Chapter 17 Poppy
Poppy
Two years. Two years and two months—but who was counting?
In all that time, the sisters had not exchanged a word.
It was a heartbreak, but what could Sylvia do?
Helen would not apologize. Meanwhile, Sylvia was eighty, and Helen two years older!
Sylvia dreaded lying on her deathbed without seeing Helen—or, even worse, discovering her sister had passed away.
In all this time, Sylvia had nurtured one faint hope—that some higher cause would override their long estrangement.
Some greater need. A flood or hurricane at home.
A crisis, God forbid, in Israel. In the past, Helen and Sylvia had joined forces, or rather, Helen had enlisted Sylvia as donor and foot soldier.
However, even this dream had ended months before.
That fateful day, Sylvia and Lew had been watching The Marriage of Figaro on Great Performances when Sylvia’s phone rang.
“Richard!” she said. “Hello, sweetheart.”
“Mom?” Richard sounded jubilant and nervous.
“Is something wrong?”
“No! Why do you always think something’s wrong?”
“Your voice,” said Sylvia.
“I have a question for you.”
“Yes?”
“How would you like to be a grandma again?”
“Oh!” Sylvia turned startled to Lew.
“We’re expecting in January!”
“You and Heather?”
“Who else?”
“Goodness!” Sylvia didn’t mean to sound so surprised—but really. Richard was nearly fifty, and only just divorced. He and Heather were unmarried, and he had two daughters already. To think of starting a second family! “Do the girls know?”
“They’re excited!”
“And Debra?” Sylvia was still fond of her ex-daughter-in-law.
“She’s very happy!”
Very? thought Sylvia.
“We told her first!”
Onscreen, Count Almaviva tried to seduce Susanna. On the couch, Sylvia tried to imagine a new baby. Now? At this late date? She would have three grandchildren! And then she thought of Helen, who had none.
“Lew, did you hear?” Sylvia asked, although he was sitting right next to her.
“I heard,” Lew said.
“But you just got engaged,” Sylvia told Richard.
“Yes, Mom.”
“Do you have a date?”
“New Year’s Day.”
“A New Year’s wedding!”
“No, that’s the due date,” Richard said. “We’ll plan the wedding for next summer.”
Overhearing this, Lew chuckled.
“Shh,” said Sylvia.
“I realize it’s a surprise,” Richard said.
“A wonderful surprise,” Sylvia declared—but she could not stop thinking, Three for me, and none for Helen.
That was the end. There would be no reconciliation. Not even for Combined Jewish Philanthropies.
When she got off the phone, Sylvia told Lew, “She’ll blame me for this.”
“Who’s blaming you?”
“Helen!”
“How can your sister blame you for another grandchild? You’ve got nothing to do with it,” Lew protested. But he did not understand.
Week after week, Helen’s silence grew.
Lew said, “Silence doesn’t grow. Silence is silence.” He did this sometimes, insisting on semantics. It was his legal background. He said, “You can’t be more silent than you were before.”
Sylvia said, “My sister can.”
“Think of the baby,” Lew advised.
“But that makes it harder.”
“Why?”
“Because it will be so complicated!” Sylvia wasn’t thinking of herself.
On the contrary! She feared for Richard, who was taking on so much.
After all, he had joint custody. He worked all hours, and he had the girls every other weekend.
Lily had tutors, and Sophie had strained a calf muscle dancing.
That meant physical therapy and more driving.
Lew showed Sylvia an article about how to manage worries. You were supposed to set aside a time each day to write them down.
“I’ll think about it,” Sylvia said.
She thought a lot. At night she crept out of bed and studied framed photos on the piano.
How would Richard care for a baby at his age?
And what if Heather had another? Would Richard live to see these children grow up?
Would anyone? They were all too old for this.
And then, inevitably, she thought of Helen and her husband, Charles.
Two grown daughters with no children of their own.
Sylvia felt no superiority—none at all. Only melancholy, as she contemplated that branch of the family ending.
—
An hour a night. At most two hours. That was all the sleep Sylvia was getting—but she did not tell anyone apart from Lew. She would not burden Richard, and certainly she could not confide in Heather, who needed to stay calm.
