Four Wives (15 page)

Y
VONNE HEARD THE GARAGE
door open. It was nearly three thirty.

“Mommy’s home,” she said out loud, though mostly for her own ears. Since earlier that afternoon, her daughter had been at the hospital with Bill, running tests. Then they were picking up Henry. It had been a mere two hours or so, barely enough time to get into trouble’especially with the two young ones under foot. Still, somehow, Yvonne had managed.

With lightning speed, Jessica scurried off her grandmother’s lap, throwing a book to the floor as she ran to the kitchen to wait. Love had been bedridden for nearly two weeks, and while the novelty had at first been exciting, a calming relief had filled the house that morning when Love walked down the stairs. Now she had gone to pick up Henry, a task that marked the beginning of the nighttime routine. Pick up Henry, play, eat, bathe, brush teeth. Maybe watch television. Then bed. The return to their mundane existence seemed to envelope Jessica’s little body with contentment, culminating in a gleeful smile as she stood and waited.

Picking Baby Will up from his spot on the floor, Yvonne felt quite the opposite.

“Come on, Will. Time to face the music.”

She had always been respectful of her daughter’s space. No diary had ever been read, no dresser drawer pillaged. With the arrogance of a woman naive enough to believe she knew the world, Yvonne had always trusted her instincts about her daughter, though the signs had been right in front of her. And her blindness had nearly cost Love her life.

She would not repeat those mistakes now, even if it meant overstepping, butting in without being asked. Everything she’d seen since entering this house had convinced her that Love’s survival depended on it.

With the baby on her hip, sucking his beloved thumb with fervor, she followed Jessica to the kitchen. A moment later, the door to the garage swung open and Henry bounded in, his overstuffed backpack hovering over him like a giant tortoise shell.

“Henry!” Jessica said, and she leaped at him for a warm, sisterly hug that was most clearly contrived to earn her points with the adult audience.

Henry pushed her aside. “Get off,” he said, then continued his march to the playroom. Jessica scowled at her brother for a brief moment, then lit up again at the sight of her mother.

“Mommy!”

When Love passed through the door, Bill was holding her by the arm. Everything about her, from the twisted expression on her face that was trying to form a smile, to the careful movements that were inching her forward’all of it screamed pain. Yvonne shook her head. She had known it this morning when stating her objections to the day’s plan. It had been too soon to venture out of bed.

Love did her best to hug Jessica. “Hi, sweets. How was your time with Grandma?”

“Good. ’Bye.” Satisfied for the moment, Jessica followed Henry into the playroom where they could watch for the bus. Olivia and Suzanne would be home soon, and they were spending the afternoon while their mom was working.

Bracing herself on the edge of the counter, Love shuffled across the kitchen floor to answer the baby’s call. With outstretched arms and a loud wail, Will would not be silenced until he was in his mother’s embrace.

“Here I am, baby.” Love leaned against the counter as she held her son, the pain ripping through her right side with every move.

Yvonne reached out, taking back the squirming child. “That’s enough, now. Get back to bed.”

Bill reached out and took his son. “I’ve got him. You help her upstairs.” He was more than happy to be out of Yvonne’s way and the disapproval that emanated from her presence.
Yes,
it had been difficult for Love. But the tests were necessary if they were ever going to figure out why the pain was holding on as long as it was.

He kissed his wife on the cheek, stroked her hair gently. Then he left her alone with her mother.

Yvonne took Love’s arm and helped her pull away from the counter where she’d been leaning.

“I shouldn’t have gone out,” Love said.

“I know.”

“I know you know. That’s why I said it first.”

One step at a time, they made their way upstairs. Yvonne helped Love change into a T-shirt and sweats, turned on the heating pad, and eased her back into the bed. In a matter of seconds, Love felt the muscles give in to the soft mattress, the soothing heat. Then came the sense of defeat that had been growing with the pain for the past hour.

Yvonne sat on the edge of the mattress and took her daughter’s hand.

“He’s not saying anything, but I know …”

“What? What do you know?”

“Bill is worried. What if there is something really wrong … ?”

“No! Don’t think like that.”

But Love couldn’t help it. She’d spent the day being prodded and tested and there were still no answers.

“I can’t take this much longer,” Love said as she started to cry.

