Daddy Read online

  Melissa was born when Benjamin was two, and Oliver started thinking seriously about moving his family to the country. They looked at houses in Connecticut almost every weekend, and finally decided they just couldn't afford them. They tried Long Island, West-chester, and it seemed as though every weekend they were riding to look at houses. Pound Ridge, Rye, Bronxville, Katonah, and then finally, after a year, they found just what they wanted in Purchase. It was an old farmhouse that hadn't been lived in in twenty years, and it needed an enormous amount of work. It was part of an estate, and they got it for a song in probate. A song that still cost them dearly to sing, but scraping and saving and doing most of the work themselves, they turned it into a remarkably pretty place within a year, and they were both proud of it. “But this does not mean I'm going to have more children, Oliver Watson!” As far as she was concerned, it was enough of a sacrifice that she was living in the suburbs. She had sworn that she would never do that when they were dating. But even she had to admit that it made more sense. The apartment on Second Avenue had been impossible to manage, and everything else they'd looked at in town seemed tiny and was ridiculously expensive. Here the children had their own rooms.

  There was a huge but cozy living room with a fireplace, a library they lovingly filled with books, a cozy kitchen with two brick walls, heavy wooden beams overhead, and an old-fashioned stove that Sarah insisted on restoring and keeping. It had huge bay windows that looked over what she magically turned into a garden, and she could watch the children playing outside when she was cooking. With their move to the country, she had lost the Irish girl, and it was just as well, because for the moment they couldn't afford her.

  Benjamin was three by then anyway, and he was in school every morning, and two years later Melissa was in school too, and Sarah told herself she would go back to writing. But somehow there was no time anymore.

  She always had things to do. She was doing volunteer work at the local hospital, working one day a week at the children's school, running errands, doing car pools, keeping the house clean, ironing Ollie's shirts, and working in the garden. It was a hell of a switch for the once assistant editor of the Crimson. But the funny thing was, she didn't mind it.

  Once they left New York, it was as though a part of her got left behind there, the part of her that had still been fighting marriage and motherhood. Suddenly, she seemed a part of the peaceful little world around her. She met other women with children the same age, there were couples they played tennis and bridge with on the weekends, her volunteer work seemed to be constantly more demanding, and the thrashing and fighting she had done was all but forgotten. And along with all of that went her writing. She didn't even miss it anymore. All she wanted was what she had, a happy, busy little life with her husband and children.

  Benjamin's screaming babyhood began to fade into distant memory and he turned into a sweet sunny child, who not only had her looks but seemed to share all her interests and passions and values. He was like a little sponge, soaking up everything she was, and in many ways, he was like a mirror of Sarah. Oliver saw it and laughed, and although Sarah seldom admitted it to anyone, in some ways it flattered and amused her. He was so much like her. Melissa was a sweet child too, she was easier than Benjamin had been, and in some ways she was more like her father. She had an easy smile, and a happy attitude about life. And she didn't seem to want much from either of them. She was happy following Sarah everywhere with a book or a doll or a puzzle. Sometimes, Sarah even forgot she was in the next room. She was an undemanding little girl, and she had Oliver's blond hair and green eyes, yet she didn't really look like him. She looked more like his mother actually, which when commented on by her in-laws never failed to annoy Sarah.

  She and Oliver's mother had never really become friends. Mrs. Watson had been outspoken early on and had told her only son what she thought of Sarah before they were married. She thought her a headstrong, difficult girl, who wanted her own way at any price, and she always feared that one day she might hurt Oliver badly. But so far Sarah had been a good wife to him, she admitted to her husband begrudgingly when he stood up for the girl, but Sarah always felt that the older woman was watching her, as though waiting for some slip, some faux pas, some terrible failing that would prove her right in the end. The only joy the two women shared was the two children, who delighted Mrs. Watson, and whom Sarah loved now as though she had wanted them from the first, which Mrs. Watson still remembered she hadn't. Oliver had never told her anything, but she had sensed what was going on, without being told. She was an intelligent woman with a quick eye, and she knew perfectly well that Sarah hadn't been happy to be pregnant, nor had she enjoyed Benjamin's early days, but on the other hand, she had to admit that he hadn't been an easy baby. He had unnerved her, too, with his constant colicky screaming. But all of that was forgotten now, as the children grew, and Sarah and Oliver thrived, both of them busy and happy, and doing well. And Sarah finally seemed to have given up her literary aspirations, which had always seemed a little excessive to Mrs. Watson.

  “She's a good girl, Phyllis. Don't be so hard on her. She was young when they got married. And she makes Oliver very happy.” Her husband had always been more philosophical than she was.

  “I know … but I always get the feeling that she wants something more, something just out of reach … something that will cost Oliver dearly.” It was an astute remark, more so than she knew. But George Watson shook his head with an indulgent smile.

  “Ollie can handle her.”

  “I'm not sure he wants to. I think he'd let her have anything she wants, whatever the cost to him. He's that kind of man.” She smiled gently up at the husband she had loved for almost forty years, years that were too precious to even count now. They had become bonded like one body, one soul, long since. She couldn't even remember a time without him. “He's just like his father. Too good. Sometimes that can be dangerous in the hands of the wrong woman.” She was always concerned about her son, and even after all these years, always faintly distrustful of Sarah.

