The Woman Next Door

by Barbara Delinsky

  Amanda and Graham had taken time off, and why not? They had each other. They could forget that the rest of the world existed. Karen couldn’t do that. If she wasn’t at school, carrying on as though nothing at all was wrong, lest someone think that something was, she was haunted by indignity at home. She couldn’t so much as drive down the street without praying that Gretchen wasn’t staring at her with pity or disdain, and now it had as much to do with Jordie as with Lee.

  Karen had disposed of the knife with its telltale bits of paint. She had wrapped it up, buried it in a bag of garbage, and taken it with the rest to the dump. So Gretchen wasn’t pressing charges. Even if Jordie had confessed, there was no evidence.

  Now, though, there was the gun. She wasn’t supposed to see it. Russ had dropped it over that morning. It had been wrapped in a sealed bubble mailer addressed to Lee, but she hadn’t been able to resist. The feel of it had tipped her off.

  The kitchen door opened and Lee came in. The door clattered shut behind him. “I got your message. They said it was urgent.”

  Slowly, evenly, Karen drew the small pistol from her pocket. Keeping it at waist level, she aimed it at Lee, who frowned and took an instinctive step to the side. She followed him with the nose of the gun, feeling an odd power.

  “What the hell are you doing with that?” he asked with his eyes on the gun.

  “Russ brought it over this morning. I think it’s yours.”

  “I don’t own a gun.”

  She took a breath and went on. “I’ve seen it in your drawer.”

  “You’re searching my drawers now?” he flared up, as she had known he would. He was good at shifting blame to avoid the issue.

  But she refused to wilt. She knew what she had to say, had been practicing her response for days. “I fold your boxers and put them away. Sometimes I rotate them and bring the less-used ones from the back up to the front. The gun’s been back there a long time. It wasn’t a good place to keep it, Lee. It was too obvious. Jordie didn’t have to look far to find it.”

  Apparently deciding that denial wouldn’t work, Lee tried boredom. “It happened to have been the easiest place to reach for it if I heard an intruder in the middle of the night. Besides, how do you know this is the one Jordie had?”

  “Because yours is missing. And we never did find the gun when we got Jordie down. It wasn’t on him when they undressed him at the hospital. I thought you’d taken it from him, but Russ must have.”

  Lee’s eyes went back to the gun. “Put it down. Guns can kill.”

  Karen nodded. Swallowing down bits of hysteria, she said, “This one could have killed our son. I had a nightmare again last night about that.”

  He held out a hand. “Give it to me.”

  “Not yet.”

  “What do you want with it?”

  “To make a point.”

  He sighed, bored again. “What point?” he asked as though humoring a child.

  Karen usually backed down at this stage. Lee was the one with the high-tech knowledge and the successful business. He was the one who was quick, smart, worldly. She couldn’t compete with that.

  But she was a mother, and he couldn’t compete with that. So maybe the gun gave her strength. Or maybe she had been belittled one time too many. But she wasn’t backing down. She had a point to make about the problems with their marriage. Three points, actually.

  “Lies. Cheating. Violence,” she said.

  Still in the bored vein, Lee sighed. “There’s no violence in our marriage. If you’re claiming abuse, you haven’t got a leg to stand on.”

  “It’s subtle. It’s silent. But it’s taken a toll. It’s gotten so it affects everything in this house. It’s gotten so I can’t think straight.”

  “See a shrink. I’ll pay. I’ve said that before.”

  “A shrink won’t help. I can’t go on this way Lee. I can’t go on with the other women and the late nights and the anger.”

  He softened in an oh-so-familiar way. “You imagine things.”

  “No.” Again she forced out damning words, but the gun in her hand reminded her that the situation was dire. “I’ve seen bills. There’s no imagining that you’re paying an obstetrician, because his name is right there, and more than once. Someone’s seeing him every month, and it isn’t me.”

  That unsettled him. “Were you looking through my desk?”

