Kiss Mommy Goodbye

by Joy Fielding

  “It certainly isn’t important enough to fight about.”

  “Maybe I think it is.”

  “Do you?”

  Donna covered her face with her hands.

  Mel walked quickly to her side, sitting down and putting his arm around her. “What’s the matter, Donna? Did Victor call today?”

  She shook her head. “No.” It had been five weeks since the last phone call. “I thought he might. I actually sat by the phone for a few hours and waited.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “Gave me something to do.”

  There was silence. “Donna, you can’t just sit around like this month after month. It’s not good for you. It’s not good for any of us.”

  “I can’t go anywhere. Victor might call.”

  “And he might never call again. You can’t sit around waiting for the phone to ring.”

  “What do you recommend?”

  “Why don’t you get a job? Go back to work.”

  “You make it sound so easy. I’ve been away from the work force for a long time.”

  “I know.”

  “I haven’t worked in seven years.”

  “Nobody’s saying it’ll be that easy, but why don’t you give it a try, it might not be that difficult either.”

  “Oh sure, I’ll just pick up the phone and call Steve McFaddon.”

  “You could.”

  “Oh, Mel, don’t be so naive.”

  “Oh, Donna, don’t be so negative.”

  “Fuck off.” She said it almost casually and was surprised to see he treated it that way. He simply shrugged, removed his arm from around her, stood up, and walked toward the dresser. “Besides,” she added hastily, “I thought you liked the fact that I’m home for Annie.”

  “It was a good idea.” His voice underlined the word “idea.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that I think we’d all be a lot better off, Annie included, if you would get out of the house more.”

  “Has Annie said anything to you?”

  “Annie hasn’t said more than ten sentences in the last month.”

  “You think that’s my fault?”

  “I think you should get dressed so we can get going.”

  Donna remained exactly where she was. “I told you that I don’t know what to wear.”

  Mel walked over to the closet and pulled out a pair of mauve pants and a matching mauve-and-white striped top. “What’s the matter with this outfit?”

  Donna shrugged. “It’s all right.”

  “Well?” he asked.

  “Do we really have to go to this thing?”

  “Yes,” he said simply. “We do.” He looked at his watch. “Now, I’m going to spend a few minutes with my daughter. When you’re ready, come into her room and say good night.”

  Donna saluted. “Yes, sir.”

  Mel stopped. “That wasn’t an order, Donna.” He walked to the doorway and then turned around abruptly. “Look, if you feel that strongly about not going, then maybe you shouldn’t bother.”

  “You’ll stay home?”

  “No. I’m going to the party.”

  “You don’t want me to come?”

  “I want you to do whatever you’ll be most comfortable in doing.” He didn’t give her time to respond. “I’ll be in Annie’s room.”

  Donna remained where she was for several minutes, then she stood up and started getting ready to go out.

  Donna could see the look of surprise on Mel’s face when he opened the car door and found her inside. He said nothing for several minutes although she could tell he wanted to. Instead, he gritted his teeth, stared intently out the front window and started the car. Without looking at her, he backed the car out of the driveway and onto the street. Donna could never remember seeing him look so troubled.

  I’m so sorry, Mel, she wanted to say. To reach out and touch his cheek. To reestablish the warmth she knew she was taking away. I want so much to be able to love your daughter, to be able to show you all the love you know I feel for you. Please understand. Understand what it’s like for me. He’s taken my children away. No matter what I do, where I go, what I say, that fact never leaves me. I see Victor’s face everywhere, laughing at me, taunting me. I see my children reaching out for me, crying for me. Every time I look at Annie … I look at her and all I see is the little girl I might never know when she reaches Annie’s age. That’s why I avoid her. Why I just couldn’t go in there to say good night to her. Can you understand what it’s like for me? I wait every day for Victor to phone. It’s more upsetting now when he doesn’t call than when he does. I know that sounds crazy, but when he does phone, I feel my children are closer to me somehow. Please, Mel, tell me that you understand.

  “Better put your seat belt on,” he said, after they’d been driving for about five minutes.

