Eight
Eight
JULY 1996
“Shit,” I mumbled to myself. I had cut the roses back too far. It would have been a problem if Kay were around. But ever since Grant’s father arrived, her schedule had been erratic. Most days she was still asleep when I arrived, and she rarely left her side of the house.
My focus was elsewhere too. It turned out that kissing made you a terrible gardener. One minute, my hands were holding shears, pruning the roses, and the next, my mind transported me into Grant’s arms, the sensation of his body pressed next to mine so real that I was unable to concentrate.
Since that day by the river, we’d snuck away every chance possible. Grant was so confident and self-assured, but when we were together, lying side by side, I felt like I got to see a version of him that existed only for me. His eyes centered on me. He touched me as if I was a precious gift that he got to unwrap. And he always stopped himself, even if my body got ahead of my mind. Because he knew I wasn’t quite ready yet.
We’d lie next to each other and he’d tell me things I knew he shared only with me. How he wished he could live in the country with his mother and spend his life doing anything other than follow the plan his father had pounded into his head since birth.
“I’m off to scoop ice cream,” Grant said, interrupting my thoughts.
His voice startled me and I was suddenly self-conscious about where my mind had wandered. It was almost as if my real Grant had caught me with my daydreaming Grant.
I brushed the dirt off my hands as I stood to give him a hug. “Have fun.”
“Impossible. I hate this job so much. The kids are sticky and whiny,” Grant complained.
“You sound a little whiny yourself,” I teased. “It’s a summer job. Not everything is fun. Besides, you said you wanted a future using your hands instead of sitting behind a desk,” I said, referencing one of our hazy discussions while wrapped in each other’s arms.
“Yes, but I want to use my hands for something more noble than scooping ice cream.”
I reached out for him and trailed my fingers on the inside of his palm. “I wholeheartedly support a future using these hands to their maximum capacity. It would be a waste to trap them behind a desk.”
“Any ideas?” he asked with a wide smile.
“I’m not the one that needs to come up with ideas. That’s your job,” I said, playfully jabbing his chest. “I’m pretty sure you’ve had enough people tell you what to do with your life.”
His face dropped and the shine in his eyes faded. I realized that what I said was too serious. Or too true.
“I hate that he’s here. Everything sucks with him around.” Grant didn’t need to tell me he was talking about his father. I knew.
“I’ve been given one path,” Grant said. “Go to school, work in finance, ultimately take over my father’s firm. But I feel like there are hundreds of possibilities for what I could become and I’ll never get the chance to figure it out.”
“Yes, you will. Start now,” I said, holding his hand tenderly. “Go try everything. It’s your life and you’re about to go away to college. Your father can’t control you forever.”
“I wish that were true.” Grant stared off into the distance.
I put my hand on the side of his face and turned his gaze back toward me. “You’re making excuses.”
Grant pulled my hand away from his face. “Tess, you have no idea how much power my father has. I don’t have to live in the same city as him to be under his control. Look at my mother.”
“What about your mother?”
“Does she look like someone who’s living a life she wants, a life she chose?”
I thought about Kay. The woman I first met that day in Ms. Milton’s sitting room was mesmerizing. Magnetic. But over the last week, that woman turned into a shell. It was as if all the light inside her had been snuffed out. I didn’t know if Grant’s father was to blame, but he certainly didn’t help. She seemed more detached from the world than ever before. My voice was small as I said, “But you don’t have to be like her.”
There was a hitch to his voice as Grant said, “I don’t know how to be any different.”
“Pick something. Right now. If you could have any job, what would it be?”
Grant looked over at the rocking chairs on the back porch of his mother’s house. “I’d like to make things like that. Chairs, tables. The idea of making furniture. I’d like that. I had this whittling kit when I was a kid. It was my grandfather’s. One summer, I worked every day on this little wooden horse carving. I loved it. But I guess it’s a big jump to go from a wooden horse to furniture.”
“But it’s not. You could do that, Grant. Or you could try, at least. This fall, when you’re at Princeton, find some furniture maker or whittler or somebody and offer to sweep their floors in exchange for lessons.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“It is easy. You are in control of your life, Grant.”
He sighed. “I’m not, Tess. My father would say, That’s a hobby, son. And a stupid one at that. You can buy perfectly fine furniture. ”
“So don’t tell him.”
“He’d find out.”
“How would he know?”
“He knows everything.”
