Strange but True (38 page)

In the kitchen, Charlene finds that a few of the pots and bowls from the pea soup have finally been scrubbed. She wonders if this is another clue that might tell her something about what Philip was thinking before he left, though it does not help her at all. She walks to the telephone with the thought of calling him on his cell. And that's when she sees the number
5
blinking on the answering machine. When she presses the button, her recorded voice plays back, “Philip. It's me. Are you there? Pick up. Okay, well—” Charlene hits Erase and the next voice to come through the machine is Richard's. “Charlene. It's me. I need to talk to you. If you get—” Again, she hits Erase. The next voice is a young woman's. “This is Jennifer from Dr. Kulvilkin's office. We are calling to remind you that Philip has an appointment tomorrow morning at nine
A.M
. Please let us know if he has to cancel for any reason. Thank you.” After that, there are two more messages from Richard, which is odd to say the least. Charlene erases them both without listening.

The bastard, she thinks, then pushes the thought of him out of her mind and looks up Philip's cell phone number in her address book. When she calls, his voice mail answers. Charlene leaves a message, trying to sound unconcerned about where he is and why he has taken the car. After she hangs up, she hunts around for the directions to her cell so she can figure out how to retrieve those messages he left. But she cannot find them anywhere, so at last she gives up and decides to simply sit tight and wait for him to return. She grabs a Diet Coke from the fridge and goes back to the family room, settling into the bed where he has slept this last month. Charlene doesn't know why exactly, but she has a terrible feeling of dread that she cannot shake. She tells herself it is just that news about Richard and Melissa still haunting her, but she can't help feel that it is something more than that. She is worried about Philip out there on those slick winter roads with that old car. She is worried about his abrupt departure. For a moment, she considers taking a sleeping pill to put her mind at ease. But Charlene wants to be wide-awake when he returns.

It is only a short while later that she hears a car pull into the driveway. Philip, Charlene thinks and gets out of bed. She goes to the foyer, where she presses her face to the glass just as she had the night before. Outside, she does not see Ronnie's old car, but a taxi stopped at the edge of the driveway. Whoever it is pays the driver then gets out. When the dark figure comes closer up the walkway toward the house, Charlene recalls a scrap of conversation with Richard on the phone this morning:

Do you want me to come there? Is that what you want?

No, I don't want you to come here!

Whether she wanted him here or not, she sees that it is Richard outside right now. He has come home after all.

BEFORE RICHARD CAN EVEN RING THE BELL, THE FRONT DOOR
swings open. Charlene is standing before him dressed in beige pants and a cowl-neck sweater. Even though he saw her at St. Vincent's hospital in New York City just one month ago when they were visiting Philip, he cannot help but be freshly taken aback by all the weight she has put on over the years, not to mention the way she has let her hair go gray and frizzy. Looking at her, though, it is still possible to see through to the pretty, smart-mouthed girl he first met at a party back in college when one of his drunken friends spilled a glass of wine on her and Richard went over to apologize.

Let me get you a towel…

Thanks, but I'd prefer a new outfit instead…

“Hello, Charlene,” Richard says now as he stands in the center of the moonlit porch and braces himself for her to begin screaming.

Much to his surprise, she keeps her voice perfectly composed when she asks, “What are you doing here?”

Ever since Holly dropped him off at the airport in West Palm Beach this afternoon, he has been rehearsing the multitude of answers to that question. He considers telling her that after seeing Philip lying in that hospital bed he has not been able to focus on his life in Florida, because it made him realize how much he had failed his family. He considers telling her that all these years he has carried around the unshakable feeling that he fled the scene of a crime when he left his life in Pennsylvania behind. Most of all, he considers telling her that after her phone call this morning he made up his mind to come here and explain what went on that summer between him and Melissa, before someone else did. Despite all the time Richard spent constructing those responses in his mind, he finds himself abandoning every last one and saying just three words, “I don't know.”

“What do you mean, you don't know?”

“Just what I said. I don't know.”

“That doesn't make any sense, Richard. You haven't been here in ages, and suddenly you show up unannounced. You must have a good reason.”

