by Modean Moon
She still held the packet of pills in her other hand. “I don’t know, Todd,” she said, “but then, why would you want to take these?” She held the pills so that he could see them.
“You sneak!” His words exploded into the room. “You’ve gone through my things! How dare you go through my things? Give me those!”
He grabbed for the packet, but she drew her hand back, shaking her head as she inched away from him to the safety of a stance behind the table.
“You want the ring?” he yelled. “I’ll give you the ring. But you give me those pills. You had no right to go in my room! All you ever do is meddle in my life!”
He calmed, suddenly and deceptively, and a note of cunning crept into his voice. “The ring for the package, Ginnie.”
She sighed and shook her head. “That’s a poor trade, Todd. Don’t you mean the package and my silence? I won’t be blackmailed into it.”
She saw the rage in his eyes then and knew that she should never have confronted him alone. She tried to maintain a facade of bravery, a facade of control, but it was too late. He sensed her fear and with that knowledge he became bolder. He smiled, a mindless smile she knew she would remember in the dark of night as long as she lived, a smile that told her wordlessly that he would take the package from her.
“Stop right were you are,” she said.
“The package, Ginnie.”
“It won’t do you any good, Todd. It’s too late.”
“Give it to me!” he screamed as he lunged across the table, grabbing her wrist. She twisted away from him, but her foot caught in the chair leg. Falling, she was falling. She tried to balance herself, but he still held her arm. She cried out as she felt the edge of the table bite into her cheek, and then she was under the table, scrambling away from him. He caught her ankles, pulling her out from under the table, fighting to reach her hand. She dropped the packet. It wasn’t worth it.
“Stop it, Todd. You’ve got to stop it.”
But he didn’t stop. Now he was no longer reaching for the package, just hitting at her blindly.
“You had no right to do that!” he insisted. “You had no right to do that! You had no right to do that!”
She tried to fend off his blows, not wanting to hit him, not wanting to hurt him. Lord, how could she make him stop? She caught her fist in his hair and yanked violently. Off balance already, he tumbled to the floor beside her, still flailing, still yelling. She used the second she had to strengthen her grip and twisted around behind him with her fingers at his scalp, clutching his hair, holding her arm stiff to put as much distance as possible between her and his vicious fists.
“Be quiet!” she yelled at him, clenching her hand against his scalp. “And be still!”
Could she hold him? She didn’t know, but she couldn’t let him go. He tried to twist around, and she yanked again at his hair.
“I said, be still.”
Her breath came in ragged gasps. If she dared let go, could she make it out the back door before he reached her? What would happen if he broke loose? What in God’s name was she doing in a mess like this? And where was Neil? She glanced at the clock. It was after twelve. He should be free by now. Please don’t let him go to lunch before he comes home, she prayed.
“We’re getting up, Todd,” she said. “Just don’t try anything funny, or I’ll snatch every hair you’ve got out of your head.”
She rose awkwardly to her feet, never loosening her death grip, or her life grip, she thought frantically, and then tugged at his scalp until he clambered to his feet. Taller than she, he could easily have reached her had she not held him from behind, and easily overpowered her had she not held him off balance with his head tugged back. She edged her way backward, toward the telephone, leading him in an ungainly shuffle. She cradled the receiver under her chin and then, unwilling to take her eyes from him for even one moment, dialed the operator and asked her to place the call to Neil’s office.
Her legs trembled. She hoped that Todd couldn’t feel the tremble in the hand that held him. Please, she prayed silently as the telephone rang, and rang, and rang. The back door opened, and Neil walked through, stopped with his hand on the doorknob, and looked in stunned disbelief at the scene in front of him.
“Oh, thank God,” Ginnie moaned, relinquishing her hold on Todd’s hair and collapsing against the wall. The forgotten phone slid from her shoulder and dangled at the end of its cord, the persistent noise of the other phone ringing the only sound in the room. “Thank God.”
