Brass Ring

by Diane Chamberlain

  “Of course I care. What do you think? I mean, suddenly my parents are totally fucked up, and my mother’s screwing this total stranger. At least I assume that’s what she’s doing.” She looked at him as if he might be able to banish the thought from her mind.

  Caught off guard, he shrugged in discomfort. “I don’t know the exact nature of their relationship,” he said.

  Susan’s look asked him how he could be so naive. “She told me she needs him to help her sort out stuff from her past,” she said, her voice edged with cynicism. “I thought that’s what her shrink is for.”

  “Please see her,” he said. “There’s so much going on with her. I can’t possibly explain her point of view to you. Let her try to—”

  “If I see her, it’s only going to be to yell at her. To talk her into coming home and being a normal wife and mother again.”

  “I don’t want you to do that,” Jon said with such force that he surprised himself.

  “Why not?”

  He didn’t know how to make her understand something he was only coming to understand himself. “Because I need this time alone,” he said. “I didn’t realize it at first. Believe me, Suse, the last thing I want is for Mom and me to split up. But I’m discovering things about myself.”

  Susan wiped her red nose with a ragged tissue. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Well, didn’t you wonder, when you went off to school, if you’d actually be able to take care of yourself?”

  She frowned. “Well, yeah, but—”

  “And then you found that you could, and it felt pretty terrific, right?”

  She nodded again. “Yeah, but you’re an adult. And you’re my father. You’ve always taken care of everything. You can do anything, Daddy. I always think of you as”—she dropped her eyes to her lap, where she was tearing the tissue apart with her long fingers—”just as someone who can handle any problem, can fix anything. If you’re not really like that, I don’t think I want to know.”

  He laughed. “I’m not like that, Suse. Face it. Do you realize I’ve been with your mother since I was seventeen? Two years younger than you are now. The truth is, maybe I could handle just about anything, but I honestly didn’t know that until she left. It’s been good for me that way, sweetheart. Painful as hell, yes, but good for me.”

  “You could’ve figured that out without her dumping you.”

  He tried not to react to her choice of words. “She didn’t dump me. I asked her to go. I knew she needed time to herself, too. You could just as easily say I kicked her out.”

  “Right, Dad.” Susan crumpled her tissue in her fist. “Then she could have gone to…I don’t know, a resort somewhere—by herself—if it’s just that you need time to be apart or whatever. But I don’t get why she needs to see someone else.”

  Jon straightened up with a sigh. “The truth is, Susan, that the man Mom is…involved with is seducing her in a way I never could.”

  Susan drew in her breath, her mouth a little O. “Daddy, don’t say that,” she said. There was a fresh torrent of tears, and she leaped from the couch to bend down and hug him. “Just because you can’t walk doesn’t mean you haven’t been the best husband and father anyone could ever ask for.”

  He realized she had misunderstood his meaning, but he was so touched by her sudden, rare display of affection that for a moment he couldn’t speak.

  “Hon.” He freed himself gently from her arms. “Sit down again.”

  She did so, but she still clung to the arm of his chair, sniffling quietly, looking for all the world like the little girl she’d once been. Jon rested his hand on hers, speaking softly. “I don’t mean what you think. I don’t mean that he’s seducing her sexually.” He felt odd saying that to her. “Not like a man seduces a woman. I mean he’s seducing your mother with the truth. No one’s ever done that with her before.” He shook his head. “You know what she’s like, how she always makes like everything’s okay even when it’s not.”

  “God, I hate that.”

  “Right. And it’s hard to explain what’s going on with her right now. You really need to talk to her to understand. Randy’s giving her something I never had the guts to give her.” He knew as the words left his mouth that they were no longer accurate. He could do it now, he thought. He could listen to her, maybe even draw her out. These last few weeks, he’d found a strength inside himself that he’d never known was there.

  Susan shook her head, pulling her hand away, and he could see the teenage irritation beginning to replace the childlike sweetness again. “I just don’t get what you’re talking about,” she said.

