The Wolves of Midwinter (14 page)

He hated to leave but felt he had little choice in the matter. As for the journey ahead, well, he wouldn’t be stopping for Laura, but she would meet the wedding party at City Hall tomorrow.

As it turned out, things went worse than he’d ever expected.

Caught in a downpour before he reached the Golden Gate Bridge, he took more than two hours to reach the Russian Hill house, and the storm showed no signs of letting up. It was the kind of rain that drenches one just running from the car to the front door, and he arrived disheveled and having to change immediately.

But that was the least of his problems.

The signing of the papers with Simon Oliver went smoothly, but Celeste was in a paroxysm of rage, which showed itself in unending resentful sarcastic comments as she signed over the baby to Reuben. Reuben inwardly gasped when he saw the amounts of money that were being transferred, but of course he said nothing.

He didn’t know what it meant to carry a child and he never would, and he couldn’t grasp what it meant to give one up. He was happy for Celeste that she’d walk away with enough cash to keep her secure for the rest of her life if she planned things right.

But after the lawyers had gone away, and the dinner had been endured in silence, then Celeste exploded in a tirade of rushing words, accusing Reuben of being one of the most worthless and uninteresting human beings ever born on the planet.

This wasn’t easy at all for Grace or Phil to hear, but they remained at the table, Grace gesturing covertly to Reuben for patience. As for Jim, his expression was compassionate, but oddly fixed, as though this were a willful attitude rather than a reflective one. He was as always neatly dressed in his black clerical suit and shirtfront with his Roman collar, and every bit the movie star priest in Reuben’s opinion, with his neat dark brown wavy hair and his extremely agreeable and engaging eyes. He was a handsome man, Jim, but nobody ever talked about it, not when they could talk about Reuben’s looks instead.

Reuben said little or nothing for the first twenty minutes as Celeste castigated him as lazy, a pretty boy, a time waster, a ne’er-do-well, a glorified bum, the vapid airhead boy who dated the cheerleaders of the world, and an ambitionless brat to whom everything came so easy he had not the slightest moral fiber. Born beautiful and rich, he’d wasted his life.

After a while, Reuben looked away. Had her face not been red and knotted with anger and tears, he might have become angry himself. As it was he felt pity and a certain contempt for her.

He’d never been lazy in his life, and he knew this. And he’d never been the “vapid airhead boy who dated the cheerleaders of the world” but he had no intention of saying so. He began to feel a cool detachment, even a little sadness. Celeste had never known him at all, and maybe he’d never known her, and thank God this was a temporary marriage. What if they’d attempted to marry in earnest?

And each time she mentioned his “looks,” he came to realize something ever more deeply. She despised him personally; she despised him physically. This woman with whom he’d been intimate countless times couldn’t stand him physically. And this caused the tiny hairs to rise on his neck when he thought about it, and how ghastly a real marriage with Celeste might have been.

“And so the world just gives you a baby, the way the world’s given you everything else,” she said finally, apparently wrapping up, her fury spent, her lips quivering. “I’ll hate you to my dying day,” she added.

She was about to go on when he turned and looked at her. He no longer felt pity. He felt hurt and he eyed her without a word. She went silent looking into his eyes, and then for the first time, for the first time in months, she seemed slightly afraid. Indeed she looked afraid of him the way she had when he’d first experienced the influence of the Chrism, and when he’d begun to change in so many subtle ways before the wolf transformation. He hadn’t understood then, and, of course, she’d never understood it. But she’d been afraid.

It seemed the others had sensed some deepening of the collective misery, and Grace started to speak, but Phil urged her to be quiet.

Suddenly, in a low tortured voice, Celeste said, “I’ve had to work all my life. I had to work hard when I was a kid. My father and mother left a small estate. I worked for everything.” She sighed, obviously exhausted. “Maybe it’s not your fault that you don’t know what that means.”

“That’s right,” said Reuben, the low sharp tone of his voice surprising him, but not stopping him. He was trembling but he struggled
to hide it. “Maybe none of this is my fault. Maybe nothing in our relationship has ever been my fault except that I didn’t acknowledge your blatant contempt for me sooner. But it takes courage to be unkind, doesn’t it?”

The others were clearly stunned.

“Doesn’t it?” he repeated. His pulse throbbed in his temple.

Celeste looked down for a moment and then up at him again. She seemed very small and vulnerable in her chair, face white and drawn, her pretty hair mussed. Her eyes softened. “Well, you do have a voice, after all,” she said bitterly. “If you’d found it a little sooner, maybe none of this would have happened.”

