Hope Street: Hope StreetThe Marriage Bed

by Judith Arnold

  It did. In her thin T-shirt, with the blanket kicked to the foot of the bed, she lay un moving in the heat. She might have slept straight through Sunday if she hadn’t heard a tapping at the window.

  She opened one eye and found the room hazy with a gray light seeping through the voile curtains. Then she heard the tapping again, and a whisper: “JoJo?”

  She bolted upright, blinking furiously. Once her eyes were in focus, she saw the familiar silhouette against the floating curtains. Inhaling deeply to steady her nerves, she swung out of bed, crossed to the window and spread the curtains apart.

  There stood Bobby, just as he had when they’d been children, when he’d sneaked over to visit her late at night and hadn’t dared to ring the front doorbell. She stared at him through the screen, his face shadowed, his shoulders broad and strong. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Danny said I should get in your face,” he told her.

  Her brain moved sluggishly, still woozy with drowsiness. She blinked again, took more deep breaths, shook her head to clear it. “I mean here, at the window.”

  “No one answered the front door.”

  “What time is it?”

  He lifted his wrist. “Almost eleven.”

  Her mother must have gone out. Maybe she’d met Stan Sherko at the Bank Street Diner for brunch. Just friends, indeed.

  Unsure what to do, Joelle decided to concentrate on facts and chronologies. “How did you get here? You were still in Connecticut last night. You phoned.”

  “And you had your mother run interference.” He sounded annoyed when he said that, but his tone grew more conversational when he explained, “I hitched a ride to Cincinnati on a FedEx plane.”

  “What?”

  “Danny’s girlfriend, Lauren—her father is an attorney for some big shot at FedEx. Danny talked to Lauren, and she made a few calls and got me a seat on one of their overnight flights. Me and a bunch of fruit crates and sandals from L. L. Bean. I like that girl.” She saw the outline of his cheeks move and realized he must have smiled. “I rented a car at the airport.”

  “You must be exhausted.”

  Although she couldn’t see his eyes, she felt his gaze. “You look a lot more tired than I feel.”

  “Bobby…” She sighed. “I’m not sure I’m ready to talk to you yet.”

  “Too bad. I’m in your face.”

  She smiled, imagining Danny giving him in-your-face coaching.

  “So, are you coming out or am I coming in?”

  “I’m not climbing over the windowsill,” she said. “I’m too old. Go around to the front door. I’ll let you in.”

  She turned from the window, wondering whether she should get dressed before she let Bobby inside the apartment. Why bother? He hadn’t touched her in days. The last time he had, it had felt more like fear than love. No way would he interpret her sleep apparel as seductive.

  She ran her fingers through her tangled hair and yanked the knob on the bedroom door. The heat had made the wood swell, and the door stuck for a moment before opening. Willing herself to full alertness, she strode barefoot down the hall to the front door.

  Bobby stepped inside, closed the door behind him and stared at her. He had on a pair of old jeans worn to flannel softness and a plain navy-blue T-shirt that hinted at the lean strength of his body. She ached to bury her face against his chest, to feel his arms tight around her. But he didn’t reach for her, and she kept her distance.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “It was a long drive for you, all alone.”

  She shrugged. “Would you like some coffee? Something to eat?”

  “Why is everyone trying to feed me? You all think I don’t know how to feed myself?”

  Irked by his response—by his presence—she pivoted on her heel and stalked into the kitchen. Bobby might not want coffee, but she did.

  He followed her into the kitchen and opened the blinds while she prepared a pot of coffee. “What have you been doing here?” he asked.

  By here, she knew he meant Holmdell. She wasn’t sure she should say anything when she was still not completely awake, but having Bobby talk to her, pepper her with questions, attempt a conversation, was a treat after the past week. She ought to encourage him. “I’ve been retracing my steps,” she told him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Figuring out how I wound up where I did.”

  “Have you figured it out?”