Chapter 7
The litter on the kitchen table told the story as the two of them sat in subdued silence. In addition to the money and the pills, even the drawings from Todd’s desk, there were also the contents of his pockets — his car keys, a list of telephone numbers, and, of course, her wedding ring. Neil’s face was ashen in the harsh light of the kitchen. For the first time, Ginnie noticed that strands of silver had crept into the dark hair at his temples.
He looked — old, she thought in amazement. As old as she felt. And — broken.
Todd had been banished to his room. Ginnie didn’t know what reaction she’d expected from Neil, what punishment she’d thought he would mete out, but it had to have been more than his cold, clipped command to Todd to go to his room, to stay there until and if he ever told him it was all right to come out.
Neil glanced up at her as though seeing her for the first time. “You have blood on your cheek,” he said woodenly. Not, she thought, My God, you’ve been hurt. Not, Ginnie, I’m sorry. Not, Can I do anything for you. Just — You have blood on your cheek.
Stiffly, she rose from her chair. Now that the adrenaline had finally stopped its frantic pumping, she was aware of the mass of aches that covered her body. She walked to the sink, tore a paper towel from the rack, wet it with cold water and winced at the sting its contact with her face caused. Surprisingly, there were no tears. It was as though she had finally gone way past the point where tears could bring relief.
“What are we going to do?” she asked.
Neil watched the paper towel on her cheek, but he wasn’t seeing it, she knew. He was looking far beyond her.
“I don’t know.”
“Neil, I—”
“I don’t know, Ginnie. God, I never would have believed...” His words trailed off. He ran his hands through the loose packets of pills on the table, sifted his fingers through them, and then dropped his hand. “It’s easy to be objective when it’s someone else’s life,” he said finally. “I know what ought to be done. I ought to turn this over to the authorities. I ought to help find his connection.”
He turned to her as though pleading for understanding. “But I can’t do that Ginnie. I can’t turn him over to the courts. What I’m probably going to do is pollute our septic tank with this. But what am I going to do about Todd?”
He turned bleak eyes toward her. “And what am I going to do about you? I had no idea... You told me, but I didn’t, couldn’t believe the animosity ran so deeply. There isn’t any hope, is there?”
She remembered the rage in Todd’s eyes and the hatred in his voice. She shook her head slowly, dragging it back and forth. “I don’t think so.”
“Then it’s over.”
Funny, had she always known it would come to this? It seemed she must have, because his words held no surprise for her.
“I can’t leave him in the same house with you anymore, Ginnie. He was high today. I don’t think he would have...done what he did had he not been high, but I can’t guarantee that he won’t ever be high again, and I can’t guarantee that once having done what he’s done...” He paused and pushed his hand through his hair. “I can’t guarantee that it won’t happen again.”
Todd, she heard. Todd, Todd, Todd. Not her. Not her fear. Just Todd. If my father has to choose between me and you, you won’t be the one who stays... Had she always known that, too? She nibbled on her lower lip, not even able to lash out in her pain. “I’ll leave, of course.”
Unable t
o look at him any longer, she glanced out the window at the lengthening shadows through the trees in their pleasant backyard, at Charlie stretched out and dozing in one lingering patch of sunlight. In their misery, the afternoon had passed unnoticed. Evening fast approached. “Should I go now?”
“No. Not tonight,” Neil said. “He’s finally come down. He’ll sleep for hours.”
Not, Ginnie, I don’t want you to go. Not — she laughed soundlessly and mirthlessly — of course not. She couldn’t expect that Neil would throw his sixteen-year-old son out in the street, not for her, not for anyone. And she wouldn’t let him, even if by some miracle he offered her that choice.
“Tomorrow, then,” she said. There was defeat in her voice but no bitterness. “Tomorrow.”
Neil watched silently the next morning as Ginnie finished packing her suitcases, taking only clothes, her ancient typewriter and a few personal things. She snapped the latches on the last case, straightened and eased her upper back against the aches and bruises that had stiffened her muscles.
“Where will you go?” Neil asked.
