Grand Avenue (27 page)

“I won’t leave Grand Avenue.”

“You’re just doing this out of spite.”

“Doing what? Surviving?”

“Surviving very nicely I’d say, judging by, my Visa bills.”

“That was your idea.”

“The idea was that it be used only in the event of an emergency.”

“Really? That’s not how I interpreted it.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Ron said, shaking his head resolutely.
“As of this minute, consider your credit canceled.”

“What?”

“Your credit’s no good, lady.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Just watch me.”

“I’ll call my lawyer.”

“And I’ll call mine. I’m sure a judge will be very understanding of the three-thousand-dollar Armani emergency you had last month, especially in light of the late-night phone calls you’ve been making to my house.”

Barbara glanced toward the stairs. “Would you please lower your voice!”

“Do me a favor, would you, Barbara? Next time you go to the doctor for a face-lift, have your head examined.”

The force of Ron’s venom slammed Barbara back against the wall. “Get out of here,” she said quietly, too numb to move. “I want you out of my house right now.”

Ron gathered his coat around him, strode toward the front door. “You need help, Barbara. You’ve turned into a bitter, bloodsucking, dried-up old prune, and all the plastic surgery in the world isn’t going to do a damn thing to change that.”

The front door slammed shut behind him. Immediately Barbara’s knees gave way, collapsing under her. She slithered down the wall to the floor, lay in a crumpled heap, like laundry someone had piled up, then forgotten.

She was still sitting there when Tracey ventured
meekly down the stairs a few minutes later. “Mom? Mom, are you all right?”

Barbara nodded, said nothing, not trusting her voice.

“He’s just angry,” Tracey said, kneeling beside her mother on the tired green broadloom. “You know he didn’t mean any of the things he said. Mom?”

The word trailed a host of unspoken sentences behind it. Mom, what was Dad doing here? Mom, why was he so upset? What phone calls was he talking about? Mom, please talk to me. Tell me what tonight was really all about. Was it my fault?

“Mom?”

Barbara smiled at Tracey through eyes heavy with tears, amazed, as she always was, by the miracle she’d produced. Tracey stared back at her mother with round, dark eyes that revealed nothing. What does she really think of me? Barbara wondered, reaching up, gently stroking her daughter’s hair, her fingers becoming enmeshed in the twisted maze of sleep-tossed curls. Does she see what Ron sees—a pathetic, middle-aged divorcée, abandoned by her husband, left sitting alone in the dark, clinging to fading dreams of past glories? A bitter, bloodsucking, dried-up old prune? “You should be asleep,” Barbara said to her daughter.

“So should you.”

Maybe she should take Ron’s advice, however acrimoniously it had been hurled at her head, and see a therapist, someone who could help her deal with her problems, someone who could help her get on with her life. Except that therapists cost money, and Ron had
informed her in no uncertain terms that the bank was closed. “You should go to bed,” Barbara told Tracey.

“So should you.”

“You go, sweetie. I’ll be up in a few minutes.”

“I’ll wait.”

“No, you go,” Barbara insisted. “Please, sweetie. I’ll be fine. I just need a few minutes.”

Tracey looked at her mother through eyes too tired to argue, then pushed herself to her bare feet. “You promise you won’t be long?”

“Two minutes.”

Tracey leaned down, kissed her mother on the forehead, then slowly backed out of the room.

“Thank you,” Barbara said.

“For what?”

“For taking such good care of me.”

“Try not to think about what Daddy said,” Tracey advised, as if she could read her mother’s thoughts, as if they were emblazoned on her forehead, as if they were glowing in the dark.

“It’s already forgotten,” Barbara lied, closing her eyes to the soothing blackness that surrounded her as Tracey reluctantly left her side.

“Mom?” Tracey called down from upstairs almost immediately. “It’s two minutes. Are you coming up?”

With a weary smile, Barbara pushed herself off the floor, walking, as if in a trance, toward the stairs. She was on the first step, her hand on the railing, when she heard a car in the driveway, footsteps on the front path. Ron? she wondered. Returning to spew more hatred at her, to share some choice words he’d forgotten during the first go-round? Would he knock this time or just
use his key? She’d have to go to the hardware store tomorrow, arrange for all the locks to be changed. Send Rotten Ron the bill. Show him the dried-up old prune had a few more wrinkles up her sleeve.

