Off Season

by Jean Stone

  He’d let her hang out at Menemsha House, and he’d shown her the ropes. He’d shared folk tales of old Yankees and legends of the Indians—just trying to let a kid know that somebody cared enough to be there. He’d even taken her to the cliffs at Gay Head a few times and told her about Noepe, his old Wampanoag friend, and showed her how to see pictures in the clouds in the sky.

  He’d done all these things—and this was where it got him? With Ashenbach saying he’d molested Mindy? Or worse, according to the old blowhard, with Mindy saying he had?

  Ben looked down at his feet that were once again in socks, because his boots and his belt and his watch and probably his goddamn mind, if he had one left, had been sealed in an envelope and stuck inside a locker.

  Not that he remembered putting on his boots. It must have been some time after Hugh had followed him into the museum, but before he’d stood in the booking room, cuffed to the counter, bright lights shining on him, with a lump in his gut and no spit in his mouth.

  Even now he was not sure what was happening.

  There had been an arraignment this morning—closed to the public at the “judge’s discretion.” The judge was a woman who, thank God, Ben didn’t know. Mindy was not there (the rights of a minor), so there had been no chance for Ben to meet his accuser, for him to look in her eyes and say, “Hey kid, what’s going on?”

  Yesterday, he’d been a bit sharp with her, and he readily admitted that. Well, hell, everyone else had left, and he’d thought she had, too. He’d gone into the office—that’s when she’d squealed and jumped down at him from the transom over the door where she’d apparently been hiding. She scared him; he’d yelled.

  That was the story he’d told the police, the story he’d not had the chance to tell the judge because it was an arraignment, not a damn trial.

  Not that it would have mattered. Because after he’d said what had happened, one of the cops asked, “Was that when you touched her?”

  Ben’s anger had flared and he shouted, “I did not touch her!” But then the cop said, “You grabbed her, didn’t you?” and Ben admitted, “Only to break her fall.”

  And the cop replied, “Then you admit that you touched her.” And he made some quick notes.

  So Ben figured it was just as well he hadn’t talked to the judge. It was bad enough when he looked in anyone’s eyes. The guard who brought the “breakfast” of weak coffee and a dry croissant, the court reporter, the bailiff, and the D.A.—their eyes were all tentative, veiled by the same glare.

  Child molester, the glare said.

  The sad truth was, if he had been the one watching, he would have glared the same way.

  The child is a child, the adult is not.

  The adult must be guilty, unless proven otherwise.

  Because next to murder, and oftentimes worse, it was the most heinous of imaginable crimes.

  Bail had been set at one hundred thousand dollars, and Ben was cautioned not to go near the little girl—the little girl, the judge had kept emphasizing, as if Ben didn’t know Mindy, hadn’t known her for at least six or seven years, since her father had died of alcohol poisoning and her mother had dumped her with Ashenbach while she set out to do God-knew-what on her own.

  So now he’d been arrested and bail had been set and he was back in this godawful cell because he told Rick he needed to do this part himself. So far, however, Ben hadn’t had the courage to call anyone to raise bail.

  Besides, he didn’t know whom to call. Jill was still in Vermont. He supposed he could call Charlie Rollins or Rita, but this was child molestation, for God’s sake, not a traffic violation, not something you’d want anyone beyond family to know about.

  And not even family, he thought, closing his eyes. God, not even your wife.

  From out in the hall, Ben heard the sound of low voices. That’s when he realized that the longer he stayed here, the better his chances were of being found out by a gnatty gossip like Hattie Phillips or Jesse Parker, who would spread the word all over the island before sunrise or sundown or whatever the sun would do next, Ben wasn’t sure, because he had not been sure of anything but the punch in his gut and the panic in his heart since Hugh had read him his rights so many hours ago.

  He considered his options, if that word even applied.

  It would be better to call John than his daughter. John, his son-in-law, husband to Carol Ann, father to Ben’s only grandchildren, John, Jr. who was seven, and Emily, four. Yes, he would have to call John. What Ben didn’t know was what the hell he was going to say.

