Twilight Child

by Warren Adler

  Frances felt an inner lurch, a thudding echo in her head.

  “I didn’t—” she interrupted.

  “Of course I told him, Frances,” Peter said. “Also about your meeting with Molly and your near miscarriage. It’s all relevant. It can’t be helped.”

  “Your husband is right,” Peck continued. “It happens to be a good break for us.”

  “Some break,” Frances said indignantly, confused by her defensiveness.

  “It was an episode that required medical advice,” Peck said.

  “No question about that,” Peter agreed. “And it did upset the family. I had to take off from work.” He reached out and patted Frances’s hand. “It’s a factor.”

  “Undoubtedly,” Peck said, waiting patiently for further comment. When none came, he continued. “It’s a big plus for us. As for the subtle, we have your condition as exhibit A, Mrs. Graham.” She had half expected him to call her Frances and was prepared to resent the intimacy. Instead, she merely resented the idea. Peck was apparently quick to understand. “It’s part of the game. We’re in the business of transmitting messages. And this is one that will not be lost on the judge. Or on our opponents.”

  “We have to use every arrow in the quiver, baby,” Peter said.

  “The fact is that we may actually have a better case than it seemed originally. A child should not be used as therapy for the aged. Unless, of course, the child benefits as well. This fellow, Waters, from what Peter tells me, is easily provoked. Am I right?”

  Although the question was addressed to Frances, it was Peter who answered.

  “I told him how Charlie acted on the night we left town. After Frances broke the news about Tray. He was like a crazy man, irrational. For a minute there, I thought he was going to attack both of us.”

  “He was very upset,” Frances said.

  “And at the school?”

  “He was definitely not himself.”

  Peck shook his head.

  “Not that way,” he said. “On the stand, you can’t say that. You will have to imply that he was himself, showing his real persona. That is critical. But I’ll be briefing you on that.”

  She nodded. No, she told herself, it would not be pleasant. And weren’t Charlie and Molly the ones who were pressing the suit? She was simply defending her position. Think of Tray, she urged herself.

  “I understand,” she said, feeling an inner stiffening of resolve.

  “It won’t be a piece of cake.”

  “Can I ask a question?” Peter asked suddenly. It was the way he said it that seemed somehow pedantic, as if he already knew the answer. Peck looked at him and nodded, as if they had rehearsed the scene.

  “Is it possible to postpone the trial until the baby comes?”

  “Maybe. But it would be throwing away a good card.”

  “But can we win without it?”

  “Who can say?” Peck said. “In this business we deal in probabilities. That doesn’t mean my reasoning is not all wet.”

  “Sooner or later we’ll have to face it,” Peter said. “Unless they withdraw the suit, which doesn’t seem likely.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right. They have absolutely nothing to lose except time and money.”

  “It’s a tough call,” Peter said. He looked at Frances. “You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

  “An axiom of domestic relations,” Peck said.

  “I don’t want anything to hurt her,” Peter mused. She could tell he was on the razor’s edge of indecision. She felt certain now that he and the lawyer had had this discussion before and were replaying it for her benefit.

  “I’ll do whatever Mr. Peck thinks,” Frances said, to relieve Peter of the pressure. “I’m sure I’m strong enough. In fact, I’m in excellent shape and not afraid.” Peter’s hand reached for hers under the table and they entwined fingers. “We might as well get on with it. Get it behind us.”

  “You’re my only worry. And the kids. All of them,” Peter said, and she knew he meant it. She could see that Henry Peck was pleased. It was obvious that Peter had agonized over the question with the lawyer. “If anything happens to her because of this, I’ll never forgive myself.”

  “I won’t feel too good about it either,” Frances said lightly. “And I like the idea of a woman judge.” Although she didn’t much like Henry Peck, she knew he was right. A widowed woman in the process of raising children would surely understand.

  “So it’s go?” Peck asked.

