Money changed hands.
The dogs yipped and whined all the way back to the house. Once he thought he heard a trickle of water, but refused to confirm the sound.
It took almost an hour before the dogs calmed down enough to eat the food Mac prepared. While they ate he went around cleaning up their puddles. He definitely needed a housekeeper.
They were curious, he noticed, poking and sniffing everything, finally flopping down by the fire, their golden heads between their paws, their eyes unblinkingly on him. “You, on the left, you’re Fred. You’re Gus,” Mac said pointing to each of them. At least one part of the dream was coming true. Casey had said she would name her dog Fred. He’d said he’d call his Gus.
Done.
It was two in the morning when he walked up the steps to the second floor, both dogs at his heels. He undressed, added a log to the fire, and climbed into bed. Two pairs of eyes watched his every movement. Five minutes after he turned out the light and settled himself, he felt first one thump and then another. He laughed into his pillow.
He had someone. It didn’t matter that they were animals. They were his, and they were part of the dream. His and Casey’s dream.
For the first time since learning of Casey’s death, Mac slept through the night.
Two days later Mac left the United States Army. At ten o‘clock in the morning he was Major Malcolm Carlin. At eleven o’clock he was Malcolm Carlin, civilian.
Two things happened the afternoon he turned civilian. His new housekeeper, an amazon of a woman, arrived. She towered over him by a good two inches. She also outweighed him by forty pounds. She said her name was Yolanda Angelique Magdalena Consuela Chavez. “Call me Yody,” she said, emitting a deep belly laugh that frightened the dogs.
“What shall I call you?”
“Mac will be fine, Yody.”
“These animals, they are trained, yes?”
“No, they aren’t. I just got them the day before yesterday. I’m working on it.” Mac grimaced as he thought of all the puddles and crap he’d cleaned up.
“Tomorrow they will be trained,” Yody said firmly. Mac believed her. The dogs slunk out of the room to pee in the middle of the kitchen floor.
“Miss Switzer said you wished some plants and flowers. I can do this. What else do you wish me to do?”
“Cook, shop, iron. I don’t like to do dishes. I like clean sheets. I’ll try not to be under your feet. For the time being, I’ll be here. Take whichever bedroom you like.”
“Señor Mac, would you object if I had my trailer moved here? I do not like to stay in my employer’s house. I wish to sleep in my own bed. I snore quite loudly and I have two . . . cats. I cannot give them up. I like to be among my own things in the evening when the day is done. Is this a problem?” she asked quietly.
“No, not at all. When can you start to work?”
“I have already started. I am here. My trailer will arrive in a few hours. One of my cousins will hook up the electricity and water. The cats will be no problem for your animals. They are indoor animals, and they are declawed.”
“Is the salary agreeable?”
“Yes, very agreeable. But I do not like to do dishes either.”
“Hell, I can eat off paper plates. Don’t we have a dishwasher?”
“I don’t know, Senor Mac. Do we?”
“Guess we don’t. We’ll buy one. Today. Call up someone and tell him to deliver it.”
“My cousins can do this. Then it is arranged?”
“Yes.” Mac waved his hands about. “Just look till you find what you want. Do you need money?”
“I will keep a book for the expenses. I wish to be paid at the beginning of each month. Medical insurance is provided and Social Security?” Her tone of voice said it damn well better be.
“Well, sure. If that’s what you want. If there’s nothing else, I think I’m going for a ride. On a horse,” he said. He whistled for the dogs, who came on the run, skidding to a stop in front of Yody.
“No, they do not go. They stay with me until they learn what every animal must know—they do their business outside.” One long arm shot out, the index finger pointing toward the kitchen, into which the dogs, whimpering, slunk on their bellies.
He was curious as hell in the days to come, but Mac refused to ask Yody how she trained both dogs in one day’s time. Obviously she hadn’t mistreated them in any way, for they adored her. But all she had to do was point with her long arm and she had instant obedience. In the barn he’d tried the same thing, but all the dogs did was lick and jump all over him.
