Home Song (11 page)

“Of course I can. There's even a part of me that doesn't want to know, that wants everything to be perfect for you and Dean like it used to be. But it isn't, and I just don't think ignoring the problem will make it go away.”

“I don't want to get into it with you, Claire, but you work at that school and everybody there thinks that the only way to face a problem is to confront it. Well, that's not right for all of us. I've had a long time to put all the signs together and decide what to do. I mean, I had hints months ago.
Months ago! And I made up my mind that if I ever found out he was chasing around with somebody, he'd have to be the one to tell me, not the other way around.”

“What kind of hints?”

“Mostly he was distracted—you know. When you've lived with a man most of your life and he just starts acting different, your woman's intuition clicks on. Sometimes it's not what he does, it's the way he does it. The look on his face, the set of his jaw, the feeling that even when he's with you he's far away, and he'll . . .” Ruth cut herself off to peer more closely at Claire. “Oh, Claire, not you, too. Is it Tom? Has Tom got another woman, too?”

“Tom? Oh, heavens, Ruth, don't be silly.”

“You should see the look on your face. What's going on?”

“Going on? What could be going on? We went up to Duluth this weekend for a romantic getaway, remember?”

“Subterfuge.”

“Oh, come on, Ruth, you should know that if I thought for one minute Tom had something to hide from me, I'd ask him point-blank what it was.”

“So, have you?”

Claire was hit by Ruth's direct gaze, and her bravado crumbled. Doubled forward, elbows to knees, she buried her face in her hands. “It's nothing,” she claimed, muffled, hoping it was true. “It's just my imagination, that's all.”

“That's what I said when it all started for me.”

Claire's head lifted. She gripped one hand with the other. “But he's been so loving! More so than ever! Ruth, I'm not lying to you—the trip to Duluth was just perfect, and lately he's been coming up to me at the most unusual times and kissing me, and he touches me, and acts so affectionate. We've always had this agreement—nothing personal in the school building, but he even came to my room one day and
kissed me. And I don't mean just a peck on the mouth. It was an honest-to-God passionate kiss. Now why would he do a thing like that?”

“I told you, subterfuge. Maybe he's trying to throw you off guard. There were a couple of times when I know damned well Dean tried to do that with me. I think I know the first time he actually went to bed with her because he sent me flowers, and it was the middle of the summer when I had all the flowers I needed right in my own garden. Men act that way when they're guilty of something.”

Claire jumped up from the sofa, went to a window, and studied the stippled view of the yard through the rain. “Oh, Ruth, that's so cynical.”

“You're talking to someone who just saw her husband kissing another woman! I've got a right to be cynical! What else has Tom done?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

“But that's why you came over here tonight, isn't it? To talk about him, because something is different, isn't it?”

“It's just this gut feeling I have that something is wrong.”

“But you haven't asked him? You haven't confronted him with it?” Claire stood silent, her back to Ruth while droplets slid down the window screen and the streetlights oozed on, smearing a blurred gold reflection on Ruth's blacktop driveway. “The way you're telling me I should confront Dean?”

Ruth expected no answer and got none. Claire remained across the room, a forlorn droop to her shoulders while Chopin's sad music played on.

Claire left for home shortly thereafter. She hugged Ruth at the door, extra-long, extra-hard, while Ruth whispered, “Don't ask him. Listen to me. Don't ask him, because once you know, it'll never be the same.”

Claire closed her eyes and said, “I have to, don't you see? I'm not like you. I have to know.”

A parting squeeze, and Ruth said, “Good luck then.”

At home the children had returned and were in their rooms behind closed doors, which she touched with her hand and forehead, drawing comfort from the knowledge of their presence. From Robby's room came the soft reverberations of a rock radio station, while a strip of light showed at the floor beneath Chelsea's door.

She tapped softly and opened it. “Hi, I'm back. I was at Ruth's.”

“Hi.” Chelsea was doubled over at the waist, brushing her hair upside down. “Wake me at six-fifteen, will you, Mom?”

“Sure.”

