by Joani Ascher
Ellen, by now nearly as tall as Olivia had been, sighed. “What I’d really like from you is…” She paused. Then she straightened up, and said in a shaky voice, “To never see you again.”
Martin opened his mouth and closed it several times, as if expecting words to come out. Finally he was able to ask, “Why?”
“Because you say mean things about my mommy,” Ellen said, “and you never care about me more than once a year.”
Ellen took Jane’s hand and faced her mother. “My mommy loves me and takes care of me, and she made her ship come in. Not only that, she invested the money Mother Olivia left when she died, so that I can go to college.”
She turned back to her father. “Everybody loves Mommy. All you’ve ever done is say nasty things to me about her. And I don’t want to hear it ever again. Goodbye, Martin.”
She went into her bedroom and shut the door.
“This is your fault,” Martin growled. “You’ve turned her against me.”
“She is speaking her own mind.”
“She’s a child. She doesn’t have opinions of her own.”
Jane shook her head. “You don’t know a thing about Ellen.”
“I’m not going away,” Martin said defiantly. But in a less confident tone, he added, “I can’t. I have to stay in town.”
The way he said that convinced Jane there was something coming. In hopes of deflecting it, she said, “You don’t have to come around here, though, do you? You have no legal rights with Ellen, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. Listen, I wouldn’t stay in this slum of a city if I could pay off some of my bills. Then I could go away, maybe California or someplace like that.”
“You could probably pay off your debts if you got a job,” Jane said.
“Nah. No one is hiring. I don’t need that much, just a coupla thousand.” Then, as if a light bulb went off in his head, he stood up straighter and looked Jane in the eye.
“That money Olivia left shoulda gone to me.”
Jane caught her breath. “That’s Ellen’s money.”
“Nah. It should be mine. I was the one married to that crazy bitch. I deserve it, after what I hadda put up with.” He narrowed his eyes. “I could take you to court. They’d give it to me. I was her legal husband when she died.”
“There isn’t that much,” Jane said. “She only left a hundred dollars.” Which, Jane knew, Martin would have gambled away in a month.
“But you’re a whiz at making money for the little people,” Martin said. “I got ears, and I heard all about it. So you must’ve turned it into a coupla thousand dollars by now.”
“It’s tied up in the stock market. If I sell it now, it will lose a lot of its future value.”
“Too bad.”
Jane sighed. “If I give you two thousand dollars, will you honor Ellen’s wishes and not contact her again, as well as give up claims to Olivia’s legacy?”
Jane could not be certain, but it looked like Martin was salivating. “Yes.”
She wrote him a check with a limited endorsement. Not surprisingly, she had to explain to him that signing it made it a legal document giving up all future claims.
After he left, Jane realized two things. Not only had Ellen gotten rid of her father, she was not a little child anymore. It was a shock for Jane, who had not realized how grown up her daughter had become.
When Ellen began to talk of accepting the scholarship she had been offered to an exclusive girls’ boarding school the following year, Jane had to consider it seriously. She was so bright and so mature. The thought made Jane’s heart ache, but she owed it to Ellen to think about it.
****
There were several other rocks in the road around that time. Jane’s business was successful, but some of her friends needed her.
Mr. Dobbin was ill. He was over seventy-five, and his health had been failing. Every breath he drew was difficult, but he insisted on going to work each day. His doctor warned him that he needed to rest, but he could not let go.
Jane suggested he sell the business. She had struggled to find the words to help him let it go. “Your children don’t want it, and you can’t do it anymore. If you sell it, you can relax, and maybe go visit them. They’ve invited you several times.” The relationship between Mr. Dobbin and his children had healed a bit since he’d called and begged their forgiveness for not being there when they needed him. “We’ll find a new owner who will keep your staff together.”
“Would you like to come back and take it over? It should be yours, after all. Without you it would be nothing.”
Jane hugged him. “I can’t. I have my own business now.”
It took a lot of persuasion, but he finally sold it, realizing an enormous profit. After signing the final papers, he shook his head in amazement. “All those years ago,” he marveled, “when I was nearly penniless, I never imagined I would end up with millions. And it’s all because of you, Jane.”
“No, it isn’t,” she said. “It was your hard work.”
Mr. Dobbin’s eyes, which watered so easily, filled. “Janie,” he said, “for once in your life could you accept responsibility for something good without trying to credit someone else? You never hesitate to take responsibility when something goes wrong.”
Jane clung to him, wishing she did not have to ever let him go. “Don’t forget you have other family here,” she reminded him.
“I won’t.”
****
One day in late November, Jane’s heart was ready to break again.
Anne arrived fifteen minutes late at the restaurant where Jane was waiting, but she did not apologize. That was unusual, to say the least, since Anne was one of the most punctual people Jane knew.
She had aged beautifully, Jane thought, watching her approach. She was nearly fifty, yet she had the smoothest, most wrinkle-free skin. Even her worry lines and her smile lines were invisible. Yet she seemed distracted.
Jane realized all her small talk was falling on deaf ears. She switched to a more pertinent subject. “How’s Irene?”
