Custody (40 page)

Mont was just sorry that Tessa had to go through all this mess. It had to be confusing for her, never mind the fact that she was adopted in the first place. Randall and Anne had agreed that very early in her life they’d tell her she was adopted. Much fine and helpful literature had been published on the subject, and Tessa always seemed at peace with the knowledge. They had not told her she had been conceived through artificial insemination, using Randall’s semen and an unknown, unseen woman’s ovum and body for the pregnancy and birth; they had agreed not to tell her this until she was an adult.

Mont and Madeline had understood the wisdom of this. The tragedy of two ectopic pregnancies had been enough cruelty for Anne to live with, and as a child Tessa needed only so much information. There was a limit to what a little girl could comprehend.

How easy it would be, Mont thought, for Randall, now in the heat and throes of a bitter divorce, to let the information slip: Tessa was genetically Randall’s daughter, and not Anne’s. But Randall would never do that. He’d promised Anne that—and in general, as much as possible, Randall was a man who kept his promises. Besides, Randall felt much more pity for Anne than anger, and it was anger that spurred people to commit vengeful deeds.

The humidity was making the paint sticky and the fumes hung in the room like a thick chemical mist. Mont was just a bit dizzy. He was an idiot to be up on the ladder, as if no one had ever informed him that heat rose. But he’d begun in the morning, when the air had been fresher, and now, nearly noon, he had three walls done and was eager to finish the fourth.

Brooke Burchardt from the farm across the street had already phoned this morning, asking when Tessa was coming out, telling Mont she wanted to invite Tessa over to her house this afternoon to go for a swim in their backyard pool. Tessa should go, Mont thought, it was too hot to ride; besides, he had a feeling he’d want to rest after he’d finished painting.

There was just a small patch left unpainted, high in the corner where two walls met. He ought to climb down, move the ladder, and climb back up again, but Mont thought that if he stretched, he could reach it.

He dipped the brush into the gallon can, drew it out carefully, slowly wiping the excess off each side on the inner lip of the container so the paint wouldn’t drip. The paint was the thick deep green of a Norway spruce. The color made him think of Christmas.

Firmly gripping the side of the ladder with his left hand, slowly he extended his right, holding the brush out like a fencer brandishing a sword. The sweep of paint across the pale patch of wall was always so satisfying, the whisper of the bristles, the neat, obedient lines left by the brush. Just one more spot …

His left hand, slick with sweat from the humidity and his exertions, slipped. He overbalanced. With infinite surprise he felt his torso wobble and slant. He tried to turn, tried to grab the metal rung, and succeeded only in hitting his hand against the aluminum.

He fell.

With a crash he landed on the floor.

He did not lose consciousness, but he could not breathe. His chest caved in. He did not seem to be a person anymore, but a kind of skin around an explosion of pain.

He was piercingly afraid.

Then he could breathe, although it hurt like fire. His body returned to him, a section at a time. His chest, a conflagration. His head turned sideways. He could see. That was good. He was on his stomach, both arms flung forward in a parody of Superman’s position for flight. The paintbrush had bounced somehow, landing on the other side of the room. He was glad he’d covered the entire floor with old sheets.

His head hurt.

He couldn’t move his legs.

You stupid old man, he told himself. What if he died? What if he had to be hospitalized? That would be a great housewarming gift for Tessa and Randall.

And
damn it
! They were coming out today. Mont didn’t want them to find him lying helpless like this.

Indignity upon indignity.

He couldn’t even paint a room anymore.

Tears stung his eyes. If he could have moved, he would have slapped himself for being so pathetic.

A fly flew in the open window, buzzing like a tiny lawn mower through the air. It circled Mont and landed on his cheek. The delicate touch tickled, but Mont found the creature more comforting than annoying. Then his cheek twitched, and the fly sped away, leaving Mont much cheered, for a twitching cheek was surely a good sign.

A fierce urge to urinate possessed him. He’d be damned if he’d lie here and wet himself.

After a while he decided he was glad Randall and Tessa were coming today. If he just had someone to help him stand, someone he could lean on while he shook his limbs back into life …

The phone rang. Mont tried to heave himself up, but at the moment not every part of his body was responding. He did not feel
hurt
so much as absent.

“Sorry we can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave a message, and we’ll call you right back.” It was Madeline’s voice on the tape. Mont hadn’t found the heart to tape over her voice and wasn’t sure that he ever would. It was always a pleasure to hear her speak. For a moment it made her alive to him again, as if she were just in the other room.

“Hi, Dad.” Randall’s clear voice spilled from the answering machine. “There’s been a change of plans. Anne wants Tessa to go with her today, campaigning door-to-door, so I’ve agreed to take Tessa out for breakfast and let Anne have her the rest of the day. So we won’t be coming out this afternoon. Hope this doesn’t foul up any of your plans. Give me a call.”

Well, then, Mont thought. Relaxing, he closed his eyes.

Kelly felt as if a bomb had gone off inside her life, leaving, in the midst of the wreckage, this teenage girl with the sullen face sitting in her kitchen.

Yet no one knew better than Kelly what Felicity was going through just now.

“All right,” Kelly conceded. “I’ll consider having you live with me. But I’ve got to have some time to think about it—”

“Our lease is up at the end of the month. This Thursday.”

“Felicity—”

“We have to be out of the apartment by then. Dad and Elizabeth are planning to pack up the car and start driving on Thursday.”

