Twilight Child

by Warren Adler

  “Were you happy to see him?”

  Tray looked at her, puzzled.

  “He’s my grampa,” he said, as if her question was ridiculous. He shook his head and looked at her in a childlike, reproachful way. She decided to change the subject.

  “Do you get good marks in school?”

  “I get very good marks. My daddy helps me.” He giggled.

  “And mommy?”

  “She’s busy with Baby Mark and soon Snowflake will be here.”

  “Who’s Snowflake?”

  “My baby sister,” he said with a touch of petulance, as if Annie should have known.

  “Do you like the idea of a baby sister?”

  “A sister would be okay if she didn’t act like a girl.” He looked up at her. “Girls are dumb.”

  Annie laughed. “Why do you say that?”

  “They tell secrets, and they always tease. And they think they know everything.”

  “I’m a girl,” Annie said.

  “You’re a lady, not a girl. Like Mommy.”

  She looked at the boy and pressed him close to her. Adults, including herself, had intruded on his pristine world, had brought their conflicts and frustrations into his life.

  “Are you happy, Tray?” she asked. It seemed like the inevitable, quintessential question, and yet she felt both foolish and humble asking it. He chuckled and looked at her as if she were crazy. It was as good as an answer. “Well adjusted?”

  “What’s ‘justed?”

  “It means—well—content.”

  “Not me,” he said, obviously confused. What seven-year-old wouldn’t be? she thought.

  “Are there any people that you really miss?”

  The boy thought for a minute.

  “Like who?”

  “Your other daddy.”

  “I told you. My other daddy is dead. That means that he went away and is never coming back. When I die, I’ll see him again.”

  “Do you miss Gramma and Grampa Waters?”

  “I just saw them outside.”

  “I mean miss seeing them, miss going to their house to play, miss having them take you out?”

  “I see Gramma and Grampa Graham.”

  “But do you need—would you like to see more of Gramma and Grampa Waters?”

  How was the child to answer? she wondered. She felt suddenly inadequate to the interrogation.

  “When I grow up, Grampa Waters will take me hunting and we’ll try to get Nasty Jake.”

  “Nasty Jake?”

  “He’s the baddest buck in the whole world.”

  “Is he?”

  “He’s going to get me a sailboat, too.”

  “And Gramma Waters?”

  “She’s a teacher.”

  Was there a want, a need, a regret? What more could she ask? She thought of Mr. and Mrs. Waters, to whom this boy was apparently the only living, tangible symbol of the life they had lived. Was he aware of their anguish? Did it matter to him?

  “Does your mommy or daddy ever talk about Gramma and Grampa Waters?”

  The boy became thoughtful again. He frowned and seemed to be struggling with a response. Apparently he was having difficulty finding the words.

  “It’s all right,” she said gently.

  All this trial and angst on the part of the adults around him seemed extraneous to his life. She did want to probe further, but it didn’t seem right somehow, a violation of this child’s peace of mind. In the boy, she could see no hate or animosity, only the faint and ominous signs of needless confusion. All she could see now was a little boy, a piece of human clay. Then she thought of what Peggy had said, surprised at how it had stuck in her mind. “What about what I want?” What, really, in his heart and soul, did this little boy want?

  The answer came to her, not as a cliché, not as an empty promise, not merely a word. To love. To be loved. Her eyes misted.

  “Are you sad?” Tray asked.

  “Oh no,” she said quickly.

  “Something hurt?”

  “Just a little twinge.”

  She managed a smile and blinked away a tear.

  “There. That’s better now.”

  She sat for a while longer, not knowing what more to ask. She thought of her troubled daughter. Had she missed something? Then she looked at her watch. It was nearly time.

  “You be a good boy,” she said, offering him her cheek. He planted a noisy kiss on it. Soon he would consider such things unmanly. Most of all, their conversation had taught her what it meant to be a child again.

  Standing up abruptly, she looked in the mirror, fixed her makeup, and patted her hair.