“I hope not everything.” I leaned against his side. “Promise me you’ll think about it? It’s good for you to have some secrets from your father.”
He grabbed my hand and kissed my palm. “All you do is make me think about things, Tess. I can’t stop thinking because of you.”
“Good. I’m glad I’ve been a good influence this summer.”
“I hope it isn’t just this summer.” I couldn’t tell if he was trying to have a serious conversation or not. We hadn’t talked about what would happen when he left for college, even though I knew it filled both of our thoughts.
“I love you, Tess,” Grant said, kissing my cheek. “I’ll see you later.” He walked away, not waiting for me to respond.
I still hadn’t reciprocated those words, and yet Grant continued to deliver them freely. He told me he loved me every time he saw me. He said it tenderly and he said it casually. He’d cup my face and stare into my eyes and list all the ways he loved me. And when I stumbled on our walk through the fields, he’d even tell me that he loved my clumsy feet. I didn’t feel like I deserved this kind of love, but I was grateful for it.
After Grant left, I finished my work in Kay’s garden. While gathering my tools to return them to the shed at the side of the property, I heard a man’s voice. I thought Grant forgot something, but I quickly realized that it wasn’t his voice. This one was deeper and full of anger.
I quickly stepped inside the shed, but kept the door open enough that I was able to see two figures emerge onto the back patio.
Kay was wearing a black silk nightgown with lace on the straps and a coordinating robe that hung off her shoulders, dragging on the ground. It was after noon, but recently this had become Kay’s standard wardrobe. I rarely saw her in anything other than the clothes she slept in the night before, and she barely left the property. There were no more afternoon teas with Ms. Milton or trips to the local nursery for gardening supplies.
Kay was wringing her hands. Her voice was shaky and tears stained her cheeks. Richard Alexander was standing behind her. He wasn’t comforting her. He wasn’t even standing close enough for them to touch. He was a few feet away, arms crossed, in a stiff suit without a bead of sweat on his face on this ninety-degree day.
“Shut up, Kay!” Richard screamed. I unconsciously stepped farther inside the shed and hid myself. I could still see them, standing on the patio, but I hoped they couldn’t spot me. I made it a practice to avoid angry men, a lesson my mother had instilled in me all my life.
I studied Richard, wondering how he had so much control over his family. At first glance, he looked like any other businessman. He was always wearing a dark suit and his ties were either gold or red. His hair was cut short, but peeks of gray gathered around his temples. He was average sized, but his presence was huge. I saw the precision of his jaw as his face remained neutral, reactionless to the tears of his wife.
It was so stark, the difference between Richard and Grant. His son had easy smiles and hair that swooped over his eyes constantly. He laughed freely and approached even the most mundane activities with joy. I couldn’t imagine Grant ever raising his voice. I couldn’t imagine crying in front of Grant without his arms immediately sweeping around me. Maybe Kay and Richard’s dynamic was a natural progression after decades of marriage, though my only role models were my grandparents, who certainly never acted this way. I suppose passion fades, but for my grandparents, passion wasn’t replaced with anger. I saw my grandparents holding hands when they walked into the grocery store. My grandfather would kiss his wife’s cheek when he left for work. They would bicker occasionally, mostly about stupid things like dirty dishes or what they wanted to watch on television. But I never heard my grandfather yell like that, with such repulsion, at my grandmother.
For the last two weeks, Richard had been around more, arriving late at night and leaving early in the morning. I usually saw him when I arrived for work. Sometimes he would acknowledge my presence with a head nod, but more often than not, he walked past me and the gardens to his car as if we were all invisible. Grant thought Richard was coming around to check up on his “summer punishment,” but I wasn’t so sure. Richard didn’t seem very interested in his family.
I’d never seen a tender moment between Richard and Kay. And it seemed so strange, while Grant and I were stealing moments when we could touch each other, here were two people, married, with the freedom to connect in any way they wanted to, and they chose to stay apart.
Kay spoke, words punctuated with choked sobs. “How could you, Richard? I thought there were limits to your behavior.”
“I won’t be lectured by you, Kay. You don’t know what you saw. Leave it alone.”
“I know exactly what I saw,” Kay said, pointing her finger at Richard’s chest. “How long has it been going on?”
“I’m not going to answer that. You’re hysterical.”
“No. I’m your wife. Or have you completely forgotten that?” Her attempted sarcasm was undermined by the way her voice cracked.
