Red Jacket (29 page)

The Lady in the Park

Grace can't imagine what possesses Phyllis.

“Grace, I bring a visitor.” Phyllis empties Jeremiah out of a light jacket, shrugs off her own, and hangs them both in the coat closet, as the person she is speaking of stands in the vestibule, plainly uncomfortable, timid about coming in.

“You can bring whoever you like as long as you bring back my son. Come here, Jeremiah. Come tell your Mama what you and Grandma did in the park.”

“Got a lady in the park, Mama.”

Jeremiah points at a woman standing in the doorway, tall, black hair, dark sloe eyes.

“Hello, Dr. Carpenter.”

She knows right off. It is the woman who answered her call from Mabuli, who said she was Mark's wife. She is sure of the voice, the Trini accent. It reshaped her life in ten seconds, told her things she didn't know before, including the fact that in Mark she had hopes and expectations. She dropped the phone and would have fallen down herself, had Sister Tekawitha not grabbed her. The words, like warts, returned again and again to mock her, “This is his wife.”

Get a grip! she tells herself. Wife, ex-wife, lover, it doesn't matter.

“Hello. Have we met before? Do, please come in.” What is this woman doing in her home? Jeremiah says they got her in the park, so Phyllis must have invited her, and so must know who she is. Maybe the woman on the phone lied and wasn't a real wife. Maybe she was Mark's live-in paramour, a euphemistic wife. Whichever applies, she has to hand it to him. He can pick a damn good-looking woman.

Outside, blue skies say Phyllis's invitation has nothing to do with the weather, and the woman doesn't look ill, so it isn't Phyllis's Good Samaritan instincts. The stranger's eyes are all over Jeremiah as he backs off his sneakers and runs to his toy box. Is Phyllis up to something? Has she had found out Mark is Jeremiah's father? And even if she has, that is a quantum leap away from bringing his wife into their home. She can't conceive what may have prompted that. Never mind. In due course, her mother will have the length of her tongue.

The stranger, relieved by Phyllis of her classy coat and scarf, is walking down the wide corridor towards Grace.

“Would you like something to drink?” Grace produces her diplomatic self. “Some lunch, perhaps?”

Jeremiah's favorite toy, a capuchin monkey, is stuck in his toy box. As he tugs at the monkey, the tail starts to rip away from the body. Upset by the noise and frustrated at not getting the plaything, he starts to cry. His distress persuades Grace that it may be better for them both to escape. She looks at her watch.

“Oh my! Is it so late? Come, Jeremiah. Put your sneakers back on. Remember? Mama has to take you to the doctor.” Big lie, but Phyllis won't dare let on.

“I leave you in Mum's capable hands,” she bares her teeth at the woman as she walks over to the coat closet. “Do excuse us. We must rush.” She puts on her jacket, picks up her purse, scoops up Jeremiah, and collects his coat and shoes. “We'll put these on in the car. Mother ... ” Phyllis will know she is furious, for she never calls her that, “we'll be back as quickly as we can. Perhaps you'll still be here?” This she says to the woman whose eyes are still stuck like tar on Jeremiah.

“Jeremiah, say goodbye, sweetheart.”

“Bye, sweet-art!”

When Grace brings Jeremiah back in the late afternoon, he is asleep. A refined snore flutes from the dining room. Grace looks in to see Phyllis napping, her head on the table. She puts Jeremiah into his playpen, opening one of the French windows to let in some air. There is no cloud cover, as there often is, and no afternoon rain. That is part of what angers her. They could have had lunch on the deck, maybe gone for a drive after that. Instead, her mother and Mark's woman manage to spoil a beautiful day. She lies on the carpet, fuming, and dozes off too, waking when Phyllis comes in.

“How exactly did that woman come to be here, Phyllis?”

“I honestly don't know if I can give you a good answer, Grace. Jeremiah and I are sitting on our bench in the park and I'm reading his Anancy book to him. Of a sudden, I hear somebody say, ‘Oh my God!' So I turn round and I see this woman. She start crying, so I tell her to sit down. I give her one of Jeremiah's bottles of water and a mint. When she compose herself, she say she don't mean to make any trouble, then she address me by my name and say how Jeremiah look like his father!”

“I don't need a blow by blow. I just want to know what you were thinking when you asked her to come here.”

“I guess I wasn't thinking too straight. Look, all this time you making a big secret of who Jeremiah's father is, then a stranger appear, call me by my name and show me a photo of a man who look like he spit your child out of his mouth!”

“Okay. I admit you must have been taken aback … ”

“Taken a back? Plus a side, a front, a top, and a bottom! She say she know you, and she look like she was going to start crying all over again.”

“Spare me the gory details. You asked her here, and you shouldn't have.”

