The Third Child (26 page)

“And your father?”

“He’s in the hospital. Lung cancer.”

“Sharon, maybe you could talk a little about what happened in your marriage. Melissa wants to write about all this, what’s happened to the people here. I would really appreciate it if you could explain.”

“My husband and I, we moved up the mountain. He liked woods and he hunted a lot. In and out of season, like guys do around here, you understand. It’s what they’ve always done. We weren’t that far from town. We planned to have a family. My husband, his name was Broderick but everybody called him Brud.

“Brud and I, we planned a big family like we came from, both of us. So when I got pregnant just two months after our wedding, we were glad. But I lost the baby in the fourth month. Six months later, I got pregnant again. That one I carried to term, meaning the whole nine months. But the baby, a little girl, she was born dead. The doctor, he goes, It was a mercy because something was wrong with her. Her intestines didn’t reach all the way. She would have starved to death.”

Sharon did not look at either of them but into her lap as she related the next three miscarriages. “Finally, Bobbie was born to us. It’s true, he’s got problems, and the doctor says maybe he won’t live so long, but he’s a real kid and he’s alive now….”

Sharon was quiet so long, Melissa was trying to put together a sen
tence of condolence when she spoke again. “It was too much for Brud. He just took off. He said our luck was rotten and there was no use trying to go on.”

“Did the doctors ever tell you what caused all these problems?”

“PCBs in the river water. We been drinking it all our lives. The doctor who spoke to us said it was from eating the fish. I saw him on local cable. The governor said they were cleaning up the river, they were going to make it right for us. But people go on dying. It hasn’t stopped.”

Melissa almost dropped the coffee she had been sipping. Carefully, as if it might blow up, she put the cup down on the coffee table. That was why Blake had tried to warn her.

“I really want to thank you for talking with us, Mrs. Grabowski. I know it’s hard for you to speak about it.”

“We don’t talk about it to each other, you know? We see those movies about pollution and justice and such, but there’s no way out for us. So it’s kind of a relief when somebody from outside comes and acts interested. We just stew in our own juices and we can’t do anything about it.”

When they left, the guy was still sitting on the steps. He ignored them until they had stepped around him. Then he spat.

Before they got on the Honda, Blake said, “That was what Karen was investigating when they locked her up in the loony bin. There’s a lot of horror here. Pain and misery.”

“But my father didn’t pollute the river.”

“Neither did he clean it up as promised. He ended up giving the polluters the right to go on polluting and charged the minor cleanup to the taxpayers.”

She clung to him as they roared off downhill and then upriver to the interstate. She was glad they could not talk. That poor woman. She wished she could bring her father to meet Sharon, but it would never happen. Would he say she was sentimental? That was Rosemary’s insult. Rosemary would say, How can you prove it’s the water? It’s probably genetic. Inbreeding. She wanted to believe that, but she couldn’t. This was what political decisions turned into, a woman with five miscarriages and a little boy with Down’s syndrome.

When they stopped for coffee a couple of hours into the trip, she said to him: “You’re educating me, that’s what you’re doing. Right?”

“I’m reminding you why we began this project. What it means in human terms.”

“I feel so ashamed sometimes. I resented my parents because of the way they treated me. I wonder, if they’d been warmer to me, would I just go along with what they do in the world? Would I agree, because it was them? I ignored the politics, because I was so focused on myself.”

“That’s what growing up is all about, Lissa. Understanding the bigger picture. Looking farther than the ends of our noses.”

“And you’re worried now that I have a secret weapon against them, that we’re actually married, I will just walk off and forget everything.”

“I suspected it wasn’t feeling as urgent to you.”

“Well, the bottom line goes that I want to please you. I want you to get what you need too. So I won’t ever walk away.” She put her hand over his on the tabletop beside the remains of not very good cherry pie.

“I want it to matter to you too. Come on, let’s see how far we can get. You don’t mind traveling in the dark, do you?”

“With you, I don’t mind it at all.”

