by Jean Stone
“Not enough for Hap and me to buy our boat. When my father-in-law kicked the bucket, I realized that this could be my chance to finally make it. Shit, you can’t imagine how degrading it is to always work for rich people.”
Rita tried to look sympathetic.
“I deserve to be the one living on a boat. A sixty-footer at least. No more schlepping for those rich slobs. Hap and I decided we’re even going to dock in a slip right next to them. If they’re lucky, maybe we’ll invite them over for cocktails.”
Then Fern stood and plucked a pen from the counter. “Did you bring the contract?”
Rita swiftly opened her bag, her heart beating softly at this piece of news: Fern and her boyfriend wanted a yacht. Even with Vineyard house prices, even with three acres, Fern would need to amass all the money that she could. And Ben was an easy, ready-made target.
Sliding over the contracts, Rita asked nonchalantly, “What about your daughter? Will she live on the boat, too?”
“Who knows?” Fern scanned the papers, then signed them. “But believe me, I’m going to do whatever it takes. I’ve been gypped long enough.”
And then Rita felt dread. Dread for Ben, for the child—and for Jill, who needed to get her ass back here, the sooner the better.
Ben was glad he’d told Rita. There was a certain kind of solace in unburdening the soul. He had not felt it since Noepe died. He did not know if Rita believed him, but she was an objective person, with nothing at stake. He supposed this was why shrinks did so well—their lives would not be uprooted and destroyed by anyone’s confession.
He wished he could tell Carol Ann. Was Rita right—was he selling his friends and family short? Jill had implied the same thing. But neither woman could know the shame that just the thought of child molestation evoked inside a man, the accusation that he was capable of violating the most sacred trust of innocence.
The very thought made him want to vomit.
He ran a square of sandpaper across a two-by-four and wondered what the hell he’d thought about before this happened, before it consumed every waking moment of his days and many nights.
The doorbell rang upstairs. Ben put down his work and climbed the winding cellar steps. But even before he reached the door, he knew who was on the other side by the silhouette that played upon the frosted glass. His elation, however, quickly dissipated when he saw the look upon Carol Ann’s face.
In one short second, he knew that she knew.
“Dad,” his daughter said when he opened the door, “we have to talk.”
Yes, they did.
Carol Ann had heard it at the town hall where she worked.
“Too bad about your father,” one of the local cops had whispered. “It’s hard to believe a guy his age would, well, you know, touch a kid.”
So much for the gag order.
She didn’t cry while she related it, didn’t even flinch. But Ben recognized the stonelike quality to her voice as anger. It was the way he always sounded when he was so pissed that he could shout. Or scream. Or ram his fist at a doorjamb as he’d done last night.
“I didn’t even go home and tell John,” she said. “I called him and told him to pick up the kids. I said there was something urgent I had to do, and that I’d see him later.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ben said, “John already knows.”
They had moved into the music room; she was sitting on the settee, he on the high-backed wing chair facing her.
Pink rose in her cheeks. “How long has he known?”
Ben sighed. “Since the beginning of October. That’s when it started. Your husband bailed me out.”
For a moment neither said anything. Then Carol Ann said, “Is this why he’s always made sure we’re too busy to see you? Why he said the kids couldn’t go to Sturbridge.…” Her words trailed off, then she said, “Is this why he said you and Jill wouldn’t be home on Christmas? Oh, God, Dad. Please tell me none of this is happening.”
He rose from the wing chair and crossed the room to her. He was not going to avoid touching her—she was his daughter, for chrissake. He sat down next to her and took her hands in his. “John was trying to protect you, Carol Ann,” he said. No matter how pissed off he was at John, he wasn’t going to cause trouble between them.
She stared at him a moment and did not blink. “I want to know what happened.”
He did not pause a heartbeat. “Mindy Ashenbach accused me of touching her breast. But even if she had a breast—which she does not as yet—I wouldn’t go near it. I hope you know that.”
“Of course I know that, Dad.”
She didn’t have to say anything more. She only had to look at him, her gray eyes reflecting his, with Louise’s gentle, caring face, the face that he knew, no matter what, would always love him, would always stand behind him. That history of family, those years of struggle and survival and sharing to the depths, had built a strong foundation layered with trust. It was the innate trust that he and Jill could never have, no matter how much they loved each other.
A trembling started inside his shoulders as he held the soft hands of his lovely, trusting daughter. Then it quivered in his back and traveled down his arms and up inside his head. And there on the antique settee, Ben broke down and cried.
Carol Ann brought Ben a shot of the single malt, neat, the way he liked it in the best of times, the worst of times.
As he touched the warm, golden liquid to his lips, it almost seemed amusing the way his life had suddenly been transformed and women were flocking to his aid. Well, Rita and Carol Ann did not exactly constitute a flock, but their support mattered. Would Jill think he deserved it? He also wondered if Carol Ann’s trust would be uprooted when she learned everything.
“So Fern is trying to blackmail you? Please, Dad. Why don’t you just tell the police?”
He had not wanted to tell the police because he hadn’t even told his wife. He had told Rita and now he had told Carol Ann, but he had not told Jill about the blackmail attempt for a half million dollars. As it was, Jill already wanted to pay Fern off and let her get away with it.
