Beyond Deserving (30 page)

On Saturday she goes with Maureen to the park in the early afternoon, before Maureen goes to work. On the way, they walk a block in silence and then she tells Maureen that she is feeling shaky about the divorce. Maureen says maybe Katie is going too far too soon. Maybe she is using the divorce, instead of walking away from it. Before, Fish messed up her head, and now the divorce is doing the same thing. “Don't kid yourself,” Maureen tells her. “The divorce won't solve your problems, because Fish isn't the problem. The problem is inside you.”

“Great. Thanks a lot.”

“You need to go to group. You need to listen to what other people have learned. Learn to work the program.”

“It sounds like a sprinkler system.”

Maureen is unruffled. She takes Katie's hand as they walk. “Have you read the steps?”

“I heard them read the other night.”

“The first step—you have to start there. Maybe you are avoiding it. The first step is surrender, kiddo.”

“Surrender what?”

“The idea you can control it all. Fish, your pain, your life.”

“If I stop believing that, I might as well give up.”

“Oh no, Katie, You've got yourself blown out of proportion. Lots of people have a time when they make a turn, or don't. Before that they're shit. Like me. I was a drunk, I fell in love with drunks. I got drunk with my own mother and sister and sent them off in a car that way. See, you don't have so far to go. You're functional.”

“As long as somebody tells me what to do.” She thinks of her mother, and of Jeff. Maybe Maureen now. “Not that I follow advice all that well.” Maybe she just wants sympathy. But from whom?

“Nobody can tell you what to do. You have to find out.”

“You talk in circles.”

“Look inside yourself. Talk about what you find. Pretty soon you'll hear what you're saying.”

“Sure. Who wants to hear it? Who would care?”

“Me, for starters. Or take a name in group and call someone. When you're ready to start, I promise you, you can get the help. You have to take the first step.”

As they come to the park, Maureen explains that she is meeting her nephew Ricky and his foster parent. The foster mother has things to do in town, and Maureen can spend an hour with the child. It is the first Katie has heard about Ricky. It is a relief to have the subject changed.

“They live way out in the country, there's no way for me to get there, but once in a while the foster mother calls and I go over on the bus to the mall and meet them. It's been nearly two months since I saw him. He doesn't seem to care, one way or the other, he's only seven, I guess he takes it as it comes.”

“Am I not supposed to ask about his parents?”

“You don't think I'm going to hold secrets, do you? You don't think I'm going to repress?” Maureen laughs at herself. “Besides, I told you I'd tell you about my sisters. One at a time. This one is Rochelle, she's two years younger than me.” She looks at her watch. “We're a little early, you want to go in the shops?”

“No, I want to hear this.”

They sit on a low stone wall in the shade.

Maureen speaks softly, staring at the grass. “Your sister-in-law would know Rochelle. Everybody in that work in the valley does. She was a big case last year. She had Ricky, and a toddler, Summer. And she had this boyfriend who was talking about moving in with her. She was very crazy about this guy. The kids' father had been gone since she was pregnant with Summer. She was living on welfare, drinking some, she was depressed, and then this guy came along and cheered her up.

“Last spring, this is a year ago, there was a really sunny day, and they took a ride out to the lake. Rochelle had packed sandwiches. I guess they had a little picnic, with a blanket spread out on the grass above the lake. Sometime in the afternoon Rochelle went behind some bushes to pee—” Maureen's voice breaks. She looks at Katie. “Nobody believes that. I don't, but I told her I did. She's my sister.”

“What happened?” Katie has an idea she knows. She has the faintest memory of something Ursula told her.

Maureen takes a deep noisy breath. “They say she went back behind the bushes with the boyfriend. Rochelle said they'd been dozing on the blanket, she went back to pee, the boyfriend was asleep, the baby was asleep, Ricky was playing with some toy trucks—”

“Oh shit, Maureen, I do know about this.”

Maureen goes on anyway, doggedly. “The baby woke up and went down into the lake, quick as anything. When Rochelle came back to the blanket, the baby was gone. Ricky was down by the water's edge. Summer had gone into the water and drowned.” She grips Katie's hand. “Is it really worse if they were both in the bushes? Is it worse if the guy was back there instead of on the blanket? Does it change how drowned Summer was?”

