Hope Street (26 page)

“I’ve got to admit, we were surprised you asked to stop by so late,” Gary said. “Usually you don’t even want to see us. You just come to play with the kids.”

“That’s not true,” Joelle said, her tone more defensive than she’d intended. She knew Gary was joking. He and Claudia always kidded that their sole value to Bobby and Joelle was as the people who’d supplied them grandchildren.

Tonight, though, Joelle had told Claudia they would be stopping by after Jeremy and Kristin were in bed. This was not a visit for which the children should be awake. Lowering her tone, she said, “I’m sorry we’re keeping you awake past your bedtime.”

“Not a problem,” Claudia insisted, wrapping Bobby in a hug. Claudia’s hair was cut in a chic, angular style and her outfit, a wrinkly cotton shirt of turquoise, with slacks the same vivid fabric, probably cost more than Joelle’s entire summer ward-robe. “Dad, you look terrible. Are you feeling okay?”

“It’s been a rough day,” he said cryptically.

“Why don’t we sit down,” Joelle suggested, gesturing toward the living room. “We have to talk, Claudia.”

Claudia eyed Gary. “I don’t like the sound of this,” she said through a tight smile.

“Hey, it’s Saturday night. No bad news allowed.” Gary grinned at Joelle and Bobby. “Can I get you something to drink?”

Bobby answered for both of them. “No, thanks.” He sat in the wingback chair in Claudia’s impeccably decorated living room.

Gary took the other wingback chair and Joelle settled on the couch with Claudia. She wanted to be close to her daughter. In fact, she wanted to gather Claudia up, hold her on her lap and hug her, the way she had when Claudia had been a little girl. She wanted to cling to her baby and assure her that nothing bad would ever happen to her. Her own mistakes had brought so much pain to Bobby, and now they would bring pain to Claudia, too—and this wasn’t a pain she could kiss away, like the scrapes and bruises Claudia had suffered as a child.

Just get it over with
, she ordered herself, then added a stern mental reminder that Claudia deserved the truth. “We had a visitor today,” she said. “Someone Dad and I went to high school with. In fact, he was my boyfriend senior year.”

“I thought Dad was your boyfriend,” Claudia said.

“I adored Dad. He was my best friend.” She felt Bobby’s gaze on her, cool and condemning. Swallowing, she pressed on. “This old classmate of ours is married now, and he has a son. His son
is sick with a kind of leukemia. He has to receive a bone marrow transplant.”

Claudia’s smile faded. She glanced away—at Bobby or Gary, Joelle didn’t know—and then turned back to her mother. Her eyes were filled with questions. “How tragic.”

“Yes. It’s tragic. Claudia…that man, that old boyfriend…” Joelle drew in a deep breath. She tasted the salt of tears at the back of her throat and swallowed. “He believes you might be a match for his son as a donor.”

Claudia’s mouth tensed. Her eyes hardened. She didn’t need Joelle to spell it out. “Oh, my God,” she whispered.

“We probably should have told you years ago, but…There never seemed to be any need. We’re your parents, you’re our daughter and nothing else mattered. So we just never said anything. But now, with his son so sick—he begged us to discuss this with you.”

Claudia spun away, seeking her husband. Gary started to rise, but before he was standing, Claudia had twisted back to her mother. “Who is this man?” she demanded. “Who is this old boyfriend of yours?”

“He was someone from our hometown, Claudia. A classmate of ours.”

“What’s his name?” Claudia’s voice was as cold as stone.

“Drew Foster.”

Claudia mouthed his name, as if testing the syllables. She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe…” She glanced at Bobby. “You knew about this?”

From the corner of her eyes, Joelle saw him nod.

“But you never—you always—” Again Claudia shook her head. Her eyes glinted with moisture. “How could you?” she asked, directing her question into the air rather than toward
Joelle or Bobby. “How could you keep this from me? How could you let me think…” Her voice trailed off.

