Home Song (37 page)

“I guess I will,” Kent said, pulling forward to the edge of his chair.

“No, let me,” Chelsea interrupted. “She's my mother, and it was my idea.”

Monica could see the girl's face had grown blotchy with nervousness. She was gripping her glass with both hands.

“First I have to know something,” Chelsea began, “and it's pretty hard to ask.”

Out of the blue, Robby spoke up. “I'm part of this too. I'll ask. Ms. Arens, we need to know the truth—if you're having an affair with our dad.”

“An af—” Monica's stunned surprise was unmistakable. “An affair with your dad? Heavens no!”

Robby's breath escaped in a whistle. His shoulders wilted. “Wow, that's a relief.”

Chelsea took over, rushing ahead nonstop so she wouldn't chicken out halfway through. “You see, my mother thinks you are, and she's asked him to move out of the house, and he's living with my grandpa, and our family is just going all to pot because of it, and there's only one thing I can think of to get my mother to screw her head on straight, and that's if you'd come over to our house and tell her right to her face that you and Daddy aren't doing anything together besides talking about Kent! I mean, I understand that you've probably got to do that now and then. After all, he is both of your sons—I mean, a son to both of you—and it's just like with us three”—she waved a hand taking in her two brothers—“we're related and there's no sense pretending
we're not. Like Kent said, we've been acting pretty childish about some of it, and so has my mother, but if you'd just come over to our house—please!—and tell her that she's breaking up our family for nothing, maybe she'll take Daddy back and everything will be right again. Will you?”

Chelsea's eyebrows were elevated, her face so radiant with hope that Monica couldn't help being touched by her courage. Nevertheless, as the only official adult of the group, she had to make them explore the risks.

“Your mother might not appreciate me invading her domain.”

“But you don't understand! My mother's had her way in all of this right from the beginning, and nobody's been able to stop her. And she's wrong! She's dead wrong!”

Monica considered, then turned to her son. “Kent?”

“I'm with Chelsea. I think it's worth a try.”

“You don't feel it might jeopardize your future relationship with Tom?”

“He's just one of the three. I've got to consider Chelsea and Robby, too.”

“So you want me to do this?”

“Yes, Mom, I do.”

“And you, Robby?”

“We just can't think of anything else, Mrs. Arens.”

She pressed a hand to her heart, sucked in a pronounced breath, and let her eyelids close for a moment. “Whew!” she exclaimed, opening them. “The thought of it scares me to death. What if it backfires? What if she just gets angrier with him?”

The three kids looked back and forth at one another. Nobody had an answer. Their faces had gone from hopeful to glum.

“Well, listen, I'll tell you what.” Monica set her glass
down and curled forward. “I'll do what you ask, with two conditions. First, that I don't speak to your mother in your house. Any way you cut it, that would be invading her territory, and she's bound to take offense. And second, that the two of us are alone when I do it. Agreed?”

Robby and Chelsea consulted with their eyes and replied in unison, “Agreed.” Chelsea added, “But will you do it now? Tonight? Because then maybe Dad can move back in over the weekend, if it works. 'Cause, you see, he's planning to move into an apartment tomorrow, which Mom doesn't even know yet, I don't think, but he told us. That's one of the reasons I'm grounded.”

“You're grounded?” Monica repeated, trying to keep up with the tale.

“Oh, that's another whole story, but I got so upset when I found out my dad was going to rent an apartment that I did something pretty stupid, and they found out about it and I got grounded, so I'm supposed to be at home right this minute, and if you don't come over there and talk to Mom, I'm really going to be in hot water when she gets there and finds out I disobeyed her again.”

Monica touched her forehead. “This is getting to be too much for me. Is your mother at home now?”

“She will be pretty soon . . .” Chelsea checked her watch. “Right after six, when conferences are over.”

Monica rose. “Then let's wait until six and go over there, and I can wait out on the street in my car and you two can go inside and ask her to come out and talk to me. How's that?”

“What about Kent?”

“Kent stays here. We don't need her spying him hanging around to add insult to injury. If you want to spring him on
her, you do that later when I'm not around and she's gotten used to the idea of taking your dad back.”

“That okay with you, Kent?” Robby asked.

“Sure. We can talk later on the phone.”

Shortly after six, they all went down the steps to the entry and began getting on coats and jackets. Monica opened a side door leading to the garage and said, “I'll back my car out and follow you two.”