  “Then you need to talk to her about it.”

  “No. I don’t want to see her. I’m embarrassed by her. She’s not acting like a mother.”

  She stood up, and Jon knew she’d reached the limit of her ability to endure this sort of conversation. It had been good though. Amazingly good.

  “When are you heading back?” he asked.

  “Tomorrow sometime.” She picked up a textbook from the coffee table and headed toward the door.

  “Susan?”

  She turned to face him again.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “I love you, too, Dad.” She slipped quickly from the room, as if those words might burn her if she stayed a moment too long.

  “I WANT TO SEE the carousel in person,” Randy said. It was Sunday, and he and Claire were sitting on the small sofa in Claire’s minuscule living/dining room, looking through the photograph album for the third time and nibbling on the coffee cake Claire had baked in her small, temperamental oven. “The pictures are great, but I’m sure the black and white doesn’t do it justice.”

  “I’d like to see it, too,” Claire agreed. “Maybe we could drive up to the park one of these days?”

  “Soon,” he said.

  Claire looked down at a picture of her mother. Mellie sat in a rocker on the front porch of the farmhouse. She was smoking a cigarette. During her first perusal of the album with Randy, Claire had suddenly remembered that it was Mellie who had thrown the pictures away.

  “Why in God’s name would she do that?” Randy had asked.

  “We were cleaning out my grandmother’s house after her death, and my mother said the album represented the past and should be tossed. She only wanted to think about the future.” Claire remembered the little lecture Mellie had given her as they sat together on her grandmother’s living-room floor.

  Randy shook his head. “Your mother was a sick woman.”

  For once she said nothing to defend Mellie. “They moved the carousel the same day,” she added.

  “Really? How do you move a carousel?”

  “They put the horses in big crates, and—”

  “And they hammered them shut, I bet.” Randy smiled at her, and it took her a minute to catch on.

  “Yes!” She felt the skin of her arms prickle with goosebumps. She could even see Titan disappearing into one of the crates, but it was as if she were seeing it happen from a great distance. “It must have been terrible for me,” she said, “but I don’t remember feeling anything.”

  Randy squeezed her shoulders. He turned the page in the album to the picture that intrigued Claire most. It was of her grandfather sitting at his workbench, the unlit pipe in his mouth. The picture had immediately reminded her of Randy. The beard, the pipe. The tender affection in the clear eyes. Randy failed to see the resemblance. He had even been a little insulted that she’d seen his face in that of a man nearly thirty years his senior.

  All of the pictures were fascinating, but Claire was disappointed—and a little relieved—that they were nothing more than old reminders of a happy childhood. Small freeze-frames of a long- ago time and place. Little in the album had stirred new memories, and few of the photographs triggered emotions in her, good or bad. Except for the pictures of Vanessa. Each time the little blond girl appeared, Claire wanted to turn the page. She felt a weight in her chest and a restless urge to le
ap from the sofa and busy herself with something. Anything.

  “Maybe you’re worried about her,” Randy suggested. “She was torn from your family. You probably feel guilty that she suffered such a terrible fate while you didn’t.”

  She was certain that was not it, but she could offer no other explanation for her discomfort.

  “You know.” Randy traced circles on the album with his fingertips. “Maybe she remembers some of the things you’ve forgotten. She might be able to help you figure out what your flashbacks are all about.”

  The weight grew heavier in her chest, and she got up, suddenly consumed by a need to move the album from her lap to the table. The thought of Vanessa—of anyone—dumping a lifetime of memories on her all at once was frightening. A certain pace was unfolding as she worked backwards through the images of her past. It was tedious work, painstaking, but it felt right to her. She was one of those people who got into a cold pool slowly, cell by cell, as if she would die if she were submerged all at once. This seemed like the same thing.

  “She won’t answer my letters.” Claire straightened the place mats on the table. “So it’s not even worth thinking about.”

