Fortune's Hand (35 page)

Damn! This kind of fretting was unproductive. His father used to compare it with “an old maid's searching under the bed.”

It was past six o'clock and getting dark. Best go home.

Ellen's car was in the garage. Automatically, he looked up toward her workroom to see whether the light was on. It was not, so she must be downstairs, and he would have to encounter her. When this happened, sometimes a short greeting, actually nothing more than an acknowledgment of each other's presence, would be exchanged. There had also been times when nothing at all was said.

When he went in, she was seated at the kitchen table having a cup of tea and reading the mail.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hello,” he replied.

The cleaning woman had, as usual, left his dinner in the refrigerator. This time it was an obviously homemade
pasta. Exposed to the air, it released a wonderful, spicy smell and made him aware that he was very hungry. When he had put it into the microwave, he busied himself with the simple arrangement of his dinner: salad, already prepared, a glass of white wine, already chilled, and some grated cheese for the top of the pasta. All these he placed on the kitchen table. He was damned if her presence was going to force him to carry all this stuff to another part of the house.

When everything was ready, he sat down. She was still reading her mail while holding the teacup. He observed that her wedding band was missing; no doubt she had worn it at that last dinner solely for Julie's sake. Technically, she was still married, and so was he. Free to frolic, that meant. But for quite a while now, he had had no desire to frolic.

Not a word had yet been uttered. He wondered whether she would take her mail, rinse the cup, and depart without speaking. Quite possibly she would. Had he not thought the first time he saw her that here was a woman who got what she wanted? That was his mental trademark for her: Ellen gets what she wants.

Yet perhaps that was not fair. It was, perhaps, not even true.

His initial shock and fury over her love affair with Philip had been absorbed by now. His first violent, bloodred rage was indeed dead. It had probably been dying for a longer time than he realized, and in its stead had come a quiet grief. That, too, had probably been with him for a longer time than he realized. And he looked furtively in her direction, at her dark hair burnished
now by the strong overhead light, at her clear profile that had reminded him of ancient Greece, and at everything that had once been as familiar as the palm of his own hand.

How had it all happened?

“What is it?” she asked. “You look as if you have a question.”

“I have. I'm asking why.”

The answer, as he might have expected, was straightforward. It was also gentle. “Because you changed. And so, after a while, I changed, too.”

The reply was nothing new. She must have given it to him a hundred times in the past, as if to warn him. And yet he said now, “In my wildest dreams, I could never have imagined sitting here like this.”

“Nor could I.”

“A frank question: Are you happy?”

“About the way you and I are? Living like this?”

“No. About Philip, I meant.”

“Oh, yes. Oh yes, very happy.”

She looked well, even blooming, and there was no mistaking the eagerness in her voice. It was not surprising. They were kindred, Philip and she. And all of a sudden, from some deep, hidden cells in his brain, there emerged a picture: blinding sunlight, Philip going down the porch steps, and Julie saying something about his “liking” Mom.

He took a sip of wine. It was a good wine, made for a celebration, surely not a moment like this one. The glass was trembling in his hand, and he put it down.

“Philip and you,” he murmured. “I always thought
so well of him. Such a fine man, no question about that. And still I can hardly believe it.”

“Why not, Robb? What about you and Lily Webster?”

“That was different. She gave me no cause, and I did give you some.”

“That only came at the end. It was the final straw.”

“And without it you might have stayed?”

“I probably would.”

The daughter of Wilson Grant, he thought. And, strangely, thought so without malice.

“We shouldn't go on like this,” he said. “We should make it official.”

“But we thought that would be terrible for Julie.”

“She's not a tender teenager anymore. She's a woman now, a very competent one, and the truth won't destroy her.”

“Philip says that, too.”

“Then who's going to tell her?”

“Both of us together, I should think.”

A tremor shook through him. He wondered whether he should be ashamed of being too weak to face his daughter. He saw her face clearly, so gleeful while trotting on the blond horse; he saw it solemn under the mortar board at commencement; he saw it twisted in disbelief at Ellen's and his sorry tale. Her tears, even the barest glint of them, would break his heart.

“I'm ashamed to ask,” he said, “but can you do it alone, without me?”

Her eyes moved down toward the plate, only half-emptied,
that he had shoved away. Then they moved back up, and with a slight frown, she studied him.

“I don't think you're feeling well,” she said.

“I'm all right. Just tired.”

“Nothing more than that?”

There was genuine concern in her eyes. He was astonished by it. After all these many, many months, to see a rebirth of some feeling other than cold rejection!

“Nothing more?” Ellen repeated.

“Well, perhaps.”

He had not talked to anybody about his fears. Yes, he had mentioned them to Eddy, but Eddy had an easy way of gliding around a disagreeable subject, as if by not looking at it, you could make it disappear. Still, he hesitated. Then he decided: he was not down to rock bottom. And if he were, there would be nothing that anyone, certainly not Ellen, could do about it.

But she persisted. “It's about this house, isn't it? The second mortgage is pressing, right?”

“That's part of it. I wish to God somebody would buy the place.”

“If you're temporarily strapped, Robb, I can help you out until somebody does.”

It occurred to him that she could well have said, “I told you so,” but had not done it.

“Strapped? Oh no,” he protested, “it's simply a matter of cash flow. When you have funds coming in and flowing out—well, now and then the dates don't mesh. Temporary problems. Strictly temporary.”

“I used the wrong word when I said ‘strapped.' Anyway,
I meant what I said. My book is doing very nicely—it's a great Christmas buy for the children's market—and I'm well able to help if you need it.”

If anyone else had made the offer, he would have taken it without a second's thought. But to accept it from Ellen—that he would never do. He felt humble enough before her without that. Still, he was touched to the core. They had effected here tonight not any reconciliation, it being far too late for that, but an accommodation, painful, regretful, and civilized.

