Monday, Monday: A Novel (32 page)

“We’ll have to come clean,” Jack said. “Delia and Shelly agree. But how we do it partly depends on how you intend to handle this with Elaine.”

“After what she’s been through this year, I can’t imagine how she would take this.”

He waited for Jack to comment, but Jack said nothing.

“But it doesn’t make sense to let Carlotta go looking, when we know what she’d find.” He pictured Elaine, home in New York, gaunt and sickly after the treatments, her hair just growing back in. He tried to think if there was a way to protect her. Of course there would be no way to protect her forever. It would only be another injustice to her if Carlotta were told this crucial information while she herself was kept in the dark.

“Carlotta’s driving back here to Alpine tonight, and Shelly’s coming tomorrow,” Jack said.

“Well, I need to be there,” Wyatt told him.

“No you don’t.”

“Of course I do.”

“Look, Delia and I have already talked about this, and even aside from Elaine’s situation, we don’t think it’s a good idea for you to come. It’s too many of us for Carlotta to cope with all at once. She’s already brought Shelly into it, so that’s a given. But there’s no reason you need to be here. You can come later.”

“I don’t think you can possibly know what Carlotta will want or not want. If I’m there, and she doesn’t want to talk with me, I’ll leave and come back when she does. If you think it’s a problem to have me there at the house, I’ll stay in the cabin or get a room. But in case Carlotta has something to talk to me about, I’m going to be there. She’s your daughter—I know that. But this is not the time for me to act like she’s not mine too.”

He looked at the house, and at the studio under the tall trees at the end of the path, and at the clear sky. The air smelled salty. The silence on the phone was so profound he could hear waves in the distance washing against the shore.

“And what about Elaine?” Jack finally asked.

“I’ll tell her. Everything. When this is over.”

36

A MERE MISHAP

Until the moment happened, Madeline’s day was like any other summer day. She took Nicholas to soccer practice, dropped him off afterward for a playdate, went by the school to tutor one of her former students who would be starting middle school in the fall but had scored in the range of a third grader on his math aptitude test. She picked Nicholas up and made dinner for Andy, who was on his way home from an out-of-town convention. Her mother called to say she was going to Alpine and would leave town early in the morning and return in a couple of days.

Andy was home in time for dinner. Nicholas, who was seven, wolfed it down, wearing his ball cap. Two of the girls in soccer had been mean to everybody, he said.

It was ten o’clock at night when Madeline glanced up from washing the dishes, saw Andy in the kitchen doorway, and knew at once that something was about to go horribly wrong. She didn’t know why she felt this sense of doom. Andy had been home since dinner and not spoken of any problem. Nothing had seemed wrong. The phone had not rung. Nicholas was asleep upstairs. The dog had not barked. What was the telltale sign? Only Andy’s hesitation? It was more than a pause. It was the advent of disaster. Madeline battled a childish urge to put her hands over her ears.

“Honey,” he said. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

She put the plate in the sink and reached for a phantom towel to dry her hands, her fingers groping along the slippery countertop. “Something you did?”

His nod was barely perceptible. “Honey, I’m so sorry. I am so incredibly sorry. But really, I swear, it’s not as bad as you’re thinking.”

“At the convention?”

He nodded.

“Do I know her?”

“No. Let me explain what—”

“No.”

“I can’t explain?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Madeline, it did not go that far.”

“Please don’t tell me what that means.”

“I screwed up, but I didn’t—”

“Stop, Andy.” The water dripped in the sink; she turned it off. She left her hand on the knob. “Don’t even dream of trying to clear your conscience by telling me the details.”

“But it wasn’t exactly … what you’re thinking.”

“Did it happen at the hotel?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s what I’m thinking.”

“Honey—”

“Go away.”

“It meant
nothing
to me,” he said. “I just felt … I don’t know … sorry for her. Her fiancé broke things off, and she was telling me about it, and we went to her room, and…”

“One thing led to another,” Madeline said.

“But it was nothing like last time. Not even close. Not even
close
.”

She thought of Nicholas asleep in his bed upstairs and how this moment was now a part of her life. Nothing would ever erase this moment.

“I am so, so sorry,” Andy was saying. “I am so incredibly sorry.”

