Home Song (24 page)

“You're not willing to try counseling, not even for their sake?”

“Not right now.”

“It'll kill them. Especially Chelsea.”

“I know. That's the hard part.”

He felt as if a catheter had shot dye into his veins, a swift burning all along them, straight from the heart. He turned, pleading, “Then try, Claire, for their sake.”

Had her animosity not fled he might have believed there was hope in arguing further, but she spoke as calmly as if she were putting a child to bed. “I can't, Tom. For mine.”

“Claire,” he appealed, reaching out, taking two steps toward her, but she warned him with the faintest retreat not to touch her. “Jesus,” he whispered, and moved defeatedly around his desk. He dropped heavily into his chair and sat with an elbow on his calendar and a hand to his face.

A minute ticked by. Two. Claire stood as before, waiting, while the idea of separating brought its dreads to be reckoned with. Finally he let his hand drop and looked up at her. “Claire, I love you,” he said as earnestly as ever in his life. “Please, please, don't do this.”

“I can't help it, Tom. I know you won't believe it, but you're not the only one who's scared. I'm scaring myself.” She pressed her heart. “I was always one of those women who loved so intensely, always worrying in the back of my mind how I could possibly live without you. I always thought, ‘Gosh, he had to marry me,' and that was my insecurity, eating away at me, always making me think I loved you more than you loved me. And then I found out what you'd done and this . . . this very, very frightening person took over inside of me, this woman I didn't know was there before, and she stood up and demanded to be heard, and I thought, ‘Where did she come from? This can't be me speaking and acting this way, can it?' But it is, and right now
I have to be this way. I have to distance myself from you because I hurt so badly. Can you understand that, Tom?”

He tried answering once, but his throat wouldn't cooperate. “N . . . no,” he finally managed in a broken voice.

She remained dry-eyed and calm. “How can you understand it when I don't understand it myself?”

She walked over to study the pictures on his windowsill—their family, so happy and carefree in years gone by. She touched one of the frames as she might have touched the fine hair of their children when they were infants.

“I'm sorry, Claire. How many ways can I say it?”

“I know you are.”

“Then why won't you relent a little and give us another chance?”

“I don't know, Tom. I have no other answer for you.”

They remained a long time in silence broken only by the distant sound of music from the gym, where their children were dancing. Once he sighed and wiped tears from his eyes. Once she picked up a picture of the four of them and studied it awhile before replacing it on the sill, very carefully, the way an intruder would if she knew someone were dozing in the next room.

Finally she turned and said, “I'm perfectly willing to be the one to go. You may stay in the house if you want.”

He wondered if a man could actually die of a broken heart. “I couldn't do that. I couldn't ask you to leave.”

“I'm the one forcing the issue. I should be the one to go.”

“This'll be bad enough for the children without losing you, too.”

“Then you want me to stay and you to go?”

“I want us both to stay, Claire, can't you understand that?” He felt himself on the verge of full-scale weeping.

She walked toward the door and said quietly, “I'll go.”

He was up like a shot, around the desk, holding her by one arm. “Claire . . .” He'd never been so scared in his life. “Jesus . . .” She didn't even pull away. She didn't need to, for she'd done it days ago. “Where would you go?”

She shrugged, staring forlornly at the carpet.

After a while she looked up and asked, “Where would you?”

“To my dad's, I suppose.”

She dropped her chin. “Well, maybe . . .”

Thus it was decided: two simple words and a wife dropping her chin, and his course of action was set.

They left the dance together, left their children celebrating youth and victory in a loud gymnasium abounding with life. Now that it was decided, Claire remained amenable to walking at his side into a blue-lit parking lot, sitting beside him in his car while they rode the couple of miles home, waiting while he opened the door and let her into the house before him.

They stopped in the dark, surrounded by familiar, looming shapes of possessions they had accumulated over the years—furniture, lamps, pictures on the walls—things they had chosen together in times when their future seemed unshakable.

