Deep Down True

by Juliette Fay

  And then Tony was there in the doorway, saying, “Dermott, how goes it?”

  “Shitty,” said Dermott. “And whatever you do, don’t ask me about changes in my health status.”

  “Deal.” Tony clasped a hand on Dermott’s shoulder, and they went into the operatory.

  When he came back out, Dermott showed her his teeth. “You practically need sunglasses, don’t you?”

  “Marie’s the best,” said Dana nodding. What a beautiful face, she thought. Gaunt and pale as he was, Dermott’s humor and kindness still shone through. “I need to ask you,” she said hesitantly. “It’s a standard question.”

  “Next appointment?” He considered for a moment. “No. I wouldn’t want one of those reminder cards going out. I’m trying to make it easy on her. Well, as easy as I can anyway.”

  “I’m glad you came today,” Dana ventured. “It sounds like it means a lot to her.”

  “She’s not ready.” He stared into space for a brief moment, then focused on Dana again. “Thanks for everything, Good Witch. My chauffeur should be here any minute.” And he walked gingerly out the door.

  Bethany Sweet called back while Dana was helping Grady with his homework. The slightly epileptic strains of Morgan’s cello practice drifted down from her room. Dana left Grady with his double-digit addition problems and went into the office. They set the next appointment, and she told Bethany about the Disney trip. “I just don’t think this is the right time,” Dana concluded. “Morgan needs stability, and I don’t want her to miss a weekly appointment with you.”

  “I see your point,” said Bethany. “And it’s important for Morgan not to feel she’s being forced to go if she doesn’t want to. So many things feel out of her control right now—I wouldn’t want to add to that pile. However . . .” There was a little pause, and Dana could feel her neck muscles tighten. “It could be a very good thing for her.”

  No! thought Dana, but what she said was, “Why?”

  “First of all, because she’s missing her dad. Kids this age often don’t express it—sometimes they don’t even know it themselves. But I got a little clue when she said her favorite activity is cello, even though she doesn’t think she’s very good. Why would she enjoy it? But then she said it reminds her of a man’s voice. So we chatted about that, and in fact she does miss her father very much.”

  The cello is her golf ball. Oh, dear God.

  “Also, school is pretty tough right now,” Bethany continued. “They love a good drama at this age, and unfortunately The Morgan Show seems to be the main attraction. They’ll get bored of it soon enough, or something else will come along. But until then, it’s hard. Knowing that she only has to make it through one more week before going on a fun trip could be a real lifeline for her.”

  Of course it would, thought Dana with growing despair. This is exactly what she needs.

  “I hadn’t thought of it quite like that,” she said quietly. “And it won’t be a problem to have her miss an appointment? I thought consistency was so important in therapy.”

  “It’s really about how it feels for Morgan. Missing one appointment is a small price to pay for a week of relief.” Bethany let out a little bird-size cough. “It must be hard to think about having her gone for Thanksgiving. Morgan says the two of you are close.”

  Gone for Thanksgiving. Both of them.

  “I just want what’s best for Morgan,” said Dana, hearing the dullness in her voice.

  “Good parents always do.”

  “I thought you were done with your wolf paper,” said Dana. By nine o’clock it had already been dark for so long that it felt like the middle of the night. She was surprised to find Morgan still fully dressed and sitting at her desk writing in a notebook.

  “I am,” she said. “This isn’t schoolwork. It’s, um . . . it’s an assignment. From Bethany. I’m supposed to write about my life and stuff.”

  An assignment, thought Dana, impressed once again with Bethany’s powers of observation. If she had simply suggested Morgan keep a journal, it probably wouldn’t have worked. But an assignment—it was like a balm for Morgan.

  “Okay,” she said. “Well, you’ll have to work on it tomorrow, because it’s time for bed.”

  Morgan groaned and put the notebook away. She grabbed her pajamas from the end of her bed and began to change. Dana picked up an abandoned shirt from the floor and hung it in the closet. When she turned back, Morgan’s pajama top was still hiked up above her shoulder blades. Dana marveled at the smoothness of her skin and the straightness of her back, like the stem of a flower about to bud. Morgan tugged down the pajama top and nestled into her mess of covers.