Katie remembers Ursula raving about the case. They didn't do anything to the man. He wasn't the parent, he wasn't responsible. Rochelle they took to court for neglect, she got a county jail term.

“So Ricky is in foster care until she's—on her feet again?”

“Oh, she's on her feet. She's out and gone. She said they'd take Ricky away, what was the use of fighting it?”

“I remember Ursula saying they probably wouldn't be able to keep Ricky from his mother. The state wants kids with their parents. She yells about it all the time.”

“I couldn't take him, you can see that, can't you?” Maureen says. She speaks so softly it is hard to hear her. “All my energy goes into staying afloat. I'm still putting one foot in front of the other.” She gets up and rubs the wrinkles in her pants, smooths her hair. “Do you still want to go? I thought I'd get him a corn dog or something and take him to the swings.”

“Sure, I'll go,” Katie says. They walk to the stretch of parked cars. Maureen spots the boy and his foster mother by the bridge. She waves, and the woman waves back. The boy watches Maureen and Katie approach, his face placid and inexpressive. His foster mother kisses him goodbye and says she will be back in an hour. He doesn't say anything. He watches her until she drives away.

Katie thinks of Rochelle behind the bushes. At least I'm better than that! she thinks. It is hardly comforting.

She sticks her hand out for the child to take. He walks between her and Maureen. He raises his arm limply and allows her to grasp his fingers. He doesn't look at her.

Suddenly ashamed, she squeezes his hand lightly. They cross over the bridge, and catch sight of the pond. A duck is crossing the stone walk. Ricky breaks away from the women and runs to the duck. Maureen, coming up behind, says, “Don't scare it, Ricky.” The duck waddles up the grassy slope and back onto the walk. There is another pond farther up the park, away from the congestion. Ricky stays right behind the duck, pacing his steps to the duck's stops and starts. Maureen and Katie follow.

Maureen says, “He was standing by the water, watching where his sister had gone. I asked his foster mother if they were getting him any counseling. She said he was too young, he'd forget about it. She's a nice lady, but—too young? What must he remember? He never mentions his mother. I used to, but what could I say?”

Katie says, “I'll go get something to feed the ducks and meet you at the upper pond. We'll have a good time.” Feeding the ducks will be something to do. Maureen nods gratefully and moves closer to the child. Katie watches them take a few steps, and then turns and flees.

Katie finds Maureen at home another evening. Maureen is unraveling a failed knitting project, winding a ball in her lap. She says hello without smiling.

“Are you not feeling okay?” Katie asks.

“It's a mood. I guess it's from seeing Ricky. Thinking about my family, my life.”

Katie doesn't want to know any more. She feels cheated. Maureen has been giving her advice for months. Now, when Katie feels impaled on her own indecision, when she desperately wants to do what Maureen says to do—hear herself think aloud—Maureen is full of her own trouble. One thing for sure, Katie wouldn't know how to console Maureen.

The only person she comes close to understanding is Fish. That means only that she knows better than to predict what he will do; his unpredictability has become familiar over the years. It is she who has broken the pattern, done something to shake his teeth. He is driven by an energy unique to him. He cannot be bullied, and does not negotiate, unless he has already decided to yield.

The only real question now is how long it will take him to come around. She thinks she knows what she will do. It isn't even a decision anymore; it's fate.

41

Katie comes home and finds her car in the lot. The keys are on the floor. She runs inside to call Fish, but only Carter is at home. “Tell Fish thanks,” she says, a little out of breath, but she doesn't think she can count on Carter to deliver a message, so she calls back later. This time Michael answers. He says, “Carter said you called,” and she feels stupid, like a pining girlfriend.

This is an evening that Maureen works at the delicatessen. Katie wishes she was home with her for company. They could watch Donahue tapes and chew on other people's problems. She could find out what happened to the other sister.