“Grace, she showed me the man's photograph! Jeremiah don't only look like him, he slim same way, smile same way, tilt his head one side same way.”

“Fine. You've met, she's been here, scrutinized Jeremiah. I need your undertaking never to do anything like that again. She could have created a very unpleasant scene, and most important, upset Jeremiah. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly. Do I pack my bags, get on a plane, go back to my yard, and pick up my life where I put it down?”

“Don't be melodramatic.”

“Hardly. If we're going to be on tension about this, day in, day out, that won't do Jeremiah any good. No use hemming and hawing. Best get down to the nitty-gritty.”

“The nitty-gritty is we're perfectly happy here, and we couldn't manage without you. Let's put it behind us. Okay?”

“Kidoki.” Jeremiah murmurs in his sleep.

“Lord! We need to talk soft! I totally forgot he was right there.”

“I am talking soft, Mum. Anyway, just so we get this straight: you don't know who Jeremiah's father is, nor does the woman, and it will stay that way.”

“She hasn't told her husband, you know, and she says she won't till she's talked to you.”

“I have no intention of having a discussion with her. It's not her affair.”

“Best not to introduce that word, don't you think? If you listen to yourself you'll see what you're saying is nonsense. Even somebody as tough-headed as you must admit it concerns her. It's generous of her not to tell Mr. Blackman till you two talk.”

“Didn't you hear me, Phyllis? I don't intend to speak to her, about Jeremiah or anything else. What she elects to say to her husband, if he is her husband, is her business. She can speculate at will about my son being his child.”

Phyllis kisses her teeth. “Grace, this is 1996. They can prove paternity. I know that. It's been in my line of work for many years now.”

“I'm done discussing it.”

“Suppose something happens to you?”

Grace is examining the monkey's torn tail.

“I'll mend it,” Phyllis says. “I did it once before.”

“I can easily buy him another.”

Phyllis doesn't pursue it. “I promised Mrs. Blackman to keep in touch with her and I'm going to. I don't break my promises.”

“I would rather you didn't, but I can't stop you. Perhaps, being the prayerful person that you are, you should ask God for guidance in the matter.”

“You know, Grace, I pray my whole life against it, but there are times when you behave exactly like your father.”

“My father? If I were to judge from the times you've mentioned him, I'd have to conclude he was either non-existent or the Devil incarnate.”

“Well, insofar as you are here, he existed all right.”

“And the Devil part of it?”

“Best to let it go, Grace. Best to let it go.”

Another Visit and a Summons

“God bless you, Jeremiah!”

“Sleep tight, Jeremiah. Remember, Mama loves you.”

“Night, Tules! Night, Mama!”

“Good night, son. I'm putting out the light now. Okay?”

“Kidoki, Mama.”

As Grace reaches for the light switch, Jimmy gently restrains her so he can look around the child's room. It's decorated with Jeremiah's drawings, mostly firm strokes of blue crayon at all angles, with roundish scrawls of orange nearby. Grace sees him looking from one to the other, all sea and sun, and explains, “Phyllis has been telling him stories about pirates.” She is pleased when he points, smiling, to Jeremiah's self-portrait on a large piece of paper where one side of the family tree now ends. His smile shrinks at the sight of a photograph of himself, affixed near to hers, though it's not connected to the tree. As he steps out so Grace can close the door, she wonders if it bothers him. “Forgive my son, please. When he's a bit older, I'll work on his form of address.”

“I kind of like ‘Tules.' ”

“So, shall I call you that?”

“Jimmy's fine. If you flirt with me, I'll insist on Father Atule.”

“Very well. I promise to behave.”

“Good. Don't you say prayers with him, Grace?”

“Phyllis does. Not me. She's out visiting friends.”

“Pity. Good night prayers are comforting.”

“I know. Ma and Pa would be mortified.” She shrugs. Jimmy knows she has pretty much parted company with God. “I should have asked you to do the honours.”

“Next time.”

“Anyway, I'm glad you could come. He so looked forward to his second birthday party with you. Of course, if we keep this up, he's going to expect a string of parties till his next birthday.”

“Why not? He's wiser than we are. Every day a celebration!”

“Only if someone else is party organizer! I didn't think five children could create such havoc!” Grace gestures for Jimmy to sit as she collapses onto a chaise longue and lets her sandals fall to the floor.

“I'd volunteer, if I were here. I do a good party.”

“It's great for him to have you around, Jimmy. He doesn't see many black folks, and almost no black men.”

“I can't be his stand-in daddy, Grace. You know how I feel about that. But I'm always glad to be the second black man in the house when I visit.”

“From you, I take whatever I can get. And as ever, I'm elated to see you.”