“I don’t know. I’ll let you know.”
They faced each other in awkward silence. Neil thanked his years of courtroom experience for the control that let him keep all expression from his face and from his voice, for the control that kept him from crying out his rage and his frustration, the control that kept him from begging Ginnie to stay with him, from swearing he would keep her safe and damn the consequences.
But he couldn’t do that. Not to her. Not to Todd. Not even to himself.
“Is Todd awake yet?” she asked.
Neil nodded.
“I have to say goodbye to him.”
Yes. He recognized now that she would have to do that. And all it had taken was the ruin of three lives for him to gain such clarity of vision. He stepped aside to let her pass.
Ginnie paused outside Todd’s door. She would be justified in leaving without saying anything to him. She knew that. But she had to make one last effort. She knocked on the door but entered without waiting for his call.
Todd sat propped on his unmade bed, wearing the same clothes he had worn the day before, with his stereo earphones clamped securely in place. The power light on the stereo told her it was on.
“What do you want?” he asked.
She signaled for him to remove the earphones. He groaned but did so, and from the discarded phones across the room, she heard the raucous sounds of a screaming rock band.
“I’m leaving, Todd.”
He shrugged.
“I just wanted to tell you —” God, this was harder than she thought it would be. “I just wanted to tell you that, even though you don’t believe it now, I always wanted to love you. I always wanted us to be a real family. I always wanted you to care for me.”
He half turned from her.
“No, Todd. Listen to me. I’m leaving, but I’m not giving up. I love your father, and I’ll be there for him if he ever needs me. And I’ll be there for you if you ever need me, Todd. Remember that. Please.”
He snorted in disgust, grabbed the earphones and clamped them back on his head, turning from her, dismissing her. She stood for a moment in indecision, wanting to shake him, wanting to make him listen, wanting to make him acknowledge what she had said. Finally, though, she turned and left the room.
Neil carried her suitcases out to the car and put them in the trunk. He did not open the car door for her. She stood beside it. There was so much she wanted to say to him, too, but she couldn’t. Not now.
She opened the door and slid into the seat. He still watched. When she backed from the driveway, she paused in the road long enough to turn and look at him. He was still watching her, unmoving.
Ginnie drove aimlessly, for truly she had no place to go, and slowly, because truly she didn’t want to leave. About half an hour out of town, she realized that the road was taking her back to Little Rock. Habit, she supposed. There was nothing for her there. Her home was in these hills, not in the concrete and asphalt of the city.
She pulled off onto the shoulder of the road and sat there. Her home was in these hills. Her home was with Neil. She still loved him, although she had not told him that. Why had she endured the agony of the last years only to turn tail and run, now, to give up, to admit defeat? Their biggest problem was their constant struggle over Todd. Maybe she couldn’t live in the same house with him anymore, but she could be close to him. She could provide a place for him to get away from Todd. She could at least be close to him.
They had come to Pleasant Gap to save their marriage. Maybe they still could — not in an orthodox manner, but maybe there was still a way.
She waited for a break in traffic, made a U-turn and headed north, back to Pleasant Gap. She stopped at the library. She and the librarian had become fairly close over the last few months. The librarian’s maiden aunt had died earlier that year, willing her a fully furnished home. It was a risk, Ginnie knew, and there would be talk, but she had to try.
“Have you sold your aunt’s house yet?” Ginnie asked.
“Not yet. You know what the real-estate market is these days. Why? Do you have a buyer in mind?”
“Not really. What I’d like to do is...” Nothing in her life had been easy. Why should this be any different? She’d already acknowledged her failure to herself. Now she was about to admit it to someone else. “What I’d like to do is rent it.”
Neil visited once, hesitant, almost embarrassed. And a second time, less so but still uneasy. There seemed little to say once past, How are you? How is Todd? Little, that is, that Ginnie was capable of saying.
She confronted the publisher of the paper to see if his offer of a job was still open. It was. She agreed to take it until the end of the summer.
