“No, that’s not it,” Patrick said. “You just don’t want to see me anymore.”
“Of course I do. You know I do. It’s just better if you don’t come here, that’s all. At least not for a while, anyway.” She explained that the landlord had sent a registered letter threatening to evict her the next time she caused a disturbance in his building.
“What’s his name, the no-good son of a bitch!” Patrick growled.
“See! You’re mad again,” she said. “I’m not going to see you when you’re like this.”
“No! No, I just feel bad, that’s all. I feel really bad.”
“Don’t feel bad.”
“Well I do. I can’t help it, I do. So when are you going to come then? Can you come tonight? How about tomorrow then?” he asked when she said she was on her way to bed.
“Well, I don’t know. I’m not sure I—”
“Why? You have a date or something?”
“No.”
“Then why not? Why the hell can’t you just say yes or no? That’s all you have to say. Yes or no. I mean, don’t do me any favors!”
“Patrick!”
“I don’t need crap like that, you understand? You’re either up-front with me or you’re not!” he shouted as she listened in stunned silence. “That’s the way I see it, so don’t be telling me, you don’t think, or you don’t know, or maybe, you’re not really sure, because I don’t have time for shit like that, you understand? You want to see me, fine, I’m here! If not, then don’t bother me! Don’t fucking bother me, you hear what I’m saying?”
“I better hang up now, Patrick.”
“Yah! You do that! You hang the—” he was still shouting as she put down the phone.
She grabbed her coat and hurried out of the apartment before he could call back. Let him cool down, she thought as she drove to the supermarket. They were so much alike, volatile and impulsive. Facing up to the consequences of her actions was a hard lesson, but she was trying. What Patrick needed was a daughter’s softening love and attention. And patience. She was on her way into the Shop And Save when she saw Terry wrestling her loaded cart through the door. Her younger son sat in the child’s seat while the older boy stood on the front, clinging to the sides.
“Fiona!”
“Terry!” she called, as they both paused in the electronic sweep of the opposite doors. She continued inside, then came right out again to walk with Terry to her car. Terry was gaining a lot of weight with this pregnancy. Her puffy, red eyes made her face looked faintly bloated. Her hair was pulled back with an elastic, and the loose ends hung in chunks over her ears. There was a button missing on her jacket and the black wool was pilled with lint and dog hair.
Terry said she was exhausted. Both boys had been sick with strep infections, and Tim was shorthanded at the store, so he’d worked every night this week.
Fiona helped load the groceries into the back of the station wagon while Terry put the boys into their car seats. By the time she got them both fastened Fiona had emptied the cart. Thanking her, Terry slammed the hatch door shut.
“I used to look forward to this. But now I hate it,” Terry said as she wedged herself behind the wheel. “I hate it more than anything. Stop it!” She reached back and snatched the windshield scraper from the older boy, who had been tapping the window with it. Fiona asked if she could give the boys gum. Only if it had a sedative in it, Terry said.
“Must be a lot of work, huh?” Fiona said, handing them each a stick of gum.
“Dragging those two along doesn’t help,” Terry said. She thanked Fiona again, then glanced back at the boys and warned them to stay awake or else they’d have to sleep in the car all night. She had enough to carry in.
“Wait!” Fiona called before Terry closed her window. “How about if I give you a hand? I can help carry the groceries in.”
No, Terry protested, Fiona had her own shopping to do. But Fiona insisted.
At the house she told Terry to take care of the boys while she brought in the bags. She emptied them onto the counter, smiling as running feet scurried overhead.
“Get back here!” Terry called in a strained voice. “Get back here right now.” There were more footsteps, screams, then giggling, and the gurgle of water through the pipes in the wall. Fiona had assembled all the canned goods together, dry goods, cleaning supplies. The perishables were on the butcher block table next to the refrigerator. All the bags were folded flat. She filled the kettle and put it on the stove to boil for tea. She rinsed out the dirty dishes in the sink and opened the dishwasher. Seeing the filled racks, she unloaded the clean dishes and glasses and put everything away. She used to enjoy helping Sandy like this, until she realized Sandy had no problem letting her do everything for her.