“Think what, Claudia?” Joelle asked.

Gazing desperately at her, Claudia gestured toward Bobby. “Think
he’s
my father.”

Joelle felt her heart crack in two. She couldn’t bear to look at Bobby, to witness how badly Claudia’s words wounded him. “He
is
your father. He’s the only father you have.”

“But this other man—this Drew Foster—”

“Asked me to get an abortion. I wanted you so much, Claudia. I couldn’t do that. And your dad—” she dared to peek at Bobby, whose face was frozen except for his dark, turbulent eyes “—wanted you, too, every bit as much as I did. So we raised you, and we loved you and we still love you, more than you can imagine.”

“But you never told me this.” Claudia’s anguish carried an undertone of hysteria. “You never told me some other man was my father. My God. I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

The sobs in Joelle’s throat threatened to choke her. She wouldn’t let herself cry, though. Not in front of Claudia and Gary, not in front of Bobby. Yes, she’d made mistakes in her life. But she would never believe that giving birth to Claudia had been a mistake. Not even now, when she felt as if the pain in her heart would kill her.

Abruptly Claudia stood and stalked out of the living room. In the stillness she left behind, Joelle could hear the tread of her footsteps as she climbed the stairs, followed by the click of a door closing.

Gary shoved to his feet and glowered at them. “You can show yourselves out,” he said as he stalked out of the living room. In less than a minute Joelle heard that upstairs door open and shut again, sounding miles away.

I
N THE SUMMER
, B
OBBY
slept nude. If Joelle’s body were as sleek and youthful as his, she might sleep nude, too, but she was too self-conscious about the droop of her breasts, the way the skin of her abdomen sagged between the points of her hip bones, the damage left by fifty-six years of living. So she slept in an oversize T-shirt. Her sons had outgrown so many T-shirts over the years that she had several wardrobes’ worth of castoffs from them.

Tonight she was wearing a striped cotton shirt Mike had worn constantly throughout high school, until in one of those odd adolescent spurts he’d awakened one morning to discover that he’d grown two inches and his shoulders were straining the shirt’s seams. The cotton fabric felt soft against her skin, but she couldn’t find a comfortable position between the sheets. When Bobby finished washing and joined her, he eased himself onto the bed, making sure not to touch her.

Usually he stretched out on his side facing her and slung one arm around her. Their bed was their refuge, their haven. In bed they were united. Husband and wife. No disagreements, no resentments, no bullshit. Just the two of them, JoJo and Bobby D, unbreakable.

Tonight he kept his distance.

She lay in the darkness until his silence began to feel like an actual presence, a stranger in their bed. Damn it, she wouldn’t allow Drew to tear her and Bobby apart. No matter what had happened today, no matter how Claudia dealt with what Joelle had told her, she was not going to sacrifice her marriage.

She breached the chasm between her and Bobby—only a couple of inches, yet wide enough to contain the ugly truth they had carefully avoided until today—and stroked her hand down his chest. His skin was warm, the hair on his chest springy.
When he didn’t move, she shifted closer to him, snuggled up to him, skimmed her lips against the underside of his jaw.

He lay as still as a stone.

Sitting, she yanked off the T-shirt. She needed Bobby tonight. She needed him to know how much she loved him. She needed proof that they could survive this as they’d survived so much else in their lives.

She grazed his chin again, caressed the length of his torso, raised herself to kiss his cheek. He seemed to struggle against her invitation, against his own reflexes, but he was able to resist her only so long. When her hand slid downward to stroke him, she found him fully aroused.

With a curse, he pushed her fingers away—then cupped his hand around her head and pulled her down to him. His kisses were hard and angry, his tongue subduing her, his hand fisting in her hair so tightly she could feel his knuckles against her scalp. There was nothing tender or seductive in his kiss, in the way his free hand clamped onto her hip, his fingers digging into the soft flesh. After a moment, he tore his mouth from hers. Breathing heavily, he swore again.

