Heartwood (25 page)

“And you can’t call me Deborah, even though that would be more dignified,” Debbie had said during her first student meeting with Iris. Then she’d rolled her eyes. She wasn’t a pretty girl, but Iris liked her sense of humor. “It’s just plain Debbie, because, heaven help me, I was named after Debbie Reynolds.”

Now Debbie joined Iris and they walked together down the hall toward Iris’s classroom. They were chatting about the summer, when Debbie said, out of the blue, “By the way, that woman who writes about lifestyles—Laura McAllister—she’s your daughter, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“I met her this summer … well, I guess it was more like I saw her. At first I couldn’t believe it was her. I mean, we were in the dining room of this old horror of a hotel in the middle of nowhere. My family was there because my dad is really cheap, but I couldn’t figure out what she’d be doing in a place like that. She’d just been on television talking about her book—the one that everyone is buying now. But when I saw her it wasn’t out yet.”

The book had been published a month ago. And Laura’s interview with
Good Day USA
had been on the air about two weeks before that. Iris tried to think back to the end of the summer. She was positive Laura hadn’t mentioned going anywhere. “Are you sure it was my daughter?” she asked.

“Oh yes, it was at breakfast, and Mom got her autograph for me on a napkin. I didn’t put it together then that she was your daughter or I probably would have gone over and introduced myself.”

Something cold and nasty stirred in the back of Iris’s brain, but she pushed it a way. Debbie was wrong. She had to be …

“Although I might not have interrupted her,” Debbie went
on. “She and her husband were so happy just being alone with each other. You could tell it was like a second honeymoon or something.”

Laura’s husband? A second honeymoon? Robby had been in Ohio all summer long.

“Forgive me for saying so, Professor, but your son-in-law is yummy! He and your daughter make a beautiful couple, she’s so pale and patrician-looking and he’s a little bit wild, with all that curly black hair falling in his face.”

Robby’s hair was light brown, and cut short. The photographer … Nick … had had black hair. The cold nastiness filled Iris’s brain again and she flashed back to Steven’s wedding. She’d watched Laura say good-bye to Nick at the end of the day, and she’d had the feeling that there was something … But she hadn’t wanted to believe it. But now …

She and her husband were so happy just being alone with each other … it was like a second honeymoon
, that was what Debbie had just said. Only it hadn’t been Laura’s husband, and it wasn’t a second honeymoon. Suddenly Iris felt dizzy.

“Professor Stern? Are you okay?” Debbie looked worried. “I’m sorry, if it was out of line for me to say that …”

I’m scaring the girl
, Iris thought wildly.
I can’t let her see how upset I am. I can’t let anyone see. I never could hide my feelings. Why didn’t I learn to do that?

“I just meant … you could see how much in love they are. And they’ve been married for a long time too.” Poor Debbie dug the hole deeper.

“Please excuse …” Iris managed to gasp. “Forgot something … my office.” She ran down the hallway, leaving the bewildered Debbie looking after her.

Somehow Iris got through the rest of the day. She taught her
classes, and she managed to make sense when colleagues and students talked to her. But all the time in the back of her mind were the words “you could see how much in love they are.” And in her imagination she saw her daughter and the photographer standing in the doorway of Laura’s house.

–—

“You don’t know she’s having an affair, Iris,” Theo said.

“Of course she is! She went away to have a horrid, ugly little … tryst. With that man, that
Nick
!” Iris spat the name out.

“You don’t even know for certain that it was Laura your student saw at that hotel.”

“Laura signed an autograph for her.”

“Maybe Laura decided to get away for a weekend and she ran into—what is his name? Nick?—while she was there.”

“The hotel was an old wreck, Theo! The kind of place where you go to hide, not for a relaxing vacation. What are the chances of the two of them just happening to decide to go to a place like that at the same time? And they were having breakfast together.”

“Still, there could be an explanation.”

“You know better than that.” What she did not say was,
You, of all people, know
.

But he understood. “All right,” he said. “Say she is having an affair … I can understand it, Iris, and you should too.”

“She’s married!”

“She was too young when she married Robby McAllister. I said so at the time.”

