Cathleen Schine - The Three Weissmanns of Westport

Sometimes she would sit Henry atop the ceremonial cannons at the beach and listen to him talk. He would tell long tales about a fox named Higbee.

"And then?" she would say, not paying attention, closing her eyes against the dying autumn sun and the sharp wind, her arms around Henry's waist, her shoulder against his leg. The joy of not listening-why had she never tried it before? Henry's voice was like music, a pretty little piccolo, the chant of a boy in his own boys' choir. No wonder people had children, she thought. A child replaced art and work and culture. A child, so small, so loud, took up all the time, all the energy, all the love. It was so easy: just give in, just let your life be ruled by this simple and tender embodiment of need. No choices, no decisions except those that related to one person, one little demanding Napoleonic person. She felt relief flood through her body: being with Henry was so clear-cut, so obvious, so essential, so undeniable and absolute.

When the stories got too boring even to ignore, Miranda took Henry down and they walked slowly home, stopping to examine the offerings of low tide-mussels, the abandoned, upturned armature of a horseshoe crab, a white pebble, a tangle of russet seaweed, a smell of salt and brine and smooth, sparkling muck.

One evening, Annie caught sight of Kit on the train coming home from the city, pushing the strands of boyish hair back from his face, smiling a rather dazzling smile. Seated in the back of the train car, she watched him walk past her, down the aisle, and she saw heads swivel to look at him, one, then another, as he passed by. He actually turns heads, she thought, amused. Annie could understand it. He was a magnificent creature to look at, a peach ripening on a branch. Annie caught herself noticing his strong young arms beneath his shirt. Even his wrists looked young and manly to her. For years, Annie had been aware of the physical beauty of her sons' friends. They would come and stay during college vacations and sleep piled in their rooms like a pack of dogs, then wander into the kitchen shirtless and sleepy, their hair tousled, their torsos long and smooth as ancient Greeks'. They would blink and stretch and eat, unconscious of their beauty, of the limber physical eloquence of youth. Annie had anesthetized any simmering physical response as quickly and thoroughly as possible. But you could admire them. In fact, how could you help but admire them?

Remembering those shaggy morning parades of boyish beauty, Annie found it natural to fall into a state of admiration for the handsome young Kit, and would have felt no unease if Miranda had done the same. But Miranda's reaction to Kit was not what Annie expected. First of all, Miranda rarely spoke of him, never extravagantly extolled the virtues that would later be cataloged as vices. Nor did she call him on the phone at short, regular intervals. She did not buy him absurdly expensive presents. She did not loudly announce her intense happiness, at last!, to salesgirls and crossing guards and the man behind the meat counter at the grocery store. This one time, Miranda did not fall impetuously in love, announcing that here at last was the one and only man for her. She did not spend every waking minute with him for four weeks and then weep her eyes out when she discovered that he was a fundamentalist, a lush, a Republican, whatever it was that rose up and disappointed her. This time, Miranda, depressed and disoriented by the collapse of her life of the past couple of hard-earned decades, had apparently not had the energy to throw herself into one of her accustomed ferocious love affairs. Her relationship with Kit was different, more even, more peaceful, more plain. Miranda seemed happy, which made Annie happy. But there was something worrisome, too. For who'd ever heard of a temperate Miranda? Without her cloak of extravagance, Miranda seemed so unprotected. She had let down her guard: her gaudy, frenetic, romantic guard. Which meant, Annie thought with dread, that anything could happen now.

The first time Kit and Miranda made love, it was late in the afternoon, two days after they met. Henry was asleep in his crib. The light was golden, saturated, and the white curtains on the windows fluttered noisily in the breeze that swept in from the water. Miranda felt the same arms around her, the Adonis arms, the hero arms that had lifted her from the tossing sea. She laughed out loud, thinking what a fool she was to cast her soggy rescue in such epic terms. When she laughed, Kit told her she was beautiful, that he had found her floating in the ocean and that he would keep her, finders keepers, it was only fair. She allowed herself to disappear, to dissolve into his arms. It was a conscious, almost frenzied release. This was another kind of freedom, this letting go. All responsibility, all aspiration, all disappointment, all of life before that moment was left far, far behind. He undressed her, and she felt her jeans and her sweater, her bra, each bit of clothing slip over her skin. He undressed himself, too, slowly, sure she was watching, she noticed, stringing it out.

They spent almost every afternoon like that, she reeling from the heady emotional simmer: her own fierce, demanding extinction, beneath which rested a calm, solid sense that she was as safe as houses.

When Henry woke up, she would leave Kit asleep in the boathouse and take Henry for a walk on the beach. Tide pools glazed the smooth dark sand, and silver flakes of mica reflected the setting sun. When it rained, they squatted in their slickers and watched the raindrops disrupt the surfaces of the shallow beach puddles. They held hands and spoke in undertones. Miranda had never been religious, but she thought that she could worship Henry with fervor and joy. She thought, I already do.

Cousin Lou was not religious, either: he claimed that he would not like to insult the memory of his benefactress, Mrs. H., by worshipping any god but her. This sacrilegious declaration made both Rosalyn and Betty squirm, but Annie and Miranda laughed every time he said it. In spite of his irreligiosity, however, their cousin could not give up an occasion for a large gathering, and he planned to have thirty for dinner on Rosh Hashanah. The three Weissmanns were invited, as were Kit Maybank and Henry. Among the other guests were a woman Cousin Lou had recently become acquainted with at the Westport YMCA pool during free swim who turned out to be a distant cousin of Rosalyn's; Lou's accountant, Marty, with Marty's large family of several generations; a fellow Lou knew from the golf course who had invented a folding six-foot ladder that was only three-quarters of an inch deep; a plastic surgeon who was always very popular at dinner parties for his willingness to put on his reading glasses and take a closer look; the psychiatrist and his wife; the lawyers; the judge; the metal sculptor; a retired factor from Seventh Avenue; and a former cultural minister of Estonia Lou and Rosalyn had met thirteen years earlier at a spa in Ischia.

When Rosh Hashanah came, a bright, clear, unseasonably warm day, none of the Weissmanns went to synagogue. It had not been their custom for many years, and Betty particularly did not want to this year because, she explained, as one so recently widowed, she could not stand the spiritual strain. So the three women sat on the sunporch and enjoyed the warmth and read the newspaper until, around two o'clock, Kit's white MINI pulled into the driveway.

"They're awfully early," Betty said, eyeing the child in the car seat and wondering if her quiet day was about to be invaded.

Miranda gave her mother a look and went to the car. She could barely contain her excitement. She had just gotten a pair of Crocs that were identical to Henry's own tiny pair of rubber clogs. They were not the kind of footwear she would have ever considered before, not even to wear on the beach, but when she saw them in the store, she imagined Henry's amazement, his pleasure. They were still in the box. She couldn't wait to show him.