Her Father's House (11 page)

   

Two days later Donald left Washington by train. It would take a bit longer than the shuttle flight, but at least he would arrive in the heart of the city, near enough to reach his home after a brisk walk that would be welcome after two days of sitting in chairs.

As it happened, his seat on this return trip was in the middle of the car, most likely the same one he had occupied on the way down. No doubt it was this fact that brought to mind the talkative young woman who had sat next to him. My Lord, he thought, she gave me her address, me, a total stranger, and invited me—and my wife—to visit her and her husband if we should ever “come south”! Poor innocent, she had no guile, not at all. Why, he hadn't even given her his name, much less any means of identification!

They had looked so
sweet,
the three of them, seated there on the porch steps; they reminded him of one of those old illustrations by Norman Rockwell. And reflecting then on the incredible variety of human types, his mind made a natural jump back to the events of this rotten week.

He must, he absolutely must, learn something about child care, so as to be better prepared for the next time, heaven forbid, when Cookie should need more attention while Lillian was away on a safari or someplace. A simple medical guidebook for parents, as well as a couple of books on child psychology and general development, were essential. With these in mind, he already began to feel less helpless.

Accordingly, a few hours later, he emerged from a bookstore with four volumes in a bag, trudged through gray slush toward home, and turning a corner near his house, came face-to-face with the man whom he recognized only as Cindy's boyfriend.

Identification was not difficult; he had no friends or even an acquaintance whose matted beard reached up to the eyes and down to the waist.

“Hey, Donald, long time, no see.”

No, not since the wedding party. “That's right. How've you been? How's Cindy?”

“Cindy? You didn't know? Lillian didn't tell you?”

“I don't see Lillian. Hasn't Cindy told you that?”

“Yeah, I heard something. Anyway, Cindy's dead.”

“Oh, I'm sorry. What happened?”

“She got sick. Too much booze, or other stuff. I don't know exactly. She died in the hospital.”

An instant's recollection of a young woman with a raucous voice and gaudy makeup came to Donald; then, even though he hadn't liked her, there came a rush of pity because there was no sense at all in dying so young. She couldn't have been much older than twenty-five.

“I'm sorry,” he said again, meaning it. “I used to wonder about her, even though it wasn't any of my business. Frankly, I used to wonder about Lillian and Cindy being friends. They were so different. But Lillian was really very good to her. She practically supported her, I think.”

“Friends?” The tone was almost mocking. “They were sisters, man. Cindy was her sister.”

As if a stone had struck him, Donald went into shock. “A foster child? Adopted?”

“No, no. Same father, same mother.”

“I don't understand it. It doesn't seem to make sense. Who were the parents? What were they? I mean . . . what were they like?”

“Like? Like nothing. Just people.”

Donald shook his head. “I tried . . . I never could get her to talk about anything.”

“What's talk? Chewing the fat. Gets you nowhere.”

“But do you know anything at all? Did you know the family very well?”

“Sure. Lived across the street. I'm sort of a third cousin or something. That's why I stuck around.”

“I don't understand,” Donald repeated, and stared at the man as if some answer might lie hidden behind the outlandish face.

“What's to understand? I told you. Just people, you know? People like you. Like me. Anyway, I'll be going. Take care. Keep the faith.”

Donald stood watching Cindy's boyfriend saunter away out of sight. What was the secret? he asked himself. But no answer came. Then he went upstairs into his apartment, and foraging in the refrigerator, made up a plate with a sandwich and a pear, after which he sat down with one of his new books on child care.

But the astonishing facts he had just learned went whirling through his mind instead. So many conjectures had come to that mind during his brief marriage: that there was something dishonorable in her family's past that she was ashamed to reveal, or that they had been cruel to her, so that she was unable to forgive them. All of that could be true, or none of it could be. Perhaps there wasn't any secret at all other than a desire, grown out of all proportion, to escape into another personality, into another environment and another world. It was not uncommon.

