The Fox's Choice

by M A Simonetti

  “No. They were outsiders.”

  “Outsiders? Really?”

  For the first time in my life, I realized how odd that might sound to someone who wasn’t a Clark from Clarkstown.

  I told the driver to take a left. The other corners at the intersection now sported a gas station and a Dollar Store.

  “Wow! A gas station! I’ll bet you can get Slurpees there. I would have killed for that when I was a kid.”

  Richard looked at me like I had sprouted horns.

  It occurred to me that my upbringing was probably different from his, not that I knew anything about his childhood. I found myself curious about Richard’s life in a way that I never had before. For a change, I wasn’t interested in what he could do for me, I was interested in who he was before he starting bailing me out of trouble.

  I didn’t have time to dwell on this shift in my perception. We were nearly to house I grew up in.

  The main drag in Clarkstown had not changed. The barbershop, an antique store, a beauty salon and a bank. The businesses were housed in brick buildings that looked smaller than I remember. A farm supplies store was by far and away the biggest business in town. As it had always been.

  I told the driver to turn left at the barbershop and we were soon in my old neighborhood. Neat rows of wooden houses on large lots were enclosed with chain link fences and shaded by oak trees. The road ended at Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church. We turned right, passed a park and then turned left on my old road.

  Across the street from the park was the row of houses that were my whole world as a child.

  “My aunt Mary and Uncle Tom lived there,” I said. “That was our house and Aunt Betty and Uncle Joe lived next door. That’s the church and the school my cousins and I all went to. Aunt Nancy and Uncle Donald lived down there and Aunt Ruth and Uncle Dan lived next door to them.”

  “Your mother came from a big family,” Richard noted.

  “Oh, that’s not everyone,” I said. “Aunt Lois and Uncle David lived behind Ruth and Dan and Aunt Ruby and Uncle Steven lived next to them. I’m not sure where the boys live now. They went away to college and I never saw much of them.”

  “The boys?”

  “My Clark uncles. My grandmother beat the curse on only one boy per generation. Her last pregnancy was triplets- all boys. Maybe one of them lives in the big house.”

  “Triplets. Big house.” Richard looked weary.

  I took pity on him.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t give you a quiz on this.”

  “Thank God. Do you want me to come with you?”

  “I better handle this alone. Why don’t you wait at the grocery store? I’ll text you when I am done.”

  “Sounds great. Those burgers smelled delicious.”

  Richard and the driver went on their way. I opened the gate in the chain link fence at Aunt Betty’s house. The fence ran the length of the block but only on the street side. All the Clark yards were open to each other. I remembered running back and forth between the homes as a kid, trying to wheedle popsicles from each aunt.

  I stepped off the walk leading to the house, heading for the back door just as I had thousands of times before. I didn’t make it. My Aunt Betty opened the fJimt door.

  “I’m surprised you remember where the house is. Might as well come through this way.”

  I braced myself and climbed the steps to the porch like I was walking onto a strange planet. Not once in my life had I ever entered that house through the front door.

  Aunt Betty pointed the way like I had no idea where to go. I walked through the parlor and into the kitchen. Aunt Betty followed me. I felt like I did as a kid when I was caught doing something naughty and about to get a lecture. I turned and faced her when I got to the kitchen table. I wondered if she was going to ground me for meeting That Woman.

  Aunt Betty looked good for her age. She was two years older than my mother would have been, which made her seventy-seven. She had the look of a woman who had born seven children and raised five to adulthood all the while managing a business. Her husband, Joe, was a plumber and she had run his office.

  I didn’t attend Joe’s funeral - a fact that she reminded me of every Christmas.

  “I suppose you want something to eat,” Aunt Betty said.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. If she was willing to feed me then she wasn’t that mad.

  “I’d love something.”

