Guilt by Association

by Susan R. Sloan

  The message was clear: a mere engineer should be grateful to have Beverly’s daughter, even though she did come to him a little damaged. After all, he would be marrying up, as they said, and couldn’t very well expect perfection. Karen didn’t bother to protest the assumption. Peter was everything she had ever fantasized about in the dreamy nights of her girlhood, and she wanted nothing more than to marry him and live the fairy-tale life they had so often talked about.

  Abso-u-lutely-topia, he had called it.

  “We’re going to have it all,” he would say. “The beautiful wife, the hardworking husband, the cozy cottage, the white picket fence—and at least half a dozen cherubic children. Abso-u-lutely-topia!”

  Karen frowned, remembering with a painful tightness in her chest that there weren’t going to be any cherubic children, and that, in the detailed recounting of her injuries, it was the one thing her mother had somehow neglected to tell Peter.

  “You can tell him yourself, when the time is right,” Beverly had said with a shrug. “That, but nothing else.”

  Karen squirmed at the directive. In her mind, she referred to it as selective honesty, which, as far as she was concerned, was the same as dishonesty. Not for the first time she wondered how she and Peter were going to share a life without truth.

  But what was truth? she asked herself. Her mother, who had once preached the importance of total honesty between a husband and wife, now insisted that it wasn’t necessary to disclose every sordid little secret. She was quick to point out that Peter had never considered it necessary to share the details of his previous exploits. Had he done so, Karen might have found cause not to marry him—just as he might find cause, were he ever to discover the truth about her “accident.” It was infinitely better, Beverly concluded, that they both bury their pasts in the interests of building a wonderful future together.

  Karen reached into her nightstand drawer for her thought box and pulled out a blank piece of paper and a pen. In the gentle pool of lamplight, she wrote:

  Love is truth,

  the careful truth of time

  and constancy.

  Between eyes,

  between sighs.

  From girl to woman,

  from woman to wife.

  To life.

  Without bothering to reread the words, she closed the box and tucked it safely away in the drawer, snapped off the light, and settled back against her pillows. Visions of white lace and rose petals began to dance before her eyes as she saw herself floating down the aisle, Peter standing there, waiting for her. He would smile and take her hand in his, and then he would take her away from all the pain and pity and reproach.

  She closed her eyes with a contented yawn and pulled the covers up over her head, as though she were already nestling into that cozy little cottage with the white picket fence. She would find a way to tell Peter they would not be able to have children. He would be devastated, of course, but, as always, he would be loving and understanding, and perhaps, sometime in the future, they would think about adopting. There were bound to be some adorable little ones out there, with shiny faces and bright eyes, just waiting for a picture-perfect home.

  At the other end of the hall, Peter lay in the guest bed with his lamp still lit, listening to the subtle sounds of the Kern household as it settled itself down for the night, thinking how different it was from the rambling home in which he had grown up. The walls and floors back in Bangor creaked and groaned freely to accommodate the noisy brood who lived there. These walls and floors didn’t seem to yield at all. Rather, it was the people who did the accommodating.

  He laced his fingers under his head and stared up at the ceiling. His body was weary and sore from the long drive and yearned for sleep, but his mind would not cooperate. Not when there was so much to think about.

  The change in Karen had almost overwhelmed him. The happy-go-lucky girl he remembered had become a frightened animal. While he could understand her reluctance to think about a future when her present was still somewhat in turmoil, her reaction to him had not been exactly normal.

  He was now forced to concede that being run over and left for dead like a dog in the middle of the road had probably been much more traumatic than he had imagined and he could feel his anger rising, almost out of control, toward that nameless person who had stolen not only her health but her self-confidence as well. The quality that had always most charmed him about her was the funny little way she had of combining self-assurance with naïveté that always managed to make him feel just a bit more sophisticated than he actually was, and he loved her dearly for it.

