Blue Sky Hill [01] A Month of Summer

by Lisa Wingate

  My God, Macey knew? He’d involved our daughter? I gripped the arm of the chair, squeezed hard. “What’s going on, Kyle? Just tell me.”

  “Don’t panic.”

  “Don’t pacify me,” I snapped. The words echoed against the sterile white walls, and an elderly couple strolling with an IV stand glanced my way. I turned toward the wall, rubbing my forehead and shielding my face. “Just tell me, Kyle.”

  “Everything’s been taken care of. There’s nothing for you to do… .” I pictured the purposefully calm facial expression that would come along with that artificially sedate tone. To emphasize the fact that there was nothing to panic about, he would rock calmly back in his chair, twirl a pencil in his fingers, look out the window, his sandy brown hair falling neatly over his collar as he surveyed the ocean in the distance. In that light, his eyes would be blue, like the water. If I walked past his office door in a moment like that, I would think that he looked perfect for the cover of Forbes—an accomplished man surrounded by the markers of success, oozing self-confidence. I admired that about him. He’d grown up the brilliant, athletic golden boy, the caboose baby with loving parents and older siblings admiring his every move. He was always secure in his position, as a good lawyer should be. “It’s already handled, all right?”

  What’s handled? A divorce? A separation? A tender reconciliation during which you confess to temptation and I attempt forgiveness?

  “Macey had a little accident in phys-ed class this morning. She doesn’t want to admit to the details, but as nearly as I can gather, they were in the gymnastics room, and Macey was showing off for the other kids, doing flips off the beam without a spotter. She landed on the edge of the mat and popped a tendon in her ankle.”

  I felt sick. “Is she all right?” I pictured my daughter lying in some emergency clinic alone while Kyle was in meetings. Why was he still at work?

  “She’s fine. I told you everything is fine.” Clearly, he’d caught the insinuation that he couldn’t handle the situation on his own.

  “Where is she? Who’s with her?”

  Kyle huffed into the phone, as in, If you’ll just shut up and let me talk… . “She’s home now. Mace’s going to be out of commission for a little while. She has a temporary brace on the ankle. The doctor will put a walking cast on in a couple days, when the swelling goes down. Mace is actually kind of excited about it. She’s never had a cast before. She called me to ask what color I thought she should get.”

  My mind whirled through the barrage of information—popped tendon, doctor visit, swelling, temporary wrap … Macey would miss the state gymnastics meet in two weeks. How did she feel about that? She’d been working for state all year. “You let Isha take her to the doctor? ” How could he send our daughter to the emergency clinic with a twenty-two-year-old au pair? What was he thinking?

  “My parents came up and took her.” He said it as if it made all the sense in the world that someone else would bring our daughter to the emergency room. “It was Macey’s idea. She knew I had to meet with a client in LA today.”

  My chest clenched at the idea of my daughter lying in the school nurse’s office with a popped tendon, trying to make herself less trouble to her father. The day compressed around me. Air wrenched from my lungs in a sob, and I stifled it with my hand. “I’m coming home.” I’d have to hire somebody here. Now. Today. I could pay from our bank account until I gained access to my father’s funds, either through Hanna Beth or a power of attorney.

  Where would I find someone who was willing to clean stacks of mail and newspapers, and patrol for rotten food underneath the beds and inside the closets? How could anyone be expected to deal with Teddy hiding in the backyard, my father wandering the house at night, those people coming and going without warning? How would it affect Teddy if I left? What about Hanna Beth… ?

  “Macey doesn’t want you to come home.” Kyle’s reply stopped the whirling in my mind. “She knew you’d say that, and she told me to tell you that Grandma Macklin is going to stay with her for a few days, so she won’t be alone.”

  A pinprick stung somewhere in my mother’s heart. Macey didn’t feel she needed me there? Nine years old, and she was already making her own arrangements? “Where’s Isha?”

  Kyle hesitated, and I sensed another bomb about to drop. “I fired Isha last night. She left this morning.”

