“Were you? Sleeping together?”
“I wished. I tried to seduce Thomas every way possible. I blush now when I think of some of the things I did. It turned out that when Thomas draws a moral line in the sand, he never crosses it. He’ll come right up to the line, like he did on our first date, but he refuses to topple over. Our honeymoon on the other hand…” She smiled. “Alexis was born nine months later, to the day. Christa arrived a little more than two years after that.”
“You were out of college. What were the two of you doing?”
“Thomas was in graduate school. In English. He had already published a book, but he said that he couldn’t depend on writing to support us. He wanted to be a professor.”
“Lots of stress?”
Jennie nodded. “I became pregnant again a few months after Alexis arrived, but the baby was stillborn. Which was devastating. I didn’t have the drive or energy to work. Alexis had colic. I had no idea what to do with a baby, certainly not a sick one. I had always heard about maternal instinct, but I must have been absent when it was handed out. I was at home all day with her. At night, Thomas had to study. I was pregnant with Christa as soon as the doctor gave Thomas and me the go-ahead to be intimate again. I suppose my hormones never had a chance to adjust.” Her eyes began to water.
“I felt that everyone hated me and did things on purpose to cause me trouble or to make me unhappy.”
“Everyone?”
“Everyone. When the baby cried, I thought she was being mean, trying to prevent me from watching my soap. I mean, she would be crying, and Thomas would come home, pick her up, and she would begin to coo. She could have done that for me if she’d wanted to, I thought. When Thomas went into another room to read, I thought that he was ignoring me.” She looked at Dr. Wilson. “Reading a book? Really? He was an English major.” She shook her head. “Dumb…It was the same with other people—my mom, Daddy, the cashier at the grocery store. No one was nice to me.”
Dr. Wilson nodded. “We discussed your feelings. They were much the same then as when we first talked.”
“They were worse, really. Much worse. I would respond by screaming, throwing things, hitting.” She took a deep breath. “I can see now how stupid it all was, but at the time, it seemed so real. Thomas suggested I get a job so that I could get out of the house. He arranged daycare. I thought he needed the money and was putting me to work so that he wouldn’t have to. I started to drink. Before long, I was buzzed most of the time.”
Jennie fidgeted with her hands. “Then I hooked up with Jeff. Once Daddy got to know Jeff, he loved him. They were like two old peas in a pod.” She sighed. “I used Jeff. When I left Thomas and the girls, I moved in with him. He was one of several guys who frequented the bar, one of several who I…I hung out with. When I needed a place to stay, he was the first one I talked with who had an apartment and no wife or girlfriend.”
“And he was mean to you too?”
“Oh yes. My perceptions of meanness were equal opportunity perceptions. Like I said, Mom, Dad, my sister, anyone. I felt that Jeff was mean to me just as Thomas had been.” She shook her head. “The difference was that when I became upset, Thomas would try to fix it. Jeff would yell at me, smack me. Once he kicked my backside and left a bruise that was a perfect image of his work boot.”
“Thomas was the opposite of your dad and Jeff was his twin. You ultimately left them both.”
Jennie nodded. “I did. I left both of them. Is that bad? Does it mean that something is wrong with me?”
“Perhaps you’re never satisfied.”
Jennie shook her head. “I don’t think that’s it…I told you about Preacher.”
“You did.”
“I don’t know if it was him, or God, or…or what, but, when I left Jeff my entire life changed.” She paused, then she began the litany she had prepared to convince Alice Green to take her case.
“I went on the wagon and I haven’t had a drink in nine years. Mom and Daddy let me stay with them while I went back to school for my teaching certificate. I began to see you and to take medication. I’ve been teaching at Carrollton Elementary, third grade, for six years now, and I was teacher of the year last year. I just received my master’s degree. I go to church. I own my own home. I don’t chase men.”
Her lower lip began to tremble. “I look back now and I can’t believe I’m the same person.” She paused to wipe a tear from her eye. “Leaving my family was the worst thing I’ve ever done. I wish every day that I could go back and change things.”
“Is that what you’re trying to do? Relive that time? You want your children. How about Thomas?”
Jennie smiled sadly. “I love Thomas, at least my memory of him. That ship sailed a long time ago, though.” She shook her head. “I’m not chasing my husband.”
***
The sun had set by the time she approached Whitesburg. Ahead, she could see the lights of the Blue Belle Café, shining brightly on the right side of the Carrollton Road, creating an island in the darkness just outside of town. Generally, she turned her head as she passed, because the café reminded her of the Rusty Anchor in Atlanta.
She’d stepped into the Blue Belle once, shortly after she had returned to town. As she had slipped through the door, she’d heard the strains of a whiny country ballad about a man pining for the woman who had left him. Some guy had played the very same song over and over for an hour at a time every day of her last month at the Rusty Anchor.
She’d wrinkled her nose at the familiar odor, a mingling of cigarette smoke, bodies, and alcohol. She’d watched as the waitress pushed away a drunken customer’s hand, using just enough force to move the hand, but not enough to cause a scene.
How well she remembered. The Blue Belle reminded her of all of the bad decisions she had made in her life, so, whenever she passed by, she would turn her head to avoid the memories.
