Here to Stay (13 page)

“Sure.”

Sissy hated starting things that way, because no doubt Berkeley would soon learn the truth about the reason for her call.

“Hi, Sissy,” Clark greeted her.

She swallowed. Sitting on the couch, she gazed out at the lake. “Clark, I really don’t know how to say this, but Elijah and I have decided you need to know.”

She felt the wariness on the line and attributed it to possible worries about the puppy, unknown genetic troubles, something like that. “My…our…oldest son, Ezra, is your biological son.”

Dead silence. Sissy let it be.

Finally he spoke. “I see.”

“I’m sorry not to mention it till now. I didn’t plan to tell you at all, but Elijah…” She realized she was digging herself in deeper, making a worse impression every moment. She waited, then said, “So…now you know.”

Clark said, “Does the boy know?”

“Well, we’re waiting to…hear your reaction, I suppose.”

“This…Ezra. You know, I looked at him once and thought he looked like my sister’s son. I thought nothing
of it. What?” Sissy heard Berkeley in the background, asking some question. Clark said, “Look, I need to discuss this with Berkeley, but if you’re wondering if I want to be part of his life, I think the answer is yes. If—if it won’t be detrimental to him.”

How could it not be?
Sissy wanted to demand. Elijah and now Clark seemed to think Ezra would simply take it in stride that the man he’d always called Dad was not his father.

Sissy kept her tone discouraging. “If you insist.”

More silence. Clark said at last, “We’ll call you later about this.”

“All right,” Sissy agreed. “We won’t do anything until we hear from you.”

“T
HE DOCTOR SAID
he’s a high-functioning autistic. He thinks it’s something they’re beginning to call after a man named Asperger. Anyhow, there’s nothing to be done. With medication, at least.”

Sissy stared at Elijah. “So what does this mean? Now he’s handicapped and won’t have a normal life?”

Elijah shook his head, whether in agreement or not she couldn’t tell. “It’s just something he has to work his way around. Like all of us do with different things.” He had brought her photocopies of sections about Asperger’s from textbooks in the library. He had given Gene copies as well. “He’s very bright, as we knew.”

“Well, this thing he has about no one touching him—does this mean he’ll never be able to get married or even live on his own?”

“Let’s not map his future out for him as less wonderful than it can be. Our job is to work with his teachers
and make school manageable for him, help him to form the kind of relationships of which he’s capable.”

“With scorpions?” Sissy said.

Elijah gave her a rueful smile. “With people.”

Sissy made herself take slow, deep breaths. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “It’s been a hard day. I talked to Clark.”

“Ah.” A pause. “What did he say?”

“He wants to know him, he thinks, but he hasn’t talked to Berkeley about it. She may have different ideas.”

Elijah considered this. “Thank you,” he said.

“Yes, well.” Sissy saw Eddy begin to stir on the bed, and she picked up the baby. She proceeded to ignore Elijah, speaking to Eddy instead. “You’re wet, aren’t you, sweetheart?”

November 22, 1979

B
Y
T
HANKSGIVING
D
AY
, they still had not heard back from Clark and Berkeley. That morning, Sissy told Elijah tartly, “So it didn’t make any difference at all. It was unnecessary to tell him.”

Elijah bit his tongue before he could say that Sissy was reminding him more of her mother every day. Instead, he told himself that Sissy was under exceptional stress.

For the first time since her father’s death, Heloise Atherton was coming to the house. It was to be a family Thanksgiving gathering—Kennedy’s idea—and she had literally begged Sissy to at least
invite
their mother. Surprisingly Heloise had accepted.

“Which means the house has to be twenty times cleaner and everyone has to be immaculately behaved!” Sissy had told Elijah.

“Don’t worry,” he’d said. “We’ll pitch in and help.” By which he’d meant that he and Ezra would help with the housework, and he would take care of Eddy. Kennedy was arriving at noon to help with the cooking. She and her family would be staying with Sissy’s mother.

Late in the morning, Elijah persuaded Gene to help clean the kennels. Sissy was not sure how he managed to do it. Elijah left the boy to it and came back inside. Sissy said, “Is he really cleaning the kennel?”

“Yes. It’s Oak’s, and he said he would do it if he was the only one allowed to keep it clean, and I said it was a deal.”

“Only if he does a good enough job,” Sissy warned.

“I think he will. I think he wants to be able to control the area.”

Soon after, they heard Kennedy’s car outside, and she and Gerry came in with their two daughters Ellen and Jessica.

Gene came inside after the family. He looked at them and said, “You’re getting fat, Aunt Kennedy.”

