Always and Forever

by Cynthia Freeman

  “I know,” Kathy said. “I think it’s terrific that you’re doing the series, and that it may be a book.”

  “It’s funny,” Rhoda reminisced. “Back in Hamburg I never suspected Frank would be anything more than a fling for me.”

  “And I thought you were just a great lay,” Frank teased.

  “Oh, shut up,” Rhoda scolded good-humoredly. “You’re talking to the woman who may be carrying your child.” She turned to Kathy. “I wanted to go for the rabbit test, but Frank said, ‘Why kill the poor rabbit? In another few days you’ll know for sure, anyway.’”

  All at once Kathy was mentally hurtling back through the years to Hamburg. To David. If Phil hadn’t appeared on the scene, her life would have been so different. She would have waited for David. Was it this way with everybody? Could everybody look back to that one critical moment in their lives when they made the wrong move?

  Was David married yet? He’d suffered such a terrible loss. He was a warm, compassionate man who shouldn’t be deprived of a home and family. Let him be happy.

  Immediately after Labor Day Kathy and Phil—with Jesse and Alice—returned to the New York apartment. The Southampton house suddenly seemed too small for the Kohn clan when Bella and Julius’s four granddaughters—spoiled and demanding their own bedrooms—came out to the beach house at the end of the camp season.

  “My nieces are four prize Jewish Princesses,” Phil said disdainfully while they sat in the post-Labor Day Tuesday morning traffic. “Why do we have to go into the city a week early so they don’t have to share two bedrooms?”

  “We’d be coming into town in another ten days anyway,” Kathy pointed out.

  “Next weekend we’ll go out to the Greenwich house,” he decided. “It’ll be hot as hell in town. I’ll take Friday off and we’ll drive up in the morning.”

  “Okay,” Kathy agreed. It would be a quiet weekend with just Phil and herself and Jesse at the house. For a moment she toyed with the thought of inviting her family up to Greenwich. No, Phil would be annoyed if she asked them. He liked to think of them as living on another planet.

  “I’ll play golf,” he told her as traffic began to inch along. “Maybe next summer we’ll put in a pool.”

  “We’re out at Southampton in the summers,” Kathy reminded, turning to check on Jesse on the back seat with Alice. He was fast asleep. In just two weeks, she thought with recurrent satisfaction, he’d be starting the first grade. The first step toward her emancipation.

  “We can swim in the pool right through September. I talked to Dad about it. Maybe we’ll make it an enclosed heated pool, then we can use it year-round. Swimming’s top-grade physical exercise.”

  Phil meant that they would put in a pool, Kathy interpreted, but his father would pay the bill. It would probably be written off as another business expense. Part of entertaining out-of-town personnel who came into New York for business conferences. “Writing off to taxes” was a way of life for Phil and his father.

  On the following Friday morning Kathy waited with Jesse and Alice for Phil to bring the car around to the front of the house. He’d had dinner with his father last night, or so he claimed, and she’d been asleep when he came home. This morning he’d been in a foul mood. She’d told him not to yell at Jesse the way he did this morning. Too often lately, she remembered uneasily, he took his bad temper out by yelling at Jesse and her.

  “There’s Daddy now,” Alice told Jesse—restless with the waiting—as the Peugeot approached. “As soon as we’re on the highway we’ll play our license plate game.”

  Phil pulled up at the curb, then left the car to put the luggage into the trunk.

  “Get in the car,” he said tersely. What was bugging him this morning?

  Kathy slid into the front seat while Jesse and Alice took their customary places in the rear. Alice was going out with them to Greenwich and would leave tomorrow afternoon to go to her sister’s in Levittown for the weekend. Phil had objected to her giving Alice the long weekend off. “Let her come up with us and leave after lunch on Saturday. Christ, you spoil her the way Gail and Brenda spoil their kids!”

  Not until they were on the highway did Phil break his silence. Sometimes—like now—she was embarrassed and humiliated that Alice was a witness to Phil’s ugly moods.

  “Get that shitty magazine out of the glove compartment,” he told her.

  “All right.” She tried to brace herself for an outburst. Phil had seen Frank’s article.

