For Better or Worse

by Donna Huston Murray

  The open window over the kitchen sink offered a slight breeze laden with humidity. Probably a thunderstorm overnight. Her mother-in-law might have a messy trip in the morning.

  Glancing toward the street as she peeked past the trees, Chelsea noticed Eric Zumstein depositing a loaded box on the sidewalk beside their trash can. Because of the township’s limits, he'd asked permission to add some of his overflow to theirs.

  "Getting ready for when Gram comes home, whenever that will be." He’d looked so forlorn Chelsea had been tempted to hug him.

  Just as he set down a second huge box, a taxi pulled to the curb and disgorged Ronald Voight.

  Loose limbed and stumbling, Cissie’s husband shouted at Eric. "You! Get away from my house."

  Chelsea rushed to her front screen door but hid behind the door jamb where she could both see and hear.

  "You sonovabitch! Stay away from my wife."

  "We talked," Eric responded with remarkable calm. "You should try it sometime. Your wife's a smart woman..."

  "Why you..."

  Eric stood solid as a fireplug while Voight jabbed his collarbone, moved within inches of his face.

  "You. Were. With. My. Wife."

  "We talked," Eric repeated. "Nothing happened."

  Ronald’s first punch landed soft, but his second connected hard.

  Eric waved his head. Rubbed his upper arm. Muttered, "Neanderthal."

  "What'd you call me?"

  Another swing. Another feint. Then it began full force, a free-for-all of kicks and jabs and obscenities.

  With longer arms and an extra thirty pounds, Eric easily held off his drunken attacker, but he soon tired of the inconvenience. Intercepting Ronald’s wrist, he forced Voight’s arm up behind his back.

  "Get sober," he warned. "Then get yourself a brain." He shoved his attacker flat on the sidewalk then turned back toward his grandmother's.

  Voight regained his feet. Wiped his bleeding palms on his jeans. Followed Eric’s retreat with hate in his eyes.

  Then, just as Chelsea feared, Ronald broke into a run and tackled Eric from behind. Darting for the cordless phone in the living room, she could hear the men wrestling no-holds-barred on her front lawn. She was telling the 9-1-1 operator her address as she yanked open the screen door.

  "Stop!" she hollered as she ran down the steps. "I called the police. Stop stop stop..."

  She was still holding her trembling fist to her lips when the police arrived. A clumsy scuffle ensued, but the officers loaded him into the patrol car without too much difficulty.

  When the door finally shut on Ronald with a resounding “chunk,” Chelsea allowed herself to check on Cissie’s whereabouts.

  She was just in time to see a curtain drop back into place in one of the Voight’s upstairs windows, the only indication that Cissie even knew the fight had happened.

  The patrol car left in a cloud of exhaust, and Chelsea shepherded Eric into her kitchen to address the damages.

  Scrapes and bruises mostly. For a man who hadn’t played football, he’d defended himself awfully well.

  Although...

  "You better watch your back," she warned as she angled a band-aid across his swollen knuckles.

  "You, too.”

  Chelsea dropped his hand and stared.

  She hadn't thought of that.

  Chapter 24

  SINCE I DIDN’T babysit on Thursdays and had stayed up following the Swensons’ around on the Internet the night before, naturally my bleating cell phone woke me at 7 AM.

  "Uh, hello?" I mumbled.

  My son's laughter hit me like a shot of adrenaline.

  "Garry! How come you’re up so early?"

  "Going sailing," which figured. He was calling from Cape Cod. "Anyway, you're usually awake. Hot date last night?

  "You wish."

  "Everybody wishes that except you."

  "Next," I warned. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

  "I need something, of course."

  "I'm listening."

  "White shirts. About four or five."

  "Interesting. And why do we need these shirts?"

  "Because I got a job."

  I panicked just a little. "Up there? What will you be doing?”

  "Waiting tables. Again.”

  No complaints there. Chelsea had worked as a server, too, and it had forced her to become efficient. The downside was I’d be deprived of my son for another two and a half months.

  “It’s a really cool restaurant on the water, so the tips should be awesome. At least a couple hundred a week. Maybe more.”

