Prospect Street (5 page)

Furious, she swept her towels, the tube of bath gel and an unlit candle to the tile floor before she realized what she was doing. The cordless telephone teetered on the edge and clanged to the bath mat before she could catch it.

“Damn!” The word was relatively untested on her tongue, but tonight she liked the feel of it. She was determined to begin a new life for the sake of her children, but was there anything left inside her to work with?

The telephone rang. She snatched it off the floor and heard
her father's voice. After she said goodbye, she stepped out of the tub and reached for her robe.

One of the longest days of her life wasn't over yet.

 

David stood outside the house he had helped design and gazed up at the second-floor windows. Remy's bedroom light was off, but Faith's window was softly lit.

He imagined she wasn't sleeping well. Faith never slept well when he wasn't in the house. She wasn't a woman who jumped at every noise or imagined the rambler rose slapping against the trellis was a burglar. She'd told him once that she simply felt incomplete when he was away.

She had told him so much, and he had told her so little.

As a child, his father had taught him not to cry. Isaac hadn't cried as
his
father prepared to sacrifice him. Who was David to cry when a child at such terrible risk had remained silent?

He wanted to cry now. For who and what he was. For who and what he had become. For falling prey to an attraction so powerful it had exposed the lies he'd told himself.

And right now for the woman he had left behind.

The moon was nearly full tonight, and it shone softly on the two story colonial. A magnolia he'd planted was nearly as high as the roof. A sycamore he'd spent a thousand dollars to protect when the lot was cleared towered over the garage. The house had been his retreat and refuge, but for the last few years it had seemed like a prison.

Faith wouldn't welcome this visit. She had arranged to be away one afternoon several months ago so he could retrieve his personal belongings. They had agreed through their attorneys on what furniture and possessions he could remove, but he had forgotten about several boxes of books Faith would have no use for.

He had parked on the street like a stranger. Now he trudged up the long brick sidewalk and rapped lightly on the front door. His hands were cold, though the night was sultry. He was nervous about walking through the door of a house he had owned
until today. And he was more nervous about encountering the woman who was still his wife.

He was surprised when she answered right away. She was barefooted, wearing denim shorts and a bright yellow T-shirt, and her hair was damp.

“Dad, I—” Her eyes widened when she saw David. “What are you doing here?”

“Faith, don't close the door. Please.”

She stood solidly in the middle of the doorway. “Didn't we say enough this afternoon?”

“I'm sorry.”

“You already said that.”

“No, I'm sorry that I'm bothering you tonight. But on the way ho—after I left the settlement, I remembered I never looked through the books in the family room. I got the ones from my study, but I didn't—”

“I'll pack them up and have them sent. What do you want?”

“I'm not sure, exactly. I'd like to look through them. You can check to be sure you don't want—”

“I don't want any of your books, David.”

“Then may I come in and get them? I waited as late as I could.”

She raked her hair over her ears. “Your timing couldn't be worse. My father's on his way over here to lecture me. Unless you want some of what he's dishing out, you might want to leave.”

“What's he lecturing you about?”

She raised a brow, clearly questioning his right to ask.

He managed half a smile. “I could take the heat for you. Lord knows you've been taking it for me for months, haven't you?”

She didn't smile in return. “In ways you can't even imagine.”

The woman blocking his access seemed both familiar and unfamiliar. They had shared so much, memories that would forever haunt him. But he wondered how well he had really known her. He suspected he had underestimated Faith. He had been
so afraid to tell her the truth; he had expected her to dissolve. Now the evidence was clear. She was getting on with her life. Oddly enough, that disconcerted him.

“I'm moving into the house on Prospect Street,” she said at last.

For a moment he thought he hadn't heard her correctly. “Prospect?”

“Mother's house in Georgetown. It'll be mine eventually, so she's giving it to me now, a tax-free chunk at a time, until it's in my name. But for all practical purposes she's turning it over to me this week. It solves a lot of problems, not the least of which was giving the children a home of their own. I won't have to buy a car right away. I can look for a job in the city.” She shrugged.

He felt a flash of anger. “Don't you think you should have consulted me?”

Her blue eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

“They're my children, too. Shouldn't I have a say in where they live?”

“Not when that decision affects me personally. What would you have said, David? Faith, you have to live with your parents? I insist?”

He felt as if he were navigating through a whirlpool. “Of course not. I'd just like to be part of things. I'm their—”

Her voice, when she found it again, shook with anger. She stepped outside and pulled the door closed behind her. “Yes, you are their father. But what gives you the right to make decisions about the way I'll live the rest of
my
life? I did everything you expected me to do for fifteen years, and look where it got me. Now it's my turn to make decisions. And I'm moving the children to Georgetown.”

He had never seen her so angry. “Without telling me.”

“I
did
tell you. The decision was made tonight, and I just told the children. You've lost the right to be at the top of my list.”

He took a deep breath. He needed it. “Can we talk about this without a fight?”

“There's nothing to talk about.”

“If we talk about everything that affects Alex and Remy, it's easier for me to help. I didn't know you had given up the Volvo until yesterday, when I got the paperwork from the car dealer. Why didn't you tell me? I'm leaving the Accord with you. That's the other reason I came. It's yours. I'm signing it over. I don't want you depending on your mother for transportation. You should have told me.”

“Why? Maybe you'd still like me to be dependent on you? You don't want
me,
but you want to control me? Well, guess what? I can make it without you, David.”

“I don't want to run your life.”

“Of course you do. You've been running it for years, and I let you. But not anymore.”

“I don't want to run your life,” he repeated. “I just want to make it tolerable.” He turned up his hands in unconscious supplication. “Will you please take the Accord?”