She is undressed and ready to shower when someone knocks at the back door. “I'll be a minute!” she yells loudly, and pulls back on some clothes.

It is Jeff, not Fish. She hesitates for a fraction of a moment before she tells him to come in, and he asks, “Are we friends? Are you mad at me?”

The disappointment is palpable. She feels like someone who opens a present and finds a mixer, or a book of synonyms.

“I'm not mad. I thought you were.”

“Would you like to go somewhere for a drink, or dessert?”

“Not really.” She brushes at her old jeans and shirt. Jeff is obviously waiting. Like it or not, she is cast as hostess. “I could make tea.”

Jeff leans against the door jamb as she prepares jasmine tea. In a navy and white baseball jersey and crisp canvas pants, he cuts a handsome, stylish figure, dressed for a casual visit. She feels sloppy. He is looking at her, really looking, and she feels her body, naked under the jeans and shirt. Lately there have appeared on her body spots of sensation the size of elongated quarters, at the side of her left breast near her armpit, on the outside of her arm just above the elbow, and a larger area on her right hip, high. Sometimes the spots burn slightly. Sometimes they prickle, and she twists and strains to look for signs of a rash, but there never is one. She feels a slight burning now. She feels her nipples, irritated by the cotton of her shirt. She thinks of him touching her—of someone touching her—and she feels a stab of pulsation along the creases of her labia.

“I should have called,” Jeff says. She shakes her head to show he didn't need to bother. She honestly hasn't given him much thought. She has been waiting to hear from Fish. “I should have come sooner,” he says, and she shakes her head again in the same way. She concentrates on the tea. The pale flowers puff in the water and rise, then sink again. She hands him a mug and steps past him.

Settled in the front room, she holds the steaming cup near her face.

“You've been working hard?” she asks. It is the only thing she can think to say. The week since she last saw him seems a long time.

He smiles. “My work is often intense, often tedious, but never really hard. I like it too much. Plants confound you, but they don't play politics.” He stops abruptly and glances behind him.

She realizes that she has been staring over his shoulder, and that he can see she isn't listening. Her cheeks burn. She looks at him with determined earnestness, and sees that he has changed his hair. “What have you done?” she asks, brushing at her own forehead.

“I've let the front grow more. It's not really new, Kate. It happens like wheat growing, a little at a time. Only you just noticed.” He leans toward her. “Do I look too ragged?”

“I like it.”

“I'm sorry if I bullied you.”

“I'm sorry if I overreacted.”

They look at one another shyly and sip the fragrant tea. When, in a few moments, they both set their cups down on the glass at the same time, they laugh. She thinks, he's a nice man. He likes me, and the more he shows it, the worse I act. It is mystifying. I am a bitch, she thinks. It doesn't bother her to know so, she just wonders when Jeff will see it for himself.

“I bought tapes,” he says.

“What group?” He likes jazz, singers she never has heard of. Maybe they are contemporary, and she isn't.

“French tapes. I started listening to one last night.
Comment-allez vous, Je voudrais
, that elementary stuff.”

“Is it coming back to you?”

“Perfectly. I remember how in high school I used to memorize everything, and then the teacher and the tapes went too fast and I never recognized anything as it went by.”

“You have to have a gift for it, like for music. I don't.”

“I'll be in the Bordeaux region for the September harvest. Then maybe I'll stay on and go to Italy. I bought Italian tapes, too, on impulse. Now I'll be incompetent in three languages. I thought-maybe you'd like to come over later, at the end of the summer. When all the college students go home. You could use the tapes if you want.” He shrugs. “It was just an idea.”

Katie doesn't say anything. She doesn't remember anything about Italy, except for martyrs and lions in the Coliseum, and a picture she saw of Mussolini hung upside down.

“There's something I came to tell you,” he says. He has the resolute look of a teacher. He takes a deep breath. “I had a girlfriend once, this was some years ago, when I was first out of college. She smoked, and I hated it. I nagged her about it. Finally she said, ‘Look, smoking is a habit, I'm really hooked, and it would be hard to give it up. If you want me to, then you have to give up something and suffer, too. You have to know what I'm going through.'