Promises (43 page)

“When did I ever tell you about an insurance policy?”

“A couple of years ago. I remember everything, Adam. Everything.”

When and why had that ever come up in conversation? He had no idea.

Then he replied, “You must remember that Margaret owns the policy, not I.”

“But you pay for it.”

“No, I don’t. Not anymore. I should, but I haven’t been able to afford it.”

“I still don’t believe you. Anyway, why should you, when you have no insurance for me and this?” She laid her hand upon her belly.

“I told you I intended to take out a policy as soon as I can. Right now I can’t afford to.”

“You could if you would put your past behind you. They’re all fastened onto you like leeches. They’re not helpless babies anymore. Are we ever going to get rid of them?”

Adam put his hand to his forehead, groaning. “I don’t understand what’s wrong, Randi. My nerves are frayed. You’ve got to stop it.”

“They’re not frayed because of me.
I’m
not a leech.”

“No, but your mortgage is.”

“You knew from the beginning that I had a mortgage.”

“Yes, but I didn’t know how big. And I certainly didn’t know that you had a second mortgage on top of it.”

“Yes, you knew. I told you.”

“No, you didn’t, Randi,” he said quietly.

“Well, I did. But if I didn’t, you’ve still no complaint. It hasn’t been bad, has it, living in an air-conditioned house for a change and taking a swim after a day’s work? Not bad.”

“I’ve paid my share and a lot more,” he said, still quietly, still keeping control. “Anyway, this is no time to talk about money. You have guests coming tonight and I have to take Julie and Danny home.”

“You couldn’t possibly stay here and help me, I suppose. You see how I am.”

“Everything is ready. It’s a buffet. There’s nothing else to do. But if you’re really sick, you can cancel it.”

“I don’t want to cancel it.”

“Well, then, I’ll take them home now, and when I get back I’ll help you do whatever needs to be done.”

“It’s absolutely ridiculous that every single weekend or holiday you have this routine.”

“When else can I see my children?” he asked with his hand already on the doorknob. “Besides, I almost never do see them on holidays.”

“It’s a thirty-mile trip there and back. Why can’t they come less often and stay overnight for once and make it easier for us?”

He knew, and was certain Randi knew, that this was something Margaret would fight to the end to prevent.

“It’s better this way,” he said. “I feel more comfortable this way.”

Her laugh was loud and shrill. “Oh, I can see right through you, Adam. Do you think I don’t know that you’re squeamish about their seeing us sleeping together? God, I can’t believe it! In 1994! Do you think they think this is going to be a virgin birth?”

“Will you pipe down, Randi?” he demanded through clenched teeth. “They can hear you.”

“Maybe it’s just as well that they do. Let them go back and tell their mother how I feel about her. That we—you and I—are not going to take any more. I’m protecting you, Adam. I’m angry on your behalf. Hard as you work! While they milk you! Threatening to take you to court. For what? So those big, demanding girls can live on the fat of the land? This mopey one here and the stuck-up Harvard lady who treats you like dirt. They should be going to secretarial school and then to work, the same as I did when I left high school. It was good enough for me.”

“All right,” Adam said, “all right, Randi, take it easy. I’ll be back soon.”

The two were sitting together on the sofa with the television turned off. It was plain to him that they had heard everything, and he felt sick.

“Come,” he said, “it’s time.”

They rode for a way before anyone spoke. He was trying to think how to begin when Danny said, “We heard everything.”

“I thought you did.”

“She stinks,” Danny said, “I hate her.”

It was all so ugly, so degrading. In his misery Adam could only say, aware of the inadequacy of the excuse, “She was sick today. I’m sure she’s sorry already. People say things they don’t mean.”

“She meant it, Dad. Being sick is no excuse. And I do hate her.”

“Please try not to, Danny. I know it’s hard, but try.”

“Why did you do it, Daddy?” Julie asked. “Weren’t you happy with Mom and us?”

He felt a shock of surprise, a realization that no one had put that direct question to him until now. And how was he to reply? How to say, yes, I was happy, or thought I was, until I found out that I had to have this woman, wasn’t able to stay away from her, and your mother, once she knew, was the impediment?