Her answer was cut off by the sound of a car turning into the driveway.

“Oh great.” Faith rested her forehead against her palms for a moment. “Are you going to gang up?” She looked up. “That would be something, wouldn't it? You and the senator in league again. Deciding together what I should do and where I should do it.”

“For the record, I don't know whether I'm against the move or not. I only wanted—”

She cut him off with a vicious swipe of her hand. “You still have time to leave. Do it.”

“That's what Joe expects. A sissy runs. A real man stays and fights.”

“He will never see you as a real man again, no matter what you do.”

She was deliberately trying to be cruel, he knew, so unlike herself that she felt like a stranger to him. Belatedly he realized she was also trying to warn him. But David didn't need a warning. He knew Joe Huston as well as he knew himself. He
knew how easy it was to condemn and how soothing it was to bask in self-righteousness. He had done both, and he had been struck down. Joe was still in his prime.

When he didn't leave, Faith stepped forward. “Wait a minute. How do you plan to get…wherever, if you're leaving the car here?”

He met her eyes, and she saw the answer.

“I see,” she said. “Mr. Stein followed you. He's out there waiting?”

He inclined his head.

“That's accommodating,” she said.

“I'm sorry, but I had to have a ride home.”

“Home…” She straightened as her father's footsteps became audible. “We've talked all around it, but there it is, huh? Well, you have one, and I deserve one. So there's nothing left for us to discuss about this move. We are done. Finished.”

Joe Huston appeared. He stopped when he noticed David, clearly disturbed by his son-in-law's presence. At sixty-eight the senator was still a large man, solid and formidable. His thinning hair was cropped military-style, and his stance was a soldier's at attention.

Faith's father was a veteran of the Korean War, a genuine military hero who had parlayed his stellar youthful service in the marines into a reputation for unflinching devotion to country, and success in the toughest campaigns. If Joe ever felt tired, no one was the wiser. Two years ago he'd checked himself into George Washington University Hospital for bypass surgery, and until that moment no one had even known he suffered from chest pain.

“What is he doing here?” Joe demanded of Faith, as if David had lost his right to speak.

David spoke anyway. “I came to leave Faith the car. And to get some books.”

Joe didn't even glance at him. “You planned to let him in the house?” he asked Faith.

“I didn't plan anything.” Faith stood taller. “But he's wel
come to his books. David, get whatever you want off the shelves. My father and I will talk out here.”

“No, I think he should hear this,” Joe said. “I can't believe he'll approve of this move to Georgetown any more than I do.”

“I appreciate your opinion, Dad,” Faith said evenly. “But when it comes right down to it, this is my decision. Not yours, and not David's. I have to do what I think best.”

Joe stared through narrowed eyes, as if she were a particularly recalcitrant defendant at an impeachment hearing. He had never been handsome, even in his youth. He was too coarse-featured and beetle-browed, and he hadn't grown more distinguished with age. But the senator had considerable presence. His voice boomed; his eyes blazed, and his intensity, once unleashed, drove away all thoughts of physical beauty. Liberals and moderates of both parties disliked Senator Joe Huston, but nobody underestimated him.

Joe finally shook his head. “Well, you're wrong. Dead wrong. And I won't have it. I took a look at the house this evening. How can you imagine that's an appropriate place to raise my grandchildren? It's a hovel.”

She sighed. “It's
my
hovel. And with some hard work and elbow grease, it'll be a home.”

“What's wrong with the house?” David turned to Joe, since it seemed clear Faith wasn't going to tell him.

David watched Joe balance ignoring him against using him as an ally. “There's nothing right about it,” Joe said, reaching a compromise. He addressed David, but he didn't look at him. “It's unfit to live in.”

“The house has been neglected,” Faith explained. “It needs work. I can do some of it, and I'll hire people to do the rest. The first thing I'll do is clean it from top to bottom. It may not be pretty when I'm finished, but it'll be livable.”

“And what about school?” Joe demanded. “Have you considered how many hours a day the children will have to commute?”

Faith didn't quite look at her father. “I'm putting them in
public school. I can't afford the academy anymore, and I don't think it's good for Alex.”

David couldn't remain silent. “You were going to change their school without telling me?”

“And why should she tell you anything?” Joe said, fully addressing him for the first time. “You have lost all rights to parent those children. There ought to be laws to protect children from people like you. If I had my way, there would be.”

“Dad!” Faith stepped forward. “Enough.” She turned to David. “I told you this just happened.”

“And when would you have told me? After they were registered?”

“How did you think I was going to manage the tuition?”

That stopped him. Had he really expected her to move in with her parents so she could continue to send the children to a school he had chosen for them?

“I can take care of my grandchildren.” Joe didn't smile, but clearly, the idea that he could provide for them when their gay father couldn't, pleased him.

Faith shook her head. “Thanks, but
I
can take care of my children, Dad. They're my responsibility.”

“The responsibility is ours, not yours,” David said.

Joe made a sound of disbelief. “It's too bad, isn't it, that you didn't think about that before you decided you couldn't live without Abraham Stein? I suppose it never occurred to you that falling into homosexual ways would affect your relationship with your children.”

Faith held up her hands. “I'm going inside. David, get your books tomorrow. I'm taking the children to Prospect Street in the morning to start cleaning the house. Take anything you want, because most of what we have won't fit in the row house, anyway. Dad, you can't talk me out of this. My mind is made up. But we'll talk again when everyone is calmer.”

Before either man could speak, Faith slipped inside and closed the door. David heard the sound of the bolt being thrown. For the moment Faith had locked them out of her life.

“How does it feel,” Joe asked, “to know you destroyed her?”