Custody (47 page)

Late Sunday evening, Kelly opened her apartment door to Jason’s knock. She wore an old baggy shirt, ripped jeans, battered sneakers, and no makeup. She was trying to look unattractive, and she felt pretty sure she’d succeeded.

“Jason, hi. Thanks for coming.” Her voice sounded high and pinched; she reminded herself to slow down. Take deep breaths.

“You don’t have to thank me, Kelly.” Leaning forward, he kissed her cheek. He smelled like salt, sunshine, and soap, the scents of a healthy male who’s spent the weekend on the water.

She moved away. “Drink?”

“Sure. Vodka tonic?”

“I’ll make two.”

Jason looked around. The apartment was crowded with furniture from Felicity’s house, as the far end of the room had been transformed into Felicity’s space. Kelly’s grandparents’ bed stood against the wall, surrounded by boxes of Felicity’s belongings, everything covered with flamboyant silk scarves and spreads from thrift shops.

“Where’s Felicity?”

“In my room. Sleeping.”

“Asleep at this time of the day?”

“Teenagers seem to have an infinite capacity for sleeping. Besides, she’s had a rough time recently. Her mother died, her father dumped her, she’s had to squeeze into my space, and Tuesday she starts at a new school.”

Kelly brought the tall glasses, tinkling with ice, fragrant with slices of lime, to the sofa, which had been moved closer to the kitchen.

“Thanks.” Taking his glass, Jason settled in the middle of the sofa.

“To your health,” Kelly toasted, sitting in the armchair at right angles to the sofa. She took a long drink. She was so nervous, she felt like grabbing the bottle and pouring it all straight down her throat.

Jason said, “What’s up? You sounded very serious when you phoned yesterday. I had to give up a day of sailing to drive up from the Cape.”

“I’m sorry I inconvenienced you. But I felt I had to talk with you immediately.”

“How formal you are.”

Kelly nodded. “Yes. Well, I suppose, in a way, this is a formal occasion.” She set her glass on the coffee table. She took a deep breath. Here it was, she thought: the moment of truth. Right up to this moment she could still change her mind. In just a second, it would be too late. Tears sprang to her eyes, surprising her. He did not deserve to be hurt. But he did deserve someone who truly loved him.

“Jason, I can’t marry you.”

He frowned. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m not kidding.” She had not realized it would be so painful. “I’m so sorry.”

An angry flush rose up his neck. “You’re breaking off with me?”

“Yes.” Working the diamond ring off her finger, she held it between her thumb and finger, toward Jason.

His face burned crimson. Hoarsely he demanded, “Can you give me one good reason why?”

“I’m so sorry,” she told him, and as gently as she could, whispered, “I don’t love you.” She set the ring on the coffee table.

“Jesus!” Jason flinched, as if she’d hit him. He glared at her, and seeing something close to pity in her eyes, slammed his glass onto the table, rose, and strode across the room. There was little room to pace in, however, and frustrated, he turned back. “Jesus Christ, Kelly!”

She felt like someone who had kicked an animal. “Listen to me, Jason. I admire you. I like you. I think you’re absolutely brilliant and wonderful fun, but I don’t love you, not like whoever marries you should love you.”

Collapsing on the sofa, he rubbed his hands over his face. “Then why in God’s name did you accept my proposal?”

“Mostly, because I thought it would make my mother happy.”

Jason groaned.

“And I was so flattered by the way you pursued me. It was terribly seductive. And I do think we’ve been good friends. And I do feel fond of you.”

“Fond!”

“Jason, listen to me. I’ve been afraid of love all my life because of what it made my mother do. I thought marrying you would be the right thing to do, because with you I don’t feel swept away, overwhelmed with passion, all of that. But now I know I do want that, and I want you to have someone who feels that, too—madly, insanely,
painfully
in love.”

“How kind of you.”

“I’m so sorry. I feel rotten. I’ll miss you. I’ll miss your mother—”

“She won’t miss you,” Jason snarled.

Kelly sat back in her chair. “What?”

“She’s
never
liked you, Kelly. She’s always thought you were beneath me. And she’s been quite amused that you’re so dim you haven’t even suspected this.”

“Oh,” she whispered. “Wow.” She shook her head. How could she be a judge when she couldn’t even see the truth in the people closest to her?

Jason reached out and took her hand. “Sorry, Kelly. That was nasty of me. I guess I just wanted to hurt you back.”

Stunned, she said, “It’s all right, Jason. It doesn’t matter.”

He winced.
“Touché.”
He dropped her hand, stood, and walked across the room. Slowly, thinking it through aloud, he said, “I think you’re confused, Kelly. I think your appointment to the judiciary, and your mother dying, and your half sister showing up, all this family stuff, wanting to find your daughter—I think it’s all confused you. I think you’re lost, and you don’t know it, and I think you’re going to wake up some morning and realize you need me.”

“That’s probably true,” she told him.

She’d spoken too quickly, too effortlessly, just wanting to appease him. He squinted his eyes at her, alert and curious, a creature of the hunt sniffing out a lie.

“Is there someone else?” he demanded.

