A Woman's Place: A Novel (31 page)

"You only wore them Thursday," Dennis argued.

"I didn't. I wore them Tuesday. And that isn't all that isn't clean," she told me. "My best T-shirts are still in the wash."

"What's wrong with the one you have on?" Dennis asked. She grimaced down at it. "It's all wrinkle dr

"Am I supposed to iron T-shirts?" Dennis asked me.

"No. You're supposed to smooth them and fold them while they're warm from the dryer."

"Okay," he said agreeably enough, "I can do that." To Kikit, he said,

"Where is your brother? John? Get down here!"

"I look awful, Mommy." "You look beautiful." Page 161

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"I wanted to look nice for Joy. Is she in the car?"

"She's back at Brody's. We'll swing by on the way." I took her jacket from the hall closet. "Go wait outside, sweetheart. I'll be out with Johnny in a minute."

"No, you won't." She slid her arms into the jacket on her way out the door. "He isn't coming."

Dennis started up the stairs. "John! Where in the--there you are." He stopped midway up when Johnny appeared at the top. I joined Dennis on the stairs. "What's wrong?" Johnny shrugged. "Nothing. I just don't want to go."

"But you love the circus."

"I've been lots of times. I kinda wanna stay here with Dad." The sting of rejection was swift and sharp. I was trying to parry it, telling myself not to take it personally, that Johnny simply felt caught between us, when Dennis sighed. "I wasn't planning to stay here, John. As soon as you leave, I'm going to Boston."

"Can I come?"

"No."

Johnny's shoulders drooped. "Can I wait here till you get home?"

"No," Dennis said again, but gently. "I have business there. It'll take me most of the day. You'd be bored to death. Go to the circus with Mommy and Kikit, and another day you and I will go into Boston." Johnny looked doubtful.

Dennis climbed several more steps until he and Johnny were on eye level. Taking Johnny's shoulders, he said softly, "I promise. Just us two. Now go on. Get your sneaks."

Either he was more sensitive a father than I'd given him credit for, or he was so desperate to get to his business in Boston that he would promise his son the world. I didn't care the cause. I just prayed he would follow through.

Johnny disappeared down the hall.

At first, Dennis and I just stood there, side by side, waiting for him in silence.

Then I asked, "Did you know that was coming?"

"I didn't put him up to it, if that's what you mean."

"Did you know he didn't want to go?"

"No. He didn't tell me. He doesn't say a hell of a lot."

"Do you ask? In general. If you see him brooding, do you ask what's wrong?"

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"Yes. That doesn't mean he answers."

"Do you think he's disturbed?"

"God, no."

"Upset. Maybe we should sit down with him, both of us, and get him to talk."

"He's doing fine, Claire. So's Kikit. I may still be a novice with some things around here, but the kids aren't suffering." I had to admit that the house didn't look bad. Presumably he had kept the cleaning service coming once a week. "I'd have thought you would want to hire someone to cook and do laundry. And drive. That nanny you always talked about?"

"I can handle the driving. I can do the laundry, too. The kids should know that, shouldn't they?"

"Definitely," I said and meant it. "Has Jenovitz talked to you about meeting with them?"

"He wants to see them when he gets back."

"The week of Thanksgiving?" I didn't want the children upset for the holiday, didn't yet know what we were doing for the holiday. I kept hoping I would regain custody by then, but since I could neither assume it nor bear to rule it out, I was ignoring the whole thing. It didn't help when Dennis said, "Thanksgiving, or the week after." The week after was worse. I was praying the interlocutory appeal would go our way, but if it didn't, we would be stuck waiting for Jenovitz. "I want this decided, already," I said. "Isn't it getting to you?"

"Isn't what getting to me?"

"The limbo we're in."

"It's only been three weeks."

"It's been an eternity." I took a new tack. "Aren't you afraid that if this thing drags out too long, someone else will buy the piece of Pittney you want?"

He grew wary. "How did you know about Pittney?" A small movement caught my eye. When I looked up, Johnny started down the hall. "All set?" I smiled and held out his jacket. He took it and went out the door.

