Mrs. Kimble

by Jennifer Haigh

  “It’s a complicated situation,” said Jody.

  “Complicated how?”

  Jody reddened. Usually Birdie was the one who blushed, but with her daughter she was cool as a cucumber.

  “I’m just asking,” she said sweetly.

  Jody shut off the water. “If you must know, Russell is married. He and his wife have had problems for years. They’re about to get a divorce.”

  “Married?” The floor seemed to move, as if the house had become unmoored. Birdie gripped at the wall, the table. She felt truly ill.

  “He’s miserable with his wife,” said Jody. “He just stays with her because of the kids. He never loved her. He’s in love with me.”

  Birdie remembered the girl who’d taken her husband away, the hateful Moira Snell. I love him, she’d said, so smug. I’m in love with your husband.

  “In love?” said Birdie. “That’s a reason to destroy a family? Because you’re in love?”

  “Mama—”

  “How could you? After your father ran off with that young girl? After all he put us through?”

  “Mama, sit down. I upset you.” Jody touched her shoulder.

  Birdie wrenched her arm away.

  “Get out of my house,” she said.

  SHE LOCKED herself in the bathroom, splashed cold water on her face, and waited. She stared at herself in the mirror, the color high in her cheeks. Married, she thought. My daughter and a married man.

  She listened to Jody’s heavy footfalls in the bedroom next door, wire hangers jingling in the closet, a suitcase slamming shut. Soon she would be gone; then Birdie would find the bottle in the linen closet and set about the hard work of forgetting what she’d been told. She knew from long experience that it could be done. She’d already forgotten a lifetime’s worth of painful things.

  At the mirror she reapplied her lipstick, swatted her hair with a brush. Like every year at this time, she was ready for the holiday to be over. Her children’s concern exhausted her; they treated her like an old woman who might fall down and break her hip. She peered out the tiny window overlooking the forest. The path was clearly visible through the bare trees. I’m not so old, she thought.

  A knock at the door.

  “Mama,” said Jody. “Come out and say good-bye.”

  “Good-bye,” said Birdie, not moving.

  “Mama.” Jody’s voice sounded thick; she too had been crying. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you that. I knew it would upset you.”

  Birdie waited.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” said Jody.

  Footsteps on the stairs; the front door closed with a thud. From the window Birdie watched Jody’s car disappear down the dirt road. She came out of the bathroom and reached into the linen closet. The bottle was where she’d left it, behind a stack of towels. In the kitchen she rooted through the crowded drawer for her corkscrew; she wasn’t used to having so many clean utensils. The afternoon light was fading. At this hour her kitchen seemed lonely and sad.

  She glanced out the window. An hour of daylight remained, perhaps less. She could wait an hour, but why? There was no reason to wait.

  She left the bottle on the kitchen counter, pulled on her boots, and went out the back door. She made her way down the dirt road, pacing herself. Then, when she reached the forest, she ran.

  She knew the path by heart now, every rock and gully and exposed root; she leapt over them easily in her boots. The air was cold on her bare arms; she had forgotten her coat. In a moment she wouldn’t need it. His trailer was warm inside. She wouldn’t need any clothes at all.

  He was standing on his porch as if he’d been expecting her.

  “Curtis,” she said, catching her breath.

  She had never come to him in daylight. But what difference did it make if nobody was there to see?

  CHARLIE GOT HOME at dusk, heated himself a frozen dinner, and ate it in front of the evening news. He felt as though he’d been away a month; it surprised him to see how little had happened in the world. There’d been a house fire in southeast D.C.; a six-month-old baby had died on Christmas morning. A reporter stood before the burned-out house, the charred skeleton still smoking in the rain. The fire had started in the kitchen; the owner, a single mother named Charmaine Watkins, had been sleeping there with her three children, huddled around the gas stove for heat. The two older boys had escaped unharmed; their mother was in critical condition but was expected to survive.

  “The cause of the fire is still under investigation,” said the reporter. “According to reports, the Watkins family had lived without heat for several months even though the house was newly renovated.”