More than once, when he had been living with Lillian, he had thought about making a quiet investigation with the ultimate purpose of helping her to understand whatever it was that she was hiding. But he had hesitated, and in the end had come to realize that it would have been useless. For whatever damage, real or imagined, had been done to her, or not been done—unless you wanted to count one of nature's devilish jokes that had caused her to be born the way she was—it was too late to change anything. He had lived with her long enough and had experienced enough with her to be certain of that. It was too late.

Chapter 9

D
onald began to have a strange sensation of speed, as if everything were moving too fast for him. Things piled up: conferences, depositions, telephone calls to be returned at once, letters to be answered at once, invitations that were half social and half business, the funeral of a senior partner's brother, and never, never enough time. At the end of each day he felt a weariness that he had never felt before. A vigorous young man, not supposed to tire like this, he knew very well that the tiredness was not only of the body, but of the troubled spirit.

Maria said: “They had a terrible fight after dinner yesterday. Cookie heard it, and it scared her, so I took her out of the room.” Another time she reported: “Mrs. Buzley went away for the weekend on somebody's big boat. Mr. didn't go.”

There was a cheapness, a shabbiness, in listening to what was after all gossip. And yet Donald had no other means of knowing anything about what he thought of as his child's home. Odd it was that he should be on the side of Howard Buzley, the man to whom Lillian had been mistress before she married him. Yet Buzley was apparently the steady force in that household and the one who gave the most attention to Donald's child.

One day at a quick lunch down the street from the office, Ed Wills set down his coffee cup and asked a question. “Will you object if I should ever mention Lillian? Please answer honestly. I hesitated even to say this much, but June said I should. She and I both know how you worry about your little girl, and so—”

“Please tell me anything and everything. I need to know.”

“Well, it isn't much this time. Or maybe it is, but we've been seeing Lillian at the beach near that cottage we rented for the summer. It's rather remote, not in a fashionable neighborhood, not Lillian's style at all. But we've seen her way down at the deserted end of the beach a few times, and not with Mr. Buzley. At least, we didn't think he was.”

“A man over sixty? Short and gray?”

“No, not at all. Far, far from it.”

Donald sighed. “I worry, Ed. If that marriage breaks up, where's she going to go with the baby? Yes, I could find a larger apartment, go to court and get alternate weeks or something, but is that a way to bring up a child, back and forth between parents who don't like each other?” And his thoughts returned to the book on child psychology. “So where are we going? Where's Lillian going?”

“According to my wife, she's flying up and up. June likes the society columns, out of sheer curiosity, I suppose, because as you well know, she's not like that. But she's been fascinated by Lillian's career, if you want to call it a career. Did you see the photo last week?”

“I only saw a couple that the nanny showed me, but that was more than a year ago.”

“Well, there've been plenty since then. The latest was in one of those fashion layouts, a group of women at a bazaar in somebody's garden. June says Lillian's a meteor, a bit too old to start out as a model, otherwise she'd be on every front cover.”

People. Just people like you and me.

But that was far too simple. She needs to know who she is, only God can tell why. No, that's not true either. She must know very well why she has that need to reinvent herself, to show she can reach the top or whatever she believes to be the top, where you can have everything you want and can do everything you want.

“We really liked her in the beginning,” Ed said. “June tried to be her friend after you were married, but suddenly she didn't seem to want June anymore.”

Donald remembered: That was when she met Chloe Sanders.

“I hope she's not going to break up with Buzley,” he said as he stood, paid the bill, and went back to work.

   

Now propelled by his worry and a small spice of curiosity, Donald began to follow the Sunday social pages and even, whenever June Wills, via Ed, sent news of an item in a magazine, read that, too. He made mental note of every detail: She was magnificently dressed; most often she was with Buzley, yet many times not; she started to be seen not as often with entertainers and others on Buzley's level, but even with European celebrities here on behalf of cultural monuments and events; she was recently photographed in a group standing next to a count and countess.

She was leaving Buzley behind. Counts and countesses, no less! Oh, he said to himself, she will hold on to Buzley until she gets someone better. He saw it clearly, even though Buzley might not see it yet. But he would, poor man, and possibly sooner than later.

   

One Sunday morning the telephone rang.

“I hope I didn't wake you,” Ed Wills said, “but I wanted to reach you before you got to the newspaper.”

