by Joy Fielding
“I don’t know, but you manage.” He tossed the remaining pillows on the floor. One landed close to my feet.
“Watch that!” I yelped, as if I’d been injured.
He looked startled. “Watch what?”
“You almost hit me with that.”
“What are you talking about? It’s nowhere near you.” He pulled down the covers of the bed, started undressing.
“Don’t you dare go to sleep,” I told him.
“Kate, it’s been a long day. You’re obviously all worked up about something, and I don’t think it has anything to do with either Sara or me.”
“Oh, really? And when did you earn your psychology degree?”
“Let’s stop before we say things we’ll regret.”
“I don’t want to stop. I want to know what you think I’m so worked up about.”
“I don’t know. Maybe your sister, maybe your mother, maybe something happened at work that I don’t know about.”
“Or maybe it’s you,” I shot back.
“Maybe it is,” he agreed. “Maybe you’re right, and I’m the problem. I accept it. You’ve made your point. You win. I’m a rotten human being.”
“I never said you were a rotten human being.”
“I’m sure you were getting to it.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth.”
“I’d like to put a gag in your mouth.”
“What?” I gasped. “Are you threatening me?”
Anger flushed his cheeks bright red. “I’m suggesting that we both shut up and try to get some sleep.”
“You’re telling me to shut up?”
“I’m telling you to get some sleep.”
“I don’t want to get some sleep.”
“Then shut the fuck up!” he shouted, and climbed into bed.
And then he didn’t say another word. No matter what I said or did, how much I tried to provoke him, how hard I tried to pull him back into the fray, he wouldn’t bite. Instead, he withdrew, burying himself inside his covers as if inside a cocoon. The harder I tried to drag him out, the farther he retreated.
I accused him of being a poor husband, a bad father, an indifferent son.
He sighed and turned over.
I accused him of caring more for his golf game than his family.
He put a pillow over his ears.
I said he was selfish, childish, and mean.
He brought the comforter up over his head.
I told him he was being passive-aggressive.
He feigned sleep.
I told him to go to hell.
He pretended to snore.
I stormed from the room.
We didn’t speak for three days.
It didn’t help that I knew Larry was right. He wasn’t the problem. Maybe I would have liked it had he spent more time at home on the weekends, but, truthfully, I didn’t begrudge him his golf games. Maybe I was even a little jealous. At least Larry had somewhere to go, a place to escape the insanity that seemed everywhere around us. I had nowhere. Work didn’t help—it only compounded my confusion. I was so busy being in control at the office that I was losing it at home. Larry was my scapegoat, and for a while, he seemed to understand this, but there’s only so much understanding a person can have.
What I really wanted was for Larry to take me in his arms, as Robert had done that morning in the courthouse, and to tell me that everything was going to be okay: Sara would get out of high school and into the college of her choice; my mother would slough off her alien skin and become the woman I’d known and loved all my life; my sister would get off the front pages and back to her senses; Colin Friendly would die and we’d get on with our lives. Was that too much to ask?
But even when Larry did just that, it wasn’t enough.
“It’s okay,” he said one evening as I cried softly against his shoulder. The trial had concluded that afternoon, and despite predictions of a speedy verdict, the jury had been out for over five hours. Reporters were now speculating that if a verdict wasn’t returned within the hour, the jury would be dismissed for the weekend.
“What could possibly be taking them so long?” I asked.
“I think they’re just going over all the evidence, and that by this time on Monday, it’ll all be over,” Larry said, telling me what he knew I needed to hear. “Colin Friendly will be on death row; your sister will be back to normal. Well, normal is a relative concept when it comes to your sister,” he said, and I laughed gratefully. And then we were kissing, softly at first, and then with greater urgency.
It had been several weeks, I realized, since we’d made love. In fact, the last time a man had kissed me this way, it hadn’t been Larry at all, but Robert. “Oh God,” I said guiltily.
Of course, Larry misinterpreted my guilt for passion, and suggested we go into the bedroom. It was Friday night and the girls were both out for the evening.
“Do you think this is a good idea?” I asked between kisses, as he led me into our room, stopping beside our bed.
“Best idea I’ve had in weeks,” he said, sending the fourteen decorative pillows to the floor with one wide sweep of his arm.
“What if the kids come home?”
“They won’t.”
“What if they do?”
“I’ll close the door,” he said, leaving my side to close the door. In the next instant, his lips were back on mine, and his hands were at my breasts, undoing my blouse. “I’ve missed you,” he said, slipping the blouse off my shoulders and onto the carpet.
“I’ve missed you too,” I told him, as his fingers gently teased my nipples through the lace of my bra. “That tickles,” I said, feeling mildly irritated, though I wasn’t sure why.
His fingers fidgeted with the hooks of my bra.
“I’ll do it,” I said.
“No, let me,” he urged softly. “I’m just a little out of practice, that’s all.” He struggled for several more seconds before I ran out of patience and reached behind me to unsnap the recalcitrant hooks.
“I wanted to do that,” he said.
“Don’t whine,” I started to say, but he covered my mouth with his kisses, and pushed me down on the bed, his lips moving to my bare breasts, fastening themselves on my nipples.
