French Braid(46)

“Oh, I don’t know,” he would say. “I’m not much of a one for lolling.”

Today he found her in the office. She was sitting at his desk with the phone pressed to her ear, but he could tell she was on hold; she was idly twining her fingers in and out of the spiraled telephone cord. (And yes, in his mind it was still “his” desk; still a small shock to see a woman there, even a nonfussy woman like Lily with her straight blond ponytail and practical khaki pants.)

He knocked on the door frame and mouthed, “You busy?” and she untwined her fingers in order to give him a little wave. “Hi, Dad,” she said in a normal tone of voice.

“I’ve got a proposition,” he told her.

“Oh? What’s that?” she asked.

“Thinking of throwing a little party.”

“A party!”

“Party for your mom. For our fiftieth anniversary.”

“Well, so, wait,” she said. “What—?” and then “Hello?” into the receiver. “Yes, I’m here. Yes, it’s Lily Drew, at Wellington’s Plumbing Supply.”

He backed out of the office and left her to her job. Drifted over to where two men in pinstriped coveralls were debating a sink-spray attachment, but they didn’t look at him when he drew near so he decided not to offer his input. He continued toward the next display.

“So,” Lily said, coming out of the office a few minutes later. “A golden anniversary party.”

“Right,” he said.

“Well, gosh, Dad. What does Mom think of that?”

“She doesn’t know. And I don’t want her to know; I want this to be a surprise.”

“Uh-oh,” Lily said. “I don’t think Mom is the kind who likes surprises, to be honest.”

“But if I tell her ahead, you see, she’ll think I’m asking her to help with it. To clean the house and cook the meal and all. It would just wear her out. Plus, she’s so busy with her painting, don’t you know.”

“Couldn’t you tell her you’re not asking that? Tell her it’s going to happen but not to worry, you’ll be the one in charge?”

“She would expect me to do it all wrong, though,” he said.

“Well…”

He knew what Lily was thinking. He could read her like a book. She was thinking he probably would do it all wrong. “I was hoping you and your sister could advise me,” he told her. “I mean, not help me with the meal or such; I have my own ideas on that; just advise me on the etiquette of how a golden anniversary works, exactly.”

“But things like the guest list,” Lily said. “You know she’d have all kinds of opinions about the guest list.”

“The guest list is our family,” he said. “How could she argue with that?”

“Oh.”

“Now, for instance,” he said, cannily, “you girls might have some notion about the proper time of day for this. A Sunday, I’m thinking—Sunday, July the first—but would we want it to be in the evening? Bear in mind we’ll have the little ’uns.”

“Oh, not in the evening! Not if the children are coming!”

He pretended to think this over. “Well, you’re right,” he said at last.

“We should make it an early lunch,” she said, “and that way David and them can drive back before it gets dark. It could be at our house, if you like.”

“No, I want it at our house,” Robin said.

“At your house. Okay.”

And he had her. It was just that easy.



* * *



—

The greatest accomplishment of Robin’s life was: not a single one of his children guessed that Mercy wasn’t living at home anymore.

Oh, they knew they should try her studio first if they wanted to get in touch with her. Or the girls knew, at least. (There was no telling what David knew, since he wasn’t much in touch with any of them.) And they never seemed surprised if they dropped by the house for some reason and found Robin on his own. But that could be explained by her work, her dedication to her work. Artists! They were all crazy. In a good way, of course.

And his greatest fear was: Mercy might come right out someday and tell them the truth. “Your father and I live separately, needless to say,” she might tell them—letting it drop just offhandedly, just by the by, as if she assumed they already knew. It would kill them. They would be devastated. Just the thought of her doing that could almost make him mad at her, although in fact she’d never spilled a word on the subject. He had nothing to be mad at her for.

His great-aunt had disapproved of Mercy. She hadn’t actually said so; she’d merely spoken against marriage in general. “I just want to warn you,” she’d said, “that the quality you marry a person for will end up being what you hate them for, most often.” Robin knew she was referring to Mercy’s “high-class manner,” as she called it, but that was not what he was marrying her for. What did he care about class? No, it was Mercy’s quiet dignity that first attracted him—her upright posture and her composure as she stood behind the counter. She was so different from the clingy, flirtatious, giggly girls he was used to. It was Aunt Alice—a lifelong cannery employee—who was concerned with questions of class.