When Terry came downstairs Fiona was at the table flipping through a home remodeling magazine. She got up quickly and poured the water for tea.
“Fiona, this is so nice of you. You didn’t have to do all this,” Terry said as she put away her groceries.
“Keeps my domestic muscles toned,” she said. “In fact, I was just thinking, if you want, I could come help you with this every week.”
Terry paused with a wistful smile. “And knowing you, Fiona, you probably would.” She sighed as she sat down.
“Of course! In fact, I could even baby-sit while you go shopping. You’d probably like that better.” She had forgotten how much she enjoyed being with her old friend. “I’m sorry I blew up on you in Dunkin’ Donuts like that, Terry. It just all seemed to be coming at me at once. I mean, the whole thing. Of course it never should have happened, but it’s not like I did anything on purpose.”
“No, I know,” Terry said, eyes alert as she leaned forward.
“And I’m not going to go into gory details, but you saw the shape I was in when I left here that night. Was he as drunk as I was? I don’t think so.”
“No, I don’t either. Oh, Fiona.” Terry sighed. “I don’t know. I mean, what did Brad say? What led up to it?”
“So you do want all the gory details.” Fiona stared at her.
“No!” Terry protested. “I just want us to be close again. That’s all. And I’m sorry for even bringing it up that time. I just thought it would help for you to talk about it.”
“Well, that’s why we’ve been friends for so long. We were never afraid to say what was on our minds. But some things are just too . . . too painful.”
Terry looked down at the tea bag she had been dunking up and down. “I haven’t been too good a friend lately, have I?”
“You’re busy. I know. It’s not easy with two kids.” Fiona tried to laugh. “And a husband who hates my guts.”
“Oh no, Fiona. You know Tim, he’s just had his pants on too tight lately.”
“What?” Fiona gasped, laughing. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, it was okay at first, being this hot chick—he liked that, but now that we have kids I’m supposed to be the Blessed Mother or something. Kids.” She sighed. “That’s when everything changes. Hey!” she said, suddenly dumping her tea into the sink. “I feel like a glass of wine. How about you?”
Fiona asked if it was all right to drink when she was pregnant.
“My doctor said an occasional beer or glass of wine is fine,” Terry assured her.
An hour had passed, and they were still in the kitchen. They’d been talking about Todd Prescott and Sandy Rudman when Terry’s face flushed with her sudden admission that this pregnancy had been a mistake. It represented a terrible financial setback. In her eighth week she and Tim had gone to an abortion clinic in Boston. “All the way in we didn’t speak. We didn’t even look at one another. It was like neither one of us wanted to have to actually do it. But then again, neither one of us wanted the pregnancy either. So we did all the paperwork, and then I went in this little metal stall to change. It was freezing cold, and I was standing there in just a johnny and paper slippers, and I started shivering so bad my teeth hurt from chattering.
The nurse kept coming by to see if I was ready. ‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘Almost.’ And I’m just standing there hugging myself. Finally on her fourth trip she asked if I was all right. She said the doctor had already been waiting fifteen minutes. I started putting my clothes back on. ‘I have to go,’ I said. ‘I have to see my husband.’ And the minute I walked out Tim jumped up and put his arm around me, and he kept asking me if I was all right. Was I supposed to be walking so fast like that so soon after? I didn’t want to tell him in front of everyone in the waiting room, so I waited until we got outside. I thought he’d be so mad, but instead he started crying, then I started crying. There the two of us were on Comm. Ave. surrounded by picketers, bawling our eyes out.”
“That’s beautiful.” Fiona thought of her mother, unmarried and having to face everything alone. She had asked Aunt Arlene once if her mother had ever considered abortion. No. She never did, her aunt had answered, her clipped tone betraying the cold censure her mother must have endured.
