When You Go Away (16 page)

     Around the side of the house, under the bottlebrush tree, he knelt down and pulled up some oxalis that thrust up year after year despite his best efforts, the bright yellow flowers beautiful but dangerous as they burst from their deep green clovered leaves, shooting seeds everywhere.  And then there was the crab and Johnson grass, and it felt good to grab what wasn't wanted and yank it out, taking care of something.

     "Mr. Randall?  Oh, Mr. Randall?" 

     Carl closed his eyes, sighing.  This was all he needed right now.

     "Yes, Mrs. Trimble."  He stood up, brushing the dirt off his Levi's and then giving up.  He had to change his clothes anyway, needing to look decent for Garnet and Graham.  Like someone who could care for a thirteen- and fifteen-year-old.

     "How are your grandchildren?" 

     He looked at her, squinting.  The kids?  What did she want to complain about now?  "They're fine.  Teenagers, you know.  What can you do?"

     She took off her hat and ran a hand over her head.  He almost stepped back, amazed by the blonde hair that fell just below her chin.  He'd assumed she had gray hair.  In fact, if he were being honest, he imagined Mrs. Trimble didn't have any hair at all, going bald in that sad way women sometimes do, patches of shiny scalp below once-a-week hairdos. 

     "Oh, I have five grandchildren of my own.  I know they can be trouble.  But I don't get to see them very often."

     Carl moved closer, still holding his clippers.  "Where do they live?"

     "My son works in
Saudi Arabia
.  Oil.  It's dangerous, don't I know it.  Especially now.  And the kids go to school in
Europe
.  Boarding school.  They only come home to visit here once every two years."

    
So that's it
, Carl thought.  She's bored and has to take it out on her garden, pestering him about the rhododendrons and their blasted roots.  For the first time, he felt sorry for Mrs. Trimble, who with her blonde hair didn't seem like someone he should be calling Missus.  Garnet, the judge’s wife, was someone he should call Missus.  He wished he didn't have to call Garnet anything at all.

     "That's too bad they don't come more often."

     "Are the kids staying with you for long?”  Mrs. Trimble put her hat back on, and his new vision of her disappeared under the brim.  She was Mrs. Trimble again, zinc oxide and all.

     "I hope so.  I really do." He smiled and waved with his clippers, turning back to the house.  He had to call somebody, anybody to make things right.

     "Do what he wants.  Make nice.  Be sociable.  We want to seem congenial, interested in offering a compromise.  Fran said the same thing.  He is their father.  We don’t know what exactly happened.  Can I put you on hold?" and
Preston
clicked off without an answer.

     Carl shook his head against the phone, not wanting to make nice to Graham or Garnet.  It was as if all the years they were a family together had disappeared and along with it, Carl’s ability to be pleasant.  Before, when Garnet bossed Graham or his sister Marcia around or made unending suggestions to Peri, Carl had shrugged it off.  “A mother,” he would say to Noel.  “What can you do with those alpha females?”  He meant bitch, but because he’d screwed up so damn bad before with his own marriage, he didn’t want to make things harder for Peri. 

     And Garnet was generous with time and money, sending the kids to camps, making sure Peri had access to the experts that would help Brooke.  So how could he let her tone of voice ruin a good thing?  Once Graham left, though, Carl felt it was the first day of
hunting season, all his irritation let loose in such force that Noel finally said, “God, Dad.  She wasn’t the devil.”

     And now, he wanted to bash both Graham and Garnet with his newly strung racket, beating them with the synthetic 60-pound gut, and then stomp all over both with his new shoes.  Maybe he'd have a go at them with his clippers.

     “I’m back,”
Preston
said.

     “Oh.”

     “So, what are you going to do, Carl?  Remember, this is about Peri and her case.”

"If you really think that's the best thing.  But how long do they have to stay with them?  I mean, how long do they have to stay?"

     He heard
Preston
shuffling papers.  "He gets a two-week visit with them a year.  It's in the visitation agreement.  But it's a bit unclear now that the primary caregiver is incapacitated.  Just let them go.  He's their father, after all.  But I'm on the case, Carl.  Don't worry."