“Bobby,” she murmured. They’d gotten through bad times in the past by reaching for each other, using their bodies to communicate when they had no words. She knew that when Bobby was uneasy or afraid, he withdrew—and when he withdrew, she could bring him back this way, through touch, through sex. He wasn’t much for talking. He was a physical man. He could close himself off, but she knew how to open him up again.

She brushed her fingertips against his lips, as if she could wipe away his coarse language and the emotion behind it. He jerked his head, recoiling from her gentle touch, then reared up and pushed her onto her back against the mattress. Her vision had
adjusted to the darkness and she could make out the rage and sorrow in his eyes, the resentment tightening his jaw. He ran his hands down her body, his motions rough, his chest pumping as though breathing was a struggle.

Everything about him seemed to be struggling. She arched her arms around his shoulders and urged him onto her.
It’s all right,
she wanted to tell him.
I need this. We both need this.
Not seduction, not tenderness—just connection. Just the knowledge that they were still together, that not even the truth could tear them apart.

He took her, his thrusts fierce and fast. When he came, his groan was tremulous, almost like a sob. She circled him with her arms, holding him on top of her, refusing to let him withdraw as her body pulsed around him. Had this been love or rage? Desperation? Fear?

He let out a long breath and with it another curse.
It’s all right,
she assured herself, even though the past few minutes had failed to convince her anything was all right.

After a minute, he rolled away from her and flung an arm across his eyes, as if he didn’t want to risk glimpsing her. “Sorry,” he muttered.

She cupped his jaw. He recoiled from her touch, and she let her hand fall. “If anyone should apologize, it’s me,” she said. She’d started this, after all. She’d started the whole thing by telling Claudia about her parentage. She’d started it by allowing Drew Foster to enter her home. She’d started it thirty-seven years ago by foolishly believing she was in love with Drew.

Bobby’s breathing was still ragged, his skin steamy, the sheet bunched around his hips. Despite the dark, she could see the sharp outline of his nose, the angle of his chin.

“Talk to me, Bobby,” she pleaded.

“And say what?”

Say you’re hurting. Say you’re afraid. Say you want to make love to me again, gently this time. Love, not sex. Not anger.
But he hated to discuss his feelings, to probe and analyze and bare his soul. For thirty-seven years, she’d been trying to get him to talk, and he never did. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

He lay quietly for a stretch, his rib cage rising and falling beneath his skin, his eyes shielded from her. After a while he moved his arm away from his face, but only to stare at the ceiling. “When you build a stone wall,” he said, “you’ve got to pick each stone out and put it in exactly the right place. If you want the wall to be stable, you have to do it right. The size of the stones. The shape.”

She wasn’t sure what he was getting at, but at least he was talking. She waited for him to continue.

“We didn’t lay the foundation down right,” he murmured. “We’re standing on that wall and it’s shaking beneath our feet. It’s going to collapse. And we’re going to fall.”

“We’ll get through this, Bobby. I know we will.”

He shook his head. “We’re falling, Jo. An dit’s along way down.”

Lying in a bed now cold, with her husband beside her yet a thousand miles away and that awful silence once again settling into the space between them, Joelle wondered how long the fall was and how broken they would be when they landed.

October 1970

B
OBBY PREFERRED THE
part of the cemetery farthest from his mother’s grave. When he worked over in her section, near Bailey Road, he found himself lingering at her site, paying too much attention to each weed that dared to poke through the grass, dusting smudges of dirt from her headstone. Reading the stone:
Claudia Ricci DiFranco, February 27, 1930–May 6, 1964. Beloved wife and mother. She is with the angels now.
As if he didn’t have the damn thing memorized. As if there was any question in his mind where she was.

Where she wasn’t was with him and his brother, Eddie, who were certainly no angels. And she wasn’t with their father, who had as much angel in him as the headstone had diamonds.