  I forced my voice to remain level. "Where will you live?"

  Garry blew a hefty sigh into the phone. "Mule, the brother who invited me up here, has a friend with a pool house that doesn’t get used. They sort of hooked me up.”

  So my son had some new friends who liked him enough to want him to stick around all summer, and he liked them well enough to want to stay. Also, the money was nothing to sniff at.

  Garry further argued that his former yardwork customers had surely made other arrangements by now and that mowing lawns didn’t offer much of a social life.

  "These are good guys?" I pressed. "No drugs, drinking binges, no screwing around?”

  Garry laughed. "You know me better than that."

  I assured him I did. He was as upstanding a young man as a mother could hope for, a fine testament to the influence of his father. "It's your fraternity brothers I don’t know."

  "They're good guys," my son affirmed, "especially Mule, short for Meuller, by the way. And you'll like this—the pool house belongs to a judge."

  Relaxing, I stretched my legs so far that Fideaux groaned in protest. "So do I send the shirts, or what?”

  "Yeah, I guess. I have to start work Friday."

  Trying not to sound crushed, I urged him to tell me about his vacation. Garry related a couple of comical stories that were clean enough to share with his mother, then I delivered abbreviated versions of my babysitting job and Chelsea's visit from her mother-in-law.

  I signed off with the acceptably unsentimental, "I love you, kid," but in the silence after we hung up, it hit me.

  My baby had moved out.

  ***

  MOVEMENT WAS my antidote for loss. Any activity would suffice, but, due to the summer heat and my new job, Fideaux and I had acquired the habit of exercising early. I dug my rubber gardening shoes out of the basket by the backdoor and grabbed Fideaux’s short green leash off the hook.

  "Want to go for a walk in the park?" I shouted. “Walk” and “park” were the only words he would process, but whole sentences sounded less demented if a neighbor happened to hear.

  And I hoped someone did overhear. Since I'd been widowed, the idea of my neighbors seeing me, hearing me, knowing when I was home and when I was not, comforted me, even if the comfort was probably a delusion.

  “Up, up!” I told Fideaux when we got to the car, and he eagerly hopped in.

  Parked at the side of the most popular entrance to the woods were a plain black sedan I didn't recognize, a large professional-looking van, and an SUV belonging to a woman with a Sheltie named Hobo. Hobo herded Fideaux and nipped, so I kept my timid darling leashed so I could help fend off the pest.

  We didn’t see another soul for half a mile.

  "Proves how big this place is," I commented, remembering the time a little girl had run from her parents in a huff, only to get lost in the woods. Police had enlisted the help of regulars like me to find her, but my only proof that she got rescued (and it was no proof at all) was the absence of police activity the next day.

  To brighten my outlook, I focused on the beauty of nature as I tromped the root-riddled downhill path. The cool air smelled of rain-soaked mulch and ozone, and a glance upward through the trees told me the clouds were thickening again. Only when I reached the long flat stretch beside the creek was I able to pick up my pace.

  Which was when I caught a glimpse of white about thirt
y yards ahead. Probably because Garry had just requested white shirts, I thought it was a man’s elbow disappearing behind the trunk of an ancient sycamore. Yet it just as easily could have been a flash of sun through the trees. Fideaux hadn’t reacted, though, and he never missed a chance to check a stranger’s pocket for dog treats.

  After the third broad wooden bridge crisscrossing the creek, a wall of ancient boxwood hedge nearly closed off the path. Once a studied part of the original landowner's estate, the park volunteers had hacked an opening that allowed the many walkers to continue.

  On a sunnier day I might have imagined myself as Alice stepping through the looking glass, but today’s growing gloom conspired to make me jittery.

  Still, here I was. Where else was I to go?

  I grasped Fideaux’s leash tightly and pressed ahead.

  Twenty yards later, the man I’d nicknamed The Hunter marched toward me with his index finger pointed at my nose. His pale face and receding blonde curls were damp from exertion, his expression angry.

  "You are single," he scolded.

  "What?"

  My reaction prompted a smile. "You let me think you're married, but you're not."

