Twilight Child (7 page)

 “Which could
tear us apart. I've been through it, and I don't ever want it to happen again.”
He held her close, and she felt a tremor pass through him.

 “Tray will
just have to adjust,” she said firmly, after he had relaxed.

 “Kids are
adaptable.”

 “I don't want
anything to come between us,” Frances said emphatically.

 “Listen, I'm
going to be the greatest daddy in the world. And my parents will be the most
wonderful grandparents in the world. It's time we started to think about us.”

 Again he
kissed her, for a long moment.

 “We're
entitled to start fresh. The hell with the past,” he said, and she felt his
hand stroke her hair. “It wasn't so hot anyhow.”

 “No, it
wasn't,” she agreed, beginning to feel better, more confident.

 “And we have
our lives to live. I promise it will be the best, the very best. And I'll love
that child in there with as much feeling and devotion as I love his mother. I
know it's the right thing to do, Frances.”

 “I agree,
darling,” she said.

 She felt
suddenly as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She wanted to
cry, but she held back her tears.

 WOOD
everywhere, Charlie thought, as his gaze circled like a floodlight
around the reception room: polished oak with indented panels not unlike those
on the walls of the sprawling old Eastern shore mansions that dotted the points
around Crisfield. He'd seen them only because as a boy he had been Big Ed's
helper on his chimney sweep rounds back before the war.

 Reminders
like that plagued him now, not because they didn't comfort him in his
daydreams, but because they inevitably ended in the present. He shuddered and
lit a cigarette. Beside him, Molly looked up from
House and Garden
to
offer a snappish look of disapproval. He had taken up smoking again eighteen
months ago, six months after Tray had gone. “No more need to set examples,” he
had told her then, lighting up an old-fashioned Camel, unfiltered, the real
thing, then inhaling all the way down and exhaling through the nose like in his
marine days.

 He might have
said “Mind if I smoke?” if the receptionist had been less disdainful. She was
young and pretty and sat discreetly behind an antique desk, ignoring them as
she answered the phone with cloying ingratiation. “Banks, Pepper and Forte.” It
was Forte they had come to see.

 “Smells like
money,” he whispered to Molly, waving the smoke away as he bent toward her.

 “It won't be
cheap,” Molly said, watching him over her half-glasses, her blue eyes still
cobalt, like Chuck's, but more watery now than they had been. There were more
wrinkles when she smiled, but her figure hadn't gone to seed. “Fifty-eight and
still my girl. You and me, babe.” It was a thought Charlie often voiced,
especially in those harsh, fearsome moments in the dead of night when his rabid
and unsleeping mind dwelt on the dead Chuck and the missing Tray and the cruel
Frances. Thankfully, they had slept like spoons since the beginning of their
marriage, which somehow always managed to bring him through the darkness.

 “Nothing
cheap wins the day,” he murmured, satisfied that these lawyers were used to
winning.

 “They get
paid either way,” Molly said, breaking the whispering pattern. It was just like
Molly to offer the balanced view, he thought, wishing for more bias on her
part.

 “We should
have never let it happen in the first place,” Charlie said. The admonition had
become the opening of a nasty game between them. She sighed her usual defense.

 “Did we let
it happen?” Molly wondered aloud. “How could we have foreseen that it would go
on this long? Two years.” She shook her head and pursed her lips. Like him, she
was still puzzled and confused.

 “We were
suckers. We could have nipped it in the bud.”

 “We had no
choice. None at all,” Molly said, removing her half-glasses and closing the
magazine, offering the words by rote.

 “You said she
would come around in time.” He took a deep drag of smoke, then turned away to
expel it, with the words, “Two damned years,” a bit louder than he would have
liked. The receptionist smiled thinly. He stared at her without acknowledgment.
A tough one to read, he thought. It was hard enough understanding the old ones.
The young ones were impossible.

 “Problem is,
we haven't got all that much time.”

 “I hoped she
would change her mind,” Molly said gently. After all, it was her defeat as
well. He took her hand and patted it. “It seemed so logical. They needed time
to adjust. All right. We gave them that. Not this. Not forever. Not for all
time.”

 “I know,
babe.” They were in this together, weren't they?