     "Easy for you to say," Carl said.  So many phrases slipped off the tongue easily like "Have a nice day," or "It's not so hard," or "Get over it," or "Cheer up."  He said them all the time, not imagining that someone might go home and try to actually use his words as advice.

    
Preston
snorted.  "Yes, it is.  But I mean it."

     Hanging up, Carl looked out the window as Rosie pulled up in her truck, Ryan and Carly jumping out of the passenger's side door.  It had only been a couple days, but he swore the kids looked better.  Carly had lost the pale blue tinge along her jaw that had initially frightened him until he realized it was the fan of veins just under her skin.  What she needed was more food and sleep, and here it was only a half dozen meals since he'd gone over to the apartment and she looked almost pink.  Ryan still looked like an idiot in his baggy pants, the hem in folds on top of his hulking skateboard shoes ("Everyone wears them," he'd assured Carl), but he was smiling at something Rosie was saying to him.  Was there any way Carl could pretend nothing had happened?  For one second, two, three, his grandchildren were home, the world only this scene in front of him, none of the others he knew were playing out all around them.  Carly's skin, Ryan's laugh. That's it.

     "We're back," Rosie said, pushing open the door as Carl walked to it.  Her eyes were full of light, brighter than that day at the hospital, and Carl breathed out, feeling lighter himself.

     "I can see that.  How about a cup of coffee.  I've got sandwiches for the kids."

     "I just want meat," Carly said.  "I read about this carbohydrate addict’s diet in
Seventeen
.  No bread.  No starch."

     "For crying out loud," Rosie said, putting her heavy purse on the kitchen table as Carl pulled out the plate of sandwiches.  "Pretty soon you'll be reduced to cucumbers."

     "How's Brooke today?"  Ryan asked, his backpack thumping on the ground.

     "Good.  The doctor says her infection is almost gone.  Your Grandma Garnet was out there this morning."

     Despite her addict's diet, Carly sat down at the table and grabbed a turkey sandwich, biting off a corner that included the white sourdough.  "So are we going to the hospital later?" she asked, pushing the lump of meat and bread into her cheek.

     "Well . . ." Carl turned to the Mr. Coffee he'd bought at K-Mart two years ago when his percolator finally died a sizzling electrical death.  He measured out six cups of water and scooped grounds into the cup.

     Carly picked up a curl of crust and popped it in her mouth.  “Brooke’s fever was down yesterday,” she said.  “She was much better.”

     “That’s good, right?” Ryan asked, and Carl could see he wasn’t just talking about Brooke.  He meant good for his mom.

     “Of course.  It’s very good.”  Carl took two cups out of the cupboard, looking inside them quickly.  He swallowed, realizing he was a little nervous with Rosie here, as if suddenly he was the kind of man whose cups were home to cockroaches.

     "I have some time," Rosie said.  "I'd like to see her again.  She's a trooper, that one."

     "Grandpa?"  Ryan asked, taking a ham and cheese, chewing as he stared at him with eyes that were just like Graham's.  “So are we going to go?”

     Carl pressed the on button on the coffee maker, water starting to roil in the machine.

     “Grandpa?” Ryan said again.

     Carl searched in his body for the light feeling Rosie had given him just minutes ago, but all he could find was a dull dark spot that felt as heavy as Ryan's shoes.  "Okay, here’s the latest.  Your Dad's in town.  Now.  He's coming by in about fifteen minutes.  I guess you're going to stay the weekend with him.  Maybe--maybe more."

     The kids both looked down at the table, still chewing, and Rosie stood up, grabbed her purse, and then patted each child on the shoulder as she walked by.  "I’ll take a rain check on that coffee.  There's things for you to do then.  So I'm hightailing it.  You guys keep up the good work at school.  If I can, I'll get you a couple times next week.  All right?"

     Neither said anything, nodding into their food.  Carl shook his head and followed Rosie to the door, walking outside to stand on the porch, just out of the kids' view.  "I don't have a choice here,” he told Rosie.  “He does have rights.  My lawyer says to play nice, and we'll have the lion by the tail when it's over."

