"She's certainly a formidable foe." Marcus loosened his tie and followed me back to the kitchen. "Hey! Oreos! My favorite! Where does she come off with this high-and-mighty act of hers?"
I smiled as I watched him brush his sandy, brown hair from his eyes and seat himself in a kitchen chair. I don't know what he thought about my looks, but in the years since we saw each other last he’d kept himself in pretty good shape, despite the fact his hair was a little thinner on top than I remembered.
He never had any of the flash or the heroics that accompanied Paul everywhere he went. Marcus was bandy-legged and thin, not much taller than me, which means just short. His plain face held a dimple in his right cheek, but his brown eyes…oh, those eyes. They seemed to draw you into his very soul. Maybe that was what made him such a good reporter.
I poured us each a cup of coffee and helped myself to a couple cookies. "You know, I never thought about it before. I've just been living with it so long, I don't care where she came from. She's real closed-mouthed about her past, for some reason. I do know she's an only child. She was working as a medical secretary at the Plummer County Community Hospital, when her parents died in a car crash just before she met Daddy. She used to tell everyone she was from Monterey, California, until one of Daddy's partners’ wives, Ellen Nussey, asked her about some people there, and Mother couldn't answer."
"There's no other family? Aunts? Uncles? Cousins?"
"Not that I know of." I washed and dried a couple of coffee mugs, then filled them with hot coffee.
Marcus popped another Oreo into his mouth. "Don't you think that's strange?"
"I never thought about it, I guess. Should I?"
"I sure wonder. I mean, she’s your mother. I have all kinds of questions. What about what she looked like as a child? Where did she go to college? Did she go?"
The phone in the downstairs hallway rang.
"God, Marcus, I’d think you were a reporter or something." I winked as I stepped into the hall. Too late: there was a fuzzy click, and the dial tone buzzed in my ear.
"Oh well, if it's important, they'll call back. Probably Mother wanting to patch things up."
Marcus wandered into the living room and sank into a wing chair. "No, she wouldn't be home yet. Come on out here and relax."
"I wish I could." Theatrically, I flopped into the opposite chair.
"You've fought enough of everyone else's battles for one day. It's time to be good to yourself." He sat his coffee mug down and moved toward me.
"If I was good to myself—" I started to say, I never would have left you.”
"What?"
"Nothing." I closed my mouth and tried to pull my carefully constructed shell up around me.
"I don't mean to make you uncomfortable."
"You don't," I lied. You make me feel pain, Marcus, pain like I haven't known in years. Mercifully, the phone rang again. "See? I'll bet you dinner that's Mother right now. She can't stand it when we argue."
I stepped into the hallway and picked up the phone.
"Mrs. Paul Armstrong?" a nasal, Oriental voice intoned.
"This is she."
"Go ahead, Major Armstrong."
Oh God, not now. Emotion, already too close to the surface, caught in my throat, and I began to cough. Marcus jumped up to slap me on the back, but I waved him away.
"Kay, honey, hello! Hey, you ought to see a doctor about that cough. I've been trying to call you for a few days. Where’ve you been?" Static rose and fell between us in waves, but Paul's smooth confidence cut through the noise.
"Hi!" The words were strained and fake. "I'm—I'm surprised to hear from you."
"What do you mean you’re surprised? I'm your husband, hon! You make it sound like I'm the insurance man or something." He was full of easy confidence, the hero I used to know.
"Bad choice of words. I'm sorry." Balancing the receiver on my shoulder, I carried the phone over to the stairway and sat on the second step. Marcus brought me my coffee. As I accepted it, my arm curled around the phone, as if I could prevent one man from sensing the other's presence.
"I can't talk long. This one's on Uncle Sam," Paul said.
"Morale call, huh?" Once a month the Air Force paid for a phone call home for each service member deployed overseas. Morale calls were few and far between and often at very inconvenient times. Needless to say, I hadn't been spending any extra money phoning his on-base apartment. There was too much I didn't want to know.
