Twilight Child (5 page)

 “You're
almost too good to be true, Peter,” she whispered.

 “I have my
bad side,” he said gently. “And I am frightened.”

 “Of what?”

 “Of losing another
round,” he said quickly. Deliberately, she did not convey her own fear in that
regard.

 “I think
we've both got to forget the past,” she said simply. She began to feel better.

 “You said it,
Frances. I declare last weekend to be the first moment of our lives. Okay?” She
let the question hang.

 He kissed her
hands again, then made a warming gesture with his own.

 “So you're
booked for the weekend? You and the little guy?”

 “Just give me
a little more time.” She made it sound cute and not standoffish.

 “You got it,”
he winked. “Before the day is over?”

 “I promise.”

 “I couldn't
bear to go home alone without knowing.”

 “Oh, you're
overdramatizing, Peter,” she said good-naturedly. “It's just that—well, I don't
want to spoil it for you.”

 “Aha, a
martyr type.”

 “Or for me.”

 She smiled
shyly.

 “And that boy
of yours, he does sleep,” he said.

 “Soundly.”
She felt the heat in her face.

 But when
Molly called later in the day to apologize for Charlie, her stomach began to
churn.

 “You know your
father-in-law. More bark than bite. I can tell you, he's very contrite today.
He really doesn't want to spoil anything for you, Frances. You know what he's
like. And he doesn't want you to get so mad at him that it will hurt his
relationship with Tray. So let's let bygones be bygones.”

 “I don't need
any aggravation myself, Molly.”

 “So just file
it away.”

 “Consider it
filed.”

 “Next weekend
we'll have a barbecue. Maybe have some of Tray's friends over from
kindergarten. Make it a party.”

 “I don't—”
Somehow, she could not find the will to respond in full.

 “You'll see,
Charlie won't bat an eye. Ever again.”

 Fat chance,
she thought bitterly.

 After she
hung up, she tried to concentrate on her work, but it was futile. She felt
weighed down, stuffed with indignation and frustration. How dare they do this
to me? she cried within herself. Without realizing it, she had brought the heel
of her fist down on her desk. It was not a particularly attention-getting
gesture, but Peter was watching. Sensing his gaze, she turned toward his office
and managed a smile.

 Then she
nodded.

 He pantomimed
the acceptance of her message by clapping his hands soundlessly.

 “I love you,”
his lips said.

 “I need you,”
she responded in kind.

 THE
weekend was an exercise in thwarted expectations. Tray was moody
and disoriented by the abrupt change in his routine. He kept asking, “When are
we going to Grampa and Gramma's?” Frances offered evasive answers. Peter tried
valiantly to deflect the child's interest and gain his attention. He brought
toys and games and went through a complete repertoire of performances to gain
the boy's confidence. Nothing worked. To make matters worse, it rained and they
stayed indoors.

 “I'm sorry
about this,” Frances said after they had tucked Tray into bed in the room
across the hall from Peter's. They both kissed and hugged him. His only
response was: “Will we go to Gramma and Grampa's in the morning?”

 “No
apologies,” he told her, drawing her into his arms. “I'm very tenacious.”

 “I hope so.”

 But
resentment and disappointment had a dampening effect and, although they clung
together like new lovers throughout the night, her mind wandered and her
concentration wavered. She felt inert, suffocated by the influence of her
in-laws, a condition that had marked her marriage and now threatened her
future.

 As she had
expected, they had not taken kindly to her announcement that she was spending
the weekend with Peter. She had told them the truth—lying always made her
anxious. She had deliberately called when she knew that Charlie would still be
at the plant.

 “Do you think
that's wise, dear?” Molly asked in her typically gentle rhetorical manner. It
was the way she had dealt with Chuck, always with minimal success.

 “I think it's
necessary,” Frances had responded. “And comforting. The man wants to know my
child.”

 “What should
I tell Charlie?”

 “The truth,”
she said boldly.

 “He'll be
very upset.”

 “I really
can't help that.” She was thankful for the safety of the telephone.

 “And next
weekend?”

 “We'll see.”

 “He did
promise to make Tray a tire swing and take him for a ride in the new wagon.”

 “I know.”

 Beads of
perspiration had popped out under her hair. She felt the tug of some powerful
barbed hook, the same sensation, she imagined, that a landed fish felt
thrashing impotently to free itself from the line. Now, in Peter's bed, she
felt a similar sensation.

 “What is it?”
he had asked. Her restlessness had awakened him.

 “Odd
thoughts,” she whispered, stroking his arm, placating his concern.

 “Like what?”

 She hesitated
for a long time. At first, he did not intrude on her silence. Why should she
inject this discordant note into what seemed like a very promising
relationship? Perhaps it was wrong to have brought Tray.

