Twilight Child

by Warren Adler

  Frances had listened, letting Peter carry the argument. She could see it was futile. Having control over one’s own life was not, under any circumstances, a simple chore, she thought, not without a tinge of bitterness.

  They had been unable to sleep. Frances couldn’t get comfortable. The baby was acting up, offering her own protestations. Finally they had put on the lights.

  “She must be madder than hell,” Peter had observed, watching the undulations of Frances’s midsection.

  “No madder than her mother.”

  “I should have never let this happen,” Peter had said, threading his arm behind her neck, kissing her cheek. There was just enough wrist room to pat her hair. “Peck said we had them dead to rights.”

  “He was never really positive about the outcome.”

  “Well, we had no choice but to contest their action.”

  “Who would think it would ever come to this?” she mused. She hadn’t enjoyed any of the interrogation in the courtroom, certainly not her own. Nor was there any satisfaction in the way Charlie had been quartered. “Had to be done,” Peck had told her at lunch, brimming with optimism. “I took no pleasure in it either,” he assured her. Now she resented not being forewarned about the possibility of calling Tray.

  “These lawyers play their own dirty game. It’s almost as if we didn’t exist as human beings.”

  “Unfortunately, we’re in their hands,” Peter said.

  He had turned off the lights again. Still, she couldn’t sleep. Her thoughts churned as she relived her waking nightmare on the stand. She had been totally unprepared for Forte’s onslaught. It had been relentless, without mercy. The vaunted protection of her pregnancy had meant little or nothing. All through the testimony she had kept telling herself that she must endure this. Forte deliberately twisted everything, especially that implication that she was taking revenge on Molly and Charlie. Was there any truth in that? Had he uncovered some dark and hidden motive? Was she really capable of that? Unconsciously? She turned the thought over and over in her mind. There was just enough of the hint of truth in the lawyer’s accusation to disturb her, as if he had stripped aside layers of self-protection. And even if it was true—what had that to do with Tray’s best interest?

  “It makes no sense,” Peter whispered, his voice seeping into her thoughts. So he, too, continued to wrestle with the problem. Who needed this aggravation? Opening her eyes, she looked at the red figures on the digital clock. It was nearly two in the morning. “Tray, especially, doesn’t need the trauma,” he said. She could almost hear the humming logic cranking in his scientific mind. “The question is, is it worth the pain?”

  She did not turn to face him. Was he, as Forte had suggested, the culprit after all? Had he brainwashed her? Was he now, in a fit of guilt and remorse, asking for surrender? Why not? He had already proven his manliness, his fatherhood. His place as head of the family was assured. His children were about to outnumber Chuck’s. Had the wounds of his previous marriage healed? Was there anything for him to fear now?

  “Can they hurt us now?” he whispered.

  It hurt to hear. And she knew it would hurt more to respond. Was he thinking of what was best for Tray? Or for himself? And what was her first priority? Tray? An avalanche of questions cascaded in her mind. But no answers. Except one. This was one decision that she would have to make on her own.

  “It’s the risk of it that’s worrisome,” he sighed. It was not, she understood, the hour for decisiveness.

  “Do you think I’ve been vindictive?” she asked. It was a question for him, for herself, and for the darkness.

  “You see how they manipulate us,” he said with resignation. “They make us unsure of our motives.”

  “But I was afraid that Charlie would take Tray away from me. Like he took Chuck.”

  “All the more reason for our doing what we did,” Peter said. “The fear was real enough to make a difference.”

  “Maybe I also didn’t want him to be exposed to”—she hesitated, trying to think it out clearly—“Dundalk, and all it stood for.”

  “Dig deep enough, and you’ll strike salt water,” Peter said, reaching out to touch her hand. “Next thing you know, we’ll be blaming each other. Also part of the strategy. Divide and conquer.”

  “No,” she said. “It won’t work.”

  He kissed her cheek, and for a long time there was silence. Then he spoke.