  She opened the glove compartment and withdrew the magazine. Her eyes clung to the cover line dealing with Frank’s article: Man’s Inhumanity to Animals.

  “Frank’s magazine.” She strived for casualness.

  “What’s the bastard trying to do?” Phil flared. “I always knew he was a card-carrying nut. All this shit about women not wearing furs.”

  “He belongs to some animal rights group.”

  “Every ten or twenty years some creep comes along and starts up with that crap. I don’t want you to see Frank and Rhoda anymore.”

  “It’s a free country, Phil. Frank has a right to say what he thinks.” She understood that Alice was trying to divert Jesse’s attention from their conversation. Even though he didn’t understand, he was upset by his father’s menacing tone.

  “I hope the bastard croaks,” Phil said viciously. “We don’t see them anymore, you hear?”

  Kathy was silent. No one could stop her seeing Frank and Rhoda. Along with Marge, they were her closest friends in this world. She had love and respect for Frank and Rhoda. So often she was shamed by the knowledge that she was enjoying a luxurious life style from the results of the killing of innocent animals.

  “I remember Frank bragging back in Hamburg about how his father had driven an ambulance in Spain for the International Brigade. A bunch of Commies,” he said with contempt.

  Kathy remained silent. Let him talk, she thought. Phil couldn’t stop her from seeing Frank and Rhoda. He didn’t have to know that she was seeing them.

  Only minutes after they arrived at the house Kathy received a phone call from Irene Hale down the road. At last a young couple with one little girl and another on the way had moved into the neighborhood.

  “I saw you drive up, Kathy,” Irene said effervescently. “If I’d known you’d be up this weekend, I’d have sent Jesse an invitation. Tomorrow is Gillian’s sixth birthday, and we’re having a small lunch party. Would Jesse like to come?”

  “I’m sure he’d love it,” Kathy accepted for him. “What time would you like him to be there?”

  With the party arrangements settled they talked another few minutes. Irene was upset that her long-time nursemaid—with her since Gillian’s birth—was tired of New York winters and returning to her native Florida in two weeks.

  “I feel so safe when she’s here with Gillian,” Irene said, sighing. “It’s almost like having a member of the family moving away.”

  Off the phone Kathy alerted Alice to the party situation. Walking down the stairs to the lower floor, she heard Phil’s voice. He was talking on the phone to his father about Frank and the magazine. He was going to be smoldering all weekend. She took off in the Caddy—kept at the Greenwich house now—to shop for a birthday present for Gillian.

  Once she had found a suitable birthday gift, Kathy shopped for groceries. She’d brought along delicatessen and cold chicken from the city for lunch today. They’d have dinner at home tonight, she planned, but Phil would want to go out for dinner tomorrow night. Even out here he hated staying home on Saturday evening.

  Turning into the driveway, she noticed the Peugeot was gone. She’d serve lunch for Jesse and Alice and herself now. Phil could help himself from the refrigerator whenever he came back. The less she saw of him this weekend the better.

  Alice told her that Phil had gone to play golf.

  “He said he wouldn’t be home for lunch,” Alice added in her pleasant, noncommittal voice.

  “Thank you, Alice. I’ll put out lunch for us
now. Why don’t we have it on the terrace?”

  Late in the afternoon Phil returned to the house. He seemed to have worked off some of his rage, Kathy thought in relief. After dinner she’d curl up on the living room sofa and read. She’d brought along the Saul Bellow book that everybody was raving about—The Adventures of Augie March. Phil would be parked in front of the TV in the den all night, watching baseball.

  Earlier than normal she went upstairs to the master bedroom. The baseball game was continuing well beyond the normal ninth inning. Phil would be too satisfied with baseball and beer to reach for her tonight, she guessed.

  With increasing frequency he was foregoing what he called the national Saturday night pastime. While she was relieved that he probably wouldn’t be in the mood to make love tonight, she was ever haunted by his propensity to seek out other women. It hinted at a shortcoming in her as a woman.