All Sylvia ever said to Richard was, “You should get married before the birth. If not for your sake, then for the baby.” And all she said to Heather was, “How are you, sweetheart? How are you feeling?” There was nothing else that she could do.
Richard and Heather had decided to keep the baby’s gender secret, so Sylvia could not even go shopping.
“First of all,” Richard told her, “you don’t need to buy stereotypical baby clothes.”
Sylvia protested, “How can I buy everything in mint green?”
“And second of all, you don’t need to buy anything.”
“Why?” Sylvia sensed something in his voice. Just a touch of resignation. “Is it another girl? Do you already have baby clothes?”
“Mom!”
No, of course he wouldn’t have hand-me-downs from Sophie and Lily.
Nobody kept baby clothes after so much time had passed.
Even if she was a girl, this little one would be a different generation.
Meanwhile, Sylvia had no guidelines. She could not buy pink dresses.
Nor could she choose nautical pajamas. She had no theme.
“There is such a thing as unisex clothing,” Richard told her.
“Yellow?” she said. “I don’t like outfits that are neither here nor there.”
“Well, you’re behind the times,” Richard informed her.
“I just want to help,” she pleaded.
However, Richard was too busy to consider how she might contribute.
Sylvia asked, Will there be a brunch after the baby naming?
He told her, We’re taking care of it. She said, What about caterers?
He said, Mom. And so, she was left thinking, What will everybody eat?
Also, her friend’s grandson had a heart defect requiring two surgeries!
So much could go wrong. Sylvia worried like it was her job.
Nine at night until five in the morning.
Then whenever she called with an idea, like Why don’t I take care of the flowers?
or Should I book a hotel for Christmas in case Heather gives birth early?
Richard would say, Mom. Please, I’m in a meeting.
As though she were being difficult, when in fact this baby was arriving at the most difficult time of year. Hotels did book up for the holidays.
Everything is under control, said Richard.
“He sounds so strange,” Sylvia told Lew. “Is he trying to keep me at a distance?”
Lew said, “Probably.”
But why? Sylvia wondered in the night. And why was it that Heather never picked up the phone? She had always been forthcoming in the past. Warm. Sociable. What was going on with her?
Lew said, “If something were wrong, Richard would tell you.”
Sylvia said, “Not at all! He wouldn’t tell me until it’s too late!”
“Too late for what?” Lew said. “You realize that you cannot do anything about anything.”
“Exactly!”
Lew would never understand. Only one person would recognize this anguished feeling, all the advice pent-up inside, and that was Helen.
—
In December, Sylvia started at each buzz of the phone. Lew said she had to calm down—but Heather was planning a home birth. How was that reassuring? What if God forbid something happened and they had to rush to the hospital, but they were too late?
Sylvia suggested this to Richard, and like a faceless bureaucrat he kept intoning, Everything is under control.
“Stop!” Sylvia said, because nothing was. Not if you were having a midwife. Not if you had only just finalized divorce and custody. More than once, Sylvia had seen her son’s life spin out. Exhibit A, the end of his first marriage. B, this unexpected pregnancy.
“How do you know it was unexpected?” said Lew.
“Before their wedding? How can that be?”
Lew said, “People aren’t always so traditional.”
Then Sylvia woke up in the night thinking, What kind of example was Richard setting for the girls? She longed to call Helen and tell her everything.
After tiptoeing to the living room, Sylvia turned on the lights. She picked up her phone, although it was three twenty-three in the morning. She would do it. She would call and leave a message.
But she saw her own phone light up. A text from Richard. Alls well in labor now.
The baby was coming early! December twenty-fourth.
Sylvia rushed back to the bedroom. “Lew. She’s in labor.”
Lew sighed and rolled onto his back.
“They’re having the baby!”
He opened his eyes. “Boy or girl?”
“I don’t know!”
Lew buried his head in the pillow.
“Lew?”
“Tell me when something happens.”
Lew had many virtues, but only during waking hours. Sylvia was the one who had to sit up imagining the baby in distress. How could Heather turn her back on modern medicine? Debra had gone straight to the hospital for Sophie and Lily.
Sylvia texted Richard. Any news?
He didn’t answer.
She sent a message to Helen. Richard is having another child don’t ask. In labor at home. She is 13 years younger.
Helen didn’t answer.
A message came from Richard instead. Hanging in there.