Tonight, as her eyes began to cut away, to the left, she spied a rusty red pickup parked near the door. It was Jeff’s truck. It had seen better days, back when she had lived with him. How he kept it running escaped her.
She had shown Jeff more consideration than she had Thomas. She had, at least, told Jeff she was going to leave. At first, he had laughed at her. Then he had begged. Finally, he had threatened. The next morning, she’d waited until he left for work, had driven by the restaurant to pick up her last check, and had disappeared.
It had taken him a year to find her. When he showed up at her daddy’s house, her father had met him with his deer rifle. The two men had talked though, bonding over several bottles of cheap beer. Her father had liked Jeff, but he had told him to leave Jennie alone.
“Don’t touch my daughter,” he had told him. “Unless you put a ring on her finger and say I do in front of a preacher, she is off limits.”
By the time Jennie had her own house, Jeff had no permanent address. Jennie felt sorry for him, so, whenever he found himself near Whitesburg—every couple of months or so—he would stop at the Blue Belle, have a cold one, or four, and crash in her extra bedroom. He was afraid of her father though, so when Jennie had refused to relive old times, he had not pressed her.
It had actually been almost a year this time since Jeff had visited, but, seeing his truck now, Jennie knew she would hear him knocking on her door before too long.
***
Thomas stopped by his office after his last class to pick up some student papers. His daughters would be out tonight, Christa at the theater and Alexis at a writing seminar at the college. He would be alone, with plenty of time to finish grading. As he placed the papers in a folder, a sheriff’s deputy knocked at the door.
“Thomas Lindsay?”
Thomas looked up. “Yes?”
The deputy handed him an envelope. “Mr. Lindsay, this is notice of a petition filed in family court. You have been served.”
Thomas frowned, unable to think of why he would be receiving notice of a petition. “Are you sure you have the right person?”
> “Yes, sir, I am.”
As the deputy turned away, Thomas opened the envelope and looked inside. At first, he did not understand what he was reading. As he focused on the words though, he felt as if the ground beneath him had opened and he was falling, unable to stop.
Jennie wanted his children.
His hands shook so badly that he could not read. He stumbled around his desk and fell into his chair. He breathed deeply and focused his eyes on the photographs of Alexis and Christa that he kept on his desk. Slowly, the panic began to subside.
For years after Jennie had left, he had dreaded the walk to the mailbox each afternoon, fearing he would find a letter notifying him of a petition like this. When the doorbell had rung and he had not been expecting a caller, he would check to see if an officer stood on the front steps holding an envelope like this one. His fear had waned over time, and he had seldom even thought of Jennie in recent years.
Now, after all of this time, she wanted his children.
As he read the petition, anger replaced the panic.
How dare she? She had turned her back on her family—on him, on Alexis, on Christa. What kind of a mother does that?
Jennie had given birth to his children, but she had seldom been their mother, abandoning them psychologically long before she’d abandoned them physically. How dare she reappear now, pretending that she cared about them? Imagining that they cared about her?
She had walked out of their lives. Not once in twelve years had she seen her children. Not a letter, an email, a text, a call. Not a single birthday card. Never a Christmas present.
Where had she been on their first days in school when he had walked them to class and waved good-bye? Where was she when Alexis had danced in the Nutcracker, when Christa had appeared in Annie? Had she ever seen a tennis match or a soccer game? Had she cheered as Christa won her first ribbon at a horse show? Had she clapped when Alexis had been inducted into the honor society?
Thomas had been the one to sit with them when they were sick. He was the one who had ridden to the hospital with Christa as she gasped for air during her first allergy attack. He had waited, alone, when Alexis’s appendix ruptured and she was rushed to surgery.
Had Jennie ever flown kites with them on the Battery? Had she ever taken them to the beach to lie in the sun and play in the water? Had she ever maneuvered their small boat through the narrow inlets of the marshlands?
Thomas turned to the window and gazed across the campus. Thick clouds covered the sky and rain pelted students as they changed classes. He remembered when a hurricane had targeted the city. He had been the one who loaded his girls, their kittens, and their favorite toys into his car to flee inland, away from the waves that thundered across the seawall two blocks from their house. And when the ground beneath them shook violently one Saturday morning, he was the one who had held them tightly as they took refuge on the first floor, under the stairs. When thunderstorms had rolled across the city, it was he who had sung songs to distract them and to keep them from being afraid.
He had helped them with their homework. He had cooked their meals, shopped for clothes, arranged play dates when they were young, chauffeured them around town, tucked them in bed each night.
She had missed every birthday party, every awards day, every parents’ night. Each year, his children would tell their teachers that they had no one to whom they could give the Mother’s Day presents that they had constructed in art class. Not once had either Alexis or Christa been seen at their school’s Mother-Daughter Dinner.
He slammed his hand against the wall. “Those children are mine.”
Thomas took a deep breath, leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and thought of Jennie. The beautiful, fun-loving, flirty girl he had fallen in love with had changed rapidly after their marriage. Easy-going, rolling with the punches, ready for any adventure, Jennie had never been one to insist on having her own way nor to complain when things did not work out as she wanted. She had turned into an angry, demanding woman with a short fuse, who would vent at the top of her lungs, her anger fading into a pout whether she got what she wanted or not.
