by Susan Wilson
He feels no compunction about discussing a marriage that was more corporate partnership than love affair. About painful and abiding love for a daughter who detests him. About Sophie, what he’d done to her. And why Veronica’s sudden reintroduction into his life had triggered his downfall.
“A nervous breakdown?”
“My shrink can’t quite fit me into a diagnosis. I’m not quite a conduct disorder, not quite a depressive. A little of both. So we agree only that I had an ‘episode.’”
Gina’s olive eyes scan his, needing clarification. “But you say that you ran your departments, or divisions, with a firm hand. You were no one’s friend. Even choosing your wife was a calculated measure. Everything was about the power.”
There is a softening in his chest, a loosening up of the tightness he’s felt for months, maybe years. It’s as if the urge to cough has suddenly gone away. “Yes. And I now know that you just don’t get to control everything. It’s not sustainable. I’m not that man anymore.”
He is done with the window washing and they go back inside. She takes the bucket of dirty water and disappears into the back room. The fish tanks burble gently, a soothing percolation. Chance wanders around, the leash dragging behind him, sniffing at the chew toys and bottles of homeopathic remedies, stuffed animals and ceramic kittens. Adam leans his elbows on the counter, facing Gina, who has come back but stays behind this barricade.
Gina looks at him, her mouth set in a way that suggests her doubt. She realigns the dozen charity jars. “I don’t think that people can change that much just because they want to.”
“With practice, you can.” Adam lays a palm on the top of the jar designated for the shelter where he found Chance. “I’ve already changed into a dog owner.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Although her words are sharp, Gina’s eyes have begun to soften toward him. He can see that she wants to believe him. “Is this some kind of AA task where you have to go around making amends?”
“No. Although AA might not be a bad idea.” He thinks of the shattered glass, the streaks of scotch on his wall. The dark terror of failure that plunged him into a soul-deep vortex must not happen again. Despite his proclamation that he is a new man, Adam knows that the vortex is only one bad moment away. Every thought, every action from now on has to keep him from that edge. He likens it to exercise: Every day he will strengthen. “I had a waking nightmare where I was visited by the ghosts of my life as it has been thus far. But today I have awakened to a new day. A new life. You represent the Bob Cratchit of the story, the humble clerk who understands that the good things in life are beyond price.”
Adam watches a single tear slide out of the corner of Gina’s eye, its contrail glistening in the morning light. He reaches across the counter and touches it, erasing its journey with a thumb. Gina reaches up and cradles the hand touching her face. She leans in and their lips meet over the divide of the counter.
Adam needs to go; Gina needs to get on with her day. He’s got to head to the center. “Thanks for listening.”
“Can I ask you one question?”
“Of course.”
“Your sister. Do you ever wonder why she ran away? What she was running from?”
“I guess I’ve always believed that she was, like Ariel, rebellious. Maybe a boyfriend.”
“Running from your father?”
Adam shrugs his coat on over his shoulders. “Maybe. I don’t know, maybe running from me. From the responsibility of a little brother.”
“You should find her. Ask her.”
Even with all the resources of his former life, Adam has never considered searching for Veronica. She has always been so deeply embedded in a past he had disassociated himself from that the very idea was out of the question. Until now. Until Gina ever so gently has made the idea live.
The parents’ waiting area at the barn is empty except for Adam. He sits down on the lumpy couch, pats his knee, and invites Chance up beside him. Asleep on a pile of empty grain bags is a cat. Chance, before jumping up, gazes at the recumbent feline. “Leave it,” Adam orders the dog, and is pleased when Chance jumps up onto the couch instead of going after the small animal. Lately, Adam has been devoted to watching Cesar Millan on TV instead of Judge Judy. They are both forthright.
Beyond the viewing window behind him, Ariel, who cannot see that he is there, is jumping a course in the indoor arena. The jumps are not high, but set up so that she has to practice her takeoffs and tight turns. Adam leans against the back of the sprung couch and waits for Ariel to finish. This is not their regular Saturday. He’s not here to pick her up, but to corner her into a conversation that is way overdue.
Adam almost dozes off as Ariel goes around and around, the steady thud of Elegance’s hooves a melodic tune in four-four time. The little spaces of silence as she leaves the ground are like rests in a musical score. He snaps awake as he hears Ariel’s coach call it a day.
