Good-bye and Amen Read online

  She’s spent a lot of time in Reno, getting divorces, and over the years worked out a system for playing blackjack. She plays in the middle of the night, when they’re training new dealers. “I win a bundle, honey,” she kept saying and then she’d laugh. She was a riot.

  Josslyn Moss Every time Mama came back to the table from having a smoke, Mr. Moss would stand up for her. She’d say, “Oh Lars, you don’t have to do that.” But he did it anyway. After a while my dad started doing it too. So then Mama would say, “You make me feel like a queen!”

  Afterward she said that Laurus was a real gent, real old-school, and that we wouldn’t see any more like him. He made her feel honored. I loved him for that. The mother was a different can of beans, but she was pretty careful around me. I gather I missed the worst of her. She was coming down the escalator as I was going up, and she didn’t dare be such a bitch any more, if she ever was as bad as they claim she was. That or she forgot what she was so pissed about.

  Monica Faithful My stepson Sam came to Jimmy’s wedding. He looked amazing. A full beard and big strong shoulders, all grown up. He was living in California; he’d gone out to Cal Poly after high school, and never come back east. Putting some distance between himself and Rachel, was what we thought, but maybe avoiding us too. I was surprised to see that he was close to Jimmy and Josslyn. Jimmy is always surprising you.

  Josslyn Moss Jimmy’s mom had no interest in my children, that’s for sure. I remember once, when Virgil was a baby, we were in Dundee and we wanted to go out to dinner with another couple, friends of Jimmy’s. Frannie Ober? She’s in Congress. Jimmy asked his parents if we could leave Virgil with them. He was sleeping through the night and everything, I’d put him to bed myself. She said, Oh sure, even though Eleanor and Nika said she never would babysit for them.

  We were down in the driveway when I heard Virgil screaming from the upstairs window. I mean screaming. I ran back up the stairs, two at a time. Mrs. Moss was holding Virgie who was red in the face, arching his back he was so upset. Maybe he felt us leaving; he is quite psychic. Anyway I took him and said to Mrs. Moss I was so sorry, I didn’t think he’d wake up, and she said, “Oh, that’s all right. I sort of like their little tears. I think they’re kind of funny.”

  I thought, O-kay, lady. Get the nets…

  Ah. Where is Sydney?

  As I’ve said, it’s hard at first to accept being dead. Much harder for some than for others. For young souls. Those with no recognition, on any level, of having been here before.

  Those who have lived well and accepted much tend to slip through easily. Laurus was one of those. They look back at life and say, Well, that was great. What’s next? Soon, off they go to the heavenly kaleidoscope.

  Or those who have come through gradually. The very old, those who are leaving behind long illness. You’ve probably seen for yourself, how they drift here, then back, until finally they’re so much more here than there that they stay. That’s a gentle passage.

  Sudden death is hard. Those who show up trailing rage and disappointments find it much harder to let go. Doesn’t seem fair, does it? Well, there you go.

  Monica Faithful So, the summer of sharing.

  Before I answer the question, could I just say this? I knew what I had at stake that summer. I needed it to work, more than anyone. I knew that. But your niche in the family ecology is what it is. Your myth about how your family works is hard science, to you. It’s not that easy to rebuild your emotional mousetrap just using your brain.

  Eleanor Applegate Jimmy and Josslyn wanted to be at Leeway for all of August. I mean, of course. If they’re coming all the way from California, of course they’ll stay a month, and August is when everyone else will be there.

  Back in the fifties, when the wives used to take the children up to Maine for the whole summer, and the husbands came for a week or two when they could, it didn’t matter when you were there. Now since no one but teachers can take the whole summer off, everything happens in August. So Monica wanted to be in the house all summer, and Josslyn kind of thought she should have it to herself for August if Monica had July but no one wanted to draw a line in the dirt. There were signs things weren’t going to go well.