I followed him. "Johnny?"

He stopped. I caught up and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "Are you okay?"

He shrugged.

"Any special reason you wanted to stay here?" He shook his head, broke away, and ran to the car. By the time I reached it, he was inside with Kikit and the moment alone was lost. Page 163

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Joy Parth was special. In hindsight, I did remember a time when she had been shy around us, though I had attributed that more to her age than awkwardness with her father. In any event, by the time she was ten, she had overcome it. She spent her visits either shadowing Brody or coddling my babies like they were her dolls. It was when she became a teenager that she and I became really close. I was the one she complained to when she had a gripe against her parents or her friends or the world in general. We loved going off by ourselves for lunch. I found her thoughtful, soft-spoken, and remarkably grownup.

So many of the same things that I loved about Brody, I loved about Joy, but it was never more true than that Saturday. I wasn't sure what Brody had told her about the situation between Dennis and me, but she handled herself like a pro. Having lived with her own parents' split, and being intelligent and sensitive on top of the rest, she answered Kikit's questions with aplomb.

Not that I was supposed to hear those questions. Kikit usually squished herself close to Joy, sometimes even spoke into a hand held to Joy's ear. But her eyes touched me more often than not, and her voice was just loud enough to carry.

"What's the difference between being separated and being divorced?" she asked at one point, and at another, "Who decides when you see Brody and when you don't?" Many of the questions had a fearful edge, like, "If parents stop loving each other, can they stop loving their kids?" or,

"Do Johnny and I get split up if Mommy and Daddy do?" or, "What if one of them marries somebody else?"

Johnny listened intently, sitting on the other side of Joy, which was where he stayed for most of the day. I tried to coax him out so that I could talk with him more, tried talking about innocuous things like how he felt about the football season starting to wind down, and occasionally he responded, though not for long and never comfortably. Inevitably he gravitated back to Joy.

Each time it happened, I died a little inside. Each time that happened, Brody sent me a look that said,

He's navigating strange waters, give it time.

I didn't have much choice. No amount of kicking and screaming on my part was going to make either of the kids suddenly comfortable with the fact that their parents had split. Nor, though, would I let it ruin our day. The truth was that Dennis had rarely come to the circus, so it being five of us rather than six wasn't a first. I just pretended this was like one of those earlier times.

It got easier as the day went on. By the time the circus ended, even Johnny seemed to have forgotten anything was amiss. It came back to him when we unwittingly stopped for dinner at a steakhouse that Dennis had taken the children to shortly after our separation. Kikit was the one who pointed it out, but only after we were settled inside, well after Johnny had withdrawn.

We made the best of it, but I was beginning to feel the strain. There was some relief when we drove back to the lighthouse. Since Joy had never seen it, Kikit and Johnny showed her around. The instant their footsteps had faded from the second floor, saying that they had gone up another flight, Brody looked at me.

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"Hangin" in there?" he asked.

I choked out a laugh. "I'm hangin', all right, swinging back and forth, neither here nor there. I need this settled, Brody. Everything about my life-the kids, Dennis, my mother, Wicker Wise--it's all up in the air." He came close. "What about me?"

"You, too."

He gave me a short, sweet kiss. It was still new, still that little bit shocking, but hot. Before I could melt, he took me in his arms and held me, just held me, standing there, swaying as if in a dance. "What's the song?" I asked against the musky warmth of his neck. He smelled so much better than the elephants had. I would have liked to tell Connie that.

"No song."

"There has to be one. You're moving in time to it."

"Nope. I'm tone deaf. Can't hear the tune or the beat." I drew back and stared at him. "No. No. Really?"

"You knew that."

"I didn't. I swear it. If I'd known, I never would have kissed you. I don't mess with men who can't sing." I caught myself. "Of course, look where I got messing with a man who could. You might not be such a bad risk after all."

