Hope Street (28 page)

They bought rings, the cheapest they could find. The store wouldn’t engrave them—their skimpy width offered no
surface to engrave on—but they were genuine fourteen-karat gold and they came in pretty plastic boxes lined with velvet. Finally, the day before Bobby had to report to Fort Dix, all the paperwork was done, the blood test results were normal and she and Bobby returned to city hall to get married. She would have liked to buy a new dress for the occasion, but she couldn’t fritter away her money on a dress that wouldn’t fit her by December. So she wore a ribbed white turtleneck and a short gray skirt.

Bobby wore his cleanest jeans, a button-front shirt, an ugly striped tie and a brown corduroy blazer. “I stole the jacket from my father’s closet,” he confessed. “He never wears it, anyway.”

Over Joelle’s protests, he’d insisted on buying her flowers. Nothing big, nothing like what a real bride would carry, but a small bouquet of daisies and carnations. She broke the stem of one of the carnations and tucked the flower through the buttonhole in his stolen jacket’s lapel. Then they entered city hall. When they emerged an hour later, it was as Mr. and Mrs. Robert DiFranco.

They ate dinner at an Italian restaurant a few blocks from city hall, a small place with red-and-white checkerboard tablecloths and mandolin music piped through ceiling speakers. Bobby assured her they could afford a restaurant meal, and she wouldn’t deny him a hearty dinner when, starting tomorrow, he’d be stuck eating army food for the next year.

He seemed cheerful. Joelle wasn’t cheerful at all. When she gazed across the table at Bobby, with his long, shaggy hair and his drooping boutonniere, she felt…dread. She was
married
now. To
Bobby.
Oh, God, what had she done? Was this an even bigger mistake than giving in to Drew in the backseat of his father’s Cadillac two months ago?

“Eat,” Bobby ordered her. “You’ re supposed to be eating for two.”

She occupied herself coiling long, marinara-soaked strands of spaghetti around her fork. “I wish you didn’t have to leave tomorrow,” she said.

“Don’t worry.” He smiled gently, then tore a hunk of Italian bread from the straw basket and smeared butter onto it. “I’ll be back soon enough.”

“I don’t know, Bobby, I just—”

“JoJo.” He set down his bread and reached across the table, covering her right hand with his left. She stared at the gold band circling his finger. The ring looked so delicate in contrast to his labor-roughened hand. “Yeah, this whole thing is crazy. But we can make it work. I’ll go, I’ll come back, I’ll get a job. We’ll be a family.”

Moisture gathered along her lashes—pregnancy made her much too weepy—but she batted her eyes to keep the tears from falling. They were tears of gratitude, not joy. Wasn’t a woman supposed to feel joy on her wedding day? What was wrong with her? Why did she feel as if she’d lost something terribly precious today?

During the rest of their dinner, he reviewed everything she had to do once he was gone: find a place to live, find a doctor to monitor her pregnancy, find a job. “I think there are some colleges in the area, if you’d like to take some classes,” he said.

“I can’t afford college.”

“Well, it was just a thought. Remember—the gas gauge in the truck isn’t always accurate. The minute that needle points to three-quarters empty, fill the tank. Otherwise you might wind up getting stranded somewhere.”

“Okay.”

“And the clutch pedal is tight. You have to press real hard on it.”

“Okay.”

He continued talking about the damn clutch pedal the whole drive back to their motel. Honestly. He would be leaving tomorrow, shipping off to Vietnam in a matter of weeks, and they’d just gotten married, and all he could do was babble about his stupid clutch pedal. She wanted to scream at him to shut up.

He parked the truck in front of their door near the rear of the motel and she swung out, inexplicably furious. She fumed while he unlocked the door and shoved it open—and then he surprised her by hoisting her into his arms.

She let out a gasp.

“Isn’t this how it goes?” he asked, one arm securely under her knees and the other under her back, leaving her no choice but to wrap her arms around his neck. “I carry you over the threshold, right?”

“I guess.” That was when she realized she wasn’t furious at all. She was petrified.

