“No!” The single word was like a gunshot. “No, you will not take over my business. No, I will not stay home taking care of you. Listen to me, Patrick. We must all make adjustments here, and I am prepared to make my share. It is my business, I worked at it twelve, fourteen, sometimes sixteen hours a day. I was the one who went out and knocked on doors, I was the one who did without when I could barely make the rent, and I will not turn it over to you. If you want to work with me, that’s fine. I can teach you the business, but I will not turn it over to you. I will not stay home. I’ve become a career woman out of necessity. I will take time off if you need me. If we work together . . . together we might be able to pull all this together.” She was shaking so badly, her daughters closed in protectively.
“You just said no to me, Kate,” Patrick said. He glanced into the sink at the chicken. “I can’t eat this stuff.” He pulled back his lips to show a row of rotten stubs. Kate winced. “Make me something soft that smells good. Meat loaf. You don’t have to worry about my not knowing how to run your business right. I know how to make money. I can probably show you a profit of fifty thousand in the first two years.”
A devil perched itself on Kate’s shoulders. “My net last year was three-quarters of a million dollars,” she said proudly.
“When did you become such a liar?”
“She’s not lying, she’s telling you the truth,” Ellie said. “I’m a CPA. I do her books. Betsy has her doctorate. Do we sound like we don’t know what we’re talking about?” Her voice was icy. She did not like this man who claimed to be her father. It didn’t look like Betsy liked him much, either.
Kate dumped chopped meat into a bowl. She was searching for an onion when Patrick said, “I don’t feel like meat loaf. Make some chicken soup. Where are the bedrooms?”
“The meat loaf is down the hall—I mean, the bedrooms are down the hall. Your room is the one at the end. It’s blue, your favorite color.”
“Where’s your room?” Patrick said.
“It doesn’t matter where my room is. Your room is down the hall. It is the blue room. Until we go through this period of ... of adjustment, you will be sleeping there.”
“Atta girl, Mom,” Ellie whispered.
“Oh, God,” Betsy said.
Patrick was back a moment later. “I don’t see my pictures anywhere in the house. Why is that?”
“I thought you were dead, Patrick. I put them all away. I had to. I had to get on with my life.”
“Don’t you feel stupid now?” he said belligerently.
“In a manner of speaking.”
“There’s nothing in this house that belongs to me. It’s your house. Whose name is on the deed? I want my name on the deed. This is California. I own half of what you own. The Air Force told me my trunks were sent to you. Where are they?”
Kate felt herself wilt. “I buried them in the cemetery. I held a service for you. Then I had them dug up and buried in the plot next to your mother and father back in Westfield. I’m—I was going to say I’m sorry, but I’m not sorry, Patrick. I had to make sense of my life. I had no stability, no hope of your ever returning. I didn’t think I had choices. I did what I felt was right.”
He slapped her in a rage, and would have slapped her again if Betsy and Ellie hadn’t grabbed his arm. He was no match for his young, athletic daughters. Kate wept into her dish towel.
Patrick thundered out of the room.
“Mom, forget this damn dinner business,” Ellie said. “Please make us some coffee, and we’ll all sit down on the deck, in the sun where it’s warm, and talk. I’m not leaving you here . . . alone with him, until I feel . . . comfortable.”
“I agree,” Betsy said.
“All right,” Kate said through clenched teeth. The last thing in the world she wanted was to drink coffee and talk. Who was this person? There was nothing even remotely resembling Patrick in this stranger.
The stranger—that’s how she thought of him—didn’t seem to have much of an attention span. What was being done for him? Surely the military and the government wouldn’t just turn him loose like this—wash their hands of him, cast him aside, and dump him in her lap. Kate measured coffee into the basket, filled the pot with cold water, plugged it in. The reality was, they’d done exactly that. Now what was she supposed to do? Pity for her husband she’d lost so long ago welled up in her.
