Accidents of Marriage (36 page)

No one answered. Olivia opened her mouth to speak, but Moira held out a hand. “Please. Let me finish.”

She picked up her cup of tea and took a long swallow, the group watching as though Moira were the brand-new movie.

“It’s ended up being too simple.” She held her chapped hands to her lips as though praying. “He scared me, sure, but even more, Mother of God, I was terrified of opening my goddamn mouth. Excuse me.”

“Just say it,” Sabine said. “Spit out that crap you been eating.”

Moira’s smile lit up the face that must have been lovely before old bruises and lines set in so deep. “I said to myself, stop worrying about him killing you. You’re murdering yourself. All he has to do is finish the job. I’d been praying to God, not realizing that all that time God
was
helping, I just didn’t recognize his hand. He’d sent me you all—I just hadn’t been listening. All these years, it was like the Bible says, I’ve been a prisoner of hope.”

•  •  •

Ben waited at a table by the huge glass windows, already seated when Maddy arrived at the Top of the Hub restaurant. She’d been ferried by the cab service. Ben had picked this touristy special-occasion place as though they were celebrating something.

“I have something important to tell you,” he’d said when asking her to join him for dinner.

As she walked toward the table, she placed a hand over her racing heart. They were fifty-two stories up, perched at the top of the Prudential building. Beyond the glass-walled restaurant, filled with what seemed like acres of white linen, Boston flashed like a carpet of fireflies.

Ben stood and pulled her chair out, beating the maître d’ to the
job. For a moment, Maddy believed she could start new. She wanted to twirl in the flashes of lights and feel sparks ignite right inside her heart. Ben and Maddy sat, sending freshly minted stares across the gap of not seeing each other every day.

Ben’s grin was huge. “I have good news. My father called today. It’s all going to be okay. The other driver? He was legally drunk. They can’t charge me. And I would think he’ll be—”

Maddy stared at him, her twinkly twirling feelings gone.

“I know this all means very little to you. You are still . . . hurt. And it was my fault.”

She remained silent.

“I want to come home, Maddy.” Ben reached for her hands as though their reunion were preordained. She pulled away.

“What has changed?” she asked.

“I’m not . . . There’s no criminal charges. No charges at all. It wasn’t my fault. That other guy? The one driving the Ford. It was him.”

“Really?”

“The lawyer just called.”

“Oh. That’s why you look. So happy?” She grabbed a slice of bread from the basket the waiter had placed on the table. And two pats of butter. “What did
you
do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing? You did nothing?” She buttered the bread thickly. Tried not to scream. He didn’t answer. “Well? What, Ben? All him?”

He put a hand on the edge of the table, the white cloth wrinkling under his hand. “I probably drove too fast.”

“Probably. Yeah. Probably.” She dropped the bread on her plate. “Guess. What I found. In our room?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “A bag of pills.”

“Pills? Emma’s? Emma has pills?”

“
My
pills!” She spoke too fiercely, using too much air, forced to then stop and take a breath, unable to speak for a moment. “Ones I took. To live. With you.”

Ben deflated as if she’d popped him. He opened his mouth to speak, and nothing came out. Had he known about the bottles?

“Collecting pills. My old hobby. I remembered. That. Knowing. They were there. Made me feel. Safe.”

She wished she could speak better, faster. Hurl out words to tell him all her memories were flowing back—how each bottle of Ambien or Vicodin offered the promise that she could handle anything. Knowing that even on nights the cruelest Ben came home, she’d be okay. Pills offered sweet promises and dreams of forgetting.

“Did you know?” she asked.

“I don’t think so.” His words were slow. Maybe he couldn’t process now. His own personal traumatic injury of the soul.

Maddy worked to look as intent as she could, not knowing if she any longer had the ability to intimidate.

“Maybe I did—a little,” he admitted. “I guess I thought your job caused you stress. Your clients. The kids.”

“They numbed me. From you.”

“That was before. We can start over.” He captured her hands. “I’ve been thinking. About you. The kids. Me. We can change everything. It won’t be like before. I know I have . . . culpability. But I will make it up to you.”

“This isn’t a triumph. Movie. Ben.” She frowned at him as she freed her hands. “Not Lifetime channel. Before? Before was humiliation. Not tragedy. It was just you. Your temper. Being mean. Impatient.”