The truth settled deep into her bones. This was their wedding night. Bobby DiFranco, her buddy, her confidant, her dearest friend, was carrying her over the threshold and into her new life as his wife. Their room had two beds in it, but tonight they would be using only one of them.

She steadied her breath. She could handle this. It would just be one night, and then he’d leave. She could figure out how she felt after he was gone.

Besides, sex with Bobby couldn’t possibly be as awful as sex with Drew Foster had been. And it was too late for her to worry about getting pregnant. And this was the deal they’d made: once they were married, the marriage would be real.

He kicked the door shut behind them, carried her across the small, stale-smelling room and lowered her to her feet next to
one of the beds. His smile melted away as he gazed down at her. “You okay?” he asked, evidently struggling to read her expression.

She nodded and bit her lip.
You can do this,
she lectured herself.

“A little nervous, huh,” he guessed.

“A little.”

“Me, too.” He smiled then, and brushed her lips with his. “Relax, Jo. I’m not going to hurt you. I would never hurt you. You know that, don’t you?”

Yes, she knew that. Hearing him say the words convinced her, not in her brain but somewhere else, some part of her where knowing was a visceral thing. When Bobby kissed her again, a little less gently, she closed her eyes, parted her lips and let him in.

She had never been kissed like this before. She hadn’t kissed all that many boys, but none of them had kissed like Bobby. His mouth was so strong, so sure. His tongue was so aggressive. She felt his kiss through her entire body, which felt as if it was unfolding inside, opening like a flower’s petals to the sun, warming and softening and wanting.

He undressed her first, and then himself. His body was different from Drew’s—bigger, more massive…
older,
somehow. He had hair on his chest; not much, but it made him seem like a man. So did the thickness of his shoulders, the swells of muscle in his arms and legs, the contours of his torso.

When he urged her onto the bed and then lay down beside her, he didn’t go straight for her crotch. Instead, he kissed her neck, her shoulders, her breasts. He ran his hands all over her, every now and then murmuring her name. He caressed her feet, her knees, her belly, and when he finally touched her between her thighs, she was embarrassed by how wet she was there.

He didn’t seem embarrassed at all. He only murmured her name again and then climbed onto her and pressed her hand to
his erection. She stroked him the way she used to stroke Drew, until he covered her hand with his and slowed her down, showing her how he liked it.

She desperately wanted to please him. Whatever he wished, she would do it. This was Bobby, and he hadn’t made fun of her for being so wet or for stroking him the wrong way. This was Bobby, who’d done her the immeasurable favor of marrying her.

This was Bobby, her husband.

When at last he entered her, it didn’t hurt at all. It felt…good. Better than good. He moved in a steady, seductive rhythm, and his stomach rubbed hers and he sighed her name again and again. She thought she would die from the sweet sensations surging inside her. “Oh, Bobby…”

“Yeah,” he whispered.

Lush pulses swept through her, endless spasms wrenching her and then soothing her. She closed her eyes and sank into the soft mattress, astonished by what she’d just experienced. Above her Bobby thrust hard, then groaned and trembled and lowered himself into her arms. Given his size, he should have crushed her. Yet his weight and warmth felt as good as everything else he’d done.

Was
that
what sex was supposed to be like? So intimate, so tender, such an excruciatingly lovely mix of glorious sensations still throbbing deep inside her, wringing her body and massaging her soul, filling her with the urge to laugh and cry at the same time?

If being Bobby DiFranco’s wife meant experiencing sex like this, she yearned to spend the rest of her life in his bed.

She opened her eyes and gazed up at him. His hair fell forward to brush her cheeks and his eyes were dark and beautiful as they searched her face.

Her husband. Dear, God, he was her husband.

“I don’t want you to go,” she said.

He kissed her. “I’ll come back,” he vowed.

“H
EY
, D
AD
?”

