Rules Get Broken

by John Herbert

  “I’ll take a scotch, Bill. On the rocks, please.”

  “I’ll take an ice water, Bill,” Maureen said, almost simultaneously.

  “I’m sorry,” Nancy said, immediately flustered. “I thought you were talking to me.”

  “I was,” my father replied. “Just let me get Maureen her ice water, and then I’ll get you your scotch.”

  “I got it, Pop,” I said, seeing that Nancy was now both embarrassed and nervous. I reached across him for the bottle of J & B. “You take care of the ice water, and I’ll take care of Nancy.”

  I poured some scotch into two rocks glasses, filled each to the top with ice and handed one to Nancy.

  “Well, that was awkward, wasn’t it?” Nancy whispered as she took a sip of her drink.

  “Don’t be silly,” I said. “It was nothing. Don’t even think about it.”

  Nancy smiled, but I could tell she was unconvinced.

  At that moment we were standing at the end of the picnic table, me facing Nancy, Nancy with her back to Maureen Reilly. My mother, Beth and Erin were chatting, and my father was pouring a bourbon for Dave. Seeing that we were are a and unobserved, I reached out to Nancy and stroked her arm. But as I did, I saw Maureen looking at us and at my hand on Nancy’s bare skin. Her eyes were like burning coals.

  In an instant I became aware of all that she had seen in the last few minutes. She had seen Jennie run over to Nancy when we arrived. She had seen the way Jennie hugged Nancy, and she had seen the joy on Jennie’s face. And now she was seeing me with Nancy, communicating more with my eyes and my touch than with words. Maureen Reilly was not a happy woman, and I understood why. Nancy Charlton was here, her daughter was not, and her daughter’s husband and little girl were making the transition from what had been to what could be.

  “Why don’t we all grab a chair and see if anybody brought Jennie something for her birthday?” I suggested in an attempt to dispel the tension that had appeared out of nowhere.

  “Sounds good to me,” my father agreed.

  “I’m ready,” Dave said, “but maybe Jennie’s tired and wants to go to bed.”

  “No, Uncle Dave. I’m not tired. I’m not tired at all!” Jennie protested, and as if to emphasize her position on the matter, the birthday girl promptly abandoned her playmate and ran over to where the rest of us were assembling on the grass.

  Jennie opened her presents from Maureen and Erin first, then Dave and Beth’s, and then one from Loretta. When it was Nancy’s turn to give Jennie her present, Jennie stood in front of her, hands clasped tightly together, rigid with anticipation. Nancy reached into the shopping bag, pulled out a large wrapped package and handed it to Jennie.

  “Now be very careful when you open it,” she warned, “because what’s inside is very breakable.”

  Jennie nodded and placed the package on the grass so she could open it sitting down. She undid the bow, pulled off the ribbon and tore away the paper. Then she slid her fingers under the top flap of the box and gave the flap a serious tug so she could see what was inside.

  “It’s beautiful,” she cried out.” It’s beautiful!” She leaped up and gave Nancy a hug.

  “What did you get, Jennie?” my mother asked.

  “A piggy bank! A great big pink piggy bank!”

  “Let me help you get it out of the box,” Nancy said as she got up from her chair and knelt down next to Jennie. “You hold onto the box, and I’ll take the pig out.”

  Jennie did as she was told, and a second later Nancy presented her with a truly beautiful piggy bank—glazed ceramic, deep pink, with a warm smile painted on the face. And big—fifteen inches long, six or seven inches wide and at least nine inches high. Jennie loved it.

  After Jennie had opened her presents from my parents and me, I lit the grill to get the charcoal ready for our barbecue, and we ate shortly after seven. When dinner was over, my mother brought out dessert—a four-inch-high bittersweet chocolate cake with five candles, one for good luck—and we sang “Happy Birthday” as she placed the cake in front of Jennie.

  “Time to make a wish, sweetheart,” I said, forgetting that Jennie had never done this before.

  “Why do I need to make a wish, Daddy?”

  “Everybody does on their birthday.”

