The Far End of Happy (23 page)

Ronnie walked over to where Beverly and Janet sat.

Beverly made a show of sniffing her daughter’s hands. “At least the holy man didn’t ward you off with garlic.”

“You should have talked to him,” Ronnie said. “He helped.”

Janet looked vacant and defeated. Ronnie wondered what she had been thinking about all day and if her expression mirrored Ronnie’s own. She had to look away.

“It’s so hard to believe any of this is happening when I think back to how good Jeff was with the babies. I keep picturing Andrew’s little head in Jeff’s big hand. Remember?”

“Are you sure about that image?” Beverly laughed. “Andrew’s head was huge.”

They both looked at Janet. When she didn’t join in, Beverly winked at Ronnie and added, “Of course, I was the only one happy to have grandchildren. Janet here didn’t want any.”

Beverly knew what she was doing; Janet seemed to snap back to herself a bit. “I did too,” Janet said. “I just never thought I’d get any. I didn’t think he had any interest.”

“He said my desire to have children was contagious.” Ronnie smiled.

“I didn’t think he’d make it past the miscarriages,” Janet said.

“Our vision of a family carried us beyond the loss,” Ronnie said. “And then, at long last, a fluttering heartbeat. I was smitten.”

“I don’t think you took your hands off your belly the whole pregnancy,” her mother said.

“Jeff either,” Janet added. “You two were a bit of a spectacle.”

“Remember he took those profile pictures of me each month as my belly grew?” Jeff was always behind the camera when the boys were small. Was he recording a life he loved, as Ronnie always thought, or remaining detached from it?

“Jeff was so good with the boys when they were born,” Beverly said. “He had such a calming influence. Remember how we’d find Andrew and Will, fast asleep, draped over his shoulders, chest, or lap?”

“He probably should have been a pediatric nurse,” Ronnie said. “Jeff has so many talents, I wish—” She stopped herself. What was the point?

“He was so proud of them,” Janet said. “That video he took of Will in the high chair, trying not to fall asleep, remember?”

“Will was bobbing his head, over and over, until he face-planted into his oatmeal,” Beverly said, smiling.

“Jeff always thought Andrew had no interest in the farm,” Ronnie said. “But I think he forgot the way he’d follow Jeff around, pushing his bubble mower.”

Janet nodded. “I’ll never forget the night Will was born. You called after midnight, and I was so scared to answer, and Jeff put you on the phone, and you”—her voice broke, but she regained it—“and you told me you’d given him Hoyer as a middle name. It meant so much to me.”

“It was only fair, when Andrew’s middle name was Saylor,” Beverly said.

Ronnie took their hands. “We’ve been a family for a long time.”

“They’re good boys. I’d do anything for them,” Janet said. “You know that, right?”

Beverly squeezed Ronnie’s hand.

Corporal McNichol returned to the room with a determined stride. “The sun will set in another hour or so,” she said. “And as night falls, the situation will get increasingly dangerous. Jeff will be able to see out, but we won’t be able to see in. We want to try to put an end to this before then.”

Ronnie let out a long, slow breath. The logic seemed clear. She just hoped they all had the strength to face what came next.

“There’s only one reason this is stretching on so long: he’s wavering. We can use that to our advantage.”

“In what way?” Ronnie said.

“We want to try firing cartridges of Mace through the windows of the office. If Jeff won’t come out of his own free will, he might still respond to the survival instinct by rushing outside for air. Then we could approach.”

“I don’t know. It sounds so harsh…”

“We’ll need your permission, Ronnie, if you’d sign here. We’ll aim high so we don’t hurt him.”

Ronnie understood that this was a last-ditch maneuver. But she had seen how far a plant’s stem would bend to reach the light, and Jeff might yet be malleable. She thought it might work.

She read the paper. They weren’t asking her permission to assault her husband with the Mace, as it turned out. They needed her permission to break the windows.

“Ronnie, no,” Beverly said.

Janet added, “Don’t. Please.”