  I blinked and gulped. "How did you find that out?"

  The smile widened. "I asked around," he reported with an arm wave that encompassed the entire park. "You shouldn't mislead people like that. It isn't nice."

  Too shaken to be anything but blunt, I stated, "I'm not interested in dating.” What if he planned to follow me home? What if he was a murderer or a rapist? Most of all, how was I going to handle this new development?

  Charlie's owner, I finally remembered the dog's name, raised his eyebrows. "We'll see," he said. "We'll see." Then he called to his German Shorthaired and marched past Fideaux and me with what I hoped was make-believe righteous indignation.

  "I was being tactful," I muttered quietly enough not to be heard. I hadn't been pursued like that in a couple of decades, and a small but rambunctious part of me wanted to break out the champagne.

  "Guess I'm not totally over the hill," I bragged to my dog. "Whaddya think of that?”

  Then I remembered about shaving my legs, changing outfits seven times before a date, makeup, and flirting with silly getting-to-know-you questions like, "Did you grow up around here?"

  Yuk, I decided.

  Double yuk.

  "Let's go home," I informed my pet.

  Fideaux performed an about-face and bolted for the hole in the hedge.

  Chapter 25

  WHEN CHELSEA arrived at the train station, the macadam was still giving off wisps of moisture from last night’s deluge. After slipping into the second-to-last parking spot, she stepped out into the damp sunlight. With rainwater leeching into her sneakers she made her way to the nearest kiosk and inserted her credit card with trembling fingers. Marilyn Alcott would be here in ten minutes or less.

  Since meeting a train was nothing Chelsea did on a regular basis, she had nothing to do but wait on the platform with her purse dangling in front of her. Nearby, a woman urged her toddler to say the word “locomotive,” again and again. An elderly gentleman huddled on the metal bench inside the glass windbreak reading the Daily News. Pacing to Chelsea's right, another man tried to convince somebody to buy imported truck beds over the phone. Chelsea pondered how she was going to entertain her new mother-in-law.

  The silver commuter train arrived at last. With clatters and thumps and the squeak of brakes it stopped four feet in front of Chelsea's face, enveloping her in its hot-metal stink. Two men in light summer suits exited like rabbits released from a trap. Next came two teenage boys with skateboards, which they rode down the wheelchair ramp to the parking lot. A pair of women chatting about arthritis, and finally Marilyn Alcott.

  Red faced from struggling with her suitcase, her eyebrows peaked with dismay. She was a petite, strawberry blonde with wiry-thin arms and apple cheeks. Despite the rigors of travel, her grooming remained perfect.

  "Mrs. A," Chelsea called up the steps. "Let me help you."

  The conductor stepped forward to grasp his passenger’s delicate hand, so Chelsea squeezed by to wrestle with the suitcase, an ordinary black thing that seemed to weigh a ton.

  After the train moved on, Marilyn raised her arms for a hug. "Darling!" she trilled.

  "Welcome," Chelsea croaked into the woman's ear. They had met so infrequently before—a couple of holidays, a dinner and a show in New York for her father-in-law's fiftieth birthday, a weekend visit to plan the rehearsal dinner, and, most recently, the wedding. Kissing seemed presumptuous.

  Marilyn presumed. She bussed Chelsea loudly on the cheek with her hand behind her head and hugged her a second time. "Sweetheart," she said. "It's so good to see you."

  Chelsea felt her shoulders inch down from their fortress position. "You, too," she agreed, as she realized it was actually true.

  Following the teenagers' example, they used the wheelchair ramp down to the car, which made pulling the suitcase a breeze.

  "We're going out to dinner with my mom tonight," Chelsea reported. Let somebody else cook, had been the original thought. Include someone from Marilyn's age group was the second.

  "Sounds lovely."

  The suitcase snugly stuffed into the trunk and her houseguest snugly belted in, Chelsea turned the ignition key.

  The radio blasted "Don't Touch My Hat" into their faces.

  "Whoa, there." Chelsea swiftly lowered the volume. "Sorry.” She'd been thinking of her own mother and had subconsciously put on some of Gin’s music.

