Twilight Child (9 page)

 “It changes
nothing,” Forte said, sitting down at his desk again and making another
cathedral out of his long delicate fingers ridged with fine black hair. “Are
you really ready for this? I kid you not, Mr. and Mrs. Waters, if we carry this
forward, it will curdle your guts. I want you to understand that. The deck is
stacked against you. And even if, by some remote chance, you win, you might
actually cause more damage to the child than by leaving him alone. Only time
will tell on that, though. The mother could continue to be hostile and
resentful even if the judge grants you visitation rights, and this is bound to
reflect on the child and his mental health—”

 “I'm a
teacher, Mr. Waters,” Molly interjected with passion. “I have never seen a
sincere expression of love and support hurt a child.”

 Forte tapped
his fingers together lightly.

 “And you're
convinced that all avenues of reconciliation have been exhausted?”

 “That's why
we're here,” Charlie said. “Maybe if she sees we mean business, she won't want
to hassle it.”

 “What are
their economic circumstances?” the lawyer asked.

 “Good. He's a
computer engineer with a good job. And she's still got twenty thousand dollars
from Chuck's insurance, which is proof of how much he cared for her and Tray.”
It was a tenuous argument, he knew, but he persisted in it just the same.

 “It may only
make them more stubborn in their resistance. I have seen families literally
ruin themselves in litigation.”

 “So we'll
fight harder,” Charlie said. He looked at Forte's face for a long time in
silence. “How can anyone think that our seeing Tray is going to hurt him?”

 The lawyer
raised his eyebrows, his lips forming what seemed to Charlie to be a knowing
smirk. He was beginning not to like the fellow again.

 “If they
contest, they will do so on the ground that your physical presence will be
harmful to your grandson's interests.”

 “They'll be
laughed out of court,” Charlie said with rising bravado.

 “Even in
today's world the mother is rarely laughed out of court, Mr. Waters.”

 “Not after we
get through with her,” Charlie said.

 “I don't
understand, Mr. Waters. What is your contention? Is she an incompetent mother?”

 He felt a
growing discomfort again and avoided looking at Molly. Sweat had broken out
again under his shirt. His mouth had gone suddenly dry. He's playing with me,
Charlie thought. Testing.

 “No. I
wouldn't say that,” Charlie answered after a long pause.

 “A good
mother, then?”

 “Generally
speaking.” He was determined not to be tricked.

 “Is she a
drunkard, a dope addict, physically unable to take care of the boy?”

 “None of
those,” he answered, offering Molly a thin but confident smile.

 “The boy's
home environment is wholesome? The adoptive father: Is he loving and devoted?”

 “I wouldn't
know. I don't live there.”

 “When she
lived with your son, was there any reason to question the way she ran her home
and cared for the boy?”

 A nerve began
to palpitate in his jaw. His confidence ebbed.

 “You never
really know what goes on behind closed doors.”

 “What does
that mean?”

 “If she was a
good and faithful wife, maybe Chuck would have stayed closer to home.”

 “Are you
saying she was unfaithful?” Forte paused, nailing Charlie with his eyes.
Charlie looked at his hands, which suddenly felt clumsy and uncoordinated. He
deliberately did not look at Molly. Why was the lawyer sparing her, he
wondered?

 “Depends on
how you define that,” Charlie mumbled.

 “Come on,
Charlie,” Molly said. “She wasn't that at all.”

 “Jumping in
the sack a couple of months after Chuck's death—what do you call that?”

 “She had no
obligation to a dead man. She was not being unfaithful.” Molly addressed
herself to the lawyer. “She was a good and loyal wife.”

 “There you
go, defending her again,” Charlie said with rising fury. “The fact is that he
felt better being away from her.”

 “There are
men like that. Chuck was like that,” Molly said softly.

 “He was a
damned good husband and father.”

 “I don't
think that argument will hold in court, Mr. Waters,” Forte interjected. “Was he
away for very long stretches of time?”

 “Sometimes for
six, seven months at a time,” Molly said. “Then he'd stay two weeks and be off
again.”

 “When you
talk to my wife, you have to be very careful,” Charlie said, knowing in advance
that he would catch hell for what he was about to say. “On some things the
women stick together.”

 “I'm only
trying to tell him the truth,” Molly said, a flush rising on her cheeks.

 “The truth!”

 “That's
exactly the point, Mr. Waters, the truth is often obscured by a mishmash of
emotions.”

 “How can we
win if she goes on like that?”

 “This is not
a custody battle, Mr. Waters. Tearing down the character of Tray's mother will
not further your case. The issue here, aside from the very obvious one of your
having no rights as grandparents, which may preclude our ever getting into
court in the first place, is, unfortunately, your character—yours and your
wife's. If we get a hearing, and they contest, their ploy will be to paint you,
and her previous marriage, in the worst possible light. At least that's what I
would do. The only way you can win is by proving that you and your wife will
enhance the child's wellbeing.” He put his hands flat on the yellow pad. “What
I'm saying is that any way you cut it, this will not be easy. I'm trying to
give you something of a preview of what you both can expect.”

