9. Magnus
MAGNUS
My mother has put the cup at the center of the dining table to see how it will look.
It is too small to command the space on its own. She moves a low arrangement of flowers behind it, then turns the engraved side toward the seats where Dulcie and I will sit tomorrow.
“There,” she says.
Cressida stands by the window. “Are we still doing it?”
“Yes.”
“Because I’d prefer not to be humiliated in front of your relatives after being assured everything was settled.”
I look at her. “You won’t be.”
“Dulcie seems to think otherwise.”
I take the cup from the table and examine the engraving. Benedict. A good name, and one attached to a man I knew. My son could do considerably worse than carry it.
“She asked me not to make an announcement,” I say.
My mother stops moving the flowers.
“What kind of announcement?”
“The name. The godmother role. Anything we hadn’t agreed on together.”
Cressida folds her arms. “And what did you say?”
“I said there wouldn’t be one.”
For a moment neither woman speaks.
Then my mother says, “To get her here.”
“Yes.”
I set the cup down where she had it. There is no reason to make this more complicated than it is. Dulcie refused a private decision. She refused a gift in her own sitting room. Both times, she had the advantage of imagining that resistance cost her nothing except an argument with me.
Tomorrow she will have to decide whether she wants to behave that way before the family.
“My aunt will be here,” I say. “The cousins. Eunice. We’ll make it a welcome for the baby. Dulcie won’t want to turn that into a scene.”
Cressida looks at the place cards my mother has stacked beside the flowers.
“You’ll thank me by name?”
“Yes.”
“As his godmother.”
“That’s the point.”
She separates her card from the pile and lays it beside mine. I leave it there. Tomorrow she will have witnesses to her place in my son’s life, and I expect that to quiet the questions for a while. It costs me no more than saying something I have already agreed to in private.
“You sound very certain,” Cressida says.
“I know my wife.”
Dulcie is kind to people who have no claim on her.
She worries about making a waitress feel she has done something wrong.
She thanks delivery drivers by name if she can read their badges.
The instinct is inconvenient when it makes her take strangers’ difficulties home, but tomorrow it will work in my favor.
She will not want everyone at the table embarrassed on her account.
Once the name has been toasted, it will be much harder for her to keep treating it as an open question. The book can stop being a point of contention. We can move on to the practical arrangements before the birth.
My mother gives a small nod. “Eunice will help her remember her manners.”
I am less certain of that. Dulcie has been spending more time in West Roxbury. When she comes home, there is sometimes a steadiness about her that I have not put there.
Still, her mother knows what this marriage has given her. She can hardly want to see it damaged over a name.
“Don’t argue with her beforehand,” I tell them. “Don’t give her something to arrive angry about.”
Cressida lets her arms drop. “And afterward?”
“Afterward she will have heard me say what we’re doing.”
My mother takes the cup away to put it somewhere safe for tomorrow. Cressida waits until she has left the room.
“Is this another thing I get instead of a date?”
I turn toward her. “It’s what you asked for.”
“I asked to be his godmother while I waited. I didn’t offer to wait indefinitely.”
“You’re not waiting indefinitely.”
“Then tell me when.”
“After he’s born, as we discussed.”
“You said we would set the date once you had your heir. He could be here in a few weeks, and you still won’t tell me what you intend to do.”
She is right about what I said. I have not forgotten. I dislike being spoken to as though a promise obliges me to surrender control of the circumstances in which I fulfill it.
“Dulcie is heavily pregnant. I’m not going to begin any of it while she’s behaving like this.”
“Convenient.”
“Careful.”
She looks toward the doorway, then comes closer.
“I agreed to this because you said you knew what you were doing. I have smiled at your wife. I have sat through conversations about her school and her little purchases and how tired she is. I have watched her take the place beside you while everyone tells me to be gracious about it.”
“She doesn’t know why you’re being gracious.”
“Then perhaps someone should tell her.”
“I’ll decide when that conversation happens.”
Cressida’s face closes.
There was a time when I would have disliked that expression enough to offer her something immediately. Now I find myself thinking of Dulcie upstairs last night, the light beneath the guest-room door. Two women demanding that I alter arrangements that were supposed to make everyone’s life easier.
I have no intention of being driven into a decision because both of them have lost patience at once.
“Tomorrow,” I say, “you sit where my mother puts you. You accept the acknowledgment. And you leave the timing to me.”
Cressida touches my sleeve.
“Don’t make me look foolish.”
I look at her hand until she removes it.
“You’ll be introduced as my son’s godmother in front of the family. That isn’t a small thing.”
“No,” she says. “It isn’t.”
My mother returns with a question about the order of the lunch. She proposes saying a few words before we sit down.
I refuse that. Dulcie could leave before the audience has settled. At the table, with the plates cleared and everyone listening, the decision will have the weight it needs.
“After the first course,” I say.
“Would you like me to?—”
“I’ll give the toast.”
My mother smiles.
I take out my phone and confirm the time to Dulcie. She replies almost immediately.
I’ll be ready.
I put the phone away. Tomorrow, with everyone there, she will hear the name from me.