That Old Cape Magic

though, revealed the strain of the last year, and a wave of guilt washed over him, its undertow jellying his knees. He could tell she was registering the physical changes in him as well, and these, he knew, were even more pronounced. What he’d been wondering since leaving the inn was whether they would embrace. He didn’t want to presume anything and reminded himself to react, not initiate, though now the moment arrived and his wife of thirty-five years was in his arms before he
could
react. Then just as quickly she stepped back before he could even evaluate what kind of hug it had been. This, he told himself, was probably how the next twenty-four hours would go. One moment moving on to the next with a terrible efficiency, before it could be really taken in. Dear God, how would he ever get through it?
    “You look tired,” Joy told him. “Was it a rough flight?”
    “Not particularly,” he said. “The sleeping thing’s gotten worse.” He actually hadn’t meant to tell her that, but three decades’ worth of intimacy was a hard habit to break. Was he trying to elicit sympathy?
    “I’m sorry to hear it.”
    “It’s been a little better the last couple weeks,” he lied. Actually it was worse, but having received the sympathy he’d elicited he now felt unworthy of it.
    “Have you seen a doctor?”
    “I’ve got an appointment as soon as I get back,” he said, another lie. How many more would he have to tell to balance out the first true statement?
    “It’s been a rough year,” she said, quickly adding, “Your mother, I mean,” lest he conclude she meant their being apart.
    That first heart attack, back in August, had done serious damage, and the surgery necessary to repair it, the heart specialist had explained, was not without risk, especially for a woman her age. Without the operation she’d have only a year or two, maybe as little as six months. The upside of the surgery, assuming she didn’t suffer a stroke on the operating table, was significant. Years, they were talking, maybe a decade. “That idiot must think I’m enjoying my life, if he imagines I want another decade,” she told Griffin when they were alone. He tried to speak, but couldn’t. “That’s that, then,” she said after a moment’s silence, meeting his eye with what looked for all the world like satisfaction, as if this were the very news he’d been hoping for.
    “It’s okay,” he said now, trying to help Joy out. “I knew what you meant.”
    “Where’s … ?”
    “In the trunk,” Griffin admitted, feeling himself flush.
    Only when Joy regarded him as if he’d lost his mind did he realize she wasn’t asking about the whereabouts of his mother’s ashes. “Oh, you mean … sorry,” he said, flushing even deeper now. “She’s back at the inn.”
    “You could’ve brought her to the dinner, Jack.”
    And, incredibly, he again thought she was talking about his mother. Jesus! Was it going to be like this all night? Would he misreadeverything anybody said? “She thought it’d be easier on everybody if she skipped the rehearsal.”
    Joy regarded him doubtfully. “Are you going to be all right?”
    “Sure,” he said, feeling anything but.
    “A couple of things, before we go in,” she said.
    “Okay.”
    “Daddy’s in a wheelchair now.”
    “I didn’t know that.”
    “He fell last month. He says it’s temporary, but Dot says no.”
    “Dot?”
    “Jack. He remarried. You know that.”
    “I forgot, I guess.” Though it all came back to him now. Joy’s sisters had been furious. Marriage? At their father’s advanced age? It was beyond ridiculous. Joy had had to talk them out of boycotting the wedding.
    “Also, he doesn’t make sense all the time.”
    “That’s okay, neither do I,” Griffin said. Obviously.
    “He does all right in familiar surroundings, but—”
    “I’ll be aware.”
    “Just so you know—regarding us?—I’ve warned everybody to be on their best behavior. They’ve all agreed to be civil.”
    Back in the fall, when Joy’s family found out they’d separated and were probably headed for divorce, emotions had run high. Her twin brothers, Jared and Jason, had promised to do Griffin bodily harm when next they met. One of them (their voices, too, were identical) had somehow gotten his cell number and called him up, drunk, in the middle of the night. “I always knew you were a fucking asshole,” he said without bothering to identify himself.
    “Jeez,” said Griffin, who