My Heart Can't Tell You No (34 page)

“I knew it!” Joe said angrily to her. “You can’t stop and think! You had to charge out in the middle of a thunderstorm and save your kid. Goddamn it, girl—don’t you ever use your head?! You’re all soaked!”

“Where is he?!” she growled as she stood in the rain before he grabbed her arm and pulled her inside.

“Right there. I was trying to tell you that he had an accident with his pants. They ripped. He fell down the bank over at John’s and got them caught on a rock. I wanted you to bring another pair—after the storm. But you had to jump right in with the wrong conclusions.”

“Robert. Get over here.” Her voice was strained as she fought to maintain control. She could strangle both of them; Robby for taking off as he had, and Joe for his superior attitude. “Let me tell you this, young man, you haven’t felt my hand meet your bottom very often. Today you’re in for a new experience—
NOW
MOVE
!!”

“You stay right here,” Joe told him. “Maddie if you try to take him out in this rain . . . .”

“You’ll what?!!” In her frightened, exhausted and confused state of mind, logic wasn’t coming clearly to her, only a need to release the tensions his behavior had caused. “Accuse me of being an unfit mother? You already have the opportunity since he took off without my knowledge. Never mind that I thought he was playing in his bedroom with Jackie while I was working on store receipts, or that Jackie saw him go to the bathroom, then thought he was in the living room with me. Never mind that he
sneaked
out to visit
you
! Just point out that I wasn’t watching him and he’d rather be with you than me today!”

“What the
hell
are you talking about?” Joe eyed her with suspicion and concern. “All I’m saying is, you should wait until the storm’s over.”

“I can’t. I even left my other son alone in the house just now to come down here. There’s more for you, while you’re at it.”

“Get in the truck. I’ll drive you up.” He shook his head in confusion as he picked up his keys and started out the door. “Why didn’t you drive down? Wouldn’t that have been simpler?”

“
Shut
up
!” she shouted in complete frustration. “Just shut up.”

CHAPTER XVII
 

July 1984

I
t had been two weeks since Maddie had brought Robby home and had taken him into his bedroom, telling Jackie to wait in the living room with Joe. It was the first time she had ever bent him over her knee and given him an old-fashioned spanking, and his shock showed itself completely with the howl following each of the three slaps. From the way he cried, anyone would have thought she had just beaten him half to death instead of swatted his behind three times. As she left his bedroom, she prayed he had learned never to sneak off like that again; then as she returned to the livingroom, she saw Joe and Jackie wearing expressions as grim as Robby’s. If she didn’t know better she would have sworn they had taken the spanking instead of her youngest son.

But the two weeks managed to slide by without any more chaos in Maddie’s otherwise orderly life, allowing a momentary lull to cover them like a blanket, along with the sweltering heat of mid-summer.

“Are you about ready?” Sarah asked as Maddie sat in her mother’s living room and watched television without really seeing it.

“
Hmm
. Whenever you are. Do you have your pills?”

The question, referring to Sarah’s nitroglycerin tablets, had become habit since her mother’s first heart attack. Sarah answered by patting the pocket of her dress and starting for the kitchen. She was almost to the door when Joe walked inside.

“We were just leaving, Joey. Do you want to go along?” Sarah asked, bringing a frustrated sigh from Maddie.

“I don’t know. Where are you going?” He looked at Maddie, then bent to pick up Robby as the boy ran to him and wrapped his arms around his neck.

“
Joe
! I missed you! Mommy won’t let me go away no more.”

“I do so!” Maddie was shocked! He’d been up at his gram’s every day since his spanking, and she had let him go to the playground with John and Jenna twice.

“Well, you won’t let me go down to see
him
,” Robby moped.

“Not by yourself. No.”

“Well, you could take me.”

“No I couldn’t,” she told him flatly and walked toward the door. “We’re going away and you’d better behave. I know Pap won’t tell me if you
don’t
behave—but do try to act like a little human while I’m gone.”

She reached up and kissed him on the cheek, smelling Joe’s aftershave as she leaned close to the child.

“We’re going up to see Lew. Are you going?” Sarah asked Joe again.

“I don’t know. Am I going?” he asked Maddie, their faces so close she could feel his breath on her cheek.

“That’s up to you,” Maddie answered as she edged away. “If you go, you can drive my car while I work on these.”

She picked up a stack of order forms and put the keys on the table, then turned to look at her mother. Sarah’s eyes held a mixture of emotions as she looked at Joe and Robby: sadness, disappointment.

