by Sue Miller
“What I’d do if I were you,” he said, “is just go on about my business. You planning to go down there on Friday? Go on down there. My guess is no one’ll say anything about any of this. The name of the game is intimidation.”
“So you wouldn’t worry about it?” I asked. I hadn’t told him about Leo, and I was glad it seemed that now I wouldn’t have to.
“I sure as hell wouldn’t,” he said. “In these kind of situations, don’t worry about a thing till you’re holding the papers in your hand. You get some kind of papers, then you call me back and we’ll worry together. That’s what I’m here for.”
He was a heavyset, avuncular man, balding and oddly graceful in small things. I had met him only once, during the divorce proceedings, when I went downtown to his office to review the agreement with him. He had urged a few changes; had acted frustrated by my unresponsiveness. “You’re not really getting your money’s worth out of me,” he’d said, shaking his big head. And I’d felt almost apologetic that I didn’t want more from Brian.
He had come with me out to the elevator when I left, and as I watched him walk away, I was struck by his gait, something dainty and controlled in it, as though before he put on all the weight he’d been a dancer, an athlete.
I told Leo that Muth thought it was all right, didn’t think we should worry.
“You told him about the thing with Molly,” he said.
“No, but he said that it was most likely just a threat, anyway, that Brian would turn out to be working out something else, like less money or something.”
“But you didn’t tell him what happened,” he persisted.
“Do you want to call him back?” I burst out. “I don’t think we need to worry about it.”
He looked at me. I’d been awake and dressed long before he’d gotten up, and had called the lawyer promptly at eight-thirty. We hadn’t touched or kissed this morning. We’d moved around the kitchen getting our separate breakfasts, doing our separate chores, like an old married couple sunk deep in habitual solitude, but without that sense of comfort or familiarity.
“No, fine,” he said. He was sitting at the table, wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing when we made love the night before. His white skin was puffy around his eyes. “Whatever you say.”
“I say let’s forget it,” I said angrily.
“I hope we can.”
On Wednesday morning, I was sitting alone in the living room in my nightgown—Leo was still asleep—when the guy came with the papers. As soon as the doorbell rang I knew what it was. I felt as though I’d gone through it already. I stood in the hallway and watched him below me slowly mounting the twisting stairway, as though he were a memory. I felt as distanced from the coming event as one does from a dream; but curious too: whose face would he wear? what words would he say?
He looked up at me from the landing below. “You Anna Dunlop?” he asked. He was young, wore a maroon jacket that read Cambridge 1977 Babe Ruth All Stars on its breast. On the arm that held out the envelope, the same gold script spelled Bud.
“Dunlap,” I said.
He looked at the envelope as he moved up towards me. “Oh, right,” he said, and grinned sheepishly. He was homely, with crusts of acne clustered beardlike around his mouth and chin. He held the envelope out. “This is for you,” he said.
“Many thanks.” I took it.
He shrugged, and immediately started down the stairs, moving backwards for the first few steps. “It’s a job,” he said. “What can I tell you.” When he’d rounded the second landing and was more or less out of sight, he started taking the stairs two and three at a time, thundering down them like a child released from some social constraint.
I shut the door and walked down the dark hallway to the kitchen, tearing open the envelope as I went. I set it down for a moment to dial the telephone, but even as it began to ring, I was reading. The words on the papers before me also seemed familiar, but shocking. They leapt up: complaint for modification of agreement. . . motion for temporary custody . . . sexual irregularities with minor child. . . . I didn’t want to see more. I folded the papers and put them back into the jagged envelope. The secretary was telling me that Muth hadn’t arrived at the office yet. She took my number in a chirping, efficient voice.
I got another cup of coffee when I’d hung up, and took it out onto the back porch. I sat on the wooden chair there. After he had begun to spend his nights with us, Leo brought his galvanized tub over for Molly to use as a pool on the back porch. Now it leaned, empty and rimed with white, against the brown clapboards. Next to it was a milk crate full of plastic bottles and cups, tubes, toy boats, all the things she played with in the water.
Across the yard, my neighbor moved in her window, waved. I lifted my cup in response, as though it were just another day.
