Things Unsaid: A Novel (10 page)

“D
arling, we’re falling apart, and I don’t know what to do.”

Jules wanted to avoid an argument. Usually it was Mike who inched over to her side in bed, saying he wanted to warm up the sheets so she would be more comfortable. But tonight he was the one who seemed cold. Neither of them had brought up the subject of her parents since she had returned from SafeHarbour. It had been almost a week now.

Mike adjusted his dream machine, a contraption for alleviating the worst symptoms of sleep apnea. Sometimes he had anxiety attacks or would wander around the house, hoping to head off another fitful night’s sleep. Jules slept like the dead. Mike said it seemed like she lost consciousness before her head hit the pillow. She knew it was because Mike’s warmth near her was so reassuring. Did she take him for granted? But wasn’t she sparing him from the ugliness of family conflict? She hoped she was doing the right thing.

“I know you must have had an awful time with your mother,” Mike muttered. “And Zoë and I fended okay for ourselves. As usual. I told her that it was like one of your business trips. A duty, something you couldn’t avoid. But she cried. Said she’s always picked last … just like in gym class. Only her best friend Deidre chooses her first for a sports team. And then everyone else badgers her friend for picking such a loser. Do you hear what I’m saying? Zoë thinks you’re choosing her last.”

That was the truth. Jules had failed them over and over again, always in the name of some other priority that seemed right at the time, but
now she knew better. What did other people do who didn’t love their parents anymore, but wanted to, or at least wanted to help them at the end of life? She had once felt love for her own mother, too. Didn’t every child … at the beginning? Now Jules wanted more time with Zoë. It seemed like it would have to wait until after her parents no longer needed her. But being a mother was forever, wasn’t it? And so was being a daughter?

Mike turned off the light and they lay there in silence, not touching. Exhausted, Jules finally fell asleep, tears sliding down her pillow. Night terrors woke her up as she drifted back to an unforgivable time, to almost the very beginning of Zoë’s life. She and Mike had yearned for a baby. They’d read books together about healthy pregnancy and parenthood—this was at a time when the Internet wasn’t a serious research tool—and Jules had hoped she could be a good mother. She’d pictured the tiny, intimate inner world inside of her where her baby would grow: its cells, brain, each emotion a bud. Floating and morphing, her baby wouldn’t drown, would she? There would be a loving connection between her and her baby, from heart to mind, in each cell. She certainly hoped so, anyway.

But then she started as an adjunct professor in the psychology department at Stanford when Zoë was a six-month-old baby. Almost eighteen years ago now. Women professors were still a rare sighting then. At almost forty years old, she had become a middle-aged “junior” faculty member and a middle-aged mom. Two dreams come true.

Jules needed a book under contract for her tenure review. Then she could concentrate on nurturing Mike and Zoë. Dr. Schlepp (even his name sounded like a bad joke) had told her not to worry. He was a lecherous, seventy-something psychiatrist of some fame and notoriety. Balding, resembling a rapacious Rasputin or sinister Spinoza, Schlepp had a thin goatee and the kind of lean, muscular body mass that only the old obsessed over as a way to control the only facet of aging they could: weight. He fancied that women found him hot. In his spare time, when he was not seducing clueless female students or writing novels loosely disguising his sexual exploits and those confessed by his nubile patients, he was on a strict Atkins diet, working out at the gym. Schlepp’s groping and leering were the price she had to pay for tenure.
He claimed that he had an open marriage. No one bothered confirming that with Mrs. Schlepp.

She had to tighten her guts to control herself. For five long years she exhaled, thinking of her Zen meditation practice.
No mistakes now
, she told herself.
Just a little more time. That’s all
. The carrot dangling in front of her—tenure—was worth it. Or so she thought.

“Your baby is so pretty—just like her pretty mommy,” Schlepp said one day. “You know I’m your biggest supporter on the tenure board and only my vote really counts with the dean. So you need to play nice.” His lips looked sticky and gooey.