“When will you go?” she asked.

“Tomorrow.”

“Then I'll sleep on the sofa tonight.”

“No, Claire . . .” He caught her hand. “No, please.”

“Don't, Tom.” She gently pulled away, and he heard her moving toward the hall. He lifted his face, as if shouting at God, and pulled in some huge drafts of air to keep himself from bawling. Faster, deeper, faster, deeper, until he'd bested the urge. Then he went toward the distant bedroom light and stood in the doorway looking in. She was already
in her bedclothes, crossing the room, but stopped warily when he appeared, as if expecting him to come in and make advances.

Instead, he said, “You can stay in here. I'll sleep on the sofa.”

Chelsea found him when she came in near one o'clock, out on the screened porch in the chilly night air, sitting on a rocker without rocking, staring at the night without seeing.

“Dad, you okay?” Chelsea asked, rolling the door back a few inches.

It took a bit before he responded. “I'm okay, honey.”

“How come you're sitting out here? It's cold.”

“I couldn't sleep.”

“You sure you're okay?”

“I'm sure. Go on to bed, honey.”

She paused uncertainly. “It was a nice dance, Dad, wasn't it?”

In the dark she could make out his form. He didn't even turn his head her way. “Yes, it was a nice dance.”

“And I'm proud of Robby even though he didn't win.”

“So am I.”

She waited uncertainly for an explanation that didn't come.

“Well . . . okay then, 'night, Dad.”

“ 'Night.”

Chelsea was waiting in Robby's room when he came in fifteen minutes later.

“Shh,” she whispered. “It's me.”

“Chels?”

“Something's wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you go through the family room?”

“No.”

“Dad's still sitting up on the screen porch.”

“He and Mom left the dance early.”

“I know.”

They worried awhile together, then Chelsea said, “He never sits up late. He always says there aren't enough hours in the day.”

They worried some more, to no avail.

“Well, heck . . .” Robby said. “I don't know . . . Did you talk to him?”

“Just for a minute.”

“What'd he say?”

“Not much.”

“Yeah, that's the trouble around here lately, he and Mom never say much.”

 

In the morning Chelsea awakened shortly after nine and got up to go to the bathroom. Passing the open doorway of her parents' bedroom, she saw her dad moving around inside. He was dressed in old clothes and there were cardboard boxes and two open suitcases on the bed. She stood in the doorway barefoot, an oversized dinosaur T-shirt brushing the tops of her knees.

“Dad, what're you doing?”

He straightened with a stack of underwear in his hands, then stuffed them into a suitcase and reached out a hand toward her. “Come here,” he said quietly.

She advanced cautiously, put her hand in his, and they sat on the edge of the rumpled bed between the boxes. He took her in his arms and rested his cheek on her hair. “Honey, your mom wants me to leave for a while.”

“No!” she said, gripping his sweatshirt in a fist. “I knew that's what it was! Please don't do it, Daddy!” She hadn't called him Daddy since the end of elementary school.

“I'm going to move out to Grandpa's cabin for a while.”

“No!” She tore herself out of his arms, screaming. “Where is she? She can't make you do this!” Her rampage carried her out the door and down the hall with Tom at her heels. She shouted all the way down the stairs to the main level. “You can't make him do this! Mother, where are you? What is going
on
around here? You're married! You can't just pretend you're not anymore and send him to Grandpa's house!” Claire intercepted her at the foot of the stairs. “You're his wife, Mother! What are you doing?”

Robby came flying out of his bedroom, awakened by the shouting, stumbling downstairs, too. “What's goin' on?” He was tousled, puffy-eyed, disoriented.

“Dad's moving out of the house, Robby. Tell him he can't! Tell Mom she can't make him go!” Chelsea was weeping wildly.

“Chelsea, we're not getting a divorce.” Claire tried to calm her.

“Not yet, you aren't, but you will if he goes! Mom, don't let him! Daddy, please . . .” She spun from one parent to the other. The family seemed misplaced in the front entry hall among all the tears and shouting so early in the morning.

