The Pieces We Keep (30 page)

O
ut of the morning quiet came an inquiry from the person Vivian least expected.

“Are you absolutely sure about this?” Luanne said pointedly. “Because if you’re not . . .”

At the vanity, seated in her bathrobe, Vivian lowered the cardinal-red lipstick she was about to apply. She turned toward her roommate, who stood at the closet in her freshly buttoned dress.

“Please, don’t get me wrong,” Luanne continued. “I adore the thought of calling you my sister. And I know it might be unfair of me to say anything, with the ceremony only hours away. It’s just that everything’s moved so fast. Especially given how much he’s been out of town.”

Vivian admitted to her: “I do understand why you’d be concerned.”

When Gene and Vivian announced the news right after the proposal, Luanne had smiled and bid them good wishes. There had been an uncertainty, however, underlying her manner. Not unlike the doubts that festered in Vivian. Still, the week had rolled on without dissent, until this moment.

“This isn’t just about me, Viv.” Luanne took a step closer. “You haven’t even told your parents. Don’t you think they’ll be upset to have missed it?”

“They’ll be fine–after a while. Besides, it’s best this way. I don’t want the fanfare of a big wedding and neither does your brother.” What’s more, an event like that would take months that Vivian could not afford to spare.

“But shouldn’t your father at least give his blessing?”

“Gene was going to ask him, but there’s no guarantee when my father will actually return. Then there’s the business of my parents not even being at the same house. Don’t you see? This helps avoid all of those issues.”

“Well, yes. I suppose....”

“Luanne, good grief. I thought you were overjoyed we became a couple.”

“I was. I am. But still–”

Vivian could not bear any more of this. “Gene and I are going to be happy together.” The declaration shot out with such potency, she wondered which of them she was trying more to convince.

After a pause, Luanne gave a look of regret. “I’m sorry, Viv. I didn’t mean to imply that you wouldn’t be.”

Vivian shook her head, bridling her emotions. “It’s okay. You were right, it has moved fast.” She shrugged and said, “We’re just eager to make it official and don’t see the point in waiting. The same as a lot of other couples these days.”

Given the recent rash of deployment, sprints to the altar had become commonplace, even for people who had scarcely met. The fact that Gene was stationed in the States hadn’t stopped Vivian from using this rationale as a source of self-assurance.

“We love each other, Luanne. We really do.”

Though truth upheld the words, Vivian withdrew her gaze, fearing it would reveal more than she wished to share. As she busied herself with powder, Luanne slipped into a pair of heels and approached the vanity. She gave Vivian’s shoulder a tender squeeze.

“I still need to pick up your bouquet,” Luanne said with notable lightness. “I’ll see you there?”

Vivian smiled without turning. “See you there.”

 

Some would say it was bad luck, letting Gene view her before the wedding. But Vivian had come to learn that in spite of one’s efforts–avoiding cracks, crossing fingers, flinging salt-most in life occurred with little control.

The only element she could count on was the ease she would feel in Gene’s presence. This was the reason she had insisted he escort her to the courthouse. She knew she would need that comfort in order to carry on with the plan.

And for a brief while, it worked.

He stood at her door in his dashing dress uniform, his eyes glimmering beneath the bill of his hat. “Shall we?” he said with a smile, and offered the crook of his arm. He guided her to the waiting cab, carrying her suitcase for their hotel stay downtown. Packed among her clothing was a silken nightgown for what would be their first time together in that way.

What she had not figured into the equation, however, was the intrusion of her conscience. For the better part of a week, it had stalked her from a distance. But here, en route to the courthouse, it was squeezed in like a third passenger. She could not ignore its existence. From her heightened awareness, each kindness from Gene transformed into a punishment. His compliments over her appearance, on her wedding suit and Victory curls, were like lashes to her skin. He held her hand, and the sincerity of his touch burned through her thin ivory gloves.

Were the sensations but a warning of what was to come?

Months down the road, Gene would cradle the baby as Vivian lurked in the background, haunted by a secret. That was assuming, of course, the child’s birth would not have already exposed the truth-when gray-blue eyes, light-blond curls, and an early delivery shouted proof of another father.

The faster the thoughts spun in her mind, the thicker the air became. She leaned closer to the open window, but the August humidity blocked any reprieve. She sought an escape, a means to break free.

“Sir, could you pull over?” she said to the driver.

“Sweetheart,” Gene said, “we still have several blocks to go.”