  "That's Lyle Lovett, isn't it?" Marilyn exclaimed. "Love him. Never could see him with Julia Roberts, though. How did you get hooked on him?”

  "Mom put me onto him years ago.”

  "Oh, darling. We're going to get along, aren't we?"

  Did that mean Marilyn and Gin, or her and me?

  Chelsea answered yes.

  ***

  THE CLOVERS, as the restaurant was called, was a known commodity—white linen, a broad range of food choices, a no-rush policy, and prices the young couple could afford now and then. They held hands and beamed at each other like Cheshire cats.

  For the occasion Gin had donned a silk, moss-green sweater so bland you were drawn to her mischievous eyes by default. In contrast, Marilyn Alcott wore an impeccable peach-colored dress and gold flats. White purse, discreet pearl earrings.

  As the two older women scooted to the middle of their semi-circular booth, something about Gin’s demeanor put Chelsea on edge. When her mother ordered a certain cabernet before checking the price, she felt certain hell was about to freeze over.

  Then it happened. Gin asked if Marilyn liked to cook. It was her mother’s favorite trick question, the one she used to take measure of another woman no matter what the answer.

  Chelsea couldn’t help it; she groaned out loud.

  Marilyn’s reply was remarkably prompt. “I cook to eat."

  Gin laughed and tapped a knuckle against Mrs. Alcott's bicep. "Good one," she said. Then she scouted around for their server, probably longing for the bread basket.

  Marilyn appeared to have detected something, but she wasn’t sure what. She simply stared blankly into the middle distance.

  “My mother doesn’t cook,” Chelsea tried to explain. “She makes food.”

  “Ah,” Marilyn responded, but a silence ensued.

  Everyone made a show of consulting their menu. Orders were placed, and the bread arrived.

  Gin’s cheeks were now brighter than her eyes, and Chelsea worried that her mother might require a ride home.

  “What are your interests?” Gin inquired next, and Chelsea allowed herself to breathe.

  Feet finally back on firm ground, Marilyn confided, "Gardening is my passion. Did you know you can plant bulbs with an electric drill?"

  Gin reared back with delight; a power tool had been mentioned. "No kidding. What happens if you hit a rock?"

  Marilyn drew in her lips to suppress a giggle. "You’l
l break the bit, which I must say, makes my husband very, very mad."

  "Over a drill bit?"

  "Oh, yes. Lawrence loves his tools. You should see our garage." She leaned Pisa style toward her son's mother-in-law. "Sometimes I call him ‘Lug Wrench,’ or just plain ‘Lug.’ He hates it, of course, but it lets out some of the wind, you know?"

  The food came, and they all applied themselves.

  A small skirmish occurred when the check arrived—Gin and Marilyn both risking their water goblets to grab for it. Bobby was younger and quicker, however, so the mothers exchanged tight-lipped grins and put their hands back on their laps.

  In short order they were settled into the backseat of Bobby’s car. Pierced ears were being discussed, which Gin labeled, “Barbaric,” although hers were pierced. "Like contact lenses," Marilyn agreed, but she used them, too.

  Back in the newlywed’s driveway, they hugged their farewells. Chelsea reached for Bobby's hand and got a warm squeeze in return.

  Then a sound no one ever wanted to hear ruined the soft summer twilight.

  Gin was the first to move. She ran along the hedge between the kids' house and the Voights until she could see into the next backyard.

  Abruptly stopping beside her mother, Chelsea recognized the figure in a white shirt and light slacks sitting on the Voight’s kitchen steps.

  “Cissie, is that you?” Gin whispered through the hedge.

  Cissie startled at her name and gasped back a sob.

  Gin pushed through a gap in the hedge with Chelsea right behind.

  With a gentle hand, Gin lifted Cissie’s chin for a good look at her face. A swollen red area on her cheek would shortly become black and blue, and the way the young mother clutched her stomach made it horribly clear that her cheek was not her only injury.

  "Ronald?" Gin guessed.

  Cissie scrambled back against her kitchen door. “It was my fault,” she claimed. “He didn't mean to do it."