Here to Stay (14 page)

“You didn’t give them back to the minister?”

“He didn’t believe they existed. Neither of us enlightened him.”

Sissy covered her face with her hands. “He’ll end up in jail.”

She meant Gene, Elijah knew.

“I doubt it,” Elijah said.

Hearing the certainty in his voice, Sissy decided not to argue but to let herself be soothed. She lay down in bed and pulled the covers over her, reaching for a new dog-training book on her nightstand.

She heard Elijah sigh as he climbed into bed beside her.

She glanced over at him to find him staring at the ceiling. “Clark called.”

T
HE NEXT DAY
was Friday. Heloise Atherton had phoned the night before, spoken to Gene and gotten his agreement to come to her house in the morning and help with her kennels. She would pick him up.

Ezra was in a hurry to go to a friend’s house, and Sissy and Elijah had manufactured chores to keep him at home until Gene had left with his grandmother.

Then, with Eddy having a tea party with her stuffed animals in her bedroom, Sissy said, “Ezra, Daddy and I have to talk to you.”

Ezra threw a glance at Elijah as though wondering what he could have done to earn a “talking to.”

Elijah looked at Sissy, saw the anguish on her face. He realized he’d never seen her do anything so brave as what she was about to do. He saw she did not want to hurt Ezra, didn’t want to risk her son’s anger toward her, but she was determined now. Last night she hadn’t even bothered to argue, had simply sighed and said,
Then we must tell him.

At least Ezra and Gene knew “the facts of life,” Elijah having imparted these things during a dog breeding three years earlier.

Gene had said matter-of-factly, “I already knew that,”
had further imparted that male snakes had two hemipenises, had described copulation in scorpions and tarantulas, and had walked away.

Ezra had simply looked appalled.

Elijah sat down on the couch beside Sissy, with Ezra in a nearby chair, looking in a hurry to spring up and go kick his soccer ball with his friends.

Sissy said, “Ezra, your dad—your dad isn’t your biological father.”

Ezra’s eyes rounded.

Elijah’s thoughts shot to Gene. He could well imagine Gene taunting Ezra, telling him he was adopted. Strange, in his own family, Elijah had been very much the leader, but Ezra, the eldest in this family, was constantly at the mercy of Gene.

Ezra said, “I’m adopted?”

“No,” both his parents said as one, and Elijah saw in Sissy’s eyes that she’d been imagining the same scenario that he had. Rarely had he felt so utterly in sync with his wife. They knew their children.

Sissy said, “I was engaged to be married before I met your father, and I…was intimate with that man. You are his son.”

Ezra gazed in disbelief at his parents.

“But you’ll
always
be my son,” Elijah interjected quickly. “I couldn’t love you any more than I do.”

He said, “You lied to me. You both lied to me.”

Elijah felt the words to his soul. It was true. Sissy had gone white.

Sissy rushed over it. “Your…biological father…he wants to know you. To spend time with you.”

“Are you giving me to him?” Ezra demanded.

“No!” Elijah exclaimed. “My name’s on your birth certificate. You’re my son.”

“Right,” said Ezra with acrid sarcasm.

Elijah hardly knew how to respond.

Sissy said, “Ezra, we
love
you.”

“Right,” Ezra repeated in the same voice. Then, “So who is he? That Clark guy?”

Of course. The kids knew that Sissy had been engaged to someone else before she’d married Ezra. In fact, prior to learning the truth about Ezra’s parentage, Elijah had blithely told them the story about taking Sissy away from the cathedral. They hadn’t formally met Clark because the boys had been away from home when Clark and Berkeley had picked their puppy, whom they’d called Oxford.

“Yes,” Sissy was the one to say. “Clark Treffinger-Hart. He’s a nice man, and he wants to know you, Ezra. He’d like to spend some time with you, if you’re willing.”

“Why?” said Ezra, reminding Elijah irresistibly of Gene.

“Because you’re his son,” said Sissy. “You’re his flesh and blood, and he wants to know you.”

Ezra seemed to think this over. He shrugged. “All right. Can I go to Jack’s now?”

Elijah saw Sissy’s shoulders relax. He thought how incredibly beautiful she was. At thirty-seven, she looked much as she had at twenty-five, and he knew other men found her attractive, too.

“Are you okay?” Sissy asked Ezra.

“Sure,” he said, sounding not right at all.