M
elissa found several messages upon her return. A phone call from a classmate who had missed Friday’s French was easy to deal with. An e-mail from Rosemary said,

Both the women she mentioned were in her sociology class, but she had never done more than share a cup of coffee with Lindsey and talk about doing a project together for class, maybe in a local mall.

She tried twice to return Karen’s call, but Karen did not yet have an answering machine. Finally on the third try, she caught her in.

“Listen, Melissa. Tom has been busted. And the FBI is somehow involved.”

“Tom?”

“The gay guy I put Blake in touch with. Who used to work for your father?”

“Busted for what?” She remembered he had been arrested in a men’s room once. “Was he caught trying to have sex?”

“No, it has something to do with being accused of stealing your father’s papers and selling them. Because Dick was governor, and the papers crossed state lines, it’s more serious.”

“He never knew who I was,” Melissa said. She had an instant stomachache, pulsating.

“But he could describe you both. Blake is rather distinctive-looking. Ask Blake what he said when he made contact with Tom, because if he talks, you could be in serious trouble.”

She ran to Blake at once, for he had long since taught her to say nothing that could hurt them in e-mail or on the telephone. He frowned, straddling his desk chair. In that position, he looked all arms and legs. “I’m trying to remember what I told him. I knew him as Tom, no last name. I told him my name was Sam.”

“Why Sam?”

“It was the first name that came to mind when he asked me. Do I know any Sams? Yeah, Si had a cousin in Baltimore named Sam. But he’s dead.”

“No Sams in my family. Quick thinking.”

“I can’t remember what I said to him. I’ll concentrate and see if I can bring it back.” He dug at his scalp, frowning still. “Let’s hope he doesn’t get chatty.”

“What could they actually charge him with?”

“I don’t know. At some point I should ask Si. I hate to involve him, but he’s the only person who can answer questions like that.”

Blake brought up various newspapers on the internet. The
Inquirer
had a photo. “That’s him,” Melissa said. “He has a cap in front of his face, but his ears are memorable.”

“I better call my dad,” Blake said grimly.

When he said “father” or “dad,” she always had a moment of disorientation, wondering which of the two men he was referring to. It made her feel alienated, remembering all he had not told her until she found out from Rosemary. It surprised her how much she resented that withholding, even now, even after so much else had happened between them. She still resented that he had not trusted her. It was a sore that would not heal. She sat with her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms clutching her
legs, chilly in the too-warm dorm. At first she tried to follow the conversation, but Si was doing most of the talking. She tuned out. Blake would tell her what was going on when he hung up. All the news seemed to be bad, so why be in a hurry to hear it?

He turned to face her, crossing his arms as if he too needed protection from something dangerous in the air. “He says Burt Sandoval is taking Tom’s case. He’s going to use the Pentagon Papers defense.”

“What Pentagon Papers? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Before our time. The
Times
published secret papers about the Vietnam war. Some guy—Daniel Ellsberg—who had access stole them, because there was a lot of information about how the government had lied. The
Times
knew they were stolen and printed them anyhow. A judge finally ruled that it was in the public interest and a newspaper had the right to print such material….”

“I don’t get what’s happening, who’s after who.”

“Your father is after the
Inquirer
for publishing the stuff we leaked to Roger. Tom’s in trouble for stealing papers from your father’s office.”

“I thought my father would claim they were bogus.”

“He did at first. But there’s too much info that can be checked. He’s trying to bottle it up at the source by going after Tom, who took the stuff and passed it on, and the
Inquirer,
that published it, and Roger, who wrote it. They haven’t found out we were the middlemen—yet. I hear Mexico’s nice this time of year.”

“Could we run away?”

His laugh was more like a cough. “Not really. For the moment, I say we go with the flow and watch.”

“Why can’t we run away?” She looked out his window on a bleak November day with pellets of snow circling aimlessly, vanishing as they hit the ground. A day without sun or color. A warm place far from her family had strong appeal: palm trees, a blue-green tropical sea swishing lazily at their feet.

