Conundrum (23 page)

Neal, finally aware of the commotion on the patio, came rushing out, his face flushed. I cast him only a brief glance, then turned back to my mother.

“Does the name Shirley Hutchinson ring a bell?”

I watched my mother’s face go pale and her hands clench into fists. The moment hung in a silence pregnant with every foul and bitter emotion possible. I felt the wind go out of my sails as my entire body started to shake. I exhaled a big breath and
hissed
quietly, “
So, don’t talk to me about how my marriage is falling apart and what I’m doing wrong. You’re  not in a position to give me any advice at all on that topic. But, hey, you’re great at destroying marriages.
Maybe if your real estate empire topples, you could find a new career
utilizing
that skill.”

Every nerve in my body screamed at me to leave and to shut up. I knew the damage was done.
I also knew that I couldn’t keep up the confident front of attack any longer; I was seriously spent.
Before either my mother or Neal could think of a clever retort, I had swooped up my purse and
marched
out the front door. I rushed to get into my car and fumbled with my keys. I couldn’t think of anything other than the need to make a hasty getaway before they came after me, although I
assumed
they were still in shock
and hadn’t moved a muscle
.

I drove a few blocks, turned down a side street, went around the
corner
, then parked the car. I was in no condition to drive, but needed to
be
safely out of my mother’s purview.

What on earth had I done? How had I veered off course like that? Tears started pouring down my face
—
not tears of relief but of chastisement. I knew what I’d just done would have consequences, severe consequences. What would Jeremy say? I had promised him I would try to appease my mother and instead
had
opened a Pandora’s
B
ox of
disaster
.

I sat there, in my hot stuffy car, for ages. I cried, not so much for my stupidity and lack of control but in self-pity.
Why
had
I
been
stuck with the mother I had
?
Why couldn’t I have a mother like Sarah, Anne’s mother—someone sweet and kind, supportive and understanding
?
Someone who gave hugs without reserve and thought nothing of doling
out praise.
Someone willing to dive into the deep end of a pool without a second thought to rescue a helpless, floundering child.
I felt like a starved waif,
like
Oliver
Twist
in Charles Dickens’s novel, begging with
a bowl in his
outstretched hands, “Please, sir, I
want
some more.”
Only, I was starved for approval instead of sustenance.

And how
had
I end
ed
up with two brothers who hung on
to my mother’s skirts, who didn’t have one ounce of courage to defy her—ever?
I thought about my father lasting ten years under that kind of oppression. No wonder he had a death wish. My mother’s pat theory about his having “bad blood” and giving himself leukemia was a joke. No,
it
was a cover-up.
What disturbed me even more than my mother’s
tyranny
was her egregious denial of it.
Surely she knew her culpability in the failure of her marriage, and of forcing my father to look elsewhere for comfort and attention.

But w
hat did any of this matter now? I would just have to go home and talk to Jeremy. I pictured Jeremy’s reaction, his
“
I told you so.
”
Meeting with a lawyer, paying exorbitant legal fees. The
litigious
battle that would follow, the sides of support drawn. I knew I had made an untenable situation worse, that bad times were ahead.

But I had no clue how bad.
I underestimated the reach of my mother’s arm. And her need to win at all costs.
As I sat there in my sweltering car,
I thought I could imagine every possible outcome to this
situation, every worst
-
case scenario. We could weather it out, survive, if Jeremy and I banded together. Our love could pull us through.

Or so I thought.

Chapter
15

I met Anne the next day at our usual hiking spot. She immediately noticed how distraught I was, and rather than hike, we ended up in a small park in
Mill Valley with Mount Tam rising behind us
and talked. I told her everything that had transpired in the last few days
,
and she listened with rapt attention and a face laced with compassion. She had seen this coming; she had warned me.
She really didn’t have much advice for me, and I wasn’t looking for advice
so
much as for a boost of courage. I had no choice but to go through the firestorm I had unleashed. She assured me this wasn’t my fault, despite my many protests to that effect.
Despite her condolences and reassurances, I was racked with guilt and a sense of culpability. Nothing she could say would ease those heavy weights of judgment I’d hung around my neck.

She muttered condolences and hugged me good-bye. At the gas station down the street, I dropped in a couple of quarters.
I knew I was asking for trouble by calling Raff. He had managed to return half-time to work
,
and I hoped to rally his support before my mother turned him against me. What was I thinking?
Even if I could get him to talk to me, I knew he would give me his pat line: “Lisa, I can’t deal with the stress. Don’t talk to me about your problems; I have enough of my own.”
His secretary answered, but when she tried to connect me, she came back on the line and told me in a polite but dismissing tone that Raff was busy at the moment. She would pass on the message that I called, with no promises that he would get back to me.