“It's not unannounced. I asked you this morning if you wanted me to come here.”

“And I told you no.”

“Well, I left you all those messages saying that I was coming anyway.”

That statement causes Charlene to drop the more modulated tone she's been using. In a rushed voice, she asks, “Did you leave any messages on my cell phone or just here at home?”

“Here at home,” Richard tells her. “Why?”

She looks past him toward the driveway, where her Lexus is parked half-in and half-out of the garage. Richard tries to guess what she is thinking, but it's no use. Finally, she looks back at him. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I didn't bother listening to your messages. In fact, I erased them just a short while ago. So you'll have to tell me again why you're here.”

“You erased them without even listening?” He shouldn't be surprised, nevertheless, he is.

“That's right.” She sounds proud of the fact. “So get to the point.”

A heavy wind gusts across the yard then, stinging Richard's face. All these years in Florida have left him sensitive to the cold. It doesn't help that he is wearing nothing more than a windbreaker, jeans and a T-shirt. He crosses his arms and tries one of the other answers he rehearsed. “Haven't you ever done something just because you felt like you had to?”

Charlene removes her hand from the doorknob and cups her chin in an exaggerated
I'm thinking
pose. In an equally exaggerated voice, she says, “Hmm. Let's see now. Oh, wait. I know.” And here, at last, her voice escalates to an angry pitch. “I divorced you because I felt like I had to. And because you were a dishonest, cheating jerk of a husband. Little did I know I should have added ‘pedophile' to the list too.”

“Pedophile? What are you talking about?”

“Last time I checked that's what they call men who mess around with underaged girls.”

Now he knows what she is getting at. So what I was afraid of has already happened, Richard thinks. She knows. “Charlene, I'm not sure what Melissa told you, but—”

“Melissa didn't tell me anything. I happened to pay a visit to Joseph and Margaret this afternoon.”

“Joseph and Margaret who?”

“Moody!” Charlene shouts. “Melissa's parents!”

The wind blows harder still, and Richard shivers against it. His mind fills with the memory of that final afternoon at the cemetery when he held Melissa in his arms, the way he did so many afternoons as she cried, and sometimes he cried too. He remembers looking up to see a car coming toward them on the dirt driveway, which was unusual, because there was never anyone else there since the place had so few graves for people to visit. When the car stopped, Melissa's father got out. He didn't bother to close the door, and as he walked toward them, the vehicle released a steady succession of chimes, reminding Richard of the tonal emergency codes over the loudspeaker at the hospital. Even though he and Melissa had broken their embrace, it was too late. He knew what her father was thinking: they were doing something they shouldn't be.

“Dad,” Melissa said over that incessant chiming.

“Shut up,” her father told her. “Shut your mouth, young lady, and get in the car.”

Richard shakes that memory from his mind the way he has dozens of times today, hundreds of times over the years. A shiver moves through his entire body. “Can I at least come inside so we can talk about this?”

Charlene stares at him, blinking, biting her bottom lip, as she debates the question. Finally, she steps aside and lets him in. After Richard walks through the door and closes it behind him, he glances up the staircase at the same pictures that hung on the wall when he lived here. There is Ronnie and Philip with both sets of grandparents at Pat's King of Steaks in Philly. There is Charlene and Richard standing in a white gazebo at their wedding. There is Philip, wearing a cap and gown at his high school graduation, a forced smile on his face. “Is Philip home?” Richard asks, realizing suddenly how quiet the house is, as quiet as it was that summer after Ronnie died, when they each retreated to separate areas of the house and shut down any semblance of family life.

Charlene does not answer him. “I was nice enough to let you inside. Now let's finish the conversation.”

“Can't we go into the family room? Do we have to do this here in the foyer?”

“I'd prefer to stay right where we are. That way it will be easier to kick you out once you're done lying to me. So go ahead. I'm waiting. Let the bullshit begin.”

“It's not bullshit, Charlene.”

“Call it whatever you want, Richard. Just tell me what went on with that girl.”