A moment later the power lifter rumbled through the wall, raising the garage door. The three young people stood in the foyer, wanting to reach out to one another, afraid it was too soon, each of them wishing one of the others would do it first.

“Well, good luck,” Kent said.

“Thanks,” Robby said.

“Yeah, thanks,” Chelsea added.

“Mom will do a good job, don't worry.”

On the other side of the service door the car door slammed and the engine started.

“Well, listen, I'll talk to you later, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

There in the vestibule of this warm house where understanding was at last beginning, they hovered on the brink of caring, their common genes urging them to break the bonds that had kept them apart for too many years already. It flashed through their minds to ask,
Would it be okay if I hugged you?
but shyness overcame them.

“I wish . . .” Kent said, and stopped himself.

“Yeah, I know,” Chelsea said, sharing his thought. “But it's not too late, is it?”

“Heck no,” Robby said, “it's not too late. We're just beginning.”

Then one of them smiled. And another one smiled. And
soon all three were smiling . . . then laughing . . . and the boys pitched together first, and maybe a few tears threatened their eyes, for they couldn't have spoken at that moment if their lives had been threatened. They broke apart, and Chelsea and Kent's hug was more cautious. But it happened, and it healed, and it opened doors to beautiful vistas of future possibilities.

“Good luck,” Kent whispered at Chelsea's ear just before releasing her.

“Thanks.”

Then he opened the door and stood with his hands in his jeans pockets, the cold air rushing into the house around him, caring little about it or the chill on his skin, watching as his brother and sister got into the car and waved, then led his mother away down the street. He didn't go back inside until he heard Robby's light tap on the horn. His own hand remained lifted in farewell long after either Robby or Chelsea could possibly see it.

C
LAIRE
had agreed to meet Tom in his office at six o'clock, and as she approached he was already locking up.

“So how did your day go?” she asked in her gravelly rasp.

He withdrew his key and turned around. “Sounds like it's a bad one this time.”

“Just awful.” She touched the hollow of her throat, then wrapped her arms around the stack of conference materials she was carrying.

“Did you put some honey in your tea?”

“Any more and I'll start buzzing and growing wings.”

They walked to the main door, and he hit the clattery metal handle with his hips, letting her precede him into the night. “Not the best day to have to go home and ream out one of the kids.”

“Is that what we're going to do?” Claire asked. “Ream her out?”

“I don't know. I haven't been able to decide how to handle it.”

“Neither have I.” Their footsteps matched as they strode side by side to their cars. They'd faced moments like this
before when instinct had failed them and left them searching for the best way to handle their children. Through so many years they'd managed to muddle through and find ways that worked for all four of them.

“First of all I think we have to talk to her and let her get her feelings out,” Tom said.

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“She's going to blame us, you know.”

“Yes, I know.”

“And she's right. It's largely our fault.”

“Yes, I know that too.”

Early dark had fallen, the temperature had dropped, and the wind had kicked up. The empty halyard was making the flagpole ring. Their cars were parked at two different sides of the building. They stopped on the sidewalk in front of Tom's car.

“Claire, about John Handelman . . .”

She turned and looked up at him. “Please, Tom, I can't handle it right now. I've got to get this thing with Chelsea out of the way first. Maybe later tonight, after we've talked to her, you and I could go someplace quiet and talk.”

Hope took hold of his heart. “Could we make that a definite date?”

“Yes, if I have any voice left to talk with.”

He stood holding his car keys, the wind flapping his coattails and batting his hair while all within him wished for an end to this separation. “All right. So, I'll follow you home, okay?”

“Okay.”

She began to move toward her car.

“Claire?” he called after her.

She stopped and turned, surprised to find a hint of a grin on his face.

“I know your throat hurts, but it sounds sexy as hell that way.”

He got into his car, leaving her to watch with a faint smile before she turned and moved down the sidewalk away from him.

 

When they reached home the children's car was gone from the driveway. Claire pulled into the garage and Tom left his car outside. She waited, and as he approached they both felt the peculiarity of changed routine—for years he had parked in the garage beside her, where the empty stall looked nearly as sad as his half of the bed.

They went into the house together through the family room as they'd done so many times before. Lights were on there and in the kitchen but the house was silent. Claire set her conference materials on the kitchen counter and hung up her coat in the front hall closet while Tom stopped at the kitchen sink to get a drink. She welcomed the sound of the cabinet door thumping closed and the water running, as she went to the bottom of the stairs, and called, “Chelsea?”