  The cat was out of the bag, she thought in fear. He might excuse her for seeing something in his drawer when she was putting his shorts away. But he wouldn’t forgive her for rifling his desk. He had always trusted her. That would be forever changed now.

  But her life was forever changed. The past two weeks had seen to that. She felt the old fears—of being alone, being without Lee, being a nobody, being poor. The fears had kept her with him when she should have left, and they might have now. They were strong arguments.

  But she couldn’t go back. She couldn’t.

  “Yes,” she said in a rush, “and don’t try to turn things around and make me the devil, because it won’t work this time. I don’t believe in divorce. It terrifies me, and you know that, which is why I let you apologize and come back and swear that it’s over between you and your mistress, but things aren’t right between us, and the poison’s spreading. I could live with it when it was just me, but now it’s affecting the kids.”

  “The kid are fine,” he scoffed.

  “Lee,” she cried in disbelief. “Look at Jordie. Look at what nearly happened to him. And to Amanda. And look what he did to Gretchen. He wouldn’t have done that if you hadn’t gone on and on about that painting. He wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t thought you were involved with her.”

  “That’s your fault,” Lee charged. “It’s your anger and suspicion. Jordie would have to be blind not to see.”

  Having come too far to turn back, she stared at him, thinking that he looked absolutely foolish with his blond hair spiked that way. “My anger and suspicion is a direct result of your lying and cheating.”

  He held up a hand. “Don’t try to shift the blame back to me.”

  “We nearly lost Jordie!” she shouted. “Doesn’t that chill you?” She caught herself from yelling more. Amanda wouldn’t yell in a situation like this. Neither would Georgia. They would be calm. They would speak with conviction, even when they were shaking with fear. “Don’t even answer that,” she said, as they would have. “I don’t want to hear answers. I just want you to go and pack. The kids’ll be home in an hour. I want you gone by then.”

  His expression turned blank. “What are you talking about?”

  She swallowed. Amanda and Georgia would stick to their guns when they knew something was right, even if they had qualms. “I need you to move out.”

  “Are you serious?”

  She nodded.

  “Come on, honey,” he said and started toward her.

  She raised the gun.

  He stopped, stared at the gun, then at her. “This is my home.”

  “Not anymore,” she said quickly, fighting the force of habit, when she knew this was for the best. “I’ll go to court, if I have to. I have copies of the bills. I have the name of a good lawyer. You need to leave, Lee.”

  Conciliatory, he patted the air with both hands. “You’re upset. You’re thinking of things that happened in the past. You’re thinking about Jordie up on that tower. You were numb before. So was I. Now we’re not, and the reality of it is hitting us.”

  “It’s not only Jordie.”

  “Of course it’s not. We all go through rough spells. This is one of yours. You’re not thinking clearly.”

  “I’m thinking very clearly.”

  “Things become warped when you go through a scare like the one we had with Jordie.”

  Karen drew in a tempered breath. It struck her that she was tired of being talked down to by Lee. “I want you out,” she said with deliberate care. “I don’t care where you go, as long as it’s away from here.”

  “But why?”
/>
  She didn’t blink. “Chalk it up to one woman too many. You’re with someone, Lee. I don’t care if it’s Gretchen you’re seeing or someone else, I can’t live this way anymore.”

  He looked like he was on the verge of denial. But she had evidence this time. She could see the knowledge of that in his eyes, when the fight suddenly drained away. “I’m weak, Karen. I make mistakes. They don’t mean anything.”

  “Is she pregnant?”

  “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is our kids. And you.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?” Karen asked.

  “Because you’re upset.”

  “No,” she replied, feeling surprisingly little pain. “We don’t matter to you. If we did, you wouldn’t hurt us this way.”

  “But she doesn’t mean anything to me,” he pleaded. “And anyway, she’s done. It’s over. I learned my lesson when Jordie was up on that tower.”

  Karen didn’t believe that either. He had sworn off philandering in the past, and more than once. In her eyes, he had no credibility left at all. “Pack. Now.”

