Full Circle (3 page)

And she went back to the apartment house that night, thinking of the lonely years Jean Roberts had ahead, bringing up her baby girl alone, a widow at twenty-two. Helen brushed the tears from her cheek as the elevated train roared by at four thirty that morning. The older woman knew what kind of devotion it would take to bring the child up alone, a kind of religious zeal, a solitary passion to do all for this baby that would never know her father.

Jean gazed at her baby the next morning when they brought her to nurse for the first time: she looked down at the tiny face, the dark silky hair that the nurses said would fall out eventually, and she knew instinctively what she would have to do for her. It didn't frighten Jean at all. This was what she had wanted. Andy's baby. This was his last gift to her, and she would guard her with her life, do all she could, give her only the best. She would live and breathe and work and do, and give her very soul to this baby.

The tiny rosebud mouth worked as she nursed and Jean smiled at the unfamiliar feeling. She couldn't believe that it was twenty-four hours since she had learned of Andy's death, as a nurse came into the room to check on them both. They seemed to be doing fine, and the baby was a good size, considering that she'd been almost four weeks early.

“Looks like she has a good appetite.” The woman in the starched white uniform and cap glanced at mother and child. “Has her daddy seen her yet?” They couldn't know … no one did … except Jean, and Helen Weissman. Her eyes filled with tears and she shook her head as the nurse patted her arm, not understanding. No, her daddy hadn't seen her yet, and he never would. “What are you going to name her?”

They had written back and forth to each other about that, and had finally agreed on a name for a girl, although they both thought they wanted a boy. Funny, how after the first moment of surprise and near disappointment a girl seemed so much better now, as though that had been their choice all along. Nature somehow managed things well. Had she been a boy, she would have been named after her father. But Jean had found a girl's name that she loved, and she tried it out on the nurse now as her eyes glowed with pride as she held her baby. “Her name is Tana Andrea Roberts. Tana.…” She loved the sound of it, and it seemed to suit her to perfection.

The nurse smiled as she lifted the tiny bundle from Jean's arms when she was finished nursing. She smoothed the covers expertly with one hand and looked at Jean. “Get some rest now, Mrs. Roberts. I'll bring Tana back to you when she's ready.” The door closed, and Jean lay her head back against the pillow, with her eyes closed, trying not to think of Andy, but only of their baby … she didn't want to think of how he had died, what they had done to him … if he had screamed her name … a tiny sob broke from her as she turned in her bed, and lay on her stomach for the first time in months, her face buried in the pillows, and she lay there and sobbed for what seemed like hours, until at last she fell asleep, and dreamt of the blond boy she had loved … and the baby he had left her … Tana … Tana.…

T
he phone rang on Jean Roberts' desk only once before she answered it. She had a brisk, efficient way about her, which came from long years of managing a mammoth job. It had fallen into her lap twelve years before. She had been twenty-eight, Tana six, and Jean thought she would scream if she had to work one more day in another law firm. There had been three jobs in six years, in law firms that were one more boring than the other. But the pay was good, and she had Tana to think of now. Tana always came first. Tana upon whom the sun rose and set, in Jean's eyes.

“For God's sake, let the kid breathe…,” one of her co-workers had told her once, and Jean had been cool to her after that. She knew exactly what she was doing, taking her to the theater and the ballet, museums, libraries, art galleries, and concerts when she could afford to, helping her inhale every drop of culture. Almost every dime she made went to the education and support and entertainment of Tana. And she had saved every penny of the pension from Andy. And it wasn't that the child was spoiled, she wasn't. But Jean wanted her to have the good things in life, the things she herself had seldom had, and which she thought were so important. It was hard to remember objectively now if they would have had that kind of life with Andy. More likely he would have rented a boat and taken them sailing on Long Island Sound, taught Tana to swim at an early age, gone clam digging, or running in the park, riding a bike … he would have worshipped the pretty little blond child who looked so exactly like him. Tall, lanky, blond, green-eyed, with the same dazzling smile as her father. And the nurses in the hospital had been right when she was born, the silky black hair had fallen out and had been replaced by pale golden peach fuzz, which as she got older, grew into straight wheat-like shafts of golden hair. She was a lovely looking little girl, and Jean had always been proud of her. She had even managed to get her out of public schools when she was nine and send her to Miss Lawson's. It meant a lot to Jean, and was a wonderful opportunity for Tana. Arthur Durning had helped her in, which he insisted was a small favor. He knew himself how important good schools were for children. He had two children of his own, although they went to the exclusive Cathedral and Williams schools in Greenwich, and were respectively two, and four years older than Tana.

The job came to Jean almost by accident when Arthur came to the law firm where she worked for a series of lengthy conferences with Martin Pope, the senior partner. She had worked for Pope, Madison, and Watson for two years by then, and was bored to death, but the salary was more than she dared to hope for. She couldn't afford to run around looking for a “fun job,” she always had Tana to think of. She thought of her night and day. Her whole life revolved around her daughter, as she explained to Arthur when he invited her to drinks after seeing her for almost two months during his meetings with Martin Pope.

Arthur and Marie were separated then, in fact, she had been in New England, at a “private institution.” He seemed loath to discuss it and she didn't press him. She had her own problems and responsibilities. She didn't go around crying on other people's shoulders about the husband she had lost, the child she supported on her own, the responsibilities, the burdens, the fears. She knew what she wanted for Tana, the kind of life, the education, the friends. She was going to give her security, no matter what, the kind of life she herself had never had. And without Jean having to say too much, Arthur Durning had seemed to understand that. He was the head of one of the largest conglomerates in the country, in plastics, in glass, in food packaging, they even had enormous holdings in oil in the Middle East. He was an enormously wealthy man. But he had a quiet, unassuming way about him that she liked.

