The Neallys Ch. 09: The Story's End

"She's your wife, William. You are again the one wronged here." Kate's father said, looking at his son-in-law as the group sat around the living room. "Comfortable" was the only word to describe the room, with well-worn chairs and a recently re-covered sofa. Pictures of the family were scattered about with one of Kate with Suzanne taken at their granddaughter's Stanford graduation given a slight but noticeable prominence. It was clear that someone took it off its shelf regularly.

"Let her go," said Debbie Pugh O'Neil, Kate's sister, again. She was the hard-liner among them.

"That is easy for you to say," William told her. "It is not your family that we're talking about."

"Of course it's my family. But I will not allow...this to destroy us. She made her choice and that's—"

"What about Suzanne? Are you saying that it was her choice too?"

"It was not her choice to be what she is. It is her choice to refrain from sinning. It is God's test."

William had heard it all before.

"And she has failed His test," he said. "And we are to just abandon her. What about Kate? She is no sinner. She is doing what we are supposed to be doing. Tending to her daughter. What I am supposed to be doing."

"And now she is a bigamist," Kate's mother said about her daughter.

"Please, mother. We are not going through this again," Debbie said. "All we can do is pray for them and be welcoming to them when they come back."

"What don't you understand? They are not coming back. They are gone. I saw Suzanne and her...wife when they came for that wedding in Mill Valley. Edward saw her in New York. And Lizzie went to Suzanne's wedding, for God's sake. And now neither Lizzie nor Edward are welcome here."

"Of course they are welcome," Kate's father said.

"No, they are not. Admit it. Suzanne is happy. She is happy, and now her mother is happy with another man. And they are happy."

"But it is their choice. They have made it." Devlin was protecting his sister from William's onslaught.

Debbie said, "Don't you get it, William? They are happy the way Eve was happy when she tasted the fruit. But they are destined to suffer for their quote-unquote happiness."

Debbie was right. They had this conversation countless times. They rehashed the same ideas and they did it in part so they would reinforce each other's faith. That, as Debbie said yet again, was all they could do, pray and be ready when the prodigals returned.

That day, though, William understood the absurdity of it all. Kate's marriage did that. He was not to the place that Kate reached, of rejecting the belief that her God could be so cruel to her child, which caused her to leave the Church. William once thought God was testing him, tempting him to cast aside his faith in favor of his blood and he once was proud that unlike his wife he did not do so.

But he was a man and he was a father and he was a husband. And he was miserable in all three capacities. He might have killed himself except for it being a sin, which would be ironic because he would have killed himself because he refused to commit a much less grave one, of loving his child. Such were the depths of his despair.

As he drove south late that afternoon, he was concerned that flights, even domestic flights, might be canceled because of coronavirus. If that happened, he feared that he would not do what he knew he had to do. So William sat on the bench across from Starbucks and Baskin-Robbins.

His trip was spontaneous and probably inevitable. When he was through the door of the house in Mill Valley, he went to his computer and found a red-eye flight from San Francisco. It left at midnight and got into New York at about 8:30 the next morning. As far as he could tell, the flight was going. It was nearly empty, and he booked a seat in first class and drove to the airport.

On the plane, he declined offers of alcohol and quickly fell asleep. Only when the plane was on its final approach to JFK did he wake.

He had no luggage, only a backpack he filled with toiletries and a change of underwear. He booked an afternoon ticket home. When he reached the terminal he pulled out his phone and found a bench. The picture on the screen was of his family in what he at least thought was a happy time.

It was about a quarter to nine. He stared at that photo before opening the messaging app. William scrolled down his contact list until he got to "Suzanne." He opened it and saw the last message was in July 2018. He hoped Suzanne would be working from home. He thought it likely, given what he knew about her company's business.

He typed.

{William: Suzanne. I am in new york to see you. Please tell me whether you will see me. And where. Father.}

He stared at the draft. Would she understand? Would she respond?

He added "Love" before "Father" and hit send.

He had come this far, but there was no response immediately. He had her address. By an accident of the post office, though she lived in Tuckahoe her address said Bronxville. He went to the sidewalk outside the terminal. There was no taxi line so he got in one that was waiting and asked to be taken to Bronxville. When the cabbie asked how to get there, William said he did not know. The driver found it in Waze, and they began the trip.

Passing the time, the cabbie spoke of how difficult things had been with the virus.

"We have suffered so much. Uber was bad, but this is worse. No one is traveling. This will be a good trip for me."

William was often gregarious with cabbies, but now he spoke just to keep the conversation going. The expressway was almost empty though it was Monday, and William never got out of JFK so quickly. Or so anxiously. He held his phone in his hand on his leg, glancing at it as if his will would cause the receipt of a message.

As the cab climbed the bridge to the Bronx and William was looking out over the Sound, the phone chirped. He hesitated and took a breath before lifting it. He opened the message.

{Suzanne: You should drive to Bronxville. When will you get there?}

William stared at the words. He asked the cabbie when they would get to town.

