Mrs. Kimble

by Jennifer Haigh

  “He said he’d be late. He said to start without him.” It wasn’t true, but she didn’t care. She’d held enough dinners for Ken to know it could be a long wait.

  They ate in silence. Unlike his father, Charlie had excellent table manners—his mother’s influence, Joan supposed. Vivian had had less success with Jody. The girl dismantled each slice of pizza with her fingers. She made separate piles for cheese and pepperoni, then licked the tomato sauce from the bare crust. Joan tried not to watch.

  Finally Charlie spoke. “Do we have to go to church tomorrow?”

  Joan looked at him quizzically.

  “It’s Sunday,” he said. “My mama said we’d have to.”

  Rosa came to clear the plates. Joan hesitated. So Vivian was Christian: yet another thing Ken had failed to mention.

  “Do you want to go to church?” she asked carefully.

  Charlie looked down at his plate. “I’d rather not.”

  She smiled, relieved. “Then you don’t have to.”

  “But what about my dad?” he asked. “Doesn’t the minister have to go?”

  “Minister,” she repeated. A sick feeling spread through her stomach. “Who told you he was a minister?”

  “My mama,” said Charlie.

  Jody beamed. “We never go to church.”

  “Shut up,” said Charlie. His eyes met Joan’s. “You mean he isn’t one?”

  Just then Joan heard the Cadillac in the driveway. “Here he comes,” she said. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

  The front door opened.

  “We’re in the dining room!” Joan called out. She noticed a strange quaver in her voice. No way was he going to bolt upstairs and take a peaceful shower. Not after this.

  Ken came into the dining room, crisp in a linen suit, his starched collar snug at his throat. A cleric’s collar, Joan thought.

  “I was going to change clothes,” he said.

  Her heart raced. “We just finished dinner. Sit down and have some dessert.”

  He sat. Rosa brought out dishes of strawberry shortcake. Joan watched him across the table. He glanced at his watch.

  “How was your day?” he asked the children. “Did you have a good time?”

  “It was okay,” said Charlie.

  Okay? she thought. They’d eaten hot dogs and Sno-Kones for lunch; Charlie had ridden the roller coaster eight times. Surely that was better than okay. It wasn’t as if Vivian had ever taken them to an amusement park. Charlie had said so himself.

  “That’s good.” Ken picked out the strawberries from his dessert, leaving the whipped cream behind; he was as bad as Jody. “What’s on the agenda for tomorrow?”

  Joan put down her fork. For the past two days he’d gone to the office, adhered to his jogging schedule. He’d gone about his business as if his children weren’t even there.

  “You’re asking me?” She rose quickly, her napkin fluttering from her lap to the floor.

  “I’m going upstairs,” she said. “To take a bath.”

  SHE SAT in the tub for a long time, remembering. Their wedding, Ken handsome in his tallis and yarmulke, breaking the glass beneath his feet. After the ceremony her uncle Floyd had embraced him. “He’s like a son to me,” he’d said to no one in particular. “The son I never had.”

  Early in their marriage they’d attended services together; sometimes at Beth Israel, but usually with Floyd and Cookie in Coral Gables. Twice they’d gone to her uncle’s house for seder. Then Floyd had died, a sudden stroke. Joan and Ken hadn’t been to temple since.

  She closed her eyes, picturing her husband’s face—his blue eyes, his straight nose. He’d been vague about his past: his years as a teacher, where he’d gone to school. The University of Missouri, he’d said the first time she asked; another time, she was fairly certain, he’d said Missouri State. She thought of the man at Mulligan’s Steak House, the one who’d recognized him. His old roommate, she thought. From Bethany Biblical Seminary. A stranger had told her the truth; she had simply refused to hear it.

  Her husband was not Jewish.

  WHEN KEN came into the bedroom, she was sitting at the dressing table in her bathrobe, drying her hair with a towel. She wanted a drink but was afraid to pour one. The glass decanter was a wedding gift from her brother; it seemed unutterably fragile. Everything around her seemed ready to break.

  “What was that all about?” said Ken.

  “All what?”

