Promises (32 page)

“What do you say to a swim?” Randi proposed. “Danny, you change in the bathroom, and, Julie, come along and I’ll show you the guestroom. Let’s swim, too, shall we, Adam?”

There was for Adam an awkward moment when he
followed Randi into their bedroom. His children, in passing the door, had certainly glimpsed the bed, and he knew as if he had been told what had gone through their minds. The moment passed, however, as the reality of the day returned to him, the lovely reality of being with Randi and his children all at the same time.

When he emerged into the sunlight, Danny was already in the pool, while Julie, immaculate in her blue sundress, sat in the shade.

“Why, Julie, no suit?”

“I don’t feel like going in.”

“What’s the matter, don’t you feel well?”

“I’m all right. I just don’t want to swim.”

“Okay,” Adam said cheerfully. “Do you want something to read? A magazine or the paper?”

“No, I’m fine.”

Julie was furtively observing Randi’s white satin bikini. Danny, too, had taken rather a long look. Poor kids, he thought with a sudden shock of understanding, and was ashamed that he had not before considered how they would actually
feel
on seeing Randi. He had thought only how glad they would be to see
him.

“Well, let’s go. Come on, Danny,” he called. “I’ll race you for six laps.”

After Danny had won by an arm’s length, he challenged his father to an underwater race.

“I’m no good at that,” Adam said.

“I am. I learned how last year at Scout camp.”

“Aren’t you going this year?” asked Randi, who was tanning herself.

“No,” Danny said, and when Adam, surprised, asked why not, he replied soberly, “We don’t want to leave Mom.”

The introduction of the word
Mom
, however innocently spoken, was disconcerting and produced a silence that needed to be quickly filled.

It was Randi who filled it by remarking, “Your father tells me you’re quite a pianist, Julie.”

“Not really,” Julie said.

“Well, you’re not Rachmaninoff, but you’re mighty good,” Adam asserted. “Did Mrs. Watts give you another piece yesterday, or are you still on the waltz?”

“I didn’t have a lesson yesterday.”

The child had no expression on her face or in her voice. Sitting there with her legs crossed neatly at the ankles as she had been taught in dancing school to do, she looked as if all the air had gone out of her. Adam felt slightly irritated, but chiefly worried.

“Well, as long as you don’t skip too many lessons,” he began, when Julie interrupted.

“I’m never going to take any more lessons.”

“What? You can’t mean that.”

“I do mean it,” Julie said in the same flat voice.

This was not how Adam had envisioned the day. He could not, however, let the subject drop, so he tried coaxing.

“You’ll be making a big mistake. It’s a great joy to be able to make your own music. I wish I could play the way you do, but I’ve no talent.” Starting to say something about Julie’s evening performance, he stopped himself just in time.

Danny, who had been throwing a stick to Rufus out under the trees, came running back to announce that Rufus’s tongue was hanging out.

“I think he needs water, Dad.”

“I’ll get a bowl,” Randi said. “I have to go to the kitchen anyhow, to see about lunch.”

“Listen to me,” Adam said quickly when she was gone. “I know this must be very strange for you both, and we’ll have to talk more about it, but for now I want to say one thing. Nobody’s angry at anybody. I’m not angry at your mother. She’s a very good mother.”

There was a pause. The children were scrutinizing his face, expecting more. And since of course he knew what they wanted, he gathered his courage and proceeded.

“That’s not why I left. I left because I love Randi.”

They said nothing.

“You’ll like her when you know her. You really will.”

“Do you want to bring Rufus in here?” Randi called. “It’s hot out there, and he’s got so much hair.”

Danny went in with the dog, but Julie, whose eyes shone with tears, held back, taking a tissue out of her purse.

Proper little old lady with a purse, Adam thought, and he put his arm around her shoulders.

“It’s not so bad, honey. Everything’s going to be all right. You’ll see.”

“Don’t,” she said, pulling away. “It’s worse when you do that.”

“All right, I won’t.”

They stood there for a minute or two while Julie sniffled, and Adam had his thoughts. Surely this business would straighten itself out soon enough; millions of kids went through it and survived. It was just that Julie was especially tender and always had taken things harder than most kids do.

