I got to Anita’s a half-hour later than I’d planned. Mirabelle was unusually busy, and many of the customers were people I knew and had to greet, some at great length. I do not like to be late, and I was in less than good temper when I pulled up at Anita’s house. If truth be told, my conversation with Laurel had irritated me more than I wished to admit. Her insistence had felt intrusive, and I didn’t like the sound of that “I can handle Andrew.”
Anita came to the door before I had a chance to knock. I handed her the cheesecake and walked in to the house, only to wonder if I was hallucinating. There in her living room as a black and white kitten playing with what appeared to be its mirror image in gray. “Good grief, Anita!” I called out. “You’ve got two kittens.”
Anita laughed as she walked in to join me. “No, only the black one is mine. The gray is yours. What are you going to call her?”
“I hadn’t thought about it,” I replied, going over to the kittens and kneeling down. Molly, the little black and white ball of fluff came over and sniffed me. Then she turned away disdainfully and stalked off in search of a more interesting object. The gray kitten hesitated, then came over and batted at me with her paw. I scooped her up, and she began to meow loudly and insistently. Her meows were extremely penetrating. “Such a small animal,” I said, “and such loud noises!” She continued to protest until I put her down on the floor. Then she went off to join her sister. Once she was safely out of reach, she sat down and proceeded to groom herself energetically, meowing occasionally.
“That one should get a gig as an opera star, she sings so loudly, “ I observed to Anita.
“Yes,” she agreed, “Perhaps you ought to name her Diva.”
I nodded. “I like that,” I said. “Perhaps I will.”
Anita brought out some appetizers and we sat in the living room watching the kittens for a while before I asked, “When did Laurel bring Diva by?”
Anita smiled. “About an hour after she spoke to you.”
I winced. “I hope she called first.”
“Yes, she knows better than to show up here without phoning first. I told her to bring the kitten and also the pens in question, as well as the stack of letters.”
I looked at her blankly. “What pens? Which letters?”
Anita raised her eyebrows. “Marian, don’t you remember why you’ve come here?” she asked.
“Of course, I do!” I snapped, but in truth, the reason had slipped my mind momentarily with all my worry about my conflict with Andrew and James.
“Well,” Anita said softly with a smile and a nod at the appetizers, “I suggest we have a bite to eat and then I’ll tell you the story you’ve been pestering me about. Complete with props.”
We ate the appetizers and watched the kittens some more. Diva liked to chase her tail. She also liked to chase Molly’s tail. Molly preferred bouncing off the walls to chasing Diva, but she fought back when harassed.
“Supposedly they practice their hunting skills this way,” Anita observed, laughing. “Though I must admit that I find it hard to see a connection between hunting and the behavior of those two.”
“Well,” I said as the kittens batted at each other and then rolled on the floor biting each other’s paws, “it gives a whole new meaning to the term sibling rivalry.”
Anita sighed. “Andrew and James are really on your mind, aren’t they?”
I nodded. “Oh, I meant to tell you that I spoke with James. That was before Andrew came up with the idea of mediation. We had a very pleasant conversation for a change.” Anita smiled encouragingly, so I went on. “He said he’d gotten inspiration for his prize-winning piece from a fig tree.” I shook my head. “Quintessential James.”
“Well, why not a fig tree?” Anita responded calmly.
I shrugged. “He was sitting out near the tree and suddenly felt the tree and he were one. Or something like that. I was so flustered when he told me that I forgot to get a lot of the practical details about the competition or the prize. I did learn that what pleased him most was the chance to hear the piece played professionally. I didn’t even find out exactly when he and Patricia were leaving or coming back.” I shook my head. “Oneness with a fig tree!”
“Does it really gall you so much that your son has mystical leanings?” Anita asked.
“No, not really. It used to drive Lawrence crazy though.”
“So you’ve said,” Anita replied. “But it has always seemed that nearly everything about James drove him crazy.”
“Well, you know he wasn’t happy about James’ birth,” I said, picking up a piece of flat bread and spreading olive paste on it. “That was really the beginning of our problems. Two children was one too many for Lawrence.”
Anita looked at me sympathetically, and I shook my head again. “But that’s the past, isn’t it? I can’t keep looking backwards and hoping to find the key to the present.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure,” Anita replied. She took a deep breath. “Are you sure Andrew and James know how Lawrence happened to father Phoebe?”
I chuckled but without any real humor. “He told them. I insisted on it.”
“And you know that for a fact?”
I felt myself getting irritated and was about to snap at Anita when Molly scratched at my leg.
“Stop that, you little monkey!” I said as she clawed her way up into my lap. She merely purred loudly in reply. I took a deep breath.
