Chapter 9 Tanglewood
Tanglewood
There had been a time the sisters picnicked on the lawn.
Sylvia with her first husband, Helen with her family, Jeanne with hers.
This was years and years ago when Sylvia wore cat-eye glasses.
She had the pictures, now faded—her red dress changed to orange, the color of tomato soup.
Grass bleached white, and all the children playing together.
In the foreground, Pam and Wendy in peasant blouses, behind them Steve with his book, and frowning Dan, and Richard, Sylvia’s son.
Now the cousins had marriages and mortgages, children, and troubles of their own.
If they did come back to Tanglewood, it wasn’t all at once, or often.
Did anyone remember those bright days, with Beethoven like distant thunder?
Sylvia still drove out each summer with her third husband, Lew, but they did not picnic. The sun was too much, so they bought tickets for the Music Shed.
“It’s lonely,” Sylvia told Richard, now a heavyset attorney. They were sitting on the porch in twilight, and the trees were lovely, and there were roses, but she said, “Everybody’s gone.”
“I’m here,” Richard said. “The girls are here.”
“For three and a half days!” Following their complicated custody arrangement, Debra brought the girls on Sunday and stayed with them till Wednesday. Richard took the rest of the week.
Slowly, Richard said, “I think it’s fair.”
“I think it’s terrible.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
She was about to speak again when Lew came out with drinks and cut her off. “Let’s enjoy everyone who’s here.”
Sylvia did not persist, but she looked mournfully at Richard all the same. She worried for her granddaughters. Maybe this split week was fair, but how could it be good? And who was her son texting? “Richard?”
When he looked up, a smile lingered on his face, and she was sure that he was seeing someone new.
Then Sylvia felt for Debra, who was very much alone—and helpful!
While visiting, Debra did what never occurred to Richard.
She bought groceries and harvested tomatoes with Lew.
She made sure the girls cleared the table and washed dishes, insisted they unpack and put their clothes away.
Sylvia asked her son, “Who were you talking to?”
Richard pocketed his phone. As a kid, he had wondered when his mother’s scrutiny would stop. When he went to college? When he married? When he became a father? When he made partner? He turned to his stepfather. “I’ll always be an only child.”
“And I’ll always be your only mother,” Sylvia said.
—
Admittedly, Richard was an anxious parent too. He hovered, but his children really were children. Sophie was fifteen, Lily just twelve.
“Dad.” He heard Lily calling when he walked inside.
He climbed the stairs to the girls’ room under the eaves. “What is it?”
“I can’t sleep.”
“Because it’s still light out?” He sat on the edge of her bed.
“Because I miss Mom.”
He looked at Lily’s small face, her fine blond hair spread over the pillow. “You’ll see her Sunday.”
“I know, but.”
“Go to sleep,” Sophie intoned from her bed opposite.
“We’ll have pancakes tomorrow,” Richard promised Lily.
“Mom made pancakes yesterday.”
“Oh.”
“Dad?” Lily said.
“Stop talking.” Sophie flipped over and covered her head with her pillow.
“You stop talking,” Lily snapped.
“Don’t speak that way to your sister,” Richard told both of them. Then he thumped downstairs and walked out to the garden where he chewed gum and paced under the trees because bickering upset him, and he was guilty and exhausted—all of the above.
—
“These should be fluffy,” Sylvia observed the next morning when Richard’s pancakes fell flat—or flatter than they should have been.
“There’s no buttermilk.” Richard frowned at the stove.
“It’s all right,” said Sylvia. “I don’t eat pancakes anymore.”
“What do you mean, you don’t eat them?”
“Well, Lew can’t.”
“I can, although I shouldn’t,” Lew said. “And sometimes I do.”
Sylvia laughed at that, and Lew seemed pleased, but Richard remained glum.
At the table, the girls slouched, absorbed by their phones. “Stop it,” Richard told them. “You know the rule.” And he thought of course Debra would take the first half of the week when the girls were still excited to be out of school.
He suggested hiking, but his daughters didn’t want to go.
He said, What about glassblowing, and Sophie said, We did that.
Sylvia showed Richard the girls’ lumpen paperweights.
And so, everybody sat inside and stared at screens—except for Lew, who read The Wall Street Journal since he had canceled The New York Times to protest its coverage of Israel.
The house was stuffy, and the only conversation was what to have for lunch—until Lily piped up from the living room. “Who’s that?”
“Who’s what?” said Lew.
“That van.”
“Delivery?” Lew asked.
“Were you expecting someone, Mom?” Richard stood at the window and saw a young woman with a lanky young man. Suddenly he realized the woman was his cousin. “Phoebe!”
