The Returning (29 page)

Rebekah laughed. “Listen, I’m starving,” she said. “Let’s go get something to eat.”

“Okay. Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t care.”

“Your uncle’s place?”

Rebekah shook her head. “No, not there.”

“Why? Your dad working? You know I want to meet him. I’ve never met an ex-con before. At least not that I know of.”

“You’ll meet him someday. No loss if you don’t. Anyway, he and Billy don’t work on Sundays. Why don’t we go to Dairy Queen? We can get some ice cream for dessert.”

“Sure, all right.” Lena reached for her phone on the altar and started to tuck it back into her pocket.

Rebekah looked at it curiously. “So what’s with the phone?”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. I’ve got a picture of the guy.”

Rebekah looked up sharply. “I thought you said you’ve never seen him.”

“I haven’t.”

“So how’d you get his picture?”

“I found it on Mom’s phone, so I sent it to mine. Want to see what the loser looks like?”

“Sure. I guess.”

Lena opened the cell and pushed a few buttons. “This is him,” she said dryly. “And now he can kiss himself good-bye.”

Rebekah took the phone, turned it until she could see the face of the man they had just cast up to the mercy of the universe. She blinked, frowned, leaned one way and then another to see whether the face would change. But no matter which way she turned the phone, the face was the same.

“What’s the matter?” Lena asked. “The battery dead or something? Can’t you see it?”

Rebekah let out a small cry then, like a kitten snatched from its mother. She wanted to scream, but the wind had been knocked out of her.

“What’s the matter?” Lena asked again. “You look like you’re going to throw up. You sick or something? Hey, you’ll break the phone, throwing it like that. Beka . . . hey, Beka, wait a minute! What—”

But Rebekah was already making her way down the stairs and through the kitchen where Lena’s mother, Mrs. Jarvis, was asleep with her forehead pressed to the table, the fingers of her right hand curled loosely around a bottle of Scotch.

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-SIX

As the family pulled up
to the cottage after church, John noticed Rebekah’s car wasn’t there.

“Beka’s still not home,” he remarked. “Did she say what time she’d be back?”

He looked over at Andrea, who was shifting the Volvo into park. She shook her head. “No telling. She doesn’t have to be at work until four o’clock. Other than that, I don’t know what her plans are.”

“Shouldn’t she let us know?”

“She will. She’ll call, when she thinks about it. Otherwise, she’ll probably show up around three o’clock to shower and get ready to go.”

“What do you know about this friend she’s with? Lena?”

“She’s a nice girl. You’ll like her.”

“If I ever meet her. Anyway, I want to talk to Rebekah about not driving the car too much until we can have some work done on it. I’m sure it needs a new battery, and we ought to have the fluids changed, maybe have the tires rotated, and—”

Billy interrupted from the backseat, muttering, “Why are we just sitting here? I’m starving.”

“You’re always starving, Billy,” Phoebe chided.

“What’s for lunch, Mom?”

“I’ve got pork chops thawing in the fridge,” Andrea said. “I guess I’d better get to work.”

All four doors of the sedan opened at once as the family piled out. John stood, stretched. He wished he had enough money in his pocket to suggest they go out to eat. They could eat for free at Laughter’s Luncheonette, but he sure didn’t want to go there. He wished he could blow fifty dollars taking his family to Denny’s or Applebee’s, but that was going to have to wait until he was something other than a busboy.

He stepped toward the cottage, thinking about pork chops. Before he was halfway across the drive, Rebekah’s car pulled off the road and came to a sudden stop.

“Hey, there’s Beka,” Billy announced. “She must have heard us talking about lunch!”

John chuckled, but the amusement slid off his face as he watched his daughter get out of the car, slam the door, and stomp toward him. Then, before he could even react, she was pounding his chest with her fists, screaming, “I hate you! I hate you!”

He heard Andrea call out their daughter’s name, heard his other children give off puzzled cries, but their voices were drowned by Rebekah’s screams and the flailing fists that hammered him again and again. He finally caught her wrists and held on tightly, though he was surprised by her strength as she struggled in his grip.

“Beka, what are you doing?” he demanded.

He searched her face; her mottled skin was moist with tears. Strands of hair clung to her cheeks. As he tightened his grip, she relaxed her arms but resorted to kicking his shins. He fought the temptation to push her away, to throw her to the ground.

“Stop it, Beka,” he yelled. “Stop kicking!”

Then Andrea was there, shaking the girl by the shoulders. “Beka, are you crazy? What are you doing? Stop! Stop it now!”

With that, Rebekah seemed to lose her momentum, like a child’s toy winding down. Her chest heaved as she struggled to catch her breath. Her eyes shifted and blinked, then settled on him. Fresh tears streamed down her face.

As their eyes met, a groundswell of love rose up in John for his daughter. The feeling was so intense it left him lightheaded. “Beka, sweetheart—” he began, but she interrupted him.

“Let go of me.”

He loosened his grip but didn’t let go. She swore at him. “I said, let go.”

“Are you done hitting me?”

She looked away.

He let go of her wrists, took one step back.

She turned and ran.

“Beka!” he shouted.

Andrea made a move to go after her, but John laid a hand on her shoulder. “Let me go,” he said. “I’m the one she’s angry with.”

By the time he reached the road, she was already a good stretch ahead of him. Vaguely aware of the next-door neighbors watching from their back porch, he sprinted after his daughter. He loosened his tie as he ran, fumbled to undo the top button of his shirt so he could breathe easier. The smooth soles of his loafers beat the blacktop but offered little traction over the occasional gravel in the road. Twice he stumbled, but he pushed on, his eyes fixed on the figure in the road ahead of him. He speeded up as he saw the distance between them growing shorter. Finally he came up from behind and threw his arms around her. She struggled, tripped, almost fell over, but John found his own footing and held her up.