  “Teeth,” said Dana.

  “Already brushed.”

  “Really?”

  “I’m not five,” grumbled Morgan. “I understand the importance of dental hygiene. Otherwise your teeth get all yellow and nasty-looking.”

  It’s all about how it looks, thought Dana, straightening the silky edge of the blanket.

  “Um,” said Morgan, squinting in indecision. She pulled her Hershey pillow close.

  “Yeah?”

  “Um, I think Tina . . . I think Tina might be . . . you know, doing it.”

  With the pall of the Disney trip hanging over her, the mention of Tina’s name made Dana flinch. “Doing what?”

  Morgan stuck her tongue out and motioned toward it with her finger. The horror on Dana’s face made the girl recoil. “I could be wrong,” she said quickly. “I only heard her once!”

  “Was she sick?” asked Dana, trying to recover. “Did she have some sort of a bug?”

  “Maybe . . . but I don’t think so. She ate some pretzels, and then we went shopping. I don’t think she knows I heard her.” Morgan’s hand ran up and down the Hershey pillow. “What are you going to do?”

  “Well, I’m not really sure just yet, sweetie,” Dana said, trying to wipe the dismay off her face. “But this is not your problem. I’m glad you told me, and now it’s up to the grown-ups to figure it out.” She gave Morgan a quick kiss, impatient to lock herself in the office and pick up the phone.

  “Kenneth, I’ve made a final decision about that little trip, and it’s definitely no, after what Morgan just told me.” She relayed the conversation, awaiting his humbled response.

  Kenneth let out a weary groan.

  “So you knew about this!” she exploded. “And you were willing to expose our children to—”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “Right,” said Dana, her voice salted with sarcasm. “She only did it that one time, or it’s some exotic medical condition, or—”

  He chuckled humorlessly, and the sound went up Dana’s spine like an army of red ants. “Actually, it is a medical condition,” he said. “Called pregnancy.”

  Dana closed her eyes. She wasn’t sure she could stay upright in the swivel chair. “Oh. My. God,” she breathed. “How could you?”

  “How could I? Well, the usual way, I guess, if you have to know.”

  Dana wanted to hang up, but her limbs seemed to have frozen and she felt as if she might faint.

  “Wait,” he said, as if she had any choice, as if she might be capable of action. “I need to . . . Not that it’s any of your business, but I just want you to know I didn’t plan this. Really, I’m as stunned as . . . And I mean, this is a lousy time to have someone else to take care of, with the company in the crapper, and the kids . . . the kids needing so much.” His voice broke then, and desperation leaked out. “But, God, what can I do? I love her, and I can’t ask her to . . . And she wouldn’t anyway, so what’s the point of even going there?” He let out a long, hard breath. “It is what it is, and I just have to deal.”

  A tear fell down her face, and though she pitied herself and her children far more than she did her philandering ex-husband, still, she couldn’t help but feel for him. She knew all too well that he had never wanted more children. In the past whenever she’d brought it up, he’d always said two was
quite enough for him. By the heaving sound of his breath in the receiver, she could tell he was crying, too.

  “I know I don’t owe you an apology for this. I don’t owe anyone any apologies,” he insisted, a hint of self-righteousness coming into his voice before deflating completely. “But, Dana . . . I am sorry. For all of it. You know I never meant . . .” He couldn’t finish.

  “You’re getting remarried, aren’t you?” she asked numbly.

  “Yeah. I’m not one of those guys who—”

  “I know.”

  “We were going to tell the kids on the trip.”

  She’d never heard him sound so defeated, and she realized there was no way to stop it—no way for any of them to evade this fast-approaching storm. Morgan and Grady needed fair warning, and finding out during a fun-filled trip might lessen the blow. “That’s probably the best way,” she said, wiping salty tears from her chin with the back of her hand.

  “Really? You’ll let them go?”

  “It is what it is,” she said. “We all just have to deal.”

