Chapter 4 #3
“Her moment of rebellion passed, and she became pretty much who she is now. Driven, serious, conservative, brilliant at her job, passionate about her career, committed to excellence, with a lot of sharp edges. Life with two big careers and a child is serious stuff. Neither of us was ready for kids. We put all our energy into our careers and not our marriage. I’m sorry I didn’t spend more time with you.
I regret that now. I’m not sure if Faye and I were too much alike or not enough alike.
Her work means everything to her, as mine does to me too.
She has one speed. I wanted more, and I don’t think she had it in her.
I can’t tell you when it happened. Things like that happen over time, but one day about fifteen years later, we both knew it was over.
There was nothing left. We agreed to stay together because we thought a divorce would be a mess.
She said it would be “expensive and inconvenient,” which is true, but it would have been the healthier choice.
We told ourselves we were staying together for you, which sounds noble, but wasn’t true.
We stayed because we were too lazy and scared to deal with our mistakes and face the unknown.
You haven’t really been home in eight years, and we’re still there, like strangers under one roof, so there isn’t even a noble excuse for it anymore.
I’m not sure why people stay together in circumstances like ours.
Laziness, habit, fear of what’s out there, or what isn’t.
The cost of tearing a life in half, and losing half of it.
Maybe it’s all about the fear and loss. You forget that other people actually live together and love each other.
You put up with not having human warmth and affection for so long that it begins to seem normal, not to have it, but it isn’t normal, it’s a terrible mistake and it’s sad, and a hard way to live. ”
“I used to wonder,” Liam said, “why other people’s parents hugged and kissed and liked each other, and you and Mom didn’t.
You never touched each other, you were hardly around at the same time, and you both looked miserable when you were together.
I couldn’t understand why you were together.
The divorced parents of my friends looked happier.
I get it now. Marriage seems scary to me.
How hard it must be to get it right, and to still love each other twenty years later. ”
“You have to put energy and effort into it,” Charlie told him, “like watering a garden. We didn’t water the garden.
We spent no time together. We were damn lucky with how you turned out, with so little time and effort on our part.
That’s a tribute to you, not to us,” Charlie said, and Liam smiled.
“And our careers are in great shape. The marriage probably never would have worked, but we didn’t do anything to help it.
Life just doesn’t work that way,” he said realistically.
“And I think your mom is comfortable the way it is now, with the trappings of marriage, and the appearance of it, without the burdens and responsibilities of a real marriage. We both gave up years ago. I guess that’s your answer.
It was a long shot. It was a long shot in the beginning, and we gave up. ”
Liam knew that—he had lived it and seen it firsthand.
His friends had envied him the freedoms he had, but he knew he had grown up with two parents who didn’t love each other.
It was like living in a concrete wasteland where nothing grew.
He had spent all the time he could at his friends’ homes, basking in the warmth of their families, since he didn’t have his own.
It had been enough to keep him going, and his own inner strength had gotten him through, but he didn’t want a marriage like his parents’ one day.
Being alone seemed better to him than a life like theirs.
His father had been honest with him, and didn’t dress it up, or give Faye and himself purer motives as an excuse.
“Do you think you and Mom would ever get divorced?” Liam asked the question he had wondered all his life.
The icy chasm between his parents had existed for as long as he could remember.
Not only did they not see each other, they didn’t like each other.
Charlie hesitated for a moment before he answered.
“I don’t know. I think your mom is comfortable the way things are.
And I’m used to it too. It takes a lot of guts to take everything apart and start over.
And your mother wasn’t wrong when she said a divorce would be a huge financial mess.
” They could afford to get divorced, but Charlie wasn’t sure that either of them wanted to.
They were used to their life the way it was.
It was predictable. There was nothing unknown to fear.
“Maybe you’d both be happier,” Liam said gently, with youthful wisdom.
His parents weren’t old, but they had given up on love, both of them.
He knew from what his mother told him that she had had the love and approval of her parents, until she had married Charlie, irresponsibly.
Liam knew too that his father had never been loved since his own mother’s death.
Charlie had forgotten what being loved felt like, or maybe he didn’t think he deserved it.
But he had the love of his son now, which warmed his heart, even if he thought he didn’t deserve that either.
Liam wondered if his father had other women in his life, but he didn’t ask him.
He didn’t want to know, and to share a secret like that would be a betrayal of his mother.
And he was sure his father wouldn’t have told him.
He was an honorable man, and hadn’t told Liam anything he didn’t already know, or had guessed.
The lack of love between his parents was so obvious, and had been all his life, whatever the reason for it, or if it had ever existed.
It didn’t now, which was all that mattered.
They lay there quietly on the deck for a long time after all that Charlie had said.
They finished their wine and got up from their chairs to go to bed.
Liam was grateful for what his father had told him, and for his honesty.
Charlie added one more thing before they went to their rooms. “Your mom is my family. You and she are the only family I have. And the greatest thing she ever gave me was you. I will always be grateful to her for that,” he said in a husky voice, and they hugged each other.
“Maybe that’s enough,” he said, and Liam hugged him tight for a moment.
“Thank you, Dad.” Liam had tears in his eyes, which Charlie didn’t see as they held each other.
It had been an important moment between them, of honesty about his parents’ lives and how they felt about each other and about him.
Liam was grateful for the independence they had given him, which had allowed him to grow up early and find his own direction.
He felt sorry for his father, and sad that he was willing to settle for so little warmth in his life, except from his son.
That didn’t seem like enough to Liam. He could see the price his parents had paid for a loveless marriage, and it seemed like too high a price to him.
For the rest of the time Liam spent with his father in the Hamptons, they had a wonderful time.
When he could put a little more weight on his injured leg, they walked around the local towns.
They went fishing together. Liam was stopping to see his mother in Aspen on the way home, despite her houseguests, and was going to try to tell her his plans.
He had made up his mind. He was going back to France at the end of August, and before that he was going to enroll online in the landscaping school he was excited about.
It seemed like it would open so many doors to him, and he loved the idea of working outside.
It suited him and it would use his drawing skills, just as traditional architecture would have.
He was sure this was the right path for him, and Charlie respected the passion he had for it.
The day before Liam left for Aspen, Charlie took him to the bookshop in East Hampton, and Liam found three big books about gardens.
They were a popular category for people in the area, seeking to design the gardens for their estates.
Charlie bought the books for him, and Liam was talking about them excitedly as they left the bookshop, like a kid with a new toy he couldn’t wait to play with.
It made Charlie smile. He knew what it was like to have that kind of enthusiasm and passion for what you wanted to do.
Charlie was listening to Liam tell him about a garden he had seen in England with a maze that was two hundred years old, when he bumped into a woman on her way in at the bottom of the steps.
He apologized immediately and looked at her and was suddenly stunned to find himself looking into a familiar pair of green eyes.
It was Devon, and he was so startled to see her that he didn’t speak for a minute but quickly recovered.
“What a surprise to see you,” he said, and introduced her to Liam, who looked intrigued by her. There was something very gentle and ethereal about her which struck him.
“I spend the summer here, painting whatever I want,” she explained. “I have an old barn. It’s like camping out and I love it. It renews my energy before I go back to my real work in September,” she said, smiling at Charlie, and including Liam in her warmth. “Do you have a house here?” she asked.
“I’ve been renting the same one every year for ten years. So far, they won’t sell it to me, but hope springs eternal. I love it here too.”
“I’m surprised I haven’t seen you at the bookstore before. They have wonderful art books. I’m their biggest fan.”