Looking Back

by Belva Plain

  “Red wine, rum, lemon juice—not for kids. Somebody brought it, and Mr. Balsan was pretty upset. That’s why I’m supposed to stand here and make sure nobody drinks any who shouldn’t.”

  “Well, I’m overage,” Amanda said, helping herself.

  “You don’t want that size glass, miss,” the man said. “Use this one. That’s strong stuff. It won’t take more than minutes before you’ll feel it.”

  “I want to feel it,” she answered as she filled the tall glass. Drink enough, and the anguish may go away. Sit down on that circular bench around that tree, sip slowly, and wait.

  But it did not go away. Her whole body from legs to head was burning. Gradually, with purpose and power, a terrible anger over a cruel injustice melded into the anguish. She was sitting in wait for it all to explode when Larry appeared.

  “You’re behaving so strangely,” he cried. “You keep disappearing. We have friends here, and you sit alone with a glass in your hand! What the hell are you drinking, anyway? Your face is on fire. Give me that glass.”

  “I’m drinking what I want to drink.” She got up and went back to the punch bowl. “And if I want to drink more, I’ll do that, too.”

  “Amanda! You never drink. You haven’t had even one glass of wine since last Christmas. Give me that.”

  “Don’t you tell me what to do,” she said loudly. “Or you either,” she added, for L.B. was standing nearby at the other punch bowl.

  He stared at her. He had an expression of terror; warning and pleading were in it.

  “Don’t, Amanda,” he said very quietly, so low that he was barely audible. “Don’t. It’s not for you.”

  A fresh surge of rage shook her. “And who are you, Mr. Balsan, to tell me what is or isn’t for me?” she cried. “Mind your own affairs. I’m nothing to you anymore! Do you hear me?”

  Her voice rang so loud that people at the other end of the yard were startled.

  In utter astonished disbelief, Larry seized Amanda by the elbow. “You can’t talk to my father like that! Have you lost your mind?”

  “Your father,” she mocked. “You don’t know the first thing about your father. Do you know what he’s done? No, you don’t. But I do. Yes, Mr. Balsan, I do. Oh, you knew, you already knew that last time we met what you were going to do to me. You had it in your mind, but you weren’t brave enough to come out and tell me.”

  Around them, a few dozen people were standing still with curiosity on their faces.

  L.B. was keeping control. “Amanda, get hold of yourself. You’ve had too much to drink, and you’re not used to it.”

  “Yes, I’ve had too much to drink, but that’s not all I’ve had too much of.”

  As her voice kept rising, more people became aware that some crisis was in the making. And an instant silence fell as it does when, on the street, a horrible accident has just occurred.

  “Yes,” said Amanda, “how easy it is to leave the country and forget! Shift the burden, just forget. Forget everything, all the love, the baby I didn’t need, yes, yes.” In despair and in fury, a stream of words, a torrent of rage, poured out from her mouth, while her hands were clasped together as if in prayer and her body swayed. “Oh yes, a baby. Your baby, L.B., not yours, Larry! Our Stevie—he isn’t even yours, Larry! We’ve been lovers for four years, your father and I.” And sobbing, Amanda collapsed onto a bench.

  Now, as when inevitable catastrophe approaches, a plane crashing to earth before the onlookers or an avalanche descending upon a helpless village, there came a moment of total paralysis. The stunned onlookers stared at one another as if questioning: Did I really hear what I think I heard?

  Then Larry toppled. Friends raced over and led him, tottering, to a tree where he was laid down. Norma was taken to the porch, where Lester, his father, Cecile, and Peter gave her brandy and did what else they could, which was not very much. L.B., gone ghastly white, was helped into his house by the two doctors. Parents with children old enough to have understood at least some of what they had heard were rushing them away. L.B.’s dogs went frantic in the confusion. Larry, completely crazed, had to be restrained by his friends from rushing into the house to kill his father. Amanda, weeping hysterically, was picked up by Dolly’s friend Joey, and taken to Dolly’s car.