  I sat at the kitchen table and watched her work. She fussed with placing silverware and plates on a tray and rummaged in a drawer looking for napkins. The kitchen was unchanged since my childhood. Formica counter tops, maple cabinets with scalloped trim, a blue and white checked linoleum floor that was perfect for playing checkers with Ritz Crackers and saltines. The counters were spotless and you could eat the crackers off the floor at the end of the checkers game. Between the kitchen and the dining room was a short hallway with one door leading to the backyard and one door to the pantry. I knew the pantry held homemade pickles and jam and canned peaches and corn. Aunt Betty opened the pantry door and the smell of cinnamon and apples filled the kitchen. My mouth watered. And that little voice scolded me for not visiting sooner.

  A kettle whistled on the stove. From the pantry, Aunt Betty called out “Will you get that, Teresa? I’m looking for the applesauce.”

  I got up and turned off the stove. I pulled a teapot down from the same spot it had been kept in for as long as I could remember. The teabags were in the drawer next to the sink and I remembered my mother and aunts scolding Betty for not keeping them in the pantry where they belonged. I put three bags in the pot and added the hot water. I put the pot on the kitchen table and then found the mugs in the upper cabinet next to the sink. Another infraction in my mother and aunt’s opinions. They all felt that mugs should be stored in the cabinet next to the stove. I smiled remembering the bickering between the sisters. They never argued over anything of importance.

  “Found it!” Aunt Betty emerged from the pantry with a jar of homemade applesauce and a whole coffee cake.

  We sat together at the table and it felt as if I had just popped in after school for a snack.

  “What’s this all about?” Aunt Betty wasted no time. “What’s the matter with your father? Why don’t you visit us anymore?”

  There were more questions- at least a dozen.

  I answered each one as I brought her up to speed, starting with everything I had done since Christmas and ending up telling her about being drugged in Ralph’s and waking up to a dead Zane. I explained my surprise at meeting Bradley. I told her what little I knew my father’s heart problems. I told her about meeting That Woman.

  I didn’t tell her how safe it felt to sit at her kitchen table and unload all my problems. The little voice scolded me for not telling her.

  Through it all, she remained quiet- a tactic she learned raising five children and endless nieces and nephews.

  “You were drugged? Were you hurt?”

  “I was not hurt,” I reassured her. I repeated the part about how Zane and Bradley and I were related and why that brought me to Sacramento. She had the good manners to look sad about my father’s health but she rolled her eyes when I brought up That Woman.

  “I’m sorry about your father but he is getting on, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, he’s eighty-seven. I thought he was younger.”

  “No. He was twelve years older than your mother. Yet another reason we all thought she shouldn’t marry him.”

  This I’d heard plenty of when I was growing up. The list of my father’s shortcomings was discussed on a regular basis around Aunt Betty’s kitchen table. I’d accepted the list as fact, perhaps to ease the ache of missing him. But now, I had to wonder.

  “Aunt Betty, did Uncle Donald keep my father from visiting me?”

  “Is that what she said? So you believe That Woman now?”

  I wasn’t going to get defensive and let her deflect my question. My loyalties still lay with my mother but I had t
o know if she and her family had purposely kept my father away from me. Now I needed to know before I confronted him for abandoning me.

  She didn’t want to answer my question. She held her mug up and spent more time blowing on the hot tea than was necessary. I kept my gaze on her face. It was like staring down an angry bear.

  “It’s not easy marrying a Clark girl,” Aunt Betty began. “Your uncles who married in had to accept the fact that your grandfather was the head of the family and they had to do as they were told. That can wear on a man’s ego. Believe me, the stresses in all of our marriages boiled down to following your grandfather’s rules. It was particularly hard on your Uncle Donald. He never wanted to be a policeman. He wanted to raise cattle. He did have a way with animals.”

  I remembered Uncle Donald’s pets. Dogs and cats were the least of the menagerie. He had lizards in glass cages and guinea pigs that escaped and hid all over the house, much to my Aunt Nancy’s horror. He bought a piece of land from my grandfather and kept goats and Shetland ponies on the property. The ponies were always a big hit at Clark birthday parties. He taught the goats and dogs to do tricks, which just added to the chaotic fun at family gatherings.

