The Diary (13 page)

Elizabeth regarded her wearily. “You want to know what I think, Mother? I think you'd be better off if you didn't worry so much about other people's opinion of you.”

“I suppose you think you're going to marry this boy.” Mildred rose imperiously to her feet, tightening the belt on her robe.

Marry AJ? Elizabeth hadn't even considered it until now. During the countless hours she and Ingrid had spent discussing what sorts of weddings they would have, it had always been Bob with whom she'd pictured herself walking down the aisle. What kind of wedding would she and AJ have?

But her mother's implication that such an act would be the social equivalent of hurling herself off a bridge was more than she could take. “What if I am?” she tossed back.

Elizabeth steeled herself for another tongue-lashing. Or worse. Her mother was perfectly capable of throwing her out of the house and cutting her off without a cent. But Mildred just stood there, her face, shiny with cold cream, frozen in an expression that was an odd mixture of defiance and defeat. She looked tired and old.

“Whatever you might think, I don't wish the boy any ill.” She sounded as worn out as she looked. “If he really is innocent, as you say, then of course he shouldn't be charged. But know one thing: He'll never set foot in this house. Whatever you decide, I want you to keep that in mind.” Mildred's eyes flashed with some of her banked fire. When Elizabeth turned to go, she didn't step forward to kiss her daughter good-night, as she'd done every night for the past twenty years. As she headed out the door, Elizabeth couldn't have said who had the upper hand.

On her way down the hall, she paused at the closed door to her grandmothers room. She was hardly in the mood for company, and she didn't normally disturb her grandmother at this late an hour, even when she knew the old woman was up, but something compelled her to knock.

Grandma Judith must have known it was she, for she called brightly, “Come in, dear!”

Elizabeth found her propped up in bed reading a magazine. “I just wanted to say good-night.”

“Nonsense,” rasped her grandmother. “You want to know if I was listening in. Well, I'm not as deaf as all that. I heard enough to know what's going on. Come here.” She beckoned to Elizabeth, waiting until she'd lowered herself onto the bed before continuing in a gentler tone, “I know you're angry with your mother, and I don't blame you. But you mustn't judge her too harshly. The reason she's so hard on you is because she's terrified you'll make the same mistake she did.”

Elizabeth eyed her in confusion. “What mistake was that?”

“Marrying the wrong man.”

Elizabeth stared at her, too stunned to react. She'd had more than enough shocks for one night and didn't know if she could sustain another. But morbid curiosity trumped all else, and she couldn't keep from asking, “What are you saying? That she didn't love my father?”

“Love him? Of course she loved him! If she hadn't, she wouldn't have been so torn up when he …” The old woman hesitated, appearing to debate with herself before going on, “I don't mean to speak ill of your father. He was a good man. But he had a weakness for women. It nearly killed your mother when she found out. I don't think she'd have left him—she wasn't in a position to do that. But she wasn't going to suffer in silence, either. She punished him in other ways.”

Elizabeth had been too young when her father died to remember much before that time. But she had a vague recollection of sharp words exchanged by her parents and a certain tension in the air. She recalled, too, the expression on her father's face most nights when he came home from work, as if he were steeling himself somehow. Like Mr. Anderson down the street.

A great heaviness settled over her, and, as she sat on the mattress, she felt as though she were sinking into quicksand. She shook her head, murmuring, “Poor Daddy.”

“It wasn't easy for your mother, either,” said her grandmother.

“I wonder what would've happened if he hadn't died.” Elizabeth couldn't help wondering, too, if her father's fatal heart attack had been in some way brought on by the strain he'd been under.

“They'd have gone on making each other miserable, I suppose.” Grandma Judith seized Elizabeth's hand, her bony fingers tightening about it like a claw. “I don't want you to think badly of him. Some men are like that; they can't help themselves. I'm only telling you so you'll understand. Your mother wasn't always like this. Once she was like you. But it made her bitter and hard.”