“You gonna be good?” Joe asked the child.

“Yep.”

“Do you want me to bring you anything back?”

“Yeah. I want a big bag of chips and a soda.”

Maddie looked up at Joe, not liking this at all. The boy’s connection with him had gone further than she liked already—he didn’t have to start bringing gifts home for the boy.

“You have chips and soda at home already,” Maddie told him.

“Then an ice cream cone,” Robby said.

“It’ll melt.”

“A candy bar?”

“I’ll bring you home a candy bar,” Joe said quickly before Maddie could refuse.

If her mother hadn’t been there it would have been another argument, but, from the way Sarah was looking at Joe and her grandchild, it would upset her. Maddie went out the door, moving to the car parked beyond the porch. She climbed into the rear and stretched her legs across the upholstery until her feet rested behind the driver’s seat. She watched as her mother got in, then Joe, on the driver’s side. At the moment, she wouldn’t think about their latest conflict. She’d be better off keeping quiet and working on the orders for the store.

Sarah and Joe maintained a steady conversation while Maddie worked in the back seat, but when they were nearly halfway to the next town north she glanced in the rearview mirror to see Joe’s eyes watching her.

“Did you say something to me?” she asked.

“When did you start wearing those?”

“Wearing what?”

“Those glasses that make you look ten years older and too stuffy to approach.”

“Thank-you. I appreciate the sentiment.” She went back to her forms. She would be finished by the time they reached the hospital, leaving the rest of her evening free to spend with Jackie and Robby; but when she glanced up again, he was still watching her. “Keep your eyes on the road, Joe. This is my car you’re driving.”

“It certainly is. I know I couldn’t afford a car like this,” he said sarcastically.

“No?” She looked back at the papers. “Well, I’m not paying out alimony either.”

“Neither am I. She got married years ago. But maybe it’s because I’m not receiving gifts from my . . . .”

“Joe, change the subject.” She didn’t want her mom in the middle of a fight.

“Anything you say, angel,” Joe said dryly, then turned his conversation to Sarah. “Lew still go to the games?”

“
Mm-hmm
. Maddie goes with him once in a while. Not as much as much as before Robby was born. But she still goes with him,” Sarah told him.

October 1980

“It’s getting chilly out.” Maddie stood next to Lew on the dike, watching the football game.

Their position on the dike gave them a complete view of the stadium from the foot of the field. Many fans preferred the luxury of the dike. It offered a view of the game without having to pay, and it offered the freedom to drink, since alcohol wasn’t allowed inside the stadium. But for Maddie, it was tradition, from a time when she and her family, as well as Lew and his family, didn’t have spare money to pay the dollar admission.

“Ya think a sweatshirt is going to be enough for him?” Lew nodded toward Jackie, who was rolling down the dike.

“No. I don’t,” she agreed hesitantly. “I think we’d better go home and get something warmer. Jackie—come on.”

“You can leave him here. I’ll watch out for him while you’re gone,” Lew suggested.

“Are you sure?”

“You got your house keys?” Lew asked. The question didn’t need an answer. Maddie knew he would love to watch the boy.

“No, Bob’s home. The door shouldn’t be locked.”

“How come he didn’t come along tonight? He hasn’t been to a game all season.”

“He’s been working late. He’s been tired,” Maddie lied as Jackie ran back up to her. “Jackie, you stay close to Lew. I’ll be back in about a half-hour.”

“Where are you going, Mommy?”

“To get your coat, monster. I’ll be right back.”

Maddie started across the dike. She knew it wasn’t the work that was making Bob so tired at night. Beth had told her about those days during the flood. He had passed out the first night from drinking too much, waking the next day and starting all over again with only a bite to eat for breakfast, and, as Maddie walked the five blocks to her house, she remembered that things hadn’t changed much after they went home.

July/August 1980

Maddie’s homecoming from the flood was a shocking one, as she faced a side of Bob she had never seen aimed at her before. Upon entering their house he carried the sleeping Jackie upstairs and put him in bed; then he came back to the first floor. His greeting to Maddie came swiftly as she was knocked across the room. She lifted her hand to her jaw, certain it was broken as she tried to get to her feet, but he came at her again. This time his fist hit her temple and she stumbled back. Each time she tried to get up she met a new assault, until finally she didn’t try to rise anymore. She just lay there in heap, her shock complete.