The phone shrilled. It was Muth. As I talked to him, I heard Leo groan, could imagine him stretching, in my room.
I told Muth that Brian had sent papers, that I had received them earlier this morning.
“Aha,” he said. “Well, I was wrong. Down to business, huh?”
“I guess so,” I said.
“Well, can you tell me, Mrs. Dunlap, I mean, is it clear from what he says, on what grounds he’s making the motion? Or do you wanna read it to me, or what?” I heard Leo get up, his bare feet approaching the kitchen. I turned my body away from the open doorway.
“Sexual irregularities, he says.”
“Sexual irregularities?”
“Yes,” I said. Leo’s steps had paused at the door.
“With who?” Muth asked.
“My lover,” I said. “The man I’ve been seeing.” Leo was motionless behind me.
“Aha,” Muth said, and waited. I said nothing. Then: “Well, you wanna tell me where this is coming from, Mrs. Dunlap? I mean is this coming out of left field, or where?”
“Not exactly.” My voice was low, my shoulders hunched away from the doorway.
“So you mean, this guy had some kind of contact, some kind of sexual contact, with, ah, the kid. With Molly?”
“Yes, in a certain sense, yes. Or it could be construed that way, yes.” I heard Leo turn, pad away toward the bathroom.
“Aha,” he said. And waited again. But I couldn’t answer right away. I heard Leo down the hall, the rush of water, the singing of the pipes. I felt ashamed. You let it happen, Brian had said. It seemed as palpable a failure to me as the long swollen scratch on her dirty cheek at Sammy Brower’s house.
“I’d like to come in and talk to you,” I said finally.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, it’s clear that that’s what we’d better do. The sooner the better, I’d say. And, ah, can you bring your friend? He’s going to have to, most likely, be included in all this. You know, there’ll be a hearing, et cetera. You know, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Dunlap, maybe you could check these papers and see if there’s a date, a date you’re supposed to show up. Did you check for that?”
“No,” I said.
“Well, you wanna do that now?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said. I set the phone down, took the papers out again, leafed through them. There it was—August seventeenth. I picked the phone up. “It’s here,” I said.
“What do we get?” he asked. “A week, ten days?”
“It’s Friday,” I said. “A week from Friday.”
“Aha,” he said. “Well, I’ll tell you, then, I’ll give you to my secretary, and ask her to set you up pronto. I think I might have a space even today. Tomorrow for sure. We ought to get going on this, you know, figure out what angle we’re going to take, that kinda jazz, pretty soon. As soon as possible, actually.”
“Yes,” I said, and he clicked off. After a moment, the secretary’s flutey voice came on the line. Mr. Muth had time late in the morning tomorrow, she said. Was eleven-thirty all right? I agreed. She told me Mr. Muth wanted to be certain both of us were coming.
There was no problem, I told her. We’d both be there.
&nb
sp; When Leo emerged from his shower, I was dressed, back in the kitchen, washing up. He stood in the doorway again and watched me, gripping a towel around his waist, his drooping curls raining silver drops on his shoulders. I looked at him. “That was my lawyer on the phone,” I said.
“I wondered.” He pulled the towel to the side, held it tighter at his hip. He would never have worn it before. It was like the sign of our mutual fall from grace; but I was, for the moment, glad not to see him naked.
“I got the papers today,” I told him.
“Oh,” he said. His face asked me how bad it was. “It’s real then.”
“It is,” I said. I tried to keep my voice determined and cheerful.
He shook his head. “Jesus, Anna. I know you know it, but . . . I’m sorry.” He stepped towards me, into the kitchen, but I raised my hand.
“I don’t see this as your fault,” I said. “I don’t want you to tell me that.” And I turned back to the counter, making big circles with the pink sponge.
“Muth can see us tomorrow,” I said.
“Did he say anything?”
“About what?”
“Well, about what would happen. About whether this was . . . about getting Molly back.”
“Not really. I didn’t really talk to him in much detail.”
“But you told him what happened?”
I looked at him. “Roughly, yes, but not in any detail.”