  “I think it’s best if we don’t tell Carol Ann,” John was saying. “God, it would kill her. And what about the kids? They might be young, but they’ll learn about this kind of thing soon enough. Hopefully, it won’t be when their grandfather’s involved.”

  Ben sat mute, staring out the window of his son-in-law’s minivan. It was two-thirty in the afternoon—for some reason knowing the time had become important now. There had been no clock in the holding cells, and of course, his watch had been sealed in the envelope with his other “valuables.” But now he knew the time. He hung on to that bit of freedom as if were a lifeline.

  Two-thirty in the afternoon. It had taken that long for John to get out of work, go to the bank, and take out the bonds that Ben had stored in the safe deposit box for his grandkids. Thank God he’d once had the brains to have John’s name put on the box.

  “Are you with me on this, Ben? Not to tell Carol Ann?”

  Ben nodded. If he’d wanted his daughter to know he would have called her and not John.

  “Well, hopefully this is just Ashenbach’s way of stirring up trouble,” John continued. “Hopefully he’ll come to his senses and realize that this can only harm his granddaughter.”

  Ben wondered if John knew how many times he’d used the word hopefully since they’d gotten in the van. He also wondered how well John knew Dave Ashenbach, a man not easily dissuaded, a man not given to giving up. Even after the Menemsha House fire, Ashenbach, it seemed, was the lone holdout of the islanders, the only one who had not helped him rebuild. It was as if he were trying to underline the fact that he did not want Ben—or the museum—as his neighbor.

  “At least this won’t be in the papers,” John continued. “Fitzpatrick said your name and the incident won’t be released because the island protects itself from each other. Whatever that means. Anyway, he assured me there’s a gag order on the proceedings because the little girl is a minor. It will be kept from the people as well as the press.”

  Ben wanted to ask when—and why—John had talked to his attorney, but he couldn’t make his brain go past John’s words:

  the little girl.

  He might have challenged his son-in-law’s placement of sympathy if he weren’t so tired. And so damn numb.

  “So what happens next?” Ben’s son-in-law, the concerned family member, asked.

  Ben glanced over at John and tried to determine if he’d like him if he were not the husband of his daughter, father of his grandchildren. “You take me home,” he said. “I go to bed.” Hugh Talbot had already agreed to hang a sign on Menemsha House saying the museum would be closed until further notice. If anyone asked, Ben could give a vague excuse about closing for the season, about wanting to spend more time with Jill.

  Jill.

  He asked himself for the thousandth time how he was going to tell her. And for the thousandth time, he wondered how she was going to react.

  Her husband the child molester.

  Her husband the sex offender.

  He turned and looked out at the oak trees that lined the street. Many had already dropped their rusty red leaves on the brick sidewalk, a sure sign that winter would be early and winter would be rough.

  “What about legally?” John asked, interrupting Ben’s thoughts. “What happens next?”

  “You talked to Fitzpatrick. Didn’t he tell you?”

  “Well, no. I only needed to find out where to bring your bail.”

  Ben
sighed. He felt twenty years older than he had yesterday at this time, which was now two-thirty-six. He was in no mental shape to reason with John, or to argue. “I pleaded not guilty. Now it goes to trial,” he said, repeating the few words he remembered the judge saying. Those and the part about the little girl.

  “When?”

  “We don’t know yet. Not for months.”

  “Well, you might want to think about hiring someone other than Rick Fitzpatrick. Someone with, you know, criminal experience.”

  Criminal? Ben kept his eyes fixed on the trees. John was, of course, right, but hearing him say it—as if he were the goddamn lawyer—pissed Ben off. “Rick’s fine for now.”

  They drove the rest of the way in silence. Ben suspected that John was trying to assess what other legal and/or moral judgments lay in wait. When they reached the house, John didn’t even pretend to park.

