“He sends his apologies, but he was called into the office.”
“On a Saturday?”
Her mother’s sigh said it all. “I wasn’t pleased,” she said sternly. “You asked that I not go to any trouble, so I thought we’d have lunch in here.”
“This is perfect.” Karen clasped her hands to conceal any sign of nervousness. She’d hoped her father would be here. If Victoria wasn’t around, her father could have served as a buffer.
Catherine opened the refrigerator and removed a sesame chicken and pasta salad. Bread, steaming from the oven, was already out and cooling.
“This is your favorite salad, isn’t it?” Catherine asked.
Actually it was Victoria’s, but now didn’t seem the time to point that out.
“My all-time favorite,” she lied. “How thoughtful of you to make it for me.”
“Well, to be honest, I had Doris put it together.”
Doris was the housekeeper who’d been with the family for a number of years.
“Oh.” So much for thoughtfulness.
“You know I play bridge with the girls on Friday.” Her mother’s tone was defensive. “This salad needs to be made twenty-four hours in advance.”
“I wasn’t upset,” Karen said, wishing they could have a normal conversation, one in which they weren’t constantly offending each other.
“Shall we sit down?” Catherine said.
“Sure.” Karen slid into her chair and unfolded her linen napkin. Catherine handed her the chicken salad; the warm bread followed.
Karen took her first bite, but it seemed to get stuck in the back of her throat. She knew it would be impossible to down another forkful until she learned what this was all about. “Where’s Victoria?” she asked outright. She hadn’t talked to her sister in some time and feared there’d been a repeat of the last incident. Karen felt her anger rise at the mere thought of that twit hitting her sister. Maybe she should change twit to brute, she mused darkly.
“Victoria?” her mother echoed. “Uh, what do you mean?”
“She’s always here when we have our lunches.”
Her mother paused for a moment. “I believe she’s shopping—buying summer clothes for Bryce this afternoon.”
“Oh.” Karen never had a problem being articulate except when she was with her mother.
Catherine stabbed a shredded piece of chicken with her fork, eyes downcast.
Finally Karen couldn’t stand it any longer. “Just tell me!”
Her mother’s eyes widened. “Tell you what, dear?”
“Why you invited me here.”
Her mother sighed. To Karen’s surprise, she capitulated without any more of that conversational thrust and parry. “I’m concerned about Victoria,” she said in a flat voice.
She knew. Thank God! Somehow, her mother had learned that Roger was beating Victoria. Relief swept through Karen. Surely her mother would step in now and help in ways that Karen couldn’t.
“I’m worried about her, too,” Karen blurted out, nearly weak with gratitude. “We need to do something, Mom.”
“Yes, well…”
“Has she opened up to you? She called me a few months ago, absolutely desperate. I was deathly afraid of what Roger might do.”
Her mother frowned. “Victoria phoned you?”
“I’m sure she would’ve called you and Dad, but she didn’t want to alarm you.”
“Oh, dear.”
“How’d you find out? Did you see the bruises? She’s gotten so good at hiding them, but it’s more than the physical abuse, it’s the horrible things Roger says to her. The worst part is that she believes them.”
Her mother went pale and her hand crept to her throat.
Karen hesitated. “Are you all right?”
“I…”
A sick feeling came over her, and she realized she’d made a serious mistake in assuming that Victoria had confided in her parents. “You didn’t know, did you?”
Ever proper, Catherine Curtis squared her shoulders. “I…don’t know what to think. I have a hard time believing Roger is the kind of man who’d do the things you’re suggesting.”
Horrified, Karen vaulted to her feet. Tears of anger and outrage stung her eyes. “You don’t believe me? You think I’d make something like this up?”
“Sit down,” her mother ordered, voice shaking.
“Do you think I’d fabricate this story out of some perverse jealousy?”
Her mother’s hand trembled and when she spoke it was as if she’d forgotten Karen was in the room. “I’ve known for some weeks that things weren’t…right between Victoria and Roger, but I didn’t want to interfere.” She shook her head. “I thought Victoria seemed depressed—that’s what worried me. That’s what I’d hoped to discuss with you.”
Karen sank into her chair. “I saw what he did the last time. Well, the time she called me… Who knows what’s happened since?”
“Roger hit her?”
Karen nodded.
“You say Victoria told you,” her mother said, giving up all pretense of eating. Her hand continued to shake as she reached for her iced tea.
“Yes…”
“Did she tell you why she wasn’t comfortable talking to me?”
“No,” Karen answered. “I’m sure she just didn’t want to upset you,” she said again.
“Instead, she left that task to you.”
“No…no, Mom, Victoria would never do that. I upset you all on my own. I mean, oh, hell—you know what I mean!”
“Do I?”
The harder Karen tried, the worse it became. “Mom, listen to me, please. This is too important. We can’t get all twisted up in our own egos. We have to help Victoria.”
Catherine closed her eyes. “I agree. Tell me what you know.”
