by Warren Adler
“But I thought it was you who wanted a fresh start, to bury the past.”
“Not if it means—well—pain. I never expected it to come to this.”
“And what about Tray?”
“Maybe it won’t matter as much as we think.”
“They’re taking us to court, for crying out loud. That’s a very drastic step. And haven’t we been happy? Peter, it’s been wonderful, wonderful for Tray, for us, for Mark, and soon for the new baby. Your folks have been fabulous. Why can’t they leave well enough alone? You don’t fix things that aren’t broken.”
“I’m just worried about you.”
“There’s more to it than just me.” She felt a brief twinge of anger.
“I mean us. All of us.”
“I’m not going to let other people decide things for me, especially as they concern my child.”
“Our child,” he corrected gently.
“I don’t want him treated differently from the others.”
“Of course not.”
“I don’t ever want him to feel that he’s less loved than the others. Ever.” She felt herself going too far, but she couldn’t stop herself. Memories of old longings and loneliness danced in her mind. An image of her own lost father surfaced vaguely, his arms around her, his beard scratchy, his deep, soft voice soothing her, kissing away some brief flash of pain. Then bitterness intruded as she remembered the long empty nights of Chuck’s absences, wandering in the black void of rejection and despair. They never let me have him, she thought.
“That’s not fair.” She heard Peter’s voice, but it seemed distant. “You know how I feel about that child.”
“I know what you say you feel about him.” Instantly, she regretted the outburst. She moved closer to him, and they embraced. “Forgive me, darling.”
He kissed away the moistness on her cheeks.
“Why couldn’t they just leave us alone?” he whispered.
“They just don’t understand. They never really did. Not about Chuck or me. Or anything.”
“You can’t blame me for worrying.”
“I’ll be fine, Peter. Really I will. It’s just our baby letting us know how she feels.”
He put his hand on her belly and rubbed.
“Well, she had better behave herself.”
They kissed, and she slid out of the car, conscious that he had lingered and was watching her walk into the house. Despite the affection, she felt a certain tentativeness in his commitment to the cause, and it troubled her.
The comfort of Mark nursing beside her soon chased away her anxiety. There was nothing more tranquilizing than this experience of delicious dependency, of selfless giving of one’s substance to one’s own creation. She caressed the child’s face, kissing his eyes. Nothing she had ever done in her life was so profoundly hers, so fulfilling, so joyously satisfying as motherhood. Who but a mother could know what was best for her child?
Finally satiated, the baby drowsed. She burped him and let him remain beside her on the bed, drawing his little fingers to her lips, kissing them gently. What defined a woman more than motherhood? she asked herself. How could fatherhood compare?
Another time intruded, dredged up from the swamp of memory, perhaps tossed out in the recent inner storm. She caught a flashing image of the little airless bedroom two flights above the bakery, permeated by the ubiquitous odor of baking bread, which had become as oppressive as the dawn-to-sundown days working in Uncle Walter’s bakery where the maddening staccato of her uncle’s orders became fearsome, simply by repetition. He was kindly, never raised his voice, but his unceasing demands clearly delineated the extent of her debt. And she had waited for the moment of escape.
Her freedom had come in the form of Chuck, her golden knight errant. There he was, climbing the metal steps of the tower, a brave and graceful figure, alone and unafraid, ascending into the morning mist. He wore a plaid shirt, yellow with blue squares, that matched his cobalt blue eyes and the yellow-gold of his hair. He was tall, made even taller by the high heels of his muddy, scuffed cowboy boots into which he had stuffed the leg ends of his jeans. Slim-hipped and tight-butted, he did not seem vain about his beauty, or so it appeared to her. She was flattered by his obvious interest in her. She wasn’t a beauty by a long shot, but she did have a decent figure and, people told her, lovely chestnut hair and good skin. Some said she was cute, although she never could be sure.
Caught on the razor’s edge between wariness of, and desperation for, any kind of returned affection, she was transported easily from flirtation to a heavier commitment in a very short time. In less than a month from the moment Chuck had walked into her life, they had become inseparable. Even in retrospect, she could not deny to herself the power of the attraction between them. Whatever it was, it wasn’t love, not the kind of devoted, unselfish, and dedicated passionate contract that was between her and Peter.
Chuck was lovely and gentle and quiet during those first months, and her memories were untainted by her later bitterness. She had shrugged off her disappointment in the physical side of their relationship, attributing its failure to some fault of her own. In retrospect, she faulted herself for encouraging him into an early marriage. Perhaps she did it simply because his father had been opposed to it? And there was always the pressure of her potential liberation from Uncle Walter’s yoke, even though her new job made it possible to trade servitude in the bakery for cash. In those days she’d had neither the confidence nor the experience to analyze motives or events.
As near as she could figure, she got pregnant on her honeymoon in the Poconos. Even in those days, she had eschewed the then current birth control methods, trusting to luck and the calendar. Unfortunately, her regular cycle had given her not the slightest margin for error—as her present condition attested. The trip had been a gift from her in-laws. She considered it a peace offering, something tendered more out of guilt than sincerity. So, even in the beginning she had been suspicious, as if they were both standing by, especially her father-in-law, waiting for their golden boy’s love for her to burn out.
