The Husband (22 page)

The pain in Peter’s hand was a lot worse.

The men stood there, looking at each other. Finally Paul said, “We’ll send you a check for the rest of the month. You’d better get your things out of your office now.”

Peter couldn’t help laughing; the month ended tomorrow. He saw that Paul misconstrued the laugh, but what could he say?

Paul righted his overthrown chair, sat in it, and swiveled away to stare out the window. Peter unlocked the door and, when he was out, closed it carefully behind him. At a distance, there was still a bit of a crowd, but Peter saw clearly only Big Susan. “I think you’d better go in to him,” was what he said, and Big Susan, without a word, went into the office, and he could hear her lock the door behind her.

Then, behind the curious faces of the secretaries and some of the men who had now come out of their offices to see what had happened, he saw anxious Elizabeth keeping as far back as she could.

He had already gathered his personal stuff into his briefcase when she came into his office. “Can’t talk about it now,” he said, then noticed the memo on his telephone and called Jonathan.

The boy answered the phone very quickly. He must have been waiting for the call all this time.

“Dad?”

“Sorry, couldn’t call back sooner.”

“That’s okay.” He sounded awfully grown up.

“What’s up?”

“Mom’s been crying.”

“What happened?”

“Over Maggie,” said Jonathan. “She doesn’t understand about you and Mom. She’s having trouble at school.” Margaret had never had trouble at school.

“I’ll try to see her today.”

“It’s too late today. She gets out at three ten. Can I tell her you’ll meet her at school tomorrow?”

“Is that what she wants?”

“She asked me to call you.”

Why hadn’t Maggie called herself?

“Gotta hang up now, Dad,” he said, and his voice vanished with a click.

Peter threw the crumpled message slip into the wastebasket. When he looked up, Elizabeth was gone, but when he reached the street level in the elevator, she was there waiting for him.

He carried his loaded case in his left hand. She took his right hand in hers, but he winced with the pain and she let go.

As they came out of the revolving door to the street, she said, “Tell me about it.”

On the way to her house, he told her.

Everything.

Chapter Fourteen

It was a calculated decision: Elizabeth would not accompany Peter to pick up Margaret in school. She’d be at her desk working, just in case Paul was looking for a reason to fire her also.

The school, as Peter came in sight of it, squatted like a white brick packing case three stories high built before it was thought desirable for schools to be attractive. In front was the huge cage of the school yard, the ten-foot wire fence as forbidding as a prison. It was empty of children, the only sign of life some candy wrappers whipped around the yard by the wind.

Fortunately Peter had picked up Margaret at the school once early in the semester and knew exactly where to go. Through the side door, one flight up the clanging metal staircase, turn right and there was the back door to her classroom. He could see Miss Icardi in front of the green- gray blackboard. Miss Icardi was as he remembered her: plump, fiftyish, her shining black hair tucked safely in a bun.

Several of the children noticed him in the glass of the door. Their whisper telegraph worked instantly. Margaret glanced backward, spotted him, couldn’t control a delighted wave. Miss Icardi saw him at the same moment. Peter didn’t wave at Margaret, lest Miss Icardi think he was waving at
her
. Thankfully the jarring end-of-class bell rang.

Peter had to step aside as the calves stampeded out of the classroom, Margaret scrambling with the rest. When she reached him, he hugged and kissed her; they were like lovers greeting each other on a crowded railway platform, probably much too demonstrative, but why care?

“Mr. Carmody?” Miss Icardi’s right hand and left fingers were intertwined in front of her, lest anyone be tempted to shake her hand.

“Oh, hello,” said Peter, disengaging himself from Margaret. “Nice to see you again.”

Miss Icardi took his proffered hand reluctantly. Peter winced with the pain of the handshake. Damn hand still hurt.

“The principal asked to have a word with you,” Miss Icardi said, an official timbre in her voice.