"Yeah. Sorry I couldn't call earlier. I've just been wrapped up in—" My hero stumbled. I remembered the envelope with the Korean postmark, the screaming, the accusations, and the completely destroyed trust. I bit my lip and pressed my thumb and forefinger against my eyes.
"Well, I've been pretty busy. Lots of flying time, lots of flying." His voice trailed off again.
Another long, uncomfortable silence. I took a deep breath.
"The kids are outside right now." I tried to bridge the yawning gap between us. "Want me to get them so you can talk to them?"
"Oh yeah? So you're all alone, huh?"
My breath caught in my throat. "Maybe you ought to call them this weekend. I know they love to hear from you."
"Used to be, you couldn't wait to talk trash in my ear when the kids weren't around. Now you change the subject."
"Used to be I thought I had you all to myself."
Our tenuous bridge caught fire, and the embers fell glowing into the chasm between us.
"I miss you Kay. I miss what we had."
"You should have thought about that a long time ago." I lifted my face to the ceiling to keep the tears from spilling down my cheeks. Marcus walked back into the living room and sat down, the wing chair groaning loudly.
"I wish I could fix things between you and me, make it the way it used to be again." Paul's confidence was gone, replaced with the pleading that marked all of our final days together before he left for his second tour at Osan. "I can't live my life knowing that some little—"
"Paul, please."
"You, of all people should understand that," Anger rose in his voice. "You, Miss Gonna Save The World—"
Static swelled and rolled between us again, drowning his words. That was okay. I had heard them before. I knew what he would say. There was an electronic buzz and, abruptly, the conversation was severed.
I hung up and lay my head down on the receiver. It was too much, too much for one night. I wanted to cry, to pound my fists, to let the rage and anger explode. But not now, not with Marcus here.
His footsteps stopped in front of me, and wearily I lifted my head.
"Things are a little tough between you and Joe Fighter Pilot, aren't they?"
"That would be awfully convenient for you, wouldn't it?"
"Kay, I didn't come here to argue with you. I want to help." He sat down beside me and tried to pull me close.
"Bullshit!" I exploded. "You want me all for yourself and if my marriage is in trouble, that's all the more ammunition for you, isn't it? Since you think it's so damn important, I'll tell you. He had an affair the last time we were stationed in Korea, before we came back to Virginia. She had a little boy. Happy now?"
Marcus was silent for a moment. "So he's back in Korea with his little geisha?"
"No—and geisha's are Japanese. He's back in Korea to find his son. She put him in an orphanage and disappeared. He wants to bring him back here."
"And live in this house?" Marcus was incredulous.
"Gee. That's exactly what my reaction was," I answered caustically.
Marcus sighed. "I'm sorry he hurt you like this, Kay."
"You're sorry he hurt me? You're sorry? What kind of crap is that?"
"I would never do that to you."
The wall around my heart broke and I fell into his warm embrace. Sobs broke over me in waves; all the pain of the last few years came rushing out, as I buried my head in his shoulder, and he held me close.
"I k
now. I know. I know," I sobbed.
"It's okay," I heard him whisper. "I'm here now. I'm not going anywhere."
Chapter 3 Marian
The voices came more frequently these last few years. I controlled them for so long, but now they were beginning to control me, just like I could no longer control Kay and this silliness she was pursuing. The voices flew out at the most inopportune time, before I could get to my bedroom and the little bottle of comforting capsules.
This morning during breakfast, it was the crash of breaking glass in the kitchen and Novella's soft cluck-clucking that set them off.
Hold still, honey.
Hold still, honey. This won't hurt.
Don't scream. Someone will hear you. It'll be over soon.
Don't scream, or I'll hit you again.
Don't scream.
I bit into my napkin. I won't scream, I promised the voices. I can't.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. James." Novella’s voice was calm and placating behind me.
I snapped to attention.
