by Gayle Roper
“I just wanted to stop and ask how you and your sister are doing.”
“We’re fine.” Tori’s voice was bright and cheerful. You’d never know she’d just gotten a death threat or watched the police lug away a dead man.
“I know that body this morning must have given you a jolt.”
“It certainly did.” Now she was properly solemn. “Thank you for being concerned.”
I heard a small laugh from Drew. “Jenna’s mad because she slept through all the excitement.”
“Have no fear. Chloe will fill her in. I’m surprised the kid’s scream when she opened the door didn’t waken Jenna and all the rest of Philadelphia.”
There was a clatter of feet as Chloe and Jenna rushed downstairs. How they made so much noise in flip-flops was an interesting question, though not one I cared to ponder.
“Look, Dad,” Jenna said. “This is Princess. Isn’t she cute? Don’t you want one?” I imagined her cuddling the dog.
Drew gave a noncommittal laugh and sidestepped the question. “Well, you girls have a good time shopping. And, Jenna”—his voice took on that reasonable parental tone kids so hate—“you do whatever Chloe’s aunt asks.”
“Dad,” came her embarrassed cry.
And I knew he knew Tori wasn’t me.
Interesting, since everyone else tended to confuse us.
6
DREW GRINNED BROADLY as he walked back to his home away from home. Jenna was so easy. And he was undoubtedly a terrible dad to enjoy teasing her like he did, but it was such fun to get a rise out of her.
He hoped she had a good time with Chloe and Tori. He knew spending his sabbatical here was hard on her. She was away from her friends and would miss the first part of the coming school year, an eternity in the shifting cliques and clashes of eighth grade.
And then there were the Conlin boys next door back home, to say nothing of the swimming pool. She swooned over the guys and enjoyed the pool. It used to be the other way around, and he longed for those safe days again.
But it was a different story now that Jenna was no longer the tubby little kid next door. He lived in fear that the Conlin boys would see what she was becoming. If he had his way—and realistically he knew he wouldn’t, but a man could dream—there would be no males besides him in her life until she was at least thirty. It still unnerved him every time he looked at her and saw her rapidly developing a figure so like her mother’s, a two-edged sword if ever there was one.
He sighed. The curse of every father of daughters was that he remembered all too well when he had been young and teeming with hormones.
It had taken all the courage he possessed to have the purity talk with her, although she seemed to already know everything he told her, a very disquieting realization. He had sweated bullets and she had sat calmly, nodding her head as he stammered his way through the facts of life. He wasn’t sure he had yet recovered or ever would. It was probably the one time he’d missed Ruthie in years. His fragile peace of mind on the premarriage sex score came because Jenna willingly wore the purity ring he had gotten her, and she was still young enough to think sex sounded “yucky.”
But…
What if she didn’t just look like her mother? What if she became Ruthie?
Even the thought made him grow rigid with tension. No matter how much he prayed, no matter how much he encouraged her toward good things, no matter how much he watched over her, he couldn’t put to rest the specter of his wife walking out on them with the words, “The only thing more boring than Jesus is you! I can’t stand it any longer! I’ve got to have room to breathe!”
He guessed he was boring, a college professor who spent hours researching B. Franklin, printer, when he wasn’t preparing lectures, delivering them, and meeting with students. He liked order and thought things like loving Jesus and being part of a family, being responsible, and being on time for appointments were positive things.
“You’re rigid!” Ruthie used to yell. “Who cares if we don’t go to church this week? Are they going to excommunicate us? And if you quote, ‘Let us not give up meeting together,’ I’ll scream!”
Or, “So we’re a bit late. What are they going to do? Refuse us dinner? Besides, it’s fifteen minutes less I have to listen to the boring conversation about world events and what they mean. Or worse, how history predicted today’s woes.”
Since he loved such discussions, he never understood her aversion to them. And he wasn’t all fusty and dull. He had a motorcycle. And a snowboard. He just thought it prudent to wear a helmet and behave responsibly when using them.
