After the Fire

by Belva Plain

  Francine glanced at her watch and returned to the magazine. Hyacinth glanced at her own watch and said nothing. The hour passed. A half-hour passed.

  “Holiday weekend,” Francine remarked. “Heavy traffic.”

  “It's not that far away, Arnie said.”

  “Even so.”

  Nevertheless, Francine was disturbed. Her tapping foot made a soft slap against the marble floor. The sound was exasperating. I'm a wreck, Hyacinth thought, scolding herself for being exasperated.

  “Perhaps we should phone,” Francine said. “Give me the number. I'll do it.”

  Hyacinth watched her walk away. Everything about her was perfect—her hair, her posture, the black linen suit, the white frill around her neck, and the single gold bangle on her arm. Two men swiveled their heads to look at her. She was older than they, but even so, they looked.

  “If your mother weren't so beautiful,” Gerald had said. So many terrible things he had said. And Francine had known he would. Odd, isn't it, that she should be so wise and yet say such foolish things herself sometimes? When I showed Emma's dress to her, she said that even though she loved America, she wished she were French. Well, I suppose I say some idiotic things sometimes. Here she comes. She doesn't seem pleased.

  “There's no answer. I can't make head or tail out of this. Are you sure you have the time right?”

  “Francine, I've been thinking of nothing else ever since Arnie told me weeks ago.”

  “Well then, there's nothing to do but wait.”

  They sat without speaking. After a while, people began to enter the dining room at the far end of the lobby. It was the dinner hour. The two women questioned each other through their worried eyes.

  “Can there have been an accident?”

  “No. They would have called us.”

  Francine stood up and abruptly spoke. “We're going to the house. I'll get a taxi.”

  Hyacinth, silent as the mini-malls and highway signs fled by, twisted the finger where the paired rings had been; remembering then that they were gone now, she folded her hands together between her knees and tried not to think of bicycles that overturn, of balls that slam into an eye, of drownings— Something surely had happened. He couldn't possibly have forgotten.

  “This is it,” said the driver at the approach to a stone wall. “What's the number again?”

  Francine gave it to him. At a booth outside the wall, they gave their names to an attendant and were admitted. A curving drive led past flawless lawns, tennis courts, and oversized houses, white or pink. There were lush, enormous trees and vivid flowers. Shining cars stood in driveways, and over it all was a gloss like a reflection from the sky. Or perhaps the blue enamel sky had absorbed a reflection from below. It was all unreal, the setting for drama.

  “Wait for us, please,” Francine ordered when the taxi stopped before another large, pink house. “Get out, Hyacinth.”

  She was taking charge, which was something she had carefully refrained from doing since the day of Hyacinth's wedding and departure from the home—or no, since long before that. Like an ambulatory patient being led into an emergency room, Hyacinth followed her now as she climbed the three steps and pressed the bell at an impressive double door.

  A woman answered. They had evidently interrupted her work, for she was carrying a bottle of window-cleaning fluid and wearing a surprised expression.

  Francine, losing no time with irrelevant explanations, began briskly, “We've come for Jerry and Emma. This is their mother, I'm their grandmother, and where are they?”

  “Why, they've gone for the holiday. Their father took them and their nurse this morning.”

  “Took them away? Where to? Has anything happened to them?”

  “Happened? Why no, ma'am, they went to one of those islands, the Bahamas I think it is. I forget. Left me here to take care of the house and the dog.”

  Hyacinth held on to the wrought-iron rail beside the steps. Her hands were limp. Let Francine lead.

  “But it was all arranged! The children were to stay overnight with us at the hotel and spend Thanksgiving Day. This makes no sense. Here we've come all this way—it's outrageous!”

  “I'm sorry, ma'am, but it's not my fault.” The tone was defensive, and the expression of surprise had now changed to a flicker of curiosity mixed with distaste, as if to say: So this is the absent mother. There must be something wrong with her.

  “You would think Gerald could at least have let us know,” Francine persisted.