It's true. She's long since decided that she must have Jimmy in her life, whatever the terms. But she knows and accepts other people's claims on him. He feels responsible for his family, especially his mother and sisters. He cares about the staff at all the MATE centres and knows in detail the stories of their lives. His patients' histories have become part of the lore of his life. Even Nila he still speaks of now and then.

“The drug baron, Don Jaime, is happy to see you too.”

“Man, you don't let a person forget, eh?”

“C'mon, Grace! It's too good a joke!”

“Why don't I get you a drink?”

“Just a glass of water, thanks.”

She gets up, goes over to the small bar and pours him a glass of Perrier, which he comes across and takes from her, with a smile. He'd once told her why he liked to drink water and preferred it without ice, some wisdom acquired as a young man from a Chinese business associate. Like all Caribbean people, she considers water better with ice in it.

“I'm having a taste of St. Chris Ten Year Old. I've worked hard this last week. Massa's overseers chewed over every last cent in every line item in the budget.”

“Sorry to hear that. I hope it won't seriously hamper the work.”

She gestures dismissively as she lifts her glass, and he lifts his in a silent toast. “We can only ever get what we pay for. One day, they will all learn that. But on to more important matters: I'm worried about you, Padre. You look perkier now, but when you passed by the office this morning, you looked beat.”

“I'm a bit weary, for sure, but a couple nights' sleep will set me right, and I can count on that when I'm here. Good Swiss bed and board!”

“You can always stay here. You know that.”

“We both know why that can't work, Grace.”

“Okay. Okay. Is it the project that's taking it out of you?”

“Not really. It's true there've been a couple setbacks at MATE Tindi, but nothing we can't cope with.”

“As you'd say, why don't you just tell me?”

“One or two things have been nagging at me. It's not to do with MATE specifically. It's occurred to me that while the country projects are up and running we should look further down the road.”

“At what specifically? Are you thinking of money? Expansion?”

“I'm thinking of emergency plans. Suppose we had a real catastrophe, Grace? Suppose we found ourselves in a state of civil war, for instance?”

“Are you saying there's trouble in Mabuli?”

“If there were, I'd have told you. I'm saying, ‘What if?' Doing a hypothetical.”

“Okay. Political upheaval. Any other what-ifs?”

“I'd say volatile weather. It's true weather in the Sahel has been variable for decades, but we need to consider it nonetheless. And what about the possibility of our losing staff, massively, overnight?”

“But we have understudies, don't we?”

“We have understudies for some key people in each project, but not all. Mali's project manager has no understudy, nor have I. Monique can handle Tindi, but not all the MATE Centres.”

“Jimmy Atule, if you're leaving the Jesuit order to run off with anyone but me, I'll hunt you down, club you on the head, and drag you back to my cave!”

“I've not forgotten the mating rites in St. Chris. For sure, you've no competition there. But since you raise it, suppose my superior got it into his head to send me to Fiji?”

“Is someone sending you off somewhere?”

“I said ‘suppose,' Grace.”

“Okay, you've made a good point. So, any ideas about what we do?”

“We could talk about it at the next bimonthly.”

“We can do that. I'll set it up. Is that everything, Father?”

“There is one other thing. Peter-Hans has summoned me.”

Grace sees the slightest ripple of change over the pattern of his facial scars, and she thinks, Aha! We've come to the trouble.

“Peter who has summoned you?”

“Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, the Jesuit Superior General.”

“The Jesuit Superior General? But why?”

“I had a run-in with our new regional superior. He must have reported me.”

“I remember you said you'd miss Father Kitendi.”

“For sure, the new superior is no Kitendi!”

“But if they've called you to Rome, that's serious.”

“Yes.”

“What can they do to you?”

“Pretty much anything they like.”

“They wouldn't move you, would they, Jimmy?”

“They might.”

There is a mild thump in Grace's abdomen. She hesitates to call it foreboding. She cannot conceive of the West Africa project without Jimmy. More truly, she cannot conceive of her life, their life, hers and Jeremiah's, if they saw him less frequently than they do now.

“Is that why you brought up contingency plans?”

“It was what brought them to mind.”

“I don't understand, Jimmy. Why all of a sudden?”

“Father Agbidi probably spoke the words ‘rebellious' and ‘disobedient.' ”

“Are you scared?”

“Peter-Hans is our capo di tutti capi, so yes, I guess I am.”

“You'll see him?”

“He's a busy man, and I'm small beer. Someone else will bring me to heel.”

“But they know you're doing crucial work. Why would they want to stop you?”

“The Jesuit Order is a human institution, Grace. There are superiors like Agbidi and like Kitendi, just as there are popes like John the Twenty-third and popes very different from him. I don't know what the thinking at headquarters is. We obey the Holy Father. He's an even bigger capo than Peter-Hans, and, to pick an issue at random, he's not a fan of condoms.”

“So we can't count on reason prevailing then?”

