A Curve in the Road(41)

When we arrive at my mother’s place, he gets another bear hug from her, and then the food comes out. Mom offers him a chicken sandwich and cookies and anything else his heart desires.

“It feels good to be home,” he says to me with a smile from across the kitchen table as he devours a coconut macaroon.

I reach for his hand again. “It’s good to have you here.”

Winston trots over to rest his chin on Zack’s lap, and Zack feeds him the last bite of his cookie.

Thanksgiving dinner is not quite as joyful as the first day of our reunion  . It’s difficult with only the three of us—Zack, Mom, and me. The house feels quiet and somber compared to other years when Alan carved the turkey at the head of the table and made us laugh when the juices splattered all over the tablecloth.

Today, I find myself thinking about all our family traditions, the good times when Zack was small, and I miss the laughter. I know Zack is having similar thoughts as we eat dinner and struggle to talk about things that don’t remind us of what used to be.

After dinner, he seeks me out in the kitchen, where I’m loading the dishwasher. “Mom, do you think we could go to the cemetery today?”

My stomach clenches. I turn to face him, but I can’t seem to find words because I don’t want to go to the cemetery. Not today. I’ve had such a good week, finally feeling as if I’m moving on.

Besides that, I’m not sure how easy it will be to pay my respects at Alan’s grave, to show reverence when I haven’t yet been able to forgive him and I’m not sure I ever will. I’ve kept up the pretense all year, but I’m running out of energy in that area. I’m afraid I’m just not that good of an actress and one of these days I’ll accidentally let down my guard and Zack will see through me.

Zack frowns. “Come on, Mom. It’s Thanksgiving. I think we should lay some flowers or something.”

I turn away, close the dishwasher door, and press the start button. “That’s a wonderful idea,” I say, with my back to him. “We can snip some hydrangeas from the backyard.”

“I’ll get my jacket,” Zack replies.

As soon as he’s gone from the kitchen, I take a deep breath and hold it for a few seconds, steeling myself, because this has to happen. I need to go to the cemetery and grieve for my late husband. For my son’s sake, if not for mine.

Twenty minutes later, Zack and I are standing at Alan’s grave, looking down at the headstone in silence. Zack lays the white flowers on top and steps back.

“Mom,” he says without looking at me. “I know you’re mad at him.”

The lining of my stomach feels like it might catch fire.

He turns to me. “You’re trying to hide it from me, but I can see it, and I get it. It’s Dad’s fault you had the accident, and that’s why you have sleep issues now, and it’s why you had to give up being a surgeon. I’m mad at him too, but he never meant for any of that to happen. I mean . . . you have to give him a break, Mom. I agree that he was an idiot for getting behind the wheel that night, for sure, but he just found out he had cancer. He wasn’t thinking clearly.”

I shake my head. “He was more than an idiot, Zack.” I’m half tempted to let it all come spilling out, but I bite my tongue and do what I always do—gloss over the real truth. “He drove drunk. He broke the law. There’s never any excuse for that. I’ll probably always be angry about what he did. Besides, even without that, it’s complicated.”

Stop, Abbie. Don’t say anything more.

“No, it’s not. You loved each other, but now it seems like you’re forgetting all the good times we had. You never want to talk about him.”

It’s true. I haven’t wanted to talk about Alan lately. Not with Zack.

He stares down at the gravestone. “Despite what happened, I’m glad that he was my dad, and I’ll never stop loving him, no matter what he did.”

I feel a bit sick because I’m not sure what to say. Part of me wants to grasp this opening, to confide in my son once and for all so that I won’t feel like a pressure cooker anymore. But that would be selfish, wouldn’t it? I don’t want to spoil all those happy memories that are such a comfort to Zack just to let off my own steam. He’s so sure of himself and his feelings right now. I don’t want to destroy that.