They watched him collect his bike helmet—something he hated but which Elijah insisted upon—and go out the back door.

Sissy whispered, almost to herself, “This is just the beginning. Everything will be different now.”

“Different,” Elijah agreed. “Not necessarily worse.”

She didn’t bother to answer.

Though Whiteout was the larger dog, he accepted Teddy as alpha. He never showed any human the same respect he did the younger, intact German shepherd.

—
Dog Brethren
, Elijah Workman, 1977

April 10, 1984

“I’
M GOING TO LEAVE
Elijah,” Sissy announced to Allie Morgan, with whom she was having juice in the country club bar after a round of tennis. It was a Wednesday afternoon, uncommonly warm for that time of year.

Allie looked shocked. “Why?”

Sissy regretted her confession. “Forget it. I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m just talking.”

Allie drank her own juice. Finally she ventured, “You can talk. I’m glad to listen. Marriage is tough. God, I know it.”

But Sissy knew she couldn’t explain everything to Allie. Sissy had three children with Elijah. He didn’t beat her, wasn’t a drunk or a drug addict, held down a job. In short, what could she have to complain about?

“Allie, I’ve been in love with him since I was twelve years old, and—well, you know about Ezra. He has never loved me the same since he found out about that.”

“He loves you, Sissy,” Allie said with such firmness that Sissy doubted her own observations. “Look, you guys have been married a long time. And he’s not…I don’t know. He’s a man. Men don’t express their emotions the way we do.”

Now that she’d started, Sissy couldn’t stop. “He loves Gene more than he loves any of the rest of us. And he has no sympathy for
my
feelings when it comes to what Gene wants and needs. Ezra and Eddy and I all hate scorpions, and Elijah is letting Gene
breed
them and sell them to pet shops and collectors.”

Allie shuddered sympathetically.

“Then, the other day, Gene came home with this ten-inch long centipede. First, he tries to tell us it’s native, and I said, ‘I don’t care. Get rid of it.’ Elijah didn’t believe it, and it turns out the thing’s from Malaysia or somewhere, and I think it’s somewhat venomous.”

Allie was looking properly horrified, perhaps wondering if her youngest should be allowed to visit the Workmans and play with Eddy.

“In any case, it’s violent, ferocious and I’m terrified of it. It eats
live mice
. But Gene has heavy-duty gloves, and he said my mother helped him order it, which turns out to be true. He promised to keep its terrarium locked, and Elijah agreed, and now we’re living with
Rover
.”

Allie couldn’t resist. “So you’re really leaving the centipede, not Elijah.”

“Oh, shut up. Want me to bring it to your house?”

“No, I do not. Have you told Elijah how strongly you feel?”

“He says Gene is very responsible and won’t let it escape. I don’t care! I don’t want the thing in the house.”

Allie said, “But you say you’re in love with Elijah.”

“Not anymore. He has killed my love. Actively killed it. He’s aloof to me, lets the kids run wild—
especially
Gene, who needs discipline more than any thirteen-year-old in Missouri—and he’s actually quite dictatorial. He always has been. I can see you think I’m crazy.”

“No,” Allie answered, nonetheless sounding doubtful.

Sissy barely heard. She was unhappy. Did it really matter why? She was immersing herself thoroughly in the kennel, and had seen Clark and Berkeley take Oxford to the Eukanuba show, with excellent result. Westminster really seemed like something Sissy might achieve.

But there was something she wanted, something she was reluctant to ask for.

Her mother had produced a miracle of a bitch called Delilah, and Sissy wanted her mother to breed Delilah to Oxford, and she wanted a puppy from that breeding, but she owned neither of the dogs involved. Her mother, for all her gratitude in having Gene work for her, for all her improved attitude toward Elijah, had never forgiven Sissy entirely for leaving Clark at the altar, thus embarrassing her, nor for taking Teddy away from her parents’ kennel. And she had said that she was not interested in breeding to any dog out of Sissy’s lines.

It was
so stupid.
But Elijah had said, annoyingly, “It’s the same thing you said when you started Genesis. You didn’t want anything to do with her lines.”

Now Allie said, “You don’t want advice, do you.” It wasn’t a question but an observation.

Sissy looked at her. “Say it.”

“Unless there’s something you’re not telling me, he’s a pretty good guy, Sissy. And at work—” Allie was a paralegal “—I’ve seen the pain of divorce, especially for the kids. Think hard about it. Some things you can’t take back.”