  “Take her home to my house,” Dolly ordered, while lamenting, “Oh, my God, my God, I can’t believe this,” and running to pick up the red shoe that had dropped off Amanda’s foot.

  Slowly the crowd dispersed, exchanging bewildered comments as they lingered on the sidewalk.

  “She must have lost her mind. Or could it possibly be true?”

  “I wouldn’t have believed it of Balsan. A man like him, in a community like this.”

  “She was blind drunk. Disgraceful.”

  “No, tragic. Poor soul.”

  “But Amanda never drank! I don’t understand it.”

  “They could have had a fight and she just went berserk.”

  “No. A story like that has got to be true.”

  “Did you get a good look at Balsan? He was shaking. They were holding him up on the way to the door. I hope he wasn’t having a heart attack or a stroke because of this.”

  “It’s a good thing there are doctors here.”

  In gape-mouthed shock they all drifted out of the yard. Only the dogs were left to pick up scraps on the grass. The sound of motors starting up and dying away broke the stillness on the street. Those who lived around the neighborhood walked home in the twilight, having lost all interest in watching fireworks. The holiday scene had unraveled.

  In a lounge chair on the porch, after a long while, Norma began to revive. Between sobs, sighs, and intervals of silence, she talked.

  “You would have to know the mysteries of the universe or the mind of God to understand this. Unless the whole story isn’t true! Yes, that’s it. For some crazy reason, Amanda made it up.”

  “No,” Cecile said quietly. “I went inside and spoke to Dr. Byrnes. Your father has admitted that it is all true.”

  Norma covered her face with her hands and whispered, “My father. My father.”

  No one spoke until she cried out again, “I never told you, Lester, what it really was that I had seen that day. Remember the time in the school theater when I told you I had seen—” She stopped, unable to finish.

  Cecile finished for her. “You had seen Amanda and your father on Lane Avenue that day we came back from the airport. Yes, I saw them, too, Norma. I always wondered whether you had, but it was such a strange, unlikely thing that I was sure I couldn’t have seen them, that I must have made a mistake. So I never mentioned it.”

  “Then this is what you meant by people who had betrayed your trust,” Lester said, while holding her hand.

  “Yes, my father. A good father. A decent, honorable man. I would tell myself, whenever now and then the memory returned to me, I would think, well, if it was they who were walking there on Lane Avenue, it must have been for some innocent reason, something to do with property. And then I would think it really wasn’t them.”

  The white light from the gibbous moon made everyone look pale green, as if ill. But we really are, all of us are ill tonight, Cecile was thinking. And she thought of her healthy father, who was still in love with her mother after all these years. She looked over at Alfred Cole, whose very presence, although he had scarcely spoken, must be a comfort to his son and his son’s suffering wife.

  Then she thought with great pain of Amanda and her dear little boy. What could have possessed her? What on earth could have distorted her mind? But then, what about all those clients at social services in the hospital, those who often have such incredible tales to tell? Tales that sounded like nightmares?

  “I think I must be in a coma,” Norma said. “I’ve heard that your mind keeps working when you’re in a coma. Have we forgotten Larry? Where is he?”

  “No, no,” Lester soothed. “Some friend took him to his house, to the friend’s house.”

  “But wh
ere? Whose?” Norma started up from the chair. “I ought to be with him.”

  “The friend’s name was Willard,” Lester said. “I distinctly heard. He was a short fellow with reddish hair.”

  “That’s right. They were in high school together. Jeff Willard. We need to go there right now, Lester.”

  “No, Norma, you don’t need to. You’re in no condition to. Stay here and I’ll go to Larry. Just give me the address.”

  “I don’t know it,” Norma wailed.

  Peter stood up. “I’ll do it. Stay here,” he told Cecile. “You may be needed, too, if anything happens upstairs with Balsan.”

  After his car had gone out of hearing, the only sound was the cricket chorus. No one spoke; it was as if everything had been said that could be said. In times of dire trouble there is actually very little to say, Cecile thought. We know that, and yet we feel obliged to fill the emptiness with the sound of soothing words. In a way, the cricket chirp says more than any one of us can; it says that life goes on. After the disaster, life continues. Yet it is hardly tactful to say that to anybody who is in the middle of the disaster.