“And live on what? It’s premature to break and run.” He stretched languidly. “Besides, Mexico has extradition laws. And we’d have to be picking up checks from Si and Nadine to survive. We’d be easy to trace.”

“Aren’t there other places? Places that don’t have treaties?”

“Like China?”

“People disappear in the U.S. all the time.”

“We’re kind of striking, babes. People notice us. You could dye your hair, but I can’t dye my skin. We should just sit tight and see what happens. We’re not on the spot yet.”

“In Mexico there are a lot of mixed-race people, Blake.”

“How well do you speak Spanish? I sound American, and I bet you do too.”

In bed they clutched each other, even more passionate than usual. “After college, we’ll have children, won’t we?”

He smiled into her eyes from two inches away. “One at a time, I hope. Yes. We have to have children. They will be absolutely gorgeous. Like us.”

“I never thought of myself as gorgeous.”

“You aren’t patrician looking like your mother. But you
are
beautiful in your own way, my girl. You’re built. You’ve got curves where you ought to. You’re the right height for me and you feel good. Oh how you feel good. You’re made of cream and velvet.”

“I want to know we’ll be together for years and years, to get old together like my mother’s parents. They actually love each other still, you can tell, even though they’re really old, like seventy. I don’t know if I want to live to be that old, but if I do, I want it to be with you.”

He held her face between his palms. “I want that too. I want to be a great-grandfather with a tribe of descendants. Multicolored like a quilt, some with your hair, some with mine, all of them strong and confident of belonging and being loved.”

“I think that’s like beautiful.”

“But we should wait to make babies till we’re graduated and we have a place to live and some money. I don’t want you to get pregnant too soon. I’ve seen what that does to people.”

“I’m in no hurry, believe me. I just need to know we have a future we care about. Making plans even if they’re just pretend makes me feel good.”

“They’re not pretend. We can do it. Why not? It’s not like we want to
be President, the way your old man does, or want to be rock stars or basketball millionaires. What we want is simple enough, so why can’t we have it? Each other and a decent life together.”

She held him, she held him tight, her cheek pressed to his chest, the sparse wiry hairs tickling her.

THREE WEEKS
passed, exams came and went, papers were due, and it seemed as if nothing was happening. The first snowstorm of the season muffled everything in puffy white globules, a wet snow that bowed branches and striped tree trunks. Andrus Field was studded with kids throwing snowballs. Snowmen, snowwomen, a big dog of snow stood here and there on campus. By the end of the week everything was drooping and grey. She was delighted with a thaw on Sunday, even though it made the world a soggy mass of dead leaves and choked gutters.

Monday everything froze and campus was a sheet of bumpy ice. They were going to class when Emily slipped and landed on her butt. Now she was hobbling. Melissa was already worrying about Thanksgiving. She was nervous about going home. The farther she stayed from her parents, the better for her. She did not want them questioning her, she did not want to have to lie, to be afraid all the time she would let something slip. She was worried too that if she went home, they might somehow keep her there.

“It might be a good idea to go and scout them out,” Blake said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “You could find out what they know.”

“I doubt it. I’ve never been great at getting stuff out of Rosemary. I’m not her confidante.”

“But Merilee is. Maybe you could get her to talk.”

“Blake, I’m ten times likelier to spill something by accident than to learn anything useful.”

Tuesday started off as an ordinary day of classes and bad weather, sleet on top of ice. She got the results of her tests and found she had done uniformly well. Marriage must be good for her studying. Maybe feeling more secure with Blake improved her concentration. She was set to see
him after supper, but he appeared outside her Sociology of Politics class, waiting for her.

“Roger has been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury investigating the theft of documents from the governor’s office.”

“Oh, shit! You still don’t want to run?”

