Home Song (31 page)

“And now I'm facing your illegitimate son every day, and not only him but the gossips, and the curiosity seekers, and—yes, I'll admit it—the come-ons of John Handelman, which are quite embarrassing for me, because I don't know quite how to handle them. Do you think this is what I want, Tom?
Do you?
”

He had been looking down into her face. The longer she spoke, the more he realized his problems wouldn't be solved by storming into their house and tossing her on a bed. He fell to his back with an arm over his eyes.

She said quietly, “I want things to be like they were. Only
they'll never be again. There are moments when I hate you for doing that to us.”

He swallowed hard. His desire had faded, in its place a hollow yearning, a fear that he had trivialized what she was going through and would pay for it with the loss of her and his children.

She dragged herself to the edge of the bed and sat with her back to him, making no move to go further. He lay on the rumpled bedspread, hiding beneath his upflung arm because he was afraid of what he might read in her face when he asked the question he had so feared asking. “Do you want a divorce, Claire? Is that what you want?”

She sighed and sat silent for so long that he finally let his arm fall.

“I don't know,” she said softly, so softly he realized the depth of the danger into which their marriage had been thrust. He lay studying her with love and hurt and fear forming a knot in his throat. He had messed her hair. It had been fluffed and soft when he came in, but now it was flattened against her skull like a used pillow.

He sat up, braced on one hand with his shoulder close behind hers so she couldn't see his face. He touched her hair, tried to restore its shape, but failed.

“Claire, I'm sorry.”

Though she made no reply, he knew she believed him. The pitiful part was that she could not forgive him.

“We have to work this out somehow,” he said. “Don't you see that?”

“Yes.”

“Will you go to counseling with me?”

She sat forlornly, staring at her knees, her feet not quite touching the floor. She nodded dispassionately as if she'd
given up, and he closed his eyes, restraining a sigh of relief, letting his chin sink to his chest.

“But I think you'd better take that apartment, Tom.”

He opened his eyes in surprise. “Now? Before the holidays? Please, Claire . . .”

“Take it, Tom.” She got off the bed and went to the bathroom to repair her hair and makeup. He let himself fall back and lay staring at the texturized ceiling where the lamplight slanted and put oversized shadows behind each tiny lump. She ran the water, turned it off. Her cosmetics made small sounds—a compact opening, closing; a mascara wand dropping into a drawer; the drawer closing. A sniff from her, then a tissue being extracted from a box. Though he still stared at the ceiling, he knew when she came to the bathroom doorway and stood looking at him.

“I have to go,” she said calmly.

His insides twisted in fear. He'd thought she wouldn't be able to face going out after the emotional wringer he'd just put them through. But she was stalwart in her attempt to move on without him, for a while anyway.

He remained where he was. “I'll just stay here awhile, if that's all right with you.”

“As long as you're gone by the time I come home.”

“Don't worry, I will be.”

“All right then. Do you want me to leave the light on?”

“No, you can turn it off.”

She snapped off the bathroom light and went out, switching on the hall light, her belated consideration wounding him in a way she would never know. She went downstairs without a further word, and when she reached the bottom turned off the upstairs light, leaving him in darkness.

P
ARENT
-
TEACHER
conferences were going to shorten the school week, so Claire had extended play practice for an additional hour on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. They had all worked hard and the kids were uncomplaining about spending the extra time at school. However, they were overjoyed at the prospect of having four days off without practice. The backdrops had been finished with the cooperation of the art department, and the set promised to look extraordinarily convincing. Some mothers had done volunteer sewing, and the costumes were coming together beautifully. Tickets had been printed up, and the local newspaper had sent a photographer, who got some good photos for a rousing article about the entire project. It had appeared in this morning's paper and given the entire cast and crew stuff to crow about. The mood was upbeat when the gang broke up at eleven o'clock that Wednesday night.

It had become habit for Claire and John to walk out to their cars together. The parking lot was deserted at this hour of the night. Scudding white clouds drifted past a half-moon,
blotting its reflection off the roofs of the two cars parked near each other.

“Good night, John,” Claire said, passing his car without slowing.

“Good night.”

She was unlocking her car door when he said at her shoulder, “You in a hurry to get home, Claire?”

She spun with a hand on her heart.

“Lord, John, you scared me half to death.”

“Sorry. I didn't mean to. Could I buy you a cup of coffee?”

“At this time of night?”

“Well, how about a glass of Coke?” When she remained hesitant, he added cajolingly, “Glass of milk? . . . Water?”

“I don't think so, John. It's after eleven and tomorrow's going to be a long day. You know how conferences are. By this time tomorrow night I'll be hoarse and grouchy.”

“Then it's better that we have that drink now, isn't it?” When she still hesitated, he said, “I'm just all keyed up tonight. Everything went so well, and the kids are being such good sports. I'm enjoying the class play very much and I want it to last. What do you say—just half an hour?”

