Guilt by Association (32 page)

“Is that a complaint?” he asked.

“Nope,” she said with an impish grin. “In fact, let me know when you run out of excuses. I’m sure there are a few I can suggest.”

At Ted’s instigation, Sunday evenings became” family occasions. Either upstairs or downstairs, the Yanows and the Donigers would gather together for dinner, a few games, a little conversation and a lot of fun. Karen was always included.

Late one summer Sunday, when the children were asleep and the adults were lingering in the garden, Amy woke up screaming from a nightmare and neither Ted nor Mrs. Pea-gram could manage to calm her.

“Let me try,” Karen offered.

She sat down on Amy’s pink-and-white canopy bed in the little girl’s candy-cane room, and calmly took the child into her arms.
Her voice was too low for Ted to catch the words, but it didn’t matter. In less than ten minutes, his youngest daughter was sound asleep again.

“What did you say to her?” he whispered.

“I told her that her mother had sent me to chase away the hobgoblins and keep her safe while she slept.” He caught a sudden mischievous glint in her blue-gray eyes. “Then I bribed her.”

“With what?”

“I promised that, whenever I’m here, I’ll come and tell her a story before she goes to sleep so that her dreams will be filled with beautiful things—and there won’t be any room left for scary monsters.”

It became a ritual. Three, sometimes four nights a week, Karen would sit on the edge of Amy’s bed and spin magical tales of little girls and little boys in a faraway world where the
sun always shone and birds always sang and flowers always bloomed, and there was no such thing as sadness.

“Is there such a place?” Amy asked her.

“Oh yes,” Karen told her. “If you believe.”

Before long, Jessica and Gwen, too, were sidling into Amy’s room, climbing up on the end of the bed to listen, and from the doorway, Ted watched and realized how much his daughters needed a mother. Mrs. Peagram kept the house spotlessly clean and the girls properly fed and clothed and supervised their homework, but she wasn’t very good at nurturing. She just didn’t have the knack.

Karen had the knack. She wasn’t Barbara, of course—no one would ever be Barbara. Yet, in some ways, she was a lot like Barbara.
She seemed to know many of the same things Barbara had known and she did many of the same things Barbara had done, and more and more, he couldn’t seem to keep himself from smiling whenever she was around.

She was interested in his work, genuinely fond of the children, and perfectly at ease in his environment. Without even being aware of it, he began to picture her running the house, raising the girls, and growing old beside him.

“Is Karen coming tonight?” Jessica asked, interrupting his thoughts, and yet not really interrupting them at all.

“Is today Sunday?”

“Sure.”

“Then Karen’s coming.”

“I want to show her my science project before I turn it in.”

“Good,” Ted replied. “As I recall, she was the one who gave you the idea.”

“Yeah.” Jessica grinned. “She did, didn’t she?”

“Watch me, Daddy!” Amy cried suddenly. “I’m going to do a cartwheel!”

“I’m watching, sweetheart,” he called.

The effort was a bit lopsided but the chubby youngster managed to pull it around.

“Did you see?” she chortled, jumping up and down. “Did you see?”

“I saw, and it was wonderful.”

“Will Karen be here before it gets dark? I want to show her, too.”

“I think so.”

“Make sure, Daddy, will you? I want her to see me.”

“You know, Dad,” Gwen observed idly, “if you married Karen, we wouldn’t have to keep asking when she’s coming all the time.
She’d already be here.”

“You mean every night?” Amy asked, overhearing.

“Sure,” Gwen told her, “and mornings and afternoons, too.”

“Would she be here to tie my shoes for school?” the first-grader pressed.

“Of course,” Jessica put in. “She’d be here just like Mommy used to be.”

Amy’s eyes widened. “Just like Mommy?” she gasped, although she was too young to have a very clear image of Barbara.

“Well, not exactly like her,” modified Gwen, the only one of the three of them who could really remember. “But almost.”

The little girl turned to her father. “Are we going to marry Karen, Daddy? Is she going to be almost like Mommy?”

“Would you like that?” he asked, amazed at how simple the most complex things could become when seen through the eyes of a child.