  Donna buckled herself in. Why were they going to this stupid party? What possible good would it do? She’d be off somewhere when Victor might be phoning. Mrs. Harrison would say that Mrs. Cressy was out for the evening; Victor would hang up, perhaps never to phone again. Why had she bothered getting dressed? Why wasn’t she at home waiting in case Victor called? In case he told her where her children were.

  “Aren’t you going awfully fast?”

  Mel checked the speedometer. “Maybe a little,” he said, slowing.

  Donna fidgeted. “How far is this party?”

  “Just over in Boynton.”

  “Are they all doctors there?”

  “Some, I guess. Why? You sound like you don’t like doctors.”

  “Well, you know how they are at parties—they only talk to other doctors. And all they ever talk about is medicine.”

  Mel’s voice was filled with obvious impatience. “Well, let’s see,” he said, taking imaginary stock of the situation, “medicine is out as a topic of conversation because it’s boring; children are out because it’s too painful; movies are out because we haven’t been to one in months; I don’t think you’ve read a book or even a magazine in at least that long, so we can forget about that, and you’re not interested in anything anybody else has to say on just about anything. Which brings the conversation around to you. But we can’t talk about what you do because you don’t do anything—”

  Donna stared at Mel with a mixture of surprise and fury. “Where has all this been hiding?” she asked.

  Mel let out a long blow of pent-up breath. Then he raised and lowered his head as if he had reached some silent accord with himself. “This isn’t the time,” he apologized. “I’m sorry. I was out of line.”

  “You’re damn right you were,” Donna shot back, angrier now that he had apologized and thereby effectively ended that discussion.

  Suddenly, she gripped the door handle on her side of the car.

  “What’s the matter?” Mel asked, looking over at her for the first time since he had started the car.

  “Nothing,” Donna replied. “I just get a little unnerved when you turn corners that fast, that’s all.”

  “Relax, Donna. The worst I could do is get us killed.”

  “Great.”

  “I thought you’d like that.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Absolutely nothing.”

  “No, tell me what you meant.”

  “Let’s drop it, Donna.”

  “I don’t want to drop it.”

  “But I do.”

  “So we always do what you want, is that it?”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “What about how it sounds to me?”

  Mel continued to drive, staring straight ahead, saying nothing for several minutes. “I asked you what about how it sounds to me?” she pressed.

  “And I asked you to drop it. This is a ridiculous conversation.”

  They drove for another fifteen minutes before Mel pulled up into the large driveway of an oceanfront condominium in Boynton Beach. He stopped the car in the area indicated for Guest Park
ing and unsnapped his seat belt.

  “I think we should get this settled before we go inside,” Donna said.

  Mel looked over at her. “Donna, do you ever seriously remember what you’re trying so hard to be angry about?” Donna looked quickly away from him. “Now, what’s it going to be? Are you coming inside or would you rather I drove you back home?” Donna silently unbuckled her seat belt and opened her door, jumping quickly out of the car. “I guess you’re coming inside,” she heard Mel say to himself just before she slammed the car door shut.

  Donna stood by herself in a corner of the room and watched Mel who stood on the sun-colored patio looking out at the ocean. He had his arm around a tall, voluptuous redhead and had been talking with her in a fairly intimate fashion for the better part of an hour. Donna caught sight of her own reflection in the mirrored bar. Mel had always said he liked her hair when it was red—

  She looked across the beige-and-yellow room, felt its warmth reaching out to her, and then rejected it, as she had rejected earlier any polite overtures of conversation that had been advanced in her direction. As she had similarly rejected Mel. Her eyes returned to the patio. The redhead was moving her body closer to Mel, laughing at something he had said. Oh, Mel, she thought, why did you bring me here?

  “Excuse me,” she said, approaching her host. “Could I use your phone?”

  “Sure. There’s one in the bedroom that might give you a little more privacy.”

  Her host pointed to his right and Donna edged her way through the medium-sized gathering and into the dark greens and grays of the master bedroom. She sat on the bed, pushing aside the geometrically designed comforter, and picked up the velvety gray phone. Mrs. Harrison answered almost immediately.

  “Has anyone called, Mrs. Harrison?”

