Possessions (9 page)

Victoria raised an imperious hand. “We do not need you to tell us how to behave. You know very little about us—”

“I'd know more if you'd tell me!”

“Do not interrupt me! We opened our home to you and your children; you have little cause to criticize us.”

“I didn't want to.” Katherine's eyes filled with tears. “But I think you'd be happier if you'd never heard of Craig Fraser at all.”

“Katherine,” Tobias chided, looking at Victoria's tight lips. “Too much, too much. Don't say more than we can forget.”

“You don't want us here,” she went on doggedly. “You don't want me and you don't want Craig. But of course it was very kind of you to invite us.” She hesitated, then turned to leave.

“Young woman!” Victoria's icy voice stopped her. She heard Tobias lament, “Oh, Katherine,” and Melanie murmur, “How charming; no one walks out on—” as Victoria said, “How dare you turn your back on me! And where do you think you are going? You have no one else to help you.”

Katherine half-turned to see her—so beautiful in her regal anger it seemed nothing could touch her. “You don't want to help and I don't need you. Craig and I have gotten along by
ourselves for ten years, you haven't existed for us, so why should I come to you now? I'll find him . . . and we'll be all right.” Quickly she left the room, trembling so violently she thought she would fall.

But suddenly Ross was there, his arm lightly around her shoulders as they walked through the drawing room. “I think you should stay,” he told her. “What you said about us was partly true, but Victoria was right: there are many things you don't know about us. And there's no question that we'll help you financially. I apologize for my wife's insinuations—”

“You have nothing to apologize for. But I don't want any help from your family. All I want to do is go home, where I belong, and find my husband.”

He started to say something, then changed his mind as they came to the library. Jennifer and Carrie were locked in a computerized race with Todd and Jon on the television screen and it was a few minutes before Katherine was able to pry them loose. “They have a million games, Mom!” Todd said as they all walked down a long gallery.

“They aren't ours,” said Jon. “They're Great-Grandma's. But she lets us play any time we want, and when you come back—”

“Are
we coming back?” Jennifer asked, squinting as she tried to read her mother's face.

“No—” Katherine began and that single word, louder than she had intended, met Victoria and Tobias, who were waiting in the entry hall.

Tobias took Katherine's hands in his. “We've all behaved badly; I'm quite ashamed of everyone. But you will come back, of course you will, now that we've met, now that we consider you part of the family—”

But it was clear he wasn't asking them to stay. Katherine stepped back. “Goodbye,” she said to Victoria. “I'm sorry.”

“So am I,” Victoria responded unexpectedly. But then she said to Ross, “Are you driving them to the airport?”

The last of Katherine's fears of angering them dropped away. “That isn't necessary,” she said bitingly. “We can manage on our own. We wouldn't want to disrupt your life—I mean your
dinner—
any more than we already have. Todd, do you have your jacket? Jennifer?” She opened the carved oak door and
urged them ahead of her into the small vestibule. “We'll get a cab downstairs, for the airport. We're going home.”

As she pushed the elevator button, she saw Ross gesture to Victoria and Tobias to stay behind. He followed her into the vestibule. “Your luggage is at the Fairmont,” he said.

“We'll pick it up on the way to the airport.”

“There may not be a flight for Vancouver tonight.”

“We'll find out.” The elevator arrived and the uniformed doorman slid open the door. Katherine held out her hand to Ross. “Thank you again. When Craig comes home, would you like us to let you know?”

There was a barely perceptible pause. “Of course,” he said. “But I'll call in a day or two to see how you are.”

“Your family wouldn't approve.” Her courage exhausted, Katherine shepherded her children into the elevator and nodded to the doorman. The last thing she saw as he pulled shut the iron grille and started down was Ross, shaking his head, contradicting her, and Carrie and Jon, who had run out to the vestibule, peering through the grille to shout a farewell to Jennifer and Todd.

