Lucy by the Sea (57)

—

The Italian-speaking woman walked past us again.

v

I did not speak of this exchange to William that night, although I was desperate to tell him; he was staying with Estelle and Bridget out in Larchmont for two nights, he had just arrived, and then he was going back to his apartment for the first time, and I could hear in his voice how preoccupied he was with these things and so I thought: I will tell him when he gets here.





I lay on the bed with the lace curtains near me. But all I could think of was Chrissy.

Oh child!

Who was no longer a child—





I thought about William’s affairs, and I will tell you this about finding out about them:

It humbled me. It humbled me unbelievably. It brought me to my knees. And I was humbled because I had not known such a thing could happen in my own life. I had thought that this sort of thing happened to other women. I remember going to a party during this period, and I overheard two women talking about a woman whose husband had had an affair. And what I remember—it scorched me—was how both women said, Oh, come on, how could she not have known?

And then it happened to me.



—

And when I found out I had been living a parallel life, a dishonest life, it crushed me. But I have often thought that it made me a nicer person, I really do. When you are truly humbled, that can happen. I have come to notice this in life. You can become bigger or bitter, this is what I think. And as a result of that pain, I became bigger. Because I understood then how a woman could not know. It had happened, and it had happened to me.



—

Because I would never have had an affair, I thought William would not either.

I had been thinking like myself.



—

Lying there on the bed with the lace curtains at the window, I thought how it had become a sort of private joke between David and me, the thinking-like-yourself line. If David wondered, let’s say, why the conductor of the Philharmonic eviscerated the new violinist one night, I would say, “You’re thinking like yourself, David.” And he would laugh and agree. “Get inside his head, and you might understand,” I’d say, and David would say that he didn’t want to be inside that man’s head.

Everyone thinks like themselves, this is my point.



—

And then as I turned over in the bed, I thought about what Chrissy had said about David adoring me. She was right, he did adore me.

Would I really have given that up?



—

It did not matter at this point; my life had unfolded as it had.



—

And hers would unfold too, in whatever way it did.





The next day my head stayed clear. I told myself: There is nothing you can do about it. (But in truth, I felt afraid for my child.)

I walked the streets of the city, and I noticed that if someone stepped in front of me on the sidewalk, they said “Oh, sorry,” or “Excuse me.” This happened a number of times. The man in the deli who made my sandwich for lunch told me to have a really good day. “A really good one, okay?” And he smiled as he gave me my sandwich.

On many doors of places that were open were signs that said, We Are All In This Together.





William called and said that Estelle and Bridget were moving back to the city soon, Estelle had had her vaccination and they seemed to be doing okay. But he sounded solemn and I waited and he said, “I’m calling from outside their place, and I’ll go to my apartment tomorrow. I dread it, Lucy.”

I still wanted to speak to him about Chrissy, but I did not want him thinking about that while he was with Bridget, and so I did not tell him.

“How’s Bridget?” I asked, and his voice became lighter and he said, “She’s good. It’s been great to be able to see her.”

He said that when he came into the city in two days he’d have to go to his office and hopefully see some people and get his retirement stuff in order and visit his lab for the last time, and I understood that this made him sad. So for these reasons I did not tell him that Chrissy—probably as we spoke—was meeting with a man she planned to have an affair with. I just reminded him that I was seeing Becka tomorrow and that both girls would come back in a few days and see him with me as well.

“Okay, Lucy.” He did not say he loved me as we hung up, as David would always do. But William wasn’t David. That much I knew. And he didn’t have to be. I knew that too.





That night as I got ready for bed I got a text from Chrissy. It said: I’m coming into the city tomorrow with Becka to see you again.

I wrote back: I’m glad.





And there they were, my beautiful daughters. By the duck pond were my two girls. But they were never really mine, I thought as I walked toward them, any more than New York City was ever really mine. These two thoughts went through my head. Chrissy and Becka put their hands up and waved as I walked down the little hill. The sun was shining again, although clouds were moving in. Neither of the girls was wearing sunglasses, and so I slipped mine into my coat pocket as I approached. After I had hugged them both they moved apart so that I could sit between them. Chrissy was holding a large paper cup with a top on it—coffee, I supposed. She took a sip from it. She looked tired to me.