Chapter 11
Fred’s mother suggested Nantucket Island for the wedding.
That paradise was where the two lovebirds had met in the first place and where so many of their wealthy and elite friends would be spending the summer anyway.
Arietta knew excitement for the wedding was on everyone’s lips.
She knew that Fred’s family friends were just as puzzled as they were joyous.
They wondered who this Arietta girl was.
The night of the rehearsal dinner, Arietta found herself smiling out at a table of family members, bridesmaids, and groomsmen, as she and Fred thanked everyone who didn’t spend their summers here for making the trip to the island.
Most of them—the people on Fred’s side of the family, as well as his friends from college—were eager to show their confusion about the bride.
They made this clear with little asides, seemingly “normal” commentary meant to make Arietta feel bad about who she was and where she came from.
“That’s an interesting choice of bracelet,” they said.
“What a daring lipstick shade!”
“Where was it you went to university again, dear?”
It should have boiled Arietta’s blood. But Arietta had made her peace with this world.
Three summers ago, when Arietta was nineteen and Fred was twenty-six, they’d fallen head over heels in love.
And now, months after Arietta’s graduation and a few months before Fred’s thirtieth birthday, they were tying the knot. Nobody could stop them.
After the rehearsal dinner, Arietta and Fred said goodbye to their loved ones, then went for a long walk along the beach before parting ways for the night.
Fred looked terribly handsome, like a movie star from the 1950s, and Arietta felt prettier than ever, especially after all the face and body treatments Fred’s mother had insisted she do before the wedding.
She could see that Fred looked at her differently, with more love in his eyes than ever before.
“I can’t believe I get to marry you tomorrow,” he said, kissing her on the tip of the nose.
Arietta couldn’t believe it, either.
When Arietta returned to her hotel room, she found her mother sitting on her bed.
Arietta’s mother, Regina, looked regal and beautiful in her silk nightgown.
Seeing her there, waiting for Arietta, reminded Arietta of being a child, when her mother had read books to her at night.
Regina tapped the mattress beside her and told Arietta to climb in.
“One second,” Arietta said, hurrying to wash her face and get ready for bed. When Arietta finally joined her mother on the bed, Regina’s expression was worn and drawn. She needed to sleep soon. She’d join Arietta’s father in the bedroom next door before the hour was through.
“How was your evening, my beautiful girl?” Regina asked.
Arietta laughed. “It was a fairy tale, wasn’t it?”
“It was certainly decadent.” Regina narrowed her eyes. “I talked with Fred’s mother for a little while. She’s a character, isn’t she?”
“She is.” Arietta knew that her mother called people she didn’t like “characters.”
“Is she kind to you?” Regina asked.
“Mostly,” Arietta said, although Fred’s mother had never made her feel a part of the family. She’d more or less bossed her around since Arietta and Fred had gotten engaged. “She asked me why I took that job.”
Regina laughed. “She really questioned it? The Boston Globe? It’s only one of the best newspapers in human history.”
“I know. I don’t think she reads much,” Arietta said.
“She doesn’t have to, I suppose,” Regina said darkly. “And Fred? Does he read?”
Arietta was taken aback. “He’s literate, Mom.”
“Surely he reads books,” Regina offered. “Surely he’s curious, like you are.”
“He can be,” Arietta said. “He’s really busy with work.”
“Of course.” Regina seemed unsure of what to say to that. “I really hope you’re happy.”
Arietta felt the accusation behind her words. “I am happy, Mom. Fred makes me really happy. We’ve had to work on our differences, and I know we come from opposite worlds, but he gets me.”
“I’m sure he’s amazed by you,” Regina said. “I’m sure he can’t believe how lucky he is.”
Arietta wanted to tell her mother the truth—that Fred knew he could have almost any woman.
Many women had tried to steal Fred away from Arietta.
Everyone was so sure Arietta wasn’t good enough for Fred, if only because she came from the other side of the tracks, so to speak.
But she didn’t want to belittle her mother’s standing in the world.
She also didn’t want to talk herself down, not so soon before her wedding.
She wanted to be excited. As the bride-to-be, it was her right to be excited.
Regina got off the bed and stretched her arms over her chest. She’d developed a little bit of a belly beneath her silk nightgown, but it made her look adorable.
Arietta adored her mother and the way she opened herself up to life and love and food and fun.
Arietta prayed that she would always be the same.
“One last thing,” her mother said, her eyes heavy with meaning.
“All right,” Arietta said.
“Don’t ever let Fred talk down to you,” Regina said. “He knows you’re smarter than he is, and this might bother him down the line. He might try to make you feel smaller than you are, if only to get some power over you. Please, don’t let him.”
Arietta was taken aback, so much so that she didn’t know what to say at first. Her mother continued to the door between her room and the one she shared with Arietta’s father, flipping her hair over her shoulders.
Arietta wanted to tell her mother to take it back. She wanted to say, “Fred would never do that to me!” But she knew that her mother needed to tell her this, if only for her own peace of mind.
