Thorns of Truth (43 page)

“Mandy, is that you? My goodness, that girl of yours had me on hold so long I thought she’d forgotten me.” Bernice gave a brittle laugh in which was buried a note of accusation, as if Lori’s thoughtlessness were somehow Mandy’s fault.

Mandy could feel a familiar kink forming in her neck, in the certain spot it seemed to favor, like a cowlick. “Sorry, Mom. I’ve been in court all morning. I just walked in.” Why was she apologizing? Her whole life, it seemed, she’d been atoning for sins against her mother she had no knowledge of having committed. Sins that in Bernice Griffin’s book were nonetheless scrupulously recorded and tallied. “What’s up? You don’t usually call me at work. Everything okay?”

Her mother released a sigh that seemed to go on forever, like air being let out of a tire. Then she said, “I was about to ask the same of you. When you didn’t call on Sunday, I thought maybe you were ill … or had been in an accident. I was worried sick.”

“Why on earth would you think that?” Mandy’s mind raced frantically. What had been special about Sunday? Mother’s birthday? No. That was in April … and Mandy had remembered to send flowers. Roses, for which her mother had thanked her, while at the same time remarking offhandedly that her back yard in Boca was so overrun with flowers, her gardener had had to deadhead every bush.

“If it wasn’t important enough for you to remember, there’s no point in my telling you,” her mother replied with the long-suffering air of a woman accustomed to having her needs ignored.

The kink in Mandy’s neck tightened, digging in like barbed wire. “Mom, don’t do this. Of
course
I want to know. It’s just that I’ve been so busy here at the office. Whatever it was, it must have slipped my mind.”

“I’m perfectly aware of how busy you are. Do you think I called to complain? I was
concerned,
that’s all.” Mandy heard the click of her lighter, followed by a hard little
huff
of expelled breath. “How
is
the divorce business these days? Booming as usual?”

“It pays the rent.” Mandy squeezed her eyes shut. “Listen, Mom, if there’s something on your mind, I wish you’d tell me. Or did you call just to make me feel guilty?”

“Well, if that’s the attitude you’re going to take, I’m sorry I bothered,” her mother snapped. “Pardon me if I’m taking up too much of your precious time.”

Mandy could just see her mother, once a natural redhead, her hair now dyed a vivid henna, and so heavily sprayed it resembled an overturned clay pot. She would be out by the pool in her back yard, the remote phone in one hand, a Virginia Slim in the other. In Hacienda Harbor, the retirement community to which she’d moved six years ago (described in the brochure Mom had sent her as “ideally suited to the mature, active adult”), she was among the youngest of the residents—a fact that incited frequent mention of the interest paid her by the men of the community.

“I’m sorry. Mom, I didn’t mean it that way.” Mandy sighed. “I’ve been really stressed out lately.”

Her mother exhaled forcibly, which came out sounding like a snort of derision. Mandy imagined her with her eyes narrowed against smoke that was drifting upward in lazy currents. She thought she could hear the faint hiss of a sprinkler in the background, and could almost smell the shorn wet Bermuda grass that, against bare soles, always felt spiky and inhospitable somehow.

“I’m not surprised,” Bernice said.

Mandy was immediately on the defensive. “What do you mean?”

“Do I have to spell it out? Any fool can see. That woman, your stepmother—she’s been working you to the bone. Ever since your father passed away, God rest his soul, you haven’t been yourself.”

“Mom … this has nothing to do with Rose.” In a way, it
did.
But Mandy would rather walk naked down a crowded sidewalk than try to explain to her mother about her drinking.

“What about that young man you’re seeing? You haven’t mentioned him lately.” There was a sudden sizzle of static, and her mother’s voice grew faint. Mandy could picture her padding around to the other side of the pool, where the phone’s signal was weakest. No doubt she was plucking at a dead blossom on one of the hibiscus shrubs that drove Bernice absolutely crazy with their lush disregard of the seasons.

“You mean Robert? We see each other when we can. We’re both so busy.” Many unthinkingly crossed her fingers behind her back, like she had as a little girl when telling a fib. “Don’t worry. If I ever
do
decide to get married, I’ll warn you far enough in advance so you can shop for a dress.”