Silence fell as the busboy filled their heavy amber glasses with ice water.

“First a string. Of small failures. And big. Damaged us,” she continued. “You always late. Yelling. Throwing things. Sometimes worse. All just a moment. I thought.

“And now this.” Maddy held out her hands and swept them in front of her, indicating to him what he’d done.

“Maddy. Please. Forgive me. At least consider it.”

She remembered forgiving him. So many times.

The time he’d shattered her grandmother’s crystal bird—grabbing it off the shelf in the middle of his rage.

When they’d had to replace the kitchen counter because he’d pounded it so hard it cracked.

Emma running into the living room. Eight years old. Crying hard enough to make Maddy’s throat hurt just to hear her. Ben on her heels. Screaming so loud his neck veins jumped like worms. Because Emma broke his pen. Not his heirloom watch. Not his computer. His pen.

Barking at her, blaming her, shaking the stupid pen.

She remembered this as they sat in the starry restaurant up so high.

“I gave you years,” she said. “Years of chance. Nothing changes. Just. Gets worse. Look at me.”

“Everything is different. I’ve changed.”

“Zelda’s door has sayings. I told you. I copied this one. Thought it was about me. But now I know the truth. I wrote it to remind me. About you. Subconscious. Maybe.” She slid a piece of paper across the white tablecloth. Ben’s face fell as he read it.

There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help and what they cannot.

—PLATO

“I think you have at least. Twenty-two things. You shouldn’t be angry about. Every day.”

CHAPTER 34

Emma

Emma dreaded breakfast. Going out to restaurants for ordinary meals seemed like just one more punishment for having your parents living apart. Weren’t dinners with Dad hideous enough without expanding these horrors to the morning? Both her parents had become mental.

That her father blamed her for everything was so obvious. Why shouldn’t he? Who else was to blame? And now, the case had been dropped. Dad was right. Her mother had never needed to know.

So good work, Emma. You broke up your parents’ marriage. And now your mother is somewhere between Frankenstein and a member of the walking dead.

She looked out the window, watching for her father’s car. The moment he appeared, she planned to drag Caleb and Gracie out. Emma couldn’t take seeing her father stare at her mother, all big-eyed pathetic-looking, while her mother practically spat at him.

Her father treated Emma as though she had explosives strapped to her chest. He’d probably never be normal with her again.

It had been another zombie-Mom morning at the Illicas. Grandma Anne arrived before anyone woke. She made supper at seven a.m., and then sandwiches for school, then vacuumed, packed lunch boxes, and
ironed a blouse for Gracie. At some point Mom wandered into the living room with a handful of cookies, lay on the couch, and turned on the TV—breaking two of her previously adamant rules from before.

No television with breakfast!

No sweets before lunch!

There he was, pulling into the driveway.

“Gracie. Caleb. Come on, Daddy’s here,” she yelled.

Grandma Anne came to the door, wiping her hands on a towel tucked in her waistband. “For goodness’ sake, let your father come in, sweetheart, so I can give him a cup of coffee and a muffin.”

Gracie and Caleb skidded into the hall in their socks. “Put on your shoes,” Emma said before answering her grandmother. “We have to hurry, Grandma. Dad has to get to work.”

Grandma sent a stern glance her way—stern for Grandma anyway. “Aren’t you going to say good-bye to Mommy?”

“I did,” Gracie said.

“Me too.” Caleb grabbed his lunch box. “I want to see Daddy.”

“Bye, Mom,” Emma yelled toward the living room as she opened the front door. The little kids sped out toward their father, leaning against the car with his arms folded.

“Can we have Dunkin’ Donuts chocolate donuts?” Caleb asked their father as he ran to the car. “Can I have chocolate milk?”

“No. And yes,” her father said. “You can’t learn anything on donut fuel.”

“Emma let me have a Little Debbie cake. Before breakfast!” Caleb said.

“Jesus . . .” Her father stopped before saying more. He opened the back door for Gracie. Emma challenged him by lifting her eyebrows—just a tiny bit though—while keeping the rest of her face blank.

“Then I guess I’ll save a little money on your breakfast.” He kissed Caleb and Gracie, and then looked at Emma. She came forward, allowed a brief hug, and walked around the car to get into the front passenger seat.

