The Neallys Ch. 07: Kate Pugh

"I like that answer. Let's get going."

And with that, the pair put their stuff in the Zabar's bags—one to dispose of, one to keep—rolled up the blanket and headed back to the car. They were both tired and it was getting late so after Kate gave him a kiss on the cheek, Simon headed to Greenwich while she went to her apartment.

* * *

To be clear, Simon Douglas had not let grass grow underneath his feet after Eileen committed to Tom. He was still a very-eligible bachelor and semi-retired banker with a big house and fast car in Greenwich. He dated quite a few women. But he soon exhausted the supply of eligible ones, mostly divorcées, in and around town. He enjoyed dating and he enjoyed occasionally sleeping with women but through it all, he remained a very-eligible bachelor.

He was thrilled and disappointed when he got the invitation to Eileen's wedding to Tom and when he saw them he was pleased. He didn't know anyone he thought close enough to share the wedding so he went alone. Which was why he ended up spending some time with Kate Nelson. From her, he learned that she had some complicated backstory, but she didn't divulge much beyond that she was separated from her husband in California and was thinking of getting a divorce since she moved to New York to be near her daughter, who was married to Eileen's daughter. It sounded pretty complicated, but Simon's head for figures helped him understand at least the broad strokes. The most important being that Kate was separated and contemplating divorce.

Simon filed that information away and memories of speaking to Kate popped into his head now and then. Somehow he heard—it might have been from someone at his firm who got it from someone at Eileen's firm—that Kate had gotten that divorce and was a single woman living and working in Manhattan. After some internet sleuthing, he got her number and gave her a call. Which is where our story began.

Simon liked sex. He never initiated. He knew that dating was binary. Either it went somewhere or it didn't. Most of the women he dated viewed things as he did. At some point during dinner, they'd decide whether they wanted simple sex with Simon or whether they hoped for something more. Sometimes it was neither. If they wanted simple sex, Simon was happy, and more than ready, to oblige. He was a sweet and tender lover and on more than one occasion what his date thought would be a one-night hookup turned into something more—thanks to Simon's prowess and generosity in bed—and there were several women who Simon dated regularly with no expectations beyond a good evening in bed. If he and they were younger, they'd be known as "fuck buddies."

Since breaking up with Eileen back in November 2017, Simon had one serious relationship. Sandra O'Neil was divorced and had gotten the short end of her divorce from her husband, who worked at a financial firm on Wall Street. They had two kids and lived in Greenwich. She got the big house and he bought a condo on Manhattan's Upper East Side. She had primary custody of the kids, who were still in high school, and he had generous visitation rights.

The divorce, though, was not amicable. Sandra's ex had been having an affair with a junior banker at his firm and its exposure risked torpedoing his career, insofar as in those pre-MeToo years such a thing could torpedo a man's career on Wall Street. That risk, in fact, was what got Sandra as much as she got. She had left college to get married, and now worked as a secretary at a law firm in Greenwich. She enjoyed the work and the people at the firm. When the divorce was finally settled, her thoughts turned to meeting men.

She knew Simon from the Yacht Club while she was a member. They ran into each other on Greenwich Avenue and he ended up taking her to dinner. For the next three months, they dated regularly. In the end, though, and hard as they both tried, there was no passion between them. While on the surface neither seemed particularly passionate it burned beneath. They realized it was missing between them in the last of their many moments of intimacy at his place. Sandra said something was missing, and Simon agreed. They each got dressed and, after a kiss, she drove home. She remained, however, his closest friend and his confidant. They met for coffee in town on that Saturday between Simon's first and second dates with Kate. She told him simply to follow his heart.

"It's quaint, but you are a romantic. It's why it didn't work for us, much as I still love you. You need to feel something. If you feel it, go for it and you're telling me that you feel something towards her. See what happens."

Which was an endorsement of what Simon already knew. He valued hearing it from Sandra.

Kate was not so sure about him. After what happened with Martin, she still needed to know if Simon was special for her. When she caught the attention of Charlie Evans, recently divorced and living seven blocks south of her and with two children, both in college, she accepted his offer for a date on the Saturday after her picnic with Simon. She and Simon spoke several times during the week, always comfortably. And, of course, during the picnic. She didn't mention Charlie, as she hadn't mentioned Martin.