  He stepped out of his trousers and draped them over a hanger. “Leaving me with the children like that. What am I supposed to do with them?”

  Her heart beat as fast as a sparrow’s. “I’ve had them for two days straight. I thought you might enjoy a few minutes of their company. They are your children.”

  “Wait a minute.” His eyes narrowed. “You were the one who was so hot to get them down here. I thought I’d never hear the end of it. Now you’re complaining?”

  Joan put down her comb. Her pulse was loud in her ears. Just say it, she thought. She took a deep breath. “Charlie asked if we’d be going to church tomorrow.”

  “What?” said Ken. “Why would he think such a thing?”

  “Apparently Vivian told him we would be.”

  Ken stared at her. He seemed puzzled but calm.

  You lied to me, she wanted to say. You told me you were Jewish.

  “Vivian,” she said instead. “Your ex-wife. The one you just spent three days with.” She was exhausted, near tears.

  Ken frowned. “Is that it? You’re jealous of Vivian?” He sat at the foot of the bed. “Be reasonable. I haven’t seen the woman in four years. I couldn’t drive off with the children just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “It took a little persuasion.”

  “I’ll bet it did,” said Joan. “I’ll bet you were much more persuasive without your wedding ring.”

  “Joan.” He reached for her; she brushed his hand away. She tightened her bathrobe around her and went downstairs.

  CHARLIE LAY in the top bunk. Their father had sent them to bed early; it wasn’t even dark yet. From across the hall he heard low voices, his father’s and Joan’s. Even with the door closed he could tell they were fighting.

  “What are they saying?” Jody whispered.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  A while later the voices stopped. His sister’s breathing deepened; in the distance the ocean whispered. Charlie sat up in bed. Outside the moon was full, the sky fuzzy and starless. He stared out the window for a long time. The garden was filled with strange trees, shapes he couldn’t identify. He thought of the three slices of strawberry shortcake downstairs in the refrigerator. “Rosa made extra,” Joan had told him. “If you get hungry, help yourself.”

  He crept down the staircase and into the dining room, then peered through the archway, into the kitchen. Joan sat at the counter with her face in one hand, a burning cigarette in the other. Her shoulders shook; even from behind he could see she was crying.

  He heard footsteps on the stairs, his father’s voice. “Joan? Honey, where are you?”

  Charlie felt suddenly sick. If he turned back now, he’d run right smack into his father. He looked around. The doorway was flanked by small trees in clay pots; he crouched behind one of them, making himself small. He held his breath as his father swept past.

  “Are you smoking?” his father asked.

  Joan turned to him. Her face was red from crying. “Obviously,” she said. “Obviously I’m smoking.”

  His father took the cigarette from her hand and stamped it out in an ashtray.

  “You’ve been under an enormous strain,” he said, stroking her hair. “I should have seen that.” He sat on a stool next to her. “You have nothing to worry about with me and Vivian. That was finished long ago. She means nothing to me now.”

  Charlie thought of his mother flushed and pretty in the flowered dress, hanging on his father’s arm. His mother standing in the backyard, waving as they drove away.

  Joan sniffed loudly, a
moist, slurry sound. “Do you love me?”

  “You’re my wife. Of course I love you.”

  He leaned over and kissed her. A long kiss, like the one he’d given Charlie’s mother two days before. Charlie thought of the man’s hands, the band of white skin where a wedding ring would be.

  “I’ve made a mess of things,” said Joan, wiping her eyes. “I don’t think the children like me.”

  “Sure they do. You’ve been great with them. It just takes a little time, is all.” He stood and offered her his hand.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go to bed.”

  Charlie held his breath as they passed through the doorway. He listened to their footsteps climbing the staircase, a door closing upstairs. Finally he tiptoed up the steps to the room where his sister slept.

  “Get up,” he whispered, shaking her. “It’s time to go home.”

  THEY WAITED until dark, then waited some more. Finally they crept down the stairs, Charlie carrying the old suitcase. The moon had risen; a cold light bathed the marble floor, pooling softly in the thick white carpets.

