At home, in their real life, Bill would work in fits and bursts. He went for days without sleeping and eating. He stayed out back in his studio, and India would bring him cigarettes and bottles of Bombay Sapphire, which he drank straight over ice. He had hired a fabricator out in Santa Fe to construct his larger pieces; the pain with the larger pieces was the sketch-first the overall effect, and then the excruciating detail-and the measurements had to be exact. Bill was a perfectionist-all great artists, all great people were-but perfection could only be judged in his eyes. Something that looked gorgeous to India would look not quite right to Bill. He would swear at the top of his lungs, throw things and break things; even from his closed-up studio a hundred yards away, the boys would hear him. India tried to intervene, but he wouldn’t allow it. He was his own slave driver.
That was Manic Bill, a real monster, someone to be feared and avoided like a hurricane. Please use all evacuation routes.
Manic Bill was always shadowed by Depressive Bill, who was even more unwelcome. Depressive Bill was sad and pathetic. He didn’t work, couldn’t work, couldn’t take a phone call or eat a sandwich or get an erection or, many times, rise from bed except, thankfully, to go to the bathroom. The very first depressive episode came at a convergence of events in 1985: The New Orleans Times-Picayune published a scathing review of a sculpture of Bill’s that had recently been installed in City Park. The paper called it “hideous and inorganic” and lambasted the city council for spending two hundred thousand dollars of the taxpayers’ money on “a grotesque misstep by an otherwise laudable artist.” Although the review was bad, it had been published in New Orleans, so no one Bill and India knew personally would see it, but then the Philadelphia Inquirer got hold of the review and ran a feature piece about what happened when great artists put out “bad product,” and named Bill and the New Orleans piece specifically. At the same time, Bill contracted bronchitis, which turned into pneumonia. He was bedridden for days, then weeks. He was dirty and bearded. India took to sleeping in the guest room. She was a decent nursemaid, she thought. She brought him homemade Italian wedding soup and focaccia from his favorite deli on South Street, she made sticky date pudding from his British mother’s recipe. She brought him his antibiotics every four hours and kept his water glass fresh and filled with ice. She borrowed books from the library and read them at his bedside. He got better physically; the fluid cleared from his lungs. But he didn’t get better mentally. He stayed in bed. He missed the kids’ soccer games; he missed a benefit at MOMA where he was being honored. One night, India heard a noise coming from their bedroom, and when she opened the door, she found Bill sobbing. She sat on the side of the bed and smoothed his hair and contemplated leaving him.
Then, his favorite hockey player, Pelle Lindbergh, was killed in a car crash, and somehow this provided the impetus Bill needed to get out of bed. He wasn’t saddened by Lindbergh’s death; he was angry. Goddamned waste of talent. He was back in the studio, returning phone calls, sketching a new commission for a private garden in Princeton, New Jersey.
Between Manic Bill and Depressive Bill there was a normal man, on an even keel. It was Bill Bishop of 346 Anthony Wayne Way, owner of fourteen acres and a stone farmhouse and barn-cum-studio, husband of India Tate Bishop, father of Billy, Teddy, and Ethan.
Bill and India lived in the suburbs, and their boys attended Malvern Prep and played sports. Bill and India attended functions and parties, they went to movies and restaurants, they celebrated holidays. They took their trash to the dump and raked leaves and mowed the lawn. It was all well and good that Bill was a “famous artist,” but they had a life to live and it required sanity.
In those days, India had depended on Tuckernuck to clear Bill’s mind. Bill was good on Tuckernuck. He was strong; he was sane. Back then, when the final day arrived, India had never wanted to leave.
India lay back on the mattress-filled with jelly, Jell-O, toothpaste, lemon curd, caviar, something impossibly squishy-and studied Roger. They called him Roger, but really the little man with the driftwood torso and the blue beach-glass eyes and seaweed dreadlocks was Bill when he was happy.
God, she missed him.
She had made up her mind to leave Tuckernuck on Wednesday. First of all, she was smoking. Smoking helped calm her nerves, it kept her hands occupied, it allowed her to think-but when Birdie found out India was smoking, she would kick India out of the house. Just as the headmistress at Miss Porter’s School had kicked India out for smoking when she was fourteen. (India then went to Pomfret, where smoking was tolerated, and then to college at Bennington, where smoking was mandatory.)
There was a knock at the door. India panicked. She sat up in bed and tried to wave the smoke out the open window-but it was pointless. Anyone who entered would know she was smoking. She was fifty-five years old; she had to be accountable for her actions. But Birdie was such a Goody Two-shoes. This had always been the case. She hadn’t married a tempestuous, mentally ill sculptor, she had never snorted cocaine at two in the morning at an underground club, she had never romantically kissed another woman. Birdie made pancakes and squeezed the juice from oranges; she went to church. She was the reincarnation of their mother.
“Come in!” India said, praying for one of the girls.
The door opened. It was Birdie.
“You’re smoking?” Birdie said.
India inhaled defiantly and nodded.
Birdie sat on the corner of the gelatinous mattress. “Can I have one?”
“One what?”
“A cigarette.”
India smiled. She couldn’t help herself. This was funny. Birdie might have been joking, but the woman couldn’t pull off sarcasm or irony; her voice was full of its usual earnest. Little Birdie, Mother Bird, wasn’t going to send India home for smoking. She was going to join her in the filthy vice.
India didn’t remark. She didn’t want to scare Birdie away. She plucked a cigarette from her pack and handed it to Birdie. Birdie placed it between her lips, and India lit it with her gorgeous jeweled Versace lighter. Birdie inhaled. India watched, fascinated. Birdie had the smooth mannerisms of a practiced smoker. India realized then how little she knew about Birdie’s adult life. Birdie and Grant hadn’t smoked at home; of this, India was certain. Grant had puffed his cigars on the golf course and with brandy at the steak house, but when did Birdie find occasion to smoke? At the country club dances, perhaps, in the ladies’ room when the women were all fixing their hair and thinking about sleeping with one another’s husbands? Or maybe the smoking was new since the divorce. Maybe it was a sign of further rebellion. Because although Birdie was a Goody Two-shoes like their mother, she had done that which would have been unthinkable to their mother: Birdie had left her husband. It amazed India now how little she knew about Birdie’s divorce.
There had been one phone call to India’s office at PAFA. India knew something was up; Birdie didn’t call unless someone had died or was sick.
“What’s going on?” India had said.
Birdie said, “I’m divorcing Grant.” Her voice was bloodless, matter-of-fact.
“You are?” India said.
“I am,” Birdie said. “It’s time.” Like she was talking about putting the dog to sleep.
“Did you catch him cheating?”
“No,” Birdie said. “I don’t think women interest him. And that includes me.”