“Except now we’re both so nervous,” Terry said. They both looked up at the sound of running feet. A moment later, Will, the younger boy, charged into the kitchen, crying, and leaped onto his mother’s lap. He said his brother, Frankie, kept shutting the door and scaring him.
“Every time I think of it, I get so afraid. We both do,” Terry murmured, her chin resting on the boy’s head. “You know, it’s like we went to the edge, like we tempted fate, so now anything can happen.”
Fiona looked at her hugging her sweaty son, his legs tucked under his small body that was curved against his mother’s big belly. “But anything can always happen,” she said. Just as there were no guarantees in life, there were no safeguards either, she tried to explain. Not even an exemplary life could assure a person good health or good fortune. Lightning could strike anyone at any time. Saints got cancer too. And innocent children got hit by cars.
“Don’t say that.” Terry shuddered, looking down at her sleepy son. She got up and carried him around the corner where she laid him down on the sofa. “It just makes everything seem so . . . so kind of rickety,” she said, coming back into the kitchen. “You know. Unsafe.”
“But everything is!” Fiona said with absolute conviction.
Terry poured them both more wine. “You didn’t used to be this bitter.”
“It’s not bitterness. I’m just being realistic, that’s all. All my life I grew up hearing that good things happen to good people, but I kept seeing how bad things happen to good people too. Of course my own family—I mean the Hollises, that is—they do good deeds the way most people knock on wood. It’s not so much to help the other person as it is to cover themselves, to make themselves feel better.”
“But you don’t mean Elizabeth. She’s not like that, right?” Terry asked, watching her.
“Well, Elizabeth’s a different version of the same syndrome. She always had to be good to make up for me.” She laughed. “Kind of a good twin-bad twin thing, I guess.” She set down her glass. The wine on an empty stomach had made her lightheaded. She hadn’t felt this relaxed in a long time, she thought, sinking back into the comfort of their easy intimacy.
She was telling Terry about Rudy and Elizabeth’s problems. She knew she shouldn’t, but after what Terry had just confided, how could she not? This trading of secrets had always been their way of putting things right again. Terry listened intently, then asked what Rudy was like. To describe him Fiona told how they’d first met, after she’d been handcuffed by Jim Luty.
“Jim Luty! Oh my God!” Terry roared, holding her sides, while Fiona related the rest of the bizarre tale.
“And he never even told Elizabeth?” Terry asked.
“No! That’s what I mean. He’s a really genuine person. Obviously he’s smart, he’s a doctor, but he’s got this other kind of intelligence. You know like from in here,” she said, touching her breast. Yes, that was it, she thought. That was it exactly.
Terry watched her over a long sip of wine. “If I tell you something, can you keep it to yourself?”
“Of course.”
“I mean you absolutely have to. Timmy would kill me if he found out I said anything.”
“I won’t. I swear! What?”
“But then you probably already know.”
“What? How would I know?”
“It’s about George.” Terry leaned on both arms over the table. “You know how he said this was a confusing time for him right now?”
Fiona nodded, and in that instant knew what Terry was about to tell her.
Elizabeth and George were seeing each other again. Tim had dropped in on George one night and Elizabeth had been there. Tim said it was so obvious. George didn’t seem to want him there, and then right before he left, Elizabeth came down in George’s bathrobe. She was mortified. After she went back upstairs, George told Tim the truth. They wanted to be together, but Elizabeth still hadn’t been able to break off her engagement. “She can’t bring herself to hurt the guy—”
“Rudy,” Fiona interrupted. “Rudy Larkin.” He wasn’t a guy. He had a name.
“Yah, him,” Terry continued, “but what’s even worse, according to George, is that she can’t bear the thought of upsetting her parents. Apparently every time he brings it up she goes to pieces.”
Fiona sipped her wine.
“So you didn’t know,” Terry said.
