Fortunate Harbor (33 page)

“When I inquired about securing a loan to develop a new project, I was asked to take a physical. It was simply a precaution. They wanted to be certain I would be around for many years to see the project to conclusion.”

Janya nodded, trying not to look either patient or impatient.

“It was a very thorough physical. The doctor asked about children. I told him we had not yet conceived. He suggested the fault…” Rishi cleared his throat again “…the fault might be mine.”

Janya had suspected this after her research, so she only nodded again and tried hard not to show emotion.

“He did a test. And it showed that my…” Now he looked humiliated and lowered his voice. “My sperm count is low.”

“That can happen,” Janya said carefully. “I have heard of that.”

“You know what a variocele is?”

She
had mentioned the word. She relieved him of some of the burden. “I do now. It is a group of enlarged veins in a man’s testicles.”

He spoke mechanically, as if he had distanced himself from
emotion. “They are not completely certain why this impacts fertility, but it’s clear that sometimes it does. And while surgery is not always helpful, sometimes it is. So I had surgery.”

“When did you have it?”

“Months ago. Three months.”

“And you have hidden this?”

He didn’t respond to that question. “Do you remember the night I told you we would spend together, but I came home late? I had a small complication, an infection. I went to the doctor for antibiotics after leaving work, but he sent me through the emergency room for tests, to be sure nothing worse was wrong. I was supposed to be home in time, but they did not finish until late in the evening.”

“Weeks ago,” she said. It was not a question.

“Yes.”

“You have known about this for months, then?”

“Yes. The physical was in March.”

She didn’t remember Rishi telling her he was going to a doctor, but it was possible he had, and the news had seemed so ordinary, she hadn’t wondered or worried. Rishi was in excellent health and most likely afterward he had reassured her all was well. He was young and strong.

And possibly unable to father a child.

“And now what does Dr. Peterson say?” she asked.

He glanced at her, but she saw the guilt.

“You didn’t go in yesterday, did you?” she asked.

He gave a slight shake of his head.

“Because you are afraid to find out?”

“I was very busy yesterday.”

“You are lying again.”

“No, I
was
very busy. But, also, I did not want to find out what he would say.”

“You would know something this soon?”

“They will take samples every three months to compare with those from before surgery.”

Janya sat back and considered everything he’d said. Finally she spoke, her voice rising against her will with every question. “And there is a reason you haven’t told me any of this? A reason I had to discover it accidentally? A reason you have let me suffer, believing you no longer wanted me because you thought I was the one who could not have a baby?”

“How could you ever believe that? That I wouldn’t want you!”

She turned, and without thinking, she shoved him hard. He was so surprised, he yelped.

“Do you ever listen to yourself?” She pushed against his chest with her palms again. “Do you?”

“Stop that.”

“I would like to shake you, Rishi Kapur. You would not leave me if I was unable to have babies? You cannot imagine
how
I could think such a thing? And yet you believe I would leave you? You have not made love to me for weeks because…” She narrowed her eyes. “Why not?”

“Because it was a lie! At first I told myself things would be fine, that the surgery would fix everything. But as time passed, the truth was clearer. Even with surgery, the odds aren’t good, Janya. To make love to you, to have you hoping for a baby, and to know that I could not give you one and might never be able to! I just…couldn’t.”

She was still angry, but she knew what she said now would matter for a lifetime. She tried to choose her words carefully.

“What must you think of me? You believe that having a baby is all our marriage is about?”

“You married me expecting a traditional life together. We married to have a family. You didn’t know me. You certainly didn’t love me.”

“I—”

He held up his hand. “Yes, I know you married me to leave an unpleasant situation, but you also expected to make a new home here. With me. With children. And what if I can never give you that?”

She took a deep breath. “Marriage is not an equation. Love plus children does not always equal a happy marriage. But respect plus love? That is an equation that always ends in happiness, no matter the circumstances. And we have both.”

She grabbed his hand and held it against her cheek. “I love you, Rishi. It’s a love that took time to grow, and it’s growing still. But it is not a love based on whether you can give me a child. The world is filled with children. If we cannot create our own, perhaps we will raise someone else’s. And will we be less happy because of it? Will we love them less? Will we love each other less?”

He began to weep, this man who almost never showed his feelings. It was a measure of how deep his emotions ran, the fear he had experienced every day since finding that he might never father a child. The horror he felt at the prospect that he would lose his wife.

