Michael’s Wife (14 page)

“Not safe? Why?”

But the old woman rose from her knees and went to Jimmy's room. When she returned with another armload of toys Laurel confided, “I think it will be good for Jimmy, but I'm afraid of moving to Phoenix with Michael.”

“You have reason to be afraid.” Consuela knelt across the box from her and dumped the toys into it and then laid her hand on Laurel's arm, the hand hot and a little damp. “You made him love you once.…” Consuela's face came close to hers, her breath smelling faintly of stale onion. “When you are together, away from this place, you must make him love you again, Mrs. Michael. You must do this for Jimmy.”

Laurel pulled her arm away from the old woman's grasp. “How can I, Consuela? He hates me.”

“You are the same woman he loved. It is what you have done that he hates.”

“But how can he ever forgive that? I can't even forgive myself.”

“It is good that you fear his anger so that you can be careful of it. But Michael is not so hard and unforgiving a man as he seems. When Maria was killed, I thought that his hurt and anger would grow and would poison him. But once he had cried and broken things it was over. When Mrs. Devereaux first came here and tried to change everything Michael would get so angry he would kick or break things. But he did not hold anger against her. He would let it out before it could grow worse.”

“I could get my head bashed in while being forgiven.”

Consuela gave her a long searching look and said quietly, “I have never seen him take out anger on people, Mrs. Michael, only on things.”

She should have been in that motel room with me
. Laurel slid a careful sideways glance at the man beside her in the speeding car. Had he been the shadow in the courtyard? Consuela would never believe any wrong of Michael. Did she really know him?

The car raced through the desert and Laurel's mind raced with it. If nothing happened in her new home, she would know that it had not been Michael in the courtyard or that she'd imagined everything. But if he was the danger she feared, there would be no locks between them now. Nothing to stop him.

She shivered and snuggled Jimmy closer. He was all she had and she couldn't have Jimmy without Michael. If she couldn't make a success of the next three months she'd lose them both. Michael's hatred for his wife was understandable. And Laurel had given up the hope that she might not be the woman who had deserted him and his newborn son.

They'd driven about an hour when Laurel found her white summer dress soaked where Jimmy had wet through the plastic pants. She reached for the diaper bag on the floor at her feet and tried to lay Jimmy out on the seat between them. With his head on Michael's lap and legs on hers, it was just possible. Laurel felt nervous performing this motherly task in front of Michael. She wasn't very good at it.

He looked disgusted and said, “He should be trained to use the bathroom by now.” He glanced away from the road to her, a hint of sarcasm in his eyes. “You can start on that immediately, little mother.”

Mother or no mother, she had no idea how to toilet train a child, but she'd never admit it to Michael.

Luke Air Force Base was on the outskirts of Glendale, a suburb of Phoenix. Through the chain link fence that bordered the base she could see a golf course, its thick grass a deep green with sprinkler heads throwing away rainbow water under the thirsty sun.

Across the road from the base were the backyards of brightly colored homes and then a series of blinding white townhouse apartments in pseudo-Spanish style with black wrought-iron casements and gates. She wondered if they would be living in one of the bright houses where young palm trees provided shade. There had been a swing set in one of the yards. Or would a captain live in a townhouse?

As if he knew her thoughts, Michael said, “We won't be living in base housing but just across the street from the base, farther down.”

And almost immediately he turned the car onto a dusty side road and then in the front yard of a house. He might as well have described it, “just across the tracks.”

Three squat one-story houses of peeling stucco sat close together, one pink, one beige, one green. No trees, shrubs, or driveways. There was little need for a driveway because what grass remained of the lawns sat in sparse dry clumps a foot apart.

The car parked in front of the middle beige house, facing the door, and to her right she could see the green of the air base across the main road. That green ended with the fence. On this side, all was arid and dusty.

“Perhaps military life doesn't look so appealing after all? Something of a comedown after Tucson?”

Laurel didn't answer, but opened the car door. She could take anything he could hand out—she hoped. Stepping out of the air-conditioned car, she could almost feel the weight of the sunlight on the top of her head. The heat took her breath away.

