Once Upon a Day (34 page)

“I didn’t mean to.”

“But you didn’t try hard enough not to. You didn’t consider
our children when you decided to get drunk in public with Brett Marcus.”

“I didn’t do anything with him.”

“Don’t even bother.” He took a deep breath. “Are you leaving me for him? I would appreciate the truth. I think I deserve that.”

“Of course not.”

“Of course? I don’t think that expression is appropriate. There is certainly nothing obvious about your feelings anymore. At this point, I don’t even know if you care about the children.”

“I love them. They’re the only thing I have now.”

“A touching sentiment, except for the small fact that you’re never with them, that you’re neglecting them completely for a career you don’t need.”

“No one needs a career.”

“Ah.” He smiled a mean smile. “How far you’ve come from poverty.”

“I meant no one we know.” She smirked. “Including you.”

“You’ll find no argument there. If I was away from home as much as you are, you could try this on me. But I never have been, and you know it. Because I really do love the children, and I know they can’t raise themselves.”

“When this film is over, I’ll—”

“No. That doesn’t work anymore. You owe your children, Lucy. You may not owe me anything, but you owe Dorothea and Jimmy because they didn’t do anything but love you.”

“What are you saying?”

“That I won’t allow you to keep doing this. You have to stop hurting them, or you will live to regret it.”

“Don’t threaten me.”

“I’m not, I’m giving you a chance to change. I think I owe you that, no matter how furious I am about you dragging our family into the worst kind of public display.”

“And if I don’t change?”

“Then this will end in tragedy. And not the kind of tragedy we
love in movies, where the heroine wins the affection of everyone even as she loses all she holds dear. I’m talking about the gritty kind of tragedy, where the heroine ends up drunk and alone with no one to blame but herself.”

Lucy was nervous, but she said, “I don’t care if you divorce me.”

“A new twist. Fascinating I’m sure, but irrelevant. You know I will never divorce you.”

“Then what are you talking about?”

“Tragedy, as I said, if you don’t start honoring your commitment to the children.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, and Lucy noticed his face was pale with stress and misery. She remembered when he used to talk tough to the studio suits, how he’d told her he hated it. “I’d much rather be able to be myself,” he’d said. “But they’d walk all over me. Most people mistake kindness for weakness. It’s an unfortunate fact of human nature.”

“Charles,” she said quietly. “I wish we could really talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. I will not let you hurt them.” He stood up. “I will use all my power to prevent that, even if it hurts you, even if it breaks my heart.”

Then he walked out of the dining room, leaving Lucy just sitting there, stunned.

Twenty minutes later, when she could finally move, she remembered Dorothea waiting up in Charles’s bedroom, their bedroom, for the two of them.

She wanted her pills, but she didn’t dare; she needed to stay alert. She could feel that something terrible was about to happen, even though she had no idea what it was. She went into her own room, took off her makeup and put on her nightgown; then she went upstairs and crawled into her old side of the bed next to her sleeping daughter.

When Charles joined them, it was close to two o’clock, but she was still awake. She heard him opening a drawer, saw him in the
moonlight taking off his clothes and putting on a pair of drawstring pants. Then she felt the mattress move as he lay down on the other side of Dorothea.

“Good night,” she whispered, without thinking how she’d feel when the inevitable silence was the only response.

He was already breathing slower, obviously asleep, when it struck her that the three of them hadn’t been together like this since that morning, September 21. They had been in this same bed, in the same positions, and her worst problem then was that Dorothea had woken up too early.

It was November 7, only a little over two years later, and yet her life had been changed so completely she barely recognized it. She was sad all the time now, and as lonely as when she was a kid living with her uncle. And she was always running to keep from facing up to the most shameful thing about herself, the secret she’d kept so well that even she didn’t know it.

That night, the fear was so close she could feel it breathing down her neck. But she told herself she was only afraid of Charles, of what he might do to her, and even that didn’t really make sense. There was nothing to be afraid of. She was just upset about their argument. If only she could have had a drink or one of her pills, she could have fallen asleep and forgotten about this.