She went upstairs and locked herself in the bathroom, where she sat on the floor and stared bleary-eyed down at the tiles. She stayed there most of the night. Andy spoke to her through the door, but she didn’t bother to answer. He told her more than she wanted to know. She felt as trapped in the marriage as she was trapped in the bathroom. How could she stay with this man?

But the thing at stake if she stayed with him would be only her happiness. If she left him, it would be her son’s.

Andy was a decent person and a loving father. He was a lousy husband.

In the morning when he went downstairs, Madeline came out of the bathroom and sat on the bed, stunned with grief and exhaustion. She listened over the stair rail to Andy talking with Nicholas about breakfast. Nicholas asked for peanut butter and jelly. She heard them letting the dog out. After a while, Andy returned to the bedroom. When Madeline didn’t speak to him, he retreated into the shower. She sat on the bed, listening to the steady hiss of the water. At last she pulled a suitcase out of the closet and started packing her clothes, then went into the bathroom. “I’m taking Nicholas and going to Alpine to be with my mother.”

He pushed the shower door partly open, his face flushed from the heat and his head topped with a cap of suds like whipped cream on a sundae. Water ran into his eyes. He squinted at Madeline through the spray. “No, no, no, no…” The water pounded his shoulder. “Don’t go. I
swear
it won’t happen again.”

She opened a drawer beside the sink and packed mascara and dental floss and toothpaste.

“I didn’t
want
it to happen. It just
happened
, honey. Please. I can’t believe you’re doing this. When are you coming back? You are—coming back?”

“I’ll stay as long as my mom’s there. After that, I don’t know.”

He wiped the water out of his eyes. “Are you going to tell her what happened?”

“I haven’t decided that.” Of course she would tell her mother.

“Tell her I’m sorry,” he said.

She lugged the suitcase down the stairs and found Nicholas in the family room, curled up with his dog on the sofa in front of the television. “Guess what,” she said, trying to sound excited. “We’re going to Alpine.”

He was wearing only his underwear, and his eyes were fixed on SpongeBob.

“Your dad can’t go, but you and I can,” she told him.

“Dad isn’t going?”

“He has to stay here.”

“Is Nana going?”

“Yes. She’s probably on her way now. Let’s hurry, so we can catch up.”

“Can’t I go to soccer?”

“I thought you didn’t like soccer.”

“Can Ranger come?”

“Ranger needs to stay with your dad.”

The dog was glowering at her. He was a short-haired black-and-white terrier, a troublemaker who murdered squirrels in the yard, dragging them down from the bird feeder by their dangling tails.

“Why can’t we bring him?” Nicholas begged, turning his back on SpongeBob.

“Coyotes—remember?” she told him.

“But I’ll make him stay in the house. Jack and Delia don’t care. I’ll take him out on a leash.”

“Not this time. Pack your things. We have to leave as soon as we can.”

Wheeling her suitcase through the kitchen and out to the dank garage, feeling the muggy, claustrophobic heat settle oppressively on her, she hoisted the suitcase into her old Suburban.

“Are you packing, Nicholas?” she called from the foot of the stairs when she was back in the house.

“Can you help me, Mom?”

“Just bring your things down!”

“Come help me!”

Climbing the stairs, she passed her mother’s portrait on the landing and wished she still believed in fairy godmothers.

Nicholas stood in front of his chest of drawers, dunking a flowered coffee mug into the habitat of his pet tadpole and sloppily pouring the murky contents into an oversized Baggie.

“What are you doing?” she asked him.

“Getting Jerry ready to go.”

“Oh, baby, we can’t take Jerry. It’s too much sloshing around. It wouldn’t be good for him, honey. You’re dribbling water into that drawer.”

“But Mom!” he pleaded. He was small for a seven-year-old. His hair was an indiscriminate brown and badly in need of a cut. “I’m getting some of the water out. So it’s not going to slosh. I’ll hold him in my lap the whole way.” Dipping the mug again, he dumped the water into the Baggie.

The habitat was U-shaped—a flimsy plastic receptacle too large for a skinny, fidgety boy to hold in his lap for six hours.

“I’m not worried about the car,” Madeline told him. “All the activity wouldn’t be good for Jerry. He’ll be happier here with your father.”