Yody was the second best thing that ever happened to him.
The next thing that happened to him that day was he met the child who carried his name. That’s the way he thought of her—the child. He purposely waited until he heard the sound of his wife’s car leaving the garage before he walked to the house. This time he didn’t ring the bell. He used his key and climbed the winding staircase. The child’s room was at the end of the hall, the room that had been his nursery when he was a small child. The child was a girl so he expected that the room had been redecorated in pink with frills and ruffles. He felt a momentary pang when he realized that all the toy soldiers scampering up the wall would be gone. His mother had painted them, allowing him to dip his own small brush into the little pot of red paint so he could add his personal touch to the high-topped hats. He wondered how many coats of paint it took to cover them up. Had his childhood toys been thrown out or moved to the attic? Surely thrown out. By Alice. There wasn’t a sentimental bone in Alice’s body.
Mac changed direction and headed for the attic door at the opposite end of the hall. He wanted to know before he walked into the strange new room to see the strange new child.
The attic was wonderful, full of things he’d considered treasures when he was a child who’d played alone. Rusty lamps with tattered shades were sentinels guarding his domain; the huge trunks that held outdated clothes contained make-believe gems and pieces of eight. He remembered pushing and tugging till he had all the brass-bound trunks in a half circle, his fort for fighting off Apaches with broom handles and knobby-topped canes. On snowy days he’d picnicked with his wooden soldiers who were taking a break from the war.
The attic looked just the same, the way an attic is supposed to look. Perhaps there were more cobwebs, but the half-moon windows were exactly as dirty and dusty as he remembered them. The trunks were set in neat rows, and the rusty lamps were rustier, with shades full of spiderwebs. He walked up and down the small aisles created by the trunks and cartons. He looked for his Flexible Flyer with the broken runner, and his stout wagon which he’d carted all the toy soldiers to war in. There was no box full of roller skates and hockey skates. His skis were gone as well, and so were his model planes and ships. He searched for his books, those treasures he’d read far into the night, but he couldn’t find them either. Everything was gone. He might as well have never lived here, he thought sadly.
His hands in his pockets, Mac descended the steps to the second floor. He had to remember to get the box of books he’d brought into Sadie, which his mother had left him. They would fit into the guest house the way he fit in. It was all he had.
He saw it all at once, the frilly, beribboned room, the nanny sitting in a stout wooden rocker, the child in a wooden-slat playpen. She was just sitting, slapping at her pudgy knees with her pudgy hands. She had golden curls just like Alice’s. In the room was every toy ever made, he thought. Rocking horses of various heights, little plastic trikes, and a real one with fat rubber wheels. Three toy boxes were filled to overflowing. Shelves with stuffed animals covered every wall. The closet door was open, revealing hundreds of outfits on little hangers.
He recollected Lily and her baby and the mean little apartment. Their belongings wouldn’t fill a paper sack.
The nanny saw him at the same time the child became aware of his presence. Mac stumbled then, his eyes wide and disbelieving. Those same eyes questioned the nanny, wh
o looked at him inquiringly. For a single startled moment he was back in Vietnam, on the trail, and seeing for the first time the bamboo cages hanging from trees with half-dead GI’s inside—the VC’s way of keeping prisoners. His eyes swiveled from the playpen to the crib, which had the same kind of slats. In the far corner there was a youth bed with rails, rather like a child’s small hospital bed. He thought of Lily again and the futon she and Eric slept on. His throat constricted.
“Mr. Carlin, is something wrong?” the nanny said, rising to her feet.
He ignored her and dropped to his haunches to stare at the child. She wasn’t his, he had to keep remembering that. “She’s . . . a . . . Mongoloid,” he said in a cracked voice he barely recognized as his own.
“Yes, Jenny has Down’s syndrome. You didn’t know?” the nanny said, her eyes filled with horror.
“No, no, I . . . I didn’t . . . know.”