When Dorothea woke up the next morning, Lucy was so relieved to get up that she didn’t mind asking Charles to please go get her cane. Her leg had gone numb from lying still for hours, trying not to toss and turn and wake up her daughter.

She took the day off, telling Brett only that she was having a family problem. She helped Jimmy get ready for school, but he still couldn’t talk about Tigger without crying. She ate breakfast and lunch with Dorothea and spent all day with her, playing and singing and dressing her dolls. But when Charles took Dorothea with him to pick up Jimmy, Lucy got on the phone with Janice. She needed advice.

Lucy rushed through everything that had happened, and Janice
listened to it all. Her first theory was that he was going to divorce Lucy and try to get custody, but Lucy reminded her that Charles took his Catholicism seriously, and also that he’d said he’d never do that. Then Janice thought the answer was obvious. It was an idle threat designed to keep Lucy from finishing the film.

Janice already knew about Charles trying to keep Lucy from getting a part, and even about the locked room. “He’s still trying to win,” Janice said now. “Christ, he’s unbelievable, resorting to using your kids.”

When Lucy hung up, she was so angry she wanted to throw something. Of course Janice was right, and the worst part was he’d come very close to getting his way. After all, she was here, wasn’t she? She hadn’t gone to the set on one of the most important days for the film. They were all important during these last three weeks.

Three weeks was all he had to wait, and yet he was still trying to stop her. This wasn’t about Jimmy and Dorothea, this was about his power over Lucy. His controlling personality, as the therapist had called it. His belief that he was always right and he always had to win.

Well, it wasn’t going to happen this time.

He was nicer that evening, but of course he was, Lucy thought. He’d gotten his way. He changed his tune completely the next night, when Lucy went to work and stayed until the job was done at nine. She didn’t party with the cast; she came straight home, but he was still determined to intimidate her. He came up with a long sob story about Jimmy begging for her, and then he repeated his threat that if she kept neglecting the children, she’d live to regret it.

It was only a few days later when the police had their first and only success in the investigation of Lucy’s attack. They never found the two men, partly because the fingerprints the police took didn’t match any on file, partly because the two guys didn’t steal the Jaguar or the BMW, after all, but mainly because it was three days before Lucy could describe them. The trail was cold, and she had no idea how they even got there. They’d appeared at her pool while she and
Dorothea were swimming—this was all she could tell the detectives. They’d appeared on a perfectly normal day, when she was laughing with her daughter, living a life that seemed so far removed from her past in Missouri and Nashville that it had never crossed her mind she wouldn’t be safe here either.

When the police arrested a pawnshop owner for accepting stolen goods, everything in the shop was checked against the item lists taken from the victims of robberies. The Keenans were at the top of the list because their case was high profile, and probably because Charles kept bothering them. The antique engagement ring was unusual enough that it was easy to identify. One of the officers rushed it over that same afternoon.

When Charles opened his palm and showed Lucy her beautiful diamond ring, she was flooded with memories, not only of the day he asked her to marry him, but of the day Jimmy was born, when Charles had held her hand so tightly as she panted and pushed that her rings sliced into her finger. Of course she didn’t notice that in the midst of delivering her baby. What she remembered was the security of knowing Charles was there, thinking nothing could go wrong as long as he held her hand.

Now they were standing in the den; Charles had classical music on the stereo. The violin sound was so intense and passionate that she’d felt like she was intruding on him when she came into the room. It was nine-thirty; the children were asleep, but they must have been drawing all evening because there were colorful pictures on every table, most from Jimmy, who loved drawing and did it so well his teacher said he had a gift, but some of Dorothea’s scribbles too: a thick brown line with a blob of green at the top for leaves; a giant sun that was smiling as its rays ran off the page.

Lucy felt like she was seeing the way her family was without her. She felt a little scared, as though in some way she couldn’t understand, this was already becoming permanent, but then she reminded herself that the film would be over soon, and in the meantime, she was glad that the children were doing well. Of course they were,
because Charles was an excellent father, no matter how disappointed he was in her.