I need to play smart
.

Schlepp laughed, the look on his face indicating he could push as hard as he wanted.
How he must love that feeling
, Jules thought, her stomach queasy.

“Come on, one little kiss, no tongue, okay? It’s no skin off your ass. Besides, you should be happy that I’m your number one fan. That husband of yours will be no wiser.” He chuckled as she stiffened. The first of many of his displays of power. Over and over again, the idea of Schlepp’s death had consumed her. Between lectures. Sitting on the toilet. In her dreams. For him to live only as long as Jules needed him, then no more—that’s what she wanted. But that was her secret; not even her husband knew.

Jules remembered her three-year old Zoë, only months before the scheduled Holy Tenure Committee review. She was picking her up from the campus day-care center, called My Second Home—and to Zoë it was. The building was specifically built to look like a suburban home, with a huge yard that included jungle gyms, a tree house, and sandboxes. My Second Home had a long waiting list, and graduate students had priority over faculty, and faculty over administration and staff. When Zoë was accepted for one of the few coveted openings, Jules had been as excited as if her daughter had just been accepted to Harvard. No,
more
excited. As if she had beaten the odds and won the state lottery.

On this day in particular, Zoë was waiting by the gate when Jules arrived. So little and vulnerable. Her little girl was the last child to be picked up … again. Zoë’s face lit up at the sight of Jules. She jumped
into the front passenger seat in their yellow Honda Civic station wagon, her incredibly soft, sweet smile illuminating her heart-shaped little face, and looked up adoringly at her mother. Jules felt reenergized, ready for a treat, as if she were tasting some Belgian truffle.

“Mama, I wish I were your sun.” Zoë’s singular, baby-sounding voice lowered Jules’s blood pressure, releasing endorphins.

Did she say “son” or “sun”?
Jules wasn’t sure. Did her little girl think she wanted a boy? That wasn’t true. She had wanted a girl more than anything. Not like her own mother, who had danced around Andrew—his whole life. When Jules was pregnant, she had known the being inside her was going to be a girl. She’d had no doubts whatsoever.

“Zoë, why would you want that?” Jules asked.

“So I could shine for you.”

Her little princess, the daughter of her dreams. Such a good heart. She looked so small and precious.

“You make me glow every day, sweetheart. More than the sun, the moon, and all the stars,” she said. Zoë needed her attention now, and Jules wanted to listen. She didn’t want to be distracted by the lecture she had to give tomorrow. The manic footnoting and minutiae of academia could wait now. Balance, all about balance. She shuddered at the thought of Schlepp and tried to flush the thought away.

Zoë wiggled, squirming delightedly in her seat belt like a kitten. “See my picture? I made it just for you, Mommy,” she said, holding up a tempera-painted, primary-colored building and bright blue sky with a smiley-face sun.

“Yes, my sunshine. Your picture is beautiful.” Jules heard her own mother’s voice inside her head, asking, “What did you say, darling?” and then walking out of the room before she could answer. She feared turning into her mother or her mother’s ghost. She wanted more time to paint with Zoë, to make gingerbread houses, to laugh and read with her. Before it was too late. But without her job at Stanford she could end up the type of stay-at-home mom her mother had been: a diva without an audience.

How many times had she disappointed her daughter? Too many to count. She felt guilty. She believed their lives would change for the better once she had tenure. Family would take top priority. She would
make more time for Mike and Zoë. “Zoë” meant “life,” and she and Mike had named her that for a reason. Zoë was one of Jules’s lifelines. Mike was the other. They knew that, didn’t they? She was just waiting for the time to come when she would show them.

But tenure never came.

“Don’t go yet … please?” Schlepp had pleaded with Jules when she headed for the kitchen to get Mike. That night—January 8, 1998, a party hosted by Schlepp—was etched in her skull. Almost thirteen years ago now. She should have realized that Mike had changed after that. That he wasn’t the same. She hadn’t wanted to see.