“Oh yes,” Amy breathed.

“Sure,” Jessica said.

“Why not?” Gwen shrugged and then lowered her voice to a whisper. “She’s a lot nicer than Mrs. Pea, anyway.”

As if on cue, Mrs. Peagram came to the back door. “It’s time for lunch,” she announced in her high-pitched Boston twang. “Come on in now, girls, and let’s get those little hands washed.”

Ted thrust his trowel into the soft dirt of the flower bed and stood up with purpose.

“You go on in with Mrs. Peagram and have your lunch,” he directed his daughters.

“What about you, Daddy?” Jessica wanted to know. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to go clean myself up a little,” he told her, looking down at his soiled jeans, “and then I have an errand to run,
across town.”

K
aren sat cross-legged in the middle of her living room floor, in a baggy red sweat suit, surrounded by black- and-white photographs.
A yellow pad lay beside her, a ballpoint pen was clamped between her teeth. There was a smudge of ink on her chin.

The book that she and Nancy had envisioned nearly two years ago was almost finished. They had made the final photo selections,
from among the thousand images captured on film, just last week. All that was wanting now were the words.

“No pressure,” Nancy had assured her, handing over a thick stack of prints. “Just take these home with you, live with them for a while, and see what comes.”

At first, nothing had come. Karen spent hours staring at a blank pad, chewing on the end of her pen, trying to think like a poet. Finally, she tossed the pad and pen aside, stopped thinking, and began to stare instead at the images themselves,
spreading the prints out around her, concentrating on their stories.

Eventually, she found words to describe the children of Harlem as they stood in the path of a gushing fire hydrant on a suffocating summer day, and the cold breath of death that reached into a Bowery doorway in the middle of winter to
claim a man beneath a blanket of newspapers, and the rebirth of the earth as the first spring crocus pushed its head through the hard crust of clay along Riverside Drive.

But autumn had totally frustrated her. With a sigh, and time running out, Karen reached for the twelve visions of that enigmatic season for perhaps the hundredth time. This time, one of them caught her attention and she reached out and pulled it toward her. It was a bleak illustration, in which Nancy had caught the last leaf falling from the only tree in an otherwise treeless section of Morningside Park. She yanked the pen out of her mouth, grabbed her pad, and began to write.

The last tear of autumn

falls unnoticed.

A silent cry,

frozen on the cheek of winter.

Now, at least, she had a beginning, a direction.

An hour later, she had covered half a dozen pages. So engrossed was she that the unexpected sound of her door buzzer severed her concentration like a chain saw.

“Hi,” Ted said when she opened the door.

“Hi,” she replied, wondering why he was standing on her doorstep, looking so freshly scrubbed, in the middle of the day. “Don’t tell me I forgot something,” she gasped. “Did we have plans?”

“No, no,” he assured her hastily. “I just happened to be in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d stop by. But if you’re busy,
I can be on my way.”

“Don’t be silly,” she told him, because the mood was broken now and the words were gone. “Come on in.”

“I thought maybe you’d be out on a day like this.”

Karen was quickly gathering up her papers, stacking them neatly on the desk. “I’ve been trying to work.”

“And I interrupted you, didn’t I?”

He sounded so genuinely distressed that she felt her irritation at the intrusion melt away.

“It’s all right, really,” she assured him. “I wasn’t having much success, anyway.”

Ted had been to her apartment on a number of occasions over the past year and a half, and each time he entered he was surprised by how familiar it felt. When he sat down on one of the love seats, it was just like slipping into a comfortable old sweater.

“I think this book is a wonderful idea,” he said, glancing down at the photographs on the floor. “I know it’s going to be a success.”

“Providing I hold up my end of the bargain.” Karen sighed. “I don’t know why I let Nancy talk me into this.”

“Someday you’ll be glad she did,” he said with such genuine conviction that Karen smiled.

From the very beginning, he had put her at ease, teasing her like a kid sister, treating her like a valued friend, until it was hard to remember that they hadn’t known each other all their lives. In large part, she supposed, the instant comfort came from his being Nancy’s brother. But Karen knew it was also because he had never attempted anything more than a quick peck on the cheek or a hand on an elbow to guide her across a street that she felt as close to him as if there were actually a flesh-and-blood connection between them.