At the mention of her daughter, Anne’s face clouded.
Jane’s heart jumped. “What’s the matter?”
“She’s been different lately. At first I thought it was because she had all that trouble with her teeth.”
Irene still suffered terribly from gum disease. Most of her teeth had been removed. At twenty-five, she looked like a much older woman, her skin deeply wrinkled.
“How is she different?” Jane asked.
“She’s lost her zest. Nothing seems to interest her. I took her to the doctor, and he thinks it’s her heart.” Tears spilled over onto Anne’s cheeks. “He doesn’t think she’ll live much more than a year. I’m losing her, and there isn’t anything I can do about it.”
Jane took the news as if she had received a blow to her stomach. “I’m so sorry.”
Anne looked across the table at her. She was clear-eyed and determined, even though Jane could see, now that she looked at her closely, that Anne had been crying. “I’ve made a decision. I’m giving up all my charity work and my place on the opera board. I have to spend every minute I have left with my child.”
“You aren’t facing this alone,” Jane promised. “We’ll be with you.”
Anne reached over and took Jane’s hand. “I couldn’t do this without you.” She seemed for a moment to be about to say something, but then a sly smile crossed her face. “I won’t be able to keep tabs on Prescott, though.”
Jane shook her head in exasperation. For so many years she had listened to Anne telling her what she had missed, and how Prescott was doing. “For the last time, I don’t care.”
“He still misses you. He always asks how you are. And his wife is such a bitch—”
“Anne! Such language.”
Anne leaned closer. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t slept with her since their honeymoon. It’s no wonder they don’t have children.”
Jane felt her heart tighten in her
chest at the thought. “So why does he stay with her?”
“Rumor has it that she’s always sick. I’m sure it isn’t serious, because she’s never been in the hospital, as far as I know. And her garden, which she keeps herself, is always glorious. You’d think a sick person wouldn’t have time to weed. More likely, though, he’s too proud to admit he made a mistake.”
Jane hated this painful topic, but it seemed to take Anne’s mind off Irene, so she stuck with it. “Why would you think I would still be interested in him after all these years? And why do you think he’s still wondering about me?”
“I’ll answer the second question first. Because he asks about you all the time. And why do I think you’re interested in him? Because of your face whenever we talk about him.” She looked away, over Jane’s shoulder. “I think we can cut some of the speculation,” she said.
Jane thought she had lost the thread of the conversation. “What?”
Anne did not answer. She was on her feet.
Jane turned to see why, and she found Prescott Weaver standing next to her.
He had changed since she last saw him that day at his office. Gray hair showed at his temples, and his face had deepening frown lines. But at just past forty, he was still lean, strong-looking, and his eyes still pulled Jane in the way they had on his first day back after the war.
“It’s good to see you, Jane,” he said, his voice resonating off the crystal chandeliers. Or at least that was the way Jane perceived it. The sound seemed to envelop her.
“H-Hello, Prescott,” she stammered. “How are you?”
“Why don’t we sit down?” Anne asked.
Jane was speechless, so she let Anne talk with Prescott. He told them he had just finished lunch with a client and had noticed them on his way out. But all the while he talked, he looked directly at Jane.
She could not deny her heart was racing. But when he asked about Ellen, it felt as if it had stopped cold. The memory of her poor expression of gratitude embarrassed her still. The two of them sat silent, as if unable to say a word to each other.
Anne’s clenched fist smacked the table. “I’m going to freshen up. Work this out between yourselves.”
Prescott smiled. “I think she’s losing patience.”
“She’s been through an awful lot. Irene is…”
“I know,” he replied, staring at the tablecloth. He gritted his teeth, making his cheeks stand out. Then he looked up at her. “Would you have dinner with me some evening?”
“Will your wife be joining us?”
“No. She doesn’t do anything with me, unless it’s for show.” He sounded more than bitter, and Jane thought his lips had taken on the slightest curl.
But Jane did not think it would be proper for her to see Prescott, as much as she wanted to. “I don’t think I can do that,” she said.
He looked so sad she had to turn away.
When Anne returned just after that, Jane stood up to leave. “Take care, Anne. I’ll call you soon. And Prescott”—she looked in his direction—“it was nice to see you.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Prescott turned the key, willing himself to open the door. This door, this house, had never seemed like home, certainly not a place to go to when he was feeling sick.
And he was feeling awful. Not only was he feverish, but his throat hurt and his head ached. He had no time for this. There was an important conference coming up, and he had been asked to speak. He needed to get some hot tea and a lot of aspirin and blast those germs out of himself.
Pushing open the door, he got a whiff of the polish the maid used to buff the woodwork. Reggie always insisted that it be shined to a high gloss, even though the teak was supposed to have an oiled finish. She was very particular, and harsh on the people she employed to take care of the house. She had seemingly never found one who worked hard enough. “They’re all just waiting for a handout,” she often said. Prescott had tried to explain that there were better ways of getting work done, but Reggie would never listen.
She never listened at all. In fact, lately, Prescott felt as if he had no one to talk to.
