A Woman's Place

by Barbara Delinsky

  I knelt down, put a hand to Brody’s knee for balance, and managed a tired smile. “She’s holding her own.”

  “What does that mean?” Brody asked.

  “It means she’s starting to respond. We’ll stay here for a while, though. They’ll probably want to admit her.”

  Johnny’s eyes were large and dark. “Why?”

  “Because there’s still some wheezing.”

  “She’s had that before and they let her go home.”

  “This time, her blood pressure’s low. They’re giving her medication to raise it, but it’s best given intravenously.”

  “Is she gonna be all right?”

  “She’s gonna be fine,” I said, feeling weak with the knowledge. “She’s gonna be fine,” I repeated in a whisper, though I knew that I wouldn’t breathe entirely freely myself until Kikit was up and running around.

  I was thinking that I ought to return to her, when Johnny said in a rush, “Dad looked for all the nuts, he looked real hard. You should’ve seen him, he was shoving lettuce and tomatoes all over the place looking for them. He had a whole pile on the napkin.”

  I slid back to sit against the wall close beside Brody, and let the warmth of him renew me before I reached for Johnny. It was a minute until I had him transferred to the circle of my arms. Holding him tightly, I said against his hair, “I don’t blame Daddy. Things happen sometimes, even in spite of the care we take so that they won’t.”

  “You should’ve seen him on Halloween goin’ through all the stuff. He was reading labels on everything. He even makes us eat oatmeal bread from the health food market.”

  I detected a note of distaste inadvertently tossed in with the praise.

  I gave him a squeeze. “He’s been a super dad about all those things, and he’s being a super dad now. He hasn’t left Kikit’s side for anything other than to make sure you’re okay. He’s going to stay here with me to make sure she gets better. You, though, need sleep.”

  “I don’t. I’m not tired.”

  “You have school tomorrow.”

  “I’m not going if Kikit’s still here.”

  “Sure you are. Who else can tell her teacher, so that the kids will make cards? Who else can bring the cards home?”

  “Why’ll they have to make cards?” he asked quickly. “They never did before. She comes home too fast and goes back to school too fast. Why’ll they have to do anything this time? Is she sicker?”

  I glanced at Brody. He slipped an arm around me and drew me closer.

  “She was sicker,” I told Johnny, “but she isn’t now. She’s getting better by the minute. But she may be out of school for a day or two.”

  “Us, too,” he argued. “We won’t have school if it keeps snowing. I want to be here with you guys.”

  “Know what would help most? Our knowing you’re safe and sound at home. We’ll be worrying about you if you’re just sitting out here. Let Brody take you home now, before the snow gets much worse.”

  There was a pause. “To the house?”

  That was what I had pictured. If a sense of normalcy was what I wanted for him, it seemed the best place.

  Jenovitz said I was too controlling. Maybe he was right. Maybe normalcy wasn’t what Johnny needed most just then. “Where would you like?”

  Johnny thought for a minute and shrugged. “I dunno.” He looked at Brody. “Where are you going?”

  “I kind of thought I’d go to the lighthouse,” Brody said. “There’s good food there. And Valentino. Poor guy is alone. I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel like being alone. Not tonight. Not in the snow. Not after this scare.”

  There was another pause, then, to me, a nervous, “Will Dad be mad?”

  I smiled. “Dad will be fine.”

  We spent another hour in the emergency room before Kikit was admitted. While immeasurably improved from that darkest point, her breathing was still labored, and enough of the swelling remained for the doctors to want to keep her medicated and watched through the night.

  They settled her in the pediatric ward, in a double room whose second bed was empty. The doctors and nurses left promising to be back. As soon as the door closed on them, I climbed onto the bed and carefully resettled Kikit in my arms. After a few minutes of close crooning, she fell into a fitful sleep, in effect leaving Dennis and I alone for the first time since the night’s ordeal had begun.

  After several exchanged glances, he said, “So where’s the gloating?”

  I drew a blank.