Tom tried for calm. “Your mother and I talked it over last night.”

“But why are you doing it? You never tell us anything! You pretend nothing's wrong, but the two of you don't even look at each other anymore! Are you having an affair, Daddy, is that it?”

“No, I'm not, Chelsea, but your mother won't believe me.”

“Why won't you believe him, Mother?” She swung on Claire.

“It's more than that, Chelsea.”

“But if he says he isn't, why won't you believe him? Why won't you talk to us? Robby and I are part of this family, too, and we should have a say. We don't want him to go, do we, Robby?”

Robby was hanging back, still reeling from the violent wake-up call. He stood near the coat-closet door, looking tentative and confused in a stretched-out black T-shirt and gray sweatpants.

“Mom, why are you asking him to go?” His more controlled bearing slowed the emotional gait of the entire scene.

Claire said, “I need some time away from him, that's all. The situation is smothering me and I don't know what else to do.”

“But if he goes, Chelsea is right. How can you work it out again?”

She looked down at the carpet.

Robby looked at Tom. “Dad?”

“I'll still be here whenever you need me, or when she needs me, for that matter.”

“No you won't. You'll be at Grandpa's.”

“You can call anytime and I'll come over, and I'll see you at school every day.”

Robby sank against the door frame and whispered to the floor, “Shit.”

Nobody rebuked him as they would have before. The silence was oppressive, laden with fear, confusion, grief. They were all thinking about school, where they'd bump into one another and everyone they knew would be asking questions. They imagined the future, when they'd be split apart, living in two houses.

Tom finally spoke. “Hey, listen, you two . . .” He collected them each in an arm and curled their inert forms
against him. “I still love you. Your mom still loves you. That's never going to change.”

Chelsea said, “If you loved us you'd stay together.”

Tom met Claire's eyes beyond the children's heads but there would be no dissuading her, he could see. She hurt for the children, and for herself, but not for their relationship. She wanted the separation and nothing would sway her. She had developed a body language as readable as an English textbook. It said, “Keep away. I'm taking care of me and that's the way it is.” While he hugged his children, he saw through her needs to her selfishness and detested it. She stood near the kitchen doorway with her damned arms crossed again while he was left to offer the children what little consolation he could muster. He glared at her and she finally budged to come over and rub the children's shoulders.

“Come on . . . I'll make you some breakfast.”

But it wasn't breakfast they wanted.

 

Leaving was so damned painful Tom felt as if his heart were being eviscerated. He slammed the trunk and stood beside it. A Saturday in autumn, sharp-edged, resplendent, with the trees turning to gilt and a leaf falling there and here. Sounds carried from neighbors' yards, each crystalline in clarity, even the smallest metallic click from a combination window being lifted. The time of year in itself held a sadness, with its final days of warmth and welcome to the outdoors, its fading flowers at doorsides even as the verdant grass put on a late show.

He heaved a sigh and forced his legs to carry him back to the house to say goodbye.

Chelsea's bedroom door was closed. He tapped. “Chelsea?” No answer, so he intruded. She was sitting on her
pillow hugging a pink teddy bear, staring at her window curtain with her mouth pulled small and defensive. He went and sat beside her.

“Gotta go,” he said in a croaking whisper, tucking a single strand of hair behind her left ear.

She refused to acknowledge him. Tears trembled on her lower eyelids.

“You know Grandpa's number if you want me for anything, okay, sweetheart?”

Her chin and lips were set like a plaster cast of themselves. A fat tear spilled over and left a shiny streak on her cheek.

“I love you, honey. And who knows, maybe your mother is right. Maybe some time apart will get her mind straight.”

Chelsea refused to blink though her eyes must have been burning.

He rose and turned away.

“Daddy, wait!” She catapulted off the bed into his arms. Her voice came to him muffled against his sweatshirt as she clung to his neck. “Why?”