In all other respects his children’s lives would be unchanged, he swore. He would see to that. Tomorrow he
had an appointment with a lawyer. They would settle everything decently. He would do his full duty by his family.… He wondered what they would say at the office when they heard the news. They were definitely not going to hear it from him; he had never been one of those garrulous types who talked all over the place about their personal affairs.

“Do I look all right?” asked Julie. “I have no mirror.”

“You look just fine. Pretty as ever. Go on in and offer to help Randi with lunch.”

The rest of the afternoon passed pleasantly. Food always helps, Adam thought. Randi, the good cook, had made a fine pasta. The salad and dessert were all delicious, and Danny ate enough for two.

“You’re really giving them a good time,” Adam whispered.

“They’re sweet, Adam, and they’re yours,” Randi replied.

When it was time to go home, his children were gracious with their thanks. And again, he felt pride. Margaret had brought them up well; they were not like so many of the raucous, rude teenagers that one saw these days. And the meeting that could have been difficult, he reflected, had really gone rather well. The next time would be easier still.

Back in Elmsford, Adam sat for a moment in the car watching Danny and Julie go around the side of the house. He felt a curious shock at the realization that he might very well never enter this house, that had been his home, again. Had he been asked whether he was feeling grief because of it, he would have said: No, not grief, but rather the pathos that change brings, even change
for the better. It is a kind of lament over the passage of time.

As he was moving away from the curb, he was astonished to see Nina coming down the walk. She had a sheaf of letters in her hand.

“Hey,” he called. “Nobody told me you were in town. What’s going on?”

She stopped, stood with hand on hip, and gave him a long stare. “Why nothing, nothing at all. What should be going on?” Then she smiled. “Everything is just perfect. Perfect. I’m surprised that you need ask.”

This was going to be difficult.… “Are you on your way to the post office? I’ll drive you. Get in and we’ll talk.”

“Thank you, Adam, but I don’t want to talk. Actually, I know very well what’s going on, and I don’t care to hear whatever phony explanation you may have to offer for it.”

The mockery in her eyes infuriated him. Yet he replied calmly, “It isn’t phony, Nina.”

“Yes, it is. Nothing you can ever say will justify what you’ve done here.”

“Not so, Nina. One doesn’t have to ‘justify’ love.”

“Love! It’s a dirty affair, your love, and nothing else, so don’t try and wipe it clean. Save your energy.”

“You’re hardly the one to talk, are you?”

“Yes, I am. What I did was wrong, and I’m finished with it.
I’ll
admit it, and
you
won’t. When I look at Margaret, I see the other side, and then I really know how wrong I was.”

“So you’ve had a religious conversion, have you? Suddenly you’ve seen the light.”

“You aren’t going to knife me with sarcasm, Adam.
You’ve knifed me with disillusionment instead. I thought you were the best of the best, the king of the world, and now you’ve fallen off your throne. But
me
! What am I doing talking about me? It’s Margaret and those children.…”

For a moment he had to look away from Nina’s outrage. And then, hesitantly, he asked, “How is she?”

“Great. Just fine. How the hell do you think she is?”

“Now it’s your turn for sarcasm, is it? I only asked a decent question, Nina.”

“I’ll tell you what. If you’re so interested in her, go inside and find out the answer for yourself.”

Watching her go down the street, Adam was keenly hurt. She was his Nina, his young sister, and he had always been there for her. He had always understood. Yet, he supposed, it was only natural that, being a woman, she would condemn him.…

With some defiance then, he raised his head, thrusting out his chin. Eventually, she would get over it. They all would. All the hurts would mend, and life would go on. It always did. With this consoling certainty he drove away.

The evening meal was the worst time, Margaret reflected. They were all scattered these summer days, for which she was thankful. Even Nina had been spending some afternoons with people she had scarcely seen since her high school years. And so Margaret was left with long periods alone, which might or might not be good for her. But she welcomed them, nevertheless, because speech came hard now; even response to the kindness of her cousins and Fred, and the very few others who yet knew what had happened to the Crane family, came
hard. Sessions with the lawyer, pleasant as he was, required endurance, as did the work on what seemed to be endless questionnaires. Never had she been so physically exhausted. It seemed as if now, in the third week after the disaster, every part of her body was afflicted with some sort of ache or pain. Her teeth hurt, her head throbbed, and sometimes her back felt broken. Nevertheless, she was determined to ignore every complaint. There was work to be done. The house had to be kept up. The vegetables had to be weeded; she couldn’t expect the children to do their usual stint and take over Adam’s jobs as well. Besides, there was therapy in stooping over the soil; alone there in the back garden one could let one’s tears drip unseen.