  Monica Faithful Shirley Eaton called me in early June when she went to open the cottage to say the vacuum cleaner had packed up, some squirrels had been living in it. She needed to know what to do. I e-mailed everyone about it. I thought she should get a new machine from Sears. Eleanor didn’t care. But Josslyn wanted to get some $700 one from Germany. Why, exactly? This is for a house that gets used two months a year!

  Josslyn Moss It’s ridiculous. You buy those cheap things, they’re always crapping out, and up there, you’re going to have to drive twenty-five miles to the repair shop, and twenty-five home, and then do it again when you pick the thing up. You buy the best, it lasts forever. I don’t want to spend my vacation driving back and forth getting a crap vacuum cleaner fixed. Waste of fossil fuel. Global warming, hello? Split three ways it’s only a couple hundred bucks each, anyway.

  Monica Faithful Of course, I can spend hundreds of dollars on a vacuum cleaner that will be used two months a year. But I choose not to. And it’s fifteen miles to Union, not twenty-five.

  Jimmy Moss I called Shirley Eaton and told her I’d buy one of those German things myself and ship it to her, but she’d already gone and gotten one at Sears.

  Eleanor Applegate Then there was the Rolling Stone situation. Charlesie had called Auggie Dodge and told him he was paying for the starboard side of the boat and the Faithfuls were paying for the port. Auggie sent Norman a bill for starting the brightwork and apparently Norman never paid it, so Auggie only did the starboard side. I guess it tickled his funny bone. But it wasn’t so funny when Charlesie went up to get the boat rigged for a shakedown cruise, and found that the port side hadn’t been scraped or caulked or varnished or anything. It was supposed to be a birthday present, this cruise, since he’d stayed off probation the entire spring and only had one D. We were letting him take his friends out to Roque Island.

  Auggie Dodge Charlesie Applegate came in with those friends of his, their faces all full of rings and sprockets and whatnot, like they all fell down in a hardware store. He says, “Auggie, my boat’s not on the mooring.” And I said, “Nossir. I was all ready to put the starboard side out on the mooring when it came to me that port side had to go with it, and the port side might well fill up with water and next thing you know you’d have both sides on the bottom.”

  I don’t know when we’ve had so much fun at the yard. There was that boat still in the cradle, with the starboard side all shipshape and Bristol fashion, and the port looking just like she did when we hauled her last September.

  Norman Faithful I thought the bill was a joke. Monica never said a thing to me about sharing the boat.

  Monica Faithful I told Norman about the boat on the way home from the lottery. I know I did. I know I did because I told him that Charlesie had wanted to take care of the boat himself and he said, God help us. And, I remember that then he talked about that time before we were married, when we sailed out to Beal Island to see the graveyard. He reached over and took my hand. I remember thinking maybe we’d go out there again and it would be nice that the boat was half ours. It’s been a long time since we took a whole day and spent it alone together.

  Norman Faithful If you knew what I had on my plate, you wouldn’t expect a yard bill for half my wife’s sailboat to be right at the top of my radar screen.

  Bobby Applegate Of course, now we do know what he had on his plate…

  Norman Faithful In the car going home from Cross Falls she said something about the Rolling Stone because we talked about that time we sailed to Beal Island and I heard the woman weeping. That’s really why I became a priest. I don’t know to this day if Nicky understands that. But I know we didn’t talk about who owns the damn boat.

  I believe we’re surrounded by mysteries, you see. There are aspects of Christianity that a
re obstacles to faith, for most people. The virgin birth is one. The resurrection and ascension. The word in Koiné Greek that we translate as virgin means “youth.” Virgin is a mistranslation. The resurrection? Some believe that the women outside the tomb saw Jesus’ brother James. It was just a mistake, a family resemblance that let them believe in an impossible thing they longed for. How does that change the fact that Jesus was a transcendent teacher? An evolved spiritual being?