  “No, Ma’am. It’s been real quiet here. Annie read for a bit, then she fell asleep.”

  “But no one has called?”

  “No one.”

  Donna slowly placed the receiver back on its hook. “No one,” she repeated. “No one.” Then she got up and walked back out to the main room.

  The roar of the ocean came rushing over to greet her as soon as she walked back inside. The room was large and with its patio doors opened the way they were now, the only sound that seemed to have any meaning was the ocean’s persistent rush to the shore.

  She looked for Mel, didn’t see him, although the redhead was still there. He’s probably getting her another drink, she thought. Where was he? It was almost eleven o’clock. She wanted to go home.

  “Are you ready to leave?” he asked, coming up behind her, not sounding anything like he usually did.

  “I’ve been ready all evening,” she said.

  “So I noticed. About the only thing you didn’t do was dangle the car keys in my direction.” Her eyes shot to his. “Don’t ask me what that’s supposed to mean because this time I just might tell you.”

  He took her arm and moved her angrily toward the door. “What are you so angry about?” she whispered under her breath. “I’m not the one who spent all night flirting with some tacky-looking redhead.”

  “No, I am,” he said, waving a final goodbye in his host’s direction. “And in case you hadn’t noticed, that’s not usually my style. To tell you the truth, the person I’m really angry at and disappointed in is myself. I haven’t resorted to that sort of trick since I was in high school and I was ticked off at my girlfriend so I took out her best friend.”

  “Are you saying your behavior tonight was my fault?” They waited for the elevator. It came almost immediately. They went inside and stood at opposite ends.

  “I’m saying it was my fault,” he said. “You can’t be responsible for my actions.”

  They got off the elevator at the main floor and walked to where their car was parked. He walked over to his side of the car, opened it and got inside. Donna thought for a minute that he might just drive off and leave her there, but he reached over and pulled up the button on her side of the car, and then twisted the inside handle, opening the door for her, but just barely. Donna pulled it open the rest of the way and got inside. Lately, it felt that all she ever did was get in and out of cars.

  “Well, what is it that you want to say?” she asked as he hit the highway.

  “Let’s not say anything until we get home, okay?” It was more a statement than a question. “Right now, I’m so angry I need all my concentration just to drive this car—”

  “I don’t know what you’re so angry about—”

  “You will,” he promised.

  Except for the outside light, the house was dark when they got home. They walked inside and Mel flicked on the hall light, then abruptly shut it off again. They stood in the semidarkness, figures frozen in the camera’s flash, only the light from the moon and stars streaking through the windowed top of the door to illuminate the gloominess of their features. It was eleven-thirty. Neither one spoke. Donna realized, with a bit of a start, that she was almost afraid to speak. She had never seen Mel like this before; he was usually so slow to anger. Donna watched his face, so still, solemn, his profile flickering white and shadow. She was not sure where his beard left off and the darkness began. She wanted to reach over and caress the soft face she saw beside her, but she couldn’t bring herself to move.

  “Let’s go into the back room,” he said, and moved, not looking at her, in the room’s direction. Donna followed wordlessly. The room at the back of the house had originally been intended as a sewing room for Kate, but in recent years, it had been mostly ignored. When Donna had first seen the room, she had thought what a fine playroom it would make for the kids. She stopped at its entrance. Why was he bringing her back here? He knew she had always pictured it as a playroom for Adam and Sharon.

  “Why can’t we talk in the living room?” she asked from the doorway.

  Mel, who now stood in the middle of the room, turned in her direction, locking his eyes into hers for the first time since they had left the party. “Because I don’t want to chance waking either Annie or Mrs. Harrison.”

  “You planning on doing some yelling?” she asked, almost playfully, hoping not to have to play the scene she knew she had been almost totally responsible for creating. It had been months in the making, she recognized, wishing simultaneously to back away from it and to rush headlong into its core.

  “I’m not sure what I’m planning.” No time for games. Too late for games.

  “I don’t want to come in this room.”

  “Figures.” He stopped. “Why not?”

  She hesitated. “You know what I always planned for this room.” She held the hook of guilt in his direction.