  “What … wait … Kyle, what are you talking about? Isha’s been great so far. Macey adores her. Why in the world would you fire her, especially when I’m out of town?” I tried to imagine what he could possibly be thinking. “She’s over here on a work visa, Kyle. Without her job, she’ll be deported.”

  “I found her another job.” He paused to thank Bree for bringing him a set of depositions, then told her she’d done a good job. I listened intently, trying to decide if the tone conveyed friendly office conversation or something more. I pictured Bree, fly-away ringlets of hair sailing in the window breeze as she drove me to the airport. She was twenty-four, gorgeous, gullible, a teenager rattling around in a woman’s body, in a man’s world. What man wouldn’t be attracted to that? “I had a client who was looking for someone to watch her kids,” Kyle went on. “She’s going back into the real estate business now that her divorce is settled, and she needed someone who could be there at odd hours. Two little girls. Isha’s a perfect fit.”

  “You gave our au pair to one of your clients?” I thought of Susan Sewell, the blonde in the café. Kyle was handling property issues in her divorce case… .

  Kyle huffed into the phone. “I didn’t give her away. I’d already fired her, so I did the nice thing and found her a new job. I think she’ll get along fine at Susan’s house.”

  Susan. Susan Sewell. Susan … who now had Macey’s au pair.

  I wanted to demand answers, to say, I saw you in the café holding hands, smiling at each other, intimate, like it wasn’t the first time. What’s going on, Kyle? I want the truth… .

  Instead, some legally savvy defense mechanism I’d inherited from my mother was warning, Not now, not now. Don’t tip him off that anything’s wrong. You can never trust a man to do the right thing… . Another part of me, the emotionally raw and exhausted part, was saying, If it’s true, I don’t want to know. Not right now… . “Kyle, if the problem with Isha was bad enough to fire her, why would you recommend her to someone else? Especially someone with young children. If she’s not doing her job …”

  “She’ll do fine at Susan’s. Don’t worry about it, all right? It’s handled. My mother is going to stay here for a few days until Macey’s back on her feet. I’ve already called the agency and they’re sending information on a couple of au pairs they have available. If none of that works out, they can provide a temp nanny until we come up with the right person.”

  I swabbed my forehead, trying to wipe away the images of Kyle interviewing new au pairs, and his mother helping in the decision. As much as I loved Kyle’s parents, his mother would pick somebody like Mrs. Beasley—a sweet, cookie-baking, coddling, bun-wearing nanny who would tiptoe around behind my back, giving Macey snacks she wasn’t supposed to have, letting her stay up late to read stories and play board games and instant message with her girlfriends, just like Grandma Macklin did.

  “Kyle, you can’t leave me with it’s handled. What happened? Why did you fire Isha? You never had a problem with her before.”

  “Why do you always have to harp on things?” The frustration, the disgust in Kyle’s tone, jerked me back against the chair like a sudden slap. That was the bitter, sharp-edged voice couples shot at each other from across negotiating tables during divorces. “Why can’t you just trust me to handle it? I’m not an idiot. I don’t need a manager, Rebecca.”

  “I’m not trying to manage you, Kyle.” As usual, he was attempting to put me on the defensive, to imply that the problem was me and my unreasonable need to control things. I hated it when he intimated that all of our marital disagreements stemmed from my having trust issues due to some Freudian
reaction to my childhood—as if he was perfect because he came from an ideally intact family with two parents who never fought about anything, at least not in front of people. “Pardon me if it seems strange that I want to know what’s going on at home. I’m sure if it were you, you wouldn’t give us a second thought.” I winced as soon as the harpoon went out. I could feel it spiraling toward the target. A fight wouldn’t accomplish anything. I didn’t want to hurt him. I wanted … I didn’t know what I wanted. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m just … tired.”

  “I understand that, but I …” Whatever he was about to say, he held it back. I heard the chair squeak, the office door close. “I know that what you’re doing down there is hard. I wasn’t even going to tell you Isha was gone, but Macey had her accident, and I knew she’d want to call you tonight, so I figured I’d better bring you up to speed first.”