So he thanked her for the offer, they spoke for a few minutes about Julie's progress on the paper, and about her boyfriend, Andrew, of whom they both approved, and then Ellen stood to leave.

“I'll speak to Julie,” she said. “It will be all right. Don't worry, she won't turn against us. You didn't really think she would, did you?”

He watched until the car's rear light, a red eye in the gloom, winked out past the gate. She was still driving the two-seater that he had given her once for her birthday. Good Lord, what that car had cost him! But it was worth its price; you could keep a car like that in good condition for fifteen years. It always paid to buy the best.

Ellen lived rather simply now, but better than he had expected. Eddy—leave it to him to find out—said that Lawson had a very nice house, small but very nice, in an elite neighborhood. So he must have some money, and that was always good. When you came down to it, money was nine-tenths of everything.

Such were his thoughts before he climbed the marble stairs and went to bed.

“I thought you might be staying the night out there, you stayed so late,” Philip said when Ellen came in.

“No, I worked all day in town here at the library and only went there to collect my mail. And then, believe it or not, I stayed awhile talking to Robb.”

At that, Philip shut his book, removed his glasses, raised his eyebrows, and exclaimed, “Well! Talk about a surprise. What happened?”

“We decided to tell Julie the truth about ourselves. We agreed that it was time.”

“You know what I've thought about that.”

“Philip, driving away from there tonight, I had this idea: Will you be there when I tell Julie about everything? It would be such a help to me. And to her, too, I think. You have all the right words.”

“Of course I will. But how will Robb feel about that?”

“He won't object. He won't even be there. He doesn't want to.”

“Why? Anger, or contrition?”

“Neither.”

“Jealousy? Perhaps he wants you to come back.”

“No. He knows that's impossible. I felt as we sat there that he was just deeply sad, too sad to face Julie without giving way. And Robb would rather die than do that.”

“I know.”

“I think he has money worries, too, strange as that may seem.”

“Maybe it's not so strange. I overheard something interesting today. It was in the repair shop, of all places, while waiting to get the car. Two men were talking about the Danforth Bank, with something about banking laws and an investigation. When I heard the name ‘Devlin,' naturally I paid more attention, but then they moved away and all I recall is a remark about the mess hitting the papers soon. Do you suppose Robb can have anything to do with that?”

“No, no, he's merely an investor with a few fractions of an interest in some enormous projects, as well as a couple of mortgages on the house that are worrying him.”

“I'm genuinely sorry,” Philip said.

“So am I.”

She would not have believed, even a few days ago, that all those feelings of outrage, pain, and disillusionment could have melted into a blended kind of sympathy. It was not the deep grief that you feel when someone you love is in need; nevertheless, it was sympathy.

“Make the date for us to see Julie anytime that's good for her,” Philip said. He got up and took her in his arms. There was no need for either of them to say “I understand.”

From the moment she had heard her mother's voice on the telephone, Julie's day had turned ominous. Ellen had sounded too earnest. Her first thought had been
that they—Philip especially—were coming to tell her something terrible about Dad. But no, Ellen had replied to her question, no, Dad was quite well.

So then they had come, and between the two of them had told their story with a minimum of dramatics and a great deal of basic wisdom. Regret for causing hurt and acceptance of what could not be changed were the dual themes. There could be no quarrel with either of these, Julie reflected now, and yet in spite of all this wisdom and all the loving comfort, the atmosphere still felt ominous.

She sat there alone. Back and back she drove herself, searching her memory for clues. True, they had seemed a bit stiff and formal the night Andrew had come to dinner. And there had been a few other times, too. But one didn't base conclusions on scraps and minor incidents—especially when the people concerned were one's own loving parents.

Only after commencement had she had to admit to herself that there was a not-so-subtle, undefinable difference. But even then she had dismissed it with the thought that, like most parents, they were feeling the bittersweet sadness of watching their child make her final move away from dependence.

Had the trouble had something to do with her grandfather, long ago? Surely he had been a many-sided, often baffling man. Narrow in some ways and quick to find fault with any small breach of good manners, he had been tender and kind when anything bothered her, from a scraped knee to a scolding.

Could it have had anything to do with Penn? And she recalled how, as a child, she had continually veered from loving him to being angry that he was there, that he even existed at all.

One day, she remembered, she had seen him smiling. The smile had been so beautiful! And suddenly she had seen what he might have been, and how that must have hurt their parents.

Then she thought about Philip, and of the times she had caught him looking at her mother.… “You mustn't think harshly of your mother,” he had said this afternoon. “Your father, too, you see—” But Mom had stopped him.

She thought harshly of neither of them. Some things just happen. You wish they wouldn't, but they do. You have only to look around you in the world.

Those had been Andrew's words of comfort, too. He had come by later in the afternoon and listened to her story. At his insistence, they had gone for a walk, and afterward to a movie and bought a pizza. From out of his ample store, he had trotted out all his jokes, both old and new, and in spite of herself, had made her laugh.

“I know you're trying to cheer me up,” she had said, “but it's late, and you do work hard.”

“Of course I'm trying to cheer you up. If we mean anything at all to each other, that's what we need to do. But you're right. It's late. And there's a big story coming out tomorrow about the Danforth Bank. That guy Devlin is in it, the one whose name was on the building
when we visited Penn. Didn't you say your father knows him?”

“Yes, but not well, and he isn't involved with him.”

“Well, if I were involved in anything with him, I'd want to detach myself fast.”

And with that, Julie had to be content.

I
nch by imperceptible inch, an ice mass moves, so that its towering appearance on the night when the
Titanic
strikes it, or on an ordinary day when a titanic truth strikes a man between the eyes, is beyond belief.