Karen wasn’t sure where to start. She felt tempted to mention that dreadful Thanksgiving dinner years earlier when Victoria had bolted from the table, but she didn’t.
“Roger’s a twit,” she said instead. “And a brute.”
“Is he…abusing Bryce?”
“No…not to my knowledge.”
“You’re absolutely certain about Victoria? Oh, of course you are. It’s just that this is far worse than I imagined. Dear God, why couldn’t she tell me?”
“I’m sure Victoria wanted to, but she doesn’t know how.”
Catherine’s expression was stricken. “It’s such a shock.”
“I know it’s hard to believe, Mom—it was for me, too. But I swear to you, it’s the truth. I’ve seen the evidence.”
Her mother looked away, as though just hearing the words brought her pain. “Why doesn’t Victoria come to your father and me—surely she knows we’d do anything to help…” She let the rest fade.
“You said you were worried about her? That she seemed depressed?”
Caught up in her thoughts, her mother didn’t immediately answer. “She’s been so distant lately,” Catherine finally said. “We were always close, Victoria and I, but lately she’s made excuses to stay away. I felt something was wrong. I’d hoped you might know what was going on, and as it turns out you do.”
Karen had no idea what to say next, what to suggest. She sipped at her iced tea while she waited for inspiration.
“I don’t understand why Victoria didn’t come to me,” her mother wailed. “I really don’t.” Karen had never seen her lose control to this extent. She realized Catherine was deeply hurt by Victoria’s silence and probably felt a large measure of inadequacy.
“Listen, Mom, she’s embarrassed and ashamed. Everyone assumes Victoria has the perfect marriage and she didn’t want to disillusion any of us.”
“But why would she allow this kind of treatment to continue?”
“Mom, the whys don’t matter. We can sort all that out later. Right now, we both need to concentrate on how to help Victoria. She’s at the point where she can’t do it for herself.”
Her mother stared down at her lunch plate. “She should
have told me,” she mumbled again. “She—”
“Yes, Mom,” Karen said impatiently. “But she couldn’t.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. Support and love her, first of all.”
“Of course, that’s understood.”
“I wanted her to leave the jerk, but Victoria wouldn’t hear of it. Nor will she involve the police. I talked until I was blue in the face and it didn’t do one bit of good. She’s afraid of hurting his career.”
“If the law firm finds out about it, Roger could very likely lose his position,” her mother said.
“That isn’t Victoria’s fault. He’s the one hitting her.”
“Oh, I agree. All I’m saying is that I can understand Victoria’s hesitation. If Roger loses his job, the entire family will suffer. Plus, there’s the humiliation of family and friends discovering she’s married to a wife-beater.”
“Of course,” Karen muttered. “That’s why she’s kept it to herself.”
“We must consider our options very carefully,” her mother said. “Karen, let’s give this some thought.” She’d become the formidable matron once again, the woman whose strength of will wasn’t easily defeated. Despite her flaws and pretensions, Catherine Curtis loved her daughters—both of them. Karen knew the truth of that, had in a sense always known it, but now she was overwhelmed by the insight. She suddenly understood that she was her mother’s equal, in strength and determination, far more than Victoria.
She relaxed in her chair for the first time since she’d arrived. The burden of Victoria’s life was lifted from her shoulders; she and her mother were allies, united in the quest to help her sister. She felt a hundred times better.
She shoved her plate and the sunflower centerpiece aside and leaned her elbows on the table. “Okay, Mom, let’s get to work.”
“Learn the wisdom of compromise, for it is better to bend a little than to break.”
—Jane Wells
Chapter 29
CLARE CRAIG
The house was in chaos and that wasn’t going to change any time soon. Mick was home for the summer. He’d arrived late the night before, his car loaded down with a year’s accumulation of dorm room necessities.
Yawning, Clare ambled down the hallway to the kitchen, maneuvering around his half-size refrigerator with a microwave balanced on top. She paused to look inside the laundry room and gasped.
Rather than deal with what appeared to be an entire semester’s worth of wash, she closed the door and continued into the kitchen. To her surprise the coffee was already made.
“Morning,” Mick greeted her from the family room. All that was visible was his arm, which lay across the back of the sofa, and his head. His hair went in all directions and he was badly in need of a shave.
“How long have you been up?” she asked, reaching for a mug.
Mick merely shrugged.
“You haven’t been to bed yet, have you?” Her son, like his father, was a night owl.
“I was too keyed up from the drive,” Mick confessed. “I sat down in front of the television and then it was too much effort to move.”
“Did you sleep at all?”
“Some,” he muttered, but from the look of him, Clare doubted it.
She’d never understood why Mick always insisted on unloading the car the minute he arrived home. The boys were still hauling in one load after another when she’d gone to bed. She was relieved that Mick and Alex were back on speaking terms.
Her own relationship with Mick had also been strained, and Clare hoped that everything would resolve itself now that he was home. She hoped he’d make his peace with his father, too. Her oldest son’s anger toward Michael hadn’t wavered. He refused to have anything to do with him, even though Alex and Clare saw Michael regularly.