  “You think it’s true about me being . . . insecure?” Now it was his turn, she thought, listening. “He made it sound as if I were jealous of your first husband, because . . . well, because he came before me. You know something, there’s a grain of truth in that. But then he accused me of brainwashing you into rejecting Chuck’s parents. Do you think there’s a grain of truth in that, too?”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “That would make me kind of a rat, wouldn’t it?”

  “You’re no rat.”

  Reaching out, she grasped his hand, put it to her lips, and kissed it.

  “All this is beside the point,” she said.

  “What point?”

  “What’s best for Tray.”

  “What’s best for us is best for Tray.”

  In the silence she thought about that a long time before they both drifted off to sleep.

  “I wish this thing was tomorrow instead of today, Mommy,” Tray said, standing behind her as she combed her hair. Peter was downstairs feeding Mark, who was cranky with teething. She listened for Maria’s familiar voice, dreading the complication if she didn’t arrive on time. In fact, a feeling of dread pervaded her every thought.

  “Why is that?”

  “Because today they have frankfurters for lunch at school.”

  “Frankfurters aren’t really good for you.”

  “Then why do they have them?”

  “Good question.”

  His remark suggested other interruptions in his young life. The day she had gotten word that Chuck had died, she had taken him out of the day nursery in the middle of a game of dodge ball. When she had gotten married, she had moved him away from his friends. Then there was Charlie’s crazy visit to his school. Now this. She wondered what effect these things would have on him, how he would handle them in his memory. Would they resurface later as clues to maladjustments? She tried to shake away such gloomy thoughts, studying his beautiful face in the mirror.

  “My little prince,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Will you ever forgive us?” All of us, she thought.

  “Does something hurt, Mommy?”

  “Not really, Tray.”

  “Is Snowflake okay?”

  “She’s fine.”

  Wiping her eyes and nose, she forced a smile. “You just be very calm today and answer all the questions with great honesty.”

  Her remark triggered fearful images. Were they going to cross-examine this child, submit him to what she had had to go through? Never, she vowed. That she would never allow, law or no law, procedures or no procedures. If that happened, she would dash out of the courtroom with Tray and insist that they immediately leave the state, out of the reach of these people.

  Tray began to play with her perfume bottles, opening them and sniffing. She let him. “Don’t spill any. You wouldn’t want to smell up the courtroom.” He giggled and put the tops back on.

  By the time they got downstairs, Maria had arrived and Peter was giving her last-minute instructions in pidgin English.

  “You no worry,” she said.

  “No worry,” Peter whispered. “That’s a laugh.” He looked down at Tray. “Ready, Buddy?”

  “Yup.”

  She looked at the clock in the kitchen. Earlier, they had agreed to make sure they arrived a few minutes late to avoid any unnecessary confrontations with Molly and Charlie, which could only confuse Tray.

  “We’d better get going,” Peter said.

  But before they went out the door, Peter kneeled and embraced his adopted son. Goldy came over and, jealous
ly asserting himself, licked Tray’s face.

  “You’re my boy, right?”

  “I sure am, Daddy.”

  “Well then, prove it.”

  Tray pushed Goldy away and kissed Peter noisily on the cheek. Frances watched, engulfed suddenly by a great wave of indignation.

  “He should not have to be going through this.”

  “No way,” Peter said, releasing the boy.

  “If they really wanted to do what’s best for him, they’d drop the suit instead of putting him through this.”

  “That’s about the long and short of it.”

  Outside, they got into the car. Tray sat between them in the front seat. Suddenly she embraced him.

  “It’s not your fault, darling,” she whispered. He looked up, confused. “And I pray and hope we’re doing the right thing by you.”

  “You’re my mommy. You always do right,” Tray said, kissing her cheek.

  She hoped it was true, but she was no longer certain.