  “Why do you wear a black robe?”

  “To hide my feelings,” she said, smiling, proud of her answer. “Only it doesn’t always work.”

  The boy nodded as if he understood.

  “We have to get back to the courtroom now, Tray.”

  He got up from the couch.

  “Then what happens?” he asked.

  “I think I know now.”

  She felt finally that her mind had cleared. In the end all the historical legal research, all the citations, all the printed words meant less than she had realized. In domestic matters, the answers could be found only in that most vulnerable place of all, the human heart.

  17

  “ARE you all right?” Peter asked.

  “How can I be all right?” Frances asked. “With my child in there. He’s scared to death.”

  “I don’t like it either.”

  “We’re so helpless. It’s all out of control.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Peter said reassuringly.

  “How can you know?”

  She wasn’t reassured. She leaned against a marble pillar of the ornate lobby of the courthouse and nervously watched the clock. The minute hand moved with excruciating slowness.

  “You should be thankful,” Peck told her. “She’s taking him in chambers alone.”

  “He has no business being there in the first place.”

  She was tired of Peck’s pompous surety, disgusted by the entire process of law that had invaded her life.

  Imagining Tray’s discomfort, her own anger smoldered. The baby kicked, and she touched her belly. Don’t be in such a rush to get here, she told the baby silently. She could see Molly and Charlie across the lobby, talking in hushed tones with their lawyer. Occasionally Charlie would glance her way. What was he thinking? she wondered. Was there any remorse on his part for starting this chain reaction of unhappiness? Or was it her fault? She looked at Peter, studied him carefully. Had she resisted because of Tray? For Peter’s sake? Or because of some deep resentment of her own? It had become jumbled in her mind.

  “I never thought—” Peter began.

  “None of us did, I’m afraid.”

  Again her eyes jumped to the clock, and she pictured her little boy, her sweet, lovely Tray, and that severe, black-robed woman locked together in her chambers. She shivered. The very word “chambers” had ugly connotations. As in torture chambers.

  In the past two years she had deliberately refrained from any references to Tray’s former life, except when his curiosity demanded answers. Hadn’t she always been forthright in telling him the truth? Now all her careful nurturing was being undone.

  “We should have moved away to another state. At least we would have been out of the clutches of the law.”

  “But we were told the law was on our side.”

  “Tell that to my son in there.”

  “Our son, Frances. And our decision was a joint one, remember?”

  “Was it?”

  They were silent for a long time. But with each glance at the clock her agitation rose.

  “I would have done anything to spare you this,” Peter said. They had been together long enough to sense each other’s inner tension.

  “Only me?”

  “Tray, too.” He paused, averting his eyes. “I’m not having such a good time of it either. I can’t beli
eve it’s gone this far.”

  “Believe it.” Her tone seemed overly snappish, and she put out her hand and touched his arm. “It all looked so simple when we got married, but when you take on a woman with another man’s child, you take on problems not of your making.”

  “Take on?” He seemed hurt. “If you love someone, you buy the whole package.”

  “Buy?” Like molten lava, resentment rolled over her. She felt suddenly alone, thrown back to her earlier life. Abandoned. Taking crumbs from Uncle Walter’s table. Her nostrils twitched with the remembered smell of sugary cakes. A wave of nausea broke inside of her, and she clutched the marble pillar.

  “Are you okay?”

  “A little nauseous.”

  He frowned, and she saw his anxiety as he inspected her. Odd, she wondered, how she had gone from one extreme to the other, from being barely noticed to being microscopically observed. Better the latter than the former, she decided. Didn’t loving mean protection? And possession? It was so simple to pass over boundaries, to move into dark areas, to be either too selfish or to lose one’s sense of self.

  “Maybe they have a point. Maybe I am to blame? Perhaps I did overreact to the trauma of my first marriage. But, you see, I was so afraid.”

  “So was I.”

  “I wasn’t looking far enough ahead.”