“Robby was a fine young man … a remarkable young man, we both agreed on that.”

“He
was
. Do you like the man Robby is today?”

That stopped her. But just for a moment. “You don’t get married for better or for better, that isn’t what the vow says.”

“Oh Iris, my dear! You know very well that a vow is made in a vacuum. A life is lived every day, and sometimes the things we thought we could do, we can’t.”

She listened to him, and thought angrily,
This is how he excused his own infidelities over the years. This is the way all liars and cheaters do it
.

“So what should I have done during our hard times, Theo? Should I have walked away? Had an affair?”

“Of course not.”

I almost did once, although you never knew it, my dear husband. I didn’t go through with it because I’m not like you. I didn’t find excuses, although I had plenty. I didn’t cheat because I have honor. And now, God help me, it looks as if my daughter, of whom I have always been so proud, takes after you
. The bitter words came to her lips and tongue. Words she was surprised to find she still could have said after all the years. But she wouldn’t say those words because she had learned the hard way how little good they did. And how much harm. And besides, Theo, who she loved in spite of everything, wasn’t a well man, and she shouldn’t argue with him like this.

“I had such a good example growing up,” she said more calmly. “I saw how a couple could pull together. My mother stood by my father during the worst of times, when he lost everything, she never said one word of complaint. And even when the money was coming in again, Papa wasn’t the easiest husband. But she brought out the best in him. She put up with his failings and she loved him devotedly.”

There was a pause, Theo seemed lost in his own thoughts.
Finally he said, “Your father was a mensch. He was worthy of her devotion.”

But not necessarily her love
, Theo added to himself.
He wasn’t the right man for your beautiful, cultured mother. I think I always knew that, in the same way that I knew Paul Werner
was
the right man for her after he told me the truth
.

Life is messy, Iris, and humans cannot always live by the rules. You don’t want to accept that, but I think you know it’s true
.

Iris’s voice broke into Theo’s thoughts. “I’m going to talk to Laura.”

“No!”

“Of course I will. I’m her mother, I have to make her see that what she’s doing is wrong.”

“You think she doesn’t know?”

Or maybe it isn’t wrong. I’m glad Paul and Anna stole whatever few moments of joy they could get. I think it was a tragedy that they didn’t have more
.

“Leave it alone, Iris. I’m begging you.”

“I don’t want my daughter sneaking off to be with her lover!”

And I don’t want her to wind up like her grandmother
.

“She’ll find her way, Iris. She’s a good, honorable person and she’ll do what’s right if you leave her alone. You have to believe that.” His heart was starting to pound now, he shouldn’t have let himself get so excited.

Iris saw it. “Let me get your oxygen …”

But he waved that aside. “I’m saying this as much for your sake as for Laura’s. Because someday the children will be all you have.”

“I don’t want to hear such talk.”

“Then promise me you will not say one word of this to Laura.”

“All right, I promise. Whatever you want.”

–—

Iris had given her word. And she would keep it. But in the days that followed whenever she talked to Laura on the phone she had to bite her tongue until she thought it would bleed.
How could you do this to me?
she wanted to scream.
Don’t you know that cheating is the one thing I can’t bear?

A part of her brain knew that she was overreacting, but it didn’t seem to matter. She tried to make sense of her feelings. In the evenings, after her day’s work was done, she would run a hot bath and soak in it, hoping to soothe away her anger. But her longtime panacea didn’t help.
Why? s
he asked herself.
Why am I taking this so much to heart? Of course it is not something any mother wants to hear about her child, but I’m too upset
.

I’m worried about Katie, that’s why I’m feeling this way. That child picks up on things. No matter how clever Laura is, no matter how much she thinks she is getting away with this, Katie will know something is wrong. A sensitive little girl will always know
.

But even though the concern about Katie was real, Iris finally had to be honest with herself. She was furious because she felt betrayed by Laura. And so when Laura and Katie came for their usual Sunday night dinner, Iris wasn’t sure how she was going to get through the meal.

