words with care.
“It’s probably not a good time to discuss this,” he said, his tone even, his hand on hers again, “because you’re understandably upset and feeling pretty emotional about Carl. But I really want you to think about the fact that he ran your life when he was alive and now he’s trying to control it from the grave.”
She knew what he was talking about. Sometimes her father’s love had seemed tied to her achievements, and, no matter what she accomplished, it was never quite enough. But it seemed harsh, almost cruel, for Ray to imply that her father’s deathbed wish was a final act of manipulation.
She leaned toward her husband, feeling tears fill her eyes. “This is the last thing my father will ever ask of me,” she said. “I promised him I’d do as he requested, Ray, and I will. I don’t know what this—” she looked at the piece of paper “—Sarah Tolley was to him, but there is no way I can simply turn my back on her.”
“Damn it!” Ray slammed his mug on the table so hard she jumped, and coffee splashed onto the white place mat. He stood up. “Here you go again, throwing yourself off the deep end headfirst. Don’t you have enough to do? Aren’t Emma and I ever enough to satisfy you?”
Startled by his outburst, she could not find her voice. She stared at her husband while he plowed ahead.
“Why do you always need to have a million projects going at once?” he asked. “Have you looked at your life lately? You just got back from a month of research in Brazil, you drive to Baltimore to teach at Hopkins one day a week, you’re overextended at the Smithsonian, and last week you told me you’re going back to Brazil next summer. What happened to your promise to us, huh?” He leaned on the table, his hands balled into fists. His knuckles were white.
Laura reached out to touch his hand, confused by his sudden, dramatic change of heart. “But you said it was fine for me to—”
“You said we could spend next summer at the lake house, just the three of us,” he interrupted her. “Like a normal family, instead of one where the wife and mother drags her kid all over the place, chasing comets and traveling around the world giving speeches and accepting awards and who knows what other crap, while her husband sits home and gets rejection letter after fucking rejection letter.” He stood up and wiped the back of his hand across his chin. The white bristles of his beard stood out against the red of his face.
Laura pressed her fist to her mouth, stunned by his uncharacteristic fury. He’d never spoken to her this way before, never uttered a word of complaint about her career. She’d had no idea his unhappiness with her ran so deep.
“Mommy?”
She turned to see Emma standing in the doorway of the kitchen. Her fine, nearly black hair was a mass of tangles, her blue eyes wide above cheeks lined with indentations from her blanket. The ragged old bunny she’d slept with for years was clutched in her arms, its place secure despite the two new stuffed toys Emma had received for Christmas. Standing there in her red flannel pajamas, she looked tiny and delicate.
Laura got to her feet. “Good morning, honey,” she said. “Did we wake you?”
“What’s wrong?” Emma looked from Laura to Ray and back again.
“Go back to bed, punkin,” Ray said, the anger out of his voice, though not his face.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Laura said. “Daddy and I were just having a very loud discussion. We didn’t mean to wake you up.” She would tell her about Poppa later. She couldn’t get into that now.
Emma’s eyes were on Ray, who had turned away to rinse his mug in the sink.
“Why are you up when it’s still dark out?” Emma asked.
“Come on.” Laura guided her with a hand on her shoulder. “You’re right. It’s too early to be up. Let’s get you back to bed. Maybe we should all go back to bed for an hour or two.”
Emma held Laura’s hand on the stairs, nearly stumbling in her sleepiness. Laura tucked her back into bed, the sheets still warm from Emma’s body.
“Is Daddy mad at me?” Emma asked.
“At you? Of course not.” Laura smoothed her daughter’s satiny hair. Emma did have a way of getting on Ray’s nerves, and he sometimes complained about her disturbing him when he was working on his book. Occasionally he would even yell at her. “He’s not mad at you at all,” Laura reassured her. “He’s just a little frustrated right now. We can talk about it more later, if you like, when it’s time to get up for real.”
“’Kay,” Emma said, shutting her eyes.
Laura leaned over to kiss her, pulling the covers up to her daughter’s chin. She stood up, coming face-to-face with the shelf of Barbie dolls above Emma’s bed. Even in the darkness, she could see that Emma had arranged the dolls in contorted positions, probably pretending they were gymnasts. It put a smile on Laura’s face. The first in a while.
She needed some time to herself before returning to the kitchen and her angry husband. She walked down the hall to her bedroom, where she pulled the broken necklace from her jeans pocket and opened the jewelry box on her dresser. The box held only a few pairs of earrings, a couple of bracelets. She was not much on jewelry. It didn’t fit her lifestyle. Her running-off-to-Brazil-and-traveling-around-the-world-giving-speeches lifestyle. She winced, still stinging from the hostility behind Ray’s words. Where on earth had that come from? Had he been carrying that resentment around inside him all this time?
She studied the necklace in her hand. It was rare for her to see it lying loose, because she wore it all the time. Her father had first fastened it around her neck when she was eight years old. It had belonged to his mother, he’d told her, after whom she’d been named. The pendant was a large gold charm that always made Laura think of a woman wearing a broad-brimmed hat, although different people seemed to see different things in the intricate shape of the gold. Holding the necklace up to her bare throat, she studied her reflection in the dresser mirror, her gaze falling immediately to her gray roots. She hadn’t realized they were so noticeable. The silver lay in neat lines on either side of the part in her hair. She’d gone gray early, and had been masking that fact with her natural golden brown shade ever since her late twenties. Her hair was still long, past her shoulders. It was very good hair, thick and strong, her only concession to vanity, and even that was limited. She was vain enough to dye her hair, but not vain enough to rush to the hairdresser’s when the roots began to show. Or to powder her nose when it began to shine, or to remember to put on lipstick before a speaking engagement. She was a naturally attractive woman, and that was fortunate, since she would always choose peering into a telescope over a make-up mirror.
She should go downstairs to Ray, but instead she sat on the edge of the bed. As long as she’d known Ray, he’d suffered from depression and dark moods, but this anger, this near rage she’d just witnessed in him, was new. The rejections were getting to him. A retired sociology professor and one of the most compassionate human beings Laura had ever known, Ray had been working on a book about the homeless for many years. It was a labor of love for him, about a cause to which he’d devoted much of his life. The book was heart-wrenching, disturbing and beautifully written. A year ago he’d started submitting it to publishers. Since then, the pile of rejection letters on the desk in his home office had grown.
He’d never before criticized her for putting her career before her marriage and her child. She was stretched thin, that was true. She usually took Emma with her when she traveled, though, and she thought Ray liked
