Summer of '69(115)

But they need a father.

And—forget Betty Friedan!—Blair would like her husband back.

As soon as the twins fall asleep, Blair takes a long, hot shower inside, which would never be allowed if Exalta were home, and then combs out her hair and puts on a new dress, light blue gingham, maternity but still flattering. She applies makeup and perfume and puts in pearl earrings. Then she smokes a cigarette out in the backyard, and she waits.

At ten minutes past twelve, Blair hears a car pull up out front. She hears a door slam.

She hurries into the house but waits at the end of the hall until there’s a knock. Then slowly, slowly, she makes her way toward the front door.

Blair opens the door to find…her husband?

“Blair!” Angus says.

He looks…different. He hasn’t shaved in weeks; he has a beard, and his hair has grown out so much it’s nearly shaggy. With his glasses, he looks like John Lennon or Abbie Hoffman, a revolutionary. And he’s wearing jeans—Blair tries to remember if she has ever seen Angus in jeans—and a gray T-shirt that says MIT on the front in green letters. On his feet are a pair of Jesus sandals. It’s almost as if Angus hasn’t been at Mission Control at all but hanging out in Haight-Ashbury with Jefferson Airplane.

And yet this new look—groovy and relaxed—gives Blair hope. Maybe Angus has changed. If he’d shown up here in his suit with his hair short, Blair could only predict that things between them would have remained the same—which is to say, unsatisfactory.

Or, Blair thinks, maybe this new look is Trixie’s influence. Maybe Trixie is one of these women who don’t shave their legs or wash their hair; maybe she’s into circle-drumming and experimenting with LSD.

Blair holds the door open. “Come in.”

As Angus walks past her into the hallway, she sniffs at his clothes to see if she smells marijuana.

No, thank goodness.

Blair closes the door, then turns to face her husband, a man who stole her away from his brother with the mere mention of Edith Wharton. Blair considers asking him to sit in the formal living room or back to the kitchen for coffee or a beer, but she doesn’t want him getting too comfortable.

She remains planted in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs, where she can hear the babies if they cry.

“Tell me about Trixie,” Blair says. “The truth.”

“Dr. Cushion introduced me to her,” Angus says.

Dr. Cushion! Blair thinks. The famous professor emeritus of microbiology at MIT who hosted the ill-fated faculty potluck? Blair had suspected the “men in the den” weren’t talking only about science. They were also talking about women. Leonard Cushion mentored Angus in the art of finding a mistress!

“Dr. Beatrix Scofield,” Angus says. “She’s an esteemed psychoanalyst. She holds a doctorate from Johns Hopkins and an endowed chair at MIT.”

“I don’t need her CV,” Blair says. “I just want to know if you’re in love with her.”

“She’s not my mistress, Blair. She’s treating me as a patient. My episodes? They’re due to clinical depression. I’ve been working with Trixie—Dr. Scofield—and we’re having some success.”

Blair is confused, but she feels a lightening across her shoulders. “She’s a psychoanalyst? Like Freud? Do you lie on her couch?”

“I do, actually,” Angus says. “But only half of the treatment is talk therapy. The other half is pharmaceutical.” He smiles shyly. “And it’s working. I feel better.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me this?” Blair asks.

“I guess I was embarrassed,” Angus says. “Ashamed. I didn’t want you to think I was defective. I didn’t want you to regret marrying me…or procreating with me.” He swallows. “I didn’t want you to wish you’d married Joey instead because he’s easy and fun to be with. And then, when I saw the two of you together, I didn’t explain because I wanted you to think I had someone else as well.”

“Kissing Joey was a mistake,” Blair says.

“Trixie explained that to me. She said that Joey was just trying to get even with me for past resentments.”

I don’t know about that, Blair thinks. She and Joey always did have chemistry. Blair is tempted to tell Angus the story of Joey hunting down the whipped cream for her cake, but instead she says, “There’s no reason to be embarrassed about getting help.”

“I’ve been smart my whole life,” Angus says. “And I guess I was angry that I couldn’t find a way to heal myself.”

“Angus, no.”

“Do you know when I finally made the decision to see Trixie? I would feel jealous every time I thought about the astronauts.” He reaches out to caress Blair’s cheek. “And no, not because you think they’re so handsome or because you had their pictures pinned to your dorm-room wall.” He clears his throat. “I was jealous because they got to leave this world. That’s how little I wanted to be here.”

“Angus!” Blair cries.

“I don’t feel that way anymore,” Angus says. “Trixie—Dr. Scofield—has really helped.”

Thank you, Trixie, Blair thinks.

Angus seems softer now than he ever has before. But is he malleable? “Trixie isn’t our only issue, Angus,” Blair says. “I want to go back to school. I want to get my master’s in American literature and become a professor, like you.”