As he unlocked the front door and pushed it open, his phone vibrated against his hip. He grabbed it and flipped it open without checking the number.
“Where in the world are you?”
His heart sank. “Hello to you too, Ruthie.” That’s what he got for not checking. Of course, if he’d checked, he’d have answered anyway. He always did. Besides, she’d just keep calling until she got him.
“Where are you?”
“Right here at the end of the phone.” Drew rubbed the spot between his eyes where a headache was gathering strength, like swirling winds over the sea gaining momentum for a massive storm. Ruthie always gave him a fierce headache.
“Yeah, but you’re not at the house.”
Drew grimaced. That meant she was. He walked into the surprisingly old-fashioned kitchen and grabbed a bottle of cold water from the fridge. He twisted off the cap and took a drink. “What do you want, Ruthie?”
There was a moment of silence. Then Ruthie said in a strangled voice, “Mick’s gone.”
Which number boyfriend was he? Drew could never keep the count straight. Butch. Bugs. Rascal. Bubba. Mick. He felt sure he was missing a few. Wasn’t there one with a regular name in there somewhere? Bill or Sam or Joe? Tom. That was it. Jenna said she almost liked Tom. He even had a real job as an artificial inseminator of cows. Ruthie liked him at first because it was such a bizarre occupation to her, but with it came schedules and responsibilities. Tom made the mistake of taking them seriously.
When Mick came along, poor Tom hadn’t stood a chance. Personally, Drew thought Tom should thank his lucky stars for Mick. Ruthie could make a man lose his sanity and self-respect if he was around her too long, something Drew knew only too well.
“What do you want me to do about Mick’s defection?” Drew asked wearily, wondering as always what it was that Ruthie wanted from him. He was pretty certain he’d never figure it out because he was pretty certain Ruthie herself had no idea. Beyond fixing everything, that is.
He had been a new Christian when he first met Ruthie. She had been twenty to his twenty-one, and he was smitten from the beginning. She had been lovely to look at, but more important at the time, she seemed to be the perfect Christian girl—sweet, demure, kind, and spiritually oriented. She took him to meet her family, and he fell in love with them. They were everything his family was not-honest, honorable, and committed to Jesus. Not that his family was any worse than most. It was just that Ruthie’s family was well above average.
When Ruthie agreed to marry him, he was sure it was the beginning of happily ever after. He started his graduate work while Ruthie worked as an administrative assistant at an ad agency following her graduation from Bible school. His hours were long, and he spent many evenings at the library, reading and researching. Ruthie grew tired of coming home to an empty house. She started stopping off with co-workers for happy hour. What was originally only cola soon became wine, then beer, then hard liquor. What had been an hour became two hours became most of the evening—once or twice, all night.
“I just spent the night at Bettie’s,” she’d explained. “I knew you wouldn’t be home.”
He chose to believe her because the alternative was too terrible to contemplate.
Jenna’s birth slowed Ruthie down a little, but not for long. She quickly became desperate for escape from the demands of caring for a baby. She cried and spent long hours sitting in th
e darkened living room, staring at the television without seeing it.
“My life is over,” she’d sob. “I might as well be dead.”
“Are you taking your medications?” Drew asked, scared by her unhealthy behavior. He knew about postpartum depression, knew it could get so bad a mother wanted to harm her baby. What if she did something to Jenna when he wasn’t around to prevent it?
She ignored him just as she ignored Jenna.
The first time he came home and found Jenna alone, he panicked. Something had happened to Ruthie! No mother would leave her four-month-old baby alone. He called the police, then called them again when she waltzed in around midnight.
“She wasn’t going anywhere,” Ruthie said, all energy and effervescence. “She was fine in the crib.”
Soon he had to hire a baby-sitter to stay with Jenna in the evenings because Ruthie made it clear she wasn’t staying home.