I drove home, deciding to immerse myself in work.
I had to do something with all this anger and hurt. Fueled by frenetic energy, I mucked out the barn, took the sodden straw out in wheelbarrows to the rose garden
,
and worked it in as mulch around the bushes. I trimmed hooves, gave shots and worming medicine, cleaned out the two water troughs,
tightened
the loose latch on the goat pen gate, and swept out the barn. It was nearly dark out by the time I walked down the gravel drive to the mailbox, Buster and Angel bouncing along at my side
, the air redolent of lilac
.
When I sifted through the pile of papers,
I almost missed the small brown postal notice tucked in between the bills and the local market specials flyer.
A registered letter that had to
be
signed for, from my mother’s business manager
.

The moment my eyes locked onto the name on the notice, my knees turned to jelly.
My heart pounded hard in my chest
,
and I struggled for breath. A sweeping sensation of doom fell hard on my body, crushing me in fear.
“
I can’t do this,
”
I muttered aloud.

I fell in a heap next to the mailbox. The air, warm and still, felt
portentous
, the harbinger of
a storm coming on the horizon.
My hands shook so hard
,
I dropped the mail in a heap to the dirt and stared down the empty road.
The smell of gravel dust and sagebrush surrounded me, a heady aroma.
Dizzy
, I steadied myself and stood, then turned to look at my property in the fading light—the rough-sided barn
; my beautiful ranch home draped with perennials in bloom—roses, penstemon, hydrangeas, and dozens of others crowding the windows and sides of the house;
the pond off in the distance, where the frogs were kicking off their evening chortling.
I stood there until darkness sucked away every last shred of light, erasing my world
as if it had only been a fanciful illusion
.

I felt a warm tongue on my wrist. Buster looked up at me, wondering if we were going for a walk. His tail swung in hopeful anticipation.
I gave him a perfunctory pat and stumbled my way back to the house. I tossed the market flyer in the recycling bin and hesitated, considering throwing the postal notice for that registered letter in there too. But I knew that would only delay the inevitable. Whatever my mother had set in motion, whatever legal procedures, they would not be sidetracked by any resistance on my part.

I dropped into the chair by the kitchen phone. I
was
numb, void of emotion. As if that little piece of paper had drained the life out of me, every drop. I found the
sticky note
on which Jeremy had jotted his phone number. It took all my nerve to punch in the numbers.

Jeremy’s employee
, Daniel,
answered the phone and said Jeremy had run down to the store but would be back soon. Maybe the
disconsolate
tone of my voice alerted him
to my distress
, because rather than call back, within the hour Jeremy showed up at the door
. I hadn’t heard him drive up, as I had been in the shower, letting hot water pound my
shoulders
. But from my bedroom I heard Angel yipping in the yard, so I threw on some clothes and found Jeremy standing on the stoop, waiting for an invitation to come in.

Without a thought, I threw my arms around him and broke down. He muttered words of comfort as I soaked his flannel shirt with my hot tears and wiped my running nose with the back of my hand.
His arms hung loosely around me in an awkward embrace.
I dared look up to meet his gaze, and rather than see a victorious
“
I told you so¸
”
I
was taken aback by something foreign and much more disturbing.

Fear.

Chapter
16

At some point during the night I had fallen asleep. Without any discussion, Jeremy chose to stay
over—whether for his comfort or mine, I couldn’t tell
. Neither of us ate any dinner
,
and we immersed ourselves in silent domestic chores, coordinating a polite dance around one another as we
straightened the house, swept floors, vacuumed the upstairs carpeting.
Whatever solace we hoped to find in these mundane, familiar activities didn’t manifest.
My body moved, but I felt like a hollow shell, the life within me withered and turning to dust. Neither of us bothered with niceties or made attempt at conversation. And when we finally worked our way into the bedroom, undressed,
and slipped under the covers, I reached for Jeremy, not with any expectation of passion but to soak up physical warmth, responding to some basic primal need that equated warmth with safety
;
yet, that safety eluded me as well
.

Jeremy lay on his back—the way he always slept—and stared out the window
that faced the hills
,
without speaking. Curled on my side, I draped my arm and leg over him
, wanting to spill out the details of my fight with my mother. But we’d had too many arguments in this bed, and in recent months this sanctuary of our love had morphed into a battlefield, contaminat
ed
with our barbed words
that detonate
d hurtful accusations. I wondered, as I held him there, if
the contagion would ever dissipate or if it
would taint us the rest of our lives
, casting a shroud of discomfort every time we made love
—if we ever would again
.

Through my hand on his chest, Jeremy’s heartbeat thumped so quietly I could barely feel it. His breathing was shallow
. H
e seemed
hardly
alive—as if his entire biological system was winding down in entropy
. I thought of how some scientists believed that once the universe stopped expanding, it would reverse course and collapse in
on
itself, imploding in an instant of time
—the converse of the Big Bang. Jeremy’s stillness
belied something
just as
portentous
,
his manner duplicitous and masked.
My f
ear grew as the hours passed
.
I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep, but I don’t think I fooled Jeremy, and I don’t think he cared.