A man could hardly tell that to his children.

“There are things between people that anyone who hasn’t experienced them can’t easily understand,” he began, and then as this pompous evasion, which he knew to be useless, even stupid, was met with total silence, he suddenly gave way to emotion, crying, “It’s been terrible for you.… It always is for the children, isn’t it? That’s what you read. But you don’t quite accept it until you see it for yourself.” And he turned toward Danny, who was in the front seat beside him. “If I’ve hurt you too much, will you at least understand that it was nothing I wanted to do—or could help?”

“She—Randi—wants to pretend we don’t exist,” Julie said. “Don’t you see that? She’s a horrible person. The way she talked about Mom … And you let her.”

He struggled for a place between his children and Randi from which, equidistant from either side, he might pull them together again. “What happened today is nothing permanent. You’ve gotten along so well together until now, and you will again.”

“No. It’s been an act to please you,” Julie said. Her tone was sad. “I didn’t see that at the beginning, but I see it now.”

Suddenly, with these words, he remembered that she was sixteen. He had for some reason been thinking of her all along as the fourteen-year-old, young for her age, that she was when he left home. And he saw that,
as one might expect, she had changed a lot in those two years. Also, she was seeing a psychologist, who had no doubt helped her toward some adult insight.

The sadness that had been in her voice now seemed to permeate the car. He asked himself: What will this lovely daughter, for whom I am supposed to be the measure of manhood, of a future husband, remember of me? And my son, my son whose body as he sits here seems to be shrinking away from me? And my Megan …

They came to the development, the monotonous red brick apartments marching up the hill.

“It’s pretty here,” he said. “They’ve left the trees. That’s nice.”

“You live in a better place. You have a beautiful house,” Danny objected, with unmistakable emphasis on
you.

As if he had not heard—for what could his response have been?—Adam said only, “Well, here we are. The usual time next Sunday?”

“One of the guys is having a birthday party,” Danny said.

“Well, how about Saturday, then?”

“I might have to go to the dentist,” Julie said. “You’d better call up.”

“No cavities in your good teeth, I hope?” he questioned, being cheerful, being natural, being, as he well knew, given the circumstances, an idiot.

“Not that I know of.”

“Shall we go get some ice cream for your dessert tonight? We just passed a place only a stone’s throw from here.”

Danny declined. “Mom always keeps ice cream in the
freezer,” he added, as if to say,
which you ought to know.

When they alighted from the car, Julie looked at Adam. Her eyes were wet. “Good-bye, Daddy,” she said softly.

For a moment he watched the two walk to the door and go in. Neither of them looked around to wave. Then he turned his car and started back to The Grove, where a jolly party would just be getting under way.

“Well, how was it?” Megan asked.

Danny said, “It stank.”

“Why, what happened, Julie?”

“I’ll tell you later. I don’t feel like talking about it now.”

“Stink, stank, stunk,” Danny said. “Where’s Mom?”

“Went to dinner with Uncle Fred. She left a note. I drove to Betsy’s on our old street. She had a crowd over, and I just got back.”

“How’s the old street?” asked Danny. “And what’s for dinner?”

“Number one, the street looks the same, except for our house, which looks awful. Number two, Mom left chicken pot pies and she made rice pudding. Your favorite, Julie, without raisins.”

“I’m not hungry. I think I’ll take a walk.”

“Where to?”

“I don’t know. Just around.”

“It’s six o’clock,” Megan protested.

“What’s the difference? I need to walk.”

At half past eight, when Fred’s car stopped before the door, Danny and Megan were standing on the step looking up and down the street.

“I don’t know what’s become of Julie,” Megan cried. “She went for a walk at six o’clock.”

An instant ripple of cold alarm ran through Margaret. “Did she give you any idea where she was going?”

Megan said anxiously, “She only said she needed to walk.”

“Needed to? Why! Did anything happen today?”

“We had a lousy time,” Danny reported, “and I think it got to her. You know how Julie is.”

Margaret looked at Fred. “It’s getting dark,” she said.

“Come.” He took Margaret by the elbow. “Get in the car. We’ll drive around and we’ll find her. She might have gone to the mall. It’s still open.”