It was by accident that he learned that she’d had a man in the house while he was gone. He picked up a T-shirt lying on the floor beside the bed. When he looked at the picture on the front, he knew it was not one he owned. The memory of her look of defiance when he showed her the shirt still made his stomach ache.
He heard that same defiance in her voice today. “I need some money.”
His headache ratcheted up several notches. “And what do you expect me to do about it?” But he knew. She may have left, but she came back with the persistence of winter.
“I’m your wife,” she said as if that still meant something.
“You aren’t my wife, Ruthie. You haven’t been for several years.” He refrained from saying that even when she had been, she wasn’t.
“Just a hundred bucks, Drew.” she wheedled. “You’ll never miss it. I’ll pay you back when I get on my feet.”
Now there was a line he could take to the bank. “Get a job, Ruthie.” How many times had he spoken those words? As always she ignored them. “Or call your dad.”
She made a rude noise. “I do not want lectures about how I’ve turned my back on God. Besides, you owe me. You’ve got Jenna.”
“Yes, I do.”
“What if I fight you for her in court?”
“Threats are not very becoming, Ruthie. And do you honestly think any judge would give Jenna to you?” And do you think Jenna’d actually go with you? But he didn’t say that out loud. Not only was it cruel. Nothing would be gained by telling her how little her daughter liked and how much she resented her.
“Come on, Drew baby. Where’s all that Christian kindness?”
Drew baby. It was hard to believe there had been a time when he loved her calling him that. He shook his head at his stupidity. “Let’s just call it tough love.”
“So you do still love me! I knew it!”
He had loved her deeply once, or at least the person he believed she was. He thought she hung the moon, and when she agreed to marry him, he was ecstatic. He thought her bouts of melancholy were due to life being in flux, and when she was manic—not that he knew it as such—she was such fun to be with. He didn’t know that when he took her home at night, she often didn’t sleep, in fact, didn’t sleep for days.
For some reason a picture of Libby Keating standing over a dead body flashed through his mind. He knew nothing about her except that she had a polite daughter and a killer of a twin. For all he knew, Libby was responsible for the man being dead, though he really didn’t think so. There was something wholesome about her, something good.
And then there was his ex-wife.
“I’m hanging up now, Ruthie.”
“Don’t you dare! I don’t know where you are. You can’t keep me from my daughter.”
“Good-bye, Ruthie.” As he flipped the phone closed, he heard her yell, “I’ll find you, I swear, and when I do, you’ll be sorry! I prom—”
7
AFTER DREW LEFT, I WANDERED from the kitchen to wave Chloe, Jenna, and Tori off in a cab for their shopping expedition. I held Princess close because she wanted to go too. She always took it personally when either of us left without her.
“It’s okay, baby.” I straightened the bow in her topknot. “You can say hi to Madge.”
I collapsed in the comfy recliner in the living room, a more modern piece than most of the furniture in Aunt Stella’s house. I dialed Madge’s number and settled back as I waited for her to answer.
I was sixteen and pregnant the first time I ever talked to Madge Crosson, but she had fascinated me ever since she moved into our neighborhood with her husband and little boys. She lived two doors down from us and across the street. I watched as she went out at least once a week with an empty pickup and came back with a full one. I’d sit on our porch or watch out my bedroom window as she unloaded the most eclectic collection of things: old bedsteads, linens yellowed with age, dolls with knots in their hair and dirt on their clothes, stained-glass windows, ceramic and porcelain pieces of all sizes, and box after box of stuff I couldn’t identify from my distant vantage point. Once she brought home an old wooden airplane propeller and a horse from a merry-go-round.
It was late March, unseasonably warm, the day I finally talked with her. I hadn’t gone to school for two weeks straight in despair over my life. Dad and Pop had just been sentenced on police corruption charges, and I was trying to figure out how I should respond to this dramatic change in all our lives. Up until the arrest, Tori and I had enjoyed being the kids and grandkids of the two top cops in Haydn. Tori especially was happy to threaten anyone with their authority.
