Nineteen
Nineteen
OCTOBER 26, 2021
The sun is barely rising as I walk down the street to my campaign headquarters. I’ve debated setting up some type of cot in the office since it would save time to sleep there, but it would raise too many questions. My house is a ten-minute walk away. The house where my husband lives. The reality is I’d feel more comfortable sleeping on a temporary cot in a rented office than under the same roof as my husband. And that’s all my fault.
The first time he asked, I told Dean a lie, that I didn’t want children. But that wasn’t the complete truth. Every day since then, I’ve watched my lie snowball into something bigger, so that now it’s impossible for me to unwind who I am and who I’ve pretended to be. I understand why Dean feels like our trust is broken.
I sleep in our guest bedroom; my only interactions with Dean are the dishes we shuffle between the sink and the dishwasher. He must have eaten chicken pot pie for dinner last night. I rinsed his plate after I finished a bowl of popcorn. I wonder if he has seen my mug of chamomile tea this morning. That way he’ll know I came home at some point. He says he’s getting an apartment, but he’ll wait until the election is over to officially move out. It’s a kindness I don’t deserve. When Dean looks at me, I search for the love and pride that used to fill his eyes, but it’s gone, replaced with resentment and disgust.
The streets of downtown Charlottesville are quiet in these early morning hours. It’s a few minutes out of my way, but I make a detour through the pedestrian mall, peering into the dark shop windows decorated with brown craft paper and gourds and dried pampas grass. I think for a minute about the hydrangeas in my laundry room, hanging upside down to preserve the green and rust shades for winter. I’ll use them for our Thanksgiving table, maybe adding in some orange winterberries.
I stop walking and close my eyes, trying to calm my breathing from the streak of panic that overtakes my body. I’m going to be alone at Thanksgiving. Dean will be gone. Maybe I’ll be getting ready to take office or maybe I’ll be trying to wipe away the taint from a giant political scandal. Either way, I’ll be sitting by myself because I was too much of a coward to stand in front of my husband and tell him the truth. That I am my worst choices.
I try to steady my breath as I finish walking to the campaign headquarters. The lights are off and the building is dark. This is usually my favorite time of day. It is the peaceful hour before the chaos of when my staff appears. For whatever reason, I can’t make myself go inside. I linger outside, debating turning around, but the idea of going home feels even worse. I take a step backward and collide with a familiar body.
“Grant? What are you doing here?” I try to create distance between us even though the feel of his firm chest lingers on my palms.
Grant isn’t dressed in his usual navy suit, or even his “casual” look of khakis and a button-down, fleece vest optional. This morning, he has on a pair of worn jeans, the denim a light blue from years of washing. His faded black Princeton sweatshirt is frayed at the sleeves. His hair is mussed and his eyes are darting around anxiously.
“Can you come with me?” Grant asks. “My car is parked down the street.”
“Are you crazy? I’m not going anywhere with you. We shouldn’t even be seen together.”
“I know. Tess, I’ve asked nothing of you in the last twenty-five years. I need you now. Please come with me.”
I shake my head and turn to leave. As I glance back over my shoulder, I see Grant standing still. Maybe it’s the clothes he’s wearing, but all of a sudden I realize that the man I’m running against is gone. Standing in front of me is the boy I knew. I’m still so angry at him for leaving me alone at seventeen. He never showed me the trust or support I needed. But after decades of reflection, I know that the person I’m the angriest with is myself. Because when I see a glimpse of the boy I knew, I’m filled with guilt for my role in the pain I know he still feels.
It’s the guilt that makes me turn around toward him.
We are silent on the short walk to his car. It’s not until I’ve slipped into the front seat, feeling the buttery tan leather with my hands, that I ask, “Where are we going?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he looks into my eyes for too long and starts driving. Wherever we are going, Grant doesn’t need directions. He cruises through the streets of Charlottesville with ease, getting on the highway heading north. Minutes of silence pass, my patience waning and my anxiety rising.
The mountain range appears in the distance, amber and rust trees filling the skyline. “Where are we going, Grant?” I ask again.
“You know where we’re going,” he answers somberly.
“Stop the car. I’m not going back to your mother’s house with you.”
“We have to go. I need answers.”
“Answers to what?” I question.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said. About the photograph my mother took. I need to know more.”