  “Why?”

  “Well…if you make a wish on your birthday and blow out all the candles in one breath, and if you don’t tell anyone what you wished for, your wish is supposed to come true.”

  “What should I wish for?”

  I thought of Peg.

  “Daddy?”

  Jennie’s voice brought me back from where my thoughts had taken me. “You can wish for something you don’t have but would like to have,” I said finally, “or you can wish for something nice for someone else.”

  Jennie nodded and stared at the candles, deep in thought, and then she closed her eyes.

  I looked at her from across the table, her eyes closed tightly, the light of the candles reflecting off her face, and I wondered what she was wishing for. Was she wishing that her mother were here? Was she wishing her mother would come back to her? Or was she just wishing for something not among tonight’s presents? But before I could guess at a probable answer, Jennie opened her eyes and, with a powerful sweeping blow, blew out all her candles.

  The evening came to an unexpectedly quick close moments later, just after we had finished cutting the cake, when Erin got up from the table and announced that she needed to call a taxi to take her to the train station. She wanted to catch an eight twenty-five train into New York, she said, so she could catch the last bus out to New Jersey. We finished our cake, stood to say our good-byes, and within minutes everyone had gone their separate ways—Erin to the curb to wait for her cab, Beth and Dave across the street to their house, Jennie, John, Loretta and my mother inside—leaving my father, Maureen, Nancy and me standing on the lawn in uncomfortable silence.

  “I’m going inside to see if your wife needs help putting the children to bed,” Maureen said to my father.

  “Tell her I’ll be in in a minute, would you?” he replied.

  Maureen nodded and walked towards the back door.

  “It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Reilly,” Nancy said to Maureen’s back.

  “It was nice meeting you too,” Maureen answered, several seconds too late and without turning around. She went up the back steps, opened the screen door and was gone.

  “Well, Nance, it’s been fun,” my father said, ignoring Maureen’s abrupt departure. “And your pig was certainly the hit of the evening.”

  We said good night, and Nancy and I walked down the driveway to my car.

  “That wasn’t too bad, was it?” I asked as I pulled my door closed.

  “Could have been better,” Nancy answered sadly. “But I guess it could have been worse.”

  I put the key into the ignition and looked over at her. She was deep in thought.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked.

  “I’m thinking you haven’t heard the last from Maureen Reilly.”

  Eighty-Nine

  The ringing didn’t stop. It just went on and on, penetrating deeper and deeper into my brain. “What’s that noise?” I wondered groggily. “Why doesn’t it stop? Please…make it stop.”

  Finally, I opened the eye that wasn’t buried in the pillow. I looked across the bed and located the source of the incessant ringing on the night table—my alarm clock, set for seven o’clock four and a half hours ago and now dutifully bringing me back from the world of darkness to the world of light.

  I stretched out an arm, dropped a heavy hand on the off button and tried to summon the energy to get out of bed. I had taken Nancy back to her apartment after Jennie’s party, and I hadn’t gotten home until two-thirty. Now I was faced with the unwelcome prospect of getting through the day on barely four and a half hours of sleep.

  I rolled over onto my back and saw sunlight streaming in around the edges of the window shades. I sighed. At least the day w
as sunny. I lay on my back for another minute, then threw back the sheet and the coverlet. I swung my legs over the side of the bed. The alarm clock now showed five minutes after seven. I sat on the edge of the bed and reflected for a moment how time just keeps moving. We may not be ready to take advantage of it and put it to use, but it doesn’t care. It just keeps moving and expects us to either fall in step with it or let it go on without us. Until it disappears.

  On that cheery note, I put on my bathrobe and walked across the upstairs landing to the bathroom. I showered, shaved, brushed my teeth and combed my hair, and then went back to my bedroom to get dressed. I had a meeting at nine-thirty with our advertising agency, so I decided to wear one of my better suits, a gray pinstripe, with a light blue shirt and maroon tie. I put on some cologne, filled my pockets with my handkerchief, comb, wallet, keys, pen and pencil, put my jacket over my arm and opened my bedroom door. I was as ready as I could be to face the coming day.