“Oh, lies and rubbish!” Reuben said. His face was hot. “Self-serving rubbish. If there’s nothing further you want to say, I have things to do.”

“Aren’t you even going to say you’re sorry?” she asked with exaggerated sincerity. She was on the edge of tears again. She was whitening before his eyes and shaking.

“Sorry for what? That you forgot to take a pill? Or that the pills didn’t work? Sorry that a new life is coming into this world, and that I want that life and you don’t? What is there to be sorry for?”

Jim gestured for him to slow down.

He looked steadily at Jim for a moment and then at Celeste. “I’m grateful to you that you’re willing to have this baby,” he said. “I’m grateful to you that you’re willing to give it to me. Very grateful. But I’m sorry for absolutely nothing.”

Nobody spoke, including Celeste.

“As for all the lies and foolishness you’ve spewed for the last hour, I’ve endured it as I’ve always endured your unkindness and your nastiness—to keep the peace. And if you don’t mind, I’d like a little of that peace right now. I’m finished here.”

“Reuben,” said Phil softly. “Take it easy, son. She’s just a kid the same as you are.”

“Thanks, but I don’t need your pity!” Celeste said to Phil, eyes flaming as she glared at him. “And I’m most certainly not a ‘kid.’ ”

There was a collective gasp at the vehemence of it.

“If you’d ever taught your son one practical thing in this world
about being an adult,” Celeste went on, “things might be different now. People can’t afford your tiresome poetry.”

Reuben was furious. He didn’t trust himself to speak further. But Phil didn’t even flinch.

Grace rose abruptly and awkwardly from the table, and came around to Celeste and helped her out of the chair, though this was hardly physically necessary. “You’re tired, really tired,” Grace said in a soft solicitous voice. “In a way the exhaustion is one of the worst things.”

It quietly amazed him, the way Celeste accepted this kindness without a word of gratitude, as if it were her just due.

Grace led her out of the room and up the stairs. Reuben wanted desperately to speak to his father, but Phil was now looking away, his face abstracted and thoughtful. He appeared to have removed himself completely from this time and place. How many times had Reuben seen that same expression on Phil’s face?

The group sat in silence until Grace reappeared. She looked at Reuben for a long moment and then she said, “I didn’t know you could get that angry. Wow. That was scary.”

She laughed uneasily and Phil responded with a little half laugh and even Jim forced a smile. Grace placed her hand on Phil’s and they exchanged a silent intimate glance.

“Was it scary?” asked Reuben. He was still quaking with anger. His soul was shaken. “Look, I’m no hotshot doctor like you, Mother, and I’m no hotshot lawyer like her. And I’m not a hotshot missionary priest in the slums like you, Jim. But I’m nothing like the man she’s described here. And not a single one of you uttered a word in my defense. Not a single one of you. Well, I have my dreams and my aspirations and my goals, and they might not be yours but they are mine. And I’ve worked at them all my life as well. And I’m not the person she made me out to be. And you might have defended Dad here against her, even if you had no stomach to defend me. He didn’t deserve her poison either.”

“No, of course not,” said Jim quickly. “Of course not. But Reuben, she can still abort this child—if she changes her mind. Don’t you understand that?” He lowered his voice. “That’s the only reason we sat
here listening as we did. Nobody wants to risk her wrath against this baby.”

“Oh, the hell with her,” Reuben said dropping his voice against his anger. “She won’t abort it, not with the money that’s changed hands here. She’s not insane. She’s just mean-spirited and cowardly like all bullies. But she’s not insane. And I won’t put up with her abuse anymore.” He rose to his feet. “Dad, I’m sorry about what she said to you. It was ugly and dishonest like everything that came out of her mouth.”

“Put it out of your mind, Reuben,” said Phil in a steady voice. “I’ve always felt very sorry for her.”

This clearly surprised Jim and Grace as well, though Grace was obviously wrestling with a multitude of emotions. She was still holding tight to Phil’s hand.

No one spoke, and then Phil went on. “I grew up the way she did, son, working for everything I got,” he said. “It will be a long time before she can figure out what she really wants in this world. For the child, Reuben, for the child, be patient with her. Remember this child is liberating you from Celeste, and Celeste from you. That’s not a bad thing at all, is it?”

“I’m sorry, Dad, you’re right,” said Reuben. And he was ashamed; he was completely ashamed.