“Why? What's happened?”

“An accident. I'm going to tell you the end first: Your baby's fine. Not a scratch. It's a miracle. I'm telling you the one hundred percent truth, so stay calm. I wouldn't fool you, Donald.”

He breathed in and breathed out, that being the instruction for staying calm in an emergency. Stay calm. Calm.

“Go on,” he said.

“It happened last evening around ten o'clock, a collision on the highway. A car going fast, or maybe both cars, were changing lanes, swerved into each other, and sent one of them spinning into a tree. Lillian was in the front seat with the driver. He's in the hospital, in critical condition, it says. He didn't have a seat belt on, so he was thrown out. Lillian has a broken shoulder. Your little girl was untouched, thank God. It's incredible. You'll read it in the paper.”

Donald's right hand was shaking, and to steady it, he placed his left hand over it. “Where is she?” he asked. “Where did it happen?”

“Out on Long Island. Some friends took care of Lillian and the baby, took them home after the doctors had seen Lillian. They're people who live here all year round. I don't know them, but I'll find out. June and I would have taken them if we'd known in time. We're in the middle of packing, end of summer, start of school.”

Donald understood that Ed was talking to make the call seem ordinary, prolonging it so as not to end on a downbeat. “I'll call you back as soon as I make some calls in the village. I won't be long.”

The Sunday paper was maddening, page after page of politics, international news, business news, and the rest, when all he wanted was one small item. Frantically his hands raced through the pages. Finding it, his eyes raced through it.

Man killed in highway crash. Leo Simmons, 37, of Jefferson Township, was killed in a two-car collision at the intersection of Jefferson Avenue. Phillip Ferrier, 32, of New York City, is in critical condition at Jefferson Memorial Hospital. One passenger, Lillian Buzley, 29, of New York City, sustained a broken arm and shoulder, while her child, Bettina Wolfe, age 2, escaped injury.

Flinging the paper to the floor, Donald cursed aloud. “On her way to New York! On her way! Where the hell had she been, and why, out with the baby—my God, I knew, I knew something was bound to happen. For weeks I've felt it whirling in my head, damn her. Damn her to eternal hell.”

And he sat there with his head in his hands, trying to think. What to do? What to do? After a while he got up, washed his few dishes, and went to stand at the window looking down upon the Sunday morning quiet in the street. Why? Why, when it could have been so blessedly good with productive work, a wife, a child or children, and more than enough to feed them all?

When the phone rang again, he sprang to it. “Ed? Ed? Where are they? I'll borrow a car from somebody and go for them.”

“You won't have to. The people who gave the party are driving them home. They're leaving now. Their name is Carter. Lillian's all bandaged up, but the baby's happy, they said. I asked especially about her.”

“Thanks, Ed. Thank you very much.”

“Thanks for nothing, Don. You must be pretty washed out.”

“I guess so. But I'll see you in the morning, same time, same place.”

Too distressed to sit still, he walked around his rooms as if in search of something to do. He rearranged some books on the shelves and watered the fern that Lillian had bought and cherished. The fern was a fountain of healthy greenery, whereas Lillian—

The telephone rang again. This time it was the agitated voice of Maria that he heard.

“Mr. Wolfe, Mr. Wolfe, what happened? I just came home from my cousin, and Mrs. Buzley called up, and she said there was an accident, and Cookie was fine, and she has a broken shoulder, and they'll be home by one o'clock—where are they?”

“I don't know anything more than you've just told me. But where have you been, Maria?”

“I told Mrs. Buzley on Thursday that my cousin come to New York this week and I want to have two days to see her. She was angry with me, no, not really talking angry, but I see she was. She wanted to go to a party Saturday, but I thought my turn. I need to see my cousin. Mrs. Buzley goes to parties all the time. I said I'd come back Sunday morning, and here I am, but where is Cookie? Where did they go?”

“Someplace on Long Island. That's all I know. You'll find out when she gets home. Please phone me then right away. I need to know. But where's Mr. Buzley?”

“He went to California. His work. He's coming back now. There was a message on the machine. Sunday early, it said. I thought she say not until Tuesday. Yes, she say Tuesday. I don't know what—all right. I'll call you, Mr. Wolfe.”