“You make me laugh. No, I don't think we can count on reason. Wisdom we can hope for. I'm praying hard that wisdom will prevail. Help me pray.”

“You're teasing. What if I promise to think of you?”

“As you'd say, I'll take what I can get, with thanks.”

She can tell he doesn't wish to pursue the matter further, because he moves quickly to asking about each of them, herself, Jeremiah, Phyllis, and listens with the complete attention that he once told her he'd learned from J.J. She reassures him that they are all fine, but she is happy, in her mother's absence, to report with indignation the incident of her bringing Mona Blackman home.

“Why did Mrs. Blackman come?”

“My question, precisely. I've never met this woman. In fact, I've deliberately avoided knowing about her. I do know, to my cost, that she lives in Washington, which is not to say she can't come to Geneva, but I don't expect to see her here unless I invite her.”

“So Phyllis must have invited her. Surely she had a good reason?”

“You don't expect me to be sanguine about that woman being in my home, do you?”

“Not sanguine, but it's hardly the end of the world. And you haven't answered my question about Phyllis.”

“She's not my friend! Not even my acquaintance!”

“You slept with her husband and had his child.”

She isn't surprised at Jimmy's bald characterization of her encounter with Mark. His smile challenges her to contradict him. Which is his way. In St. Chris, they say if you do it right, you can tell somebody to go to Hell and send them off with a smile on their face. Jimmy has that talent.

“We're not talking about that. We're talking about whether or not she has any right in my home, uninvited.”

“I thought you said Phyllis had asked her.”

“The point is, Phyllis shouldn't have.”

“Did Phyllis explain why she brought her home?”

“She said she wasn't thinking straight, and started a long story. I told her I didn't want to hear the length and breadth of it.”

“Maybe it was a good, but complicated reason?”

“No good reason is possible!”

“Well, if you put it that way. How did the visit go?”

“You don't think I stayed to have a chat with her? I scooped up my son and concocted a reason to leave. She was devouring Jeremiah with her big coolie eyes, gobbling him up like she was one of Asia's starving millions, and him the last morsel.”

“You're shocking me, for sure.”

“Oh, please! You're no white-as-the-driven-snow saint with pure-as-pasteurized language.”

“For sure I'm no saint, and even if by any stretch of the imagination I could be white, I would prefer it not to be like the driven snow, which, as you know, has bad associations for me.”

“I'm sorry, Jimmy. I forgot.” Lord! How could she say that? She knows he still feels responsible for Nila's death. She remembers a proverb Gramps liked to invoke, clapping his hands by her ears to get her attention: “The tongue does not love the throat.” She has no excuse. She knows better, especially after years of having to speak with circumspection in her job. “I'm sorry, Jimmy. Me and my big mouth are very sorry.”

“It's okay. I think you're angry because you can't get your way in a matter you've decided concerns only you.”

“It concerns me and my son.”

“In other words, not you alone.”

“I decide for Jeremiah till he's old enough.”

“His father has an equal right to do that.”

“I won't discuss it.”

“Any talk about Jeremiah is a discussion about that.”

“This isn't a discussion about Jeremiah.”

“His step-mother merely looking at him just prompted you to use some rather colourful language.”

“His what?”

“The wife of his father. That makes Mona Blackman his step-mother.”

“Why are you being so cruel?”

“You're the one who always advocates being sensible. Is it sensible to object to Phyllis's actions without giving her a chance to explain them?'

“I gave her a chance. I just said not to give me a song and dance about it.”

“Oh, come on, Grace.”

“What reason could she have requiring more than two sentences?”

“I don't know. You don't either. You can't till she tells you. Don't you find that there's also something, shall we say, perverse, about sleeping with someone else's husband and regarding yourself as the aggrieved party?”

“He said he didn't have a relationship with his wife. How was I supposed to know? And my aggrieved-ness relates to her intrusion into my home.”

“What about your intrusion into her life?”

Shortly after Jimmy's visit, Grace decides that a strategy is called for to deal with any claim to rights over Jeremiah that Mark and Mona Blackman might advance. She consults Joyce Zaidie-Klein's husband, a lawyer specializing in custody disputes, and by reputation, a tough litigator.

“I'd like to discuss a hypothetical situation, Mr. Klein.”

“I don't do hypotheticals, Dr. Carpenter.”

“Why is that?”

“People make things up, or leave things out, and my time is expensive. I want them to get their money's worth.”

“Understood. The facts. I have a son. His father has no idea that he exists.”

“You are not married to his father?”

“No.”

“Never were?”

“My son is an accident of misfortune, you might say, though, being perfect, he undoes his origins. As I say, his father is unaware he exists, and the longer I keep it so, the better, partly because I assume the law will be on my side if I can prove, should the occasion arise, that his father has had nothing at all to do with him.”