“Oh?” said Peter, wondering what was up. He and Margaret followed Miss Icardi down the hall, encased in the stares of passing students.

The principal’s name was Anderson. He was no more than thirty-seven or eight. His eyes seemed to float behind tortoiseshell television-producer glasses. He pumped Peter’s hand once, demonstrating strength, efficiency, and got to the point. “We have instructions in writing from Margaret’s custodian that she is not to leave school with you.”

“Her who?”

“Mrs. Carmody.”

Peter tried to control the slight tremble that invaded him.

“I’m her father,” he said.

“You may go now,” the principal said to Miss Icardi, who looked very relieved and trundled off without a word.

“I’m only obeying instructions, Mr. Carmody. I’m certain you understand I have no further prerogatives in the matter once I’ve received instructions in writing.”

Instructions? Prerogatives? What the hell was going on? “This isn’t so unusual, Mr. Carmody,” the principal continued. “We’ve had other cases of this sort.”

Cases?

“We are advised that you are no longer living in the child’s household, is that correct?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “In such cases, the mother is the head of the household in which the child resides, and until custody is finally determined, which is always the mother’s in any event, the custodian’s instructions are followed with regard to the welfare of the child.”

“Maggie,” Peter turned to her whitened face, “they are wondering whether it is in your welfare to talk to me.”

Mr. Anderson let an official smile escape him. “We’re not unreasonable people here, Mr. Carmody. You may talk to Margaret in my private office if you like.”

“I was going to buy her an ice cream soda and walk her home.”

Peter expected Anderson to make a crack about not having ice cream sodas on the premises. Anderson said nothing, led the way to his inner office, a simply furnished, large room with a desk, several chairs, charts all along one wall, and behind the desk, an American flag. “I’ll just clear these things out of the way,” he said, removing the papers from the top of his desk. He left them alone in the room.

Like visiting hours in a prison, was Peter’s thought. He brushed it aside as Margaret put her head against him. He patted her hair, wished she wouldn’t sob. Then when she did, he was glad of it, of course. He gave her time, then touched her tears with a clean handkerchief. It jolted him to see Anderson standing in the doorway so soon again.

“It’s all right,” Peter said to the principal. “I’m not hurting her.” He hadn’t meant the smart reply, but—the thought came as verse—Peter is as Peter was and always will be.

Anderson vanished.

“Tell me everything,” Peter said to Margaret, who stuttered out the regiments of words she had stored in her armory. It was clear that she had had a delayed reaction to his leaving, wishing it into a very temporary matter. When too many weeks went by, it suddenly came through to her that her father might never be returning. Never, never! Rose, in the guise of consoling Margaret, would cry, too. Jonathan seemed to take everything coolly, isolating Margaret in her grief. She used none of those phrases, but that, in sum, is what she told him.

Finally she said, “Is there a chance you’ll be back, Daddy?”

He looked at her lovely face, now red-eyed and tear-stained, a puffiness he hated to see there, and wondered how much he could lie to her and whether he should.

“Anything is possible,” he said hesitatingly, “but I wouldn’t give it too much hope.”

She knew he was saying no. He felt better for it because it meant he had not really lied.

“Uncle Jack says you’re going to divorce us, Daddy.”

Damn Jack
.

“Jack is a lawyer, Maggie dear. Don’t pay too much attention to what he says.”

She seemed puzzled. Peter, flooded with feeling, took her face in his hands.

“Maggie,” he said, his cords not working right; the sound of her name came out garbled, unclear.

“Yes, Daddy?” she said, trying to help along.

“You—know—I love you?”

He hadn’t intended the questioning inflection, but she knew, oh, she knew.

“And Jonathan, too.”

“Yes,” she said.

“You see,” he said, wishing to Christ he could be articulate for ten consecutive seconds, “Mommy and I have a problem between us which we’re going to have to, you know, solve. Solving it may—well, it means, probably means I will be living with someone else.”

“Is Miss Kilter going to be your wife now?”