“I need out. Now.
Please.”

He looked at her, befuddled, but affirmed her request with the cabbie. The instant they halted at the curb, Vivian jumped out and headed to nowhere in particular. It was as though she had blinked and the golden path of her life had twisted and darkened into a merciless maze.

“Vivian, wait for me!” Gene called out. Travel bags in hand, he caught up to her near the fountain of a city park, where three children waded about, scavenging for pennies. When Gene turned her around, she jerked her eyes away.

“Doll, what is it? Tell me what’s going on.”

“I can’t. I can’t do it.” She cringed inside, disgusted by what she had almost done.

“It’s all right,” he said. “We’ll just wait. We don’t have to rush.”

“Gene, you don’t understand.”

He studied her face, searching for clues, until a splash from the fountain hit his sleeve.

“Come over here with me.” He guided her to a corner of the park and onto a shaded bench. He set their luggage down. As he sat beside her, a hot tear leaked down her cheek. She went to wipe it away, but he gently beat her to it.

“Folks get cold feet all the time. Nothing to worry about.”

“No,” she whispered. “That’s not it.”

He hesitated, looking afraid to ask. “What, then?”

If only he hadn’t surprised her with that proposal. She had been fully prepared to confess it all. After six weeks of his absence, trading only a handful of letters and phone calls, she could not have seen that coming. No girl in her right mind would have seen that coming.

“Why did you ask me?” she said. She was desperate for the road map that had delivered them here, to pinpoint the wrong turns they had taken.

His forehead creased, the pondering of a trick question. “Because I love you.”

“We were apart for more than a month, you never even mention marriage, and the minute you come back you get down on one knee. Why?”

He parted his lips to answer. Then he tucked them in, tight as wire. Gazing away from her, he sank into the bench.

Finally, he said, “I’d made a mistake before. Years ago. I loved a girl, and she believed we’d get hitched one day. Have kids. Live happily ever after. Everybody around us did.”

It was his old girlfriend, Helen. Vivian knew this without asking. The story of betrayal had never been more painfully significant.

“I wasn’t sure, though, that I ever wanted to get married,” he said. “When I told her that, after years together, she pulled away for a while. One thing led to another and ... it didn’t work out. I realized too late that I should’ve explained more to her, so she’d have understood.”

He shrugged a shoulder in a manner that was anything but nonchalant. “Thing of it is my old man was a decent guy-until he drank. Usually he’d just throw a fit, start breaking things. But one night my mom accidentally burnt a roast. Money was tight, and he exploded. I was at the table when he slapped her hard enough to knock her down. She caught the edge of the counter with the back of her head and wound up with four stitches. I was twelve. He never did it again, not that I know of anyway. But part of me never forgave myself for just sitting there, scared as hell in my seat, not defending her like I should have.”

Vivian had never noticed how rarely Luanne talked about home. All those years, she had always seemed so sweet and carefree, no one in school would have imagined.

Gene cleared his throat and turned to Vivian. “Point is, with me being away from you, and feeling a distance growing, I just . . .” He shook his head and clutched her hand on her lap. “I couldn’t risk losing you, Vivi. Not when I know we’re supposed to be together. I know it in my heart. And I have no doubt anymore about being a good husband. I’d take such good care of you, if you’d let me.”

“Oh, Gene. I know you would....” Her tears were falling now in a stream she couldn’t slow, couldn’t stop. After what he had shared, her confession would gain another layer of cruelty. “That’s why there’s something you need to know.”

He waited for her to go on, clearly recognizing her conflict as more than cold feet.

Perhaps, to some extent, he would relate to her feeling of deep regret, of being unable to change the past but wanting direly to make things right.

Vivian amassed the remnants of her courage, recalling a time she could now identify as both the beginning and the end. “I was living in London with my parents,” she said. “One day, I was at the market alone when the air-raid siren sounded. It was just a routine alarm. We had no idea-or at least I was too ignorant to realize how close we were to war. And how, because of it, my whole life would change.”

A rivulet of sweat slid down her back. She shifted her vision to an unseen, distant spot. She could only complete the tale if not faced by Gene’s reaction, including the inevitable revelation that the “friend” from Germany she had asked him to help was actually Isaak.

“At a vendor stand,” she said, “I knocked over a tomato. It landed on a man’s dress shoe, and when I looked up he was standing there. And he smiled at me.”

