Sins of Innocence

by Jean Stone

  “So, are you going to bother to tell me where you were?”

  “I told you. Visiting a friend. No one you know.”

  “Male or female?”

  “Oh, Charles, don’t be absurd. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately, but cheating on my husband isn’t exactly my style.”

  “And neither is leaving your husband and children overnight, with no indication of where you’ve gone.”

  Jess sighed. “If you must know, I went to L.A. It was no big deal.”

  “Los Angeles? You just hopped a plane at the drop of a hat and flew to L.A.? Are you nuts?”

  “No. I told you. I went to see a friend.”

  “You don’t know anyone in L.A.”

  “She moved out there a few years ago.”

  “Someone from the P.T.O.?”

  “Charles, please. She’s an old friend. She needed my help,” Jess lied.

  “For what? Did she need you to hem a dress for her?”

  Jess didn’t answer.

  “Pardon me if I don’t believe you.”

  “I don’t want to argue, Charles. I’m tired.”

  “Are you going to tell me this friend’s name?”

  She shook her head, feeling her weariness envelop her. All Jess wanted to do was take a long, hot bath and think about nothing. The visit with Ginny had left her numb. “You don’t know her,” she said.

  “Try me.”

  She crossed the room and settled into an oversized chair, her tiny body swallowed by the thick cushions. If she was going to go through with this reunion—and now it looked as though she had given herself no choice—Jess knew she would have to tell Charles.

  “Her name is Ginny,” she said quietly. “She was someone I knew at Larchwood Hall.”

  “At where?”

  “Larchwood Hall. The home for unwed mothers.”

  “How quaint. Were you reminiscing about old times?”

  “No, Charles. Actually,” she sucked in a small breath, “we’re planning a reunion.”

  He pushed up the sleeves on his Vuarnet sweatshirt and walked back to the desk. He leaned on the edge, folded his arms in front of him, and clenched his fists.

  “I suppose this has something to do with Maura.”

  Jess shook her head. “Not really. The girls who were at Larchwood are planning to get together again, that’s all.” She was damned if he was going to drag Maura into this. He was being cold and cruel enough to her as it was.

  “How coincidental this should occur right at this time.”

  Jess cradled one of the loose pillows. You son of a bitch, she thought. You selfish, arrogant son of a bitch. “You might as well know the rest,” she blurted out. “I know you aren’t going to want to hear this, but we’re planning to meet the children we gave up for adoption.”

  He picked up a crystal paperweight from the desk and hurled it across the room. It bounced off the stone fireplace and shattered onto the hearth. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “My entire family has lost its fucking mind.”

  Jess squeezed the pillow. “It’s something I need to do, Charles. It’s something I’ve wanted for a long time.”

  “You? It’s what you want? What about me? What about your family? First Maura. Now you. I come home from work one day, and suddenly the world is split apart. What’s really going on with you, Jess? Are you losing your mind?”

  “My mind has never been more clear, Charles.”

  He walked around to the back of the desk and shoved the chair aside. “I thought we agreed your little incident was never to be mentioned again. I thought we agreed the children were never to know.”

  “We didn’t agree, Charles. You demanded it. Besides, you’re the one who brought it up. The night I told you about Maura.”

  “And now you’re going against my wishes. What are you trying to do? Humiliate me? Or is this some kind of blackmail? Are you going to tell me if I agree to let Maura stay home and have this bastard kid of hers, you won’t drag home yours? Is this what it’s all about?”

  “Charles, you never once tried to understand. You never once asked about the baby I had. You never once—”

  “For Chrissake, I married you, didn’t I? Not too many men are willing to marry a whore.”

  Her face stung as though he had slapped her. “I wasn’t a whore,” she whispered.

  “No? Knocked up at fifteen?” He laughed. “Get real, Jessica. Even your father knew what you were. Why else do you think he took me into his business? He didn’t need another gopher. He needed someone to take his daughter off his hands. Face it, Jess, he used me, so you could look respectable. And unless you’re prepared to give it all up, you’d better forget about any fucking reunion.”

  Jess curled around the pillow and started rocking back and forth. Tears spilled down her cheeks.

