Mother's Day (23 page)

“No, of course not,” he said.

“Besides,” she said, “you didn’t kill your sister, so what difference does it make if we were there?”

“Exactly,” said Bill.

“You will give me a good reference, won’t you?” she asked, glancing over at him.

“What?”

“For a new job.”

“The best,” he said hurriedly. “You write it, I’ll sign it.”

She looked at him indignantly. “That’s not fair. After all of this, you’re too lazy to write me a letter?”

“It’s a figure of speech,” he crooned soothingly. “All I mean is, you couldn’t dream up a better reference yourself than the one I’m going to write.”

Christine sat back against the seat. “Okay,” she said huffily. She tapped the shreds of napkin together into a little pile in front of her.

Slowly Bill exhaled. “Okay,” he said.

Somehow, Karen had managed to get through the day.
She had forced herself to keep her encounter with Greg a secret from Jenny, both last night and in the morning, before Jenny went to school. She had run the gauntlet of the supermarket like a zombie, scarcely noticing what went on around her. And the entire day, until Jenny came home from school and retreated to her room, Karen did not know what she was going to do.

Now, as she stood outside the closed door to Jenny’s room, she heard the tinkling melody of “Beautiful Dreamer” emanating from within. She was still not sure what she was going to say as she rapped gently on the door and asked, “Can I come in?”

Abruptly the music stopped, and after a second, Jenny’s voice said, “Come on in, Mom.”

Karen pushed the door open and saw Jenny returning the music box to its place on the dresser.

“It’s a pretty melody, isn’t it,” Karen said gently.

“I guess so.” Jenny opened a notebook on her bed and leafed through it.

Karen hesitated and then sat down on the bed. “How was school?”

Jenny shrugged, “Okay.”

“Did anybody give you a hard time?”

“Most kids were pretty nice.”

“That’s good,” said Karen. “How’s Peggy?”

Jenny pushed her hair back off her forehead. “Peggy’s great,” she said firmly. “She’s the best friend I ever had.”

“I’m really glad to hear that,” said Karen. For a moment her thoughts traveled to Jackie Shore, her old best friend from way back in grade school. Jackie’s husband had been transferred last year, and they’d moved to Seattle. Jackie had called when she heard about Greg, and for the half hour of their conversation, Karen had felt safe and cared for, but once she hung up, the yawning distance between them made Karen feel even more lonely. “A friend like that is hard to find.”

Jenny looked at her mother out of the corner of her eye. “I thought you’d be mad about Peggy,” she said.

Karen looked at her, surprised. “Why would I be mad about Peggy?” she asked.

“Well, you know, about that thing on Mother’s Day.”

Karen sighed. “Honey, I’ve got a lot of things to think about these days…” She didn’t like the way that sounded, so she changed her tack. “I’m just glad that Peggy is sticking by you through all this.”

“She is.”

There was a silence for a minute, and then Jenny said, “You know, I’ve been wanting to tell you about that. About what happened on Mother’s Day.”

Karen felt slightly defensive. “What about it?”

“There was a good reason why I didn’t show up for lunch.”

“Well, I assumed there was.” Karen wished they could change the subject. She didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to be reminded of the hurt. She had enough to cope with as it was.

“No, really. You see, Peggy’s mother died two years ago. I didn’t even know her then.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, and her father got married right away to some woman from his office.”

“Well, you said she had a stepmother.”

“Peggy doesn’t like her. Anyway, she got all bummed out because it was Mother’s Day and she kept thinking about her mom dying and how she missed her and all. And I could really see how she felt. That’s how I would have felt if I was her, and something happened to you. So, she wanted to get out of the house, and I felt bad for her and I said I’d go to the movies with her. I didn’t want to leave her alone, all upset like that.”

Karen’s heart seemed to lighten, to spring up like a parched plant that had finally been watered. She didn’t realize how deeply the hurt had lodged there, even with all the other things that had happened since. “I understand,” she said solemnly.

“I didn’t do it to make you feel bad, Mom. You just never gave me a chance to explain.”

It was such a simple explanation, but it eased such a pain. “My feelings were hurt,” Karen said truthfully. “I thought you just didn’t want to come.”

