by Belva Plain
Everything spun too fast. The way life moved and sped was extraordinary. It was fearful. One was, after all, quite helpless. First there was Emily trying for Yale with all the honors. And then there was this scene. A sudden vertigo overcame Lynn and she grasped the back of the bed to steady herself.
The nurse whispered, “She’ll sleep now. The night nurse said she was up most of the night in spite of the medication.”
So they waited all day in the room. Late in the afternoon Emily awoke and stirred in the bed.
“I’m better,” she said clearly.
And indeed, some faint color flowed under her skin, and her eyes were bright, their pupils large and dark as after recovery from fever.
Next she said, “You’re very angry.”
They spoke in unison. “No, no.”
She sighed. “You need to be told.”
“Not now,” Robert said. “You don’t need to talk now.”
But Emily insisted. “I want to.” In a tone of bewilderment, as if she were telling a stranger’s story, one that she did not really understand, she began. “At first I didn’t know. I didn’t think, it was only about the middle of the second month. I didn’t know. And after that, I was so scared. I couldn’t believe it.”
Her thin hands clung together on the coverlet. On her little finger she wore the initialed gold ring that had been too large even for her middle finger when it was new. She had been eight, seven or eight, Lynn thought; my sister gave it to her for her birthday; we had a clown at the party, I remember.
“I—we didn’t know what to do. We kept talking about what to do. I was going to tell you, honestly. I just couldn’t seem to get my courage up.”
And Lynn thought of the day she had learned about the baby who, it now seemed, was at this minute making its first movements within her, of how she had brought the news home and the house had turned into a holiday house.
“I didn’t want an abortion, I couldn’t do that.”
“What then would you have done?” Robert asked softly.
“We thought—I’ll be eighteen this month, we’ll be in college next year. They have married couples in college, lots of people marry that young. We’d want to be married, we’d want the baby to have proper parents.” Emily’s eyes turned toward the ceiling for a moment, reflecting. “You see, we’re not that modern. Maybe I am, but Harris isn’t. He comes from a very religious family. They go to church every Sunday. He does, too, and they’d want things done right. They’re very good people, really. Harris wouldn’t be what he is if they weren’t.”
Robert raised his head, looked across the bed toward Lynn. His lips formed a sneer; she understood the sneer. But he said nothing. And she herself was as yet incapable of making any judgment at all.
“You won’t believe this,” Emily said, “but it was only one time. I swear it.” When neither parent answered, she continued, “I loved him. I love him now. So it happened. It was one day when we were going to the lake, and—”
“No.” Robert spoke roughly. “No. We don’t have to hear about that.”
He did not want to imagine his daughter with a man, to think of Emily and sex at the same time. Well, that was understandable, Lynn supposed.
Now Emily reached for her hand. “You know, Mom,” she said. “You understand about loving, even when there are times one shouldn’t.” And she gave her mother a serious, meaningful look, holding her so long with that look that Lynn, struck by painful memory, was the first to turn away. It was as if Emily wanted to remind her of something, as if there were some complicity between her daughter and herself.
Then the nurse came back. It was five o’clock, dinnertime, and visiting hours were over until the evening, she said, apologizing.
“Anyway, now that Emily’s doing fine, you must feel better yourselves.”
“You must be awfully tired, Mom.” Emily smiled. “You’re starting the fifth month, aren’t you? Go home and rest.”
When they were halfway home, it occurred to Lynn that Emily had not spoken one direct word to Robert.
A car was parked in front of their house when they entered the driveway. Two men got out and walked toward them. One was Harris in his neat chinos, and the other, of equal height, with the same thick brown hair, but older and broader, was undoubtedly his father, wearing a policeman’s uniform.
“Oh, no,” Lynn said aloud.
Robert heard her and gave an order. “Be quiet. I’ll handle this.”
They met beside Robert’s car. The boy, like Lynn, was afraid, but his father came forward frankly.
“I’m Lieutenant Weber. My son has come to talk to you. Speak up, Harris.”
