Beautiful Day(55)

Ann picked at a boiled red-skinned potato. Yes, it all looked good from here, but who knew what would happen.

The Cohens got up to dance, and Ann buttered a roll that she had no intention of eating. She checked her cell phone: nothing. Jim and Helen would be at the hospital by now. They would be sitting in the waiting room together, awaiting news. People who saw them would think they were a couple.

Tap on the shoulder. Jethro.

“Dance with me,” he said.

“I don’t feel up to it,” Ann said.

“You have to,” Jethro said. “You need to show these northerners you didn’t bring me along as chattel.”

Ann made a face. “Please spare me the self-deprecating black humor.” But Ann then admitted she was powerless to resist Jethro under any circumstances. “Only you,” she said.

She accepted his hand and followed him to the dance floor, where he swung her expertly around. Ann and Jim had taken dance lessons right after getting married the second time; it was one of the things they’d made an effort to do together, along with couples Bible study, and antiquing in Asheville, and trout fishing on the Eno River in a flat-bottomed rowboat Jim had bought. They had been happy the second time. Happy until thirty minutes ago. Now Ann could feel herself cracking inside, a ravine opening up.

The song ended. She and Jethro clapped. She kissed his cheek. Ryan had told Ann and Jim that he was gay during Thanksgiving break of his freshman year in college. Ann would say she had handled it well. It wasn’t exactly her wish for him, only because she feared his life would be difficult—and of course there was the issue of grandchildren. Jim had taken the news in stride. He had said, “I’m in no position to judge you, son. But for crying out loud, be careful.” Ann hadn’t been able to predict then how she would adore her son’s future boyfriend. She felt even closer to Jethro than she did to Jenna.

She looked at him frankly. “I shouldn’t have invited Helen to this fucking wedding.”

He grinned, and Ann spied his two overlapping front teeth, and she imagined him as an adolescent in Cabrini-Green, saving his money to buy copies of Esquire and GQ. “I love you, Annie,” he said.

She hugged him. “I love you, too,” she said. “Never leave us.”

That was a wonderful moment, perhaps Ann’s favorite moment of the wedding weekend so far. She wondered what everyone else made of their clan—Ryan with his black boyfriend, Jim with the wife, the mistress-ex-wife, and the love child. Ann stopped at the Carmichael table, where Doug was sitting with Pauline and Pauline’s daughter, who was a carbon copy of Pauline, but thirty years younger. The three of them looked perfectly miserable.

Ann remembered Pauline’s words and her hot cashew breath. Do you ever feel like maybe your marriage isn’t exactly what you thought it was?

“Great party!” Ann said.

Doug looked at his watch. The band launched into a Neil Diamond song, and some of the younger people got up to dance.

Jethro escorted Ann back to her table, where she checked her phone. Nothing.

Olivia said, “Eat something, please, Ann.”

“I can’t,” Ann said.

Olivia gave her a knowing look, a look Ann might last have seen twenty years earlier when Jim first left and Ann dropped to ninety-seven pounds.

“I’m going for a little walk,” Ann said.

“Want company?” Olivia asked.

Ann shook her head. She put on her wrap and headed out the back doors across the patio and down the brick walk that cut between swaths of green lawn.

Ann imagined the scene at the hospital. Helen and Jim would be standing hip to hip at the admitting desk, answering questions about Chance.

Date of birth?

April 3, 1994.

Ann remembered the day well. It had been Easter Sunday, and Ann had dutifully gone through all the motions. She had insisted the three boys wear navy blazers, and she’d ironed their khaki pants. They had attended Immaculate Conception; she had smiled and greeted everyone, despite what she knew people were saying about her.

Ann Graham, state senator, her husband ran off with one of the women from their wine-tasting group, he got the woman pregnant… Then there’s Donald Morganblue, who’s sure to take her senate seat, he’s been campaigning like crazy…

Ann had cooked all her special Easter dishes: a honey-baked ham and corn pudding and herbed popovers. The boys devoured the meal, but Ann had simply stared at her food. Jim had especially loved her popovers, and she wondered if he was missing them. Missing her.

The phone call had come at seven o’clock that evening, as Ann was doing the dishes and wrapping up the leftovers and listening to the boys roughhouse in the den. They were high on sugar after so many chocolate bunnies.