  “I’ll be as big as a house,” Frances said.

  “The bigger the better.”

  11

  MOLLY sat in the empty classroom marking the math tests of her fifth grade children. It was a gray day, and the rain swept against the windowpanes. She was not happy with the test results. Nearly half the test papers had shown a failing grade. She placed the blame for this poor showing directly on her own head. Pure and simple, she was losing her effectiveness as a teacher.

  Putting down her pencil, she removed her glasses and massaged the upper part of her nose. Then she leaned back in her chair and looked about the room, at the rows of empty desks, the American flag, the blackboard with that day’s examples, the pictures of animals, and framed proverbs: DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE OTHERS DO UNTO YOU, A STITCH IN TIME SAVES NINE , and her favorite, TODAY IS THE DAY YOU WORRIED ABOUT YESTERDAY AND ALL IS WELL . Only all wasn’t well.

  Charlie was draining her energies with worry and anxiety. She had managed, by constant cajoling, to get him out of the house to look for a job. He had gotten one as a clerk in a tire store, but that hadn’t panned out. Then he had landed one as a gas jockey in a filling station, which she had had to talk him out of, and now he was working in a plant nursery from which, as far as she could see, he derived some satisfaction. He had always liked growing things. At least she hadn’t come home to find him with a loaded rifle across his knees. She shivered at the memory.

  Like a creeping mass of volcanic lava, the worrisome aspects of her life were slowly approaching, and she was already beginning to feel their deadly powers of destruction. These papers, she thought, putting her hand on the top of the pile, were proof positive that she was losing her touch.

  For years, her teaching job, her role as purveyor of knowledge, had sustained her. Through Chuck’s death and Tray’s departure, it had given her a sense of proud purpose. Each day, as she entered the world of her classroom and looked into the eager faces of her children, she was able to throw off the shackles of disappointments and tragedy that had marred the last few years and pursue a noble purpose. What she did in the classroom truly mattered. But the oasis seemed to be disintegrating. The well was running dry.

  And here was the evidence, she told herself, putting on her glasses again and picking up her marking pencil. Her condition was not something you could hide, especially from the children. They were always the first to notice. Nor had it escaped the eagle eye of Miss Parsons, the new principal. Molly had never worried about new brooms. Her popularity and competence had always commanded the respect of her superiors, her students, and their parents.

  At their conference that morning, Miss Parsons had been all kindness and concern. She was trying so hard to be liked. Since her arrival, she had treated the staff with deference, which was, Molly knew, the modus operandi of all new brooms. Gain everyone’s confidence first, then watch for flaws and take quick action. Union protection might save a teacher’s job, but to be judged mediocre did little for the psyche.

  “You have an outstanding record, Molly,” Miss Parsons had said. She had thin lips and the tiniest hint of a lisp. Her auburn hair was frosted blonde, and she favored beiges and browns and white blouses with large bows. Her eyes crinkled around the edges when she smiled. Actually, hers was a big, luminous smile that involved her entire face and, Molly decided, was the secret of her swift rise in the school system.

  “I appreciate that, Miss Parsons,” Molly had responded, wary of praise, since she knew she was not li
ving up to her reputation.

  “The spirit of excellence is in the air these days, Molly. The board demands that we raise the overall level of our test results. I have no doubt that you will give us your best.”

  “I always have.”

  “For more than thirty years.”

  “Thirty-four in September.”

  “If only the younger teachers had your motivation, Molly,” Miss Parsons said.

  Molly wondered if all this dwelling on age was an ominous sign. What came next convinced her.

  “It’s so important for you to be an example.” Miss Parsons had folded her immaculate white hands primly on her desk. “That’s why I want us to have a special relationship.” She turned on her brightest smile. “I’m asking for your confidence and, of course, your frankness. If there is anything, anything ever on your mind, I want you to know that you will have a receptive ear in this office. Even now.”