“I need to let my lawyer take care of it. I didn’t want to screw things up more than they already are.” He moved back to the wing chair where he was more comfortable, and to gain distance to tell her what was coming next. “Besides,” he said, “there’s something that could complicate the situation.”
“What?”
He took another swallow. This was the most difficult part: telling a daughter that her father had cheated on her mother. While her mother had still been living. While her mother was in the slow process of dying. He wondered if Carol Ann would feel he’d cheated on her, too, on their family, and if his sin might be too great for her to pardon.
She returned to the settee and folded her hands, ever the lady.
Swigging from the shot glass again, he realized it was empty. He started to set it on the roll top desk, then decided to keep it in his hand, a mini crutch, a glass accomplice.
He took a deep breath. “Jill went to England.”
“I know. You told us that on Christmas.”
“Amy’s with her, too. I couldn’t go, of course. I’ve been asked not to leave the island.”
Tiny little frown lines stretched across Carol Ann’s forehead. “This is ridiculous, Dad.”
He rolled the shot glass in his hand. “Jill didn’t want me there anyway. She’s run out of patience. I guess that’s the most tactful way to say it.”
“Good grief, Dad. She’s your wife!”
“Well, honey, there’s more—”
“There’s nothing, Dad.” She stood up and moved to the fireplace, gesturing with her hands, wringing them together. “How can she desert you?”
“She was justified, honey.”
“Justified? How much are you supposed to take? First Mindy and her ridiculous charge, then Fern Ashenbach and blackmail, for God’s sake, and now Jill …”
Ben set down the glass, stood up, and went to her. H
e put his hand on her elbow. He lightly touched the folds of her shirt as they curved over her elbow, then he closed his eyes. “The problem with Fern goes much deeper than blackmail,” he said, praying the words would be right. “Something happened a long time ago, and it’s going to kill me to tell you. But I can’t let you find out another way. Not like you found out about Mindy.”
Carol Ann turned around. Ben opened his eyes, and she looked squarely into them.
He patted her elbow, shook his head, and walked to the window. “I had an affair, Carol Ann. With Fern.”
There was silence a moment.
“When?”
Silence again. Then he blinked. “When your mother was sick.” His words were so faint, she might not have heard them, but the quiet that followed told him that she had.
From the window, Ben could see Mrs. Warner, the old woman across the street, supervise young Teddy Lyons cleaning up the last of the driveway snow—sprucing up her property for New Year’s Eve, no doubt, when her children and grandchildren would gather and be a family like he once had. At the foot of Mrs. Warner’s white picket fence, a tangle of bittersweet still clung way past autumn, showing off its still-vibrant red-orange berries. Bittersweet, like life itself.
“Dad,” Carol Ann said softly, “I’m sorry to do this, but I’ll have to get back to you. It’s going to take me some time to understand what you’ve said.”
He stayed standing at the window, not looking back. Carol Ann left the room, walked down the hall, and let herself out.
When he heard the door latch, he gritted his teeth. Then the boil rolled inside him once again, the heated, angry agitation of losing control, of being at life’s mercy. He turned from the window, fueled by fervor, marched into the hall, and called Herb Bartlett.
He reached a secretary.
“Tell him I want to know when he’s coming to the Vineyard,” he said in a raised, exasperated voice.
“I’m sorry,” the secretary replied, “but Attorney Bartlett is vacationing in Barcelona. I’ll have him phone you when he returns.”
Ben slammed down the receiver, wondering why the whole damn world had gone to Europe, when they were needed here.
“I’m sorry Rita, but my mother doesn’t want to talk to you,” Amy said, when Rita finally got through to England on the twenty thousandth try.
“Amy,” Rita said firmly, “put her on the phone.”
“Can’t, even if I wanted to. She’s out with my father.”
“Sorry kid, I don’t believe it.”
“Believe it. She had a fight with Ben, but she won’t say about what. Did she tell you about it?”
Rita thought a moment. “Not really. But even if they had a fight, why won’t she talk to me?”
“Who knows. She won’t talk to anyone about it.”
Oh God, Rita thought, Jill was being such a fool.
She said good-bye to Amy and sat at her kitchen table. As she listened to the click-click of knitting needles from the other room, she contemplated what she should do next, and whether she could accomplish it without calling the one person in the world who could and would help her out.
Chapter 27
When Jeff had been accepted at Oxford, Jill had assumed it was one college, the place she’d read about in Chaucer, the foundation of some of England’s greatest scholars, priests, and kings. But it was actually dozens of colleges and halls that constituted “The University City of Oxford.” None of these institutions was actually called “Oxford”—they had names like The Queen’s College, Manchester College, Trinity, St. John’s, University, Hertford, and on and on.
New College, according to alumni, was the most beautiful, with its six-centuries-old, pale stone buildings. In its sprawling gardens, through its archway, lay a respite for meditation, for gathering harmony of thought.
Jill walked through the gardens and hoped that Jeff was able to harmonize more of his thoughts there than she was capable of doing. The initial relief she’d felt at being away from Ben and the Vineyard had dissipated and left a painful hole somewhere in her heart.