  Charlie dug into his Salisbury steak. The meat had begun to cool; the sauce had developed an oily skin.

  “The house was purchased ten months ago from this man, District housing developer Ken Kimble—”

  Charlie looked up from his food.

  “—founder of the Homes Project, a nonprofit company that claims to provide affordable housing for poor families.”

  Charlie stared at the television. In the corner of the screen was a photo of his father, smiling broadly, dressed in a tuxedo.

  “Kimble, who is already under investigation by the Department of Housing and Urban Development for alleged financial misdoings, could not be reached for comment.”

  The broadcast cut to a commercial; Charlie switched channels. The D.C. station offered expanded coverage of the fire. Charmaine Watkins had complained to Kimble’s office for months about her furnace; it was defective when she’d bought the house. She couldn’t afford to replace it herself.

  The picture flashed to an impressive Tudor house. Another reporter, a handsome black woman, stood before it.

  “WDC has tried repeatedly to contact Ken Kimble,” she said, “who lives in this house in Great Falls, Virginia.

  “Kimble left town the day before HUD announced its disciplinary action against him. His wife declined to be interviewed on camera.”

  His wife. Charlie wondered if Dinah was in the house, if she and the kid were trapped inside, hiding from reporters. He knew first-hand how brutal the press could be, drawn to scandal like hungry mosquitoes. He pushed aside his food and lit a cigarette, surprised to see that his hands were shaking. He’d wondered about Ken Kimble’s business dealings, wanted to believe the man was crooked though there was no evidence to suggest it. He doesn’t make a dime off of it, Dinah had told him at Thanksgiving. She had trusted the man. In that way she was just like Charlie’s mother.

  He thought of Birdie holed up in Montford. Her TV didn’t pick up Washington stations, and Charlie had never known her to read a newspaper. His sister would find out soon enough, though, and when she did she wouldn’t believe it. She was like every other woman Ken Kimble had hurt. Their mother. Dinah. Probably Joan down in Florida. The old crook had even charmed Anne-Sophie. Charlie thought of her at Thanksgiving, how she’d laughed at Kimble’s jokes. To me he didn’t seem old. I thought he was charming.

  Is it just me? he wondered. Am I the only one who sees through him?

  He took his plate to the kitchen, thinking of Dinah and Brendan alone on Christmas. He wondered how she’d explained it to the kid, where you’d even begin. How do you tell a kid his father is a criminal?

  The kid. He, at least, would believe it; he wouldn’t try to defend the man. My brother, Charlie thought.

  Maybe that’s what it took to see through a fraud like Ken Kimble. Maybe you had to be his son.

  The newspaper sat on the lawn. Dinah peered out the window. The crowd of reporters had dispersed, though a strange green sedan still idled in the neighbor’s driveway.

  She decided to risk it.

  She opened the door and hurried across the lawn. A short, stocky man got out of the car and ran toward her.

  “Mrs. Kimble,” he called. “I need to talk with you.”

  She grabbed the paper and ran back inside, slamming the door behind her. At the kitchen table she tore through the ed
itorial pages. For two days straight there had been letters to the editor from Ken’s former clients, low-income families who’d bought houses from the Homes Project. Charmaine Watkins’s house wasn’t the only one with problems. The others had faulty wiring, leaky roofs, appliances that didn’t work.

  She’d heard about the fire the day after Christmas. Early that morning a reporter had rung the doorbell. The cul-de-sac was crowded with cars; a van idled in the driveway.

  “Mrs. Kimble?” the reporter had said. “Do you have any comment on the fire at the Watkinses’ house?”

  “Fire?” she said stupidly. “What fire?”

  She saw it on the news later that morning: the blackened remains of the house, where a child had died because Ken wouldn’t fix a furnace. She remembered Charmaine Watkins waiting in Ken’s office, the infant asleep on her shoulder: his halo of dark hair, his perfect rosebud mouth. She thought, My husband killed that child.