Robert gave a stop signal with his raised hand. “There is nothing you can tell me that I want to hear. Nothing.”
The boy flushed. The blood, surging from neck to scalp, looked as though it must burn him.
“I’d like to beat you to a pulp,” Robert said, making a fist with the raised hand.
“Mr. Ferguson,” the father said, “perhaps if we go inside and talk together—”
“No. My little girl is in there, and anyway, I don’t want you—him—in my house. I don’t want to talk to him.”
“Let him speak here, then. Please, Mr. Ferguson. It’ll only take a few minutes.”
“I just want you to know,” Harris said, “it’s hard to find the words, but—I am so terribly sorry, I’ll never forget this as long as I live.” His whole body was shaking, but he raised his head and threw his shoulders back. “I’m ashamed. I am so terribly ashamed, and so sad for Emily because I love her. I don’t know what else to say, Mr. Ferguson, Mrs. Ferguson.” He gave a little sob, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “You’ve always been so nice to me, and—”
His father continued for him. “I have always told him, always since he was grown, that he had two little sisters and that he must treat girls as he’d want somebody to treat them.”
Robert interrupted. “Look, Lieutenant, this is all very sweet talk, but there’s no point in it. Talk can’t undo the facts or make us feel any better. The facts are that Emily came close to dying—”
“No, Robert,” Lynn said softly. “No, don’t make it worse than it is.”
“My wife’s a sentimental woman. She doesn’t want to hear the truth spoken. It’s all right for you to talk sweetly, young fellow. You’re not the one lying in pain.”
Harris’s eyes glistened, and with her eyes Lynn tried to communicate with him. Certain thoughts were taking shape in her mind. He hadn’t raped Emily, after all. And it did take two.
Lieutenant Weber said it for her. “It does, after all, take two,” he reminded them gently. He gazed out toward the hill where darkness already lay on the trees. “And it’s not the first time this has happened, God knows.”
A dialogue spun itself out between the two men while Lynn and Harris stood by.
“That doesn’t concern me. I’m only concerned about this time.”
“Of course. As the father of girls I surely understand. The question is, what is to happen now to these young folks?”
The man was sorrowful and yet not humble, Lynn saw. Somehow the onus is always put on the boy, so it must be hard to be standing in his shoes. Yet he does it honorably. And Robert was making it harder, offering no way for minds to meet.
“He’s heard plenty from me and his mother, too, about this, you can bet, enough so he’ll never forget it,” Lieutenant Weber persisted.
“He didn’t hear enough. If he were my son, I’d break his neck.”
The father laid his hand on his son’s arm. “What good would that do?”
“Let him suffer a little, that’s what.”
“Don’t you think he is suffering? He’s a good kid, same as Emily. She’s been at our house, and we know her well. She’s a fine girl, the finest. They made a mistake, a bad one, but not the worst. Now it’s up to us to help them.”
“I’m going inside,” Robert said coldly. “We’ve been through hell, my wife and I, and we’re wasting ou
r strength listening to drivel. If you’ll excuse us.” The gravel crunched under his heel as he moved.
“I’m sorry you think it’s drivel, Mr. Ferguson. Harris came here like a man to face you. In our family he’s been taught to have respect. Never mind this modern stuff. He goes to church, he’s not the kind who goes banging—pardon the expression”—this with a bow toward Lynn—“every girl he—”
Robert’s anger blazed. “No,” he said, “not every girl. Only a girl from a family like this one, a home like this one.” He waved his arm toward the house. “Not such a dumb idea to come snooping and sneaking around a place like this so he can raise himself up from the bottom.”
Lynn cried in horror. “Robert! Robert!”
“You stay out of this, Lynn. People like him there think they’ll better themselves by creeping in where they don’t belong.”
“Now, wait a minute, Mr. Ferguson. Don’t you take that superior tone with me. I won’t stand for it.”
“Dad! For God’s sake, don’t! Please don’t argue,” Harris pleaded.
“Don’t you worry, son. You go sit in the car. Go now. I won’t be long.”
