Whispers Page 8

  “I hope you feel better,” he said anxiously.

  “I’m fine. I’m just fine. Can’t you see?”

  “I see only that you’re hurt. And that hurts me, even though right now you may not think it does. But I am just so sorry, Lynn. So sorry it happened. I can’t tell you.”

  “It didn’t just happen: I’m not going to accept that stuff anymore. Somebody made it happen, and I’m not the somebody.”

  “I understand how you feel.” Robert was patient now, and contrite. “I realize how it must appear to you. I was angry—we can talk about that some other time—I scared you with my anger, which was wrong of me, and so you ran and then—”

  She interrupted. “And then I don’t want to hear any more.”

  “All right. Come down and eat your breakfast. Let’s keep things normal in front of the girls. Annie’s just been brought home. I’ve told them about your accident, so they’re prepared.”

  “My accident. Ah, yes,” Lynn mocked, wiping off the eye makeup, which made her look like a sick owl. She would just honestly let the girls see she had been crying. They’d see the injuries anyway.

  Emily had set the table in the breakfast room. Coffee bubbled in the percolator and bread was in the toaster. Evidently, she had gone outside and picked a spray of lilacs for the green bowl. Emily was a take-charge person.

  “You’re up early for someone who went to bed late,” Lynn said pleasantly.

  “A bunch of us are driving to the lake,” said Emily, carefully not looking at Lynn’s face, “where Amy’s folks keep the boat. What’s wrong with your foot? You’ve hurt that too?”

  “It’s nothing much. I just can’t get a shoe on, so I’ll stay home today.”

  Annie was staring at Lynn. “You look awful,” she said. “You’ve been crying too.”

  Emily admonished her, “Mind your business, silly.”

  Robert spoke. “Your mother hurt herself. Don’t you cry when you’re hurt?”

  No one answered. The silence was unhappy, restless with the awareness that it would have to end, and the fear that it would end badly.

  “It was twenty minutes after twelve when you walked in last night,” Robert said, addressing Emily. “Did you know that?” he asked, addressing Lynn, who nodded.

  “I forgot to look at the time. A bunch of us were studying at Sally’s,” Emily explained.

  “That won’t do,” Robert said. “You’re damaging your reputation, if nothing more, coming home at that hour.”

  “We’ll talk about it this morning, Emily,” Lynn said.

  “No.” Robert looked at his watch. “I have to run. Emily, you are not to leave the house tonight. I want to talk to you. You and I are going to have a very serious talk, straight from the shoulder, one that you won’t forget in a hurry. When I’m through, you’ll know what’s expected of you.”

  The emphasis on the “I” was directed at Lynn; she understood that clearly, having been told often enough that she wasn’t firm, didn’t consider appearances, and the girls would never learn from her.

  “Oh, what an awful mood,” Emily said when Robert had left.

  Annie got up. “I promised Dad I’d practice this morning, and since he’s in a bad mood, I guess I’d better do it,” she said in a tone of resignation.

  “That’s not why you should,” Lynn said gently. “You should do it because—well, because you should do it,” she finished with a smile.

  When Annie was in the living room drumming out a minuet, Lynn said to Emily, “Sit down while I have my second cup. You shouldn’t stay out so late. You know that without my telling you. Were you really at Sally’s all that time?”

  “I was. Believe it or not, we were studying for finals, Mom.”

  Robert’s blue eyes looked candidly back at her from Emily’s face.

  “I believe you.” And thoughtfully, as if she had weighed whether or not to ask the question, she ventured it. “Was Harris there?”

  “Yes. He brought me home.”

  “After twelve, your father said.”

  “He was sitting in the dark when I came in. Then he came to the hall and stood there just glaring at me. He didn’t say a word, and neither did I.”

  “That was wrong of you.”

  “I’m sorry, Mom. But he needn’t have looked so ferocious. I know I should have phoned, but I forgot to look at the time. That’s not a crime.”

  “I suppose Sally’s mother wasn’t there, as usual?”