But the knock on the door was gentle, even timid, although as she hesitated, it was growing in insistency. Barbara approached the door slowly, stared through the peephole into the bitterly cold night. “Oh, my God.”

“Mom,” Tracey called from upstairs. “Who is it?”

Barbara opened the door and extended her arms. In the next instant, Chris collapsed inside them.

M
y God, what happened to you?” Barbara’s hands fluttered all around Chris, not sure where to land. She touched her trembling shoulders, her snow-dampened hair, her tearstained face. “Tracey, bring me some blankets. Hurry!”

Chris looked back toward the driveway, at the cabdriver who was leaning against the car door, watching nervously. “It’s his jacket,” she whispered hoarsely, slipping the ratty black leather jacket off her shoulders. Barbara caught it before it reached the floor. “I don’t have any money.”

“We’ll take care of it.” Barbara wondered what the hell was going on tonight. Had everyone gone crazy? There wasn’t even a full moon, she thought distractedly as Tracey raced down the stairs with an armload of blue and green blankets that Barbara immediately wrapped around Chris. Dear God, what was she wearing? “Give this jacket back to the cabbie and get some money out of my purse,” Barbara instructed
Tracey while leading Chris toward the living room. “And I need some heavy socks,” she called out as Tracey ran upstairs to get her mother’s purse. “I can’t believe you were out in that freezing cold with bare feet. Your poor toes,” she said, massaging them.

“I’ll make some hot tea,” Tracey volunteered minutes later, having returned from paying the cabdriver, assuring him that everything was fine. “Are you all right, Mrs. Malarek?” She watched her mother slip the heavy gray-and-white gym socks over Chris’s blue-tinged feet.

Chris’s body was shaking so hard, it was impossible to know whether the nod she offered was intended or not.

“Are the socks okay?”

“They’re fine, sweetheart,” Barbara told Tracey. “And tea would be great.”

Barbara quickly enveloped her shaking friend in her arms, rocked her gently back and forth, like a baby. She couldn’t believe Chris was actually here, that she was holding her in her arms. How she’d longed to see her. And how beautiful Chris was, despite the passage of time, the horrors she’d undoubtedly endured. Barbara kissed Chris’s icy forehead, her bitterly cold cheek, and watched the years, the pain, melt away. Suddenly, they were back in the sandbox at the far end of Grand Avenue. They were laughing and happy and carefree, like the children playing at their feet. Nothing bad could ever happen to them. Not as long as they had each other. “Can you tell me what happened?”

Chris stared at Barbara with confused, terrified eyes. “Tony and I had a terrible fight.” She trembled,
but Barbara couldn’t tell whether it was from the cold or from the memory. “He bought me this.” Chris opened the front of the blankets, stared blankly at the costume she was wearing. “He insisted I put it on. Can you believe it?” she asked in growing disbelief. “I mean, I felt like such an idiot in it, with this stupid fur trim and flowing cape. I couldn’t believe he was really serious.”

Barbara glanced toward the kitchen, heard Tracey at the sink, pouring water into the kettle. “What happened?”

“I tried to make a joke. ‘It’s Supermom,’ I said. I thought maybe he’d laugh, but he got so mad. I’ve never seen him so angry.”

“Did he hit you?”

Chris regarded her curiously, the question taking a long time to sink in, as if it had to penetrate layers of frozen skin to reach her. “No,” she said after a long pause. “Isn’t that strange? He didn’t hit me.”

“Why is that strange?”

“Because he always hits me.”

Barbara felt her cheeks flush with shame. “What happened, Chris? What made you run out of the house without any money, without even getting dressed? Because we can call the police …”

“Please don’t call the police.”

“Why not? If he threatened you—”

“He didn’t threaten me.”

“What
did
he do?”

“He threw me out.” Chris laughed, a brittle sound that snapped upon contact with the air, like an icicle from an eaves trough.

“He threw you out of the house practically naked?”

“Please don’t call the police.”

“Why not? The man’s a lunatic. You could have frozen to death.”

“He told me I’d never see my children again.”

“Well, he’s full of shit,” Barbara said adamantly. “If anyone won’t see his kids again, it’ll be him.”

Chris tried to smile. “He can’t stop me from seeing my kids, can he, Barbara?”

“Of course not. We’ll call Vicki first thing in the morning. She’ll know who you should talk to.”

