Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Summer 1993
E sme cursed herself for avoiding the bruises for as long as she did.
She’d wanted to pretend life was filled with roses and dreams, that nothing went wrong, and that children remained healthy, happy, vibrant, and alive.
Her father said, The diagnosis would have been the same no matter how long the bruises had been there.
Here Esme was again in the Boston hospital where LeeAnne had once come for the very same treatment twenty years ago. But this time, she was here with her youngest child, Joel—the one whose bruises had stretched along his arms, legs, and stomach for months before she’d made him a doctor’s appointment. She’d thought it was all those sports he played. She’d thought it was all the roughhousing with his best friend, Alex Garland.
Esme thought she was going insane.
Joel was asleep. He looked so tiny, so gray. Esme had brought extra blankets from home because she thought the hospital was far too cold for such sick children, and she’d packed her bag with heaps of books and notepads and crochet projects—none of which she’d touched thus far. None of which she would. Somehow, it felt irresponsible to let herself drift into a book when her child was in so much pain.
He’s not going to die, she told herself. And then she cursed herself for thinking the word “die” at all.
Kids recovered from leukemia all the time. It was the nineties. Things were different.
Esme decided to get a cup of coffee downstairs. Victor wasn’t at the hospital tonight because he had to maintain some normalcy with his clients back in Nantucket. There were bills to pay—far more than before Joel’s diagnosis.
Other parents and siblings were in the hospital cafeteria. They picked through bad macaroni and cheese and drank over-sugared juice. Esme had mistakenly ordered the macaroni and cheese earlier in the week. It had made her sick. Although she’d been eating so rarely lately, it was likely that it wasn’t the fault of the macaroni and simply a matter of her stomach being ill-equipped to handle anything but coffee and water and crackers.
Esme got a Styrofoam cup of coffee and waded into the foyer to watch the weather outside. It wasn’t hard to imagine herself at twenty in this foyer, preparing to leave for the day, only to wake up early for the bakery the following morning and do the same day again. The film Groundhog Day really reminded her of that time of her life. It reminded her of this time, too.
That was when she saw the newspaper on the plastic chair near the front door. VICTOR SUTTON was in big, bold letters. Esme hurried over and unfurled it to read a little article the Boston Chronicle had penned about the “renowned East Coast therapist” and his “newfound comprehension of the human spirit.” When had Victor given that interview? Had she been here at the hospital, keeping vigil with their son while he was out promoting his name and brand?
It wasn’t that Esme didn’t want that for him. It wasn’t that she didn’t want him to have everything.
But Joel was so sick. Joel needed his father.
Esme needed her husband.
Joel got sicker and sicker that year. Because she was off the island so often, her father, Thomas, took full control of the Sutton Book Club, and Esme had other mothers check on Rebecca, Bethany, and Valerie. She could not leave Joel’s side. Nobody could convince her to. Not even for her own mental or physical health. She was staying in a hotel down the road, but she usually slept next to Joel’s bed instead. It was an extra step she hadn’t been able to take during LeeAnne’s treatment. It was something she could afford now as the wife of a successful therapist.
Victor came to the hospital when he could.
That was what Esme told herself. At least he came when he could.
“Hang in there, honey,” Thomas said over the phone one afternoon. “I know how hard it is. But you have to stay strong.”
Esme sniffled and pressed her forehead against the cool of the brick wall. “It’s us, isn’t it? Our genes?”
Thomas was quiet. It was the first time either of them had fully acknowledged it.
“First LeeAnne, now Joel,” Esme said. “It’s not a coincidence.”
Thomas sighed. “There was so much we didn’t know about genetics back then.”
Esme demanded that the rest of her children get tested after that. But Rebecca, Bethany, and Valerie were portraits of health, save for the sorrow stitched into their faces now that their brother was so ill.
Esme told them what she told herself. Joel will get better. This cancer nightmare will end soon.