  CHAPTER 35

  “I’M GOING TO THE GALAXY WITH RITA!” MORGAN yelled into her cell phone, the cacophony of the school bus obliterating pieces of her words. “She’s got money! I’ll call when I need a ride!”

  Who’s Rita? wondered Dana. But it was the first time in over a week that Morgan had had any plans after school, and besides, she sounded happy. Or at least not beaten down, which was the way every other phone call had sounded since the blowout with Kimmi Kinnear.

  Grady invited Jav over, and they made chocolate-chip cookies, mixing the chips into the stiff batter, groaning and making faces for effect. Then they went into the backyard to toss a football against the pitchback while Dana spooned the dough onto cookie sheets and put them in the oven. She was waiting for the last batch to cool, watching the boys leap for the erratic flight of the ball, when the mudroom door burst open and girls’ voices erupted into the quiet.

  “Those kids are wicked pigs,” said one, familiar to Dana but not quite placeable.

  “Especially Calvin Ridger. He’s got those eyes that get all shiny and weird when he’s hyper!” This from a twittery voice she didn’t recognize at all.

  “Thank God you came, Jet,” said Morgan. “I was about to freak.” And then the three of them swarmed into the kitchen, oohing over the cookies. Jet took one without being offered. “Way good!” she announced, melted chocolate like an oil slick across her lower lip.

  Morgan introduced her new friend, Rita, who had crazy wild red hair and battalions of freckles marching up her neck and across her face. Her pale eyes seemed to burst forward in a look of constant surprise.

  Alder came in and retrieved the gallon of milk to which Jet had just helped herself. “What happened?” she asked. She got a cup and poured the milk for Jet.

  “Oh, my God, it was, like, shocking!” gushed Rita. “These boys? They came into Galaxy like they, legit, owned the place!”

  “Kimmi slaves,” said Morgan. “Kimmi doesn’t actually like them, but they’re hoping she will someday. Like maybe when they’re elderly.” The girls said the four boys had rolled into Galaxy Pizza, placed their order, and looked around for something to do while they waited. They locked in on Morgan and Rita, each with a slice of pizza and sharing a Fresca. The taunts began: fake puking and eye bugging and words like “titless wonder.”

  “So then, um, she . . .” Rita motioned toward the older girls.

  “It’s Jet,” said Alder. Jet gave a toothy smile, revealing another stolen cookie.

  “Yeah, Jet came in and saw what they were doing? And she sat with them! She slid right into the booth with them! And they were, like, freaking!”

  Alder looked at Jet, who gave an amused shrug. “It was fun,” she said.

  “She started drinking their drinks and asking their names and where they live and stuff.” Morgan grinned. “Oh, my God, Calvin Ridger looked like he was gonna have a seizure.”

  Jet had ordered her slice and taken the girls with her when she left. “Didn’t seem like too brilliant of an idea to leave them there,” she explained.

  Dana’s eyes met Alder’s, and Alder raised her eyebrows as if to say, Told you. Dana nodded. Alder had been right about Jet. Underneath the sooty makeup and bad manners, the girl had quite a heart. “Jet, honey,” Dana said, “would you like another cookie?”

  At lunch on Friday, Dana stared at her yogurt. The gelatinous pink mass nauseated her. “They’re leaving tomorrow,” she told Tony.

  “I know,” he said.

  Of course he did. She’d already told him everything. But the quiet sympathy she now heard in his voice was exactly what she craved. “I’m coming to work all day next week, okay?” she said. “You don’t have to pay me for the extra hours, I just need to be out of the house.”

  “It’ll be my pleasure, and of course I’ll pay you.”

  “No, don’t.” He started to object, but she cut him off. “Tony, I’m serious. I’d feel like it was charity wages.”

  “Okay, I get it,” he said. “But look at it from my perspective. In an ideal world, you’d be working here full-time to begin with. How much of a slimeball would I be if I benefited from your unhappiness and didn’t even pay you?” He waved away the very notion. “No chance.” The look of intractability he gave her made her slump in grateful defeat.

