French Braid(25)

“It’s only a thought,” the woman said.

“Take a card,” Mercy told her, and she pressed one of her postcards into the woman’s hands. “That number is my studio; you can reach me there most weekdays. Just keep trying if I don’t answer.”

Then she left, because she didn’t want to seem pushy. But two days later the woman did call. She said that once they had the place fixed up exactly the way they wanted, they might ask Mercy to visit, and Mercy agreed that it was best to give the house time to become its true self. “Its true self,” the woman repeated, and there was something approving in her tone that gave Mercy hope.

Meanwhile, David was not writing them. Mercy sent a couple of letters asking specific questions—“How is your math class?” “Are you liking your roommate?”—but she didn’t get any answers. Typical, Robin said. “The boy has just washed his hands of us,” he said. “I could have told you he would do that.”

“Oh, Robin! How can you say that? He’s always been so close to us!”

“He hasn’t been close since grade school,” Robin said, and Mercy dropped the subject, because they were never going to see eye to eye about David.

Alice and Lily hadn’t heard from him, either. But they were less concerned, because they had issues of their own. Alice’s Robby got roseola and kept Alice up all night for three nights in a row. Lily was almost unreachable, and when she did answer her phone, it was only to say no, she’d heard nothing from David, and no, she’d made no decisions. Goodbye.

Then, one Friday evening toward the end of the month, while Mercy and Robin were watching the local news, Lily rang the front doorbell. (Lily never rang the doorbell; she would just walk in.) Robin was the one who answered, and Mercy heard him say “Lily!” And then, puzzlingly, “Hello?”

Mercy rose from the couch and went to join him. She found Lily introducing a fortyish man in a business suit. “Dad, this is—hi, Mom! Mom and Dad, this is Morris Drew.”

“Hello, Morris,” Robin said, but in a questioning tone. It was up to Mercy to step past him and hold out her hand. “How do you do, Morris?” she said. “Won’t you come in?”

Morris’s handshake was firm and professional. He was an ordinary sort of man—medium height, plumpish build, thick glasses with round lenses—and Mercy knew she was going to have trouble fixing his face in her memory. “It’s a pleasure, Mrs. Garrett,” he said. His accent was that nonaccent that radio announcers favor.

They came inside, Morris giving the doormat a token shuffle even though it was a dry evening. Mercy went over to turn off the TV. (A man had been glimpsed walking what looked like a wolf in Druid Hill Park.) Robin said, “Well!” and rubbed his hands together. Lily and Morris sat down on the couch. Robin chose his recliner chair, but he didn’t tip it back; he stayed upright, alert, as if braced for trouble. Mercy sat in the rocker.

“Morris and I have some news,” Lily said immediately. “We’re getting married.”

Robin said, “What—?”

What about the marriage she already had? he would be wondering. Mercy was the only one who knew enough to wonder about the marriage Morris already had. It seemed there was quite a lot to explain here, and to adjust to and settle in with. But Lily must have decided that the simplest approach was to glide right past it all. “It won’t be happening right away,” she told them, “but I thought you might like a heads-up. Morris is keeping an eye out for the right house to come on the market.”

Robin wore a stunned look.

Mercy jumped into the breach. “When you’ve found a place to your liking,” she told them, “I’ll come and paint its portrait for your wedding present.”

“What? Okay,” Lily said, and inquired no further. “Thanks, Mom,” she said.

And Morris said, “Thank you, Mrs. Garrett.”



* * *



—

So Lily’s approach worked, apparently. Just that quickly, all those inconvenient obstacles simply disappeared.

Or at least on the surface they did. Robin stayed almost completely silent for the remainder of their visit, letting Mercy carry the conversation, and when Lily kissed his cheek as they left he just stood mute and allowed it. But in fact he was baffled and indignant, and the instant the door closed behind them he wheeled on Mercy as if it were all her fault. “What is happening here?” he fumed at her. “How is it that a married woman can show up on her parents’ doorstep and introduce her new fiancé and we don’t blink an eye?”

“Now, honey,” Mercy said. “Nobody outside a marriage has any real notion what goes on inside; you know that yourself.”

“I don’t know any such thing,” Robin said.

Well, of course he didn’t. Their own marriage was as clear as glass, an open book, exactly what it seemed. If you didn’t count the fact that Mercy had now spent several nights away from him.

The first night, she’d told him she might be late because she was working on a tricky painting. The second night—a week or so later—she said the same thing. This was calculated. She wanted him to start adjusting by degrees. And it worked, because when she stayed away for a third night without announcing it ahead, he didn’t phone to ask where she was or charge over there to confront her. Which was not to say he was happy about it. He was churlish and huffy and difficult; the mornings after these nights he kept sending her sideways glances and opening his mouth to speak and then stopping himself.