In the main aisle of the barn, Ariel is untacking her mare. She sees Adam and doesn’t stop what she’s doing. She tosses the saddle over the half door of the stall, grabs a curry comb, and sets to work scrubbing the saddle marks off the bay mare.
“Hello, Ellie.” Adam runs a hand down the long neck of the horse, something he’s never done before; like Chance’s, her coat is as soft as silk to the touch. The mare noses his hand for treats, then turns away, disappointed.
“Don’t call her ‘Ellie,’” Ariel says, but she’s giving him a puzzled smile. “And watch that dog.”
“He’ll be fine.”
“Why are you here? I drove here myself. You don’t need to pick me up.”
“I know. I want to have a conversation and I knew you’d be here.”
“If it’s about that night, I’m sorry. I said I was and I am. And I’m grateful that you didn’t tell Mom.”
“It’s a little more than that.”
“Okay. Just let me put her away.”
Adam goes back to the waiting room. Ariel takes so long that he begins to fret that she’s slipped out the back and driven off. It seems so odd that his little girl is driving. He’s never even been in a car with her at the wheel. He’s somehow missed the traditional bonding of parent and child over learner’s permit driving hours.
The connecting door to the barn opens and Ariel comes in, flops down on the couch, with Chance between her and her father. She begins to stroke the dog’s ears, the good one and the half. “What do you think happened to this ear?”
“I have no idea.” Now that she’s here, Adam is stumped at how to begin.
“So, what’s up?”
“I’m going to let you decide when and where you see me. I’m not going to insist anymore. You’re sixteen; you have your own mind. When you want to be in touch, I will always be there for you.”
“Dad. Why?” To Adam’s complete surprise, Ariel looks hurt.
“Because I can’t take the cold shoulder anymore. I think that if it’s your idea, you’ll come to want to be with me. Why should we both suffer?”
“Are you trying to use reverse psychology on me?”
“No. I’m apologizing for being a crappy, absent, preoccupied, errant father.” From somewhere in the barn, a horse whinnies. The sound is piercing, plaintive. “I thought that I could buy your love, but I can’t. All I’ve paid for is contempt.”
“That’s not true. You don’t have to buy me stuff. I thought you liked to.”
“If I had the money, yeah, sure. But I don’t. And you don’t need anything, Ariel. You have more than two-thirds of what anyone else in the country ever gets. The men I work with have nothing, not even a home. And they don’t complain. They don’t lament their lives; they come up to the serving counter and they thank us. Thank us for serving them the only hot meal they’re going to get in a day.” Adam is aware that he’s lapsing into a polemic, so he shuts up.
“Do you like working there?”
Chance squeezes out from between Adam and Ariel. He walks over to where the ca
t is still sleeping, gets close, but not too close, sniffs, and then flops down on the floor, leaving a gap between father and daughter.
“I do. I like it very much.”
Ariel slides over so that their thighs touch, his in blue jeans, hers in cream-colored breeches. Adam takes her hand. Ariel rests her head on her father’s shoulder.
“Tell me about my aunt. About Veronica.”
“She looked like you. Or maybe I should say you look like her. I haven’t seen her since she was just a little younger than you. She and my father had a fight one day and she walked out. I was little. Around five.”
Adam and Ariel sit on the lumpy couch, the dog snoring lightly on the grain bags, and Adam tells Ariel his story.
Chapter Forty-four
Sophie Anderson stands in the cereal aisle of the Stop & Shop. Adam is surprised to see that she is pregnant. When did she get married? Did she marry that guy with the black T-shirt and the tattoos? She could do better, he thinks. She’s a smart girl, if a little careless.
Dr. Stein has helped him break the barrier of restraining orders. He’s made a phone call and gotten other phone numbers. Introduced the topic to Sophie’s lawyer, to her shrink, to her. Sophie has said no, no meeting, however brief and public. She will not give Adam the chance to say he’s sorry. Now Stein is cautioning Adam against pushing it. “It’s almost enough, Adam, that you know you want Sophie to forgive you. You don’t actually have to hear it from her.”
Adam disagrees. Unless he gets to ask for her forgiveness, in person, there will always be that unresolved issue haunting him alongside all the others. It’s a simple thing to ask, and withholding from him the opportunity to say those words, “I’m so sorry,” is almost as much a punishment as anything else he’s suffered.