Corporal McNichol’s face was kind yet resolute, her gaze unwavering. “It’s worked before.”

Ronnie signed the paper.

“How could you do that, Ronnie?”

“I can’t live out the rest of my days in this room. You heard the corporal. He doesn’t really want to hurt himself. He’ll come out to get air.”

“That’s it? A simple decision for you?”

“If I sit here and think about it for another hour, the situation will only get more dangerous.”

Leaning toward Beverly, Janet said, “Your daughter hasn’t shed one tear for my son.”

Ronnie set the pen down. Handed Corporal McNichol the paper. Waited for her to explain that she’d have to stay near the radios now and watched as she left the room. Then Ronnie turned to her mother-in-law and said calmly, “I have shed so many tears for your son over so many years that I don’t have any left.”

“Why?” Janet said. “How many times has he done this sort of thing?”

“Why don’t you tell me, Janet?” She wielded her mother-in-law’s name like a weapon. “Fay Sickler tells me Jeff created quite a scene when she left him, waving a gun around and threatening to shoot her.”

“Really?” Her attempt to fashion her face into an expression of bemusement failed halfway up. Her eyes looked scared.

“And you never thought it important to share this story with me?”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Wait, you let Ronnie marry Jeff when you knew he had pulled a weapon on someone he supposedly loved?” Beverly said.

“Boys can be slow to mature,” Janet said. “He deserved a chance to try again. If it were Teddy, wouldn’t you have wanted him to have a chance to find love?”

Ronnie tried to calm herself. If her mother and Janet started fighting, she wouldn’t be able to take it. “You’re right, Janet. Boys can be slow to mature—but so can alcoholic men. The materials I’ve read about alcoholism say that the maturation process is interrupted while the person is actively addicted,” Ronnie said. “All day, I’ve been trying to figure out when Jeff’s decline started, but all three of us may have to admit we don’t know what his real problem was or when it took root.”

“My god, Ronnie. All this harping about addiction and alcoholism is enough to drive anybody to drink.”

Ronnie nodded slowly. “Fine. I for one would be thrilled to find someone to blame for this mess. But if you’re going to make that person me and add dangerous secrets into the mix, don’t expect to be seeing a whole lot of your grandchildren.” Ronnie punctuated her point by getting up, turning her back, and walking away.

“Come back here, Sunshine. You didn’t mean that, did you, Jan?”

Ronnie turned just enough to see her mother patting Janet’s hand. Why didn’t her mother touch Ronnie? A pair of warm arms would go a long way toward making this hall feel less funereal.

“I can’t do this,” Janet said. “I will not survive the day.”

“Stop.” Ronnie spun around. “You know damn well you will.” Janet said she wouldn’t live past Jerry’s demise either, but the woman had a constitution that stubbornly exceeded her will to deal with life’s disappointments. Janet would not succumb to grief. She’d have to face facts, as would Jeff: the comfort of the grave was not within easy reach.

“You don’t want him to live,” Janet said.

Ronnie looked across the table at her mother-in-law and mother. “If I didn’t care about him, I wouldn’t be so angry! He was the great love of my life. My husband. All I’ve been able to do, all day, is think about how the hell our marriage came to this.”

“Tell him you’ll stay, so this will all be over,” Beverly said. “Can’t you compromise a little?”

“Mother, you’d have quit the marriage at the first hint of rancor.”

“Of course I would have. But you’re made of different stuff. Better stuff.”

“You can compromise on who takes out the trash, Mom, but you cannot compromise on your principles.” The words, Kevin’s grandfather’s, tasted true on her tongue.

“But if we can get him through the day,” Janet said, animating, “then maybe tomorrow—”

“Exactly. What the hell will he try tomorrow? How will he up the ante the next time he wants his way? Threaten the kids?”

“Don’t talk like that. Jeff loves those boys,” Janet said.