  The next day she’d called the investigators at HUD. “I want to meet with you,” she said. “I want to get to the bottom of this.” At their meeting the fire was barely mentioned; HUD was more interested in Ken’s financial affairs. Apparently the Homes Project was nothing but a scam, a way to collect federal mortgage insurance. Ken had sold houses to people who couldn’t afford them, had even loaned them money for their down payments. Most of his clients defaulted; when they did, he collected the mortgage insurance from HUD and resold the houses to someone else.

  Dinah sat at the table, head in her hands, listening to the gentle noises of her house: the central air purifier, which made dusting unnecessary; the quiet hum of the dishwasher. She had no idea how Ken had paid for these luxuries. She’d never even wondered.

  When the phone rang she let the machine pick up. Another reporter, she supposed, asking again when Ken would return. She was tired of saying she didn’t know.

  “You’ve reached the Kimbles,” said her own voice, slightly distorted on the tape. “We’re not here now, but please leave a message.”

  “Dinah?” A male voice, deep and resonant. “It’s Wayne. Call when you get this. I saw the paper and I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

  She closed her eyes. Facing him was impossible, given what they both knew: that her husband was a fraud, that she was a fool. For years she’d lived alongside Ken, never suspecting. She had profited from his schemes; in a way she’d even collaborated. She thought of the Man of the Year dinner, the photograph that had appeared on the society page, her hanging on Ken’s arm in the sleazy dress he’d bought her.

  She glanced at the clock. Brendan had gone to his tutor’s for a math lesson; soon she’d have to pick him up. She had already told him everything she knew: the fire, the baby’s death, the HUD investigation into his father’s affairs. He doesn’t need to know this, a voice inside her said. He shouldn’t hear these things about his father. For once she ignored the voice. The story was all over the television, the papers. She could not shield him from it.

  Brendan had listened, stone-faced. “Was it his fault?” he asked finally.

  “It looks that way,” said Dinah. “We don’t know for sure.”

  “He isn’t coming back,” said Brendan.

  “He wouldn’t just disappear.”

  He considered this for a moment. Then: “If they find him, will he go to jail?”

  “He might.”

  Brendan turned away from her.

  “They won’t find him,” he said.

  SHE PUT ON her coat and hat, dark glasses to hide her eyes. In the garage she started her car, then opened the automatic door. The same green sedan was parked on the street, blocking her driveway. The stocky man got out of the car.

  “Mrs. Kimble,” he called. “I’ve been waiting all day to talk with you.”

  She rolled down her window. “Please move your car.”

  “First let me talk to you.”

  “Please.” She glanced at the clock in the dashboard. “I need to pick up my son.”

  “I have to talk to you about your husband.”

  “MOVE YOUR CAR!” Tears rained down her face. “Right now, or I’ll back into you. You think I’m kidding?” She threw the car into reverse and backed down the driveway. The brakes screeched, the bumper inches from the sedan’s side panel. The cool air reeked of rubber.

  The man got into his car and disappeared down the cul-de-sac.

  On New Year’s Eve Charlie packed a box with things Anne-Sophie had forgotten: the cookbook, the hair clip, a silk kimono she’d left hanging from the bathroom door, still smelling of her perfume. He had no plans for the evening; there was nothing to celebrate. A coworker had invited him to a party, but showing up alone was impossible; he dreaded the sympathetic looks, the gentle inquiries about what had gone wrong. I’m what went wrong, he thought. He was defective in some basic way, broken in places that couldn’t be fixed.

  He found the address easily, an old brick apartment building off Dupont Circle. Anne-Sophie had lived in this same neighborhood when they first met. After moving in with Charlie, she’d commuted to Washington every day from Baltimore, forty minutes each way by train. She’d never complained. She was happy to merge her life with his.

  He parked on the street and stood in front of the building, holding the box of her things. Her new apartment was on the second floor. The lights were on; shadows moved behind the bright curtains.

