A Woman's Place: A Novel (41 page)

Dennis took out the dolls and the teddy and arranged them on the bed. I took out the pajamas and slippers and put them on the bedside table. Then I reached back into the bag. Something was still inside. I could Page 217

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feel its weight.

The bag was a lightweight backpack, too large for school use, but perfect for travel. It still bore the airline ID that Kikit had made me affix to one of the back straps.

I felt around inside, but found nothing. I peered around inside, but saw nothing. I slid sandwiched hands over the nylon until I located the weight, unzipped a back pocket, and reached inside. My heart skipped a beat seconds before my hand brought out the Epi-pen and antihistamine that "hadn't been packed" when the children had returned from Cleveland in October.

Dennis's gaze was riveted to them. For a second, I wondered if his astonishment was a cover for mortification at having been found out. Then his eyes rose to mine and I saw the kind of horror that said he honestly hadn't known. He closed his eyes, hung his head, ran a hand around the back of his neck.

"Christ," he finally said and raised his head. "What a fuckin' mess." I had to ask, had to hear the words. "You didn't know?" "I didn't know." With a look of disgust, he turned his head away. "What a fuckin' mess."

"Didn't you know it would be?" I cried. I wanted to think that the man I married and had stayed married to for so long wasn't as clueless as he sounded just then.

"I didn't," he confessed. "They made it sound clear. They made it sound simple. The judge was in agreement from day one. We didn't hit a single hitch."

I was grateful that Kikit chose that moment to wake up. If not, I might have told him about Selwey's note to Jenovitz, which wouldn't have been the best thing to do. We were still locked in a legal battle. Carmen had a sure-fire weapon in her hands. I had faith that she would use it wisely, and owed her that chance.

By the time Brody showed up with Johnny and takeout breakfast, I had bathed Kikit and put her in her own pajamas. With the swelling down and the oxygen mask replaced by nasal prongs, she was beginning to look more herself. She wasn't pleased with the continued presence of the IV

needle, but the doctors promised that if she continued to improve, she might be released that afternoon.

Dennis was subdued. He hung back while Johnny and Brody sat on Kikit's bed telling jokes to cheer her up. I hung back, myself. I was starting to feel the lack of sleep.

My first impulse when Brody suggested driving me home for a nap was to refuse on the grounds that Kikit needed me there and that, if I was tired enough, I could stretch out on the room's second bed and doze. I went with my second impulse, which had to do with Kikit being out of the woods and needing to know that her father was there for her, too. So Brody drove me to the lighthouse. I had barely made it out of the shower and into bed when Carmen called to say, with a satisfaction verging on glee, that we'd been granted a hearing on our new Motion to Recuse. Selwey would see us the following afternoon at two. Not only that, she said, but we had the figures we needed on Jenovitz. In only two of twenty-three cases referred to him by Selwey in the last Page 218

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three years had his recommendation differed from Selwey's ruling. Of the twenty-one remaining, more than half had eventually been reversed. I hung up the phone, grinned at Brody, and promptly fell into a sound sleep.

Kikit had started talking. Nonstop. She remained hoarse and neither the wheezing nor the hives were entirely gone, but either the doctors figured that she couldn't be too ill if she could chatter that way, or she simply wore them out. Whatever, by early afternoon she was back at the house that I had started to think of as Dennis's. I had a feeling Dennis would have let her come to the lighthouse if I had made an issue of it, but Kikit needed both of us, and, frankly, I didn't want Dennis at my place.

Dennis, on the other hand, had no objection to my being at his. He took an active role in getting Kikit settled on the sofa in the den and seeing that she had everything her little heart desired--bless her, she kept sending him on some little errand-but he remained subdued, pensive at times to the point of distraction, There was nothing about him to suggest smugness, arrogance, or flippancy. I wasn't sure whether the severity of Kikit's attack had shocked him or he'd had some other epiphany, but he was different. I sensed he was looking back on the last two months through different eyes.

At least, I hoped it. We weren't done with each other yet. Despite Carmen's unbridled optimism, I wasn't counting my chickens before they hatched. Even if I regained primary custody of the children, there was still the divorce itself to settle.