He started swaying again, this time with his hands linked on the small of my back and our lower bodies fitted neatly together. The look on his face was precious, a naughty blend of amusement and defiance that I had no intention of calling him on, since my own face must have worn much the same expression. I laced my fingers together at the nape of his neck, occasionally moved my thumb against his skin or his hair, and all the while our eyes clung.

Before I knew what I was doing, I started to hum, the lightest possible sound that would carry recognition. I timed the tune to the movement he set, so that even if he couldn't hear, the beat matched. After one wordless run-through, I began to sing softly.

Brody was up to the challenge. He recognized "Anticipation" and laughed. I felt the vibration down low, where out bodies met and pressed, and didn't back off this time. His being aroused didn't startle me, other than in how much I liked it. Returning to a hum, I moved ever so subtly against him. His arousal grew. "Are you teasing me?" he asked.

"I guess I am."

"Feel safe, do you?"

"Uh-huh." Nothing could possibly happen with the children upstairs. Indeed, I felt so safe that I asked, "If there was nothing with Ellen MacKenzie, what did you do for sex?"

His cheeks colored adorably. "I managed."

"With whom?"

He started to roll his eyes, stopped, grunted. "You want a history?" Page 165

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"You know mine." As we swayed, his fingers inched lower, pressed harder. I breathed my pleasure in a sigh, then said, "I'm curious, that's all. I figured the sex with Ellen was great. Now you say it didn't exist. It had to be great with someone else."

After a long moment that looked to be deliberative, he blurted, "Gail Jensen."

"For two weeks, three years ago. That was as long as you saw Gail."

"No. That was as long as Hillary Howard thought I saw Gail. It was more like two years."

"No kidding?"

"No kidding."

Gail had been a local anchorwoman before taking a job in New York. Not only was she stereotypically gorgeous, but she was ten years younger than me. I was sorry I'd raised the subject. But the damage was done.

"How was she?" I made myself ask, lest I always wonder. Brody was starting to look amused. "Uh, imaginative."

"What does that mean?"

"She liked to push the envelope."

I stopped swaying. "I don't know if I can do that. I'm forty." He laughed. "Age has nothing to do with it."

"But I've only been with Dennis. I'm one step removed from a virgin."

"Are you feeling like a virgin right now?"

"In a way." The words were barely out of my mouth when he spread his hands over my bottom and moved me against him. "No," I corrected, suddenly short of breath. "Not like a virgin."

"Like what, then?"

"I don't know." I tucked my chin in and put the top of my head to his chest. "Like something else. Curious, maybe."

"Achy?"

"Uh-huh."

"Where?"

"You know where."

"Say it."

"I can't."

He put his mouth to my ear, whispered, "You will," and slowly eased me back. When I raised my eyes, I saw promise in his--and mischief, and need.

Then his eyes went to the ceiling and I heard what he had. We had barely separated when Joy bent over the top rung of the spiral staircase. Page 166

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"I need help, Dad. We're sitting up there in the dark and I'm trying to tell a pirate story, only mine stinks. Yours are the best. Will you come up?"

Intrigued, I looked up at Brody. "A pirate story?"

"I used to tell them to Joy when she was younger."

"We'd be sitting on the cliff by the house," Joy filled in, "in the pitch black, sometimes with a storm coming in. Your room up here is even better. It's like we're right in the middle of the ocean." We sat in the dark of my bedroom. Kikit was tucked in the nest of my legs. Joy was leaning against Brody's far side. Johnny was between Brody and me, with his elbows on his knees and his nose to the glass, such that he didn't touch either of us.

Brody pointed to the right. "See that inky blotch down there? On the coast. See it?"

"I see it!" Kikit said.

"Do you, Johnny?"

"The one past those circles of light?" Johnny asked with reluctant interest.

"That's it," Brody said. "You're looking at rocks, but not just any old rocks. They're the rocks where the good ship Mariana finally hit and broke up. Ah, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Ever hear of Captain Roy Stiggens?"

"No," said Kikit.

"Pirates don't come this far north," Johnny announced.