He turned, as though he were going to leave the room. His arched footprints left a quickly fading steamy print on the linoleum, like the breath of his feet. At the door he stopped and said, without looking at me, “I’d like to be able to talk about this stuff, Anna. It’s like you keep wishing it will go away if we don’t discuss it. That’s hard for me. It doesn’t help me. Or anything.”
I shook my head. “And I don’t want to talk about it,” I said. “I don’t see how that would help. It’s done. I don’t blame you. That’s not what it’s about. But it’s just that I feel like I’m holding on by a thread here, plus I’ve still got stuff I have to do at work. To keep going. These fucking rats.” I shrugged. “I just need to do this my way, I think. But I am sorry, I really am sorry, if it makes it worse for you.”
“That’s not it. It’s not that I’m feeling sorry for myself. I . . . Jesus. That would be pretty self-indulgent. I just . . .” He looked at me. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“That’s not the issue, is it?” I asked. “Your losing me?” And I turned away. In a moment I sensed, rather than heard, that he’d left the room. When I went to find him a few minutes later, to say I was sorry, he was gone. I imagined him swinging down the hall barefoot, partly dressed, as quickly and silently as he had in the spring when he’d wanted to get out before Molly heard him.
Leo wore a jacket and tie to Muth’s office the next day. He’d had to borrow them from a friend, since he didn’t own either. The jacket was a little tight, and Leo’s cuffs, his big hands, stuck out. He looked like a farmboy visiting in town.
“That’s very sweet of you,” I said. “Wearing that.” We were driving down Storrow Drive in light midmorning traffic. Summer school students lay reading, sunbathing on the green banks of the river. He looked at me quickly to be sure I was sincere. When he saw that I was, he thanked me. It struck me suddenly that much of our conversation for the last several days had been just this polite—apologies, thanks, careful backing away from demands or questions. Each of us was behaving as though the other was fragile, easily damaged. Nothing was natural between us. We hadn’t made love since Sunday night, the night Leo returned; and as I remembered all that, it seemed to me that I had known, even as we did it, that it marked the end of something. Now we lay in the same bed together each night, sometimes touching each other lightly, without passion, before we turned away and sought sleep. But sex seemed unthinkable.
So did sleeping alone though. It was as though neither of us wanted to face himself. Even the night before, when I’d gone to his house just to apologize after I’d finished up at the lab, when I was sure each of us would want to be alone, we were unable to find a way to separate.
“I don’t need to stay,” I’d said, standing in his doorway. “I just came to say I was sorry for being so sharp this morning.”
“No, no, that’s O.K.,” he said. “I understand. Come on in. I mean, I’d like you to stay.” He stood back to make room for my entrance, then hesitated. “Unless you want to be alone or something.” We looked at each other a moment. The thought of being alone terrified me.
“I’ll stay,” I said, and instantly felt how much I didn’t want to, how much I had wanted to be alone. But I was already crossing his threshold, I would hurt his feelings if I left, it was too late. And so we slept together another night with our backs curved towards each other, just as Brian and I had done in the last stages of our marriage.
In the morning, I’d gone home to change my clothes, then driven back over to Leo’s to pick him up. He was waiting for me on the corner by his building, and I almost drove past him, he looked so unfamiliar in his costume. In the car, I kept looking over at him as I drove, but he seemed unconscious of me, lost in his own nervousness. His hands drummed on his knees. Once or twice he popped his knuckles.
We parked in an expensive lot downtown, and then, because we were early for the appointment with Muth, we stopped for coffee. The cafeteria was dim, functional, with small formica tables. The people around us were a curious combination of bums and businessmen. They seemed completely at home in one another’s company. It was we who were out of place in this world—both wearing uniforms that seemed uncomfortable on us. My dress was a little too fancy, not secretarial enough. And when I saw the businessmen, dark and tailored, I realized that Leo looked worse in his attempt at respectability than he would have if he’d just worn a T-shirt and jeans. There was something that appeared nearly psychopathic to me abruptly, in the ill-fitting disguise. I sat across from him, sipping the burnt-tasting coffee and talking about what Muth was like, and I wanted to reach over and loosen the tie, wanted to ask him to take the jacket off. But I couldn’t. He’d done it for me, to help me get Molly back.
