A Month of Summer (20 page)

“What
is
going on, Kyle?” I hated it when he kept things from me just because he didn’t want to deal with my reaction and the discussion that would inevitably follow. “I’d rather just know. What happened with Isha?”

Someone knocked on his office door and he paused to answer, sign something, and close the door, while I waited on the line, imagining everything from Isha letting Macey watch R-rated movies, to leaving her alone in the house, to having a lover’s spat with Kyle and threatening to reveal the truth.

“Last night when I came home, she was waiting in a negligee with an open bottle of wine. It didn’t leave much to the imagination.”

“Isha?” I said slowly, trying to imagine dewy-eyed, bubbly Isha, who still got down on the floor and played Barbie Fashion Show with Macey, doing something so calculating and misguidedly sophisticated. “Are you sure you didn’t misunderstand? I can’t picture Isha doing something like that.”

“There wasn’t any misunderstanding it.” Kyle’s answer was toneless, flat. “I know a play when I see one.”

How often do you see one?
“I just never thought . . .”

Kyle laughed ruefully. “Don’t be naive, Rebecca. These girls come over here and they don’t have a dime in their pockets. It’s no surprise that some of them figure it’d be easier to marry a living than to make one.”

“What did you tell her? What did you say?” The scene materialized in my mind, the details remaining misty.

“I told her to get dressed, and we’d talk about her job. Nothing happened, if that’s what you’re asking.” The last sentence was light, disturbingly frivolous, as if he couldn’t imagine my thinking he would actually be receptive to her offer. In some strange way, that was comforting.

Pride, or a sense of self-preservation, kept me from digging any deeper. The world underneath me seemed to be shifting faster than I could catch my footing. I was teetering on the edge of something big and black and ragged. I wanted him to reassure me, to say,
Of course I would never do that, Rebecca. I wouldn’t do that to you, to Macey. You two are my life. We have a good life. Together. I love you.

Instead, he laughed into the receiver. “What do you think I am, stupid? Can you say ‘sexual harassment lawsuit’? I got her out of the house as fast as I could.”

“I guess that’s wise. What did you tell Macey?”

“She thinks Isha got a better job offer.” I heard the electronic chime of his laptop firing up in the background. “She’s a little burned about it, but on the other hand, she doesn’t think she needs a nanny anymore. She’d rather have her driver’s license and a car.”

“Very funny. And she does need a nanny.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Kyle didn’t sound convinced.

“I don’t want her coming home to an empty house. She’s too young. There are too many nights when you’re tied up at work and I’m busy dealing with issues at the boutique.” Why was he always in such a hurry for Macey to grow up, to push the parameters of childhood and be a third adult living in the house? Why did family life, raising our child, seem so insignificant to him—just another task to complete, a case to settle before moving on to the next stage of development.

“Don’t get me started about that stupid store,” he ground out, making clear, once again, that he thought it was high time I divested myself of the place. “Your store manager had some problem with a shipment yesterday. I told her
not
to call you, just do whatever she thought was best. It’s always something there.”

My head started pounding, my thoughts throbbing with things I wanted to say but couldn’t. The store was an argument that seemed insignificant now. “I’d better go. I’m at the hospital. My father’s doctor wanted to check him in for a few days.”

“It’s that bad?”

“It’s really bad. He’s having delusional episodes. He gets agitated.” I wanted to tell him everything, to share with him all the difficulties of the past few days, all the challenges ahead. I wanted to empty myself of all the tightly packed frustration, to lean on him and have him hold me up the way I would have when we were newly married and starting the firm together—before resentments and defense mechanisms created distance between us. When had our lives become so separate that it seemed unnatural to share significant events, to bolster and support each other?

Kyle’s computer chimed again, an indication that he’d already moved on to other things. “Sounds like the hospital’s a good idea.” The words were robotic and distracted. He was reading something while he was talking to me.

I didn’t answer. There seemed to be no point.

