Custody (21 page)

Ernest said, “No, thanks.”

She tore off a piece of paper and dropped it on the table. “Check. You pay at the counter.”

“I believe there’s quite a crowd waiting for tables,” Ernest said.

“Oh.” Kelly looked over her shoulder at the door. “You’re right.” Reluctantly, she said, “I suppose we should go.”

“Let’s get some coffee to go. We can finish it in the car.”

“All right.”

They paid at the register, picked up their paper cups, passed through the crowd at the door, and raced to the Jeep. Ernest set his cup in a holder on the dash; Kelly held hers in her hands for warmth. The rain was still steadily falling, the streets hissing with water.

Randall continued as if there’d been no interruption. “I’m thinking of moving back to my parents’ farm. The public school system in Concord is excellent, and I think Grace would be happy there. She loves the farm, the horses, my father.”

“What about your work?”

“Yes, that. Well, I’ve got to make some changes. My schedule’s too full. I do daily rounds at Mt. Auburn, as well as my own private practice and at Shady Dale Retirement Home. I’ve also, in the past few years, written a lot of papers and served on several boards.” His smile was slightly grim. “There’s nothing like an unhappy marriage to make a man a workaholic. I’ve already dropped the boards and the writing. I’m phasing out the retirement home. If I get custody
of Grace, I’ll want to be sure I have plenty of time to give her. To attend ballet recitals or school plays, or just to hang out.”

“You sound like a wonderful father.”

“I do? I’m not. Or, rather, I haven’t been. I’ve let myself get too absorbed in my work. And I let Joan have too much of the responsibility for Grace, partly out of the simple desire for a peaceful home. It’s just been easier to let Joan have her way.”

He paused to concentrate on the Sunday traffic. Kelly liked the way he drove, with the same calm deliberateness that seemed to infuse all his movements.

“The thing is, Grace’s told me she wants to live with me. Grace loves her mother and doesn’t want to hurt her, so I’ve got to find some way to get custody of her without hurting Joan even more.”

He turned onto the winding road leading to Forest Hills. They drove beneath the stone gates. He parked next to her car, but left the engine running.

Turning sideways, he leaned against the door. “But I think I’ve talked enough about me for today. It’s your turn.”

Taking his cup from the holder, he popped open the white plastic lid. The rich aroma of coffee filled the interior of the Jeep.

The constant rain, the comforting hum of the engine, the regular sweep of the windshield wipers acted like a drug on her. She felt safe and enormously content. Unfastening her seat belt, she drew her legs up and tucked them under her, settling so that she faced him. “What shall I talk about?”

“
Your
mother.”

“Wouldn’t you rather find out about my work? My hobbies? What movies and books I like?”

“Nope. Our mothers brought us together, in a way, after all. Besides, I have a hunch I’ll find out a lot about you if you tell me about your mother.”

She looked down at the white coffee cup in her hands and tried to gather her thoughts.

“Is it hard to talk about her?”

“It is, actually.”

“Hey.” Reaching over, he touched her hand. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t push you. Talk about something else instead. Whatever you want.”

“No. That’s all right. I just—I’ve never talked about her much. I did love her. As much as you loved yours, I’m sure. But—she betrayed me, enormously, unforgivably. For much of my
adult life I hated her more than I loved her, or at least as much. I was
so angry
. And I was right to be angry. I’m angry still.”

“What happened?”

“It’s a long story.” She hesitated. “I’ve never told anyone about this.”

“We’ve got time.”

All around them the rain fell steadily.

“I have to leave at noon.”

“It’s just after eleven.”

“All right, then.” But she didn’t know how to begin.

He prompted her: “What was your mother like?”

Kelly sipped her coffee. “She was very lovely. She came here from Sweden when she was a girl to work as an au pair, and she met my father and married him. She loved him. I never saw them together, but she told me that she loved him, and I know she did. His name was Otto MacLeod. He was killed in Vietnam in 1965, the same year I was born. I never met him.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yes. I would have liked to have a father. Still, my father’s parents, my grandparents, remained very much a part of my life, and my mother’s. When my father went into the army, she moved in with them, and when I was born, I was brought to their home in Arlington. My grandparents were a hardworking, rather somber couple. Otto was their only son. They loved me, and they loved my mother, but my mother was young, only twenty, when I was born, when her husband died. A baby and a pair of frugal in-laws can’t replace a living man.”