Stein is proud of him, and encouraging. But Adam isn’t going to be put off.
If he’s an easy Google target, so is Sophie Anderson. A simple address lookup. Her phone isn’t unlisted, and despite the common name, he’s able to pinpoint where she lives. If it’s quite a distance from where he lives, it’s still not inconceivable that he might find himself in that town. He isn’t stalking; he’s just putting himself in the area, patronizing establishments that she may patronize. Like the Stop & Shop. He needs dog food. He needs milk. It is purely by chance that they both need cereal. It’s purely by chance that he’s timed this casual drive to coincide with the end of the day at Dynamic, when so many employees who live in this suburb do their errands on the way home. Like Sophie.
“Sophie.” She is studying the nutritional values on the side of a box of sugar-coated cereal. Adam speaks softly, gently, so as not to startle her. The way a man might wake up a woman. “Hello, Sophie.”
His voice does startle her and her mouth drops into a little O of surprise. Her eyes immediately dart around, looking for someone, anyone, to prevent this meeting. “I said I didn’t want to see you. Are you stalking me?”
“No. Not at all. See?” He holds up the bag of dog food, the half gallon of milk. “I just spotted you and …” Adam knows he has seconds to make his case. “Sophie, I only want to say how sorry I am for what happened. That’s all.” Adam bows his head a little, like a courtier to a queen, and turns away, the sound of his athletic shoes squeaky against the flat gray surface of the linoleum floor.
“Mr. March?”
He stops. He is flanked by cartoon characters shilling their confectionary breakfast foods, their leering smiles beckoning. Adam keeps his back to Sophie and waits.
“I know you are.”
Adam’s shoulders relax; he shifts the weight of the dog food to the other arm.
“But would you be as sorry if you hadn’t lost everything?”
It is a crystal moment. Adam is thrust back into the seconds before he picked up the pink memo slip, read the words that triggered his breakdown. If he could go back to the life that he had worked so hard to achieve, a life of long meetings and high anxiety, late nights and a semi-estranged family that wanted ever more from him, go back to doing things that people like Gina despised, all in the futile hope of burying his past deeper and deeper, would he? Adam is unsurprised at the answer that bubbles up. No, he would not want to go back to that life. It no longer appeals to him. He is not that man anymore.
So Adam tells Sophie the truth. “Yes, no matter the outcome.”
He walks briskly to the checkout counter. He smiles at the cashier, pulls out his last twenty. In the car, his dog waits for him. It’s staying light later now and they’ll have time to go to the park on the way home.
Chapter Forty-five
In typical New England fashion, summer has descended abruptly. The wet, cold spring shrugged off the stage, opening the way for the three H’s: hazy, hot, humid. The kitchen of the center is a furnace, and Adam works in a clean white T-shirt and Dockers shorts. His apron comes to the bottom of his knees, so from the front, it looks like he’s wearing a dress. A blue bandanna is banded around his forehead like Cochise’s to keep the sweat from pouring into his eyes. They are all dressed in some variation of this, fighting the heat that comes from outside and within, feeding men who continue to wear their year-round wardrobes, impervious to the swelter.
The air conditioning in Adam’s apartment has been broken for a week and his super has yet to replace the antique unit with a new one. The dog is an as-yet-unacknowledged interloper in the apartment complex, tolerated by the neighbors who have seen him, overlooked by the super, who will no longer be able to pretend the dog doesn’t exist if he has to enter the apartment while Adam is out. Hence, Chance now comes to the center with Adam. Adam has cobbled together a lean-to shed in the backyard, which is fenced in already. The shed offers shade even at midday, and Rafe offers scraps. Chance seems happy enough out there, and when Adam looks through the back window at him, the dog is usually asleep in the shade. Occasionally, one of the smokers goes out and sits on the back steps and the dog sits with him, making Adam just the tiniest bit jealous. He wants Chance to be friendly but still remain a one-man dog.
Adam is putting in extra hours at the center. Not volunteer hours, but compensated time. He has been given a small stipend to research grant opportunities. Fluent with the language of finance and comfortable with the intensive application questions, Adam has crafted two successful grant applications in the last four months. His pay isn’t much, but it keeps Chance in kibble and himself current with his rent. The rest still hangs over him like an anvil, but it’s a step in the right direction, and the work is curiously satisfying, gentle as it is.
