by Sarah Jio
Chapter 29
PENNY
An hour passes, and then two. And shortly after one in the morning, I hear Dexter walk into the houseboat. “Penny?” he calls out.
There’s no sense hiding from him. “I’m out here,” I say.
“Why is there a suitcase in the living room?”
I began packing and then gave up. “I, um, well, it’s Mama,” I say. “She hasn’t been feeling well. I thought I might go over and stay with her for a day or two.”
“Why don’t you let me drive you?” Dex offers sweetly.
“No,” I say. “You’ve had too much to drink. I’ll just catch a cab.”
“At this hour?”
“Sure,” I reply, turning back to the lake. “It’s no trouble.” He kisses me and I can smell the piney scent of gin, lots of gin, on his breath. “Besides, you’ve had a lot to drink. You’ll want to rest.”
He smiles. “Won’t you come to bed? Just for a little while?”
“I really should go take care of Mama,” I say.
He clears his throat. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”
“What is it?” I think of Collin’s revelations about Dexter’s father and I feel a pang of sorrow, regret. Instead of the forty-three-year-old man standing before me with his handsome, chiseled features and a shadow forming around his jaw, I see a young boy, lonely, lost, a little sad. I bite the edge of my lip. Damn the Wentworths. If his father loves him so much, why doesn’t he come here himself instead of using Collin as a go-between?
Dex rubs his forehead nervously and stumbles to his left, losing his balance. “Honey,” I say. “Sit down.”
“Penny,” he begins, “I’ve decided something. I’m not going to keep things from you anymore. From now on, it’s you and me.”
I don’t know if it’s the alcohol talking or if this sentiment is genuine, but I gulp, and listen. I nod expectantly.
“I want you to know that I haven’t been honest with you, about . . .”
I think of Lana Turner, then remember the woman who answered the phone at the studio. Do I really want to know what he’s about to divulge? Do I want to hear it? Collin might sail up in an hour, in a day, in a month, and maybe it would be better to leave things as they are. Dex with his secrets, I with mine.
But Dex continues, and I am forced to hear his confession whether I’m ready for it or not. “There’s someone I need you to meet.”
I shake my head. “Who?”
“Her name is Roxanne. She’s eighteen years old.”
Eighteen.
“She’s my daughter, Penny.”
I gasp. “Your daughter?”
“Yes. She’s not much younger than you. I worried what you might think. Also I . . . listen, I made a lot of mistakes in my last marriage, and I’m not proud of myself. You’ve talked about us having children, Penny, and the truth is, I’d make a terrible father.”
I open my mouth to speak and extend my hand to his arm, but he continues before I can say anything.
“I abandoned my first family for reasons that were entirely selfish,” he goes on. “You can see why I decided never to have children again.”
“Dex, please, I—”
“It isn’t in my genetic makeup to be a good father,” he continues with a firm nod. “My father, my grandfather—both were lousy at the gig. So imagine my surprise when Roxanne appeared at the studio. She forgave me.” He wipes a tear from his cheek. “She actually forgave me and gave me a chance to know her. I don’t deserve it, but God, do you know how I have longed for that?”
I stare ahead. I don’t know what to say.
“When I was with Lana, she—”
“Please,” I say. “I can’t bear to hear of your affair.”
“My affair?”
I shake my head in disbelief. “Dexter, you’re telling me that you didn’t . . . ?”
He takes my hands in his. “Penny, my darling, would you actually think that I would do that to you?”
My tears are hard to stop now. I can see the look of shock on Dex’s face, the honesty in his eyes. I’ve misjudged him. I’ve misjudged us.
“All this time,” I say, my voice faltering, “I thought you were having an affair.” I feel overcome with guilt and regret.
“I haven’t been perfect,” he says honestly. “There was a—”
“I don’t want to know.” For some reason the hint of his indiscretion, any indiscretion, makes my guilt more palpable.
He looks down at his feet, then back up at me. “Well, you’d love Roxanne, Penny. She’s been staying at the studio until she starts at the University of Washington in the fall.”