“No, John, I'm sorry.”

“Are you still scared I'll make a move on you?”

“When did I say I was scared?”

“You don't have to say it. It shows.”

“Oh, I . . . I didn't realize that.”

“You practically jumped out of your skin when I came up behind you.”

Yes, she had.

“Claire, I know you're very much aware of me. A man senses these things.”

“Please, John, I have to go.” She bent as if to unlock her
car, but with a gentle grip on her arm he turned her to face him.

“Would you just tell me, Claire, what's the status between you and Tom?”

She sighed and let her weight settle back against the car door. “We're apart. He's living with his father but he's going to be getting an apartment soon. I've agreed to start joint counseling with him.”

“Do you still love him?”

Nobody had asked her that since she'd left Tom. It felt quite good to think about it and come up with the right answer.

“Yes, John, I do.”

John leaned forward, resting the heels of his hands on the car roof on either side of her shoulders, stapling her loosely into place.

“Well, I'm going to take a chance and tell you something that I hope will change your mind about me. When I first came here to teach, I was coming off a relationship that had absolutely annihilated me. I'd been engaged to a woman who had an affair with somebody else and gave me back my ring. I caught them in bed together in the apartment Sally and I shared. My self-esteem was about as low as it could go when I met you. But you encouraged me to talk, and you said that what she'd done was reprehensible and that I must not let it defeat me. Remember how you used to tell me that she wasn't the only fish in the sea, and just because one woman had treated me like crap, that didn't mean they all would? We used to stand there between our classroom doors, and I swear to God, I almost went crazy, waiting for that bell to ring at the end of every hour so I could beat it out there and see you. All I could think about was getting to you, talking to you, because everything you said about
relationships and commitment was the way I wanted it to be, and you were teaching me so many important lessons.”

His voice softened. “I fell in love with you, Claire, so many years ago—what is it now? Ten? Eleven? I fell in love with you, and I watched you and Tom smile at each other when you'd meet in the halls, and I'd ache because I couldn't tell you how I felt.

“I did the honorable thing, Claire. I never once spoke my feelings. I wouldn't have dishonored you that way—because to me it would have been a dishonor to imply that you were susceptible to my advances.

“But now things have changed. All right, you say you still love him, but you're living apart, and I've been waiting to meet some woman who measures up to you, but nobody comes close. So here I am, taking the only chance I might have in my lifetime to lay it on the line and tell you how I feel.

“I love you, Claire. I've loved you for a very long time, and if there's any chance in the world for me, this old heart of mine feels like you'd be saving its life if you'd say so right now.”

“Oh, John.” She had not imagined the depth of his feelings. “I didn't know.”

“I told you, Claire, I didn't want you to know. I'm not that kind of man who'd try to seduce a happily married woman.”

“But don't you see, John? Happily or not, I'm still married.”

“But there are mitigating circumstances, aren't there?”

“Not really. Not where vows are concerned.”

He studied her at point-blank range by moonlight, their faces so close the shadow of his head darkened her chin. “What if I kissed you?”

“It would complicate our work relationship.”

“So what? It's been complicated for me for over ten years. Would you be angry if I did?”

“I have to go, John.” She made a motion as if to pull away from the car door but he remained as before, hemming her in.

“Would you be angry? Because if you will be, I'm not going to risk it.”

She released one nervous huff of laughter. “John Handelman, you know exactly what you're doing, don't you? I'm not made of wood. I am, after all, susceptible to compliments and flattery, especially when they're accompanied by an honest declaration of feelings. If you think I'm not reacting here, guess again. But I can't say yes. I'm married.”

“You're separated.”

“Not legally.”

“Only emotionally.” He gave her time to respond. When she failed, he added, “Is that it, Claire?”

She thought for a moment, confused and tempted by him. “Maybe . . . yes. I don't know. Good night, John, I've got to go.”

“Good night, Claire. You can blame me for this,” he said as his head cut off the moon and he kissed her. She put her hands on his shoulders to push him away, but they rested there without resisting him. She arched away from him, taking little part in the contact of their mouths, but feeling his body curve against hers from the waist down. He was wearing jeans and a short jacket, she a full-length coat, unbuttoned. His mouth was warm and persuasive, open slightly, and the shock of feeling another man's tongue caused her to recoil, for much to her amazement, she liked it. He was a clean, good, attractive man whom she'd always liked, whom she'd worked well with over the years. Nothing he
had ever said or done had repulsed or even aggravated her. He'd declared his love for her and had stolen one single kiss, which she'd verbally denied.

She drew back and forced him to end the kiss, but he lowered his face to her jaw and whispered thickly, “Just one, come on, Claire, one with you taking part in it a little bit. One, because I know it'll be the only one I ever get. Come on, Claire, give me that much . . . Claire . . . one single kiss . . . Claire, lovely Claire . . . you've been my dream for so long . . .”