Bobby slammed his desk drawer shut and glanced up. He’d been staring at an old photo of Joelle that he kept stashed in the top drawer, the picture he’d asked her to pose for before the senior prom. In it she was radiant, her hair rippling around her face, her eyes bluer than the blue dress she wore. He’d carried that photo with him through Vietnam and pretended, whenever he’d looked at it, that she’d been his girl the night she’d worn that blue prom gown. He’d pretended that she’d loved him. In time, she’d sent him other photos—of herself pregnant, of herself very pregnant, of herself holding Claudia, a little pink peanut of a girl. But the photo of Joelle before the prom had been his treasure.

The color had faded from it over the years. Three of the corners were bent, the fourth torn. It didn’t matter. Some important part of him was in that picture, a slab of his life, his memory, his dreams.

But he didn’t want Mike to catch him mooning over it and wondering whether Joelle was any more his girl today than
she’d been the night that photo had been taken, thirty-seven years ago. He shaped a smile for his elder son. “How’s it going?”

“Good. We’re ahead of schedule on the Griffin job.”

“Great.” He continued to gaze at his son, continued to fake a smile. At twenty-six, Mike resembled Bobby, with thick dark hair a bit curlier than his father’s and dark, deep-set eyes. Those eyes were studying Bobby. “It’s four-thirty, Dad. What do you say we quit early and celebrate the job you nailed this weekend.”

Bobby had spent most of the day making arrangements for that job: a conference call with a swimming pool company he worked with, an order placed with a granite quarry, more calls to area nurseries, a review of his staff assignments to determine who’d be available when, plenty of paperwork and number crunching. As much as he enjoyed outdoor work, he also enjoyed the mental demands. Until he’d taken business classes, he’d never known he had a gift for negotiating and strategizing.

He’d gotten a lot done that day—an amazing amount, considering what a train wreck his personal life was. Bobby had learned how to focus, how to ignore distractions. In ’Nam, distractions could kill a soldier, so he’d developed the ability to tune them out.

Mike wasn’t a distraction, though. He was Bobby’s son, and if he wanted to celebrate, Bobby would put on a happy face and do his best.

He locked his desk and followed Mike out of the office, which occupied a corner of the small warehouse building that housed trucks and equipment and supplies. Most of what he needed—construction materials and plants—was shipped directly from suppliers to work sites, cutting down on DiFranco Landscaping’s storage requirements. But the trucks and tractors had to be parked somewhere at night.

Exiting to the gravel parking lot outside the building, Bobby
blinked in the glaring late-afternoon sun. “The Hay Street Pub shouldn’t be too crowded,” Mike suggested. “Why don’t you meet me there.”

“Sure.” The Hay Street Pub was a relatively subdued place where the TVs were adjusted to a low volume and young singles didn’t crowd the place, prowling for pickups. Bobby would steer the conversation toward Mike and survive the next hour without revealing the mess his life was in. He’d gotten through worse; he could get through a drink with his son.

As Mike had predicted, the pub was calm and not too busy and they were able to snag a quiet booth along the back wall. A lamp with a stained-glass shade hung above the table, casting half of Mike’s face in red and half in amber.

“I’ll have an iced tea,” Bobby told the waitress who materialized before them.

“Oh, come on, Dad. Live a little. Have a beer.”

Bobby reluctantly ordered a Bud. He enjoyed beer, liked the foam and the sour flavor. But growing up the son of a drunk made him cautious around liquor, so he rarely drank it.

Mike requested a microbrewery lager Bobby had never heard of, and the waitress departed to get their drinks. Bobby gazed at his son through the wash of colored light from the stained-glass lamp. Mike wore a dark green polo shirt with DiFranco Landscaping stitched in white above the breast pocket. All the employees wore those shirts except for Bobby. Collared polo shirts weren’t his style. They looked like something a man would wear on a racquetball court or a sailboat, or at the Green Gates Country Club.

“So, would you like to hear about this English-garden job?” he asked.

Mike’s smile faded. He tapped his fingers together, then let
his hands rest on the table. “As a matter of fact, no. Dad…” He took a deep breath. “Gary called me yesterday.”