To be fair, Chuck and she had promised each other that they would not start a family for a few years. She still had her job at the radio station, and Chuck was determined to save some money. They rented an inexpensive one-bedroom apartment in Dundalk and began to buy furniture on time. It seemed a sensible way for a young couple to start out. Chuck’s father helped him buy a small secondhand Toyota. She hadn’t liked the idea, but it wasn’t easy to live without a car and she hadn’t protested. In fact, in those days she never really protested anything. Where the wind blew, she went.
In those early days the only time that Chuck and she were apart was when his father took him on their male-only hunting and fishing trips. Molly told her it was something she had better get used to. Unfortunately, she never had. It was after one of those hunting trips that Chuck had made the suggestion that she abort the baby. That had certainly turned out to be a reliable clue to the future. By then, of course, she was trapped.
“Isn’t it a little ahead of schedule?” he had said. “I was hoping we might be a little better set before we had a kid.” He had a point, of course. He was not yet twenty-one. And she had just turned eighteen. “Maybe we should fix it.”
“Fix it?”
“You know.”
The idea had frightened her.
“It’ll bring us luck,” she had said. “You’ll see.”
“We’re too damned young.”
“It’s not like I did it by myself.”
“But you promised.”
“So did you.”
“The timing is no good, baby. That’s all I’m saying. Hell, we’re still kids ourselves. We hardly make enough to pay for everything now.”
“I’ll be working right up until I deliver.”
“You could have at least been more careful.”
“I don’t think I should take all the blame.”
“I suppose not,” he had muttered.
&n
bsp; “It will be great, Chuck, you’ll see. I promise.”
“I was just trying to be practical.”
“Practical? You’re asking that we do away with our baby.” She paused and inspected him. “Are you sure this is your own idea?”
“Whose, then?”
“Like your father’s.”
“His! Hell, he’s the one who warned me in the first place. He’d be the last person I’d tell.”
“I don’t care whose suggestion it is,” she said firmly. “I will not give up my baby. Never. And you should be ashamed of yourself for suggesting it.”
“Maybe I’m just not ready for responsibilities. Maybe that’s it.”
“We have no choice, Chuck.”
“Actually, we do. It’s a simple deal—doesn’t hurt, they tell me.”
“They? Who is they?”
“I mean I read about it, heard talk.”
He hadn’t yet looked her in the eye, and she spent the conversation angling herself to confront him.
“You’re talking about our baby. We’re married. It’s not like I’m in trouble or something.”
“I mean, there’s got to be plenty more where that one came from.”
All her life people had accused Frances of being too stubborn. She never could see their point. It wasn’t even a question of principles. She just couldn’t bring herself to do things she didn’t believe in. Not that she didn’t do things against her will. She had hated living with Uncle Walter and working in the store, but that seemed more of a debt to him for being nice to her mother and her when her father had been killed. Some things she had to do for different reasons.
“You can’t mean what you’re saying.”
“Then let’s just forget it.”
“I’m going to have this baby, no matter what.”
“Let’s just drop it.”
“The thought that you even mentioned it is terrible. Can’t you understand that this is not just my baby? It’s yours, too.”
She wondered if he ever truly understood that.
“I’m really sorry,” he said finally, ending the discussion. It never came up again between them. Of course, she had never really accepted the apology. Nor had she forgotten the conversation.
Then one day, Chuck came home to tell her had landed a job working the oil rigs offshore in the North Sea off Scotland. He hadn’t told her that he had even applied for the job.
“Are you serious?” she had asked, dumbfounded.
“The pay is fabulous,” he had countered. “And with the baby coming, we sure could use it.”
“But I’ll be alone.”
“Just for a few months at a time. No big deal.”
“I don’t think that’s fair.”
“It’s not a question of fair, baby. It’s necessary. You can quit your job and really rest until the kid comes. And when he’s born, you won’t have to work. In fact, I don’t want you to work. The old man thinks it’s a damned good idea.”
“He knows?”
“Sure he knows. He’s my father.”
“And I’m your wife.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
She had wanted to say that if he truly loved her he wouldn’t be doing this, but she had held back. She had become afraid—afraid for herself, afraid for her baby.
“I don’t know what to do,” she confessed to Molly. She had met her in the coffee shop across from the school, the day after Chuck had broken the news. Molly, of course, had already been informed by Charlie.
“You mustn’t let him go,” Molly said firmly. “You’re his wife. You’ve got to be firm about it.”
“You’re his mother.”
“Unfortunately, that hasn’t counted for much.”
“You let Charlie influence him too much.”
“That’s an old story. He is very attached to Chuck.”
“With a heavy chain.”
“Fathers and sons. They baffle me.”
“He says it’s because of the baby, and that his father thinks it’s a good idea.” She remembered that she had tried to hide her animosity.
“He’s thinking of the money. Men think like that, like hunter providers.”
“I’m thinking of my marriage. Of lonely nights and a baby coming.”
“Then put your foot down,” Molly said. “Can’t you say something?”
