Tides of the Heart

by Jean Stone

  Could be good. Might endear the doctor to him, and make him think this was a social call, not an inquest about the past.

  He couldn’t help feeling a little odd, though, about meeting the doctor who had delivered him, the man who’d slapped his bottom or whatever doctors did to help him give his first cry and take his first breath of this thing called life. He wondered if the doctor would remember P.J., if her auburn hair and emerald eyes would have remained in memory.

  For Jess’s sake, he wanted this to go smoothly. And quickly. He doubted there was any truth behind the letter or phone call she’d received. The world, after all, was filled with weirdos.

  But for Jess, he needed to be sure.

  Suddenly the door to the off-limits-beyond opened, and a woman entered the waiting room. It was not the receptionist; it was a stern-looking woman in a white coat with a rectangular blue name badge—not nondescript white like the other badges he’d seen there. The blue-badged woman walked toward him. Phillip slipped his foot back into his loafer and stood. He had fifteen minutes left to find out all the answers.

  “Mr. Archambault?” the woman asked in a voice that was, indeed, stern. “You asked to see William Larribee?”

  Phillip’s eyes fell to the badge: Marjorie Banks, M.D., it read.

  “Yes, Dr. Banks.”

  “Visiting hours are not until seven P.M.”

  He dug into his pocket and handed her his card. “I’m an attorney, Dr. Banks. I need to see Dr. Larribee on business.”

  “This is a retirement home, not a prison. The fact that you’re an attorney makes no difference.” Her eyes narrowed behind her wire frame glasses. “Visiting hours are at seven.” She handed him back his card and turned from the room.

  “Tonight?” Phillip asked. “Can I see him tonight?”

  “Seven to nine,” Dr. Banks replied and disappeared through the door.

  “Location, location, location,” Joseph said smugly, folding his arms and looking out the huge office window directly onto Park Avenue. “We’ve made it, little brother.”

  Phillip was unsure if the flush he felt in his cheeks was from his public-transportation sprint back into town, from knowing he’d have to repeat the frenzied trek to make the seven o’clock visiting hours, or from the excitement about where he now stood.

  The brownstone was impressive: The stenciled, frosted glass on the oak front door created a dramatic entrance, and the first-floor access would certainly be convenient. The interior was polished and inviting: Its gleaming wood floors and turn-of-the-century mahogany woodwork had been carefully restored; its high ceilings and tall windows were stately and … lawyerly. It was a place where they could be proud to bring clients. For some reason, Phillip thought of Jess. He would be proud to bring Jess here. He would have been proud to bring P.J.

  “Can we really afford it?” he asked his older and presumably wiser brother.

  “We can’t afford not to afford it,” Joseph replied. “This is our turning point.”

  He wondered if Donald Archambault had had a turning point or if he’d been content with what he had built: stability, not great wealth. “I wonder what Dad would think,” Phillip heard himself say.

  “Dad would be stunned. Maybe even a little envious.”

  Walking to the white marble fireplace, Phillip closely examined the detail of the intricately carved mantel. “Can we still have a secretary? A real one?”

  Joseph laughed. “With health insurance and personal days? You ask for a lot, little brother.”

  Irritated, Phillip loosened his tie and thought about Joseph’s slightly skewed motto: It doesn’t matter what’s in the checkbook, it’s what other people think is there that counts. “We have to have a secretary,” Phillip said.

  His brother laughed. “Only kidding. I’ve already contacted a placement service. We’ll have not only one secretary, but two. One for me. One for you. And a receptionist. Full-time.”

  Phillip looked into Joseph’s Irish-Polish-whatever eyes. “Are you sure?”

  “Quite. And so is Jim Crowley.”

  Jim Crowley was their overworked accountant, a nervous little man who had so far managed to keep Joseph’s extravagances within the confines of their budget. Phillip had no reason not to trust him.

  He relaxed, nodded, and looked around thoughtfully. It was not difficult to picture a grand cherry desk, comfortable wing chairs, an Oriental rug. He could not deny it would be pleasant to come here each day. The richly paneled walls symbolized the success and confidence that even Phillip longed to feel.

