up at the ceiling. He tried coaxing her out to dinner, convinced that a glass of champagne would make her pliant, relaxed. “I was so nervous,” he would confess, the Striped Bass quiet and hushed, and she would finally smile. “I had a whole speech prepared and everything.” They would laugh about it, and he would be able to tell her what he meant to say. He would remind her about that corner. Her eyes would mist over, remembering. And just like that they would be returned to that place between them where everything felt okay.

  But Nora seemed so tired. She ended up falling asleep on the couch. He tucked a blanket around her and watched her face. “I got the ring when your mom was alive,” he wanted to tell her. “But then she took that turn, and I just—I didn’t know what to do.” The velvet box sat stuffed away in his basketball sneaker in the hall closet, burning a hole there. How long were you supposed to wait after your girlfriend’s mom died? It wasn’t a question the “Four C’s of Diamonds” had answered.

  “This one’s the toughie,” the caterer says, sidling up to him. She holds out a slice of toasted baguette on a napkin. Re-Joyce! the napkin says in bright green. Portman Green. Leo’s fingers graze hers as he accepts it.

  “Fried liver with caramelized onions,” she announces. “With panko and smoked bacon.”

  Leo crunches into the baguette. The liver’s bitterness hits him, heavy and thick.

  “I was so worried you’d find it,” he’d wanted to tell Nora. How many times had he imagined her cleaning out the hall closet, the velvet box tumbling out of his sneaker? He imagined her opening it, leaning back against the wall, gazing at the diamond he had picked out just for her.

  But he was fantasizing, he knows now. Nora hadn’t cleaned the apartment for months. She wouldn’t have been going through the hall closet. He could have kept a monkey in there without her noticing. Leo had finally hired a cleaning lady. When he mentioned it at the hospital, hoping it would be one less thing for her to worry about, it barely registered. No questions about where he’d found the service. No “How do we know she won’t use the same rag to clean the toilets as the kitchen?” Just a nod, as though she had barely heard him. Leo felt as if he were trying to talk to her underwater.

  The bacon and liver comingle on his tongue. He should have known then. Right then. Should have known that, no, the ring hadn’t been discovered. That, no, when he walked with her on Walnut that day, took her to what was to him their street, their corner, their spot, she wasn’t secretly hoping he was about to propose. That, no, he couldn’t make her forget.

  He is aware of the caterer’s eyes on him, Sam’s and Clay’s, too. Aware that even the herb chopper has paused in his steady chopping of herbs. He chews, the liver and onions and bacon a greasy tangle, and suddenly he feels queasy, the heat of the room pressing on him.

  The turquoise eyes regard his face. “It needs something,” he finally manages. “It needs—”

  “Balance,” she says. “Yes. It’s too one-note, too heavy.” And watching her nod to herself, Leo thinks that sometimes you need someone to say out loud what you already know.

  The air is instantly cooler outside the kitchen, the temperature noticeably different in the living room.

  He sits on the tufted ottoman, breathes. There was no magic thing he could have said. He knows this now. That part about it being a tough year—it had come out all wrong. But his words, even if they’d been perfect, could not have fixed things.

  He had looked up her disorder online after she showed him the spot. He stayed up half the night researching it. For the next few days he went to websites looking for something, anything, that might help: treatment options, what to say, what tone to take. But after his dozenth chat-room visit masquerading as a sufferer (pullerinphilly), where he read about women who pulled out their eyelashes, pulled out their armpit hair, pulled it out and ate it, he understood that he was out of his depth. He was on the outside of something, in the dark. And just as he was to not mention her mother, he was not to mention this.

  He proposed anyway.

  He doesn’t know if the spot is bigger, smaller. Whenever he tries discreetly to look, it is hidden, carefully concealed. Nora’s eyes dart up, catching him in the act. He feels strangely guilty in such moments, as though trying to catch sight of a naked girl, and Nora looks away, dismayed.

  He squeezes her hand, not knowing if he should say anything. “I can’t even see it!” he sometimes wants to bellow. The monster that has consumed Nora, causing her to spend so much time intricately arranging her hair and checking her reflection in mirrors—it isn’t even perceptible. Would she believe him if he told her? Would it offend her to know her spot loomed large only in her mind?

  He isn’t sure. So he squeezes her hand and says nothing, swallowing his words out of love.

  Twelve

  I was just sitting down for the first time all day,” Stephen protests. “I mean, here I am, about to get some quality time with my brother—”

  Leo snorts beside him.

  “—and now I’m supposed to get up and perform manual labor?”

  “It’ll take five minutes,” June says coolly.

  Stephen sighs. “The very first time all day.” He gazes up at his mother and gives her his most delicate look. I am your fine-boned son, his eyes say.

