Sins of Innocence

by Jean Stone

  A bolt of pain shot through Jess. She grabbed her chest. “Oh, God,” she cried out. This wasn’t her mother. It was her daughter. Her daughter. Trying to end her own precious life.

  “What’s going on?” It was Charles, standing behind her. “Are they releasing her?”

  She snapped around. “Get out of here,” she said. “Get out of here. You’ve done enough.”

  He put his arm around her shoulders. “Come into the lobby and sit, Jess. You’re overwrought.”

  She squirmed from his touch. “Overwrought? I’ll say I’m overwrought! You son of a bitch! This is all your fault.…”

  “Hey, keep it down.”

  “Keep it down? Why? Are you afraid someone will hear? Someone will hear that the wonderful, perfect Randall household is actually a living hell?”

  “One more word and I’m leaving.”

  “Good. Get out.”

  A nurse appeared. “Excuse me. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait in the lobby. We can’t have you disturbing the other patients.”

  Jess nodded and held her tears in check. “I’m sorry,” she said, and walked toward the lobby. Charles followed her.

  She sat on the blue vinyl couch and stared up at the small television. The volume was too low to hear: It didn’t matter; Jess wasn’t interested in what was on.

  “We’re not through with our discussion,” Charles said as he sat beside her.

  “Yes, we are.”

  “No, we’re not.” His voice had grown quiet. “No matter what kind of ogre you think I am, I do not want to see my daughter die.”

  “She’s not going to die, Charles. She only cut one wrist, and it didn’t work. Maybe the fucked-up gene isn’t as strong as you’d thought.”

  “Jess, please …”

  “Charles, we’ve been married twenty years. Do you realize that all you’ve ever done is criticize me? Have you once tried to understand me? Have you ever once thought of me as a person, as an equal? It seems to me you’ve only wanted me around when you needed to look good. When you wanted to show what a wonderful family man you are. Well, part of being a family man is sticking by your family when they need you. When they need a husband. When they need a father. You’re a phony, Charles Randall. And I’m ashamed to call you my husband.” The tone of her voice was so controlled, Jess hardly recognized it.

  “I don’t understand what you’re talking about. I’ve always been there for you and the kids.”

  “ ‘There’? What do you mean? That your physical presence has always been there?” Jess gave a small laugh. “It’s not enough, Charles. It’s never been enough. You never wanted to know about the bad things. You turned your head and let me deal with them. Like the time your oldest son punched out that little boy in the first grade who was half the size of him. Or the time Travis was caught stealing the quarters from Maura’s coin collection. Or,” she added slowly, “like the fact that you never once asked about my baby How it might have affected me to have given up a child.”

  “This is still what it’s all about, isn’t it? That damn baby.”

  “Not ‘that damn baby,’ Charles, a living, breathing human being. One whom I brought into this world, the same way as I did your children. I loved that baby, Charles, and I loved her father. You never cared about that. You never cared about the pain I held inside.”

  “I knew all about your pain.”

  An orderly breezed into the lobby and turned up the volume of the television. He sipped from a Styrofoam cup a moment, then went back into the hall.

  “You don’t know anything about my pain. You don’t know everything that happened at Larchwood Hall.”

  Charles turned from her face and looked blankly at the television. “Yes, I do.”

  “No, you don’t.” She followed his gaze to the small, square screen as it flickered with the evening news. “I killed a man,” she said.

  Charles dropped his head. “I know.”

  Jess blinked. “What?”

  “I know you killed the man,” he said evenly. “With a pair of sewing shears, wasn’t it? He was trying to kill one of the girls. Am I right?”

  Jess felt her mouth drop open a little. “You knew? How did you know?”

  Charles shrugged. “Your father told me.”

  “Father told you? When?”

  “Before we were married. He thought I should know.”