“I assume you don’t want this,” he said flatly, nodding at the ring.

Since the miscarriage, Lucy hadn’t been wearing the replacement rings Charles had given her in the hospital. But this one was different. This one reminded her of being happy.

Before she could speak, he said, “It doesn’t matter.” His hand closed and the diamond disappeared into his fist. “I can save it for Dorothea when she’s older.”

If he hadn’t started in on how upset Jimmy was that Lucy wasn’t at dinner tonight, she might have told him she wanted the ring, but probably not. That same morning, in the gossip column of one of the local papers, the tabloid story of Lucy and Brett had been replayed with a quote from a “reliable source” claiming that Charles Keenan, known to be an old-fashioned family man, was “disgusted with the behavior of his young wife.” Who knew if it was true, but Lucy convinced herself she didn’t care either way after she had a few pills and went into her room.

Every night for the next two weeks, Charles came up with another reason why she’d failed the children, and yet another warning that he was not going to let this go on much longer. She was getting good at letting it go in one ear and out the other, so that by the third week, on Tuesday, when she found out that Brett had come up with enough money to do a few days filming in D.C., she was almost bored listening to Charles tell her why she’d better not go.

He had to know how much better the movie would be with these location shots. They would also have a chance to do retakes for two scenes that had never really worked. It was a great opportunity, and Lucy couldn’t turn it down without affecting the entire cast and crew.

“Dorothea had three attacks in the last week. She needs you here.”

“Why? You can help her too. So can Susannah.”

“But she wants her mother. She’s four years old.”

“I know how old she is.”

He was standing outside of her room, watching her throw what she’d need for the short trip into her tote bag. Two large bottles of pills Ivan had given her were right next to the bag, but she didn’t care if Charles saw them. She was under a lot of stress, and he certainly wasn’t helping.

“Are you forgetting that Thursday is Thanksgiving?” he said.

They didn’t have a choice: they had to shoot over the holiday weekend because the actor playing Marvin, the senator, had another movie starting on Monday. They wouldn’t actually film on Thanksgiving (because paying the crew for that day would cost a fortune), but they had to film late on Wednesday night and very early on Friday morning. They had to take every chance they had or they wouldn’t finish before they ran out of money again.

Charles knew about the pressure of finishing—when it was his own work. She said something snotty about him playing stupid, but he ignored her and went on with his guilt trip.

“Dorothea and my mother have been making holiday cookies all weekend as a surprise for you.”

“That’s sweet,” Lucy said. “But I’m not going to rearrange my schedule because the great Margaret has decided to come home for a change. And Dorothea doesn’t care what date the holiday is on. I’ll ask her for some cookies to take on the plane, and we can celebrate when I get back on Monday.”

“Lucy, you can’t do this. You know Jimmy’s class found Tigger’s body today, and he’s—”

“I already talked to him about Tigger. He seems like he’s feeling better.”

“He wants you to stay.”

“He didn’t tell me that.”

“Because he knows you’re busy. He’s trying to be responsible, but he’s a little boy.”

“Or is it because you don’t want me to finish my movie?” She put her finger to her lips. “Mmm. I wonder if that’s it.”

“If you do this, I’m warning you—”

“Warn away. I love a good warning. It makes working soooo much easier.”

“I’m serious.”

“I’m sure you are. As serious as you were when you said you’d always love me.”

“You can’t leave your children again or—”

“Or what?”

“I don’t want to threaten you. I just want you to see that they need you. Please.” He was banging his hand against the frame of the door, but Lucy didn’t look up. “Please, please, put them first for a change.”

“This isn’t about Dorothea and Jimmy. And you do so want to threaten me. You want to and you’re going to. So go ahead, so I can say the same thing I say every day. Or do you want to hear it first? We could reverse the order. I’ll go ahead and say, ‘I don’t believe you and I don’t care.’”