The Half of It, page 29
Helen takes a beat to try to get herself under control, because the next thing she needs to say is the most important part. “It has never been better than this for me. And if this is what I get, I have no complaints.”
He shakes his head, as if willing all this not to be true. “Helen . . .”
“I love you, Cal.” It’s both a great relief and a terrible loss to say these words, finally, to him. She feels her throat going tight, but she has to finish.
“I have always loved you even when I hated you. I didn’t know it until I saw you again, and I’m really glad I know it now, because I can make peace with that. I can accept it for what it is—love that’s never going to be allowed to fully grow. It’ll just stay a teenager. But I’m not a teenager anymore. If I ever have romantic love again, it has to be grown-up love.”
“You deserve it.” Regret stains his features. “I want that for you.”
“I know.” She nods. “I know you do.”
“Can I . . . Would it be okay if . . . I just want to give you a hug. Would that be . . . ?”
It will only make it harder to feel Cal’s arms around her again after all these years, but she can’t seem to stop herself from stepping forward, into the warmth of his body. To let herself be his, just for a moment. He holds her gently, and she feels uniquely precious to this man, whom she’s loved for so long—and will hopefully never see again.
Then she steps back, and he lets her go. She goes into the house and sits on the couch. He’s still out there. She can feel him nearby, and she wonders if she’ll have this excruciating awareness of his nearness for the rest of her life. If they happen to be in different sections of the same store, or walking down trails in the same woods, will she feel him as she does now?
Finally she hears the boards creak on the steps, and she knows he’s gone.
Chapter 43
2021
“I ended it with Cal,” Helen says the next morning, before Barb can scurry off to work or an emergency spa day or Mars.
“Oh, Mom.” Barb drops her purse and puts her arms around Helen. “I’m so sorry, but I’m so relieved! It was never going to work, with the wife and all.” The hug continues for a while, and Helen doesn’t let go because of the no-ending-the-hug-first policy she has with her kids. But then she starts to realize Barb is following the same policy this time.
“I’m okay,” she whispers and pats Barb on the shoulder.
“You guys were so in love,” says Barb.
Helen untangles from the hug to look at Barb. “Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?”
“You kept insisting it was only friendship, and I didn’t know how to respond to that.”
“It was only friendship.”
Barb rolls her eyes. “Yeah, okay. You’re doing it again.”
“Barbara Annabella Spencer. Nothing happened.” Helen cannot abide the thought of her daughter thinking she participated in adultery.
“Jesus, Mom, everything happened! You were in love, and he was crazy about you! I have never seen you that happy before! Everything important happened!”
Helen didn’t cry all night. She didn’t sleep much, of course, but she was comforted by the fact that she had done the right thing—for everyone in this little drama—but mostly for herself. She had faced the unsustainability of her relationship with Cal, and no one even had to tell her to. She congratulated herself on not drifting along with a man who didn’t fit. She was awake and in charge and demanding more for herself, which she should have done a long time ago.
But now she bursts into tears. Barb is right. Everything important did happen. Her children got to see her completely happy and adored for the first time in their lives, and now it’s over. Helen puts her hands to her face and sobs. She hears Lana’s little voice from the floor, where she’s been sitting and chewing on a board book. “Nonna!”
Barb picks her up. “It’s okay, sweetie. Nonna’s just sad. Sometimes the wheels on the bus don’t take you where you need to go, and you have to sit by the side of the road for a while until another bus comes along. Or call an Uber.”
A snort of laughter comes out of Helen, and she looks through her wet fingers at them.
“Know what?” Barb says suddenly to Lana. “Mama’s going to play hooky! And we’re going to go have fun!”
Helen wipes her face on her sleeve. “You don’t have to do that. I’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that. And while you’re pretending to be brave, poor me, I’ll be carrying around all that sadness for you. So I am definitely calling in sick.”
They go into Boston to the Museum of Fine Arts. “You need a dose of beauty,” Barb says. And she’s right. There is something relentlessly uplifting about being surrounded by masterful works of art, no matter how bereft and loveless you feel.
At one point, Barb goes to the ladies’ room to change Lana’s diaper, and Helen wanders into the Ancient Egypt exhibit, full of wondrously well-preserved artifacts. There is an almost life-size statue of a man and woman carved in smooth black stone. king menkaura and queen, 2490–2472 b.c., the description says. He stands tall and broad shouldered, left foot advancing confidently forward. His unnamed queen is by his side, one arm around his waist, the other on his forearm, supporting him. Loving him.
Helen doesn’t want to be anyone’s nameless girlfriend, not even Cal Crosby’s. But she wouldn’t mind being part of a pair as sturdy and long-standing as these two. Maybe someday she’ll have that. Maybe not. She thinks about what she said to Cal: “If this is what I get . . .”
Well, apparently this is what she gets, isn’t it? A day at an art museum with her daughter and her granddaughter. Two months ago, before she bumped into Cal fucking Crosby, she would have reveled in the chance to be with her two favorite females surrounded by all this history and culture and creativity.