  Heat rose in her cheeks. “And you never told me you knew? Why? Did he pay you off?” The sight of Father’s checkbook with the neat handwriting of Bryant flashed into her mind. She felt as though she was going to be sick. “How much did he pay you to marry me, anyway? How much did Father pay you to marry his daughter, the whore and the murderess?”

  Charles folded his hands. “He didn’t pay me anything,” he said. “I cared about you.”

  More than anything, Jess wished she could believe him.

  “Do you think it’s been easy for me?” His voice was hushed in a hopefully-no-one-will-hear-this tone. “All these years? Fighting to live up to your standards?”

  “My standards? All I ever wanted was a home. A family.”

  He snorted. “Give me a break, Jess. All you ever wanted was someone to make you look good. To look ‘normal.’ ”

  Jess couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “No, Charles,” she said. “You’re wrong. You’re the one who needed to impress everyone. Not me. You’re the one who’s needed the constant reassurance from outsiders—people who really couldn’t care less about you.”

  A volunteer in a pink uniform came into the lounge and began straightening the magazines on a small plastic table. Beside Jess, Charles cleared his throat and smoothed down his hair. For the first time Jess realized how right she had been. Charles needed to impress everyone. It didn’t matter if it was a chairman of the board or a hospital volunteer.

  The memories of when they met came flooding back. Jess had been eighteen. It was at a coming-out party for the daughter of one of Father’s associates. Charles was the girl’s handsome escort, and his smile had won Jess’s heart. He was a senior at Princeton, and rumors were that his father had lost the family fortune in a bad business deal in Central America. But that hadn’t mattered to Father, for Charles came from the “right stock,” and the Randall name was still respected on Wall Street. They were broke, but respected.

  She thought of their courtship. Until then, Jess had never thought herself capable of love again. Not after Richard. But Charles had won her heart with his good looks and his easy charm. And, in her need for someone to love her, Jess believed that he did.

  She turned to him now. He was stiff, distant. “You really did marry me for my money, didn’t you?” she asked.

  He loosened the black tie of his tuxedo shirt. “It’s finally going to come down to that. Your money. I’ve often wondered how many years it would take before you threw that in my face.”

  “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “What it is, is a stupid question. It was a fact that you were rich. It was a fact that I no longer was. How the hell do I know if I’d have married you if you were poor? The issue never came up.”

  The numbness that Jess felt crawled across her entire body. She looked at her husband with the sudden realization that she didn’t know him. Hadn’t really known him. All these years.

  The doctor stepped into the lobby. “Mrs. Randall?” he asked.

  Jess blinked. Maura, she thought. Maura is who is important now. She quickly stood and twisted the ring on her hand. “Yes?”

  “Your daughter will be fine,” he said gently. “But we will have to report this, and you will need to get her into counseling.”

  Jess nodded. Counseling. Of course. Something her mother never had. Something Jess had endured for years after … after killing Ginny’s stepfather. Then Jess pictured her thirteen-year-old redheaded son. Travis would need counseling too. And she would see that he got it. There would be no more secrets in this family. There would be no more cover-ups.

  “There�
��s something else,” the doctor said gravely. “I’m afraid she’s lost the baby.”

  Jess’s voice came out in a squeak. “Lost the baby?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “We’ve given her a sedative. She’s asleep. We’ll be moving her into a room for the night. You can stay with her if you’d like.”

  “She lost the baby?” Jess repeated.

  “Yes. From the trauma, I suppose. But she’ll be fine.”

  The doctor disappeared down the hall. Jess looked at her husband, searching for compassion. But the look on his face was only one of smug satisfaction.

  CHAPTER 12

  Saturday, September 18

  Susan

  Mark, sit down, I’d like to talk to you,” Susan said.

  “I’m not hungry. I’ll grab a McMuffin at the mall.”

  “This isn’t about food. It’s more important.”

  “Are you going to get on me about Dad again?”

  “What about your father?”

  “That I like him, and it pisses you off.”

  “Mark, please don’t use that kind of language. And no, this isn’t about your father.”