From there, Vivian pressed on, covering the highlights of moments that had shaped her life for the past three years. Meeting Isaak at the London cinemas, the secrecy of their courtship and his family in Munich. His professor at the university, the information gleaned from her father, the letter at Euston Station. She described the reunion at Prospect Park, igniting confusion and fears, the resurrection of interred feelings. She spoke of Agent Daniel Gerard, the dealings of espionage that prohibited her from confiding in anyone, including Gene. And with a tightened throat, she detailed the legal dealings that had led to Isaak’s execution.

“Before that, though,” she said, fighting the shake in her voice, “I went to his hotel room to deliver a message. I never meant for anything more to happen. I swear to God, I didn’t. I was certain it was over for us-whatever it was that he and I’d once had. After he died, I was going to move on with my life. With you. But then, weeks later, I was at work, and I fainted. And they sent me to the doctor, and . . . and I . . .”

Struggling to finish, she angled toward Gene. She found his eyes lowering to her stomach, where her hands had unconsciously settled. He inhaled a sharp breath, and his neck trembled as though his head had become too heavy. He moved his jaw in several attempts to speak but failed.

“I am so, so sorry. Gene, the last thing I ever meant to do was hurt you.”

He rubbed his hand over his mouth. A bead of perspiration trailed from his temple, just below his hat. When his gaze slid toward her, it was clear he could not see her. He had succumbed to a daze she too often made her home.

“I’d understand if you never wanted to see me again,” she told him. “But I pray that somehow you’ll find a way to forgive me.”

An infinite beat passed before he rose woodenly, wordlessly from the bench.

“Please,” she said, “don’t go yet.” She touched his sleeve, and he held there for a moment. If only he would look at her, he would see in her eyes and face how utterly sorry she was, how desperate she was to make it up to him.

But he didn’t turn an inch. He merely walked away, abandoning his belongings, leaving her behind.

T
he man strode onward with purpose. Audra detected this even in her rearview mirror. But not until she’d stepped out of her car did she catch sight of his face, and astonishment grabbed hold.

“What do you want, Robert?”

He slowed his steps and came to rest a few yards away. He displayed his palms in a show of harmlessness, a great irony in that. “I came by hoping we could talk.”

From the beginning, Russ had advised her that a potential settlement could be reached if both parties were willing to compromise. By now, it seemed an unfathomable option. “That’s not a good idea.”

“I’m just asking for a few minutes. Then I promise to leave you be.”

She suddenly wondered how he could have known when she’d be returning home. The timing struck her as too much of a coincidence. “Have you been following me?”

“No. Of course not.”

She had come to doubt any words from his mouth. Did he know where she’d been, what she had just done? The liberation of only moments ago instantly receded.

“I’ve been sitting in the parking lot waiting for you. I knew you’d be here to meet Jack before long. I would’ve called first, but didn’t think you’d want to see me.”

“And you would have been right.”

The hurt that flashed in his eyes made her regret the snipe—though not entirely.

She reminded herself what he and Meredith were attempting to steal from her life. “As you said, Jack will be home shortly. I’d rather you not be around then. If you have something to say to either of us, your lawyer can contact mine.”

Leaving it at that, she snagged her purse from the car and shut and locked the door.

“Just listen for second. Audra, please . . .”

She charged toward the apartment, pulling out her cell phone. She was prepared to summon the police if needed.

“Audra!” he called to her. “We’re dropping the case.”

The declaration stopped her cold, spun her around. She had to have misheard him.

He walked over with a gait that now looked weary. Again he settled close by. “Last night, Meredith and I had a long discussion. And we realized we made a big mistake.”

Audra shook her head, too stunned to be relieved. She tried to trace the change of heart and could only imagine one cause. “Is this because of the cemetery? Just because you saw me at Devon’s grave, now I’m worthy of being Jack’s mother?”

“I’m not gonna lie. Seeing you there, the shock of it, that did get us talking. But that’s not why we’re withdrawing the petition.”

“Oh, really? Why, then?” She worked to keep her voice level.

In silence Robert gazed off toward a passing car. Over the past month, the skin under his eyes had drooped and darkened. “You remember hearing of Meredith’s bout with depression? Back when Devon was around six months old.”

