The Nest

by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

She moved through the crowd with a lambent glow—partly because the setting sun was bathing the eastern end of Long Island an indecent pink, partly because of the truly excellent cocaine wreaking havoc with Leo’s synapses.

People were so reassuringly unimaginative.

literally how he thought of himself, several times a day—a self-made man. It was the organizing principle of his life, that money and its concurrent rewards should flow from work, effort, commitment, and routine.

He’d grown up around trust fund kids—knew many of them still—and he’d seen the damage an influx of early money caused: abundance proffered too soon led to lassitude and indolence, a wandering dissatisfaction.

She couldn’t claim to be close to Leo, but he was the least needy and, therefore, the one she thought of with the most fondness.

She believed in second chances, sometimes more than first chances, which were wasted on youth and indiscretion.

“People change,” Bea said, opening up another pack of oyster crackers. “More often, people stay exactly the same.”

“I also recall a summertime straw fedora.” “You always did have great recall for anything that made you feel superior.”

Paul suspected Bea would never love him, but he thought maybe, one day, she might let him kiss her. He was a very good kisser; he’d been told so often enough to have confidence in that skill and to know that a good kiss, perfectly timed, well executed, could establish inroads to far more interesting destinations.

It was going to be their retirement home, a place to go when Walker could scale back his practice, relax, take more time to do the things he loved: cook, read, garden.

Walker didn't believe in inheritances, which he thought were nothing more than a gamble, and a shortcut; Walker didn’t believe in shortcuts or gambling.

She’d sit and smile and try to nod knowingly, but what she would have said if she could have mustered the nerve was that before her daughters were born she was nothing.

Outrage, Jack learned, was not an aphrodisiac; it was exhausting.

she thought the women were willfully shallow and tedious.

He understood the need for talismans from the dead. He and Walker had lost dozens of friends, had been pulled aside multiple times by a grieving mother or sister or cousin who offered a remembrance of the deceased to take home, like a party gift. Please, a friend’s stepsister had pleaded once, my parents will just drive it all to Goodwill; please take something that will remind you of him. And they did. Multiple things. Michael’s lime-green pocket square, Andrew’s aviator sunglasses, the tiny bistro chairs David used to make from discarded champagne-cork cages, countless framed photos and out-of-order watches and the odd tie or belt. Jack kept everything neatly folded and arranged on one shelf of a bedroom bookcase. The Museum of Death, Walker would grimly joke, but he cherished the tokens, too. All the remembering. The shelf held nothing of value and it held everything of value. It was the past they’d both endured and escaped. It was despair and hope. It was life and death.

He kept trying decisions on like jackets:

He didn’t mind leaving everything behind, starting from scratch. In fact, he reassured himself, he was looking forward to it. Another thing he’d learned that the other Plumbs hadn’t: the beauty of rediscovering the starting line.

Melody could barely contain her excitement—while repressing the distant drumbeat of concern.

Walker excelled at mediation, delivering people from their own self-inflicted misery. Families were the hardest, he knew, but he also knew how to try to bring adults past their own wounds and help them find their way, if not to affection at least to accommodation.

His favorite expression was from a speech he’d heard some king of finance give once: If you want to predict a person’s behavior, identify his or her incentives.

So the first time she and Leo combusted she’d practically been poised for the breakup. In some inexplicable way she’d been looking forward to it and all its attendant drama, because wasn’t there something nearly lovely—when you were young enough—about guts churning and tear ducts being put to glorious overuse? She recognized the undeniable satisfaction of the first emotional fissure because an unraveling was still something grown-up and, therefore, life affirming. See? the broken heart signaled. I loved enough to lose; I felt enough to weep. Because when you were young enough, the stakes of love were so very small,

Then Melody said, “Remember those friends you had in high school?” “God, is this going to be a lunch of examination and remembrances? Because I’m not in the mood.” “No. I have a point.”

“Don’t get me wrong; it’s great and I think you and Walker would have been great parents—if you both wanted it. But it’s not for everyone.” She finished her scotch and poured a little more. She was building some alcohol-fueled momentum. “Do no harm.” She laughed. “It sounds so, so easy, but do you know what else is easy? Doing harm! Accidentally doing harm is distressingly easy. I don’t think you were being selfish. I think you were being realistic.”