A
FTER the golden splendor of Victoria's apartment, the house in Vancouver seemed a cool and earthbound haven. But as soon as they opened the door, Katherine knew it was not. Driving home from the airport, listening to Todd and Jennifer imagine their father waiting for them, she had almost let herself be convinced, until they walked in and Todd called, “Dad! We're home!” and they came up against the silent emptiness of the dark rooms. The house was exactly as they had left it, nothing out of place, nothing changed. “God damn it!” Todd yelled, stomping down the stairs after searching the bedroom. Katherine let him. It was better than keeping it locked up inside.

But the next morning she was less patient. “Just go,” she ordered, wanting to be alone, when they dragged their feet after breakfast. “Daddy will come back, or not, whether you're here or at day camp. We have to keep going; we can't sit around like run-down toys, waiting for Daddy to come along and wind us up.”

That made them giggle and she was able to send them off to catch their bus, leaving her alone in the quiet rooms. Craig
seemed to be everywhere—papers with his handwriting, pictures he had hung on the walls, the banister he had sanded and varnished to silken smoothness, the dent he'd made in the dishwasher when he threw a coffee mug at it in a fit of anger. What had he been angry about? Katherine couldn't remember. Maybe she had done something that reminded him of the Haywards.

If that was it, she could understand his anger. A closed private club, the Haywards. If Craig felt as uncomfortable with them as she had, no wonder he left.

But she still didn't know why he left. Sitting at Craig's desk, she knew she had bungled the evening. She hadn't been clever enough to get past their barriers, and so she lost the chance to learn more about her husband.

She shuddered, remembering how inferior they had made her feel. Forget about them, she ordered herself. Think about now. Especially about money. The top of the desk was covered with bills for roof repair, gasoline charges, summer clothes for the whole family, overdue bills, “last notice” bills, a card from a collection agency, mortgage, utilities, and at least a dozen others coming due the first of July. Tomorrow.

Craig always insisted on paying the bills. Sometimes Katherine had teased him, asking what dark secrets made him so protective. Now she knew. She wondered how long he had been juggling accounts to keep them from being canceled. Your house set him back more than he expected, Carl Doerner had said. Why didn't you tell me? Katherine silently asked Craig. Didn't you trust me?

Don't think about Craig; think about the bills. Two thousand dollars for the mortgage, due the first of the month. Fifteen hundred dollars in other bills due at the same time. Cash on hand: four hundred dollars in the checking account; one thousand in savings. Think about that. Thirty-five hundred dollars in bills. Fourteen hundred dollars on hand.

But she wasn't even sure of that. How much did he take with him? She picked up the telephone and called the bank. And was told that the checking account contained five thousand dollars.

“How much?” She repeated the account number.

“Five thousand four hundred thirteen dollars, Mrs. Fraser,” the voice chirped. “A deposit of five thousand dollars was made
at ten-thirty
A.M.
on June 16 at the Park Royal branch. Would you like us to send you a duplicate deposit slip?”

“No. Thank you.” June 16. Two weeks ago. The day Craig stood with her at their front gate at ten fifteen in the morning and kissed her goodbye before taking a taxi to the airport. Only he hadn't gone straight to the airport. He'd stopped off at the bank in the Park Royal shopping center and made a deposit. To keep his family going for a while.

He never intended to be home on Friday.

He wasn't dead; he wasn't hurt. He was looking for money to pay back Carl Doerner. That was the whole story: no sexy young girl, no mugging and murder, no heart attack. He'd gone away because things got too much for him and he'd come back when he got them straightened out. And that wouldn't be long. He knew Katherine had only enough money for two months. By leaving five thousand dollars, he was telling her he would be back in two months.

Or he'd decided that in two months she'd be able to manage alone.

Or that was all he could spare.

The telephone rang and she snatched it up. It was a policeman, asking if she had heard from her husband.

“No—”

“Or anything about him?”

“Yes.” All of Craig's secrets were becoming public. She told him about the Haywards. “Well, now, ma'am,” he said doubtfully. “That's a very strange story. But we'll check with the San Francisco police. And you keep in touch, now; don't forget about us if you hear anything else.”