  “She got sick under my care,” he prompted. “After all I said about you, you have a right to say a few things back. You were angry enough at me without this. Where’s the anger now?”

  I had felt it earlier. If I delved into my psyche, I could probably conjure it back up, but the effort didn’t seem worth it. I had been through the wringer and was feeling drained. It seemed best to concentrate what energy I had left on helping Kikit.

  By way of answer, I laid my head down on hers and closed my eyes.

  We took turns holding her, standing, sitting, walking around. Doctors and nurses came and went, seeming content with the improvement they saw. I couldn’t see the improvement as easily, being with Kikit constantly, not to mention being so emotionally involved. But I watched them closely when they examined her and took comfort in the gestures of satisfaction they made.

  Somewhere around midnight, I began to feel lightheaded and realized that I hadn’t had dinner. When I mentioned it to Dennis, he offered to go out and get me something, but the worry in his expression when he looked from Kikit to me and back said he was reluctant to leave. I was impressed enough by his attentiveness not to make him.

  I found cookies and juice in a machine at the end of the hall, and called Brody along the way to learn that he and Johnny had made it through six inches of snow and were safely ensconced at the lighthouse eating reheated risotto. I returned to Kikit revived.

  That revival was a mixed blessing. While it gave me new strength to watch her, it also cleared my head. Strange, though, I didn’t think of the twist my life had taken that day or what Dennis would say when he learned of it. Nor did I think of those awful, awful moments in the emergency room when we thought we might lose Kikit. Rather, I thought of another bedside vigil held less than a month before. Memory rushed back, hours of standing at my mother’s bedside, listening to her breathe, watching the worry lines fade and her skin take on that terrible, peaceful sheen.

  “Are you all right?” Dennis asked.

  My eyes flew to his. “Yes.”

  “You’re shaking.”

  I wrapped my arms around myself. “I’ve seen enough of hospitals lately to last a lifetime.”

  He was quiet for a time. Then he said, “I’m sorry about Connie. Was it difficult, waiting there?”

  “Yes. No. Odd. Rona and I had a good talk. She’s on the road for WickerWise as we speak.”

  “Rona?”

  I smiled at his disbelief. I had started out that way, too. “Aside from one near-disaster when she threatened to fire an employee at one of our boutiques, she’s doing a pretty good job. I should have thought of it sooner.” I shifted my attention when Kikit opened her eyes. “Hi, baby.”

  “I’m itchy, Mommy.” Her voice was a hollow rasp behind the oxygen mask.

  Grateful for something to do, I got moisturizer from the nurse and began to rub it on. It would have been a perfect time for Dennis to take a break, but he stood right there, holding the bottle while I smoothed the cream on, handing me a towel when I was done. Kikit had fallen back to sleep by then. Midnight had come and gone.

  “Why don’t you go home,” I suggested. “We don’t both have to be here.”

  He shook his head. “You can. I don’t want to take a chance of getting stuck in the snow. I’ll stay here.”

  I wasn’t leaving, of course, and it had nothing to do with the lack of a car. My child was sick. I wouldn’t be anywhere else.

  Neither, it seemed, would Dennis. As the
hours passed, as I came to grips with remembering Connie’s last days and separated those from the relative optimism here, I began to think more about Dennis. Whether he was sitting in a chair or on the edge of the second bed, or leaning over the rail, his eyes rarely left Kikit’s face. Was it guilt? Love? What?

  He looked different. Tired, yes. But older, too.

  I remembered Rona saying that with Connie gone, she had finally become an adult. Dennis’s situation was different. Kikit wasn’t dying, for one thing. For another, he wasn’t her child, but her parent.

  For the first time, though, he looked it. For the first time, he looked like he was shouldering his share of the responsibility.

  “Where are Elizabeth and Howard?” I asked.

  He seemed startled by the question. “In New Hampshire.”

  “Do they know about this?”

  “No. Should they?”