Like his sister, Ted was bright and clever, and Karen looked forward to the now frequent occasions when she saw him. But even more important to her than the time spent with him was the time she spent with Gwen and Jessica and Amy.

In many ways, the three girls had come to symbolize the innocence Karen had lost, the daughters she would never raise, the children she would never bear. She answered their questions, cheered their successes, and basked in every smile and every giggle they chose to share with her. And always behind them stood their father, steady, sober and safe.

Still, she hadn’t realized how deeply entwined she had become in the lives of the Donigers until this very moment—because this was the first time Ted had ever appeared on her doorstep unannounced.

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“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked, suddenly remembering her manners.

“A glass of water would be fine,” he replied.

“How about some iced tea?”

“Only if you’ll have some, too.”

She returned from the kitchen with two frosty glasses and a plate of cookies.

“Looks good,” he said.

They sipped in silence until Ted set his glass down on the coffee table and stood up, walking to the fireplace and pretending to study the Rankin oil that hung above the mantel.

“Amy would like you to come before dark tonight,” he said. “Jessica’s taught her how to do a cartwheel, and she wants you to see.”

“Of course I will,” Karen replied warmly.

“And Jessica wants to show you her science project.”

Karen nodded. “Oh, good. I’ve been anxious to see how it turned out.”

Their words sounded strangely formal and stilted to them both. Karen shifted uncomfortably in her seat, wondering what had happened to their usual light banter. Ted ran a finger along the edge of the mantel.

“Uh, Gwen thinks we ought to get married,” he said, trying to make his tone light, “so we wouldn’t always have to schedule appointments to see you.”

“Oh, she does, does she?” Karen replied with a smile, relieved to have the conversation back on track.

“Actually, all three girls would like that,” he added.

“Those little devils.” She chuckled. “You never know what they’ll come up with next.”

Ted turned around to face her then. “As a matter of fact,” he said softly, “all four of us would like that… very much.”

Karen opened her mouth to say something clever and then closed it again when she realized he was serious. But it didn’t make any sense, because they didn’t have that kind of relationship. They were just—friends.

“I don’t understand,” she stammered finally. “I mean, you

never—that is, I didn’t—I mean, you and I aren’t—well, you know—like that.”

“Just because we haven’t been doesn’t mean we couldn’t be,” he observed.

“But we’re friends,” she protested. “Good friends. I count on your friendship. I don’t want that to change.”

He shrugged. “I happen to think that friendship is a pretty solid foundation to build on.”

Just like an architect, Karen thought wryly, beginning to squirm anew in her seat. She valued the relationship they had forged more than she could ever say, and she wondered whether it would survive her turning him down.

“I’m really very flattered,” she began gently, “but the idea of marrying you—well, it just never entered my head.”

“I know I’m not exactly the knight in shining armor you probably expected to come riding over the hill,” he conceded. “I’ve had some of the stuffing knocked out of me, I admit it. I’m too much of a workaholic and not enough of a romantic. I like theater and the symphony, but I don’t go very often. I’m not much of a party animal. I guess you could say I’m a real stick-in-the-mud.
I’m not well-traveled or well-read. On top of that, I’m middle-aged, I’ve buried a wife, and I’ve got three kids to raise—altogether,
nobody’s idea of a prize package. But I’m faithful and honest and a good provider, I think, and the thing is, I care for you in a very special way, and I think we could make a good life together.”

He stopped talking suddenly, surprised that he had actually managed to make that whole speech without stumbling.

“How can you say all those awful things about yourself?” Karen demanded. “You’re certainly no more middle-aged than I am,
and you’re terrific at parties. You may not say much, but you’re a great listener. I don’t go to the symphony all that often myself, and the bookshelves always seem to be filled at your place. I’m not so well-traveled, either, I’ll have you know.
I’ve never even been to Europe. And there are a whole lot more important things for a person to be in life than romantic—like sensible and stable and sincere, and your children are absolutely terrific. How can you say you’re not a