Wild Game My Mother, Her Lover, and Me - Adrienne Brodeur Page 0,62

the seat belt dug into my neck. I focused on a flock of geese flying overhead in a long V.

“Remember, this is about them, not us,” he said.

I didn’t know how he could believe this, though it wouldn’t serve me well to press the point. It was far easier for us to fixate on their problems and not our own.

If Jack felt anger or concern that I’d kept this secret from him, he hadn’t expressed it. Jack placed blame squarely on Ben and Malabar’s shoulders. He was furious with our parents. I understood his rage and perspective, but I had no sense of an injustice done to me. Instead, I was guilt-ridden and made excuses for everyone’s behavior, my own included.

One kiss, and Malabar had fallen hopelessly in love with Ben. Was that so very wrong? This was what I kept asking myself. Malabar hadn’t set out to hurt anyone. She just wanted the happy ending that had been promised. And what was she to do now that the prince had gone off script? My mother’s broken heart felt like my own. Lily and Ben still had each other—their life together, their home, all those exotic trips. Malabar was the one who had come up empty.

I had grown up with this drama, and even though I was starting to see the situation with adult eyes, my fealty remained with my mother, whose pain seemed to eclipse all others’. I also knew that if Jack’s and my roles had been reversed, I wouldn’t have been able to forgive him so readily or overlook the fundamental issue of misplaced loyalty. I’d cleaved to my mother rather than the man I’d promised to spend my life with, a fundamental—indeed biblical—betrayal.

We drove the rest of the way to Plymouth in silence.

Even as early as May, Lily’s garden was something to behold. Along the Southers’ driveway, cherry trees blossomed and tulips and daffodils burst forth with the promise of more to come, which, after a brutal New England winter, was no small covenant. From the bright green hill of their front lawn, a flock of white pigeons took off in synchronized flight. Beautiful, I thought. As if reading my mind, Jack mentioned that they might be dinner. There was a pigeon coop on the other side of the house and a bucket over which Ben would drain the pigeons’ blood after slitting their necks.

I heard Ben before I saw him.

“How do!” he called, rushing out to greet us.

He and Jack back-patted briefly, and then Ben came around to my side. I felt Lily’s eyes on us from somewhere, behind a curtain perhaps. I glanced up at the kitchen window, but its reflection yielded nothing. Ben hugged me tightly and didn’t let go.

“I’m so sorry, honey,” he whispered into my ear, and I felt his shoulders heave against mine. His cheeks were smooth and smelled of shaving cream. “I love you so much, and I hope someday you’ll forgive me. You’ll never know how I regret my actions.”

So here was my apology at last, but what did sorry mean in this context? Did Ben regret that he’d involved me as a child without thinking through the ramifications? Was he sorry for the pain he was causing his son and, by extension, me? Or was he talking to my mother, sending her a private message that I was supposed to deliver? Or, another possibility, was he sorry for colossally miscalculating what his wife’s reaction would be? For that is how Lily found out, I learned. In the end, Ben had simply decided to tell her.

He’d reasoned that his wife’s depression wasn’t about her failing heart but due to some intuition about the situation with Malabar, heightened since Charles had died. Ben thought he could relieve Lily’s anxiety and assuage her fears by assuring her that although, yes, he was in love with my mother, he had no plans to leave his marriage. I recalled my phone conversation with my mother on this topic. How wrong she had been about the potential outcome.

Where was Lily? I wondered. Her eyes were all over this reunion, I knew. I could feel her presence but could not see her face.

Ben led us past the main house to a small guest cottage with a wraparound covered porch. He told us to freshen up and join them when we were ready for a drink, and then he left. We’d never stayed in the guesthouse as a couple before, though Jack spent summers there