  “If you say so.” He yawned, stretching his long arms above his head before standing up. “Be back in a sec.” He disappeared into her bedroom, and she heard the closing of the bathroom door. She was carrying the coffee cake toward the kitchenette when she heard the knock on the front door. Setting the plate down on the end table, she opened the door to find her daughter standing on the step.

  Claire caught her breath, then broke into a smile. Susan was too thin, but beautiful, her brown hair shining in the sunlight. She saw Jon in her face and was surprised by the sudden, sharp sting of tears.

  “Oh, Susan.” She reached for her daughter. “I’m so happy to see you.”

  Susan evaded the hug and stepped into the room, and Claire lowered her arms to her sides.

  “I’m just here to say good-bye before I go back to school.”

  Claire nodded. “Yes.” She wiped her eyes with her fingers. “I’m so glad. I was afraid I wasn’t going to get to see you at all this visit. Please, honey, have a seat.” She motioned toward the sofa, wishing that she could magically make Randy disappear from the apartment. “I have some homemade coffee cake.”

  Susan didn’t sit down. “I’m not staying that long.” She leaned awkwardly against the glass-topped table and looked around the little room—at the coffee cake, the kitchenette, the African violet on the windowsill—anywhere but at her mother’s eyes. She shook her head. “I just can’t believe you’re living like this,” she said.

  “Oh, it’s not so—”

  Randy suddenly appeared in the doorway from the bedroom.

  “Oh.” He looked at Claire uncertainly for a moment, then smiled. “Is this Susan?”

  “Yes.” That weight in her chest again. What did a heart attack feel like? “Susan, this is Randy.”

  Susan’s eyes were like daggers; Randy had to feel them cutting him in two. She turned suddenly toward the door, but Claire quickly blocked her path.

  “Please, don’t go. Not yet.”

  Randy held up his hands submissively. “You two visit awhile,” he said, his eyes on Claire. “I’ll read in here.” He backed into the bedroom, closing the louvered doors between the two rooms.

  Claire looked imploringly at her daughter. “Please stay awhile.”

  Susan raised a trembling hand to her mouth. “God, Mother, what are you doing?”

  Claire bit her lip. “It’s so hard to explain.”

  Susan let out a sound of exasperation. “That’s what Daddy says, too. I guess it’s always hard to come up with a good reason for acting like a self-absorbed bitch.”

  Claire jerked as if she’d been struck. She wished Randy couldn’t hear what they were saying through the louvered doors.

  “Sorry.” Susan lowered her eyes, cheeks flushed.

  Claire touched her arm. “Please sit down and let me talk to you.”

  Tears suddenly appeared in Susan’s eyes, spilling over, spilling down her cheeks. “I hate you right now, do you know that?” she asked. “I really do.”

  Claire reached for her shoulder, her own tears falling at the sight of her wounded daughter. “Oh, honey, you don’t mean that. You—”

  “Yes, Mother, I do mean it.” Susan jerked away from her mother’s grasp. “You’ve always been like that. Daddy thinks you’re changing, but you’re the same as ever.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’d say I hated someone, and you’d say, ‘Oh, honey, no, you don’t.’ I’d say my teacher wasn’t fair to me, and you’d say, ‘Oh, honey, of course she is.’ I’d say I was sick and you’d say, ‘No, you’re not.’ I’d say my arm is broken, and you’d say, ‘Oh, Susie, it’s just a sprain.’”

  Claire winced at that one. She’d waited so long to take Susan to the hospital that they’d had to rebreak the arm to make it heal properly. And Susan was right. In every example, she could hear herself saying those words. Worse, they suddenly sounded like something Mellie might say.

  “You know”—Susan hugged her arms across her chest—”I thought I was crazy. According to you, what I felt, I wasn’t really feeling. What I was thinking was all wrong. Well, somewhere along the way I figured out it was you who was crazy. I knew I had to get away from you or you’d make me just as nuts as you are. You know why I graduated early, why I worked my butt off to get out of high school? So I could get away from you. I couldn’t get away soon enough.”

