Hope Street: Hope StreetThe Marriage Bed

by Judith Arnold

  “When my mom was around, he didn’t touch us. She wouldn’t let him.”

  Bobby had never before told Joelle that his father was violent. He’d mentioned that his father liked to drink, that he usually started getting loaded when he arrived home from work—unless he went straight from work to the Dog House Tavern and got loaded there—and his temper would flare and his mother would steer him into the bedroom to cool off, or he’d fall asleep in front of the TV. But she’d never heard anything about beatings.

  “We don’t have my mom anymore.” Bobby was still breathing hard—from his emotions, probably. He should have recovered from his run by now. “She used to protect us. If they arrest me, who’s gonna protect Eddie?”

  “They won’t arrest you,” Joelle insisted. “You’re just a kid. And anyway, all you have to do is tell them he was beating your brother.”

  “Then they’ll take us away from him and put us in an orphanage or something.”

  Joelle wondered if that might not be an improvement over living with a father who beat his kids. But she didn’t want Bobby sent away—either to jail or to an orphanage—because he was her best friend. “Is your father still at your house?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe you should go back and find out if he’s okay. Maybe he wasn’t hurt as bad as you think.”

  “He was hurt bad. There was so much blood…What if I killed him? I can’t go back there. The police could be waiting for me.”

  She thought some more. He looked so scared. “I’ll go with you,” she resolved. “You can hide while I try to find out what’s happening. If the police are there, we’ll figure out what to do then.”

  “Okay.”

  “Close your eyes,” she ordered him, then hurried across her room to her closet and removed her nightgown. She trusted Bobby not to look.

  She donned a pair of shorts, a T-shirt and her canvas sneakers. Then she crept back to the window and unhooked the screen. Bobby hinged it away from the window frame so she could climb out. The moonlight struck the back of his right hand. His knuckles were swollen and bruised.

  How hard had he hit his father? What if he really had killed him?

  She refused to consider that possibility. After nudging the screen back into place, she and Bobby scrambled over the fence and through the adjacent backyard and the one after that, down an alley and across another tiny yard. They couldn’t risk showing their faces out on the street at this hour.

  Bobby’s house was only a few blocks away. No police cars lined the road. The driveway held only Bobby’s father’s old truck, with its dented rear fender and rust scabs and bug-crusted windshield.

  They sneaked past the truck and around to the backyard. Bright yellow light spilled through the kitchen windows and the screen door and voices could be heard—Bobby’s father and another man. Please, not a cop, Joelle silently prayed.

  Bobby hunkered down in the shadows of an overgrown forsythia while Joelle inched closer to the back porch, straining to make out what the men were saying. She heard a burst of laughter. If Bobby had hurt his father that badly, he and the other man wouldn’t be laughing, would they?

  She crouched as she approached the porch, then straightened enough to spy through the vertical slats in the railing. “So, I’m thinking that sumbitch owes me a raise, one way or the other,” Bobby’s father was saying. “I work harder than he does, don’t I? So—Ouch! No more ice.”

  “It’ll keep the swelling down,” the other man said.

  “The hell with it.” She heard the thump of a glass against the table.

  Gripping the railing, she inched higher, hoping to peek through the window. Unfortunately Bobby’s father saw her as soon as she saw him. His nose was covered with white gauze and tape. “What the hell?” he muttered, rising from the kitchen table and crossing to the porch, his friend right behind him. Both men wore sweat-stained undershirts and work pants worn to a shine at the knees and frayed at the hems. Both were unshaven, and both had tousled hair. Louie DiFranco also had a puffy cheek and a purpling eye and all that bandaging on his nose. “Who is that?” he demanded, swinging open the screen door.

  Joelle hadn’t heard Bobby come up behind her, but he said, “It’s me, Dad. Me and Joelle Webber.”

  “Bobby?” Louie seemed to falter for a moment. Then he managed a feeble smile. “What are you doing out this late? Ya missed all the excitement, buddy.”

  “Your daddy walked into a door,” his friend said, then laughed. “Looks like the door won, huh?”