  “Well, she’s divorced, she goes on dates.” Again the clear eyes met Lynn’s. “So, no, she wasn’t there.”

  “Wrong. All wrong,” Lynn said. “And Harris—he’s a fine boy, I see that, and it’s not that we don’t trust you, but—”

  “But what, Mom?”

  “Your father is very, very angry. You must try to do the right thing, you understand, or you’ll be grounded. You really will, Emily, and there’ll be nothing I can do about it.”

  There was a silence except for the balanced cadence of Annie’s minuet.

  Emily reached across the table and touched Lynn’s hand. “Mom?” And now the clear, the honest, the lustrous eyes were troubled. “Mom? What’s wrong with Dad? I wish he were like other people’s fathers. He gets so mad. It’s weird.”

  On guard now, Lynn answered as if she were making light of the complaint.

  “Why? Because he’s going to give you a scolding that you deserve?”

  “No. It has nothing at all to do with that.”

  “What, then?”

  “Oh, things. Just things. He gets so mad sometimes.”

  “Everybody gets cranky now and then. He works very hard. Sometimes he’s terribly tired and as you say, it’s only sometimes.”

  Emily shook her head. “That’s not what I mean.”

  Lynn feared, although she did not want to think specifically of what it was that she feared. So she spoke with a touch of impatience.

  “You’ll have to give me an example, since I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Still Emily hesitated, with a wary, doubtful glance at Lynn. Finally she said, “Remember when I met Aunt Jean in the city and she took me to tea? Something happened that I didn’t tell you about.”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t be scared, it’s nothing awful. What happened is, we were talking and you know how she likes to tell about old times, when the neighbor’s house burned down and what a cute little boy Dad was, and then suddenly she let something slip about Dad’s first marriage—Mom, how is it we never knew he was married before?”

  So that’s all it was. Nothing, or comparatively nothing …

  Carefully, Lynn explained, “I don’t really understand why it had to be such a secret, but it’s your father’s life and he wants it that way. That must have been a terribly hard time for him and he simply doesn’t want to be reminded of it. People often do that; they just bury their bad memories.”

  “The second Aunt Jean said it she looked horrified, she was so scared that I felt sorry for her. She kept saying how sorry she was, and begged me to promise not to tell, to forget that I’d heard it. And of course I promised.” Emily turned away for a moment and then, turning back to Lynn, admitted with shame that she had broken the promise. “I held back as long as I could, but last week I told Dad.”

  “Oh, that was wrong, Emily.”

  “I know, and I feel bad about it. You asked about Dad being so angry at me, though, and—”

  “And?” Lynn prodded.

  “He was absolutely furious. I’ve never seen him like that. Mad, Mom! I couldn’t believe it. He glared at me. That’s no business of yours,’ he told me, ‘and I don’t want the subject to be mentioned ever again. Is that clear?’ It stunned me.”

  “I hope he won’t take it out on poor Aunt Jean.”

  “I made him promise not to let her know I had told on her. So I guess it will be all right. I hope so.”

  Now Lynn wondered whether Jean had said anything more, anything about Robert’s bo
y, for instance. There must be more pain in that loss than he had ever admitted; it was natural, then, that he would want to forget the boy’s existence. And, worrying, she asked, “Is that all Jean said?”

  “Two or three words, and clapped her hand over her mouth. I told you.” Emily frowned in thought, and shook her head in doubt.

  “Don’t you ever feel strange about it? If I were you—I mean, you might be passing each other on the street, and not know.”

  “Hardly likely. This is a big country. Besides, why should we know each other, in the circumstances? It’s far better that we don’t. Most times a divorce is a closed chapter—understandably.”

  “But aren’t you even the least bit curious? I know I would be.”

  “You don’t know. One doesn’t know how to act in a situation, or how to feel, until it happens.”

  No, I never would have wanted to connect in any way with Robert’s glamor girl, Lynn thought, as always with a slight bitterness, but this morning with an extra bitterness. She remembered when she had first known Robert, raw little girl that she had been, an innocent so unsure of herself, how she had flinched at the thought of Robert making love to her predecessor, so rich, so beautiful and careless, that she could afford to toss such a man away.