“I have.”
“Try harder.”
“He wouldn’t do this if he really loved me.”
Molly had hesitated, and Frances could see that she was trying to frame a careful response.
“I’m sure it’s not that, Frances. But who knows about a man’s psyche? Maybe he feels inadequate to the responsibility. Maybe by proving himself, earning big money, facing danger . . .”
“Danger?”
“I don’t want to be an alarmist. He is my only child, dear. There have been accidents on those offshore platforms.”
It surprised Frances to see what Molly’s priorities really were. For her part, she was less worried about the danger. She had seen the grace and caution of his climb. Molly must have also understood the different ways they looked at things, and she tried to quickly bridge the gap.
“I don’t really understand it, Frances. Sometimes I think that the gulf that separates men and women is too mammoth to understand.” She had reached out and taken Frances’s hand in hers. “I would not like to be a young pregnant bride waiting for her baby alone. I mean, you know that Charlie and I will stand by you. If you need anything, you know we’ll be there. I want you also to know that I think it’s wrong for Chuck to do this and I feel awful about it. But I haven’t been able to stop it, I’m afraid.”
“And Charlie won’t.”
“It’s not that he won’t. He thinks it’s self-sacrificing and courageous for Chuck to do this. They just don’t see it our way. Look, we were married just before Charlie went overseas, and I didn’t see him again for three years. Three long years.”
“But there was a war.”
“Maybe that’s the problem with young men like Chuck. There’s no war for them. They need the adventure. Something like that. I don’t understand it. There are lots of things I don’t understand about men.”
“I won’t ever forgive him.”
Molly seemed alarmed. Perhaps, she thought, she had gone too far in her confidence.
“I don’t think you should overreact. Just try your best to get him to stay.”
“I don’t mean Chuck.”
“Not Chuck?”
“Charlie. I won’t ever forgive Charlie.”
They had parted that day with hugs and embraces. But no amount of persuasion, tears, or vehement protest by either her or Molly could stop Chuck from leaving.
In a last ditch effort, she had made an attempt to get Charlie to intervene. She had gone over to speak to him. It galled her now to remember how humbled she had felt, unable to hide her desperation.
“I don’t care about the money. I just want my husband near me.”
She knew he felt awkward and uncomfortable. And in his own mind, she was sure he was being sympathetic and understanding, even compassionate.
“I know it’s hard, Frances, and I really feel for you. I hope you believe me about that. But I really think you’re exaggerating my influence. I’ve always taught him to be his own man.”
“But you agree with his decision,” she had protested. “He listens to you.”
“Where did you get that idea? I wasn’t exactly thrilled about your getting married so young. He didn’t listen to me then. You can’t blame me for your getting pregnant and putting this kind of pressure on the boy. Can you, Frances? Listen, I’m all for both you kids. I want to see you happy and secure. Like any other father. But you’ve got to look at it from his point of view, too.”
“And the baby’s.”
“Sure, the baby. You don’t know what it costs to raise a baby nowadays. And there’ll be more. At least, I hope so. You’ll be making up for those we
never had. I’m with you, Frances. As long as we’re around, you don’t have to worry about a thing. But Chuck’s got to do what he’s got to do. You don’t understand that about men. He’ll draw big money and that will be great for his confidence. And he’ll be learning a helluva skill. Better than being caught in these construction slumps.”
“But I’ll be alone. And he might not even be here when the baby is born.”
“We’ll be there. Molly and I will be there. You can bet on that.”
“I want Chuck to be there. He’s the father.”
At that point, she couldn’t hold back and began to cry. He had taken her in his arms and patted her back.
“You must understand. A man’s got to do what he’s got to do. Chuck is only thinking about you and the baby. I can vouch for that. You think it’s going to be easy for him to be away from the people he loves? I was away for three years, facing hell itself, never knowing if I was ever going to get back. At least nobody will be shooting at Chuck. He’ll make enough to tide you over, then maybe stay home.”
“It’s wrong.”
“You’ll get over it, Frances. I know you will. You’re not going to stay blubbery and depressed. You’ve got to think of the baby. He’s not going to want to come into this world into the arms of an unhappy mother. You’ll be fine. I know you will. Him, too.”
“But it will hurt so much to be alone,” she had said, humbled and despairing.
“I don’t think Chuck would like to hear that,” Charlie had said, gripping her shoulders and holding her at arm’s length, looking into her eyes. “That certainly won’t make it easy for him. Why don’t you try telling him that it’s a great idea? Hell, he’s doing it for you and the baby. It won’t be a bed of roses, you know. It’s stormy as hell and he’ll be living mostly with a bunch of tough older guys. He’s got his own problems ahead of him.”
The futility of her pleading had finally dawned on her. They were simply talking different languages.
Still, she had not given up and made her last appeal directly to Chuck. They had gone to Haussners, a German restaurant noted for its floor-to-ceiling art. It was Chuck’s idea, a farewell dinner. For them, it was enormously expensive.
“It’s gonna be nice to have a few bucks for a change,” Chuck had said, ordering a bottle of white wine.