“Julie’s not a mall person. She never goes unless she needs something.”

“Well, maybe she needed something. Come on,” he said heartily and added, “We’ll keep phoning you in case she should come back before we find her.”

In the car Margaret sat twisting her fingers in her lap. “There’s nothing here,” she said after a while, “but these empty suburban streets and that highway with God knows who out there scouting for young girls with long blond hair. Fred, I’m pretty frantic.”

They had been driving and searching without clue or aim for the last hour. Fred reached over and patted her shoulder, saying only, and this time not heartily, “I know.”

The party was swinging. It moved from the house to the flagstone terrace, which had been newly ringed by a circle of expensive, half-grown ilex and rhododendron shrubs. Large stone tubs overflowed with white petunias.
A second bar had been set up on the redwood table, and a few people were already pleasantly drunk. Some danced to the music that came from the loudspeakers on the wall. Some had come equipped for swimming, and were fooling around in the pool.

Randi, watching this scene with great satisfaction, observed to Adam, “Some party, isn’t it? Last fling before the baby comes. For the next year, at least, we’ll be too busy.”

Incredibly, to him, she had recovered from the afternoon’s mood as if it had never existed. Wearing, along with shoulder-length rhinestone earrings, a white baby dress, tier upon ruffled tier, even in her seventh month, she sparkled. In one way, he reflected, you could admire her spirit, while in another way you could say that she looked absurd.

“Well, can’t you answer me? Can’t you take that glum face off?”

“Okay,” he agreed, wanting least of all to argue here before these people, not that it would have disturbed Randi; public “scenes” did not faze her. “I’m not glum, only tired. I’m going to get something to eat.”

Instead he went to the telephone in the bedroom. For a few minutes he sat on the bed before lifting his hand to make the call. Over and over the same thought kept running as if on a track: If I could only explain! Yet it wouldn’t be seemly for a father to talk about his passion, his infatuation, his love, or whatever it was. For what, exactly, was it? And even if it were seemly, he wouldn’t know how to describe it.

Yet he had to speak to Julie. It seemed to him that he would never forget her face when she said good-bye today. For him it had been like looking at the end of
innocence. He—they—had hurt her so! And hurt Danny, too, although in a different way, according to the person that he was. And Randi had known they would overhear. She had said so.

Danny answered the call. “I need to talk to you, Danny,” he said, “about today. And to Julie too. I don’t want you to think—”

“She isn’t here. We don’t know where she is. They’ve gone to look for her.”

“Not there? What happened?”

“I don’t know. She went out at six o’clock. I think she felt very bad. And I think it’s your fault. Yours and Randi’s.”

The phone clicked. With the dead phone in his hands he went blank. Then he looked at the time. It was half past nine, and she had been gone since six. Far out on the terrace there came loud whoops of laughter; somebody must have told a joke. But what might have happened to his Julie?

Randi was standing with a group when he came tearing outside, gasping, “I have to leave, I have to go back. Julie’s lost. Something’s happened.”

She whirled upon him. “Leave? In the middle of your party with all these people here?”

“I have to. They can’t find her.”

“Who is Julie?” someone asked.

“My daughter. You will excuse me. I have to go.”

Randi’s furious eyes reminded him that most of these people did not know that he had a family. She had wanted him to have no past, no other life but the one he had with her. Well, it was done, he couldn’t help it.

And repeating “Please excuse me,” he fled.

There were two cars at the curb when he arrived at
the apartment, Fred’s and Margaret’s. He leapt out, ran to the door, and, having rung the bell, came face to face with Fred.

“I came—I heard—Dan told me Julie—”

“I know. Julie is here. She’s quite all right. A friend found her and brought her home.”

“Is she—”

“She’s fine.” Fred spoke not unkindly, but surely without welcome. “She went for a walk and foolishly stayed out too long. There’s nothing wrong with her. She made a mistake, that’s all.”

Behind Fred were lights and voices, a sense of people in a small space, a sense of warmth. For a second only, Adam had a glimpse of Margaret’s head; it was the first time in two years that he had seen her.

“May I, I should like to say something to Julie, only a minute—”

“Not here, not now, Adam. This is Margaret’s house.”