Kate sighed. What was going to happen when the girls left for Los Angeles and she was alone with Patrick? She didn’t think twice; she reached for her address book and flipped through it till she found the tobacco store in Mexico. When she heard the familiar voice of the man she’d handed the note to over a year ago, she identified herself.
“Please, you must get a message to Senora Della Rafella Abbott. Tell her Kate needs her immediately. Tell her Captain Starr has returned and to come as soon as possible.” A sob escaped her. “Can you get this message to Senora Della?”
“Sí, señora. Senora Della will be in my shop shortly. I saw her go by an hour ago. I will tell her.”
“Thank you, thank you very much.”
The coffee was done. Kate heaved a mighty sigh. With Della here, she might survive what she knew was coming. She filled the tray and carried it out to the deck. She went back for the coffeepot.
In the bright sunlight, Patrick looked even more ghastly. “I don’t want you wearing clothes like that anymore. I like the old things you used to wear.”
Should she humor him or talk straight from the shoulder? Was it too soon to set down the rules? Someone should have told them how to act, how to deal with Patrick. But no one cared; it was that simple. “I go to work, I have to dress appropriately. I’m sorry you don’t like my dress. It happens to be a fine dress. I think I look good in it. I deal with businesspeople. I have to look professional. I don’t make my clothes anymore, Patrick. I don’t have to. This is the style. I like it. We’ll have to think about taking you shopping, too. I didn’t see any bags. Didn’t they give you anything?”
“A change of underwear, some shaving gear, and a toothbrush. I left the bag by the front steps. If you hadn’t thrown my things away, I wouldn’t have to go shopping.”
“The things wouldn’t fit you now anyway. I can’t imagine you not wanting new clothes. You have to fit in, to look like—”
“Harry. You have to start calling me by name.”
“All right, Harry,” Kate said, sitting down on the redwood chair. She wished she could fall asleep and never wake up.
“I’m glad to be home even if I never saw this house before,” Patrick said quietly. “I know I look like ten miles of bad road. I said that before when I first got here, didn’t I? I expected . . . thought I would see revulsion on your face. All those years I never had a mirror. You used to say I was handsomer than any movie star. Star, get it?” He made that strange sound that had to be laughter.
Kate told him about Betsy’s rainbow and pointed to the border around the house. “She thought you would fly overhead and be able to find the little house we used to live in. We believed for so long that you would come back. We hoped. We prayed. I wrote to the President six or seven times, and anyone else I could think of. Anytime we even got close to finding out something, it would be squelched. What did you sign, Patrick?”
Patrick slurped at his coffee. Some of it dribbled down his chin. Ellie handed him a napkin. “I agreed to what they wanted so I could come home. They don’t want me to tell anyone where I was or what happened to me. I asked them how long I had to remain quiet, and they said until they told me otherwise. I might never be Patrick Starr again. I might have to be this Harry fellow for the rest of my life.”
“You’ll always be Patrick to us,” Kate said, her voice sounding desperate.
“We had to sign a paper, too,” Betsy said.
“Do you regret it?”
“No,” they chorused.
“When are you going to get rid of the birds, Kate?”
“I’m not going to. I love waking up a
nd hearing them chirp. They depend on me for their food. I would think you’d like having them around. You used to fly. You told me once you could fly better than any bird and they were doing what came naturally. I don’t mean to sound nasty or overbearing, but you are going to have to make some adjustments. The birds are God’s creatures.”
“I don’t want them here. They remind me of my flying days. I’ll get rid of them myself.”
Ellie and Betsy both fidgeted on their chairs. Kate was off hers in the blink of an eye. She dropped to her knees, keeping her distance from her husband. “Patrick, listen to me. You are not to touch the birds. Not now, not ever. If you do, I will have to ... have to ... think about having you live somewhere else until we can adjust to this situation. I’m going to try very hard to get ... to get to know you again.” She saw the kick coming and leaped backward in time.
“Don’t you tell me what to do! For nineteen and a half years people told me what to do. I’m a free man and I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do,” Patrick snarled.
