He tried his best to take good care of me.
And his best was pretty good. It just hadn’t been perfect.
But he couldn’t do anything about the nine-month clock that ticked away slowly, slowly in my head. He couldn’t do anything, because he didn’t know, about the times I sat there in senior English or at the piano and thought, Three months, or Four months, or Everyone could tell by now, or….
He couldn’t silence the ghost voice in the night.
After graduation, I felt better about life again. The clock still ticked away, like some invisible metronome, but I was glad to have high school, with the trauma of that year, in the past. I was learning to put all that behind me, as they had advised at the clinic. I buried it under bad things that happened to me in March, and since March was dead and gone, I felt stronger and more optimistic. I felt strong enough, in fact, to give Richard his class ring back. Oh, I felt bad about hurting him – but not bad enough to stop myself from doing it. He asked why, of course, because Richard always had to know everything, and he wanted to know what he had done wrong and what he could do to fix it, so I just said something vague about rethinking my goals in life, and yes, we were still friends, and yes, Richard, let’s make love, I’ve missed you….
And all I could think, as we made love, was how terrible the consequences could be.
I didn’t enjoy myself at all, and he knew it.
Daddy was thrilled. He offered to pull strings to see if I could still get into Juilliard; he had been livid when I had insisted on UVA. Francie was thrilled; silly little girl, she seriously thought that, at thirteen, she had a shot at Richard. Philip and Peggy were thrilled, because they most certainly didn’t want their son throwing himself away on me.
Only Richard wasn’t thrilled. And neither was I, to tell the truth.
By mid-summer, I knew that the breakup wasn’t working. I alternated between calling Richard to suggest that he take out anyone I thought might need a date for the weekend – and he finally snapped at me to stop trying to fix him up – and suggesting that we go out to a movie. Our dates were fine except for the one time we ended up making love, and I started crying right in the middle of it all.
I couldn’t be with him, and I couldn’t be without him.
Him, he just preferred to be with me.
So I never mailed the Juilliard papers, and when Daddy kept after me about my audition, I said that my application was still being processed. By the time he figured out what a liar I was, summer was almost over, and it was time for college and real life to start.
So off I went to UVA to join Richard, now in his sophomore year, and immediately I announced my intention to date around. Richard, finally well and truly fed up, told me to suit myself and see if I found anyone else willing to put up with my mood swings. Well, I did. I showed him. I went to my first music theory class, cast my eye around, picked out the least objectionable candidate, and left the guy no choice. He had to ask me out. Once out, he had to kiss me. Once kissed and kissing, he had to….
For two months, the last two of that horrible calendar, I slept with that poor boy, someone with whom I had no history, someone who couldn’t know and wouldn’t have cared if he did know about the unseen damage I had done. Someone who knew nothing about me….
I don’t even remember his name.
But I really missed Richard. I knew that I had hurt him. I knew he wasn’t seeing any of the girls I had thrust at him. And whoever that boy was, he wasn’t as good as Richard in bed. Richard and I did have a history. We knew each other’s bodies. We knew how to please each other.
Maybe I was just too lazy to break someone else in.
So, in mid-November, when by nature I was finally free of that calendar, I called Richard. Just to talk. He seemed happy to hear from me. I was happy to hear his voice. He asked me to go have coffee. I accepted. He told me all about his architectural history class. I confessed to having problems in calculus. He offered to come back to my room and look over my assignment. We started off kissing, then got horizontal to kiss some more in comfort, and one thing led naturally to another. He said, “Are you sure you want this, Di?” and I said, “Oh, my God, yes, yes, I do,” and we and the Standing Stone of Ireland had a real good time, and afterwards he did my homework for me.
And, since neither of us had really thought anything through, of course we used nothing.
This time, I told him I was late. No way in hell was I going through this alone again.
I’ll never forget how white his face got when I told him I was late. Or the utter, heartfelt relief in his eyes when my period finally showed up. I knew then that I had done the best thing back in the winter. I was desperately relieved myself. I couldn’t have faced another procedure. But Richard, certainly, couldn’t have faced a baby.
So why then, two weeks later, did he ask me to marry him?
And why, why, why did I accept?
Chapter 12: Said the Spider to the Fly
TOO BAD LUCY DID NO COURTROOM WORK, Laura thought, waiting for her sister to pounce on her. The law had missed a great prosecutor.
She’d worried the entire weekend. The strain of wondering what Richard had told Lucy had shown so obviously in her face that Meg and Mark had noticed and seized on it. “Let me go back with you, Mom,” said Meg, sure that Laura was lonely and loath to let any opportunity slide by. “I told you this wasn’t a good idea,” said her brother-in-law, and added that people who stirred up old wasp nests often got stung.
“Meet me at my office,” invited the chief wasp. “Noon sharp. I’ll order in lunch.”
Ah, Lucy, who knew all about softening up her victim for the sting! “Let’s not talk about unpleasant things right now,” she said in easy greeting. “I haven’t seen you in days! Let’s visit first.”
And visit she did, with a vengeance, inquiring about Laura’s weekend, admiring Meg’s baby pictures, showing off her African violets, dissolving over an antique baby quilt that Laura had brought back from Texas.