“Beka, stop,” he said quietly. “Just stop. Please. Settle down.”

She squirmed another moment before giving up. The two of them stood there by the side of the road in a twisted embrace, winded, red-faced, defeated. She cried openly.

“If I let you go, will you talk to me?”

She nodded.

He slowly let go. He waited.

Finally, moving slowly, Rebekah turned around to face him. When she spoke, he had to strain to hear. “You’re cheating on Mom.”

He thought—hoped—he had heard wrong. When he didn’t respond, she said it again, louder this time. “You’re cheating on Mom.”

“What?” He staggered backward, as though he’d been punched in the gut.

“You’re having an affair with Mrs. Jarvis—”

“No, I—”

“How could you do it?”

“Beka, I—”

“Don’t touch me!”

“Listen to me—”

“I hate you!”

John shut his eyes, nodded. He didn’t speak.

“How can you cheat on Mom?” she asked again. “With my best friend’s mother?”

He opened his eyes, tried to focus on his daughter’s face. “What did you say?”

“Mrs. Jarvis—she’s Lena’s mother. Lena knew her mom was seeing someone but . . . how could it be you?” The look in Rebekah’s eyes spoke of betrayal.

“Rebekah,” John said firmly, “who told you this?”

“No one had to tell me. She has your picture on her phone. Lena’s mother has your picture on her phone.”

John felt his jaw tighten as anger surged through him. She had lied when she said she erased it. His mind worked frantically, looking for a way out, finally spotting a small window he might wiggle himself through. “Well,” he said, “yeah, we go to the same meetings and for whatever reason she took my picture there. That doesn’t mean I’m having an affair with the woman.”

Rebekah looked at him hard. “But you are, aren’t you?”

“Beka,” he whispered.

“You’re having an affair with her, aren’t you?”

His breath left him, and his legs felt weak. “Yes,” he admitted. “I’m sorry, Beka. I’m so sorry.”

He reached into the pocket of his trousers and felt the handkerchief that Andrea insisted belonged there. He dug it out, looked at it, couldn’t help thinking of how it had been cleaned and ironed and neatly folded. That was what brought tears to John’s eyes—the thought that, in spite of everything, Andrea had simply gone on cooking his meals, making his bed, folding his handkerchiefs.

He offered the handkerchief to Rebekah. She resisted a moment, sniffed hard, and then gave in. She took it and blew her nose, wiped her eyes. John wiped at his own eyes with the palm of his hand. A minivan approached, slowed down as it passed them, then sped up again.

John nodded toward the church, empty now after the morning service. “Let’s go on up to the church, find a place we can talk.”

For several minutes they walked in silence, both staring straight ahead. When they reached the church, John tried the front doors and found them locked. They settled on the concrete steps, hard and sun-warmed, though still partially shaded by the trees in the front lot.

While John searched for words, Rebekah said, “You’re going to leave us again.” It was a statement, not a question.

John took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “No, Beka, no. I’m not going to leave you.”

“How can you not, now that you have someone else?”

“Listen, I’ve tried to end it. I’ve—”

“Why’d you start, Dad? Why’d you ever see her in the first place?”

“Because I’m human. And I’m weak. And I always seem to end up doing things that hurt people—the people I love.”

“You don’t love Mom.”

John swallowed hard, set his jaw. “Honey, I’ve tried.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve always known you had to get married because of Billy.”

“Yes.” He turned to look at his daughter. “That’s true.”

“Then everything—Billy and me and Phoebe, we’re all just a mistake.”

“No.” He shook his head adamantly. “No, you were never a mistake. Never. You three—you were the best things I ever had. Especially you, Beka. When you came along, you brought something really good into my life for the first time.”

She tilted her head back and looked up at the sky. One tear escaped the corner of her eye and rolled down her temple. She brushed it away. “Why didn’t you just divorce Mom a long time ago, let her find someone else?”

“I offered, Beka. When I was in prison, I told her she should file for divorce, make a new life for herself. She didn’t want to do it.”

“She wanted to stay with you?”

“Believe it or not, yeah, she did.”

“And then you came home and found someone else.”

He drew in a sharp breath. “Look, Beka—”

“Do you love her?”

“Pamela? Lena’s mom?”

Rebekah nodded.

“Yes,” he said. Then, “No.” Then, “Honey, I just don’t know.” Finally he said quietly, “You know what, Beka? I don’t even know who she is.”

For a long while neither spoke. John could hear the activity on the lake—the roar of outboard motors, laughter, the lilting cry of gulls. At length he said, “Listen, honey, I’m going to break it off.”

“Forget it, Dad. It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter. I’m going to break it off. I mean it. You’re more important to me than she is.”

Rebekah looked at him doubtfully. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“We can never be like a real family, Dad.”

“We can try. We have to try, Beka. It’s what I want.”

“Are you sure, or are you just saying that?”

“I’m sure. I’ve made a mess of things, but I want to try again. If that’s what you want.”

Rebekah turned away. John thought she might never answer, but she finally turned back and said, “Yeah, it’s what I want. I don’t want you and Mom to get divorced.”

“We won’t, honey.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“You’re going to break it off with Mrs. Jarvis?”

“Yes, Beka. I will. I promise.”

She nodded. “I hope Mom never finds out about her.”

“You know, Beka, your mother probably already knows.”

“How?”

John sighed deeply. “Because she knows me. She knows who I am. But that’s not the person I want to be anymore.”