No, Kara supposed, he didn't. But why were you keeping it a secret? Maybe she could understand hiding Ron's paternity, but the girls? Adoption was pretty common these days. There certainly wasn't any stigma attached to it and there were potential medical benefits from learning your biological parents’ health histories.
“We kept the secret for thirty-six years,” Hanna continued. “They're our girls! He didn't have to tell them differently.”
“I don't think,” Kara tentatively suggested, “that was the message Howard was trying to impart.”
Hanna glared at her for a moment then drained the rest of her beer. As Kara hadn't touched hers yet, Ron's mother reached across the bar and snatched up hers. The bartender walked over and placed two more in front of them, offering Kara what she took to be a sympathetic look.
On the television screen above the bar, weather forecasters seemed to be predicting that the much-heralded storm really was coming their way. The television commentators were worried about rain, but Kara idly wondered if they could see snow at this altitude.
“Thirty-six years,” Hanna mumbled.
Kara decided that Hanna needed a little encouragement if she were going to talk about things that would be useful to Ron. “How did it happen?” she asked.
Hanna looked around in confusion. “What?”
“You adopted two girls,” Kara reminded her. She wanted to ask more specifically about Ron, but she was afraid that if she pushed too hard too soon, Hanna would clam up and Kara wouldn't learn anything.
The older woman took another swig of beer. She wasn't sipping it. She was gulping it down. The action—and the image it presented—was at odds with the ladylike demeanor she normally presented.
“Hanna?” Kara prompted.
“Howard can't have children,” Hanna confessed. “We didn't know before we got married. Believe it or not, we actually waited to get married to start having sex. That's surprising these days, but it wasn't all that uncommon forty years ago, no matter what people tell you about the sixties and seventies.”
“And so you adopted,” Kara encouraged.
“His sperm count is about one-ten-thousandth of what it should be,” Hanna continued. Anger was visible on her face, strengthening her cheekbones and glinting in her eyes. “We'd always talked about having children,” she said. “I really wanted them and the bastard couldn't give them to me.”
She took another swig of beer while she sifted through her bitter memories. Kara felt the need to defend Howard—it certainly wasn't his fault if he were functionally sterile—but she kept her mouth shut so that Hanna would keep talking.
“We thought it was me at first,” she said. “Believe it or not, he asked me to get tested, but it was his damn fault the whole time.”
Hanna's anger burned as brightly now as it must have forty years ago. Her eyebrows arched with ill will and her cheekbones flushed with more than alcohol. It disturbed Kara. There was no wisp of remembered fondness or good times. Decades of hating each other had burned all those feelings out of the woman.
“When we found out it was him, he apologized,” Hanna remembered. “He actually sat me down on the couch, went down on his knee, and told me how sorry he was that he couldn't give me the little ones I wanted. Then he suggested we could adopt—and I agreed—but it really isn't the same thing, Kara, taking in a baby that someone else has made for you.”
She drank some more beer and dwelt on her sour memories.
“Anne remembers those as happy years,” Kara prompted her.
Hanna's lips curled up in a tiny half smile. “They were good kids. Howard used to let them ride around on his back and pretend he was a horse. And the neighbors were great...some of them knew we had adopted, but no one ever told the girls.”
Kara wondered about that decision, still not understanding why Howard and Hanna had kept the adoption secret.
“It ruined our sex life,” Hanna confessed in an apparent non-sequitor. “Howard just didn't feel man enough after he found out he couldn't give me children.”
And did you help him feel less masculine? Kara wondered. Somehow, she couldn't picture Hanna holding Howard and whispering that none of this mattered, or that everything would be all right. Forty or so years later and she still felt aggrieved by her husband's physical failings. Still, Hanna's statement offered an opportunity for Kara to shift the conversation toward Ron's biological father—if she had the courage to take advantage of it. “So you...looked elsewhere?” Kara asked.
Hanna sighed. Her beer bottle was empty again and she started blankly at the label for a while.
Kara didn't like doing it, but she waved at the bartender and he brought Hanna another beer.
“You were lonely,” Kara prompted her again. “You started looking for...comfort.”
“Not at first,” Hanna whispered. “But I was young, and I was lonely. Howard was so involved with the kids, but he wasn't really paying attention to me. And as the girls got older, I began to notice that other gentlemen enjoyed giving me their attention.”
Kara shuddered and reached for her own beer, hoping that Hanna would misconstrue the reaction as a shiver.
She didn't.
Instead, Ron's mother smirked cruelly at Kara. “You think you're so superior,” she said. “But mark my words—I know better! Ron's infatuated with you now and you're doing all kinds of things I don't want to think about. But if you stay together, in a few years your wrinkles will begin to turn him off and he won't be coming to your bed quite so often. You'll still want sex, of course, and with your man losing his ability to perform you'll start looking for another stud. Every woman does it! It's the way of the world.”
Kara shuddered again. “Are you trying to be repulsive?”
Hanna's smile turned even more sinister. “I'm just being honest, dear. A woman like yourself is not going to do without male attention. The same needs that have driven you to my Ron will have you straying on him the moment he begins to tire of you. Every woman does it at some time in her marriage.”