“You guys were the best parents ever,” he continues, “and I’m so lucky, because a lot of my friends never had what we had. Their parents hated each other, and they fought all the time, or they got divorced. At least we had a happy home.” Zack pinches the bridge of his nose. “I know he wasn’t perfect, Mom. He made a really bad mistake. But he loved us.”

I stare down at the gravestone and think of Alan in his coffin under the ground, and I have to admit to myself that Zack is right, in some ways. Alan may have been cheating on me, and he committed a terrible crime by driving under the influence, but he did love us. If he didn’t, he would have left me for Paula a long time ago, or he wouldn’t have tried to end it with her when he found out he was dying.

For the first time in almost a year, my anger over Alan’s infidelity isn’t at the top of my mind, maybe because Alan has already suffered the worst possible punishment. He’s dead now. He’s six feet under. He’ll never see his son graduate from university or get married, and he’ll never hold his future grandchildren. He’ll never again enjoy the fragrance of fresh spring rain or a full-bodied wine or the delicious aroma of coffee in the morning. He’ll never see another sunrise.

Alan knew he was dying. I wonder if he wished he could have just one more day to make everything right when they pulled him out of the wreck. Would he have confessed his affair to me after finally putting an end to it? Or was he traveling to Lunenburg that night to be with the woman he truly wanted? Was the guilt too much to bear?

I’ll never know, and that’s what has been ripping at my insides since the day I found out about his affair.

Suddenly I’m on my hands and knees, weeping over my husband’s grave and wishing he hadn’t been taken from us. Maybe there was a chance he and I could have worked everything out and grown stronger through the hard times. I don’t know.

All I know for sure is that I miss what Alan and I had—the laughter and love and constant support. That’s what I want to remember. I don’t want to spend the rest of my days drowning in venom when I think of him.

Zack kneels beside me and wraps his arms around my shoulders. He doesn’t say a word. He just sits and holds me.

I realize that I still want to shield my son from this sordidness. I don’t want him to suffer what I’ve had to suffer, to doubt his father’s love for him or for us. That’s the one thing he can still cling to.

I firmly decide that I won’t tell Zack. I’ll never tell him. I’ll continue to shoulder this burden alone. I’m certain now that it’s been the right decision all along. I’ll do whatever’s necessary to take Alan’s infidelity to my own grave.





CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

On Monday morning, I drive Zack to the airport, and it’s harder than I imagined to say goodbye. I hug him outside the entrance to security, and I miss him as soon as I turn away.

When I return to Lunenburg, Mom has lunch prepared. We sit down at the kitchen table, but we don’t talk about Zack or sad things. We make light conversation and speculate about the weather over the next few days.

When we’ve almost finished lunch, she leans back in her chair. “You know . . . I’ve been thinking about our conversation the other night, after you came home from your date with Nathan.”

I reach for my water and take a sip. “Oh?”

“I’d still love to go to Venice. I’d love to travel more, maybe even go south for a few months in the winter, but you know what holds me back?”

“What?”

“This house.” She looks around. “All my money’s tied up in it, and it’s a big responsibility. There’s so much to maintain. Either the driveway needs to be shoveled, or the lawn needs to be mowed, and my garden needs tending. I don’t ever feel like I can leave it for more than a week or two. But I’ve been hanging on to it because it was my home with your father, and this is where all our memories were. Also because it’s your childhood home, and I always wanted you to feel that if something terrible happened in your life, you’d always have a place to come home to.”

I chuckle softly. “Was that a premonition, do you think?”

“Who knows.” She rises from her chair, collects our empty plates, and carries them to the counter. After she sets them down, she faces me. “But here’s the thing. My memories of your father aren’t in this house. They’re in here.” She taps her temple with her index finger. “And here.” She makes a fist over her heart. “So maybe it’s time I lived a little. If I downsized to a condo in a retirement village, I’d have more freedom financially, and I could meet some new people, make new friends who might turn out to be travel companions. Freedom from taking care of this big house would be nice, I think.”