In the past, this was always something I enjoyed. Now it annoyed me. As Larry sucked on first one breast, then the other, I found myself growing increasingly angry. “That tickles,” I said again, squirming away from his insistent mouth.
He moved on, undoing the zipper of my gray trousers and sliding them easily off my hips.
“Careful with those,” I admonished as he tossed them aside, his fingers tracing the outline of my lace panties, his lips returning to my nipples. I felt nothing, no sexual stirring of any kind. Just growing irritability. I tried fantasizing: I was a slave girl being auctioned off to the highest bidder. There were perhaps a dozen men pawing me, lifting my skirt to inspect the merchandise, exposing me to their hungry eyes …
It didn’t work. I tried another. I was a college student whose professor had given her a failing grade. What could I do? I begged him. I’d already told my parents I was getting straight A’s. I could come to him after class, he told me, wearing nothing but a garter belt and stockings …
I shook my head, pushed Larry’s head away from my breasts. Nothing was working.
Larry pulled my panties down, buried his head between my thighs. I waited anxiously to feel some release, felt nothing but frustration.
“That hurts,” I told him after several minutes.
“Just relax,” he said. “You’re so uptight.”
“I’m uptight because you’re hurting me.”
“How am I hurting you?”
“You’re applying too much pressure.”
He shifted his weight, adjusted his position. “How’s this? Better?”
“You’re not in the right place,” I said, my voice testy.
“Show me.”
“I don’t want to show you.”
He
raised himself on his elbows. “What’s wrong, honey?”
“You’re not in the right place,” I repeated stubbornly, knowing I was being unfair, knowing the right place was anywhere away from me. “Let’s just forget it. It’s not going to work.”
“Let me try again,” he said.
“No,” I said loudly, drawing my legs together, staring toward the window. I didn’t have to see his face to feel the hurt on it.
The phone rang.
“Don’t answer it,” Larry pleaded softly.
I reached over, grateful for the interruption, and lifted the receiver to my ear. “Hello,” I said as Larry turned away.
“Kate, oh God, Kate.” It was Jo Lynn. She was sobbing.
“What is it? What’s happened?”
“The jury came back. They just announced their verdict.”
I held my breath. Was she sobbing from disappointment or relief?
“I can’t believe it, Kate. They found him guilty. Guilty!”
I closed my eyes. Thank God, I uttered silently.
“Are you all right?” I asked my sister as Larry edged his body off the bed.
“I can’t believe it,” she repeated. “How could they do that when he didn’t do it? It’s so unfair.”
“Do you want to come over?” I asked as Larry walked from the room.
I could feel her shaking her head. “No. I don’t know what to do.”
“I think you should go home, get a good night’s sleep …”
“They found him guilty,” she cried, not listening to me. “He’s my whole life. Oh God, Kate, what am I going to do now?”
Chapter 17
Two days before Christmas, my mother disappeared.
I was in the middle of an argument with Sara when the phone rang. “Could you get that?” I asked. We were in the family room, and I was on my knees, stacking the last of the Christmas presents around the tall, ornament-laden spruce tree.
Sara remained where she was, in the middle of the room, impossibly long legs planted firmly apart on the tile floor, stubborn hands poised on improbably slim hips. She was wearing elasticized black leggings, a cherry-red, too short, too tight tank top, and ankle-length black boots with three-inch heels that exaggerated her already considerable height. Her hair, like parchment paper, had yellowed from continual exposure to the sun, except for the dark roots that framed her oval face like a wide headband. To say she was a formidable-looking opponent would be something of an understatement. In fact, she was terrifying. “The answering machine will pick it up,” she said, not budging. “Why won’t you give me any money?”
“Because I don’t feel like paying for my own Christmas presents again this year,” I told her truthfully, as the phone fell mercifully silent. “I think you’re old enough now to be buying gifts for people with your own money.”
“What money?”
“Money you’re supposed to have saved. Christmas isn’t exactly a surprise. You’ve had lots of time to prepare. Michelle’s been saving her money for months.” I knew it was a mistake the minute the words were out of my mouth.
“Sure, compare me with Michelle, why don’t you?” Sara threw her arms into the air, in a gesture that was simultaneously threatening and full of defeat.
“I didn’t mean to compare you with Michelle.”
“You’re always comparing us. Little Miss Perfect, she can’t do anything wrong. Little Miss Bitch,” she sneered.
“Sara! Stop it right now. Leave your sister out of this.”
“You’re the one who brought her in.”
“Yes, and I’m sorry.”
“So nobody will get any presents from me this year because I don’t have any money,” she repeated.
I shrugged. “That’s too bad.”
“Yeah, you sound really broken up about it.”
The phone rang again.
“You’re determined to embarrass me, aren’t you?” Sara continued, trying a new approach. “Just because I’m not organized like Michelle, because I’m different than you guys, you’re trying to punish me.”
God help me, I thought, clambering to my feet, heading for the phone on the counter that separated the kitchen from the family room. “Hello.”
“Mrs. Sinclair?”
“Yes.”
“Thank God. I tried you a few minutes ago and got your machine.”