  “Oh, he tried, ma'am. I heard him say so this morning when he went to the telephone to phone you at home, but you didn't answer.”

  “No, indeed we didn't,” Francine replied. “We were on the way to the airport. It's beastly hot. We've been traveling, and my daughter isn't feeling well. May we at least come inside and have a drink of water?”

  “I'm not supposed to let anybody in.”

  “You're not supposed to let anybody drop dead at your front door, either. Go in, Hyacinth.”

  As the door was held open for them, Francine said grandly, “Thank you very much. So now we will just sit here for a few minutes if you'll please bring the water. You needn't worry, we're not going to steal anything.”

  She knows we won't, thought Hyacinth. She's already noticed Francine's diamond.

  The room in which they sat was open to a sea breeze. Long windows led to a terrace. Under an enormous tree—did they have banyan trees here in Florida?—lay a big, round sandbox with scattered toys on the grass. Across the hall was a light yellow dining room, the very yellow of the one at home, Hyacinth saw, with a crystal chandelier above it. And under the curve of the stairs were a doll carriage and a pink three-wheeler. So Emma must have grown at least an inch and a half, she thought, and she thought too that she must not get sick here in this place. Must not.

  Having brought water on a silver tray, the woman stood before them, hesitating. With awareness now so acute that neither a ripple of the curtains' folds nor an eyelid's flicker escaped her, Hyacinth felt the questions hanging in the air between the three of them.

  “Was there any reason that they had to go in such a hurry?” asked Francine.

  “Well, the lady who invited them was Cherry—you know Cherry on TV? With long red hair? The one who sings with the Rub-a-Dubs?”

  “I've heard the name,” said Francine.

  “Well, she's a friend of the doctor's. She comes here sometimes when she's not in California. Comes to this house, I mean.” The narration had begun to flow. An entirely natural and increasingly visible curiosity was combining with pride in being the purveyor of important information. “If you ask me, I think Doctor did some work on her face. And she's not his only famous patient. I could name—oh, I could name—of course, I don't work in his office, but when there's company here at home, and you wait on table, you can't help hearing things.”

  A dream, all a dream, Hyacinth thought. This house. Gerald, Junior—“We'll call him Jerry, with a J.” His merry eyes. Emma, a small, alert Francine. Her rose dress in a box at the hotel. This pompous, tufted chair in the corner. The sea breeze on my face. All a dream.

  Francine asked when the children were expected back.

  “Late Sunday night. In time for school on Monday.”

  She asked whether the children were happy.

  “Oh yes, ma'am, yes. Their father's real crazy over them. And the nanny is, too. That's Mrs. O'Malley. But here, she's Nanny. Got married grandkids of her own. You should see the toys upstairs—they could open a store. The other doctor, they call him Uncle Arnie you know, he's like Santa Claus when he comes. He takes them riding. Their father bought a pony for Jerry, and now Emma's got bigger, he got her one, too, last week. Oh, those kids have everything. Name it, and they've got it. It's a wonder they ain't spoiled.”

  The woman at that group meeting said her boy fell in love with his father's house by the lake. It happens all the time.

  “Would you like to see their rooms, ma'am?”

  Th
e question had been directed to Francine, but Hyacinth shook her head.

  Francine answered promptly, “I'd like to see them.”

  “But I want to leave now,” said Hyacinth, and to herself, protested: I do not want to see the beds where Jerry sleeps his tidy sleep and Emma lies in a mound of dolls and animals.

  Francine, giving her an anxious glance, stood at once, and Hyacinth, thinking, I must look frightful, rose also.

  “Who shall I say was here? Your names?”

  “Just say the children's mother and their grandmother were here and that we'd like an explanation. Thank you very much. Have a nice day.”

  “Explanation,” Francine repeated, back in the taxi. “You really don't think we'll get one, do you? Are you all right? You're not going to faint or do anything crazy, are you?”

