Twilight Child (14 page)

 “That's being
broody, Charlie,” she rebuked.

 “They can't
take away memories.”

 “Nobody can
touch those.”

 “If we get to
court, she's going to have to tell it different than it was,” Charlie said.
“Make us out like we were a couple of rats.” He reached out and touched her
hand. “We weren't, were we?”

 “Don't be
silly.”

 “I mean it's
what she has to say to win. Like the lawyer said.”

 “Well, then
we'll have to refute all charges.”

 “How can
anyone call us rats?”

 “It wouldn't
be honest—just a ploy anyway.”

 “We were
damned good parents and grandparents. Weren't we?”

 “By any
standard. Especially love.”

 “It was her
that was the bad one. Chuck made one big mistake.” He shook his head. “Besides,
they were too young. Now we gotta pay the piper. It's not fair.”

 “What
is
fair?”

 “We were
good, Molly. We were always good. Weren't we?”

 “You musn't
question that. Of course we were.”

 “Are you
sure?”

 “Sure I'm
sure. Whatever has gotten into you?” It was a kind of mock rebuke, mostly to
deflect his being too hard on himself.

 “Something I
might have done to Chuck. As a father. You know what I mean. Something I didn't
know I was doing. I really thought he was a fine young man, that we had done
one helluva job. I mean he was out there working for his wife and kid.”

 “You've got
to stop that, Charlie.”

 “I'm just
trying to analyze the situation. It's important.”

 “I don't mean
that. I mean taking it all on yourself, as if I wasn't there.”

 “I didn't
mean that, Molly.”

 “All this me,
my, I. Remember, I was there, too.”

 He shook his
head and frowned.

 “I guess I'm
not myself.”

 “There it is
again. I. My.”

 He got up
from the table and paced around the den, stopping in front of the gun cabinet.

 “I really
miss that kid,” he said. She wondered whom he meant, Chuck or Tray. He had used
the singular. She refused to probe, sure he meant both, as she did in her mind.
In a way, it would be the weakest part of their case, although they had not yet
fully explored the issue. Was Tray merely the surrogate for their lost son?
That would underline their selfishness, in legal terms. She was sure of it.

 “You think
Forte will advise that we wait a few more days?” Charlie asked, turning
suddenly.

 “I doubt it.”

 “Then he
should hop right on it first thing in the morning. File papers or something.”

 “I guess
that's what he intends to do.”

 “And you're
ready? Come what may?”

 “What else
have I got to do?” she said. Deliberately, she pushed the papers aside,
softening the sarcasm, sorry the words had popped out in that way.

 “I want to go
all the way. No matter how weak he says the case is. To the end.” She could see
a flush begin along the sides of his neck and it alarmed her. He slipped into
silence again.

 “Doesn't look
too good, does it, babe? Them not even answering.”

 “Pessimism
won't help,” she said.

 “It's these
damned Sundays,” he muttered.

 “Tomorrow's
Monday.”

 “That's
something,” he said, throwing his cigarette butt into the coffee dregs. “Maybe
I need a good fight. I was always good in the clutch.”

 Was it really
a flicker of the old courage? Or an illusion? It was not the fight itself she
feared. It was a question of how many times he could rise from the floor.

 CHARLIE
had, he assured himself, deliberately cut short clearing the fall
debris in the yard so that he would have something to do on Monday. He knew it
was an illusion, but it was better than waking up to no expectations
whatsoever. The idea was to rake out the dead brush and break up the fallen
tree branches for the winter's fireplace tinder.

 On Monday it
rained, but not before the tension of the uncertain weather had already
destroyed any hopefulness the day might bring.

 Since the two
weeks given for Frances's response were now officially over, he did expect the
lawyer's call, which was a purposeful excuse to hang around the house. After
the yard work, he had planned to make a few phone calls, feelers for jobs. With
winter coming on, he had a compelling need to fill his time. In fact, the need
had little to do with the seasons. Now, of course, he'd have to postpone his
calls, since he did not want to tie up the line.

 After Molly
left for school and he had assured himself that the rain would continue, he
toyed with the urge to go back to bed. But he was afraid he wouldn't be able,
or lucky enough, to sleep. As if to underline the assumption, he had a fourth
cup of coffee while he tried to interest himself in the gothic theatrics of
Baltimore politics described luridly in the second section of the
Baltimore
Sun
. The articles quickly became incomprehensible, and he turned to the
obituaries, where the deaths reported were people he had never heard of. He
checked their ages. Most were in their seventies and eighties, which ordinarily
might have been reassuring. Now it merely emphasized how much time still had to
be filled. Not much comfort in that, he decided, refolding the paper.

 In bathrobe
and backless slippers, he roamed the house trying to focus on something that
would thwart his aimlessness. Thirty-five years he and Molly had lived here.
The rooms and objects in this house had once defined their lives. Now they were
taking on the aspect of a prison. And yet, all of it was paid for, which was
supposed to signify freedom.