The nanny sniffed as though to say she thought as much. Mac continued to stare at the child, trying to fathom what he was seeing. He was sterile, three doctors told him so. Yet . . . he’d had an aunt who was severely retarded, his father’s sister, whom the family had kept institutionalized. He’d seen her once. It was a memory of pure horror. Later, his mother had explained who the woman was and why she did the things she did. He couldn’t remember her name. She’d spit on him and slapped him. She’d slobbered all over herself. He remembered that and he remembered how she’d tried to hug his father, her brother, and the way his father had shoved her away, revulsion on his face. His mother had cried. He’d cried too, not understanding. People had carried her out the door, kicking and screaming. She’d never come back. He had to remember her name. Peggy, that was it, but his father had called her Margaret. Aunt Margaret.
Mac leaned over the playpen. His arms reached out, but the child backed away from him, sliding into the corner.
“You’re strange. She doesn’t know you,” the nanny said quietly. “She’s very lovable, Mr. Carlin. She responds well to affection, and she certainly gets enough of that, between Mrs. Carlin and myself. Mrs. Carlin plays with her for hours at a time. She won’t let anyone bathe her but herself. It’s lovely to see them together. Your wife is a devoted mother.”
Chapter 10
MARCH BLEW IN and out, then the April rains came, and Mac, for all his intentions, did nothing more than eat, sleep, and ride the fields with Jeopardy, while Fred and Gus ran alongside. He read in the afternoons, spoke to Sadie and Benny on the phone, and when he was finished with what he called his busy hours, he walked to the house to see baby Jenny. She knew him now and held out her arms to be picked up. He played with her on the floor, building blocks made from sponge and colorful cardboard. He played horsey with the little girl on his back, and she held on to his neck for dear life. Her squeals were full of joy. Jenny made him smile.
On a rainy, gray day at the end of April, Alice walked into the nursery and smiled. She dropped to the floor, her face full of something Mac had never seen before. He almost toppled backward when he saw Jenny tug on her mother’s hair and ears. “I love her so much, Mac. I’ve been to every top doctor in the country, and she’ll always be what she is now. We take it one day at a time. But I will never, never put her in an institution. She’s bright. Every day I work with her. She’s still a baby, but she responds so well. I truly believe she’s educable. I don’t know if it’s wishful thinking on my part or not. If she’s not, then I will have to live with that. Do you have any feelings on the matter?” she asked carefully.
He realized he too loved the little girl, even though he was certain in his heart she wasn’t his flesh and blood. He couldn’t turn his back on a retarded child. A child was a child, and it didn’t matter if she was whole or not. These days he needed all the love and affection he could get. It was so easy to return love to the chubby little girl with the round face.
“Do you, Mac?” Alice asked quietly.
“We need to talk, Alice. Let’s go downstairs.”
“Very well,” Alice said, handing her daughter over to the nanny, “but I have to be back here in half an hour to give Jenny her bath. I like to do it at the same time every day. We have a routine,” she said proudly.
Downstairs in her chrome and glass room, Alice reverted to the old Alice, her hair smoothed down, her voice snide and cool. “Are you comfortable in the guest house?”
“Very comfortable. I’m not coming back here, if that’s your next question.”
“But Jenny . . . I thought . . . you seem to . . . what is it with you, Mac? Did something happen to your brain when you were in Vietnam? You’re not the same person. You aren’t working. You don’t appear to be interested in anything but your dogs and that damn horse. You don’t call your father, you don’t talk to me.” She lit a cigarette and blew smoke toward his face. “The only thing that makes any sense at all is that there must be someone else. That’s it, isn’t it?” she said spitefully. “And another thing . . . that . . . that person who works for you . . . Where does she get off telling me I can’t go into the guest house? She looks like a convict. Where did you get her? She told Olga what you pay her, and now Olga wants a raise. Damn you, Mac,” she said, blowing a second jet of smoke in Mac’s direction.