“No.”

“For a long time Mother saw no one; she just stayed home and took care of me. Then when I started kindergarten, she began to date. She saw quite a few different men. I met some of them. I liked some and didn’t care for others, but I was glad she was having fun. She seemed more alive. More herself. She was never
serious
, though, not about anyone. Then she met René Lambrousco.”

Kelly thought of René’s dramatic arrival in their lives. The child of a French mother and an Italian father, René was blindingly handsome, with flashing black eyes and feminine torrents of black curls which he constantly tossed dramatically away from his face.

Pictures of Kelly’s father showed Otto with his light brown hair in a stern crew cut, straight shoulders, a proud chin lifted high. Otto would have joined his parents in their business, eventually inheriting it. René had no interest in business. He considered himself an actor, and
indeed he did perform often, in local theater. To support himself, he worked as a waiter while he waited to be discovered.

She said, “René was an actor. He was dashingly handsome, with great charm and magnetism. He could make my mother laugh with an abandon I’d never seen before, and for a year or so I adored him almost as much as she did, because he made her so happy.” She looked down into her coffee, as dark as the memory.

“And then?”

It was still painful, no matter how many years had passed, no matter how far she had brought herself away from that time.

“One evening at the end of my junior year of high school, my grandparents sat me and my mother down at the dining room table for a kind of summit conference. They wanted to assure me that they’d saved enough money to pay my college tuition. Also, they told my mother that when they died, they wanted their estate, in its entirety, to go to me. When I was small, they’d already made a will naming my mother as executor and heir. They saw no reason to rush to change it.

“During my junior year of college, both my grandparents suddenly died. They didn’t leave a huge amount of money, partly because in their old-fashioned way they never felt comfortable investing their savings in stocks or mutual funds, afraid that they would somehow lose it all. But, with the sale of their house, they left a sufficient sum—” Kelly caught her breath, for it would never fail to wound her. “My grandparents never bothered to change their wills when I turned eighteen. They trusted my mother to take care of me. Of course they did! When they died, according to their will, their estate went to my mother. My mother married René Lambrousco. René persuaded her to give all the money to him.”

“Wow.”

“René convinced her it was a kind of investment. They moved to New York, where he was certain he would be discovered as an actor, and, he assured her, he’d make a fortune, pay her back, with interest. From his point of view, he was in the process of making me rich.”

“Did it work out that way?”

Kelly snorted. “No. Oh, they moved to New York. He took acting lessons, paid for with my grandparents’ money. I think perhaps he had two or three off-Broadway parts. Other than that, he didn’t work. He didn’t have to.”

“Christ. You must have been furious.”

“I was. More than that, I was—
lost
. I was twenty years old. My grandparents had died.
My mother married and moved away. I had no money. I had no guidance. I didn’t have anyone to turn to. So I did something that seemed right at the time. Now I regret it. Every day of my life I regret it.”

“What did you do?”

Kelly shifted in her seat. She wanted to tell him the truth, all of it. Yet something held her back—her awareness of his enormous love for his child.

She settled for a smaller truth. “I made a terrible scene. I screamed horrible things at my mother. The entire time René just stood there, watching me. When my mother looked at him, he furrowed his forehead in concern—he was an actor. But he was so creepy, so manipulative—when Mother looked at me, he smiled at me over her shoulder. He
gloated
. He looked so
triumphant
.”

“He sounds evil.”

“He was. He is.”

“And then?”

“I packed up my things and stormed from the house. I told my mother I never wanted to see her again.”

“What did she say?”

“Nothing. She just wept. My last sight was of René coming forward, wrapping his arms around her, patting her back, comforting her, and looking at me with his lip curled. He had her and my money. He had won.”