  “What is going on, Kyle?” I hated it when he kept things from me just because he didn’t want to deal with my reaction and the discussion that would inevitably follow. “I’d rather just know. What happened with Isha?”

  Someone knocked on his office door and he paused to answer, sign something, and close the door, while I waited on the line, imagining everything from Isha letting Macey watch R-rated movies, to leaving her alone in the house, to having a lover’s spat with Kyle and threatening to reveal the truth.

  “Last night when I came home, she was waiting in a negligee with an open bottle of wine. It didn’t leave much to the imagination.”

  “Isha?” I said slowly, trying to imagine dewy-eyed, bubbly Isha, who still got down on the floor and played Barbie Fashion Show with Macey, doing something so calculating and misguidedly sophisticated. “Are you sure you didn’t misunderstand? I can’t picture Isha doing something like that.”

  “There wasn’t any misunderstanding it.” Kyle’s answer was toneless, flat. “I know a play when I see one.”

  How often do you see one? “I just never thought …”

  Kyle laughed ruefully. “Don’t be naive, Rebecca. These girls come over here and they don’t have a dime in their pockets. It’s no surprise that some of them figure it’d be easier to marry a living than to make one.”

  “What did you tell her? What did you say?” The scene materialized in my mind, the details remaining misty.

  “I told her to get dressed, and we’d talk about her job. Nothing happened, if that’s what you’re asking.” The last sentence was light, disturbingly frivolous, as if he couldn’t imagine my thinking he would actually be receptive to her offer. In some strange way, that was comforting.

  Pride, or a sense of self-preservation, kept me from digging any deeper. The world underneath me seemed to be shifting faster than I could catch my footing. I was teetering on the edge of something big and black and ragged. I wanted him to reassure me, to say, Of course I would never do that, Rebecca. I wouldn’t do that to you, to Macey. You two are my life. We have a good life. Together. I love you.

  Instead, he laughed into the receiver. “What do you think I am, stupid? Can you say ‘sexual harassment lawsuit’? I got her out of the house as fast as I could.”

  “I guess that’s wise. What did you tell Macey?”

  “She thinks Isha got a better job offer.” I heard the electronic chime of his laptop firing up in the background. “She’s a little burned about it, but on the other hand, she doesn’t think she needs a nanny anymore. She’d rather have her driver’s license and a car.”

  “Very funny. And she does need a nanny.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” Kyle didn’t sound convinced.

  “I don’t want her coming home to an empty house. She’s too young. There are too many nights when you’re tied up at work and I’m busy dealing with issues at the boutique.” Why was he always in such a hurry for Macey to grow up, to push the parameters of childhood and be a third adult living in the house? Why did family life, raising our child, seem so insignificant to him—just another task to complete, a case to settle before moving on to the next stage of development.

  “Don’t get me started about that stupid store,” he ground out, making clear, once again, that he thought it was high time I divested myself of the place. “Your store manager had some problem with a shipment yesterday. I told her not to call you, just do whatever she thought was best. It’s always something there.”

  My head started pounding, my thoughts throbbing with things I wanted to say but couldn’t. The store was an argument that seemed insignificant now. “I’d better go. I’m at the hospital. My father’s doctor wanted to check him in for a few days.”

  “It’s that bad?”

  “It’s really bad. He’s having delusional episodes. He gets agitated.” I wanted to tell him everything, to share with him all the difficulties of the past few days, all the challenges ahead. I wanted to empty myself of all the tightly packed frustration, to lean on him and have him hold me up the way I would have when we were newly married and starting the firm together—before resentments and defense mechanisms created distance between us. When had our lives become so separate that it seemed unnatural to share significant events, to bolster and support each other?

  Kyle’s computer chimed again, an indication that he’d already moved on to other things. “Sounds like the hospital’s a good idea.” The words were robotic and distracted. He was reading something while he was talking to me.

