by Warren Adler
“No turning back now,” Charlie shrugged. “Win, lose, or draw.”
“It’s just”—she made a great effort to soften her words, fearing that she might set off new explosions inside him that were too dangerous to contemplate—“just that nothing’s been the same since all this began.”
“We didn’t start it, Molly. We’re the victims.”
“Maybe that’s what I don’t like,” she sighed.
“And it began long before we saw a lawyer. The lawyer was a last resort, remember?” He got up from the chair, walked toward the outside door, hesitated, then started toward the den. Then he turned to face her again. It was as if he were acting out their entrapment, the absence of escape. His arm shot out, and he pointed a finger at her.
“It all started with that woman. If it wasn’t for her, we would still have our Chuck. And Tray.” He waved the finger, unable to get the words out. When they came, they seemed to sputter on his tongue. “It was you who was the soft one, letting it happen. I could have talked him out of her. I know I could. You were the one who let it happen. He had no business marrying that woman, no business at all. I made the one big mistake of my life. I let you lead me, like a damned donkey.” His voice started to rise, reaching a pitch that she had never heard before. He seemed to be changing into another person before her eyes, as if all the bitterness inside had erupted and the acid was eating away his protective covering. “You defended her, always defended her, when it was Chuck we should have been looking after. Chuckie.” His voice broke, became a gargle, then found its full timbre again. Wrapping her arms around herself, she lowered her eyes. It was excruciating enough just to hear his words without seeing the distortion in his features. “You didn’t love him enough. That was it from the beginning, right? You didn’t love him enough. Not me either. And not Tray. You were glad to see her come along and break us up. And it was you who said she’d come around one day after she took Tray away. Like a damned dummy, I listened to you.” She wished she could shut out the words. “So now you wish you hadn’t started it. I say shit to that, woman.” She heard banging and, lifting her eyes, saw him swinging his fist against the wall. The sound of his fury boomed through the house. “No. No. No,” he cried. In her heart, she knew what his fists were pounding, and she got up and gripped him from behind, hugging him to her.
“You mustn’t, Charlie. Please.”
He stopped, finally, laying his head against the wall, sobbing quietly.
“If it was me, I’m sorry,” she whispered. Against her, his body lurched and shivered with the tremors of his agony.
“I just want my grandson. Is that so much to ask?” he said, after he had quieted.
“No, it is not, my darling.” She continued to hold him. “Our grandson,” she whispered, tears rolling over her cheeks. After a while, he turned and they stood leaning against the wall, locked in an embrace, holding each other as if to let go would be the end of life itself.
“I am so sorry, babe. So sorry sorry sorry sorry.” She felt the breeze of his words against her ear. “How can I blame you? It’s terrible. Me blaming you.”
“There’s only us, kiddo,” she whispered after a while.
“I nearly blew that.”
“Never, Charlie. Never that.”
“I know, babe.”
“It’s got us crazy.”
“I lost control. It scares me. I didn’t mean it, Molly. You know that.”
“Better to get it out like that than keep it in.”
He gathered her closer.
“As long as I have you, I’ll be okay.”
“Then you’ll be okay.”
“How does an old bastard like me say I love you?”
“Same way he always did.”
“I love you, Molly.”
She lifted one hand and stroked the back of his head.
“And I love you.” The tears continued to roll over her cheeks, but she did not sob.
“No matter what, we’ll still have each other, right, Molly?”
“That was never in doubt,” she whispered, feeling the crush of his strong arms, remembering earlier moments. It had been a long time since they had embraced like this. She felt suddenly the old sense of abandon when they were first married and would indulge in spontaneous, uninhibited lovemaking whenever and wherever in the house the spirit seized them. She felt a line of kisses along her wet cheeks reaching her lips. The years fell away. When he hesitated, she helped him, insistently.
“Here in the kitchen?” he asked, sounding and feeling, to her, much like the young, golden warrior of her old dreams.
“It’s ours. And we are married, you know.”
That night they lay in bed, energized and alert, not wishing to sleep. Molly understood what it meant to both of them, prolonging and savoring this moment of connection. On the night of the day when they had learned that Chuck had died, they had held each other all night long, sobbing and hysterical. Since hope was dead, there seemed little to do except to curse fate and confront their helplessness, like beasts caught in a jungle trap. Somehow it was different now, as if the time had come to rid themselves of remorse and prepare to look the future square in the eye.
“In the end you wind up with only each other,” Charlie said, as if it were the conclusion of what he had been saying. He had been going on about his trip to Crisfield and how it had all changed, and she had listened quietly as he described it, knowing that somehow it had been good for him to get it out, to get everything out.
“Not true, Charlie,” she said playfully, knuckling his stomach, which, despite everything, was still tight and hard. He was still lean, still her handsome prince. “In the end, it’s only you yourself that they lower down into the pit.”
“I don’t count that.”
“Neither do I.”
“I count this. Us. Together all these years.”
“An old broad and an old goat.”
“Still getting it on, as the kids say. For a moment there, I felt like twenty.”
“And acted like it.”
“A man needs to have that. I have to tell you, babe. It may sound like kid’s stuff. But it made me feel like—like a somebody. I haven’t been feeling much like a somebody these days.”