“Tadpoles don’t get carsick. He doesn’t want to stay here alone in this room.
Please
, Mom? Can’t I take him?”

He was already having to leave his dog. And his father.

“Please?”

“Oh, sweetie.” She looked at him. “Okay. Leave the rest of the water in there with him. And pack his food.”

“Thanks, Mom!”

“Get your toothbrush. Pants, T-shirts, socks, shoes. Boots if they still fit. Choose a couple of books.” She took the Baggie of fouled water into the hall bathroom and dumped the contents into the toilet.

Ranger had started to bark in Nicholas’s room. Madeline heard him jumping against the blinds, clanging them into the window, and went back in and scolded him until he quieted to a growl, his forepaws on the sill and his ears rigidly forward. A squirrel on a branch outside was flicking its tail at him.

She had gone back down to the kitchen, when she heard a thumping sound. She stepped into the hall and saw Nicholas, now wearing his jeans and ball cap, descending the stairs with a stack of video games and equipment, the wires trailing a clump of plugs, his Magic 8 Ball perched on top of the load and secured under his chin.

“You don’t need video games in Alpine,” she told him.

He halted, looking at her, his body hunched over the mound of equipment. “Dad said I could take them.”

“It isn’t your dad’s decision. Your dad isn’t going with us.”

“But Mom! There’s nothing to
do
there!”

“There’s plenty to do. Up. Up.”

Turning, he made his way grudgingly up the stairs, Madeline following and holding the cords to keep him from tripping. But when he was in his room, he looked so disappointed. None of it mattered anyway. “Oh, go ahead and take it,” she said.

“Thank you, Mom!”

She lifted the pile of equipment, stacking the cords and hand control and video games on top. “I’ll put these in the car. Get the basketball out of your closet and get packed. I’ll come back up for Jerry.”

“Can’t I carry him down? I’ve done it before.”

He set his basketball at the top of the stairs and started down behind her. She turned to see him carrying the habitat studiously, his eyes fixed on the tadpole rocking in the shallow water.

Suddenly, from behind him, Ranger charged at the basketball. Madeline yelled a warning. The ball smacked into the back of Nicholas’s knees and knocked him forward into her. She stumbled downward toward the landing, thrusting her arm out to brace herself against the wall. Her palm smacked hard into her mother’s portrait, and she lost her balance, tumbling to her knees, the equipment crashing before her, the basketball bouncing beside her. The portrait landed on top of her, and she threw it off with her elbow. Nicholas lay sprawled on the landing beside her. Ranger barked excitedly at the top of the stairs before starting down, moving slowly, his ears upright and cocked forward, his eyes on the little tadpole flopping on the floor amid a scatter of plastic rocks and faux plant life and a yellow plastic bridge.

“No, Ranger!” Madeline shouted. “Bad dog! Sit!”

The dog was mesmerized by the flaps of legs and the slimy flanks paddling uselessly on the floorboards. Diving across the wreckage, Madeline cupped her hand over the tadpole as Ranger suddenly catapulted from the steps above. She scuffled with the dog, pushing him away, the tadpole wriggling in her hand, and then she got to her feet and tried to help Nicholas up.

“My knee is broken,” he said, but she could see that he wasn’t hurt. He sat on a step to roll up his jeans and look at his knee.

The tadpole squirmed unpleasantly in Madeline’s hand. Hurrying down to the kitchen, she filled a glass from the water filter and dropped the tadpole in it, then dried herself with a dish towel and returned to the stairs, where Andy was tending to Nicholas.

“I have a headache,” Nicholas said. “The ball hit me in the head.”

“It hit you in the legs,” Madeline told him. “You’re okay.”

“Is Jerry okay?” Nicholas asked.

“He’s fine. He’s in a glass in the kitchen.”

“Was Ranger going to eat him?”

“Yes, honey. He was.”

Andy went for a mop while Madeline lifted the portrait from the debris and propped it against the wall. Ranger sniffed it and tried to lick it, but she pushed him away. The paint was wet, and Madeline dabbed at it with the end of her T-shirt, glad that it was painted on a hard surface rather than on canvas. Canvas would have torn. The frame had come apart at one corner, but at a glance, the paint still looked okay.

“What exactly happened?” Andy asked her, returning with a sponge mop and a wad of paper towels.