  He wouldn’t bite. “Let’s not get silly about this, Donna. Come inside and close the door. You can’t have memories for something that never was.”

  “My children were!”

  “Your children still are! If there are ghosts anywhere in this room, Donna, they’re standing in your shoes!”

  Donna felt her anger beginning to grow. It pushed her inside and closed the door behind her. She looked around the large, book-lined room which contained two matching green sofa-beds and a long, low coffee table. “Do you want to start talking in English, Doctor?”

  “Do I really have to spell it out for you, Donna?”

  “You really do.”

  “You have no idea what I’m trying to say?”

  “Stop speaking in riddles, dammit, you’re the one who wants to talk!”

  Mel began angrily pacing back and forth.

  “I still can’t figure out why you’re so angry,” Donna continued, not waiting for him to speak, afraid now of letting him speak. “I went to your stupid party, didn’t I? Only to watch you disappear after the first hour, so that you could spend the next hour flirting with every girl in the room before spending your final hour—your finest hour—all over that redhead with the tits. I didn’t throw myself over any of the available males. I didn’t embarrass you.”

  “No,
you didn’t do anything wrong! You went to the party with me. You said hello to Rod and Bessie. You may have even smiled once. I’m not sure about that last bit—it may just be wishful thinking on my part. And that’s all you did—except check your watch every three minutes.”

  “This is beginning to sound very familiar,” Donna interrupted. “In a minute I know it’s going to be all my fault that you acted the way you did—”

  “No!” Mel’s voice dropped like a hammer into the space between them. “I told you before that I am the only one responsible for my behavior. And you want to know something? I’m really sick about the way I acted tonight. I used people. It’s been a long time since I used people that shamelessly.”

  “High school,” Donna said curtly. “You told me.”

  “I realize now why it was so important to me that we go to the party tonight. Oh sure, I thought we needed to get out, but that wasn’t the main reason. My main reason was to avoid the scene we’re having now, to put off the next few minutes for a couple more hours. But it didn’t work out the way I hoped it would, because I’ve been holding it back for so long that if my anger didn’t express itself one way, it was certainly going to come out another. So, Dr. Mel Segal suddenly turned into the highly eligible Dr. Mel Segal. There wasn’t a woman at that party tonight who didn’t feel my arm around her. And a few of them actually responded to me. You know that redhead had something else going for her besides a pair of nice boobs, and it’s a very simple thing—” He stopped talking, swallowing, moving in a slow circle around the coffee table. Donna watched him. She said nothing. “You used to have it,” he continued. “I remember.” He paused for effect. “A sense of humour,” he said simply. “A sense of fun, even when everything around you was falling apart.” He raised his hands in the air as if he had just been advised that a gun was pointing at the back of his head. “That’s it. Just a little … life.” He stopped, then continued. “I talked to her, and she talked to me, and for the first time in months, I realized that I wasn’t apologizing for anything. I listened to her and wonder of wonders, she actually listened to me. She thought I had something to say that might be interesting. She even laughed at a few of my jokes. I mentioned I had a daughter and this redhead actually smiled at me. What’s more, she even expressed an interest in her. Of course, I knew that her interest in my daughter was part and parcel of her interest in me, and I knew that I didn’t return that interest because I still happen to be in love with you—” Donna could see that Mel was starting to cry. He made no attempt to either hide the tears or stop them. “And I realized what a louse I was being—to you, to the redhead, whose name is Caroline incidentally, and to myself.” He paused, finished one full circle around the coffee table and then started another. “Tinka Segal, you remember her, I’ve told you about her, well, she was a lovely lady, full of motherly clichés, of course, but that’s part of what mothers are for. One of Tinka’s favourite sayings was from Shakespeare, that glorious font of so many of today’s better clichés. ‘This above all,’ she used to say, ‘to thine own self be true!’” Donna caught her breath. It was an expression she remembered her own mother using. “Well,” he went on, “I realized that I was obviously getting to a point in our relationship where I was no longer being true to myself. Or at least a point where I can no longer continue being true to myself and be a part of this relationship.”