It is late by the time Adam shuts down Big Bob’s computer, pulls off the bandanna, and changes his sweat-soaked T-shirt for a clean one. Chance is doing his “happy to see you” tap dance on the steps, his front legs pumping up and down, his big head swinging side to side, tongue lolling, eyes squinting up at Adam. “Ya wanna go home, big boy?”
Unhnnn unhnnn.
In whimsical moments, Adam thinks that the dog is teaching him a new vocabulary. Different sounds for different occasions. Unhnnn meaning “I sure do.” Rrooorr meaning “I hear you, man.” Or “Let’s eat.” Or maybe “What did you think of the game?”
Adam and Chance emerge onto Fort Street and head east. The sultry part of the day is past and a slight breeze is coming up off the water miles away. Shadows spike across their path, street signs and buildings, abandoned shopping carts, wheels off, their shadows casting Jurassic figures before them. The sounds of traffic and the commuter train block out voices and birdsong as they walk along. Adam feels more than hears the low growl, telegraphed through the leash to his sweaty hand. He looks down. Chance’s hackles are upright, forming a coxcomb of fur between his shoulders. There is no other dog in sight, nor is Chance yanking at the leash. No full-throated barking, just this low growl and the pressure of Chance’s body leaning against his legs. There is only an old man standing at the bus stop in front of them. Then Adam realizes that Chance is looking backward.
Without their puffy jackets, Ad
am isn’t sure if these are the same boys he’d encountered before, but Chance’s behavior speaks of familiarity. They approach Adam, keeping enough distance that even if he let the leash go slack, the dog wouldn’t reach them. “You still got my dog, man.” The slenderer of the pair accuses him, pointing at Chance, then at himself. “He’s my dog.”
“Not anymore.” Adam will not be intimidated by these punk kids. In broad daylight, without their massive coats, he realizes that they are just kids a few years older than Ariel. They have no power over him. He’s a lone white man in their neighborhood, but, by God, he’s got the big dog. He stretches to his full height. “You want him? Try to take him.”
The boys look at each other as if daring themselves to reach out and grab the leash out of Adam’s hands. They look at Chance, who is snarling and barking, his tail whipping from side to side with the force of aggression. It is all Adam can do to keep his hold on the dog. Part of him wants to keep taunting, “Come on, come and get him.” But they aren’t going to take Chance; they can’t get close enough. They’re punks, two kids who act all tough because that’s what’s expected of them. He was a tough kid once himself. Had to be in order to survive. Maybe his streets weren’t as mean as these, but mean enough. Maybe these kids don’t have intact families, either. Maybe they are foster kids. Maybe he has more in common with them than the desire to own this dog. “He’s my dog. Not yours. Maybe once, but not now. Nuff said?”
The boys simultaneously plug in iPods, turn away from Adam, and disappear.
“Guess we told them.” Adam reaches down to touch Chance, calm him down, assure him that everything is all right.
Chapter Forty-six
At first I was a little put off by being left outside to cool my heels in the backyard of the building where the man goes in smelling like himself and comes out smelling like food and other men. I guess I was getting a bit puffed up with myself, what with my status as house dog. Why should I be left out in the backyard like any common cur? Then I realized that being just outside the window where all those good food smells originated was pleasant. Plus, I had the bits and pieces of meat ends and the occasional shinbone to enjoy, courtesy of the man in the big hat. And there was no one around to threaten my possession of such treats. Just me. It was very pleasurable to lie in the shade of the shelter my man had constructed, water bowl topped off, shinbone beneath my chin. Pigeons skulking around, burbling and mating. If there was a fence keeping me in, it also kept out the street dogs that might wander by. Being a dog, I really can’t say how long I’d been living this life of leisurely unemployment, but it seemed to me that a whole new generation of street dogs had come of age. In other words, I knew no one. So I acted all territorial about this square of yard defined by a man-made structure. I yarked and growled. Lifted my leg on my fence. Acted all fierce, protective. Sometimes, bitches in particular, they’d ignore my bad manners and come to the fence anyway. A chain-link fence is an obstruction, but not impenetrable, and noses met greeting areas. I wagged my tail in apology. They were all right. Most of them.