  The writers of the Gospels lived in a world that thought the sky was a sort of ceiling, as if we all live in a snow globe, and that heaven was above that. They’d never flown above clouds. They had no way to measure how far away the stars are. But their world believed in mystery. They believed in faith itself, do you see? Faith for its own sake. A willingness to live with and believe in what you can’t explain or understand. Faith is a muscle. The more you use it the more mysterious and powerful it grows. When I say the creeds, when I say, “I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting,” I’m not saying that I personally, literally, at this moment believe that one day we’ll all wake up outside the snow globe and be in our own earthly bodies again after thousands of years, and dance before the Lord. At this moment, the idea strikes me as disgusting. No, when I say the creeds I’m saying I belong to a church, I belong to a community of faith that collectively believes what the creeds say.

  At present, I’ll admit it, I don’t understand why we believe in the resurrection of the body. But when I was six I believed I could heal people with my voice and touch. I thought I was a little vessel filled with something magic. By the time I was eight, I didn’t believe any such thing. For a while the world seemed so complex, so deceptive, it seemed like a miracle that I could tie a bow and day after day it would keep my shoes on my feet.

  When I was twenty, I believed that the rule of law was the way to salvation. That laws could be made so consistent and applied so fairly that everyone, truly, could have an equal chance to pursue happiness. I also believed I would spend the rest of my life with Rachel Cohen. What I understand now is that things change. Spirit evolves. It doesn’t matter what I believe right now, it only matters that I practice faith and am willing to tolerate mystery. If I want to practice tolerating mystery by believing that Mary was a virgin and born without sin, who does it hurt?

  For a long time I couldn’t believe anything I wanted to. The law was a way to deal honorably with an uncreated universe, a world that had grown by accident. Including the accidental truth that unselfishness, and concern for our fellow men, must be an adaptive characteristic because most people seemed to prefer, innately, to be good, if you don’t wreck that impulse by scorning them or starving them or depriving them of sanity and love. I thought God was a fraud, but I believed in evolution.

  And then one day I heard a woman weeping whose body wasn’t there.

  Monica Faithful You know what my favorite season was in the Christian calendar? Lent. Forty days, most people think of as a dark wilderness time of deprivation, resisting temptation. The first Sunday in Lent is my favorite because we have the Great Litany, and all the crosses are wrapped, and there are no hallelujahs.

  When we were in seminary, when most of us gave up sugar or alcohol or smoking, so we would remember Christ’s time in the desert, Norman did something else. He would never talk about it; he just said that instead of giving up something, he was adding something to his practice. Those were the happiest times in our marriage. When I talked to him, he really listened. He was gentle, he was present.

  I know he practiced reading the Bible in the Swedenborgian way, which he had learned from my father. You read every passage on three levels, historical, personal, and celestial. If you read about Satan taking Jesus to a high place and saying, “Go ahead, jump, let’s see the angels catch you,” you have to figure out what that moment was in your own life, and how you handled it.

  Maybe that was it, maybe that was all. Whatever it was, he didn’t go spinning off in his head and forget me. I wish I knew what it was he used to do, and whether it would help now.

  Bobby Applegate The early years of our marriage, we would take Annie and Adam up to Leeway for the Fourth of July. There were fireworks at the fairgrounds that you could see all over the village, and someone always had a big family picnic. Then I’d go back down to Boston and El and the kids would stay all summer, and I’d get up when I could. We got the rooms at the back of Leeway, and Sydney and Laurus and their houseguests were up in the front rooms where you get the sun and see the water.

  Monica would come for a week or two in August. Usually it took about four days before Sydney would do something to her that would have her in tears. She’d write poisonous screeds to Nika and leave them on her breakfast plate. It would be about how she had left her mug in the living room the night before instead of carrying it to the kitchen, but then zero to sixty she’d get to what a thoughtless, worthless disappointment Monica was to everyone who knew her, doomed to have a miserable life.

