Apart at the Seams (26 page)

 

The ride home was segregated by sex. The men, aside from Bobby, who fell asleep on the last row of seats almost as soon as we were out of the parking lot, rode together in one of the vans so they could talk about whatever it is men talk about. The women gathered in the other so they could talk about me. Madelyn was at the wheel and Margot rode shotgun.

“I just don't understand why you didn't tell us about any of this before,” Margot said, twisting around in her seat so she could see me better.

“Because when Dr. Streeter brought up the idea at the end of the term, I blew him off. I knew I'd never be able to come up with that kind of money”—I shrugged—“so why talk to anybody about it? I'd probably never have thought about it again if Brad Boyle hadn't been so snotty to me during my interview. After that, I saw that nobody is ever going to hire me to do what I truly want to do until I finish my degree. That's when I decided to talk to Gayla and ask if she could help me find a scholarship.”

“What do you truly want to do? You mean you don't like working at the quilt shop?” Margot asked.

The confusion in her wide eyes made me feel instantly guilty, and I rushed to explain. “Of course I do. I love working with all of you, and meeting the customers, and working with the interns. It's a terrific job, but—”

“But you could do so much more,” Evelyn said. “Seriously, I mean that. You've done an amazing job in the shop, Ivy. Especially considering where you started. But you could do more good working full-time with abused women. That's why I made you the liaison for the internship program with New Beginnings, because I saw that you had something special to offer.”

“So you're saying you want her to go?” Margot asked.

“No. I'd miss her if she left; we all would. I can find someone else to cut quilt kits and fill orders, but I'll never find another friend like Ivy. Still, if we truly care about Ivy, then we should care enough to let her fulfill her potential and do what makes her happy.”

Abigail, who was sitting in the next-to-last seat with her arm around Bethany, said, “Evelyn is right. I'll miss Ivy. And, of course,” she said softly, looking down at my daughter's head, which was resting in the crook of her arm, “I'd miss the children terribly. But Ivy should have an opportunity to make something of herself and use her talents to benefit others. It'd be awfully selfish of us to wish for her to do anything else, even if it means her leaving.”

“I suppose that's true,” Margot said, sniffling. “But I'm still going to miss her.”

“Stop that,” I said. “Come on, Margot. Don't cry. I don't even know if I'm going. I haven't applied to the college
or
for the scholarship. There are no guarantees here. Gayla said that the odds of me getting the money are only about half.”

“Better than half is what I said. A little better. But you're right. It's not a guarantee.”

Bethany, who had been listening this whole time, twisting a piece of hair around her finger, the way she does when she's nervous, looked up at me. “How long would we be in Delaware?” she asked.

“A year and a half,” I said, leaning over the seat so I could see her face. “Two at the most. But you don't have to worry about this right now, Bethy. Like I said, I'm not even sure I'll get the scholarship.”

“But if you did,” she said, her eyes solemn, “would you go? Would we have to leave New Bern?”

“I don't know,” I answered truthfully. “Maybe.”

B
obby and I sat on a pair of molded plastic chairs in the hallway of Sheila Fenton's office, waiting for her to come get Bobby for his first visit with Hodge. Bobby swung his legs back and forth and kept leaning forward and looking down the hall to see if anyone was coming.

I smiled, trying to mask my nervousness. “Excited to see your dad?” I asked.

“Uh-huh. Do you think he's a good bowler?”

“I'm really not sure. You'll have to ask him.”

“I bet he is,” Bobby said confidently.

Bobby leaned forward yet again, looking toward the far end of the hall. This time the door opened. Sheila Fenton came out, and the sound of her heels clacking against the tile echoed through the tall ceilings of the corridor.

“Ready?” I asked, giving Bobby another smile. He bobbed his head and bit his lower lip. He was nervous too.

“Hello, Bobby,” Sheila said, squatting down so she was at his level. Sheila was not happy that the judge had permitted Bethany to forbid contact with Hodge, but she's never let our differences spill over into her relationship with the kids. She's been good with them through this whole process.

“It's nice to see you today. What have you got there?” she asked, pointing to a manila envelope that Bobby was holding.

Bobby looked up at me, his eyes asking me to answer for him. Poor thing. He really was nervous.

“Bobby brought along one of the stories he wrote in school this year and some pictures he drew,” I said brightly, looking down at my son, being his voice. “And some pictures of our trip to Cape Cod last year.”

“I thought it might help break the ice a little,” I said quietly, addressing my words to Sheila. “Make things a little less awkward starting off.

Sheila smiled as if she meant it. “That was a good idea. Thanks.”

“Sure.” I gave a quick nod of acknowledgment.