Inside was even worse. The house was a choking stucco oven draining life from anything that moved in it. The front door opened into a small living room furnished with a Danish modern couch and two chairs—the wood scuffed, the dark brown upholstery worn and pilled. Cheap identical lamps sat on end tables. A coffee table, its blond finish out of place, stood in front of the couch.

Along one wall between a bedroom door and a small hallway sat a long low stereo console, too large for the room, too expensive for the house, obviously moved from Michael's bachelor quarters. Faded blue drapes, bare brown tiles, no bars to protect the windows, no massive bolted doors. The house seemed open, vulnerable.

Michael began carrying boxes and luggage in from the car and she followed Jimmy around the partition that made up one wall of the living room. One could walk around either end of this partition to enter the kitchen.

An ancient refrigerator banged instead of hummed. It and the white steel cabinets, apartment-size gas stove, dinette set, and a new clothes washer with the tags still on it crowded the kitchen to overflowing. She explored and found food in the refrigerator, plastic dishes and odd pots and pans in the cupboards.

Sliding glass doors led into the backyard, their undraped panes reflecting the sun's dazzle off the white concrete patio. A wire fence enclosed the backyards of all three houses making a good-sized play area and Laurel was relieved to see a swing set, sandbox, and tricycle. Jimmy would at last have playmates. Separate sets of clothesline were strung out behind each patio. The one on the left held a lonely bra.

A bath and two tiny bedrooms completed the house. Michael had set up Jimmy's crib and one twin bed in the back bedroom. In the front bedroom was the mate to the twin bed and Michael's belongings.

So that was how it was to be.

Laurel dragged back to the kitchen and sank into a chair. Jimmy followed with a little truck he had retrieved from one of the boxes and lay on the floor at her feet sucking his thumb, pushing the truck back and forth languidly with his free hand.

It was too hot and close to move. Laurel couldn't help but compare this with the shaded walkways and huge cool rooms of the house in Tuscon.

It started with a giggle. But soon she was laughing so hard she doubled up, her head on the table. She didn't know why she laughed, she didn't have the energy, she shouldn't use up what little air remained in the stifling kitchen. Jimmy perched on one elbow and grinned at her.

Michael came to lean against the partition, his shirt front soaked with sweat, his tie loosened. “You are sane, I hope,” he said, his forehead and dark brows set in quizzical lines.

The comment sent her into another fit and Jimmy squealed delightedly.

Michael almost hid the amusement in his eyes. He caught himself and opened the refrigerator to find a can of pop and two cans of beer. Jimmy soon made a sticky mess of himself and the floor with the pop. She gulped at the icy beer between giggles.

“Welcome to Castle Devereaux, appointments by Cheap Rental,” Michael said, raising his can in a mock toast. “I'm glad you find it so amusing.” His eyes were half-lidded, secretive as he leaned against the refrigerator, looking down at her. He dwarfed the kitchen, looking even bigger than he had in the house in Tucson.

“Amusing? It's pathetic. We'll fry in this place. Isn't there any way to cool it?”

“We don't run to refrigeration, but there is a swamp cooler on the roof. If I can figure out how to turn it on.”

She jumped and Jimmy ran to clutch at her leg as a grating, clanging noise like that of a car with a loose radiator fan filled the house. A musky odor soon seeped into the room.

“Pe-u, now I know why they call it a swamp cooler.”

“It hasn't been used for a while. The smell should go away soon. The switch is here by the bathroom door,” he yelled above the racket. The cooler settled to a roaring hum, drowning out even the ancient refrigerator.

Michael didn't join them for lunch but showered and dressed in his tan uniform. He stopped in the kitchen to get a peanut butter kiss from Jimmy and turned to leave, saying over his shoulder, “Have fun, little mother.” He was gone before she could ask when he would be home for dinner.

She bathed Jimmy, put him down for a nap, showered and dressed in yellow slacks and overblouse, sandals, and a yellow scarf to tie back her thick, hot hair. Jimmy had adjusted to the cooler noise and slept untroubled as she moved about the room unpacking their clothes.