“Oh, I see,” Kara said, suddenly understanding the venom. “And since every woman does it eventually, you really aren't so bad for cheating on Howard.”
Hanna lost her cruel smile. Her eyes turned ice cold.
Kara regretted her verbal barb. It wasn't the way to learn anything new. It was probably too late to retreat from the comment but for Ron's sake, she smothered her pride and tried to do so anyway.
“Well, maybe you're right,” she lied. “You see, Hanna, I'm not really interested in condemning either you or Howard for what happened in the past. I've only known the two of you for half a year and so I'm in no position to judge you on what you did before Ron was born. But I do care about Ron,” she continued. “And quite frankly, I also care about Anne and Kitten. They're good women who in their own ways have each tried to be my friend. So if you don't mind, I'd like to avoid laying blame on you or Howard and stay focused on what happened when he found out you were pregnant.”
As Kara spoke, Hanna seemed to swell up in front of her. Her fair face flushed red with indignation which, combined with the alcohol, seemed to guarantee an explosion of temper.
That didn't happen. Instead, Kara's final sentence seemed to deflate Hanna's rage and leave the older woman sitting listless on the stool beside her.
“It nearly killed him,” Hanna whispered. “For two days, he literally couldn't function. He could barely crawl out of bed to use the bathroom. He wouldn't eat; wouldn't shave; wouldn't shower.” A tear formed in the corner of her left eye. “And then one morning before school, little Kitten crawled up in the bed beside him and said: What's wrong, Daddy? I thought you liked babies.
“And Howard looked at her for a long time, then took her in his arms and held her like he never wanted to let go again. And I really thought things were going to be okay. I promised him I would never cheat again and he pulled himself together and forgave me.”
She toyed with the empty bottle of beer in her hand, then
set it on its side on the bar and twirled it about like a kid playing spin the bottle. It ended up pointing toward the bartender, who was not standing close enough to them to follow their conversation.
Hanna looked up at Kara and nervously licked her lips. “We even started having sex again,” she said. “Life was good! Better even than when we first got married!”
“So what happened?” Kara asked.
By way of answering, Hanna waved to the bartender again. “I want one more shot of Jim Beam,” she told him.
The bartender glanced at Kara, but wasn't actually looking for permission. He took down the bottle from the shelf on the wall behind the bar, and filled the shot glass.
Hanna lifted the glass, admired the color of the bourbon in the light, then expertly knocked it down her throat.
“What happened,” she told Kara, “is that a couple of months after Ron was born, I started cheating again. And twenty-five years later I'm still doing it.”
* * * *
[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
Chapter Eleven
“So why did he stay with her?” Ron asked Kara. They were standing outside on the vast lawn outside the cabins. Hanna was in her bed, probably passed out, and Howard was on the couch grumpily sleeping. Emmy was in her parents’ bed, the other kids were in their sleeping bags—except for Kitten's twins, of course, who had decided to do some more night skiing. They obviously saw no reason to let a family crisis interfere with their vacation.
That left Anne, Gene, Kitten, Eric, Ron and Kara shivering outside the cabin because they'd been unprepared for the sudden drop in temperature as the long forecasted storm finally loomed overhead.
“I guess only your father can answer that,” Kara told the group. She didn't feel good about sharing the information she'd learned with the whole family, but there had been no real way to exclude them when Ron had publicly asked Kara to tell him what his mother had said. “But your mother thinks it's because she threatened to keep him away from the three of you.”
Anne shook his head. “That doesn't really make sense,” she said. “Dad doesn't really like us...at least he doesn't like Kitten and me. We're girls.”
“Are you sure about that?” Kara asked her. “Because it seems to me that the whole point your father was trying to make with his toast is that he loves you both.”
“This is all crazy!” Kitten said. “How the hell did they keep it secret that they adopted us?”
“You know what's really crazy?” Anne interrupted. “Remember how my friend Teri used to always insist that she'd been adopted? She didn't look like either of her parents or any of her brothers and sisters.”
Kitten nodded in recollection.
“Well, all of those times she worried over this, it never once occurred to me that I might not belong with Mom and Dad!”
“That's because you did belong,” Gene told her.
“No, she didn't!” Kitten insisted. “I always told you that Mom and Dad loved Ron best.”
“Would you please stop saying that?” Ron asked.
Kara didn't like the level of stress she heard in his voice. “Look,” she said, “I recognize I'm an outsider here.”
Ron slipped his arm around her waist as if to silently protest her statement, but Kara didn't let him distract her. “But I think it's clear from what Howard said today that he loves the three of you equally.”
“How can you say that?” Kitten asked. “He said that the day Ron was born was the happiest day of his life.”
“And he said the decision to adopt you and Anne was the best decision he and your mother ever made,” Kara answered.
“Why didn't they tell us?” Anne asked again while Kitten insisted, “You're wrong, Kara!”
Kara shook her head. “I don't want to fight with you, Kitten, but I really do think Howard cares about you. It's complicated because of his obvious misogyny, but I think he was trying to express love tonight. Gene? Eric? What do you think? You've known the man a lot longer than I have.”