I don't feel hopeful about the odds of Bobby and Hodge developing a good father-son relationship; I just don't think Hodge has it in him. But Bobby wants a dad so much, someone he can count on and look up to, someone who'll show him how to be a man. And because I love Bobby, I want that for him. Just because Hodge was cruel to me doesn't necessarily mean that he'll be that way to Bobby. Maybe, because Bobby is a boy, it will be different with him. I hope so; I really do.

“Bobby,” Sheila said, looking into his big eyes, “your father is already waiting for you in the playroom. We're going to go inside in just a minute. Remember what we talked about? Because it's your first time meeting him, this will just be a short visit. I'm going to be in the room with you the whole time, so if you need to—”

There was a noise at the end of the hall, a door being shoved open and banging against the wall, a deep male voice, raised in anger, that made the hair stand up on my neck and my heart start racing, the voice that still invades my dreams sometimes, that lurches me awake, sweating and gasping—Hodge's voice, resonating from the ceilings like a clap of thunder.

“Is this your doing?” he shouted, pounding across the tile floor with his finger pointing at me. “Are you the reason I can't see my daughter? Did you talk her into hiring that effin' lawyer? Did you?”

Sheila spun around and went into action, meeting Hodge in the middle of the hall, blocking him from getting any closer.

“Mr. Edelman!” she snapped, her voice clear and commanding, like a school principal breaking up a playground brawl. “Mr. Edelman, we talked about this! This is not the time and place to discuss this. You are here to see your son, and if you don't go back inside this
instant,
” she declared, standing as straight as an arrow and pointing toward the door, “I will cancel this visit right now and then go back to my office and write a report to the court, explaining why. And if you take one more step toward Ms. Peterman, I'm going to call your probation officer and let him know that you are in violation of your restraining order, which also means that you'd be in violation of parole. Do I make myself clear? Mr. Edelman?”

Hodge was silent but restless, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, glaring at me over the top of Sheila's head, as if he was a tiger and she was the bars of a cage that separated him from his next meal. Bobby, who had been gripping my hand as tight as he could, moved behind me, peering around me at Hodge's face, his eyes wide. I reached my arm out and rested my hand protectively on his head.

After a moment, Hodge took a step back, apparently deciding to heed Sheila's warning.

“This is bullshit!” he spat, looking at Sheila and then lifting his eyes to me with a murderous glare. “Complete bullshit!” He pointed at me again, then stomped back down the hall and through the door, slamming it behind him.

When he was gone, I started to breathe again.

“It's okay,” I said evenly, stroking Bobby's head with my hand. “I'm right here.”

 

In spite of my protests, which I delivered to Sheila in a conference room while Bobby waited in the hall, the visit between Bobby and Hodge did take place that day.

“Look,” Sheila said, leaning both her hands on top of the table, “I know that was upsetting for both of you, but I don't want to postpone. If we put this off another week, it's just going to mean Bobby has a week to think about what happened just now and feel more nervous about it. I want him to see his dad today, even if it's just for a few minutes, to give him a chance to see Hodge when he's not out of control. That's the best chance we'll have for getting this off on the right foot and helping him build a long-term bond with his father.”

“You really think that's going to happen now?” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

“I don't know,” she said, straightening up. “But I know we should try.”

I sat in one of the plastic chairs, waiting for Bobby to come out of the playroom, fiddling with my phone, trying to balance my checkbook but giving up when I kept adding the numbers up wrong, drumming my fingers against my leg. It was a long half hour.

By prior agreement, Hodge was to stay in the building until Bobby and I were gone, so when Bobby came through the door at the end of the hallway, only Sheila was with him. When he saw me, he let go of her hand and came running down the hall toward me, wrapping his arms around my legs.

“Hi, Mommy.”

I bent down and kissed the top of his head. “Hi, Bear. How did it go?”

He shifted his shoulders up and down. “Okay,” he said, his face giving away nothing.

And then after a moment: “Do you think Dan would still want to be my partner for the bowling tournament?”

O
n Thursday morning, as soon as I put the last of the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher, the phone rang. I sighed heavily, thinking it was Lanie again. I really wasn't in the mood to talk to her. But when I looked at the screen, I saw it was Brian, so, of course, I picked up right away.

“Hi, sweetheart. You're up early. I was going to call you later. A new restaurant just opened in Bantam, Al Tavolo. It's supposed to be very good. Everybody's been talking about it. Do you want me to see if I can get us a table for Saturday night?”

“It sounds great, but, darling, I'm sorry . . . I won't be able to come up after all. We've run into some problems with the Fordham acquisition. I have to fly to LA for a few days. I'm leaving this afternoon.”

“What kind of problems?”

“Oh, just . . . some financial issues.” He paused, coughed, and then came back on the line. “Sorry. I think I'm coming down with a cold. Anyway, it seems the CFO may have been cooking the books. I've got to get out there and deal with it as quickly as possible. I'm sorry to have to cancel our plans.”