“Look at this stitching,” she marveled. “It’s so fine – oh, Laura, this is just lovely.” Her fingers caressed it, skimming over its surface, as she might have caressed the child she had borne and buried. She had scarcely mentioned the child she now carried, perhaps because hope so often proved a double-edged blade. “Did you use this for Meg?”
“No. I found it a few years later.”
“So you never got to use it.” Lucy sent her a sidelong glance. “I’m surprised you stopped at one. Didn’t you want any more?”
“Sure, I did.” She shut off the hurt, only a small ping now. “It just didn’t happen. But I like babies. You’d better make me godmother. I’ll spoil that kid rotten.”
“Oh, please do! You’re the only one so far who welcomes this baby.” Lucy’s dark hair dipped over the star design. “No one else understands. Oh, Tom was upset, he truly mourned for John, but he was more upset about me. Di said that it was better that it happened before I could get attached, as if I didn’t get attached the moment I found out I was pregnant. I felt him move, Laurie, he kept me awake nights, and he wasn’t even born yet.”
Laura watched her rubbing the quilt, and her throat tightened. Lucy looked so alone, wrapping the quilt around her shoulders, pulling the ruffles down her arms, as if she were already swaddling her child in its warmth.
“Di thinks I’m crazy, you know.” Lucy cocked her head and looked at her. “She thinks I shouldn’t go through with this.”
“What!” No need to think through this reaction. “That’s outrageous! Just because she’s not the mother type—”
“Oh, that’s an understatement.” Lucy didn’t appear upset by the suggestion. “But don’t tear into her, Laurie, you have to understand where she’s coming from. Di never wanted kids, and she’ll tell you that Julie ruined her marriage. She keeps asking why I want to destroy a perfectly good marriage by having a baby.”
Laura hesitated (how far to stretch the great lie?) and then said deliberately,
“Meg didn’t destroy mine. She was the best part of it.”
“But Di doesn’t know that. What she knows is that Dominic killed your mother after one child too many.” That the “one too many” sat across from her didn’t seem to enter her mind. “What she knows is that Richard fell in love with Julie after she was born and lost all interest in patching things up. What she knows is that children often drive a wedge between their parents.”
So Julie’s birth had not initially divided Richard and Diana; something had happened even before that, something so terrible that even the birth of a child had not prompted reconciliation.
Laura asked softly, “What happened between Richard and Di?”
And Lucy said quietly, “Is that what you asked him?”
She shouldn’t have reminded Lucy. She really didn’t want to talk of this; she wanted no more of the dark unhappiness that had descended on the Ashmore marriage. She wanted the sunlight; she wanted tea and gentle conversation between sisters. She wanted to talk of hope and birth, not of a sister determined to destroy herself and a man who plainly despised her.
She said, “Exactly what did he say?”
“That’s the rub.” Lucy clasped her hands on the Queen Anne desk in front of her, and fixed her prisoner with a stern look worthy of a Lord High Executioner. The baby quilt still hugged her shoulders. “He didn’t say. I asked him when he and Julie could join us for dinner, and he said – I believe this is an accurate quote – ‘I’ll eat dinner with her the day she learns to keep her god-damned nose out of my marriage.’”
“Oh.” Laura winced.
“One other thing.” Lucy studiously rearranged several folders, and the quilt started to slip. “As an afterthought, he asked me just what I’d said to make you think that he’d slept with every woman on the East Coast. Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but you get the general idea.”
Silence was the better part of valor. She said nothing.
“Laurie? What happened?”
Nothing could whitewash her cruelty, and she knew it. “I’m worried about Di. I wanted to know what he was doing about her.”
A pause. Then, “You’re lying. If Richard didn’t have the patience of Job, Di would be six feet under. And he’s always liked you, so you must have really crossed the line. In fact, Di is the only other person I know who has ever made him swear. So what happened?”
She answered, “Why is Di trying to kill herself?”
She didn’t know what she expected – to be told again to mind her own business, to be fobbed off again with an excuse. The burden of Diana’s addictions must have fallen mostly upon Lucy. If Diana had already been committed for treatment, then Lucy must have been at her side, loving her through failure and despair. Maybe Lucy now resented explaining all that to someone who had not been there to share the burden.
Lucy examined her nails, as if marshaling her thoughts for a closing argument. “You’re perceptive,” she said finally. “I can’t tell you why. She’s been in and out of detox centers for years. She’s also seeing a therapist, but I haven’t seen any progress.”
“Richard said you had tried everything.” She was glad that Lucy had decided to acknowledge the truth. If Diana were to be salvaged, no one must discount the damage already done.
“Oh, we have! Dominic even came up with the money for Betty Ford, and she went, and for a few months she improved, she really did. She came back sober and clean, and she seemed to have gotten her life back together. She talked about going back for a master’s in composition, and Richard said he’d pay for it if she’d stick with it. She lived with Dominic then, and he could always shame her into putting on a good appearance, so I don’t know how sincere she was, but then—”
She fell silent. Laura prompted, “And then?”