Janya put her arms around him and drew his head to her chest. “Rishi, Rishi, I love you,” she crooned in her native language. “And I will love you more each day. How could you not know?”

He put his arms around her waist, and they held each other
until holding was no longer enough. She lay back on the sofa, and he undressed her before he undressed himself.

“Nandi the bull is watching,” she whispered as he took her in his arms. “We should close the door to the puja room.”

He made a sound low in his throat. “Don’t move. Unlike the bull, I’m not made of stone.”

He wasn’t. He was made of warm, willing, human flesh and need. Even better, so was she. She opened to him and moved with pleasure in his embrace.

When Wanda noticed Rishi’s car in the Kapur driveway, she figured she could skip the fireworks. Rishi would probably keep Janya company, and she sure didn’t want to interrupt that.

With nothing better to do, she decided to use the evening to catch up on work she’d been putting off at the shop. She needed to do an honest-to-goodness inventory of supplies, followed by placing orders for whatever she was missing. She needed to look at her own hastily scribbled notes and figure out which pies were selling best, so she could move them to the top of the weekly lineup. She’d been itching to give the refrigerator a good scrubbing, and what better time than now, when nobody else needed to get into it?

With that last in mind, after a quick sandwich she pulled on an old pair of capris and a faded
Miami Vice
T-shirt that was practically an heirloom and drove into town, fuming at the ramped-up holiday traffic on the bridge. Since the park where the fireworks would be launched was miles away, she found a
parking spot right in front of her shop. The only sign of business as usual came from a bar one block down, where loyal patrons were probably watching some distant city’s festivities on television and didn’t know the difference.

She was heading toward the door, key in hand, when she heard a muffled crash. She took another step before she completely processed the sound. Her first assumption was that the noise came from a neighboring shop, but one quick glance in either direction showed no lights shining in either.

She considered her options. Nobody in town could summon a cop faster than she could. On the other hand, nobody had more to lose if she simply imagined an intruder. She could just hear the razzing she would get every time one of Kenny’s buddies stopped by for pie. She could picture a couple of the biggest jokers on their hands and knees, looking under counters every single visit, just to be sure Wanda’s so-called intruder wasn’t hiding again.

Instead of whipping out her cell phone, she edged closer so she could take a quick peek. The drawn café curtains hid her body from view, but she was tall enough that she knew she could just see over the top of them. If somebody was there, they would most likely be in the front of the shop, where the safe resided, but of course the safe was as empty as a preacher’s pockets. If somebody had broken in, they weren’t about to come away with anything for their trouble, not unless they were itching for pie pans or a sack of pastry flour.

She took a deep breath, and thrust her head forward for a quick look. The streetlamps cast just enough light for her to see that the room was dark and, better yet, empty. Nothing seemed different from the way she’d left it. Nobody was fiddling with the safe. The doors to the kitchen were closed.

She debated whether to go inside. Sure, she’d heard a noise, but who could say from where? Maybe a cat had knocked over a garbage can in the narrow delivery alley behind the shop. Maybe a car had backfired, or a door had slammed and echoed along the empty street.

Or…maybe not.

The walkway that ran between her shop and the shop to the right was lit by the glow of streetlamps on State and intersected at the back with the delivery alley. Neither was used much, but Wanda made sure the alleys stayed free of trash. She could slip behind the shop and peek into the kitchen by way of the lone window beside the back entrance. Then, if nothing looked amiss, she could let herself in that way. If all was not well, she could sprint back to her car, lock herself in and call the station. All in less than a minute.

She sidled up to the rear door and put her ear against it, just the way she had when her son and daughter were teenagers with more secrets than she liked. At that moment, the fireworks began, and even though the display was miles away, the sky lit up, and the noise drowned out any possibility of eavesdropping.

She waited until the first flash was extinguished, then slipped past the door and peeked in the window.

She didn’t expect to find anybody inside. But there, right there in her kitchen, somebody was squatting on the floor! Somebody dressed in dark clothing, like a roly-poly ninja, shining a flashlight into the corners. Worse, Wanda recognized her intruder.

She didn’t think twice. She stabbed her key into the lock, and in a moment she had leaped inside, switching on the light in one fluid motion as the door slammed behind her.

“What in the heck are
you
doing in my shop?”

Startled, the woman gasped and toppled backward, landing on her broad bottom. She held up her hands as if to ward off an attacker, then she tried to cover her face, but it was too late.