  “I don’t know.” The coffeemaker churned. She pulled two cups and saucers from the drying rack and set them on the table. Typical Bobby: he wanted her to give him a simple answer. He wanted her to say yes, she’d figured it out, so he wouldn’t have to offer anything of himself. In fact, she had figured it out, at least some of it. She’d figured out that for the past thirty-seven years she’d been married to a loyal, reliable, generous man who couldn’t face the demons inside himself, who couldn’t face the even greater goodness there, who couldn’t love her the way she’d always dreamed of being loved. But how could she tell him that?

  The coffee finished brewing, and she lifted the decanter from the machine. “I’ll go to a marriage counselor with you,” he said, startling her so much she nearly dropped the pot.

  She steadied herself before carrying the pot to the table and filling the cups. “You will?”

  “I can’t stand the idea, Jo, but if it’ll make you happy, I’ll do it.”

  “I don’t know how successful counseling would be if you went into it saying, ‘I can’t stand the idea.’”

  He snorted. “Sitting in an office and baring my soul to a stranger? I don’t do that kind of thing.”

  You don’t bare your soul to anyone, she thought, returning the pot to the counter.

  “I don’t even know what we’d talk about,” he added.

  “We’d talk about why…” Her voice started to crack, and she took a sip of coffee to cover the sound. “We’d talk about why you can’t talk about anything. About why when you’re angry or afraid, you won’t talk to me. You lock everything up inside yourself and pretend it doesn’t exist.”

  He ignored his coffee, his attention fully on her, his eyes as intense as lasers. “Sometimes that’s a pretty smart strategy.”

  “But the truth doesn’t always stay locked up. It escapes.”

  “Yeah.” He looked past her and drank some coffee. “Why don’t you get dressed and go downtown with me. I can drop off the rental car at the bus station. No sense having two cars here.”

  He was shutting down again. Despair whispered in her heart, but she refused to listen to it. He was here. He’d traveled all the way to Cincinnati on a FedEx cargo plane. Maybe that was as close as he’d ever get to telling her he loved her.

  Abandoning him to the steaming coffeepot and whatever edibles he might scrounge—there were probably some more stale Danish stashed somewhere—she detoured to her bedroom to grab a robe, then headed for the bathroom to shower. She didn’t need to wear a robe around him. He was her husband; he’d seen her naked plenty of times. But she still felt a barrier between them, like the spring-pressured gates he’d bought to block off the stairways when the boys were toddlers. The gates wedged between the walls at the top or bottom of a flight of stairs, or in a doorway and tension held them in place.

  Tension was holding a barricade in place between her and Bobby, too.

  She showered, brushed her teeth and returned to the bedroom to dress. Her mouth tingled with mint. She wondered whether Bobby would kiss her. He’d traveled all this way—in a cargo plane—but he hadn’t even touched her.

  Dressed in shorts and a polo shirt, her hair brushed and sandals buckled onto her feet, she emerged from the bedroom. She found Bobby where she’d left him—in the kitchen, staring out the window above the sink. All he could see from there was the duplex next door. The buildings along Third Street were separated from one another only by alleys no wider than a car. When Joelle was about ten, a fat woman with
poodle-curly hair lived in the neighboring building, and she liked to stack Andy Williams and Dean Martin albums on her hi-fi and waltz around her flat. Joelle used to spy on her, half amused and half transfixed by the way the woman danced, as graceful as a ballerina despite her size. She’d moved away a couple of years later and a family with a bunch of bratty children who were always screeching moved in. In the summer, when people kept their windows open because no one in those days had air-conditioning, the children’s constant whining and bickering became an excruciating sound track to Joelle’s dinners.

  Now everyone had air-conditioning units and all the windows were closed.

  Bobby gave her a tenuous smile and led her out of the building into the overcast morning. His car was a nondescript dark green sedan. Before folding himself behind the wheel, he reminded her that the car-rental drop-off was at the bus station. She nodded, climbed into her Prius and followed him down the street.

  Once he dropped off his car, she’d have to drive him places, or else he’d appropriate her car to drive himself around. Maybe it would have been better for him to keep the rental.

