Even if she’d tried to say no, I’d have known she was lying. But she didn’t say no. She didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then she nodded. “I suppose you have a reason for bringing her up.”
“I do,” I said, and I told her about the letter from the museum. Then I took another piece of chicken off the platter, and waited.
“Fine. But first, I really need to ask you if this is what you want. Existentially defrauded, we said. Right?”
I nodded.
“Because this is actually a burden. If you’re asking me to share it with you, I’m willing to do it, but there are very good reasons not to want this.”
The crazy thing was that I all of a sudden didn’t want this. Whatever it was I’d suddenly crashed up against, it had to be bad, a game-changer, and did I really want a game-changer right now, in horrifying close-up? Was it too late to go back to the big house in Brooklyn, with the closed-off mom upstairs and the closed-off brother in the basement? Because how was any of it my responsibility? I’d hardly been an active participant.
But of course I said yes. I had come all this way in order to say yes. So Sally told me.
S. S. Western was a person named Stella, Sally explained, and Stella had been our father’s lover.
I stared at her. “How do you know that?”
“I saw them together. There’s no doubt in my mind. I don’t know when it started, but I am absolutely certain it never stopped. Or not till he died. They were together.”
I just looked at her. I couldn’t get the words to line up correctly.
“But … what do you mean, together?”
“I mean they had a place somewhere, I don’t know where. In Brooklyn, probably. Ever since I can remember, he said he was going out to the warehouse, where the paintings were, spending hours there almost every evening. It was normal for him not to be home with us in the evening. But after I saw them together, I started paying closer attention. Sometimes he came home late. Sometimes he came home in the morning. I could see him, from my window. Your window,” she added. Our window overlooked the Montague Terrace door.
“You’re telling me,” I said, “that he was going back and forth between our family and this … person? And you don’t even know for how long?”
“Yes.” Sally nodded. “And no, I don’t know for how long.”
“But you … you saw them. Where? When was that?”
Sally calculated. “I was in eighth grade, so I guess … 1995? I followed him to an art show, and I saw them together. And I mean together. And … well, this is embarrassing. I’m not trying to put myself in the narrative here, but I think it’s relevant to say that I had kind of an instant crush on her, too. She was very beautiful. It was kind of a shock to me as a closeted little middle schooler,” she said, after a moment. “Well, there you go. There goes that perfect dad you never got to know. You can thank me now.”
“Do you think Mom knew?” I asked her.
Sally shrugged. “I was hardly going to be the one to tell her, and she was hardly going to confide in me. And obviously our father’s love affair was never a topic of open conversation, chez Oppenheimer. Can you imagine? But eventually, I think she knew. I think she found out, and I think … well, if I’m being completely honest, and I think that’s what you’re asking me to be, I’ve always wondered if maybe her finding out made her desperate enough to do something she probably shouldn’t have done. Like bring a baby into that kind of a mess. Of course, now, I’m glad she did it. Because it’s you,” Sally finished, lamely.
I just looked at her. “I’m not sure I’m understanding,” I said, but even as I said it I did begin to understand. I understood it just fine. How distant from We might as well that decision had been, really.