  I didn’t answer. There seemed to be no point.

  “You might wait awhile to call Macey,” he went on. “Mace is feeling fine, but the pain medicine they gave her at the emergency clinic made her sleepy, and she’s taking a nap. Hopefully tomorrow she’ll feel well enough to do her homework. The doctor doesn’t want her to go back to school until she has the permanent cast on.”

  “I’ll call her later.” I ached to be sitting on Macey’s bed, stroking her hair, watching her sleep. She had to be heartbroken about missing the state gymnastics meet. Kyle’s mom would never understand how important it was. Neither would Kyle.

  “Talk to you later, then,” he said absently. No time for useless sentimentalities like I love you and I miss you.

  I said good-bye and closed the phone, sighed, and sat there with it folded between my hands, the battery warm on my palms. How had my life become such a mess? My time divided until I was short-changing everything—my career an unsatisfying rush, my daughter a miniature adult running her own life, my father a stranger living halfway across the country, my husband a dispassionate voice on the other end of the phone?

  What would he have said if I’d asked about the scene in the café? Would he tell me the same thing he had about Isha—that it was an unwelcome flirtation, something he hadn’t asked for and had quickly rejected?

  He wasn’t rejecting it the moment before the stoplight changed and I drove away… .

  Maybe he didn’t care if I knew. Maybe he’d been out with Susan in broad daylight on purpose, hoping I would see and confront him and the deceptions would be over. Could seventeen years of marriage really mean so little to him? Could we?

  What if nothing was going on? If I talked myself into trusting my husband, would I become one of those ridiculously blind women who sat at the negotiating table, finally accepting what everyone else already knew—the kind of women my mother bitterly criticized after her own divorce. Trust your instincts, she would have said. A woman can’t afford to be naive… .

  Letting out a long sigh, I laid my head back against the wall and closed my eyes. I could feel the plaster vibrating as the elevator hummed upward. I concentrated on the sound, trying to let the simple, meaningless white noise eclipse everything.

  I needed to get back to the house, make sure Teddy was all right… .

  I needed to go by the nursing center, check on Hanna Beth… .

  I needed to call Macey in a little while… .

  Poor Macey… .

  I pictured her asleep in her bed, her long, honey brown hair falling in soft strands against the pillow, her lips pursin
g slightly as she slept. I loved to watch her sleep… .

  The picture fell away. Everything fell away.

  Peace, finally… .

  The clang of a metal tray jolted me upright. My muscles were stiff and leaden, and I sat blinking, trying to get my bearings. I was in a hospital corridor. There was a woman in a wheelchair across from me. I knew her from somewhere.

  My mind hopscotched, trying to make the connection. She was familiar—the gray hair in a thin braid down her back, the quick dark eyes nestled among loose skin and a thick fan of lines.

  She smiled. “You were out like a hound on a hot day.” Even her voice, the slow, lazy Texas drawl, was familiar.

  “I must have drifted off for a minute.” I glanced at the giant clock hanging on the wall like a piece of modern artwork. It was ticking toward six. “Oh, my gosh.” I pulled my cell phone out and double-checked the time.

  The woman nodded. “You been here awhile. You were sleepin’ sound.”

  “I can’t believe I did that,” I said, glancing around.

  Shrugging, the woman closed the magazine in her lap. “I imagine you were tuckered. I just hated to leave you here, sound asleep with your purse layin’ out like that. You might wake up, and it’d be gone.” She motioned to the floor, where my purse was lying partially spilled by my feet. It must have fallen when I drifted off.

  “I’d of picked those things up for you, but if I tried to get down there, it’d be my luck my grandson would come and see me, and ring my neck. I just had orthoscotic surgery a few days ago. This is my grandson’s hospital.”

  “We met in the airport.” I pointed a finger at her, the memory rushing back. The flight seemed weeks ago.

  “We did,” she affirmed. “I never forget a face.”

  “Small world.”

  She laughed under her breath. “Not so,” she said, still smiling. “I told you I’d be here.”