Page 24 of The Housekeeper

Chapter Eleven

“What a charmingstory,” Elyse was saying, cutting me another slice of the chocolate cake she’d baked that morning. We were at my parents’ kitchen table, staring out at the backyard where my father and mother were sitting beside the pool, my mother encased in blankets in the wheelchair that had become an extension of her warped body, my father in golf shorts and an open-necked shirt, reading aloud from the Sunday edition ofThe New York Timesin the chair beside her.

I’d stopped by for a brief visit between showings, and had been about to leave when Elyse offered me a second piece of her delicious cake. I knew I should go home, that Harrison would likely grumble about having been on his own with the kids for most of the day, but I had a full afternoon ahead of me and was relishing these few minutes of “me” time.

Weekends were always a little hectic, as that was when most prospective buyers were free to go house-hunting. Many of these were repeat visits, the wife having already viewed the house favorably earlier in the week. All that was necessary now was the husband’s seal of approval.

Do we ever stop wanting that?I wondered.Do women ever stop judging themselves through the male eye?

“You really knew then and there that you were going to marry him?” Elyse probed.

“I did.” I shrugged, wondering when I’d lost that sense of certainty.

“I guess it runs in the family,” she said. “Your father said almost the same thing about your mother.”

“He did?”

“He said that he knew the minute he saw her perform that she would be his wife.”

“What else did he say?”

“That she’d turned down offers from several prestigious ballet companies to specialize in modern dance, even though it paid peanuts. That she was a magical dancer, but that she chose to give up performing after you were born.”

“It wasn’t exactly a choice,” I corrected.

“What do you mean?”

“I wasn’t the easiest baby,” I explained, feeling a familiar stab of guilt. Unlike Tracy, whose birth, by all accounts, had been a snap, I’d been stuck in a breech position that necessitated my mother undergoing a cesarean section, which put a definite crimp in her plans to resume her career quickly. Then I was a colicky baby, never sleeping more than a few hours at a time for months on end, unlike Tracy who, according to family legend, had slept through the night at three months and toilet-trained herself before her first birthday.

My mind suddenly filled with images from my childhood of my mother at the barre in the exercise room, her arms floating gracefully above her head as she twisted her lithe body into a variety of seemingly impossible positions, postures that Tracy, standing a few feet behind her, had no trouble imitating, but I could never get right.

“Watch Tracy,” my mother would instruct.

“Watch me,” Tracy would echo, two words that followed her into adulthood.

Watch me. Watch me. Watch me.

I watched, but I could never duplicate Tracy’s easy mastery of the art. In one of life’s little ironies, I had the desire, but not the talent, whereas Tracy had the talent, but lacked the desire.

It was that way with most things. It seemed as if there was nothing Tracy couldn’t do. She was filled with natural talent. Everything came to her with such astonishing ease that when it came time to settle down and do the hard work necessary to truly succeed, she simply gave up and went on to something else. And something else again. And again.

She was the same with men. A problem arose; the man disappeared.

Friends came and went. Tracy craved admiration, not loyalty. When she ceased feeling special, she moved on, found new friends to dazzle.

“More coffee?” Elyse asked, unaware of the thoughts swirling through my brain.

I glanced at the time. I had an open house in half an hour, but the property was only minutes away. “Sure. Why not?”

Elyse poured me a second cup, then plopped down into the chair beside me. “So, finish your story. When did he call you?”

It took me a minute to realize that she was talking about Harrison and the story I’d been telling her about how we met. Looking back, I can’t recall what had prompted me to confide in her. I suspect it was simply because she’d asked, and it had been such a long time since anyone had expressed an interest in anything I had to say that I found myself eager to share my stories, especially to such a sympathetic and appreciative listener.

“He called around midnight,” I told her, enjoying the memory.

“That same night?”

I felt a blush spread from my neck to my cheeks. “He said he knew it was late, but he was kind of hyped up from the evening and couldn’t sleep and wondered if I felt like going for a walk, and I said sure. And he showed up at my apartment, and basically never left.”