Seasons of Her Life

by Fern Michaels

  He’d never gambled in Vietnam. Oh, maybe a little poker once in a while, but nothing like what he’d been doing the past two years. He couldn’t even remember how it started. A bet on a football game, then two bets, then on to baseball and basketball. Finally the horses. Inside of three months he was betting on anything that moved.

  Andrew risked a glance at the Rolex on his wrist, the only thing he owned of any real value, and it wasn’t his in the sense that he bought it or even earned it. He’d taken it off a smelly little Vietnamese who probably didn’t know what it was. Sometimes it bothered him that he was wearing a dead officer’s watch. It was top of the line, an eye-catcher, a real conversation piece when he was rolling dice or propping his arm on the bar. Maybe if he had it cleaned and polished, he could pawn it and get enough money to keep the sharks at bay until he could fall back and regroup. But he was kidding himself and he knew it. There was no way he could come up with enough money to keep the house and pay Andy’s tuition.

  Fifty goddamn years old! Jesus, wait till Ruby found out he’d borrowed on their life insurance. He started to sweat again. His hands were trembling, too, something he noticed lately when he lit his cigarettes. He wondered what his blood pressure was right now, this very second. Sky-high, even with the pills he popped every morning with his orange juice in the diner.

  What he should do, what he should have done four years and nine months ago, was go to Sears and slit his boss’s throat. Beady-eyed Alvin Demster had promised him the managership of the entire store within a year of hiring him. “You’ll start out in the garden department, and we’ll move you steadily every six weeks or so.” Alvin had been a marine, so Andrew had believed him. Rototillers and lawn mowers were big sellers, Alvin said. So were lime and fertilizers. What it boiled down to was he was selling shit by the truckload. He should have quit, but jobs had been hard to find and the commission checks weren’t that bad. Ruby banked the money, paid the bills, and managed to save enough to send Martha to Rensselaer; where she graduated with top honors. He’d wanted to kill his own daughter when he calculated the cost, and kill Ruby,- too, when he saw her cutting their budget six ways to the middle just so the ungrateful kid could have what she wanted. It didn’t matter that she graduated summa cum laude. He couldn’t attend her graduation because he’d had to work that day. A lawn maintenance company was sending one of its men to order a dozen sit-down lawn mowers along with leaf blowers and Rototillers. He’d made a couple of thousand on commissions alone that day, enough to buy Martha a Gucci watch, which she thanked him for and never wore.

  Andrew burrowed deeper into the car seat. He was in some deep shit with nowhere to turn. Nowhere but to Ruby. Somehow Ruby would find a way to get him out of the mess he’d put them in. Rightly so. If it wasn’t for Ruby, they wouldn’t be in this stinking town, and he wouldn’t have this stinking job.

  It had been so easy-to take over the bills and the checkbook. All he’d said, in his best military-sounding voice, was, “I can do this better, and I don’t want to hear another word.” The first checks to stop were the ones to St. Andrews’. He gave her food and gas money every Friday, the same day he banked her check from the card and gift store where she worked part-time. He remembered how her eyes filled with tears when she handed over the household bills in their neat folder along with the checkbook. The whole shebang was in the trunk of his car. The only things Ruby cared about these days were her friend, Dixie, and young Andy. That was another thing, the kid. He’d expected Andy to be a chip off the old block, and he was, but off Ruby’s block. The kid had ethics and morals and a streak of decency equal only to his mother’s. He worked, too, all through high school, in a supermarket, and during summers for a construction company. The kid’s bank balance had stunned him. What stunned him even more was the fact that the boy had paid cash for his first car, paid for his own insurance, paid his own taxes, bought his own clothes, and paid half his tuition and room and board to Rutgers University. There was only one name on young Andy’s personal bankbook and it was his own. Ruby had opened a separate account for him when he was eight or so, but all that was gone now, thanks to his own father. The kid would forgive him, Andrew thought irritably, because Andy was just like Ruby.

  Fifty years old. Over the hill. Half a century. Shit!