 “It would
have been better to come alone.”

 “That would
have been a cop-out,” he acknowledged, kissing her earlobe. “Sooner or later,
we'll have to come to grips with it.”

 “It could be
too soon.”

 “Am I
pressing?”

 “In some
ways.”

 She did not
elaborate, fearful that further explanations might endanger their still-fragile
bond. Instead, she offered a roundabout compromise. He had to know, after all,
the real reason for her anxiety. Do not misinterpret this, she begged him
silently.

 “My
ex-husband's parents,” she said, surprised at the way she now expressed the
relationship. “My father-in-law especially. He doesn't think this is proper.”

 “This not
proper?” He kissed her lips and caressed her. There seemed to be an element of
defiance in the gesture. “Who is he to say?” he asked firmly.

 “He thinks
it's too soon after Chuck's death.” She took a deep breath. “And bringing Tray
here . . .”

 “You mean
there are supposed to be time limits on human emotions?” he asked irritably.

 “In Charlie's
mind it's a question of what he views as right and wrong.”

 “He's got his
nerve, Frances. He doesn't own you.”

 “I know what
he's going through.”

 “It's what
you're going through—we're going through—that counts.”

 “Of course. I
know that.”

 “He has
absolutely no right to make you feel this way.”

 “Of course I
know that. But he still makes me feel as if I'm kicking a hurt dog.”

 “You couldn't
do that, darling. Not you.”

 “And Tray's
grown very attached to them, especially to Charlie. My father-in—my
ex-husband's father.” Inexplicably, she felt embarrassed, and she rolled on her
side away from him.

 “It's over,
Frances,” Peter said. She felt his breath on the back of her neck. “I'm here
now.” Reaching back, she touched him.

 “I know,” she
said. “And I'm afraid of their spoiling it.”

 “Never. I'll
never let them do that to us,” he said belligerently, which frightened her. She
was beginning to feel the growing strength of her attachment to him. It was
enveloping her, changing her, becoming central to her life.

 “You wanted
to know,” she said, turning toward him again.

 “I'll always
want to know what concerns you, and I'm grateful for your sharing it. Isn't
that what a real relationship is all about?”

 For the first
time in years, she did not feel alone.

 Still, there
was no sense in not trying to make things right with Molly and Charlie. She did
not go out of the way to aggravate the situation. The next weekend, she left
Tray with his grandparents and spent the weekend alone with Peter. By then,
although she avoided any confrontation with Charlie, Frances found a grudging
acceptance on his part through her conversations with Molly.

 “He doesn't
like it, but he's not ranting and raving,” Molly told her.

 “That's
sensible.”

 “And weekends
with Tray really help.”

 It also
helped to be alone with Peter without the pressure of his trying to make
friends with Tray.

 “Everything
in due time,” he assured her.

 Soon any
caution about discussing the future evaporated. They openly discussed marriage
and a life together.

 “It will not
be easy taking on another man's child.”

 “He'll be my
child. Our child.”

 She was
growing less and less reticent about expressing her secret fears.

 “I just worry
about his accepting the change.”

 “Kids thrive
in a loving home,” he said emphatically. “He'll adapt. I promise you.”

 “Hopefully,
we'll have other kids. He won't be lonely. Neither will I.”

 “Or I.”

 Not to be
lonely, she thought. Was it possible at last?

 She went up
to Syracuse to visit Peter's folks and found them kind and, unlike her first
experience with potential in-laws, grateful.

 “Just love my
son and be wonderful,” his mother told her. His father, a doctor, nodded
happily and, after the weekend, they both embraced her and promised that they
would be the best grandparents in the world to Tray and whoever else dropped
in. The rapport she felt was beyond her wildest hopes.

 Yet the
problem of Molly and Charlie nagged at her. She had kept Molly partially
abreast of what was happening, and Tray continued to spend weekends with them,
which silenced any blatant protest on Charlie's part.

 She held back
from telling them that she and Peter had set a date and had planned a wedding
in Peter's parents' home in October, which was less than three weeks away.
There was, they had reasoned, no point in being hypocrites. On weekends they
lived as man and wife. Nor did she tell them that Peter had already put a down
payment on a big house in Columbia and was planning to adopt Tray. One step at
a time, she told herself.

 To break the
news, Frances persuaded Molly to allow Peter and her to “drop in” on Sunday
during one of the weekends that Tray spent with his grandparents.

 Peter had
mildly protested the subterfuge.

 “They're
going to have to meet you someday,” Frances told him. “Not for approval,” she
added hastily. “That doesn't really matter. Just for the record.”

 “Only if it's
important to you.”

 “I just want
to eliminate potential problems.”