  He was silent for a minute. Curiously, he said, “Or what? Will you use the gun?”

  “Actually, I’m about to run it back to Russ. He’ll know how to dispose of it.” She lowered it, but didn’t soften. She was feeling anger now—anger at being the butt of Lee’s infidelity for too many years. That anger gave her the guts to say, “I don’t need a gun. I have another weapon, and I’ll use it. If you don’t pack—if you don’t leave—if you don’t give me a good divorce settlement, I’ll tell the children what you’ve done. You love them, Lee. I won’t deny that. You love them, and they love you—even Jordie, who probably hates both of us as much as he loves us right now. But that’s the deal. You leave and let this be civil, and you keep the love of your kids. Make trouble for me, and I’ll make trouble for you.”

  It was a gamble, and she wasn’t a gambler, so this moment was particularly difficult for her. She had never dared to challenge Lee this way, not even when he had confessed to earlier affairs—and part of her wanted the old apologies, the old making up. Part of her wanted to keep the status quo. It was safer. It involved no change and less risk. The devil she knew might be better than the devil she didn’t.

  But the past infidelities had affected only Lee and her. This one had affected the children. That made things different.

  ***

  Amanda left school early Monday afternoon and drove to visit Dorothy. She hadn’t told Graham she was going. She wasn’t doing it for him, but for herself. She was hoping that if she made the effort—if Dorothy saw that she made it—the woman might soften toward her.

  Again, a horde of O’Learys milled in the hall. There were grandchildren this time, armed with self-drawn get-well cards and other little gifts. They were being shuttled in and out of their grandmother’s room a few at a time.

  The children greeted Amanda with more enthusiasm than anyone else. She gave them appropriate greetings and hugs, then asked Sheila, James’s wife, “How is Dorothy?”

  “Not bad. They’ve had her up and around, and she does very well, but she’s afraid she’ll fall again.”

  “Have they done more tests?”

  “Yes. It was definitely a mild stroke. There’s no serious damage. Even the balance problem is better.”

  Amanda approached the door of the room just as Will’s two oldest children came out. Ignoring the unsettled feeling in her stomach, she went in herself.

  Dorothy’s eyes were closed.

  Amanda said a soft, “Hi. Have the kids exhausted you?”

  The woman opened her eyes, saw Amanda, looked past her. “Where’s Graham?”

  “He couldn’t come. He’s meeting with a client in Litchfield. I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

  Dorothy gestured toward the group in the hall and closed her eyes again. “They’ll tell you.”

  “They did,” Amanda acknowledged. “It sounds as though the word is good. That’s a relief.” When Dorothy didn’t respond, she looked at the drawings on the bedside tray. “Looks like you have some beautiful cards here.”

  “I have wonderful grandchildren.”

  “Yes. You do. With any luck, there’ll be more.”

  Dorothy opened her eyes then. The accusation in them was at odds with the limpness of the rest of her. “Mac said you stopped trying. That won’t make children.”

  “We didn’t stop trying. We’re just taking a rest.”

  “I never did that. I never wanted to. I loved my husband. Making children wasn’t a chore.”

  Amanda didn’t like her suggestion. But she didn’t want to argue. So she smiled, nodded, said, “It was easier in the old days. I sometimes wonder if it isn’t something in the air.”

  “Jimmy says Graham is frustrated.”

  “So am I. We both want children.”

  Dorothy’s eyes went past Amanda again. This time she smiled. “Here’s Christine.” Joseph’s wife. “It’s good of you to come, Chrissie. You’re so busy.”

  Oblivious to the undertone, Christine winked at Amanda before turning to her mother-in-law. “Never too busy to see you. How are you, Mom?”

  That easily, Amanda fell from Dorothy’s radar screen. She tried to take part in the discussion of Christine’s work as an event planner, but what Dorothy was doing felt so obvious and unkind that she didn’t last for long. Brooding on it when she left the room, she even blamed Christine. Christine could have asked Amanda about her own work, there in front of Dorothy. Amanda sensed Christine would have done it had Megan been there in her place.