It was better when he was mowing the lawn on the Jackson Street side of the cemetery. He didn’t have to think about angels and his mother as he tidied up the landscape around the older graves, some of them dating back to the late 1800s. Old families in Holmdell had designed little family parks within the cemetery,
with the graves all clustered and marble benches where visitors could rest. People rarely left flowers on the old grave sites, although the town always planted a little American flag by each veteran’s grave on Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Veteran’s Day. Bobby had had to clear away all the American flags twice this season, but he would be gone by the time Veteran’s Day rolled around, on his way to becoming a veteran himself.

Autumn was late arriving in southern Ohio this year. The midafternoon air was hot and heavy, but he wasn’t allowed to remove his shirt while he worked. A bare chest was disrespectful to the dead, his boss had scolded him when he’d yanked off his T-shirt and looped it around his belt one scorching afternoon a couple of months ago. He’d learned to bring an extra bandanna with him—one to use as a headband and the other to mop the sweat off his face.

Only two more hours and he could punch out for the day, he thought as the mower’s engine made a stuttering noise and spewed some black smoke out the exhaust pipe. Only ten days and he’d be done with this job and on his way to Fort Dix in New Jersey.

He paused under an oak dense with summer-green leaves and pretended the shade was cooler than it actually was. Staring down the hill toward the more recent graves, he saw a few people ambling along the paths. Thursday afternoon wasn’t a busy time at the cemetery. Funerals were usually held before noon so that afterward the mourners could eat heartily or drink heavily, depending on how they felt about the dearly departed. Bobby was sometimes assigned to fill in a grave after a funeral service, although that was supposed to be a union job, not a task for the kid who mowed the lawn and pruned the shrubs. But when his boss was shorthanded, or if it was raining and the in
terment had to be done before the hole filled with muddy water, he wound up shoveling.

He spotted a visitor heading up the hill toward him, walking in long, purposeful strides. Sun-streaked blond hair swung below her shoulders and her white peasant blouse and denim bell-bottoms hung wilted on her slender frame. He knew that walk, that hair. He knew those beautiful blue eyes.

He shut off the lawn mower. If Joelle had come to see him—and she didn’t have any loved ones buried in the cemetery, so Bobby figured he was the reason she was here—he could take a break.

He leaned against the tree and pulled a crushed pack of Marlboros from the breast pocket of his faded blue work shirt. By the time he’d shaken out a cigarette she was within shouting distance. Her face was pale and her smile was one of those brave, quivery things women wore when they were about to burst into tears.

He slid a book of matches from where he’d wedged it inside the cellophane wrapper of the cigarette pack. “You okay?” he asked.

“Have you got a minute?”

“Five minutes at least,” he said, gesturing toward a memorial bench near the tree. She sat on it and propped her purse in her lap. It was a patchwork fabric sack with velvet drawstrings, and she’d told him some time ago that she’d designed and sewn it herself. Bobby was in awe of her talent.

He wondered if she’d traveled here straight from school. She was enrolled in classes at the community college, trying to make something of herself. She had so much going for her—brains, school, a rich boyfriend at Dartmouth and all that gorgeous blond hair—while Bobby cut grass and counted the days until he got shipped overseas. He would have thought that by now
she’d have become friendly with her college classmates. She had no reason to hang out with him anymore.

Yet she did. No matter that she was on the path to bigger and better things; she clearly valued their friendship. Just one more reason he loved her.

He lit the cigarette while he waited for her to speak. “I need a favor,” she finally said, gazing at the ornately carved headstone of Abigail Charney, who’d died in 1914 and was spending eternity in a grave a few feet from the bench.

“Sure.”

She glanced at him, then turned back to stare at the gravestone. “Can you drive me to Cincinnati?”

He almost laughed—that was such a small thing to ask. He’d been expecting something a lot more demanding, given her obvious distress. “You can’t borrow your mother’s car?”

“No.” She shook her head, just in case he hadn’t understood her answer. “I could take the bus, but I—” Her voice broke.