Elizabeth nodded slowly in comprehension. The mists were clearing in other ways as well. She understood now why her mother had been so keen on her becoming engaged to Bob. “So she thinks if I marry someone honest and upright who'd never cheat on me, that will make me happy?” she said with contempt. Not that she could imagine AJ ever cheating on her, either.

“You could do worse than that young man of yours,” observed Grandma Judith, but there was no conviction in her voice.

“Even if he's not the one I love?”

Her grandmother's hand tightened, her clawlike fingers digging into Elizabeth's wrist. Her eyes, sunk in the basket-weave of lines crisscrossing her face, shone with a brightness that made Elizabeth wonder if she was thinking about her own husband, Elizabeth's grandfather, a dashing war hero turned successful merchant who was said to have been the great love of her life. Her next words confirmed it.

“Follow your heart, child. It may lead you astray at times, but in the end it never steers you wrong.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

“My God.” Emily snatched the diary from her sister's hands, flinging it aside in disgust. “She actually broke up with him. Can you believe it? She
dumped
our dad.”

“Except he wasn't our dad then.” Sarah retrieved the diary from between the sofa cushions.

Emily slumped back, crossing her arms over her chest as her indignation gave way to a more contemplative mood. “I wonder what made him take her back,” she said, gazing into the fireplace as if the answers to their questions could be divined from its glowing embers.

The bottle of wine was empty, and the Chinese takeout they'd ordered had long since been devoured. Gone, too, were the sounds that had marked the daylight hours—the friendly toot of car horns as neighbors greeted one another in passing, snatches of conversation drifting from the sidewalk, the whir of bicycles zipping by. Those sounds had given way to the stillness of nighttime, a stillness broken only by the sporadic barking of a dog or the occasional rumble of a passing motorist.

“She must have come to her senses and realized the mistake she'd made,” Sarah ventured.

“Or decided to settle for second best.”

Now it was Sarah's turn to grow indignant. “I would hardly call Dad second best!”

Emily turned to look at her sister. “All I'm saying is that it's obvious he wasn't her first choice.”

The two sisters could agree on one thing: Their parents' love for each other had been genuine. But it was becoming increasingly clear that it hadn't always been that way, at least not on their mother's part. The diary left no doubt that at one time she'd been in love with another man. To make matters worse, Emily, to her dismay, was actually growing to
like
this AJ.

“Do you think Mom ever regretted her decision?” she wondered aloud.

“Oh, I suppose so, from time to time. It's only natural.” Sarah's tone was so sanguine that it took Emily aback.

“Don't tell me you've ever felt that way about Jeff?” she asked, expecting Sarah to scoff at the idea. Sarah and Jeff argued from time to time—what couple didn't?—but theirs was as tight a union as any Emily knew. She couldn't imagine her sister ever regretting her choice of husband.

But Sarah shrugged, her mouth curling in a small, secretive smile. “Of course. Didn't you ever wonder what it would be like if you'd married one of your old boyfriends? Whenever Jeff and I have a fight or the sex isn't so great, I picture myself married to Tony Casanerio. Only Tony never gets cranky or grows a paunch, and the sex is always amazing.”

“Tony Casanerio? From the tenth grade?”

“Don't laugh. He was pretty hot, as I recall. Anyway, I'm certainly not the only one who's ever felt that way—every one of my married friends has had the same fantasy. You must have, too, before you and Greg split up.” Sarah elbowed Emily in the ribs. “Go on, admit it.”

For the most part, Emily tried not to think about her marriage. But admittedly there had been times during those years when she'd wondered what it would be like with someone else. “Well, there
was
this one guy,” she confided. “Remember Kevin Sloan, from my senior year? About a year ago, I ran into him in the supermarket. Talk about hot. Boy oh boy, did I have the major flashback.”

“Does he know you're divorced?” Sarah never missed an opportunity to attempt to hook her sister up with likely prospects, but Emily had so far resisted her efforts. She wasn't quite ready, though she'd been tempted a few times.

“No, and he's not going to know. Unfortunately—for me, that is—he's married. Happily, from what I hear.”