“That's all right,” I said, trying hard to sound as if I meant it. “You haven't traveled for more than a month. I knew it couldn't last forever. Though I sort of hoped it might.”

“I know. Me too. But listen, let's do it next weekend, all right?”

“All right,” I said. “Sure.”

“Brilliant. It's a date. Listen, darling, I've got to run. I haven't packed yet, and my flight leaves in three hours. I'll call you tomorrow. Love you!”

“Okay. Love you too.”

I put down the phone, picked up a sponge, ran it under some water, and started wiping down the counters, trying to just go on with my morning as if nothing had happened. But something had happened. Brian was leaving town, and very suddenly.

My heart started fluttering. Little beads of sweat started popping out on my forehead, and I could feel a knot forming in the pit of my stomach. For a moment, I thought I might throw up. The anxiety I had become so familiar with during my first days in New Bern was back.

“Stop this,” I said, scolding myself aloud. “He just has to go out of town. It's part of his job. It's
always
been part of his job. You knew he'd have to go back on the road eventually.”

True. But, why did he have to go so suddenly? Why hadn't he said something to me before? And he'd been so vague about his reasons for leaving, chalking it up to just “financial issues.” And then, when I'd asked for more specifics, he'd hesitated, even started to cough, before answering me. Was he really coming down with something, or had he just been buying himself a little time to come up with a plausible answer, something to cover a lie?

Again, I told myself to stop it, that everything was fine and that I was being silly. He wouldn't do that to me again. He'd told me he was sorry ten times, fifty times, and sworn it would never happen again. He'd
promised
.

I paced around the kitchen for a while, then went outside, got out the hoses, and started watering, but being in the garden didn't calm me, not like it usually does. I went inside and got out my crazy quilt, trying to force myself not to think or ask questions, just to focus on each individual stitch, but that was no good either. Inside of five minutes, my thread was a knotted mess, probably because my hands were shaking.

I went upstairs and opened the bottom drawer of the dresser. Since Brian was coming up regularly on weekends, he'd started leaving some things here. I tore through the pile of clothes, checking every pocket, searching for something that would either reveal his dishonesty or convince me he was telling the truth, but found nothing. I opened the closet, checked the pockets of his jacket, but didn't find anything except a receipt for gas and a ticket stub from the movie theater. I even went through his drawer in the bathroom, actually pulled out the whole thing and turned it upside down, dumping everything out on the counter. The only things I found were his toothpaste, toothbrush, several razor blades, vitamin packets, boxes of allergy medication, some bandages, and forty-three cents in change.

I went back downstairs and paced some more, then picked up the phone and dialed Tessa. She'd been through this before. She'd be able to talk me down from the ledge. After a few rings, her recorded voice came on the line, saying she wasn't home and to please leave her a message. I couldn't think of what to say, not without sounding like a complete basket case, so I pressed the end button on my cell.

I started to dial Lanie but changed my mind. Lanie would spring into action at any sign of doubt. She'd feed my anxiety and make it grow so large there'd be no way I could pull back. I couldn't talk to Lanie, not unless I had proof of Brian's deception. Where could I find that? How could I be sure? Who could I talk to?

Wait. I knew exactly who.

I hadn't called in so long. Was the number scribbled in one of my notebooks on my desk at the apartment? Or had I thought to enter it into my contact list?

I had. There it was.

“Stern and Rossman Travel. This is Emily.”

“Hi, Emily. This is Gayla Oliver. I'm supposed to be picking Brian up from the airport next week but I can't find the flight information. I think I accidentally deleted it. Can you give it to me? Brian's in a meeting, and I don't want to interrupt him.”

“Sure, Mrs. Oliver. I think someone else booked his ticket, but I can find the information in the computer.”

I waited for a moment, barely remembering to breathe as she searched for it, the sound of fingernails clicking the keys of the keyboard coming faintly through the phone.

“Sorry for the delay. Here it is. He'll arrive at JFK on Tuesday at two forty-five. United flight number one-six-oh-four from Indianapolis.”

“Indianapolis?”

My throat was tight. It felt like my heart had skipped a beat. The company headquarters was in Indianapolis. So was the other woman, Deanna.

“That's where the flight originates? It's not a connection from Los Angeles?”

“No,” Emily said slowly, sounding a little confused by the question. “He's flying directly to Indianapolis today and directly back to New York on Tuesday. We don't have any other flights booked for him.”

“Oh . . . I see. I must have misunderstood his plans. Thank you, Emily.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Oliver. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

“No. No, that's all. Thanks.”

I pressed the end button, closed my eyes, and clutched the phone tight against my breast.

Lanie was right. It was even worse the second time.