  “Well, keep me posted,” he said.

  Ben got out of the van, gave a half-hearted wave, and realized that John had not asked how Ben was doing, or if he could handle this. John had not asked, not once.

  As he walked up the walk, it occurred to Ben that John did not believe he was innocent.

  If his own son-in-law didn’t believe him—who the hell would?

  Rita had had her urine tested, her finger pricked, and her blood pressure practically squeezed from her upper arm. Now she paced the hospital waiting room, waiting for Doc Hastings’s nurse to call her in for her personal-and-private consultation, as if Rita would care if the whole world learned she was in menopause.

  There was a time, of course, it might have mattered. Back in the days when her ongoing goal was to impress the rich and preferably famous, she might have cared. If anyone had thought she was menopausally crazed, they might have been less likely to list their summer houses with her. It certainly would have reduced her “other” activities, which included bedding down those same rich and preferably famous for a few doggie bags left over from expensive dinners or an occasional contact name or two—anything to help her survive until next season, to help her and Kyle survive.

  She strolled around the waiting room that had undergone little if any change since she’d last been here three years ago. Three years ago last Labor Day weekend, to be exact. The day, and the night, her world changed forever.

  She remembered the orange vinyl chairs, the huge white clock that hung over the doorway, the table that overflowed with tourist-rumpled magazines. She remembered looking through the magazines, trying to find a recipe that she’d make when Kyle came home, if he came home. She remembered how freezing cold it had been in here.

  Slowly, Rita moved across the room, trying to push away the memories, trying to push down the pain. She cleared her throat and looked around the room. It held a handful of hanging-on tourists in L.L. Bean clothes and a couple of islanders in flannel shirts and jeans. She recognized no one and wondered if the island had changed when she’d not been looking, when she’d been in the vacuum since that Labor Day weekend night.

  Seeing the list of doctors’ names on the wall, Rita idly glanced at them. Warren Hastings caught her eye, the name of the ancient gynecologist who’d delivered most natives, fifty and under, on this side of the Vineyard, Rita included. Next to his name it said Room 103.

  She absently scanned the remaining names, then realized there was no longer a listing for Robert Palmer, M.D. No longer a listing for the doctor who had told her that Kyle was going to die.

  “Your son has third-degree burns over sixty percent of his body.” The young doctor’s words were rooted in her mind, her poor, helpless mind that had never been the same. “His chances of survival are slim.”

  She stared at the listings now, seeing not the names but the haze of the desk and the chair and the file folders that had sat on Dr. Palmer’s desk in his tiny, cramped cubicle, hearing once again those hollow-sounding words, feeling that claustrophobic perception as if someone had locked you inside the dark, airless trunk of an old, unwanted car and you wanted to run but there was nowhere to run and you were as trapped as Kyle had been in the flames as he tried in vain to save Menemsha House, hero that he was.

  The doctor had wanted her to go home. We’re working on him … it might be a while … I can call you to come back.

  She had not left. She had looked down at her bony, freckled knees and known that she was not going anywhere. It did not matter if it took an hour, a day, or a month. No one was going to make Rita Blair leave her son.

  In the end, it was Kyle who had left her, left all of them, as he just went to sleep, freed from his pain.

  And now Dr. Palmer, like Kyle, was gone.

  “Mrs. Blair?” The touch of a hand on Rita’s arm pulled her up from the tunnel, back to the present. “Mrs. Blair,” a young woman in white said, “Dr. Hastings can see you now.”

  Rita looked at the young woman’s kind face and wanted to tell her that her name was not Mrs. Blair, but Ms. Blair. People who hadn’t known her all her life or who hadn’t known Hazel always made that mistake, thinking Rita was married because of Kyle. A long time ago, that was okay. Now, like most things, it no longer mattered.

  He was behind his desk, busily scribbling something on a pad the way doctors did, as if it were the most important note in the realm of the universe.

  “Rita,” he said, standing up, without ceasing to write, without raising his eyes from the notepad. “How’s your mother?”