“Love is when you stick by someone no matter what. You two have taught me that, by example. Love is when you listen for what matters. Love is when you create the kind of environment in which your beloved can become the very best he or she can be. But Jeff wants to check out. He’s not listening. He is not supportive of me and will not let me nurture him. Our marriage is harming all of us.”

“But Jeff is an alcoholic,” Beverly said, catching an angry glance from Janet. “Isn’t that a mental illness? He needs our compassion.”

“Unbelievable.” Ronnie kicked the chair aside. “I have taken measures beyond what any professional suggested to get Jeff help, but he doesn’t want it. Not AA, not rehab, not outpatient, not one-on-one, not marriage counseling. He just wants his way!”

“Maybe we can find a clue here, Ronnie,” Beverly said. “What is it Jeff really wants?”

Ronnie sank into the chair and blew out a long breath. “The days when Jeff shared his dreams and desires with me are long gone. I even feared his dream for the farm store was a manipulation—he painted this vision of togetherness, then left me to run it.”

“What he wants is you,” Janet said.

One of the few stories Jeff had shared from his youth came to mind. After his mother let him lure a raccoon into relative domesticity with a constant supply of cat food, he’d captured it and kept it in a cage. “But a relationship is about giving too. Maybe what really scares him is he isn’t sure what he has left to give.” Ronnie shook her head. “Maybe if Jeff could tell me what he truly wanted, he wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

“Maybe there are drugs that would help.”

“Really, Janet? You’re going to talk treatment now, when your husband’s electroshock therapy for depression—and his mother’s before him—seemed so incidental that it wasn’t worth mentioning?”

Ronnie glared at her mother-in-law. Janet shut her mouth.

“Don’t bother denying it. Fay told me.”

Beverly shot Janet an angry look. “Jerry had electroshock therapy and you didn’t tell us? It is getting awfully hard to stick up for you right now.”

“I’ll admit, Jerry was a little upset after he quit coaching—”

“My god, wake up!” Ronnie said. “They do not administer shock therapy to people who are ‘a little upset.’”

“But she has a good point about the drugs, Ronnie. They’re discovering new things all the time.”

“Jeff’s bloodstream is already a chemistry experiment. You heard his voice today. That’s not our Jeff. And even if there were such a magic potion, how do you suppose we’d get it? You can’t order such a thing from a catalog. Jeff would have to go to a doctor, and he won’t go. And you forget, he’s already been to the hospital for this, and they sent him home.” Ronnie paced.

“You heard from Jeff today?” Janet sounded hurt. Beverly shook her head as if to warn Ronnie off the topic.

“I spent too much time thinking this was an interpersonal problem,” Ronnie continued. “Feeling like such an idiot that I had missed the small print on the marriage contract that said when two wounded souls have been joined, let no one ever heal. Thinking that, well, if he won’t go to counseling, then at least one of us should start taking care of me. And then when it became about me, I probably missed what was going on with him. And that is a tragedy. But I don’t know what more I could have done. He’s a big boy.”

“You’re talking gobbledygook,” Janet said.

Ronnie turned to her mother-in-law. “Janet, I am trying to share something real with you about my marriage, woman to woman. I sacrificed emotional connection. I sacrificed physical intimacy. But Jeff ruined us financially. What would you have me do?”

“If that was the only condition you couldn’t abide, you should have accepted my bailout.”

“Gee, maybe it was your delivery. ‘Ronnie, if I pay off your debt, will you stay with him?’ Add an ‘or else’ and it would have been blackmail.”

“Janet, why would you say something like that?” Beverly said. “And who would accept such an offer?”

“Well, Jeff did, and look where it’s gotten him.” Ronnie jabbed her fingers into her curls and yanked. “I don’t know. I don’t know where to look for hope.”

“There’s always hope,” Beverly said. “Look at me.”

“I refuse to allow you to compare your relentless pursuit of a boyfriend to the tragedy we’re facing here,” Janet said.

Beverly’s lip started to quiver. “Oh, Ronnie, I wish none of this was happening to you.”