Thomas recalled the time, shortly after Alexis’s birth, when Jennie’s cousin and her husband had visited. When dinnertime had approached with a choice of calling out for pizza or going to a restaurant, Thomas had suggested Villa Roma, an Italian restaurant just a couple of blocks away.
“Their pizza is better than takeout if you really want pizza,” he had said.
Jennie had suggested the Barbequed Pig. When the vote went against her, she had scowled, crossed her arms, stared at the wall, and refused to talk. They had heard maybe three words from her all evening. Thomas and her cousin had taken turns caring for the baby, at least until she was hungry. Jennie was nursing, so when Alexis had become demanding, she had snatched her from Thomas’s arms and stalked across the restaurant, searching for a place where she could have privacy.
“Why was everyone mean to me,” she had demanded later as they lay in bed.
Thomas had looked at her in amazement. “No one was mean to you. It’s no big deal, anyway. We’ll eat at the Pig next week. We can go on Monday even.”
Jennie had not responded, turning her back to him and falling asleep.
Thomas shook his head. The girl who could talk nonstop for hours—it had once taken them three hours to drive from her parents’ house back to school and Jennie had talked the entire time—would go for days uttering nothing more than monosyllabic responses to questions. Thomas had once commented that their house was quieter than a cemetery at midnight, an attempt to elicit at least a smile from her, but she had simply glared at him before turning her face away.
The girl who had bathed twice a day and who had never left her dormitory room without a skirt and heels began to shower weekly and to wear torn jeans and ratty t-shirts. The girl who had spent four years trying to entice him into bed, seemed to view sex as one more entry on her daily schedule: work, dinner, sex, and sleep. The schedule was the same, day after day, each activity simply an item to be checked off her list.
In many ways, he had felt relieved when she had left.
Thomas stood and scanned the bookshelves. At some point, about six months before she had left, it had finally occurred to him that she was depressed. He’d had a single psychology course in college, but he had finally realized that her behavior made no sense at all. She had rejected his suggestion that she talk with someone, but he had begun to keep a journal, thinking that if she were ever to see a therapist, then a little history might help. He was certain he still had the journal.
He pulled a chair over to the bookcase so that he could reach the top shelf. At one end, almost hidden behind the Complete Works of Shakespeare he spied the small black book. He pulled it out and returned to his desk, flipping through the pages.
Some of the entries seemed humorous, although he was not sure that was why he had included them. It had snowed that winter, the only time Alexis had ever seen more than a sprinkling of snow, and he and Alexis had made a snowman while Christa toddled about picking up handfuls and tossing it in the air. Jennie, of course, had watched from the living room window.
When the man was complete, she had emerged, carrying accessories—a red wig for his head, and pieces of a red ceramic vase that she had popped with a hammer for the eyes, nose, and teeth. Alexis had been delighted, although Thomas had thought it all very strange. A photograph of it was stuck between pages of the journal.
Other entries were more frightening. After he persuaded Jennie to find a job, hoping that it would help if she were to get out of their apartment and away from the girls for a few hours each day, he had enrolled the girls in daycare on the campus. One afternoon, at six o’clock, Thomas received a frantic call from the director. The center was about to close. Jennie usually picked the girls up around four, but she had not arrived.
Thomas had hurried to the center. The car seats were in Jennie’s Honda, so he’d had to buckle Alexis in and hold
Christa for the short drive home. When they had arrived, Jennie was sitting on the porch, absorbed in a book. She had looked up, smiled, waved, and then she had hugged all three of them, seeming to think that nothing unusual had occurred. Not wanting to disturb her good mood, Thomas had never asked what had happened.
As he neared the end of the journal, his eye fell on the next-to-the-last entry, the one for the day before she left. A department dinner had kept him at school until eight, so his entry recorded Alexis’s account of what had happened.
Jennie was asleep when I arrived. Christa was in bed too, but Alexis was wide awake, playing in the living room. I picked her up, settled into a rocker, and began to read her a story. Finishing the story, I turned Alexis around so we could talk.
I asked if she had a good day on Mommy’s day off and what they had done. Alexis nuzzled against me and said, “Mommy slept all morning.”
“All morning?” I asked her, adding, “She must have been tired.”
Alexis nodded and told me, “After lunch, Uncle Jeff came over.”
Thomas stopped reading and stared absently at the bookcase. Jeff was one of a group of guys who frequented the restaurant—the bar, Thomas had called it—where Jennie had worked. They had become friends, and Jeff had dropped by a couple of times. When Thomas had asked why he was at the house, Jennie had told him Jeff was her friend and that he should mind his own business. As Thomas had walked away, she had screamed that he did not trust her. He had stepped aside just as the cup from which she was drinking smashed against the far wall of the living room.
He closed the book and laid it on the desk. He recalled the rest of the entry and felt no need to read it now.
“I need an attorney.” He thought of Michael Bannister, the attorney at the McIntosh firm who had drawn up his will. “I’ll call Michael.” He flipped through his contact list. “And I need to tell Emma.”
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