“In my house you do,” Kate said quietly. “Do not ever, ever lash out at me again. You will be out of here so fast your head will spin.” Her husband sneered at her. She didn’t back down.
Kate turned to her daughters and with a slight nod of her head indicated they should go into the house. She mouthed the word cook. Both girls seemed reluctant to leave but did as their mother wanted.
Kate pulled her chair around so she could face her husband, but far enough away so he couldn’t kick out or lunge at her. She settled herself, the skirt of her dress hiking up to mid-thigh. She tugged at it. She’d taken this dress with her to Hawaii last year, had worn it to dinner with Gus. He liked it, said she looked like a rare flower and that the color became her. She in turn said it matched his eyes perfectly. How happy she’d been then. She tugged at the skirt again.
“Patrick,” she said gently, “we need to talk. I think we should start over. We’re different people now, both of us. We can’t go back to nineteen seventy. That time in our lives is gone. We have a tremendous adjustment to make, both of us. I’m more than willing to seek out a therapist, and I know the girls will agree. I don’t know what you went through, and if you tell me, I probably couldn’t begin to imagine your pain and suffering. I’m sorry for that, but you can’t take your anger out on me and the girls. I simply will not allow it.”
“I was never warm, never comfortable. I was always hungry. All I thought about was you and the girls. That’s what kept me going,” Patrick said, staring across the garden.
“And we thought of you. For years. When I finally gave up, Betsy didn’t. She worked tirelessly. My heart ached for you. I dreamed of the day you would walk through the door. For so long I lived in a fantasy world, hoping, dreaming of your return. You’re angry, and justifiably so, but your anger is directed at the wrong people. We aren’t the enemy. I thought you would be so proud of the girls, of me. You . . . you shot us down. We wanted to share, and you didn’t want to hear. You haven’t smiled once since you’ve been here. With skilled help, you can be whole again. We have the patience and the resources to help you. Don’t take your anger out on us. We’ve lived in our own hell for a lot of years.”
“Nothing is the same,” Patrick said flatly.
“Time doesn’t stand still, Patrick. Surely you knew things would be different,” Kate said gently.
“I wanted it to be the same. I wanted to see that small apartment, trip over those damn ducks. In my dreams I could smell you. I could see the girls with the little bows on their socks and in their hair. They’re grown up, and I missed all that. I always knew I would come home someday. I’d swagger in, be the conquering hero, sweep all of you off your feet. I dreamed about the hugs and the kisses, the big welcoming dinner. I expected a ticker tape parade, meeting the President, being invited to go on television and give interviews. None of that happened.”
“Oh, Patrick, I’m so sorry,” Kate said in a choked voice. “It’s not right for your country to deny you, to pretend you’re dead. You deserve much more. If there was a way for me to give you all of what you deserve, I’d move heaven and earth to do it. A man named Spindler made us sign papers, too. I hated doing it, but he said if we didn’t you would be kept someplace. Betsy said they could do that. She said we should sign.”
“They meant it,” Patrick said. “Do you know how I kept my sanity all those years?”
“You said you thought about us.”
“Besides that. When things were bad, I retreated into my mind, back to Westfield. I went door to door. I’d knock, and when someone opened the door, I’d say ‘Hi, I’m Patrick Starr. I used to live here.’ I’d pet their dog or cat, and they’d ask me to come back again. I knocked on every door in Westfield. I visited every single store. As the years wore on, I paid a second and third visit. I saw the dogs and cats die, got invited to weddings. Hell, I went to two of them. In my mind. Both of them were held in the VFW hall. I went to a couple of funerals, was even a pallbearer. One person even asked me my opinion on choosing wallpaper for the kitchen. I told her she should get green and white, the kind you had in our kitchen. You know, so it would look like summer in the winter. The woman said it was a good idea. When I was really cold in the winter, I’d visit this one house where an older couple lived. They had a fluffy white dog that liked to lie in front of the fire. I’d carry wood in for them, and they let me sit by the fire. The lady made hot cocoa, and we toasted marshmallows. The dog liked them, got the sticky stuff all over his whiskers. They were nice people. No one had names, though, but they all knew mine. Isn’t that strange?” Tears were streaming down his cheeks.