Yvonne squeezed her hand. She knew what this was about. Some of it was worry’how could it not be? But the rest was something else. No matter how difficult Love’s juggling act had become, it had kept her moving fast enough to outrun herself. Now that her world had screeched to a slow crawl, it was all at her doorstep. Yvonne held the word in her head.
Depression.
Bill could run tests, prescribe antibiotics and painkillers. None of that was helping. Now, it was Yvonne’s turn.

She took a deep breath. “Don’t be angry,”

“Why would I be angry?” Love asked dismissively. What could her mother have possibly done wrong in the scope of a few hours?

Yvonne cleared her throat and looked away. Then, after a long sigh, she turned her eyes back to her daughter. From the pocket of her silk housecoat she pulled the letter from Alexander Rice. The one addressed to his daughter.

Love could barely breathe, let alone speak. She took the letter, fingering the open flap of the envelope.

“Yes. I’ve read it,” Yvonne confessed.

Dear Love.
The words had jumped off the page, striking at her heart with devastating precision. The words, the shape of the sentences. And she would never forget the handwriting of her former lover. It was as distinctive as a photograph, a captured image of the past. She’d read it quickly, terrified by her own inventions of what it might say. What it might do. How could this man still yield so much power over them?

“How did you even know to look for this?” Love demanded.

Yvonne said nothing as she pulled her own letter from her pocket and held it in the air for Love to see. It was the same stationery with the chicken-scratch writing.

“Unbelievable.” Love’s tone was all sarcasm. She squeezed her hand into a fist, crumbling up her father’s letter. She’d read it enough times and knew its contents by heart.

Dear Love,

What can one say at a time like this? It’s been many years, too many years. I hope I’m not being presumptuous in assuming that you are aware of my autobiography. It is my intention for this to reach you before its release. I have learned many things on this road of self-exploration. There are many
things I wish to say to you. I have enclosed my numbers and I hope you will call so we can arrange a meeting.

Your father,

Alexander Rice

“How did you find this?”

“It wasn’t easy. I’ve been searching for days,” Yvonne confessed.

Love looked at her mother with unrestrained contempt. “Find anything else while you were at it?”

But her mother ignored her. This wasn’t about the invasion of privacy.

“I think you should call him.”

“Do
you? He’s a complete ass, Mother. After nearly twenty-six years, all he can manage is seven sentences? And every one is about him. What can / say?
I’ve
learned so many things. Not once does he mention my marriage, my three kids’his grandchildren!”

Yvonne sighed, though she’d been expecting the resistance. She wanted to give her daughter what she wanted’a comrade in arms against the man who had wronged them both. But that wasn’t what Love needed.

“I know. He
is
an ass. A self-consumed ass. No one knows that better than I. But you need to call him.”

“Did it occur to you, after you pillaged through my house and read my mail, that this might be part of his plan? Reconciling with his estranged daughter, the child freak show turned fuck-up that he had to cut loose? Wouldn’t that make just the perfect ending for his story when he goes on Oprah?”

Love covered her face with her hands. The humiliation was unbearable now, even with her mother, who had never left her side’not through any of it.

“Please leave me alone,” she said.

Yvonne complied, getting up from the bed and walking toward the door. Then she turned to look at her daughter one more time. Love’s eyes were red, her face so tortured. Yvonne wanted to go to her, take her in her arms and tell her to forget the whole thing. Forget Alexander Rice, just keep on any way she could. But that was the problem. There was no other way for Love, and Yvonne now believed that the pain was clear evidence.

“There’s no shame in what happened to you,” she said as she reached the door.

Looking up at her mother with disbelief, Love stopped crying.

“There’s nothing but shame.”

G
AYLE COULD SENSE THE
slow burn as she entered the room. Invisible to the eye, it was nothing more than a charge in the air, something an animal might sense, like the distant smell of a predator, or the distinctive crackle of brush underfoot. It was a sixth sense for her, hardwired from her childhood, and she could no sooner turn it off than stop breathing.

Oliver was standing near his father in the playroom, and the sight of her child so close to the fire sent a wave of panic through Gayle. Were she a different person, she might casually waft in, making some excuse to pull her son away’some reason that could not be disputed. A doctor’s appointment. A swim lesson. Somewhere, someone might be waiting for them, and this could be enough to diffuse the situation. She would take his hand, smile at her husband.
See you later, darling,
she might say. And he would be contained long enough to make an exit.

But she was not that person. Nor was she someone who would stand and fight. For as long as she had memory, she’d been quite the opposite’ the little girl standing perfectly still, as though the slightest movement would set the fire fully ablaze, consuming everything around it’as though her silence, her stillness, might reach out and freeze the rage.