She met Charlie long before at their church. He was, he knew, a bit overweight and was balding. A lawyer by trade and a partner in a BigLaw firm in midtown, he had a self-deprecating air that was the opposite of William's, Kate's ex, a partner in a BigLaw firm in San Francisco. She and Charlie enjoyed going out for drinks on Saturday night on Broadway but it didn't extend to dinner and they shared a kiss-goodnight that was nothing but a kiss-goodnight.

When Kate got home at about ten, she called Simon and they chatted about nothing for a half-hour or so before they wished each other goodnight. They both slept soundly.

Sunday

"It's him."

"What does that mean?"

"You told me to ask myself whether I enjoyed that night so much because it was Simon or because it was just a man."

"And?"

"Because it was Simon. It's not as though I haven't dated men since I came to New York. Well, two others. I had a nice time last night with someone from Church but it went nowhere and we both knew it."

"How about I drive down to see you? Tom'll understand. Do you have anything planned with him?"

"I didn't want to sound too eager when I spoke to him last night so—"

"You called him after your date? He must have been thrilled to hear from you."

"He didn't know about the date. But I was thrilled to hear him. I'd like you to come down."

Eileen found a spot about ten minutes after she got to Kate's neighborhood. She called up and waited for her friend on the stoop and the pair headed into Riverside Park. By then end of their heart-to-heart, Kate had Eileen's endorsement.

A Hand-Written Letter

Kate and Simon spoke several times during the week. She confessed to having dated a couple of others but that, well, they didn't work out. Simon was unsure how to take this bit of intel but figured that she wouldn't be on the phone with him and wouldn't be so anxious about getting together with him if those dates had gone anywhere. Thus he was more than happy to go into the City on Saturday. Fall had arrived. They'd have lunch and play things by ear.

Plans changed, though, on Wednesday. Kate's roots were getting more established in New York, and she feared, or at least was concerned, that California was no longer part of her. She regretted being in touch with only a few people there. Just her sister Lizzie and Lizzie's family and three or four friends from Mill Valley and her former Church. She tried to speak with Lizzie once a week and her friends every few weeks.

Her California life was "then" and her New York life was "now" and her New York life was bringing her satisfaction and happiness she'd not known out west.

A first crack appeared when she received a letter. It was in her mailbox in the lobby and the return address told her it was from her brother Edward. She'd not spoken to or heard from him in over a year. Once in her apartment, she put down the other mail and found a letter opener. She shook.

Kate,

This is a difficult letter for me to write. I was wrong. I acted without regard to the Christian spirit that we all shared. To love and honor God's creations. It has weighed on me since I first learned of Suzanne's situation and I now see that you had no choice but to do what you did and support her. I now realize that I too had no choice. Yet I made the wrong one.

I ask that you try to find in your heart the ability to forgive me. And that somehow Suzanne may someday forgive me as well.

I have told no one about this, not even Jennie, except for Lizzie, who encouraged me to write. I asked her not to mention to you our frequent conversations over recent weeks. It is my burden and I must undertake it myself.

I can only hope that you can forgive me and allow me to again be a part, however small, of your family. I love you and I love Suzanne. As the song goes, "I was blind, but now I see."

Your loving brother who misses you both terribly,

Eddie

P.S. I realize that this letter may create a schism in the family. That cannot be helped, although I pray that it will be temporary. I would not be a man of faith if I failed to stand up for what I believe and I believe that I was wrong in my treatment of you and, especially, of Suzanne.

By the time she finished the letter, Kate was sitting on her sofa, a tear in her left eye. She looked at her watch. Although Lizzie was still at work she would speak to her. She dialed.

Lizzie told Kate that Eddie contacted her out of the blue about a month earlier. They'd spoken several times since. It was all very hush-hush, although Lizzie's husband, Phil, knew about it. She thought Edward was sincere. That he, too, was coming around to thinking there was something wrong at the core of a religion that denied the humanity of a person whose orientation or whose body fell outside the standard male-female. In the end, he had a married niece—Suzanne—and he hated the thought of never seeing her again, or his own sister, and of never meeting his niece's wife and his niece's children.