 Seeking legal
means just to see their own grandchild, their own flesh and blood. The idea of
it was gross; it went against nature. Easy, Charlie, he told himself, trying to
stave off a full head of steam. He punched out his cigarette in the ashtray and
stood up. Molly's gaze followed him. He looked at his watch again, which
stimulated the old demon, his sense of inferior position. Once again, he must
wait, always waiting his turn, never important enough to be seen on time. He
hated that feeling. Now it was complicated by a retrospective on a failed life.
It wasn't long ago when he felt things were pretty good. He had a decent job.
Paid-up house. Loving wife, a schoolteacher. A helluva son, Chuck, a helluva
son. And little Tray, Charles III. He was beautiful, the image of Chuck. A sob
bubbled deep in his chest. He masked it with a cough.

 “Sit down,
Charlie,” Molly said.

 “I'm sure Mr.
Forte won't be much longer,” the receptionist said, softening somewhat as if
she sensed their anguish.

 “Not as easy
as I thought.”

 “It'll only
get worse,” Molly said. It was her oblique way of joking.

 “Can't
understand her attitude,” Charlie muttered. When he thought of Frances his
midsection tightened up. “Both of them. It makes me so damned angry.”

 “That won't
do us much good.”

 “It's what I
feel.”

 It annoyed
him to see Molly always poised at a lesser degree of indignation.

 “I know how
you feel. I'm only saying that getting all riled up seems like the wrong
strategy.”

 “Next thing
you'll be telling me the bit about catching more flies with honey.”

 “Might be a
good idea for a change.”

 “In the end
you still have to answer to yourself.”

 “Pretty lonely
stuff—answering just to yourself.”

 “I have to
say what I mean. Be what I am.”

 “That first
part's the problem, Charlie.”

 “Guess I do
shoot from the hip,” Charlie mumbled.

 “You can't
blame yourself all the time, Charlie. There's more to it than that. Nothing's
black and white. Let's see what the lawyer has to say.”

 “Seems crazy,
doesn't it? All we want to do is see our grandson. Wouldn't think you'd need a
lawyer for that.”

 They had seen
a brief story in the papers about a case in New York state that dealt with
grandparents' visitation rights. Robert Forte had been quoted. “Yes, there is a
statute in the state of Maryland which gives grandparents the right to petition
for visitation rights under certain conditions.” It had taken ten minutes to
make the call and a lifetime for the call to be returned. He had offered Forte
a fractured outline, unable to sustain a simple, smoothly told narrative. Forte
had been patient but probing and had offered an initial interview without
promises. They might as well, Molly had agreed. They had nothing to lose.

 Charlie felt
himself growing sullen and patted her hand again. She put her other hand on top
of his. He shrugged, looking at what he and Tray had called a hand sandwich.
Instead of a grin, he felt morbid, drained of even the possibility of joy.
Tears had come on without warning lately, as well as lips that moved, offering
silent curses, which Molly had the good grace to pretend not to see.

 “At least
we'll get her attention,” Molly said.

 “I don't want
her damned attention. I want Tray.”

 She smoothed
the shoulder of his jacket, patting away as if there were dust or dandruff
there. Mostly it was, he knew, a gesture to soothe his agitation. He felt
another lecture coming on.

 “If you show
too much emotion, it turns people off. Especially anger. It just won't do any
good to show anger. Do you understand what I mean?” Her tone changed suddenly.
“I don't want to sound like a schoolteacher, Charlie. I just want us to make
the best presentation possible.”

 “You think
I'll blow it?”

 “Of course
not.”

 She
concentrated on his tie now, tightening the knot, then moving her hand to his
still-full head of hair, another gesture of concern. Surprisingly, he was not
embarrassed by her ministrations, which usually were done only in private. For
a while he had toyed with the idea of pinning the patch of black crepe to his
lapel again, but it didn't seem right after all this time, although the ache in
his heart was still as strong as ever.

 He shot her a
wink and a smile. He had always been proud of her. She was a good teacher and
all her kids adored her. Not that he had done too badly himself, for a fellow
with merely a high school diploma. The war had taken his college years, and
Bethlehem Steel had taken the rest. He had been a damned good inspector, and
rarely had he ever felt that what he did was beneath what she did. So he hadn't
worn a jacket and tie to do his work. But not a piece of pipe had gone out of
that plant that didn't meet its specs to a T. He took pride in what he had done
and had been paid well for the effort, and it annoyed him even to raise the
matter in his mind.