Was it possible that Arietta’s own father had made her mother feel less than through the years? Was it possible that many, many wives, regardless of their intellect, felt belittled by their husbands?
Oh, but it was 1999. Arietta and Fred were a part of a new generation. Despite Fred’s background and Arietta's job in journalism, they were coming together in love and understanding. They didn’t have to play by the old rules.
“I love you, honey,” Regina said before slipping into the other room and closing the door behind her.
Arietta lay in bed for a long time with the light still on, gazing at the ceiling.
She tried to imagine herself decades from now, perhaps with her own daughter before her wedding day.
Would Arietta have wisdom to give her daughter?
What could she tell her to prepare her for this deep, unending commitment to someone?
She supposed she’d learn that along the way.
Many years later, after Regina was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and began to lose all concept of time and language, she occasionally thought it was a very different year—that she was still a mother that Arietta was required to listen to, that Arietta was much younger and eager to grow and change.
“Honey, I really think you should consider what you’re doing,” Regina said to Arietta one afternoon, when the two of them were in Arietta’s childhood home, drinking tea and eating cookies that Regina had loved as a girl.
Arietta knew something sinister was coming. She knew that her mother didn’t know what year it was, but she decided to play along, if only because she’d grown tired of telling her mother that she was wrong, that she was confused.
“What do you mean?” Arietta asked.
Her mother took a bite of the cookie and set it down.
“I know that you and Fred have had a lot of fun together. I know you don’t think his wealth will get in the way of your happiness together.
But honey, the fact is, money changes everything!
Once you become his wife, you’ll have responsibilities that you never could have fathomed before.
My friend back in college, Christine, she married into a very wealthy family, and she always regretted it. ”
“I think it’s going to be okay, Mom,” Arietta said, reaching for her mother’s hand. “I think we’re going to be really happy. You have to trust me.”
At this point, Arietta and Fred had been married for nearly twenty years.
They had three daughters and three houses.
They’d had three family dogs and two cats.
They had gone on numerous vacations, seen countless movies, and gone on and off diets together, pushing each other to be as healthy as possible as they got older.
They’d even trained for and run a marathon together, after which they’d promised each other never to do that again.
Of course, they’d also discussed divorce.
Arietta had never told anyone about their troubles. She assumed that all married couples had discussed divorce at some point. With marriage failures at 50 percent, she imagined everyone looked at the Exit door and wondered what lay beyond it.
They’d gone to couples therapy exactly twice.
During the second session, the therapist told them that they thought they should consider separating, and they quit almost immediately, laughing their way out to the car.
After buckling their seat belts, they’d kissed in the car like teenagers, then turned the radio up loud.
They weren’t done with each other yet. Arietta didn’t think they ever would be.
“Just think about it,” her mother begged her now.
“All right, Mom.” Arietta sighed. “I’ll think about it.”
Arietta couldn’t figure out why Regina had never really taken to Fred.
Everyone else in the world adored him. He could have gotten away with murder with that smile alone.
She’d watched him talk his way out of many speeding tickets, and they were always seated at restaurants before everyone else, not just because Fred Peters was an important man to see in public.
He was charming. She’d always known he was charming.
It was part of the reason she’d fallen so hard for him at age nineteen.
Later, when Regina could no longer be trusted to be at home, they moved her into a memory care wing at a retirement facility.
This was not only easier on Arietta’s father but also on all of them.
Something Arietta had hated about this, of course, was that her father had immediately begun dating.
When she’d accused him of moving on too quickly, her father had pointed out, “Regina hasn’t been Regina in three years, honey.
I’ve felt lonely. I haven’t been myself. ”
Arietta was so struck by his honesty that she didn’t know how to respond.
One evening, Arietta, Fred, and their daughters went to Regina’s care home for dinner.
It was immediately clear that Regina wasn’t having a good day.
She lashed out at Fred, at first thinking he was her husband, Arietta’s father.
She said, “I know what you’re up to! I know you’re seeing someone else! ”
Fred had given Regina a look of such panic that Arietta had begun to doubt her marriage.
Was Fred seeing someone else?
“That’s Fred, Mom,” Arietta said calmly. “That’s my husband, your son-in-law.”
Shannon, Felicity, and Isabelle sat on the sofa, watching them, panic in their eyes.
Only Shannon finally got up to fetch her grandmother a glass of water and help out.
When Regina wouldn’t stop yelling at Fred, Fred finally raised his hands in defeat and left the room.
Regina calmed down, then sat in front of the television and turned on a game show.
An announcer cried out in joy as yet another contestant won something.
The music coming from the old TV was high-pitched and plastic-sounding.
For the rest of the night, they ate dinner on metal trays and watched Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune.
Fred texted to say he’d walked down the road to a chicken spot.
FRED: Take your time. I love you.
Arietta felt a strange spasm in her heart.
What if her mother was right? She allowed herself, if only momentarily, to wonder. But when she looked into her mother’s eyes, she saw emptiness. She no longer saw the woman she loved so much.