4
Just inside my front door, the cat stood waiting for us like a parent enforcing a curfew. She meowed crossly as soon as we entered and then she turned away and stalked off toward the kitchen. The implication was that she was merely concerned about her food supply, but I knew better. “You can’t fool me,”
I told her. “You missed us, didn’t you.”
Even so, I followed her. There was still kibble in her bowl, as I’d expected, but since I was in the kitchen anyhow I called, “Max? You want a beer?”
“That’d be good,” he said.
I brought him one, along with a glass of wine for myself. It was true that I had grumbled when I learned he’d be staying at my house, but I did feel kind of relieved now to have someone to rehash the wedding with. I sat down on the couch and kicked my shoes off. Max had already shed his suit coat, and he was settled in the recliner, tipped as far back as he could go. He took a long swallow of beer and said, “Ah, me.”
“Well, we survived,” I said.
“We did, it seems.”
We listened to the crunching sound of kibble in the kitchen.
“I wonder how much I’ll have to see of Sophie in the coming years,” I said.
“Now, now, she’s not so bad.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re off on the Eastern Shore.”
“You have the matrilineal advantage, though,”
he told me.
“The what?”
“It’s a term I heard on the radio this morning. The mother of the wife gets dibs on the family holidays, most often, and she tends to see more of her grandchildren than the mother of the husband does.”
“But you told me Kenneth was going to expect Debbie to spend the holidays with his family.”
“That was before I listened to WYPR,” Max said.
“Ah,”
I said. I took a sip of my wine. “And were you as surprised as I was,”
I asked, “that Sophie didn’t bat an eye at the word ‘ass’ in Elizabeth’s toast?”
“Well, she does live in the modern world,”
Max said. “I doubt it was the first time she’d heard it.”
Then he grinned. “And your mother handled it fine, I noticed.”
“Yes, Mom lives in the modern world too,”
I said. “Even though she doesn’t always seem to.”
I tilted my head back against the back of the couch. “In fact, it was kind of a shock that that toast even happened,”
I said. “That Elizabeth decided to do it, I mean.”
“Oh, well,”
Max said. “They’re a family. Families get over these things.”
“Not always.”
The cat came ambling out of the kitchen. I heard her footsteps even before she sprang onto the couch to settle beside me.
“For a while there,”
I told the ceiling, “I had thought we’d get through the whole wedding with the groom and the maid of honor not speaking.”
“I don’t imagine it would have been the first time,” Max said.
“And did it seem to you that Kenneth got a little teary, there at the end?” I asked.
“Yep. I thought so too.”
“Which doesn’t for one minute mean he’s not guilty, of course.”
I heard a slamming sound, and I lifted my head. Max had just returned his recliner to its fully upright position. “Give it a rest, Gail,”
he told me.
“What?”
“Of course he’s guilty.”
I stared at him.
“Read between the lines,”
he said. “He’s guilty but Debbie forgave him, and now it’s over and done with.”
“So you agree that his food-poisoning story—”
“He made that story up, and Debbie chose to believe it. Or she didn’t believe it, so he broke down and confessed and she forgave him. Or—and here’s the one I’m hoping for—he confessed right off and she forgave him right off, and then the two of them hatched that story together to put a good face on things. Whichever. It’s none of our business.”
“You make it sound so simple,” I said.
“It is simple. And one thing I know for certain is, she’s sorry as hell now she told us about it and she’s hoping we will never bring it up again.”
I thought this over.
“So,”
I said finally, “it seems I’m the only one who still holds Kenneth accountable.”
“Right,”
he said. “Ironic, isn’t it.”
“Ironic?”
I said. “What?”
But all at once, he got very busy. He stood up and took a quick slug of his beer and said, “Well, I guess I’ll turn in now,”
and went to the kitchen with his can. When he came out he said, “Good night,”
and headed straight up the stairs.
“Good night,” I said.
* * *
Ironic?
Because I hadn’t forgiven Kenneth even though Debbie had, I guessed. But more than that: because I of all people hadn’t forgiven him.
I wasn’t the least bit sleepy, but eventually I stood up too and went to pour the last of my wine down the kitchen sink. Then I turned off all the downstairs lights and went to bed.