Don't forget about us. Idiots, she thought, slamming down the telephone. All of them—Carl Doerner, the police, the Haywards—saw Craig's disappearance as a personal insult or challenge. No one seemed interested in her, or what she was discovering: that Craig Fraser didn't trust his wife to share his troubles, or his thoughts. He just disappeared and left her to clean up the mess.

No one seemed interested. A few friends had made perfunctory calls, duty calls, offering, not sympathy (after all, the newspapers said her husband was a criminal) but—“Help if you need it, Katherine; if things really get bad . . .” (How bad, she wondered, is “really bad”?)

For the first time, Katherine recognized how fragile were her friendships of the past ten years. Craig had kept people at arm's length, insisting he and Katherine needed only each other. And Katherine had gone along. Through letters and phone calls, Leslie remained her only confidante; her friendships in Vancouver were casual and pleasant, but never intimate.

Now that had come to haunt her. Most people shy away from those in trouble, as if they might catch it by coming too close, and none of Katherine's and Craig's acquaintances were close or affectionate enough to hold out a supporting hand. Well, she'd do without them; she didn't need them. She didn't need the Haywards, either, or any of her neighbors, whom she had been avoiding because she found herself feeling ashamed of being Mrs. Craig Fraser.

She didn't need Carl Doerner, either. He should have known Craig was in trouble at the company, and done something about it. Anyway, he was out of town, his secretary told her, for two weeks.

“I can always talk to myself,” Katherine said aloud, but the sound of her voice in the empty house made her feel even more alone and she turned on the radio, spinning the knob until an announcer's comforting baritone filled the rooms. With his company, she sat at Craig's desk and paid the most urgent bills, putting the others aside. Signing the checks, she felt a brief surge of accomplishment, until she checked the bank balance. How had it shrunk so quickly? She might not have enough for another month. One emergency could wipe them out.

She paused, her hand halfway to the envelope she was about to stamp.
He had no right to do this to us.

Quickly she shoved the thought away, with all the others she couldn't face, and when Todd and Jennifer came home, she was ready to think of dinner. “Not that stuff again!” Todd groaned as she took cold cuts and cheese from the refrigerator. He dropped his knapsack on the floor. “Why can't we have lamb chops or meat loaf or something real, like we used to?”

“You don't like to cook when it's just us, do you?” Jennifer asked. “When Daddy's on a trip, you never cook a whole dinner.”

“You're right,” Katherine said after a moment. “I haven't been very creative.” She returned the food to the refrigerator. They'd never seemed like a family when Craig was away and
those were the times she used up leftovers or made picniclike meals. But Craig had been gone for two weeks. We're the family now, she thought. It's about time I begin cooking for three. “Why don't we go out for hamburgers tonight?” she suggested. “And tomorrow we'll buy groceries for the rest of the week.”

“The kind Daddy likes,” Jennifer said. “So when he comes home he won't think we changed everything while he was gone.”

Katherine turned away. There had been changes every day since he left: little ones, hardly noticeable at first, and big ones, like paying the bills herself. The longer Craig was gone, the less recognizable home was—as if they lost him a little more each day.

“How are we going to buy hamburgers and groceries?” Todd asked. “Daddy has all the money.”

“Don't be silly,” Jennifer scoffed. “Mother goes shopping every week.”

“She gets the money from Daddy,” Todd insisted. “So if he's not here, she doesn't have any.”

Uncertainly, Jennifer asked, “We don't have any money?”

And Todd said, “Who's going to take care of us?”

The wall clock hummed, the refrigerator clicked on, a sprinkler watered the roses on the terrace. The house was alive: solid and familiar. But as if a strong wind had made it sway, the children were afraid. And so am I, Katherine thought, but that idea, too, she had to banish.

“We're going to take care of us,” she said firmly. “We do have money; we just have to be careful how we spend it.”

“How long will it last?” asked Jennifer.

“Until I start to earn our living.” The words came out on their own. Katherine repeated them silently, wondering when she had made the decision. Writing checks, she thought; when else? Another change: the biggest so far. “I'm going to get a job,” she said. “As a jewelry designer.”