 “From what?”
he heard himself ask aloud. He pictured in his mind a checklist, possibly from
years of occupational habit. A quality control inspector was a living checklist.
From economic worry? The Depression scars that had marked his parents' lives
had long since faded. In Crisfield, and later when he and Molly were first
married, being worried about money was a way of life. It wasn't the specter of
starvation that caused the fear, but rather the terror of losing one's
self-respect and social dignity.

 Retirement
had, indeed, freed him from economic worry for the rest of his life. Counting
what he and Molly had put away, and with the retirement checks rolling in month
after month, and with Molly's salary and impending retirement pension, they
were financially secure forever. In all the working years of his life, his
focus had been on financial security, something that had always eluded his own
parents. Not that he hadn't bitched about his job. The worst part had always
been brown-nosing incompetent superiors. But then, he had been brown-nosed by
those under his authority. He was damned competent, and that fact had been
underscored by raises and promotions.

 Yet, in truth,
he had fantasized about retirement. The yoke would at last be lifted from the
ox. Time would be his alone. He would be free from rigid schedules, deadlines,
and brown-nosing. He'd done his time. The moment had come to reap the rewards.
As he passed the hall mirror, his reflection sailed past him, unshaven, hair
mussed, coffee stains on his robe. Free at last. Free at last, he muttered.
God, did he miss that job. The clatter and noise of steel, rolling, sliced,
welded, always moving; the voices of men shouting above the din; the smells and
dust and confusion and aggravations, the great joy of doing, of work itself.

 The
humiliating rationalization was wearing thin. As for taking early retirement in
the first place, they hadn't given him a choice. But in the rigid terms of the
checklist, he was, indeed, free of economic insecurity.

 Which brought
him to the next question. Was he free from worrying about his family? What
family? he sighed. It was no coincidence that he had come to Chuck's room,
although he could not find the courage today to turn the doorknob.
Unfortunately, the room's layout was indelible in his mind, the solid maple
furniture that he had carted himself in a rented trailer from the furniture
store; the striped bedspreads that Molly had made; the rock star posters and
team banners tacked to the wall, now curling at the edges; the drawers full of
clothes and souvenirs of a boy's life—a boy who, in that room, had moved from
cradle to manhood. Actually only the furniture was still there, the rest
banished on the scrap heap of material history. Charlie stood before the door,
then turned and leaned his head against it as if the immutable wood might
reincarnate as the flesh of the lost boy.

 The lost boy!

 In fact, the
boy was not lost. He was still in Charlie's living memory, each moment of
intimacy and passage engraved indelibly in his mind by constant replay.

 He could
remember Molly in her hospital bed unwrapping the swaddling clothes and
undiapering the pink-fleshed doll to reveal every living millimeter of what
they had created.

 “Look how
perfect, Charlie,” she had said. “Not a flaw.” He had stuck his rough
forefinger into the child's hand, which had closed around it automatically.

 “Strong,
too,” he had said, feeling that first flush of a father's pride, the great
baggage of hopes and aspirations that filled his heart with joy and delight.
“Mine,” he had whispered.

 “Ours,” she
had corrected, her eyes feasting on the tiny human replica that had come out of
her womb. Then she had smiled and offered a sly wink. “A perfect specimen. Just
like his old man.”

 He remembered
blushing, although it was a matter of masculine pride that the boy was well
made there as well.

 “Thank you,
God,” Molly had said, while their hands smoothed and inspected their creation.
Little wells of tears spilled onto her cheeks, tears of joy and thanks. And of
relief. The little tyke had been ten years in the making.

 “It's been a
rough haul, babe.”

 “That's why I
want him to have your name, Charlie.”

 “Charlie?”

 “No. Charles,
Jr. But we won't call him junior.”

 “Chuck. In
the marines they called me Chuck.” He wasn't sure how he had lost the name.
Molly always called him Charlie, which had become his monicker at the plant as
well.

 “It'll be the
beginning of a long line of Charlies,” Molly had whispered as he had bent down
to kiss her lips. It was the caboose for them, and they both knew it. The
doctor had warned that there was no sense in taking chances anymore and had
tied her tubes.

 “Looks like
he's pretty well-equipped for production,” Charlie had joked.

 “We'll make
it up in grandchildren.” She kissed the baby's chest. “Won't we, Chuckie?”

 “Better
believe,” Charlie said, jiggling the baby's hand with his finger.

 “I'm so happy
he's a boy,” Molly had said.

 “A girl like
you wouldn't have been so bad either.” He had meant it, of course. But he had
been certain it would be a boy.

 It was a
dream a long time coming, he had thought. Out there in the mosquito swamps of
Guadalcanal, he had lived with the idea that he was making the world safe for
his unborn children. With death all around, it was not an uncommon prayer in
the dank and lonely foxholes. What was the killing all about if not for that?
So the fathering of Chuck had taken on a mystical quality long before the baby
had arrived. The fact that he was a replication of himself, a man, merely
confirmed the symbolism. The boy had taken his time about it because he had had
to fight his way into life, and now that he was here he had to be carefully
nurtured and initiated into the exclusive mysteries of manliness.