“I just poured you another glass of sangria, since you love Betsy’s recipe so much.” He tugged on the silky sleeve of her cobalt-blue dress. Her favorite blue—one her mother thought drained her of color.

“It’s late. The party’s over,” Jules said, taking a sip from the glass he handed her.

“Your tenure’s a cinch. No one’s going to vote you down. Not when I’m endorsing you. We can talk tomorrow in your office about all the details. If you’re that worried, that is.” He swayed, listing left.

“Mike! Mike! Where are you?” she called out towards the kitchen. No response. The house was more like a cave—too damn huge!
What is taking him so long?
she wondered. She suddenly felt woozy, drowsy, and she stumbled over to the sofa, which caught her fall.

Where was Mike? Schlepp was sliding his hand under her dress, but she couldn’t push back. Her hands felt rubbery and detached from her wrists. She couldn’t quite sit up either. The last thing she remembered was Mike coming into the room to pick her up off the couch. She remembered tripping, losing her balance, as she went out the front door, leaning heavily on his shoulder. She remembered that his body felt upset.

The next day, when Jules walked through the door after work, it was 7:30 p.m. and Mike hadn’t come home yet.
Probably still pissed over what happened last night
. But seven thirty wasn’t that late, she reassured herself.

She saw the answering machine’s red light flash twice: two calls. She expected one would be from Mike; he always called to let her know when to expect him for dinner.
Perhaps he had a last-minute client emergency
, she thought, trying to talk herself out of worrying.

“Hi Jules, this is Ann Price from the department,” the voice on the first message said. “I’m so sorry to have to disturb your evening. Something terrible has happened. Please call me back.”

What could be so terrible? Was it something about Schlepp? What a pain in the ass he was. Jules knew Ann was no friend of the chairman’s either. But her voice sounded shaken, thin, on the message.

Jules breathed in shallowly, evenly, distractedly, as she called Ann back. “Got your message. What’s up?”

“Dr. Schlepp has died suddenly of an apparent heart attack. In his office. I called 911. I had forgotten my medicine for my nerves—so I had to go back to the office. The police and ambulance both came. Taped off the office with yellow-and-black tape, skulls and crossbones. Macabre, I know. There’s going to be an investigation. It seems that he fell hard, and the office is a bloody mess. Sorry, don’t know how else to put it. That’s clumsy of me, I know.”

“Whoa! Sorry to hear that awful, awful news,” Jules said. Did her voice sound sincere? She hoped so. Maybe Ann would think she was just tired, or shocked. “Let me know what I can do,” she said. She thought of how she had dreamed of his death.

“Some of Professor Schlepp’s female students have filed sexual harassment charges with the dean recently, so the police have to rule out foul play.” Ann had wanted to file a complaint, too, but was afraid she’d lose her job. Jules knew about Schlepp’s garage apartment. Students had come to her in tears describing how they had been pinned down as part of their “therapy.”

There was no way a university like Stanford would allow sexual harassment charges to be brought out in the open. That was not going to happen. They would be swept under the rug, like so much else in life. Never brought to the surface.

None of Jules’s colleagues knew Schlepp had promised that her tenure would be a mere formality. There were no witnesses.
“No big deal,”
he had said, practically drooling on her.

Jules pressed the answering machine message button again after hanging up with Ann.

“Hi, sweetie pie. This is your mother. You really should call me more often, you know. I feel like you’re a stranger sometimes. There’s so much to tell you about what’s happening here at SafeHarbour. The talent show I’m singing in. You know, we aren’t getting any younger. And my birthday’s coming up. Call me before it gets too late.”

It was too late. She would call her mother tomorrow.

The sound of the RAV4 in the driveway woke her up. Or maybe it was the high beams that always shot through the living room windows whenever someone pulled in. Mike was loud, stumbling in and then down the two steps from the front door to the living room. Jules hadn’t realized she had fallen asleep watching late-night television. One of those comic monologues that wasn’t so funny. It was almost one a.m.