Why was he fudging? She was being so direct.

“It’s too early to tell yet.”

“Will Mommy have another husband?”

“Have you asked her?”

“I can’t ask Mommy questions like that. Besides, she cries whenever I ask her anything.”

Peter swallowed.

“The important thing, Maggie love, is that a father never, really never divorces his children.”

And as he said it, he had his first knowledge that it was the biggest lie of all.

“Listen, how about that ice cream soda now?” Peter asked.

“We’re not supposed to,” she said, visibly delighted by the prospect.

“Let’s see now,” he said, “we could meet in Howard Johnson’s. It’s just two blocks—”

“I know where it is, Daddy.”

“I’ll be waiting in a booth.”

She squeezed his hand.

This time there was a quick knock-knock on the door. Mr. Anderson appeared, displeasure reigning on his countenance. “I’m afraid you’ve taken advantage of the rules, Mr. Carmody. I regret that.”

“What do you mean?” The instant Peter said that, he knew. The intercom on the desk had been left open.

Peter was livid. “You eavesdropped on my private conversation with my daughter?”

“It’s a precaution we take. Warranted, it would seem.”

“Why, you son of a bitch.” Peter regretted not the words but that he had spoken them in front of Margaret.

“That will be all, Mr. Carmody. You may leave now.”

“I will not be told when or where to leave my own daughter.”

“I wish you hadn’t decided to be difficult.”

“I’m not being difficult. You’re being inhuman.”

“I’m glad Mrs. Carmody warned us of your eccentricities. Officer?”

The policeman must have been standing just beyond the open door. He looked large and stupid.

“What the hell is going on here?” asked Peter. Margaret, frightened, was instantly at her father’s side.

“Nobody wants any trouble, mister,” said the policeman. “I’m taking your little girl home.”

Margaret moved around behind her father.

“Who called the cops?” Peter shouted at Mr. Anderson.

“Please lower your voice,” said Mr. Anderson.

“I’ll shove your teeth down your throat. Who called the cops?”

“Nobody’s shoving nothing,” said the cop, taking Margaret’s arm. “Mister, you better get out of here peaceably or I’ll run you in.”

“For what, having an ice cream soda with my daughter?”

“For breaking the law,” said the cop.

“What law?”

It was insane, the policeman pulling on Margaret’s arm, he holding onto her.

The policeman unhooked his billy from his belt.

“Not in school,” said Mr. Anderson, his alarmed eyes counseling the law.

“No!” said Margaret.

The policeman pointed the billy straight at Peter’s face.

“You take off, mister, or I’ll get a squad car here in two minutes flat.”

In his mind’s eye, Peter saw himself punching Anderson, ducking the cop’s billy, grabbing Margaret and running with her through the door and down the stairs and out and away, only to be stopped by the policeman’s billy crashing down, then a court, a judge, and jail, perhaps no visitation rights at all because of violent temper; he couldn’t win.

In seconds, Peter was out the door, without even—ashamed—saying good-bye to Margaret, rage thumping in his chest and brain.

*

He walked the streets of the city, refusing to believe he could not control the events of his life, that his daughter was not his own, that his conversation with her had been listened to, that Rose had written the letter, that Rose had requested that a policeman take Margaret home, that the web of his life was loose strings, all the connections disintegrating.

“Scotch,” he told the barman as he settled on the stool. “Double.”

The tavern was filled with construction workers. He was the only one in a suit. The others stared at him. Fuck them, he thought, bolting the drink and gesturing for another. The experienced barman served half a dozen beers down the line, taking his time before bringing Peter another double. This one, Peter noticed, just reached the line on the shot glass, not near the rim, as had the first one. He might have trouble getting another soon. He had enough trouble. He paid off the barman and went out onto the street, which seemed peculiarly ablaze with sunlight that hurt his eyes, and he didn’t have his dark glasses with him. Why was it so bright so near the end of the day?