Monday, Monday: A Novel (43 page)

“You came to see Madeline?”

“If I can. And check on the dog.”

She studied him through the crack in the door, confounded. Clearly there was something the matter with him, to have driven out here in a dust storm. “Madeline’s involved in some things right now … but … if you’d like to come in…” She felt she had to invite him.

He shook his head and kept smiling. It occurred to her he was drunk. His forehead seemed to be bandaged under the hat. Shelly was still looking at him and trying to figure out what he wanted, when Madeline came down the stairs.

“The veterinarian’s here to see you.”

Madeline paused a moment, her hand on the newel post. Then she walked past Shelly and pulled the door wide open, stepping outside so quickly that all Shelly saw was the wind catching the back of her hair before the door slammed shut.

Outside, the wind smacked Madeline hard in the face. She squinted at Emmett, a dusty, hulking shape on the porch. “What are you doing here?” she shouted, furious that he had followed her. “What is the matter with you?”

“Pretending to check on the dog.”

“Are you drunk? We’re having a family crisis. You have to leave!”

He continued to grin insipidly, as impervious to the whistling wind as a concrete statue. “Come out to my truck.”

“No!” The dust was making her cough.

“One kiss?”

“Are you crazy?”

The door opened and Andy came out. He was showered and wearing clean shorts and a T-shirt and holding a washcloth over his mouth and nose.

“I’m talking to Emmett alone!” Madeline shouted above the tumultuous din of the wind.

“I want to talk to him for a minute!” Andy told her. Turning to Emmett, he shouted, “Look, I happen to like you just fine! But it’s fairly obvious you’re hitting on my wife!”

“Okay,” Emmett said.

“All right then!”

“All right then,” Emmett repeated, and turned to Madeline.

“Go!” she told him.

“Okay, I’ll head out,” Emmett said, and turned and made his way down the steps and was swallowed up by the dust.

Madeline opened the door, and the wind shoved her inside. Her eyes stung. She coughed. She barely looked at her mother and Wyatt there in the hall. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror: filthy. She shouted at Andy, who was behind her. “What gives you the right? What gives you the fucking right?”

“Nothing. I’m sorry. I know.”

On her way up the stairs, she shouted back over her shoulder, “I was already making him go!”

Upstairs she went into Nicholas’s room and stood over the sofa bed and looked at her sleeping son in a patch of light from the hallway. He had tangled himself in the sheets. The pillow half-covered his head. His breathing was loud, his mouth open.

Tears rolled down her grimy cheeks. She could taste them mixed with the dust. She took hold of Nicholas’s hand and sat on the lumpy sofa bed and studied his little fingers through her muddy tears. His nails were dirty and needed trimming. She looked at the tadpole’s habitat sitting upright on the floor, empty now of water. The plastic plants and yellow bridge were missing. She felt around in the sheets and found them nestled close to Nicholas’s chest, and picked up the yellow bridge and turned it about in her hands, rubbing her thumb over the pattern of cobblestones imprinted in the plastic.

51

THE FIERCE WIND

“He’s been flirting with Madeline.” Andy paused to explain to Wyatt and Shelly before following his wife upstairs. “It was decent of him to leave. And really decent of her to tell him to. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she hadn’t.” He wiped his arms with the washcloth. “And by the way, she told me about … you know. You two. And I want you to know I don’t think less of you for it. Of course it would be unreasonable if I did, given the mess I’m in. But … for what it’s worth. I admire you for doing the right thing in the end.”

Wyatt said, “Admiration might be a bit of a stretch.”

“If I can influence her at all, I’ll try to get her to come around,” Andy said. “And Shelly?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry for what I did to hurt her.”

When Andy had gone upstairs, Wyatt stood looking at Shelly under the light of the chandelier. It was hard enough with thousands of miles and forty years between them, but close to her, he couldn’t help but love her. Even loving Elaine as he did, he felt his resolve slipping. He wanted to take Shelly’s hand and lead her into the parlor and kiss her dusty face and hair and forget the mistakes he had learned from, and make them all over again. He knew he would never forgive himself if he betrayed Elaine’s trust once more, but he also knew how the world could disappear when he was alone with Shelly.