  “So is it a go?” Joseph asked.

  Phillip smiled. “Remind me to thank McGinnis and Smith for their business.”

  “You can do it tonight. We’re having dinner.” Joseph picked up his briefcase. “Seven-thirty. At the club.”

  “Tonight?” he asked, an image of blue plastic chairs and a faceless Dr. Larribee coming into his mind.

  “Don’t tell me you have other plans.”

  “I wish I’d known earlier.…”

  Joseph set down his briefcase, the leather slapping the wood floor and echoing in the empty room. “Do you finally have a social life?”

  “It’s not social, Joseph. I’m doing a favor for a friend.…”

  His brother’s eyebrows raised.

  “Not a favor, exactly,” he said. “Possibly a paying client.” Jess, after all, had said that she’d pay him, though he had no intention of accepting anything from her. He flicked his eyes away from Joseph’s, so his brother would not detect the white lie he’d just told.

  “Are you holding out on me, little brother?”

  Phillip did not respond. He wasn’t trying to be evasive, shrewd, or manipulative. He simply did not know what to say.

  “Come on, Phillip. I’m not just your partner. I’m your brother, remember?”

  The old radiators hissed, warming the room. “Forget it, okay? Seven-thirty at the club is fine. What I planned I can change to tomorrow.”

  “No you can’t. Tomorrow’s Wednesday. Dinner with Mother.”

  “Oh. Wednesday. Right.” Would his life ever be his own?

  “And you’d better wear your Sunday best. Camille hinted that Mother’s found another girl for you to inspect.” He leaned toward Phillip and winked. “Unless, of course, these secret plans you have would interfere with meeting another hot-to-trot female.”

  Phillip groaned. “Hot-to-trot? I’d settle for one who was just decent to look at.” He knew he was exaggerating, the way guys needed to exaggerate in order to sound like men.

  “Mother worries about you, Phillip. She wants you to settle down.”

  No one seemed to care that Phillip was not ready to settle down, to buy a house in the suburbs like Joseph and Camille, to pick out china and silver and have someone else in his space who would surely not appreciate his socks on the floor. No one seemed to care because Phillip was almost thirty and it had been decided that it was time.

  Joseph plunked a well-intentioned hand on Phillip’s shoulder. “Humor her, little brother. Now let’s go sign these papers before those vulture real estate people sell this place out from under us.”

  “Right. Okay.” He buttoned his coat and tucked his wool scarf around his throat, resigning himself to the fact that William Larribee would have to wait until after McGinnis and Smith. Until after dinner with Mom and the latest of her dream girls. Phillip’s priorities, after all, were about to move uptown. Surely Jess could wait another couple of days.

  Jess tried to act normal as she watched Maura pack for the Caribbean, tried not to let her anger, her hurt, her frustration show. It had been nearly five years ago that Maura had come to Jess: sixteen, pregnant, and scared. That was when Charles had called his daughter a whore; had tried to insist she have an abortion she did not want; had accused her of trying to destroy his reputation, his business, his life. Apparently, Maura had forgiven her father, had forgotten her tears and her pain.

  Jess had not. Nor did she doubt that if Maura h
ad not had a miscarriage—if she instead now toted a four-year-old illegitimate child whom Charles’s business associates would discreetly not ask about over lunch—she would not have been invited on this catamaran junket.

  Jess also wondered if Maura would have ever considered spending spring break with her father if he had not agreed to let Eddie go with them.

  “Mom,” Maura said, folding a tank top and tossing it into her bag, “I know you’re probably not thrilled about me going with Daddy, but it’ll be fine. Besides, it’s time I tried to get to know my stepmother. Family units have changed today. We have to adapt.”

  Jess wondered if this philosophy was straight from one of Maura’s human development courses or if she’d come to that realization on her own. “Well,” she said quietly, “I can’t argue with that.”

  “Why don’t you ever go out, Mom?” Maura asked so quickly it startled Jess.

  Jess laughed. “And just where would I go?”

  “Have dinner. Go to the theater. Travel.”

  “On a catamaran in the Caribbean?”

