“Look, Officer—” Alex glances at his name tag, gestures to it “—Adler, is it?” He nods. “Okay, look Officer Adler, was someone taking radar?”
I cringe, wishing Alex would soften her approach. But her style is more mad dog than lapdog. Although I really wish she wouldn’t lie on my behalf.
“No, but we measured the skid marks.”
“Can you prove they’re from my client’s car? Maybe the BMW was traveling too fast and had to skid to a stop before she rear-ended my client?”
Alex doesn’t know about the photos yet. Speaking of— I stand and wobble, blink at the spots dancing before my eyes. I have to get the photos out of the car before the tow truck arrives.
The paramedic appears at my side, puts a hand to my elbow. “Lady, are you sure you don’t want to go to the emergency room? I think you’re suffering a little shock. Sometimes you think you’re fine, but later on it sneaks up on you. Hits you like a club.”
Oh, how ironically lifelike that is. He’s a cute boy. Looks as though he’s in his early twenties—Melody Wentworth’s age. He wouldn’t have any idea of the blows life can deal. Hard enough to knock you flat.
“No, thank you. I’m fine.”
“Okay.” He shrugs and joins the others tending to BMW girl. She’s sitting on the curb across the street bawling. Blubbering about how her boyfriend’s going to kill her.
Boyfriend’s car. Did I have that one pegged or what?
“It wasn’t my fault.” She wails and points at me. “The bitch hit the brakes on purpose. I know she did.”
Shudders rack my body. I look away. I shouldn’t have done what I did. I shouldn’t have done it. And I’m not so sure I can let Alex keep up this phantom squirrel charade to get me off the hook. But as remorse wraps me in a tight cocoon, I realize I don’t even know my left from my right. At least I have enough sense to keep my mouth shut until I’m thinking straight.
I stumble to the Jag’s passenger side, and pull at the door. It sticks a little. I notice it’s bent from the impact. My knees nearly buckle. I grab the door frame until I’m steady.
I want to blame Corbin, but even in my state of nervous shock, I know I’m the one who must take responsibility for my actions.
Just as my husband will.
I reach in and grab the envelope off the floorboard, count the photos to make sure they’re all there.
Out of my peripheral vision, I see a gray car slow to a stop beside me. A Cadillac. The tinted window slides down.
“Kate, hon? Is that you?”
Peg Sander’s anxious face peers at me.
Oh great. Just what I need.
“What’s happened?”
“I had a little accident, Peg. But I’m okay. Really, I am.”
“Is Corbin here? That’s his car.”
I shake my head.
Peg’s mouth forms a little O.
“Does he know?”
I grit my teeth and clutch the envelope to my chest.
The police wave Peg on before I have a chance to answer. I’m relieved when she complies and pulls away.
Alex walks up. “Who was that?”
“Peg Sanders, Corbin’s partner’s wife. The last person on earth I want to see right now. Well, maybe not the last person, but she’s in the top five.”
I glance around to see if anyone else is within earshot. “Why did you say I hit a squirrel?”
Alex gets these big deer-in-headlight eyes. “What? Didn’t you? What other reason would you have for slamming on your brakes with no warning?”
This translates into, “I’ve gone out on a limb for you, Kate. Be a team player.”
“Alex, it’s a long ugly story. I’m just glad you weren’t in court this morning.”
She squeezes my shoulder. “If you had to have a wreck, your timing was certainly good. I’m glad I could be here for you, honey.”
My cell phone rings from somewhere in the bowels of the car, but I don’t have the energy to crawl under the air bag and dig it out.
Alex narrows her eyes. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with Hal Washington, would it?”
Bile rises in the back of my throat and makes my eyes water. I can’t speak because if I do I know I’ll break down into a sobbing heap to rival BMW Girl’s fit.
I thrust the envelope at her. She closes her eyes for a minute before she accepts it, holding it as if it’s infected with a communicable disease.
“Honey, I am so, so sorry.”
I shrug, my composure slipping.
