Chapter 7 - The Unscheduled Flight
Tori arrived at my house on the eleventh day, not because the power had come back on, but because she needed her dry cleaning.
I knew this because Eli was now sending me regular dispatches via text, having developed the detached, observational skill of an embedded war correspondent.
*Eli: Mom came back in an Uber. She has two garment bags from the hotel. She asked Dad why the kitchen smelled like woodsmoke. Dad told her it was because wood was burning in the fireplace. She didn't like that.*
*Me: Is your father still there?*
*Eli: He's on the roof. He's clearing the maple branches with Dad's old bow saw. Mom was yelling at him from the driveway telling him he's going to fall and invalidate his disability insurance. He didn't even look down. He just dropped a four-inch limb right next to her front bumper.*
I was sitting in a small trattoria in Lucca, eating a plate of farro soup with rosemary oil. Outside, the great Renaissance walls of the city were lined with plane trees whose leaves were turning the color of old brass.
My phone rang again. It wasn't Caleb.
It was Tori.
I let it ring until it nearly died, then I answered. "Yes, Victoria?"
"Myrna," she said. Her voice was not loud now; it was wound tight, vibrating with that dangerous, icy tension that precedes an injunction. "You need to come home. Today."
"My flight is scheduled for Thursday, Victoria. Today is Monday."
"I don't care what your flight is scheduled for. Your son has lost his mind."
"Has he?" I dipped a piece of crusty bread into the olive oil. "He seemed quite lucid when we spoke on Saturday."
"He told the managing partner that he is taking six weeks of family leave," she said, each word sounding as if it had been dropped from a high shelf onto marble. "Unpaid. Starting immediately. He withdrew his name from the executive committee slate. Do you have any idea what that means for our equity share?"
"I assume it means fewer canapés at the holiday mixer," I said.
"Myrna! This isn't a joke! He is throwing away fifteen years of professional equity! He’s out on the lawn right now with Finn and Eli building some kind of... of shack out of storm debris! Finn hasn't practiced his flashcards in five days! Chloe’s violin teacher called me twice because they missed her Tuesday Zoom lesson!"
"Chloe," I said, "hates the violin. She wants to play the cello. Her fingers are too wide for the small neck; it pinches her knuckles. Charles told Caleb that three years ago, but nobody was listening."
"We bought a four-thousand-dollar instrument!"
"Then you should sell it," I said, "and buy a cello. Or perhaps a good dictionary, so you can look up the definition of the word 'father.'"
"You did this," she said, her voice dropping into a low, venomous register. "You engineered this whole thing. You walked out of here to punish me because I didn't ask you nicely enough to watch the kids."
I set my spoon down. The soup was warm, the rosemary pungent and clean.
"Victoria," I said, "I did not walk out to punish you. That is the fundamental mistake you make about everyone in your life. You believe every action taken by another human being is a reaction to your importance."
She was silent. I could hear the wind through the car window on her end; she was sitting in her Lexus in my driveway, watching my house.
"I went to Italy," I continued, "because my husband is dead, my youth is gone, and I had never seen the Giottos. I went because I am a human being with a soul that requires something more than laundry detergent and polite conversation over dry turkey. If my son discovered, while I was gone, that his life is hollow at the center, that is not an engineering project of mine. That is simply the truth, catching up with him after fifteen years of running."
"I am his wife," she whispered.
"Then I suggest you get out of the car," I said, "take off your four-hundred-dollar shoes, and go help him haul that brush off the lawn. Because if you don't, Victoria, you are going to find that the house you optimized so carefully is entirely empty, and the only thing left on the spreadsheet will be your own name."
I pressed the end button.
May you like
I didn't turn the phone off. I laid it on the table next to the bread basket, reached for my glass of water, and looked out at the walls of Lucca, which had stood against the Pisans, the French, and the centuries, simply by being thick, heavy, and very hard to move.
***