  “Your great-uncle Ted was close to retirement when Donald and Nancy married and your grandfather felt it was in everyone’s best interests if Donald took over the police force.”

  I didn’t ask why my grandfather was able to appoint the next police chief. Nothing happened in Clarkstown without my grandfather’s approval. As a kid, it was reassuring to know he was in control. Looking back on it as an adult, the word dictatorship came to mind.

  “So Donald went to the police academy and that was that,” Aunt Betty said. “You have to admit, we never had any crime in Clarkstown.”

  “Uncle Donald was good at his job,” I conceded but I wasn’t giving up. “Did he keep my father out of town?”

  I wasn’t leaving without finding out if what Bradley and Linda told me was true. I didn’t know them well enough to know if they lied to me but I knew my Aunt Betty. I would know if she told the truth. I just had to get her to focus on the question.

  She didn’t want to talk about it that much was clear. She cut a slice of coffee cake, poured more tea, glanced at the clock on the wall. All the while, I could practically see her mind spinning with memories. It occurred to me that she, too, was still loyal to my mother.

  “Your mother was used to getting her own way,” Aunt Betty said. “She got away with it because she was so damn beautiful. Men acted like idiots around her. She intimidated women. It was like she had supernatural powers the way she lorded over everyone. Really, she was the second most powerful person in town, right after your grandfather.”

  There was no doubt that my mother was a beauty and used it to her advantage. I saw it every day as a child- the deference from the clerks at the Italian Chinese grocery store, the wide eyed stares from the tellers at the bank, the way my aunts gave in when my mother opted for cole slaw over potato salad for family picnics. Both outsiders and Clark’s bent to Rosalie Clark’s wishes.

  “No one thought it was a good idea for Rosalie to marry Jack Bennett,” Aunt Betty continued. “Jack initially came to town to cover for old Dr. Hinshaw for a few months. We all knew that Jack had big ideas and that he wouldn’t stay in Clarkstown for long. We worried about losing her. You know how we are, we Clarks stay in Clarkstown. We just build more houses for the next generation.”

  That explained the new developments I had spotted on the way into town. I suspected every last house was filled with Clark cousins by now.

  “But Rosalie got her way, as usual. She married Jack and she certainly made sure everyone knew that her husband, the doctor, did not answer to her father. Then Dr. Hinshaw passed away and you came along and we all thought that maybe Rosalie and Jack would stay in town after all. I learned to like your father. He was a lot of fun and he fit in well with the family. And he didn’t put up with Rosalie’s nonsense which was refreshing to say the least.”

  “So what went wrong?”

  My memories of happy times with both my parents were vague at best.

  “Your father started going to these seminars in San Francisco. Do you remember going? They were in the summer so your parents made a vacation out of it.”

  “I do remember. Mom and I went shopping at Gump’s and ate crab on Fisherman’s Wharf while Dad was working.”

  “Yeah, Rosalie made a big deal about shopping in ‘The City’. She corrected anyone who dared to call it ‘Frisco. Anyway, San Francisco in the seventies was a hotbed for new ideas, especially when it came to medical treatments. Your father was convinced that Western medicine didn’t have all the answers. He met a group of doctors who were setting up a practice that brought stuff like acupuncture and massage into a patient’s treatment. He was so excited about it. I remember the last seminar that he attended. He came back all set to join this practice and move to Sacramento. That’s when it all hit the fan.”

  “My mom didn’t want to move.”

  “Exactly. She dug her heels in and wouldn’t budge. Jack wouldn’t give up his dream, though. He tried commuting. First he drove up to Sacramento and back every day. That got to be too much so he rented an apartment and came home on the weekends. That went on for about a year and then Jack gave Rosalie an ultimatum- move or divorce.”

  “She chose divorce?”

  “No, she chose to ignore him. And then he dug in his heels and stayed in Sacramento for weeks at a time. She should have moved. But it wasn’t like Rosalie to compromise.”

  “Why didn’t she want to move?”