     "I don't know what to say.  He’s their father.  That's true.  But I swear, Carl.  If I have to testify, I will.  I saw that apartment first.  I know what those kids were going through."

     Carl almost laughed.  Of course!  What Rosie had seen that night in the apartment might be the answer to his legal prayers.  But then he closed his eyes for a second, letting the laugh still in his chest. What happened in the apartment wasn't all Graham's fault.  It wasn’t.  He understood that, at least, despite the defensiveness that crawled with prickly fingers across his chest.  "That night says just as much about Peri as it does Graham.  Maybe more."

     Rosie put a hand on his arm.  "She is plain sick.  Mental illness is the brain suffering.  Just like a kidney or a liver.  It's an organ, no better, no worse.  This husband doesn't have an excuse.  He was a perfectly healthy man who left his kids and didn't send them what they he was supposed to.  Don't forget that.  Not ever."  

     The underside of his jaw felt thick and tight, and all he could do was nod, feeling her hand on him, pressing hard.  She was the only one he'd been able to talk to about any of this.  Maybe he could have gone up to the tennis court with the terrible story, but Carl knew he'd have made a joke about being a father again, teased Bob or Ralph, asking them to baby sit on a Saturday night.  And no matter what happened, Carl could count on this woman, this virtual stranger, to do for him what no one he knew could.

     "Thanks.  Thanks a lot."

     Rosie let go and smiled.  "No problem.  Give me a call when you need me.  I'll try to sneak a visit to Brooke."

     Carl waved as she drove off, knowing she wouldn't have to sneak into Brooke's room. Graham wouldn’t be paying attention, wouldn’t want anything to do with his damaged child or care who saw her. 

     Before Carl went back into the house he blew his nose and coughed, turning inside only when he saw Mrs. Trimble round the corner with her dog, an old
dachshund
.

     Ryan was finishing off the second half of his sandwich and had brought out a carton of milk and two glasses to the table, a milk mustache spreading under his nose.  Carly stared at him, a crumb of bread at the corner of her mouth.  Carl brought his thumb and
forefinger to her lip and pinched it off, the small swipe of her soft skin reminding him of Peri, of how she would watch him as he read the newspaper or watched TV.  He'd turn around, and there Peri would be, her light eyes full of a question Carl supposed he'd been unable to answer.  He'd never known what she really wanted from him except to be near him.  And then he hadn’t been there anymore, the question had been answered by his absence. 
Yes
, he might as well have said aloud. 
I really will leave.

    He walked to the counter and flicked off the coffee machine, not wanting to put anything on his aching stomach.

     "So like when is he coming?"  Ryan asked, his earlier smile gone.

     "Now.  Soon.  When you're done eating, you should pack up what you need.  Which is everything, I guess.  I could go back to the apartment and pick up whatever else you want."

     "I don't want to go."  Carly sat back in her chair, her eyes still on him.

     "Well . . . ."

     "I don't want to either.  He's an asshole," Ryan said.  "He like totally bailed.  I don't think he gives a shit about anything.  Why is he even here now?"

     Carl felt a glimmer, a way to work his grandchildren's desires into the end he wanted.  With a few well-chosen words, he could make them hate Graham.  His itch to seal the deal flared, but he clenched jaw again, his muscles sore. Carl didn’t want to be the kind of man to say something like, "Your father is a full-on son-of-a-bitch.  How could he
have left you and moved to another state?  And did he ever visit?  Did he worry about Brooke?  Did you even meet his new wife?  I think you should tell him you want to stay here, with me.  I think you should tell your grandmother what a terrible job her son did as a parent.  Do it!  It's the right thing!  I'll get the phone."  He could easily be that kind of man, the cruel truth of his words rolling in his mouth like warm butter.  He was capable of those few sentences, of making this fight so much easier for Peri and himself.  But if sales had taught him anything, it was to hold back, wait for the right moment, tell the correct person the information that would change everything.  And Carly and Ryan, frightened and nervous, needed him to be wise in the only way he knew how to be.