by Belva Plain
Louise, then, was not as naive as she appeared to be. The older you get, Margaret thought, the more often people astonish you with what’s concealed in them. She would never have suspected that the cheery, rather depthless Louise, with her proper notions, had observed anyone that keenly.
Megan, as reticent as Adam himself, was obviously waiting for an explanation. With her arm around her daughter Margaret did her best to make it a plausible one.
“Woman to woman,” she said with an appealing, wistful smile, “I’ll admit I was an absolute fool to make such a fuss. The way I lay there crying that night—it was awful for you to see your mother in such a condition. The whole thing was all innocent, you see, just a business lunch, obligatory, you see. I concocted a whole story out of it, and I made an idiot of myself.”
Whether Megan, like Louise, believed a word of what Margaret said was doubtful too. At any rate, she gave her mother a kiss and a look filled with—what?—thankfulness, pity, or disbelief?—that went to Margaret’s heart.
And when abruptly on an April morning full spring arrived with cool south winds and birdsong, that, too, went to her heart as never before. On such a day in such green-gold splendor, surely a fresh start could be made!
So, almost as if nothing had intervened, the old life resumed. Suddenly there were no more late meetings; Adam took his place at the dinner table every night as he had always done. Saturday again was a home day. Seedlings were set out in the cold frame; together they all painted the rear fence one afternoon; one night Adam made a Mexican dinner with corn soup and guacamole. When Danny was given the part of Lincoln in the class play, Adam coached him as, dressed with beard and stovepipe hat, he gave the Gettysburg Address.
And Margaret, watching and listening for the slightest signs, became convinced that Adam was really trying. Feeling this, she felt that her own old, cold resentments of recent years were dropping away, as when one takes off a constricting garment and can stretch again. He, after all, was only another victim of the well-known “midlife crisis.”
What really had brought him back from the brink, whether Fred’s exhortations or the photographs of his children or the thought of his mother’s condemnation, Margaret did not know. Perhaps Adam himself did not know. Once or twice she had come close to asking him now how he had ended the affair, but she did not do it. Once or twice he made a vague, brief reference to “weakness,” admitting that a woman is often the stronger of a pair. So then, Mrs. Randi had been the stronger? And Margaret thought with scorn, no stronger than I am.…
Adam had returned to their bed. One night he had simply come and stood hesitating at the door. And she had been so glad! Yet, thinking it better not to make a drama out of what should be perfectly normal, she had just smiled and asked him whether he had had his ice cream yet. For years it had been his habit to have it in the kitchen before going to bed.
“Why not eat it up here in comfort in bed?” she suggested. And so now, in these new days of reconciliation, she began a new custom, bringing his ice cream to the bed. There, in amity, they sat together in the great old bed. He ate the ice cream, she read her book, they talked awhile, turned out the light, and went to sleep.
He had still not touched her.
And sometimes in that bed or in the car on the way home from school, or even at the table in the middle of the five Cranes’ familiar conversation, she would feel again a wave of apprehension, a tension like that which precedes a thunderstorm and raises the hair on an animal’s back.
SIXTEEN
“What are you doing to me? And you yourself? I can’t go on like this!” Randi’s voice was hoarse from crying.
In the telephone booth in the stuffy heat Adam shifted his leaning weight from one elbow to the other. These late-afternoon calls exhausted him. Also, the subject was exhausted.
“Randi,” he said patiently, “we’ve got to stop this. I’ve tried to explain.… Maybe in a year or two.… But for now I can’t, I simply can’t. I promised I would give it a try.… It’s too complicated. Darling, I can’t cope anymore today.”
“Cope!” she wailed. “But I have to. Every day, every night I have to. All alone. All alone.”
“Darling, you gave me an ultimatum—”
“I didn’t mean it! I thought I did. I never thought that this is the choice you’d make.”
“I had to. The house. The children. You know I had to. Darling, let’s hang up. It’s been over half an hour.”
“So I can’t call you at the office?”
“Of course not. Not for these long conversations.”
“Can I call you at home?”
“Oh, Randi. Please.”
“When am I going to see you? It’s going on three months.”
“I’m trying. Randi, help me.”
“No. I need you. I love you. Are you going to tell me you don’t love me anymore? Are you?”
“No, darling Randi.”
“Give me one hour on Saturday. Just one hour.”
The pressure was enough to blow the top of a man’s head off.
And he groaned. “We have to go to some relatives. They’re giving a party. Not for us, but it happens to be our anniversary.”
“Oh, happy, happy anniversary! What a celebration this must be! How many years?”
Adam sighed.
“You can’t even answer. How many?”
“Nineteen.”
“You poor thing. I pity you. Well, you just go on home and celebrate with Margaret. I hope she gives you a great time. She’d better, because there’ll be no more of them with me. I’m through with you. This time I mean it. Through.” The receiver slammed in Adam’s ear.
“Yes, it really is nice for a change to be going to somebody else’s party on our day, isn’t it?” Margaret said.
She wanted him, of course, to acknowledge that it was nice. And he did so.
“It won’t be a large crowd,” Louise said. “I know how you hate mobs.”
