A Family Affair(43)

She called Joe. “How was your week?” she asked.

“Busy, but I bet not as busy as yours. Is your courtroom packed?”

“Standing room only, in person and virtually.”

Joe had called a couple of times during the week and all she had done was complain about how busy she was. “I haven’t even had time to talk to you and I wanted to tell you something. Amy called me last weekend, we met and some questions were answered.” She told him about their discussion over lattes at Christos. “It has weighed on my mind ever since. I’m trying to think of how and when to tell the kids. They need to know they have a sister.”

“Have you come up with a plan?” he asked.

“Just a very bad one. Except for holidays and special occasions, we’re not usually all together as a family and I want them to hear the news together. I think telling them one at a time could just set up trouble. I could tell Jessie and she would call Michael and give him her version or vice versa. And where Bess is concerned, I don’t have any idea what her reaction will be or who she would talk to about it. She has a boyfriend, it seems, but I haven’t met him. I want them to know the facts. But I don’t want a thirty-year-old indiscretion to tear my family apart.”

“It wasn’t your indiscretion, Anna,” he said. “How could they blame you?”

She actually laughed. Did he know so little about families, about kids? They blamed their parents all the time! Sometimes until they were old and gray. It wasn’t uncommon that people blamed their parents after they were long dead. She’d seen it all through her legal career as an attorney and judge and it was impossible to determine if it was justified or not. The only thing she was completely sure of—she had loved her husband and had done her best to be a good wife and mother. But is that what her children thought?

“Sometimes it seems like it’s always the mother’s fault. In some eyes, anyway. I’m sure I was far from perfect. But I didn’t have an affair. Sometimes I wish I had.”

“Where did that come from?” Joe asked.

“Well, there were times...” she said, letting her voice trail off. “There were times I was lonely. There were times Chad didn’t try very hard. There were times I suspect he blamed me for his unhappiness when any card-carrying therapist knows we’re in charge of our own happiness.”

Joe was quiet for a moment but she could hear him breathing into his phone. “I remember something that cures you of melancholy. Are you working all weekend?”

“I’m going to go see Blanche at about two this afternoon and I’m taking Sunday off. Why?”

“I think if I bring you Thai takeout, I’ll be your hero!” Joe said.

“Well, at least you’ll be my good friend,” she said.

Anna was thinking about Joe in a way she never had before. Oh, she’d always known him as a man she trusted and respected, a huge success in academia, a man admired by many. But she was married. She thought of him as Joe, her friend. In this new incarnation of their friendship, thoughts of him now stirred deeper emotions.

Joe would bring her Thai food because he remembered that Thai food made her happy. She realized that Joe treated her the way she wished Chad had, as if her happiness mattered.

During her visit with her mother, Blanche recognized her for a little while, then slipped away from her again. She spoke to the nurse once more and the news was no better; she was headed for memory care and hospice and this could well be what she knew of her mother from here on.

She wondered, Did the average person in the world ever realize what a woman, widowed at fifty-seven, with a complicated family had to carry on her back? She was crumbling under the weight of responsibility of a home, family, job that served the people. There was no room for her emotional load. When women came into her courtroom, women who had equal stress on a waitress’s or teacher’s income, she understood them. She not only understood them, she identified with them, and hers was a privileged life.

On that same day, she found herself staring into the bathroom mirror and gently pulling back the skin on her face, tightening it. She thought maybe the last ten years had caused her mouth to droop and jowls appear on her jawline. But her eyes were remarkably wide for a woman her age. She had thought about a facelift; her neck was getting crinkly. But women born and raised in the San Francisco area tended to have great skin, given their lack of exposure to the sun. It could take ten years off a face.

When Joe finally arrived, he was carrying two large sacks of food and the aroma was spectacular. She took one of the bags from him and led the way to the kitchen. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said. “I saw Blanche today and she’s teetering on the edge, her lucid periods diminishing. At least she’s not in any pain, and even though she’s not really all there, she doesn’t seem to be suffering any great anxiety.” She put her bag on the kitchen island and took his bag out of his hands. “Dementia is one mean SOB.”

When she turned toward him, she found herself instantly scooped up into his arms, his lips on hers, his big hands moving up and down her back. Her breath caught, her eyes widened in surprise, and then slowly she let herself fall into his kiss. It was so odd to her that it felt like something she’d known for a long time when in fact he’d just kissed her for the first time a week or two ago. Her eyes slowly drifted shut, her lips completely relaxed; her arms went around him to embrace him and it was delicious. He pressed her back against the island and held her there with his whole body. He was firm and strong and she immediately felt his desire rising against her, and this time, she knew, he would not say goodbye when this kiss, this long, deep kiss, was complete.