By mid-afternoon, Johnny was out sledding with friends, Brody was at the office, and I had sung Kikit to sleep. I dozed briefly there on the bed beside her and awoke smelling coffee. My nose led me to the kitchen. Dennis was at the window, holding a steaming mug between his hands.

"I'm impressed," I said. When he glanced at me, I gestured toward the coffee maker. Then my eye caught on a long Pyrex dish nearby, and I was doubly impressed. It contained chicken prepared Kikit's favorite way and ready to bake. The mixing bowl and utensils had been washed and lay drying against the edge of the sink. Everything else was neat and clean. He grunted. "Amazing what a guy can do when he has to." I filled a mug and leaned against the counter. He was looking out the window again. The snow in the backyard was blue-tinged as dusk approached.

"When will Johnny be back?" I asked.

"Soon, I'd guess. He almost didn't go."

"Why not?"

"Because you were here. He only left when I said you'd stay through dinner."

The admission startled me. Not so long ago Dennis would have died rather than let me know that the children wanted me around.

"Heuber called a few minutes ago," he said and brought the mug to his mouth. Yes. About the new hearing.

I watched him swallow the coffee and lower the mug, watched him rub his Page 219

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thumb against its rim and purse his lips. His eyes held resignation when he raised them to mine. "Are you raising the Adrienne business?"

"Only if you make me. How could you have lived with that all this time?

Weren't you afraid someone would find out?"

He shrugged. "There were times I was worried."

"About me? About my finding out?"

"That, too."

"Would it have been so awful to tell me, way back when I first asked?"

"I was afraid you'd divorce me." His gaze sharpened. "Be honest. You would have."

Maybe. Maybe not.

"You would have," he said. "You'll use it now."

"If that's the only way I can keep the kids. But that isn't what the hearing's about."

"What is?"

"We have evidence of something fishy going on between Selwey and Jenovitz. We want Selwey to leave the case."

Dennis didn't argue. He simply stood at the window, alternately studying his mug and the snow.

I sipped the coffee. It was stronger than I made mine but felt good going down.

"I fired Phoebe," he said without turning.

"Fired her?"

"Fired, broke up with, whatever. She didn't have any right to go after that medical file. If she'd asked me, I would have told her not to. That abortion was more my fault than yours."

I was so stunned that it was a minute before I could speak. Thank you, I might have said. Instead, I said, "Was it hard breaking up?" "Not as hard as I thought it would be."

"Do you love her?"

"Nah. I thought I did at first. We worked everything out so I'd get custody of the kids and a neat divorce settlement after that. Then a funny thing happened. I found that I liked my kids." He looked at me.

"Phoebe doesn't like kids."

"Ah. Has she met ours?"

"No. It never got that far."

"Just sex and law. No family."

He turned quickly, about to argue. I could see it in the flash of his eyes. Then the flash died, and he turned back to the window. Page 220

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"What was it all about?" I asked. "I need to know."

"So do I," he said on a note of exasperation.

"Did you fall for Phoebe before or after you talked to her about getting a divorce?"

"After."

I felt an odd relief. If it had to be one or the other, after was preferable.

"She was so ... on my side," he said, seeming far away. "She told me I was right and you were wrong. She told me I was smart. She loved my looks."

"I loved your looks."

"Yeah," he waffled, "but it's different when someone new says it. You expect your wife to say it. When another woman says it, one who is young and beautiful and powerful and has no obligation at all to do it, it's more exciting."

"Flattering."

"Yeah. So maybe it was a mid-life thing, at least, with her. But the other, the stuff about the business, it's been tough for a while. There was a time when I had the magic touch. But it's gone." I might have reminded him that the magic touch hadn't been magic at all, but mere sleight of hand, thanks to the late Adrienne Hadley. But I didn't want to spoil the mood. He seemed to be feeling what I was tired and mellow, benevolent now that Kikit was on the mend. We desperately needed to talk this way, for ourselves as much as the kids.