"Waze says it will be only seventeen minutes."

William, his hands shaking, typed and sent the information.

{Suzanne: There are benches by the train station. Across from Starbucks. Near the movie theater. I will be there in 25.}

Suzanne had, in fact, seen her father's first message shortly after it was sent. She was working remotely, as was Kerry, and was in the kitchen preparing breakfast. She rushed to the bedroom and showed it to Kerry.

"What do you think?" she asked.

"Fuck." Kerry sat up in the bed. "There is no way he would come all this way to pull a stunt like the last time."

"Agreed. I have to see him. I told him I would."

Kerry reached up and pulled Suzanne's head down, kissing the top of her head.

"This is why I love you so much. You are so forgiving. I would never be like you."

Suzanne pulled away. "Yes, you would. Even if you would never admit it. Which is why I love you."

"And my tits?"

"Be serious...And your tits. Though I prefer the left one. Or is it the right?"

Now Kerry was reminding the other to behave and be serious.

Suzanne plopped on the bed when Kerry gave her room.

"He is your father, and he did believe what he did was right."

"I know that."

They were silent.

"I don't think he should come to the house until I see him."

"Agreed. And don't tell anyone. Where can he meet you in town?"

"There are benches on the train platform," Suzanne said. She looked at Kerry. "The one where you waited for me that wonderful morning when you stopped being so damn stubborn."

"Me? You called me, remember."

"Yeah. Because you were too stubborn to do anything about it."

"Well, appropriate as it might be, I can't see your father sitting alone on a train platform like Forest Gump waiting for his daughter."

"Fair enough," Suzanne said. "It's not too cold and he should not sit inside anyway. He can sit across from the Starbucks."

"Are you sure?"

"I wasn't quite sure when you had me meet my mother but I've never forgotten it or you telling me she could take the next train to the city and be out of my life forever. I can still hear that 'for-ev-er.'"

"That was pretty dramatic, if I do say so myself."

"Yeah, but it worked. With my father, he knows my terms. He wouldn't have come unless he agreed to them."

With that Suzanne rose.

"Should I go with you?" Kerry asked.

"This time, love, it will be just him and me."

Kerry got out of bed and stood behind Suzanne. She put her arms around her waist.

"I am so lucky to have you."

"We are lucky to have each other," Suzanne said, as she often did. "I so hope this works. And whatever happens from here happens from here."

She turned.

"Now, let me tell him."

* * *

William clutched the phone.

"Is everything all right, sir?" the cabbie asked.

"Couldn't be better. Could not be better. I've never been there before. I'm told there's a Starbucks."

"Beats me. It doesn't look like a big place. Someone'll tell us."

Waze directed them to the middle of town. It was, in fact, not a big place. It was five minutes before Suzanne was due, and William jumped out to ask where the Starbucks was. When he was told, he leaned into the cab.

"It's just around the corner here. I'll walk. What do I owe you?"

The cabbie rang it up, and William gave him a hundred.

"Keep it."

"Thank you very much. Have a very good day, sir."

"I hope to," he told the cabbie as he started to walk. Then, to himself, "I hope so.

As he approached Starbucks, William saw the benches. He got his usual concoction and sat on the one to the left in the sun. It was a nice little town, and he knew its reputation as being not unlike Mill Valley in its affluence. He wondered if he could tolerate the snow, though there had been virtually none in the winter that was soon to end.

His thoughts were diversions, crowding out the only thing that mattered. Suzanne.

He wondered half-seriously whether she would recognize him. He was in gray slacks, an open-necked shirt, and a blue blazer. Suzanne used to tease him that he always looked like he just addressed the U.N. General Assembly when he was in "serious mode." She once took a pair of scissors to a Hermès tie—it was light blue and one of his favorites—when they sat at a restaurant in the city to celebrate her twenty-first birthday. Kate looked shocked at that and Eric looked amused.

If she were home and up when he was heading out to catch the train, Suzanne invariably tried to muss his hair, and he loved the brief contact they had on those mornings although he always retained the facade of a gulf between father and child much as his parents had with him and his sister. Kate was the same. In retrospect, it seemed cruel.

William wondered whether if she came she would comment that his hair was slightly longer than it had ever been. At least since law school. He wondered whether she would soon have a baby and he would be a grandfather. He wondered about a thousand things as he waited. As he had countless times when he allowed his mind to wander and be free.

He did not dare look at his watch. Instead, he took sips of his coffee. He did not know the direction from which she would come. He did not know what kind of car she drove or even if she would drive. His head was in constant motion when he was not drinking, praying for a glimpse of her.

Would he recognize her? Then his doubts vanished. He again held his breath for a moment. He did not quite see the details of her face but recognized the stride with which he was so familiar. A determined yet relaxed stride as she walked directly towards him. Her light-brown hair bouncing ever so slightly with each step.

Then he saw the face framed by the hair. Perhaps he saw a smile. He could not be sure.

She paused, but it was barely perceptible. As he stood, she rushed to him.