“No. It was just that I thought Peggy needed me more right then.”

Karen managed a tremulous smile. “I think you were right.”

“I shouldn’t have given your present to…Linda. I guess I was mad because you jumped all over me, and I’d been trying to do something good. And lately, with losing the new baby and all, I thought you didn’t care that much about me anymore.”

“Oh, Jenny, I didn’t mean to make you feel that way. You’re the most important thing in the world to me.”

Jenny looked embarrassed but pleased.

“Anyway,” said Karen. “Maybe it’s just as well you did give that present to Linda. You didn’t have very much time with her. Believe it or not, I’m really sorry about that.”

“I believe you.”

“You’ve been through so much these last few days. I really admire the way you are handling it.”

Jenny fiddled with the chain around her neck. For the first time, Karen noticed she was still wearing the locket under her shirt. “You know, she said something funny to me when we talked.”

Karen was immediately alert. “What was that?”

“Well, I thought she was talking about her own parents, but now when I think about it, she might have been trying to warn me about Dad.”

“What did she say, exactly?”

“She just said that sometimes mothers and fathers I kept secrets from their children, and they do it because they think it will prevent them from being hurt, but in the end it can hurt them worse.”

“How true,” Karen murmured. She pictured again Greg’s face as he confessed his involvement with Linda, his paternity of Jenny. The pain seared through her again, brand new and stunning.

“But you know,” Jenny went on, “she was wrong about that. At least for me. I mean, at first I didn’t know what to think. I was mad and hurt about it. But now, when I think about it—that Dad is my real father—I feel really happy about it. It means he really wanted to keep me. He really loved me.”

Even through her own devastation, Karen felt grateful for Jenny’s reaction. One thing had not gone utterly wrong. One good thing had emerged from the wreckage of their lives. But she could not just let it be. He was not a hero.

“He lied about everything,” she reminded Jenny.

“I know he did,” said Jenny stubbornly. “But it was just because he didn’t know how else to keep me.”

What about me? Karen wanted to cry out. He betrayed me. In every way. But she couldn’t say it to Jenny. Because if it weren’t for his betrayal, she would not be sitting here with her daughter, her Jenny, the light of her life, made possible by his deception.

“It’s not that simple for me,” said Karen.

“I know it,” Jenny said gravely.

“You have to be able to trust someone…” Karen’s voice trailed off, and she pictured again his face in the moonlight in that empty classroom. She could still hear his voice, pleading with her.

“I trust him,” said Jenny.

Karen squeezed Jenny’s hand and forced herself to think of immediate things. The question was, did she believe that he had killed Linda Emery, no matter what else he had done?

“What are you looking at, Mom?”

Karen stood up and walked over to the bureau. The photograph of Linda with her cat was stuck in the mirror. That face, so like Jenny’s, smiled sadly at her.

“I’m just looking at your picture,” she said.

Jenny shifted uneasily and then said with a trace of defiance in her voice, “I think it’s a nice picture.”

Karen’s mouth felt dry and her throat threatened to close up on her. “It is a nice picture,” she agreed. “Why don’t you let me take it to the Photo Gallery and have it framed for you?”

Jenny’s face lit up with a combination of relief and pleasure. “That would be great.”

Carefully Karen removed the photo from the mirror frame. More lies, she thought. But she couldn’t tell Jenny about her meeting with Greg, about his request. It was too much to ask of a child that she keep such information to herself. This is how it goes, she thought. One lie just naturally leads to another. She held the photo carefully in her hand. Amazing, she thought, how something so weightless could be such a burden on your heart.

“Why do you have to go?” Valerie wailed.

“Look,” Eddie said, throwing socks and underwear into a duffel bag, “I’m leaving you the car.”

“I don’t care about the car,” Valerie protested. “Besides, it hardly runs.”

“Get it fixed.”

“With what?”

Eddie moved silently around the darkened bedroom. He had insisted on keeping the Venetian blinds closed all day in the dreary row house they rented.

“You can’t just skip out on your bail,” Valerie cried. “My mother will lose her money.”

Eddie peered into the dresser drawer. “Where’s that olive-colored shirt?” he said.