“You might wait awhile to call Macey,” he went on. “Mace is feeling fine, but the pain medicine they gave her at the emergency clinic made her sleepy, and she’s taking a nap. Hopefully tomorrow she’ll feel well enough to do her homework. The doctor doesn’t want her to go back to school until she has the permanent cast on.”

“I’ll call her later.” I ached to be sitting on Macey’s bed, stroking her hair, watching her sleep. She had to be heartbroken about missing the state gymnastics meet. Kyle’s mom would never understand how important it was. Neither would Kyle.

“Talk to you later, then,” he said absently. No time for useless sentimentalities like
I love you
and
I miss you
.

I said good-bye and closed the phone, sighed, and sat there with it folded between my hands, the battery warm on my palms. How had my life become such a mess? My time divided until I was short-changing everything—my career an unsatisfying rush, my daughter a miniature adult running her own life, my father a stranger living halfway across the country, my husband a dispassionate voice on the other end of the phone?

What would he have said if I’d asked about the scene in the café? Would he tell me the same thing he had about Isha—that it was an unwelcome flirtation, something he hadn’t asked for and had quickly rejected?

He wasn’t rejecting it the moment before the stoplight changed and I drove away. . . .

Maybe he didn’t care if I knew. Maybe he’d been out with Susan in broad daylight on purpose, hoping I would see and confront him and the deceptions would be over. Could seventeen years of marriage really mean so little to him? Could
we
?

What if nothing was going on? If I talked myself into trusting my husband, would I become one of those ridiculously blind women who sat at the negotiating table, finally accepting what everyone else already knew—the kind of women my mother bitterly criticized after her own divorce.
Trust your instincts
, she would have said.
A woman can’t afford to be naive. . . .

Letting out a long sigh, I laid my head back against the wall and closed my eyes. I could feel the plaster vibrating as the elevator hummed upward. I concentrated on the sound, trying to let the simple, meaningless white noise eclipse everything.

I needed to get back to the house, make sure Teddy was all right. . . .

I needed to go by the nursing center, check on Hanna Beth. . . .

I needed to call Macey in a little while. . . .

Poor Macey. . . .

I pictured her asleep in her bed, her long, honey brown hair falling in soft strands against the pillow, her lips pursing slightly as she slept. I loved to watch her sleep. . . .

The picture fell away. Everything fell away.

Peace, finally. . . .

The clang of a metal tray jolted me upright. My muscles were stiff and leaden, and I sat blinking, trying to get my bearings. I was in a hospital corridor. There was a woman in a wheelchair across from me. I knew her from somewhere.

My mind hopscotched, trying to make the connection. She was familiar—the gray hair in a thin braid down her back, the quick dark eyes nestled among loose skin and a thick fan of lines.

She smiled. “You were out like a hound on a hot day.” Even her voice, the slow, lazy Texas drawl, was familiar.

“I must have drifted off for a minute.” I glanced at the giant clock hanging on the wall like a piece of modern artwork. It was ticking toward six. “Oh, my gosh.” I pulled my cell phone out and double-checked the time.

The woman nodded. “You been here awhile. You were sleepin’ sound.”

“I can’t believe I did that,” I said, glancing around.

Shrugging, the woman closed the magazine in her lap. “I imagine you were tuckered. I just hated to leave you here, sound asleep with your purse layin’ out like that. You might wake up, and it’d be gone.” She motioned to the floor, where my purse was lying partially spilled by my feet. It must have fallen when I drifted off.

“I’d of picked those things up for you, but if I tried to get down there, it’d be my luck my grandson would come and see me, and ring my neck. I just had orthoscotic surgery a few days ago. This is my grandson’s hospital.”

“We met in the airport.” I pointed a finger at her, the memory rushing back. The flight seemed weeks ago.

“We did,” she affirmed. “I never forget a face.”

“Small world.”

She laughed under her breath. “Not so,” she said, still smiling. “I told you I’d be here.”