Whatever worries she carried, Claire realized she could not impose them on her children. She closed Chelsea's door and went into her own bedroom, slipping off her shoes and moving around listlessly. The carpet felt clammy but she resisted putting on the furnace. It was that autumn limbo between the heaven of hot August and the hell of chill October. She turned on one tiny light beside some books on a cedar chest, donned summer pajamas, and found an old, favorite shawl. Wrapped in it, she struck a dramatic pose in the shadows before the dresser mirror. Her reflection looked profoundly sad, the corners of her mouth drawn down like tent corners, her eyes lit only by the furtive light coming from below and behind her. She spoke aloud, quietly, a line from some old movie whose title and star she could not recall. Olivia De Havilland, maybe, in
To Each His Own
. “Tom, Tom, have you forsaken me?” No, the hero in that movie wasn't named Tom, was he? She really couldn't remember.

She left the room and trod with balletic grace to the opposite end of the house to keep the rain company.

When Tom got home she was curled up in a wicker rocking chair on the screened porch off the living room, her updrawn knees wrapped in the brown fringed shawl. A single candle burned in a hurricane lantern on the tabletop. Beyond the screen mist gathered on the brow of the shingles and plopped into the daylilies below. Upstairs Robby's radio still played, but out here the damp, navy-blue night seemed to muffle all sound.

Tom stopped in the doorway from the living room. He'd made no secret of his arrival. She knew he was there. Still, she went on rocking, staring into the shrouded yard beyond the screen, upon which the moisture had created a design like a cross-stitched quilt.

He sighed and stood for a while. Finally he asked, quietly, “Do you want to talk about it?”

She rocked twice, thrice, four times, swiped her lower eyelids with a fist wrapped in the scratchy shawl. “I don't know.” The wicker snapped and popped like old bones as she kept it swaying and stared through the screen.

Still dressed in his suit, with his tie loosened, he stood on the track of the sliding door with his hands hanging in his side pockets. She had a penchant for drama, this English teacher, his wife, who directed class plays and was known for a classroom delivery that, in itself, often bordered on the dramatic. He'd long ago stopped blaming her for bringing that overdeveloped sense of drama into their disagreements. He understood it was second nature to her. He understood, too, that the surroundings she'd chosen—the damp, brooding night, the candle, the rocking chair and shawl—were chosen as she might choose a set for one of her school plays.

He sighed once more and let his shoulders sag. “We'd better, don't you think?”

“I suppose.”

His loafers rapped out four weary steps on the hollow porch floor as he approached the table, pulled out a wicker side chair, and sat. Her rocker was angled away, giving him a candlelit view of her left shoulder and the side of her face. He tipped forward with his elbows on his knees and waited.

She sniffled once.

“All right,” he said, forcing patience into his voice. “You might as well tell me.”

“Something's wrong. I've known it since we were in Duluth.”

He sat there, doubled forward, wanting it off his chest but terrified of telling her the truth. For the first time she looked at him over her shoulder, swinging her head as if it were on a film rolling in slow motion. The candlelight gave depth to her eye sockets and a glimmer to her irises. She wore no makeup, and her hair hung loose.

“Would you tell me, Tom, if you were having an affair?”

“Yes.”

“Are you?”

“No.”

“What if I said I don't believe you?”

It was easier to dredge up anger with her than to say what he'd come here to say. “Claire, that's ridiculous.”

“Is it?”

“What in the name of heaven gave you that idea?”

“Why did you take me to Duluth?”

“Because I love you and I wanted us to get away together!”

“But why now?”

“You know that too—because as soon as school starts my
time's not my own anymore. Look, it's started already! Ten o'clock at night and I'm just getting home, but I've been at
school
, not with some other woman!” He was tired. He'd had a grueling day, and he couldn't face the all-night round of tears and recriminations that would probably be set off if he told her about Kent now. Besides, it was so much easier to be the accuser than the accused.

“I've been talking about going to an inn together for at least five years. All of a sudden you go for the idea, then when you get me there you act so distracted that sometimes I had the feeling you forgot I was in the bed with you.”