“If we call the police, it’ll only make things worse.”

“How could it make things any worse? They’ll arrest the bastard, Chris. Take him to jail.”

“He’ll get out, come back. It’s my word against his. And the children’s,” Chris added softly. “He can’t stop me from seeing my kids, can he?”

Barbara heard the kettle whistling in the kitchen. “No, he can’t stop you from seeing your kids.”

In the next minute, Tracey appeared with two mugs of steaming tea. “It’s herbal.” She pushed several magazines out of the way as she deposited the mugs on the coffee table in front of the sofa. “Strawberry-kiwi. It’s new.”

“Thank you.” Chris leaned forward, warmed her hands over the rising steam.

The comforting smell of exotic fruit filled the air. “Thank you, sweetheart,” Barbara said, feeling a tremendous sense of pride in her only child. Let Ron produce baby after baby with his young bride. She’d already gotten the best of his seed. “Why don’t you go back to bed now, darling? You have school in the morning.”

“Can I get you anything else, Mrs. Malarek? Some cookies, maybe?”

“No, thank you, Tracey. You’re very sweet.”

Tracey lingered, shifting from one bare foot to the other, as if trying to imagine what it would be like to have snow between her toes, ice clinging to her heels. “Good night, Mrs. Malarek. Good night, Mom. I’ll be in my room, if you need anything.” She kissed her mother’s cheek, disappeared upstairs.

Barbara lifted one of the mugs from the table, held it close to Chris’s lips, watched Chris slowly suck at the air, coaxing the hot liquid inside her mouth.

“It’s good,” Chris said, taking the mug from Barbara’s hand, surrounding it with her own.

“So, he just threw you out into the street,” Barbara prodded, needing to put the facts into context, to hear the details that would make the story make sense. Had Chris run to her neighbors? Had they refused to take her in? How had she found a cab to take her to Mariemont at almost one o’clock in the morning, looking like some mad escapee from a horror movie?

“I didn’t know what to do.” Chris’s eyes darted back and forth, as if looking for answers. “I couldn’t believe what was happening, that Tony had thrown me out of the house practically naked, that I was really standing outside in the freezing cold with no coat and no shoes and no money, and he wouldn’t let me back inside. I banged on the door. I ran around to the back. I even thought of breaking one of the windows. But I was afraid if I did that, he’d get even angrier. And then I thought … oh God, this is terrible because my kids are still there … I thought, no, I don’t want to go back
inside that house. I’m out. I’m actually out. He’s not standing over me. He’s not breathing down my neck. He’s not forcing his way inside me.”

“Oh, God.”

“I’m free.” Chris looked around Barbara’s living room in grateful disbelief. “I’m out.”

Tears filled Barbara’s eyes. “Yes, you are. You never have to go back there.”

“But my kids …”

“We’ll get your kids out of there. No court in the land would give that monster custody.”

Chris nodded, took another long sip of her tea. “I thought of going to the neighbors,” she continued, picking up the thread of her narrative. “But it was almost midnight. Everyone’s house was dark. I knew they’d all be asleep. I couldn’t wake people up, people I barely know, let them see me this way. So I just started running.”

“You ran? Where? How?”

“I don’t know. In circles. I slipped, fell a few times, finally found myself on a main street. Some cars went by and honked, but nobody stopped. I think I probably scared them. And then suddenly, there was this cab. And it pulled over, and the driver didn’t speak much English, but he knew I was in trouble, and he said he’d take me to the hospital or to the police, but I said, no, take me to Mariemont, to my friend Barbara, that you’d pay him when we got here. And then he took off his jacket and wrapped it around me.” Her voice trailed off. She looked toward the front door.

“It’s been taken care of,” Barbara reminded her.

“Yes. Thank you.” Chris finished the rest of her tea, returned the mug to the table.

Immediately Barbara put the second of the hot mugs into Chris’s hands. “Did the kids hear anything of what went on?” Barbara was thinking of Tracey listening at the top of the stairs during her earlier confrontation with Ron. Say what you will about the SOB, Barbara thought now, at least he wasn’t Tony.

“The boys were asleep.”

“And Montana?”

Chris shook her head, as if she didn’t know. Tears began falling the length of her cheeks.

“You’ll be all right. You’re safe now. He can’t hurt you anymore.”