  15

  CHARLIE punched out the last cigarette in the pack, then crushed the wrapper and flung it in the direction of the plastic waste bucket. He missed. Story of my life, he shrugged, lifting the mug of tepid coffee. It had a sour, metallic taste, but he swallowed a mouthful anyway.

  Through the kitchen window, he could see the faint silhouettes of the trees. From one hung the tire swing, looking like some ominous big-eyed predator, waiting for its moment to spring and devour. It was not yet dawn. Beyond the trees, the sky was coal black, glistening with the afterglow of the setting moon.

  Despite all the valiant efforts he had made to hold back the depressing thoughts, they still came. This thing with calling Tray to court had jolted him. What he needed, he decided, was a mental sump pump to wash away the gloom. Why was all this happening? Had it happened before? He forced himself to probe his memory, focus some light on those darker corners of his life. They were there. He was sure of it, but, somehow, he had repressed them, shut them out. Had there been other ways to deal with them? He wasn’t sure.

  A memory did bubble to the surface. He was on Iwo Jima, pinned down in broad daylight on a tiny stretch of beach. He had gone in on the second wave. Dead marines were strewn along the beach like seashells. Gritty sand hung on his tongue. Sweat poured from his body. Shells crashed around him. He could hear the whiz of the bullets as they sailed ominously over his head. Men shouted in agony and frustration. Yet, amid all that carnage, some mysterious collective will had infected those who lay there, and suddenly, in the face of this relentless incoming fire, they moved forward. He knew he could not accurately reconstruct the thoughts of a twenty-year-old boy, but he was sure that the spirit of the memory remained intact in his mind all those years. Only now, he was certain, could he assess the truth of it.

  It was not a foolhardy myth of heroism that had spurred them on. Not a mad wish for martyrdom. Not a soldier’s programmed reflex to barking orders. A mere shouted command would not have been enough to move them into the jaws of a cruel death. What then? Of one thing he was now certain. There was nothing in it of gloom or depression or pessimism or doubt. He had crawled on his belly toward the enemy guns with absolute certainty that his role as a marine and a man had logic and meaning. Of course, he feared the potential pain and the dying. But what he feared most of all was that he would fall short of grace and dignity in the face ot it, that he would dishonor those values of courage, loyalty, and honor without which he could not fulfill his role.

  What had happened to all those old roles? Time was when you could go to sleep and get up in the morning and everything would be the same. A father went to work and provided for his family. A mother watched over her brood and cooked and cleaned the hallowed nest where a man could rest his heart. Grandparents stood by, loving and content, passing along the lessons of time and experience. The young respected the old. The bond between the old and the young was sacred. Graying had a hallowing effect. Passing was properly mourned. Had times changed that much? A hand clutched and tightened around his gut. Where was the grace, the honor, in grandparents’ having to go to court to secure the right to visit their own grandchild?

  But even the light of memory could not reveal why he had put those shells in his rifle. He could barely remember doing it. Had he been seeking to end it, check out of life, put an end to frustration and pain? Leave Molly? Never! Could he have actually done something so cowardly and unworthy? Of course not. He caught the element of sham in his bravado. He pounded his fist into his palm. Then it came to him. Was that it? A mystery cracked? The end of mourning?

  “That bullet wasn’t meant for me. It was meant for Nasty Jake.”

  “What?” It was Molly behind him.

  “Nothing,” he said, turning. “I was talking to myself, I guess.” He laughed. “We were having a go at it. Me and him.”

  “You and who?”

  “Me and me,” he said. “I was trying to figure things out.”

  “Tell me when you do.”

  “This thing with Tray being called to court. I can’t live with it.”

  “It’s awful. Just awful.”

  “Our fault?”

  She looked at him in the quickening light, avoiding an answer. “I dozed off,” she said, changing the subject. “But when you weren’t there, I woke suddenly.” She giggled nervously. “Did I ever tell you, Charlie, that when you and Chuck would go away, I don’t think I ever had a good night’s sleep?”

  “Not once?”