  She wasn’t sure what he meant. His quick glance seemed to take in her puzzled look. Watching his expression was like observing gears trying to mesh.

  “What I mean is—” he stammered. It wasn’t like him to grope for ways to express himself. “I wasn’t able to see things from their point of view. To be a grandparent . . .”

  She continued to watch him, pondering his meaning.

  “There could be ties there so deep we just don’t understand them.”

  “Then you think we overreacted?”

  “I’m not sure.” He seemed awkward and uncomfortable, deliberately evasive. She was beginning to understand.

  “Is it about Tray? Or Mark?” She patted her belly. “Or Snowflake?”

  “I told you, I’m not really sure.”

  “If it were Mark, or the new baby—ours—and you were the grandfather of their children.” She hesitated, carefully weighing the words she would use. These, after all, were his natural children. “Would you be less confused?”

  “Yes. I think I would,” he said after a pause, wishing, as always, to be scrupulously honest with her. He lifted his eyes to meet her gaze.

  She nodded, but she did not in any way feel challenged or upset.

  “It doesn’t mean that I love Tray any less,” he said.

  “I know that, Peter.”

  “It’s just that, well, life isn’t quite like a computer. There are different shadings—”

  “I’m beginning to see that as well, Peter.”

  “Above all, we can’t let any of this come between us,” Peter said. “It musn’t hurt what we have.”

  “It won’t. I just don’t want it to hurt Tray.”

  “Neither do I.” He looked anxiously at the clock.

  “But if it does hurt Tray, it will hurt us.” She felt the raw edges of anger.

  “Peck said she would be gentle,” Peter said.

  “Peck again.”

  “Judge Stokes is a mother.”

  “But not of my child.”

  She felt her anger continue to rise. My child is in there and I’m out here, she shouted within herself. She imagined herself standing outside of an operating room, waiting, her son’s life in the balance. It wasn’t fair. It was wrong to put him through this.

  She wanted to scream out her protest. It is my life. My child. Suddenly her attention was drawn across the marble lobby. Charlie was watching her, standing beside Molly, hesitant and forlorn. Had she tormented him with her thirst for vengeance? Or was it Peter who had provoked him? What had all this to do with Tray? Watching Charlie, he seemed a tiny figure in the baroque vastness, not the formidable figure of the early days of her marriage.

  She saw him move, start toward her. Peter, too, must have seen his movement.

  “If he starts any trouble, he’ll have me to contend with physically,” Peter said with uncommon bravado.

  Charlie strode toward them purposefully. Frances pressed herself against the pillar.

  But as Charlie drew closer, his features seemed to reflect a benign calm. The pinched lines of anger that she had seen when he was on the stand had flattened. Through a quirk of memory and illusion, she saw Chuck moving toward her as well. In tandem. A forgiving Chuck. Not the enemy now. Had she heard his voice? He’s my son, too. Goosebumps came up on her arms. Again the baby kicked.

  “I’ll get rid of him,” Peter said, starting to move forward. She put her arm out to stop him.

  “It’s all right. Just stand by me, Peter,” she said.

  “Could you ever doubt that?”

  “Never.”

  She was surprised how gray Charlie looked up close. A nerve palpitated in his jaw, and she could see he was struggling to smile. Once he had seemed so formidable. Dad! She heard the hollow echo of Chuck’s voice and tried to see him through her dead husband’s eyes. Caught in the web of memory, she struggled to untangle herself. He’s my son, too, Chuck’s voice said.

  “I’ll only be a minute, Frances,” Charlie said facing her.

  “Are you sure this is wise, Waters?” Peter asked.

  “I don’t know what’s wise anymore.”

  “I don’t either,” Frances said. She inspected him, noting the leathery quality of his skin, weathered and blotched by the elements. Even in here, she could detect the smell of the outdoors. Just like Chuck.

  In a long moment of helplessness, Frances felt herself floating in a vacuum, weightless, free from gravity and control.