“You mean that brown one? I don’t know. It’s in the hamper, I guess.”

“Shit.”

“I’m not your maid,” Valerie flared up. “How often do you expect me to get to the Laundromat with those two kids underfoot?”

“Never mind,” said Eddie, tossing a few other shirts into his bag.

“I’ll go tomorrow,” she promised.

“I won’t need it tomorrow.”

“Eddie, come on. You’ve got to testify. You have to tell what you saw—you saw that Newhall man beating up on that woman.”

Silently, Eddie strapped his watch on his wrist.

“You saw him, right?”

“Maybe I just said what they wanted to hear,” said Eddie.

“Come on, Eddie. You didn’t lie about that, did you? It’s in all the papers that you saw the murderer.”

“Don’t I know it?” said Eddie. “That Hodges dame really hung me out to dry.”

“I don’t get it,” Valerie whined. “So what?”

“Mama,” pleaded the two-year-old, toddling in and clinging to her bare legs. Valerie picked him up and patted his backside absently.

“At least tell me where you’re going,” she said. “Or take us with you.”

“I can’t do that,” he said.

“Yes, you can. We can be ready in no time. We’ll take the car. We’ll all go.”

“No,” Eddie barked. “I have to go by myself.”

Valerie pretended not to hear him. “I’m sick of this place anyway. We’ll just drive until we find someplace we like.”

Eddie started to argue with her, and then he stopped. “Okay,” he said. “You get the kids’ stuff ready. I’ll go out and check on the car.”

“Really?” Valerie cried. “Can I just call my mom?”

“You better not,” said Eddie.

“Okay. Okay. This will work out good. You’ll see.”

“Sure,” said Eddie. “We’ll go together.”

He was somewhat amazed by her happiness. Not every woman would be so happy to pack up and leave town, he thought. Well, Valerie had always had that reckless side. That’s what he’d liked about her in the first place. She was a little bit wild. Of course it was a rented house, and the truth was she’d be able to stuff most of the things they actually owned into a couple of paper bags.

“You’re a good girl, Val,” he said as he passed by the door of the kids’ tiny, narrow room. She was emptying the dresser drawers into a beat-up suitcase, and she gave him a dazzling smile that made him look away. The two-year-old was making airplane noises and had picked that moment to rummage through the toys she was trying to collect.

Eddie carried his bag down the steep stairs. The baby was lying on a dingy blanket on the floor, flailing his arms and legs in the air. “See you, slugger,” Eddie whispered. He opened the front door and stepped out into the twilight.

He checked up and down the street, then hurried down the sidewalk to an alleyway that let out behind the house. It was best this way, he thought. She’d never realize he was gone until she came down looking for him. He couldn’t afford to travel with the whole bunch of them. It was too dangerous. All day he had been thinking about it. He knew what he had to do. He had to get far away, as fast as he could. He had not really formed much of a plan. He had no money to speak of, but the trains that rumbled behind the house had given him an idea. He would hop a freight. That was what hoboes did. At least that’s what they used to be called, before there were so many of them and people started calling them the homeless. Somehow “hobo” sounded better. But however you sliced it, that was him now. And all because he’d had to go back and have another look at that Emery girl.

Eddie tossed his bag over the wooden fence behind the house, then climbed up and dropped down to the scrubby, trash-strewn embankment that led to the tracks. Obviously the best place to try to hop aboard a train was near the station, when it was slowing down. Never mind how guys jumped on top of speeding boxcars in the movies. Eddie had no desire to get himself killed that way. No, the idea was to follow the tracks down near the station, which was about a mile away, and try to slip aboard as the train was easing through the Bayland station. After that it was just a matter of keeping a sharp eye out for the train men until he got as far away from here as he could.

In the distance, Eddie heard a whistle and began to make his way through the brambles. He’d never catch this one, he thought. It would be long gone before he got near enough to the station. Still, the sound of the whistle was like a prod. Hurry, he thought. There was no telling how far away it was. He peered down the tracks. The light from the engine was a tiny glimmer in the distance. Besides, he thought, this might be a passenger train, not a freight. A passenger train would be more comfortable, but it would be hard to stay ahead of those conductors, constantly asking you for a ticket.