  Here would sit the rest of us, enjoying the crackling fire and the blueberry pancakes and Sydney would be chatting away at the head of the table while Monica turned white, looking at this plateful of bile from her mother. Then Nika would leave the table and go over to Jeannie’s or Amelia’s for the day, and often the night, and Sydney would preen and bat her eyes at the houseguests.

  Eleanor Applegate Mother couldn’t seem to help herself. I think it was chemical, with her and Monica, nothing either of them could do a thing about. I know Mother tried to be good, and I believe she suffered after she’d savaged somebody but she didn’t seem to remember that for long. There must have been something addictive, delicious to her, in the attack. She often denied, but she never apologized, unless she accidentally sank her fangs into someone like Bobby, who could fight back. Then she’d get terrified and be abject, which wasn’t so pretty either.

  Bobby put a spoke in Mother’s wheels. One day one of the poison epistles appeared at Nika’s place at the lunch table. Papa must not have been there. When Nika came in, Bobby said to her, “Give it here.” Nika handed it across to him without reading a word. Meanwhile Big Syd sits there like lovely Mrs. Ramsay with her beef en daube in To the Lighthouse, dishing up Ellen’s fish chowder to the Bennikes.

  When Bobby finished reading the note, he got up and threw it into the fire. Then he said, “Nika, your mother wants to know if you’ll be out for dinner again this evening.” Nika turned and said, “I plan to be in for dinner, Mother, but if that changes I’ll let you know.” “Thank you very much,” says Sydney, absolutely rigid. I’ve never loved Bobby more than at that moment. There wasn’t a thing Mother could do to show how angry she was because she was giving her Gracious Hostess performance for her favorite Scandinavians.

  Bobby Applegate She didn’t dare attack me; she knew I could take her grandchildren and not come back. I’d rather be on the Cape with my own family anyway, and she knew it. She only really enjoyed it when she flamed someone who had to take it, her children or servants. Eleanor says she couldn’t help herself, but she bloody well could; she never did it in front of Laurus, for instance.

  She got me back, though. After we left she sent me a bill for all the hours Linette Gott spent on our family laundry that summer. Isn’t that wonderful? The bill was huge, too. I mean, I was just getting started, both Terry and I were putting most of what we made back into the firm, and the money meant something to me. And nothing to her. Do you suppose she made Linette count the diapers and so on? When six little baby socks went into the wash and only five came out, did we still have to pay for washing the one that went missing?

  Jimmy Moss Really? I don’t remember Mother doing anything like that.

  Is there marriage in Heaven? Certainly. For those to whom marriage was Heaven on earth. There is also useful work, for those who would not be themselves without it.

  And sex. Yes. As I understand it.

  Well, really. I’m afraid I’m just not the right one to ask about that.
/>   Bobby Applegate My mother used to say that Eleanor was the daughter she always wanted. She really meant it. They used to go shopping together, have lunch and giggle. More than once I remember walking into our apartment in the evening and hearing Eleanor laughing in the kitchen. You know, the way once in a long while you laugh until you cry? I’d think, Oh, Amelia must be here, or one of El’s prep school buddies, but there in the kitchen would be Eleanor and my mother. They’d both try to explain what was so funny. One time it was that my mother told El you don’t want to give children bad ideas they don’t already have, like don’t warn them not to put beans up their nose. They couldn’t even get the sentence out, they were laughing so much. No wonder Sydney couldn’t stand my mother.

  Eleanor Applegate Marnie Applegate really was a heavenly woman. I joined her Topics Club, and now Annie has joined, a new generation. It’s a holdover from a different time for women, I know that. But it’s fun. We’re doing Bloomsbury this year. Annie is writing about Leonard Woolf. Somebody told her that the struggle in any marriage is over who gets to be crazy. For Leonard and Virginia it was no contest. Or for my parents, for that matter.

  I’m doing Manners. I’m reading old etiquette books. Did you know that it is deeply wrong and shocking to allow your butler to wear facial hair of any kind? Emily Post, 1928 edition. Oh, I miss Marnie. She’d be loving this.