Sissy shut her eyes, opened them and considered infanticide. “Go to your room,” she said.

Gene looked puzzled and angry.

Kennedy, who indeed had gained some weight since her second pregnancy, steadied her wavering chin and set down toddler Jessica, whom she had carried inside.

Elijah said, “Let’s go to your room, Gene.”

In Gene’s room, he sat on his son’s bed.

“Why did I have to come in here?” Gene asked. “It wasn’t a lie.”

Gene never lied. His mind didn’t work that way.

“It hurt Aunt Kennedy’s feelings.”

Gene stared at Elijah, he couldn’t comprehend what Elijah was saying.

“So I’d like you to say that you’re sorry.”

Gene didn’t answer. Instead, he went to look at one of his scorpions in its plastic homemade terrarium. “I have two female scorpions,” he said.

Elijah said, “I’m talking about your aunt’s feelings, Gene. Do you like to have your feelings hurt?”

“I thought there were three females, but there are only two.”

Elijah said, “I would like you to please tell Aunt Kennedy that you’re sorry.”

“Her feelings will still be hurt,” Gene said matter-of-factly.

An astute remark—and on the subject. “Nonetheless. Or…you could say something nice to her.”

This possibility seemed beyond Gene.

Elijah said, “Can you think about that?”

Gene said, “Only scorpions have pectines. They’re mechanoreceptors and contact chemoreceptors.”

Elijah felt abruptly exhausted. Gene would talk about scorpions on and on.
How can I teach him to get along with people?

The most intransigent dog-training problem he could imagine seemed simple in comparison.

H
ELOISE
A
THERTON LOOKED
at the railing on the deck and sniffed. “This is rather nice. Who did it for you?”

“Elijah did it,” Sissy told her mother. Every fiber of her being was tense.

Heloise said nothing. Gene had come outside
carrying two pillows. There’d been no snow yet this year, and Elijah had left the furniture out. Now Gene sat on one of the wood deck chairs with pillows strangely covering him and read the telephone book. Sissy wanted to protect Gene from any barbs Heloise might throw at him. On the other hand, Gene seemed impervious to most cruel remarks.

Heloise did seem to be staring at Gene critically, but all she said was, “My brother used to do that.”

“Read the phone book?” asked Sissy.

“No,” replied Heloise. “The pillows.”

Sissy blinked at her mother, who hadn’t sounded condemnatory. Tolerance of Gene’s eccentricities was the last thing she’d expected. “Uncle John?” she asked.

Her mother shook his head. “Timothy.”

Uncle Timothy, the strange uncle whom Sissy had never met. Uncle Timothy lived alone, and her mother and Uncle John paid to have a woman come in and clean.

“But he’s an engineer,” Sissy said, then realized she’d revealed too much of her fears for Gene.

“Of course he is. Maybe your child will be, too.”

“Gene,” Sissy supplied, supposing that her mother had forgotten his name.

“Yes, I know,” Heloise said and turned away.

Sissy made herself speak. “He has Asperger’s, some kind of autism.”

Gene did not look up, and she cursed herself for speaking of him as though he wasn’t present.

“Nonsense,” said her mother.

Gene never looked up, just continued reading the phone book.

Kennedy’s husband, Gerry, came outside, stood
behind Gene’s chair, reached down and ruffled his hair. “How are you doing, buddy?”

Gene squirmed away, took his phone books and pillows, and went toward the dog kennels.

Gerry gave Sissy an apologetic look. “I forgot he hates to be touched.”

“There are a lot of people here,” she said, “for him.”

Her mother gazed after Gene, watching him open one of the kennels, step inside and close it behind him.

G
ENE EMERGED
from the kennel to join the rest of the family at the dinner table late that afternoon. He brought a book about scorpions to the dinner table. Elijah asked him to put it away while they ate. Gene put it in his lap and covered it with a napkin. After everyone filled their plates and grace was said, Ezra talked with Gerry about his science class in school. Gene butted in to tell nearly everything he knew about scorpions. Gerry asked Ezra a question about his studies, and Gene talked above Ezra about scorpions.

Both Sissy and Elijah urged him to let Ezra speak.

Gene climbed down from his chair, took his book and walked away from the table in robotic fashion. A bit later, he went outside to the kennels again with his blanket and pillows.

Sissy thought briefly about Ezra, about the fact he was Clark’s son and they still didn’t know if Clark wanted anything to do with him. Had Clark told Berkeley? Did Berkeley object to Clark’s having a relationship with Ezra? She imagined telling her mother the truth someday and wanted to groan aloud. Instead, she offered the cranberry sauce around again.