It was an afternoon in October when flowers came to Joel’s hospital room. Esme was accustomed to receiving flowers, but not from this particular person.
“Bree,” Esme said on the phone when she called her husband’s secretary at the desk of her husband’s office, “these are so thoughtful. Thank you.”
“I’m so glad you got them,” Bree said. “I know how much you like lilies.”
“I’m sure you’ve had to buy me quite a few bouquets over the years,” Esme said although she couldn’t fully remember how long Bree had worked as a secretary for Victor. Four years? Five? Esme couldn’t even fully remember what Bree looked like right now. Younger than them, sure. Blond, maybe. Blue-eyed. Like a little doll. An organized little doll.
“Thank you for holding down the fort for my husband,” Esme said. “We’ve been so distracted this year. But he needs to keep working. And you’ve allowed that to happen.”
“It’s the least I can do,” Bree said. Then she added, “Hang in there. I’m pulling for all of you.”
Esme thought, what a kind-hearted woman.
And for a moment, she didn’t feel quite as alone.
It wasn’t technically Victor’s fault that the world paid more attention to him after his son’s death. Esme reminded herself of this on the good days. It’s better for us all if his career unfolds.
The good days were when she got out of bed, made breakfast for herself and her daughters, and got to the Book Club on time.
But on the bad days, she found her heart darkening toward Victor. She found herself thinking, How dare he become so successful? How dare he leave his family during this time?
But Victor was wanted everywhere. People wanted him to speak about his family, about the struggles of losing a child, and about how that impacted his practice as a family psychologist.
Esme only once told him, “You’re taking all of these speaking gigs because you want to get away from us. It’s too painful for you to be at home with us, so you just take yourself out.”
Victor had slammed the door of his office in her face.
But they both knew how correct Esme was.
The problem was, of course, that Esme felt tremendous pain at home, too. She would have loved to flee, to take speaking gigs in Philadelphia and Boston and Detroit and Chicago and Dallas. She would have loved not to walk past Joel’s bedroom every day. She would have loved not to tell Valerie to do her homework, drive Bethany to mathletes, or take Rebecca to her boyfriend’s house. She would have loved just a moment to run away and cry.
But being a mother didn’t allow for those kinds of breaks.
Much later—long after Victor moved to Providence, Rhode Island, to work at the University of Rhode Island and marry Bree, Esme’s friend asked her, “When did you first realize he was having an affair?”
Esme found it difficult to state the exact day.
There had been signs, of course. There’d been perfume on his shirt and wine stains. There’d been very late nights at the office that Victor couldn’t fully account for. There’d been entire weekends he’d expended his trip to Manhattan or Philadelphia or Los Angeles or Seattle, telling her that something came up professionally. Bree always went with him. Bree was his secretary, after all. She managed his life.
The fact that Victor called Bree “the love of his life” was nothing Esme ever told anyone. It filled her with such a storm of anger, regret, and shame that she couldn’t fully look it in the face. He’d even shared this with his children—Valerie, Bethany, and Rebecca—who’d sobbed and sobbed afterward and begged him to stay home.
But Victor was already out the door.
Esme decided to get the divorce out of the way as quickly as possible. She hired a lawyer, sent the papers, and picked herself up by the bootstraps. She reminded herself that she couldn’t weep in front of her daughters and had to remain strong for them. This didn’t always work. Sometimes she took to her bedroom and cried and cried. But sometimes she made lunch sandwiches, vacuumed the house, and asked Rebecca about her plans for after high school, Valerie about her mathematics test, and Bethany about her boyfriend. Sometimes she was able to slip easily into the role of being a mother.
But after all of her daughters left Nantucket and left her alone in that house where she’d raised them, Esme broke in half and asked herself, What about me? Why did I never live for me?
It was a question so many women never had the time to ask themselves.
Despite the harrowing reason for it, Esme finally had time to pursue what she always desired.
She would attend school. One way or another, she was going to make it.