He walked back and forth again through his three rooms, thinking. There was dirty business going on here. No question of it. It was no business of Donald Wolfe's, or would have been no business if it had not been for Donald Wolfe's little girl.

After a while he went downstairs and outside. The day was balmy, and people had come out to enjoy the afternoon, strolling with their beautiful babies in carriages and their beautiful dogs on leashes. It seemed to him that the atmosphere was filled with a friendly peace. With terrible anger, he thought about Lillian, destroyer of peace. Then he turned about and went home to walk back and forth again like a prisoner measuring his steps, trying to think of something sensible that he might do.

When the phone rang, it was Maria speaking in nervous haste. “I'm in the kitchen. They can't hear me, but I'll be quick. Mr. Buzley's here. They're in their room, she's all bandaged, he's yelling at her, it's awful, Mr. Wolfe, Cookie's all right, I have her in the playpen, I have to go.”

“Come to my apartment instead of going to the park on Saturday afternoon. If it should rain so you can't go to the park, I'll come to your place whether anybody likes it or not.”

“Oh, don't come here, Mr. Wolfe. Don't do that.”

“Then you must promise to call me every day so I'll know what's happening.”

Thank heaven for Maria, for her loyalty and her common sense. You didn't find Marias on every street corner. Then it occurred to him that he was hungry, so he made a sandwich, and then had no appetite for it. He looked out of the window again; an ambulance passed below, shrieking along the street, and he imagined the accident. By what marvel had his little girl been spared?

When evening came, he went to bed, for it seemed that he had been awake for days and was dying to sleep. But the sleep that came was only fitful, interrupted by frustration dreams. He was being pursued by some unidentifiable horror, was running with every muscle strained to the fullest, yet he was unable to advance an inch. The horror was coming nearer . . .

He awoke and fell asleep and dreamed again. So the night passed.

   

Everyone at the office had heard about Donald's baby and the accident. It was surprising that so many people had read that tiny item on an inside page. If some hadn't seen it, they had been informed about it as soon as they came to work. By the way people spoke to him or by their facial expressions alone, he knew that they were aware of his pain, and he was grateful for their sympathy.

Mr. Pratt said little, and by doing so, said it all with the pressure of his hand on Donald's shoulder and one sentence: “Your baby's not hurt, which is all that matters. Remember that.”

On Donald's desk lay a small stack of important mail, which was probably a good thing because it made the morning pass quickly. Then at one o'clock, when Ed Wills came in to suggest going down the street to lunch, all yesterday's trouble erupted again.

Ed began it. “I had somebody look up the police report in Jefferson. That driver was not in the best of shape. He was over the white line when it happened. He seems to be some kind of good-time guy-about- town with a reputation for drinking too much, and maybe having a cocaine habit, too, although they haven't checked that. Anyway, it doesn't matter, except to his heirs, if he has any. If he has, they had better hope he had plenty of car insurance. According to the hospital's report an hour ago, he's not going to make it through. Landed on his head when he was thrown out of the car.”

Donald shuddered and listened.

“I'm wondering how much of all this stuff you want to hear,” Ed said, fingering a stray fork. “Yes, I'm uncomfortable,” and putting the fork down deliberately, he continued, “I hate this kind of talk, sounding like a gossip columnist, but for your sake, I should do it, so—”

“What is it, Ed? Come on. This fellow, was he the one you've told me about, the one on the beach near you?”

“No, no, that's another story.”

“Excuse me if I sound confused,” Donald said, not disguising his bitterness, “then who is the mysterious stranger on the beach? Not that I give a damn.”

But thinking of permanence, of stability, and of Howard Buzley, he did very much give a damn.

“June doesn't run with the gossiping set,” Ed began, “but she knows a lot of women who do, so she got on the phone last night when I asked her to and she found out. The man is Storm, Arthur Storm, some sort of tycoon who has a showplace about ten miles east of our beach. I've seen it, or at least as much of it as you can see from the road. Big trees, lawns, acreage, long, low white house—you get the picture.”