Margaret looked anxious. For the last few months she had been knocking herself out trying to please him, being vivacious when probably she would rather have read a book or taken a nap. Aware of all this, being sorry about it, he felt the pressure building up again in his head.
“Did I tell you that Fred sent some of his men over to build a gazebo in their yard? Louise always wanted one, a shady place to sit and read.”
Read what, he scoffed silently, the comics?
“They’ve had some landscaping done. Their place is so lovely.”
Of course. That’s the reason for the party, Adam thought, so people can see the proof of Gil’s prosperity.
At the center of the rear lawn stood the new gazebo, with roses climbing on its trellises. Splendid white rhododendrons, old and obviously transplanted, enclosed the lawn. Here and there were vivid pockets of perennials planted by a talented landscape architect. All was tasteful. All was expensive.
As if the hub of a slowly turning wheel, Adam stood and watched as people moved through the scenery, clustering, parting, and connecting with welcome cries and air kisses. Most of them he knew at least by sight or by name. When they had greeted him, they passed on; no one lingered with him. Perhaps they sensed that he would be just as pleased if they did not.
Margaret, as always, had become a part of the event. He found himself observing her, following her white linen dress and her copper head as they threaded through the crowd. And he thought with a pang that she lived with a man who did not touch her. He thought what a waste that was, an injustice to her. And yet there was no help for it!
“The buffet table is inside,” said Louise. “I was afraid the food would melt out here. Come on in, Adam.”
She was a foolish woman, but she meant well, he knew. Yet he also knew that she was keeping a worried eye on him. So was Gil, and so, damn him, was Fred Davis. They were all, these protectors of Margaret, so deliberately cordial, even familial, as if to make clear to him that everything was deliberately forgiven. And he followed Louise into the di
ning room.
There Margaret found him, standing with a full plate, eating by himself.
“Oh, here you are. Do you remember my telling you about the people who raise Old English sheepdogs? Well, they’re here now, and she tells me they have some puppies. Do you think we might go out some evening this week and let Danny have a look?”
Her enthusiasm, the very thought of another acquisition, another obligation, wearied him, and he hesitated.
Margaret reminded him, “We promised Danny.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
“Then I’ll go make an appointment.”
Conversation floated past.
“—two in college this year. It’s a fortune, but Harvard’s worth it.”
“Really quite charming, that Provençal print. They had a New York decorator, some cousin of Gil’s or Louise’s.”
He had not talked to Nina in a while, and she knew nothing of their “trouble,” which was just as well. It would be a good thing, though, if she were to be here for Margaret, he thought. In case I leave. In case. And he wondered what Nina would say about their “trouble”; it would be interesting to know, considering that this time the shoe was on the other foot.
When he was finished, he had to force his way through a blocked doorway and more conversation to get outside.
“—good for a million, at least, not counting stock options.”
“—bound to be a huge upset at ADS—”
Everything these people talked about was a disturbance to him! Everybody was hurrying, racing, climbing! At Randi’s place he could lie naked in the sun and not give a damn about anything. In Randi’s room—
Then he recognized a voice, Fred Davis’s, asking, “Is everything going all right at home?”
A tall woman blocked his vision and Margaret’s reply. He could have punched Fred. Who did he think he was, a parole officer keeping in touch with some shady character?
“Oh,” said Margaret as the tall woman moved away, “Fred is just telling me about his trip. He’s going to Greece this fall.”
“You two ought to plan something,” Fred urged. “I always find a voyage is like medicine. Medicine with a good flavor. I’m sure you can find somebody to stay with the children.” And he gave Adam a questioning look.
Tight lipped, Adam replied, “We’ll see.”
Who the devil did he think he was now, a guardian, a therapist, an advisor to the lovelorn?
Suddenly, he was sick of everything, sick of being monitored, lectured to, advised, and guarded. Trapped is what he was. Hemmed in among these people where he didn’t belong and didn’t want to be. Mentally he waved his arm at them all and scattered them.
“I have a couple of errands,” he told Margaret the next day. “I may not get back in time for dinner.”
It was not quite dark when he returned. He put the car in the garage and, walking back to the house, saw Margaret waiting by the kitchen door. Her expression told him that she knew where he had been. And for a moment he hated her for standing there like a jailer, awaiting the return of an escaped prisoner.
“Well?” she said.
Now, as if on moving film, she changed into the teacher that she was, reprimanding a pupil.
“Well what? You know where I’ve been.”
“I knew when you left where you were going.”
“It’s no use, Margaret. I promised I’d try, and I have tried all these months, but it’s no use.”
“Nineteen years,” she said.
“I can’t help it.”
“You dirty bastard.”
“I don’t want to quarrel with you. Let’s do this decently.”
“And she. A thief in the night. I have more respect for a prostitute. At least, poor women, they don’t steal a man away from his family. With them it’s a business deal. They have something to sell and they name the price, which you can take or leave as you like. Honest value.” And Margaret laughed.
“People will hear you! Be careful.”
“What difference does it make? They’re all going to know it, so why not now? Adam Crane, the exemplary citizen, the intellectual gentleman with the fine scholarly mind, has run away with a filthy slut.”