  It was strange to be having these thoughts at the kitchen table this morning, on this particular morning.

  Nervously, Emily played with a spoon. “All the same,” she said, “Dad can be very odd.”

  “He’s not, Emily. I don’t want you to say that or think it.”

  And suddenly the girl began to cry. “Oh, Mom, why am I afraid to say what I really want to say?”

  Again fear, hot as fire, struck Lynn’s heart.

  “Emily darling, what is it?”

  “Something happened to you last night.”

  “Yes, yes, of course it did. I fell in the dark, fell into the hedge.” She laughed. “It was a mess, falling into the hedge. Clumsy.”

  “No,” Emily said. The word seemed to choke in her throat. “No. Dad did it. I know it.”

  “What? What?” Lynn’s hands clenched together in her lap so that her rings dug into the flesh. “That’s ridiculous. However did you get such an idea? Emily, that’s ridiculous,” she repeated in a high, unnatural tone.

  “One time before we moved here, once when you came home from Chicago, I remember, I heard Aunt Helen say something to Uncle Darwin about how awful you looked. She said she thought maybe—”

  “Emily, I’m surprised. Really, I am. I’m sure you didn’t hear right. But even if you did, I can’t help what Aunt Helen may have dreamed up.”

  “You wouldn’t have cried so last night if it were only the pain. It’s got to be more than that.”

  “Only the pain! All those thorns? Well, maybe I’m a coward and a crybaby. Maybe I am, that’s all.”

  Emily must not lose faith in her father. It’s damaging forever. A woman remembers her father all her life. My own dearest memories are of my dad. He taught me how to stand up for my rights and how to forgive; when he had to scold he was gentle.…

  Lynn quieted her hands, resting them on the tabletop, and made a firm appeal.

  “Trust me, Emily. Have I ever lied to you?”

  But disbelief remained in the girl’s quivering lips. Two lines formed on her smooth forehead.

  “He was so ferocious this morning.”

  “Darling, you keep using that nasty word. He was in a hurry to get to the office, I told you. He was distressed.” She spoke rapidly. “Your father’s such a good man! Need I tell you that, for heaven’s sake? And you’re so like him, a hard worker, determined to succeed, and you always do succeed. That’s why you’ve been so close, you two. You’ve had such a special relationship. It hurts me to think you might lose it.”

  “Don’t you think it hurts me too? But you have to admit Dad can be very strange.”

  “Strange? After all the caring, the loving attention he’s given you all your life?”

  “You don’t convince me, Mom.”

  “I wish I could.”

  “I feel something. It’s stuck inside my head. But I can understand why you’re talking to me this way.”

  The kettle whistled, and Emily got up to turn it off. She moved with elegance, even in jeans and sneakers; her slender waist, rounding into the swell of her hips, was womanly, while her skin was as unflawed as a baby’s. Suddenly it seemed to Lynn that she was being condescended to, as if the young girl, out of a superior wisdom, were consoling or patronizing the older woman. Her very stance as she turned her back to stack the dishwasher, the very flip of her ponytail, gave rise in her mother to resentment. And she said somewhat sharply, “I trust you’ll keep these unbecoming thoughts to yourself. And keep them especially away from Annie. That’s an order, Emily.”

  Emily spun around. “Do you really think I would hurt Annie any more than she’s already hurt? Annie’s a wreck. I don’t think you realize it.”

  This stubborn persistence was too much like Robert’s. Lynn was under attack. Arrows were flying. It was too much. Yet she replied with formal dignity. “You exaggerate. I’m well aware that Annie is going through a difficult stage. But Annie will be just fine.”

  “Not if Dad keeps picking on her about being fat,” Emily said, and added a moment later, “I wish things seemed as simple as they used to seem.”

  Her forced smile was sad, and it affected Lynn, changing the earlier flash of resentment into pity.

  “You’re growing up,” she said wistfully.

  “I’m already grown, Mom.”

