Halcyon, p.7
Halcyon, page 7
“Says who?”
“That’s what I’m trying to explain. Did you see the way Ms. Templeton’s personal assistant was looking at you two? It’s not twenty years ago, or even ten years ago. You can’t go around flirting that way. I don’t want to see you get into any trouble because of a…misunderstanding.”
“A misunderstanding.” He spoke the word contemptuously. “Okay, but allow me to explain what I believe is the misunderstanding. When I hired Susan Templeton over all of these college-educated”—and he almost said girls but stopped himself—“women, it was because I’d already seen her work. I’d had a motion to argue in the family courts, an estate issue, and hers was the case scheduled before mine on the judge’s docket. Her husband was an abusive drunk and she couldn’t afford counsel. She got up there, five months pregnant, and made her arguments for herself. I’ve never asked Suzie if her husband hit her, but watching him that day, the way he glowered at her in his crumpled suit, I could tell that he did. The judge must have seen what I saw. When both sides finished their arguments, he awarded Suzie sole custody of her unborn daughter. Her now ex-husband couldn’t even be at the hospital the day of her delivery. I was the only person in the gallery when the judge made his ruling. I handed Suzie my card on her way out and hired her right after. She and I worked together on advancing the Equal Rights Amendment, we knocked out two challenges to Roe v. Wade in the state’s lower courts and contributed pro bono hours to United States v. Virginia, that’s when VMI refused to admit women. I even tried to help Suzie get her personal life back on track, having fixed her up with a number of very bright and honest young men along the way. So let’s spare ourselves the lecture. I’ll call a secretary a secretary, and I’ll call a woman who never had her own chance to be a girl, a girl.”
The silence was deep enough to drown in. I turned on the radio, to a pop station playing “Hey Ya!,” which was a little much, and so switched to the local NPR affiliate. It was broadcasting a White House press briefing, in which President Gore had made an unscheduled appearance. We tuned in midway through his opening remarks, in which he was saying “…this scientific breakthrough, a discovery without precedent in the history of mankind, promises to reframe the trajectory of human life. Imagine a future that will benefit not only from the great minds of its time, but from the great minds of the past as well. Imagine Einstein or Newton training their genius on the problems of today. Think what they could do for renewable energy, for global hunger. From this moment forward, death, at least as we’ve always understood it, is no longer a constraint of life. I’m pleased to announce of the one hundred thirty-four cases who’ve been reborn”—Ableson cocked his head at the word “reborn,” a turn of phrase neither of us had yet heard—“that all are recovering well.” Gore went on with his remarks, praising certain geneticists by name, lauding the “close government cooperation” that had enabled this advance. If at times his fluency in the scientific vernacular of rebirth faltered, his fluency in the creation of government infrastructure to regulate this breakthrough was without parallel. Before death, a family would soon be able to apply to the Department of Health and Human Services for a “rebirth grant.” Based on suitability—a vague criterion he did not fully define—the government would defray a portion, if not all, of the medical costs, making rebirth a possibility for “most any American,” as he concluded. What was implied in his remarks—for it was woven into the very fabric of the society that birthed “most any American”—was that those wealthy citizens who could afford to pay full-freight need not concern themselves with rebirth grants and Gore’s government administered meritocracy. They could have the same procedure performed on the private market for an exorbitant sum. The president then concluded his remarks, telling the assembled journalists that he’d be “pleased to take questions.”
A veil of hypocrisy shrouded Gore’s proposal: life everlasting for some but not for all. Perhaps this was why the first question offered by the White House press pool wasn’t about “rebirth,” as the president termed it, but about the coming election and Gore’s steadily declining approval rating. He replied to the question with a blend of his characteristic stiffness—an attribute often parodied on late-night sketch comedy shows—as well as barely concealed contempt. “What we’re talking about today,” he answered, “transcends politics.” The next question was asked along similar lines but was framed more pointedly. “Did the president believe that his recent pardon of Bill Clinton was responsible for his low approval rating?” This time, Gore didn’t attempt to answer the question; instead, he sternly replied that he’d come out here today to discuss the most significant scientific breakthrough ever. What he didn’t say, but what I was sure he must have been thinking, was that perhaps the American people were unworthy of this breakthrough. Science had conquered death but all anyone cared about was his predecessor’s indiscretions. However, the reason the president was falling in the polls was because he’d yet to acknowledge that to some these weren’t indiscretions but crimes. Before he could shift to another question, the offending journalist followed up: “Mr. President, if you’re unable to win reelection are you concerned that a Republican administration might cut funding for your scientific initiatives?”
Ableson didn’t listen to the answer. He’d had enough of Gore, the press conference, and the negative turn it had taken, which I now realized, ashamedly, mimicked my own sanctimonious questioning about Ms. Templeton. He tuned the radio to a classical music station. Mozart was playing.