  “Mom, one of these days you should start having some fun and stop being a martyr.”

  “A martyr? Is that what you think of me?”

  “Well, no. I don’t know. You work so hard at your business. You still cook dinner for Travis every night. God, you still do his laundry.”

  “Travis is still in high school, Maura. He’s a child.”

  “In a few months he’ll be on his own. You’ve babied him, Mom. You babied all of us.”

  Staring into Maura’s suitcase, Jess tried to digest what she had just heard. “You are my children,” she said, not undefensively. “You are my responsibility. I did not baby you. I took care of you.” At this moment, Jess hated it that Maura had come home from college with all this psychobabble.

  Maura sat next to Jess on the bed, the puffy-pink-comforter-covered bed that Jess had always made sure was just so for her little girl. The little girl she had raised.

  “I’m not criticizing you, Mom. But it really is time for you to let go. After Travis goes to college, what will you do? Work twenty-four hours a day? There’s more to life than that, Mom.”

  “For your information, after Travis leaves I am going to curl up at night and read wonderful books. I am going to cook microwave dinners and enjoy the peace.” In her mind, the idea had once sounded blissful. Now that she said it aloud, it sounded isolatingly lonely.

  “Why don’t you ever call KiKi Larson? You used to be friends, and she’s divorced, too.”

  Jess laughed. “Oh, my, yes. KiKi is divorced, all right.” She did not mention that she had seen KiKi one night last fall, when the woman had hounded Jess into attending a singles social at the Grand Oaks Hotel. “You must get out, Jessica,” KiKi had whined. “A new man isn’t going to come marching into your living room. You have to mingle.” So Jess had tried. But KiKi’s concept of “mingling” meant dancing with every man who asked her and asking those who did not. Feeling both absurd and embarrassed, Jess had left early and vowed never to mingle again. She looked at her daughter now and smiled. “I’m afraid KiKi’s only interest is in men.”

  “That doesn’t make her wrong,” Maura replied, as she stood up and shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re afraid of, Mom. Not every man is like Daddy.” Maura returned to rifling through her closet.

  Jess remained on the bed and thought about what her daughter had said. There was some consolation in Maura’s acknowledgment that Charles was not perfect. But, of course, she was right. Once Travis left in the fall, Jess would be alone, her job as a seven-days-a-week mother eliminated for the first time in twenty-three years. Her thoughts drifted to her other daughter, who might or might not still exist, who would turn thirty this year, who might even be a mother herself, who might have a family to care for. She wondered if she was a good mother, if she would care as much as Jess had. Too much, according to Maura.

  Of course, first of all, she would have to have found a man. Hopefully, one of the ones who, as Maura said, wasn’t like Charles.

  She rose from the bed. “I’m going to get the sunblock,” she told Maura. “You’ll need plenty of it down there.” As she headed down the hall, Jess wondered if providing sun-block was babying her daughter. Then she wondered if she had been overprotective in an effort to make up for Charles being so insensitive. Or maybe she had needed to keep her children close so she would not lose them the way she’d lost Amy. Amy, or whoever her first child had been.

  Her name was Nicole, and her father was a Chicago defense attorney who played in the big leagues and had tried—and won—huge settlements for weeping, diamond-clad women whose wealthy husbands had scorned them. Jeanine Archambault played bridge with a friend of a friend of one of Nicole’s father’s much-satisfied clients. Nicole was a first-year law student at Columbia, so naturally she must be in need of a friend like Phillip, someone to show her the ropes in Manhattan, legal and otherwise.

  Nicole was attractive in a law-student sort of way, with plain chestnut hair cropped just under her ears, a black cashmere turtleneck and black pleated pants hugging her too-thin frame, and wide brown eyes bloodshot, no doubt, from reading too many books. It was a look that Phillip certainly could relate to.

  But Nicole’s smile seemed genuine as she accepted the platter of pot roast from Phillip’s mother now and commented how wonderful it was going to be to taste home-cooked food.

  Jeanine smiled at Phillip. Camille smiled at Joseph. Joseph looked at his mother and winked. And everyone seemed to agree that Nicole was a quite suitable girl for the young attorney whose time had come.