  Charles stood straight and put his hands back on his hips. “Now get dressed,” he said.

  “What?”

  “While you were visiting your friend, you seemed to have conveniently forgotten we’re going to the club tonight.”

  “Charles …”

  “The banquet is tonight. As long as you and I live under the same roof, I expect you to go with me. And I expect you to look your best.”

  Jess closed her eyes.

  “It’s seven-fifteen,” he continued. “We’re leaving at eight o’clock, so you’d better get it in gear.”

  She sat at the head table, the dutiful wife in mauve-colored silk, the diamond choker and matching earrings feeling oddly cold against her skin. Jess half listened to the humorless introductions Charles was giving as he presented award after award to the past season’s golfers and applauded appropriately, although perhaps a beat too late, as her husband announced each name. She was, instead, thinking of the others, and of her visits to them.

  Susan. Susan had been, as she had in the past, a bit standoffish, a bit superior. Bookish, liberal, a hint of the hippie era still visible in her dowdy clothes, her straight, unstyled hair. But Jess had always known that Susan had loved her baby’s father, and that she’d desperately wanted to keep her son. Now Susan had another son. Maybe he was enough in her life.

  P.J. Still so beautiful, still so controlled. Obviously P.J. had done very well for herself: a successful career, an elegant apartment, a good-looking man who was “special.” It was odd, though, that P.J. had never married. Maybe things weren’t as happy as they’d seemed. Maybe that was why she’d been receptive to the idea of the reunion.

  Ginny. The quick-tempered enigma, even today.

  Jess sipped from her water glass, and looked out at the room filled with shadowy faces, smiling and indulgent. She noted that these annual gatherings had changed—gone were the years when most of the men, and even the women, were carelessly drinking, pawing at other people’s spouses, making veritable asses out of themselves. People in Greenwich didn’t drink as much as they used to—at least not in public. Some of them, Jess suspected, had turned to cocaine.

  “Most-improved golfer in the league,” Charles was saying in his dry voice. “And best known around the course for the day he ran over his bag with the golf cart …” Courteous chuckles rose from the audience. “Tom Kimball.”

  A tall man with thinning brown hair stood up and strolled toward the podium. Jess recognized him as the father of a boy Chuck had been in grammar school with. Like most of the children of their peers, the boy had, in junior high school, been sent off to private school.

  Charles was smiling broadly as he presented the brass-plated plaque to Tom Kimball. A flashbulb popped. A picture-perfect memory for display in the Kimballs’ den. Jess looked back to the crowd. Ordinary-looking people, ordinary-seeming lives. Was hers the only marriage teetering on the edge of self-destruction? Had her past destined her life for unhappiness? And what about the others? Susan. Certainly not happy. P.J., doubtful. And Ginny.

  Maybe it wasn’t possible for a woman who had been through what they’d been through to pick up with her life as though nothing had hap
pened. To carry on with the appearance of normalcy. Maybe she was sentenced to live out the rest of her life on the defensive, avoiding hurt.

  The applause heightened, and Jess automatically clapped her hands. Maybe, she thought, the reunion had been a bad idea. Maybe nothing could change them now. Any of them. The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t. The saying always made her think of Charles.

  She glanced back to the podium. Her husband was taking a bow.

  “That’s it for the awards. Now let’s bring on the band, so I can dance with my beautiful wife!” he said.

  The applause continued, then died out amid the growing murmur of people talking. Jess was aware of the stiff smile on her face.

  From across the room the music began. Charles leaned down toward her.

  “Let’s dance, darling,” he said loudly enough to be heard by Dorothy and Leonard Sanders—the former club president and his white-haired wife—who were seated next to Jess.

  Jess looked into her husband’s gray eyes. They were warm and caring, exactly the same way they always looked whenever they were out in public, or when dining with his business associates. The perfect husband.

  She took her purse from the table. “I’d like to freshen up first, if you don’t mind.”

  She pushed back her chair and stood up.

  “I’ll be waiting right here.” Charles smiled. “Hurry back before they start playing our song!”