* * *
—
Upon our return to Halcyon, Ableson invited me inside. “I’d like you to meet the rest of my family,” he’d said. By the time I’d parked the Volvo in the large circular driveway it was a little after lunch. The house no longer possessed the whispering, empty feeling from that morning. To the contrary, it was festooned with little streamers hanging from the stairway and confetti swirls sprinkled on the console tables as if for a party. A clamor of voices came from the spacious eat-in kitchen in the back, each one shushing the other with a “He’s here…he’s here…” as Mary, Boose, and the two boys shut off the houselights through some hidden master switch. Then from the kitchen came singing, the Happy Birthday song. The swing door opened and in cadence with the song the four of them approached in a tight column. They hovered over a large white-frosted cake picketed with candles and carried by Boose. The candles flickered with her every step, threatening to blow out.
I wondered if he knew they would be waiting for him with this surprise. Had he intuited it? Did he want me to see how his family loved him? And, if so, why did Ableson need me to know that? The four of them held the cake, encouraging him to make a wish and blow out his candles. Ableson protested, explaining that it wasn’t his birthday. “But it is,” his wife explained. “It’s official now. You’re back.”
Ableson shut his eyes to conjure his wish. He then opened them and inhaled deeply, as if placing all his hopes into his breath and its fierce exhalation. He craned his neck forward and blew. Every last candle went out. His family applauded and he regarded them one by one and through his gaze it was obvious that they would be the beneficiaries of whatever wish he’d made. But before he could cut a first slice of cake, the candles, which were still smoking, began to flicker again. One by one they relit themselves and as they did his family began to laugh.
Trick candles.
The joke was on Ableson.
He was a good sport about it, but as they migrated to the kitchen—a kitchen ablaze with sunshine that fell on the polished copperware and gleamed against freshly laid white tiles—I couldn’t help but think that this trick had cancelled out whatever wish Ableson had made. They had gathered around the countertop, a fantastic and heavily striated marble slab added in the renovation, and Ableson cut the first slice of cake. He served it to Mary and gave a little speech about her patience, her strength, and how without her he wouldn’t be standing here to celebrate another birthday with his family. This led to a discussion of Ableson’s true age, a figure his children—as is often the case with children—struggled to recall precisely. “Dad was born in 1913,” said Doug. “No, 1914,” Bobby interjected, the two of them falling into a kneejerk contrarianism common to brothers. Before their disagreement could escalate, their mother interrupted. “Today is your father’s birthday,” she said, and with an emphasis appealing to her authority as matriarch, she added: “We’ll start counting from today.”
After taking a first bite of her cake, Boose asked how it had gone at the records office. Her question silenced the quibbling brothers, who were equally curious.
Ableson explained that it had gone well, that he’d successfully annulled the death certificate. “Susan Templeton is running the records office,” he said to his wife, as if to give her an added measure of confidence about the finality of the annulment.
“Who is that?” the two brothers asked in near unison.
“Your father’s personal assistant, from years ago,” said Mary.
Boose remembered her vaguely as the young woman who would bring documents to their house at all hours of the night for her father to review. She remembered because Ms. Templeton’s daughter was roughly her age. Without a babysitter, or any relative to help her, Ms. Templeton often had to strap her daughter into the car with her when Ableson needed some administrative task completed after working hours. The two girls never played together, or really got to know one another, but seeing this girl whose life was so very different from her own stayed with Boose. She never quite forgot Susan Templeton, and when she recalled this memory over the slices of birthday cake, her father responded: “I don’t recall forcing Ms. Templeton to bring me documents at odd hours.”
Boose didn’t have to defend her memory because her mother swiftly did. “When you were on a case, you had that poor woman at our house any time of the night. If you were working late, so was she.”
“If she did work that hard, I don’t think she ever complained,” answered Ableson. “Susan has done very well for herself, considering.”
“Considering what?”
“Where she started from.”
Mary didn’t have a chance to answer Ableson before his stepson Bobby interjected, “So no issues at the records office?”
“Issues?” asked Ableson.
“Like the possibilities we discussed…,” added Doug.
“No,” said Ableson. “No issues.”
The brothers exchanged a glance, as if to gauge whether each was satisfied with Ableson’s answer. The silence that followed was tense and awkward. Everyone in the family understood these issues, but not me. Had I not been there perhaps they could’ve spoken more forthrightly; however, I suspected that neither Doug nor Bobby—nor anyone else in the family for that matter—wanted to discuss this subject directly, and so my presence became a convenient excuse for obfuscation. And what the subject was became obvious through the family’s anxious reaction to it: the division of Ableson’s estate.
Eventually, I would learn the particulars. In his will Ableson had divided his financial assets between his two stepsons and Boose, leaving the lion’s share to her but meaningful trusts to the boys. He’d appointed Mary as a co-trustee until her death, so that the children (particularly the boys) would always behave responsibly toward their mother. Halcyon had been placed in Mary’s name and, aside from a few additional items of minor consequence, his will contained no other major provisions. The issues so obliquely brought up by Doug and Bobby were whether his will and the distribution of his estate remained valid.
No law existed on the matter. Ableson’s return to life was unprecedented so by definition there was no legal precedent for the question. No jurisprudence existed to assure the continued validity of the will. During the annulment of his death certificate no official had raised the issue, calling for a renewed audit of Ableson’s estate or the levying of additional inheritance or gift taxes; this was the best outcome his family could hope for. Bobby and Doug, through their respective expertise in law and finance, seemed satisfied with this state of affairs, insomuch as they changed the subject and began to inquire about my work and how I had come to rent their parents’ guest cottage.