“That’s not prepubescent kid’s stuff. It’s—well—adolescent.” She kissed him on the ear to tell him she was just playing. She couldn’t remember when they had last played together like this.
“I’m serious.”
“You’re too serious.”
“And if this thing with Tray doesn’t work out, hell, we’ve still got each other.”
“And they’ll never be able to take away the piece of us and Chuck that Tray has.”
He grew silent, and looking over at him in the darkness, she saw that his eyes were still open. To show him that they were still engaged, she traced his features with her fingers.
“I know she thinks I’m a sonofabitch. Maybe from her point of view she’s right. After all, I didn’t approve of her marriage with Chuck. I fought it. You can’t deny that.”
“I won’t try.”
“He wasn’t ready is all. It had nothing to do with her.”
She pinched his nose.
“Come on, Charlie. Truth time. You didn’t want to share him with anybody. Sometimes, not even with me.”
She held her breath and felt her heartbeat accelerate, hoping she would not change his mood.
“Maybe she has a point.” Charlie sighed. “I never did warm up to her. Not like you.”
“No matter. We’re both the enemy now.”
“People are damned stupid. Us, too.” He paused, and she could hear him sucking air between his teeth. “You really think we should walk away?”
She hesitated. Then he raised himself on one arm and looked into her eyes.
“Tell me true, Molly. Is it worth all the pain and money? I mean it, babe. I’m not a fool. I know what it’s doing to me. To us. Is it worth it? Will it amount to a hill of beans if we
see the kid or not? Maybe Frances is right. Maybe it will hurt the kid, confuse him, disrupt his growing up. The thing about being a parent, or a grandparent, is that we never know what our effect really is on kids until it’s too late. You know what I mean?”
Pressed to answer, she had to assimilate all the thoughts she had had on the subject. First her misgivings, then her consent, then her hesitation and her worries about Charlie. And now herself. It wasn’t just for Charlie any longer.
“Like you, Charlie, I can only go by instinct. I won’t talk about the pros and cons of our bringing up Chuck. We did the best we could, and not for one moment did he ever doubt we loved him. And that’s something damned precious.” She felt suddenly militant, and her hand strayed to his bicep, which she gripped. “Lord knows, there isn’t that much of it to go around. Maybe there is a little selfishness connected with it. To give love isn’t such a bad idea either, and it’s as good for the giver as the getter. I’m not going to analyze the mysterious ties of blood and family and possession that make us love and long for Tray. Maybe it’s an ego thing. I’m not smart enough to understand what it all means. All I know is that we, you and I, can’t hurt that child by giving him our love and interest and understanding, and we surely can’t hurt ourselves by it either.” She slapped his upper arm. “It may sound confused, Charlie. But what’s wrong with letting Tray know that we fought to be with him, that we fought with all our heart and soul? So, if we lose it will hurt like hell. And that’s what worries me. I don’t want you to go off the deep end if we do. Scares the hell out of me. I think I’m prepared for it, but I’m not sure. Even if we win, there’s a lot of lingering bitterness to contend with. But at least our grandchild will know that we fought for him, that we loved him enough to fight for him. At least he’ll have that.”
She saw him nod and stir in the darkness, and he leaned over and kissed her on the forehead, then on the eyes and the lips.
“Now I see what it means.”
“What what means?”
“I wish I could talk like you do when you get wound up.” He cleared his throat. “Give me a minute.”
“You got it, kiddo,” she said, looking up, her hand caressing his face. In the semidarkness, the shadows filled in the wrinkles, and he looked younger, which meant she did as well.
“What I’m trying to say is that I really think I got lucky once and that’s in getting you—”
She started to say something, but he gently put his palm over her lips.
“And the need . . . me needing you . . . grows stronger as I grow older. You know what I mean?”
“What an egotist you are, Charlie.”
“Me?” He seemed genuinely confused.
“Always looking at things through such a narrow keyhole. Always you and your needs. What about mine?”
“What about yours?”
“Shut up and drink your beer.”
She pulled his face down and kissed him deeply. His response was clearly evident.
“Again?” she whispered. “What a man.”
Charlie picked her up at the school the next afternoon, and they drove downtown to see the lawyer. He had been gone when she had awakened that morning, and she was concerned that his brief high might dissipate during his idle morning alone. Miraculously, hers hadn’t. She had tackled her classroom chores with her old zealousness, including a strong rebuke to students whose attention was wandering. As she walked down the corridor, she had passed Miss Parsons and offered a wide smile and squared shoulders, feeling not the slightest bit of guilt at leaving early. Hadn’t she earned her privileges?
He greeted her with a peck on the cheek and twinkling wink and was neatly turned out in his good navy blue suit, red and blue tie, and striped shirt. She also noted that his shoes were shined and he smelled of cologne.
“Smell good?” he asked through a wide smile.
“Not bad.”
“It’s that old stuff you gave me once for my birthday. I forget which. It had never been opened.”
He started to whistle, watching her peripherally.
“You and me, babe,” he said, making a clicking sound with his tongue.
“Me and you.”