  Bobby and Joelle exchanged a glance. Apparently Bobby’s father hadn’t told his friend how his face had gotten busted up. If he wouldn’t tell his friend, he sure wasn’t going to tell the police.

  “It’s kinda late for you kids to be running around, don’t you think?” Louie asked. “A little past your bedtime?”

  More than a little. “I gotta take her home,” Bobby told his father. “Then I’ll go to bed.”

  Something flickered across Louie’s face—anger, maybe resentment that Bobby hadn’t apologized for being out late and then meekly entered the house. Maybe fear. But he said, “Fine, you take your friend home and then you get your butt up those stairs and into bed.”

  Neither Bobby nor Joelle spoke as they walked back to her house. No need to run—Joelle’s mother never checked up on her after she went to bed, and now that they knew Bobby’s father hadn’t called the cops, the urgency of the night had vanished. Bobby hadn’t killed his father, he wasn’t going to jail and in all likelihood no one but Bobby, his father, his brother and Joelle would ever know what had happened that night. The rest of the world would be snickering about the night Louie DiFranco drank too much and collided with a door.

  Unlike the DiFranco house, the first-floor Webber apartment was dark and quiet when they reached Joelle’s bedroom window. Bobby jiggled the screen loose from the frame, then let his hands drop to his sides and turned to Joelle. “Thanks.”

  His voice had deepened this past year. It was still a boy’s voice, but lower and thicker than it used to be. When he whispered, he sounded almost like a man.

  “Will you be okay?” she asked.

  He nodded, but his eyes said no. Joelle opened her arms and he let her hug him. Surrounded by the hot summer air, the screech of crickets and buzz of mosquitoes, she held him tight. She felt his rib cage and spine right through his shirt, through his skin. His shoulders had begun to widen, but he was only an inch or so taller than her, and not much broader.

  She couldn’t tell if he was crying. She hoped he was. He needed to and he didn’t have to be embarrassed in front of her. She would never tell anyone.

  For a long time they just held each other. Eventually he leaned back. His cheeks were damp, and she knew if she touched her hair she’d feel his tears in the strands. “I miss my mom,” he murmured, his voice hoarse.

  “Of course you do.”

  He let out a broken sigh. “She wasn’t—you know, beautiful or funny and she didn’t talk a lot, but…She believed in me.”

  “I believe in you.”

  He searched her face, then turned to stare at the moon. “Sometimes I don’t know how I’m gonna survive without her.”

  “You’re strong, Bobby,” Joelle assured him. “You’ll survive.”

  “What if my dad starts in again?”

  “You’re almost as big as he is,” Joelle pointed out. “He can’t push you and Eddie around. You showed him that tonight.”

  “He breaks things,” he told her. “When he gets mad, he breaks things.”

  “They’re just things. As long as he doesn’t break you and Eddie, you’ll be okay.” She reached up to wipe a stray tear from his cheek. He ducked his head away, but not quickly enough to avoid her touch. His skin was warm and fuzzy, like suede. In another year or two, he’d be shaving. “If he tries to hurt you or Eddie, grab Eddie and come here. We’ll figure out what to do.”

  “This isn’t your problem.”

  She shook her h
ead. “I’m your friend, Bobby. That’s all that matters.”

  He peered down at her. Another tear streaked down to his chin, and she brushed her hand against his face. “Yeah,” he murmured, then lifted the screen. “You better go in.”

  She hoisted herself over the windowsill. Bobby held the screen in place while she hooked it shut inside. Then he sprinted across the small backyard to the fence and vaulted over it.

  She stood at her window, watching the night outside. The dampness of Bobby’s tears lingered on her palm.

  GAZING AT THE SQUIRMING bundle of pink in her arms, she remembered that night. Bobby never mentioned his father hitting him or Eddie again, but sometimes she’d sensed a tension in him. And every now and then, when they were hanging out at the A&W or some other place, he’d have Eddie with him. No explanation, no discussion about why a kid three years their junior was tagging along. Joelle suspected that those were nights when Bobby’s father had drunk too much and was breaking things.