  He flipped the chair around backward and sat at the table. “So if it’s not about Dad, this must be the annual ‘You’re a smart boy, Mark. I expect you to do well in school this year’ lecture. Don’t worry, Mom. Everything’s cool.” Under his breath he added, “Except for physics. Dr. Johnson’s a jerk.”

  Susan shook her head. “This isn’t a lecture.” She knew there was no longer the need to preach about school to her son. He had inherited his father’s keen analytical intelligence, and when he put his mind to it, good grades came easily to him. One point for Lawrence, she thought.

  “I want to talk to you about me.”

  Mark laughed. “About you? What about you? You going through menopause or something?”

  Susan was always surprised at how much the kids today knew. “Not yet.” She smiled and sat down beside him. Since Jess had left less than twenty-four hours ago, Susan had drunk countless mugs of tea and thought of little else but the reunion. But before she could come to any decision, there was one thing she knew she must do: She had to talk to Mark. She had spent all day Friday trying to form the right words to tell him about the baby she’d given up. She’d thought she was prepared. Now the queasiness in her stomach told Susan she wasn’t so sure. The fact that Mark wasn’t too pleased with his mother right now might make her timing all wrong, but it was something she had to do. In fact, it was something she’d meant to do a long time ago.

  “Don’t tell me. You’re going to marry Bert Hayden.”

  “No. But what I’m about to tell you is pretty serious.”

  A somber look swept across his young face. “Are you sick?”

  She reached over and touched his hand. “No. Oh, God no, it’s nothing like that.”

  He pulled his hand away. “Oh.”

  “It’s about something that happened to me a long, long time ago. Long before you were born, long before I met”—she half choked on the word—“your father.”

  “Oh, I get it. Some old boyfriend has come out of hiding.”

  “No. Not that.”

  “Well, what then? And this better be quick. I’ve got to meet the guys.”

  Mark spent more time in the video arcade at the mall than he did at home lately. But rather than call him on it, Susan dismissed it. This was no time to provoke her son. She needed his understanding and support.

  “I did have a boyfriend before I met your father,” Susan began. “It was when I was in college. His name was David.”

  “Was he a hippie too?”

  “Yes,” Susan said, setting her lips straight. “I’m sure your father would have called him that.”

  “So he was a hippie. Did he, like, burn his draft card or anything?”

  “Mark, I loved David very much.”

  Mark was silent.

  “I was twenty-one. And I …” She sucked in as much air as possible. “I got pregnant.”

  Mark squirmed in his chair. “What’s this got to do with me?”

  “I had the baby, Mark. I gave it up for adoption.”

  His eyes shifted from her to the floor. He brought a hand to his mouth and began chewing a cuticle. Slowly he started to nod, then spit out a piece of skin. It was a habit Susan detested.

  “How come you didn’t keep it?”

  “I wasn’t married.”

  “Hippies didn’t get married?”

  Susan shook her head. “That’s not important now. What’s important is a lady came by yesterday whom I knew back then. She wants to plan a reunion. She wants me to meet the child.”

  Mark stared at Susan.

  “I don’t know if I’m going to or not. I’d like your input.”

  “Me? What do you care how I feel about anything?” The crack in his voice warned Susan he was trying not to cry. She hadn’t seen him cry since the day she’d packed him into the car and left Manhattan, and her husband, behind. Mark had been four years old and didn’t understand why Daddy wouldn’t come down from the penthouse to say good-bye. Now, a dozen years later, he seemed like that same confused little boy.

  “Mark …”

  “Sorry, Mom, but I call it like I see it. You hate my father; you hate my friends. Now you spring this on me.”

  “I’m not trying to ‘spring’ anything on you. I’m trying to include you in my decision.”

  Mark chewed another cuticle.

  How was she supposed to get through to him? “I love you, Mark. You know that. As for your father, the way I do or don’t feel about him doesn’t make me love you any less. I married him because I thought it was the right thing to do. I’d been through an awful time, having the baby, then giving it up. I was confused and scared.”