  Andrew backed the car away from a produce truck and inched his way through assorted milk crates and garbage cans to the side street that would lead him onto the highway and the Sears store. If he took the U-turn, he could head for Asbury Park and a pawnshop or a jewelry store to see if he could sell the Rolex. Or, he could cross over the highway, return home, confess to Ruby, and hope for the best. He pondered his options for a full five seconds, as long as it took for the red light to turn green. He crossed over the highway. He really loved his Rolex watch.

  Ruby hung up the dishtowel to dry and stepped back to view her sparkling kitchen. She loved all of its green plants and copper pots. The solid oak table and chairs, which she polished every day, gleamed. The red checkered place mats with their delicate fringe matched the checkered curtains on the window and back door. All had been made by her. The braided rugs by the sink and refrigerator had been made the first winter after they moved into the house. The entire contents of the house had been purchased with Andrew’s discount. She remembered how she’d chortled with glee when she tabulated the savings. They’d been like two kids just starting to keep house.

  It had started off wonderfully, this move to New Jersey. Andrew had gotten a job almost immediately, and he’d given his okay for her to work in the gift store, the same store Dixie worked in. She’d saved money, kept the house looking beautiful, and managed to send Martha to the college of her choice. She’d done well and felt proud for almost three years. Then things started to sour. Andrew began complaining about his boss and the long hours he put in. She saw a pattern emerge, but she was too wrapped up in her part-time job, her friendship with Dixie, her children, keeping up the house that she dearly loved, and Andrew to pay much attention.

  Andrew was drifting away from her. He had his nights and Saturdays out with the boys from the store. Sundays he either slept the day away or put in extra hours at work. It was an easy, comfortable life, and neither of them complained. Occasionally they slept together, but it was obvious to both that the passion was gone, and neither tried to activate it. They were pleasant to one another, pecking each other on the cheek from time to time or patting one another’s shoulder in passing. They settled without complaint into complacency.

  Ruby described it to herself as contentment, while Andrew saw it as sheer boredom.

  Ruby looked up at the kitchen clock. She had exactly twenty-five minutes till it was time to leave to pick up Dixie for work. All she had to do was put on her makeup, brush her hair, and write a note to Andrew, telling him there was a casserole in the refrigerator if he got home before she did.

  The house was always tidy these days, she thought as she bent down to pick up a white thread from the staircase. With the kids gone, there was little housecleaning to do, except for the daily vacuuming and dusting.

  Twelve minutes later, Ruby locked the back door to the kitchen. She was raising the venetian blind over the sink so that the thin winter light would aid her windowsill plants, when she saw her husband swerve into the driveway. Her heart thumped twice before it settled down to its normal beat. Andrew never came home for lunch. Andrew never came home in the middle of the morning. Andrew never looked the way he looked now, haggard and drawn. Maybe he was sick. Ruby’s heart thumped again. Something was wrong, very wrong. She knew without talking to Andrew that whatever it was, it was going to change her life. She had been relying on her gut instinct for so long where Andrew was concerned, she’d honed it to a razor-sharp edge.

  Ruby unlocked the kitchen door and opened it just as Andrew turned the knob. “What’s wrong?” she asked anxiously.

  “Is there any coffee left?”

  “No, I washed the pot. You know the doctor said you wer
e permitted only one cup a day, Andrew. Is your blood pressure up again? Did you have a doctor’s appointment this morning? Is that why you’re home?” Her eyes went to the calendar on the side of the refrigerator, but the date was clear of appointments.

  “In the space of five seconds you’ve made two statements, asked three questions, and checked out the calendar at the same time,” Andrew said sourly. He smiled, as if to take the sting out of his words. He shook his sleeve down over the Rolex. “I’ll have a glass of juice. It’s fresh, isn’t it?”

  Ruby nodded and swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Here,” she said lightly, setting the glass in front of him. “Sorry I can’t stay around to chat, but this is my week to drive, and I have to pick up Dixie. If I don’t hurry, I’m going to be late, and Mrs. Harris doesn’t like to fiddle with quarter hours on our time cards.” She had her coat on and her hand on the door leading to the garage, when Andrew spoke. Damn, what made her think this was going to be easy?