  As I came out of my bedroom, I was suddenly aware of someone else on the landing. With a start, I realized Maureen Reilly was standing at the top of the steps next to the railing, partially blocking access to the stairs, arms folded across her chest.

  “Whoa. You scared me for a minute,” I said, exhaling deeply. “I didn’t expect to see you. Good morning.”

  For a second she said nothing. Then she took two steps forward, bringing her to within two feet of me. Sensing something was wrong, I stopped and waited for her to speak.

  “I want to talk to you,” she hissed in a loud whisper.

  I was taken aback both by the tone of her voice and by her almost threatening body language.

  “Sure,” I replied, “but do we have to talk here, or can we talk downstairs while I grab a cup of coffee?”

  “I want to talk to you here because I don’t want Jennie or John to hear what I have to say.”

  I took a deep breath and tried to keep my irritation from showing. “Okay. We’ll talk here. What’s up?”

  Her eyes bore into mine, and her mouth worked silently as she prepared to speak. Finally words came. “Don’t you ever, ever, bring that woman into my daughter’s house again,” she said. “Do you hear me?”

  “What are you talking about?” I stammered.

  “You know what I’m talking about,” she spat. “You know damn well what I’m talking about. I don’t care what you do with that woman anywhere else, but you will not bring her into my daughter’s house ever again. Do you understand me?”

  I stood perfectly still and stared at her, trying to absorb what she had just said. But as I did, I felt a darkness come over me, almost as if someone were pouring thick black oil over my head. And as the darkness enveloped me, I began to think the most frightening thoughts I had ever thought in my life. I found myself literally taking the physical measure of Maureen Reilly, realizing as if for the first time how small and frail she was, knowing that in an instant I could drop my jacket to the floor, grab her by the neck with both hands, lift her over the railing and drop her to the floor below. I found myself measuring the distance between her and me, calculating how quickly and from what direction I would have to strike in order to ensure that I could get to her in one sweeping motion before she could avoid me.

  Then as quickly as the darkness had appeared, it began to recede, leaving me seething with rage, gulping for air. “Who the hell do you think you are to talk to me like that?” I screamed when I was finally able to speak.

  My response had no effect on her. She stood where she was, immobile, eyes blazing with hatred.

  “Let me tell you something, Maureen,” I continued, taking a half step towards her, shaking uncontrollably. “I love ‘that woman,’ as you call her, and I’ll bring her to my house—note I said my house—any goddamn time I please. And let me tell you something else while I’m at it. I loved Peg more than anything else in this world, and I respected her in every way I could while she was alive. But she’s dead, and there’s nothing you or I can do about that other than get over it as best we can and move on. Oh, one more thing. For the record, this house used to be our house. Peg’s and mine. Not just Peg’s. But now…it’s mine. Just mine. Do you understand that?”

  I stepped around her and went down the stairs two at a time, leaving her on the landing, ignorant of how close she had come to violence.

  I walked into the kitchen from the center hall and found Loretta standing between Jennie and John, Jennie at the dinette table, John in his high chair. She had a hand on each of their heads, smoothing their hair, calming their fear, and she was facing me, prepared, it seemed, to protect her little charges from their father if necessary. It was obvious they had heard everything.

  I walked over to Jennie and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Then I turned to John, who was looking up at me wide-eyed, mouth open, and gave him a kiss on the forehead.

  “Good-bye, guys,” I said in a voice hoarse from shouting and from anger. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  Neither child made a sound.

  I looked at Loretta. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled. She didn’t reply.

  I turned away from the three of them and went out the back door.

  I was unable to think clearly for the first twenty minutes of my drive to the office, but as my head cleared, I remembered the thought I had had one winter night almost six months ago. About the swimmer who looks back at the shore he’s left behind and is surprised and frightened to see how far away it is.

  My relationship with my parents had become painfully strained because of my relationship with Nancy, and except for Dave, all of my friends were gone. And now any connection with Peg’s mother had been irreparably damaged, if not destroyed.

