“Well, of course you will,” Lily said.
There was a whole lot more she could have said. “Why, David!” she could have said. “There you are! I thought you were gone!” But she didn’t want to scare him off, so all she did was tell him again, meaning it this time, that she was very happy for him, and he thanked her again and they said their goodbyes and hung up. After that she sat at the table awhile, gazing into space.
She really didn’t remember David’s mouse joke. Maybe he’d never told it to her, although that seemed unlikely. Or maybe, at age thirteen, she’d been too caught up in her own concerns to listen. At any rate, it had rung no bells when Alice reminded her. Now, though, she could hear his small voice so distinctly; she could hear him singing out the punch line. “I been sick!” he said, and that curly chortle of his traveled across the years to her from long, long ago when they were still a family.
5
Robin and Mercy’s fiftieth anniversary happened to fall on a Thursday. Specifically, Thursday, the fifth of July, 1990. At first, Robin felt this was unfortunate. Who throws a party on a Thursday? Particularly a daytime party. And it should definitely be a daytime party, because young children were involved.
But then he saw a solution. He wanted this party to be a surprise, and if he scheduled it before their anniversary—say on the Sunday before, since Sundays were the most wide-open day of the week for everyone—Mercy was all the more likely to be taken unawares.
Oh, things were shaping up nicely, he felt.
He started with Lily; he approached her at work. Theoretically he was retired by now, but he tended to drop by the store fairly often, because what else did he have to do? He would take his time over breakfast, most days, and putter a bit afterward, but then he would start feeling itchy. He would wander the house; he would tackle some minor yardwork out back that was over with way too soon; he would find himself in front of the fridge, forking cold spaghetti directly from the dish even though he wasn’t hungry. （All his pants were getting snug around the middle. Who’d have thought he would be the type to put on weight?） And so eventually he would show up at the store just to nose around a bit, as Lily put it. “What are you doing nosing around?” she would ask, but playfully, teasingly. “You’re supposed to be lolling at home!”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he would say. “I’m not much of a one for lolling.”
Today he found her in the office. She was sitting at his desk with the phone pressed to her ear, but he could tell she was on hold; she was idly twining her fingers in and out of the spiraled telephone cord. （And yes, in his mind it was still “his” desk; still a small shock to see a woman there, even a nonfussy woman like Lily with her straight blond ponytail and practical khaki pants.）
He knocked on the door frame and mouthed, “You busy?” and she untwined her fingers in order to give him a little wave. “Hi, Dad,” she said in a normal tone of voice.
“I’ve got a proposition,” he told her.
“Oh? What’s that?” she asked.
“Thinking of throwing a little party.”
“A party!”
“Party for your mom. For our fiftieth anniversary.”
“Well, so, wait,” she said. “What—？” and then “Hello?” into the receiver. “Yes, I’m here. Yes, it’s Lily Drew, at Wellington’s Plumbing Supply.”
He backed out of the office and left her to her job. Drifted over to where two men in pinstriped coveralls were debating a sink-spray attachment, but they didn’t look at him when he drew near so he decided not to offer his input. He continued toward the next display.
“So,” Lily said, coming out of the office a few minutes later. “A golden anniversary party.”
“Right,” he said.
“Well, gosh, Dad. What does Mom think of that?”
“She doesn’t know. And I don’t want her to know; I want this to be a surprise.”
“Uh-oh,” Lily said. “I don’t think Mom is the kind who likes surprises, to be honest.”
“But if I tell her ahead, you see, she’ll think I’m asking her to help with it. To clean the house and cook the meal and all. It would just wear her out. Plus, she’s so busy with her painting, don’t you know.”
“Couldn’t you tell her you’re not asking that? Tell her it’s going to happen but not to worry, you’ll be the one in charge?”
“She would expect me to do it all wrong, though,” he said.