The voice on the phone was Rory’s. His first words were cryptic: “Mother, I just wanted you to hear it from me first.”

“Oh, hello, Rory. Hear what?”

“Margie and I are splitting.”

“Wh-a-a-t?”

“I mean, divorcing.”

Trudy looked around the living room of her cozy apartment, wishing she could somehow will him to be here, in front of her, not just a disembodied voice. Out her picture window, the sun was setting into a nice purple bruise that somehow seemed appropriate. She stifled a twinge of anger: Didn’t a 78-year-old mother deserve a half-hour’s drive to deliver news like this face-to-face? He knew his way around Harmony Acres – not that he came very often – and her apartment wasn’t far from where he could park.

She pushed her sewing glasses down her nose, settled her needlepoint project into her lap, and skewed right on the sofa to contemplate last year’s family photo of Rory and Margie and the collegiate-looking kids on the end table. Fact was, she allowed herself to think, she liked her daughter-in-law better than her son. She loved Margie as much as she loved her own daughter Sarah. Rory was – she searched her mind, surprised at what she found there – too much like his father.

There. She hadn’t allowed herself to think such things in the dozen-plus years since Robert’s death.

“Mother? Are you still there, Mother?”

“Oh, yes. Just taken aback, is all.” She realized that her eyes were moist. He ought to have tears rolling down his face, she thought; but he didn’t even sound sad. “That’s terrible,” she finally managed. After a moment she added, “Whose idea is it?”

“I guess it’s kind of mutual.”

That’s unlikely! she thought. One hardly expects a couple married three decades – well, all right, only 25 years, but that’s almost half an adult lifetime – to suddenly just up and forget it, does one? Agree to wander off toward old age by themselves? At just the age when a comfortable companion is worth more than well-broken-in shoes? Worth more than sex, although Rory might not be smart enough yet to understand that.

She said it aloud: “That’s unlikely.” And then added, “Is there someone else?”

“Well, I may re-marry, Mom.”

“So it’s your idea.”

“Not entirely. Margie’s pretty angry.”

My God, Trudy thought, of course she’s angry. But doesn’t she at heart want to save this marriage? She must have found some good qualities in Rory, and they’ve always done things together. How young, she wondered, might one suppose his new inamorata was? And where did that word come from? It sounded like immorality. Inamorata.

“Mother? Are you still there?”

“Yes, Rory. Sorry. Can you come over here and talk about it?”

Too long a pause. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. I could drop for a few minutes in mid-morning?”

Rationing his time; minimizing opportunity for reproof. “Thank you, son. I’ll be here.”

He didn’t even say goodbye or see you soon. Just “Okay,” and the line went dead.

Her coiled telephone cord was tied into knots; had she done that? She pinched it at mid-length and held it up, the way Robert showed her years ago, to let the handset spin and untangle itself. Rory kept threatening to give her one of those fancy wireless smartphones for a birthday; maybe she ought to say yes.

***

In her mind’s ear she heard Robert’s voice, decades ago, and her defiance. “The hell you will! Tell me who she is, and I’ll go tell her myself!”

“I’m sorry,” he’d said quietly but firmly. “You don’t deserve this. It just happened. But there it is. There’s no point in getting dramatic.”

When was that, exactly? Rory had been a junior at Middletown High, Sarah a freshman. She had turned from anger to pleading. Get the kids through high school, at least. Divorce back then was more of a social faux pas than nowadays; schoolmates could be cruel. “Tell me what I must do to keep you here!”

“They can stay with you,” he said. “I’ll provide for you and them.” As though money could replace love and family and caring for each other.

Would he come with her to a marriage counselor? Not interested, he said.

Would he stay through Christmas, at least, for the children’s sake? Yes, but in the guest bed in the little sewing room. That connected to the master bedroom, so the separation would not be apparent.

She remembered now how she had examined her body in the shower that night. She hadn’t let it go. It had been a pretty good body, then still shy of 40. Robert had more belly-flab than she did, even though she was the one who bore the children, so what the dickens? It must be a much younger woman.

So Trudy set out to find her: The next day, she began inviting Robert’s subordinates to lunch. There was a nice restaurant near his office with a British feel: staid Edwardian prints on the walls, several chiming grandfather clocks, a pot of Earl Grey tea brought to the table the moment one sat down, its bergamot-citrus aroma more conducive to relaxed conversation than a glass of wine or a cocktail.

He had apparently not told anyone at work about the separation – except the other woman, of course – so it was not as clumsy as she had feared. Christmas was coming on, and she “wanted to thank the people who helped her husband get his work done efficiently” so he could spend more time with his family. A nice lunch in a first-class restaurant, a parting gift of an inspirational book about the sanctity of the family, with a photo tucked inside of Robert and the kids.

