Cathleen Schine - The Three Weissmanns of Westport

She began pulling together a resume, which both depressed her and invigorated her. She researched headhunters and began to write the letters she would send out.

"But I was born to be a nanny," she said.

There were evenings when Roberts appeared and Leanne would be locked up with him and her aunt discussing business. Then it fell to Miranda to give Henry his bath. At other times, Aunt Charlotte would want Leanne to attend to her at bedtime, and Miranda would gratefully accept the job of getting Henry to sleep. "That one'll go," Charlotte would say, pointing to a portrait as Leanne helped her up the stairs. "On the auction block for you!" In his bed, Henry would point at his stuffed animals and say, "On the auction block for you! What's an auction block?"

When both their charges were asleep, Leanne and Miranda would sit in the living room and drink. They both liked to drink. Sometimes they polished off a bottle of wine, sometimes they drank bourbon, sometimes gin. They drank and they talked. But they had never discussed Kit. It was an unspoken agreement.

And now Miranda had stupidly mentioned Kit's tales about his childhood. All those sweet and intimate conversations Miranda had had with Kit about his sunny youth-of course, Leanne would resent that.

"Maine, huh?" Leanne said. She seemed as though she had more to say, but she gave a disgusted little sigh, no more.

"Maine? Maine has nothing we don't have right here in Westport," said Cousin Lou. "Forget about Maine. You come to our party, too… After all, you're Henry's mother… you're like family…"

"The Season," Annie said wearily after the third dinner in a row, "has begun."

Betty often begged off this new rash of meals, waving her daughters out the door with a sense of relief. "Find nice, rich husbands," she would always call after them, just for the pleasure of hearing their ritualized outrage. Then, at last: privacy. Alone to rest, to order interesting inventions that were advertised on TV. It had begun with OxiClean, which even Annie admitted worked wonders. But since then Betty had gotten a fleece blanket with arms, which you wore like a backward robe; a portable steam cleaner; and a wonderful brush that worked for both dogs and cats and came with a free bonus attachment that cut off burrs and tangles.

"But we don't have a dog," Annie said when it arrived in the mail.

"Or even a cat," Miranda added.

"Unpredictable times, my darlings," said Betty. "Unpredictable times."

She turned the TV on now and found the channel that reran soap operas. She liked to watch Kit sometimes. It excited her that she knew someone who was on television. She wouldn't have admitted it to her daughters, however. They were so cavalier about things like that. Growing up in New York had done that, she thought. Nothing impressed them.

"But it's wrong," Kit was saying to his handsome lover.

Wrong, Betty thought. So much was wrong in this world. Why did those two beautiful, healthy young men worry about a little thing like a kiss? She remembered the first time Joseph had kissed her. It was as clear as if it had happened that morning. It had been on a morning, too, but so long ago. They had met at a party a week earlier and he had asked her to come to see an exhibit at the Metropolitan. She couldn't remember what the exhibit was. Spanish paintings, perhaps? Afterward, they had gone for a walk in Central Park. Her children, her babies, were home with the teenage girl from the apartment next door. She remembered wondering if the girl was ignoring them, talking on the phone with some pimply boyfriend instead of playing dolls and peek-a-boo. That wouldn't be so bad, she had thought, as long as the girl didn't let them drown in the bathtub somehow… Then, suddenly, Joseph had taken her hand and led her to a thicket of trees and bushes. She heard the traffic on Fifth Avenue; she heard a dog barking and a mother telling her children not to go too far ahead of her, a siren in the distance, a squirrel scurrying through the leaves, or was it a rat… And then Joseph looked down at her with half-closed eyes and kissed her.

Her heart fluttered even now, remembering. She had fallen in love with him the first time they spoke at that awful smoky downtown party. Sometimes people are mistaken when they fall in love at first sight, or even second or third sight. But I was right, Betty thought. Pity he had to ruin everything.

She turned off the TV and sorted through some papers. When the phone rang, she saw on the caller ID that it was her lawyer and eagerly picked it up.

"How's my Case?"

"You won't believe this, Betty, but I think… well, I think we're making progress! Suddenly Joseph Weissmann's lawyers, who refused to even refuse my calls, are calling and asking for meetings to 'clear this all up.'"

Betty felt a sickening surge of relief, sickening because it forced her to acknowledge how frightened she was, how precarious, how vulnerable. Then, a blind flash of rage. Then, oddly, a pang of sorrow for Joseph.

"I don't know what happened. Maybe you've just successfully waited Joseph out. Not all women have the resources to do that," the lawyer said. "They settle because they can't buy groceries."

"Joseph would never do that," Betty said.

"Only because you haven't let him. You can thank your family for that."

Joseph is my family, she wanted to explain.

"We did it, we did it!" Miranda cried, dancing around the cottage, when she told them the news.

"Maybe!" Annie joined in. "Maybe we did it!"

Betty found the possibility of victory painfully anticlimactic. What on earth were they dancing for? She looked around the little cottage, at her furniture and rug, her paintings and vases, and tried to remember them in their original setting. If she really went back to her apartment, would she miss the cottage? She wasn't sure. She hoped so. She didn't like to think of these past months as wasted. But for her, there was no joy in the thought of return. Living alone in the apartment would be like drifting on an ocean in a tiny boat. Nowhere to go, and no real hope of getting there.

On one of the afternoons when Leanne was working in the library of the big house on Beachside Avenue, Miranda and Henry were searching for worms on the lawn in back. Long Island Sound stretched out before them. The sky was a vibrant blue and the wind was brisk. Aunt Charlotte had recovered enough from her surgery to be steered outside in a wheelchair. She was wearing one of the fleece blankets with arms that Betty had ordered from TV. "The second one was half-price," Betty had explained to an outraged Annie. Then she had given it to Charlotte Maybank, who wore it at all times, inside and out.

Henry curled his fingers in the bright grass and damp sod. The earth was dark and rich, almost black. A pink worm slithered out from the trench he had carved.

"Look!" he said.

"We can go fishing," Miranda said.

Henry's brow wrinkled. Miranda knew by now that this was the cloud before the storm.

"The worm will die," he said in the tremulous voice that preceded a wail. "The fish will die…"

Miranda quickly picked up the worm and took Henry's hand. She placed the worm in his palm. She said, "See that brown part? That's dirt. It eats the dirt and then the dirt comes out the other end and the dirt that comes out is better for growing things."

"Worm poop," Henry said, mollified.

As Miranda breathed a sigh of relief, she saw Roberts coming out of the house and walking down the flagstone path toward them. He wore his habitual dark suit. His shoes gleamed in an old-fashioned way. He looked even more grave than usual.

"Roberts?" she said, standing up. "Everything okay?"

He gave Miranda a halfhearted wave, turned to the old lady and said, "Charlotte, we really have to talk," then began to wheel her inside.