  There was banging at the front door, and they both startled in their seats and then strode quickly to answer it. There behind the glass was Jack Roburtin, his expression an odd combination of anger and hope. For a moment Tony and Dana just stood there. “I’ll take care of it,” she muttered.

  “I’ll be in my office,” he said. “Listening.”

  Dana unlocked the door. “Hi,” said Jack in an oddly unsettled way, as if he didn’t know which character he was playing in his own little movie.

  “Hi,” she said.

  He squared his shoulders and narrowed his already narrowly set eyes. “I’ve got a few minutes before my shift starts, and I figured we better clear the air before the weekend.”

  “Okay,” she said, though she hadn’t had even a fleeting thought of him since their fractious phone call earlier in the week.

  “So I guess you have stuff on your mind,” he offered.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Well, I am very sympathetic to that. As a matter of fact, so do I.” Attempting a casual stance, he crossed his arms and shifted his weight, one side of his torso going out too far. He looked like a Ken doll in need of a hip replacement. Dana bit her lip to keep from laughing.

  “What’s so funny about that?” he demanded. “You think you’re the only one with stuff? For crying out loud, sales are down! Not for me, really, but for a lot of guys. And I’m going to Florida to see my mother for Thanksgiving, and I hate to fly! What am I supposed to do—drive?”

  “No, no, I’m sorry!” she insisted, though she couldn’t seem to control the chuckle in her throat. She put her hand over her mouth, but that made it worse.

  “Okay, I am definitely getting the impression you’re not interested in making up,” he warned.

  “Making up?” she said. “I thought you just wanted to clear the air.”

  “Why would I want to clear the air if we aren’t getting back together?”

  Together. With Jack. Is that what she wanted? Dana hadn’t even considered whether they’d broken up after their little verbal skirmish. And now it appeared there were peace offerings to be made. Her limbs seemed to fill with lead at the very thought.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Oh? Oh?”The awkwardness left him as his biceps tensed and his rib cage expanded. “I come here ready to take you back and you give me ‘Oh’? I don’t think so!” He looked around the tiny waiting room as if there were an audience only he could see. “Can you believe this?” he demanded of his invisible viewership.

  “Jack, I’m sorry,” she began, but couldn’t think of what she was sorry for. She heard noise behind her, drawe
rs thumping closed and throat clearing. Tony was making his presence known.

  “I didn’t realize you were that type, Dana. The kind who toys with a guy and just uses him for dates and sex!”

  Oh, God, thought Dana, knowing that Tony was listening. This is so embarrassing.

  “I thought we were building something,” his tantrum continued, “and you were . . . you were just knitting mittens! Screwing around, having your fun!”

  She’d intended to let him blow off steam, wear himself out with his yelling and posturing, the way she always had with her kids when they were little. But he seemed to be ramping up rather than winding down. “Jack, I’m sorry, but I have to get back to work now. You’ll have to go.”

  “You’re chucking me? You think you can just chuck me? Well, let me tell YOU something!” His massive arms flew out in front of him, thick fingers poking the air toward her shoulders. “You aren’t worth it! You aren’t pretty enough or nice enough or ANYTHING enough! I hope you plan to be alone for a long time, because no guy worth a good goddamn would want you!”

  In that moment she felt as if he had thrown a bucket of acid at her, as if he had disfigured her with his words. And when he saw that his assault had hit its mark, he gave a vengeful little smile and strode out the door.

  Dana was still standing there when Tony came in and stood next to her, resting a hand on her shoulder. “Nice work,” he murmured. “Never heard the word ‘Oh’ used with such satisfying results.” She continued to stare out the glass door. Tony went on. “He was getting a little scary toward the end there,” he said. “Seemed like you were holding your own. But maybe I should have come out.”

  “Would’ve made him madder.”

  “That’s what I figured. I was getting ready to call 911. Are you scared of him? Should we look into a restraining order?”

  She shook her head. She wasn’t scared of him. He had already done the damage he’d wanted to do. “I don’t think he’ll be back.”