  Except that he’d journeyed to Holmdell to get in her face, and she had to admit she wanted him there. Maybe he was ready to start talking, really talking. In any case, that he’d go to such an effort to be with her had to mean he wasn’t ready to give up on their marriage.

  The bus station’s parking lot was full, every space occupied and a huge Greyhound bus occupying most of the curb. Bobby double-parked and approached her car. She pushed the button to open her window. “I’ll park in the lot behind the bank,” she said. It was less than a block away.

  Nodding, Bobby slapped the roof of her car and then strode into the terminal.

  Since it was Sunday, the bank was closed, but several cars were parked in the lot. Parking on the downtown streets was metered, so people often left their cars in the lots behind the stores and office buildings. Joelle eased into a space between a Dodge Ram and a glossy Mercedes sedan. Swanky car, she thought as she climbed out of the Prius, careful not to let her door bump the Mercedes. No doubt it belonged to someone from the Hill.

  By the time she’d walked back to the bus station, Bobby had completed his task. She observed him as he swung out of the terminal. Although their marriage was in shambles, he walked with a confidence that dazzled her. He’d had that long-legged, sure-footed stride for as long as she’d known him. Even during the year he’d been on crutches, undergoing rehab on his left leg, he’d hobbled with a certainty and determination that announced to the world that he knew where he was going.

  “Hi,” he said, meeting up with her at the parking lot’s entrance. The gray sky washed his face with wan light.

  “Is there anything you need to do downtown?” she asked.

  “No.” He gazed down at her, his expression inscrutable.

  “Well, what should we do? We’re not going to find a marriage counselor on a Sunday morning.”

  He laughed, a welcome sound above the rumble of the bus’s idling engine and the whisk of cars cruising down the street. “Downtown didn’t use to be so busy on a Sunday,” he said, observing the traffic. “Everyone used to be in church.”

  “Or sleeping late. And all the stores used to be closed. I guess they did away with the blue laws. Lots of stores are open today.”

  “Holmdell meets the twenty-first century.” He shrugged and started toward the bank. “Let’s get some lunch. It’s too late for breakfast.”

  She wasn’t particularly hungry, but she supposed he was, after his overnight flight on the cargo plane. They couldn’t go to the Bank Street Diner, though. Her mother might be there, and if she was, she’d meddle.

  As Joelle and Bobby entered the parking lot behind the bank, she spotted a woman ahead of them, approaching the Mercedes. The woman had silver hair as smooth and shiny as a mirror, and she wore white slacks and a sleeveless cotton blouse. Her hair placed her well past middle age, but her tan and freckled arms were firm and muscular, as if she swam or played a lot of tennis.

  She reached her car just before Joelle and Bobby reached the Prius, and when she pressed the button on her key to unlock the sedan, she turned to offer a friendly smile. It froze on her face, and her eyes widened in astonishment. “Joelle Webber?”

  The woman’s shock arced like lightning, striking Joelle and causing her to flinch. She recognized that nut-brown face, the elegant cheekbones, the prim lips glossed with pink lipstick. Drew Foster’s mother was the sort of woman who never left the house without first donning a full layer of makeup.

  “Mrs. Foster,” she said politely, trying to hide her surprise. Hadn’t she seen a strange young woman picking up the mail at the Foster house yesterday? Hadn’t she concluded that the Fosters no longer lived there? Stupid assumption. The young woman could have been a guest, or hired help.

  Joelle scrambled for something innocuous to say to Drew’s mother. But before she could come up with a friendly observation, Mrs. Foster had stepped out from between their cars, marched over to Joelle and slapped her cheek.

  The slap didn’t hurt—for all the muscle tone in her arms, Mrs. Foster was a petite, elderly woman. But it hurt Joelle’s composure. She sprang back and Bobby sprang forward. Joelle gripped his arm, afraid he’d take a swing at Drew’s mother and send her clear across the lot.

  “How dare you!” Mrs. Foster railed. “How dare you keep my granddaughter from me!”

  “Don’t touch my wife,” Bobby growled.

  “Bobby, no.” Joelle tried to calm him.