She pulls out the photos, shuffles through them, muttering things like, “Oh, pa-lease… Ugggggggh, give me a break… You must be kidding…so typical.”
She shoves them back in the envelope and crosses her arms over them as if she’s trying to render them invisible.
“If this is what he wants, he doesn’t deserve you.”
My mind is full of cobwebs. All I can do is stare at my sensible black Liz Claiborne pumps and wonder where I took the wrong turn to arrive at this sorry juncture in life?
“As far as I’m concerned, he’s never deserved you,” Alex says.
This makes me look up. Alex is jaded when it comes to men and marriage. She’s a no-nonsense career woman who’s never been married and is the first to admit the garbage she’s witnessed in divorce court, coupled with her mother’s promiscuous lifestyle, has permanently tainted her opinion of marriage. But in this case, she’s right.
“He can be such a jackass sometimes, can’t he?” I say.
“Sometimes? Oh my God. I don’t know how you put up with him all these years. What are you going to do now?”
All these years. It hits me like a cold glass of water in the face. I inhale sharply. Tears sting my eyes and the inside of my bruised nostrils. “Who’s asking that question—Alex, the divorce attorney or Alex, my friend?”
“You know I can’t represent your divorce, as much as I’d like to take the son of a bitch for every cent he’s worth. Right now, I’m the friend who’ll shut up and listen. Okay?”
A slow, steady stream of traffic rolls by. People are rubbernecking to get a good look at the two totaled luxury cars.
“I don’t know, Alex,” is all I can manage. Everything I’d say if I poured my heart out is stuck in the cobwebs in my mind—things like how I drove around aimlessly all morning wailing like an injured animal; how I knew Corbin had checked out of this marriage a long time ago, but I didn’t have the guts to face facts; that I’m scared and feel small and completely unlovable; and that there’s a very real part of me that can’t bear the thought of letting a lawyer pour verbal alcohol on my open wounds because given the chance right now, I might just turn the other cheek and pretend as though I’d never heard the name Melody Wentworth because I want my family. I want my old life. I want everything to be the way it used to be.
I try to speak, but I choke on a sob and the tears turn on like a broken water main.
I can’t even stop crying when I hear footsteps behind us. It’s Adler approaching. Beyond him, I see BMW Girl talking on her cell phone—ranting, raving, swearing, gesturing.
“Mrs. Hennessey, are you okay? Is she okay?” he says to Alex.
Alex shrugs. “It’s her husband’s car. He’s going to be pissed.”
Hearing this helps. Yes, he will. He’ll be fit to be tied. The thought gives me some satisfaction. I swipe at my tears. Officer Adler gets some tissue from the medics.
“Thank you,” I say.
“If you’re up to it, I just need to ask you a couple of questions.”
Alex steps between us, still holding that damned envelope. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at a manila envelope again without feeling sick.
“Kate, you don’t have to answer any questions. Let me do the talking.”
The officer sighs, talks to me. “Ma’am, you’re not under arrest or in trouble. I just need your side of the story.”
He sounds a little weary, as if Alex has pushed the bounds of his good nature t
o the limits.
I give him a rueful smile. He grins back.
“Just tell me in your own words what happened.”
I take a deep breath and whisper a silent prayer that begs for forgiveness. “Well, there was this squirrel—”
A Lexus screeches to a halt beside us.
Corbin jumps out, blocking traffic, just as BMW girl trots up to Adler yelling, “You want to know what happened? I’ll tell you—the bitch slammed on her brakes on purpose—that’s what happened. I know she did it on purpose, and I’m going to sue her.”
Corbin puts his hands on his hips.
“Kate? What the hell happened?”
CHAPTER 7
Strange what comes to mind in the midst of a crisis. Armed with the truth and faced with confronting Corbin, I’m not contemplating all the ways I’d torture him. I’m more preoccupied with important things like how in classical mythology the Greek goddess Hera was forced to defend her home and marriage against the infidelities of her husband, Zeus, and his attempts to humiliate her.