Upstairs, when Muth approached us across the carpeted expanse of the firm’s outer offices, I watched his face carefully for signs of his response to Leo; but it was unreadable, pleasant as ever. He was in shirtsleeves, rolled up, and a tie. He shook Leo’s hand and mine as though we were perfectly respectable people.
In his office, he arranged the chairs for us, making small talk in his rambling way about the Red Sox. Once he’d got us settled, he sat down behind his desk, and asked me for the papers. I handed the torn envelope across to him. Leo and I sat in silence for three or four minutes while he read through them, neither of us looking at the other. I was intensely conscious of Leo though, of his restless shifting in his chair. I hoped he wouldn’t be rude if Muth probed too deep.
Muth’s face, bent over his desk, fell into a somber frowning pouchiness. Once or twice he ran his hand over his balding head. But when he looked up, he was neutral, boyishly middle-aged again.
“Well,” he said. “The news is not good, I guess.”
I found myself smiling politely, making some agreeable answer. Leo stared at me.
“I think what would help me right now,” Muth said, extracting a pencil from a jar of them on his desk, “is to find out exactly what you think it is that’s got Mr. Dunlap so fired up here. I think the phrase he uses is sexual irregularities, and I think you said on the phone, Mrs. Dunlap, that there had been some kind of contact between Mr. Cutter and . . . ah, Molly. That right?”
“Yes,” I said. I nodded.
“Well, that’s what I need to get straight then. Just what it was, when it happened, how often, that kind of thing.” He looked up, expectantly, pleasantly.
“Once,” Leo said.
“Once,” he repeated, and wrote something down. He smiled at Leo. “Can you, ah, can you fill me in on it a bit, Mr. Cutter?”
I l
ooked at Leo. He shifted forward in his chair, and without looking over at me, he started talking. As he began, I thought, Why, he’s practiced this.
“It was sometime in June when it happened. Anna had left Molly and me alone for the evening. She was at the lab or something, I don’t remember what, but she was supposed to get back in time to tuck Molly in. Molly and I had gone out to get ice cream. I’d given her a bath”—Muth’s pencil whispered quickly on the page—“gotten her into her pj’s, all that stuff. It was hot. I’d been working all day. Molly was in her room, playing, and she sounded happy, so I figured I’d take a shower. I told her I was going to, so she’d know where to find me, if she needed me.” Leo’s hands had been folded in his lap at first. Now, as he relaxed a little, they came to life, helped him tell the story.
“I, you know, got in the shower, and after a while, she came into the bathroom, started talking to me. It was like she just wanted company. She was just talking about this and that, the stories she’d picked out for her mother to read to her, some stuff that happened to her at day care. She was just sitting on the toilet seat, talking, the way she sometimes did.”
“She’d come in before when you were in the shower?” Muth asked. He didn’t look up.
“Me, or her mother, yeah. She liked the company.”
Muth nodded.
“When I pushed the curtain back and started drying off, I noticed Molly was staring at me, at my”—there was the slightest hesitation as Leo chose the word—“penis. But she’d seen me naked before, I didn’t think much of it. I was fooling around, you know, dancing.”
“Dancing,” Muth repeated.
“Yeah. I was dancing and singing actually.” Leo’s voice had begun to sound angry. I leaned forward. He looked up at me, then moved uncomfortably in his chair. When he spoke again, his voice was calm. “Singing ‘Singin’ in the Rain.’ She liked that.” He shrugged. “And then I finished, and I was just drying off, and she said, out of the blue, That’s your penis?’” He cleared his throat. “You know, she was learning that stuff, those words. She had a book that talked about it, and they did the body parts at day care. Her mother—Anna—had talked about it some too, telling her the names of stuff.” He shrugged again. “So I said yeah. She was, she was standing up, she’d gotten closer to the tub. I was, actually, a little uncomfortable about it. But I’d seen how relaxed Anna was about it all, and I didn’t want to screw that up or anything. So I tried to seem natural, not cover up or anything.