 “You trying
to talk us out of this?” Charlie asked, trying to maintain his composure
despite his growing agitation. He felt he had made a botch of it.

 “In a way,”
Forte shrugged. “I don't want you to have any illusions that if you go through
with this it is going to be a joyride. It's going to hurt, hurt everybody it
touches.”

 Not you,
Charlie thought. He had stopped sweating and now felt a chill.

 “You don't
think we have a chance in hell, do you?” Charlie asked with a glance toward
Molly.

 “He didn't
say that, Charlie,” she said. “He's only saying that it's not going to be easy
on us.”

 “Well,
dammit, it's not easy on us now.”

 “Would you
like me to leave the room while you talk it over between you?”

 “No need for
that,” Charlie snapped. Was it condescension he detected? Hell, the wounds were
all open and bleeding—what was there to hide?

 “And there's
the expense to be considered,” Forte said.

 “Who can
forget that? At Bethlehem my last rate was eighteen bucks an hour.”

 “There are no
bargains in this business, Mr. Waters,” Forte said lightly.

 “I know. You
get what you pay for.”

 “And no
guarantees,” Forte added. It was as if he was deliberately turning the knife.

 Charlie
turned helplessly to Molly, who reached over and patted his thigh.

 “There's only
the two of us, Mr. Forte. We've got money put aside. And I'm still teaching.
We're committed to this.”

 What good was
all the money they had put away over the years, Charlie thought, the careful
planning, the scrupulous accounting? It wasn't as if they'd had more than one
child. Wasn't in the cards, Charlie thought, although they both had wanted
more. Having Chuck had been a big risk to Molly as it was. No, he decided, in
the face of losing Tray forever, money had little value.

 “It's not the
money,” Charlie muttered. It annoyed him to feel the taste of defeat before the
battle.

 “It would be
wrong to take this case without presenting the emotional and financial risks.
Legal recourse is always a last resort, and a favorable decision doesn't
necessarily mean you've won anything,” Forte said with a touch of contrition in
his tone. “I know I've been rough, but the reality is that the going will be
much rougher than what I've given you. What I want is for you to be sure, absolutely
certain in your mind that this is the way for both of you to go. It would be
wrong to pursue this if you have the slightest doubt in your mind.”

 “We're not
dumb, Mr. Forte.” He was instantly sorry for the inadvertent flash of anger.
“What I mean is that you've made it quite clear.”

 “Now would
you like me to leave the room?” the lawyer said gently.

 Charlie
looked at Molly. Anger had seeped away. What was left was a kind of void, a
circumscribed place with hurt around the edges.

 “No need for
that, Mr. Forte,” Molly said, reaching for Charlie's hand, clasping his
fingers. “There's no other way for us. At our stage in life you don't get over
things. It
is
wrong for her to keep us from seeing our grandson, isn't
it?”

 “I don't want
anything I say to color your decision,” the lawyer said.

 Charlie felt
Molly's eyes exploring him. He deliberately did not look at her. It can't be
only for me, he thought. It has to be for both of us.

 “Do you think
you can handle it, Charlie?” Molly asked gently.

 He really
wasn't sure, nor was it a question he wanted to confront. In a way it was like
death, he realized. It had to be faced. The alternative was to be eaten up
alive by longing and frustration, to fester in bitterness and regret. He'd lost
a son through no fault of his own. Was he prepared to lose a grandson? He had
walked into this office with a commitment in his heart and gut. He tried to
prepare his mind for an answer that would be scrupulously honest. No sense
fooling himself. Was the cause worth the pain? He felt himself nodding, but
that wasn't the whole truth.

 “I'll try my
damnedest, babe. I just know in my bones it's right.”

 “So do I,”
Molly said firmly.

 “No second
thoughts?” Forte asked.

 “None,”
Charlie said. He took a deep breath, feeling better. Like in his memories of
combat. Once you hit the beach, the fear congealed somewhere in the back of
your mind.

 “All right
then,” the lawyer said, his own relief apparent as well. He opened a leather
folder in which was a clean yellow legal pad. “Let's get down to business.”

 Molly reached
over suddenly and put her palm over the pad.

 “First the
answer to my question,” she said.

 The lawyer
looked up startled.

 “Which?”

 “It
is
wrong, isn't it? What she's doing? To Tray and to us?”

 The lawyer
swiveled back in his chair and rubbed his chin, his eyes darting from face to
face. It was Charlie's question as well, spoken for both of them.

 “It's very
hard for a lawyer to do his best for a client in whose cause he does not
believe.”

 Molly lifted
her palm.

 “That's
good,” she said nodding her head. “That's very good. Don't you think so,
Charlie?”

 He squeezed
her hand in response.

 FRANCES
guided the Datsun to a spot at the curb which gave her a clear view
of the school's side door. Then she flicked the ignition and the car shuddered
into silence. Taking a tissue from the box beside her, she wiped the baby's
spit-up from his chin and nuzzled his cheek. The baby purred contentedly and
smiled. He liked rides, liked to play with his little toy steering wheel.
Mostly, he curled over and bit into it. He was eight months old and teething.