She shook her head, unable to meet his eyes.

Jason reached down, picked up the ring, and, holding it in his palm, studied its glitter. He waited for her to speak. When she didn’t, he shoved the ring in his pocket. “If you ever do need me, Kelly, don’t bother to call, because I won’t come back.”

Opening the apartment door, he stormed off.

Monday morning Randall and Tessa flew from Nantucket to Hyannis. Randall retrieved his car from a parking lot, tossed their bags in the trunk, and joined the line of cars heading for Boston. He’d assumed that Tessa would sit in the front, torturing him as she always did by pushing the
SEEK
button on the radio every thirty seconds, but today Tessa crawled into the backseat. She wanted to nap, she said.

This concerned him. They’d just awakened, really, and had a large if eccentric breakfast of cheese and crackers and chocolate cake—Sarah said it was European. Tessa hadn’t eaten much, although at her father’s bidding she’d finished a small glass of juice.

No doubt Tessa was worried about tomorrow, when her parents would go to court to fight for custody. Any child would be worried. Randall was worried. The odds were stacked in the mother’s favor, always, and this thing with his father in Madeline’s robe, no matter how innocent, could prove just the right straw to break the camel’s back.

Mont had phoned Randall last evening, terribly distressed. Don’t give it a second thought, Randall had told his father. It had been an unsettling conversation. More and more Randall found himself in the role of the caregiver, the nurturer, the wise one, as the man he’d once considered indomitable weakened, almost daily, before Randall’s very eyes.

Anne did have a point, didn’t she? It could be detrimental to Tessa—frightening, even—to see her grandfather in her grandmother’s robe.

Yet Randall believed strongly that the process of aging should be given the same value as any other stage of life in our society, that it should be seen as a part of human life equal to infancy and adolescence, with all the mental and physical vicissitudes. The elderly deserved respect, and love, and generosity—Jesus God, Anne believed that, Randall knew she did! She believed it
in principle
. Why could she not act on her beliefs?

Just thinking of Anne made him weary. As he steered his car up and over the Sagamore Bridge, he let his thoughts wander to Kelly. It was so long since he’d seen her. She was almost a fantasy more than a memory—that stolen morning in bed together.

Kelly had accepted him into her body with such willingness, such eager pleasure that it had been spiritual as much as physical for him. A kind of redemption. His greedy body, with all its hungers and needs, suddenly in Kelly’s arms became whole, and good, and competent. The excess of his sexual desires were all at once not disgusting, but valuable, because they were matched by an equal need, and responded to with gladness.

It had been different with Lacey, and a bitter taste filled his mouth at the thought of the whole sorry, sordid liaison and its aftermath, when he lay collapsed on Lacey’s double bed, staring out at her shelves of dolls, hating himself, and not much fonder of the woman next to him, who had only pretended to enjoy the sex.

“Was that all right?” she’d asked, worried. “Did you like it? Want me to do something else?”

There had been no love in the intercourse, no respect. No honesty. She wasn’t wild with
ardor for him; she never had been. She’d always focused on pleasing him, making it clear that she’d be glad to earn marriage to a doctor in this way, or in any way he wished. They did have some affection for one another, and yet as they lay together on the bed, Randall had felt cold and lonely and hollow and shamed.

Lacey had made a sniffling noise.

“Lacey,” he’d begun, not knowing how to let her down gently, wishing he’d never started this all up again in the first place.

“It’s all right, Randall,” she’d replied. “You don’t have to say anything.”

He’d sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed, looked at his clothes lying rumpled on the floor. He’d dressed.

Lacey lay on the bed. She’d pulled the sheet up over her naked body and covered her eyes with one arm.

“You’re a beautiful woman, Lacey,” Randall had said.

“Just go,” she’d whispered. “Please. Just go.”

On Nantucket he’d chewed on his thoughts, indulging in a quiet feast of self-hatred that made his stomach rumble with acid. He was ashamed of himself for sleeping with Lacey, and yet he could not deny that it had clarified something for him. He was not just a lecherous cad who wanted to sleep with every female he saw. Or if he had been that way, he was no longer so. He wanted something real when he made love. He wanted a woman who wanted him back. Even though briefly, he’d experienced with Kelly a genuine emotional and physical reciprocity. He wanted nothing less ever again.

He was in his early forties. He had given a lot to his community—this was true, he knew. He had worked hard, behaved with skill, compassion, and integrity. But he wasn’t a young man any longer, and he was not a happy man. Had not been a happy man for many years. Somehow fate had brought this new woman to him, this tall blonde with a ready smile who took pleasure in his presence. He had met her in the cemetery where his mother lay, where, he could believe, his mother’s spirit hovered—and didn’t that mean something?

There was something earthy about Kelly. She was intelligent, but she found pleasure in the physical—he’d liked the way she ate her pancakes that morning in the diner. He liked the way she threw her head back when she laughed. He liked the way she made love. He relished the way he felt after they made love, like the very best of friends.

Mont would like her, and she would like Mont. Tessa would like her, and she would like Tessa. And if Kelly was a career woman, well then, somehow they would make that work, too.