She heard of an opening at the junior college and applied for it, not knowing whether she would actually be there when school started. And she waited.
When Neil’s telephone call came one afternoon just as she walked in the front door, she clutched the receiver and sat down at the small federal-style desk in surprise.
“Ginnie, I have to tell you something. Could we—”
A knock on the door distracted her, for no one ever knocked on her door.
“Just a minute, Neil,” she said. “There’s someone here.”
“No. Wait, Ginnie. I—”
“It won’t take a second.” She propped the receiver on the desk, letting herself wonder for a moment why he seemed so reluctant for her to answer the door— Todd? But she’d left the door unlocked when she ran to answer the telephone. She had to go.
A young deputy sheriff stood outside her screen door, neatly starched and pressed, and obviously uncomfortable with what he had come to do. “Mrs. Kendrick, ma’am? I’m real sorry.” He thrust folded papers into her hand and hastily retreated to his marked car.
Ginnie unfolded the papers and stared at them until comprehension soaked through her numbed senses. A complaint in divorce. Neil had filed for divorce. Neil was divorcing her....
She walked back to the desk. The receiver scraped as she picked it up. “Ginnie?” She heard his voice, tinny and distant. Carefully, very carefully, she hung up the telephone.
The next week Neil and Todd were gone. A new judge was appointed to fill out the term. Neil’s opponent in the election was assured of a noncontested victory. And a For Sale sign graced the picket fence of the house in the country.
Later, much later, when she could bear to, she drove past the house that had been their hope for the future. The roses splashed a riot of color across the fence. She looked at it through blurred eyes. “The American dream,” she said bitterly. “A place in the country. My God, even the white picket fence.” Angrily, she shifted into gear and drove away. She would not return.
September arrived, along with classrooms full of scrub-faced youngsters who, if they had any problem other than receiving their financial aid, Ginnie tried not to know. In addition to her journalism classes,
Ginnie also sponsored the school newspaper. Although no longer a member of the PTA, she continued in an advisory capacity with the gifted program, and with the various special programs sponsored by the library.
She was still identified as Judge Kendrick’s wife, or Todd Kendrick’s mother, and she supposed that in a small town that would always be the way it was. One day when a young man at the hardware store said, “Oh, I know who you are,” she steeled herself for the inevitable. “You’re the creative-writing lady from the library. I want to tell you how much my brother enjoyed that course last year. That was all he could talk about for weeks.”
She smiled as a thrill of the first genuine pleasure she had felt in months ran through her. At long last she had an identity of her own. She engaged in animated conversation with the young man for several minutes, giving him the dates of the next short course and eliciting a promise that he would enroll in that one.
And sometime during those months, she learned that it was all right to do things for herself because she wanted to.
And sometime during those months, she learned that she didn’t have to be dependent upon another person for her own happiness.
And sometime during those months, she began, once again, or maybe for the first time, to enjoy a life she made for herself.
The ache was still there. It surfaced every time someone asked, “How’s the judge getting along?” or “How’s Todd? Haven’t seen him in ages.” But she knew that those questions would be a part of her life for as long as anyone remembered that she’d once been Neil’s wife. The ache was...bearable.
And sometime during those months, the students in her classes became individuals, not just her nine o’clock journalism class, not just the staff of the newspaper, but Scott and Ken and Marsha, individuals who enriched her life, who responded to the affection she allowed to surface.
And sometime during those months, she discovered the peace Gran had known from her church. The first time Ginnie visited the tiny rock building that housed the church, it was late in an afternoon when she thought she couldn’t possibly drag herself through another day. She’d slipped into the church, to a back pew, pulled down the kneeler, and then, feeling somehow as though she had no right to be there, just sat in there for fifteen, twenty minutes, half an hour, until the serenity of the cool quietness, the dark wood, and the paintings worked its way into the corners of her soul. Soundlessly, she slipped to her knees. She hurt. She hurt so bad. “Please,” she prayed. Just the one word. “Please.”