He saw his parents briefly before he went back, and his mother wanted him to send the children to stay with her for the summer.
“You don't have time to be with them all day long, and there's nothing for them to do in town.” She had known without his saying it that they wouldn't be going back to Stinson Beach again. It would have been much too painful for him, but he didn't know where else to go. He had gone there with Liz since he had first moved out to California, and now he couldn't think of anything else without her.
“I'll give it some thought when I get back.”
“Maybe Jane would like to go to camp this year.” She was more than nine but he wasn't ready to let her go. They had both been through too much. It was only nine months since Liz had died. And the thing that shocked him most of all was his mother telling him that Mrs. Rosenthal's daughter had just gotten divorced and was living in Los Angeles, as though she expected him to do something about it.
“Why don't you look her up sometime?” He had stared at her as though she had suggested he walk down the street in his underwear, but he was also angry at her. She had no right to interfere in his life, or to start pushing women at him.
“Why the hell would I do that?”
“Because she's a very nice girl.”
“So what?” He was furious. The world was full of nice girls, not one of them as nice as Liz, and he didn't want to know them.
“Bernie”—she took a deep breath and plunged in. She had wanted to say it to him since the last time they'd gone out to visit in San Francisco—“you have to get out sometime.”
“I get out all I need to.”
“That's not what I mean. I mean out with girls.” He wanted to tell her to mind her own goddamn business. She was digging into open wounds, and he couldn't take it.
“I'm thirty-nine years old. I'm not interested in 'girls.'”
“You know what I mean, sweetheart.” She was nagging him, and he didn't want to hear any of it. Liz' clothes were still hanging in the closet as they always had, only the perfume was fading now. He went in there now and then, just to remind himself, and the smell of her perfume would overwhelm him … it brought back floodtides of memories, and sometimes late at night, he would still lie on his bed and cry. “You're a young man. It's time to think of yourself.” No, he wanted to scream. No! It was still time to think of her. If he didn't, he would lose her forever. And he wasn't ready to let go of her yet. He was never going to. He was going to keep her clothes in the closet forever. He had their children and his memories. He didn't want more than that. And Ruth knew it.
“I don't want to discuss this with you.”
“You have to start thinking about it.” Her voice was gentle, but he hated her for feeling sorry for him and for pushing him.
“I don't have to think about a goddamn thing if I don't want to,” he snapped at her.
“What'll I tell Mrs. Rosenthal? I promised you'd call Evelyne when you got back to the west coast.”
“Tell her I couldn't find the number.”
“Don't be smart about it …the poor girl doesn't know anyone out there.”
“Then why did she move to Los Angeles?”
“She didn't know where else to go.”
“What was wrong with New York?”
“She wanted a career in Hollywood …she's a very pretty girl, you know. She was a model for Ohrbach's before she got married. You know …”
“Mother! No!” His voice was louder than it had to be, and he was sorry to have been so rough with her, but he wasn't ready for that. He didn't think he ever would be. He didn't want to date anyone. Ever. Again.
They celebrated Alexander's second birthday when they got home to San Francisco. Nanny had arranged a little party with all his friends from the park, and she had baked him a cake herself, which he dug into with glee, getting most of it all over his face and hands, and a fair amount of it in his mouth, too, as he gave Bernie a big chocolate grin for the camera. But when he put the camera away again, Bernie felt profoundly sad, thinking that Liz should have been there to see him …and suddenly Bernie was overwhelmed with the memories of the day she'd given birth to him only two years before. He had been there to watch life bestowed on them, and then again to watch life taken from them. It was difficult to absorb it all, as he kissed Alexander good night that night, and went back to his own room, even lonelier than he had been before, and without thinking, he walked into her closet. It was almost like a physical blow as he closed his eyes and inhaled her perfume again.
That weekend, not knowing what else to do, he took the children for a drive, with Jane in the front seat next to him, and Nanny contentedly chatting with Alexander strapped into his car seat. They took a different direction than usual, when they went on rides. Generally, they roamed around Marin when they did things like that, and went to Paradise Cove in Tiburon, or wandered around Belvedere, or went to Sausalito and bought ice cream cones. But this time, Bernie drove north into the wine country, and everything was rich and lush and green and beautiful. And Nanny began telling them about life on a farm in Scotland when she was a child.
“It looked a great deal like this, actually,” she observed as they passed an enormous dairy, and the trees were majestic as Bernie drove under them, and Jane smiled every time they saw horses or sheep or cows, and Alexander squealed and pointed, making all the appropriate “mooh” and “baah” noises, which made them all laugh, even Bernie, as he drove. It looked like God's country around them.
“It's pretty here, isn't it, Daddy?” She consulted him about everything. And the miseries they'd been through at Chandler Scott's hands had only brought them closer than before. “I like it a lot.” She seemed older than her years sometimes, and their eyes met as he smiled at her. He liked it too.
The wineries had solidity, the little Victorian houses they passed along the way had charm. And suddenly he began wondering if this was a place where they could go in the summer, which was fast approaching. It was so different from Stinson Beach that it would be fun for them. He looked down at Jane then with a smile.
“What do you say we spend a weekend up here sometime and check it out?” He consulted her about everything, much as he would have her mother.
She was excited at the prospect of it, and Nanny chirped at them from the backseat as Alexander shouted “More …more cow! …Mooo!!” They were passing a whole herd of them, and the following weekend they came back and stayed at a hotel in Yountville. It was perfect for them. The weather was balmy and warm, it didn't even get the coastal fog that kept Stinson socked in sometimes, the grass was lush, the trees were huge, the vineyards were beautiful, and on their second day there they found the perfect summer house in Oakville. It was an adorable Victorian, just off Highway 29, on a narrow winding road, it had been recently redone by a family that had moved to France, and they were looking to rent it for a few months, furnished, until they decided whether or not they wanted to come back to the Napa Valley. The owner of the bed-and-breakfast inn where they stayed pointed it out to them, and Jane was clapping her hands excitedly, while Nanny proclaimed it the perfect place to keep a cow.
“And can we have chickens, Daddy? And a goat?” Jane was beside herself with excitement as Bernie laughed at them.
“Now wait a minute, guys, we're not starting Old MacDonald's farm, we're just looking for a summer house.” It was just right for them. He called the realtor handling it before they went back to the city that night, and the price sounded right to him. He could have the house from the first of June till Labor Day. Bernie agreed to all their terms, signed the lease, wrote a check, and when they went back to the city, they had a summer house, which pleased him. He hadn't wanted to send the children to his mother. He wanted them close to him. And he could commute from Napa, just as he had from Stinson. It was a longer drive, but only by very little.