  He buzzed her apartment from the lobby. “Come in,” said her voice over the intercom. She ought to know better, he thought. The city was full of freaks and predators. She ought to at least have asked who it was.

  He climbed the stairs to the second floor. Anne-Sophie’s door was open a crack; through it he heard soft jazz, voices, laughter. She was having a party. He left the box outside her door.

  Afterward he sat in his car for a long time. The night was cold and clear; soon the fireworks display would begin on the Mall. He thought of Dinah and Brendan alone in the big house, another wife and kid his father had left behind. He considered calling them but decided against it; for a week he’d carried their phone number around in his wallet. He still hadn’t used it. What in God’s name would he say?

  He took his mobile phone from the glove compartment and dialed Jody’s number. She’d invited him to watch the fireworks with her and Russell. He couldn’t think of a more depressing way to spend New Year’s.

  She answered on the first ring. “It’s about time,” she snapped. “Where the hell are you?”

  “Relax, Jo. It’s just me.” For just an instant he felt sorry for Russell. That poor bastard’s in for it, he thought.

  “I’m at Anne-Sophie’s,” he said. “I came to drop off her stuff.” A golden light appeared in the sky, followed by a tremendous boom. “Hear that? They just started the fireworks.”

  “Come on over,” said Jody. “Russell should be here any minute.”

  “Nah, that’s all right.” Charlie reached into his wallet and fingered the slip of paper. Dinah and Brendan. “I’m wiped out. I think I’ll just head home.”

  A shower of red exploded in the sky, leaving traces in the air.

  ON NEW YEAR’S EVE Dinah packed Ken’s clothes in a box: shoes, sweaters, winter coats. His suits she zippered into garment bags. On January 2 the whole mess would go to Goodwill. She knew he would never return.

  The house was silent around her. For the first time in fifteen years, she was alone on New Year’s Eve. Brendan was spending the night at Sean Guthrie’s. Sean and another boy had come to pick him up; Dinah had watched the Jeep back out of the driveway and accelerate down the street. She’d been doing it too much lately, watching Brendan leave. One day she would see him for the last time; recent events had taught her that the day wouldn’t announce itself. She had no memory of her last morning with Ken: whether they’d quarreled, whether she’d kissed him good-bye.

  She sealed the box of clothes and glanced at the clock, thinking of Wayne. Parties would be starting; those with plans for the evening had already arrived a
t their destinations. She wondered if he had a date.

  For the third time that evening, she dialed his number. This time she waited for the machine and left a message.

  “It’s me,” she said, her voice quavering. “I called to wish you a happy new year.”

  She hung up the phone. I’ll never be free, she thought. And then: How can I get a divorce if I can’t even find him?

  The doorbell startled her. Wayne: it had to be. She ran a hand through her hair and threw open the door. A short, stocky man stood on the step: the man from the green sedan.

  “Mrs. Kimble,” he said. “At last.”

  “It’s New Year’s Eve,” she said, closing the door. “Don’t you people have the night off?”

  “Wait.” The man grabbed the door handle. Dinah felt a flash of fear. He was powerfully built, with broad shoulders and large hands. She’d been an idiot to open the door.

  “Who are you?” she said. The neighbors’ windows were dark; if she screamed, nobody would hear.

  “It’s not what you think.” He had dark curly hair; his brown eyes looked unnaturally large behind his glasses. She made a mental note in case she had to describe him to the police.

  “I’m not a reporter,” he said. “I’m a relative of your husband’s.”

  “A relative?” She stared at him: the stout frame, the round face. He couldn’t have looked less like Ken.

  “Please,” he said. “Let me come in. Here.” He took off his glasses and handed them to her. “I can’t see a damn thing. There’s no way I can rape and murder you. I’m completely helpless.”

  She took the glasses, her heart racing. This is insane, she thought; but she couldn’t help herself. The thought that Ken might have a relative fascinated her.

  “Come in,” she said.

  In the living room they sat on the sofa. The man reached for his wallet. “Before we start, some visual aids.” He handed her a worn photo.

  “Who’s this?” she asked.