"Not usually," Brody conceded, "but since no one expected them here, it was one of the safest places for them to be. Okay, so there weren't any palm trees or coconuts, and the natives were buttoned up to their chins, and the winters were so cold that a pirate who made the mistake of being caught here when the snows came didn't usually get out until spring. Still, there were pubs and good lodging and the best cappuccino--" I cleared my throat. Cappuccino was a more modern invention, I believed.

"Right," Brody said. "Anyway, Captain Roy Stiggens was one of the most notorious men ever to be put in command of a vessel. His home port was Plymouth, England, where he'd been a little waif of a pickpocket for the earliest years of his life. From the time he was not much bigger than you, Johnny boy, he was out on the bounding main on one mission or another. If it wasn't carrying sugar cane from the Indies, it was fetching flour from Havana or wine and rum from Bermuda. He apprenticed aboard the schooner Marley under Captain Malcolm Drewhurst, and was barely eighteen when he was given the helm of his own ship. She was the Mariana,

launched in the year 1710, and a good sloop she was. Still, crossing the mighty Atlantic was never easy. No matter what the season, there were high winds and rains and choppy seas like we rarely see here. If anyone could handle 'em, though, Roy Stiggens could. He was a challenging man. There was nothing he liked more than to stand up at the bowsprit and dare the seas to sweep him up. Mind you, once he reached his maturity, Page 167

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he was fierce looking--tall and broad, with long black hair that blew free and a bellowing voice that could carry stem to stern in all but the meanest of winds--so my guess is the seas weren't so keen on taking him. The long and short of that being that by the time he was twenty-five he had crossed the Atlantic so many times he was looking for new adventure." His voice took a dramatic turn. "He was also looking to avenge the long-ago death of his parents at the hands of the Earl of Walthrop."

"So he became a pirate?" Kikit asked.

"So he became a pirate," Brody answered and snapped his fingers. "Took to it like that, got a real kick out of sailing right up to another boat and boarding her, easy as pie. The Mariana was such an innocent-looking craft that no one suspected its captain and crew were anything but hardworking sailors until they ran up that old Jolly Roger, and by then it was too late for escape. Ships that surrendered right off suffered little more than fright. Those that fought had greater losses. But for vessels from the fleet of the Earl of Walthrop, the crew of the Mariana showed no mercy. They burned and looted. They marooned whole crews on deserted islands. They took silks and fine china, medicines and guns. And gold bullion. They took gold bullion. See, Captain Roy had a dream. He'd been to the Colonies many a time. He figured, quite correctly, that there would be fine living to be had there once the Revolution was done."

I figured that if Captain Roy Stiggens started sailing the Mariana in 1710, he would have been dead and buried before the Revolution, but I wasn't about to say so. The children were entranced, and, frankly, so was I. Primed by what had happened downstairs, I was looking to be lost in fantasy, which was what Brody so skillfully engineered. The soothing lilt to his voice--deeper when he spoke as the captain, soft and enticing in the narrative--held the kind of charm our lives hadn't known of late. Even Johnny succumbed. By the time Brody had established the existence of one Prudence Cooper, and been through the part about this innocent young girl taking the captain's heart and then dying of scarlet fever, after which the ruthless pirate couldn't bear the thought of living where she had lived, so he returned to retrieve the treasure he had hidden in the caves beneath the rocks that were the inky blotch down the coast to the right out my bedroom window, Johnny had an elbow braced on Brody's knee and was listening as closely as Kikit. Brody answered their questions--yes, the captain had left the treasure for the innocent young girl, no, the hidden caves were never found, yes, the innocent young girl was purported to be walking the cliffs that night, no, Captain Roy hadn't listened to the weather report. By that time we were late. I had told Dennis we would be back at nine, and it was after ten.

What I wanted was to call Dennis and see if the children could stay overnight. Then I saw how nervous Johnny suddenly was, and I decided simply to get them home as quickly as possible.

Dennis greeted us at the door with a thunderous look. I held up a quelling hand and hurried the children past him, but when I went to take them upstairs, he blocked my way.

