She starts to cry. “I failed you,” she says.
“No,” Patrick says. “I failed you. Your addiction to oxy and Ativan is my fault.”
As much as Jennifer would like to hand Patrick the blame, she won’t. “I’m an adult,” she says. “Taking the pills was my decision. Seeking out more—from Norah—was my decision. A decision I made again and again.”
They are no longer angry. Now, they are sad. Patrick opens his arms; Jennifer crawls into them. They make love, possibly the fiercest, most passionate love of their marriage, and Jennifer thinks that maybe, just maybe, everything is going to be all right.
Later, they eat the blue cheese mashed potatoes out of the pot while standing in front of the stove. Patrick gnaws on a veal chop while Jennifer attacks the spinach salad.
He says, “I don’t want to ruin our beautiful détente, but we have to talk about my mother.”
Jennifer closes her eyes. Margaret Quinn is now Jennifer’s least favorite subject. Jennifer has over a dozen voice-mail messages from Margaret, but she hasn’t been able to listen to a single one.
“You can’t avoid her forever,” Patrick says. “She’s my mother. She’s the boys’ grandmother.”
“I know,” Jennifer whispers.
“She doesn’t think any less of you,” Patrick says. “She isn’t like that.”
Jennifer spears a cherry tomato, then a slice of white button mushroom. There’s no way to make Patrick understand how mortified Jennifer is that Margaret knows about her addiction. Telling her own mother and Mitzi and Kelley wasn’t great, but it was better than admitting her addiction to Margaret Quinn. The shame of what she’s done and how she’s done it has frozen the previously wonderful relationship Jennifer had with her mother-in-law. Jennifer can’t bring herself to call Margaret back, and texting feels like a cop-out. She has considered writing Margaret a letter but she doesn’t know what she would say.
Margaret doesn’t think any less of Jennifer—that’s a bold-faced lie. Of course Margaret thinks less of her! Jennifer has striven for perfection in every aspect and especially in every aspect Margaret can see. Jennifer has never valued anyone’s opinion or sought anyone’s approval as much as Margaret’s. But now, Jennifer has blown it. She has disgraced herself and proven herself unworthy.
Margaret isn’t like that—true, she isn’t like that. She was very restrained in expressing her disappointment with Patrick. She couldn’t have liked the situation but she remained supportive and nonjudgmental. Jennifer realizes Margaret will probably be understanding—Jennifer was dealing with a lot, her circumstances made her vulnerable—but in her most honest, most secret and forever thoughts, Margaret will see Jennifer as weak.
“I can’t call her,” Jennifer says. “I just can’t.”
“Every day you wait makes it worse,” Patrick says. “Call her right now. Get it over with.”
“I can’t,” Jennifer says. “I’ve been drinking.”
Patrick nods. “In the morning, then.”
“Okay?” Jennifer says. She sets down her fork. She has lost her appetite.
In the morning, Jennifer and Patrick make love again and Jennifer hopes the act is distracting enough that Patrick will forget about Jennifer calling Margaret. But only seconds before he steps into the shower, he turns to Jennifer, who is at the sink brushing her teeth, and says, “My mother. Do it now. You promised.”
She knows for a fact that she didn’t promise; she knows she said Okay? with a question mark in her voice. She had said Okay? only to put the topic to bed. Was he really going to hold her to her Okay?
She nods, spits, shuts off the water, and leaves the bathroom.
She sits on her bed holding her cell phone. She has never dreaded anything in her life as much as she dreads dialing Margaret’s number. But putting it off means having it hang over her head, which is stressful enough to make Jennifer crave an Ativan.
Vicious cycle. She will not fall prey to it.
She dials the number, brings the phone to her ear. It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday morning so Margaret won’t be working, but she may still be asleep, or at the gym, or making Drake an omelet.
“Hello?” Margaret says, sounding fresh and awake.
“Margaret?” Jennifer says. Her heart is slamming in her chest. “It’s Jennifer.”
“Jennifer?” Margaret says. She sounds confused, and Jennifer realizes Margaret doesn’t recognize her voice. Margaret must know five hundred Jennifers, including Lopez, Lawrence, and Aniston.
“Your daughter-in-law,” Jennifer says. She squeezes her eyes shut.
“Jennifer!” Margaret says. “You must think me monstrous. Drake tells me I shouldn’t answer my phone without checking the caller ID, but I can never find my glasses. And I’m supposed to be interviewing a woman named Jennifer to be my new assistant. I thought maybe you were her.”
“New assistant?” Jennifer says. “What’s happening to Darcy?”
“Darcy will be leaving in a month or so,” Margaret says. “CNN is making her a full producer. She’s moving to Atlanta. Isn’t that the most awful thing you’ve ever heard?”
“Yes,” Jennifer says. “Darcy is… she is…”
“My right hand,” Margaret says. “I don’t know about this other Jennifer. She graduated summa cum laude from Princeton and she sounds very tightly wound. How are you, my darling?”
“Oh,” Jennifer says, her breath coming more easily now. “I’m okay, I guess.”
“Well, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about,” Margaret says.
Here it comes, Jennifer thinks. The inevitable lecture. The scolding. The description of Margaret’s disappointment. Or, worse, a bestowal of forgiveness. If Margaret says something kind, or if she says that each and every one of us is human and therefore susceptible to the occasional failure and it doesn’t make us bad people, Jennifer will cry. She doesn’t deserve to be the recipient of Margaret’s generous understanding.
“Margaret…” Jennifer says. She feels she should preempt Margaret with an apology, but Margaret doesn’t give her a chance.
“I want to throw Isabelle a bridal shower, but I don’t have time to plan it,” Margaret says. “Will you help me? Please? You have the most exquisite taste.”
“I do?” Jennifer says. “I mean, of course I’ll help. I can plan the whole thing, if you’d like.” She can’t believe that Margaret is treating her like a person instead of an addict. The pills didn’t define her, Jennifer realizes then. Tears come, but they are tears of relief, not sadness, and Jennifer wipes them away.
“That would be such a help,” Margaret says. “Thank you, thank you, darling girl. You’re the best.”
AVA
Most people make their resolutions in January, but Ava decided to do it on the first day of school and now, nearly two months in, she has stuck to them quite admirably.
1. Learn to be happy alone.
2. No men.
The second resolution was put there to reinforce the meaning of the first. In order for Ava to be happy alone, she can’t have a boyfriend, and she can’t date. She refuses Nathaniel’s repeated invitations to visit him on Block Island. You’ll love it, he says. It’s like Nantucket, he says, except smaller—only ten square miles—and simpler. There are only 108 children in the school district, and everyone in the seventh grade has to play in the band.
“Isn’t that great?” Nathaniel says.
Ava is sure it’s charming, but she doesn’t want anything simpler than Nantucket. Recently, she’s been having city dreams.
Every once in a while, she’ll get a text from Potter that says, NYC this weekend? It’s tempting, but… Ava wants to stick to her resolutions.
As she tells Shelby, “I’ve been in a relationship with either Nathaniel or Scott for the past three and a half years.”
“Before that, you dated Ben, the visiting art teacher,” Shelby says.