  There was no escaping the fact that Molly had taken more leave and sick days in the last few months than for a like period in her entire career. But a lawyer’s time was precious and had to be programmed more for his convenience than hers. Not that she didn’t resent the implication that a teacher’s time was less valuable than a lawyer’s. The fact that she was taking another half-day off tomorrow was undoubtedly what had prompted Miss Parsons to summon her to a conference. Her absences were certainly an inconvenience to the other teachers and an imposition on the students at a critical time in the term. With the trial coming up in less than three weeks, she would shortly have to ask for additional time off. She felt the surveillance of Miss Parsons’s eyes, probing and relentless, despite the smile crinkles. Does she mean now? Molly speculated.

  “I do have this personal business,” Molly began tentatively, testing the waters. Miss Parsons’s silence told Molly that there was no going back, that the issue was the real purpose of their meeting. “A legal matter that, unfortunately, requires time. It’s coming to a head in a few weeks, and I hope, one way or another, that will be the end of it.”

  “I’m very relieved to hear that, Mrs. Waters. These matters do debilitate one’s energy and concentration.”

  Miss Parsons’s words had stuck in her mind, and their truth was never more apparent than at that moment with the evidence of the awful results of this test clearly documented. Again she took off her glasses. She had hung on to her teaching job through thick and thin. Many of the friends with whom she had started had long since retired. Some had gone off to the South and West seeking warmer climes. Others had found second careers.

  There was no avoiding the fact that a dramatic change was coming to her life as well. If the case was lost, there would be no point in staying in Baltimore. Tray’s proximity and unavailability would just be too much for her and Charlie to bear. Nor could she sustain any enthusiasm for her job if her effectiveness was eroded by outside pressures. What would I do with myself? she thought gloomily.

  Her life had started out with such promise. Charlie Waters, her handsome young marine, the warrior prince of her secret imaginings, had come up to Frederick to the weekly dance when she was a junior at Hood College. In his dress blues, sporting a medal for marksmanship on his chest, and with the confidence of just having finished boot camp at Quantico, he was fully convinced that he had reached the pinnacle of manhood and that it was his right and obligation to offer himself up for female worship. He had never quite gotten it out of his mind that it was he who had made the choice. Molly knew better. One look at him and her lifelong goose was cooked. His, too.

  Nothing had ever been sweeter than this discovery of mutual love, the delicious confession of feeling. In those days young girls from good families scrupulously preserved their virginity for the marriage bed, and that, too, had its own delicate sweetness, although couples allowed some imagination and sexual resourcefulness into the physical process of courtship. There were simple joys in withholding and waiting, and she did both for three years while he fought America’s last good war. How wonderful it had been to be loyal and true and brave, as if any violation of these virtues would have had the direst consequences for him on the battlefield.

  “It was your love that brought me through it,” he had written, then told her at last in person. Nothing could ever surpass the miraculous joy of reunion. It was the most vivid and heart-stirring remembrance of her life.

  In their three years of being apart, they had written often. She wrote daily, pouring out her dreams for their future. His response was always to agree wholeheartedly. In retrospect, they were simple, innocent, and undemanding dreams. It was the era of the picket fence fantasy—a little house, three beautiful children, a car, a dog, and endless happily ever afters. Although it had not been specified then, it must have surely included the ultimate reward of the earned joy of being grandparents, and of a wise and painless old age.

  There was no denying, even now, the goodness and sustaining power of the old dreams. But it was the shock of bitter reality, such as infertility and sudden death, that was the real test of life. It wasn’t fair, especially now when one could see no light at the end of the tunnel. Don’t talk to me of the hereafter, Molly thought, as she grew more and more contemplative about her life’s ending. What about the here and now?

  It had never occurred to either of them to violate the caveat of the marriage ceremony that pledged sustained union through better or worse. Well, the time of “worse” was upon her.