She feels as if she’s carrying around two people inside her—the grateful lucky one and the miserable broken one—and they tag team back and forth. Look at this amazing sculpture that someone poured their soul into, and here I am admiring it thousands of years later! And then, I wish I could share this with Cal, but I can’t, and I never will, and I will die without ever admiring art with someone I love as much as him . . .
She’s not used to feeling so much, she realizes. Such highs and lows, up and down and around and around. She wishes she could take her emotions off like a pair of dirty socks and throw them in the wash.
They get back to the house late in the afternoon with Lana conked out in the back of the car. Barb is carrying her upstairs to her crib when Cormac comes in.
“Hey, just the financial genius I wanted to talk to!” he says to Helen.
“Uh-oh. Is there a crisis?”
“No, no, it’s more of a hypothetical.”
Barb comes back down the stairs and gives her husband a kiss. “Hey, pie guy. Who’s watching the store?”
“Well, funny you should bring that up. I’ve been thinking about what Cal said about hiring a manager—” He stops. “What.”
Helen looks over at Barb, who is now watching her intently.
“What’s going on?” says Cormac. “Is this some sort of mother-daughter mind meld that I’m not supposed to know about?”
Barb sighs. “Mom gave Cal the boot.”
Cormac looks alarmed. “Oh. Wow. Helen, that’s . . . Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Did he . . . ? I mean, if he needs a beating, I am completely prepared to kick his ass.”
Helen smiles and wonders if her sweet, affable son-in-law has ever hit anyone in his entire life. “At the moment I’m going the pacifist route,” she says, “but if I have need of your knuckle-breaking services in the future, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
“Good. Do that. I’m on standby. Meanwhile, can I make you some toast or something?”
“Babe,” says Barb. “She’s heartbroken. It’s not really a carbo-loading situation.”
Helen was planning to head home and possibly cry in the shower, but here’s Cormac, so anxious to help. “Cup of tea?” she says.
“On it.”
She ends up staying for dinner, even though Barb is right, Helen doesn’t have much of an appetite. And when she gets home, she does head straight for the shower for a good shoulder-shaking cry. But once she’s all sobbed out and in her jammies, she feels sad but not quite so much as if she’s fallen down the shaft of an abandoned mine in Siberia.
It’s going to be like this, she tells herself. Up and down. Around and around.
At least there are no boxes to build.
“Hey, I’ve been thinking about you!” says Francie on Thursday night. “How was Thanksgiving?”
“We took the nickel tour of hell for a while but then it was pretty great. How was yours?”
“We went to Vernon’s daughter’s in New Hampshire. She’s a terrible cook—like Popsicles-for-dessert-level bad. But she’s a sweet kid, and we love her, so it was fine. Now let’s get back to that nickel tour of hell—does it involve our favorite redhead?”
“Maybe I should start with the visit his wife paid me.”
“No freaking way!”
“Yeah, you may want to pop popcorn for this episode.”
“Oh, crap, Hellie. I’ve got a class starting up in the pottery building in like fifteen minutes. But I’m dying to hear everything. How late can I call you back?”
“Actually . . . I was thinking about maybe coming up this weekend?”
“Shoot, I’m swamped. In fact, I’m desperate to hire more staff. People got all artsy during the pandemic and business is booming.”
“Could I . . . ? I mean, it’s probably beyond my skill level—you know I don’t have a creative hair on my head—but if there’s anything I can do to help? I could clean out the barn or whatever you need.”
“Wow. If Helen Iannucci is offering to shovel shit, something is very much up.”
“Kinda.”
“Is it bad?”
“Not bad. Just very . . .” Helen sighs.
“Come.”
“Are you sure?”
“You need me.”
“I do.”
“You also need nose plugs. My horses have very healthy digestive tracts.”
Friday feels like the longest day of Helen’s life.
Oh, for godsake, stop being such a drama queen! she chides herself. During the quarter century when she was herding three headstrong children mostly by herself, there were plenty of longer days. But none of them felt quite so . . . pointless.
Barb doesn’t work on Fridays, and she invited Helen to hang out with her and Lana, but Helen has always felt it’s important for Barb to have alone time with her daughter. Besides, Helen has her own work to do managing the confectionery finances. She usually takes that little back table with her laptop, but she’s not ready to return to the scene of the musically induced crime. So she sits at her dining room table, distracted by everything other than what she’s supposed to be concentrating on. The sound of the boiler cycling on and off. The leaves blowing around the yard. That weed-pulling neighbor walking by.
It’s just going to go on like this, she thinks. Forever.
The plan is for Helen to arrive at Seven Meadows Farm for lunch on Saturday, so Francie gets some time with her. But when she wakes up that morning, it’s hard to get out of bed. The thought of driving all the way up there by herself is exhausting. Only three weeks before she made the trip with Cal, and it was pure fun. Now it feels like a forced march with a bag of rocks.
Maybe I should just stay here. Francie’s got enough to do. She doesn’t need a pathetic friend moping around. The car should probably have an oil change before any more long trips. The yard needs raking. There are chores to do. Not that Helen plans to do any of them.
She’s about to roll over when there’s a knock on the door.
Go away.