I swallow nervously. I should have called Grant and confessed that it was Dean who found the picture in my mother’s cookbook, but I didn’t want to discuss everything that followed that revelation. I’m such a coward, hiding the truth from everyone I’ve ever loved. I take a deep breath, trying to find the courage to start being honest with Grant.
“I know who sent my campaign manager the picture,” I admit.
Grant’s eyes dart from the road to my face. “Who?” he asks.
“Dean. He found it in my mother’s things. I threw the picture away, but my mother must have decided it needed to be kept.”
Grant is quiet, and I wonder what he is thinking. I look out the window, remembering so many of the hills we are driving past. Finally, he says, “I guess the upside is that our secret is safe. There isn’t some stranger that knows about our past.”
“I guess,” I mumble.
“Can I ask about you and Dean?” Grant says gently.
“Dean left me,” I blurt out. I know this isn’t information I should admit to my opponent, but in this moment, the person sitting next to me is just Grant and he understands the consequences of our mistakes. “I hid too much. Some people need the truth, no matter the pain it causes.”
“I’m sorry, Tess.”
“I keep making the wrong choices,” I blurt. “I lose the people I love because I’m afraid,” I say too quickly.
Grant swallows, and the reality of my statement takes over. “We both hurt people we loved,” he says. He continues driving and we sit in silence as rolling hills fill the landscape.
“I’m sorry about Dean and the photo, but I still have more questions,” Grant finally says. “I want to know why my mother took the picture. I want to know how she really felt about me that summer.”
“Grant, your father said unforgivable things the morning your mother died. You cannot believe him. I know your mother loved you.”
Grant’s voice cracks as he says, “Except I’ve lived my whole life wondering why they didn’t love me. Wondering if I somehow caused my mother’s death. I haven’t been back to that house more than a few times since she died. I need to go back now.”
Even after all these years, I feel so much guilt knowing Grant dealt with this pain alone. “Then we’ll go,” I say, because he needs someone now. He needs me now. “We’ll see what we find.”
Grant nods. He is quiet as he moves his jaw back and forth. I don’t know him anymore—he’s practically a stranger, but I know every thought bouncing in his brain at this moment. Grant never understood his mother’s death. He’s likely spent his life wondering what happened in her final days, in her final hours, and this bit of information feels like one missing piece of the puzzle. There’s more I need to tell Grant, but not when he’s searching for answers about his mother.
I send Mara a text, letting her know that I need the morning off for a doctor’s appointment.
Mara quickly replies: It’s not on your schedule.
I roll my eyes because even before the sun has risen, Mara has memorized the schedule for the day. I reply:
I didn’t know mammograms needed to be on the campaign schedule.
They should be. We can get a photographer over there and plug this into our women’s health initiative.
Absolutely not. Let me have my boobs squeezed in peace. I will be in the office this afternoon.
You have other events this morning. Tess, we need to communicate better.
Agreed. We’ll talk this afternoon.
I turn off my phone before Mara can send another message. There are a few people ahead of her in line to criticize my communication abilities.
Grant and I are silent for the rest of the drive. I find myself staring at the mountains, my mind replaying a movie of the last two decades and wondering if there could have been a different ending. When I hear the wheels roll over the pea gravel in his mother’s driveway, the mild anxiety racing through my veins escalates. All I can think is that this is the place where I first met Grant. This is the place I promised myself I would never return. And here I am.
I look around at the meticulously maintained rows of boxwood hedges, the light blue door offset by the creamy brick-and-stone exterior. Grant parks the car and steps outside, stretching his back and arms as he moves. A part of me wants to stay inside the car. Being back in this place is harder than I’d imagined, but I walk to Grant’s side anyway.
“Why did you keep it?” I ask as we both stare at the front door.
“My father wanted to sell, but it was my mother’s family house. I made him hold on to it until I could buy it from him. It meant too much to her.”
“I bet your sons love it,” I say without thinking.
Grant surveys the house and property before he closes his eyes briefly. “They probably would, but I’ve never brought them here. There are too many painful memories.” He stares at me in a way that suggests maybe he means me too.
We both hesitate before walking inside, knowing that there is an invisible line into the past we will cross once we open the door. “What do you need from me, Grant? Being here feels like a mistake.”
Grant kicks at the gravel driveway as he speaks. “No one in my life knows about that morning. I want to hate you, but I can’t, because you’re the only person who understands. Having you here makes me feel less alone.”
His words sting. There is so much anger between us, but I know our circumstances muddle those feelings.