She started with Priscilla McComb, his executive secretary: Older than either Trudy or Robert, the kind of woman who when widowed early lets her hair grow gray and makes no effort to keep up with fashion. Not a suspect, so to speak. An ally, it turned out, even if unintentionally.

This was very nice of her, Priscilla said over lunch; a thoughtful gesture. Was she thinking of inviting others to such tête-à-têtes? Oh, yes, Trudy said, her eyes fixed on Priscilla: she had in mind Mary. . . a nod. . . and Denise. . . a nod. . . and Patricia. . . a look down at the plate.

So Trudy knew who her rival was.

***

It had gone better than she could have hoped. She took Mary and Denise to lunch next, so by the time she got to Patricia – “my friends call me Patti, Mrs. Dougherty” – the invitation seemed routine.

“Patti” turned out to be very young, not more than mid 20s, stacked like a blonde Nordic weightlifter, electric blue eyes made striking by just a bit too much mascara. Over a pleasant lunch, Trudy shared photos of the kids – Rory then a high school junior, his sister a freshman – and talked about the critical moments in children’s lives when they need all the parental guidance they can get.

She also managed to slip in that both might well be in college by now, but she and Robert had postponed starting a family for several years, so the kids had been at home to help celebrate his 50^th birthday last year— letting the inamorata do the math herself in case she didn’t quite fathom that she was seducing a man probably 25 years older than she, an easy mark for a sexy blonde but one whose old-age infirmities she might spend long years tending to.

And she’d laid the infirmities on thick. Robert had the kind of minor cardiac problem, atrial fibrillation, that made him more susceptible to stroke than most men his age. A-fib. Her own father had a stroke when he was about Robert’s age, Trudy remembered aloud over dessert; his wife, Trudy’s mother, had to give up most hobbies and clubs to nurse him. It went on for years. “Knock wood Robert doesn’t suffer a stroke,” she said.

She never knew what transpired over the year-end holidays – never tried to find out, never asked Robert – but the “business trip” that was supposed to take him out of town over the holidays mysteriously fizzled – “Everything worked out unexpectedly easily,” Robert said – and he was there on Christmas morning with a rueful grin and a very expensive necklace for the wife he planned to take to the company party.

***

So the one to talk with was not her son, but his wife. She phoned the house: “Margie, it’s Trudy. I just made a date for Rory to come visit me tomorrow, but I’ve changed my mind. You’re the one I want to talk with. Can you come in the morning so we can have a real heart-to-heart – and tell him not to bother?”

“I have a class in the morning, Mother Trudy. Have I told you I’ve gone back to finish that master’s degree I abandoned when we began a family?”

“Good for you! I’m an old lady with time on my hands; how about tomorrow afternoon?”

“I’m guessing it’s about the divorce. I’m not sure . . . .”

“Child, I want to talk about shared experience.”

“I’m sorry, what? I’m not sure I heard you right.”

“S-h-a-r-e-d  e-x-p-e-r-i-e-n-c-e. My husband – Rory’s father – wanted to divorce me, when I was just a little younger than you. I think you might find hearing about that helpful. Instructive, maybe. Can you come? Say two o’clockish?”

“Oh, my goodness! I never knew about that! All right. Thank you.”

“And you’ll tell Rory I’m postponing him?”

“Perhaps . . . things are a little tense just now. He’ll think it’s my doing. Could you call him directly yourself?”

“Of course; I should have thought of that. Should I call back on the landline and you let it ring? Or call his cellphone?”

“He’s not here just now. I’m not sure where he is. I’d say call his cellphone, please.”

So she did, and he didn’t seem disappointed.

***

Margie turned out to be fascinated by Trudy’s strategy for avoiding divorce – and not sure she wanted to emulate it.

“Mother Trudy – do you mind my calling you that? I almost want to call you Mom. That’s an amazing story. Especially considering how you nursed him in the years after his stroke.”

“Those were hard years.”

“And you were such a cheerful trouper! The worst part of a divorce would be losing you as my mother-in-law.”

“Whatever happens, I hope we’ll stay close. You’re a mature woman; why don’t you just call me Trudy?”

“All right, I guess. Trudy. Thank you, Trudy. The fact is I’m very angry at your son, and I’m not entirely sure I want him back. I realize now that this affair has been going on a long time. He’s been lying to me for at least a year.”

“I understand. Have you not . . . been as husband and wife?”

“You mean, have we had sex? Yes, but it’s been a long time since he tried to please me.”

“And vice-versa?”

“Well . . . all right, yes. Recently, I’ve just wanted to get it over with.”

“Child, try to think back before that; way back. Soon after Margo was born. Did you never quarrel? Never think you couldn’t stand the sight of him?”

“Oh, let me . . . think back. . . . Yes, there was one time when I was still breast-feeding Margo. It had been maybe seven months, and I was just beginning to mix in some prepared food. I’d never even had a breast pump. He wanted to go to some half-the-night party, and didn’t understand why I couldn’t be away from the baby that long. It was a big fight.”