“Look,” Kelly said. “This is crazy. Even if I could and would take responsibility for you, you couldn’t just move in all of a sudden, today.”

“Why not?”

“Why not? Well, Felicity, look around. Where would you sleep? I don’t even have a spare bedroom.”

“You’ve got tons of empty space!”

“Felicity—”

“Besides, you’re a judge. You ought to be able to afford a larger apartment.”

“What I can afford is not the point.”

“I’ve got a lot of my mother’s furniture I could use. It’s sort of cool stuff, you’d like it. Honey-colored teak, really plain. A double bed with a slatted headboard, although the mattress
isn’t much anymore. A bureau and a desk—”

“My grandparents’ furniture!”

“I don’t think so. My mother never received anything from her father. Not even a letter.”

“I don’t mean Mother’s parents. I mean my father’s parents. I mean the MacLeods.” Suddenly Kelly was excited. She stood up, then sat back down again. “I thought it had all been sold. It happened so fast, when I was away at college. René and Mother didn’t tell me they’d kept some of the furniture.”

“And you never came to visit.”

“Indeed, I did not. Felicity, your father stole my inheritance. Why would I want anything to do with him? And I never even knew you were in Boston until René called to tell me Mother was in the hospital.”

“Okay, don’t get all upset.”

“It sounds as if some of their furniture is in your apartment.”

“Well, you can have it, if you want it.”

“Oh, I want it.”

“Okay. Let’s go get it.”

“Wait a moment.” Kelly shook her head. “I’ve got things to do today. And I have to go to Nantucket tonight. I’ve got to be in court in the morning.”

“Dad’s planning to have some guys from a secondhand shop come in and price the stuff and buy it. He and Elizabeth want to start fresh.”

“Well, he can just wait till next weekend.”

“No, Kelly, he can’t. He won’t. They’re packing up. They’re selling everything tomorrow. They’re leaving Thursday.”

“I can’t believe this. I really can’t.” Kelly rubbed her hands over her face.

“It’s not like you don’t have some spare room,” Felicity pointed out.

“I haven’t had the time to think about decorating! Besides, I like a spare, uncluttered room.”

“We could put your desk in the bedroom,” Felicity said. “I could put my bed in that space over by the window. You could move that bookcase, and the bureau could go at the end, and the cobbler’s bench—”

“They still have the cobbler’s bench?”

“Yup.”

Kelly rose. “All right. Let’s go get your furniture.” She halted dead in her tracks. “Wait a
minute. We won’t be able to fit furniture in my car. And the truck rental agencies probably aren’t open on Sunday.”

“I know a guy who has a truck,” Felicity said.

Kelly looked at Felicity. “Why,” she said wryly, “am I not surprised?” She ran her hands through her hair. “All right. Just a moment. I have to make a phone call.”

Sliding Randall’s card from her purse, she found his number and dialed it. No answer. He was still, no doubt, with his daughter.
His daughter
. Tessa. The phone came alive as his recorded tape informed her he was out. Just the sound of his voice made Kelly go weak. She thought she could just dial his number over and over and over again, until she could see him.

And it was something concrete, something real, that she had his number.

“Randall,” she said to the machine, “something’s come up. I’ve got to help move my half sister into my apartment this afternoon. It’s all a bit complicated. I’ll tell you when I see you. I should be back here by three. But I’ve got to head for the Cape at about five. I hope … I hope I see you before I go.”

Randall took Tessa for breakfast at Carla’s Café on Mass Ave, a favored haunt they frequented so often that the waitresses and Carla the cook knew their names.

Even on this beautiful hot August morning, when most people were either gearing up for a day at the beach or sipping iced tea behind closed drapes in their air-conditioned homes, the café was packed. Tessa and Randall waited patiently in line outside in the heat, and then inside where they had to stand crushed against others waiting to be seated, but at least it was cool. Right in front of Tessa was a boy not much older than she was, with a man who was undoubtedly his father.

“So!” The father wore a Hawaiian shirt and white shorts. He had what Beryl called a “toilet head,” completely bald on top with a strip of hair circling his scalp. “Your mom tells me you’ve been making a lot of money this summer.”

The boy shrugged. He wasn’t much taller than Tessa. He wore baggy jean shorts and a white T-shirt, and he had a thick thatch of dark hair falling nearly to his shoulders. Tessa wondered if he ever had nightmares about going bald like his dad.

“Mowing lawns,” the boy said. “Baby-sitting.”

“Baby-sitting?” The father frowned. “Isn’t that kind of a girl thing? I mean, do
guys
baby-sit?”

“
I
do,” the boy shot back.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” the father said.

“It’s a little boy, Dad. He’s nine years old. I play ball with him.”

“The responsibility is what I’m talking about. What if—”

Monica, a waitress in pink shorts and a matching top bobbed up on her air-foam sneakers and led the father and son away. Tessa hoped she and her father would get seated in an adjoining booth. She wanted to hear the rest of the conversation.

A quartet of little old orange-haired ladies wearing enough makeup for Halloween squeezed past Tessa and Randall and out the door, all talking at once, snipping and snapping their pocketbooks open and shut, asking one another if they’d remembered their glasses.

Monica rushed up. “Hi, Randall! Hi, Tessa, honey. Give me a minute to clear the table, and I’ll seat you.”

A few moments later, Tessa and Randall slid into a booth. Monica poured Randall a mug of hot coffee. “I know what you want,” she said to Tessa. “Pancakes and bacon, right?”