Wanda strode over and grabbed Frieda Mertz by the shoulder and shook her. “I said, what are you doing here! You broke into my kitchen!”

Before she could shake the woman again, something scurried over Wanda’s foot. She looked down and saw a mouse heading under her stove.

A mouse. Under her stove. In her kitchen.

“What have you done?” Wanda screeched.

By now Frieda Mertz had her arms over her head, as if to ward off blows.

“I…I was just walking by, and I…I thought I saw you in here. So I…I came around back to see if I could…talk to you…and the door was unlocked and…”

“Liar!” Wanda was furious. “You broke into my shop, and you let that mouse loose!”

She felt something on her leg and looked down. A palmetto bug, one of Florida’s infamous giant flying roaches, this one longer than her thumb, was making its way up her shin.

She screeched, did a little jig and brushed it off. The bug took wing and flew to the closest wall, where it landed with a whir and a thud.

“What…. Have. You. Done…!”

Frieda Mertz took advantage of Wanda’s impromptu dance and scrambled to her feet. Wanda saw where the woman was heading and blocked the door. She made a grab for Frieda, who dodged her, but not skillfully. Frieda banged into the island Wanda used for rolling out dough and yelped in pain.

Another palmetto bug flew past Wanda’s head and landed beside the first one.

“You brought those varmints in here and let them loose, didn’t you?” Wanda demanded, as a third bug launched itself from the floor at Frieda’s feet and headed for the stove.

Frieda looked as if she was going to make another dive for the door, but Wanda was quicker. She locked it with a twist of the double bolt.

“You try to go out the front way,” Wanda said, when Frieda turned to run, “and I’ll have every cop in Palmetto Grove on your tail.”

“I didn’t do it…I didn’t—”

A mouse streaked across the floor and behind the refrigerator.

Frieda fell silent.

Wanda assessed the situation. She had caught the woman in her shop, setting vermin loose. She was sure that on Monday, the health department would get an anonymous tip that the kitchen at Wanda’s Wonderful Pies was infested. Wanda would have to close down until she convinced them an exterminator had done his job. By then, the word would be out, and nobody would ever set foot in the shop again.

And what would happen now, if she called the cops and reported what the woman had done? Would they have to report the incident to the health department? And even if they didn’t, were they capable of keeping this fiasco to themselves? Or would the word leak out, until nobody ever bought another piece of pie she had baked?

“Why?” Wanda asked at last. “Why would you do such a thing?”

Frieda sniffed. Then, as Wanda watched, tears began to roll down her cheeks. Wanda raised an eyebrow and waited.

“You…ruined me!”

“What are you talking about? All those sales you’ve been running, your place is brimming over with customers.”

“I’m…in debt up to my eyeballs. All those sales cost me big.”

“So you thought you’d come over here, drop off a few souvenirs from your own kitchen—”

“There’s nothing like this in my kitchen! I got them—” She had the good sense not to finish the sentence.

Wanda nodded. She was balling her hands into fists, relaxing them, then balling them again. She wanted nothing more than to leap on the woman and pound her to the floor. But she was too good for that. Or at least she wanted to be.

Somehow she managed to keep her voice even. “So you decided to pick up a few bugs here and there, buy a couple of mice at the pet shop… Somebody’s pet boa constrictor’s going hungry tonight, on account of you. You already called the health department?”

Frieda shook her head.

“All I ever wanted was to bake my pies,” Wanda said. “Just pies. Nothing else. All you ever had to do was let me. We could have coexisted.”

“You ever fail at something?” Frieda asked.

The question surprised Wanda. “Stay there,” she said, then she turned and opened the utility closet beside the door and took out a broom. She leaned it against the counter. “How many bugs you let out?”

Frieda calculated. “Six,” she said. “That’s the truth.”

Wanda envisioned a sea of little German roaches, the kind that were too small to eradicate easily. The kind that bred and bred and bred. “Any little ones?”

Frieda cleared her throat. “Not yet.”

“Where are they?”

Frieda grimaced, then she reached in the pocket of her voluminous pants and pulled out a jar.

Wanda could see that the contents were brown and writhing. She wrinkled her nose and held out her hand. “You give me that.”

Frieda held it out, and Wanda took it. Stiff armed, she held the jar in front of her and took it to the back door, unlocked it, and set the jar outside in the alley, watching Frieda all the while. Then she shut the door and locked it again.

“Anything else?”

Frieda turned her pockets inside out to show they were empty.