  The shore was very far away indeed, I realized sadly.

  Ninety

  The house was empty and quiet Sunday afternoon, November 1st, the children still with my parents and Loretta not yet back from her day off in Brooklyn. I had been trying to reach Nancy all day. I dialed her number for what must have been the tenth time and decided to count how many times her phone rang. On the twenty-first ring, I gave up. I looked at the clock. It was five after five.

  I’d started calling her shortly after nine, well before she would have been out doing her errands, and I hadn’t gotten an answer then. I knew she wasn’t visiting her parents because her car wasn’t in their driveway or in front of their house, and she would have let me know if she were coming to Huntington. So I knew some of the places she wasn’t, but I didn’t know where she was. All I knew for certain was either she wasn’t home or she wasn’t answering her phone.

  I sat at my desk and stared at the neatly piled, squared stacks of unopened mail, bills waiting to be paid and paid bills waiting to be filed. I picked up an envelope with a return address I didn’t recognize. I found my letter opener, partially covered by the pile of unopened mail, and slid it under the flap. I had the envelope half open before I realized I didn’t care what was inside. All I cared about was being able to talk to Nancy. I put the half-opened envelope back on its pile, squared it with the others and looked at the clock again. It was seven after five.

  This is ridiculous, I thought, exasperated. I can’t be obsessive like this. If I reach her, I reach her. If I don’t, I don’t. That’s all there is to it.

  I leaned back in my chair and looked out the window into the back yard. Although it was almost dark, the sky at the horizon still glowed a brilliant orange and was streaked with dark bands of cloud, precursors to the rain predicted for Monday. Most of the leaves were off the trees, and they now covered the lawn and flowerbeds like a thick brown blanket. The yard looked abandoned and uninviting, and the sight of the picnic table and benches and lawn chairs all covered with leaves and pine needles made me feel lonelier than I already was.

  I turned away from the window. In spite of my words of self-encouragement a few seconds ago, I was uneasy. I had the same feeling I always had at night when I was alone, but worse this afternoon because I couldn’t reach Nancy, and because I thought
I might know why.

  “I know what I’ll do,” I said out loud. “I’ll take a shower, get dressed and give Nancy one more call. Then, if I still can’t reach her, I’ll drive over to her apartment and make sure she’s all right.”

  I pushed back my chair and went upstairs. By ten minutes of six I was back at my desk. I sat down and dialed Nancy’s number. The uneasiness I’d felt earlier had by now turned into a sharp sense of urgency. She had to answer the phone this time. She had to.

  Her phone rang. Once. Twice. Five times. Ten times. I couldn’t hang up. She would answer. I knew she would. But her phone kept ringing. Twelve times. Fifteen times. And then, Nancy’s voice.

  “Hello?”

  “My God,” I said with a sigh of relief. “Where have you been? I’ve been calling you all day. I thought maybe something happened to you. Are you all right?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Where were you?”

  “Here.”

  “In your apartment?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you answer the phone then? I’ve been worried sick.”

  I waited a moment for a response before repeating my question. “Why didn’t you answer the phone, Nan? You must’ve known it was me calling.”

  After what seemed like an eternity, I heard her exhale sharply into the receiver. “I didn’t answer the phone because I knew it was you, and I didn’t want to talk to you.”

  “Why? What have I done?”

  “Oh God, John. How can you ask me that after last night?”

  “Look, I know you were upset, and I don’t blame you, but why wouldn’t you want to talk to me?”

  “The truth is, John, I’m not even sure I ever want to see you again.”

  I closed my eyes as a wave of fear started to roll over me. “Was last night that terrible?” I asked.

  “Yes, it was.”

  I tried not to let the fear overtake me, but my eyes began to flood with tears.

  “I can’t take any more hurt, John. I’ve done my best to listen to you, to console you, to be there for you. I’ve done everything I know how to do to make you happy. To give you your life back. To make you love me enough to be happy again. But I’ve failed. Last night proved that to me. And I can’t live with that kind of failure. If I do, it’ll destroy me.”