Or at least on the surface they did. Robin stayed almost completely silent for the remainder of their visit, letting Mercy carry the conversation, and when Lily kissed his cheek as they left he just stood mute and allowed it. But in fact he was baffled and indignant, and the instant the door closed behind them he wheeled on Mercy as if it were all her fault. “What is happening here?” he fumed at her. “How is it that a married woman can show up on her parents’ doorstep and introduce her new fiancé and we don’t blink an eye?”
“Now, honey,” Mercy said. “Nobody outside a marriage has any real notion what goes on inside; you know that yourself.”
“I don’t know any such thing,” Robin said.
Well, of course he didn’t. Their own marriage was as clear as glass, an open book, exactly what it seemed. If you didn’t count the fact that Mercy had now spent several nights away from him.
The first night, she’d told him she might be late because she was working on a tricky painting. The second night—a week or so later—she said the same thing. This was calculated. She wanted him to start adjusting by degrees. And it worked, because when she stayed away for a third night without announcing it ahead, he didn’t phone to ask where she was or charge over there to confront her. Which was not to say he was happy about it. He was churlish and huffy and difficult; the mornings after these nights he kept sending her sideways glances and opening his mouth to speak and then stopping himself.
But she was always present for those mornings. She made sure to be home before he woke up, and she had his breakfast on the table by the time he came downstairs.
She planned to stop doing that at some point. But not quite yet.
The day after they met Morris, Alice phoned Mercy and said, “So!” and then she waited. “So, I guess you had a visit from Lily,” she said finally.
Alice and Lily had never been close. They were just too different from each other, Mercy supposed. But apparently they did confer about their parents now and then, in that furtive, head-shaking way that siblings tend to do, because it was obvious that Lily had asked Alice to put out some feelers. Mercy was cagey, though. She said, “Mm-hmm.”
“So what’d you think of Morris?”
“He seemed nice,” Mercy said neutrally. “Have you met him?”
“I have.”
How many times? On what kind of occasion? Did she find him likable? Trustworthy? What, exactly, did she think was going on here?
Mercy didn’t ask a one of these questions. She said, “Maybe I’ll have him over for dinner with the whole family.”
“Okay…” Alice said, plainly waiting for more.
“Are you and Kevin free this Sunday?”
“We’re supposed to go to his mom’s.”
“Next Sunday, then?”
“We can do next Sunday.”
“Fine,” Mercy said. “I’ll talk to Lily.” And then she said goodbye, still without delivering any verdict on Morris.
She sort of enjoyed that conversation.
Except that Robin refused to allow a family dinner. He said, “Hold on: what? You want to open up our house to our daughter’s paramour?”
“Paramour!” Mercy said. She was surprised he knew the word. “He’s her fiancé, honey. We want to welcome him into the family.”
“But how can she have a fiancé when she’s already got a husband, huh? Where is B.J. in all this?”
Robin had always disliked B.J. Behind his back he called him Elvis. When B.J. and Lily eloped, Robin swore they must have “had to,” and he had seemed almost disappointed when no baby appeared.
Speaking of which…
If only Mercy could explain about Lily’s being pregnant, maybe he would be more understanding.
On the other hand, maybe it would send him clear around the bend.
It was this possibility, rather than her promise to Lily, that kept her from sharing the news.
She called Alice back and told her they would have to put off their dinner. “Oh?” Alice said, and waited to hear the reason.
“I’m really not sure when we can do it,” Mercy said. Then she hurried to ask how little Robby’s pull-ups were going. Robby had reached that stage where she could pull herself up to a standing position but didn’t know how to sit down again. She would stand wailing in her playpen, exhausted, till Alice forcibly bent her knees and lowered her to the ground. Whereupon she’d immediately stand again. Alice had a lot to say about that. She forgot to pursue the subject of dinner.