Sylvia threw the door open. “What a lovely surprise.”
“Welcome, welcome,” Lew said, as the girls crowded behind.
“I’m sorry we didn’t warn you. We just wanted to say hi,” said Phoebe. “This is my boyfriend, Wyatt.”
“Come in! Have a drink!” said Lew. “Come cool down.”
“Have lunch with us.” Sylvia ushered them in.
“Wow, you guys grew!” Phoebe told the girls, who gazed at her in awe. Phoebe’s arms were bare and freckled. Blond hair cascaded down her back. As for Wyatt, he was so tall, he seemed to touch the ceiling.
“One thing,” Wyatt said. “Could we bring in our instruments? It’s too hot to leave them in the van.”
“Of course, of course,” said Lew.
In a moment Wyatt was carrying in Phoebe’s violin and his cello, almost an extra person. Phoebe was explaining all the patches and stickers on the cases. Yosemite. San Francisco.
“Did you drive the whole way?” asked Lily.
“Yeah, we drove cross-country and back—but we stopped a lot.”
“That’s so cool,” said Sophie. “Where did you stay?”
“I hope you’ll stay with us tonight,” said Sylvia.
Lily volunteered, “You can have the room next to ours.”
Suddenly the family threw off its lethargy. The girls ushered Wyatt and Phoebe upstairs. Sylvia started making chicken salad and sent Lew to town for apples. “Cake?” he asked, hopefully.
“We’ll see.” They all felt it, like sudden rain, the surprise and the relief, the romance of youth.
—
“This is your room,” Lily told the newcomers. “Don’t bump your head. This is your closet. Look. It’s Narnia.” She pushed back old coats and garment bags so they could see the closet extended all the way under the eaves.
“This is the bathroom. These are for you.” Lily opened the linen closet in the hall and showed off stacks of towels.
Phoebe and Wyatt glanced at each other. Everything was so rich and perfect.
There were skylights. “And look,” said Lily.
On top of the bureau stood three antique doll beds, one wood, one brass, one carved four-poster.
No dolls slept in them, but each bed had a tiny quilt.
“They must be super old,” said Wyatt.
Lily said, “There’s a dollhouse in our room from 1880.”
“I want to see that,” Wyatt said.
Phoebe promised, “After we clean up and change.”
And so, Sophie and Lily backed away and waited in their room next door. They lay on their beds and listened to the shower running.
Then, after a moment, Lily knelt in front of the dollhouse, which stood in the gable, and straightened the kitchen, setting out four tiny plates and cups of speckleware.
“What are you doing?” Sophie asked, and Lily couldn’t really say.
She was too old; she hadn’t played with the house in years, but she wanted to see the look on Wyatt’s face; to watch him pick up the pennies which fit perfectly on each burner of the stove—since, after all, she’d put them there.
Downstairs, in the real kitchen, Sylvia opened her green notebook of recipes copied from her mother, Lillian, who served napoleons, Sacher and Linzer tortes, rugelach that put bakeries to shame.
Sylvia was nowhere near as good; she had a knack, but she was impatient.
She threw things together. She knew all this because her mother had told her.
Lillian had been prophetic, almost biblically insightful.
She had blessed and cursed in equal measure.
You have talent, she told Sylvia, but you will not cultivate it.
You will never make good mandelbrot. How had she known?
Sylvia could not manage sticky dough—or sticky situations.
When Sylvia was just a girl, Lillian had predicted, You will be a nervous mother.
And so, it came to pass. Sylvia feared for Richard all his days and worried even more about her granddaughters.
But Phoebe and Wyatt were delightful. She could feed and entertain and show them the laundry room without considering their future.
“Whoa!” said Wyatt.
“A built-in drying rack!” said Phoebe.
The simplest things amazed them. Central air! Running water! The washing machine hummed with their clothes.
Sylvia sliced apples, mixed batter, sprinkled brown sugar and cinnamon, and slid her Bundt pan into the oven. She waited and then, it happened every time, the scent filled the house. All through lunch, the family was conscious of the cake baking.
Silence, as everyone ate apple cake with its crisp topping and its luscious crumb. Lew, Sylvia, and Richard refrained from taking seconds, but the girls indulged, and so did Phoebe, who closed her eyes, and Wyatt, who said oh my God wow. Sylvia loved their innocence and hunger.
When lunch was over, the girls did not drift away. Phoebe and Wyatt started clearing plates, and Sylvia said, “No. You’re guests!”
Lew said, “Play for us, instead.”