“Stop,” Ronnie said. “Don’t you dare try to take this away from me. All day I’ve been working to accept what’s happening here. To own it. You can’t wave your fairy wand and make this go away. That’s the kind of thinking that got us into this mess. It’s happening, and not just to me. It’s happening to Jeff. To the boys. To you and Janet. To the police and our community. It’s happening to my sweet little dog, for crying out loud, and the horses. It’s a hell of a mess, and I’m trying to accept it so I can take whatever next steps present themselves, and it does
not
help for you to wish it all away!”

Silence stretched between them. Janet broke it. “This couldn’t get any worse, Bev. Might as well tell her the rest.”

“To what end?”

“Because maybe if you had been honest with Ronnie about her father from the beginning, she might have realized my son was fragile and handled him more carefully.”

“Your fragile son?” Beverly shook her head. “And you get to advise me because you’re the one so good at heart-to-hearts? What all did you chat with your son about over that bullhorn, anyway?”

“My god, Mom, even I think that’s a low blow.”

Janet turned to Beverly. “I froze up. You don’t know what it was like. The situation was so tense. I have never been so frightened in my entire life. I didn’t want to make a mistake, although clearly I did anyway. But why should I explain mistakes to you? I have supported you through every phase of your constant reinvention, Beverly Saylor.”

“I told you I’d pay back that loan for real estate school.”

Ronnie broke in. “Mom. You were going to tell me something.”

“If you’d sold one blessed house, you could have paid me back already.”

“The market’s been slow.” Beverly stood.

“The market is the market.” Janet stood as well, leaning on the table. “People still need to buy houses. You’re waiting for another man to come along to pay me. You’re afraid to stand on your own two feet and you always have been. You’re afraid to be honest with your own daughter.”

“I refuse to be ignored one more moment!”

The two older women glared at each other with their toes at the edge of opposing cliffs. Ronnie dared not speak again for fear of causing a landslide.

Beverly finally spoke. “That was the only time I ever asked you for money.”

“Yet it’s not the only time I’ve supported you. Or Ronnie.”

“I did not ask you to pay off our credit cards,” Ronnie said. “That was Jeff.”

“And if you didn’t want to loan me the money, why did you do it?” Beverly said.

Janet’s lips twitched as if she was working at the words. Ronnie waited—hoped—that she’d say she’d done it because she loved her mother. Love had too long skulked at the perimeter of this room and she longed for it to be summoned front and center.

“Because it needed doing,” Janet finally said. “Just like the kids’ loan needed to be paid off. If you all would live within your means, you’d be a lot happier.”

“What loan?” Ronnie said.

“The one he used to pay for the renovation, and the store, and all the other things you wanted.”

The things
she’d
wanted? She’d wanted one thing—the antique hutch in the living room—but she had balked at the fifteen-hundred-dollar price tag. Jeff insisted on buying it, saying he could make that money back on New Year’s Eve. Ronnie thought of the gleam in Jeff’s eye whenever he suggested an upgrade. His excitement about the way keeping so many creditors happy beefed up his credit score. He was Captain Consumer
,
the superhero of creative finance
.
“But we weren’t able to get a loan. That debt was all on credit cards, some with interest as high as twenty-five percent. And most of them I didn’t even know about.”

Janet looked stunned.

“I see you didn’t know. He lied to you, Janet,” Ronnie said. “I’ve been trying to tell you these problems were real, but you wouldn’t listen to me. Apparently you didn’t know your own son.”

“And apparently, you didn’t know your husband.”

“I’m warning you, Janet. Ronnie has been through enough today and I will not have you attacking her. You have to face the fact that your son didn’t know the first thing about managing a household. You’ve spoiled that boy his whole life long and lorded your money over us like the freaking Bank of Bartlesville.”

Janet backed up so Beverly and Ronnie could see her, head to toe. “Look at me. Really look. I wear stretch pants and sweatshirts from Kmart. The barber down the street cuts my hair for five dollars. The shoe box in my kitchen is full of coupons I clip from the Sunday paper. I have never in my life had a manicure.”