  Don’t go there, she told herself. It has nothing to do with Graham and you.

  The problem was that, in small and unwanted but hurtful ways, it still did.

  ***

  Graham felt it that night, despite Amanda’s efforts to mask it. She had made a delicious dinner, replete with wine and strawberry shortcake, which he loved. She gave him the neighborhood news— told him that Georgia had called the bluff of her buyer and was waiting to hear the verdict, and that Karen had kicked Lee out of the house. She told him how nice it had been being at school after the weekend they’d had together. She said she felt as though she had a private little secret that kept her smiling all day, had kept her strong through the pall that lingered in the halls.

  But there was something she didn’t say. It wasn’t until later, after a call from Peter, that he learned she had been to the hospital. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, upset by her silence. They had agreed to talk. That was part of what the weekend had been about.

  She made light of it by shrugging in a self-deprecating way. “It wasn’t a fruitful visit. Amanda Carr strikes out again.”

  “Oh, Mandy My mother is old. She’s angry now, and scared. You have to consider all that.”

  “I know. But it’s hard. Maybe I should start calling her Mom. Maybe she’d like that better. It just seems so . . . put on. I mean, she’s not my mother, she’s yours.”

  ***

  That thought stayed with Graham through the night. She’s not my mother, she’s yours, Amanda had said and had left it at that. She hadn’t made him take sides, hadn’t demanded anything of him where Dorothy was concerned. She accepted the fact that the woman was ill, and seemed willing to make allowances for her coldness.

  But the coldness wasn’t new. That was what ate at Graham when he got up Tuesday morning. She’s not my mother, she’s yours had become, in his mind, She’s not my problem, she’s yours. He liked the fresh start that he and Amanda had made. It had made everything that he loved about her seem new and real and strong, and Amanda had been an active player in all that. She was trying as hard as he was. When it came to Dorothy, though, there was only so much she could do. She could only take the first step so many times, before she gave up.

  This isn’t the time, he told himself. He would never transplant a mature sycamore during the height of the summer’s heat, regardless of how pivotal it was to a project’s success. Sy
camores needed moisture—-just as Dorothy needed coddling. Her stroke might have been mild, but these were precarious days for her. A better time would come. Driving to see her early that evening, he vowed to wait.

  Dorothy had other ideas.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Hi, Mom,” Graham called as he turned into her room. He had bumped into Mac in the elevator and knew that the others had gone home for dinner. It was nearly six. Dorothy’s own dinner lay half-eaten on the tray. She had the television on with the volume low, but her head was turned on the pillow. She was looking out the window. It would be a quiet moment, or so he thought. He had barely reached the bed—and she had barely turned and smiled— when Will bounded in.

  “I was honking two trucks behind you,” he told Graham. “Hey, Mom. How’re you doing?”

  “Better now that my boys are here,” Dorothy said, sounding stronger now that another day had passed. “It’s lonely sometimes. I start wondering if that’s the way it’ll be for me now.”

  Will eyed her askance. “To hear my wife tell it, there’s been traffic jams here all day.”

  “Mac said the same thing,” Graham put in, lest she make them feel guilty. “I’d think you would welcome the rest.”

  “No. I like my family here. Your girls were so adorable,” she told Will, waving a thin hand toward the bulletin board on the wall. “They sat here for the longest time making drawings.”

  Graham went over for a closer look. “Ah. There’s Grandma in her bed. I see a nurse on one side.” The large Red Cross on her cap was hard to miss, though he had yet to see a nurse wearing a cap. “Lots of machines. And who else?”

  Dorothy listed her guests. “MaryAnne’s there and Sheila. Some cousins. And your wife, Will.”

  Graham waited for her to go on. He saw a headful of yellow crayon curls that couldn’t belong to anyone but Amanda, whom he knew had dropped by. But Dorothy was silent.