Hell. Just as he’d predicted, she started to cry. He pulled the blue bandanna from the hip pocket of his jeans and handed it to her, glad that it wasn’t too sweaty. “Screw the bus,” he said. “I’ll drive you down. When do you have to go?”

Tears rolled down her cheeks. She dabbed at them with his bandanna. “It has to be a weekday. I’m sorry. That probably messes up your work schedule.”

“Big deal. I’ll call in sick.” For Joelle, he’d call in dead.

“It’s just that…” She swallowed hard. “I have to see a doctor.”

Despite the afternoon’s heat, fear rippled like ice down his back. Holmdell had doctors. She must be seriously ill if she had to travel all the way to Cincinnati to meet with one. A specialist, maybe. At one of the big hospitals.

He eased closer to her on the bench and bent so he could peer into her downturned face. “What’s wrong, Jo?”

She lifted her chin and gazed at him, her eyes puffy and her cheeks streaked with tears. “I’m pregnant.”

S
HE COULDN
’
T BELIEVE THIS
had happened to her.

Of course, she
could
believe it. This sort of thing happened to girls all the time. And in her case, it was clear Drew hadn’t known what he was doing with that damn condom. She remembered the humiliation of having him pry it out of her with his fingers, how nauseating the entire experience had been.

Little had she known then how much worse it would become.

Fresh tears spilled out of her eyes and she squeezed them shut. When the nurse at the college clinic had told her the results of her pregnancy test, she’d managed to hold back her tears until she was outside the building. Then she’d collapsed onto a bench and wept, and thought:
I have to talk to Bobby.
Not her mother, who would immediately view this ghastly mistake as a way to capture Drew. Not even Drew.

Bobby was her friend. They were honest with each other. They trusted each other. In a crisis, he was the one she wanted by her side.

Once she’d calmed down, though, she’d realized she had to tell Drew first. She’d phoned him at his dormitory and forced out the words: “I’m pregnant, Drew. I’m sorry. I’m pregnant.”

“Okay. Don’t panic, Joelle. I can’t talk now,” he’d said, though he hadn’t explained exactly
why
he couldn’t, what pressing matter he had to deal with that was more important than his girlfriend’s pregnancy. “I’ll get back to you soon, though. Don’t worry, okay? We’ll deal with this.”

He’d gotten back to her, all right. The creep.

Now, belatedly, she’d approached Bobby. She prayed that he would live up to her trust and help her do what had to be done. She could get through this disaster alone if she had to—at least, she hoped she could. But if Bobby could help, if he could hold her hand through the ordeal and offer her a shoulder to lean on…Maybe it wouldn’t be quite so bad.

Seated next to her on the bench, he leaned back and dragged on his cigarette. Gray smoke streamed between his lips as he sighed. “What kind of doctor are we talking about?”

“You know what kind,” she said, her voice hoarse from her tears.

“Shit, Jo. You don’t want to do that.”

“Why not?”

“It’s against the law.”

“Don’t lay that on me.” She heard the anger in her voice and immediately felt contrite. Bobby didn’t deserve her anger. He was only saying what she’d been thinking about nonstop ever since she’d received Drew’s letter. “I have the name of a doctor who does this. He’s supposed to be safe.”

Bobby scrutinized her, squinting as if he thought that would bring her into clearer focus.
Please,
she begged silently,
please don’t judge me. Please don’t hate me for doing what I have to do.
“Who gave you the doctor’s name?” he asked, and she understood his disapproval then. It was aimed at Drew, not her.

He’d obviously guessed, but she answered his question anyway. “I called Drew,” she said. “I reached him at his dormitory and told him. He said he’d get back to me, and he did.” Her breath hitched from all her crying and she fidgeted with the ties of her purse. “I got a letter from him today. He sent me the name of a doctor and some money. Enough to pay for everything. The doctor and transportation, too.”