It didn’t help that Richard was hovering, taking them to dinner, a performance at Exeter, an exhibition at the museum. He hadn’t returned to London but kept calling this “family time.” Jeff and Amy and Mick had begun to dodge his invitations and take off together in other directions. She suspected that Richard’s real motive had little to do with “family time,” and more to do with distracting himself from his new-found loneliness. She wondered if he would try to get her into bed.
In a way, she was flattered. At forty-six, being pursued by a male, even an ex-husband, was good for the ego, especially hers, especially now.
Not that she would consider it. Unlike her ex and apparently current husbands, she was not ready to jump into bed with someone simply because that might solve all her problems.
Well, there were those needy moments with Christopher in New York.…
But that was different, wasn’t it? And she hadn’t gone through with it.
She clenched her jaw and told herself to forget it, that she was beating herself up about that incident far more than necessary. She was hardly sexually promiscuous, after all. She was not like Richard, who most likely had not changed. No one really, truly changed, she believed. Which was why she’d decided that leaving Ben was what she had to do.
She ambled through the gardens, looking up at the majestic buildings, marveling at the beveled window glass, trying to distract herself, when a voice across the courtyard called out.
“Jill! Hey!”
Oh, God, it was Richard again. He looked exceptionally debonair today, with his faded jeans and a cashmere turtleneck and a matching deerskin jacket that looked as if it had stepped off a mannequin in Harrod’s best window.
Reluctantly, she waved.
He caught up to her.
“I must return to London tonight,” he said apologetically.
Though she should have been glad, part of her felt disappointed. “Well, thank you for everything, Richard. These past days have been fun.”
They walked together along the walkway, falling into stride as two people with a past. “This is quite a place, isn’t it?” he asked, scanning the grounds.
“You can almost feel the history,” Jill replied.
“And it’s curious that it’s so close to London.”
At first she didn’t get what he was saying, didn’t “pick up what he was laying down,” as Jeff would have said.
“Catch the train with me to London,” he said. “I know a great little restaurant in Covent Garden that serves a fabulous duck. You’d enjoy it, Jill. Just the two of us. What do you say?”
Oh. A romantic train trip into the city, a late dinner, maybe a stroll through Piccadilly and Trafalgar Square. London would be wonderful, but it would probably include overnight. And there was little question as to what would happen next. She looked down at the plain gold band that encircled not only her finger but her other world, the world that she’d left. “This is so strange. I feel like you’ve been courting me. In fact, you weren’t this attentive when you did,” she said.
He smiled magnetically.
“I’m a married woman, Richard.”
“I didn’t think you were planning to stay married,” he said. “At least, that’s not what Amy said.”
She stumbled on the footpath but thankfully righted herself before he had the chance to help. “What exactly did she tell you?” What exactly did Amy know?
“That you and your new hubby haven’t been getting along. That she thinks this trip is to give you time to think. A separation leading to—well, you know.”
Her breath grew shallow, and that familiar pain returned to her heart. “Well, thanks for the concern. But if anything were wrong with my marriage, it’s really no one’s business.”
“Our kids included?”
She turned her face from Richard and gazed off toward one of the seminar rooms, where a dozen or so students sat at a huge round ta
ble. One of them might become a world leader, a renowned physician, a gifted peacemaker. It made her problems seem quite insignificant.
She wondered if Ben would like being here. She decided that he would, that he would marvel at the architecture and at the growth of young minds. He would not wear a deerskin coat, but it would not matter. Not to her. Not to his wife.
She realized she was thinking of him again, that she had slid back into feeling he was a part of her. How long would it take her to detach? Would she be able to stop loving Ben after the divorce?
“If you’d like to take me anywhere, Richard, I’d like to cross the street to the Bodleian Library. It may not be London, but it’s the best I can do.”
In another second, Rita was going to throw up. She was sure she’d lost her mind, to be sitting on an airplane somewhere over the Atlantic.
She loosened the seat belt across her blossomed belly. Closing her eyes and trying to breathe, she reminded herself that she was there because she had to be, because she could coax Jill to come home only if she showed up in person.
But Rita hadn’t had a passport. One did not need one for a trip across Vineyard Sound once or twice a year, the less often the better because Rita had a history of motion sickness on anything that rocked or flew.
She hadn’t forgotten that when she’d phoned Charlie down in Florida and begged him to find a way to get her one in a hurry, so she could save Jill’s marriage and maybe Ben’s life as well. She didn’t go into details, and Charlie hadn’t asked. Good old trusting Charlie.
And he had come through.
She’d had a photo taken at the carousel pavilion over in Oak Bluffs, in one of those booths with a black curtain that spat out your pictures on a strip. She brought it to the travel agent where Charlie said to go. Twenty-four hours later, a courier showed up at her door, passport in one hand, a British Airways ticket in the other. Charlie had even arranged for a car to meet her at the airport and drive her out to Oxford.
Hazel thought she was nuts, but Rita pointed to the dozen or so booties and reminded her that the apple didn’t fall … and all that.