“Mrs. Winchell?” I asked, connecting a face to the harried voice on the other end of the line. “What’s wrong? Has something happened to my mother?”
There was an ominous silence. “Then she’s not with you?”
“If I were Michelle, I bet you’d give me the money,” Sara raged, pacing back and forth in front of the counter.
“What do you mean?” I asked Mrs. Winchell.
“I mean, if I were Michelle, there wouldn’t be any problem,” Sara said.
“We can’t find your mother,” Mrs. Winchell said.
“What do you mean, you can’t find my mother?” I demanded. “Would you stop that!” I shouted at my daughter, whose pacing came to an abrupt halt.
“I beg your pardon?” Mrs. Winchell asked sheepishly.
“Don’t yell at me,” Sara snapped.
“Please tell me what happened,” I urged Mrs. Winchell.
Mrs. Winchell cleared her throat, paused, cleared it again. “Your mother didn’t come down for breakfast this morning, and when we went to check on her, we discovered she wasn’t in her apartment, and her bed hadn’t been slept in. I was hoping that she was with you, what with Christmas and everything, and that you’d just forgotten to inform us.”
“She isn’t here.” My eyes shot aimlessly around the room, as if my mother might be hiding behind the large silk palm tree in the corner.
“Is there any chance she’s with your sister?”
“None,” I said, then promised to check with her anyway. “Have you searched the building?”
“Who’s missing?” Sara asked. “Is Grandma missing?”
“We’re searching it now.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“I’m sure we’ll find her,” Mrs. Winchell said, although the quiver in her voice told me otherwise. “If she’s wandered off somewhere, she can’t have gotten very far.”
If she’s been walking all night, she could be halfway to Georgia by now, I thought as I punched in my sister’s number, picturing my mother walking along the center line of the freeway, falling off a bridge into the Intracoastal Waterway, or wading fully clothed into the ocean.
“Jo Lynn, is Mom with you?” I asked as soon as I heard my sister’s voice.
“Is this a joke?” she asked in return.
“She’s missing. I’ll pick you up in five minutes,” I said, hanging up before she could object, grabbing my purse, and running for the door.
“I’m coming with you,” Sara said, right behind me.
I didn’t object. Truthfully, I was grateful for the company.
“Have you found her?” I demanded as my sister, my daughter, and I stormed into Mrs. Winchell’s office. We must have been quite a sight—my yellow-haired Amazonian daughter with her black roots, three-inch heels, and forty-inch bosom, my similarly endowed sister, her hair wild and uncombed, with her white mini-dress barely grazing the top of her thighs, and me with no makeup, blue jeans, and crazed visage, all of us towering above poor, petite Mrs. Winchell, who took several instinctive steps back when she saw us.
“Not yet,” she said, her dark face pinched with worry, “but I’m sure we will.”
“How can you be sure,” Jo Lynn said, “when you have no idea where she is?”
“Have you notified the police?” I asked.
“Of course. They’re keeping their eyes open for her. So far, they haven’t found …”
“… any bodies,” Jo Lynn said.
“Anyone matching her description,” Mrs. Winchell corrected.
“Half of Florida matches her description,” my sister told her.
“And in the meantime,” I interrupted, “what’s being done?”
“We’ve searched all the common rooms, and the kitchen, and the garage. So far, nothing. We have staff checking all the floors,”
“I don’t understand, how could this have happened?” I knew the question was pointless, but asked it anyway.
“It’s hard to keep track of everyone twenty-four hours a day. This isn’t a hospital. It’s strictly a facility for assisted living,” Mrs. Winchell reminded me, as I marveled over the phrase “assisted living.” “The residents are free to come and go as they please. We check on them every morning, of course. If someone doesn’t come down for breakfast and they haven’t previously informed us, then well …” Her voice drifted off. “I’m sure she’ll turn up.”
“Bad pennies always do,” Jo Lynn said, only half under her breath.
I almost smiled. Despite the circumstances, it was nice to know that my sister seemed to have snapped out of her self-imposed mourning and was back to her usual caustic self. Our mother always managed to bring out the best in her, I thought, wondering where on earth she could be.
It was almost two hours before they found her.
A janitor discovered her hiding behind the central air-conditioning unit in the main utility room. She’d somehow managed to squeeze between the unit and the wall, a not inconsiderable feat, considering the tiny amount of space, and it took three workers almost half an hour to extricate her. When they finally brought her to Mrs. Winchell’s office, she was bruised and whimpering, and the front of her mint-green dress was dirty and torn.
“My turn to hide now?” Jo Lynn asked when she saw her.
I rushed to my mother’s side, took her in my arms, hugged her gently to me. “Are you all right?”
“Hello, dear,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“What happened, Grandma?” Sara asked, laying a gentle hand on her grandmother’s back. “Why were you hiding behind the air conditioner?”
“Someone was after me,” my mother confided with a wink. “But I tricked them.”
“Were you there all night?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she answered, rubbing her arms. “Maybe. I’m a little stiff.”
“You must be hungry,” Mrs. Winchell said. “I’ll arrange to have some breakfast sent to your room, and of course we’ll get you all cleaned up and have a doctor look at you.”