“And Tray if we can do it. Right, kiddo?”
“Right.”
But an old echo shook her momentarily. He used to say “the three of us,” meaning them and Chuck, back in the old days, a kind of solidarity cheer. The memory rolled back to take the edge off the high. In a car, moving with the freedom of the road, Chuck sitting beside them, first in his car chair, then on the seat itself, Charlie would sing out his happiness in that self-contained world of theirs. “Us three against ’em all.” Since their son’s ages merged in her mind, Chuck’s voice responding “One for all and all for one” spoke for all of them, child, woman, and man. And she had added, “The three mosquiters.” Even the old laughter echoed with unbearable clarity.
Then Charlie began to whistle old tunes, saying little. She recognized one from an old movie, a song of lost love and longing. She shrugged off the sad note of memory and touched his thigh, hoping that they weren’t just little frightened kids whistling in the cemetery.
He parked the car in the big lot under the building, but before they got out, he turned to her.
“You don’t have to worry about me anymore, babe,” he said. “I’m cool as a cucumber. No more temper tantrums.” His hand reached out and he spread his fingers. “See? Steady as she goes.”
“That’s good, Charlie,” she said, pecking him on the lips. “It’ll make a big difference.”
“I’ve got you, babe. That’s the difference.”
He slid quickly out of the car, and they took the elevator to the lawyer’s office.
From the way the lawyer’s eyes darted toward her, she was certain that Charlie’s outward appearance of confidence was a surprise to him. As always he stood up to greet them and gestured them to sit down in front of his desk after the inevitable offer of coffee, to which they consented. Molly estimated that this was their seventh personal visit with the lawyer. At first she had tried to keep a record of hours spent to check the bills, which kept coming with relentless punctuality. He had estimated the pretrial expenses as eight thousand dollars, and they were swiftly approaching that figure.
“For the best, it costs,” she had assured Charlie. The assurance was double-edged, since neither of them had ever paid out that kind of money for lawyers.
“Highway robbery,” was Charlie’s muttered response every time he saw the bills.
But the bills were paid almost as fast as they were delivered. They were not ones to let bills pile up. Consequences of their class insecurities, she supposed. She wondered if Frances and Peter were paying their bills as promptly.
“Well, the battlefield is cleared for action,” Forte said. “Unfortunately, we’re stuck with the woman. Sometimes these things work in our favor. She might bend over backward to be more open, to establish herself as an individual independent of personal emotion.”
He intertwined his fingers and leaned back in his chair, as if his mind were drifting.
“Depends on the way we play it,” he continued. “We have to go in strong and optimistic.”
“That’s us,” Molly said.
The lawyer looked at her archly.
“It will depend more on style than substance,” Forte mused.
Molly looked at Charlie, who shrugged.
“Picture a woman in her mid-forties, tough, an achiever, two teenagers, widowed early, thrust on her own resources. No one to protect her.” He paused and looked at them pointedly. Molly saw it immediately.
“Unlike Frances—Mrs. Graham,” she said.
“It didn’t come to me until this morning,” the lawyer said.
“But that might have been her conscious decision—to make it on her own. Not to be dependent. There’s a whole new world out there, they tell me,” said Molly.
“No mother in her right mind turns down a breadwinner,” Charlie i
nterjected. The lawyer smiled.
“Think it, Mr. Waters. Don’t say it,” Forte said. “But it’s the line I intend to follow.”
“I’m confused,” Molly said.
“I’ve got to bring this down to a level that this judge will understand. Security, for instance. The lengths to which people will go for security. Money.”
“Money is not the issue here,” Charlie said, fully aware of his pose of self-assurance.
“Not directly,” Forte said. “Follow my reasoning. We know that our opponents’ lawyer is going to try to break down your credibility, cite instability and such. I’ve told you all that before.” Molly stiffened, remembering what she had edited out of her reported conversation with Frances. “It might be wise to put forth a strong argument that a pact was made with the new husband, a trade, if you will, protection, support, that is, money, in exchange for total capitulation on the issue of”—he made quotation marks in the air—“ ‘the past.’ That would make the new husband the villain, the evil influence. I’m not sure, but if we can transfer the enmity, your quarrel, from your daughter-in-law to her new husband, we might be able to come in on her subconscious level. The idea of enslavement and control. It presses the hot buttons of achieving women in today’s climate.”
“You mean make Peter the evil manipulator?” Molly asked, masking her uneasiness.
“It might be easier than you think,” Forte said. “Down deep it might actually be the cause of the problem. But it has its dangers.”
“Like what?” Charlie asked calmly, as if the idea already had great appeal to him.
“It could drive a wedge between her and her husband. These things can get out of hand in a courtroom. If we hit her where she is most vulnerable, we could force the first shot between them, stimulate resentment that could undermine their marriage.”
“None of my business,” Charlie said, continuing to smile. “What happens between them is none of our business. We’re out of that, aren’t we, Molly?” He turned toward her.
“I wouldn’t want them to break up over this,” she said hesitantly.
“It’s just not our business,” Charlie said emphatically, but with complete control. “I’m not interested in their domestic bliss. I just want to have the right to see my grandson.”
