Griffin told her he was sure it would be okay.
“She hasn’t been feeling good,” Gladys said.
“I didn’t know that.”
“She didn’t like to say anything.”
Since when? Griffin thought. Were they talking about the same woman?
“We aren’t really buddies,” Gladys admitted. “That’s just what we call it. The buddy system. When you’re all alone, you need someone close by.” Hearing this, Griffin swallowed hard. “I’m not sure your mother even likes me very much, but I didn’t mind bud-dying with her. She could be very nice when she wanted to.”
Griffin thanked her and said he’d be on the first flight he could catch, then hung up and just stood there on the balcony until Tommy poked his head out to check on him. “That sucks,” his friend said when Griffin told him what was up, that he had to fly to Indiana.
Tommy insisted on driving him to LAX. At the curb they parted awkwardly, like a married couple in the middle of a spat.
“Okay if I call Joy about this?”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
“I might anyway.”
Griffin saw no reason to argue. “I’ll let you know what’s up once I get the lay of the land.”
They shook hands.
“I never told you I found my mother.”
“No kidding.”
He nodded.
“And?”
“And you were right.”
The Hedges occupied the tip of the peninsula, surrounded on three sides by water. The main building was a grand old structure with a huge porch bordered by eight-foot-tall yew trees that were painstakingly sculpted into a massive hedge. Farther down the sloping lawn, more hedges formed what Griffin guessed was a labyrinth. When he pulled into the gravel lot, he saw Joy’s sister June emerge from an opening in the hedge with a crying child in tow. They were quite a ways off, but it was incredibly quiet, especially after L.A., and he could hear her say, “Poor sweetie pie, did you get lost? Didn’t Grammy tell you that might happen?”
It was still an hour before the rehearsal dinner was scheduled to begin. Griffin thought it would be good to arrive early, but now he wished he hadn’t. There were a couple dozen cars clustered near to the hotel. The lot was huge, though, big enough to handle a convention, so he parked in a remote spot. Joy’s family probably would regard this, too, as standoffish, but during his year in L.A. he’d had two minor but costly auto mishaps-one on the freeway, not really his fault, the other in a mall parking lot, entirely his fault-and his insurance premiums were again on the rise. (Interesting, he thought, that his late mother yapped at him incessantly, whereas his dead father was content to communicate via crumpled bumpers and detached side-view mirrors.)
The evening was cool, with a nice breeze off the water, so he decided to just sit in the car for a few minutes and gather himself for what promised to be an ordeal. But Joy must have had an eye out for him, because right after turning off the ignition he caught a glimpse of her in the rearview mirror, coming down the porch steps. On the dashboard was the literary magazine that featured “The Summer of the Brownings.” He’d brought a copy along with the idea of giving it to Joy, but he now realized the timing was wrong and left it where it was. All is vanity, his mother said, quoting whom? Shakespeare? Thackeray? The Old Testament? Google it, she suggested. Lord, Griffin thought. Last year, based on slender evidence, Joy had been convinced that his father was haunting him. What would she make of him losing arguments with his deceased mother? Not that he had any intention of telling her.
“Joy,” he said, getting out of the car and giving her the best smile he could muster, “you look terrific.”
Which she did. She’d lost some weight, which showed most flatteringly on her face. Her eyes, though, revealed the strain of the last year, and a wave of guilt washed over him, its undertow jellying his knees. He could tell she was registering the physical changes in him as well, and these, he knew, were even more pronounced. What he’d been wondering since leaving the inn was whether they would embrace. He didn’t want to presume anything and reminded himself to react, not initiate, though now the moment arrived and his wife of thirty-five years was in his arms before he could react. Then just as quickly she stepped back before he could even evaluate what kind of hug it had been. This, he told himself, was probably how the next twenty-four hours would go. One moment moving on to the next with a terrible efficiency, before it could be really taken in. Dear God, how would he ever get through it?
“You look tired,” Joy told him. “Was it a rough flight?”
“Not particularly,” he said. “The sleeping thing’s gotten worse.” He actually hadn’t meant to tell her that, but three decades’ worth of intimacy was a hard habit to break. Was he trying to elicit sympathy?
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
“It’s been a little better the last couple weeks,” he lied. Actually it was worse, but having received the sympathy he’d elicited he now felt unworthy of it.
“Have you seen a doctor?”
“I’ve got an appointment as soon as I get back,” he said, another lie. How many more would he have to tell to balance out the first true statement?
“It’s been a rough year,” she said, quickly adding, “Your mother, I mean,” lest he conclude she meant their being apart.
That first heart attack, back in August, had done serious damage, and the surgery necessary to repair it, the heart specialist had explained, was not without risk, especially for a woman her age. Without the operation she’d have only a year or two, maybe as little as six months. The upside of the surgery, assuming she didn’t suffer a stroke on the operating table, was significant. Years, they were talking, maybe a decade. “That idiot must think I’m enjoying my life, if he imagines I want another decade,” she told Griffin when they were alone. He tried to speak, but couldn’t. “That’s that, then,” she said after a moment’s silence, meeting his eye with what looked for all the world like satisfaction, as if this were the very news he’d been hoping for.
“It’s okay,” he said now, trying to help Joy out. “I knew what you meant.”
“Where’s…?”
“In the trunk,” Griffin admitted, feeling himself flush.
Only when Joy regarded him as if he’d lost his mind did he realize she wasn’t asking about the whereabouts of his mother’s ashes. “Oh, you mean… sorry,” he said, flushing even deeper now. “She’s back at the inn.”
“You could’ve brought her to the dinner, Jack.”
And, incredibly, he again thought she was talking about his mother. Jesus! Was it going to be like this all night? Would he misread everything anybody said? “She thought it’d be easier on everybody if she skipped the rehearsal.”
Joy regarded him doubtfully. “Are you going to be all right?”
“Sure,” he said, feeling anything but.
“A couple of things, before we go in,” she said.