“When Lawrence returned from his trip out west, he didn’t, as you know, tell me that he’d even seen Jenny again. I had no idea that he even know where she lived. Or cared, for that matter. She and I had remained in touch, but I had no idea that the two of them had… How did Lawrence put it? They’d ‘had an encounter, for old time’s sake’.” I snorted. “Eventually Jenny wrote me and told me she was pregnant. She didn’t say it was with Lawrence’s child. I only found that out later, after she became so sick and I went out to see her.”
I took another deep breath, and Anita said, “You don’t have to get into all this, you know.” But since I’d started, I continued.
“I returned from that visit and confronted Lawrence, who admitted that the child was his. I was furious and threw him out. Of course, it was hard to take care of the boys by myself. But I was not about to share my life with such a man, a man who’d…well, done what he’d done with my best friend.”
“But you relented,” Anita said softly.
“Yes, I did. But only when it became clear that Jenny was dying. She was superstitious and felt sure that her death was punishment for what she thought of as her sin.” I felt my eyes tear up. “It was very hard, you see, because I’d blamed her as much as Lawrence and was not about to forgive her. Until I saw her again three months before she died.”
I felt as if I were being melodramatic and rubbed the backs of my hands over my eyes. “I promised her I’d take Lawrence back and take in her little girl.” I sighed. “Their little girl. She said that knowing that would allow her to die in peace.
“Once she was gone, I did as I’d promised her. Lawrence moved back in, but I imposed the condition that he tell the boys that Phoebe was his daughter and that he explain the circumstances of her birth once they were old enough to understand.”
“And you know that he did that?”
I nodded. “He took them off for a day in the city. They went to a baseball game, and after that, on the way home, he told them.”
“Or at least he said so to you,” Anita said softly.
I stared at her. “You think they don’t know?” I whispered, shocked.
She shrugged. “I’ve had my doubts that James knows,” she said. “How old was he when Lawrence took them to that baseball game?”
“Old enough to understand,” I insisted. “He was eight. Andrew ten.”
“That was the year they went away to school, wasn’t it?”
I nodded. “So what?”
“So, if Lawrence told them what you think he told them…” she began, but I interrupted her with, “What he swore he told them!”
“It’s possible that James forgot or repressed it since it was no doubt associated in his mind with the trauma of being sent to military school. He was truly miserable there, you know.”
I glared at Anita. “Yes, I know how my own son felt, thank you very much!”
Even as I said it, I heard a small voice in my head reminding me that I hadn’t known how traumatic Andrew had found growing up as the child of undertakers. I sighed, and Anita leaned over and put her hand on mine for a second.
“I hate to say this, Marian, but I think you and Andrew and James need to talk about Phoebe’s place in your family. You need to know for sure how much they know, how they feel, and why they feel as they do.”
“I know how they feel,” I snapped. “They hate her and want to deprive her of her inheritance. I’m not a complete fool!”
Anita didn’t respond to my fit of temper. “Andrew and James are very different,” she explained, and I wished she didn’t sound so rational. “They have very different reactions everything, so why not to Phoebe?”
I shrugged but said nothing.
“From what I’ve been able to surmise on the basis of my admittedly limited contact with them, Andrew is much more opportunistic in his likes and dislikes than James, who is much more likely to be driven by his emotions.”
“Hmmph,” I mumbled, since I couldn’t help myself, “James shows all the emotion of a block of wood.”
“What he shows and what he feels are two very different matters,” Anita said gently. “And you’ve got to get to the bottom of it.”
“We have to, you mean,” I retorted. “Remember, you’ve agreed to meditate.”
“Between you and Andrew, yes, but James is a different matter,” she replied.
“Why? He can be in on the process by phone,” I insisted.
“That’s ridiculous, Marian, she said firmly. “You need to talk face to face.”
“And just how is that supposed to happen?” I demanded.
“You’re going to visit him,” she said simply, as if stating a foregone conclusion.
“What? Are you out of your mind?” I shouted so loudly that Molly, who’d jumped to the floor after a few minutes in my lap, leaped in the air and then hid behind the sofa, and Diva scampered into the kitchen.
“What is so unreasonable about your going to visit your son?” she demanded.
“I haven’t been invited, first of all. And second, well, we have horrible contact whenever we’re together.”
“And when was the last time you were together?” she demanded.
I didn’t answer. She and I both knew I hadn’t seen my son in over ten years.
“Don’t you think it’s time?” she asked.
“I can’t just show up at the farm uninvited,” I replied.
“But you can ask to visit,” she said.
“That would just make James uncomfortable.”
She shook her head. “You may be surprised.”
I thought it unlikely and said so.
“You never know until you try, Marian.”
I hated it when she lobbed clichés at me, and I told her so. Then we went into dinner.