“Roger’s going to plead First Amendment, freedom of the press, the right of a journalist to protect his sources. We’re his source, and he promised he’d protect us. There’s a lot of precedents for a journalist refusing to testify. Besides, the papers went through Phil, and Roger sure doesn’t want to implicate his own son. Right now I’m off-the-wall glad we didn’t bypass Phil.”

Still they were scared. They sat drinking coffee in the student center, not saying much. She felt years older than the kids around her, some from her classes, some she knew from the dorm or previous classes. She was married already, she had adult worries. She was in danger. She might even be arrested. It was not like she was still worrying about boyfriends or grades or her complexion, like them, like Emily even.

They watched the evening news together. Of course there was nothing on the local, but on the national news, there was Roger, who only faintly resembled his son, being ushered into a courthouse surrounded by a clicking rustle of cameras—the sound of a horde of insects—and reporters sticking mikes in his face. He drew himself up and spoke resonantly: “I’m defending the freedom of the press. I’m fighting for all of you as well as myself. If I have to go to jail to protect my sources, then I’ll go to jail. We have to stand firm or we can’t do investigative journalism any longer. A free country must preserve its free press.”

“I thought he was pretty persuasive,” Melissa said.

“It’s a question the grand jury and judge will decide. He’s our hero. He may not be theirs. Maybe the judge who will hear him was appointed by Dick.”

She put her head into her hands. “It’s not a game anymore.”

“It never was a game, babes. You ask your aunt.”

“But it felt like one. I mean, we were just harassing him. Nipping at
him. Playing tricks. Finding things that were hidden. Now it feels so heavy, so serious. Like we could maybe go to jail.”

He looked at her for a long time. “Of course we could. Or at least, I could. After all, you’re King Richard’s daughter.”

“That’s not fair. I’ve done everything you’ve done. Except the computer stuff. I don’t know how to do that. I’m your wife. We share everything, the good and the bad. That’s what getting married means.”

“We’ll just hold on and see what happens….”

They learned that Roger’s papers and computer had been confiscated along with his phone records. The
Inquirer
had stopped running the articles. That seemed to upset Blake more than anything else. “If they turn coward over those articles, then it was all for nothing.”

“Maybe they’re just waiting to see what happens in the courts.”

“But the news is now. It’s a hot story. If they wait six months, it’ll just be a little story in the back of the paper. This is our chance.”

The next weekend Blake disappeared with two of the guys from the African-American caucus who had been in the demonstration with them last year. He didn’t tell her where he was going or how long he would be gone. She was worried sick, and furious too because he wasn’t confiding in her. It wasn’t fair! If she was his wife, he had to tell her things. It just wasn’t right to treat her like this. All of a sudden, he trusted these two guys he had hardly said boo to for weeks, and she was left hanging, waiting on him, not knowing where he was or why he was there or when he was coming back. Could he have fled, the way she suggested? Had he abandoned her? She was terrified. Maybe he had listened to her advice and run off to Mexico. He said that the two of them together were too striking, too visible; maybe he really meant that, and he had taken off on his own, leaving her to face her parents and the law and the government and everything.

In desperation she went in search of Florette, finding her at the table her group usually occupied. “How the hell would I know where Blake is?” Florette glared at her. “You been seeing far more of him than we do. I hear you really hooked up. Why you suppose I know where his ass is at?
You think he’s getting some on the side? Don’t come running to me, white girl. I don’t keep tabs on him. That’s your job.”

She believed Florette. So where was he? She was embarrassed she had bothered Florette; Blake would be annoyed. But she did not know what to do with herself. Oh, she studied, she worked on a paper, she did her laundry, she trimmed Emily’s ends, she answered Rosemary’s weekly e-mail, but all of the time like a sore tooth she probed his absence. Could he have abandoned her?

Emily was less than sympathetic. She was painting her toenails, using shiny black polish. “So he’s gone off with a couple of guy friends. Do you want him to stop having friends? Marriage isn’t supposed to be a box. You got married way too young, and now you think you own him body and soul so he can’t sneeze without your permission. Lissa, you’re dead wrong.”