Vladimir(30)

We had reached the pinnacle of the hike and were on our way down when Sidney impulsively grabbed and held me close to her. She smelled like grease, metabolizing alcohol, and piney men’s deodorant.

“What are you gonna do, Mom?”

“About what?”

“About your life.”

I was confused. Had she heard me thinking? No, I had been nodding at something she was saying about a man who claimed to espouse personal responsibility but, in fact, espoused fascism.

“What do you mean?”

“Are you going to leave Dad?”

Oh, that. Leave Dad. Dump his ass. At least she had some skin in the game. At least it had something to do with her.

“Do you think I should?”

“I feel like if you stay with him you’re giving some signal that you condone his actions, and I don’t think that makes you look very good.”

“To whom?”

“To the college, to all these women that you mentor. I think the optics are bad.”

“That’s a cliché.”

“For a reason.”

“Another cliché.”

“Fine, but I’m saying it doesn’t look good.”

“You want me to destroy our family?”

“I’m a grown adult. You and Dad have been on separate tracks since I’ve been conscious. We’re just three people, how much do we really identify as a family?”

Her comment hurt, she saw it did, and apologized.

John and I had one child on purpose, but one of the great questions of my life was about whether that had been the right thing to do. He had a vasectomy when she was a toddler, which meant the issue was decided. We had agreed on it, but when it was finalized I was filled with grief. When David and I had talked about running away with each other, part of my excitement had been the thought of another baby, with another man, more things to love in our house that would be so filled with love. Once Sid got over the shock, I thought, once I was allowed back into the fold and we all came to an understanding, as painful as it would be, she would have a complex and interesting relationship with her half-brother or -sister. We might even have two, I had fantasized, and by the time we were old at Thanksgiving there would be his daughter and my daughter and our two children and their partners at the dinner table and scads of children running underfoot, a big, raucous family gathering in which someone was a professional chef and bossily did the cooking while the men did all the dishes.

As it was, our holiday dinners were usually only the three of us and often took place at restaurants. Some years we invited old friends, but the relationships between our children weren’t ever as easy as it was when they were small and we could foist them together, no matter their preferences.

She cautiously stroked my cheek and brushed a hair away from my eyes.

“I want you to have the life you want, Mom, not some compromise.”

Always, the touch of my daughter thrilled me. I still marveled at how cellular the love between a mother and child was—how little I had to think of it, how much I simply felt it.

We reached the car. In silence we strapped in and I started up. The road from the trail back to town was long, with fat, winding curves, swooshing and swooping past woods and farmland.

“I want to be honest with you honey. You have always done exactly what you wanted to do. Every time you leaned in one way or another, your father and I were there to support you.”

She drew a breath in, to defend herself.

“That’s not a criticism, or a judgment, it’s a fact. And it’s as it should be. You’re a force for good in this world, I think, because of it. Also, I think more importantly, you have ideas about what you want and ideas about what will make you happy. I’m so glad for that. I’m so glad you know what you want. I’ve never had a clue. I’ve wanted people, I’ve wanted acclaim, but it’s all turned out so lukewarm. Other than being your mother, which has been the most unmixed and positive part of my life, it’s all been a series of ups and downs, and I don’t expect any more.”

“That’s a horrible way to live.”

“Your father does all the business stuff. The taxes, the bills.”

“That stuff isn’t hard.”

“He does the chores around the yard, he fixes things that are broken, he does upkeep on the cabin. What would happen to me if I got divorced? I’d move into some terrible condo—”

“Dad wouldn’t get the house!”

“I couldn’t afford the house on my own.”

“He could pay alimony.”

“Sid, I always knew. And he knew that I knew.”

“That’s so gross.”

“Why?”

“Because, oh God, you were enabling him, with these underage women.”

“None of them were underage.”

“Under-mature, then.”

“How was I enabling anything? It’s not like I built him some secret chamber for his trysts, or groomed or cultivated women to go engage with him. I knew them by sight, if at all.”

“But didn’t you understand there was a power dynamic?”

“Of course, but aren’t we attracted to power? When I was a young woman it was said—and maybe it was a powerful man who said this, I’m not sure—but it was said that men were attracted to looks and women were attracted to power. Yes, he had more power, but I imagined that made it fun. He could bless them with his approval and what’s more arousing than that? You’ve got to understand, and I’m not saying this is right, but we were all still thinking about sexual liberation—about freeing women from feeling that if they were sexual they weren’t serious, or good, or that they would be judged. We didn’t think of sex as trauma. He didn’t drug them or coerce them, he didn’t even have anything to give them.”