  I shrugged. I knew that the children saw them once a week or so, which was no different from the way it had been before the separation. I also knew, from what the kids had said, that Dennis did most of the daily driving himself. I had often wondered, though, whether Elizabeth stole in during the week to do the laundry or fill the refrigerator with food.

  “Have they helped out much since we split?” I asked.

  “No. That wasn’t the point.”

  “What was?”

  He didn’t answer right away. His eyes remained on Kikit. Finally he said, “It started out one thing and became another.”

  I thought about that, giving my own interpretation to the words while I waited for him to go on. We were on opposite sides of the bed, with Kikit’s soft wheeze droning on between us.

  Ten minutes must have passed before he said, “It started out as a challenge to you and ended up as a challenge to me. I’m not the world’s worst father.”

  “I never said you were.”

  “You said it in court.”

  “My lawyer argued that I was in a better position to care for the kids.”

  “She said I wasn’t fit to be a father.”

  “No, Dennis.”

  “Well, it felt that way.”

  “Not a good feeling, was it?” I remarked.

  The look he shot me held a flicker of the old annoyance. Then he sighed, and it was gone.

  Snow continued to fall. From the window in Kikit’s room, we watched it blanket the parking lot, trees, nearby houses. Plows cleared the lot and the access roads, then, two hours later, did it again. Shortly before dawn, the snow finally stopped.

  Soon after that, Dennis went home to shower and change. He returned in less than an hour, carrying Kikit’s small flight bag stuffed with Travis, Michael, and Joy, her favorite teddy bear, a pair of pajamas, and her Barney slippers.

  I was touched that he had thought to bring them, and that he had done it with a minimum of fanfare. Whether he did it because of lingering guilt or legitimate thoughtfulness didn’t matter. We understood that the doctors wouldn’t be releasing her yet, and that having her wake up with friends would help ease her disappointment.

  Dennis took out the dolls and the teddy and arranged them on the bed. I took out the pajamas and slippers and put them on the bedside table. Then I reached back into the bag. Something was still inside. I could feel its weight.

  The bag was a lightweight backpack, too large for school use, but perfect for travel. It still bore the airline ID that Kikit had made me affix to one of the back straps.

  I felt around inside, but found nothing. I peered around inside, but saw nothing. I slid sandwiched hands over the nylon until I located the weight, unzipped a back pocket, and reached inside.

  My heart skipped a beat seconds before my hand brought out the Epi-pen and antihistamine that “hadn’t been packed” when the children had returned from Cleveland in October.

  Dennis’s gaze was riveted to them. For a second, I wondered if his astonishment was a cover for mortification at having been found out. Then his eyes rose to mine and I saw the kind of horror that said he honestly hadn’t known. He closed his eyes, hung his head, ran a hand around the back of his neck.

  “Christ,” he finally said and raised his head. “What a fuckin’ mess.”

  I had to ask, had to hear the words. “You didn’t know?”

  “I didn’t know.” With a look of disgust, he turned his head away. “What a fuckin’ mess.”

  “Didn’t you know it would be?” I cried. I wanted to think that the man I married and had stayed married to for so long wasn’t as clueless as he sounded just then.

  “I didn’t,” he confessed. “They made it sound clear. They made it sound simple. The judge was in agreement from day one. We didn’t hit a single hitch.”

  I was grateful that Kikit chose that moment to wake up. If not, I might have told him about Selwey’s note to Jenovitz, which wouldn’t have been the best thing to do. We were still locked in a legal battle. Carmen had a sure-fire weapon in her hands. I had faith that she would use it wisely, and owed her that chance.

  By the time Brody showed up with Johnny and takeout breakfast, I had bathed Kikit and put her in her own pajamas. With the swelling down and the oxygen mask replaced by nasal prongs, she was beginning to look more herself. She wasn’t pleased with the continued presence of the IV needle, but the doctors promised that if she continued to improve, she might be released that afternoon.

  Dennis was subdued. He hung back while Johnny and Brody sat on Kikit’s bed telling jokes to cheer her up. I hung back, myself. I was starting to feel the lack of sleep.

