Dear Cary - Dyan Cannon [93]
“Would you mind if we talked to the vicar about it?” he asked. The request was so soft that I couldn’t say no.
We found the vicar a few minutes later, and Cary inquired about the particulars. The vicar showed us what amounted to a contract that, among other things, stipulated that Jennifer would be raised as an Episcopalian. That’s when I dug in my heels. I asked the vicar if I could speak privately with Cary for a moment.
“Cary, do you really intend to raise Jennifer as an Episcopalian?”
“Oh, Dyan, it’s more for the sake of tradition than anything. You know I never attended church.”
“Then why don’t we just let her make up her own mind,” I said. “Sure, we’ll guide her. But I’d rather not let any religion make a claim on her before she can decide for herself.”
To my surprise, Cary smiled and nodded in assent, and we left the church without a single word of disagreement. Maybe at that moment, I thought, he’d taken his own quest for truth into account and realized that leaving it open was something he owed his daughter. And that won out over tradition.
We went back to the nursing home to say good-bye to Elsie. I gave Jennifer to her to hold. She cuddled Jennifer for a few moments and looked into her eyes, then rather abruptly passed her back to me. “Don’t bring her around too often,” Elsie said wistfully. “I’m afraid I’ll fall in love with her, and it’ll make me too sad when you take her away from me.”
That just about broke my heart. I took Elsie’s hand and said, “Elsie, come and stay with us in California—for as long as you want. We’d love to have you. Please, won’t you think about it?”
“Thank you, Betsy,” she said, smiling appreciatively. Oh, well. There were worse things she could call me.
Later, back at the hotel, Cary became very quiet. I could tell he was upset and asked what it was. “Why wouldn’t you confer with me before you invited my mother to come and stay with us?” He was visibly angry.
“I just assumed that’s what you’d want! Why wouldn’t you want her to stay with us?”
He was silent. I went on. “You lost her for all those years. Now that you’ve found her . . . I just don’t understand. You jump through flaming hoops to make her happy. You do everything except what’s obvious, which is to bring her into your life—our lives! Why?”
Cary regained his cool, as he always did after he’d lost his temper. He exhaled and touched me on the shoulder. “I’ve lived with this situation a lot longer than you have, dear girl.” He said it with such weight that I lost the momentum to challenge him. He went on. “I don’t expect you to understand. I don’t think anyone can.”
I let the moment breathe for a bit, and then I asked, “Do you love your mother, Cary?”
“Of course.”
“Do you believe she loves you?”
There was a pause. A long pause.
“I think she loved Archie.”
I went to him, put my arms around him, and held him close for a long moment. Without moving, I whispered, “Give her a break, Cary. Please. Just give her a break.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Husbands and Wives
When we got back from England, I had a pile of messages from my mother beseeching me to call her the minute I got home. When I called, I could hear the tears in her voice, and considering how strong my mother was, I thought something terrible had happened.
“Your father,” she sniffled, “is seeing another woman.”
I had no idea what to say. My dad—the single most monogamous man on the planet, and after thirty-three years of marriage, still gaga over Mom—having an affair? I would’ve had an easier time believing it if she told me she’d been kidnapped by the jellyfish people and taken for a ride in their flying refrigerator.
“Mom, that’s crazy,” I said. “Dad? Cheating on you? No way!”
“He’s lying to me, honey. I’ve been married to him since 1934. I know when he’s lying.”
I asked Mom what Dad was lying about to her. She told me that for the past several months he’d had to be away on business a lot—every ten days or so. Dad always told her where she could reach him when he was away, but he was rarely ever gone long enough