"Go on up," I told them. "I'll come kiss you goodnight in a minute." The instant they were out of sight, Dennis said, "You were supposed to be back at nine. That was the agreement. You violated it." Page 168

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"I'm sorry. We lost track of the time."

He blew out an exasperated breath. "Y'know, that's why this all has happened. You lost track of the time. You lost track of the children. You lost track of Kikit's medicine. Damn it, I had plans."

"What kind of plans?"

"Things to do with the kids."

"At nine at night? You were taking them out?"

"We were doing stuff in."

"What stuff?" I asked, only then noticing the smell. With a curious look at Dennis, I went down the hall and into the kitchen. It was a mess. Dennis had apparently been trying to bake. The cookies on the cookie sheet were more than a little burned around the edges, but they were definitely chocolate chip. Farther down the counter was the video cassette of a movie that Dennis had promised for so long to take the kids to, that it had left the theaters without their having seen it. I was startled, begrudgingly impressed. "I'm sorry. If I'd known you were doing this, I'd have kept a closer eye on the clock. You should have told me."

"I don't have to tell you anything. I'm the one with custody. You're the one who's walking on thin ice. Getting back here an hour and a half late is a perfect example of irresponsibility." Any positive feelings I might have had faded. I headed back to the front hall. "It's Saturday night. The kids can stay up later. Do your thing with them now." He was close behind me. "You're missing the point."

"No, you're missing the point," I shot back. "The children were with me. They were fine and safe and happy. If you were worried, you should have called us." I braced a hand on the newel post and faced him. "I was late. I've already apologized for that. But this is very difficult, Dennis. I need more time with them. These limited visits aren't fair, and you know it. Do you really, honestly, truly think that I'm an irresponsible mother? Do you really, honestly, truly think that I ever, ever harmed the kids?"

"How did you know about Pittney?"

"You're changing the subject."

"No, I'm not. That information is confidential. If you found out, it had to have been through sleazy means. That says something." My jaw dropped. I snapped it back up. "Sleazy? What about stacking the deck against me with lies? What about confidential medical records showing up in Dean Jenovitz's file? What about Adrienne, for God's sake?"

He took my arm and tried to steer me to the door.

I snatched it free and held my ground. "If there's more to that story, it'll come out. In court, if it comes to that. I'll raise Adrienne and more, Dennis. I'll do whatever I have to get my kids back."

"You're a vindictive bitch."

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The way he said it stole my breath. Fast as I could, I stole it back.

"It's called self-defense. I wasn't the instigator here. I wasn't the one who brought up the past. You did those things, Dennis, and for the life of me I still don't know why. What was so horrible about our marriage that you had to end it this way?"

I heard a sound from above. My eyes flew up the staircase and down the hall just as Johnny disappeared.

I started up the stairs. Dennis called my name, but I ignored him. When I heard his footsteps behind me, I started to run. I turned into Johnny's room in time to see him looking frantically around for a place to hide.

I caught him, wrapping him tightly in my arms. My heart was in my mouth. I pushed it aside enough to urge a soft, "Talk to me, John. Tell me what's bothering you most."

He fought to get free, but I wasn't letting him go. I weathered his struggles with my cheek to his hair. "I know this is hard for you," I said. "It's hard for me, too."

"Let me go," was his muffled reply.

"Not until we've talked. We haven't been able to do that, you and me. Either someone else is around, or you have homework to do, but I want to talk with you, Johnny, I need to talk with you. We used to talk all the time."

"You lived here then," he said, still muffled, now angry, too.

"Lots of things were different then. There are times when I'd give anything to be able to turn back the clock."

"Why don't you?"

"Because I can't."

"Why can't you?"

"Because there are legal issues involved. That's part of what makes this so hard."

I instinctively tightened my arms around him when he yelled, If it's so hard, why is it happening?" Good question, I wanted to say. Then I caught myself. I could throw my hands in the air all I wanted, but the truth was that I had made some very basic mistakes. I had decided what my family needed without giving Dennis equal say. I had been wrong to do that.