  She tried to shake herself out of these increasingly repetitive and depressing thoughts, a goal that was growing more and more difficult to attain. After all, they had their health. It seemed so, at least in a shallow physical sense. But a man who sat alone in a darkened room with a loaded rifle poised across his legs wasn’t exactly in tip-top mental condition. In a swift, sudden motion she stabbed her pencil into the paper she was marking. The point broke and, in an uncommon gesture of frustration, she threw the useless pencil across the room.

  It wasn’t only the overwhelming number of wrong answers on the papers that made her testy, but the recognition of so many wrong answers in her own life. I’m flunking, too, she decided. F for wife. F for mother. F for mother-in-law. F for grandmother, and now F for teacher. She giggled hysterically at these conclusions. Never had she held herself in such low esteem.

  Gathering up her papers, she put on her raincoat, shut off the lights in the classroom, and let herself out of the near-deserted school. Rain, driven by the wind, wet her face and stockings. It did not help her gloomy attitude.

  Driving home had lately been fraught with sinking apprehensions. What would Charlie be like? How low would he be? Would he be brooding and morose? It had come down to what degree of depression she would have to confront. Her reserves of optimistic encouragement were running out. There was nothing sadder than an overage cheerleader doing somersaults before near-empty stands.

  She found Charlie sitting in the kitchen, sipping from a mug of hot coffee, smoking a cigarette and looking out into the yard. Lately their evening meal had consisted of salad, a baked potato, and some broiled meat or fish. It was an unspoken rule between them that whoever arrived first was to set the table, make the salad, and put the potatoes in to bake. That none of this had been done was, in itself, an ominous sign.

  “What is it now?” she asked, letting her briefcase full of papers fall to the floor with a purposeful thud. The sound startled him into alertness, and he looked at her with some confusion.

  “You blew it, right?” She felt her sense of control burst, and she wished she could withdraw the tone of her question.

  “Blew what?”

  His answer confused her.

  “Your job,” she pressed, wanting to strike out. “Don’t try to kid me, Charlie. You blew your job. Why else would you be home so early?”

  “It’s raining.”

  “I am aware of that,” she snapped.

  “Too hard to work in the mud. Simple as that.”

  She felt ashamed, humiliated. It seemed now to be the
regular condition of her life. Ever since she had met with Frances, she had had to contend with the terror of what she had done. It gnawed at her, colored everything she did and thought. And now she had shown her lack of confidence in Charlie, her lack of faith. Had she also demonstrated that in the manner in which she recounted her meeting with Frances? She had, of course, told both Charlie and Forte about their meeting, offering, with precise editing of the most important facts, the most graphic retelling she could muster, illustrating Frances’s total intransigence and willingness to fight to the last to enforce her and Peter’s decision. But she had, with great willpower and reluctance, omitted any reference to Charlie and his “suicidal tendencies.” In fact, the revelation filled her with revulsion and disgust, and she lived with the hope that, in the courtroom, the information would be respected as confidential, although she was not overly optimistic on that point. It was a self-inflicted agony, she had decided, her cross to bear for the moment, notwithstanding that it was driving her crazy with anxiety. There was no sense alarming either Charlie or the lawyer, especially since hers could have been an over reactive interpretation. Besides, a similar event had not occurred, although she had hidden the shells as a precaution. Not that it mattered. He could always get more if he wanted them.

  “Thought we might go out for dinner is all,” Charlie said. “You all right?”

  The weight of it all was pressing down on her, squeezing her insides. There seemed to be no way to stop it.

  “I wish we hadn’t started it,” she said suddenly, the words beyond her control. She could see the hasty anger tremble through him.

  “A little late in the game, Molly.”

  “Maybe this business about the lady judge . . .” Forte had briefed them and given them a less than optimistic view. From the beginning, he had hoped to be heard before one of the older judges. Yet, she had actually been encouraged by this new prospect. A woman would understand, she told herself. But then she had never been widowed. She looked at Charlie, and the thought chilled her.