  “I need to talk to you, Ruby. Not later, now.”

  “Andrew, can’t it wait till this evening? Mrs. Harris specifically asked both Dixie and myself to come in early to help take inventory. I promised, and Dixie is waiting.”

  “You always have something to do. You never have time for me. So what if I want to discuss the weather or the price of pork bellies? It’s your job to listen to me. If you made a fortune working in that crappy store, I could see it, but you make only minimum wage. I think it’s time you got a real job, like selling real estate or something.”

  “Is that why you’re home in the middle of the day? Do you want to talk about me getting a full-time job? If so, Andrew, we can discuss it this evening. I really have to leave.”

  “Let Dixie walk to the store. Call her and tell her you can’t pick her up. After we have this little talk, you won’t feel much like going to work anyway. Have her tell that old biddy you’re sick. Dixie is a good liar, or have you forgotten?”

  Ruby didn’t like the look on her husband’s face. She called Dixie and said, “Andrew’s home and needs to talk to me. I’m sorry, Dixie. Tell Mrs. Harris I’ll be late.” She took off her coat and tossed it on one of the oak chairs. She sat down, her back stiff, her hands folded in front of her.

  “We’re going to lose the house. There’s not enough to pay Andy’s fall tuition. That’s it, Ruby.”

  Ruby felt the color drain from her face. She didn’t ask her husband to repeat his words; she’d heard him quite clearly. She wondered why she felt so calm, so detached. She knew she was supposed to say something. She couldn’t think of a thing. They were going to lose the house. They’d have to move. How could she have been so stupid as to believe that her life on Ribbonmaker Lane in this wonderful old house was going to last forever? She could feel her eyes start to burn when she thought about Andy and how hard he was working at college. Her part-time wages had been going into his college fund from the first day she started to work. There had been more than enough to cover his tuition. But suddenly, she didn’t want to know why there was no money. She got up, her movements awkward, and slipped into her coat. She was at the door leading to the garage when Andrew said, “Don’t you want to know the reason?” She shook her head. “Goddamn it, Ruby, that’s just like you.”

  Ruby was walking through the door when he shouted, “I gambled it all away. We’re ten months in arrears on the mortgage. We got our last notice yesterday. I used Andy’s money to try and get it back. Jesus, Ruby, will you say something?”

  Ruby slid into the driver’s seat of her car. In a trance she got back out, opened the garage door, and climbed back into the car. She drove to the gift store with tears rolling down her cheeks. She parked next to Dixie’s beat-up Mustang.

  Just like that. One minute she was singing and humming and feeling pleased with herself and her world, happy and contented in the house she’d worked so hard to make a home for her family, and the next minute it was all being ripped away from her. Evicted. They were going to lose the house. There was no money for Andy’s college. Gambling. In a million years she would never have thought of her husband throwing away their hard-earned money. This couldn’t be happening to her, but it was. Damn, why had she come here to the store? She wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the numbers and the time-consuming hours of inventory.

  “Like hell,” she muttered, grinding the gears as she backed out of her parking spot.

  In her frenzy to get home before Andrew left, she cut the corner too close and plowed over her prize rosebushes. She hardly noticed. She slammed the kitchen door so hard, one of the square panes broke, and glass tinkled about her feet. She crunched it as she marched into the kitchen, shouting her husband’s name at the top of her lungs.

  “You bastard! You miserable, rotten, stinking bastard. You stole our money. You stole from your own son. Do you have any idea how hard Andy’s worked so you wouldn’t have to pay all his bills? How could you? What kind of person are you? I’ve had it with you, Andrew, with all your smutty little affairs, your drinking, your lousy me-first attitude. I want a divorce and I want it now. I’m going to a lawyer. No more! I can’t take any more!” she shrieked.

  Andrew blanched. The word divorce wasn’t in his present vocabulary. A divorce wasn’t going to help him one bit. His tone of voice was so oily and slick, it surprised him. “Stop talking nonsense, we aren’t going to get a divorce, and you know it. Sit down and let’s put our heads together and see if we can’t get out of this mess. I swear I won’t do it again. I learned my lesson. Once I get out from under these bookies, I swear I’ll never make another bet. I quit drinking when you hassled me, didn’t I? I can quit this, too. Think of something, Ruby. That’s what you’re good at, coming up with solutions.”