  But the compliment had not gone unnoticed by her husband, as he smiled down at his bride with the look that still made her tingle. “Give the girl a little credit, Phyllis. She hasn't hurt our boy, and she's given him, and us, two beautiful children.” Indeed they were, and although neither of them looked exactly like their father, they both had some of his classic good looks. Oliver was tall and graceful and athletic-looking, with thick, straight blond hair that had been the envy of every mother when he was a child, and every girl when he was in college. And although Sarah seldom acknowledged it to him, because she didn't want to bloat his ego beyond something she could cope with, more than once she had heard it said that Oliver Watson was the best-looking man in Purchase. For six months of the year, he had a deep tan, and his green eyes seemed to dance with mischief and laughter. And yet he was unaware of his good looks, which made him all the more attractive.

  “Do you think they'll have more children, George?” Phyllis often wondered but would never have dared to ask her son, much less Sarah.

  “I don't know, darling. I think they have a full life as it is. And these days, you can never be too sure of what's going to happen. Oliver is in an insecure business. Advertising is nothing like banking when I was a young man. You can't count on anything anymore. It's probably wiser for them not to.” George Watson had been talking that way for the past year. He had lived long enough to watch many of his investments, once so sound, begin to shrink and dwindle. The cost of living was astonishingly high, and he and Phyllis had to be careful. They had a pretty little house in Westchester they had bought fifteen years before, around the time when Oliver was in college. They knew that he'd never be coming home again for any great length of time, and it seemed foolish to continue hanging on to their rambling old house in New London. But George worried about their finances constantly now. It wasn't that they were destitute by any means, but if they both lived another twenty-five years, which at fifty-nine and sixty-two they
still could, and he hoped they did, it could stretch their savings beyond their limit. He had just retired from the bank and was getting a decent pension. And he had made numerous wise investments over the years, but still … you could never be too careful. It was what he told Oliver every time he saw him. He had seen a lot in his lifetime, one big war and several small ones. He had fought in Guadalcanal, and been lucky enough to survive it. He had been twelve in the crash of '29, he knew just how brutal the Depression had been, and he had seen the economy go up and down over the years. He wanted his son to be careful. “I don't see why they'd want any more children.”

  And Sarah completely agreed with him. It was one of the few subjects on which she and George Watson were in total agreement. Whenever the subject came up with Oliver, once in a while in bed late at night, or on a quiet walk in the woods in a remote corner of Purchase, she always told him she thought it was silly to even consider it. “Why would we want more kids now, Ollie? Melissa and Benjamin are growing up. They're easy, they have their own lives. In a few years we'll be able to do anything we want. Why tie ourselves down with all those headaches again?” Even the thought of it made her shudder.

  “It wouldn't be the same this time. We could afford someone to help us. I don't know … I just think it would be nice. One day we might regret not having more children.” He looked at her tenderly with the eyes that almost made women swoon at the PTA, but Sarah pretended not to notice.

  “The kids wouldn't even like the idea by now. Benjamin's seven, and Melissa's five. A baby would seem like an intrusion to them. You have to think of that. We owe something to them too.” She sounded so definite, so sure, and he smiled and took her hand as they walked back to where they had parked the ear. He had just bought his first Mercedes. And she didn't know it yet, but he was going to give her a fur coat for Christmas. He had just picked it out at Bergdorf Goodman, and it was being monogrammed with her initials.

  “You certainly sound sure.” As always, he sounded disappointed.

  “I am sure.” And she was. There was no way he was going to talk her into having another baby. She was thirty-one years old, and she liked her life just fine the way it was. She was swamped with committee work all day long, she spent half her life running car pools, and the rest of it going to Cub Scouts and Melissa's ballet class. Enough was enough. He had tamed her as far as she was willing to be tamed. They had the picket fence, and the two kids, and the house in the country, and they had even bought an Irish setter the year before. More than that she could not give, even for Ollie.

  “What do you say we take the kids skiing after Christmas?” he asked as they got in the car. He liked to stay close to home for the actual holidays, because he thought it was more fun to be at home, and he thought it was nicer for his parents. Sarah's parents had her sister and her kids, and they went to Chicago every Christmas from Grosse Pointe, but his parents had only him. And Sarah had no burning desire to go home for the holidays anyway. They had done it once, and she had complained about it for three years. Her sister annoyed her, and Sarah and her mother had never gotten along either, so the arrangement they had was perfect.

  “That would be fun. Where? Vermont?”

  “What about something a little racier this year? What about Aspen?”

  “Are you serious? That must have been one hell of a bonus you got last week.” He had brought in the agency's biggest client ever. He still hadn't told her how big the bonus was, and they had both been so busy in the last week, she hadn't pressed him.

  “Big enough to splurge a little if you'd like to. Or we could stay around here, and then go away just the two of us after the kids are back in school, if you want to. My mom would come and stay with them.” She had before, and now that they were a little older, it worked better, “What do you think?”