  Claire couldn’t let that pass without argument. “No, that wasn’t it. You were really so anxious to get to college, that—”

  “Mother! Are you listening to me?” Susan glared at her, then laughed, throwing her arms up in a gesture of defeat. “Yeah, all right, Mom. That was it. I wanted to get to college. That was it. Good-bye.”

  She reached for the doorknob again, turning to look at her mother one last time. Her eyes were so mean and dark that Claire could almost believe she’d meant it when she said she hated her.

  “Daddy’s doing just fine without you, by the way, in case you care,” Susan said. “I’m going to keep my eyes open for someone to fix him up with. Someone who’ll appreciate him.”

  She walked out the door, slamming it hard behind her, and Claire watched her run down the driveway toward her car.

  Randy opened the louvered doors. “I’d like to talk with her,” he said.

  She shook her head. “It’ll just make things worse.”

  “Please let me, Claire.”

  She glanced out the window. Susan had her hand on the car door. “All right,” she said.

  Randy walked past her and out the door, and from the window she watched him approach the car. She was surprised that Susan didn’t gun the engine and drive off. Randy squatted down on the curb, and for several minutes he and Susan spoke through the open window while Claire watched, still trembling from her daughter’s tirade.

  When he came into the apartment again, he wrapped his arms around her wordlessly and held her close.

  “What did you say to her?” she asked.

  Randy spoke softly against her hair. “I told her she was right,” he said.

  Claire leaned back to look at him. “You what?”

  “I told her she was brave to lay all that on you. That it was important for you to hear it.”

  For a moment Claire said nothing, trying to absorb his words. “And what did she say?” she asked finally.

  He laughed. “She told me to go to hell.”

  39

  SEATTLE

  “WE’RE UP SHIT’S CREEK, Vanessa.” Terri Roos didn’t even say hello, and Vanessa wished she hadn’t bothered to pick up the phone. She lowered herself into the chair behind her desk.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Do you remember what I told you about the Senate Victims’ Assistance Committee? That they’re having a hearing on Zed’s Aid to Adult Survivors Bill ne
xt month?” Terri’s tone was condescending, as if the matter were of such small import to Vanessa that she would have forgotten.

  “Yes,” Vanessa said. “I remember.”

  “Well, we’ve been trying to find witnesses willing to testify to the impact that childhood abuse had on them as teenagers.”

  “Right. And?”

  “And the committee has this attorney screening the witnesses. We finally dug up five women willing to testify, but only one of them passed the screening. And one is not enough. Zed said we can forget about getting our funding this year unless we find more witnesses. He was very apologetic but said he hasn’t been able to give the whole adolescent issue the focus it deserves. Even though he’s going to be cleared on this molestation charge, it’s sapped his time and energy.” There was anger in Terri’s voice. “He said we should—”

  “What makes you so sure he’s going to be cleared?” Vanessa interrupted her.

  “Do you have any doubt?”

  “The case isn’t closed yet.” She hadn’t given up hope that the jury would see through the girl’s anxiety to the facts. There had been inconsistencies in her story, true, and she had cried uncontrollably once she finally took the stand. She’d retracted some statements while embellishing others, but she hadn’t retracted the main thrust of her accusations. Somehow, the jury would discern the truth.

  “Well, anyhow,” Terri continued, “Zed said that we should try again next year. That way we can—”

  “My AMC program will be dead by then. Yours too.”

  “I know, but right now we have exactly one witness to testify to the need, and she’s going to be lost in the shuffle.”

  “Why were the other witnesses screened out?”

  “Not credible enough. Not professional enough in their presentation. Their problems during adolescence weren’t compelling enough—the attorney’s word, not mine,” Terri added quickly. “A couple of them said they had repressed the memories of their abuse until adulthood, and that went over like a lead balloon. The lawyer said we’d be opening up a whole debate on repressed memories, that we’re not going to be able to get a bunch of male politicians to buy into that right now.”