When the boy was out of hearing, he resumed. “I came here like a gentleman with my son. I planned to go into your house so your neighbors across the road wouldn’t recognize me in my uniform. I wanted to spare you again, the way I spared you before. I wasn’t going to tell you this, for Emily’s and Harris’s sakes I wasn’t, but you’ve asked for it. On the bottom, are we? You’re hardly one to talk.”
“Explain yourself,” Robert said. “And lower your voice while you’re at it.”
“Yes, that would be a good idea,” replied the other man, and lowered it. “It would have been better for you if you had lowered yours that night a while back when you were battering your wife.”
“Oh, Lieutenant, oh, please,” Lynn begged.
“Mrs. Ferguson, I’m sorry, but I have to. I’m a man too. Maybe it’s just as well that Mr. Ferguson hears the truth.”
Lynn’s heart raced. It crossed her mind that even at her age, one could have a heart attack. How fast could a heart beat before it gave up?
“Let me tell you,” Weber said, “I was called here, I was on duty, when a call came a while back in the summer. The people across the road were out taking an evening walk when they passed your house and heard something going on. So they phoned the station, and up I came. I stood in the dark, and I heard enough to know what it was, all right. I could have taken you in right then and there. But I wasn’t about to make trouble for Emily. I figured she already had enough because it can’t be the greatest thing for a girl to grow up here, grand as it is.”
Robert was breathing heavily, and Weber continued.
“We’re very fond of Emily. We know what she is. True blue. I wouldn’t hurt her for the world. So I told the people across the road that it was a mistake, and back at the station I buried the record. Buried it. So don’t you talk to me about fine family, Mr. Ferguson, or coming up from the bottom.” He turned to Lynn, who was crying. “I know you’re expecting, Mrs. Ferguson, and this isn’t good for you. I’m awfully sorry about it. About everything. If there’s anything I can ever do for you, you know where I am, where we are, Harris and—”
“Yes, you can do something,” Robert said. He was shaking. “You’re a lying bastard, cop or no. You saw nothing when you were here, and you know you didn’t. You’re trying to intimidate me. Well, it won’t work. Now get out of here, you and your precious son. And never come back, either one of you. That’s what you can do, and that’s all I have to say.”
“That’s just what I intended to do all along, Mr. Ferguson. Good night, Missus.”
For a minute the two were speechless. Lynn was as shocked and immobile as in that first second when Bruce had told them about Emily. The sound of Weber’s chugging old engine died away down the road before Robert spoke.
“Stop crying. Cry about Emily, not about that garbage.” He bent down in the dusk to stare at her. “Don’t tell me you’re feeling sorry for that wretched kid. Yes, I wouldn’t be surprised. I suppose you are.”
“Yes, Robert, I am.”
“It figures. That’s you.”
“Maybe it is.”
Pity, like a wave, flooded over her, pity for everything, for a child lost in the crowd and crying for its mother, for a shivering dog abandoned on the roadside, for Emily, so afraid, so ashamed, and for that young fellow, too, with his scared eyes, paying such a price for his few moments of a natural passion. And now, unmistakably this time, the baby moved within her, flexing its tiny arm or leg, stretching and readying itself for a hard world.
“We’ve seen the last of them, at any rate,” Robert said as they went toward the house. “If he ever comes here, you’re to throw him out. But he won’t dare.” They went inside, where Robert poured a drink. His hand was shaking. “My heart’s pounding like a trip-hammer. This sort of thing doesn’t do you any good, that’s for sure.”
“No,” she said, wiping her wet cheeks.
There was a terrible shame in the room, as if two strangers, a man and a woman, had blundered into a place where one of them was naked. It was not quite clear to her who the naked one was here, Robert, so painfully proud, or she herself, who had for the first time seen another human being stand up to Robert and win. For Weber had won; there could be no doubt of that.
He swallowed the drink and went to the foot of the stairs, calling Annie.
“We’re home, honey. What are you doing?”
“Homework,” came the answer.
“What homework?”
