Custody by Nancy Thayer Page A

had buckets of money, it would be an amazing occasion, and Jason felt he had to go; he’d gone to private elementary and boarding school with Buster.
    “In that case, Jason, would you be my escort?” Eloise inquired.
    “Sure.”
    “Lovely. We’ll stay with the Worths.” Eloise smiled at Kelly. “I’ll make certain he behaves at the reception and doesn’t spend too much time with any of the bridesmaids.”

Four
    M ONDAY MORNING M ONT M ADISON stepped out of the shower, toweled his arthritic grizzled old body dry, and, spotting the robe hanging from the hook on the back of the door, pulled it on.
    It was Madeline’s. He knew that. Of course he did. He wasn’t senile enough quite yet to think this robe of pink terry cloth with white piping and white flowers embroidered on the pockets was a man’s robe.
    The thing was, it was so damned comfortable. Once, by accident, in the days just after Madeline’s death, he’d accidentally pulled it on after a shower, not discovering his mistake until afternoon, and even then he hadn’t taken it off because it brought Madeline back to him so forcefully.
    “I’d be glad to pack up Mrs. Madison’s clothes and take them to the church thrift sale for you,” their cleaning lady, Dorothy, had offered, more than once.
    Mont knew she was well intentioned, but he found her infuriating and intrusive. For God’s sake! Why would he want to get rid of Madeline’s things? They still held her scent, and a life full of memories surrounded him whenever he entered their bedroom and saw them, through the open closet door, hanging in the same colorful disarray in which Madeline, in her later years, had lived her life.
    Now Mont shuffled down the stairs and into the kitchen for his standard breakfast of orange juice and Grape-Nuts. Without Madeline around, it wasn’t worth brewing a pot of coffee, and he couldn’t stomach the instant stuff, so he did without. He tripped going over the threshold into the kitchen because he was wearing Madeline’s slippers. One thing about Madeline, she had had big feet for a woman. She’d hated their size, but Mont had always found them oddly attractive, sexual, generous, like the rest of Madeline’s body, and bold, like her spirit.
    He stood in front of the sink, spooning cereal into his mouth, staring at the yard—the grass needed cutting again—thinking how much he wanted to die.
    Not in any sentimental, mawkish, searching-for-attention, crying-for-help bullshit way.But just plain honest die.
    He couldn’t tell his son this because it would distress Randall so much, when, in fact, the truth of it was the very opposite of distressing.
    How many people could say they’d had a marriage like his? He and Madeline had been together for over fifty years, and loved each other passionately, even in the midst of savage disagreements, every second of every one of those decades of days. Volcanic in their early lusty years, life and its pressures had pressed them together so firmly they were, finally, one single thing, bedrock lined with a deep gleaming vein of gold. With Madeline gone, Mont was not even less than half of something. He was only the shape of something, the substance vanished.
    Sure, he loved his son. That love was what drove him to pretend he was working on a book. Randall, dutiful enough for two since his sister Evangeline moved out to the West Coast, was clearly relieved by any signs that Mont was pursuing something intellectually, that he was in any way at all going forward.
    Neither one of his children could comprehend the kind of marriage Mont and Madeline had. Mont loved his daughter, and was admiring of and slightly amused by the way she lived her life, unmarried, bisexual, weaving tapestries and shawls from the hair of animals—goats, sheep, dogs—on an island off Puget Sound. Evangeline was always too adventurous, too fickle in every way, to settle down to just one person. And Randall, well, now, he was a sweet lad, deep down. Mont