Ms. Miller and the Midas Man (19 page)

“How can the two of you be so calm about this?”

“We’ve been through it before. Not the chicken pox, but ear infections when she was little, and the flu and colds. Kids are tougher than they look. And as long as you know what’s wrong with them, it’s not so bad.”

“It’s terrible. She looks so weak and lifeless. I hate seeing her like this. I’d rather have her bouncing off the walls than laying there like that.”

He chuckled. “Wait till her fever breaks. We’ll have to sit on her to keep her in bed and tie her hands to the bedposts to keep her from scratching. By the time she’s finished with the chicken pox, you won’t think she’s so weak and lifeless.”

This remained to be seen, but there were other complications here as well. “Has she said anything about missing the play?”

“She thinks she’ll be better by tomorrow. Want some coffee?” he asked heading down the stairs.

“Well, when she’s not better by tomorrow, you’ll have to be careful not to let her see how disappointed you are that she can’t be in the play.”

“Why?” he asked, not bothering to look back at her as she followed him into the kitchen. “I mean, why would she think I’d be any more disappointed than she is? I only allowed her to be in the play to make her happy. I won’t be disappointed if she’s not.”

“I know that. And you know that. But will she?”

“Sure. Why wouldn’t she? Would you rather have tea?”

He just wasn’t getting it.

“No. Maybe when I get back.” She hesitated to go further. “I just think we should be careful that she doesn’t misconstrue our sympathy for her as some sort of disappointment in her for getting sick and missing the play, is all.”

“She won’t,” he said, almost absently as he poured himself a cup of coffee. Then he went stone-still, and after a second or two he turned to her.

There was a strange look in his eyes. One she’d not seen before. A cold, no-nonsense, almost ruthless sort of warning. Something instinctive and primitive prickled the small hairs on the back of her neck.

“I think I see where you’re going with this,” he said, his tone level enough, but as cool as the expression on his face. “And I don’t want you filling Chloe’s head with notions of failure and disappointment. Those words aren’t part of her vocabulary yet. Feeling like a failure and thinking you’ve disappointed everyone you’ve ever cared about is your problem, not hers.”

Each razor-sharp word slashed at her heart. Tears stung at the back of her eyes. Her throat felt thick and stiff as she swallowed and tried to deny his accusation.

“I...” She looked away, then back again. “I didn’t mean...

“I know.” A small lopsided smile worked at his lips and understanding warmed his eyes. “I know you’d never hurt her intentionally.” He closed the distance between them. Rubbed her upper arms in a consoling, regretful manner. “But I see how easy it’s been for you to blame yourself for everything that’s ever gone wrong around you, and...I don’t want that for my daughter. I don’t want it for you.”

A huge “but” hung in the air between them, insinuating that it was too late for her, that there was nothing he could do to change her thinking,
but
he still had some control over Chloe’s life.

There didn’t seem to be anything she could say. He was aware of what she’d been trying to tell him, and Chloe
was
his daughter. He hadn’t said it straight out, but “butt out” was the message she received.

And Scotty saw the delivery. In her inability to look at him, the lowering of her eyes to withdraw herself. And all she’d been trying to do was warn him to be careful.

“Be sure to thank your mother for dinner, will you?” he said, lifting her face to his with one finger under her chin, a plea for forgiveness gentling his voice. She searched his eyes and found nothing but tender understanding and love in them. It was over. He was as sorry now as he’d been protective of his child moments earlier. “She brought me some earlier. Sorry, I didn’t wait for you, but she said it would get cold if I did, and I was starving—”

“No,” she said quickly, glad for a change of subject, eager to give up on her unsolicited parenting lessons—wanting to hide her bruised emotions. “I’m glad you ate. We could have been at rehearsal all night, for all you knew.”

“Lord, I forgot all about it,” he said with a laugh. “Get everything ironed out?”

“We tried, but it was still a pretty lumpy mess when the parents started showing up for their kids.”

She took a few minutes more to fill him in on the possible disasters facing them the next evening and then went home. To change clothes, to eat, and to borrow rose water from her mother, who was brimming over with reminiscences of chicken pox long gone.