Oliver was scared. She could see it in his eyes.

“He’s not doing soccer anymore? Is that true?” Troy asked when he noticed his wife in the room.

But Gayle couldn’t speak. Her mouth was dry, her will long since taken from her.

“Answer me, goddamnit! Is he taking soccer or not!”

Finally, she managed a word. “No.”

“No,” Troy repeated, his face flushed with anger. “So our little prince is not going to learn any sports, is that right? I come home from work to take him to practice and the little shit tells me he doesn’t go anymore.” Troy paused, his focus now on his son.
“I don’t go anymore, Daddy,”
he said in a mocking tone.

Gayle looked at Oliver, trying to draw his attention away from the daggers that were being cast. But his face was frozen, his body as still as hers, and she could see in that instant the legacy she was passing down.

“We’ve been practicing here. In the yard. He’ll be ready in the fall for a team.” Pushing through the fear, she made excuses. But they were not enough.

Troy bent down on one knee to face his son. With a sharp thrust, he gave the boy a push that made him step back. “You know what happens to you if you’re a momma’s boy?”

Oliver regained his footing. He shook his head and fought not to cry.

Troy pushed him again. “You get pushed around.” He pushed him again, and again Oliver stumbled back.

Gayle could see it before her now, how fear burns itself into the growing mind of a child. How it is then held there, disconnected from its original source, searching for a new home again and again throughout the child’s life. How it becomes part of the being, indistinguishable from any other part, and is understood as the truth. As reality. And all of life becomes viewed through its dark prism.

That was what Gayle saw on her son’s face’the brand of betrayal, of fear’and it was too much to bear. She ran from the doorway to where they stood. She grabbed Oliver and lifted him in her arms. “It’s OK. Daddy’s just teasing,” she said, knowing the lie could do little to undermine the bare facts before them.

The feel of his mother around him broke the last wall of resistance, and Oliver started to cry. “It’s OK,” Gayle said again, now walking out of the room with her son.

She called for Celia, and handed him to her, telling them to go upstairs. She knew this was far from over. Her rescue had cast a light on Troy’s behavior and he had reined himself in. In some hidden place, he loved his son. None of this was intentional. Still, the guilt of making the boy cry was like gasoline.

Gayle was in the kitchen when he reappeared. He was shaking his head, standing closer to her than ever before, and the change rendered Gayle unnerved.

“You see? He’s a little sissy. One goddamn sport. Fucking soccer! And now that’s gone? Are you kidding me?” His voice grew louder as he became more certain in his position. Being convinced of his righteousness was the first sign that an escalation was imminent.

“You undo everything, don’t you? You think the Haywood money will keep your son from turning into a little sissy? You’re damn wrong!”

Gayle was silent again. With Oliver safe, she would let him yell, watch him storm around the room, threatening, but never achieving, a direct strike against her. He might punch a wall, throw something in her direction, and she braced herself for the sound of things breaking.

But he stopped yelling. Instead, he looked at her with something close to hatred. Then he reached out and grabbed her by the arms.

There was a loud bang, the sound of the back door closing hard. Troy let go of his wife and stepped away just before Paul entered the room.

“Good evening,” he said, greeting them cautiously, then walking to the hook behind the pantry door where he kept his apron. He was out of breath and his shirt was misbuttoned, though tucked in’and Gayle knew this was the evidence of a hurried rescue.

“Dinner at the usual time?” he asked, looking at Gayle. But it was Troy who glared back, and Paul turned to face him, making his position clear. He was not leaving this room.

They stood there, suspended by an odd tension that held them in place, until Troy broke the silence. “Yes. Fine,” he said in a demeaning tone. Then he turned to leave.

For another moment, Paul went about his work, pulling things from the refrigerator, setting pots on the stove. His pace was quick, his hands shaky. Then, suddenly, he stopped.

“Oliver?” he asked.

“He’s up with Celia.”

Paul nodded. “Good,” he said, visibly relieved, and Gayle wondered what he must be thinking. She had not protected her son. The thought was humiliating.

He spoke again, looking at Gayle with great concern. “And you? “

Gayle started to smile nervously. “I’m fine,” she said.

“Are you sure?” His face was solemn, his eyes entirely absent of judgment, and she felt ashamed at having brought attention upon herself. There was much greater suffering in the world than her own. And though he seemed sincere offering his empathy, she felt unworthy to receive it.

“Thank you,” was all she could say before leaving.