  Across the hall Annie was still pounding at the minuet. Suddenly, as if two hands had come down in full angry force, the melody broke off into a cacophony of shrill chords, as if the piano were making violent protest.

  The two women frowned, and Emily said, “She hates the piano. She only does it because he makes her.”

  “It’s for her own good. She’ll be glad someday.”

  They gave each other a searching look that lasted until Emily broke the tension.

  “I’m sorry I said anything this morning. Maybe this is only a mood that will wear away.” From outside came the light tap of a horn. “That’s Harris. I’m off.” The girl leaned down and kissed her mother’s cheek. “Don’t worry about me. I won’t make any trouble. Forget what I said. Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. But take care of yourself, Mom. Just take care of yourself.”

  The kitchen was very still after Emily went out. Then the screen door slammed on the porch. The dog rose, shook itself, and followed Annie outside. In the silence a plaintive repetition sounded in Lynn’s ears. Dad can be very strange. Take care of yourself, Mom. And as if in a trance she sat with her fingers clasped around the coffee cup, which had long grown cold.

  She tried to concentrate on errands to be done, the house to be tidied and clothes to take to the cleaners, all the small ways in which living continues even when the worst things have happened, for if the pipes break on the day of the funeral, one still has to call the plumber. And yet she did not rise to do any of these things.

  The doorbell brought her out of her lethargy. Expecting the delivery of some packages, she put her sunglasses back on; they were light and concealed very little, but the United Parcel man would probably not even look at her, and if he did look, wouldn’t care. Barefooted, in her housecoat, she opened the door into the glare of revealing sunlight and faced Tom Lawrence.

  “You forgot this,” he said, holding out her purse, “so I thought I’d—” His eyes flickered over her and away.

  “Oh, how stupid of me. How nice of you.” Absurd words came out of her mouth. “I look a mess, I fell, sprained my ankle, and can’t get a shoe on.”

  He was looking at the tubbed geraniums on the top step. That was decent of him. He had seen, and was embarrassed for her.

  “Oh. A sorry end to a wonderful evening. Ankles turn so easily. It takes a few days to get back to normal. I hope you’ll feel better.”

 
She closed the door. Mortified, she thought, I wish I could dig a hole and crawl into it. What can he be thinking! I never want to see him again. Never.

  After a while, with main effort, she recovered. Alone in the house, she could admonish herself out loud.

  “What are you doing, not dressed at eleven o’clock? Get moving, Lynn.”

  So, slowly and painfully, she limped through the house doing small, unimportant chores, raised or lowered shades according to need, wrote a check at the desk, and threw out faded flowers, allowing these ordinary acts to soothe her spirit as best they could.

  Presently she went into the kitchen. For her it had always been the heart of the house, her special place. Here she could concentrate a troubled mind on a difficult new recipe, here feel the good weight of copper-bottom pots in her hands, and here feel quietness.

  A lamb stew simmered, filling the room with the smell of rosemary, and an apple pie had cooled on the counter when, late in the afternoon, she heard Robert’s car enter the driveway.

  Robert’s mouth was as expressive as his eyes; she could always tell by it what was to come next. Now she saw with relief that his lips were upturned into a half smile.

  “Everybody home?”

  “The girls will be home in a minute. Emily went to the lake, and Annie’s at a friend’s house.”

  “And how are you? You’re still limping. Wouldn’t it feel better with a tight bandage?”

  “It’s all right as it is.”

  “Well, if you’re sure.” He hesitated. “If that’s Emily”—for there came the sound of wheels on gravel—“I want to talk to her. To both of them. In the den.”

  “Can’t it wait until after dinner? I have everything ready.”

  “I’d rather not wait,” he answered, walking away.

  She thought, He will take out his guilt over me in anger at them.

  “Your father wants to see you both in the den,” she told the girls when they came in. As they both grimaced, she admonished them. “Don’t make faces. Listen to what he has to say.”

  Never let them sense any differences between their parents about discipline. That’s a cardinal rule for their own good. Rule number one.

  Now again her heart was beating so rapidly that she felt only a need to flee, yet she followed them to the den, where Robert stood behind his desk.