At face value it makes sense that I’d draw this parallel—a classic case of misery loves company; even the greatest goddess of them all couldn’t keep her man from straying. But as Corbin drives me home, the envelope of pictures on my lap under my purse, I think on a deeper level, self-preservation kicks in and subconsciously I’m centering myself—summoning my inner goddess before marching into the battle of my life.
The moment of truth happens when we get home.
It took great restraint not to throw the photos in Corbin’s face and kick him to the curb as we stood glaring at each other in the middle of the intersection. If I tore into him there, I’d have had to be civilized about it.
That was enough incentive to wait until we’re home.
Alex couldn’t believe I was up for letting him drive me home.
There’s no other choice, I told her. If he doesn’t drive me home he’ll go back to the office and it will have to wait until tonight. I need to take care of this before Caitlin comes home.
Take care of this… It sounds like an embarrassing medical problem I’ve put off, hoping it would go away, or a traffic ticket I’d neglected to pay.
“Come inside for a minute,” I say when we pull in the driveway. “I need to talk to you.”
Corbin sighs, pushes his Armani sunglasses up on his nose.
“I’ve wasted an entire morning. I need to get back to the office.”
“This can’t wait.”
I get out of the car and slam the door.
He kills the engine. I unlock the front door.
Jack jumps up and greets me as I step into the foyer. It’s as if I’m seeing everything through a fish-eye lens; same house, same dog—same foyer with its polished, hardwood floor and pricey Persian rug, same dark yellow envelope I’ve clutched since nine-thirty this morning, but it’s all coming at me like the distorted images in a 3-D movie; accompanied by the disconcerting sound track of a barking dog, pounding heart and Corbin closing the front door behind me.
The goddess Hera represents the power of women to stand for what they know is right. She is a symbol of the women’s struggle in a predominantly patriarchal society.
Because of this, she was sometimes seen as jealous, petty and spiteful.
A first-class bitch. I hand Corbin the photos and walk away.
“What’s this?”
I don’t answer him. I don’t even look back. I’ve seen enough. For this, I believe the goddess Hera is smiling down on me, comforting me with the sweep of a gentle hand. You are not undesirable, Kate. I, the mother of all goddesses, suffered similar indignity. You’re in good company. You will be all right.
I wish I had it in me to believe her instead of feeling big and frumpy and awkward and old as I ascend the staircase. But I’m not quite that in touch with my inner goddess.
“Shit,” is all Corbin says. The word follows me upstairs, lingers with me on the landing. I clutch the banister and glance around the dim hallway, bewildered and displaced.
Caitlin’s room is the first door on the right, next to Corbin’s office, across the hall from our bedroom, down the hall from the guest room. If everything is in its place, why do I feel like a stranger standing in someone else’s home?
I grasp the doorjamb and search for something familiar to fill me up before any more of me leaks away, and I become so flimsy that I float up and out into the stratosphere, eventually to be sucked into the black hole of the universe.
If that happens, who will care for Caitlin? She needs me. Because if not for me, who will teach her about the goddess Hera, and that you don’t have to put up with the humiliation of cheating husbands.
Long, skinny rectangles of sunlight filter through the Plantation shutter slats and spill onto the floor. It makes me think of the lasagna noodles I cooked before I left for Palm Beach.
Does Melody Wentworth know how to cook lasagna? If not, she’d better learn because Corbin loves his lasagna. Or at least I thought he did. I guess I never really knew him very well.
“Kate?” Corbin’s at the bottom of the stairs. “Can we talk about this?”
No. I don’t want to talk to you. Can’t you just go away? Just fade away and leave me alone so I can pretend like you died some tragic, heroic death. When people say, “Kate, we’re so sorry.” I can nod and mutter rueful sentiments like a good widow. Because isn’t that what’s happened? Hasn’t our marriage just died?
The words won’t budge. They’re lodged between my heart and my throat. I don’t know what to do, where to go. I hear his footfalls as he jogs up the steps.
