A Wedding in December_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [105]
When they’d arrived at the room in which the dinner would be held, and Harrison had asked her if she would like a drink, Agnes had accepted with alacrity. Drink in hand, she’d finally made her way to Bridget, whom she’d embraced and congratulated.
“Do you have children?” Agnes asked Julie now.
“One,” Julie said. “A daughter. She’s thirteen.”
“Oh,” Agnes said with enthusiasm. “Then you’ll soon be thinking about schools. Have you considered Kidd?”
Agnes noted a stop and pause between Jerry and Julie, a momentary beat after which Jerry spoke as if for the both of them. “Emily is autistic,” Jerry said bluntly, a fact he clearly hadn’t volunteered earlier. And one Agnes wished she hadn’t inadvertently forced out of him. “She’s at a special school in Manhattan. The best in the country.”
The information left Agnes momentarily at a loss for words. Should one be sorry to hear that Jerry’s daughter was autistic? Or glad that she was being so well cared for? “I didn’t know that,” Agnes said, marveling at the sheer mass of all that had cumulatively happened to her six friends in twenty-seven years. “I’m glad she’s receiving such good care,” she added.
Jerry played with his napkin. He set it on the table and then put it back on his lap. He seemed about to say something but didn’t. Agnes found this small glimpse into Jerry’s vulnerability appealing. For the first time since he had arrived at the inn, she felt sorry for him.
Agnes gazed around the table. Bill and Bridget. Two failed marriages between them. On the cusp of another. A diagnosis of breast cancer. Stage two? Stage three? Children who would have to adapt to being in a blended family. Agnes had watched Matt as he’d surreptitiously (and sometimes blatantly) observed Melissa. The pair were, as of today, stepbrother and -sister, though they seemed hardly to have spoken.
Nora. Married practically as a child to a man who easily could have been her father. A difficult man by all accounts, whose brilliance and fame might have been both thrilling and exasperating. Now a widow with tremendous responsibilities and apparently no partner with whom to share them.
Harrison. Whom Agnes had very much admired as a boy. The only one of them on full scholarship at Kidd. Raised by his mother who’d been widowed years before. On the surface at least, Harrison appeared to have the most normal life of them all: a wife, two sons, a good job, a home. And yet there was about the man some quiet anxiety not accounted for. Perhaps it was only that in this group, he couldn’t help but think of Stephen. As, indeed, they all couldn’t help but think of Stephen, a boy who, outwardly at least, had appeared to have all of life’s advantages—good looks, athleticism, charm, money—and yet, at heart, had seemed to lack an essential authenticity that had caused him to drive himself, in a kind of frenzy, to the front of the pack. Unlike Harrison, who’d hung back a bit, been something of a loner, an observer.
Jerry. Clearly enmeshed in a cold, if not a fraught, marriage. One child, autistic.
Rob. Happy now with a calling and a lover, and apparently tremendously successful at both. Rob’s early years after Kidd would have been difficult, however. Working for his place at Juilliard. Emerging into gay life. A gay man’s existence could not be easy, however outwardly happy and successful it seemed, Agnes thought. Or was she simply profiling once again?
“Rob,” Harrison said. “I’ve been meaning to ask about your folks. Are they still living in Manchester?”
“No, they moved to North Carolina to be near my sister. She and her husband have three kids. How about your mom? Still in Chicago?”