Emily's thoughts returned to their parents' marriage. Had it been truly happy, as opposed to merely content? Would their mother have been happier with AJ?

“Speaking of husbands, mine is probably wondering what's keeping me,” Sarah said with a sigh. “What do you say we give it a rest until tomorrow?” She fingered the ribbon marking their place in the diary.

“Call and tell him you'll be a little while longer.” Emily felt a sudden, urgent need to know the rest.

“Easy for you to say. You don't have anyone waiting for you at home.”

“Ouch.” Emily made a face.

Sarah was at once contrite. “Sorry, Sis. That came out the wrong way. Listen, I'll stay if you want. I'm sure Jeff and the kids can do without me for a couple more hours.” She put a conciliatory arm around Emily, pulling her close—a bittersweet reminder of their mother. When Emily was little, she used to describe her mother as “comfy.” Sarah was comfy in the same way.

“You don't have to,” Emily told her.

“No, I want to.”

“Are you sure?” Emily didn't expect her sister to give up family time just for her sake.

“You bet.” Sarah smiled at her, letting Emily know she wasn't alone in wanting to see how this story ended. “How much sleep do you think I'd get, anyway, not knowing how Mom and Dad got back together?”

With that, she turned the page to the next entry.

CHAPTER EIGHT

S
EPTEMBER
12, 1951

Dear Diary
,

Mother was right about one thing: Reputation is everything. Ever since the
Bugle
ran the story about the surprise witness who exonerated AJ it's been the talk of the town. Oh, people are nice enough to my face, but the minute I turn my back, I can hear them whispering. You'd think I'd confessed to being the one who burned down the Findlays' barn! No one has actually accused me of being a tramp, but I know that's what they're thinking. And who am I to deny it
?

The one everyone feels sorry for is Bob. They all think it was Bob who broke it off, with good reason, after finding out about me and AJ. I've said nothing to set them straight. Let the poor man have his dignity. It's the least I can offer him
.

As for AJ, no one knows where he is, least of all me. He left town right after the police dropped him as a suspect. I haven't heard from him except for a couple of postcards from out West
—
one from Denver, the other from Reno. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't killing me. I lie awake at night, wondering if I'll ever see him again. He promised to come back, but how do I know he will? I can't help feeling a little angry at him for abandoning me at a time like this, but I also know that part of the reason he went away was to make things easier for me. He imagines I'll be better off without him. And in a way, he's right. Once all this talk dies down, things will go back to normal, I'm sure. Mother might even decide to forgive me. But what difference does it make when you feel like your heart's been ripped out of your chest? Meanwhile, I'm still a fallen woman
.

The First Episcopal
Church was the last place on earth anyone would have expected fireworks. Sunday services were normally the dullest of affairs, as the elderly pastor, the Reverend Harmon Freimuth, tended to lose track in the middle of his sermons and ramble on interminably. Sometimes he'd hold forth for the better part of an hour, oblivious to the fact that he had put some of the congregants to sleep. (It wasn't unusual for those sermons to be punctuated by the sounds of snoring.) As a result, several families with young children had defected to the Episcopal Church on the other side of town; it was either that or endure the embarrassment of having to continuously scold one's children when they grew restless during Reverend Freimuth's droning.

But on the third Sunday in September, in the year 1951, the reverend wasn't his usual doddering self as he hitched himself, favoring his bad leg, into the pulpit and cast his stern gaze over the congregation. Watching him straighten his hunched back, wordlessly delivering the message, even to those seated in the farthest-back pews, that no snoozing would be tolerated during today's sermon, Elizabeth caught a glint of the fire that must have fueled him as a young minister.

“This morning's reading is from Leviticus, chapter nineteen, verse twenty,” he commenced in his gravelly voice, an arthritic hand resting on the Bible that lay open in front of him. He slipped on his half-rims and, bending his balding head, began to read aloud from the passage he was holding marked with his finger. “‘Whoever lies carnally with a woman who is betrothed …'”