Sure, Audra remembered. Robert had referred to them as “the baby blues.” Although she’d long ago surmised that the postpartum affliction had been worse than the family let on, the mention of it now turned her stomach. After all the turmoil the couple had caused, he was resorting to a sympathy plea.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but if you actually think I’m going to feel bad for Meredith—”

“Now you hold on,” he shot back, his eyes like daggers. “I’m gonna say what I came to, then I’ll be on my way for good, if that’s what you want. But there’s something you’ve got to hear first.”

Never had she seen him this stern. She swallowed against the dryness in her throat and nodded begrudgingly.

Robert folded his arms, inhaling a shaky breath. He proceeded in a tight but gentler tone. “For years before Devon was born, Mere taught piano lessons at the house. A few were adults, but most were kids. I used to say we lived in Grand Central, with the way people were always coming and going.”

The piano in Meredith’s music room, stored beneath a canvas, returned to Audra’s thoughts. Not once had she ever heard a single key played.

“There was a little girl in the bunch. Name was Paige. She was a petite thing, cute as a button. Always smiling and laughing and loved giving hugs. But then her mom got remarried, and Mere noticed her attitude started to change. Got real quiet during her lessons, smiled a lot less. Mere assumed the girl was just adjusting to the lifestyle, that maybe her mom was paying her less attention, wrapped up in the excitement of being a newlywed. But then, Mere ... she saw ...”

He broke off when his voice wavered, and he cleared his throat. “She saw bruises on the girl’s wrists. Her sleeves had ridden up while she was playing a song. When Mere asked about them, Paige said she’d been roughhousing with a neighbor boy. Later, Mere noticed the girl was wearing long sleeves and pants every time. She started missing lessons and her piano skills were getting worse.”

“Did Meredith ever bring it up to the girl’s mother?” Audra had to admit, the question was slightly pointed. It was difficult not to feel that such a concern should be reasonably investigated before delivering assumptions to authorities.

“Mere did ask her about the marks,” he replied. “Did it in private right after the spring recital. But the woman claimed Paige was just a tomboy. The mom was such a nice lady, Mere didn’t want to think the worst. She certainly didn’t want to butt her nose in or make accusations that were wrong. Mere was still worried, but days later she went into labor with Devon. She took a break from teaching, being busy with the baby. Then late in the fall, she called around to let her students know she’d be offering lessons again in the new year. And that’s when she learned the news.”

Audra wished she could reject Robert’s appeal, but the nature of the story made that impossible. Despite his ominous tone, she hoped with all her heart the outcome wasn’t horrific. “And . . . what happened?”

“That August, on a hot summer day, Paige had snuck a damn Popsicle. Her stepfather gave her a blow to the head that caused her brain to hemorrhage.”

“My God,” Audra said, her stomach turning again.

“Meredith blamed herself so much for not speaking to the police. She slipped into a pretty bad depression. It took a lot of work, a whole lot of tears and prayers to get out of that slump. So when we noticed some of the same signs with Jack—well, we thought maybe you’d changed after losing Devon. Grief, I know, can do strange things to people....”

He paused and shifted his feet. From the shame in his eyes Audra realized he was referring not just to her but also to him and Meredith. That perhaps the court filing was part of their own grieving process.

“Audra, I hope you can understand. When you talked about being in a rush to move, we got flat-out desperate. The way things were going, we figured there was a good chance we’d never see Jack again. Above all, we knew if anything ever did happen to him because we didn’t try to protect him—even from you—we would never forgive ourselves.”

No question, when recent events were outlined on paper, Audra was well aware how she’d appear as a parent. Meredith’s history aside, the suspicions weren’t exactly unfounded. “What makes you certain now that Jack is safe with me?”

“Our lawyer told us about the police report. How they’d given Jack a thorough check and were satisfied. I admit that it helped put our mind at ease. Beyond that, seeing you in person yesterday, I guess you could say it woke us up. It reminded us how much we really do know you. And that you’re a good person, Audra. More important, you’re a good mom. Deep down, we’ve always believed that—even when you seemed to have doubts about it yourself.”

A mix of emotions whirled through her. She tried to respond but couldn’t assemble the words.

After an exhale, Robert rubbed his jaw and said, “Frankly, I wouldn’t blame you if you never forgave us. If I were in your shoes, I’m not sure I’d be capable of that. But I do want you to know how deeply sorry we are. We love you, and we love Jack. No matter where you decide to go from here, I hope you always remember that.”

A quiet beat passed before Robert submitted a smile and turned for his car. He climbed in and drove off, around the corner, out of view. But still Audra stood there, her spirits both blooming and wilting in the afternoon light.