No answer.

“Chelsea?” she called a little louder, stretching her neck.

She muttered under her breath and started upstairs. Both of the kids' bedroom doors were open, their lights on. Pausing in Chelsea's doorway, she found the room freshly cleaned, some stacks of clean stockings and underwear on the crisply made bed, and the remainder of the unfolded laundry in a pile on the floor. Most days Claire would have assumed Chelsea was somewhere else in the house, but today the empty room set her feet flying. She tore around the corner into Robby's empty room.

“Robby?”

A brief hesitation beat, then she was barreling down the
steps, calling, “Tom, are the kids down there anywhere?” Her heart began clubbing.

He appeared at the bottom of the stairs, looking up. “No. Aren't they up there?”

“No. Their bedroom lights are on, and Chelsea left half a load of unfolded laundry in the middle of her bedroom floor.”

“What!” He scowled and headed up the stairs while Claire headed down.

“Tom, she was grounded! She wouldn't leave the house, and neither would Robby without leaving a note!” He took the steps two at a time and shot past her. She watched his coattails disappear into one bedroom, then the other, before he returned and charged down to the main level, throwing a question over his shoulder.

“Did they say anything about evening plans?”

“No, nothing.” She followed him to the kitchen, where he opened the basement door and looked down into the darkness. Next he went into the family room and stood for a long time looking worried, searching the room in slow motion, as if for a dropped earring.

“Well, they're not here,” he said, returning to the kitchen. “Maybe they went out to get something to eat.”

“Not without leaving a note. They knew conferences were done at six. They'd have left a note. And besides, when I say grounded, I mean grounded. I just don't believe Chelsea would have defied my orders.”

“There's probably a perfectly logical explanation.”

She knew Tom well: he was downplaying his anxiety to keep her from panicking.

“Tom . . .” she said uncertainly.

He turned away, probably to hide his face, but gave himself away by wrapping one fist around the other and cracking
his knuckles. While he was pretending to appear calm, he was glancing out the front window hoping to see the Nova drive in.

“Tom, I'm worried . . . what if they—”

He spun to face her. “There's nothing to be worried about, Claire. You mustn't jump to conclusions.”

“But she left laundry half folded, and lights on all over the house. If you could have seen how she was dressed last night, you'd know what kind of state of mind she's in.”

They faced each other, needing to assure and be reassured as in the past, each of them hesitant to make the first move. But the force of habit—if not need—finally grew too much for them.

“Claire,” he said, and made the first move.

And she made the second.

Suddenly she was in his arms, in that comforting harbor where love buoyed and made the dire less dire. There were no kisses, only clinging and the exchanging of strength with Claire caught firmly against the canvas texture of his coat collar and the sturdy bone of his jaw. Gripping each other with their hearts racing, they stood in the kitchen, which had never seemed like home without him, whose forlorn table had been surrounded by a scattered group, never a family, since he'd been absent from it. For moments they simply clung and felt the first frayed threads of their relationship begin to mend. Their hearts wallowed partly in fear for their children and partly in hope for themselves, touching once again after all these long weeks.

Their daughter, the peacemaker, had tried to bring about this disarmament and thought she had failed, so where had she run and with whom?

“I failed her, Tom,” Claire whispered with a catch in her voice.

“No, Claire, no,” he soothed. “This is no time for blaming yourself. What we have to do now is find her, and Robby too.” He set her back from him and held her by both arms. “Do you have any idea where they might be?”

“No, Tom, I've been trying to think but I . . .”

At that very moment lights came sweeping into the driveway and a car tore in at breakneck speed. It careened to a stop behind Tom's just as he reached the window to peer out. “Oh, thank God, they're home. Looks like they've brought somebody else though . . . there are two cars.” Another vehicle had pulled up at the foot of the driveway and stopped. The exterior garage lights sent a ray of teal blue flame along a ridge of paint on the side of the second vehicle. “What the hell?” Tom mumbled, frowning.

“Who is it?”

“I'm not sure, but I think it's Kent.”

Tom dropped the curtain as car doors thudded and voices sounded, muffled through the wall. A moment later Robby and Chelsea barged into the house and stood breathlessly, confronting their parents in the brightly lit kitchen.

“Where have you been?” Tom shouted.