In fact, there had been a lot about Arthur Durning that appealed to her, enough so that when he asked her out to dinner shortly after that first drink, she went. And then she went again, and somehow, within a month they were having an affair. He was the most exciting man Jean Roberts had ever met. There was a quiet aura of power about the man that one could almost touch, he was so strong, and yet he was vulnerable too, and she knew that he had suffered with his wife. Eventually he told her about that. Marie had become an alcoholic almost immediately after their second child was born, and Jean knew the pain of that only too well, having watched her parents attempt to drink themselves to death, and in the end, they killed themselves in their car, drunk on an icy road on New Year's Eve. Marie had also cracked up the car, driving a car pool full of little girls one night. Ann and her friends were ten years old, and one of the children had almost been killed. Marie Durning had agreed to put herself away after that, but Arthur didn't have much hope. She was thirty-five and she'd been a hopeless drunk for ten years, and Arthur was desperately tired of it. Enough so to be swept off his feet by Jean. At twenty-eight, there was something unusually dignified about her that he liked, and at the same time, there was something kind and gentle in her eyes. She looked as though she cared a great deal, about everything and in particular her daughter. Her basic warmth came through, and it was precisely what he had needed just then. He hadn't known what to do with her at first, or what to make of what he felt for her. He and Marie had been married for sixteen years, and he was forty-two years old. He didn't know what to do about the children, about his house … his life … about Marie. Everything seemed to be hanging so precariously that year, and it was an unusual way of life for him, and one that he didn't like. He didn't take Jean home at first, for fear of upsetting the children, but eventually he saw Jean almost every night, and she began to take care of things for him. She hired two new maids, a gardener he didn't have time to see, she orchestrated some of the small business dinners he liked to give, a party for the children at Christmas, helped him pick out a new car. She even took a few days off to take a couple of brief trips with him. Suddenly it seemed as though she were running his whole life and he couldn't function without her, and she began to ask herself more and more what it meant, except that deep in her heart she knew. She was in love with him, and he was in love with her, and as soon as Marie was well enough to be told, they'd get divorced, and he would marry Jean.…

Except that instead after six months, he offered her a job. She wasn't sure what to do about that. She didn't really want to work for him. She was in love with him, and he was so wonderful to her, but the way he described it was like throwing open a window onto a vista she had longed for, for years. She could do exactly what she'd done for him in the past six months, just as a friend. Organize parties, hire help, make sure that the children had the right clothes, the right friends, the right nurses. He thought she had fabulous taste, and he had no idea that she made everything she and Tana wore herself. She had even upholstered the furniture in their tiny apartment. They still lived in the narrow brownstone, near where the Third Avenue El had been, and Helen Weiss-man still baby-sat for Tana, when Jean was at work. But with the job Arthur described, she could send Tana to a decent school, he'd even help her get in. She could move to a bigger place, there was even a building Arthur owned on the Upper East Side, it wasn't Park Avenue, he said with his slow smile, but it was far nicer than where they were. When he told her the salary he had in mind, she almost died. And the job would be so easy for her.

If she hadn't had Tana, she might have held out. It would have been easier not to be indebted to him, and yet it was such a wonderful chance to be side by side all the time … and when Marie was well … He already had an executive secretary at Durning International, but there was a small secluded office just beyond the conference room which adjoined the handsome wood-panelled office he used. She would see him every day, be right nearby, she would be virtually essential to him, as she was rapidly becoming now. “It would just be more of the same,” he explained, begging her to take the job, offering her even more benefits, an even higher salary. He was already dependent on her now, he needed her, and indirectly his children did too, although they hadn't met her yet. But she was the first person he had relied on in years. For almost two decades everyone else had relied on him, and suddenly here was someone he could turn to, who never seemed to let him down. He had given the matter a great deal of thought and he wanted her near him always, he said, in bed that night as he begged her again to take the job.

In the end, although she seemed to fight so hard, it was an easy choice to make, and her whole life seemed like a dream now as she went to work every day, sometimes after he had spent the night with her. His children were used to his spending a few nights in town. And the house in Greenwich was efficiently staffed now, Arthur was no longer as worried about them, although Ann and Billy had had a hard time at first when Marie left, but they seemed less anxious about it now. And once they met Jean, it was as though they had always been old friends. She took them to movies with Tana constantly, bought them toys, shopped for their clothes, drove their car pools, went to their schools, and their school plays when Arthur was out of town, and she took even better care of him. He was like a well-fed cat, polishing his paws by the fire and he smiled at her one night in the apartment he'd gotten her. It wasn't sumptuous, but for Tana and Jean, it was more than enough, two bedrooms, a living room, dining room, handsome kitchen. The building was modern and well built and clean, and they had a view of the East River from the living room windows. It was a far cry from the elevated train in Jean's old apartment.

“Do you know,” she looked at him with a smile, “I've never been happier in my life.”

“Neither have I.”

But that was only days before Marie Durning tried to take her own life. Someone told her that Arthur was having an affair, although they didn't say with whom, and things were touch and go with her after that. Six months later, the doctors began talking of letting her go home, and by then Jean had worked for Arthur Durning for over a year. Tana was happy in her new school, new home, new life, as was Jean. And suddenly it was as though everything stopped. Arthur went to see Marie and came home looking grim.