  “I think it sounds terrific!” She gave him a hug, and they ended up necking in the new car, which smelled of men's cologne and new leather.

  And in the end, they did both. They went to Aspen with the kids for the week between Christmas and New Year, and a month later, he took Sarah away for a romantic week in Jamaica at Round Hill, in their own villa, overlooking Montego Bay. They laughed about their honeymoon in Bermuda, about how they had never left their room, and barely managed to stay in the dining room long enough to have dinner. This vacation was no different. They played tennis and swam and lay on the beach every morning, but by late afternoon, they were making passionate love in the privacy of the villa. And four nights out of six they made special arrangements for room service. It was the most romantic trip they had ever taken, and they both felt reborn when they left Jamaica. Sarah was always amazed to realize how passionately she still loved him. She had known him for twelve years, been married to him for eight, and yet she felt as though their romance was still fresh, and it was obvious that Oliver felt the same about Sarah. He devoured her with the energy of an eighteen-year-old, and more than that, he loved to talk to her for hours. The sex they shared had always been great, but with the years came new vistas, new ideas, new horizons, and their ideas were no longer as diverse or as sharply polarized as they once had been. With the years, they had grown slowly together, and he teased her about becoming more conservative, while he had slowly become a little more liberal. But he felt as though they had slowly become one person, with one mind, one heart, and one direction.

  They returned from Jamaica in a kind of haze, mellowed, slowed down from their usual pace, and the morning after they returned, Oliver sat at breakfast and admitted that he hated to leave her and go to the office. They exchanged a secret look over the children's heads at breakfast. She had burned the toast, left lumps the size of eggs in the Cream of Wheat, and the bacon was almost raw when she served it.

  “Great breakfast, Mom!” Benjamin teased. “You must have had a terrific time on vacation, you forgot how to cook!” He guffawed at his own joke, and Melissa giggled. She was still much shyer than Benjamin, and at five she worshiped him as her first and only hero, after her father.

  The children left for school in their car pools, and Oliver to catch his train, and Sarah found it impossible to get going. She was disorganized all day, and she felt as though she couldn't get anything done. By dinnertime, she still hadn't left the house, and had puttered around all day, getting nothing accomplished. She assumed it was the price of having had too good a time on vacation.

  But the condition persisted for weeks. She barely managed to crawl through the days, and just doing car pools and chauffeuring the kids from here to there seemed to sap all the energy she had, and by ten o'clock at night she was in bed, gently snoring.

  “It must be old age,” she groaned to Oliver one Saturday morning as she attempted to sort through a stack of bills, and unable to do even that without feeling exhausted and distracted.

  “Maybe you're anemic.” She had been once or twice before, and it seemed a simple explanation of what was becoming an annoying problem. She hadn't accomplished anything in a month, and she had two spring benefits to put on, and all of it seemed like too much trouble.

  On Monday morning, she went into the doctor's office for a blood test and a checkup, and for no reason she could think of, when she picked up the children that afternoon she already felt better.

  “I think it's all in my head,” she reported to Oliver when he called to say he had to work late and wouldn't be home for dinner. “I went in for a checkup today, and I already feel better.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Nothing much.” She didn't tell him that the doctor had asked if she was depressed, or unhappy, or if she and Ollie were having trouble. Apparently one of the early signs of depression was chronic exhaustion. Whatever it was, it was nothing serious, she was sure of that. Even the doctor said she seemed to be in good health, she had even gained five pounds in three weeks since their trip to Jamaica. It was no wonder, all she did was sit around and sleep. Even her diligent reading had been neglected, and she hadn't gotten back to her weekly tennis g
ame again. She had promised to the next day, and was on her way out the door, feeling tired, but with racket in hand, when the doctor called her.

  “Everything's fine, Sarah.” He had called her himself, which worried her at first, but then she decided it was just a kindness after all the years she'd known him. “You're in good health, no anemia, no major problems.” She could almost hear him smiling, and she was so tired, it annoyed her.

  “Then why am I so goddamn tired all the time? I can hardly put one foot after another.”

  “Your memory is failing you, my dear.”

  “Terrific. You're telling me I'm getting senile? Great. That's just what I wanted to hear at nine-fifteen in the morning.”

  “How about some good news then?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like a new baby.” He sounded as though he had just announced a million-dollar gift and she felt as though she was going to faint dead away in her kitchen, tennis racket in hand, as she listened.

  “Are you kidding? In this house, that's no joke. My children are practically grown … I … I can't … shit!” She sat down heavily in a convenient chair, fighting back tears. He couldn't mean it. But she knew he did. And suddenly she knew what she had been unwilling to face. Denial had kept her from knowing the truth. She hadn't missed a period because she was anemic or overworked or overage. She was pregnant. She hadn't even told Ollie. She had told herself it was nothing. Some nothing. But this time there was no doubt what she would do. This was 1979. Her children were a reasonable age. She was thirty-one years old. And abortions were legal. This time Oliver was not going to talk her out of it. She was not going to have a baby. “How pregnant am I?” But she knew … it had to be … it had happened in Jamaica … just like it had happened in Bermuda when she conceived Benjamin on their honeymoon … goddamn vacation.