Fiona shook her head. “Not really. But now that you’ve said it I guess I just didn’t want to know.” She described their strange shopping trip for the wedding gown. Terry’s eyes widened with intrigue. Her lips seemed to move with Fiona’s, already practicing the retelling. Fiona knew she would feel guilty for exposing Elizabeth, but right now she felt too betrayed herself, and angry. A sourness rose in her throat. It wasn’t kindness that motivated her cousin, but timidity and deceit, a cowardly mix.
In the other room Will cried out briefly. Terry peeked around the corner. “He’s all right,” she said, hurrying back. “So anyway, what happened when you put the gown on?” Terry’s head jerked up as the back-door glass filled with the headlights of a car pulling into the driveway. “Shit,” she muttered, grabbing the wineglasses. She was almost at the sink when the back door opened. Tim entered, laughing and talking over his shoulder to the shorter man behind him. “Hey honey, look who—” He stopped, glancing down at Fiona with a look of confusion. Brad Glidden had already stepped inside and was closing the door.
Terry stammered an explanation of Fiona’s help with the groceries.
“What’s this?” Tim took the wineglasses from her. He dumped them out into the sink.
“We were just talking.” Terry glared at him.
“Hi, Tim,” Fiona said from the table. She ignored Glidden.
“Daddy!” Will said, rubbing his eyes as he shuffled into the kitchen.
“Hey, big guy!” Tim bent down to pick him up. “Come on,” he said to Glidden as he headed past the table. “We’ll turn the game on in here.”
Eyes averted, Glidden hurried after him.
“Asshole,” Terry muttered as the television came on loudly, as if the volume could somehow shield them. “I’m sorry,” Terry said as Fiona stood up and put on her jacket.
Her face felt hot. “That’s okay,” she said. She had to get out of here. From the corner of her eye she saw Tim carrying his son up the stairs.
“No, wait! You just wait here. I’ll be right back,” Terry insisted, hurrying after him.
She could hear their muffled voices upstairs. She opened the back door. “No, God damn it,” she whispered, then turned and marched into the living room. Brad Glidden was huddled on the couch staring at the basketball players racing across the screen.
“Excuse me,” she said loudly to be heard over the announcer. “But there seems to be a misunderstanding here.”
“What?” His eyes flickered warily between her and the stairs beyond.
She picked up the remote control from the coffee table and clicked off the television. In the sudden s
ilence she could hear little Will crying, then heavy footsteps near the stairs. “Tell me,” she said, moving closer. “Did I do something bad to you?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, his voice barely audible, his head tilted back in disbelief.
“Did I hurt you in some way? What did I do? Did I take advantage of you somehow? Did I attack you? Exactly what did I do?”
“Nothing,” he gasped, shaking his head.
“It was just the opposite, wasn’t it?” She felt herself not just looming, but towering, swelling over him.
“We both had too much to drink, both of us,” he said quickly, in obvious dread of the details.
A shadow fell across the stairwell.
“Well, you better tell your wife that then. And your mother-in-law too! And you also better tell them that if they ever insult me again the way they did, I will take them to court and I will sue them for every penny I can get.” She was trembling with power and rage. He ducked as she flipped the remote onto the table.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a high wheezy voice.
“And I’m sorry your baby died, but you know as well as I do that it didn’t have anything to do with me.”
“Get out!” Tim shouted as he raced down the stairs. “You get the hell out of my house!”
“Yah, I will, but first I want to see Terry.” She smiled, but her heart was pounding.
“No! You go now!” he demanded.
Brad stood up. “That’s all right, Tim, I’ll—”
“No. She’s leaving! Not you.”
Fiona gave a little laugh and went to the bottom of the stairs. “Terry?” she called up. “Can you come down a minute?” She paused.
“Terry?” she called a little louder. “Will you please come down here?”
“She’s not coming down,” Tim said, smirking. “So why don’t you just go?”
“Terry! Can you hear me? Terry?” She was almost shouting.
“You wake up those kids . . . ” Tim warned with a clenched fist.
“Terry!” she called again.
Fiona Range Page 26