Novella sat my grapefruit half down in front of me, placing the pointed grapefruit spoon precisely on my right. "I turned around and knocked that old Pyrex measuring cup right on the floor. I hope I didn't scare you."
I grabbed her big black hand.
"Your nails are dirty."
"It's just coffee grounds."
I pushed it away. "Well, wash them. When you're done, bring me my muffin."
Novella nodded, threw back her shoulders, her face a wall of black stone, and walked silently back to the kitchen. I hated it when she did that.
Alone, I blushed awkwardly, furiously wiping the hand that had clutched hers. I had to regain control before she came back with my breakfast. I stuffed the napkin back onto my lap and tried to eat, but couldn't. My coffee cup rattled against the saucer as I sat it down, its rim christened with coral lipstick.
Novella placed my muffin in front of me. My mind, under my own control again, slipped to Kay. I had a bad feeling about that job she took, always chasing truth, justice and any other rainbow ideal, but seeing Marcus Henning at the door the other night was too much.
"That young woman can do the most irritating things!"
"Who’s that?"
"Kay. Why does she persist in following these strange, philanthropic urges of hers?"
"They aren’t many people like her. You ought to be proud that girl does what she does to help people."
"Really, Novella. I do love her, but she can be such an embarrassment with these lowest common denominators she always dredges up."
Thoughts of a doorbell ringing in the middle of the night nearly fifteen years ago filled my mind. It had been Kay, sobbing on my doorstep, her nose bleeding and her left eye swollen shut. It brought back painful memories I never wanted to remember. I hoped this boy, this Grant Matthews she married on impulse wouldn’t do it again. I sent her home, after a phone call to their little apartment resulted in an apology from him.
The next time, she went straight to the emergency room where God knows how many people had known and worked with her father. They sent her to a battered women’s shelter and convinced her to file domestic violence charges – that made it even worse, because now every one in town would know that Dr. Montgomery James’s daughter lacked any class whatsoever.
“This is what comes of you associating with the lower orders, my dear,” I said, when I had picked her up at the shelter. “If you persist in filing these charges, it will destroy your father’s good memory here in Jubilant Falls, and God knows what they’ll say at the country club.”
She protested, but in the end I won out; she didn’t file any charges.
The third time, I didn’t know anything about it, until my lawyer, Martin Rathke called me and said she filed for divorce, using another lawyer.
That time, Grant blackened both her eyes, broke her nose, and gave her a gash across her cheek that needed to be sutured shut. I paid for a nose job and convinced her to dump her lawyer and use Martin.
Novella looked at me sharply. "What's bothering you?"
"Nothing you need to trouble yourself with."
"You ready for another cup of coffee?"
"No! I mean, no thank you. That will be all."
"You sure you're okay?"
"That will be all, Novella," I said, clenching my teeth. "I just remembered I have an appointment this morning. Clear this all away."
Once out of her sight, I ran up the stairs and into my bedroom. The plastic amber bottle was in my dressing table drawer. I choked down a capsule without water and fell back on the bed waiting for calm to wash over me.
I hadn't lied about the appointment. There were only four more pills left. I would have to call Ed Nussey this morning and have him give me another prescription. Maybe this time he wouldn't be so insistent about having that lab work done. I didn't have the time, but couldn't live without my pills.
In a few moments, I felt calm and back in control. Carefully, I reapplied my lipstick and headed downstairs.
"Novella, I'm going out."
* * *
"I can't keep giving you these pills, Marian. You've got to be closely monitored on these meds, and I haven't seen you in months." Ed Nussey looked over his desk at me. His black reading glasses sat on his hooked nose and made him look like some silly schoolteacher. His white lab coat hung on his angular build like a sheet, and his stethoscope hung around his turkey-wattled neck like a noose.
Really, Ed, I thought, you either need a good plastic surgeon, or it's time to retire.