  “Be careful,” Charlie whispered. All he needed was for Jody to miss a step and fall headfirst down the iron stairs. He thought of a cartoon he’d once seen, a cat’s head bumping along a staircase, each step sounding a different tone, like a large xylophone. His sister’s head would make a hollow noise; she was that stupid.

  They reached the bottom stair and tiptoed across the foyer. Charlie turned the dead bolt and the heavy door opened with a creak.

  “Which way do we go?” Jody whispered.

  “Don’t worry. I know.” Over and over they’d passed the bus station in the car, driving back and forth from the shopping center and again on the way to Disney World. Charlie hoped he could find it in the dark. He fingered the three twenty-dollar bills in his pocket. It was an enormous sum of money, more than he’d ever held in his hand at one time. He’d stolen it from a straw pocketbook Joan had left on the sofa. It bothered him a little—he wanted to steal from his father, not Joan—but they were in a hurry, and it was too good to pass up. Sixty dollars would be enough to buy their tickets home. At least he hoped so.

  At the end of the drive they went right. Charlie glanced back at the big house, the dark window where his father and Joan were sleeping. The ocean thundered; the path of crushed seashells glowed under the swollen moon. He paused for a last look at the baby blue Cadillac. Then he turned his back on the house.

  THEY WALKED a long time, down winding streets dotted with fancy houses, then along a stretch of highway. In the distance the ocean breathed, like a large animal sighing in its sleep.

  “Are we almost there?” Jody asked.

  “Almost.” It might have been true; he didn’t know one way or the other. Charlie shifted the suitcase from one hand to the other. His shoulders ached from carrying it, as though someone had tried to tug his arms from their sockets. He looked up at the sky. The moon had disappeared; a gauzy film covered everything, heavy and damp.

  “It’s raining,” said Jody.

  A drop landed on his face, warm as a tear.

  “Is not,” he said.

  The air smelled of pavement; a moment later lightning streaked across the sky. Then the heavens opened.

  “Now what?” Jody wailed.

  “Keep going,” said Charlie.

  IT WAS after midnight when they found the bus station. “Go sit down,” he told his sister. Then he approached the counter. Behind it a man lounged in his chair, reading a newspaper.

  “I want to buy some tickets,” said Charlie.

  The man put down his paper and looked around. “Where are your parents?”

  “My mama’s not here,” said Charlie. “She’s sick.”

  “What about your dad?”

  “He’s dead.”

  The man frowned. “Where are you headed, son?”

  “Montford, Virginia.”

  “Virginia. Why would a boy be going to Virginia in the middle of the night?”

  Charlie squirmed. His wet T-shirt was plastered against his back. “To see my grandma.”

  “All by yourself?”

  “Me and my sister.”

  The man glanced over Charlie’s shoulder. “Does your grandma know you’re coming?”

  “No.” Charlie handed the man his sixty dollars. “It’s a surprise.”

  The man took his money. “Well, there’s no bus until six in the morning.”

  “That’s okay,” said Charlie. “We’ll wait.”

  JOAN SLEPT late that morning; when she awoke Ken had already left for his run. She stood at the window watching him, the August sun warm on her face. He ran along the water’s edge, the low tide erasing his footprints, wiping away all trace of him. He lied, she thought. Someday, perhaps, she would forgive him. In the meantime she had the children.

  She wrapped herself in a robe and headed downstairs. “Rosa,” she called out, “could you make Charlie and Jody some waffles?” It had been her favorite breakfast as a child, hers and Ben’s. She ought to have recalled that sooner. It’s not so difficult, she thought. She’d been a kid once herself; all she had to do was remember.

  Rosa appeared at the bottom of the stairs. “How many waffles?”

  “I’m not sure. Charlie has a big appetite.” Joan turned and headed back upstairs. “Let me see if they’re hungry.”

  She tapped at the bedroom door. “Jody! Charlie, are you awake?”

  THEY SAT at the front of the bus, the engine grinding beneath them. Charlie shivered in his damp T-shirt, wishing for a sweater. He’d abandoned the suitcase, left it in someone’s front yard when it became too heavy to carry. He knew, but didn’t care, that his mother would be angry. He thought of his room, his own bed. Once he was home she could yell at him all she wanted.