“Geography.”
“Have you got the atlas up there with you?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Good girl. Well, stay up there and finish it.”
Returning, Robert said, “We need to talk before she comes down.”
“About what?”
“About what we’re going to do, naturally. I’d like to take her out of that school. Put her in private school, where she won’t have to see him. I don’t want her to see him even passing in the halls.”
“You can’t do that to her, you can’t break up a term in senior year, Robert!”
He considered, then conceded, “I suppose you’re right. But I’m going to have a talk with Emily—oh, don’t worry, I see the worry on your face. It’s going to be very peaceable, with no recriminations, because she’s been through enough. But I’m going to make things quite clear, all the same. I want her to rest at home for a week or so, and when she goes back to school, she’ll say she had the flu.” He walked back and forth across the room with steps so firm that the crystals on the wall sconces made a musical tinkle as he passed. “I want you to keep a strict watch over her free time, Lynn. I want to know where she’s going, with whom, and when she’ll be home, and no nonsense about it. You get the idea.” He increased his pace so that the crystals complained. “Damn! Damn! And life was looking so good. The fates just can’t let you enjoy what they give without taking something away at the same time, or so it seems. However, there’s no use lamenting about the fates.”
Lynn agreed that there was not, and he continued, “I want to keep up with what I started in Maine, keep up the momentum. If it weren’t for all that, I’d like to take the lot of us away over Thanksgiving and again at Christmas, and again in February, spend every damn school vacation away from here. But as it is … well, we’ll have to find other things to do, a ski weekend, theater tickets, Saturdays in the city, anything to keep that girl out of harm’s way.”
So he walked the length of the room like a general organizing his campaign. That which had been darkly, safely buried, that which Weber had dug up and brought into a cruel glare, had been dismissed from Robert’s mind: It was an outrageous lie, it had never happened.
At least, Lynn thought wryly, at least Weber’s done one thing; he’s had a sobering effect; Robert hasn’t said anything more about my being to blame for Emily’s trouble.
The words repeated themselves in pitying silence: Emily’s trouble.
“I am so terribly tired,” she said involuntarily.
Robert gave her a glance. “Yes, you do look done in. Go to bed. I’ll see how Annie’s doing.”
She moved heavily. It was an effort to raise her arms and slip the dress over her head, to pull the spread back and get into the bed. Yet it was not long before she fell into a thick, dark sleep. Toward morning when the windows turned gray, she dreamed. She tumbled, hurling from some great height while grabbing in terror at the empty air, while below, sharp, pointed things—knives, sticks, thorns?—were aimed at her open eyes, and there was no way, no way she could—
She screamed, screamed, and was jolted awake. Robert was holding her, saying softly, “What is it?”
“Nothing, nothing,” she whispered.
He comforted her shaking body, stroking the back of her neck.
“Nerves. Nerves. And why not? You’ve been through too much. Take it easy. I’m here. I’m here.”
“Then I have your promise, Emily?” Robert asked.
“I have already given it to you,” she answered, lying back on the pillowed sofa.
“It is for your own good, Emily. You’ve had a very narrow escape. As terribly hard as it was, the miscarriage”—here he seemed to gulp over the word—“was easier than the other way would have been. Your whole life, your ambition, everything, would have turned inside out.” He made a gesture of hopeless dismissal. “So now the rest is up to you,” he said, standing up and producing a smile meant to encourage. “I have to run for the late train. My desk must be loaded.” At the door he turned back again. “Oh, yes, I meant to tell you, I’ve bought tickets to the opera, Saturday matinees. But you’ll be able to squeeze in your homework all day Sunday. And Annie will too.”
“He’s so well oiled,” said Emily when Robert had gone. “Everything planned. You press a button and the answers to all your problems just pop out. Quick and easy.”
“That’s nasty, Emily. Your father means so well. You never thought he’d be so understanding, now, did you?”
“Does he think I don’t see through him? Do your homework all day Sunday, meaning, Don’t leave this house. I’m keeping an eye on you.”