Kate moved her chair closer and reached for her husband’s hands.
“This isn’t going to be easy, Kate. I think I must be a terrible person. It’s like I can’t control myself. I’m not going to be easy to live with.”
“I know. You’re disappointed in me, aren’t you? I wanted you to be proud of the success I’ve made of myself.”
“I didn’t think you had enough brains to go to college.”
Stricken with her husband’s words, Kate murmured, “I guess no one can ever know everything about another person.”
“You turned your doodling into a business. It must really be a crazy world.”
“One of my renderings hangs in the White House, Patrick. I don’t exactly doodle.”
Patrick’s eyebrows shot upward. He seemed to cringe into himself. “I don’t want you working. Wives shouldn’t work. I want you home.”
“Cooking, cleaning, and working my fingers to the bone? You want me making crafts again, the crafts you once hated. I can’t do that, Patrick. We can’t go backward. We can’t recapture the past. We have to move forward, adjust to what we have and deal with the here and now. If your mind is still working on that California property split of fifty-fifty, you’re going to have to readjust your thinking. You are no longer Patrick Starr, and since you are no longer Patrick Starr, you cannot claim anything. You are not my husband any longer. You’re Harry. Don’t threaten me, Patrick, I won’t stand for it.”
“You’re full of piss and vinegar, aren’t you?” Instead of waiting for her response, he rushed on. “I can make your life miserable.”
“And I can boot your ass right out of here. I don’t have to take you back. I cannot believe we’re having this conversation. We’re actually threatening each other. And to what end?”
“I’m the man of the house. You used to accept that. You never had a thought in your head. All you wanted to do was use that damn glue gun you had and make things. Now all of a sudden you’re an authority on everything.”
“I’m sorry you see it that way. I’ve had to survive, and I did it the best way I knew how. Please don’t punish me for that. I made myself into an extension of you. You should never have allowed me to do that. I believed you when you said I couldn’t do anything but keep house and have babies. I had nothing to compare it to. When you were shot down, I could
n’t cope. I didn’t know how to do anything but keep house. By the sheerest accident I met up with a wonderful woman in the park, and together we both managed to survive, helping one another. I was so ashamed that I was thirty years old and didn’t know the first thing about living. Without her and Donald, our kids would have been put in foster homes and I would have been carted off to the loony farm.”
Patrick stared at his wife as though she were a stranger. The sun was dropping. Soon it would be twilight and the end of the day. He hated the darkness. “Do you have lights out here?”
“Yes. Lots of them. Why?” Kate asked, confused.
“I don’t like the dark. What you say you went through was no more than a pimple on your ass. You don’t know the meaning of misery. I’m not going to be able to fly again. I always felt good in the air. They’re taking that away from me, too. I hate them. I’m not even sure I like you, Kate.”
“I’m not sure I like you, either,” Kate said quietly. “You can fly if you want to. We can even buy a plane, if that will make you happy. You can get your pilot’s license under your new name. That shouldn’t be a problem. I wish everything would be as easy for you. A good dental surgeon will take care of your mouth. An eye specialist will take care of your cataracts and fit you with glasses. You’re alive, Patrick. Be grateful for that. Good food, warmth, and fresh air will aid your progress.”
“You left out the vitamins, the orange juice, and a weekly laxative,” Patrick said nastily. “It’s getting dark.”
Kate walked over to the outdoor switch and turned on the floodlights. Artificial light bathed the yard in a warm, bright glow.
“What’s that little house?”
“That’s Della’s cottage,” Kate said.
“Maybe I should move in there.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be alone. Maybe you should think about that. You’ve been alone too long.”
“Are you telling me what to do?”
To Have and to Hold Page 28