“I’m not going charge you car fare,” Bobby muttered. He rubbed out his cigarette on the sole of his boot. “How much did he send?”

“A thousand dollars.”

Bobby flinched. “A
thousand
dollars? What—is he buying you off?”

She had to admit that possibility had crossed her mind, too. “I have no idea what these kinds of doctors charge. Drew sent me a check. I can’t cash it in town. Everyone would know. I guess there would be a bank branch in Cincinnati, or somewhere along the way…”

Bobby shook his head and cursed again. “Do you want to do this? Is this your choice, or are you just doing it to make Foster happy?”

“What else can I do?” Her voice began to wobble again. “I can’t spend nine months pregnant and then give my baby away. I just couldn’t do that. And I can’t raise the baby myself. I know what that’s like, Bobby. It’s the story of my life.”

She’d told Bobby years ago about the father who’d briefly, mysteriously drifted through her life. Dale Webber had been a cross-country trucker who used to detour off the highway to avoid weigh stations. He’d met Joelle’s mother during one of those detours and they’d gotten involved, enough that every time he was passing through Ohio he’d stop in Holmdell to spend time with Wanda, the cute waitress at the Bank Street Diner. During one of those stops, he’d knocked her up.

Joelle had vague memories of Dale’s visiting and bringing her a coloring book and a shabby little doll when she was a toddler. But after a while the visits ended, and when Joelle was about five, her mother had received a letter from a woman who claimed to be Dale’s sister in California. The woman reported that Dale had been killed in a highway accident, and she’d enclosed some money from an insurance settlement and they’d never seen Dale again.

Joelle’s mother had used the money to buy a car. A Rambler. “It seems appropriate,” Wanda had said. “Your dad was a rambling man.”

Whether her dad had married her mother, Joelle couldn’t say for sure. But one day in fourth grade, Tommy Travers had called her a bastard child. She hadn’t even known what that meant, but she’d denied it. She’d stood up to that sniveling bully and told him she wasn’t a bastard child, because she understood innately that a bastard child was not a good thing to be.

“I don’t want a life like my mother’s,” she told Bobby now. “And I don’t want my child to grow up the way I did.”

“So Foster mails you a check and tells you to deal with the problem? He can’t even come back and get you through it?”

“He’s in college,” she pointed out. It was no excuse, but she’d rather defend Drew than admit that he’d given her money with the hope that she’d deal with her problem and disappear from his life.

Bobby pulled another cigarette from his pocket and a book of matches. She watched him bend a match inside its cardboard folder with his thumb and scrape its tip against the flint. It flared into flame and he lit the cigarette, inhaling deeply. “What about adoption?” he asked.

“I can’t do that,” she said. “Like I said, I can’t spend nine months with this baby inside me and then give it away. I just couldn’t do that.”

He smoked in silence, staring at the sunlight-dappled gravestone in front of them, though his eyes seemed focused somewhere else. He said nothing until his cigarette was gone and he’d stubbed it out. Then he turned to her. “I’ll marry you.”

She gaped at him, too shocked to speak.

“I’ll be your baby’s father,” he elaborated.

Was he nuts? He would take responsibility for her and a baby that wasn’t even his? When she’d screwed up so royally, when she’d pretty much ruined her life with her own stupidity? When she’d told him all summer long that she dreamed of marrying Drew? Bobby was her best friend in the world, but what he was offering went way beyond what anyone should do for a friend. It was crazy.

She couldn’t insult him by saying so. Instead she said, “You’re about to leave for basic training.”

“That’s what’ll make it work, Jo. It’s not like we’d have to live with each other or anything. I’d be away, you’d be my wife, you’d have your baby and then when I got home, we could figure out where we stood.”

“Bobby.” He couldn’t be that generous. Not to her. She didn’t deserve such kindness, such a sacrifice on his part.

“If something happens to me in Vietnam,” he continued, sounding calm and logical, “there are widow’s benefits. You could use those to support yourself and the kid.”