  The ladies’ lounge was crowded with jabbering women and clouded with blue smoke, which swarmed around the artificial fig trees and clung to the peach brocade walls.

  “Oh, Jessica,” one woman called. “Charles was marvelous. He’s the best emcee we’ve ever had.”

  “Thank you,” Jess replied quietly.

  “Better than Donald?” another woman steamed.

  “Oh, Ethel,” the first woman said, “Donald was always marvelous. But it’s so nice to see the young people taking part.”

  Jess hurried past the huddled groups of chatting women and opened the door of a stall. Inside, she sat on the lid of the toilet and buried her face in her hands. This was, she thought, the best part of the club. The fully enclosed toilet stalls. How many times over the years had Jess escaped to one of these closets to get away from the ceaseless gossip and the endless charade of people trying to impress people? How many times had she come in here to escape from her husband?

  She raised her head and realized that she wasn’t even able to cry. She had been as much a part of the charade as anyone. It had, Jess knew, been that way her entire life. Charles was so much like Father. Jess wondered how many times her mother had hidden in toilets to avoid the falseness of life, to run from the proper appearances her husband had insisted they maintain.

  “Is Mrs. Randall in here?” The male voice was sharp as it split through the chatter. “Jess Randall?”

  Jess stood. “I’m here,” she replied, then flushed the unused toilet. “I’m coming.”

  “You’re wanted outside,” the voice said. “Hurry, please.”

  Jess touched the corners of her mouth where her lipstick had long since worn off on the curried chicken and snow peas. She hesitated a moment before opening the door of the stall. Here I go again, she thought. Charles has sent one of his puppets to summon his wife, and I’m jumping to his call. She smoothed the front of her dress. Well, he can damn well wait this time.

  She stepped from the stall and went to the mirror. Slowly she removed a lipstick from her purse and applied it. She checked her hair and looked at the growing dark circles under her eyes. Two cross-country flights in twenty-four hours had taken their toll.

  “Mrs. Randall?” The voice was back.

  “I’m coming.”

  “Please hurry, ma’am. I think there’s some sort of emergency.”

  Emergency? Jess jammed the tube back in her purse and whisked back through the dwindling groups of women. Had Charles done something? Said something to someone? Had there been a fight? She rushed into the hall.

  “This way, ma’am.” The voice from inside belonged to an elderly gentleman in black-tie. Jess recognized him as one of the club’s valets.

  She followed him down the hall and around a corner. Charles stood by the front door, holding Jess’s coat. His face was ashen.

  “What’s going on?” she demanded. “What’s happening?”

  “We’ve got to leave. Maura is sick.”

  “Sick? What do you mean?” Her thoughts raced past her words.

  “We’ll discuss it in the car.”

  Charles escorted his wife from the door, taking the time to say good night to the valet. Outside, he saluted the parking attendant. “We’ll get our own car,” he said casually.

  Jess ran after him, struggling to put on her coat.

  “Why is she sick? What’s wrong, Charles? Tell me!”

  “Just get in the car.”

  They reached the BMW. Jess climbed in and slammed the door. Charles rammed the key into the ignition and punched the car into gear.

  “What the hell is going on?” Jess screamed.

  He turned the wheel and backed out of the lot, his eyes fixed on the rearview mirror, the veins in his throat visibly tight. His voice came out, but his lips hardly moved. “We’re going to the hospital,” he said. “It seems your daughter has picked tonight to try to commit suicide.”

  The ride to the hospital took forever. Jess sat numbly beside her husband, trying to tune out his words, trying to pretend none of this was happening.

  “I can’t believe this,” he said with disgust. “First she gets pregnant like you did. Now she tries to kill herself like your mother did. What is it, Jess? Is there some fucked-up gene in your family that makes all the females crazy?”

  “Shut up, Charles.”

  “Don’t tell me to shut up,” he said, as he accelerated onto the expressway. “It’s bad enough she tried to kill herself. But guess who called nine-one-one? Our fucking housekeeper! By now every housekeeper in Greenwich knows our daughter tried to kill herself. That’s great. That’s just great.”

  “Where are the boys?” Jess asked quietly.