  Ruby’s voice was icy cold when she responded. “You’re wrong, Andrew. I will file for a divorce. You stole from our son. You begrudged the money we spent to send Martha to Rensselaer. You never even congratulated her. I’m surprised you haven’t hit her up for a loan. My God, you did, I can see it on your face. What kind of man are you? This is our house, our home, and you gambled it away. If I let you get away with this, if I stay married to you, that makes me no better than my mother. I won’t do it, Andrew. Sell your watch. And while you’re at it, sell those expensive golf clubs and your membership to the country club. Sell everything you can get your hands on. Your car, too. Ride Andy’s bicycle. No more, Andrew!”

  “There’s no money to pay for a divorce,” Andrew said snidely. “You can’t leave, you have no place to go.”

  Ruby laughed. And laughed. Andrew cringed at the sound. Ruby continued to laugh.

  She told him then. All about the house in Georgetown and the amended tax returns. “So you see, Andrew, I do have a place to go. I can go there anytime. Years ago, just to be on the safe side, I put the deed in Andy’s and Martha’s names. The house my parents live in is in their names, too. I’m glad I did it. If I hadn’t you would have used it somehow against all of us.”

  Andrew’s face registered horror. “You sneak. You let me bust my ass at that lousy Sears, Roebuck store when you could have made life easier for us. Amended tax returns! I’ll goddamn well turn you in to the Internal Revenue Service myself. That’s not legal,” he sputtered.

  “Yes, it is, it’s so legal, it’s pathetic. We had enough money, Andrew. With your retired pay from the marines and your salary, plus my part-time job, we had enough. When I was handling the money, I even saved enough to make things a lot easier, and no one did without a thing. I wanted to get a full-time job; I even begged you to let me work for that law firm in town, but you said no. You said you wanted a clean house and dinner on the table. You said you wanted me home. So I did what you said. Now you fault me. You’re a louse, Andrew,” Ruby shrieked, her face contorting with rage.

  “You should just see yourself, Ruby, right now this very minute. So what if I did something wrong. You’re my wife, you should be thinking of ways to help me instead of threatening me. You act as if I killed
somebody. You just admitted you own property, so you can sell it and everything will be just fine. You’re overreacting,” he said virtuously. “I can’t believe you’d really pay out money for a divorce, money I could use to pay off these sharks, instead of helping me. God help you, you are your father’s daughter. Don’t think for a minute that I’ll forgive you for not telling me about those houses. I won’t.” His voice was pious-sounding now. He even looked shamed . . . for her.

  She wondered if it would do any good to defend her position concerning the properties. Would he even understand that for so many years he threw it up to her that she was stupid, a hick from the sticks, and that she had tried to prove her own worth? Was it worth mentioning that she secured the properties before she married? What difference did it make now? She had a tidy little nest egg, thanks to her astute management. She could bring the mortgage up-to-date. She had many options, she realized, and if she did exercise those options, Andrew would walk away without a backward glance and show no remorse while she buckled under. Not this time, she fumed. She had plans for the nest egg, plans to go into business with Dixie. If she told Andrew about her plans, he would belittle her, say it was all a pipe dream and she’d never make a go of it.

  “I know that. And you know something else, Andrew? I don’t really care. I still want a divorce.”

  “On what grounds?” Andrew snorted.

  “I don’t love you. You don’t love me. That’s grounds enough.”

  “Not in a court of law.” He wondered if his words were true. “This is half my house, you can’t make me leave, and besides, I have no place to go and no money. I suppose you’re going to take back the bills and give me an allowance.” He sneered to make sure she knew what he thought of that idea. “Now, how soon can you come up with the money?”

  Ruby turned her back on her husband and walked to the bathroom. She slammed and locked the door. She sat down on the edge of the tub and dropped her head into her hands. She’d said it out loud. She’d actually told her husband she didn’t love him. Damn him.