Grant walks to the front door, but I stop him. I timidly ask, “Can we go around to the back?”
Grant nods.
I expect to see an overgrown tangle of bushes and vines, or perhaps a sea of grass that could be easily maintained. Instead, I find the gardens just as I remembered them. It’s fall, so many of the roses have already had their last bloom of the season, but the weather has been mild, so there are still plenty of flowers. The salvia provides streaks of purple against the green of the hydrangeas. The maples flanking each side of the garden have doubled in size, creating sweeping branches of bright red.
I have no idea how much money it must take to maintain a garden like this without anyone around to enjoy it. But clearly Grant thought the investment was worth it.
After staring for too long, we finally make our way inside the house, using the back door that was my usual entrance to the grand home. There are covers over much of the furniture, but not a trace of dust on any surface. No one has stayed here in years, but Grant has paid to make sure it’s ready in case someone changes their mind.
“What are you looking for?” I ask.
Grant doesn’t answer. He’s walking through the rooms, likely taking in the life history that childhood homes preserve. He stares at framed photos, traces his hand over the polished wooden banister.
Finally, he says, “She used to keep her camera bag in her closet. The picture kicked this off. That’s where I want to start.”
He walks upstairs and I follow.
I wonder what he’s thinking as we walk into Kay’s room, a place that must be difficult for him to see. Her closet seems untouched, a time capsule of the mid-nineties. Stepping inside the space transports me back to when I was a teenager who longed for a magnetic woman’s life.
Grant walks to the corner shelves and easily locates the camera bag. He looks inside and pulls out the camera. I don’t see anything other than extra lenses. He opens the back of the camera, but it’s empty. I suppose he was hoping for an undeveloped roll of film, a hidden clue that would answer his questions.
“She took so many pictures that summer,” Grant says.
“I know. She said it was the best year for her garden. Even after all these years, I’ve never seen a garden as beautiful as your mother’s.”
He smiles. “She was happy outside, with you. Sometimes, when I try to remember those final weeks of her life, I see her with you. That summer, I’d look out my bedroom window and find the two of you talking, working side by side, and she was always smiling. I’ve got a lot of bad memories, so it’s nice to have that good one.”
I swallow as I step closer to Grant, unsettled by the way his body tenses when he talks about the past. “Some mornings she’d meet me on my walk over to your house. It seemed like we were the only two people awake. She told me that she liked to photograph the gardens at sunrise because that’s when they were the most beautiful. I remember thinking the same thing about her. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I wanted to be just like her.”
I find myself walking over to Kay’s vanity, sitting on the silky stool where she applied her makeup.
“She was going to give me lessons,” I say. “I never did figure out how to apply any of this stuff.” I pull open the top drawer and lightly touch the tubes and powders inside. “I hate wearing it for the campaign.”
“You never needed makeup, Tess. Your face has always been perfect.” Grant says it like he’s reciting directions, but the compliment makes me feel like a teenager again.
“I’ve never felt perfect,” I say, although that summer, Grant and Kay made me feel like it was a possibility. Ever since then, I’ve chased the sense of belonging that slipped away.
I begin rummaging through the open drawer, thankful for something to occupy my hands.
I look up and Grant is staring at me. I realize that I shouldn’t be touching his mother’s things. Maybe he’s upset. I try to remember where everything was located before my nervous hands made a mess. As I replace a tube of lipstick, the wooden divider in the drawer loosens. I try to push it back into place but knock it looser in the process.
“I’m sorry. I made a mess of this,” I say, fumbling with the drawer’s contents.
“Tess, I don’t care about the drawer. Look at me.”
Except I can’t. I can’t look at Grant. Because I see something hidden in Kay’s drawer. Tucked underneath the felt protector holding her eyeshadows, there is a corner of a picture.
“Grant, there’s something in here. Your mother hid something. Look.” I stand up and point to the corner of the drawer.
He finally moves toward the vanity and sits awkwardly on the tiny stool. He lifts out the felt organizer and we both gasp.
Hidden in Kay’s desk are pictures of Richard. Dozens of shots of Richard Alexander, with his arms around Madeline Milton, kissing.
“Madeline and my father?” Grant murmurs. “They were having an affair?” Grant’s face seems divided between realization and shock. “Madeline Milton,” he murmurs. “She was my mother’s best friend. She stood beside me at the funeral, sent cards every Christmas and sterling-silver rattles when the twins were born. My mother grew up with Madeline. They always said they were more like sisters than friends.”