“Nope. I got room,” Caleb said.

“How about Sorella’s?” her father asked.

“Cornmeal pancakes!” Gracie blew a kiss at their father. “I love Sorella’s. Oh, thank you, Daddy.”

Emma thought she’d puke watching this little lovefest.

“Sorella’s it is.” Her father looked back at the house once more before backing down the driveway.

The restaurant was almost full, not that it was hard to fill such a tiny space. Emma didn’t know how they even fit in as many tables as they had. The cooks worked right out in the open, squeezed into some midget kitchen. Her father and mother thought it was cool—their word, never hers; she thought it was gross, the word and the place. Who wanted to see people sweat over the frying eggs you were going to eat?

Gracie and Caleb attacked their pancakes, and her father dug right into his bacon and eggs. Emma didn’t even want her cereal; she just dipped her spoon in and out of the bowl so her father wouldn’t get annoyed.

“So,” her father said. “What’s up in school today? All your homework done?”

“I have a spelling test,” Caleb said. “Want to test me? Cold. C-O-L-D. Smart. S-M-A-R-T.”

“Excellent—seems like you were studying last night. S-T-U-D-Y-I-N-G.” Her father gestured to the waitress for more coffee.

“Witch. W-I-T-C-H. Emma tested me.”

“Good job. Both of you.” Her father’s forced grin seemed as phony as the Saks salesclerk’s smile had been when Emma and Sammi tried on hats last weekend.

She gave her cereal another stir.

“I had to write a story using compound sentences with subjects and predicates.” Gracie poured additional syrup on top of her already drowning cornmeal pancakes. “Do you know what subjects and predicates are?”

“Hmm,” her father said. “The subject is the what, and the predicate tells something about the subject? Like me saying
brilliant Gracie
? You are the subject and brilliant is the predicate.”

“Are you and Mommy getting divorced?” Caleb asked.

Her father placed his fork on his plate. “I hope not,” he said.

“Then don’t,” Caleb said. “If you hope it.”

“It’s not that simple,” her father said.

Emma couldn’t catch her breath.

“Why? Just come home.” Caleb stabbed the bit of egg left on his plate.

“ ’Cause Mommy is part of it,” Gracie said. “That’s why it’s not simple. She makes the decision, also.”

“Does Mommy want a divorce?” Caleb asked.

“I don’t think Mommy
wants
a divorce—but Mommy’s not happy.”

“Is she still mad at you? For driving so fast?”

“It’s complicated, Caleb,” her father said. “It’s not just that she’s angry, she’s also . . . Well, I guess she’s angry.”

“Are you being punished for being bad?” Caleb took a much too huge forkful of pancakes and shoved them in his mouth. Pancake mush practically fell out of his mouth, and nobody was there to stop him.

Emma squirmed.
Shut up, Caleb.
She didn’t want to hear her father get angry; she didn’t want to hear him be maudlin. She was sick of both her parents, period.

“I’m just not sure, Caleb.” Her father picked up his fork again and sighed.

All her parents did anymore was say
I don’t know
and look sad. Emma couldn’t decide which of the two made her want to kill them more.

•  •  •

After school Emma found she couldn’t bear to get on the bus to come home. Paralyzed or traumatized or simply sick of it all, it didn’t matter. She simply couldn’t.

She walked down Louis Pasteur Avenue and then followed the Fenway to Brookline Avenue. A few blocks away there was a movie theater that played enough films to keep her there until midnight if she wanted.

She wanted.

•  •  •

Emma may as well have walked in with cowbells tied to her neck when she tried to sneak into the house at nine o’clock that night. Gracie greeted her at the door, opening it before Emma even had her key out.

“Daddy’s going to kill you,” Gracie whispered. “Where were you?”

“
Emma?
” her father shouted from the living room. “Get in here.
Now!
”

“Dad’s here?” Emma asked.

“Grandma called him. Because you didn’t show up to get us. He called Aunt Vanessa, Kath, even Olivia. All your friends. And the police!” Gracie walked down the hall, holding Emma’s arm as she talked. “The police wouldn’t do anything for twenty-four hours. Daddy was really mad ’cause Sammi and Caro weren’t home and because he didn’t have your boyfriend’s phone number.”