  She sighed and sat down in the wooden chair across from the desk that was even older than he was. “Fine, doc.” She briefly wondered if Doc Hastings had been one of Hazel’s lovers, though if he had been, Rita would probably have known. Hazel would have been proud to have a doctor share her bed, if only on alternate Tuesdays or whenever he’d been willing and available.

  Finally he stopped writing. He took off his glasses and smiled. “Well, well. You’re looking quite well, Rita.”

  She wished he would sit down. She wondered if this was some kind of menopausal ritual, respect for the woman whose youth had passed over. “Thanks, doc, but I feel like shit. My mother thinks I need estrogen.”

  He smiled but did not answer.

  Rita sat back, then forward on the damned chair. It occurred to her that a doctor’s office should have more comfortable chairs. She tried to remember what kind had been in Dr. Palmer’s airless cubicle, but she could not.

  “It’s too soon for estrogen,” Doc Hastings commented. Then at last he sat down.

  Rita frowned. “But I’ve already skipped a couple of periods. And I feel like crap most of the time.”

  He smiled. “Yes. That’s often expected. But estrogen can’t help you, Rita.”

  Her annoyance rose. “What do you suggest? Tofu and soybeans?”

  “Well, I do suggest vitamins. And a healthy diet. And plenty of prenatal checkups. Oh, and especially because you’re over forty, we’ll want to do an amniocentesis and an ultrasound at about sixteen weeks.”

  She started to protest, then stopped herself. “What did you say?”

  His smile had not faded. “An amnio and an ultrasound. They’re standard for pregnancy at your age.”

  Chapter 4

  Ben wondered if he had suddenly developed that nervous condition, what was it called? Agoraphobia? The one where you were afraid to leave your house; when even to stick your head outside the door would make your heart race and your body sweat like all get-out, the way he was sweating now, as he stood at the window, peeking through the drapes, wondering if anyone on North Water Street had learned that Hugh Talbot had been to Menemsha and escorted him off in handcuffs.

  Was it possible that he had developed agoraphobia in the few hours since his life had gone completely out of focus? Since he’d gone from Ben Niles, respected home-builder, family man, and model citizen, to Ben Niles, child molester?

  “Ben?” The voice came first, followed by the slamming of the back door.

  Shit. Amy was home. He let the drape fall back into place.

  She
rounded the corner on energetic teenage feet, tossing her corduroy jacket onto the wingback chair that had been in the room since her great-grandfather’s day.

  “Guess what?” she blurted out in teenage style.

  Guess what? Oh, God, did she know? His throat and chest and gut tightened up.

  “Charlie’s going to let me run the Halloween party at the tavern. I’m so psyched. It’ll be so cool.” Her dark eyes flashed—the same dark eyes that resembled her grandmother’s, the beautiful woman whose photo stood on the mantel in a small oval frame, the woman who might or might not have chattered and laughed as often as Amy.

  Amy would stop laughing if she learned that her new stepfather was an accused sex offender.

  He tried to smile or simply to breathe. “If you’re in charge, the party will be nothing less than cool.”

  He backed up a step to put more distance between them.

  She flopped onto the chair atop her corduroy and flipped back her short now-burgundy hair, which she’d recently chopped “techno-like,” as she called it. “I want the party to be totally outrageous, the latest chic.” She spoke as much to the ceiling as to Ben. “I want it to be the one Halloween party that everyone will remember. Maybe I’ll get a special guest. Hey! Elvira! Remember Elvira, Mistress of the Dark?” She jumped from the chair. “Maybe Mom can get her—wow! Funky! When’s Mom coming back?”

  Ben watched Amy’s animation and marveled at the innocence of youth. Had Mindy ever been allowed such innocence, or had she been too neglected? “Tomorrow,” he said more quietly than he’d intended. “She’s coming home tomorrow.” He lightly pressed his hand against his shirt, as if that would calm his distress.