Instead of answering him, Chelsea keyed on Claire. “Talking with somebody we think you ought to talk to, Mom.”

“Who?” Claire asked.

Chelsea pleaded, “Just come outside with us, please, Mom.”

“Who's out there?”

Robby stepped in, exasperation honing a sharp edge on his voice. “Will you for
once
in your life just give over control and do what we ask, Mother?”

Nonplussed, Claire stared at her son. Then at her daughter. The room held a static silence before Chelsea begged,
much gentler than Robby, with her heart in each word, “We want you to put on your coat and go outside. There's somebody waiting at the end of the driveway. Will you do that for us, Mom?”

“Who is it?”

With a hint of tears in her eyes, Chelsea appealed to her father. “Dad, would you make her do it? Please? Because we're running out of ideas, and this is our last one.”

Tom turned to Claire, puzzled but willing to encourage her to do whatever the children wanted, because he too felt she needed to consider their feelings more if their marriage was to go forward and their family thrive. And since it was Kent out there, she needed to strike some sort of truce with him, didn't she? Because Tom had every intention of seeing him on a regular basis and being a father to him from now on.

“Claire?” he said simply.

From the somber appeal in his eyes, she turned to the hope in her children's, realizing from their intensity that their request held great import for all of them, and that this was not the time to take them to task for defying rules. If she and Tom were to patch things up, whatever awaited her outside seemed a step she must take in that direction.

“All right,” she said, and saw the collective wilting of shoulders before she retrieved her coat and, without one word of repudiation, went outside.

The garage lights laid a golden path down the driveway and lit the side of the blue Lexus.
No
, Claire thought.
Please, I can't do this!
But she made her feet carry her past the two parked cars toward the automobile whose very glint of blue had struck anger and jealousy into her whenever she'd seen it these past two months.

When Claire was halfway down the driveway, the driver's
door opened and someone got out. Monica Arens emerged and stood waiting, studying Claire over the sunroof.

Claire halted fifteen feet away.

“Please don't go back in,” Monica said.

“I wasn't expecting it to be you. I was expecting your son.”

“I know. I'm sorry if this is a shock. Could we talk?”

Insecurity reared up and caught Claire in its unkind grip: this woman had been intimate with Tom one week before their wedding. He had gotten her pregnant when Claire was already pregnant by him, and that fact still had the power to cow Claire. But she remembered the pleading on her children's and Tom's faces as they asked her to see this through. The future of her family rested squarely with her.

“Yes. I guess it's time, isn't it?”

“Would you like to get in my car? It's warmer in there.”

No, Claire really would not like to, but she acceded, “All right,” and got in.

Inside, the dash lights created a faint aquamarine intimacy. Claire felt trapped and terrified, facing Monica Arens, prepared to dislike her while forced to hide it.

Monica said, “I wouldn't have chosen to do this in my car, but the children insisted. I thought it would be much better if we met on neutral territory, but . . . as I said, the choice wasn't mine.”

“No, this . . . this is fine.”

“I'm not sure what they told you in there.”

“Nothing. They just said someone was waiting outside who wanted to talk to me.”

“I
am
sorry to spring this on you. I'm sure it was a shock when you saw me get out of the car.”

Claire released a nervous scrape of laughter. “Yes, I think you could say that.” Her tortured tenor seemed pronounced in the confines of the car.

“Well, let me begin by explaining that our children came to me today and asked me to do this. All our children—yours and mine.”

“Together?” Claire retorted in surprise.

“Yes, together. It seems that they had a meeting of the minds and decided they have to make the best of being brothers and sister, and that the sooner they get to know each other, the better. They spent part of the afternoon together here at your house. I don't know whether you're aware of that or not.”

“No,” Claire said, the word scarcely leaving her throat. “I . . . I didn't know any of this.”

“Well, after they left here, they came to my house and appealed to me to come and talk to you; and they wanted me to do it here. I'll admit, I balked at the idea, but they were very sincere and very persuasive, so here I am, no happier about it than you are. But I'm here just the same.”

Claire was surprised by the woman's candor. Some of her defenses crumbled as she realized Monica's feelings were much the same as hers.

Monica took a deep breath and continued. “I guess this would be easiest if I came right out and told you that I know about your separation from Tom. I know that the two of you have been living apart since shortly after I came to town.”

In the sublight, Claire felt herself blushing: never had her jeopardized marriage seemed like a greater blight on her pride than when admitting it to this woman.