  “That wouldn't do much good. No, I'm numb, that's all.”

  By now it was dark. The view from the car's window was a rewinding reel under pulsing lights: mall, furniture outlet, pizza parlor, used cars, another mall—all these appeared and vanished. They were almost back at the hotel before either of them spoke again.

  Francine was first. “Never in my entire life have I been in such a rage. I'm grinding my teeth. What are we going to do now?”

  “Fly home, I guess.”

  “Just turn around and go back after being here for six hours?”

  “I surely don't feel like stuffing myself on turkey at the hotel tomorrow, do you?”

  “No. Oh for God's sake, Hyacinth, if you'd only talk to me. I feel like a blind person wandering around some foreign country without speaking their language, and I'm getting tired of it. A day like this takes ten years off a person's life.”

  “I didn't ask you to come along. You wanted to.”

  “All right, all right. This is no place for an argument, anyway. I'm going to have some food sent up to the room. Let's eat together and talk this over.”

  You wouldn't believe that a human being who was so worn down could feel hunger, thought Hyacinth, but I suppose the body wants to live even when the mind doesn't particularly care. And yet of course, of course my mind wants to. Or it would if it only knew how. And pushing the empty plate away, she looked across the table at the night sky, where stars in small islands floated upon a sea of silver-gray clouds, racing and foaming across the hemisphere. Turner could have painted it, she thought, recalling his pale sunsets, all pastel mist and vapor. So much beauty, so much color and life under the vast, mysterious sky, and only man defiles it.

  Francine's voice jolted her. “You always went to ask your grandmother's advice when you needed any. Why won't you ask for mine now when you need it? How do you think I feel about that?”

  “Please don't be hurt. I am not going to ask anyone for any advice. If I were going to, I would ask you first.”

  “This is beyond understanding, Hyacinth. I had not planned to bring up the subject during this holiday because I wanted us to have only joy with Jerry and Emma. But now that that's been ruined, I might as well speak my mind.”

  “Speak it. I won't argue with you. I'll just listen.”

  “I am completely frustrated. I have to admit that when I went to another source for professional advice, I got the same advice again: Your daughter is a grown woman, and if there is anything she won't tell you, then you have to let her alone.”

  “That's good advice.”

  “No. It's like saying, well, she's an adult, she's sixty or eighty or twenty years old—whatever—so it's her right to take poison or jump from a bridge if she wants to. Don't question her. Don't stop her.”

  “I don't want to take poison or jump from a bridge, I promise you.”

  “I get the feeling sometimes that you do want to. All that stops you is your children.”

  Hyacinth was silent.

  Francine, in agitation, got up clumsily and rattled the dishes. “This is a case of blackmail. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out, or to figure out, too, that it has something to do with sex.”

  “You've told me that before. You're convinced that it's adultery. I had an affair, and he caught me.”

  “Well, and if you did? It happens. You could fight that easily in court. My God! He admits his own adulteries. Why won't you get a good lawyer? Give me a good reason why.”

  “I've told you, I don't want to go to court, and I haven't changed my mind.”

  Francine walked to the end of the room and back. I pity her, Hyacinth thought, even more than I pity my children. Right now they are probably having a good time without any worries.

  “What is it that makes you so fearful? A hit-and-run accident? Have you been caught shoplifting? Whatever it is, you need to confide in a lawyer. That's what they're for. If you'd let me, I'd find the right one for you. Your father had so many friends and contacts.”

  The final wreckage. This is exactly what Gerald predicted Francine would bring about. It would all come out into the open, and it would then depend on the lawyer to get a reduced sentence for her. Fifteen years instead of twenty? With time off for good behavior?

  “I appreciate it, Francine, but I already have a lawyer. Right now we are drawing up the papers, which I will sign.”

  “Papers! Pray God you're not signing your life away. You see today how you can trust his word, don't you? He's evil. Evil! As long as he can live as you've just seen, a prince in his palace with no obligations he doesn't want, he'll see you on the streets.”