  “You’re her husband?” Mrs. Foster glowered at Bobby, her expression as lethal as his. “You’re the man who stole my granddaughter?”

  Before Bobby could retort, Joelle yanked on his arm, moving him back a step. “No one stole your granddaughter, Mrs. Foster,” she said.

  “Then tell me why my son had to hire a detective to find out he even had a daughter.”

  Joelle could feel Bobby bristling next to her; energy pulsing through him. He wanted to defend her, he wanted to lash out. Yet he restrained himself. She knew how much that restraint cost him.

  “Drew ran away from his daughter,” Joelle said, her voice muted. Something cold and wet struck her cheek and she glanced up to see a dark cloud passing over the parking lot. “When I told him I was pregnant, he asked me to get an abortion.”

  “He didn’t know any better,” Mrs. Foster said, defending him. “He was just a child. He was scared.”

  “I was young and scared, too.”

  “You should have come to Marshall and me. We would have supported you, paid your medical expenses.”

  And then stolen my baby from me, Joelle completed the thought. She wasn’t sure why she believed this, but she did. The Fosters had never cared for her. She’d been a poor girl from the wrong side of town, and while they’d tolerated her and maintained a pleasant civility around her, they’d never embraced her.

  If she’d shown up on their doorstep with the news that their son had gotten her pregnant, they would have hated her. They would have done the right thing—they were the kind of people who recognized their obligations—but they wouldn’t have done it for her. Only for her child.

  “I made the choice I believed was best,” Joelle said firmly, ignoring another raindrop that struck the tip of her nose. “And I’d make the same choice today.”

  “Keeping our granddaughter from us? Does she even know she has grandparents?”

  Joelle felt another wave of energy surge through Bobby. She slid her hand down past his wrist to twine her fingers through his. The tension in his grip could have broken her bones if he’d let it. “She knows her grandparents,” Joelle said, not bothering to add that Claudia’s allotment of grandparents was pretty skimpy.

  “Marshall and I need to meet her. She’s our grandchild, too.”

  “She’s an adult. If she wants to meet you, I’m sure she’ll arrange it.”

  Mrs. Foster closed in on her. “You have no idea,” she said, her te
eth clenched and the tendons in her neck standing out beneath her skin. “You can’t begin to comprehend what it’s like to have only one grandchild and he’s dying. In your worst nightmares, you can’t begin to imagine it.”

  Joelle suffered a pang of sympathy for the woman, but it was fleeting. If Mrs. Foster had raised her own son to be more responsible, she might have spent the past thirty-seven years doting on a granddaughter. But things happened. One decision led to another, and to another, until people wound up so far down one path that they could never retrace their steps and try another route.

  “I’ve had my own nightmares, Mrs. Foster,” Joelle said quietly.

  Bobby broke in, apparently unable to hold back any longer. “We’re done here.” He dug into the pocket of Joelle’s purse where she stashed her keys and pressed the button on her car key to unlock the doors. Swinging the passenger door open, he nudged Joelle onto the seat, then loped around the car and crammed himself behind the wheel, not bothering to adjust the seat for his larger frame before he ignited the engine and backed out of the parking space. In the side mirror, Joelle saw Mrs. Foster calling to them, her face stretched into a grimace, her hand hacking the air.

  Bobby didn’t speak as he drove out into the street, his knees banging against the steering wheel. Stopped at a red light, he slid the seat back and tilted the rearview mirror to accommodate his height.

  She considered asking him where they were going, then thought better of it. He was seething with anger, most of it aimed at Drew Foster’s mother but some of it reserved for Joelle, too. She knew Bobby well enough to understand he was furious with her for having spoken gently to a woman who had slapped her. Joelle should have been furious, too. But…God help her, maybe she deserved that slap. And maybe she deserved Bobby’s wrath. She’d made a choice so long ago, the only sensible choice she could grasp at the time, the only one that would enable her to keep her baby and her dignity. It might have been the wrong choice, but she wouldn’t have done anything differently if she’d had it to do all over again.