  Of course, it went without saying that sexually he was the more experienced. In fact, her innocence was one of the first things that had attracted him. Although he’d made a few half-drunken attempts at tempting her, in the back seat of his Pon-tiac, he was secretly pleased that she wanted to wait until marriage. He enjoyed the idea of being able to teach her, when the time came, and it meant a great deal to him to know that he would be her first.

  Her accident was a setback, but he hoped it was only a temporary one. He wanted to believe that, as soon as she recovered physically, her confidence would return and her emotional distress would dissipate and she would be her old self again.

  All she needed was enough love and encouragement to see her through, and that, he realized, was precisely where he came in. He could give her as much love and encouragement as she could handle. It was there, bubbling up inside him, in that part of his heart that had her name engraved on it. He would show her, in every way he could, that he was with her to the end. He would find a way to let her know that she could lean on him, depend on him, and share the bad as well as the good with him. A little smile began to play across his face, because he knew exactly how to accomplish that.

  He reached over and picked up the small box he had placed on the nightstand beside the bed. Karen had said she needed time, but it was now perfectly clear to him that what she really needed was reassurance—reassurance that his feelings for her hadn’t changed and weren’t going to change, and that their life together was going to be exactly as they had planned it.

  He flipped the box open. Inside, nestled against dark velvet, a diamond engagement ring sparkled in the lamplight.

  eleven

  The smell of coffee awakened him. For a moment, Peter thought he was at home in Maine, but it was much too quiet for the rambunctious bunch in Bangor. No floors complained, no walls grumbled. He opened his eyes. Sunlight flooded through the window between Beverly’s damask draperies.

  Peter glanced at his wristwatch, astounded to see that it was almost ten-thirty. He shook his head to clear away the cobwebs. It was practically the middle of the day, and he couldn’t remember the last time he had slept so long.

  Allowing himself one huge stretch, he jumped out of bed and padded into the bathroom, wondering if Karen was up yet. He had an idea that the two of them could go out for a while this afternoon, maybe even have a picnic somewhere. With the sun shining down on them, and the food between them, and her peculiar family nowhere in sight, they would be able to talk.

  He dressed quickly after his shower, in clean khakis and a T-shirt, slipped the little velvet box into his pocket, and made his way downstairs.

  “There you are,” Beverly accosted him before he had even crossed the foyer. “My word, you must have been exhausted. We tried to be quiet. I hope we didn’t disturb you.”

  “I didn’t hear a thing,” Peter said truthfully. “‘I guess the drive down took more out of me than I realized.”

  “Well, you look bright as a new penny now.”

  “Where’s Karen?” he asked.

  “Oh, she’ll be along soon, I’m sure,” Beverly told him airily. “It takes her a while to get going in the morning, you know, ever since the accident. But there’s coffee in the kitchen, and Winola will fix whatever you want for breakfast.”

  “Hello there, Mr. Peter,” Winola cried when she saw him, displaying a big grin and a
deep Mississippi drawl. “My lands, how good you look. Miss Karen sure is a lucky girl.”

  Peter chuckled. “From your mouth to her ears, Winola.”

  The maid began to laugh. “Yessir, Mr. Peter, I’ll tell her. You can be sure of that.”

  “Do you think I could have a gulp of that coffee?” he asked, sniffing the aromatic air.

  “Why, you surely can.” The maid snatched up a cup and filled it in a flash.

  The coffee tasted as good as it smelled and Peter drank it down with relish.

  “That’s not enough,” Winola told him. “You’s a growing boy, you got to put something substantial under them ribs.”

  “What do you suggest?” he asked with a grin.

  The maid grinned back. “How about some of my sour-cream eggs and a plateful of bacon?” she suggested.

  “You remembered.”

  It was what he had asked for every morning during his last visit, in January, when Karen was in the hospital and he was so worried, and Winola wouldn’t let him out of the house without eating.

  “Now you just set yourself down, Mr. Peter,” she instructed. “Breakfast’ll be ready in no time.”