There were voices from upstairs: Delia talking with Andy. Then Delia started down. “Andy told me Emmett was here,” she said. “It doesn’t surprise me. He has a problem with alcohol.”

“I hope we didn’t just turn him loose on the road, drunk,” Shelly said. There was no way now to get him back.

“Not a lot of sober people out there for him to run into,” Wyatt said.

Shelly went into the bathroom to splash the dirt from her face, and Wyatt followed Delia into the kitchen, where she filled cups with water and put them into the microwave. The dog got up and lapped from the water bowl, then sniffed around and tried to squeeze under the oven.

“His tennis ball’s under there,” Delia said.

Wyatt watched the dog twist sideways and pump its legs until only its rump was visible. “Does he ever get stuck under there?”

“He has.” She dropped a tea bag into a cup and handed it to Wyatt. He took a sip, then got down on his hands and knees and peered under the oven, where he spotted the filthy ball beside a Roach Motel. Delia gave him a broom so he could sweep it out. It rolled out sluggishly, dragging a wad of cobwebs and debris. Ranger dived at it, grabbing it in his mouth as Wyatt got to his feet, dusted his hands off, and sat back in the chair.

He thought he was done with the dog, but Ranger dropped the ball in front of him and stared at him expectantly, cocking his head from side to side until Wyatt gave the ball a small kick with the toe of his shoe. The dog grabbed it again and brought it back.

“There’s something I have to tell you,” Delia said. “Elaine knew about Shelly. I told her.”

Wyatt stared at her.

“She asked.”

“She asked?”

“Yes.”

“She asked what?”

“If you were having an affair. She saw you in your office, looking at pictures of Shelly.”

“My God.”

“I couldn’t lie to her,” Delia said. “You were distraught over the pictures, and she saw that.”

He knew when it had happened: after he found out Shelly was pregnant and he had known he would lose her. He had wept over the photographs that he had taken for the portrait. “She never told me.”

“I know.”

He couldn’t believe it. He was dumbfounded. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because she asked me not to. And Wyatt? She knows about Carlotta. When you came to me, with Jack, and told me Shelly was pregnant, and Jack said he wanted to adopt the baby, I knew this would be the closest he could ever come to having a child of his own. But I didn’t know how Elaine would feel, since she knew about you and Shelly. So I talked to her about it.”

He stared at her. “What did you tell her? What did you say?”

“I told her Shelly was pregnant and you were the father.”

“And she said—”

“To take the baby.”

“She said to—”

“Take the baby.”

“She’s been coming here, knowing Carlotta was…”

“Yours. Yes.”

“And never talked to me about it?”

“She felt the conversation would never end if she started talking to you about it. She believed … Well I think she believed your marriage wouldn’t survive that conversation—that once the door was opened, you might … go through.”

Certain things Elaine had said were coming back to him now—things she had hinted at. Her buried anger for many years. How the marriage was not the same after the move to Provincetown. It occurred to him that maybe the move to Provincetown had been Elaine’s idea and not her parents’. Maybe she’d simply been trying to get him out of Austin for the sake of their marriage and for Nate. And maybe, as things had turned out, it was best that she had.

He was trying to cobble together his thoughts, when the room went suddenly dark.

For a stunned moment, they were silent. Then Delia said, “The electricity went out.”

“I noticed.”

“If I can find matches, I’ll light the stove. It won’t light without electricity.”

He heard her rummaging near the stove. The wind rattled the window. “Can you look in those drawers over there by the table?” she asked him.

He felt around for the knobs.

Shelly’s voice came from the doorway. “Wyatt? Delia?”

“We’re here,” Wyatt said. “Looking for matches.”

“For the stove,” Delia said. “To light a burner. Oh, here they are.”

She struck the match, and a circle of blue flame ignited. The three of them could see each other’s faces now.

“A tree probably fell on the power lines,” Delia said.

Jack came down the stairs with a flashlight. “Everyone okay here?”

“Fine,” Wyatt said. “Why didn’t you tell me Elaine knew?”

“Knew what?” Jack switched off the flashlight, his features going vague in the faint blue glow of the stove. “Honey, do we have any more D batteries, in case these run out?” he asked Delia.

“About Shelly. And Carlotta,” Wyatt said.

“What?”

“Why didn’t you tell me Elaine knew?”