Mac held up his hand. One by one he ticked off the answers to the questions she asked. “Nothing happened to my brain in Vietnam. You’re right, I’m not the same person. I am a better person. You’re right about me not working too. I may never work again. Fortunately, thanks to my mother’s side of the family, which is where all the money comes from, I don’t have to work. I love my animals, they love me unconditionally, and they’re loyal, which happens to be a word you know very little about. I don’t call my father because I have nothing to say to him. I do not like my father. I have never liked my father. You, Alice, backed the wrong horse. As for talking to you—what is there to say to a woman who at one time professed to love me, when it was all a lie? You see, Alice, I don’t love you either. Jenny is not my daughter, as much as you would like me to believe that she is. Shhh, don’t sputter like that. It’s unbecoming. I’ll tell you how I know she isn’t my daughter. I’m sterile. I have been since the age of fourteen when I had the mumps. I have three different medical reports that will bear this out. I know I misled you. And I’m not proud of that. It was vanity on my part because I thought it made me less than a man. I always told you to use your diaphragm because I didn’t want you to know. Now it doesn’t make any difference. You’ve given your child my name, and I won’t take that away from her. I’m fond of her. Her disability makes me love her all the more. As for my housekeeper, the less you say the better, or you will find yourself without Olga to boss around. I pay the bills around here, and I suggest you remember that. Yody is not a convict and she doesn’t look like a convict. She is a warm, loving, compassionate woman who has worked hard all her life. She’s taken over in the care department, and I will be eternally grateful. Besides, she plays a hell of a game of gin rummy. There is no one else in my life but Benny and Sadie. No one,” he said coldly. “Did I leave anything out? Yes, yes, I did,” Mac said mockingly. “The family money is all mine, not my father’s. Oh, he has a handsome salary and a few stocks and bonds. He gets dividends. He owns a few properties. But the real money is mine—left to me by my aunt Rita, my mother, and my uncle Harry. No one,” he said savagely, “bothered to write and tell me Uncle Harry died! That was your job, Alice, and you didn’t do it. That money is tied up six ways to Sunday, so you weren’t quite accurate when you said I’ve been doing nothing. Taking care of one’s money is a full-time job. There is no way you will get your hands on any of it. I’ll take that one step further—there’s no way my father will get his hands on it either. I’m going to use it to set up a foundation for children with Down’s syndrome and another one for Amerasian children. What do you think of that, Alice?”
“I think you’ve lost your mind,” Alice snarled. “Jenny is your child. She has . . . has your ears.”
Mac l
aughed. “No, she isn’t mine. I can show you the medical reports any time you want to see them. Now, shall we talk about a divorce?”
“I’ll never give you a divorce. You can’t do this to me. Your father won’t allow it. Why are you doing this?” Alice asked imploringly.
“And if you think you can threaten me with a scandal, don’t bother. I personally don’t give a good rat’s ass about anything you do. Do you get it, Alice? I don’t care!”
“This was supposed to be a wonderful new beginning for us, and look what you’ve done, you’ve gone and spoiled it with your lies about Jenny. Damn you to hell, Mac!” she shouted. She was still shouting when Mac let himself out the front door.
The rain was cold, but he barely noticed it. What he did notice was the cheerful lights shining out from the guest house. He knew there would be a fire to take the dampness out of the house, and delicious, tantalizing smells would waft from the kitchen. He continued on to the back of the house. When he was abreast of the kitchen door he whistled sharply and was rewarded with two taffy-colored streaks heading straight for him. It had been Yody’s suggestion to have a doggie door cut into the kitchen entrance so the dogs could let themselves in and out. One of the little secrets of her training, he supposed.
Mac walked, his hands stuck into the deep pockets of his shearling jacket. He was oblivious to the rain as the retrievers trotted alongside him. The pain at his circumstances was so overwhelming, he stopped in his tracks, his face raised to the pelting downpour. The dogs growled softly as they nuzzled his legs. “What do I do? Point me in the right direction,” he begged. There was no bolt of lightning, no lessening of the rain, no clout on the head. The rain continued, the dogs kept growling, and he kept walking until he came to an eight-foot drainage ditch, at which he turned around to retrace his steps. Delighted, the dogs ran ahead, stopping from time to time to see if their master was following.
For All Their Lives Page 29