 “Who'll do
the talking?” he asked. He knew that emotion would get in the way of his words,
but it was impossible to stand aside and let Molly's sweet reasonableness
prevail. What they had to tell the lawyer needed bite, sharpness, outrage. What
he feared was that her words would not excite the needed commitment on the
lawyer's part.

 “He'll need
to hear from both of us,” she said sensibly.

 “Let me
start, then.”

 “Just be
calm.”

 “Steady as
she goes.” He stretched out his hand to prove the absence of tremors. It was
not a very wisely chosen illustration.

 The
receptionist punched a lighted button on the board and murmured into the tiny
microphone she wore on a wire, one tributary of which led to her ear. High
tech, he thought contemptuously, thinking suddenly of the plant and all the
lives displaced because of high tech. People had become like watermelon seeds,
discarded and ground up in the disposal. He felt the cutting edge of depression
surface again and then recede as the receptionist's voice rang out, a clarion
of hope.

 “Mr. Forte
will see you now,” she chirped, as if she was glad for them. Something she had
observed about them must have blunted her disdain. Now he resented her
compassion, thinking he and Molly must be transparent in their pain. He hated
showing such things to strangers. “Make a left turn and follow the corridor to
the last office.” Her instructions immediately went out of his mind and he
nearly turned right. Molly gently guided him leftward.

 “Now just be
calm,” she warned again.

 “Hey, babe, I
got it the first time,” he said. His heart was beating a tattoo against his rib
cage, and perspiration had begun to crawl down his back. He noted a slight
chattering of his teeth and bit down on his lower lip to still it. Molly led
the way to an open door beside which on the wall was a gold nameplate engraved
with the lawyer's name, Robert Forte. He stood up as they entered.

 Charlie saw a
full head of black curls, some tipped with premature gray; large, dark brown
eyes, thick-lashed and heavy lidded; olive-tinted skin that set off white teeth
in a boyish smile. A navy blue blazer hung over the back of his large leather
chair. The collar of his striped shirt was high, made higher by a gold pin over
which crawled the tight knot of a yellow tie. His waist was small, and he wore
a gold bracelet just below the buttoned cuff on his left hand. On his desk was
a picture of a pretty blonde woman and another of Forte and two small boys on
the deck of a sailboat. On the wall were diplomas. Charlie's weight shifted
from foot to foot, and his eyes wavered from the lawyer's firm gaze.

 “I'm glad you
could see us, Mr. Forte,” Molly said, jumping into Charlie's gap of silence
after the handshakes and polite preliminaries. The lawyer's hand felt cool,
while his own was clammy, a constant cause of embarrassment. He hadn't
remembered to wipe his palm on his pants.

 “As I told
Mr. Waters on the phone, I thought the case worth discussing. The grandparents'
angle is beginning to make its way into domestic law as more and more senior
citizens' groups lobby the legislatures.”

 On the phone
Forte had seemed older, more sympathetic than he appeared now. A pretty boy,
Charlie thought. Too many curls.

 “Can I get
you some coffee?” he said.

 “That would
be nice,” Molly answered. Charlie shrugged a grudging consent. He'd already had
four cups that morning. What else was there to do?

 He felt an
antagonistic first impression growing in his mind. Was he going to spill his
guts to this overeducated smoothie half his age? His roving gaze picked up the
word
Harvard
on one of the diplomas.

 Pressing a
button, Forte gave the coffee order into the intercom, smiling as he caught
Charlie studying the picture of the two boys on the sailboat.

 “Columbia
Thirty-two,” Forte said, leaning back in his chair.

 “I had a
Rhodes Meridian,” Charlie heard himself say. “Not too wide in the beam, but a
good cruiser.” He swallowed, remembering Chuck hanging out on a low heel,
scaring them white and climbing the mast like a squirrel.

 “When the
kids get bigger, we'll trade up. Something to be said for growing your own
crew.”

 “Sold mine a
couple of years ago. Was beginning to look around for another for when my
grandson got older. . . .” He checked himself, looked swiftly at
Molly, who turned away.

 The coffee
came in china cups on a silver tray carried by a tall secretary who set it down
and left the room. Molly lifted hers daintily and sipped. Charlie held back,
his hands pressed under his thighs, fearful that they would shake.

 Forte talked
some more about sailboats in general, and Charlie waited for the inevitable
cliché, which came on schedule.

 “The happiest
two days of a boating man's life are the day he buys his first boat and the day
he sells it.”