Edward had two children and as far as he knew they, a son and a daughter, were straight. He realized that if they weren't, neither would share that with him; they and all of the family in their generation understood what happened to their cousin. He would not allow his kids to be as lost to him as Suzanne was lost to William, as William had just thrown away his own daughter and, with it, his wife and his son. He knew how miserable William was, resigned to living the "right" life and carrying on, wandering around his otherwise empty five-bedroom in Mill Valley. Drinking too much when he came to the Pughs for holidays because he had nowhere else to go and had no one else who cared the slightest bit about him as a father or a brother.

He also knew that his children, even if straight, could, in the end, resent his role in the ostracization of Suzanne and their Aunt Kate.

Leaving California

"If you go to New York, think twice about whether you're coming home."

"You're such a drama queen. I'm just going to see my sister and, I hope, my niece."

"You know it's more than that. You are endorsing what Suzanne did and what Kate did. You're saying it's OK, and we both know it's not."

"Keep it down or the kids will hear."

"You don't think they already know about all of this? Good thing they're not like Suzanne."

Both he and Jennie knew they wished their kids had half the sweetness and kindness and smarts of Suzanne but that was not what she was talking about and they both knew that too. Edward let it pass.

"Deciding to do this wasn't easy."

"Of course it was 'easy.' But having faith isn't supposed to be easy. It's supposed to be hard. You think saints let themselves be burned at the stake because it was the 'easy' thing to—"

"Enough. You can continue to ostracize Kate and Suzanne. But I have news for you. I know from Lizzie. They. Don't. Care. They have a new life there. They are happy there. We're not having this conversation again. I'll call you when I get there."

Edward got in the car with a wave to his wife and headed to SFO for the trip to New York, trying to clear his head of yet another uncomfortable conversation with his wife and his siblings and his parents, a "Judas" reference never far from the surface.

JFK

"What's he like?"

Kerry was driving with Suzanne to get Kate. They'd then head to JFK to pick up Uncle Eddie. Both girls endorsed Kate's decision to say "yes" to his coming when she ran it by them.

"He's a couple of years younger than my Mother and was more relaxed than Devlin, my other uncle, or my non-Lizzie Aunt, Debbie. Not as much as Lizzie, but if anyone would break from the fold about me it would be him."

"What about your grandparents?"

"Not in a million years."

Suzanne showed Kerry a picture of Edward before they left the house. He had a full head of dark-brown hair and looked to be in good shape. With a ready smile. She called Kate as they neared her apartment. She was coming out of the building when they pulled up. Kate sat in back and Kerry headed to the Triboro Bridge and then to the airport. They had plenty of time and Kate told Kerry about her brother. Edward's flight was due in a bit after five and there was little traffic.

When Edward came into the arrivals terminal, Kerry stayed back as the other two went to him. After they hugged, he was introduced to her. She shook his hand but he broke off and gave her a hug and, stepping away, an "I'm very happy to meet you. Finally." The quartet headed to short-term parking and headed into the City. Edward would stay in Eric's room in the apartment.

They were in front of Kate's building within the hour and Kerry found a place to park while the other three went inside. Nothing of substance was said on the drive and everyone felt somewhat uncomfortable. Kerry took the role as tour guide to ease the tension. When they were in the apartment, Edward put his luggage in Eric's room. He changed while Kate got coffee. She and Suzanne were on the sofa when he entered the living room. Kate offered to leave the other two alone, but both the others insisted she stay. Edward looked to his niece.

"I am here because I was wrong and I am sorry. I can only speak for myself. But that's all—"

"Uncle Edward. That's all you need to say."

Everyone knew she would say this. She told her mother when she endorsed the trip, her only requirement being unequivocal acceptance. The atmosphere turned light by the time Kerry came through the door after Kate buzzed her up. The girls headed home shortly thereafter, leaving Kate and Edward alone. They went to a small restaurant on Broadway, where Edward unwound and the two shared gossip.

