The Light of Paris(87)

“It’s been a nightmare ever since they moved in. Can you imagine having a restaurant as a neighbor? I haven’t slept in months.”

“You’re exaggerating,” I said, but I felt embarrassed defending the restaurant in front of Phillip. Putting my loyalties with Henry made me feel as though I had been cheating.

Had I been cheating? I mean yes, I had kissed him. It had only been a kiss, but maybe it had meant more than that, maybe it had been—no. I stopped myself. My husband was here now. And though I hadn’t been thrilled to see him, I saw how it would be. His threat of divorce hadn’t been real. His mother wouldn’t stand for the scandal, he wouldn’t stand for the appearance of failure. We had existed in a peaceful détente up until now. Surely I could do it again.

Phillip left to go check into the hotel, and I told him I would pack while he was gone. I had a ticket. I was out of excuses. My mother didn’t need me to stay, and I had no reason to. Henry and Sharon and everyone else in this city would go on just as they had, as if I had never come. I had made no difference in their lives. I had hardly made a difference in my own. And it would be the right thing to do. I had signed up for this, had married Phillip, had chosen to become the woman I was. What right did I have to back out now? Especially when I had nothing sure laid out in front of me?

When I was packing in my room, marveling at how after only a few weeks I had turned it back into a teenage lair, all crumpled food wrappers and dirty plates and clothes discarded on the floor, my mother knocked gently on the door. “May I come in?” she asked.

I flinched, bracing for the criticism about the state of my room, and then remembered I was an adult and didn’t live here anymore and didn’t have to put up with complaints about my messiness or questions about whether or not my homework was done. “Sure,” I said, sweeping a pile of dirty shirts off the chair. Instead of sitting, she stood in the doorway, hands folded neatly in front of her like a chorister. I balled up the shirts and stuffed them into my suitcase.

“Aren’t you going to fold those?”

“They’re dirty. I’m just going to wash them when I get home.” My purse was on the floor and I picked it up, rummaging through until I found a roll of antacid tablets and tossed four in my mouth, chewing grimly. My stomach felt as though someone had gripped it in a tight, bony fist.

My mother cleared her throat. “I’m glad you and Phillip are getting along.”

Getting along. Was this the standard we aspired to in our marriages in this family? “We were never not ‘getting along,’ Mother. It’s not that easy.” It would have been easier on some levels if we hadn’t gotten along. Hadn’t I wished for that? For big blowout fights, with plates hurled at each other’s head, complaints from the neighbors about the noise? Wouldn’t that have made it so much easier to say, “I am unhappy. I want a divorce”?

“Did you tell him to come here?” I asked.

“No, I didn’t. But I did talk to him a few times.”

“That’s great. Thanks for going behind my back.”

My mother was flustered, patting her hair and then tugging at her sleeves as though anything about her would dare to be in a state of disarray. “I didn’t know what to do. You’re here, and he’s calling, and really, Madeleine, he is so charming. I’ve never understood why you can’t be grateful for what you have. It wasn’t like there were men lining up down the block to marry you.”

I slammed the lid of my suitcase, which, given that it only flopped limply on top of my dirty clothes, was tremendously unsatisfying. “And why do I have to be grateful for that? You act like he rescued me by marrying me, like not being married was a fate worse than death. Why is that the most important thing I could have done with my life? What if we hadn’t gotten married and I had—I don’t know, moved to India and worked with lepers or something?”

“You aren’t really the type.”

“Ugh! That’s not the point!” I threw my hands up in the air and sat down on my bed, nearly sliding off the clothes still piled there as I dug out another handful of antacids. I looked at my mother, standing there, perfectly coiffed, her posture stiff and straight, as though she were a rocket ship about to take flight.

“You’ve always been a romantic, Madeleine. But life isn’t romantic. Most of the time, it’s rather mundane. There are things that must be done, bills to be paid, obligations to be met, people to mollify, choices to make. You’ve got this silly idea your life should be all rainbows and sunshine.”

“You’re making me sound like a child.”

She sighed, turning her gaze from me and looking out the window. “In some ways you are a child. You clearly don’t value Phillip, or anything that has been given you.”

“It’s not fair to say that. You don’t know what things are like between Phillip and me. You don’t know what goes on in someone else’s marriage, or someone else’s house.”

“You can’t tell me he’s some monster. He’s well raised and a good businessman and he’s polite. And so handsome.”

I shot her a look from beneath lowered eyebrows. “Handsome is not a personality trait.”

She shrugged, crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I’m saying you should be happy with what you have. You’re wasting your time. Do you know how long your father and I waited for you? You could have had your children by now, and instead you’re holding out for some perfect dream of a life that just doesn’t happen!”