“Margaret, the children. You’re hurting the children.”
“Much you care about them.”
“You know better than that.” He opened the door. “I don’t want to fight with you. I’m going in.”
For a long time, dry eyed and trembling, she sat on the step. In the first-floor bedroom the light went on, so he must have gone back there for the night. Over and over she repeated the evil words that had just passed between them. Yet it did not seem possible that those words could be final. She had been trying so hard, and things had seemed so promising! Adam had promised.… And he had not wanted to hurt the children.… And it would be different in the morning … People were always more reasonable in the morning.
Shortly after eight o’clock she came downstairs to find him standing among boxes, suitcases, and bags in the hall. He must have been up all night packing. Speechless, not believing what she was seeing, she looked at him.
“I’m leaving,” he said.
She began to cry, wiping her eyes with her knuckles.
“Margaret, stop,” he said. “It won’t do you any good.”
“How can you do this?” she pleaded. “Don’t, Adam. Please don’t leave us. Please don’t.”
Without replying he picked up two boxes and went out the back door to where his car was parked in the driveway.
“I think you have lost your mind,” she whispered when he returned.
“Perhaps.” He picked up a suitcase and went out again.
One by one the children came down the stairs and looked at their mother. Afterward, Megan was to tell Margaret, who had no recollection, what she had said to them.
“Don’t be afraid. I’m here, and I will never leave you.”
“I’m not leaving you either,” Adam told them. “There is someone else, but that’s between your mother and me. It has nothing to do with you. I’m still your father, and you can count on me.”
No one spoke. When he had assembled all his belongings, he climbed into his car. From the front porch they watched him drive down the street and turn the corner. A tableau, thought Margaret. We are a tableau: two girls and a boy in silent, staring shock, a weeping woman, and a shaggy dog.
SEVENTEEN
On the eastern seaboard at that moment it was just after ten o’clock, hot and raining. At the airport near the departure gates Nina searched for Keith through the bustle of business travelers in their wet tan raincoats. On sudden impulse she had decided to surprise him by seeing him off to Phoenix, and she was feeling a happy, childish excitement over the surprise.
“I’ve come fully armed,” she planned to say. “Here’s the book you mentioned yesterday, and here’s a box lunch so you won’t have to choose between eating airplane food or starving. Outside of the fact that we haven’t had any real time together ever since Florida, I’m worried about you. You don’t have a minute to wind down.”
She had thought, and thought now, how lonesome the city became when he was not in it. It was a comfort to feel that he was only a ten-minute taxi ride away. Yet, when waking alone in the silence before dawn, those ten minutes, that fraction of space, extended toward unknown distances and uncounted years.
How long was it going to be? Oh, if one could only rub Aladdin’s lamp and make everything come right! Rub the lamp and eliminate the obstacle, the unwanted, stubborn wife, the frigid failure who can’t keep her husband’s love.
And suddenly there he was. Here was the dear face, here the familiar, rushing steps. Gaily, gladly, she went toward him, calling his name.
She was met with a look of total, startled horror. A woman was with him. In a flash almost subliminal, Nina encompassed the whole woman: smooth, tawny hair; pink face; raincoat; large, pregnant belly.
In another flash Keith’s eyes appealed: For God’s sake,
don’t. Don’t.
“I brought these papers from the office,” she said. “You forgot them.”
“Thank you,” he answered, taking the package. “Very thoughtful of you.” And he repeated, “Thank you.”
He expected her to turn and go. But first she had to control her legs. And so there was a pause that had to be filled, a few seconds in which the pink face was raised expectantly toward her husband—for what could this woman be, with that expression and that body language, if not a wife?
“My wife,” said Keith. “Miss—Jordan.”
The pearly face smiled: How do you do? The upper lip was shaped like the top of a heart, and the dark-fringed eyes, perhaps blue, perhaps green, were gentle.
Nina’s legs began to manage themselves. She nodded, said, “Well …” and backed away. She could not have, and would not have, stayed there more than fifteen seconds, yet this was long enough to hear a full story contained in a sentence or two.
“Keedy, don’t worry about a thing. I’ll bring your mother home from the hospital tomorrow, and as for me, I’m not due till next week. You’ll be home before I have to go.”
Muffled in a fog and unsure of her steps as she walked away, she heard the voice continue, “Take care of yourself, darling. I put your cough medicine in your pocket.”
Darling. Keedy. The wife had her own name for him, an intimate name. Intimate indeed, with that full belly! At the corner past the newsstand Nina looked back. He had his arms around her and was kissing her good-bye.
She fled. Down the long walkway she went, running like mad, as she had run that night in a foreign city. Out on the street she hailed a taxi and collapsed with her head on the back of the seat.
“You all right, lady?” asked the driver.
“Yes, all right. It’s only a headache.”
Over! The whole fraudulent affair was over. She had just witnessed its death. And she fought to think clearly: I must pull myself together. I can’t afford to collapse. A client’s coming to the office. What’s her name? Stout woman, thick white hair, about sixty years old, nice woman. Needs wallpaper. Samples. Who? Can’t think.