“You must have hated him.”

“Yes. Her, too. For fifteen years, I never saw my mother.”

“Did you phone? Write?”

“They moved a lot. So did I. She did track me down occasionally—I’m in the directory. She’d call to talk. She had a child, a daughter, almost immediately. She wanted me to be happy for her. I just felt—abandoned. Stupid, perhaps, but that’s how I felt.”

“But you saw her recently. When she was in the hospital.”

“Yes. They moved back to Boston when Mother was sick. There was a cemetery plot already paid for, waiting for my mother, here with the MacLeods, and that was fine with René, saved him money. But I’ll give him this much credit, he did phone to tell me they’d moved back here, that Mother was in the hospital.”

“You reconciled then?”

“Yes. Although, because she was dying, she was always so tired—”

“Did you meet your sister?”

“Half sister. Yes. Briefly. She looks very much like René. She’s fifteen, has that bored adolescent look.” Her chin came up. She flashed an angry look at Ernest. “Don’t suggest that
she
can replace my mother. Nothing can replace her.”

“I don’t think that.”

“I lost so much when I lost her. But I didn’t know how to forgive her.”

“No. No, of course you didn’t.” He put his hands on her shoulders, steadying her.

She could tell he must be a very good doctor. He must have seen so much sorrow, so many people in pain, distress, or fear. He was big enough, physically, emotionally, to handle it all, she realized, and all at once, to her surprise and dismay, she found herself on the verge of tears.

“Hey,” he said. “Do you know what I’d like to do?”

She shook her head, not certain she could speak.

He took her cup from her hands and settled it into the dashboard cup holder. Then he put his arms around her, drawing her to him. His warmth and gentleness seemed infinitely familiar. He smelled of sunshine and starch and, just faintly, a medicinal hint like rubbing alcohol. His mouth moved against hers in a long, warm, sexual swoon of a kiss. When finally it ended, they looked at one another, stunned, and Kelly saw how his blue eyes had become heavy-lidded with desire. She knew hers were, as well.

He drew away, nodding toward the clock on the dashboard. “You have an appointment.”

Reluctantly, she agreed. “Yes.” She pulled away from him, smoothing her hair.

“When can I see you again?”

It was hard to focus. “I’ve got a busy week ahead.”

“Then next Sunday morning? Here?”

“Yes. Then. Here.”

The rain was letting up, the sun winking out. It was nearly twelve. She sighed. “I really must go.”

“I’ll see you Sunday?”

“Next Sunday.” She stepped out of his Jeep. He waved and drove away. Once inside her car, she leaned her head back against the seat, eyes closed, and put her fingers on her lips, where his mouth had been.

Six

M
ONDAY EVENING
R
ANDALL ARRIVED AT THE
H
ARVARD
C
LUB EARLY
. He was already ensconced in one of the big leather club chairs when Anne walked in.

He rose as she came toward him. Heads turned, as they always did, when she walked by, slender, regal, blond, beautiful. She wore a plain black linen dress and her hair was held back by a black velvet headband.

Her perfection made him aware, as always, of the general rumpledness of his own appearance. Today, like all days, had been crowded with appointments, and there’d been an emergency during which one of his patients, a ninety-two-year-old man recovering from an operation, died, so everything was backed up. He didn’t get to his final appointment until almost six o’clock, when he spoke with the son and daughter-in-law of Gifford Clifton, once one of Boston’s finest gynecologists, now a victim of Alzheimer’s, whose rantings, heavily laced with scatological and perverse sexual references, disrupted his family’s household and frightened his grandchildren. In cases like this, where Randall knew the family, there was no way to rush through a discussion. It took time for the children of Alzheimer’s patients to come to terms with the devastation the disease wreaked upon their formerly brilliant, loving, admirable parents.

So Randall hadn’t had time to change but had rushed straight to the club from his office.

He saw Anne register his appearance. Her lips tightened and thinned, her gaze grew chilly, but still, because they were in public, she forced a smile and kissed the air next to Randall’s cheek in a display of warmth that only she and Randall knew was false.