T
HE LIGHTS WERE
OFF in the kennels when Heloise Atherton opened the gate, in search of her grandson Gene. She found him in the doghouse, pillows piled on top of him, with his blanket. He was reading with a penlight.

She looked at him, remembering her brother Timothy at that age, remembering long-ago things, her mother screaming that there was nothing to be done with him. Timothy had liked Heloise. He’d come up with crazy schemes, antics, like making dummies and placing them in surprising places in the house. She sat down on the cold concrete, which was as immaculate as the concrete in her own kennels. She said, “What do you like to do?”

Gene sat up. “I like scorpions. Would you like to see my scorpions? I’m going to earn money and buy a tarantula.”

The dogs have favorite songs and favorite artists. Louis Armstrong was a favorite with Teddy, while his daughter Martha seemed to be a Joni Mitchell fan, always emerging from wherever she’d been to come into the room when she heard
Both Sides Now
played on the stereo.

—Crossover Language,
Elijah Workman, 1990

June 4, 1981

C
LARK NEVER PHONED
,
and when Elijah saw him at a dog show more than a year later, Clark gave a shake of his head which seemed to say,
I’m letting it go.
And both Sissy and Elijah had noticed that Berkeley seemed not to want Clark to talk to them anymore.

So long had passed since they’d heard from him that Elijah, like Sissy, had begun to accept that Clark had decided to leave things with Ezra as they were. Nonetheless, for Elijah, telling Clark the truth about Ezra had eased his mind a bit, and he’d started to believe Sissy’s explanation that she hadn’t told the truth from the start because she’d been afraid of losing his love.

Also, he’d begun to wonder whether it really would
be the best thing for Ezra to know about Clark. Ezra was well-adjusted, the model oldest child, polite and cooperative at school, smart, handsome.

In the past months, Gene had changed, too. At first, when Sissy and Elijah had seen signs that Gene was beginning to learn how to make appropriate responses to people, to learn a minimum of social normalcy, they’d been pleased. But Elijah had also noticed that his being more comfortable with people, which would never save him from being considered a nerd and wouldn’t stop him from repetitive behaviors like twirling his pencils or hopping on one leg for extended periods, had been accompanied by an alarming awareness of the way the minds of others worked. He seemed to understand their fears, which had begun to result in frequent conflicts between him and Ezra.

Ezra was afraid of scorpions, spiders and centipedes, all of which Gene liked. Gene also knew what would upset his older brother and almost arranged for such things to happen. Elijah discovered quite by accident that Gene was blackmailing his brother out of his allowance by threatening to tell everyone at school about the time that Ezra had wet his pants in the Christmas pageant. Gene put a large slug on Ezra’s chair at the breakfast table, and Ezra sat down without looking.

Sissy had told Elijah that she worried that their younger son was becoming a sociopath. Elijah had begun to feel uneasy about the pranks that Gene found funny. There was nothing Elijah could do but take away privileges. Gene was forced to pay Ezra his own allowance for the length of time he’d blackmailed Ezra. Grounding him was not particularly meaningful, as
Gene had few friends, other than just one other boy who was interested in computers and chemistry.

One Wednesday evening early in June, when Gene had gone out on his bicycle, which he’d just learned to ride the month before, Elijah paused at the door to his room, planning to close it to improve the air-conditioner’s effectiveness. He glanced inside curiously, seeing the usual immaculate order. Gene always put things down in his room in exactly the same place from where he’d picked them up. He emptied his own wastebasket each evening before bed.

It was the wastebasket which caught Elijah’s eye.

It was nearly overflowing because Gene hadn’t yet emptied it. He must have been busy with paper today, and Elijah stepped in to glance in the trash bin, hoping to see that Gene had been working quadratic equations or continuing his study of chemistry, things which fascinated him already, when his classmates were still learning long division.

Instead, Elijah caught sight of a half-crumpled note written in Gene’s untidy scrawl, amidst magazine pages with shapes cut out.

No, not shapes. Letters.

What Elijah could read of the writing said,
If you want the negatives of you and Mrs. McCormick, put 100 USD—

If Elijah had never heard of Mrs. McCormick, he might have dismissed this as part of some game. But Mrs. McCormick, the whole neighborhood suspected, needed less constant attention than she was receiving from the minister who stopped by her house most weekday afternoons. So Sissy said. And Gene did own a camera, an inexpensive point-and-shoot instamatic.