  She had learned that night how much Bobby’s mother had meant to him. Maybe the woman had been quiet, maybe she’d made no more of an impression on Joelle than a passing breeze, but she’d protected Bobby and his brother. She’d kept them safe for the years it took Bobby to grow up, to become big enough to fight back. Joelle didn’t really believe in guardian angels, but if they existed, she liked to think Claudia DiFranco was watching over Bobby now, keeping him safe while he faced dangers greater than his father’s fists.

  She was only vaguely aware of all the bustle around her—Maggie, the midwife, gently washing her off with warm, wet cloths, Joelle’s housemate Lucy snapping photos with her camera, Suzanne—at forty, the owner of the house and the grande dame of their community—gathering towels and linens into a laundry basket, Renee combing Joelle’s hair back from her sweaty, teary cheeks and Lenore giggling and cooing and generally being useless. “Try giving her a breast,” Maggie advised. Before Joelle could respond, Renee and Lenore eased down the strap of Joelle’s nightgown to free her breast.

  She lifted her squirming little daughter and guided her nipple into the baby’s mouth. With an eager tug, the baby started to suck. It was all such a miracle—this glorious little girl feeding from Joelle’s body. Joelle a mother. This precious life. This tiny angel.

  “Claudia,” she whispered. “You’ll be my Claudia.” Our Claudia, she added, praying that Bobby would accept her as his daughter, that he would return from Vietnam and still wish to be Joelle’s husband. What if he looked at Claudia and saw Drew Foster in her pale, feathery hair, in her round, gray-brown eyes, her little pink hands and her fingernails like tiny seed pearls? What if, when he confronted the reality of what he’d done, he decided to flee? He’d been the one to point out that they could always get a divorce.

  He’d also been the one to say this baby would be his, a DiFranco.

  Maggie approached Joelle with a clipboard. “Oh, she’s nursing so well! She’s probably not getting full-strength milk yet, but that’ll come soon. I hope she does everything as beautifully as she does this.”

  “So do I.” Joelle was unable to look anywhere but at the baby in her arms, her cheeks pumping and her feet kicking eagerly against the soft cotton blanket in which she was wrapped.

  Maggie picked up the clipboard. “We have to fill out a few forms for her birth certificate. Father’s name?”

  Joelle drew in a deep breath and said, “Robert Louie DiFranco. Capital D, capital F.”

  The midwife left about a half hour later. Suzanne went downstairs to fix dinner and Lenore volunteered to run a load of laundry. Lucy left a stack of instant photos on the bedside table and Renee, at Joelle’s request, brought her stationery box over to the bed. Claudia had already emptied one breast and was drinking from the other, although a lot less enthusiastically. Her eyelids fluttered and her legs didn’t move so much. All the excitement of getting born and eating seemed to have tired her out.

  She had the most delicate eyelashes Joelle had ever seen.

  “Would you like to rest?” Renee asked.

  The peace in the room, after all the tumult of the birth, soothed Joelle. She suspected moments of peace would be rare now that Claudia was in her life. “Thanks,” she said, nodding at Renee.

  Renee left the room, one of five cozy bedrooms in the rambling Victorian. Through the floorboards Joelle could hear the sounds of her housemates moving around downstairs, the muffled drone of the TV, Lenore’s giddy laughter. In her arms, Claudia made a slurping sound, then nestled her head into the bend of Joelle’s elbow. Her eyes were shut—she was obviously asleep, although her mouth kept making sucking motions. Maybe she was dreaming about milk, Joelle thought with a smile.

  Trying not to jostle the baby, she grasped with her free hand for her stationery. She also gathered up the photographs. A couple were blurred and one hadn’t developed very well. But one showed her and Claudia clearly. She set it aside, then took a sheet of letter paper from the box. Dear Bobby, she wrote, I gave birth today to a baby girl. I named her Claudia. I hope you don’t mind.

  SEVEN

  BOBBY KNEW MORE ABOUT GARDENS than Joelle did, but after thirty-seven years of marriage, she’d learned a few things. A few years ago, she’d asked him to help her plant a vegetable garden in the backyard. He’d carved her a plot with as much care and professionalism as he would for any DiFranco Landscaping project. He’d cut a nice-size rectangle, surrounded it with marigolds and trimmed it with scalloped wire fencing buried deep enough to hinder burrowing critters. He’d filled the enclosed area with enriched loam. He’d supplied her with frames to tie her tomato vines and some sort of organic antigrub soil treatment.

