Part 1 (2/2)
”How could that happen?” she said for the tenth time in an hour. She looked as though she were in shock, and when the ambulance came, Stephanie couldn't stop crying. Their marriage hadn't been perfect, and they hadn't really been happy in a long time, but she had loved him, and she never expected him to die. They had wasted so much time being disconnected from each other after the affair. It was as though he had burned the bridge that linked them, and she had never been able to connect with him again. And now he was gone.
The two couples stood making their driving arrangements to get back to the city. Jean said she would drive Stephanie down in their SUV, while Fred went alone in his new Ferrari, and Brad and Alyson went home in Brad's Porsche. They had left the Mercedes station wagon for the kids and the au pair. For the Freemans and particularly the Dawsons, their cars defined who they were. Stephanie didn't care and drove a four-year-old SUV.
”Are you okay?” Jean asked gently as she helped Stephanie into the car. Stephanie was deathly pale. She got in seeming confused, like someone who had been ill for a long time. She kept thinking about Bill that morning, and a thousand mornings before this, and all the things they hadn't said to each other. And how was she going to tell her kids? She'd have to tell them on the phone, since all of them were in other cities, and now they had to come home. ”Do you want me to call the kids?” Jean offered as Stephanie shook her head, staring out the window and seeing nothing, and then she turned to look at Jean.
”We never really got back together, after...after what he did. We just pretended, but it was never the same.” Jean had known that without Stephanie admitting it to her. It had been obvious to anyone who knew them.
”It doesn't matter,” Jean said quietly as they drove away toward the city. ”You loved each other. Those things are hard to recover from.”
”I went back to him for the kids...but I loved him too. I just didn't trust him anymore. And Bill was never good at talking about things, so we never did after a while. He didn't want to, and I didn't either. We just kept putting one foot in front of the other and doing all the things we had to do.” But the joy had gone out of their marriage seven years before, or maybe long before that. She couldn't remember now. Whatever it had been, or had once been, or never was, it was over now.
Jean couldn't help wondering what she would feel if Fred died now. Sad, probably. Their marriage had been a sham for so many years, but she was used to him. She liked to say to her friends, somewhat tongue in cheek, that their marriage was a genuine fraud. But in some ways they cared about each other, no matter how disappointing it had been.
”I'm sure he always loved you,” Jean tried to rea.s.sure her, whatever she believed, which was colored by her own view of men. ”Men just do stupid things. Fred has been an idiot for most of our marriage. He started cheating on me even before our kids were born, and I was young then. He figured I wouldn't know.”
”Why did you stay with him?” Stephanie asked, turning to her with a dazed look. She was still in shock, but talking to Jean was helping her try to stay focused on some kind of reality. Jean was the life preserver she was clinging to.
”I still loved him in those days. It took me a few years to get over it, but I did,” she said with a wintry smile, and Stephanie laughed. Jean was so awful about Fred, but most of the time the way she said it sounded funny. But it couldn't have been easy to live with, any more than Stephanie's situation with Bill was, after the affair. At least he had never cheated again, that she knew of. All those thoughts kept racing through her head as they drove down from Tahoe. She was grateful that Jean was driving. She couldn't have made the trip on her own, she was too distracted, and stunned. It all felt unreal.
They got to the city in just under four hours, Jean parked the car in front of Stephanie's garage on Clay Street, and followed her inside. They left the suitcases, skis, and poles in the car. And Bill's boots were back there too. The ski patrol had taken them off before they sent him to the city in the ambulance, and had gotten his hiking boots from the locker. Stephanie had put them on him herself with shaking hands before they took him away.
She stood in the front hall, after they walked in, and looked at Jean as though she were lost, and didn't know what to do. But she knew. She had to call her kids. She went out to the kitchen, and sat down on a high stool next to the phone. She normally knew their numbers by heart, but suddenly couldn't remember them.