He leaped to his feet. “I am
not
having an affair!”

“Shh! Tom, hold your voice down.”

“I don't give a shit if the neighbors at the end of the block hear me! I'm not having an affair! Who the hell would I have one with, and just when do you think I'd find time? I'm at school all day long and five nights to boot. Some affair I could have! I know who put these ideas in your head!” He pointed a finger to the west. “You've been talking to Ruth. That's it, isn't it? What have you two been doing, comparing notes? She thinks Dean is having an affair, so naturally I must be too. For the life of me, I'll never understand how women's minds work!” He picked up his vacated chair, clunked it down exactly where it had been, then stiff-armed it in place, simmering.

“You're the one who said, ‘Let's talk about it,' Tom.”

“Well, I didn't think I was going to be accused of some bullshit like this! I've got a right to get mad!”

“I asked you to hold your voice down.”

“If you wanted me to keep my voice down, you shouldn't have picked the screened porch for Act One! And don't think for a minute that I missed the carefully set stage here.” He cut the air with a hand. “The murky lighting and the rain
and the hurt wife wrapped up in her shawl with her makeup washed off. Claire, you underestimate me.”

From behind him, Chelsea spoke timorously. “Dad?”

He spun around and ordered, “Go to bed, Chelsea.”

“But you're fighting.”

“Yes, we are. Married people do it all the time. Don't worry, we'll have it all straightened out by morning.”

“But . . . you guys never fight.”

He went into the living room and put his arms around her. “It's okay, honey.” His heart was still jumping with adrenaline as he kissed her hairline. “Kiss Mom and go to bed.”

“But I heard what she said, Dad . . . that you're having an affair.”

Exasperated, he released her. “I am
not
having an affair!” He tipped his head back, closed his eyes, and tried to collect himself. “Chelsea, will you just do what I say? Kiss Mom and go to bed. We'll both still be here in the morning and we'll all still be at school tomorrow. Nothing has changed!”

Chelsea went into the flickering candlelight and leaned down to kiss Claire's cheek. “Good night, Mom,” she whispered.

Claire lifted her face and rubbed her daughter's shoulder. “You weren't meant to hear this, Chelsea. Please don't worry. See you in the morning, darling.”

When Chelsea had disappeared into the dark house, Tom went back out to the porch and blew out the candle. “Come on,” he said, “let's go to bed.”

He went into the bedroom without her and was standing with his back to the door, jerking off his clothing, when she came in and shut the door. She watched him, recognizing anger in every movement. He hung up his trousers, stripped
off the shirt, and slammed it into the bathroom hamper, returning to the bedroom without glancing at her.

She got into bed and waited.

He got in, snapped off the lamp, and turned onto his side away from her.

One minute of silence passed, then another and another until finally Claire spoke.

“Tom, you've got to understand.”

“Understand what?”

She was trying hard not to cry. “You're right. I did have a talk with Ruth. She's seen Dean with another woman, but she isn't going to confront him with it, because once she does, it'll have to be faced and dealt with. I'm not that way—
we're
not that way, Tom; we deal with confrontations at school all the time. What kind of educators would we be if we taught people that denial is the best way of handling problems? Do you think I wasn't scared tonight, voicing my fear? But what else should I have done? I had my suspicions, so I put them to you. I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“All right.” He flung himself onto his back, making sure no square inch of his skin touched hers. “You've said your piece, now let me say mine. If I'd been messing around, maybe I wouldn't be so damned mad. But you really caught me off guard. First of all, I love you, and I thought I was doing something great for both of us by taking you to Duluth. Then you turned around and flung it in my face, and that hurts. When I married you I promised to be faithful, and by God, I have been. You want to know the truth, I never even
fantasize
about other women. They say it's healthy, but you couldn't prove it by me. And it really pisses me off, the idea of Ruth Bishop putting these ideas in your head. Ruth Bishop needs a shrink, that's what she needs, so the next time you go over there and she starts gossiping
about Dean,
don't
put me on a par with him, because damn it, it hurts!”