  When her children were young, her summers had been filled with mothering. She’d spent every July and August shuttling the kids to day camp, Little League, swimming lessons and play dates. When they’d grown older, she’d chauffeured them to assorted summer jobs.

  But now they were gone and Joelle’s summers were her own. A lot of teachers picked up supplementary income working as camp counselors or tutors, but Joelle and Bobby didn’t require the extra money. And since summer was his busiest season, she was happy to spend those months free of paying work and available to take care of chores he had no time for. She sewed, she puttered, she grew fresh vegetables and she fixed special meals to greet him with at the end of his long days.

  Like lasagna, she thought churlishly, recalling the overcooked meal she’d wound up throwing away last night.

  Gardening wasn’t merely a hobby today. It was therapy. She needed the grit of the warm soil against her knees and between her fingers. She needed the hot sun roasting her. She needed the satisfying rip of roots as she tore weeds from the dirt. She needed something to tame, something to inflict her anger upon.

  How could Bobby have gotten drunk last night? How could he have come home and smashed a vase? Was her family as broken as that vase? Had she demolished the family by telling Claudia the truth about her birth, or had the lie, the basis of her marriage, been like a flaw in the glass, an invisible crack just waiting to split apart?

  Lost in her ruminations and drugged by the morning heat, she wasn’t at first sure she heard Claudia’s voice: “Mom?” Silence, and then she heard it again. “Mom.”

  She glanced over her shoulder and saw Claudia standing on the patio, using her hand to shield her eyes from the sun’s glare as she gazed at Joelle. She wore white cotton shorts and a lime-green camp shirt and she was alone.

  Where were the children? Did Claudia intend to deny Joelle access to her grandchildren because of what she’d done so many years ago? If she did…Joelle would die. Without her beloved grandbabies, she couldn’t imagine how she would go on.

  She stood, tossed down the garden claw she’d been using to loosen the weeds’ roots and dusted the dirt from her knees. “Hello, Claudia.” No sound of Jeremy’s or Kristin’s laughter drifted from the side of the house. Not that Claudia would have let them out of her sight if she’d brought them with her. Th
ey would have been standing right beside their mother on the patio—or, more likely, racing across the grass to Grandma, arms outstretched as they clamored for hugs.

  Claudia must have read her question in her eyes. “I left the kids at a neighbor’s house,” she said. “This isn’t a friendly visit.”

  Of course not. Joelle supposed that meant she shouldn’t hug Claudia, either. Clearly Claudia meant to punish her for…what? Giving birth to her? Marrying a man who promised to be a father for her? Raising her and loving her and sending her off into the world?

  “I want to know about my father,” Claudia said.

  “He’s at work right now,” Joelle said, her voice taut. “You have his number.” Maybe you can meet him for a beer and a few whiskies after work, she thought bitterly. Maybe you can get him so drunk he’ll get sick, the way your brother Mike did, and by the time I join him in bed he’ll be passed out.

  “I meant my birth father,” Claudia said quietly.

  Joelle sighed. She heard an undertone of worry along with indignation in Claudia’s voice. Sadness, too, and fear. “What do you want to know?”

  “I tried Googling his name,” Claudia told her, then laughed dryly. “Drew Foster. I got thousands of hits about foster programs for children, plus a few that seemed to be about drawing pictures and a couple about duels.”

  “Duels?”

  “People drawing their guns. Maybe I would have found some information about him online if his name was weird—Vladimir Binglehoffer or something.” Claudia’s lingering smile, although faint, gave Joelle a touch of hope. Her joke was a door opening a sliver.

  Joelle dared to smile back. “He was one of the rich kids in town,” she explained. “A purebred Wasp with a Waspy name.” Leaving her tools, her gloves and the bucket of weeds by the garden, she strode across the lawn to the patio. “What do you want to know? I’ll tell you everything I can.”

  Claudia ruminated. Evidently she didn’t know what she wanted to know. Finally she asked, “Was he smart?”