  Upstairs there were lights in the big bay window that must belong to Balsan. The doctors were still with him. And curiously, in spite of what he had done, Cecile felt deep pity for him. Do you not feel pity for the man who is under sentence of life imprisonment, no matter what his crime? For surely he will be tortured forever by the thought of what he has done.

  Again Norma roused to mourn and rage. “How he loved her! From the first moment he saw her when I brought her here in spring break, he gave her his whole heart. That kind, sweet man, my brother. How could she, I ask you. How could she. I never want to see her again. I swear I never will. She’s a slut. Of course it’s my father’s fault, too, but I blame her more, the more I think of it. It’s she who went after him—it has to have been.”

  No one answered that, either. People take sides, casting blame according to where they stand. Norma, the more she thought about it, would tip the scale, however slightly, in favor of her father. And now Cecile’s deep pity went out to Amanda.

  A small, chilly breeze arose as the minutes ticked away. From inside the house a clock bonged the hour. An ambulance arrived. Men in white rushed upstairs. Shortly afterward Peter returned with news. Jeff Willard wasn’t listed in the telephone book, so Peter had gone to the police station to get the address. At Willard’s, he found that Larry had been put to bed. A doctor had come, given him a tranquilizer, and would check on him by telephone in the morning. After that, Peter had gone to Larry’s house, paid Elfrieda, who was baby-sitting that night, and asked her please to stay until she heard from somebody tomorrow.

  Somebody, Cecile thought. Who, Norma? In her condition? Lester will have his hands full and overflowing. I’ll go stay with Stevie tomorrow instead of to the hospital, she decided.

  The minutes kept ticking. An unspoken restlessness now began to afflict this group who were waiting for news to emerge from the room above. Nobody wanted to go inside and inquire, yet nobody could think of leaving without having heard something more.

  As if emerging out of sleep, Norma spoke again. “A tranquilizer! As well put a Band-Aid on an amputation. It will be a miracle if he ever gets over it.”

  No one having disagreed with that, Lester changed the subject by addressing Peter. “Working hard this summer? I’m not. We educators don’t get rich, but we do have great vacations.”

  Peter, too, was trying to override the horror with his reply. “I get away on my rescue trips. Old churches, barns, hotels—those are my patients. Right now I’m staying at home working hard, if you can call it work when you love what you’re doing.”

  Two good men, Cecile thought, and was wondering again about the shocking, baffling man upstairs, when Lester spoke.

  “There’s no use in all of you sitting here. Dad, you have to be in court early, so why don’t you leave? And Peter, you’ve already done so much, running all over town for us. Talk about a friend in need! But go on home now, you and Cecile. It’s almost midnight.”

  So they left the porch and were about to step into their car, when Lester came running with news.

  “It’s over. He’s gone. They were putting him on the stretcher when he had a fatal stroke a couple of minutes ago.”

  As was only to be expected, the news was in the next day’s paper. The terrible event at the Balsan house could never have been omitted, but owing to the fact that the editor in chief was a friend and client of Alfred Cole’s, who had pleaded in defense of his daughter-in-law’s family, the description of it was decidedly muted. Only the bare facts, which were horrible enough, were given in a short paragraph on a back page.

  The obituary was equally brief: Death was the result of a cerebral hemorrhage; the funeral was to be private.

  Not reported was the fact that Cecile and Peter had taken Stevie to their house. It was Norma who gave permission, since Larry was in no condition to decide anything. It was difficult enough to prop him up for the funeral.

  Norma and he, with Lester and the two doctors who had been present at the end, rode in one car behind the hearse, and stood at the grave as a prayer for love and forgiveness was intoned. Then, accompanied by the doctors, the mourners went to the Coles’ house, where Larry was to stay until he should no longer require attention.

  Cecile had telephoned Dolly on the morning after the disaster, only to be told that Amanda did not want to see her.