  Scooping mashed potatoes onto his plate, Phillip hated himself for wondering if P.J. would have tried to fix him up, if P.J. had raised him, if P.J. had not died. Nicole was one more in the long, poor-Phillip-has-no-time-to-meet-anyone string of potential mates handpicked by Jeanine, Camille, and, on one occasion, Joseph himself. To date, they had resulted in a series of rather dull evenings at Mom’s, followed by Phillip’s obligatory invitation to dinner in the city, which had only heightened the dullness. Except, of course, with Suzanne Devine, who had hung up the proper gray sheath she’d worn to Jeanine’s table and showed up in the city in a red spandex minidress and four-inch stilettos. Phillip suppressed a grin now as he remembered the night he shared with Suzanne—the outrageous way she’d flirted with him all through their obligatory date, the even more outrageous way she’d spent the rest of the night slathering him with whipped cream and giving him head.

  He shifted uncomfortably on the tapestry-upholstered dining room chair now, sorry that Suzanne had returned to San Antonio the following clay, where she told him she had a fiancé waiting and that it most definitely was her loss.

  Jeanine interrupted his thoughts. “Nicole’s specializing in children’s rights,” she said.

  “Labor laws, mostly,” Nicole said. “More and more children are working today. It’s a shame. The world is moving so quickly they barely have time to be kids. We have to protect them.”

  Handing the guest the bowl of potatoes, Phillip half-smiled. “Children’s rights is a long way from divorce court.”

  A rebellious twinkle came into the bloodshot brown eyes. “If you’re speaking about my father, you’re right. I’m sure he’d rather see me in a gray suit and heels, following in his high-profile footsteps.”

  Phillip wondered if it would be appropriate to ask if she owned any red spandex dresses. Instead, he decided he’d invite her to dinner—maybe this weekend—not tomorrow, of course. Tomorrow night was reserved for William Larribee. Tomorrow night was reserved for helping Jess. Then, once he learned what had happened to her baby, he would make time for Nicole. It would please his mother, and it might not be such a bad idea for himself.

  • • •

  The man in the wheelchair had thick white eyebrows that stuck straight out from his forehead as if they’d been glued on. His face was liver-spotted, his eyes filmy from cataracts, and he was completely b
ald. All in all, he resembled a Mr. Potato Head, one who, perhaps, had spent too many years at the bottom of a bottle of gin. In a court of law, he would not be the picture of a credible witness.

  “Dr. Larribee,” Phillip said, extending his hand. “You brought me into the world.”

  “Don’t hold it against me,” the old man said, planting a dry, gnarled hand into Phillip’s.

  It was not the welcoming response Phillip would have expected from a doctor. He withdrew his hand from the dry one and sat down on the blue plastic chair in the “activities room” where he’d been escorted by the receptionist moments ago when the clock had struck seven.

  “I’m an attorney,” he said, handing his card to the doctor.

  The old man shook his head and averted his eyes. “Can’t read anything with these damn eyes,” he said. “Don’t need a damn lawyer, either, if that’s why you’re here.”

  Just how bad was his eyesight? Too faulty to have written the letter that Jess had received? Phillip slipped his card back into his pocket. “No, Dr. Larribee, I’m not looking for business. I’m looking for answers.” The old man was surly, the old man was curt. Phillip decided to be direct. It might be his only chance to find out the truth.

  “Depends on the questions.”

  “My mother was P.J. Davies,” Phillip began. “She was a resident at Larchwood Hall.” He had wanted to mention her distinct auburn hair; he had wanted to share with the doctor that P.J. had died, but that he’d been there beside her, reunited at last. He’d wanted to share these things with this man, but he could not. Instead, he watched Larribee rub his palms on the rubber wheels of his chair.

  “Don’t remember her.”

  Phillip wondered if the old man was lying, or if he himself would be able to remember a client thirty years from now—even one as strikingly beautiful as P.J. had been. “What about Jess Bates?” he asked. “She was very young. Only fifteen. You delivered her daughter in 1968, the same year as me.”

  “Never heard of her.”