She called Charlotte in Rome first. It was two in the morning for her, and she didn't want to call her any later, but Charlotte needed to know so she could come home the next day. There was shocked silence at the other end of the phone when Stephanie told her, a long pause, and then a long sharp scream. Jean could hear it from across the room. Stephanie sobbed as she talked to her and tried to comfort her, hating the fact that she had to tell her such terrible news over the phone without having her arms around her. She told her daughter to get the first plane home, and use her credit card for the ticket. Stephanie had given her a high enough limit on the card that she could always buy a ticket home if she needed to. She had just never expected it to be for something like this.
”Let me know what flight you're on,” she told Charlotte, who was her youngest, at twenty. She was much too young to lose her father. Stephanie had been in her forties when she lost her parents, which had seemed too young too. But at twenty, it was brutal. And Bill was only fifty-two. Who could have expected this to happen? And he had been in such good health, or so it seemed. As she had told Brad, his annual physical the week before had turned up nothing.
Charlotte was still crying piteously when they hung up, and Stephanie tried to catch her breath as she continued crying too. Jean handed her a gla.s.s of water.
”How is she?” Jean asked, looking worried.
”Awful,” Stephanie answered simply, and pressed Michael's number. He answered on the first ring. It was Sat.u.r.day night, and he was home, cooking dinner for some friends, with his girlfriend. It was already eight-thirty at night in Atlanta, he said they were barbecuing, and his mother could hear music in the background. She told him the news as gently and directly as she could, and his voice was shaking when he asked her, ”How are you, Mom? Are you okay?”
She couldn't speak for a minute, then said, ”How soon can you come home?” She could hear that he was crying when she asked him, and then he said something m.u.f.fled to someone standing next to him.
”I'll catch the red-eye tonight,” he said, trying to sound strong and manly for her. ”Have you told the girls yet?”
”I just called Charlotte. I wanted to tell her before it got any later, so she can catch a flight in the morning.”
”Poor kid,” but poor him too. Poor all of them, Stephanie was thinking. Bill hadn't been an ideal father, but he was the only one they had. And they were too young to lose him. And whatever his failings, he was someone they could rely on. Now all they had was her. The thought of it made her shudder. Everything rested on her now. It was awesome and terrifying being the only parent, no matter how competent she was. This was much worse than during their separation.
”I'll call Louise in a minute,” she said wanly. ”You don't have to come home tonight, Mike. You can come home tomorrow, I'll be okay.”
”No, I want to,” he said, still sounding tearful. He was twenty-five years old, and suddenly the only man in the family. ”I'll see you in the morning, Mom,” he said. He had to get off the phone if he was going to make the flight.
And then she called her middle child, and older daughter, Louise, in New York. She sounded confused when her mother told her.
”What?” She was sure that she had heard wrong. What her mother had just said sounded insane to her. Stephanie told her again, and this time she began crying and couldn't stop. It was a long time before she could say anything to her mother. ”How? That's not possible. He's so young, Mom.”
”I know. I don't understand it either.” But the doctor at the ski patrol confirmed that it had been a heart attack.
They talked for a few minutes, and Louise said she would take the first flight out of New York in the morning. And then Stephanie turned to look at Jean. The first of the horrible tasks was done. Now all her children knew. Stephanie felt as if she'd been hit by a bus, as Jean handed her a cup of tea.
”Why don't you lie down for a little while? There's nothing you need to do right now. The kids have been told. You can deal with the rest tomorrow. I'll come over first thing and help you.” And then she asked, ”Do you want me to stay here tonight?” Stephanie thought about it and then shook her head.
”I'll be okay,” she said sadly. She didn't really want anyone staying there. She wanted time to think. So much had happened. She hadn't been able to absorb it yet. Nothing made any sense. She was sure that Bill would walk in any minute, and tell her it was all a joke. But the look on her friend's face told her it was all too true.