I reach out and grab Grant’s hand. All these years he’s lived with the guilt that he caused his mother’s death. A twisted manipulation by a father more focused on self-preservation than love. And Kay. I can only imagine how betrayed she felt by the two people who were supposed to love her the most.
Grant lifts up the photograph and I watch his face as pieces fall into place. Richard blamed Kay’s death on Grant, when all along, Richard knew that his affair was likely what pushed her over the edge.
Then I remember, the fight I witnessed between Richard and Kay. Kay’s drinking that seemed to escalate with each passing day. The perfect storm that resulted in a fragile woman’s end.
“It was your father, Grant. The abuse, the affair. That’s why she was drinking so much. He caused her pain.”
Grant quickly turns toward me. “You knew about the abuse?”
I nod. “I saw him. I saw him grab your mother.” I try to mask the regret in my voice, but it’s impossible because I’ve often wondered why I never told Grant. I’ve wondered if it would have made a difference.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” His voice cracks at every word.
“I was going to, but then—”
“Then everything changed,” Grant finishes.
“Yes,” I say, unable to trust what I might confess next.
He runs his hand through his hair. It’s a movement I saw him do dozens of times that summer. His hair stands up in the same disarray. But there are subtle differences between the boy he once was and the man standing in front of me—flecks of gray in hair that is now closely cropped, lines of worry around once-carefree eyes, darker stubble dotting his jawline. I realize I’m staring too closely and look downward at the floor.
“My father and I were never on good terms.” Grant seems to recognize the absurdity of his understatement, because his voice teeters on frantic. “But that summer he broke me.”
Grant stands up and walks over to the window. “I never wanted to see him again. I cut him out of my life. We didn’t speak until he showed up at my college graduation. For four years, our only communications were through bank transfers.” It’s clear his anger is still very raw, and I fear not all of it is directed at his father.
Decades ago, I would have tried to comfort Grant. But I know that there’s no comfort I can provide for this pain.
He continues, “Eventually, it was too exhausting to stay that mad. We’ve had periods of civility, periods of complete silence, but we never talk about that summer. We never talk about my mother. I’ve always wondered what happened that night,” he says. “Now I know.”
Grant shakes his head. “I expect nothing of him, but I thought more of Madeline. She’d known my mother their entire lives.”
I speak softly. “My mother always said Madeline Milton had two priorities: be the best and make sure everyone knows she’s the best. It was never enough that my mom’s food was delicious if it also wasn’t the most talked-about food. She wasn’t an easy person to work for. I know that. But how she went from a difficult, vain person to someone who betrayed her best friend, I have no idea.”
“I wish I had known about the affair. Maybe I could have stopped him? Or confronted him? Maybe if I had finally stood up to him my mother wouldn’t have felt so alone.” Grant’s eyes are pleading, and I realize this is the conversation that he can’t have with anyone else.
“You were a kid, Grant. That wasn’t your responsibility.” I can’t stop myself from walking toward him, reaching for his hand in comfort.
“I didn’t make things easy for her that summer.”
“She was sad that summer, but that wasn’t your fault. The more your father was around, the more she fell apart.”
His hand slips out of mine. I hear his fears surface as he says, “Or the more time she spent with me, the sadder she got. I may not have been the reason she drank so much, but she did it knowing I was in the house. Knowing I would find her.”
I shake my head. “This is what I remember about your mother. I remember early dinners on the back porch. You made her laugh so loudly that I was worried they’d hear us over at the Milton property. I remember catching her staring at you with so much pride and joy in her eyes. I remember her teasing you about your messy room and your inability to pull a weed. Most of all, I remember the big smile on her face whenever she was with you.”
I wish there was more I could say to reassure Grant without having to admit what I remembered most from that summer was how much I loved him.
He stares at me, short inhales making his breath jagged.
I continue, “We can’t know what went on between your mother and father, but I know for sure that you weren’t the person who made her sad. That was him.”
He nods, but I can tell doubts are still swirling in his mind. My voice is firm and clear as I say, “You have zero responsibility for her death. You can’t live another second of your life thinking that, Grant.”
“All I do is think about that summer. Maybe if I’d done things differently, I could have changed her mind.”
“You can’t change someone’s mind, Grant.”
“I know. You taught me that lesson, Tess.”