They listened patiently as I explained my research, in the way practical men accustomed to earning large sums of money weigh the exploits of those who through either their professions or their passions are consigned to never earning a dime. I couldn’t help but feel that the brothers’ curiosity wasn’t rooted in my subject—the Civil War, Shelby Foote, the nature of American compromise—but rather in me, in my strange devotion to an academic quest that in their estimation was of so little consequence. By the time they’d finished eating their cake I could tell they’d grown bored.
Both Doug and Bobby excused themselves. Doug had a car picking him up in the morning for the drive back to his Tribeca apartment and Bobby had a flight to Boston at around the same ungodly hour. It was, by now, late in the afternoon and both wanted to pack before dinner. As for Ableson, he was tired. Our trip into Richmond had worn him out and he announced that he’d head upstairs for a nap. Wordlessly, Boose followed. She had moved out of the guest cottage and had installed herself one door down from her parents in the main house. Unlike her brothers, her obligations existed here, with her parents, and she had taken it upon herself to look after them, at least for a while. Everywhere Ableson went, she hovered over him.
This left Mary alone in the kitchen with the half-eaten birthday cake and the dishes. I helped her tidy up, wiping smears of frosting from the plates and rinsing the silver forks and serving knives. Above us came the sound of a first, then a second, and finally a third and fourth door shutting. She waited until everyone had returned to their rooms before she apologized for her sons’ behavior, the way they “ogle over their inheritance.” The situation was complicated, I said, and couldn’t blame them for wanting to understand the implications of Ableson’s return. “You’re right,” she said. “The situation is complicated. It has always been complicated. Do you know how Robert first came into my life? It’s a funny story…depending, that is, on your sense of humor.” I encouraged her to tell me, and so she continued: “Robert had, at one time, represented a group of creditors who sued my first husband, Doug and Bobby’s father. By that time in our marriage my ex-husband had failed at every business he’d put his hands to. He had plenty of big ideas, from real estate deals, to pyramid schemes—once there was even a plan to short-sell shares of a Betamax home-video company. He was, admittedly, quite the salesman. Which was how he always managed to raise money from investors. Which was also why he wound up with so much debt. It’s the debt that crushed him, crippling him with anxiety. The anxiety led him to pills. And the pills led to the drugs that turned him into an addict…so eventually I left. He knew he couldn’t handle the boys so there was no custody to negotiate. Outside of that, I wanted our house. Surprisingly enough, he handed it over. Well, joke was on me. A few months later, a lawyer showed up on my front porch. According to him, the house wasn’t mine anymore. Before our divorce, my husband had used it as collateral against a loan; his creditors had a lien. The lawyer sent to collect was Robert Ableson.”
“Did he help you keep the house?”
“Of course not,” she answered, insulted, it seemed, by the sentimentality of the question. “He asked me to dinner instead. What did I have to lose? So I said yes. As our relationship progressed, you can imagine how difficult it was to explain. Here was this man, more than twenty years my senior, who was in the process of repossessing my house, and I’m out to dinner with him a couple of nights a week and, later on, sneaking him into that very same house to spend the night with me while my boys are sleeping down the hall. To an outsider, it didn’t make sense. Judgment came from everywhere. The arguments against us were many: our age difference; my being a single mother; him being a consummate bachelor; the power dynamic between us, in which outsiders always presumed he held the power in our relationship and that I was the vulnerable one.”
Mary glanced up toward a corner of the ceiling, which was the floor of their shared room, where her daughter had helped her husband to bed. She placed her fingertips onto the pendant strung beneath her collarbone, the old dime set in platinum. “He’s always been the vulnerable one,” said Mary. “When Robert was a boy, twice a year his mother would send him west to visit his father, who worked in oil and spent long stretches away. The great technological advance in that era was commercial air travel. If the train took a couple of days, the airlines had whittled the journey down to a handful of hours. One year his mother booked him on a flight. When they arrived at the airfield, Robert panicked. He refused to board the plane. ‘What if it crashes?’ he pleaded. His mother assured him that it wouldn’t, dragging him by the hand. ‘How would you know if it did?’ His mother again assured him, ‘It won’t.’ But he was insistent and afraid. He imagined himself stranded in the middle of nowhere. His mother stopped. She crouched down next to him and reached into her purse. She took out this dime. ‘If you crash, you use this for the pay phone to call me.’ He was a boy and in the logic of his boyish mind it wasn’t the crash that terrified him, but the idea of being lost and alone, unable to find a way home. With the coin in his hand, Robert boarded the plane. Afterward, he carried that dime with him everywhere he went. To college. To the war. To our first date even. At the restaurant he had pulled it from his wallet and placed it on the table between us when he first told me the story. He gave it to me on this pendant a few months later, when he asked me to marry him. When I imagine telling him that I’m sick, I think about that boy…and every time I lose my nerve.”
The two of us had long since finished washing the dishes and the house was darkening as the afternoon turned toward evening. She thanked me for helping clean up, and for listening, and for “everything else you’ve done for us.”