“How many mice?”

Frieda paused, as if she wanted to find a way to avoid answering, then she sighed. “Three.”

“How’d you get the rest of your little friends inside?”

Frieda, tears still streaming down her face, pointed to her feet. Just behind the woman, Wanda glimpsed a larger jar and several small cardboard travel carriers, like the ones she remembered from the days when Junior had kept gerbils.

“I’ve failed at a few things,” Wanda said. “I never took it out on anybody else, though.”

“My husband left me.” Frieda sniffed loudly. “Two years ago. For a woman half my age. You ever fail at that?”

Wanda waited.

The rest of Frieda’s monologue just gushed out. “I sold our house and took all the money I got in the settlement. I…I figured I’d show him I could make it just fine, maybe even better, without him. I always baked bread. It was the one thing people always said about me. That I baked the best bread. So I bought the bakery. Only bread just didn’t seem to be enough, so I started making desserts, too. Then you came along.”

“And you tried to cheat me.”

“I couldn’t afford you! I was barely hanging on. And those pies? I knew they’d make all the difference. I never ate anything like one of those pies.”

Despite herself, and against every intelligent inclination, Wanda felt a shiver of pride.

“I wasn’t good at much in my life.” Frieda was no longer crying. Wanda thought maybe this confession was too sad for tears. “I wasn’t pretty. I got through high school but never went to college. My kids caused more trouble than a bus full of rattlesnakes. They got through school okay, but not ’cause of me.”

“You don’t know that,” Wanda said, before she realized she was trying to soothe the woman’s feelings. “Of course, maybe you do,” she added, with a glare.

“Then Amos just left. And the woman he left me for? She’s a floozy, and she doesn’t have a brain in her head.”

“What’s all this got to do with me and these critters you’re about to remove from my kitchen?” As if to illustrate Wanda’s words, one of the palmetto bugs buzzed across the room and started crawling toward the ceiling.

“I’ve got loans for my loans. The bank refuses to give me more credit. I can’t compete with you. I can’t keep running those sales. Pretty soon nobody’s going to darken my door. I’ve been buying those cookies and pies, and selling them below what they cost me. I don’t have your knack with pies, and now somebody’s opening one of those cookie chain stores at the mall. Did you know?”

Wanda hadn’t, but it didn’t really matter to her. She sold pies. They sold cookies. Some woman in the next town made wedding cakes.

“The answer to all that’s simple. You can stop competing,”

Wanda said. “I mean it. Stop baking pies. Send the people who want them over here. You liked making bread, so make bread. Sell take-out sandwiches and use the bread you baked yourself. Make dinner rolls. You ever taste those rolls that come from the grocery store?” She made a face. “You could corner that market if you’re any good. Change the name from Bakery to Bread Store or Bread Bakery. Reinvent yourself.”

“I couldn’t even do
this
right.” Frieda gestured to the room. “I fail at everything. I figured you were closed today. How should I know you’d be over here this evening? It’s the Fourth of July.”

Wanda knew exactly what she had to say next. “You did something else wrong. You know what? I’ve got a security camera. It recorded every little thing you did tonight. So it’s all on film, and so is this conversation.”

Frieda clapped a hand over her mouth. “Where?”

“You think I’d tell you, so you can damage the evidence?”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Did you forget my husband’s a cop? And what kind of cop’s wife doesn’t have the best security?”

Frieda let out a wail, and despite herself, Wanda felt some pity for the woman, especially since she had no security camera—nor, apparently, any kind of decent lock on her back door.

“I get real tired of folks who blame other folks for all their troubles,” Wanda said. “That’s like an epidemic these days. You did this to yourself, or at least everything that happened here tonight. But you can fix it. It’s not too late to do something right, Ms. Mertz. So here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to get every single bug you let loose in here. I’m going to stand in the corner and count. Once you get six, then you can get the mice.”

“What if I can’t find them?”

“That would be your loss. Again. Because if you don’t, and if when you’re all done you don’t scrub this floor and these walls and any place those varmints have been, then I’m going to get that tape I mentioned, and I’m going to march it right over to the police station. If you do manage to clean up your own mess, and I’m satisfied, I’ll just file that tape somewhere you’ll never find it. And if you ever, ever do
anything
that looks like another act of sabotage? I’ll pull the tape right out and find the best way to use it against you. Maybe I’ll start by seeing if the local TV station would like to have first dibs.”