  “I already tried getting the caterer to do it,” June admits. “But apparently they can’t, for liability reasons. Like hanging a banner is so much to ask!”

  “They have their hands full down there,” Leo interjects. “Relax, Mom. We’ll take care of it.”

  “Just be sure not to crease it,” she sings on her way out of the room. A manicured hand rests on the doorjamb. “And put the ladder back in its place when you’re done.”

  The banner lays across the sectional, held down at its corners with books.

  “I’m the one who brought it home,” Leo mutters beside him. “I haven’t creased it yet.”

  “Y
ou went and got it?”

  They are in the den just off the study. The media room, June likes to say, because it has a soundproof door and blackout shades and a giant plasma sitting on a console table. In their mother’s eye, the room is used to screen French films. In truth, Leo watches endless hours of SportsCenter there.

  “Dad asked me to,” Leo says with a shrug. Stephen sees his barely concealed pride, as though the king had asked him for a dance. Normally Stephen would say something chiding, but he resists.

  “Nice of you to go,” he offers instead, and Leo frowns.

  Stephen doesn’t mind him as much today. Strangely, it is the one day they are brought together. “Our parents,” Stephen can say at any moment, “are nuts,” and Leo will nod sagely, remembering all the Bloomsdays they have been subjected to in the past: the year their parents insisted on a costume party, forcing everyone to dress in period pieces; the year they attempted the all-day reading and guests nodded off in their chairs, making hasty excuses to leave. June tried to intercept them, offering coffee and dessert, while Leo high-fived Stephen in the corner.

  Leo stands, stretches. “ ‘Yes I said yes I will Yes,’ ” he reads. “This is like a famous line from the book, right?”

  Stephen smiles. He likes Leo’s lack of self-consciousness. Likes that he doesn’t get flustered or make fumbling attempts to sound smart. Leo—you had to hand it to him—never fakes it. “Its very last line,” Stephen affirms. “Spoken by Molly. And, yes, the most famous one, arguably.”

  “Huh.” Leo considers this as he studies the words. “Well, it’s no wonder. I mean, who wouldn’t like the thought of a woman moaning yes? Sounds like a giant orgasm if you ask me.”

  “Leo!” June chastises from the hall.

  “Jesus, Mom. It does.”

  She pauses in the doorway, holding a clipboard. “It’s not about sex. It’s nothing like that. The ‘yes’ is to love and marriage, to everything beautiful. It’s a lovely soliloquy.” She pronounces this last word with great care, as though handling a delicate piece of china.

  “My, my. Someone’s been practicing,” Stephen murmurs.

  June throws him a look. “There’s nothing vulgar there. Surely you agree, Stephen.”

  “ ‘I put my arms around him yes,’ ” he recites, “ ‘and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.’ ”

  “Whoa,” Leo says. “Maybe I should read the thing after all.”

  June waves a hand dismissively. “Well, of course it’s there if you look for it. Let’s get that banner up already!”

  Leo grins at Stephen after she saunters away. “Cool that you have it memorized.”

  “One sees it enough that it sticks.”

  “I’ve never memorized anything.”

  “You know more sports stats than anyone I know.” Leo used to spend hours when they were kids poring over baseball cards, a Yankees hat loyally on his head. Michael would get tickets to games and the nanny would take them on the subway. Stephen, bored, would bring a book for the long ride while his brother bounced in his seat. Other passengers smiled at the adorable boy eagerly clutching his mitt.

  “Yeah. Because I’m the only sports fan you know.”

  “Good point.”

  Leo reaches for the banner.

  “Careful,” Stephen warns. “Mom will flay us if her precious broadside creases.”

  “Mom’s a giant pain in the broadside crease,” Leo mutters.

  They hold the banner between them and do an ungainly shuffle down the hall. The study has already been set up, light reflecting off the champagne flutes at the bar. The liquor bottles stand in rows like a group of men waiting for their portrait to be snapped. An empty table on the far side of the room will be filled later with hors d’oeuvres. Oysters will recline on ice; fruit and cheese will cascade out in tiers.

  “I think Mom wants it up there,” Stephen says, indicating the bay windows. It is his favorite spot in the house, the French casement windows opening onto the street.

  They rest the banner across the seat cushions. “I’ll get the ladder,” Leo says. “You get the tape.”

  Stephen glances around the room. His dad’s massive desk has been removed for the party. He heads for the alcove with its antique secretary, a diminutive desk with thin legs.

  A financial magazine sits open on the writing surface. Michael still follows the markets faithfully, unable to fully pull out of the game. Stephen glances at the article and sees that it involves insurance. Look into policy trades, reads a sticky note. The mortgagee can’t recover on the policy.