  “She’s in a very bad way,” Dolly said. “Poor thing. I don’t recognize our Amanda. When she heard about L.B.’s death, she went to pieces all over again. She surely must have been crazy about that guy. I don’t know. I don’t think I ever was that nuts about any guy, not that much. They gave me a sleeping pill for her at the drugstore. I would have got the doctor, only they don’t come unless you’re some big shot, and I can’t get her out of the house to his office.”

  “I wanted to tell her—please tell her that Peter and I are taking care of Stevie. He’s at our house with his babysitter, and he’s quite happy.”

  “You’re a real lady, Cecile. I always said so whenever you came into the shop. No airs about you. Amanda said so, too, only she really doesn’t want to see you now. She’s so ashamed you’ll think she was a no-good bum and a dirty drunk and—”

  “I’d never think that she was a dirty anything. It’s all a terribly sad story, and I’m sure none of us will ever really know the whole of it. Please tell her that for me. Shall I just come to your house whether she wants me to or not?”

  “I wouldn’t do that for a while. She keeps crying that she wants to be let alone. She wants to stay here and hide. I’ll keep her as long as she wants me to, until she can at least get on her feet.”

  “And then what?”

  “I don’t think she has any idea.”

  “All right, Dolly. You and I will keep in touch. You have my number? You’ll phone me? I’ll keep phoning you.”

  “Yes, yes, I will. Oh, to look at Amanda and hear her, you could cry.”

  “Isn’t it awful?” Mrs. Lyons said when Cecile telephoned the shop. “I came running here this morning the minute I heard. I could hardly believe my ears. A charming, well-educated young woman! And all of her only a surface, with filth underneath. I’m amazed that Dolly took her home. She’d never set foot in my house, I can tell you that.”

  For a minute or two after the call ended, Mrs. Lyons’s indignation was still ringing in the room. So far, the only humane concern for Amanda had been that of Dolly and of Cecile’s family.

  But as the story spread and grew in the telling, so did compassion spread—along with morbid curiosity. What was going to happen? people asked. Divorce? A custody battle over the child?

  “How on earth is that family ever going to find its way out of this wilderness?” cried Cecile to Peter. “I spoke to Lester. He’s not too worried about Norma; he says she’s stronger than anybody, herself included, realizes. She’s already trying to cope with the
Stevie situation. But Larry is a total wreck—understandably—and won’t even look at that baby whom he had always adored so much that it was sometimes even a little silly. Won’t look at him! ‘He isn’t mine,’ he says.”

  Peter threw up his hands. “I have no idea. It’s a Greek tragedy.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  These are the facts,” Norma said, “and you have to face them, Larry. It’s been almost a month now. I’m being frank with you. This bungalow is too small for Lester and me to share it with you.”

  She spoke softly, but firmly. It was not because Lester had ever complained of Larry’s presence that she was making this decision. In fact, it was Lester who kept reminding her that Larry was truly ill. It was simply that, ill or not, decisions needed to be made and Larry was obviously unable to make them, so she would do it for him.

  “Now you have a choice. You can either go back to your own house, or you can move into—into the other. You own it now.”

  “That place? Are you crazy? And see him in every room every time I open a door? Monster! And up under those spruce trees where she stood—I hear her voice. It’s shrill, it’s awful, and she’s standing there with a glass in her hand. No, I’ll burn that house down before I’ll live in it.”

  Larry had aged. Perhaps it was true that hair could turn white from shock or fall out, because his hairline had definitely receded. There were lines on his forehead that had not been there before that night. He was a pitiful, shocking sight.

  “All right, put it up for sale. Then you’ll have to live in your house, you and Stevie. Cele and Peter have kept your baby long enough. They’ve been marvelous, the best people in the world. But they’re not his parents.”

  Larry was looking past her, past the window and beyond into space. When he spoke, she was barely able to hear him.

  “Are you forgetting something? I’m not his father.”

  “To the world, you are. And to him. Remember that.”

  “No wonder they—he and she—never fussed over him the way I did. I realize it now.”