Everything to Lose

I met him when he’d just turned a couple of torn-down sixties ranches into brick and glass McMansions at the height of the housing boom. He took me sailing to Nantucket and up the coast of Maine on his motorcycle, things I’d never done in my life, having grown up in the Bronx and majored in cultural anthropology at NYU. He was kind of a furry brown bear to me; that’s even what I called him—Bear. No one I knew ever understood the match.

There was nothing particularly acrimonious about our split. We just grew apart. We still remained friendly mostly. I didn’t even mind that as his business declined, the alimony and child support payments gradually petered out. It was just Jim being Jim, in my view, until he got back on his feet. The thing that was hard to swallow was how he seemed to enjoy being a dad to Janice’s boys a lot more than he did to Brandon, who tried hard when it came to sports, but let’s be honest, we were talking a different league. Janice’s kids played squash and did moguls. At Milton Farms, the varsity basketball team was co-ed.

Not to mention, I didn’t come with a couple of mil in the stock portfolio … And her kids didn’t beat their heads against the wall until they turned blue when you took away their Xbox.

I pulled into the driveway and noticed the gleaming blue new Carrera parked in front of the garage. Jim’s old Targa was like a relic compared to it. I parked, still reeling a bit from what had just happened on the road. Jim must have heard me drive up because he met me at the door on the wide front porch with his arms wide, as if I was bringing the beer to a Super Bowl party. “Hey, Hil …” He shot me that walruslike, everything’s-cool-here smile through his thick brown mustache. “You’re sure looking nice.”

“Thanks.” He put a hand on my arm, and we stood there awkwardly before he leaned in and gave me a kiss. “Thanks for letting me come by.”

“Come on in.” He was in painter’s pants and beat up Cole Haans. He looked like he’d added an extra ten pounds. “You sounded anxious. The boys are upstairs doing homework. Pinot …?”

I would have loved a glass of wine. Shit, a couple of them would have gone down smoothly about now. My heart still hadn’t calmed a beat. “No, it’s okay,” I said. “Thanks.” I didn’t want to be any more relaxed than I had to be.

“Come on in the study.” He shuffled through the foyer that had a perfectly polished Biedermeier table and antique candelabra, framed pictures of the boys and Janice.

Who suddenly appeared as if on cue from the kitchen. Her blond hair in a short ponytail, in a form-fitting fuchsia lululemon yoga outfit, holding one of the boys’ crested Brunswick jackets. “Hil …”

“Hi, Janice. Been a while.”

“It has.” She came over and gave me a kiss. “Sorry the place looks like it does …” I noticed a couple of suitcases at the bottom of the stairs. “The kids are on break Friday if we can get through exams and squash practice, and then we’re headed out to Vail.” She blew out a weary breath and wiped her brow as if she’d been shoveling the driveway. “Crazy, right?”

Other than the suitcases, the place looked like it was being photographed for Architectural Digest in the morning. And it was nice of her to frame so vividly how differently our lives had vectored. Brandon and I had gone to Epcot in Orlando two springs ago.

“Yeah, crazy.”

“Well, I’ll let you two go over whatever it is you’re here to discuss …” As if she had no clue in the world about what that might be or why I would be here. “How’s Brandon, by the way?”

“He’s actually doing great, Janice. Thanks. He’s almost caught up to grade level in math and you ought to see what he’s drawing these days. The place has really had such an amazing effect.”

“That’s so inspiring. We’ll have to have him for a weekend when we get back.”

“I know he’d love that,” I said. Actually he’d hate that. He always felt like an outsider, unable to compete with her boys at almost anything. And over the past two years, those invitations had become fewer and fewer, always revolving around the boys’ sports practices and family trips. Jim rarely even showed up at school on parents’ day anymore.

Janice held up the jacket and sighed. “Doesn’t anyone ever hang things up around here … Always nice to see you, Hil. Let’s be in touch.”

“C’mon,” Jim, said, mercifully pointing toward the study, “let’s go in here.”

We went down a step into the sunken wood-paneled room with a brass-hearth fireplace that looked like something out of a Martha Stewart catalogue. The wall with the windows was painted a textured green, with two brass sconces bracketing each window. In between them hung a painting of a guy in an ornate Chinese robe with a Fu Manchu mustache down to his waist.

“Janice’s side of the family?” I asked. Truth was, I couldn’t find a single trace of Jim in the entire house. Except maybe in the back, in the McMansion of a play shed he had built, where I knew they kept a couple of small ATVs for the boys to race around the pond, the lacrosse nets and sticks, the pool rafts.