"This is happening," I said, "because Daddy needs some things that I can't give him."

"He needs us. Don't you?"

"Yes," I breathed against his hair, "God, yes. That's the biggest part of what's so hard. It bothers me not to be here when you get home from school. It bothers me not to have dinner with you, and breakfast with you. I want to be with you all the time, just like Daddy does." He had stopped struggling enough so that I could gentle my arms and let them soothe without fearing he would escape.

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"You tell me that if I want something, I should go for it," he said. The anger had given way to confusion. "Why don't you?"

"I am. You just don't see me doing it. I spend a good deal of the time when I'm not with you thinking about the best way to resolve this."

"Why doesn't the judge want you with us? Did you do something wrong?" My hand went still on his back for an instant, before resuming its gentle kneading. "No. Nothing illegal or immoral."

"Did Dad?"

I glanced back. Dennis was at the door. But even if he hadn't been listening, I wouldn't have slandered him in front of Johnny. "Daddy loves you as much as I do. What we're trying to work out here, is how best the two of us can love the two of you without the two of us living in the same house."

"But we're a family. Families work things out. Why can't you and Dad?" Again I glanced at Dennis. He looked tired and, to his credit, upset, but I didn't feel the need to soothe him that I once had. I was distanced. It struck me that it was by choice. My choice. Because there were two sides to every coin. Just as I had failed to satisfy Dennis's needs, he had failed to satisfy mine.

Could we work out our differences? "I just don't think we can."

"Then we're not a family anymore?"

"We are. Just a different kind. Two, actually. Two families."

"Are you and Daddy always gonna fight?"

"No. The fighting will be over pretty soon."

"Then what?"

"Then we settle in and get used to a new order of things."

"I want things the way they were."

"I know," I said and kissed his crown. There had been times in my childhood when I was desperate to make things the way they had been before my father had died. I remembered that pain.

"Don't you?" he asked, bringing me back to the present. I must have waited a few seconds too long to answer, because his voice rose in pitch. "Won't all of us ever live in the same house again?" Gently, sadly, I said, "Probably not."

"This sucksl" he cried and started to struggle again. I held him, tightening my arms when he tried to pull away, wrestling to keep a hold when he squirmed. Finally, he abandoned the fight and started to sob. Though my heart was breaking, I kept as tight a hold on him as before. I moved with him as I had when he'd been a baby, though then the cause had been more simple, either hunger, discomfort, or fright. Not only had life grown more complex, but Johnny had grown more controlled. Who had taught him not to cry? Had I? Or Dennis? Or his peers?

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"Let it out, Johnny," I whispered. "You can cry with me all you want. I'll love you just the same."

I actually think he would have cried even if I hadn't given him permission. The emotion had built too high. The dike had been bound to burst.

When I saw the first easing of the flow, I said, "It's okay to be unhappy sometimes. It's okay to be angry and confused and scared. Those are normal things to be feeling."

"Dad'll be mad," he said in a broken little voice.

"Dad won't be mad. He's feeling lots of those things, too. He may not talk about it, but he is. But things will get better, Johnny."

"How do you know?"

"I just know."

"How?"

Johnny had been appeased with a second, firmer, "Because I know," and so had I, but only until I got him into bed and kissed him goodnight, kissed Kikit goodnight, then got into my car and drove off. By the time I was back at the lighthouse, I was thinking of all the things that could go wrong and needing a little reassurance myself. When I picked up the phone to call Brody, though, I didn't get a dial tone. I pressed the disconnect button. "Hello?" Pressed it again. "Hello?"

"Claire?"

I thought I had heard my sister's voice in every possible emotional state, but this one was new.

"You have to come, Claire. She's comatose. They don't know how long she'll last." fourteen.

Rona hadn't exaggerated this time. I flew out on Sunday morning to find that the doctors shared her pessimism. No dramatic medical twist had brought on the coma. Connie had simply slipped into it. Just as simply, she didn't have the strength to pull herself out.