“I—” He stops. For all his planning on the two-and-a-half-hour flight up from Florida, Richard never did come up with the right way to explain the brief, unexpected attachment he formed with Melissa Moody all those years ago. As he tries to figure out a way now, he hears a replay of his voice attempting to make Holly understand this morning.
It was more than a friendship, but it was not an affair. I never so much as kissed the girl, Holly. Still, I knew meeting at the cemetery all those afternoons blurred the lines of what was appropriate. But everything was so complicated that summer that I let it continue—even though Melissa got worse instead of better, talking endlessly about her desire to have Ronnie's child long after she'd gotten her period…

“Since you seem to be at a loss for words,” Charlene says, interrupting his thoughts, “let me help you. You know something, Richard, I knew you were a fucker but I had no idea how big a fucker you were. I mean, the girl was a child when this happened. For Christ's sakes, it was your son's girlfriend! Your
dead
son's girlfriend! No wonder she lost her mind! Ronnie's death didn't make her go crazy,
you
did!”

“Keep it down,” Richard says. “I don't want Philip to hear you, because what you're saying is not true. I'd rather tell him myself.”

Charlene crosses her arms and sits down on the second-to-last step. “Well, good luck because he isn't here.”

Beyond the issue of Melissa, one of the main reasons Richard made such an impulsive decision to come back to Pennsylvania was so that he could lay eyes on his son again. In his time as a doctor, he had seen thousands upon thousands of people recovering in hospital beds with injuries far worse than Philip's. But there was something different when it was his child—a child he had failed so miserably. Richard wants to see him again so he can erase that image of Philip's bruised body and weary eyes from his mind. He hopes to rid himself of those guilty feelings too. “Where is he?”

“I have no idea where he went. Maybe he hopped on a plane to Florida because he suddenly
felt
that he had to see his long-lost father. Or maybe he got sick of this place and went back to New York. That's how he left last time. He walked out the door and didn't come back for almost five years.” Charlene's voice cracks suddenly, and Richard realizes she is crying. He watches as she puts her elbows on her knees and her face in her palms. Since he doesn't know what else to say or do, he leans against the banister and places his hand on her shoulder. It is the first time Richard has touched her in years, which is odd in a way, since there was once a time when he couldn't get enough of touching her. “You ruin everything,” Charlene says, her voice barely audible as she talks into her hands. “This is all your fault.”

Richard tells himself not to take the bait, but he does anyway. “What's all my fault?”

Charlene looks up at him, her face wet with tears. “I saw Pilia today.”

It's been ages since he has heard that name. Still, Richard would never forget the way Charlene used to carry on about that woman. “What does Pilia have to do with anything?”

Charlene wipes her eyes with the back of her hands to no avail, because the tears keep coming. “I've been wishing bad things upon her for years. And she's not the only one either. I had an entire list of people in my head. She was right up there at the top. Next to you, as a matter of fact. And when I saw her today, it turned out she had cancer.
Cancer
. She had to have both of her breasts removed.” Charlene stops to take a breath as Richard tries to figure out what she is getting at. “Afterward, I got in my car and thought, ‘You know what? I am going to make an effort to be nice today. I am not going to scream, and I am not going to yell.' It was like a little promise I made to myself. But today of all days, I have to find out about you and Melissa! Today of all days, you decide to show up and make me break that promise to myself!”

“Why are you blaming me?” Richard says, his hand still on her shoulder.

“Who the hell should I blame?” she screams, brushing him away. “Tell me that. Who?”

“I don't know, Charlene. Maybe there is nobody to blame. Maybe it's not about blame at all.”

After that, she grows quiet. She holds her hands out before her, absently inspecting her nail-bitten fingers as Richard walks to the other end of the foyer and leans his back against the wall. Holly had warned him that it was a bad idea to come here. But she hadn't really understood about his relationship with Melissa Moody either. The only thing she did seem to comprehend was how shaken he felt after seeing Philip in that hospital bed. Now Richard tries once more to make Charlene understand. “I swear to you, Charlene. I am telling the truth about that girl. No matter what her parents or anybody else said, I did not have an affair with her. We ran into each other at the cemetery one afternoon and we started a friendship.”