“Who won?”

“I did. We didn’t go to the party, and he was mad as hell – sorry; very angry – because he’d hoped to make some business contacts.”

“Both angry enough that neither of you wanted to talk?”

“Oh, yes. He made his own breakfast and went off to work, hardly said two words at dinner and went to his den to work and stayed there until I was sound asleep.  It was awful!”

“And how long were you . . . did the estrangement last?”

“Not long. A few days, I think. He came home early one day, having just struck a deal with the man he’d hoped to see at that party. I was just then nursing the baby, and he thought that was a lovely picture of domestic bliss. I apologized about making him miss the business deal at the party, and praised his tenacity. He kissed me, and I put the baby down and we went up to the bedroom and made passionate love.”

“Which was why Robbie was born before his sister was two years old?”

“You make me blush. Yes, I think that’s when . . . Robbie was conceived.”

“And my point is that married life isn’t all harmony, but you can get past the discord if you work at it.”

“Well, maybe. But that renewed harmony didn’t last very long. This isn’t his first affair.”

“Oh, my! I didn’t know.”

“And getting past a few days’ anger is different from getting past a year’s treachery. Several years.”

“Of course. Do you know who the woman is?”

“One of the younger women in the office. A secretary, I think.”

“And you’re not up to inviting them all to lunch, one by one, the way I did?”

“Mother Trudy, you’re a stronger woman than I’ll ever be.”

“You disappoint me. But all right, maybe I can be your emissary. Sit here for a minute; I want a fresh cup of hot tea.”

“Oh, let me do that! You look comfortable, and I know my way around your kitchenette.”

***

So Margie, like a good daughter, bustled around brewing more comforting Earl Grey, while Trudy sat looking out her picture window and thinking out her strategy and tactics. It was a turning into a gorgeous late-April day, the flower beds bursting with buds and blossoms, and she might get out for a long walk this afternoon. By the time Margie was back with the tea, it had come to her.

“How about we plan a fiftieth birthday party!”

“How’s that?”

“I mean, that’s our story. When you and I meet with all the younger women in his office.”

“I . . . I suppose.”

“I’m a patron of the art museum, and we’re planning to hold it there, a big blast! And we’re enlisting them to be sure it’s a complete surprise. Is there an older woman in his office I can call first?”

“Mother Trudy . . . Trudy . . . you’re way ahead of me. Mrs. Johnson has been his office manager for years. Why . . . ?

“Good. I’ll call her, and invite her to have lunch with us at the museum restaurant, and pick her brains, as people say nowadays.”

“I’m beginning to understand. We want her to tell us which younger women are close enough to him that they might stumble into our party and ruin the surprise?”

“Exactly! So we’ll invite them one at a time to the museum, and I’ll do all the talking.”

“Trudy, you’re so good to me!”

“Child, I’m beginning to be excited. I’ll have to do some planning, but I have an outline in my head already.”

“You mean, what you’ll tell them? Assuming we can figure out which one matters.”

“Oh, we’ll figure it out. And I’ll explain how much Rory is like his father, including that his cardiologist, by coincidence, is the son of the one who looked after my Robert. And I’ll say we want to have a blast for Rory’s fiftieth, just in case – like his father – he isn’t in such good shape to enjoy a big celebration a few years later.”

“Amazing! You’ve been sitting here thinking it all out. You’re such a wise woman!”

“Wise old woman. I’ve been there. I’ll tell each of them how we hope Rory will escape his father’s fate, with a stroke and all that, so that you can complete your master’s, and not have to wait hand and foot on your husband the way I did through years of declining health. Whoever she is, she’ll get it, and . . . ” She paused, out of words; out of breath.

“Goodness, you’ve gotten yourself all worked up! Relax a moment; have a sip of tea.”

***

Trudy leaned back into the sofa cushions, focusing on the gardens as she sipped, and then leaned forward again, deliberation in her voice. “Tell me again, child, about your being back at college.”

“I’ll complete my master’s next year.”

“Just when Bobby finishes his?”

“Yes. Won’t that be fun?  A nice coincidence. I’m near the top of my class. A lot of companies nowadays want skilled counselors in their personnel departments. Human relations, most call it now. I wouldn’t be surprised to have a job offer even before I get my degree.”

They fell silent again, sipping tea. At length Trudy spoke.

“You know . . . . ” She searched for words. “You know, I’m changing my mind.”

“About the party?”

“No. Well, yes, but . . . . I’m thinking you might be better off, dear girl, letting him have his divorce. Let his inamorata do the nursing if it comes to that.”

“Oh, my!” Margie murmured.

“I’ll see him, by and by,” Trudy went on, “and I think I’ll not try to talk him out of it.”

 

-End-