Eric looked very unhappy to have Kara shine the spotlight of attention on him, but Gene had no problem stepping up to the plate and taking a swing. “You know, I've asked myself that question a lot over the past...what is it now...fifteen years? I mean, how many men have their future father-in-law take them aside the morning they're supposed to get married and tell them they don't have to go through with the ceremony?”
“Dad did that?” Anne asked. “Why didn't you tell me?”
“What possible good would that have done?” Gene asked.
“So he does hate us,” Kitten said. In a sick sort of way, she seemed pleased to have her fears confirmed.
“If he'd stopped there, I'd have to agree with you,” Gene said. “But he didn't stop there. After I tried to laugh off his comment, Howard put his arm around my shoulders. It was very intimidating. Your father may not have an athletic bone in his body, but he's still a very big guy. So he put his arm around my shoulders and he said: Just don't cheat on her. You can marry her today if you want to, but don't you dare cheat on my little girl! “
“Dad said that?” Anne asked.
“That's the talk he had with me, too,” Eric said. He looked at his wife and winked. “Of course, we'd already eloped by then so it sounded a little different.”
“But that doesn't mean—” Kitten began before Ron cut her off.
“I wonder when it went bad,” he said. “I mean, Dad has been, well, Dad, for as long as I can remember.”
“It was when we were in high school,” Anne said. “He'd been making nasty comments about Mom, and women in general, for years, but it wasn't until we got into high school that he began including Kitten and me in the I hate all women category.”
“What a piece of shit!” Eric said. He blinked and amended his statement: “Both of them!”
No one had an immediate response to that so they stood there in the cool night air looking at each other. It wasn't raining or snowing yet, but it felt like it could start at any moment.
Finally, Anne broke the silence. “So what are we going to do?”
“What do you mean?” Ron asked. “They're our parents. What can we do?”
“I think it's fair to say,” Kara observed, “that both Howard and Hanna are badly in need of counseling. Do you think that the three of you could get them to agree to see somebody?”
Ron, Anne, and Kitten simultaneously began to shake their heads, rejecting the idea.
“I think it's more likely they'd get a divorce than go to a therapist,” Ron said.
“And yet the very fact that they haven't gotten a divorce—seven years after Ron got out of high school—suggests that underneath all of the anger and bitterness, they still feel something for each other,” Kara said.
“The word for that feeling is hate,” Kitten said. “Mom and Dad—no, Hanna and Howard—are very comfortable in their hate.”
Kara shrugged. “Maybe you're right,” she half agreed. “But I have some experience with this in my own family. My Mama and Daddy didn't get along with each other either. I think a lot of the time they actively hated each other. But I can remember a few moments...like Daddy surprising Mama with a hug from behind...which I think meant that on some level they still loved each other, too.”
“Hanna did set up this elaborate anniversary party,” Gene pointed out. “Is it too impossible to believe that she hoped something magical might happen between her and Howard to rekindle their marriage?”
Looking at the doubtful expressions on the faces of Ron, Anne, and Kitten, Kara suspected they did find that too much to be believed.
“I want to go home!” Kitten announced.
“The plane doesn't leave until Monday,” her husband reminded her.
“Well, can't we switch the tickets to leave tomorrow?” Kitten asked.
Eric frowned. “The kids would hate that,” he told her.
“Who cares?” Kitten said. “They can ski again this winter.”
&nbs
p; Eric tried another tact. “There would be fees,” he said. “It would probably be expensive.”
Expensive meaning We can't afford it Kara realized. She tried to remember what Eric did for a living.
Kitten was not happy with her husband's response. “I want to go home!” she repeated.
“We can't just abandon them,” Anne told her sister.
“Why not?” Kitten asked. “They deserve to be abandoned! They—”
“Because as frustrating as it is to learn what we did today,” Ron interrupted her, “it's still true that neither of them has ever abandoned us. They're our parents, Kitten.”
Kara wasn't certain that Kitten believed that.
“Kara?” Anne asked. “We've all been sidestepping one question. Who's Ron's father?”
Kara took Ron's hand in hers, directing her answer to Ron and not Anne. “She didn't tell me that, Sweety,” she said. “That's an answer you'll have to get from her yourself.”
Her normally confidant boyfriend looked very young and uncertain. “It can wait,” he told her. “I already know who my father is.”
Kara wondered if that was a good impulse on Ron's part, or simple avoidance of a painful issue.
“You know what I think?” Gene asked. “I think we should all stop talking about this tonight and try and get some sleep.”
His wife looked at him as if she'd just discovered a second head growing out of his ear.
“All of this talking isn't really resolving anything,” Gene explained. “Maybe your parents will answer some more of your questions tomorrow morning.”
* * * *
* * * *
Howard and Hanna were done talking. The night before they'd opened up for the first time in twenty-five years but by morning, they had stuffed their secrets back into the depths of their hearts and put an end to future revelations.
That was unfortunate. By morning, Anne, at least, was more than ready to sit down for a serious discussion, but neither of her parents would have it with her. Hanna nursed a hangover and stayed in her bedroom with a pillow over her head. Howard said he'd made their mother angry enough for one trip and said everything that needed saying.
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