“Do you feel like talking?” Clare carried her coffee into the other room and sat in the recliner across from Mick.
He stiffened. “Not if it’s about Dad.”
“All right.” Her son was more intuitive than she’d realized.
“I’m glad school’s out,” he said. Mick was obviously searching for a topic of conversation.
“I’m not going to be around as much this summer,” Clare told him. To her relief, her taking over at the dealership had gone relatively well. Because she already knew the staff, the transition had been quick and smooth. Nevertheless, she worked far more than the normal forty hours a week.
“Alex told me you don’t get home until eight o’clock,” Mick said, frowning.
“Just some nights.”
“I don’t understand it. Why are you helping Dad? How can you, after what he did to you?”
“What he did to us,” she corrected. That was what Mick was really saying. The pain their sons had endured was as great as her own.
“I can’t forgive him.”
“I’m not sure I’ve completely forgiven him, either,” she said. Even now, Clare found it difficult to look past the agony Michael had brought into their lives.
“But you’re helping him.”
“I know.”
“Why?” Mick cried. “Is it because of the cancer?”
It deeply pained her that neither boy was aware of the full truth regarding Michael’s illness. She’d promised not to tell them Michael was dying, and, in fact, had only a few months to live; it was a promise she regretted now.
“What else could I do?” she asked, her voice low. “Michael came to me. The dealership was floundering, and someone needed to step in. Otherwise the business might fold entirely.”
“Are you hoping Dad will come back?” Mick asked angrily.
Clare had given some thought to that question herself. A part of her wanted him to want her back, to plead with her to forgive him. The scenario had played in her mind a thousand times before and after the divorce, and in each version she’d rejected him. She didn’t know what she would’ve done if Michael had actually attempted to reconcile.
“Are you, Mom?” Mick pressed.
She shook her head. “He doesn’t want me anymore.” That was the truth, painful though it was to admit.
Mick’s face hardened. “Or Alex and me.”
“That’s not true,” she insisted. “Your father loves you both.”
Mick snorted. “Sure he does.”
Clare wanted to argue, but stopped herself, hardly able to believe she’d turned into Michael’s champion. As far as his father was concerned, Mick had already made up his mind.
“I’m glad Miranda left him,” he added.
Clare hated the edge she heard in his voice and realized it was an echo of the anger she’d carried herself for all those months.
“I saw her, you know.”
Clare glanced at him. “When?”
“Last Christmas, while I was home. She was with some guy.”
“Someone her own age?”
Mick nodded. “She had her arm around his and was looking up at him with these big adoring eyes. I thought, you know, this was what Dad deserved. He cheated on you and now everything had come full circle and she was cheating on him.”
“Poor Miranda.”
“Poor Miranda?” Mick sounded incredulous. “You’ve got to be joking.”
Clare avoided meeting his gaze. “It’s taken a long time, but I finally understand what happened. Miranda lost her father without a minute’s warning. One day he was alive, and the next day he was dead. That shook her whole world.”
“And there was Dad, so helpful, taking care of everything,” Mick said sarcastically.
Clare nodded, her throat tightening. “The poor girl got confused. In her pain and grief, she turned to Michael, somehow transferring the love she had for her dad to him. She was looking for another father figure more than she was a lover. In a way, I can understand that.”
“Well, I can’t.” Mick’s voice was stubborn, uncompromising.
“Michael offered her strength and comfort.” Clare didn’t condone the grief their a
ctions had caused, but she wanted Mick to be a little more compassionate.
“That might excuse Miranda, but what about Dad?”
“I…I don’t know. Perhaps there was something lacking in me.” She’d gone over her own role in this fiasco again and again. “Miranda needed him and I…I didn’t.”
“All that tells me is you’re strong and Dad’s weak.” Mick bolted off the sofa and stood in the middle of the family room, fists clenched at his sides. “We weren’t going to talk about Dad, remember?”
“Right,” she said, forcing a smile. She knew what her son was saying. It had been this way for more than two years now. Everything—every conversation, every argument, every thought—always went back to Michael.
“When I was in high school,” Mick said, “Dad was around all the time and it was no big deal.”
Even when he’d declared he didn’t want to discuss Michael, Mick was the one bringing him into the conversation.
“Now Dad’s gone, and I feel his absence far more than I ever did his presence.”
How articulate Mick was. She stared at him with a renewed sense of love and appreciation.
“I hope you’ll go see him,” she said.
Mick’s response was immediate. “No way!”
“Oh, Mick, don’t turn your back on him out of any sense of loyalty to me. Your father needs you.”
Her son shook his head vehemently, his face unyielding. “What about all those times I needed him and he was playing daddy with Miranda? Don’t push the issue, Mom.”
The pain vibrated from him, and Clare could see that Michael had a lot of work ahead of him if he hoped to heal the broken relationship with his oldest son.
“What’s everyone doing up?” Alex asked, wandering into the family room in his swimming shorts. He yawned and scratched his head.
“Mick never went to bed,” Clare told him.
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