  Saturday morning was hot and sultry. As Kathy expected, Phil remained in bed until almost noon. He’d gotten out of bed to flip on the air-conditioner, then had gone back to sleep. Now she heard the shower beating away in the master bathroom and reluctantly abandoned the Saul Bellow novel to go out into the kitchen to put up fresh coffee and bring out Phil’s routine Saturday morning breakfast.

  “Did you remember to bring up the nova?” he demanded a few minutes later, striding into the kitchen in his Brooks Brothers walking shorts and polo shirt.

  “Right there.” She pointed to the shining red slivers of smoked salmon on a plate on the sunlit breakfast room table. “And I put out bagels and cream cheese. Shall I heat the bagels?” Their weekly moment of domesticity, she thought bitterly.

  “It’s too hot,” he dismissed, then frowned. “The house should be centrally air-conditioned.”

  She poured a cup of coffee for Phil and—as an afterthought—a cup for herself, and carried them into the breakfast room. Why do I make a pretense of being a wife? she rebuked herself. A wife shared her husband’s life. She shared Phil’s bed, and occasionally he indulged in his conjugal privileges.

  “Are you playing golf today?” she asked, sitting at the table.

  “Probably.” He shrugged. “Look, would you drive into town and buy me a can of shaving cream and a razor? I’m giving up on my electric razor. It’s making a mess of my face.”

  “Okay. I suppose you want to shave before you play golf?”

  “That’s the idea.” He was attacking his breakfast with gusto.

  “I’ll drive Jesse over to the Hales’, then pick up your shaving cream, a razor, and blades.” Thank God, he’d shelved his rage at Frank. For now. Instinct warned her that Phil and his father would consider Frank’s actions as high treason. “Do you need anything else?”

  “No. And why can’t Alice take Jesse to the Hales? Christ, they’re like a block away.”

  “She has to dress and pack for her weekend at her sister’s. I—”

  “I forgot,” he drawled. “You’re playing Lady Bountiful again. How can we go out to dinner tonight?”

  “I arranged for a baby-sitter. There’s no problem.”

  Phil mentioned he wanted to go for dinner to a new seafood restaurant he’d discovered in a nearby community. It was informal; she wouldn’t have to go through the dressing-up routine. He’d have a couple of drinks with dinner, come home and collapse in front of the TV. She’d settle herself in bed to read. It would be a comfortable, quiet Saturday evening.

  Right on schedule, Kathy climbed behind the wheel of the car and waited for Alice to bring Jesse. How handsome he looked, she thought tenderly as she watched him scurry toward the car in his immaculate white shirt and shorts, happily clutching the gift-wrapped package in his hands. And he was so excited about starting first grade next week at the posh school where Rhoda taught.

  She dropped Jesse off at the Hale house, then headed for the drugstore. On impulse she stopped first at a coffee shop. Not because she was hungry, but it was good to relax over a cup of coffee for a few minutes in anonymous surroundings. Phil could wait to shave.

  She drove directly home from the drugstore, pulled into the garage and went into the house through the side entrance. She could hear Phil on the phone in the den. Probably talking with his father again about Frank and the animal rights group. No, he wasn’t talking about that, she suddenly realized, halting to listen.

  “Look, I don’t want to be mixed up in this. I was told I could give you the information without being involved. The man’s a second-generation Communist. His father fought with the Loyalists in Spain. He brags about that. His wife is no better than he is, and she teaches young kids at a private school—”

  “Phil!” Kathy charged into the den. He was standing with the phone clenched in his hand, nodding as though the person at the other end could see him. “Phil, what are you doing?” Frank and Rhoda would lose their jobs!

  “Get away from me!” he ordered through clenched teeth, one hand covering the mouthpiece. “Yeah, that’s right.” He’d removed his hand to continue the conversation. “That’s the magazine he works for.”

  “Phil, don’t do this!” Kathy gasped in disbelief and reached to pulled the phone from his hands.

  With one vicious gesture Phil slammed his fist against her face. She staggered, would have fallen if she hadn’t grabbed at a chair. She was vaguely aware that Alice was standing outside the door, watching with her mouth ajar. She was conscious, too, of a pain at the bridge of her nose.

  “You bitch!” Phil put down the phone and crossed to hang menacingly over her. “Don’t you ever do something like that again!” Now he turned and stalked from the room. Alice had apparently retreated in alarm.