“No need to be flip. I was just asking.” A rustling sound, like a branch being yanked at. “But since you brought it up, may I remind you that you’re not getting any younger. By the time
I
was your age. I had a husband
and
a daughter.”

“Yes, Mom, I know.”
A husband and a daughter you drove crazy with your constant nagging.

“Don’t think I’m not aware of what the problem is.”

“Who said I had a problem?” The barbed wire in Mandy’s neck gave a vicious twist. Sweat broke out on her forehead and prickled under her arms. She felt as if she were in a steambath.

Her mother barreled on as if she hadn’t heard. “I read books. I watch TV. I’m not stupid.”

“Mom, what on
earth
are you talking about?”

“Divorce, that’s what. You were twelve when your father left us—don’t tell me that didn’t leave scars.”

“I don’t see—”

“Of course you don’t. You were too young to understand. It was that woman. She had her eye on him. I should have seen it. I was so blind! There he was, going to the office every day, not suspecting a thing—until she moved in for the kill.”

“It’s been twenty-two years.” Mandy fought to hold back the scream mounting inside her. She’d been hearing the same story for years, and knew every bitter accusation and reinvented scrap of history by heart. “What’s the point of going over and over it? Daddy’s dead. And Rose isn’t here to defend herself.”

“You always stuck up for her. From day one.” More thrashing of leaves, an effort that caused her mother’s words to emerge in staccato bursts. “That must be why you forgot whose anniversary it was last Sunday. Daddy and I would have been married forty-two years. But who’s counting?”

Mandy winced. The barbed wire was wrapped about her whole neck now. She didn’t dare move, not even an inch, or it would rip her apart.

Damn … I should have remembered.

But what was the point? Every year, when she’d called or sent a card, she’d only loathed herself for giving in, for feeding her mother’s delusions. Maybe that’s why it had slipped her mind, Mandy thought. On top of the teetering pile that threatened to swamp her, it was simply one lie too many.

“Happy anniversary,” Mandy congratulated in a voice as empty as the hole that had opened up in her stomach. “I’ll send you a card.”

“Don’t bother. It’s too late, anyway.… Oops, there’s the door.” Mandy could hear the faint chiming of the doorbell, followed by the slapping of rubber thongs against patio tiles. “It’s the pool man—something to do with the filter. He promised he’d stop by. It’s been two
weeks,
do you believe it? When I called again to remind him, he acted like he was doing
me
a favor. As if I don’t pay him enough every month.”

“I’ll call you sometime this weekend,” Mandy promised, silently blessing the pool man.

Hanging up, she was overwhelmed with thoughts of her father. Daddy. God, how she missed him. His booming laugh, and his habit of dropping by her office at odd times during the day just to ask how she was getting along, or to give her a quick hug. She missed his irrepressible sense of humor, the dumb jokes he told with such gusto you had to laugh anyway. And how, when they were alone, he’d call her by her childhood nickname. “Monkey,” he’d tease, mussing her hair like when she was little. “You were such a little monkey, up a tree faster than I could say boo.”

Right now, Mandy wanted nothing more than to put her head down on her desk and bawl like a baby.

Because the thing she
really
wanted she couldn’t have.

Her mother had been right about one thing: she wasn’t getting any younger. What
about
Robert? Mandy tried to remember when he’d last phoned. Yesterday, or was it the day before? No … last week. She’d been watching TV, and his call had interrupted a Budweiser commercial.

He’d said he had tickets to Carnegie Hall for this Saturday, and would she like to go? Mandy had had to bite her lip to keep from blurting the truth—that she’d love to, but was terrified of his seeing her this way. Instead, she’d told Robert she was having dinner with her brother, which was only partly true. Jay had said that either night, Friday or Saturday, was fine.

Okay, so Robert hasn’t called since. What did you expect? He’s smart, he can take a hint. If you still want him, why the hell haven’t YOU called?

Before she could talk herself out of it, Mandy snatched up the phone and punched in Robert’s office number.

“Mandy Griffin for Mr. Greene.” she announced briskly to his secretary, hoping it wouldn’t be so obvious that her voice was trembling.

The woman hesitated before answering pleasantly, “I’ll see if Mr. Greene is in his office.”