“Do you really want to have a discussion about marital duties? I thought we’d abandoned those obligations long ago.”
“Richard, this crossed the line. Even I have my limits.”
“I don’t care,” Richard said casually, with a shrug. And that one statement destroyed Kay.
Kay screamed and fell to her knees, sobbing, “You’ve humiliated me.”
Richard stalked toward her, standing over her quivering body with a look of disgust. Eventually, he bent down and grabbed her arms tightly, pulling Kay upright like a rag doll. I saw the white of Richard’s knuckles as he gripped Kay’s arms. She winced in pain as he squeezed tighter. “Enough with the theatrics, Kay. I’m going back to D.C.” Richard released her arms and turned to walk away.
There was surprising strength in Kay’s voice as she said, “I’m done, Richard. I’m no longer participating in this charade of a marriage. You’ll have to find someone else to parade around parties so that your clients can think your home life is just as controlled and successful as your financial portfolio.”
Richard turned and lunged toward Kay. His hands circled her neck, and even from here I could see they gripped too tightly. My breath stopped, afraid for what was going to happen next. His hands squeezed once more around her throat before releasing, leaving Kay gasping for air. “Do not threaten me,” he spat.
He pushed her forcefully away, her body bouncing on the edge of the teak lounge chair before rolling onto the patio. “If you leave, what do you think will happen, Kay? How will you pay for this house?”
“This is my house. My parents gave me this house.” Her words were ragged, anger and fear altering her voice.
He scoffed. “Your parents had this house mortgaged upside down. They left this house to us, the happy couple . And that’s exactly what you will continue pretending to be if you want to stay here. Because you couldn’t even afford the taxes on this property without me, not to mention what it takes to maintain a home like this.”
Richard left, the roar of his engine and the whirl of his tires over the gravel filling the country air. Kay was immobile, her body shaking as silent tears fell steadily down her face. Minutes passed and I stood there, silent inside the shed, not sure what to do. A part of me wanted to rush to her side, to make sure she was okay, but another part of me worried how Kay would respond knowing there was an audience to that very private moment.
Eventually, Kay took a deep breath, smoothed the hair around her face, and stood to walk inside. I waited a few more minutes before leaving the gardening shed. I debated heading straight home, but I felt an urge to check on Kay. Grant wouldn’t be home for hours and I couldn’t imagine her being alone.
I walked into the kitchen, stepping quietly and peering around the corner. She was sitting at the kitchen island, a mug of something in front of her. She took a sip and reached for her camera. It was one of those big, fancy cameras with lenses that could come off and on.
I cleared my throat and Kay looked up. Her eyes were puffy and red, streaks of navy-blue mascara trailing down her face. She swiped at her cheeks and then ran her hands through her short, blond hair. She was almost childlike in her fragility. I wanted to wrap my arms around her. I wanted to call the police and report Richard. I saw enough to know that this wasn’t the first time Richard had laid his hands on Kay. I wondered how far he had gone in the past. Maybe the grabs and shoves I witnessed were the extent of the harm, but I suspected they were just the beginning.
She fiddled with the camera, removing one lens before attaching a new one. “I’m going to take pictures of the gardens. They’ve never looked better. Are you done for the day, Tess?”
I nodded. I looked at her upper arm and saw lines of blue bruises already surfacing. Her neck was streaked with red marks. She followed my eyes and quickly pulled up her robe, wrapping it tightly across her chest.
“Whatever you saw, Tess, forget it.”
I walked closer and spoke, almost whispering, “He hurt you.”
“I said forget it, Tess.” Her voice was firm, but the shake in the background was unavoidable. She straightened her body, trying to act more in control of the situation than she was. “It is not your concern.”
She was right, it wasn’t my business. But I was worried. And not just for Kay. I wondered how much Grant knew. And then a sinking feeling settled in my stomach. I wondered if Grant more than knew. I wondered if Grant had experienced this version of his father.
“Do you want me to call the police?” I asked.
“Oh, Tess. Don’t be an idiot.”
I recoiled. I couldn’t understand how Kay could stay married to a man like that. How she could leave her son in that situation. None of it made sense to me.
“Do you want to talk about it? Whatever upset you?” I asked, not knowing the right thing to say or do.
“No. I do not want to discuss my private business with an eavesdropping teenager.”