“Then something happened between her and Richard.” Lucy sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Those two have the most complicated relationship. I don’t know that either one really understands it. This was – oh, last year, right after Mom and Dad were killed.” Her voice caught, and then she swallowed and regained her composure. “Richard and Julie were devastated, we all were. Dad was more my father than Dominic ever was. Well, Di went out there to see Richard the night before the funeral, and I don’t fault her for doing it. Her intentions were noble. The upshot was – and please understand that I heard this only from Di, who was in hysterics – she offered to comfort him as only a wife really can, and he turned her down flat with the remark that she was years too late.”
“Oh, no.” Irresistibly, she pictured the scene in her mind, Richard sitting in his father’s study, face drawn with grief, Diana standing before him, offering and yielding. She understood Diana, all right. (She’d never come closer to loving Cam than the night after his mother died, when he’d reached out for her, the prince needing Cinderella for the first time.) But she understood Richard too, aching with loss, needing nothing so much as solitude to mourn, recoiling from marital intimacy resurrected too little, too late.
“Di couldn’t handle it. So she undid all her hard work with one real bender, and she got picked up for DUI. That really nailed it with Richard, after the way Mom and Dad were killed. He took Julie to England to get away, and Di’s hardly seen him since.”
“And she doesn’t see Julie at all.” That still bothered her. “Don’t you think that’s part of the problem? Maybe if she had Julie to clean up for, she would?”
“Do you think she really wants to see Julie? Have you seen Julie yet? She’s sixteen and she’s beautiful – I mean really beautiful. No wonder Richard goes into a cold sweat when she goes out on a date. I’m sure he remembers what he and Di were doing at that age. And, to top it all off, Julie is very talented. She could rival Di at her best if she wants to pursue her music. Frankly, I don’t think Di wants to be reminded of all that.” Lucy refilled her cup from the teapot. “Also, if she sees Julie, she’ll have to see Richard. That, they’ll both go a long way to avoid.”
The perfect opening. She drew a breath and seized the moment.
“Okay, what happened? And I don’t mean then, I mean before.” She shook her head impatiently at the obvious answer forming on Lucy’s lips. “Not Francie, either. She was a symptom, nothing more. Why her at all? Why did he turn away from Di?”
Lucy’s response came too easily. She must have seen this coming. “Why did he marry her, period! I never saw two less compatible people. It was a matter of time before one of them strayed and a matter of opportunity as to who strayed first.” She settled back against the quilt, again secure in her dominance. “Don’t look so shocked. Do you still see them as Sleeping Beauty and Prince Charming?”
So Lucy had decided to lend Richard her protective silence. Laura didn’t doubt that her sister knew exactly what she so neatly evaded telling. “No, I don’t believe in fairy tales. But they’d been together for years. My God, they couldn’t stay apart for more than a day—”
“Oh, really.” Lucy looked at Laura in disgust. “Is that what you think marriage is all about? No wonder you had problems. Tom and I’ve got a good marriage, and I’ll tell you, it’s work – hard work – but we both understood that going in. I think Di made a big mistake getting married. She and Richard were way too young, and neither one of them knew what they were getting into. Di never got to see a real marriage, and Richard saw an unusually tranquil one because Mom and Dad never argued in front of us. Plus, Mom loved being a homemaker. Richard grew up in a picture-perfect home and assumed that his own would automatically turn out the same way.”
“I see.” She didn’t want to admit that she’d been just as shocked at the reality of marriage, and for the same reasons. It had taken time and experience to learn that one quarrel did not a marriage unmake. The Ashmores’ happy home had done a world of disservice.
“Richard, for all his virtues, is not the most flexible of men. He got married with this perfect little idea of ‘wife’ and expected Di to fit herself right in. Of course, she didn’t. Di is the least d
omestic woman I’ve ever known. She never intended to live that life. She only got married to get away from Dominic.”
That surprised her. “Get away?” But Diana had been Dominic’s golden girl, defying him only when it came to Richard. “She was Daddy’s pet—”
“Pets run away all the time.” Lucy shrugged. “Let’s not hash that one out now. Dominic and Di defy analysis. To answer your question – I don’t know what happened between Richard and Di. She thought Richard studied too much, and he thought she and Dominic were too close – I imagine our esteemed father, feeling as he did about Richard, seized every opportunity to interfere. I can tell you that she moved out after their first anniversary—“
That was news. “I don’t remember that.” Laura tried to think back. When had Dominic started the endless drills, the increased hours of practice? She’d had little time to focus on anything other than music and school. “No one said anything.”
“They kept it on the QT. You think Mom wanted to admit that her son’s marriage was falling apart after only a year? Even though she never wanted him to marry Di in the first place.”
“I guess not.” She remembered Peggy’s tight lips at the wedding. “Did Daddy know?”
Lucy nodded. “He came up to see her once. She was staying with me – remember that little place I had? He told me to make myself scarce for a couple of days so he could talk some sense into her, so I stayed with Richard. Oh, and Mom went up there too. Not that she liked Di, but she and Dad didn’t want Richard to have to deal with a broken marriage while he was still in college.”
All Who Are Lost (Ashmore's Folly Book 1) Page 25
