Lost and Wanted(36)

I thought that if Adelaide had been driven mad by grief, this was the form it would take: the frantic organization of other people’s lives.

“Anything is better than nothing,” she said.

“Charlie didn’t have a will?”

    “Of course she did—financially, her affairs are quite clear. Carl saw to that.” Addie laughed shortly. “I’m asking Robert to advise us about the family’s options regarding the other matter.”

I glanced at Addie. Was she testing me, or trying to ascertain how much Terrence had said? “About the letter?”

“I’m not sure there ever was a letter.”

“Terrence thinks there was something,” I said.

Addie looked grim. “As he’s told us many times. In which she explains everything. But I know my daughter—and however bad things may have gotten, I don’t think she would have gone so far as to obtain the drugs illegally for that purpose.”

“Terrence mentioned that there was a palliative care physician—at Cedars Sinai or UCLA?”

I saw an edge of doubt in Addie’s expression; suddenly the doctor was slightly more credible. Like my own parents, but probably for different reasons, Charlie’s put great faith in elite institutions. You only had to mention one, and suddenly everything you were saying became more legitimate.

“They’ve decided to stay on with us, at least for the time being,” Addie continued.

“Terrence and Simmi have?”

“It was very last-minute—a scramble to get her enrolled. Thank goodness there was space.”

“She’ll be in school in Brookline?”

“Cambridge, actually—at BB&N. It was too late for public school, and we thought a smaller environment might help her this year. It’s hardly convenient, but it’s the best school that had room. And Carl and I wanted to do it.”

I wondered what Terrence had wanted; I thought it was probably hard to turn down thirty-five thousand dollars in tuition for your child.

“It’s a lot for Terrence to manage at this point—her grief and his own.” Addie indicated the busy sidewalk. “You see people just going about their days, and—” The left side of Addie’s face twitched suddenly, a tic. She shaded her face and looked back into the sun for a moment, as if she were orienting herself. “Well,” she said, turning back to me.

    “I can’t imagine what you and Carl must be going through.”

Addie’s face didn’t change, but I suddenly felt the hypocrisy in that familiar statement—the way it magnifies the other person’s pain, and at the same time seals the speaker off from it.

“Oh, no—you can,” she said. “Any mother can.” She put a hand firmly on my arm and kept it there. “You think about things.”

I nodded. I hoped Addie wasn’t noticing my discomfort. Under normal circumstances, neither she nor I tended to touch other people in conversation.

“The sun, for example.”

“The sun?”

“The sun aggravates the disease,” Addie said. “When she was diagnosed, we might have convinced her to move back east for that reason.”

“Her career was there, though.”

Addie looked at me thoughtfully. “That’s what Carl says. He’s very reluctant to assign any blame—which is of course a lovely thing about him. His responses to things are always…healthy.”

“I don’t think anyone could have convinced Charlie to move somewhere she didn’t want to move,” I said, “even if it would’ve been better for her.” I was trying to say something that would absolve Charlie’s mother of any guilt she might be feeling, however misplaced. I stopped because I had the feeling that Addie had been through every what-if scenario already, and that she was hardly listening.

She removed her hand from my arm. “Perhaps not—in any case, we’re concentrating on Simmi now. Charlie and I did talk about that before she died. Of all the friends she had, she said you were the one she hoped could become more a part of Simmi’s life.”

I felt almost ashamed of how happy this made me. It was like being asked by Addie to read at the memorial.

“Terrence mentioned that you got the children together.”

“It went well, I think.”

“It’s so important that Simmi has people in her life who were purely her mother’s friends.”

I nodded. The kind of closeness I’d had with Charlie was something no friendship since had replicated. But the next thing she said startled me:

    “Terrence is young, and someday there will be someone else.”

“Not for a long time, I’m sure.”

Addie went on, dismissing this. “The point is who that person will be. Simmi’s only eight. You can imagine that, too, I think—knowing you won’t get to choose who mothers your child.” She looked as if she was going to continue speaking, then changed her mind. “You go get your boy. I know it’s a trip across the river, but Carl and I would so love to see you—you and Jack. I’ll be in touch.”

I told her that we’d love to come, and Adelaide kissed me once on each cheek. Then she turned away from me, merging with the stream of pedestrians headed for Kendall Square. I went into the shop, where I saw Jack, his friend Miles, and Miles’s mother, along with her three other children, seated at a wooden table next to the window.