“You ever do that again, and I’ll tell my father and grandfather. They’ll make sure you never bother us again,” was one of her favorite lines.
I rarely said anything, but I was proud that they held such important jobs.
Then one day they were as corrupt as the criminals they were supposed to be arresting. They took bribes. They sold confiscated drugs and guns. They were on the payroll of a small-time mobster.
Confused, upset, and scared, I turned to Eddie Mancini, a handsome young rogue with a silver tongue who became my rock. Then I became pregnant.
I was afraid to tell anyone because of all the chaos of the trial and sentencing. Things were so bad that Nan moved in with us so they could sell her house to raise some money for Dad and Pop’s expensive lawyers.
Nan glared at Mom on moving day, like it was a terrible thing that our kitchen was full of our toaster and our dishes and our canned goods. “Just where am I supposed to put my things?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care.” Mom had had a short fuse ever since they led Dad away. Having another woman in her house, in her kitchen, made her sharp tongue even sharper.
“If you hadn’t wanted so much stuff,” Nan said, flinging a hand to indicate Mom’s good dishes and the new wallpaper and curtains, “Mike and Jack wouldn’t have gotten into trouble.”
“Oh, so it’s all my fault?” Mom stood with her hands on her hips, her lips curled in a sneer. “You were married to one and raised the other. If there’s any blame, it’s yours, not mine.”
“Where’s that heirloom sterling silver you had?” Nan ignored Mom’s too-close-to-the-bone barb.
“Where do you think? Sold for the money to pay the lawyers for your husband and your son.”
Nan shot Mom a look that would have scorched another woman, spun, and saw Tori and me trying to sneak upstairs to our bedroom. “Go get my suitcases. Now. Put them in the blue room.”
“But Nan,” Tori began. She and I each had our own rooms, but Mom had put us together in the blue room to open up a room for Nan. We were given that one because it was the larger.
“But Nan nothing. The blue room!”
I was lugging the last suitcase up the stairs, trying to figure out how Tori and I were going to get all our stuff in the yellow room, when Eddie appeared. I dropped the suitcase right where it was and ran to him.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” I was a mass of nerves, and all I could think about was how much worse it was goin
g to be when they found out about the baby.
Eddie and I went to a movie, some martial arts thing he thought was wonderful and during which I fell asleep. Then we went to our usual parking spot.
“I’ve got some important news,” I said, uncertain how he’d react but hoping he’d say, “Don’t worry, Libby. We’ll work it out. Everything will be all right.” After all, he had been there for me these past months, his love and affection the only things that got me through.
What I got was anything but sympathy.
“I’m not takin’ responsibility for your mess, Lib.” Eddie looked at me like I’d crawled out from under some rotten log. “You’re a big girl. It’s all yours.” Then he laughed. “And I don’t think I need to worry about anyone coming after me, do I?”
Though I saw him at school, I hadn’t spoken with him since that night, and every sighting was a knife in my young heart.
When the burden of my pregnancy became too heavy to bear alone, I finally told Tori. She looked at me with interest, an eyebrow raised. “Eddie Mancini, huh?”
And suddenly she was dating him. A couple of times he even came to the house as if he had no previous history here. I hid in our room and cried the evening away, feigning sleep when Tori finally got home.
Soon everyone at school knew about my predicament, and I was sure they all had a good laugh at my expense. Dumb Libby. Hadn’t she ever heard of the pill? Or a condom? Stupid Libby, whose father and grandfather were in jail. Idiot girl.
Well, they were right; I was dumb. Stupid. Add naive and blind and too trusting.
I was trying to get up the nerve to have an abortion. Mom and Nan sat around all day crying when they weren’t fighting, the blinds closed and the phones off their hooks. No one knew when and if Dad and Pop would be home again; jail was not a healthy place for cops, corrupt or not. No one knew where the money to live and pay the exorbitant, ongoing legal bills was going to come from. And no one knew what emotional ramifications the shame of everything would have on all of us.