Sissy felt a darkness in her heart, an ominous sense that she was hearing the truth. If she hurt Elijah by leaving him, he might someday take her back, but it wouldn’t make him any more emotionally available. Quite the reverse.

“I do not want to live with that animal,” she repeated softly to herself.

“You should tell him that,” Allie said. Then she laughed suddenly. “Rover.”

“M
OM
.” Gene’s face showed little. He was that way, Sissy thought. It was hard to tell what he was feeling, particularly when his voice seemed without intonation, which was most of the time. Still she sensed a certain urgency in him. “Have you seen Rover?”

Sissy had returned from tennis with Allie to find Gene home from school, and Ezra just returned from soccer practice. Eddy was at a friend’s house, and Elijah would pick her up on the way home from work in time for supper. Sissy expected them in fifteen minutes or so.

Ezra was stretched out on the couch doing homework. Clark would be taking him to this week’s soccer game in Osage Beach. He looked more like his natural father than ever, and he seemed to enjoy being in Clark’s and
Berkeley’s company. Clark spoiled him in a way Elijah didn’t like because it meant Ezra was treated differently from Eddy and Gene. In fact, right now, George, Ezra’s own German shorthaired pointer lay at his feet in an enforced down stay. George had proven a determined chewer, worse than even Whiteout had been, but Sissy didn’t begrudge her eldest son the dog or think Clark’s treatment of Ezra would hurt. Sissy thought Gene was treated differently already, and it was natural that Eddy would be, too, because she was the only girl.

Ezra sat up straighter on the couch, and Sissy whirled from the sink, where she was cleaning a pot before cheese could congeal in it. “What do you mean ‘Where’s Rover?’” she demanded.

Gene shuffled to the door of his room and shuffled back out again, head down, looking at a plastic terrarium with a hole in one bottom corner that looked as though it had been chewed. From the inside out.

Sissy’s eyes went wide.

Ezra leaped off the couch, scanning the furniture and floor.

Sissy shut off the water, went to the telephone and opened the phone book.

“What are you doing?” Gene asked.

“Calling the exterminator,” his mother told him firmly.

“Mom! You can’t do that. Anyhow, they’re resistant to pesticides.”

“Oh, no they’re not,” Sissy said, wondering how he expected her to fall for that. She flipped through the Yellow Pages, looking for “Pest Control.”

She heard Elijah’s car on the gravel outside, and she walked away from the phone to greet her husband and
daughter at the door. Kennedy, a winsome four year old, said, “Mama, can I take gymnastics? Daddy said I have to ask you.”

“Tumbling,” Elijah clarified. “Allie Morgan’s daughter is teaching a class starting in May.”

“Oh,” said Sissy. “Eddy, honey, we’ll talk about this later. Go wash your hands for dinner. Gene, come here.”

Gene said, “All right, all right. He hasn’t escaped. It was a joke.”

“What?”
Sissy nearly shrieked.

“I keep him in a glass terrarium, Mom, and it’s locked. He’s in my closet.”

“What’s this?” said Elijah.

Ezra, instead of going back to sit on the couch, marched into Gene’s room.

Gene said, “I don’t want him in my room.”

Sissy said to Elijah, “The centipede goes. And I think maybe the rest should, too, because it isn’t funny. That animal is venomous enough to—” She stopped herself, because Elijah knew the end of the sentence. To kill Eddy.

To her surprise, Elijah touched her shoulder, putting a calming pressure there, and said, “I agree. I’ll take care of this.”

Indeed, the centipede was locked in its glass terrarium in Gene’s closet, hidden to give the maximum impact to his “joke.” Elijah ordered Ezra out of his brother’s room and shut the door. He glanced around at the floor-to-ceiling shelves of scorpions and tarantulas. Rover was the only centipede.

Gene sat on his bed but didn’t look at his father. This was not unusual.

Elijah said, “You blew it. That centipede is not a subject for jokes. And you didn’t just blow it where the centipede is concerned. We’re getting rid of all your stock. And I don’t want to find you’ve tried to set it up somewhere else. If, for one year, you can refrain from doing things that you know damn well we don’t want you to do—blackmailing people, tormenting your siblings—”

“I don’t torment Eddy,” Gene said.