He slipped his arms inside her coat and fit himself against her in every place that counted, sliding one hand clear up between her shoulder blades until he gripped the back of her neck and urged her to turn her head. She gave in and their mouths aligned. He had soft, full lips, not at all off-putting, and he knew how to use them. He, like Claire herself, enjoyed drama and had an instinct for putting it to good use when the time was right.

The time was right, there in that late moonlit autumn night in the surrounding emptiness of the dark parking lot.

She succumbed to the loveliness of the kiss, to its deep delights and deeper perils, adding her own motion at the beck and call of his. John Handelman, for his part, decided that if it was to be the one and only kiss he ever shared with her, he'd make it count, and he followed nature's way, flexing his knees and striking her in upsweeps like bent grass releasing when the wind wanes, again and again until she arched in reply and made a soft sound in her throat.

What constitutes betrayal, Claire wondered, even while enjoying the kiss. She knew this was wrong midway through the buildup, but she had been lonely, and had missed kisses so very much. Maybe Tom had done this with Kent Arens's mother in the last few weeks, and if so, didn't she, Claire,
deserve recompense? It could happen this easily, she knew now, starting out in unadulterated innocence, ending in innocent adultery.

But she would not be a party to it. Nor would she drop her head in shame for having wrongly indulged.

“Stop, John.” She drew away and pushed at the bend of his elbows. “That's enough.” Much to her dismay, they were both breathing stridently, and all within her had welled up, proving that chastity had its price. His breath beat at a swath of her hair, battering it against her temple in the white night light. He rested his lips against her forehead.

She said, “We'll never do this again. That's a promise. I want you to promise, too.”

“Not on your life.”

“Tom said he'd castrate you if you did this to me.”

He pulled back and lifted her chin with a finger. “So you talked about me. You knew.”

“No.” She withdrew from his touch. “I didn't. Tom suspected, that's all.”

“What did he say?”

She fended off further questions with two widespread hands. “No. Don't. I'm not going to discuss him with you or divulge any more of his feelings. I've done enough already. Please forgive me.”

“
Forgive
you?”

“Yes. I shouldn't have let this happen. It means nothing. I want to save my marriage, not ruin it. I'm sorry, John, really I am. Listen, I've got to go. Please, let's both try to forget this tomorrow.” When she moved to open her car door he did it for her. A part of her expected him to detain her, maybe even try to further this ill-advised tryst the two of them had perpetrated. He was as good as his word, however, and, having claimed his one kiss, stood back and waited
while she got behind the wheel and put her key in the ignition. As she started the engine he slammed her car door, then stepped back and raised a hand in farewell as she pulled away.

She drove home in a state of arousal and guilt, and climbed into her cold, empty bed alone. She was so angry with Tom she cried and stretched herself diagonally across his half of the bed with her breasts on his pillow, missing him so damned much she wanted to drive out there to Wesley's house and whap the living piss out of him for getting them into this impasse in the first place!

After tossing and crying sporadically, she called him at one-thirty in the morning from the kitchen phone, a house length away from the sleeping children, trusting that the old man would be a sounder sleeper and farther away from the phone than Tom.

It took five rings before he picked up, and then a full two seconds before his first utterance. He cleared his throat and answered groggily, “Hullo?”

“Tom?”

A long pause, then, “Claire?”—hopefully, but with a voice still off duty.

“I couldn't sleep. I've been thinking.”

He waited.

“We've got to make that appointment with the counselor right away.”

“All right. Which one?”

“Not any of them from school. I don't want them to hear all of the sordid details of our troubles.”

“I've got a list of clinics at school.”

“Then pick one. Any one.”

“Do you think we should go together the first time, or separately?”

“I don't know.”

“Together,” he decided.

“I don't know. Maybe the counselor will recommend what's best.”

“Or I've got a better idea. Why don't I come over there right now and crawl into bed with you, and in the morning we won't need any counselors.”

“Oh, Tom, can't you see that's not going to solve this?”

“Then why did you call me in the middle of the night?”

“Because I miss you, damn it!”

“Claire, are you crying?”

“Yes, I'm crying!”

His pulse raced at her admission. “Please let me come over there, please, Claire.”

“Tom, I'm so scared. I don't . . . I don't know the me I've become.”

He hunkered on the Naugahyde footstool on top of his mother's piano music, gripping an old-fashioned black telephone receiver in one hand and his forehead in the other.

“Claire, do you love me?”

“Yes!” Exasperated.

“And I love you. So why are we going through this?”

“Because I haven't forgiven you and I'm not sure I ever can, and don't you see that I'll hold it against you until I
do
forgive you? Oh, God, I don't know . . .” She sounded beyond exhaustion. “I did something tonight that . . .”

He bristled and his elbows came off his knees.