Mandy waited what seemed an eternity before she came back on the line. “I’m sorry, Ms. Griffin, he’s in a meeting. May I take a message?”

Something in her voice told Mandy she was lying. What was the secretary’s name, anyway? She couldn’t remember. But, then, so
much
seemed to have slipped her mind just lately. Only one thing was clear—a terrible certainty that throbbed in Mandy’s head like an infected tooth—the tables had turned. Now it was Robert who was avoiding
her.

“No … thanks. I’ll call back later,” she muttered.

She hung up, and for several minutes sat staring at the papers on her desk, trying to muster some interest in domestic crises other than her own … but it was hopeless. She couldn’t stop thinking about the last time she and Robert had made love, his hurt look when she gently nudged him into leaving. It must have seemed like a rejection, her mumbled excuse about having to get up early the next morning to be in court. What he hadn’t known was that she’d wanted him to stay. And that she’d hated herself for needing to be alone. Alone to drink …

Now it no longer mattered.

Not to Robert.

This time, Mandy couldn’t hold in her despair, any more than she could have stopped a severed artery from bleeding; she could only muffle with her hands the cry that tore through her.

As lousy as Mandy felt, Drew looked even worse. Pale, unshaven, the flesh under his eyes bruised with anxiety. In the tiny studio apartment she’d teased him about when he moved in—saying it was perfect, if you happened to be very short and collected nothing larger than stamps—her brother sat dejectedly on the futon sofa, hunched forward with his elbows propped against his knees.

The last time Mandy had seen him was at Sylvie’s funeral. Then he’d seemed sad, but not shaken. Now it was obvious something was dreadfully wrong. She glanced around at the normally tidy room, noting the dirty dishes in the sink and the laundry piled haphazardly in one corner.

The apartment wasn’t just messy, she thought; it looked downright neglected. And that was
so
unlike Drew. As a kid, he’d existed in a cheerful jumble of hamster cages, terrariums, fish tanks, but there had been a certain
order
to it all. This was … well, it was
gross.

“Drew, what is it? Are you sick?” Mandy, feeling a surge of genuine concern, forgot her own misery for the moment.

Her brother shook his head and lifted his handsome, haunted face—which always gave her a little jolt, it was so like Daddy’s. “It’s not me. It’s Iris. I don’t know where she is. Last night, she called from a phone booth to say she was on her way over. But she never showed up. None of the friends I’ve called have heard from her. She’s not at her parents’, either.”

“Jesus. Did you two have a fight?”

The smile he gave her was so bleak, Mandy had to look away. It was like driving past a car wreck—a flash of something twisted and ghastly that makes you think,
there but for the grace of God …

“We don’t fight—not like normal couples.” His voice was hoarse with weariness. “Some of the shit that’s gone on, you wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”

“Try me.”

He thought for a moment, spreading his hands in a helpless gesture, as if it would be useless to try and explain. “It’s like … we’ll be getting along just fine,” he began haltingly, “and all of a sudden she’ll just … she’ll go off about something that … well, that doesn’t make sense. It’s like she has all these little rooms inside her head, and you never know what’s going to pop out from behind the doors.”

Drew’s dark-brown hair stood up in a brushy rooster comb, reminding her of how, when he was a kid, no amount of hair goop would ever make it lie flat. It used to drive him crazy, but right now he hardly seemed to notice. She watched as he absently ran a hand over the top of his head. His fingernails, she saw, were bitten to the quick.

“Those rooms—what are they like?” Mandy felt as if she were in one of the Nancy Drew mysteries she used to devour as a kid, like she was creeping up a dark staircase armed with only a flashlight. And she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to know what lay ahead.

Drew gave her a long, searching look. “Promise you won’t tell? Not anyone. She made me swear.”

Mandy shivered, wanting to turn back. She had her own staircase to climb, as steep as it was treacherous. She was the last person Drew should be turning to for help. But Drew was family. In some ways, the more than ten-year gap in their ages made her feel closer to him than if they’d grown up together—more like a mother than a sister. She’d been thirteen by the time he came along. She remembered exactly how he’d looked as a newborn, swaddled in his receiving blanket like a shrimp in its shell. How his miniature clown-face would go all scrunchy when he yawned. Holding him in her arms, she used to pretend he was
her
baby, better than any doll or pet.