 “We've got
great hopes for you, fella,” Molly had said, kissing the baby's forehead.

 “Better
believe.”

 The memory
strangled on its own pain.

 Back in
Crisfield, the tiny town that hugged the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay
and was home to the Waterses for a hundred years, fathers passed the essence of
manhood from one generation to the next in the same time-honored ways. Even
though Charlie's own father had chosen not to seek his living from harvesting
the bay, it did not mean that he was absolved from instructing his son in the
outdoor arts—fishing, hunting, and sailing—and the ways in which indigenous
foods such as crabs were prepared. That, too, along with bull roasts and
barbecues, was man's work.

 Charlie's old
man had been a traveling salesman in ladies' ready-to-wear, albeit a lousy one;
but when he was home, he was a good dad, and sitting with him in a duck blind
shivering in the icy dawn was as near to paradise as Charlie ever thought he
might get. And when his dad was on the road, there were grandfathers on both
sides who shared the chores of manly instruction. Not that his mother and
grandmothers were to be ignored, nor all the aunts and uncles and others that
weren't blood kin, but who seemed so. In those days a man's role and obligation
to his male child were clearly defined, a path to be followed generation after
generation.

 Charlie had
taken Chuck down to Crisfield when his dad was still alive, and it was good to
fish with three generations off the sailing boats of wood that were traditional
to the area. A man had to know his roots. Well, he had shown Chuck his. Each
generation, of course, refines the tradition, and Charlie was no exception.
Having survived the big one, WWII, he was able to cast himself in the role of
hero. Nothing like having a genuine war hero for a dad.

 That meant
telling Chuck what it was like being a marine, about Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal
and Kwajalein, and how men lived and died in comradeship and courage, and how
the greatest virtue was to be brave and the greatest goal was glory. Nor did he
paint the pain out of the stories, although he sometimes did eliminate the
sense of fear and he may have romanticized danger a bit; but those who lived
through these events were certainly entitled to a little editorial license,
especially when passing them along to their sons. He had seen more death and
dying before he was twenty than many men had seen in their lifetimes. Had he
been a touch too graphic in his portrayal, he wondered, making Chuck feel
somehow deprived so that he went out to seek danger himself? Well, he had
one-upped old Charlie there. When death put out its hand, the boy had reached
out and grabbed for it.

 Bits and
pieces of flashing imagery cascaded in memory as if the wood of the door to
Chuck's room was a mysterious transmitting device. Chuck laughing, his body
nearly supine against the air as the sailboat heeled at the maximum angle.
Chuck up on that top branch of the big tulip oak in the yard, long since gone.

 “Get down
from there this minute,” Molly had screamed, dashing from the kitchen,
shielding her eyes from the sun.

 “Leave him,”
Charlie had commanded. “He'll be all right.”

 “He'll fall.”

 “Only if he
becomes afraid.”

 Charlie had believed
that with all his heart. Not being afraid was important in the rites of
passage. Fear was an acquired emotions, Charlie taught his son. Fear was
nothing to be ashamed of, something to be conquered. Hadn't he conquered it
himself on those crazy-named Pacific islands?

 Winters they
hunted in the Maryland hills, stalking deer in the delicious cold. What he
taught Chuck then was the value of patience, of aiming only when you were sure
the bullet would bring death to the animal in the most painless way. When Chuck
was twelve, he bagged his first big-horned stag with a single shot, a direct
hit into the animal's heart.

 They had
crept close to the dead animal, awestruck at its size, Chuck shouting with
excitement and shedding tears of joy at the sight.

 “That's one
head to be stuffed,” Charlie had promised. For years it had hung in the den,
until Chuck's death had made it unbearable to view and it had been squirreled
away in the attic. It was not the act of killing that made it painful to
remember, but the aftermath.

 They had
slept in one bed in the little cabin in the mountains that had been rented for
the weekend, and Chuck had rolled over toward him that night just as Charlie
crept in beside him.

 “I did good,
Dad, didn't I?”

 “Great.”

 “I'm something,
eh, Dad.”

 “The best.”

 “I love you,
Dad.”

 The boy had
kissed his father's cheek with fervor, and Charlie had returned the offer in
kind. It was the last time they would kiss in that way. It would no longer be
the manly thing between father and son.

 As he was
growing up, Chuck was beautiful to watch with his golden hair and his
burgeoning physique. Girls were quick to discover his beauty.

 “Love 'em and
leave 'em, kid,” was the way he tried to take the seriousness out of it.

 “You wouldn't
say that if you had a daughter,” Molly had rebuked.

 “But I
don't.”

 “You'll make
him a heartbreaker.”

 “Same as me.”

 For some
reason, Chuck had lost interest in school by the tenth grade, and no amount of
tutoring could make the information sink in. Not that he was stupid. He just
wasn't interested. Sports and girls mattered, not school. Charlie had tried his
best to persuade the boy otherwise.