At the bottom of the last suitcase she found the battered orange slacks and thought of Harley and of her meeting with Michael in Raymond McBride's motel. She held them for a moment, running her finger over the tear in the pant leg, wondering how it got there, then put the slacks back into the suitcase.

Her future was the main worry now, but the orange slacks fed her nagging anxiety over the past. When would it catch up with her?

The house felt cooler, especially in the hall as she moved through it to the kitchen. But heat still filtered through the exposed glass of the sliding doors. Those doors would have to be draped; the glare was almost worse than the heat.

Opening the refrigerator to find another beer, she heard a rapping behind her and turned to see a woman in shorts standing on the patio. Laurel slid the door back.

The woman was short and plump and wore her shorts a little self-consciously. “Hi, I just came home and heard your cooler going so I figured my new neighbors had moved in.” Her smile was friendly, her eyes curious.

“Come in. I was about to open a beer; will you have one with me?” It was a relief to get the woman inside and slide the doors closed against the heat.

“I could use one. I never really appreciated beer until we transferred to the desert. I'm Myra Patrick.” She spoke all in a rush as though nervous or excited. “I live in the pink dump next door.” Myra slid into a chair by the table and looked around the kitchen. With brown hair cut short and deep dimples in each cheek, she looked like a slightly overweight pixy.

“Laurel … Devereaux,” she said, handing Myra her untasted beer and finding herself another in the refrigerator.

“Devereaux? You don't know a Mike Devereaux, do you?”

“My husband's name is Michael.” Laurel sat at the table and opened her beer.

“No, this one isn't married … or he wasn't.” Myra sat up in her chair. “Captain? Mike J. Tall, dark … blue eyes?”

“That does sound like Michael.”

Myra was in the process of lighting a cigarette, but she gaped at Laurel and the match burned down to her fingers. She jumped, blew it out, and lit another.

“You mean you landed Mike Devereaux? Wait till this gets out.” She rolled her eyes in amused wonder. “When did all this happen?”

Laurel got her a saucer for an ashtray and turned to find Myra looking at the highchair.

“No, still wrong one. You are not newly wed. This Mike came from Tucson. He and Pat, my husband, served in Vietnam together. Mike's got darkish skin and funny blue eyes. He's pretty fast but not that fast,” and she grinned at the high chair. “Tell me about your Michael and kids.”

Laurel was embarrassed. She'd better straighten things out before Myra said anymore. “We have one son—Jimmy. Jimmy and I have been living in Tucson with Michael's family and Michael has darkish skin and funny blue eyes. We were married before he went to Vietnam. Jimmy is two. I think we're talking about the same man.”

The cooler roared into the silence between them. Myra's cigarette halted halfway to her mouth and stayed there. It was the first time she'd sat still since she came in.

Michael could have warned her that he was moving them in next to friends of his.

Her visitor didn't look quite convinced. “He's been stationed here for months. Why did he wait till now to bring you here? I guess I … we just assumed he was single. He always had plenty of money, and married men don't. He never mentioned you or the baby. And he seemed free to.…” She caught herself and looked at the refrigerator to avoid Laurel's eyes. “I'm. sorry. I didn't come over here to drink your beer and then spread tales.”

“I think I know what you were going to say. But it's all right … I.…”

“All right!” Myra's friendly expression hardened as she dashed the cigarette into the saucer. “Look, I'm sorry I said as much as I did. But if we're talking about the same man my opinion of Mike Devereaux has just fallen to dead zero.”

“Don't be too hard on him. You see we've been separated for a long time. He.…” Laurel caught herself with surprise; she was actually defending Michael.

“Well, that explains a few things. I guess I'd better let you get to your moving in.” She rose quickly as if eager to get away.

“Myra? You will come back?” Laurel said, suddenly realizing how lonely she was without friends.

“Oh, sure. Tell you what. I'll round up Colleen. She lives on the other side of you and we'll have coffee at my house tomorrow morning. Nine-thirty? Bring Jimmy. My Sherrie is three and they can get to know each other. Okay?”