  “You? Scared? Come on, Mom, get real.”

  “I was scared. Your father represented everything I thought must be ‘right.’ He was safe, he was …” Susan searched for the right word. “He was ‘establishment.’ ”

  “ ‘Establishment.’ Crap.”

  “Mark …”

  “Sorry, Mom, but it is crap. This is the nineties, for godsake, not the sixties. So you loved some hippie freak and he got you pregnant. Maybe that’s been the problem all along. That you’ve never stopped comparing Dad to him. Maybe you’ve never stopped comparing me to some kid who’s probably a juvenile delinquent or on drugs or something.”

  “I’ve never compared …”

  “Haven’t you?” he cried. “Maybe that’s why Dad let us go. Well, go ahead, dig out your love beads and have your little reunion. Have fun! I’ve been thinking of going to live with Dad anyway. Vermont sucks. I’d be better off in New York.” He got up from the kitchen table and fled to his room.

  Susan stared at the top of the old oak table, remembering the day she’d found it at a nearby flea market. She and Mark had just moved into the cottage in Vermont, which was conveniently situated across campus from Clarksbury College, where she was starting as an associate English professor. At last released from her mismatched marriage, Susan’s hopes for the future had been high. But somewhere throughout the years she had settled into a mundane existence, where time was defined by the beginnings and ends of semesters, and dreams of happiness had become tempered by reality. She had tried to give Mark a good life, but she knew that she had been defeated years ago: not on the day she’d left her husband, but long before that—on the day she’d left David.

  Mark came back into the kitchen and tossed his jacket on a chair. Could she ever expect him to understand?

  “Mark …”

  “I’m sick of this town and your college-professor buddies,” he snapped. “They’re nerds, Mom, and so are you. Don’t expect me to get totally wired over recycling newspapers, or about how many bugs we have in our water.” He grabbed his Air Jordans and stuffed his feet into them. He tugged sharply at the laces, refusing to make eye contact with his mother. Susan was continually struck by the si
milarities between Mark and his father—the quick temper, the emotional immaturity. She had divorced Lawrence, but she couldn’t divorce their son. And she wouldn’t stop hoping that someday Mark would emerge as a compassionate adult.

  “Mark, sit down.”

  “I’m going out.” He yanked his jacket off the chair and headed for the door. He stopped and shot a glare back at Susan. “One more thing, Mom. You didn’t tell me if this kid was a boy or a girl.”

  Susan looked at the floor. “A boy,” she said.

  “It figures,” he said, and slammed out the door.

  Bert had suggested they meet at the quad. Susan had called him after Mark stormed off, and good old dependable Bert was, of course, at her beck and call. He had said “noon—by the fountain,” but Susan arrived ten minutes early, welcoming the time alone.

  She sat on a bench, her old corduroy blazer pulled close against her. Although it was only the beginning of September, there was already a chill in the air. Susan shivered and hoped this didn’t mean an early winter. Winters in Vermont could be so long, so lonely.

  She looked at the mossy bottom of the fountain. When Susan had first come to Clarksbury, kids were still making wishes here, tossing in coins. Nineteen Eighty-one. Mark had been four. Her other son had been thirteen. When had the world changed again? The Reagan years became so materialistic; it seemed that everyone became completely self-centered. Too self-centered even to throw a few coins in a fountain and buy a few moments’ worth of dreams. People were doing, not dreaming. And kids were interested only in an education that promised a high-paying career as its reward.

  Susan dug into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out two coins. A nickel. A dime. “I wish I could make the right decision,” she whispered to herself, and tossed in the nickel. “I wish my son will want to meet me,” she said, then tossed in the dime. She watched the rings of tiny ripples grow larger until they disappeared beneath the greenish water. Is that what I really wish? she wondered. Do I really want to meet him?