The waitress chose that moment to reappear with their drinks, denying Bobby the opportunity to bolt for the door. Not that he could run away from his son. The truth lay squirming on the table between them. It had to be dealt with.

He waited until the waitress was done arranging cocktail napkins, beers, frosted-glass mugs and a bowl of pretzels on the table. He watched her walk away, not because she was worth looking at but because he needed a minute to collect his thoughts. He and Mike shouldn’t be having this conversation alone. Joelle ought to be a part of it. Revealing the truth to Claudia had been not his idea but hers—hers and Foster’s. Let her do the heavy lifting.

She wasn’t here, though. Bobby would have to struggle through it himself.

“Did you talk to Claudia?” he asked.

Mike shook his head. “Gary said she was too upset.”

“How about Danny? Did you talk to him? Did Gary mention whether he—”

“Danny’s been up at Tanglewood all weekend. Lauren got them tickets to some symphony thing.”

“And he went?” Danny’s current girlfriend had grown up in Manhattan, surrounded by museums, theater and the Lincoln Center. “He really must love her.”

“Either that or she’s good in bed,” Mike muttered cynically. He was between girlfriends right now. Maybe he wished that, like his younger brother, he had a woman in his life willing to drag him off to symphony concerts. “I saw him for ten minutes this morning, before he headed down to Trumbull for that strip-mall job. We didn’t really talk.” Ignoring the mug the wait
ress had brought him, he hoisted his bottle to his mouth and drank. Then he set the bottle down and leaned forward. “What the hell is going on, Dad? Is this for real? Some other guy is Claudia’s father?”

“Yes.” Bobby took a sip of beer, hoping it would keep him from choking.

“I can’t believe it.” Mike shook his head. “How could you—” Apparently the question stymied him, because he left it dangling.

“How could I what?”

“Raise Claudia like she’s your daughter.”

“She
is
my daughter. I love her every bit as much as I love you and Danny. You’re my children. All of you.”

“Right. She’s my
sister.
I can’t believe you let her live her whole life in ignorance about this.”

Bobby sighed.

“And me and Danny. We’re her brothers. I mean—my God, what she must be going through right now…”

“It’s not easy, Mike.” As hard as it was for Claudia, it was every bit as hard for Bobby. He didn’t want to come across as self-pitying, though, so he silenced himself with a sip of beer.

“So…what’s the deal? Mom had an affair?”

“She was pregnant when I married her,” Bobby said. He could have argued that what had happened all those years ago wasn’t any of Mike’s business. But telling Claudia about her parentage had been like poking a hole in a dam. Once the truth started leaking through, it flooded everything and everyone in its path.

Besides, if Gary had called Mike, it had to be because Claudia wanted to share the news with her brothers. “Your mother didn’t have an affair.”

“You knew she was pregnant with some other dude’s baby?” Mike looked appalled.

“That’s why I married her, Mike. I loved her, and she was in trouble.”

“Jesus.” Mike shook his head again and drank his beer. So did Bobby. “I guess back in the days of hippies and free love, the details didn’t matter.”

Mike’s sarcasm rankled. “It wasn’t like that,” Bobby retorted. “We were young. She got in trouble. Stuff happens.”

“But you married her. Even though her baby wasn’t yours. What were you—a candidate for sainthood or just a chump?”

Anger bubbled up inside Bobby, spraying in so many directions he wasn’t sure where it came from or what it was aimed at. “Mike. This is your mother you’re talking about.”

“And my sister, who I love. And who, it turns out, is actually the sister of some other guy we never even heard of.” He plucked a pretzel from the bowl, flipped it over in his hand a few times, then tossed it onto his napkin. “Do you know Claudia’s father?”

More anger, spinning faster. “
I’m
Claudia’s father.”

“I mean, her
real
father.”

Too enraged to speak, Bobby chugged some more beer. It slid down his throat, cold and bitter. “I think we’re done, Mike.”

“No, we’re
not
done. This is my family, too. You and Mom kept this secret from us for all these years. It’s
our
family—Claudia’s and Danny’s and mine. How could you not tell us? How could you let us all live a lie for so long?”