  He glanced over at his sister, asleep in the seat beside him. She had no more sense than a baby; he had to watch her every minute. When he came back from the ticket counter, she was talking to a man who’d given her a quarter. She’d told him all about the big pink house, the swimming pool, the stuffed alligator Joan had given her as a present. “You dope,” Charlie hissed when the man went away. Their mother had warned them about talking to strangers.

  Charlie closed his eyes. He’d stayed awake all night in the hard plastic chair, listening to Jody snore, worrying about the twenty dollars he had left in his pocket; and now that they were safe inside the bus, he couldn’t fall asleep. Through the window he watched the sky lighten, the morning clear and streaked with pink.

  I’ll sleep when we get home, he thought.

  Kineahora.

  The Burdine’s truck came promptly at nine. Joan stood in the doorway of the bedroom, watching the men separate the bunk beds where Jody and Charlie had slept. She did not cry as the men struggled down the spiral staircase and loaded the beds into the truck. She signed the clipboard they offered and handed them each a twenty. The truck backed out of the driveway and disappeared down the road.

  She sat in the empty room, smoking. The bright new wallpaper looked garish in the bare light. She’d already returned the curtains to the store.

  A week had passed since the children ran away. She’d been in tears when Ken came back from his run. “Call the police,” she said. “Tell them it’s an emergency.” He’d insisted on looking for them himself; an hour later he’d called her from the bus station. A clerk there had sold a little boy two tickets to Virginia.

  “Can we go after them?” she said.

  “No,” said Ken. “I’ll have to call their mother.”

  He made the call in private, from his office. Joan didn’t object. She’d stopped caring whether Ken spoke with his ex-wife, what the two of them said to each other. None of it matters, she thought. Just let the children be safe. It occurred to her that she was praying. The next day Ken told her that Charlie and Jody had arrived in Virginia. Joan, once again, was alone with her husband.

  Destiny, she’d learned, was written in the heavens; a perso
n couldn’t take what the universe didn’t wish to give. Her own child had been taken away; in her pain she had tried to take someone else’s. A perverse act, malignant in its selfishness. One that God would not permit.

  She never told Ken what his son had said, never confronted him about being a minister. He had lied to her about the deepest thing; their marriage was founded on a lie. But she had lost everything else. He was all she had.

  She found the lump in bed one night as he lay sleeping beside her. She wasn’t surprised. She’d been waiting for it all along.

  Dinah

  Washington, D.C.

  1979

  They met by accident on a snowy day in January, a dark afternoon when the street lamps came on at three o’clock. To Dinah Whitacre, who did not believe in accidents, their meeting seemed fated. Their paths had already intersected once—years before, in Richmond, when she was just a girl. For it to happen a second time required an alignment of large forces, a rare convergence of time and weather and traffic. To call it a coincidence seemed ludicrous.

  The bus was late that morning, and crowded. Dinah crammed into a seat in the back, her thick down jacket insulating her from the strange bodies on either side. Next to her a stout man folded the Post, elbowing her puffy side. Over his shoulder she scanned the headlines: “Record Snowfall Pummels East Coast.”

  The bus stopped at a red light; on both sides the avenue was glutted with cars. She glanced at her watch. In a few minutes the first lunch customers would arrive. In four years she’d never been late for work; her punctuality had won her the approval of the chef, who was not easily pleased.

  The light changed; the bus lurched forward. Just then a second bus appeared at the cross street; a moment later it slid, spinning, into the intersection. Brakes squealed; Dinah was thrown forward against the seat ahead of her. At the front of the bus a baby wailed.

  “Is everybody all right?” the driver shouted.

  Debris littered the aisle: pocketbooks, bag lunches, an open briefcase spilling papers across the floor. A small crowd had formed on the sidewalk. In the distance a siren screamed. She slid out of her seat, legs trembling, and stepped across the clutter in the aisle. Around her passengers grumbled, swore, rubbed their necks. She reached the front of the bus.