But no one knocks on her door unless it’s a delivery, and she hasn’t ordered anything.
Helen hops out of bed, tugs on the jeans and sweatshirt she dropped on the floor last night, and runs to the door. When she opens it, someone is walking away. The hood is up on their black parka, so she has no idea if it’s even male or female.
“Hello?” says Helen.
The person turns around. It’s that neighbor from down the street.
You knew it wasn’t Cal! she wants to scream at herself. You knew it! But the disappointment slams into her body like a rogue wave anyway.
“Oh, no!” says the woman. “I didn’t mean to wake you up! I always see you running so early, I didn’t think—”
Prisha, Helen remembers vaguely. They’d talked about getting together for coffee, but Helen completely forgot about it. She wasn’t feeling the need for friends because she had one who filled up a lot of her time and brain space (and heart, it turns out). But that’s not an issue these days, is it? Nope. Plenty of time and space now. Fucking gobs of it.
“Not at all,” says Helen. “I was awake.”
Prisha approaches. She has Helen’s basket in her hands with an unfamiliar cloth in it. “But you were still in bed.”
“No, I—” Helen glances at the little mirror in her entryway. Her hair looks like she may have electrocuted herself recently.
“I was dropping off your basket, and my mother taught me never to return things empty.”
“Please come in.” Helen runs her fingers through her hair a couple of times.
“You don’t want to go back to sleep?”
I want to go back to sleep for about a year, thinks Helen. But that’s probably inadvisable.
“I was about to make coffee. Want to come in for a cup?”
Prisha casts a quick glance up the street toward her house. “I’d love to.”
While the coffee perks, they chat and Prisha fills in some details about her life: she’s a website designer, married to Hal, and the mother of Ben, age nineteen, and Mira, fifteen. When Helen gives the same general intel, Prisha says, “My gosh. You must be a very strong person.”
“Strong? Why?”
“What you’ve been through, with your husband passing, and moving up here to a new town, helping your son-in-law with his business. Not to mention surviving your children’s adolescence.” Prisha exhales in a way that makes it clear that she very much does want to mention that and find out how it can possibly be accomplished.
Helen pours the coffee. Prisha opens the tea towel over the basket to reveal a bowl with little round pastries in a syrupy sauce. “Have you ever had gulab jamun? It’s a traditional Indian dessert. If I make too much, my husband and kids will eat it until they vomit.”
Helen laughs. “Can’t wait to try it.”
Chapter 44
2021
Helen gets a late start to Vermont. Coffee with Prisha took a turn when she eventually revealed that both her children had struggled with anxiety and depression during the pandemic. “The isolation really got to them. They’re back to school now, of course, but I don’t think my daughter has truly recovered yet. She’s in a very dark place sometimes.”
Helen remembers the dark places her children have been. “They take you with them.”
Later when Prisha gets up to go, she says, “Thanks for listening. I don’t always feel I can be honest with other mothers. It’s a small town and everyone knows everyone—things get out and people judge.”
“Well, I don’t know anyone, so your worries are safe with me.”
“I know you’re a runner,” says Prisha, “but maybe we could take a walk sometime?”
“Sure,” says Helen, trying to sound more enthusiastic than she feels. She doesn’t want to hear about other people’s problems right now—she’s having a hard enough time lugging around her own. But there’s a vulnerability to Prisha that’s hard to say no to. Besides—the occasional walk—it’s not exactly a huge commitment of time. Which Helen now has plenty of.
When Helen arrives at the farm a half hour late, Francie is in a mad scramble to make sure all the various functions of her multifunctional enterprise are . . . functioning.
“What do you need?” says Helen. “I’m all yours.”
“Are you comfortable with a register? I don’t have anyone to cover the gallery.”
“Easy peasy.”
“Sweet Jesus, I’m glad you’re here!”
The register is completely different from the one at Cormac’s, but Helen figures it out soon enough. She puts on her customer service smile, sells a surprising amount of art, and gets a nice little vacation from the inside of her head for the next four hours. Francie and Vernon come to check on her occasionally, but she waves them away to go put out other fires. Helen’s in charge; the gallery is under control.
At five, it’s dark out and things are winding down. Francie comes to clear the cash out of the register and close up shop. “You saved my plant-based bacon!”
“I was glad to help, Francie. Honestly, it was just what I needed.”
Later, after a dinner of vegetarian chili and gluten-free cornbread in the farmhouse, Vernon loads up the woodstove, refills their wineglasses, and leaves them to each other.
“The dancing,” Francie says after Helen tells her everything. “That’s what did it. Of course he couldn’t take his eyes off that.”
Helen shrugs and lets her eyes leak. “Barb thinks we’re in love.”
“It did look pretty cozy when you two were here.”
“I don’t want to be in love!” says Helen. “I want my life back!”
“Do you, though?”
“Yes, I really fucking do!” she yells.
“I’m just saying that all this stuff that happened—all those talks you had, all that offloading the past—that was important. That was healthy. You don’t want to go back to a time when you were secretly hauling all that crap around with you.”
“Yeah, except now I’m hauling around a shattered heart, aren’t I?”