Reuben left the gathering.

Jim came after him, following him silently up the stairs, and went right past Reuben into Reuben’s bedroom.

The little gas fire was burning under the mantel and Jim took his old favorite upholstered wing chair beside the hearth.

Reuben stood at the door for a moment, and then he sighed, shut the door behind him, and went to his old leather chair opposite Jim’s.

“Let me say something first,” Reuben started. “I know what I’ve done to you. I know the burden I’ve put on you, telling you ghastly things, unspeakable things, in Confession and binding you to secrecy. Jim, if I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t do it. But when I came to you, I needed you.”

“And now you don’t,” said Jim dully, his lips quivering. “Because you have all your many werewolf friends at Nideck Point, correct?
And Margon, the distinguished priest of the godless, right? And you’re going to bring up your son in that house with them. How are you going to do that?”

“Let’s worry about that when the child is born,” said Reuben. He thought for a moment. “You don’t despise Margon and the others. I know you don’t. You can’t. I think you’ve tried and it hasn’t worked.”

“No, I don’t despise them,” Jim conceded. “Not at all. That’s the mystery of it. I don’t despise them. I don’t much see how anyone could, not based on what I know of them, and based on how well they treat you.”

“I’m relieved to hear that,” Reuben said. “More relieved than I can say. And I know what I’ve done to you with these secrets. Believe me, I know.”

“You care about what I think?” Jim asked. But it wasn’t sarcastic or bitter. He looked at Reuben as if he earnestly wanted to know.

“Always,” said Reuben. “You know I do. Jim, you were my first hero. You’ll always be my hero.”

“I’m no hero,” said Jim. “I’m a priest. And I’m your brother. You trusted me. You trust me now. I’m desperately trying to figure out what I can do to help you! And let me tell you right now, I am not now or ever was the saint you think I am. I’m not the nice person that you are, Reuben. And maybe we should set the record straight on that now. That might be a good thing for both of us. I’ve done terrible things in my life, things you know nothing about.”

“I find that very hard to believe,” said Reuben.

But Jim’s voice was raw and there was a look in his eyes Reuben had never seen before.

“Well, you need to believe it,” Jim said, “and you need to simmer down with regard to Celeste. That’s my first lesson here, my first concern. And I want you to listen. She could still abort this baby at any time. Oh, I know, you don’t think she will and so forth and so on, but Reuben, just toe the line, will you, till this child is born.” Jim broke off, as if he didn’t know quite what he would say next. When Reuben tried to speak, Jim started up again.

“I want to tell you some things about me, some things that might
help you understand about all this. I’m asking you to listen to me now. I need to tell you. Okay?”

This was so unexpected, Reuben didn’t know quite what to say. When had Jim ever needed him? “Of course, Jim,” he answered. “Tell me anything. How could I turn you down on such a thing?”

“Okay, then listen,” said Jim. “I fathered a child once and I killed it. I did that with another man’s wife. I did that with a beautiful young woman who trusted me. And I’ll have that blood on my hands all my life. No, don’t say anything but just listen. Maybe you will come to confide in me again and trust me, if you know just what kind of person I am and that you’ve always been a good deal better than me.”

“I’m listening, but that just isn’t—.”

“You were about eleven when I quit med school,” said Jim, “but you never really knew what went down. I hated it, studying to be a doctor, positively hated it. But that’s another whole story, how I let myself be drawn into something just because of Mom and Uncle Tim, because of some idea we were a family of doctors, because of Grandfather Spangler and how he doted on them and on me.”

“I figured you didn’t want to do it. How else—?”

“That’s not the important part,” said Jim. “I was drinking myself to death at Berkeley. I was really pushing it. And I was having an affair with the wife of one of my professors, a beautiful Englishwoman. Oh, the husband didn’t give a damn. Quite the contrary; he set it up. I realized that right off. He was twenty years older than her and wheelchair-bound since a motorcycle accident in England two years after they married. No kids, just him in his wheelchair, giving brilliant lectures at Berkeley, and Lorraine like some kind of angel caring for him as if he was her father. And he invites me to come study with him, at his house in south Berkeley, one of those beautiful old Berkeley homes with the dark paneling and the hardwood floors and the big old stone fireplaces, and the trees outside every window, and Professor Maitland turning in at eight o’clock and telling me to use the library as late as I wanted, spend the night in the guest room, you know, and ‘Here’s your own key.’ ”