  Just underneath, he catches sight of a familiar logo, an oval inlaid with trees. Pine Grove, the crest reads in Copperplate font, and for a moment Stephen sees the trees spreading before him, the meandering gravel path.

  He sits. The page has spilled out from a manila folder, and HP is scrawled on its tab. He feels a pinprick of anger. Not her full name. Not Mom. He imagines his dad creating the file, leaning forward in his leather chair. He must have known that one day the folder would hold her death certificate. He must have known it would be a repository of her last days. But anyone looking at it would think Hewlett Packard, Harper Perennial. HP they would see, flicking past.

  Stephen opens the folder.

  There are a couple of pages of notes in Michael’s hand. 11/22/03. Assurances were given that the matter would be attended to. What matter? Stephen thinks wildly. He tries to recall that November, right before Thanksgiving. Grandma Portman had seemed fine.

  He flips through the paperwork, pausing when he sees an itemized list of doctor’s visits. Stephen recalls the specialists she had seen that spring. “Weak heart sounds,” the cardiologist had said. “Maybe he has weak ears,” Grandma Portman grumbled. Stephen had smiled. “No lack of heart here,” he affirmed. “I can attest to that.”

  But when he scans the list, he sees that it predates the embolism. Psych consult, the first line reads next to an October date. Psych follow-­up, says the next. His eyes travel down the page: psych, psych, psych.

  He shuts the folder, shuts his eyes.

  Hamakom y’nachem etkhem b’tokh sha’ar avelei tziyon viyrushalayim.

  “I’m sorry,” he hears behind him.

  He is aware of Leo standing there, breathing heavily from having carried the ladder.

  “For what?” Stephen asks the space behind him.

  He hears the bracket of the ladder creak. He hears footsteps above them, footsteps below.

  “We all know, okay? I’m sorry, but we do.”

  Stephen turns in the chair to face Leo.

  “Dad got her appointment book when he collected her things. He saw that you’d been going out there. And that director chick—”

  “Miriam,” Stephen supplies it automatically. “Miriam Maxwell.”

  “Yeah, well, she said something. About how much they’d miss you. She assumed Dad knew.”

  Stephen feels the weight of the folder in his hands. His blood seems to be in his arms, not in his head, and he is glad for the chair beneath him.

  Leo plays with the bracket, a silver bridge that arcs and flattens. “I don’t think you should hide something like that from us. Especially today.”

  Stephen laughs. He knows his brother means well, Leo, whose heart is as big as a lion’s. “I shouldn’t hide it? But that’s what we do in this family. We sweep everything under the rug. Just in time for the guests.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Mom and Dad wouldn’t have wanted me going out there. You know that.”

  “They never said anything about not visiting her.”

  “That’s because they didn’t think we would. They certainly didn’t. How many times do you think they visited?”

  “No idea. Not that it matters.”r />
  “Take a guess.”

  “Look, they didn’t know she was going to die.” The bracket has become a tool in Leo’s hand. “It’s not like she was sick.”

  “That makes it worse, you realize, that they stuck her in a nursing home preemptively. How many times?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Guess.”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Quit playing with the fucking ladder.”

  Leo looks down at his hand. A red welt has formed on his thumb. He pulls it up to his mouth absentmindedly, and he looks briefly like a boy.

  “Twice.” But the heat of the moment is gone and Stephen finds that he does not relish saying it. “Once in, once out.”

  “That’s not—” Leo starts. That’s not true. Stephen can see the thought as it forms, the look of protest. But then something else, as Leo struggles to remember their ever mentioning having visited her.

  “Dad called her pretty often. They spoke by phone. But they never went to see her. It was the last place they wanted to be.”

  Leo is silent, still nursing his thumb.

  “They stuck her out there like she was garbage.”

  “You don’t think you’re being a little dramatic? It was a nice place. You sure seemed to like it enough.”

  “Leo, it was a nursing home. Despite what Mom and Dad said, it was not camp. They sold her house, you know. All her possessions. Decades’ worth of stuff, suddenly gone.”

  “Then why’d she agree to it?” Leo’s voice hits on this as though scoring a point.

  Stephen sets down the folder. “Dad was worried about her being alone. That she’d take a fall on the stairs, slip on ice. Liability reasons, to use the caterer’s words.”

  “He told you this?”

  “She told me this. She didn’t want to burden him. When they brought it up with her—” Stephen clears his throat. To his horror, a lump has lodged there. He forces the words around it. “When they brought it up, they talked about it like it was their problem. She wasn’t complaining—she just explained it that way. ‘They were relieved,’ she said. ‘It would be such a hassle for them if anything ever happened to me.’ ”