–—

Sunday dinner at Grandma Iris’s house was usually one of Katie’s favorite times. Her grandmother wasn’t the kind of great cook that Mom was, but Katie liked the food she served. It
was plain and easy to eat; dishes like meatloaf and baked potatoes. Most of all Katie liked the good feelings that were in the air when her mother and her grandparents were together. They really liked one another. At least, they used to. But tonight something was wrong with Grandma Iris. Katie frowned. It seemed something was wrong with someone all of the time lately. Right now, Grandma Iris was barely talking to Mom and when she did say something her voice was harsh. Grandpa Theo was watching Grandma like he was afraid she was going to explode or something, which wasn’t good for him, because the doctors had said he shouldn’t have a lot of stress after his heart attack.

Katie had had it. It seemed to her as if all the adults were sad and angry and there was nothing anyone could do for them. She tuned out the sound of their voices, and turned away from her grandmother’s frowning face. Her eyes landed on a picture hanging in the place of honor on the wall behind the head of the dining room table. It was a portrait of her grandmother’s mother—her name had been Anna Friedman—and it was one of Grandma Iris’s most cherished possessions. It had been on the wall for as long as Katie could remember.

Great-grandmother Anna had died before Katie was born but there were a whole lot of stories about her in the family. Everyone said Mom was just like her. Mom certainly looked like her, Katie thought as she studied the portrait, and the gown Great-grandmother was wearing in the picture was something Mom would have chosen too. Mom liked full skirts that kind of swished around her legs when she walked and this gown’s skirt looked like it would do that, plus it was pink, which was Mom’s favorite color.

Her mother was sitting at the far end of the table, telling
Grandpa Theo about the
Good Day USA
television show asking her to do a segment twice a week. Katie looked back and forth between her mom and the portrait on the wall. It was strange that a dead person could look so much like someone who was still alive, and you could see it in the painting. Then she remembered another painting that resembled someone she knew.

“Mom,” she called out. “Did you ever tell Grandma Iris about that picture we saw in the thrift shop?”

“I don’t think your grandmother would be interested in that,” Mom said really fast, at the same time that Grandma Iris said, “What picture, Katie?”

“It’s in that thrift shop on Madison Avenue—the one where they give all the money they make to the hospital where Grandpa Theo used to work. It’s a painting of a woman and she looks just like you, Grandma.”

“There’s not that much of a resemblance,” Mom said.

“Yes there is. You even said so yourself, Mom.” She turned to her grandmother. “The woman in the picture is wearing old-fashioned clothes, and she’s kind of stuck-up looking, which you aren’t at all. But her face is like yours—her nose and her mouth, and especially her eyes. They’re big and dark—”

“A lot of people have dark eyes,” her mother broke in.

What was Mom doing? It was like she was saying Katie was a liar, when she was only reporting what they’d both seen. “But this woman’s eyes were shaped like yours,” Katie said to her grandmother, determined to make her point. “And you know yours aren’t like everyone else’s. You really should see it, Grandma.”

“Don’t be silly, Katie,” Mom said. “She has much better things to do with her time.”

But Grandma Iris said, “If Katie thinks it looks so much like
me, maybe I’ll make the time to see it. Where did you say the shop was?”

“It’s on Madison Avenue, on the same cross street as the Metropolitan Museum. Oh, and that’s another thing—when Mom and I asked the saleslady if she knew the name of the woman in the picture, she didn’t. But the woman who donated it used to have a store right near where this thrift shop is now. And it was a place where you and your mother used to buy your clothes … it had a French name. Shay something.”

“Chez Lea?”

“Yes, that’s it.”

“For heaven’s sake,” Grandma Iris said. “I haven’t thought about that place in years. Yes, absolutely I will go to that thrift shop and have a look at your mystery painting, Katie. I have a dentist’s appointment in the city a week from next Wednesday, and I’ll do it then.” She turned to Katie’s mom. “It’s on Madison Avenue, one block over from the museum—right, Laura?”

Mom nodded, but she looked really upset. What was wrong with her? And what was wrong with Grandpa Theo? Suddenly, Katie realized he’d been quiet the whole time they’d been talking about the picture, and that was unusual because he always had an opinion on everything. She turned to him. It seemed to her that his face was kind of white. And he was holding on to the side of the table.