  “Winola,” he said as he watched her scramble up the eggs and sour cream and blend in her own combination of herbs and spices, “I need your help.”

  “Yes, Mr. Peter?”

  “I want to take Karen out today, on a picnic, and I was thinking, if it was all prepared, she couldn’t say no, could she?”

  They had shared a number of picnics in the past—lazy spring afternoons on the banks of Cayuga Lake, and crisp colorful autumn days down at Cascadilla Park. All fun times, filled with laughter and warmth and closeness. He wanted to recapture that with her, if he could.

  “Say no more, Mr. Peter,” Winola cried, her black eyes shining. “The basket’s in the closet, and I’ll have it filled before you can finish your eggs. It’ll do Miss Karen a world of good to get out of this house for a change.”

  The eggs had been devoured and the picnic basket packed by the time Karen appeared, pushing open the kitchen door with the tip of her crutch.

  “Good morning,” she said. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Like a log,” he told her.

  She was wearing white slacks and a lemon-yellow blouse and her dark hair was tied up with a yellow ribbon. She had that fresh-scrubbed look he remembered so well, and he felt his heart do a cartwheel as she smiled at him.

  “It looks like Winola’s been taking good care of you.”

  “You bet,” he confirmed.

  “How about something for you, Miss Karen?” Winola asked.

  “Just some juice, Winola, please,” Karen replied.

  “That’s not enough,” Winola complained.

  Karen grimaced. “If Winola had her way, I’d weigh four hundred pounds and be a circus freak,” she told Peter.

  “You don’t eat enough to keep a sparrow singing,” Winola muttered, wagging her head.

  “Why eat if I’m not hungry?” Karen asked, earning only a scowl in response. “Okay, I’ll clean my plate at lunch.”

  Winola grinned suddenly at Peter. “Well now, I expect that’d be all right,” she conceded.

  “What’s going on?” Karen asked, looking suspiciously from one to the other. Winola never gave in so easily.

  “A surprise,” Peter said.

  “What surprise?”

  “Winola has been kind enough to pack us a fantastic lunch, and I’d like to invite you on a picnic.”

  “A picnic?” Karen echoed. “What do you mean? You want to have lunch in the garden?”

  “No,” Peter told her. “I was thinking more of going out somewhere, maybe to a park.”

  “Oh, I don’t go out,” Karen declared.

  Peter looked bewildered. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I don’t go out,” Karen repeated.

  “Why not?”

  It wasn’t an unreasonable question and perhaps she even should have expected it, under the circumstances. But it took her by surprise and left her momentarily flushed and flustered.

  “I just don’t,” she said lamely.

  “Well, maybe you could make an exception,” he pressed. “We used to have a lot of fun on picnics.”

  “A picnic? What a wonderful idea,” Beverly cried, pushing through the door with an armful of fresh-cut roses and catching the end of the exchange. “It’s a gorgeous day outside and I can’t think of a better thing for the two of you to do.”

  “Mother,” Karen warned.

  “Nonsense,” Beverly retorted. “You’ve been cooped up in this house for weeks now. If you don’t get out soon, you’ll forget what the rest of the world looks like.”

  “What a ridiculous thing to say,” Karen objected. “I go to the city twice a week for my physical therapy, don’t I?”

  “And that’s all you do, isn’t it?” her mother countered. “Go to the hospital and come right back home again. A change of scene would do you good.”

  “I’ll be right beside you,” Peter tried to reassure her. “I won’t let anything happen. If you’re still nervous about cars, we won’t walk in the street.”

  Karen began to breathe hard and her hands, gripping her crutches, grew clammy. She was furious with her mother for interfering.

  “I can’t,” she whispered.

  “Of course you can,” Peter urged.

  “But I look so dreadful,” she cried, “what if we run into someone I know?”