Bobby drained his bottle in two long swallows. He’d known the aftershocks from telling Claudia the truth were going to be bad. He just hadn’t realized how much hurt there was to go around, or how wide it would spread. He hadn’t realized how much trust would be lost between him and his children, between him and Joelle. Between him and the whole freaking world.

“Here’s all you have to know,” he said, his voice muted. “You and Danny are my sons. Claudia is my daughter. The past is the past.”

“Great,” Mike muttered. “If that’s the past, I’m afraid to think what the future is.”

J
OELLE HAD COOKED LASAGNA
for Bobby. As if she could make things right by fixing one of his favorite dishes for him.

Sunday had been wretched for them both. She’d arisen early after a restless night and told him she was going to church, something neither of them had done in aeons. She’d asked him to join her. He’d said no. She’d really hoped he would go with her, but she wouldn’t beg him. Partly pride, partly fear of making him feel even worse than he already did—she left the house without him.

Morning mass at Our Lady of Lourdes hadn’t helped. The local priest was a bland suburban type, so careful to avoid offense or controversy he wound up coming across as plastic and remote. She couldn’t imagine asking him for his counsel. Still, she’d prayed—not for herself but for Bobby, for her children and for a young man named Adam Foster, whom she’d never met but who was critically ill. Her prayers seemed to bounce off the vaulted ceiling rather than passing through the rafters and up to God.

When she’d returned home, the house was empty. Bobby had stuck a Post-it note to the mudroom door, saying he’d gone fishing. He didn’t even own a rod and tackle, but she accepted his statement as an indication that he needed some time alone.

She’d spent the day doing the housecleaning that had never gotten done yesterday. She’d scrubbed the bathroom floors until her knuckles were chapped. She’d pulled out the refrigerator and vacuumed behind it. By the time Bobby came home—
carrying a pizza rather than a fresh-caught trout—the house was cleaner than it had ever been.

When she’d asked him what she could do to make him feel better, he’d said nothing.

She’d decided to make lasagna today after the flowers had arrived. A spiffy young man in a green uniform had delivered them shortly after Bobby had left for work, and they’d sat on the kitchen table all day, a magnificent array of roses, orchids and lilies, ferns and baby’s breath in a curving glass vase. Bewildered, Joelle had opened the card that accompanied them:

She must have reread the card a dozen times throughout the day. The flowers were an apology, a peace offering—maybe a bribe. But the callous, selfish Drew Foster she’d remembered, the boy who had mailed her a check and the name of a doctor in Cincinnati, had been replaced in her mind by the sad, desperate man who’d appeared at her front door Saturday morning. He was a father and his son was dying. He’d sent these flowers with the best of intentions.

She hoped Bobby would view them that way, too. But just in case he wouldn’t, she’d decided to prepare one of his favorite meals.

She’d bought fresh vegetables for a salad at a local farm stand and a loaf of Italian bread at a bakery in town. All afternoon, as she’d browned the meat and mushrooms and whipped eggs
into the ricotta and crushed cloves of garlic for the bread, she’d thought of Bobby, of pampering him, assuring him that she loved him and so did Claudia. He was hurting and she yearned to ease his heartache.

She also hoped a day of productive work at DiFranco Landscaping would cheer him up, or at least remind him that their life today was a universe away from their lives back in 1970, when she’d found herself pregnant and Bobby was heading off to war. They’d believed in each other back then, she recalled. They’d believed no mistake was so bad that doing the right thing wouldn’t help. Was fixing this feast the right thing to do? Had cleaning the house yesterday been the right thing? Had telling Claudia the truth been the right thing?

Telling Claudia had definitely been right. So why did the truth leave so damn much pain in its wake?

She heard the rumble of the automatic garage door opening and raced to the first-floor bathroom to check her reflection in the mirror. A flushed, sweaty face gazed back at her. It wasn’t as if she hoped to entice Bobby with her beauty, which had lost its youthful gloss long ago, but she fussed with her hair anyway and splashed some cold water on her cheeks.