“She didn’t.”

“Yes,” Delia said. “I told her.”

Shelly said, “She knew?”

Delia raised her arms and shoved her palms at the air as if pushing everyone away from her.

Jack said, “Honey, my God.”

Madeline and Andy appeared at the door. The dirt was still on Madeline’s face, disconcerting in the scant and eerie light. She looked like a feral creature with eyes too big for the tiny face, her hair matted and wild. In a voice seething with anger, she said, “Wyatt’s wife knew?”

The dog continued to stare at the ball. He pounced at it and picked it up in his mouth and plopped it back toward Wyatt, then barked at Wyatt to kick it.

Delia said, “Madeline, dear, would you take the dog?” But Madeline didn’t budge. She seemed to be waiting for everyone to admit to something, though there was nothing left for anyone to confess.

“Maybe we should all sit down and talk everything through,” Andy said. “This is just an idea, but it seems like there are a lot of secrets, and nobody’s got any bad intentions, and we could look at everything with an eye of tolerance.”

“Oh for God’s sake, Andy,” Madeline snapped.

Shelly said, “Madeline, please.”

“Please what? Behave? You’re the moral authority, Mom? Do you have any idea what you put Wyatt’s wife through? I can fill you in, if you’re wondering.”

Wyatt said, “Leave my wife out of this, can we?”

Madeline turned on him. “I don’t know, can we?” She could see they were all gawking at her.

“Are you all in the kitchen?” Carlotta called softly, coming down the stairs. She appeared at the door in her nightgown, holding a lighted candle that emitted the scent of sandalwood. “Has anyone checked the breakers?” she asked.

“Come on in,” Madeline said. “We’re all just learning more news. Wyatt’s wife has always known about you.”

A silence fell as the cruelty of the words registered on everyone. In the fluttering candlelight, Carlotta’s eyes sought Delia’s.

“Yes, sweetheart,” Delia said. “She’s always known, and it hasn’t made any difference in her feelings toward you.”

Madeline said, “I don’t think any of you could know about her feelings.”

“You’re making this about you,” Carlotta said quietly to Madeline, but there was an edge to her voice. “It isn’t.”

Andy said, “Unfortunately, she has a reason to be feeling especially bad about infidelity right now.”

“Shut up!” Madeline yelled. The volume of her own voice shocked her. She had lost control. She felt a rising rage toward her mother for the deceit, toward Andy, toward Carlotta. “All of you! I hate all of you! Nobody’s trustworthy but my dad, and he’s
dead
because of all of you!” She turned her furious face to Carlotta. “If not for
you
and
your shop
, he would still be alive!”

Carlotta took a step back, and the sudden look of pain on her face, lit by the candle, was something Shelly could not bear.

“Madeline, leave this room, right now,” Shelly said. “Carlotta’s shop had nothing to do with anything.”

“Oh? Then why were we all coming to Alpine that night? The night he had to distract me from being jealous by taking me to Devil’s Sinkhole.”

Delia said, “I won’t listen to this anymore,” and started for the door.

“You’re all liars!” Madeline screamed.

Shelly moved toward her, reaching out, but Madeline pushed her away, shouting, “Don’t touch me!”

Ranger picked up his tennis ball and followed Delia toward the door, wagging his nub of a tail.

Madeline grabbed the flashlight from Jack’s hand. She ran past Delia and the dog, into the dark hall and out of the front door into the punishing wind.

Shelly followed her, plunging into the wind’s fury. Gravel flew at her ankles and dust clotted her eyes. She felt as if she was choking. She had no idea where Madeline was going or what she intended; she followed the beam of the flashlight. It shone on the path, the cars, the wild limbs of a tree. It settled on the Suburban. The rear door swung open, the interior light blinked on, and Madeline dragged something out of the back. It was cloaked in a white sheet, and she tore this away and released it to the wind. The flashlight brushed a swath of light across what she now held. When Shelly saw what it was, she stopped running.

Madeline ran with the painting to the edge of the driveway and set it down at the base of a tree. Holding it firmly against the pull of the wind, she shone the flashlight on it. Then she shoved her foot against the portrait. Viciously, she kicked it. She did this again and again. Shelly watched as if she were seeing an execution.