But the evening meal was difficult. Everyone except Nina and me, she thought, brings his moods to the table.

Danny, contrary to his nature, was sulking. She wasn’t just imagining, either, that after those Saturdays with Adam, he was always sulky. Yet he looked forward to the visits.

“You said we could get a puppy this summer,” he shouted. “And this was the summer we were going out west to Yosemite. You’ve broken all your promises.”

Margaret’s glance met Nina’s across the table.
Poor kid
, the glance said.

And Margaret answered kindly, “I’m sorry, Danny. But we’ve all been having a hard time. I’ve not been able to think about training a puppy just now. I would have done it if—”

Danny was not about to let her finish. “Well, then, we could still drive out West. There’s time. Dad says we could. You’re not working now, and we could do it.”

Dad said so, did he? I should just merrily set off across the plains and the Rockies, three thousand miles round trip, with three kids in my old car, in my state of mind! And does it perhaps occur to Dad that the money he’s been sending is barely enough to get me to the supermarket and back?

“We can’t do it now, but there’ll be other summers, Danny,” she said.

“Aw, I don’t believe you. We’ll never get to go. Never.”

“Why don’t you shut up?” Megan said. “You’re a big baby.”

“Don’t you call me a baby, you shithead!”

Oh, God, not tonight again, Margaret prayed, and she gave a calm reprimand, “We don’t talk like that in this house, Danny. You and the boys can say what you want when you’re out together, I know, but it’s not allowed here.”

“You should hear what he says to me when you’re not around, Mom.” Megan, who had never whined, had begun to develop an irritating nasal tone. “He’s disgusting lately, ever since he began seeing Dad’s girlfriend.”

Margaret opened her mouth to say “Please, Megan,” when Danny shouted again, “Don’t say things about her! You don’t even know her. She’s nice, nicer than you are, shithead!”

She’s nice.
And am I supposed to suffer that, too, Margaret asked herself? There was no doubt this time that the pain in her chest and the pulses in her neck were real. Psychosomatic, of course, but real all the same.

“Listen to that,” Megan said. “He thinks that cheap
tramp is nice. But what does he know at his age? Do you think she’s so nice, Julie?”

Julie’s eyes filled. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I hate everything now. You’re always fighting. At least they don’t fight at Dad’s house. Oh,” she cried, “oh, Mom, what did you do to make Dad leave us?”

What did you do to make Dad—

Margaret heard Nina’s gasp. At that moment the phone rang.

“I’ll take it,” Margaret said, running.

When she returned, they were all talking at once. In her state of agitation she interrupted more harshly than she ever would have done in the past.

“That was Mrs. Watts, Julie. She says you phoned her to say you don’t want any more lessons, ever, and she’s naturally concerned. So am I.”

Julie looked down at her plate and mumbled something.

“Please look up at me and speak so I can hear you.”

“You knew I haven’t been going.”

“Yes, and I understood why. I even explained to Mrs. Watts that you needed some time off. I told her why, too, and she understood. But this is something else.”

“I don’t need time off. I’m quitting. I hate music.”

From the dining room Margaret could look across the hall to where the piano stood, now silent with the lid closed. I haven’t dusted it in weeks, she thought suddenly, and as suddenly the instrument became to her a symbol of the whole house, the family and the life: deserted. She gripped the edge of the table and sat down heavily.

“You don’t hate music, darling. You never could. I wish you’d go to Mrs. Watts and try another lesson.
Then you’ll see how happy it will make you feel, as it always did.”

“I don’t have to. I told Dad, and first he said I shouldn’t quit, but then he said, well, I don’t ever have to if that’s the way I feel about it. Dad said so,” Julie sobbed.