  “You're wrong about money. He's been sending checks every week, sizable checks.” Hyacinth gave a short, scornful laugh. “I send them back.”

  “You what?” Francine was furious. “I don't believe what I'm hearing. I thought you had some intelligence. A normal woman would take all she could get out of him and try for more, considering what he's doing. There'd be no limit to her hatred.”

  “There's no limit to mine,” Hyacinth said very low. “That's the reason I won't take his money. I want nothing from him. I don't even want to touch the paper that he touched when he wrote the check. I want to forget that I ever knew him.”

  “That's rather hard to do, given the existence of Emma and Jerry.”

  “Please. Let's not be angry at each other. The day is bad enough as it is.”

  They stood there looking into each other's sorrowful eyes, until Hyacinth broke the stillness.

  “I wonder why he did this to us today. Can it possibly give him any pleasure to be so cruel?”

  “You know, I don't believe he thought much about it at all. He telephoned, we had already left, so that was that. He was too thrilled about the celebrities at Cherry's place to think about anything else. He was only being Gerald, the real Gerald. Come, let's pack these presents and take them home in the morning. Tomorrow's another day.”

  Back home again, outside of the supermarket, Hyacinth came face to face with Moira, who was unloading a heaped food carriage into her car. Hyacinth, with one bag in her arm, was walking home.

  “You'd think,” Moira said, “that nobody'd ever eat again after stuffing himself on a holiday, but here I am.”

  In her kindly way, she was making easy conversation, as if the two of them were seeing each other almost daily as they had done before Hyacinth's life changed.

  “So you've been seeing Emma and Jerry. How are they doing under the palm trees?”

  “Oh fine, Moira. They're in a very good school, didn't mind the change. We had a good time, my mother went with me, the weather was fine, just balmy—”

  Lie. Why not lie? It doesn't hurt her, and it's easier for me.

  “You're not sunburned, I see.”

  “No, not in those few days. I never like to anyway. I'm not a sun lover.”

  “Do you want a lift home?”

  “Thanks, no. I need the exercise. It'll keep me from spreading.”

  She stopped, ashamed of herself. What a stupid thing to say to Moira, who, still only twenty-eight, already had at least twenty extra pounds of spread on her bones! The matter with
me is that I'm not thinking. I'm befuddled. And the jaunty act that I put on doesn't fool her for one minute. Go on and make amends. Make some amends, at least.

  “The reason I haven't seen you, Moira, is that I've been in bad shape, not very good company. That's why I let him take the children when he moved. It's better for them until I straighten myself—until things are straightened out. It's temporary, only temporary, you understand. I should have called you to explain. You've been such a friend.”

  “Don't give it another thought, Hy. Just take care of yourself. You've had a lot of trouble, but I have to tell you that nobody'd ever know it. You look wonderful.”

  “Thank you. I try. I have to get ready for Christmas, and it'll be here before you know it. They'll be flying up from Florida.”

  That at least was the truth, for Arnie had made the Christmas arrangements.

  “Gerald asked me to telephone you after you hung up on him. He's been really upset. He never intended to have it turn out that way. When he left the message on your answering machine that morning, he had no idea you had already left so early. I am telling you the truth, Hy. I suggested that he make up for the mistake atChristmas. So the kids will be flying in on the twenty-third, and I'll be with them. Gerald knows, of course, that you don't want him. So just put some extra water in the soup for me.”

  “That's great.” Moira was enthusiastic. “We'll have to get together with all the kids. Do something nice and have a good time.”

  With a repetition of “Take care,” she drove away. Not everyone, perhaps not anyone, would have let me go so easily, thought Hyacinth. She, loyal as she is, will be the one who checks the gossip the next time she finds herself in a group, whether at a PTA meeting or a Little League game. Wherever women gather and talk about what is happening in the neighborhood, they will speculate about the strange affair of Hyacinth and Gerald. Moira will do her best to stop it, but it won't work.