“What do you think, Chloe? You like that?” she asked a short while later, tenderly dabbing the little face here and there with a cool, damp cloth. Her temperature had taken an upward swing again while she was gone and Scotty had repeated the medicine to bring it back down. He’d gone downstairs to make some phone calls when she got back. “I can stop if you don’t like it.”

She shook her head on the pillow. “It smells good.”

“It does, doesn’t it. That’s roses. Maybe next summer you and I can plant some in my garden and smell them all summer long. Would you like that?”

She nodded. The despondency was killing Gus. She didn’t know if the little girl was depressed or if she simply didn’t have the energy to talk.

“You know, Chloe, there’s a chance that you might not be well enough to be in the play tomorrow night,” she said gently, thinking twice before she broached the subject but needing with all her heart to be sure Scotty was right. “If you’re not, I want you to know that no one blames you for getting sick. It’s not your fault. In fact, we’re all very unhappy that it had to happen to you.”

“I know,” she said blandly. “Stuff happens sometimes.”

“That’s right, it does,” she said, extremely impressed with the child’s wisdom. “And most of the time there’s nothing you can do to stop it. It just happens. But it never changes the way people feel about you.”

“I know. Will you make it cold again, Gus?”

Quickly dipping the cloth back in the cool water and wringing it out, she went back to pressing it against her face.

“Your daddy and your mommy love you very, very much. And so do I.”

“No matter what,” she said, and it wasn’t a question.

“That’s right,” Gus said, her eyes blurring with tears. “No matter what.”

She couldn’t help the green frothy envy that bubbled over inside her. Not thick and resentful, who could feel that for a child? But a certain longing for the confidence Chloe felt in the love around her, the unquestioning faith in it. Was it something all children had? Something some of them lost in adulthood? Or something special between certain parents and their offspring?

“My mommy and daddy got divorced,” she said, her eyes closed, her voice low and tired sounding. “For no good reason. For nobody’s fault. It just happened. But we still love each other. No matter what.”

“That’s right,” Gus said, after a moment of realization. It was taught, this love Chloe knew. Carefully nurtured. Protected by her parents. The confidence and faith came naturally, because it had never let her down, never failed her.

She closed her eyes on the stinging urge to cry again. Her mother loved her. So had her father in his own way. She’d always known that, so what had happened? Had her failures been too great? Her brain grew hot and started to fry as she tried to remember one time her mother had expressed resentment or dissatisfaction or...any real negative emotion toward her, and couldn’t. It had never been anything more than a brief sadness in her eyes. And then she’d bustled around and hustled them off to the next audition, the next teacher, the next competition.

“Gus...” Chloe muttered plaintively. Glancing down at the cloth in her hands, she quickly wrung it out again and went back to cooling her off.

“You’re a very lucky little girl, Chloe.”

Several seconds went by, then Chloe sighed and murmured, “Mostly I am, but not with chicken pox.”

Her mother had red lipstick dots all over her face and arms.

“Chloe and I have been suffering together all day,” she was saying, the next evening. She pushed a few stray strands of blond- and gray-streaked brown hair out of her face as she cut the sandwich she was making Gus in half. “She was a little worried about all the spots, but after I got mine, she hasn’t given them a second thought.”

“Are you, ah, planning to go around looking like that until all Chloe’s spots are gone?” she asked, sitting at the kitchen table, watching her ladle soup out of a pot.

“Good grief no. She’s over the initial shock and her fever broke this afternoon. She’ll be able to cope with it all much better tomorrow.
Then,
after that, the itching starts. And I’ve never seen so many spots on one child. We’re going to have a terrible time with that.” Gus smiled at the way she automatically included herself. “I promised her that once all the spots scabbed over, we’d play connect the dots with a Magic Marker.”

“You always were fun in a crisis, Mother.”

“And you were always such a stick in the mud,” she said, laughing, giving her a quick hug as she set the soup and sandwich in front of her. “Always so serious.”