I listen to him talk for the next few minutes. We’ll go to California this fall for a new installation. Lana Turner’s hosting the after-party. New York in the spring for a new art gallery opening. Maybe Roxanne and her new boyfriend can join us. A foursome. I look out at the lake, empty except for a pair of ducks gliding by close to the dock. Collin is gone. I feel slightly dizzy, then overcome with a wave of nausea. I run to the bathroom and throw up.
“You OK in there?” Dex is standing outside the bathroom door. He sounds sweet, attentive, the way he used to in the early days of our marriage. I stand up, dab tissue to the corners of my mouth, and look at myself in the mirror. I’ve lost weight. My cheeks are hollow and colorless. I place my hand on my belly. It’s plausible that the baby is Dex’s, of course.
I walk out to the living room, where I can see the lake. Dex sits beside me on the sofa and nestles his head into the crook of my neck, then reaches for my hand. He holds it up and kisses each finger as if he’s reuniting with every inch of me.
I wonder what I’d do if Collin appeared by the dock now. There he’d be, standing at the front of his sailboat, like a gallant sailor in the night, coming for me. Would I stand up and go to him or stay here with Dex? I feel a panicky flutter in my stomach as Dex stands and pulls me up toward him. “Sleep Walk” has just come on the radio. I first heard the haunting instrumental in California in the lounge at the hotel. It holds new meaning now. Its melody, so sad and dreamlike, lulls me into a trancelike state. Dex holds me strong and sure.
“Dance with me,” he says.
He always feels amorous when he’s been drinking, but it’s different now, more intense, somehow. It could be the first day of the rest of our lives, or the last day of our life together.
I don’t protest as he pulls me toward him. “It’s been too long,” he says, breathing into my neck. My mind wants to argue, but my body welcomes his embrace.
When the song ends, he pulls back and looks out to the deck.
“What is it?” I ask, a little startled.
He shakes his head. “I thought I saw something. Probably nothing.” He resumes his hold on my waist.
For a moment, I think I see a shadow—a sailboat?—but it’s just the ripple of the lake.
I know it then. I feel it. Collin isn’t coming.
Dex kisses my hand and pours two glasses of wine, handing one to me.
“No thanks,” I say, shaking my head.
“Why not?”
Suddenly I have a vision, of Dex holding a baby, gazing at him lovingly, then back at me. Could a child fix us? Is that all we need? I ache for Collin, but if he isn’t coming, I’ll have to go on. I look at Dex smiling at me now. My Dex. He hasn’t always been a perfect husband, but he loves me in his own way. I could tell him about the baby. I could tell him right now. He’d be ecstatic. He’d swell with pride.
Dex watches me as I stare out to the lake. “What are you looking for out there?”
I turn back to him quickly. “The stars are out tonight,” I say, thinking of Collin. He’s probably through the locks now, casting off into the Puget Sound and out onto the ocean, heading south. Without me.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” I say.
“What is it?” Dex kisses my cheek as I feel a cramp in my belly.
“Dex, we’re goin
g to have a baby.” The words tumble out of my mouth without my permission, but I feel better once they do. The secret is out in the open now for him to see, and hopefully accept.
He coughs, spraying wine onto the rug, then sets his wineglass on the kitchen counter. “What in the world do you mean?” He shakes his head, and the look on his face frightens me.
I force a smile. Every man gets a little jittery when he learns he’s becoming a father, I tell myself. “I mean, I’m pregnant. You’re going to be a father, Dex. Well, a father again.” I smile nervously and take a step toward him.
He looks as if he’s just gotten the wind knocked out of him. He sits down and stares at a spot on the rug.
I remember a time the month after we were married when a woman at a department store walked up to us and plopped her nine-month-old boy into Dexter’s arms. “Hold him for just a moment?” she asked. “I left my handbag at the counter at Fredrick and Nelson and carrying Bobby all the way to the end of the shopping center is like lugging a ton of bricks.” I noticed a bead of sweat on her brow. “Please, hold him just for a moment. I’ll be back in ten minutes or less.”
