The Book of V.: A Novel(43)
Which makes it true when Lily answers her mother: “He’s fine.”
Ruth settles herself onto a loveseat that once belonged to her own mother. “Any progress toward a promotion?”
“Do you want more tea?”
“Sit.”
Lily sits on Ruth’s bed.
“Tell me,” Ruth says. “I’m stuck here. Tell me something.”
So Lily tells her mother about Adam’s fish-farm endeavor, which is finally looking like it might happen. She sets the scene: a refugee camp west of Kigali. She describes the challenges, the skeptics. Then she explains the role she played in the turnaround, how after the pizza date it struck her that Hal—“this dad of a kid in Rosie’s theater class?”—might be able to help Adam. Adam needed a fish expert who wasn’t already opposed to his project, and Hal was a fisherman. He’d even worked with aquaculture pools, Lily happened to know, because he’d mentioned this, at the pizza place, because he was the kind of man who did not need to be prompted to talk about himself. Other things he’d mentioned: he was involved in some kind of artisanal kelp locavore start-up on Long Island Sound, and he knew just about everyone. Which could not hurt, Lily thought. She set up a date for Adam and Hal, and that was that: since then Adam has brought Hal on as a consultant and they meet for regular drinking/planning sessions in the neighborhood. Are you sure it’s okay? Adam keeps asking, because his meeting Hal means Lily putting the girls to sleep on her own, and while at some point Lily might have said no, this particular scenario she supports entirely, for it relieves her of guilt and furthers Adam’s cause. He still hasn’t gotten a full go-ahead, she tells Ruth, but last week, thanks to a funder Hal brought in, they received a sizable grant, the kind of money they’ve been waiting for, which will help to draw other money and quiet the doubters.
“What’s this Hal like?” her mother asks, as if that is the point.
“He’s fine.” It is good to have given Hal to Adam. He served his purpose, she has decided. Which sounds mercenary, she realizes, but isn’t mercenary better than gaga? The women she knows whose husbands have cheated insist that it’s impossible for the cheating to have nothing to do with their marriage, but Lily is starting to think they’re wrong—you can want something and still fully want another thing. That they conflict does not mean you are conflicted.
“It’s important for men to have friends,” Ruth says. “Your father never had friends.”
“Mm,” Lily answers.
“Adam is a good father.”
“Yes.” Lily is noticing how Ruth keeps tilting on the loveseat, righting herself, then tilting again. She is clearly uncomfortable, maybe in pain. She looks embarrassed. Lily has not often known her mother to be embarrassed, and it is hard not to feel embarrassed for her. Lily looks away, to give her privacy.
“When he came by last weekend with Rosie?” Ruth is saying. “The way he looks at her—it took my breath away. Same way I felt when I saw him hold her after she was born. Do you remember?”
“Of course.” But Lily doesn’t know if she remembers. They have photographs, which serve as memory. Her mother’s sappiness is grating and worrisome—since when does Ruth use phrases like took my breath away? Since when does she reminisce in plaintive tones? Lily is certain now that her mother is dying. “You do realize that’s setting the bar pretty low,” she says. “No one has ever looked at a woman holding her baby in a loving way and said, What a good mother! You never said to me, The way you look at your daughters just takes my breath away.”
Ruth, who has tilted again, gives Lily a long look. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not asking you to be sorry.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
They are silent for a moment, Lily holding tears in her mouth.
“I wouldn’t mind some more tea, lovie.”
“Of course.”
“And can you take this? On your way? Hang it up for me?”
Lily didn’t realize her mother was still holding the towel she’d used to dry her hands, but she sees that Ruth’s arm is shaking now, as if the towel she’s proffering were a dumbbell. She sees that Ruth inches her bottom to the very edge of the seat before pushing herself to stand, and that she climbs onto her bed with difficulty. “Oh Lily, I’m tired. I had a little burst there, but I’m zonked.”
Lily watches out the corner of her eye, making sure her mother is settled before going to hang the towel in the bathroom. Her Post-its are still attached to the wall, warning of the step down from the riser on which the toilet sits. Step down! Be careful! We love you! The ones she put up when her mother first came home Ruth removed immediately, but these—stuck up nearly a week ago—her mother has not touched.
“I regret it,” her mother says when Lily comes out of the bathroom.
Lily, not sure what she’s talking about, picks up her mother’s mug. Ruth is working to get underneath her blankets. “With those tennis balls,” she says. “I should never have done that. It was cruel of me. He was right to be angry.”
“But you said he didn’t try to stop you.”
“That wasn’t how a man like your father got angry.”
“How did he get angry?”