Elijah imagined telling Sissy that Gene had moved on to blackmailing adults. He peered around Gene’s desk, looking for the photographs, but he found none. Gene had been unusually sloppy in letting his note be found.

The phone rang, and Elijah, who was alone in the house because Ezra was at a Cub Scout meeting and Sissy had taken Eddy to the grocery store, went to answer it.

“Elijah, it’s Clark.” When Elijah didn’t answer immediately, Clark clarified, “Clark Treffinger-Hart.”

Elijah tensed slightly but made his voice warm. “Hello, Clark. Good to hear from you.”

“You must think the worst of me.” When Elijah didn’t immediately respond, he added, “Not doing anything about Ezra. You know.”

“I don’t feel that way,” Elijah said, but admitted, “I did wonder if there were problems with your wife. If perhaps she wanted your lives to stay as they were.”

“That sums it up,” Clark said, “but it’s no longer an issue. Well, I shouldn’t say that. We’ve recently adopted an eight-month-old baby, and it has changed her feelings. She believes she can love Ezra as much as she does Anne—that’s our baby.”

Elijah thought this over. “I can see it would make a difference.”

“Does Ezra know? That I’m his biological father?”

“No,” Elijah replied. “Not yet. But I guess that’s the next thing to do.”

But, in fact, the next thing was to tell Sissy.

S
ISSY STARED
at the bulletin board outside the market. She had just rearranged all the flyers to make room for her own.

TRAIN YOUR DOG THIS SUMMER CLASSES IN OBEDIENCE, AGILITY, RALLY & BREED

Elijah wasn’t happy with her decision to quit her job at the high school to return to training dogs full-time. He hadn’t liked her explanation that she felt her life had been too unfocused, that she needed to devote herself completely and entirely to dogs. Her quitting teaching drama meant giving up valuable benefits as a drama and speech teacher. Elijah’s at the Humane Society were not nearly as good.

But she wanted to be more available to the children, especially Eddy, but also—for what help it might offer—Gene. It was possible that she and Elijah would have no more children. She didn’t want to miss any more time with those she had.

Sissy pushed Eddy and her groceries to the car. She unloaded the groceries into the back of the used Volvo station wagon, plucked Eddy from the cart and happened to glance across the lot.

Her eyes met her mother’s at the same time, and Sissy waved. “There’s Grandma El.” It was what Eddy called Heloise Atherton.

Heloise had just gotten out of her Buick; she locked the car and hurried to her daughter.

Since the Thanksgiving Heloise had come to the lakefront house, things had improved between them. For some reason, Heloise particularly liked Gene. This was the last thing Sissy would have expected, but it pleased her, despite Gene’s often diabolical behavior.

Her mother said crisply, “Hello, Kennedy. Hello, Sissy.”

“Hi, Mom.”

“How’s your bitch?”

Sissy knew her mother meant Julia and was touched that she’d asked. But Sissy could not speak. Tears sprang to her eyes. “We put her down.” Julia was buried with Teddy and Whiteout in the cemetery they’d created on the hilly area farthest from the lake.

Heloise nodded curtly.

Sissy composed herself, glanced at her mother and realized that Heloise seemed tense and preoccupied.

“Is something wrong?” Sissy asked.

“No,” her mother snapped.

Sissy had the distinct feeling that Heloise wanted to say something to her, but for some reason was holding off. Her mother was sixty-seven now and not the strong woman she’d once been. She’d seemed to grow thin and brittle with the years. Sissy often wondered how she coped alone with the demands of running a German shepherd kennel. Shepherds were large dogs, strong. Heloise no longer showed them herself in Breed, could not run fast enough in the ring.

Sissy reflected now that her mother had also been nicer to Elijah since she’d taken to Gene. And abruptly, for the first time in years, she felt sorry for Heloise. “Are you managing all right with the kennels, Mom?”

“Of course,” snapped her mother, making Sissy regret she’d said anything. “I have an assistant. Actually,” she added, “I wanted to ask your Gene if he’d like the chance to earn some money. He could be a help. I see what a good job he does with your sable’s kennel run.”

Sissy had more than one sable, but knew that Heloise meant Oak, arguably the finest dog Sissy had. Thinking of Gene’s typical methods of “earning money”—blackmailing his brother, pretending to collect for the “Echo Springs Children’s Project” (a charity of his own creation whose beneficiary was Gene Workman)—Sissy wondered if helping his grandmother would appeal. Caring for Oak’s kennel was one of his chores, and he did it with pride and a certain possessiveness.

She suggested, “Why don’t you call him on the phone and ask him?”