I looked around the lobby where we stood, and we were the only people nearby besides a teenage boy and a woman with toddler twins and a five-year-old boy who was in the midst of a raucous tantrum. I could see why she’d asked us.
Dex nodded nervously, extending his arms mechanically.
“Here,” she said, plopping the large baby into his arms. Dex looked stiff and uncomfortable as we watched the woman bustle off out the door and down the street.
I tried not to laugh. He looked so cute standing there with this rosy-cheeked baby in his arms. “Look at you,” I said. “You’re a natural.”
The comment made him stiffen even more, and the baby began to whimper, which soon turned to a blood-curdling scream. “Take him,” Dex pleaded, handing the child to me.
“There now,” I said, propping the baby on his stomach and leaning him against my shoulder. I rocked him in my arms the way I’d done with children I’d babysat after school, and within a minute, his eyes became heavy and he nodded off.
“See?” I said. “Babies aren’t that scary. You just have to know how to handle them.”
Dex stared at me with a horrified expression. “No,” he said. “No babies.”
I shook my head. “What do you mean ‘no babies’?” I didn’t understand how he could be so hard-and-fast. We’d hardly discussed parenthood. I mean, he knew, vaguely, that I wanted to have children—someday—but we’d never broached the subject head-on.
“I mean I don’t want to have children,” he said bluntly.
“But Dexter,” I said, as little Bobby reached a sleepy fist in the direction of my nose. “You can’t mean that. Give it time. One day we’ll want to—”
“No, Penny,” he said. And then he turned toward Third Avenue. “I have errands to run. Do you think you can catch a cab home?”
“Sure,” I said icily.
I watched him walk away, all tense and angry. The woman came back ten minutes later, as promised, and recovered her baby boy. And I was left standing alone wondering if Dexter’s insistence about not wanting children symbolized something deeper about his past, or if it was simply that he didn’t want children with me.
“Well,” I say, disappointed, pushing the memories deeper into my mind. I place my hand on Dex’s knee, but he stands up, bristling at my touch. “I guess I thought you’d be a little more . . . pleased.”
Dex rubs his chin and paces the floor in a way that makes my heart beat faster. “My Penny,” he says finally, smiling in a strange way. He doesn’t look like the Dexter I know. His expression is mocking and his eyes are wild, like they’ve been lit with a torch. “I never even suspected it.” I hardly recognize his voice.
“Don’t be afraid,” I say, hoping to calm him down. After his revelation about Roxanne, of course he’d be nervous about becoming a father again. That’s only natural. I’ll have to ease his fears. I’ll have to convince him that he’s up for the job. “Darling, you’ll be great with the baby. This is fate’s way of giving you a second chance at fatherhood. You can get it right this time. Maybe he’ll be an artist like you.” I giggle nervously. “We could get him one of those little easels for children. Can you imagine, Dex? A little boy painting beside you in the studio?” I feel a surge of happiness then. The thought of a child, my child, fills me with deep contentment. No matter what, I will not be alone. I will have a purpose.
He laughs to himself. “You really think you can try to deceive me?”
I shake my head. “Deceive you?” My heart is racing now. What is he saying?
He stands up and walks to the door. “I should have known. Tom told me that his mother-in-law saw you on the streetcar, that you were with someone and the two of you couldn’t keep your hands off each other. It was only fair that I’d grant you one indiscretion, given all of mine.” He laughs to himself again.
All of his indiscretions? What about the sentiments he expressed earlier? “Dex, but I thought you—”
He looks at me like I’m a stranger. “A tryst? Fine. A midnight fling? Sure. I’ve had them. But darling, you’ve gotten yourself pregnant.” He shakes his head. “This is unforgivable. You see, my dear Penny, I had a vasectomy before we were married.” His words are cold and searing at the same time. “Let me spell it out for you, love: I can’t have children anymore.” He shakes his head at me, then smiles again, an angry, intense smile. “But whoever the lucky chap is, be sure to give him my congratulations.”