  “No. I never told you,” she mused, looking out the window. “I never told you how lonely I felt, either.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  He wondered whether, as Frances had confessed, Molly, too, had felt excluded. Women were mysterious creatures. Didn’t they understand that manliness required that they be shut out sometimes? Hadn’t he tried to explain that long ago?

  “You should have told me.”

  “Would it have made any difference?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I doubt that, Charlie. Besides, I always felt that I was doing the right thing by staying home. You used to come back feeling, the two of you”—she groped for the right word—“content. As if you shared some deep, dark masculine secret. Sure I felt excluded. And I forgot my loneliness because I could see that you and Chuck were happy for being away together.”

  While he listened, he looked out the window. She did understand that, and he felt grateful.

  “I had him a lot to myself earlier. I had him inside me. Then at the breast. It’s different with a mother. I never felt deprived in that respect. It didn’t mean that I wasn’t supposed to miss both of you when you went away. That’s what Frances meant when she said she felt abandoned. Of course, you knew that, Charlie. You knew it.”

  He nodded.

  “The difference was that I always knew that it was more important for you to come home than it was to stay away,” Molly continued. “For some reason Chuck didn’t feel that way. Something inside of him was different, I guess. I don’t know why. He didn’t, either. It wasn’t Frances’s fault, Charlie.”

  “Suppose it was mine?” Charlie asked. “Was I too selfish about him? Too possessive? Like Frances said?”

  “Too loving, maybe.”

  “Whatever. It didn’t do him much good.” He continued to look out the window. The shapes outside were becoming more distinct. “You really think that I could have kept him from going?”

  “I used to think so. I’m sure Frances still does.”

  “She probably hates me for that. Hates me for a lot of things, I suppose.”

  “I don’t think Frances hates. She’s just scared. Afraid of losing Peter. Afraid for Tray.”

  “I might have stopped him, Molly. I might have. But I felt he needed it.” Charlie felt a sob bubble in his chest. “He didn’t have his war. What’s a young man’s life without adventure?”

  “Always what a man needs. What about us?”

  “I don’t know what you women need. I don’t und
erstand the rules of your club, either.” She sat beside him and rested her hand on her chin, reaching out with the other to touch his hand. “But I’m always willing to learn.”

  “I think sometimes that if Tray were a girl, Frances wouldn’t feel so threatened.”

  “Then you’d be the heavy. She’d blame it all on you.”

  “Would it mean as much? A girl grandchild?”

  “I think so,” he said emphatically. “And I’d be like you and you’d be like me.”

  “You mean I’d be the one flying off the handle, and you’d be the one trying to hold it all together?”

  “It wouldn’t mean that we wouldn’t love her with equal feeling.”

  “It would have been great to have a little girl,” Molly sighed. She bent over and put her arm around his neck. “It’s too bad I was so barren, Charlie. You needed lots of children. You had a lot to give.”

  “Sure I did. But you had more. Anyway, I’m not going to look back. It’s you and me, babe. No matter what. Besides, what would you have done without your biggest baby to worry about?”

  “So what do you want to be when you grow up?”

  “If I grew up, you might find some other baby.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about then. You’ll never grow up.”

  She moved closer to him, and they were silent for a long time, watching the familiar shapes emerge in the quickening light.

  “You’ve got to admit that Peter’s been a good dad for the boy, a loving, caring father. What more could you ask for?” Her voice seemed to tighten with caution. “The fact is, Tray might not need us as much as we think we need him.”

  He stiffened, the old anger beginning to swell inside of him.

  “What’s wrong with us needing him? With anybody needing anybody?”

  “The law doesn’t see it that way.”

  “Then the law is not so smart.” He got up and began to pace the room. When he looked at her, her frown told him she was once more worried about his state of mind. “What do they know? Bringing a seven-year-old kid into the courtroom. Putting him through that. Those lawyers may think they know something about the law, but they don’t know a damned thing about human beings.”