The next days passed quickly. Kate and Edward went to Sunday Services at Kate's Church and stayed so that Kate could introduce him to members of the congregation. Edward's initial awkwardness at being in an Episcopal Church soon faded. Kerry and Suzanne drove down in the early afternoon and the three New Yorkers gave their visitor a tour of Kate's neighborhood and of Riverside Park before they had an early dinner at another small place on Broadway. Edward's treat.

He told them that he'd spoken to Jennie, who, he said, seemed to have softened on the news of Edward's reception. She did like and miss both Kate and Suzanne. Edward was grateful that he would not have to endure his wife's wrath when he returned to California.

The balance of Edward's visit was spent on his own wanderings. On Monday, he and Kate had dinner in her apartment to get re-acquainted. On Tuesday, his last evening, Kate decided to ask Simon to join them. Simon was surprised and pleased. The conversation was eased by drinks and wine and Simon regretted that Kate's brother was staying at her place and that, ergo, he was not. But he had to settle for a chaste kiss before getting into a car to take him to his big, empty house in Greenwich.

Before Kate left for work on Wednesday—Edward had a noon flight—the two hugged. Again Edward expressed his regret for all that had happened.

Kate said, "If I could change, you all can." She had told her story of understanding herself and her God and overcoming the restraints that the Church in which she was raised had imposed on her. She thought of herself as even more spiritual than she had been, that the simplicity of viewing things in one way had been replaced by the simplicity of viewing things differently, a way she understood was more consistent with how Christ Himself would. The humble, charitable Christ.

She and her brother had spoken about this on their first night alone and she then hit a nerve by asking how her God could condemn her perfect daughter for what she always and truly was. Edward didn't know of any gay people. Or at least he didn't know people who he knew to be gay. Until Suzanne. And now Kerry. It affected him in ways he hadn't imagined. And it infuriated him. How could he have been so blind? So arrogant? His faith was supposed to provide certainty, but Kate told him that her renewed faith did that.

Whether Edward would act as a missionary to the Pughs with this message neither knew. As they said goodbye on Wednesday, though, both knew that Edward could not go back. To California, yes. But not to a faith that denied Suzanne. There'd be some rough time ahead for him in the Pugh clan.

Edward walked Kate to the subway stop at 96th and Broadway. They stepped to the side for a final hug, ignored by everyone racing for the express.

"Thank you for taking good care of me. I'll be in touch."

"I know."

"And say goodbye to Suzanne and Kerry."

"And Simon?"

"And Simon." He lowered his voice. "I'll deny saying it, but he seems like an upgrade."

She asked that he not mention him to anyone; she was waiting to unveil their relationship, and he agreed. She smiled. "Have a good flight. Text or call that you got home safely."

And with that, the two exchange kisses to the cheek and Kate hurried down the stairs to catch the express.

A car took Edward to JFK for his flight. It was a good one, and he had a long talk with Jennie when he got home.

* * *

Kate, too, felt a load off her shoulders. Edward understood. Would the others? Could the others? For her part, Suzanne hoped they would. She and Kerry had dinner in Bronxville with Mary and Betty on the Friday after Edward left. Mary, having been long gone by the time her brother, William, married Kate and only seeing them once, at Thanksgiving in 2010, had zero relationship with the Pughs. And what she'd heard she didn't like. Cut from the same cloth as her brother. Children of a lesser god, the lot of them.

Still, she understood the strain it placed on Suzanne. And, now, Kate. Mary also hoped it worked out. She was "cautiously optimistic" that it would. She was not as forgiving as her niece.

That Friday night, Kate was lonely in the City. She'd seen Simon Tuesday, but that just made it worse because he got in the damn car and went to his house while she was stuck in her apartment with her brother. She was more than lonely. She was very, very horny.

She called Simon.

"I'm desperate to be with you and I hope you feel the same"—which he readily did—"and if you'll let me I'll be in Greenwich first thing"—which he said no to in favor of his picking her up first thing in the morning—"and I know we're not kids but can we, um, help each other out over the phone?"