“Distant cousin.” He chuckled. “You never met?”

“Somehow, no … Of course we didn’t get invited to the wedding …”

“C’mon, Hil, you didn’t drive all the way up here to take shots at me. Anyway, you sounded worried on the phone.” He leaned forward, his beefy forearms on his knees. “You want to tell me what’s up?”

“Listen, Jim, something’s happened. I need to go over a few things with you.”

“Brandon?” He actually sat up and seemed concerned.

“No, Brandon’s fine. He’s doing multiplication and division now. Everything’s going real well. And you should see his artwork. He’s doing amazing things, Jim. I think he’s got a real talent.”

“That’s really good. I know I should come and see it. I mean to. It’s just I’m always—”

“Look—I know he’s not exactly the son you’ve always wanted. He’s not exactly someone you can take boogie boarding at the beach or out to the driving range like Lucas and Trey. Though God knows he does try. But now I need some help, Jim. I don’t know if I can cover the costs any longer. At Milton Farms. I’m four months behind in tuition and next year is coming up. I can’t keep going back to Neil and Judy. They’re getting on. Dad’s starting to go downhill. They survived the storm okay, but they’re underwater on a couple of big boats. They kind of zigged when the rest of the world zagged …”

“Guess I know how what feels like,” he said with a glum smile.

“Anyway, they’re gonna be needing whatever they have for themselves. And you’re Brandon’s father, for God’s sake—” I gazed around.

Jim’s eyes drooped guiltily and he sat back, the cat out of the bag now, as if it was ever really in. “I’m sorry about Neil. No one likes to hear that.”

“Thanks. I appreciate that. My dad always liked you.”

He folded his thick fingers in front of his face. “You know I had to close up Double Eagle, don’t you, Hil?”

Double Eagle was his construction business. “No, I didn’t. I’m sorry, Jim.”

“I was gonna call you about it. Then I figured, hell … you’d probably just think I was trying to wriggle out of another check.”

“I’m really sorry to hear that. I know that company was a big part of you.”

I thought back to those early years when he was making three, four hundred grand a house, several times a year, much of which long ago went down the drain in the financial meltdown, the houses sold at a loss or borrowed up to the hilt against. “But, Jim—look at how you live. I need some help now. You can’t hide behind that anymore.”

His toothy smile turned downward. “I don’t have to tell you the story here, do I, Hil …? Look, I understand how most of this has always fallen on you. I know you’ve had to change your life. And, no BS here, I admire you for what you’ve done. I do. It’s just that right now … you’re bringing in a helluva lot more than me.” He snorted cynically. “Right now the UPS man is bringing in a helluva lot more than me.”

“Well, as of the other day”—I fixed my eyes on him— “that’s all changed.”

“What do you mean, changed?”

I told him about Cesta and Steve having to cut things back. That I basically got four weeks’ salary and a month on the health plan. “I’m behind on everything, Jim. We were basically living check to check the past year as it was. Now …”

He nodded, his mustache curling into a frown. “I’m really sorry, Hil. That sucks.”

“It does suck. But that doesn’t make anything go away. I’ve cut back on a hundred things over the past few years to keep everything together for Brandon and me. I hoped we had some equity still in the house, but there’s zero in the current market. I had it appraised. The whole thing’s underwater, which, let’s face it, is pretty much how you left me. And anyway, what would be the chance of refinancing now with no job even if there was something to pull out? I’ve been working full time, putting everything toward our son, while you’re what, zipping the kids off to squash practice in that new Porsche I saw outside …”

He rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. “That’s a little cold, don’t you think, Hilary?”

“No. No, it’s not cold, Jim. Look, I’m sorry … I know it’s hard to close the company. I know it’s like closing a chapter on yourself, an important one. I get that. But it was no picnic for me getting fired and seeing the past four years go up in smoke. My savings are shot, Jimmy. You’re Brandon’s father. This isn’t about my fucking shoe allowance or jetting down to St. Barth’s for my tan … Jim, I need you to stand up. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

I was trying to hold it together. Promising myself not to cry or let my emotions come through. But my eyes started to sting and there was no way of holding them back. “I can’t go it alone anymore. I tried.”

Jim reached over to the side table and pulled out a couple of tissues from a quilted Kleenex box. He handed them to me.

I dabbed at my eyes. “Thanks.”

“So how much we talking about?” he asked. He leaned back on the couch.