  Kathy rose to her feet, trembling with shock. She reached a hand to her nose, discovered a warm trickle of blood running down the side. Phil’s ring had ripped away a chunk of skin, she realized.

  “Let me drive you to the hospital emergency room—” Alice came into the den with a wet towel in one hand. “That cut may need stitches.”

  “It’ll be all right in a minute.” Kathy reached for the towel. How could Phil do something so rotten? He was destroying Frank and Rhoda. Now—when Rhoda was pregnant and they’d just moved into a new, expensive apartment.

  “You’d better sit down,” Alice said anxiously. “Keep pressure on that cut.”

  “The ring dug into the skin,” Kathy stammered, humiliated that Alice had seen Phil hit her. She struggled for calm. “It’ll stop bleeding in a minute,” she repeated.

  “I’ll bring you a glass of water.” Alice’s face reflected compassion for her, contempt for Phil. “Just sit still and hold the towel to your nose.”

  Kathy sighed with relief when Alice concurred at last that the bleeding had stopped.

  “Your nose ought to be x-rayed,” Alice said. “There might be a bone broken.”

  “No, I’m fine,” Kathy insisted, and glanced at her watch. “We have to leave for the station. You’ll miss your train.”

  “I’ll take a later one.”

  “No, your sister will be worried. And I’m all right, Alice. I’ll drive you to the station, then I’ll pick up Jesse. Please forget what you saw here.” Tears stung her eyes. “Go bring down your valise, and we’ll head for the station.”

  Kathy sat motionless, trying to deal with what had just happened. She had told Bella she would stay with Phil as long as it was good for Jesse. But it wasn’t good anymore.

  How could she allow her son to grow up in a house with a father who was so vindictive and rotten, who would betray her dear friends? Phil knew how red-baiting wrecked lives. Frank and Rhoda were fine, caring people, but he wanted to destroy them.

  She would take Jesse and get out of this house. Out of Phil’s life.

  She would raise Jesse alone.

  Chapter 22

  KATHY DROVE ALICE TO the Greenwich station and returned to the house. Now she struggled to disguise the injury to her nose with make-up, though the swelling was a giveaway. Ever conscious of the time—because she wa
s to pick up Jesse at the Hale house in twenty minutes—she began to pack for herself and Jesse. Grateful that spare luggage and a goodly amount of wardrobe was kept up here rather than at the apartment.

  She packed one large valise with casual clothes, pulled a favorite winter coat from the cedar closet, and brought out a small valise to hold Jesse’s clothes. Her diamond and sapphire necklace was in the apartment safe; it would have to stay behind.

  She dragged the luggage out to the car and stowed it away in the trunk. Thank God, she always kept her secret savings account book with her. The balance wasn’t large, but she and Jesse could survive on it for a year if she budgeted carefully.

  She glanced at her watch again. It was time to go over to the Hales’ to pick up Jesse. She’d drive into White Plains, then take a train into Manhattan from there. She’d leave the car at the White Plains station.

  First of all, she must tell Rhoda and Frank what Phil had done. They had to be forewarned, though with the climate in the country as it was, she thought painfully, there was nothing they could do to clear themselves. Then she’d check into some small Upper West Side hotel for the night.

  She couldn’t stay in New York with Jesse, her mind warned. Phil mustn’t be able to find them. They’d go to San Francisco. Marge was there; they wouldn’t be alone.

  But the company had a store there, she remembered in alarm. No matter, she determinedly dismissed this. San Francisco was a large city. Phil was there for a day or two twice a year. He’d never find them. She’d change her name. She’d be Kathy Altman from this moment on. She would never allow Phil to take Jesse from her. She and Jesse would begin a whole new life in San Francisco.

  By the time she arrived at the Hales’, the guests were beginning to leave.

  “Alice is off for the weekend,” she explained to Irene as nursemaids corralled their charges. “I’m sure it was a wonderful party.”

  “The kids seemed to enjoy themselves,” Irene said happily, but Kathy was aware of startled scrutiny. Did her nose look that bad? “Would you like to stay and have coffee with me?”