"You never really wanted Wicker Wise did you?" I asked. He snorted. "What would I do with it? I don't know the first thing about wicker."

"Then it's for the money? For Pittney?"

He nodded, drained his coffee, leaned against the window frame facing me. His stance would have been nonchalant, had it not been for the caution I saw on his face.

"Would you make me sell Wicker Wise I asked.

His smile was skewed. "Can't do that now, can I? You know about Hadley."

"But if I didn't, would you do it? Knowing how much the business means to me?"

He frowned, lowered his chin. "Probably not." Well, that was something.

His expression was gentle when he looked at me. "I was listening when you sang Kikit to sleep. Your voice is as clear as it was twenty years ago. Can you believe it's been that long? Twenty years. I fell in love with that clarity." He lowered his eyes and studied his mug. "It was good when we sang."

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"Yes."

"When we sang, we were in tune with each other. When we stopped, it went."

An oversimplification, perhaps. But I had thought it myself. "Singing was one of the good things. There were others. Certainly the kids. I don't regret our marriage, if for no other reason than them."

"So what happened to us?" I had asked him that same question, way back when. His answer then had been accusatory. He had blamed our break-up on me. I had every right to turn the tables now, but I didn't. As exhausted as I was after Kikit's ordeal, I felt stronger than I had in months. I had been forced to do things I didn't like. Now I was taking back my life.

"We need different things," I said. "I'm wrong for you. You shouldn't have to compete with a wife. You shouldn't have to fight over who's the better worker or the better parent. You need someone who's vulnerable and will lean on you and look up to you and devour every word you say. Me," I gave a wry smile, "I'm an old hand when it comes to self sufficiency. I've been at it since I was eight. So I needed other things from my marriage."

"Like what?"

"The security of knowing I'd never be left alone." It was a while before Dennis said, "Guess I blew that." I didn't respond at first. My mind was sorting things out. Much as I resented Dean Jenovitz, some of what he said rung true. "Maybe I'm too self sufficient."

Dennis didn't say anything. Which was good. No hackles raised. I went on.

"Sometimes I don't listen. I find solutions and impose them. I jump in and take charge before others can, even when they want to, even when they need to."

When Dennis remained silent, I looked at him. He smiled gently. "I'm not arguing."

"Take Kikit," I went on, because this affected us both. "She can read. She knows how to spell all the things she's allergic to. We have to teach her how to look at labels and monitor herself. We have to give her the power, rather than keep it ourselves. That means letting go just a little." Quietly, I added, "I have to learn to do that." It would be hard. I worried so about her. But if I had refused to put her on the floor as an infant, lest she fall and hurt herself, she would never have learned how to walk. So, now, I had to set her down. The trick would be in being there to prevent a fall while she learned. For Kikit, allergy-wise, falls could be fatal. But she had to learn that she could prevent them herself. She had to gain that self-confidence.

"Jenovitz accused me of not wanting to change. He's wrong," I vowed. But when I tried to apply the empowerment model to Dennis, I couldn't. I had let him be weak. I had let him lean on me. Now, he was too heavy. I no longer had the trust or respect to prop him up. I didn't want to catch him if he fell. "I'm just not sure I can change, where you and I are concerned."

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And where Brody was concerned? Overpowering self-sufficiency had never been an issue with him. From the very first, I had been able to lean on him. He was a strong man.

Dennis was studying his mug again. When he raised his eyes this time, they held a vulnerability that did something to me. It brought back, in one swift instant, all the positive parts of our marriage, the feelings of warmth and affection and, yes, love, that had seen us through for years. In that swift instant, my heart ached for the potential that had been there and had gone awry. In that swift instant, I wanted to comfort Dennis.

"Is there any chance for us?" he asked.

With the passing of that first swift instant, came another. This one held all that I hadn't said about Dennis and our marriage, all that had come into focus only after Dennis himself had broken it up. It held things like rashness, lack of loyalty, and moral weakness. On the plus side, it held Brody. I gave him an apologetic smile and a quick headshake. "It may be we'll be better friends than lovers. I'll try that, if you will. Want to?"