The door slams closed and the sound reverberates in my ears. Tears sting my eyes. I don’t know what to feel, what to do. The cramping in my abdomen is more intense now, and I double over. Mama never said that pregnancy hurts so much. I lean back in the chair until the pain subsides a bit. I need some air and decide to sit on the back deck until I figure out what I’ll do. When I open the closet to reach for my sweater, Dex’s coat falls to the floor. A prescription pill bottle rolls out of the inside pocket. I collect it and read the label: “Take twice daily for depressive episodes.” I’m not surprised that his psychiatrist would prescribe medication for his depression. He needs it. I’ve lost count of how many days I’ve seen him hover in the darkness before sunrise, weeping, lost in his sadness. My eyes widen when I see who the prescribing psychiatrist is. “N. Clyde.” I gasp. Naomi Clyde. My God, he’s been seeing Naomi all this time.
In the next moment, I piece together what should have been obvious all along. The looks. Her coldness toward me. All the talk of his psychiatrist. Of course they’re having an affair. I shiver and slip my arms through the sleeves of my wool sweater, pulling it tight around my body.
I don’t realize that I’ve been crying until I step outside for air and see Jimmy sitting cross-legged, alone, at the edge of the dock. He should have been asleep hours ago. But then I hear the sound of laughter and loud music coming from the top of the dock and realize that the party is still going strong.
“What’s wrong, Penny?” he asks, walking toward me. He’s holding a rubber ball, and his face is clouded with concern.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” I lie. He’s too young to hear of my troubles. I can’t begin to tell him the mess my life is in. Instead, I stare up at the stars sparkling overhead, and I think of how foolish I am. I stayed for Dexter, but he scorned me, and now the man who loves me—the man who loves me so much he promised to love me even if he had only half my heart—is drifting out alone to sea, without me.
Jimmy keeps his eyes fixed on the horizon. “You’re sad like me, aren’t you?”
I nod. “I guess so.”
“What do you do when you’re sad?” he asks. His eyes look like two big full moons.
“I daydream,” I say honestly. “I think of where I’d like to go someday.” In that moment, I envision Catalina Island with Collin. I think about us walking hand in hand on the beach. I think of the baby growing inside me, toddling along the shore. Dex’s words
were painful to hear, but they made things clear.
“Me, too,” he says. “I’d go to Australia and see koala bears.”
I smile.
“Where would you go, Penny?”
“Catalina Island,” I say, looking out to the lake as if I can see my future in front of me. “There’d be turquoise blue water and sunshine. And a big sailboat that would take me anywhere I like.”
“That sounds nice,” he says, bouncing his ball on the dock. He’s quiet for a moment, then turns to me. “Can I go with you?”
If it were only that simple.
I think of Naomi then, with her arms wrapped around Dex, whispering sweet nothings into his ear, and I feel the onset of nausea. I hate thinking of them together, and yet I don’t have the right to be sad. I gave that up the night I let Collin take me into his arms. But the loneliness I feel now, well, it taunts me. “Jimmy, what would your parents think if you just up and left? They’d be sad.”
He shrugs. “I don’t think they’d really miss me.”
“Of course they would.”
I drape my arm around his shoulder. We sit together like that for a moment, until something bright floating in the lake catches my eye. I lean over the dock gently to pick it up. It’s a little sprig of morning glory, the flowering vine Naomi bemoaned.
“If you left, everyone would miss you,” Jimmy says softly. “Everyone would be sad. But not me. No one even cares that I’m here.”
“That’s not true,” I say. “I’d miss you.”
He smiles.
I hold up the little vine I’ve rescued from the lake. A drop of lake water falls from one of its white blossoms onto my dress. “Every person, every thing, has a purpose in this life. You, me, this little morning glory. We’re all interconnected.” Jimmy pauses to look at the flower in my hand. “It’s our job to remember that and to realize how it all works together, even when it feels like the puzzle pieces don’t fit.” I think of my own life then, and how the puzzle pieces not only don’t fit, but they’re hopelessly scattered. Some are missing. Will my life work together the way I promised Jimmy about his? I stand up and tuck the root of the morning glory into a pot near the house. “There,” I say to myself, patting the soil down around it.