  “She was stubborn. And I think she was scared to leave home.”

  It seemed odd that my mother would give up on her marriage just because she didn’t want to move. Sacramento wasn’t that far away from Clarkstown. We could have spent every weekend in Clarkstown and never missed a single family event.

  Aunt Betty read my mind.

  “There was, of course, more to it than that. Your grandfather took your mother’s side. I think he believed that Jack would cave in if Rosalie just stood her ground. I think everyone was surprised when the divorce went through- and I mean everyone- Rosalie, Jack, your grandparents, all of us. And then your grandfather found himself in an awkward position with the Church. Father Murphy made it perfectly clear that Rosalie could not receive communion. That broke your grandfather’s heart.”

  That rang another bell- of my mother and I driving to Stockton on Saturdays to shop. The shopping excursions always ended with an evening Mass at one of the churches there. With a priest that didn’t know who we were.

  “That’s when Mom and I started going to Mass in Stockton.”

  “For a short while. Your grandparents hated that you and Rosalie didn’t attend Mass with the family so your grandfather met with the bishop and pretty soon Father Murphy was gone and Father McCall took over.”

  I didn’t question how my father influenced the bishop, either.

  Father McCall was a young priest, fresh out of the seminary. He either didn’t care that my parents divorced or he was told to look the other way. Regardless, my mother and I rejoined the fold in Clarkstown after Fr. McCall was installed as pastor.

  This trip down memory lane, however enlightening, did not answer my questions about my father. I gathered my thoughts and tried, for the third time.

  “Aunt Betty, until a couple of days ago, I’d only heard the family’s side of my parents divorce. Now I’ve heard another side. I need to know-did the family keep my father from visiting me?”

  She saw that I was serious about learning the truth. She was quiet for a long while. Clark loyalties run deep and Clark’s don’t speak ill about each other. I think the only reason she came clean is that nearly all the culprits in the story were dead.

  “When the divorce was final, your grandfather told your father to stay out of Clarkstown and your mother to stay away from your father. That’s why I drove you up to Sacramento to see him. We all
thought either Rosalie or Jack would miss each other and reconcile. But then, Jack took up with That Woman. Looking back on it, all of us grownups should have kept our mouths shut. It was a relief in some ways when you refused to see your father anymore.

  “Then things changed pretty quickly you might remember. Your grandparents died and the family was turned upside down. None of us were ready for your grandfather to be gone.”

  My grandparents were killed in a head-on car crash on Highway 99. They were traveling back from Sacramento in heavy Tule fog. And then I remembered the accident happened not long after I decided not to visit my father anymore.

  “They were coming back from Sacramento, weren’t they?” I asked.

  “Yes. They were there to try to talk your father out of remarrying.”

  I felt as if she had punched me. I’d no idea.

  “I know…you didn’t know. None of the grandkids were told. So you can see why we all hated That Woman. We blamed her for our parents’ deaths.

  “We were out of our mind with grief and none of us handled it well. Nancy would go on long walks and be gone for hours. Mary couldn’t get out of bed. Rosalie started drinking. Your other aunts and I had to keep all of you kids fed and healthy. Our brothers were scattered on farms of their own all over the Valley. We all argued about what to do with the big house and the businesses. Your grandfather’s will left everything to your grandmother and she never made a will. It took us years to sort out the legal stuff. By the time things settled down, no one gave a thought to whether or not you saw Jack and by that time, Donald had gotten really mean and trained a whole new batch of cops to keep Jack away.”

  “So he did try to see me.”

  “Yes Teresa. He did. And we let Donald keep him away.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  There is an old saying ‘Be careful what you wish for.’

  I had wished for the truth and now that I had it, I couldn’t say I was happy about it. My entire life I’d believed that my father had abandoned my mother and me but he hadn’t. And the faith that I’d had in the stories my family told me was now shattered. How would my life been different if I’d had contact with my father and his new family? Would I have remained Teresa Bennett? Would I have stayed in Clarkstown? Or would I have gone to college in Sacramento and settled there?