“It was nice of you to stay with her, so Scotty could go to work today,” she said, feeling a little awkward. She’d been thinking about her mother all day—and she was beginning to see that she might not know her as well as she thought she did. “And missing the play tonight, to stay home with her. Eric’ll be sorry you’re not there.”

“Eric won’t notice if I’m there or not, he’ll be so nervous and excited. And I’ll see him tomorrow night, at the grand finale. What?” she asked, catching Gus watching her. “No. Don’t tell me. You’re thinking I look like an idiot with all these spots, but I don’t care. I—”

“Actually, I was remembering when you did that for me and Liddy when we had chicken pox.”

“Did I look this stupid then?”

She nodded solemnly, studying her mother as if she’d never seen her before.

“Oh, sweetie, don’t be mad at me. I swear it’ll come right off with a little cold cream and some elbow grease. I’d have used washable markers if you had any, or ketchup if I thought it would have stayed on. Honestly, they don’t use the same kinds of dyes in cosmetics that they used to. I won’t have spots for days and days the way I did last time and—”

“Mother. I’m not mad. I like your spots.”

“You do?”

Again she nodded. “I’ve been thinking lately...”

“Oh no,” she said, setting her own supper on the table and slumping into the chair across from her. “Not again.”

“What?”

“Every time you say you’ve been thinking and get that look on your face, I know it’s trouble. I thought you were happy here.”

“I am happy here. Will you let me talk? You never let me talk.”

“You usually don’t want to,” she said, then added, “but go ahead. I’m listening.”

“I’ve been thinking lately,” she repeated with emphasis, “that I probably don’t tell you often enough or show you often enough, that I really do love you and...”

“Well, I love you, too, sweetheart. I...”

“Mother.”

“Sorry.”

“I’d also like to apologize for all the times I’ve failed you. I know how much time and energy you dedicated to me and to my career, and I don’t think I ever said thank you. I...wish I could have been all the things you were hoping I’d be, part of me wishes things had turned out differently, but they didn’t and...and I’m sort of glad they didn’t, but I know I disappointed you and I’m sorry for that.”

Wanda sat staring at her with a frown on her face, glancing away briefly, then back at her in confusion.

“Honey, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She hesitated. “You’re right, about us not saying and showing our love very often, but sometimes it’s like that in families. People are together so long, know each other so well, that those feelings are simply assumed. It doesn’t mean...”

“Well, they shouldn’t be. Assumed. You should know for sure that I love you, and you should know that Eric
will
miss you tonight.”

Wanda looked embarrassed and smiled a little. Slowly she said, “I am glad to know those things. And just for the record, you should know that I love you too.”

“I do. But I don’t think I realized how much until just recently.”

Her smile grew a little wider and she gave a soft laugh, her eyes going misty with memories.

“I used to wonder where you and Lydia came from, you were both so different and neither of you had anything in common with me.” She laughed softly and took a spoonful of soup. “Not even clothes. You always wore dresses and Lydia liked her pressed slacks and button-down collars. And there I was in jeans and gauze blouses, my hair a different color every six moths, my earrings hanging down to my boobs...people were always so surprised when they saw us together.” She looked directly at Gus. “And I was in a constant state of awe. There was Liddy, so organized and competent and down-to-earth. And you,” she shook her head, “so gifted and bright and such a perfectionist. Not shy and withdrawn and looking for a quiet life like your father, or loud and brassy and looking to change the world like me. Neither one of us could figure out how the two of you came from the two of us.”

“And he was so disappointed he had to leave.”

Wanda looked disturbed. “That’s twice you’ve used that word, disappointed. I told you, he was looking for a quiet life, Augusta. He left because he knew he’d never have one with me. I used to drive him crazy.” She laughed. “Running off to riot here or protest there. If it was local, I’d take the two of you with me, but usually it was too far away, so I’d leave you with him and be gone for weeks. He was constantly bailing me out of jail. It was the sixties. Well, the seventies, too, pretty much. He just got fed up with it, honey. But he was never disappointed in anyone. Not even me. He used to say he was proud of my work, of the way I felt about things. It just wasn’t the sort of life he wanted. So he left.”

“Did he know...about me?” She turned her left hand over on the table. “About the operation?”