  “What if you do?” Beverly countered. “You smile very politely and tell whoever it is that you’re recovering from an accident. What’s so hard about that?”

  Karen stared at her mother stubbornly. “It’s too soon,” she muttered.

  “You’ll be with me,” Peter said soothingly. “You don’t have to talk to anyone else if you don’t want to. I can talk for you.”

  “You can’t spend the rest of your life hiding away in this house, you know,” her mother added.

  “I’m not hiding,” Karen snapped irritably, because that was exactly what she was doing. It was humiliating to have to have this discussion in front of Peter, who couldn’t possibly understand what was wrong, and watch him trying so hard to make it right. “I’ll go out when I’m ready,” she declared with as much dignity as she could muster.

  “And when will that be?” her mother, as tenacious as any bulldog, inquired.

  “When I’m ready,” came the reply.

  Beverly threw up her hands in frustration. “Take her on that picnic, Peter,” she instructed. “Even if you have to carry her, kicking and screaming.”

  Peter didn’t have to carry her. He simply promised to bring her back home the moment she asked. They drove out to Step-pingstone Park, a pretty little stretch of green lawn that rolled right down to the edge of Long Island Sound. Only a handful of people idled there on a Monday, mostly nannies with small children who paid no attention to the girl on crutches, and Karen recognized none of them.

  There were several rough wood picnic tables scattered about, but Peter spread a blanket on the grass and he and Karen sat down on either side of Winola’s basket.

  “I’m starved,” Karen announced. “Shall we see what Winola’s packed for us?”

  Without waiting for a reply, she dug into the big wicker hamper with all the fervor of a shipwreck survivor who hadn’t eaten for a week.

  “And to think,” Peter observed dryly, “it was scarcely an hour ago that you weren’t the least bit hungry.”

  “It must be all this fresh air,” Karen retorted, a piece of cold chicken in one hand, a forkful of potato salad in the other. In fact, it was a beautiful day and she was hungry, and who could be serious over a drumstick and a dill pickle?

  Peter couldn’t help smiling. He had been right to bring her here. Already there was new color in her cheeks and a sparkle in her eye, and she seemed almost her old self again. He ached to be closer to her, the urge to reach out and take her in his arms was almost overwhelming, but s
omething stopped him, a little voice that told him to tread slowly.

  Between bites, Karen busied herself with the other goodies Winola had provided. She had laid out plates and napkins and forks and poured two cups of lemonade, like a little girl at a tea party, before she realized that Peter was just sitting there, watching her.

  “What are you staring at?” she demanded.

  “The most beautiful girl in the world,” he replied.

  “Stuffing her face,” Karen added, knowing with a twinge of sadness that he wasn’t really seeing her as she was now, but remembering her as she used to be. “So, how come you’re not eating?”

  “Half a dozen sour-cream eggs,” he explained.

  Karen chuckled. “You know, one of the first things I wanted when they finally unwired my jaw was a plateful of Winola’s eggs.”

  “You’d better get her recipe,” Peter advised, “before she takes it to the grave.”

  Karen stopped with a blueberry muffin halfway to her mouth. “It wouldn’t do any good,” she said. “I can’t cook.”

  “Surely, you jest,” he cried, clutching his chest. “I thought acid indigestion was part of every bride’s dowry.”

  She chuckled. “I can sew, I can knit, I can play the piano. But put me in the kitchen and I have two left hands.”

  “But man cannot live by peanut butter and jelly alone,” he cried.

  “Certainly not,” she agreed.

  “Have you considered taking a culinary course?”

  “Actually, I expect the man I marry to hire a chef,” she teased, as she so often had in other, happier moments.

  “Not only the wench can’t cook,” he huffed, “she thinks I’m a Rockefeller. Well, my pride is clearly at stake here, not to mention my stomach. You leave me no choice but to call off the engagement.”

  “Call it off?” Karen cried. “How can it be off before it was even on?” She had almost forgotten how much fun it was to be with him.