  My first impulse when Brody suggested driving me home for a nap was to refuse on the grounds that Kikit needed me there and that, if I was tired enough, I could stretch out on the room’s second bed and doze. I went with my second impulse, which had to do with Kikit being out of the woods and needing to know that her father was there for her, too.

  So Brody drove me to the lighthouse. I had barely made it out of the shower and into bed when Carmen called to say, with a satisfaction verging on glee, that we’d been granted a hearing on our new Motion to Recuse. Selwey would see us the following afternoon at two.

  Not only that, she said, but we had the figures we needed on Jenovitz. In only two of twenty-three cases referred to him by Selwey in the last three years had his recommendation differed from Selwey’s ruling. Of the twenty-one remaining, more than half had eventually been reversed.

  I hung up the phone, grinned at Brody, and promptly fell into a sound sleep.

  Kikit had started talking. Nonstop. She remained hoarse and neither the wheezing nor the hives were entirely gone, but either the doctors figured that she couldn’t be too ill if she could chatter that way, or she simply wore them out. Whatever, by early afternoon she was back at the house that I had started to think of as Dennis’s. I had a feeling Dennis would have let her come to the lighthouse if I had made an issue of it, but Kikit needed both of us, and, frankly, I didn’t want Dennis at my place.

  Dennis, on the other hand, had no objection to my being at his. He took an active role in getting Kikit settled on the sofa in the den and seeing that she had everything her little heart desired—bless her, she kept sending him on some little errand—but he remained subdued, pensive at times to the point of distraction. There was nothing about him to suggest smugness, arrogance, or flippancy. I wasn’t sure whether the severity of Kikit’s attack had shocked him or he’d had some other epiphany, but he was different. I sensed he was looking back on the last two months through different eyes.

  At least, I hoped it. We weren’t done with each other yet. Despite Carmen’s unbridled optimism, I wasn’t counting my chickens before they hatched. Even if I regained primary custody of the children, there was still the divorce itself to settle.

  By mid-afternoon, Johnny was out sledding with friends, Brody was at the office, and I had sung Kikit to sleep. I dozed briefly there on the bed beside her and awoke smelling coffee. My nose led me to the kitchen. Dennis was at the window, holding a steaming mug
between his hands.

  “I’m impressed,” I said. When he glanced at me, I gestured toward the coffee maker. Then my eye caught on a long Pyrex dish nearby, and I was doubly impressed. It contained chicken prepared Kikit’s favorite way and ready to bake. The mixing bowl and utensils had been washed and lay drying against the edge of the sink. Everything else was neat and clean.

  He grunted. “Amazing what a guy can do when he has to.”

  I filled a mug and leaned against the counter. He was looking out the window again. The snow in the backyard was blue-tinged as dusk approached.

  “When will Johnny be back?” I asked.

  “Soon, I’d guess. He almost didn’t go.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you were here. He only left when I said you’d stay through dinner.”

  The admission startled me. Not so long ago Dennis would have died rather than let me know that the children wanted me around.

  “Heuber called a few minutes ago,” he said and brought the mug to his mouth.

  Yes. About the new hearing.

  I watched him swallow the coffee and lower the mug, watched him rub his thumb against its rim and purse his lips. His eyes held resignation when he raised them to mine. “Are you raising the Adrienne business?”

  “Only if you make me. How could you have lived with that all this time? Weren’t you afraid someone would find out?”

  He shrugged. “There were times I was worried.”

  “About me? About my finding out?”

  “That, too.”

  “Would it have been so awful to tell me, way back when I first asked?”

  “I was afraid you’d divorce me.” His gaze sharpened. “Be honest. You would have.”

  Maybe. Maybe not.

  “You would have,” he said. “You’ll use it now.”

  “If that’s the only way I can keep the kids. But that isn’t what the hearing’s about.”

  “What is?”

  “We have evidence of something fishy going on between Selwey and Jenovitz. We want Selwey to leave the case.”