CHAPTER 12

Mary told me that Rebecca would be coming to visit, but the morning passed and there was no sign of her. Mary said she’d probably gotten busy, what with the house to take care of, but I knew there were things Mary wasn’t telling me. I worried about those things as the afternoon hours crept by. Gretchen was quick with my therapy session, seeming in too much of a hurry to linger. Ouita Mae didn’t come to read to me. Dr. Barnhill stopped in and told me his grandmother wanted me to know she was busy with some appointments at the hospital.

“I hear you and my grandmother have been keeping each other company,” he said, and smiled.

“Yye-sss.” I was concentrating on making my words more succinct, but the speech therapist had advised me not to expect too much too soon.

Dr. Barnhill smiled indulgently, his hand resting on the rail, his dark eyes taking me in. “It’s good you’re keeping her busy.” His pager beeped, and he stepped away from the rail, glancing down to check it.

I wanted to tell him that, as much as I treasured his grandmother’s company, he should be certain to take some hours away from the hospital and enjoy her while he could. Someday, she wouldn’t be here any longer, and he’d have all the time in the world for other things. Over the years, as I’d watched other parents try to keep up with their busy children, I’d realized how fortunate I was to have Teddy. Yes, there were milestones in other children’s lives that Teddy would never attain, but in Teddy’s world, there was always space for me. His eyes always lit up when I walked into the room.

I couldn’t communicate all of that to Dr. Barnhill, and he was headed out the door anyway.

I lay listening to the silence, disappointed that Ouita Mae and I wouldn’t be reading about Gavin and Marcella today. When Ouita Mae read it, the story whisked me back to the days of pirate ships on the high seas, into the body of a young woman falling in love. It felt good to relive those feelings, to remember how I’d felt about Edward all those years ago. Throughout my girlhood, when our paths crossed at the park or the pool or our fathers’ company picnics, I was smitten. I sometimes rode my bicycle up Blue Sky Hill Court, past his house, in hopes of seeing him. When we came across each other again, that winter break I was home from college, I felt as though I were Cinderella keeping company with Prince Charming. I imagined that he lingered around the store where I was working because he wanted to spend time with me, because he enjoyed laughing about the old days. When I was finishing my shift, he invited me out for a bite. After we ate, we drove down to the lake and talked about his time in graduate school, his new job with a small oil company, his plans to make good on his first big job in South America. I imagined the exotic life we could have together. I wouldn’t stay stateside, as my mother had. Married to an executive, I would travel the world, live in unusual places with names my parents couldn’t even pronounce.

The plans we make are so much smoke and illusion, like a magician’s trick we convince ourselves to believe until the veils are cast away, and we see clearly that God has painted a different picture. In so many ways, I would never have become myself if not for those years of working at the institutional school and raising Teddy on my own. Even after decades of having Edward to provide for me, love me, take care of me, that determined young woman was inside, reminding me of my own strength. Without her, I probably would have given up and died on the laundry room floor.

Closing my eyes, I drifted back, remembering how it was to be young and vibrant, the future spread out before me like a buffet of choices. I hadn’t made all the right ones, but in the end, my years had been full and happy, fortunate.

I was thinking of a family vacation to Disney World when I heard Claude come into the room. I opened my eyes, and he was looking out the window, watching Mary get her kids off the day-care van and put them into hers. They didn’t go anywhere, just sat there, all three in the front seat.

Claude realized I was watching, too. “Thought I’d caught you sleepin’, Birdie,” he said. “Reckon they’re telling their mama all about their day at school. They’re sweet boys.”

I lifted my head off the pillow so I could see better. It looked as though the boys were having a snack in the car, which was their afternoon routine lately. I was worried that I hadn’t seen their father come by since the day he and Mary were fighting. He might have started a new job or some such, but I feared he was gone. Mary looked tired these days, ragged and frail. Did Claude know anything about it? I’d heard Mary’s boys in his room this morning, visiting with him before the day-care van came. He helped them get their packs on and sent them out the back door when the van arrived. Mary must have been busy elsewhere.

Claude didn’t have Mary and the kids on his mind this evening. “I ever tell you about my trains?” he asked.