Actually, this was true. Gene rather liked his little sister. She, in turn, showed little fear of scorpions and tarantulas, though she hadn’t especially liked Rover.

“In any case, if you maintain good behavior for that length of time, then one year from now, you may renew your business. What’s more, I’ll construct a building in which you can keep your breeding animals and your stock.”

Gene shifted his eyes sideways, an unusual move for him. “I bet Grandma would do it now.”

“No, she won’t,” Elijah replied.
Because I’m going to ask her not to
. And he was pretty sure Heloise would listen. When he’d discussed the centipede with her, right after Gene had brought it home, she’d said,
I should have found out more about it, Elijah, but I don’t think it’s dangerous. the dealer just asked if it was for an experienced keeper, and I said it was
.

“What if Grandma keeps Rover for me for the next year?”

Gene shook his head.

“What if Grandma dies? It was a gift to me. Gifts from grandparents are special.”

Elijah was astounded at the depths to which Gene
would sink in manipulation—at least he assumed it was manipulation. With Gene, you could never tell. For all Elijah knew, a centipede might be Gene’s idea of a precious family heirloom. “The answer is no.”

Gene picked up a thick college text on arachnids and arthropods, collected his four-season sleeping bag from his bed and walked out of the room. Elijah knew where he was going. To the kennels.

Nonetheless, Elijah found himself waiting for the other shoe to drop.

T
HAT NIGHT
, in her gratitude, Sissy confessed that she’d actually been thinking of leaving him.

“Because of Rover?” Elijah asked in disbelief, blotting out recent memory, memory to which no one but he had been a part. Horrible memory of the destruction of an animal, of life. Though Gene later had simply emptied his pockets of the things he carried each day—a pencil, two pieces of dental floss, and two eight-sided dice—placed them on his desk exactly where he always did and gotten ready for bed.

“No.” She shook her head. “It’s just that sometimes I think you love Gene more than the rest of us. Including me.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Elijah said, yet he felt a stab of guilt. A parent shouldn’t have a favorite child. For years he’d warred against the fact that Ezra was his favorite. But since he’d met Clark Treffinger-Hart, Ezra had been distancing himself from Elijah, from their whole family, it seemed. And at some point, even before that, Elijah had begun to feel an even more intense love for Gene, who was simply so much trouble. He’d gone through
similar feelings with the dogs before. One would be his favorite for several months, then another.

But did he show so much favoritism to Gene that even Sissy felt insecure in comparison?

She said, “And I think you’ve never really forgiven me for Ezra and that you never really will forgive me.”

“That is definitely untrue,” Elijah said. He sat on the end of the bed beside her, looked into her violet eyes beneath her still unlined brow. “I wouldn’t hold a grudge like that. It would only make me unhappy.”

“You’ve been aloof ever since you learned about Ezra. I keep thinking it will stop, but it never does.”

“Sissy, it’s not something I’m doing on purpose. It’s just how I am. It’s my personality.” And she’d been ready to leave him because of it. That shocked him. Elijah sometimes felt as though he’d bent over backward to meet her every desire, and she’d wanted to leave?

“Is it money?” he asked. He’d been trying to write another dog book. The book, in fact, was already sold; he’d received an advance on signing half a year before. It was to be a comparison between three dogs he’d known.

She shook her head. “No. I’ve told you what it is. I want you to stop being so remote.”

A moment later, she stood and began to change for bed, removing jeans and her long-sleeved scoopneck T-shirt and pulling on a T-shirt of Elijah’s that skimmed her thighs.

Elijah said, “You are so beautiful. Do you know that?”

Sissy heard him and glanced in the full-length mirror on the back of the door. She saw dimpled thighs, but she also saw a woman who looked reasonably good for her age. She stayed fit, not immaculately so. She some
times thought of herself as beautiful, and she wondered now if that was because Elijah saw her that way.

When he turned out the light and joined her in bed minutes later, she immediately felt his wanting for her. She hoped for deeper kisses, for more evidence of love.

Elijah pushed away the thought that she’d been considering leaving him. She was so beautiful. He could barely see her in the moonlight through the window. Sometimes they made love with one of the lamps on, sometimes without. Sometimes with condoms, sometimes without, neither especially keen for another child, though Elijah knew that Sissy, like him, would welcome a baby if the event happened.

Was
he aloof? Had he truly treated her differently since he’d learned he wasn’t Ezra’s natural father?