They went up to her bedroom and talked for a while. And then Fred rang the bell. Jean let him in, and he brought Bill and Stephanie's suitcases and skis inside and left them in the hall. He didn't know what else to do.
And finally, around eight o'clock, Fred and Jean left and went back to Hillsborough. Jean promised to come back in the morning. And Alyson called several times that night, and offered to come over. But Stephanie knew the au pair had gone home, and she had no one for her kids. She promised to come in the morning too.
It was the longest night of Stephanie's life. She couldn't sleep. All she could think about was Bill, and what had gone wrong between them for all those years. Suddenly she felt guilty for not working harder to forgive him and repair the damage, but he hadn't either. They had been two lost people, treading water for seven years, after the s.h.i.+p went down.
Jean was back at eight-thirty the next morning, and Alyson showed up shortly after. Stephanie was working on the obituary, and she called the funeral home. She had to go in to pick the casket and make arrangements, plan the funeral, pick programs and meet with the minister at the church, and call the florist. There were so many things to do. Between the three of them, they got most of it organized by ten that morning. And as soon as they did, Michael arrived, he hadn't been able to get on a red-eye the night before, and both women went downstairs, while Stephanie and her son cried in each other's arms.
Louise arrived an hour later, from New York. And Charlotte was due to land at one. Jean stayed to do whatever she could to help, and Alyson went home to her kids, but promised to come back later.
And when Louise walked in, she sobbed in her mother's arms about what an amazing father Bill had been. Jean said nothing but couldn't help noticing that in death Bill had become a saint, to his children at least. She couldn't imagine that Stephanie was thinking the same thing.
Michael went to the airport to pick up his younger sister when she arrived from Rome, and by three o'clock all of Stephanie's children were home, all looking sh.e.l.l-shocked and mourning their father. Jean went to the funeral home with her to pick the casket, and then they went to the church to meet with the minister. It was Sunday, and they set the funeral for Tuesday, at three p.m. The obituary Stephanie had written was to run the next day.
”There's so much to do,” Stephanie said to Jean as they drove back to the house, ”my head is spinning.”
”Let me call the florist for you,” Jean offered, and Stephanie nodded, looking dazed.
”Do we need to call people and tell them?” Stephanie asked her, not sure what to do.
”Just call his office tomorrow. Everyone will read it in the paper.” Stephanie nodded. Her children were waiting when they got home, and Jean went back to Hillsborough, promising to return the next day.
The four of them had dinner in the kitchen that night, and sat for hours afterward talking about their father, as Stephanie listened to them tell stories of what a hero he had been, and what a great father to them. There was a disconnect somewhere, she knew, but she couldn't locate it just yet and didn't want to. They sat there late into the night, alternately crying and singing his praises, and then finally everyone went to bed. Stephanie had never been so exhausted in her life. Half the time she was in searing emotional pain and the other half she was numb.
The next day was more of the same, with more details to take care of. Everyone at Bill's office was shocked, and all of his partners called Stephanie. Jean went shopping and arrived with dresses for them to wear to the funeral, and miraculously everything fit. None of them had had properly serious black dresses to wear for a funeral, as the bereaved family of the deceased.
The day of the funeral dawned gray and rainy. Jean had called a caterer to be there when people came to the house after the service. And three hundred people trouped through their house, as Stephanie stood pale and brave and her children cried all day.
She was finally alone with Jean for a few minutes after everyone left, and she stared at her friend in shocked disbelief.
”Everybody loved him so much. They all have stories about what a great guy he was. I never knew he had that many friends.” Stephanie looked confused as she lay on her bed, and Jean sat down in a chair across the room.
”People always become saints after they're gone. No one remembers the bad things they did. And to his friends, Bill was a good guy, even if he wasn't great to you. No one's going to remember that now, or say it to you. Least of all your kids.” She had heard them talking all afternoon about what a wonderful father he'd been, and Michael had given a eulogy in glowing praise of his father.
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