Her words stung. I had overstepped some imaginary line of decorum. The woman I met at the beginning of the summer, who would spend hours chatting with me about nineteenth-century British gardens and laugh about Ms. Milton’s extensive china collection, was gone. At that moment, I was her employee and I’d seen too much.
“I’ll be going, then. I’ll see you tomorrow, Mrs. Alexander.”
She stopped me before I could leave the kitchen. “Oh, Tess,” she said, as if using my name as a retaliatory dagger. “I saw you two. You and Grant. I know there is something going on.”
I stammered awkwardly. I thought we were so careful. But it was clear I had been stupid. And maybe Kay was trying to show me that she could reveal my secrets too.
“Am I supposed to apologize?” I asked defiantly.
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know the rules. There are so many in this life that I haven’t been told.”
Kay waved her hand dismissively. “No one ever knows the rules. We all play along, hoping we have it right. To answer your question, no, you do not need to apologize.”
I treaded carefully as I asked, “Are you going to tell Ms. Milton?”
Kay was quiet for too long. I thought she was contemplating her answer, unsure whether she wanted to punish me for witnessing the scene with Richard this morning. But she shook her head slowly and her body turned rigid as she said, “Madeline is very busy these days. She has more pressing issues on her mind.” She spat each word in a way that made me nervous. Kay continued, “Besides, I suspect you’d like to keep this relationship a secret.”
I nodded. “I don’t want to cause any trouble for my mother. She can’t know.”
“Understood,” Kay said. She took another sip from her mug, this one longer and slower. Her face grimaced slightly before she set the cup down, strong fumes wafting in my direction. It was evident she was not drinking tea. “Does Grant love you?” Kay asked.
I was too innocent to think of answering her with anything other than the truth. “Yes,” I said proudly.
“And do you love him?”
I hesitated because it was something I had been thinking about for weeks. Trying to put my feelings for Grant into words seemed impossible, but if there was one word to describe how he made me feel, I suppose love was it.
“Yes,” I whispered. “But I haven’t told him yet.”
“Smart.”
I flinched, not knowing what she meant.
Kay continued, “It gives you the upper hand. You need to control the situation.”
“No,” I murmured. “That isn’t it at all.” The notion of trying to exert control over someone else—especially when feelings like love were involved—made my stomach turn. But for a brief moment I wondered, is that what I had been doing? All those times when Grant whispered those words into my ears, when his eyes pleaded for a response, and I gave him nothing in return? Had I been unconsciously trying to create some type of even ground in a situation where I felt completely unsettled?
“Well, if it isn’t your intention, it should be. Don’t be stupid in matters of love, Tess. Once you give your heart away, it’s impossible to retrieve. And one day you’ll discover that you’re destroyed by the loss.”
I wasn’t sure if Kay was speaking about my relationship with Grant or her own relationship. But I tentatively said, “Grant would never destroy me.”
“Yes, he will. You’re naive and you two are being reckless. You need to be careful, Tess.”
The idea of protecting my heart, when it was completely in Grant’s hands, seemed impossible.
Kay looked intensely into my eyes, unsettling me. “Alexander men are not kind, they are not honest, and they do not know how to love.”
“Grant is nothing like his father,” I began to protest.
“Grant may be a boy, but he’s turning into a man. As hard as I try, as much as I love him, I can’t stop him from turning into an Alexander man. My husband is much too powerful for me to stop that trajectory.”
My heart ached for Grant, for the fact that neither of his parents saw the person I did. And for Kay and the fact that she had resigned herself to a life of such misery.
I took a deep breath, trying to stand taller when the entire conversation made me feel so small. “Life is full of surprises, right? Maybe Grant will surprise you, Kay.”
She shook her head and stood to leave. “It is more likely he will surprise you, Tess. Protect your heart.”
She slid a photograph across the kitchen counter. It was Grant, with his arm draped around my shoulders. I had no idea Kay had taken the photograph or how her fancy camera zoomed in without us detecting her presence, I just saw how happy Grant and I were together. I stared at the photo for a moment longer, before slipping it into my back pocket.
I looked at that picture every night, tucking it between the pages of the book I read. By the end of the summer, it was worn from my touch. Until the day Grant left and I tore it apart, knowing that Kay had been right. He did surprise me. He did break my heart.
But someone kept us whole. Someone kept that picture. No matter how many years passed or how hard I worked to rebuild my broken pieces, Grant Alexander’s love was always going to ruin me.