Before he gets to the top, I lock myself in the bedroom. When he pounds on the door, and begs me to let him in, to talk about this because he loves me, I retreat into the bathroom and run water in the sink, turn on the bathtub faucet and the shower. I do this not only to cover his pleas, but also to drown the voice inside urging me to open the door and give him a chance to explain it all away. So we can put it behind us and be a family.
Well, I am not Mrs. Robinson and I refuse to hide it in the pantry with my cupcakes. A little secret just the Hennesseys will share…
I don’t think I can hurt any worse than I do at that moment. But I’m wrong. I hurt much, much more in the ensuing hush when Corbin stops knocking and the house falls silent.
I venture out of the bathroom about an hour later because I have to get Caitlin from school. I peer out the foyer window to make sure he’s really gone and not silently lurking in the living room or kitchen to trick me into discussing the photos.
The driveway’s empty—good. No! Not good! That bastard! I can’t believe the idiot took the car. I know he had to go back to the office or to confer with Melody Wentworth or wherever he might be inclined to go to do whatever it is he does when we’re apart, but I can’t believe the bastard wouldn’t even think about his daughter.
Caitlin goes to a private school on the other side of town. She doesn’t ride a bus. It’s not as if I can walk to get her.
I let the sheer drape fall back into place. Jack is lying on the floor with his head resting on his paws. He seems to have a worry crease between his bug-brown eyes. He sighs only the way dogs can sigh and looks up at me with an apologetic expression that suggests he feels my pain.
I reach down to pet him contemplating whether I should call a cab to take me to pick up Caitlin from school or impose on the mother of one of her friends to bring her home. I don’t carpool with anyone, and I’ve never been comfortable asking anyone to fetch my child. One of the drawbacks to private school is that her classmates are scattered all over town. It would be a big inconvenience to ask them to go out of their way to bring her home. I’m mulling over asking Rainey to take me—I need to tell her what’s happened anyway—when a slow-dawning horror reaches out and wraps its bony fingers around my spine.
What if Corbin— No… He wouldn’t dare—
I run into the kitchen and dial the number for Caitlin’s school. It takes an ete
rnity for someone to answer. “Liberty School, this is Marge. How may I help you?”
My mind races trying to come up with a plausible reason why I’d worry about Caitlin’s father picking her up from school without airing my dirty laundry. I glance around the kitchen looking for a clue.
Forgotten lunch box? No, too late for that.
Missed medicine that he was dropping off? Maybe…
My gaze snares a note on the calendar.
“Hello?” says Marge. “Is anyone there?”
I sniff. “Yes, sorry. Hi, Marge. This is Kate Hennessey. I was calling because…” My stomach clenches, but I force out the words hoping the excuse doesn’t sound as flimsy and bogus as it feels. “This is quite embarrassing, actually. I’m so disorganized lately…. I thought Caitlin had a dentist appointment today. As it turns out the appointment’s next week. My husband was going to take her today. I tried to get in touch with him when I realized the mistake, but I haven’t been able to connect with him. Please tell me he hasn’t been there to pick her up yet.”
“No, he hasn’t, Mrs. Hennessey.”
“Great. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. May I help with anything else?”
“Yes, if he does come, don’t release Caitlin to him—”
I cringe at how it sounds.
“Well…he is one of her legal guardians….”
“Oh, yes, right… What I mean is, please tell him the dentist appointment isn’t today and that I’m on my way.”
“Okay.” Her tired voice implies that she thinks I’m a loon. I thank her and hang up as fast as I can.
I blow my nose and glance at the clock. Caitlin’s still got an hour and a half of school left.
More than likely if Corbin didn’t get her when he left, he won’t bother—I sit down at the kitchen table and dial his office. Each ring feels like a heavy weight dropped inside my head. My stomach churns and plummets when Janet, his administrative assistant, answers with a perky, “Dr. Hennessey’s office.”
“Um, yes, hi, Janet. This is Kate Hennessey, is my…husband in?”
Out with the Old, In with the New Page 7