“I think I may,” Heloise replied and gazed critically at Eddy. “Well, none of your children are bad-looking, Sissy,” she said at last. “I suppose I’ll see you next weekend.”

There was a show in Des Moines.

“Yes,” Sissy said. “I’d like to have Elijah there, but someone needs to stay home with Gene.”

“He’s been going to shows all his life,” objected Heloise.

“He doesn’t like traveling,” Sissy replied. And Gene had begun behaving so bizarrely at shows that Sissy found herself embarrassed. Everyone must wonder what she and Elijah were doing to him to make him act that way. When she’d told Elijah that, he’d said that people should be more sensitive and tolerant.

Her mother said, “My mother never liked Timothy because he wasn’t affectionate with her.”

Sissy opened her mouth to say that of course she liked Gene, if her mother was implying that she did not. Her mother hadn’t sounded sympathetic to anyone, just matter-of-fact.

Sissy pressed her lips tightly together and said, “Well, we need to get home.”

G
ENE RODE RESENTFULLY
in the car beside his father to retrieve the note from Reverend Marshall’s house. Gene had pushed it through the mailbox, and he didn’t see why his father couldn’t simply call the Reverend and tell him he didn’t have to pay the money.

Gene resented the whole thing because when he’d blackmailed Ezra, his mother had told him indignantly that wetting his pants was something Ezra had not been able to help at the time, and that it was wrong to take advantage of people like that.

Gene had asked his father whether there was some reason Reverend Marshall couldn’t help carrying on with someone’s wife.

His father said that wasn’t the case but that it was wrong—and illegal—to blackmail people. But Gene needed money, so now he was going to have to think of a new way to get some. His mother had said she would pay him for pulling weeds, five cents a weed. That, in Gene’s opinion, was extremely cheap—worker mistreatment—so he’d decided to rip the weeds in two to double the money he could get out of them. But it still wasn’t enough.

What Gene wanted was his own business, and he knew what kind. He would breed and sell arachnids. There were businesses devoted to selling tarantulas, for instance. Less money in scorpions unfortunately, but centipedes might be good. And he needed money to purchase breeding stock. But his parents kept taking away his allowance.

The preacher lived alone, and his car was in front of the rectory when they drove up.

Elijah said, “Let’s go.”

“No,” said Gene.

Elijah took a deep breath. He’d had time to think about this. “Okay,” he said. “You have a choice. We can go up there, and you can tell the Reverend to disregard the note he received, or there’s an alternative.
I
will talk to the man. Then, when we return home, you will get a taste of what it’s like to be in jail.”

“You’ll ground me?” asked Gene.

There was no inflection in his voice, but Elijah sensed his interest.

“No,” Elijah replied. “What you have done—twice now—is illegal. I told you earlier when you blackmailed your brother that it’s against the law.”

“No, it’s not.”

Elijah looked at him.

“You blackmail Mother all the time if she’s acting in a way you don’t like. You ignore her.”

Elijah was amazed at the sophistication of this statement from someone whose emotions were supposed to be so different from everyone else’s. “In those instances, I’m not blackmailing your mother. I’m angry. That’s the best I can…do about it.”

Turning off the engine at the curb, he glanced at his son. Gene seemed to be thinking over what he’d said.

“In any case,” Elijah continued, “it’s not an acceptable way to earn money. So—your experience in ‘jail’ will not be like being grounded. Your pets, books and possessions will be removed from your room and you’ll be confined there. Your mother or I or Ezra will take
over your jobs—cleaning Oak’s kennel, for instance. People in jail are not allowed to keep their jobs on the outside.” He looked at Gene. “Which is it to be?”

Gene opened his car door.

Elijah hid his relief, then decided that revealing his own feelings wouldn’t matter. Gene was only thinking of his own situation and what would be most uncomfortable for him.

“H
E SAID
,” Elijah told Sissy late that evening in their bedroom, “and I quote, ‘My father explained to me that it’s wrong to blackmail people, so you don’t have to pay the money.’”

Sissy closed her eyes. “And he’d already gotten the note?”

“Oh, yes,” said Elijah.

Carry jumped up on the bed. Carry, formerly Pink Girl, had earned her name by carrying things around in her mouth. She was the most promising puppy yet to come out of Genesis lines. She was black-and-tan, short-backed with a very nice croup and excellent side gait. She was also a clown. Virtually everything had potential as a toy where Carry was concerned.

Sissy told her, “Off,” and made sure she got down from the bed. “What about these photographs?”

“Gene gave them to me, and I’ve destroyed them and the negatives.”