  “Travis is hiding in his room. Great thing for a thirteen-year-old to see. Oh”—he turned to Jess with glaring eyes—“did I forget to mention he’s the one who found his sister with a razor in her hand and blood spurting out all over her pink rug?”

  Jess swallowed hard. No, she thought, this isn’t happening. “What about Chuck?”

  “Out on a date.” Then Charles snorted. “At least he has the sense not to knock up a girl. At least I talked to my son.”

  Jess stared out into the blackness, watching the lights of the city whiz by. Please God, she prayed, please save my little girl. Please save my Maura.

  “It’s the next exit,” she said soberly.

  Charles flicked on his blinker and stared straight ahead. “I know where the fucking hospital is.”

  Jess bolted through the emergency-room doors ahead of her husband. She ran to the desk. “My daughter. Maura Randall. Where is my daughter?”

  An overweight woman in a white nurse’s uniform slowly looked through some papers. “Randall,” she said mechanically. “Oh, yes, the attempted suicide.”

  Jess gripped the counter.

  “Treatment Room C. Around the corner, on the right.”

  Jess rounded the corner, aware that Charles had caught up with her, aware of the stiff click of his footsteps behind her. She pushed open the door of Treatment Room C. Maura lay on a table, her lovely blond hair a matted mess, her face streaked with tears, her eyes distant and lost. An IV tube was attached to her arm; her right wrist was wrapped in a thick white bandage. There was blood everywhere.

  “My God!” Jess cried and raced to her daughter’s side. She bent down and stroked Maura’s hair, her own tears melting into her daughter’s. “Honey, what happened? What did you do?”

  “Mommy,” Maura cried. “Mommy, make him leave.”

  “What, honey? Who?” She pulled
away and looked at her daughter. Maura was pointing at Charles.

  “Make him leave,” she repeated.

  Charles stared at them both. “I’ll wait in the lobby,” he said, then went out the door.

  Jess turned back to Maura. “Honey,” she said again. “Honey, what happened?”

  “It’s his fault.”

  “Whose? Daddy’s?”

  “Yes,” she sobbed.

  “What did he do to make you do this? Oh, honey, what happened?”

  “Last night. Last night, when you weren’t home.” She choked out the words slowly, between sobs. Jess kept stroking her hair and let her talk.

  “Last night, it was awful, Mommy. He said … he doesn’t want to admit I’m his daughter. That I’ve ruined his life …” She caught her breath. “That he’ll never be able to face his friends again if I don’t do as I’m told. Oh, Mommy, I hurt.”

  “Sssh, sssh, honey, never mind. It’s all right. It’s all right. Where do you hurt, honey? Your wrist?”

  “I didn’t do a very good job.”

  Jess kissed Maura’s cheek. “A good thing you didn’t. I couldn’t live without you, you know.”

  “Oh, Mommy, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Just then Maura screamed out in pain. “Mommy! It hurts!”

  “What, honey? What?”

  “My stomach. My baby!”

  Jess straightened up. “I’ll get the doctor. I’ll be right back.”

  She fled from the room and ran smack into an intern. “My daughter! Something’s wrong! She’s pregnant. The baby!”

  “In here?” the intern questioned, pointing to the treatment room.

  “Yes. Hurry.”

  “You’ll have to wait out here.”

  “Doctor …”

  “Nurse!” he screamed down the hall. “Nurse Haverman! Room C. Stat!” He pushed open the door. A woman in white flashed past Jess and went in after him.

  Jess stood alone, a tiny woman in mauve silk and diamonds, with dark circles under her eyes and a wrenching in her heart such as she had never known. Suicide. Her daughter had tried to commit suicide. Her thoughts jumped back to the orchid-draped coffin at her mother’s funeral. Her mother hadn’t slashed her wrists. She’d done it with pills. Pills and booze. She never would have slashed her wrists—too dramatic … too messy. Jess tried to force the image of her mother from her mind. What had she looked like in death? Had she been lying on her white satin sheets, her eyes closed in peace, her head cushioned by the thick down pillows? Or had she fallen to the floor, a look of anguish and horror permanently etched on her delicate face?