  “I don’t like this business of Tray being in this,” Charlie said with a vague nod of his head. “In there with her.” He looked down at his hands. “It wasn’t my idea.”

  “Nor your intention, Charlie,” she said with surprising gentleness.

  “I tell you, Frances, I never wanted this. I swear it.” His Adam’s apple shivered as it moved up and down the length of wattled skin. It struck her suddenly how much he had aged since the first time she had seen him.

  “You could have avoided it all, Waters,” Peter said.

  “I know,” Charlie replied, nodding. He looked down at his hands and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “That’s why I need to say what I have to.” He paused. Frances watched him. Was he in some way different than she had ever seen him? Or was she really seeing him for the first time? Alone. Without Chuck.

  “Just don’t upset her,” Peter warned.

  “It’s all right,” Frances said, patting his arm. He would, she knew, slay any dragon that threatened her. But Charlie no longer frightened her. Not anymore.

  Charlie shook his head.

  “It was wrong,” he said, his voice reduced to a whisper. Clearing his throat, he spoke again, finding more strength. “And I’m sorry.”

  “You’re a little late, don’t you think?” Peter said. His tone lacked the venom of his previous remarks.

  “Please, Peter.” She turned to her former father-in-law. “I’m listening, Charlie.”

  “You know that I wouldn’t want anything to hurt that child. I or Molly. You know that.”

  She nodded. What was there to say?

  “I don’t feel good about any of this.” He paused again. She sensed how difficult it was for him to find the right words. “What I’m saying is that I don’t want any more of it. I know you’re a good mother, Frances. And Peter here.” He looked at Peter. “I know he’ll treat the boy fine. Just like Tray was his.” Again he paused and she could sense his determined effort to keep himself under control. “So I’m saying that it’s your say all the way. We’re the outsiders now, Molly and me. And if you don’t want us around—it doesn’t matter why—you’ve got that right, as far as we’re concerned. I see that now. Only
Tray counts here. And the law is right on target about that. So what I want to say, Frances—and Peter—Molly and me, we’re not going to force ourselves on Tray. It’s just no good any other way. No good at all.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Peter said haltingly.

  Frances was too stunned to respond.

  “You don’t have to say anything. We’re just not going to interfere in your lives anymore. What we want”—he took in some deep breaths to clear his throat of emotion—“is not to give you or Tray, or any of your family, a minute’s worth of pain. We’ve done enough of that.”

  She watched as he squared his shoulders, a portrait of a man relieved of a great burden. But he wasn’t finished yet.

  “I just hope that you’ll find it in your heart to forgive us, Frances. I don’t want this to sound like hearts and flowers. To put Tray through this was no good, and I hope when he grows up, he won’t think too unkindly of us. He’s too good a kid. Chuck would have been real proud of him. I’m sure of that. We did have some great times together, and I am going to miss him. What’s it all about, anyway?” He stopped abruptly, as if he had suddenly determined that he had outstayed his welcome. “So we’re going to ask our lawyer to withdraw our petition, to stop this whole rotten business.”

  For a moment it crossed her mind that this could be a ploy, a tactic to get her to soften her stand. Had she become that cynical? Quickly, she dismissed the thought.

  “I appreciate that, Charlie. Don’t think we both are oblivious to the pain of it for you and Molly.” As she spoke, her knees began to tremble and the baby inside of her began to kick up a storm. But it reminded her that she had obligations and responsibilities that transcended this issue.

  “So, that’s it,” Charlie said. She noted that he rubbed his right hand against his pants leg, a familiar gesture of his preparatory to a handshake. Only he did not follow through, stepping backward for a few steps, then turning and moving toward the other end of the lobby.

  They watched him go. Molly waited for him at the other end of the hall and embraced him when he reached her.

  “So it’s over, then,” Peter whispered.

  “As you said, Peter, the ties are deeper than we understand.”

  “It took a lot of courage for him to do that.”

  “Not just courage, Peter.”