"Don't be so foolish, Ed. Monty gave them to me all the time." That much was true. My husband, Montgomery, had insisted on watching me closely, too; but with him, there was comfort in knowing no one other than he knew what was going on. I couldn't let Ed in. He might tell Ellen, who spread more news than the Jubilant Falls Journal-Gazette, and then God knows how far it would go.
Someone is going to find out anyway, a voice told me. Someone is going to find out the truth about you one of these days.
"Just write the prescription, and I promise I'll come in next time."
"Marian, you better. This is the last time." Reluctantly, his big-knuckled hand dragged his pen across the prescription pad. "Stop and see the receptionist on your way out for an appointment."
"Of course."
I ran past the receptionist and out the office to the ladies’ room down the hall. I choked down another of my remaining capsules, drinking water directly from the faucet. God, what if someone sees me like this? I choked in terror and locked myself in a stall.
I can't go on like this forever. I lay my forehead against the cool, gray tile. This can't continue.
If the truth were known, they'll come for you. They'll take you back.
Tears coursed down my face, puddling on the chrome toilet paper holder. I bit into my purse handle, to quiet my sobs. No one must ever find me. No one must ever know.
I had been found once thirty-five years ago, six months after Montgomery and I were married. Montgomery and I had gone for a long weekend to Chicago. I had gone shopping at Marshall Field's for a new fur coat, back when furs were still the mark of taste and class and not the mark of some political incorrectness. I felt a pair of eyes boring into my back and turned to see the woman behind the counter staring.
"My, my, Marian! I just knowed it was you! I though so the minute I laid eyes on—"
"What do you want?" I snapped.
"Why, nothing! It's just such a surprise to see you, of all people, here in Chicago. Ya know, you were quite the story after ya left town."
"What do you want? Money?" I searched through my clutch purse for a spare bill.
"Why, Lordy, no, deary! Ya just wouldn't believe what all's gone on back home since you left," she babbled. "Why don't we get together for a cup of coffee sometime soon? Do you live here in Chicago now? I’d love to catch ya up on all of it."
"Meet me at the diner on the corner
in fifteen minutes." I dropped the silver fox coat in the aisle and walked out.
She was already there when I arrived. I sat quietly, picking nervously at a piece of angel food cake in front of me, offering only minimal information, as she rattled on and on. Finally, she finished her story.
I laid a one hundred-dollar bill on the counter.
"This pays for everything. You can keep whatever is left. Whatever you do, don't tell anyone you saw me here."
I never went to Chicago again. I wouldn’t even order out of Marshall Field’s catalog.
As time went by, the yoke of my masquerade wore heavier and heavier on my shoulders. The voices told me I’d be caught if I went outside. I made Montgomery hire a housekeeper to do the marketing, and I stayed safely hidden away from anyone who might know the truth, until one day Montgomery had told me there were these marvelous little pills that gave me the courage to go out again. Besides, Montgomery's practice and his stature in the community had grown. I had responsibilities, and I needed to live up to them.
Now, thirty-five years later, as the medicated calm began to reassert itself, I smoothed my hair and fixed my make-up. No one must see through me like that woman once did—or like I did myself.
Confident again, I squared my shoulders. It was time to meet Lovey at the club for lunch.
Dear Lovey. I don't know what I would have done without her in those early years after I married Monty. She helped me through all manner of social occasions, helping to plan menus and parties when Monty’s practice was just starting out and making the right impression had been so critical.
Of course making the right impression is still vital, but the waters are more familiar now.
After a while, I became able to handle my social calendar on my own, but I still relied on her friendship.
She taught me everything I needed to know: who was important, who was nouveau riche and couldn’t be relied on, who gave the most important parties, and what one needed to do to get an invitation.
We were good friends for many reasons, but mainly because she, like me, had not come from the same moneyed background so many other club members had. Of course, I had never told her the whole truth. She just knew that my parents were of modest means.
The Major's Wife (Jubilant Falls series Book 2) Page 5