Dragging his feet, he mounted the steps to his bedroom. The past few months, with the ups and downs of the market, would have been filled with pleasure, if he could have been with Jane. Reggie did not care about the stocks at all, except for finding out how many people had come to trade at his post so she could spend his commission. It was hard to believe, but she had become even more self-centered lately, caring little about his opinion on anything. She probably would not even wonder what he was doing home so early. At least he would not have to waste his breath and strain his sore throat trying to explain it to her. In the past year, and certainly since their last big argument, she had become very distant, often turning on her heels if she came into a room and found him there.
A noise from the direction of Reggie’s bedroom made him turn toward it instead of his own. He had thought she would be out this afternoon, at the garden club.
He knocked on her door, to tell her he was home, so she would not be frightened. The maid was off this afternoon, it being a Thursday, and Reggie had complained lately of burglaries in the neighborhood.
He opened the door. “Reggie, I’m h—” He broke off. Reggie was in bed with Ralph Taggart. Their startled faces turned to look in his direction, and what Prescott could only describe as rapture on Reggie’s face turned to shock.
“I’ll be in my room,” he said, suddenly understanding so much, the trips to Longwood Gardens that she had supposedly taken on her own and come back so happy from, the phone conversations she broke off when he came into the room, and the lack of feeling for him or willingness to get close. “I’ll be packing.” He walked into the bathroom they shared, locked the door at her side of the room, swallowed a handful of aspirin, and passed through into his bedroom.
A few minutes later he heard knocking on her bathroom door. “Prescott, you idiot,” she shouted. “You’ve locked the door again.”
Ignoring her, he folded several shirts and laid them atop the slacks he had already packed. His suits would have to be packed in a separate case, one that was in storage in the hall closet. He would get that after he finished packing the rest of his things.
A knock on the bedroom door told him Reggie had gone around to the hall. “Prescott, let me in,” she said. “Let me explain.”
“There is nothing to explain,” said Prescott. “You’ve finally made it possible for me to get out of this god-forsaken marriage.”
“You mean a divorce?”
Prescott opened the door to get a look at her face and see the defeat he knew would be there. “Yes, darling, a divorce.” He went to the hall closet and pulled out the suitcase he needed. Turning back to his room, he saw his wife’s blanched face. “You’ve finally committed the only act this state considers grounds for it—adultery.”
Reggie began to cry. “You wouldn’t.”
Knowing it was not true, that even in his rage he would never expose her like that, Prescott said, “Oh, but I would. I wouldn’t hesitate to accuse you of adultery. How would you like to see that in the papers? How do you think your daddy would feel? And what about Ralph’s wife and children?”
Reggie sank down on a leather chair in the corner of the bedroom. “Please. I made a mistake. I can admit that. But you have to give me another chance.” She took a step closer to him and put out her hand, as if reaching for him.
He moved away. The aspirins were beginning to ease the pain in his throat, but he was not about to continue talking about this. “I think the best thing for both of us, right now, would be for me to move to my club. We can both think more rationally in the morning.”
“I’m not going to let you g—” she was saying as he slammed out the door
He was feeling better, he realized as he carried his cases downstairs. Even with what was probably a case of influenza. His sham of a marriage was nearly over.
****
Mrs. McGill
was out of sorts in July of 1960. “She’ll be off to boarding school in two months. I’ll have nothing to do.”
“You’ve earned a rest.”
“I don’t want a rest.”
“Maybe you should travel. You’ve been talking for four years about going to visit your sister.”
Suddenly it seemed like the most important thing to the landlady. “I should do that. But who will take care of the building?”
Jane smiled. “I will. It seems little enough after all you’ve done for us.” She saw Mrs. McGill’s hand, the one that held her polishing rag, twitch. “I’ll make sure to polish the banister every day.”
Mrs. McGill protested, but only for a moment. In less than a week, she was ready to go.
Anne was visiting the day Mrs. McGill left. She had not been the same since Irene died. She had gotten so thin that Jane was worried about her.
“You could use a trip yourself,” Mrs. McGill told Anne. Jane had already heard the landlady’s opinion that Anne could snap out of it if she got out of her apartment, but she was surprised to hear the woman say it to her face.
Mrs. McGill continued, “You’re a pretty woman. You should take a cruise.” As if by way of explanation, she looked at Jane. “All the gentlemen will flock to her.”
Embarrassed, Jane turned to Anne, expecting to find her even more pale and teary-eyed. Instead, she saw a spark of life. “I just might do that,” Anne said.
A few weeks later, Anne was set to go. “But I hate leaving all my work behind,” she said, looking Jane in the eye. “Could you help me out?”
Jane had never realized how many volunteer positions Anne held. While she had farmed out most of them to her other friends long ago, before Irene died, there were still a few key seats that required what Anne called, “A sensitive, intelligent hand.”
“Surely there are people who can fill those positions,” said Jane. “I have so much work. Shouldn’t someone who doesn’t have a job be there?”
“Are you saying it should be someone who was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and has a husband to take care of her?”
Jane was puzzled by Anne’s strident tone. She had not heard it before.