 “As long as
they don't aggravate you or come between us.”

 “Never,” she
said firmly. “Call it biting the bullet.”

 “Don't worry.
I'll be the soul of diplomacy.”

 “You'll be
perfect.”

 Molly asked
them to come in the late afternoon. She told them that she would put up some
fried chicken and potato salad and offer a casual dinner, continuing the
charade, she added, to make Charlie think she had just thrown some things
together at the spur of the moment.

 It was a
beautiful fall day, with just enough nip to bring out the roses in Tray's
cheeks. He was out in the yard with his grandfather, who was teaching him the intricacies
of using a catcher's mitt.

 “So this is
Peter,” Molly said. A tic in her jaw betrayed her nervousness.

 “I've heard a
lot about you, Mrs. Waters,” Peter said awkwardly, as if it was a line he had
rehearsed. Molly brought them into the den and offered beer.

 “That would
be great,” Frances replied, accepting for both of them, although Peter detested
beer. They had taken seats at either end of the couch. No displays of
affection, Frances had warned. Molly went up to the kitchen. They heard her open
the door and call out to Charlie and Tray.

 “Mommy's
here.”

 Soon Tray,
flushed and happy, rushed into the room and into his mother's arms.

 “I'm a
catcher now,” he squealed.

 “And say
hello to Uncle Peter.”

 Tray politely
allowed himself to be kissed by Peter.

 “Grampa says
you're not my real uncle.”

 “He's right
about that,” Peter said, affecting a patient smile. He looked at Frances, who
shook her head. Molly arrived with a tray of filled beer steins and a bowl of
peanuts. Gray-faced and under obvious duress, Charlie followed her into the
den. Frances noted the scrap of black crepe pinned to his shirt.

 “This is
Peter Graham, Charlie,” Frances said pleasantly.

 “Frances's
friend,” Molly interjected superfluously.

 Peter put out
his hand, which Charlie took with a less than firm grip. He took a beer and sat
down on a chair. Molly had obviously given him some preparation, although he
could not hide his awkwardness.

 “That's a
great collection of guns,” Peter said, looking toward the gun cabinet. Out of
sheer nervousness, Frances scooped up a handful of peanuts.

 “Yeah,”
Charlie mumbled. “Used to hunt a lot with Chuck.”

 “He's going
to take me someday,” Tray said, bounding into his grandfather's lap. “I'm going
to shoot the same gun as my Daddy did. Go after the big buck, Nasty Jake.”

 “Nasty Jake?”

 “That's the
big one,” Charlie said, hugging the boy with his free arm. Tray's proximity
seemed to comfort him. “We never did get that one, Chuck and I.”

 “I'm going to
get it,” Tray squealed.

 “You bet your
sweet patooty.”

 Frances began
to relax.

 “Ever do much
hunting?” Charlie asked.

 “I'm afraid
not. I don't like killing things.”

 “We only
shoot what we eat,” Charlie said, not looking at Peter directly. Frances
remembered how Chuck used to echo his words, which had never made sense to her.

 “I just go to
the supermarket,” Peter said lightly.

 “They kill
those animals, too,” Charlie said. “People forget that. Man feasts on other
creatures to survive. It's the law of nature.”

 “It's a sport,”
Peter said, “It's the killing of things as sport that I object to.”

 “Different
strokes for different folks,” Frances interrupted. She wished they would get
off that subject.

 “I understand
you're in computers, Peter,” Molly said, her voice obviously strained.

 Peter nodded.

 “He's an
engineer. They're into big stuff for defense. High tech,” Frances said. Out of
the corner of her eye, she saw Charlie tense and suddenly remembered how he had
railed against the “high-tech boys ruining it for the people who built this
country.”

 “I hear
you're at Bethlehem, Charlie,” Peter said.

 “More than
thirty years,” Molly said.

 “Things are
still pretty tough over there, I guess,” Peter said. There seemed to be no
subject between them that was neutral.

 She saw
Charlie's face grow ashen.

 “We just sat
back while we gave away the country to the Japs. Hell, I killed Japs in the
war. When I think of the guys who died in that one, I get a little sick to my
stomach to see how we snatched this defeat from the jaws of victory. Used to be
Sparrows Point was pounding out steel on three shifts. Now there's barely
enough work for one.” His voice rose and his lips seemed to go bloodless. He
was becoming agitated.

 “The Japanese
are tough competition in my field, too,” Peter said, looking helplessly at
Frances. He hadn't expected Charlie's reaction.

 “All those
guys out on the street. You can't imagine the pain that's been caused to
families out there. You know what it means to get laid off? Lots of guys in
their forties and fifties. Too old for retraining. Makes my blood boil the way
they've screwed things up.” He drifted into a deep gloom.