 She looked at
her watch. It was ten minutes to four. She liked to be earlier. Better to be
prudent than to worry the child. In five minutes he'd be running out the door,
jacket unbuttoned, arms akimbo, flushed with the fever of excitement, the
inevitable drawing flapping in the breeze. He would be doubly excited today,
the first day of rehearsal for the school play. He had been cast as a raindrop.
The girls were snowflakes. She grinned, a trill of laughter bubbling in her
chest. A raindrop?

 Maybe she had
a snowflake growing inside of her? She giggled out loud at the illogic of the
image.

 “Would you
like a sister, Baby Mark?”

 She kneaded
her knuckle into the baby's belly, which was partially protected by his diaper.
Ticklish, he smiled and squirmed. He was a happy baby. Why not? She was happy.
Peter was happy. She couldn't wait to tell him the news that she was pregnant.
Six weeks and counting, the doctor had said. So much for the rhythm method. She
hadn't wanted to start the pill while nursing, and they had discussed a
two-year wait before trying for—another joke between them—the caboose. One more
try for the girl, he had agreed. She laughed out loud and gently flicked the
baby's chin with her thumb. “Shows to go ya,” she whispered. “Ah never knowed
what love can do,” she hummed.

 Then she saw
Tray, skipping out ahead of the others, not pausing to button his jacket,
taller by a head than the others in the second grade. He was big and handsome
like his father. She brushed aside the memory, leaned over, and opened the door
on the passenger side.

 “It's chilly,
Tray,” she cried when he hopped in. Reaching over the baby, she kissed his
forehead and buttoned him up. “How many times must I tell you?” He showed her
the drawing.

 “Very good,
Tray.” She held it up and turned it upside down. “What is it?”

 “A sailboat
in the woods.”

 “No water?”

 “It's in the
water, only you can't see it. It's a creek.”

 She let it
pass. At first she had been sensitive about reminders of Charlie. Now she took
them in stride. After all, he could have come up with a sailboat image from
anywhere. She started the motor and eased the car into the street.

 “I did good
as a raindrop,” Tray said. “The snowflakes were gross.” He made a face.

 “You don't
like girls, eh?”

 “Yuck.”

 You'll get
over that, she thought, smiling at the images that danced in her head. Peter
had given her a whole new point of view about that part of marriage. A flush
warmed her cheeks suddenly as she realized that in their lives, sex was as good
and sweet and natural as breathing air. Not like it had been with Chuck. There
was a huge chasm between acquiescence and desire. She deliberately chased away
the intrusive thought. Such comparisons were odious, she told herself firmly.

 She eased the
car through the Columbia traffic. Wide curving streets and a rational stoplight
system made daytime driving easy for those with the occupational specialty of
full-time mother. She looked at her burgeoning brood beside her and grinned.
The title she had acquired had a certain cachet.

 “And what do
you do, Frances?” It was a question without novelty in her new circle, mostly
the couples from Peter's high tech company shop.

 “I'm a
full-time mother.” She would pause and look them straight in the eye.

 “How
wonderful.”

 The object
was to head off the inevitable “And what did you do before?” No response could
adequately describe the truth of what she had done before, since much of it had
been done to escape the four walls of loneliness while Chuck was off on
adventures far from home. Temp work wasn't exactly a career, although she could
have said she had been an executive secretary. Receptionist would have been
closer to the truth.

 But not quite
the whole truth. Her most active occupation had been working behind the counter
of her Uncle Walter's bakery in northwest Baltimore. A chop for a chop, he had
told her, which meant that his largesse of room and board had to be paid for with
hard labor. How she had hated that sense of powerlessness and obligation. Not
that Uncle Walter, her late father's brother, was a cruel man. In his mind, he
was doing the right thing by his orphaned niece. How could he know the anguish
and loneliness an adolescent girl had to endure?

 Both her
mother and father had been late babies, and her grandparents were long gone
when she was born. So there was only Uncle Walter on whose doorstep she had
stumbled, a secondary victim of the Vietnam war. Just the idea of that was
enough to cripple her with self-pity for a time, until she realized that she
was doomed to spend her life in Uncle Walter's bakery unless she acted in her
own behalf, which she did. Chuck had arrived with his promise of what seemed
like a normal life; but soon she was back to square one, powerless and, once
again, lonely.

 She had done
light office work until Tray arrived. That first year with Chuck was almost
bearable. But when Tray came, it seemed to be the signal for Chuck to leave.

 As she drove,
Frances felt her mind drifting too deeply and precariously into the past.
Actually, such rehashing of her earlier life had become less and less of a
bother until Charlie had shown up that day in school and foolishly tried to
tamper with the new environment she had created for Tray and herself. Because
of that, she had lost ground, and now there were these occasional bouts of
painful memories that tended to float in and out of her thoughts at the oddest
moments.

 She turned
into her street and made a hard right into the driveway. The sight of their
four-bedroom colonial provided instant relief and put her back in her original
happy mood. They had chosen the model with an old brick facade and big bay
windows in the dining room and kitchen and an extravagant fieldstone fireplace
that covered one wall of the den. It was spacious and cozy at the same time,
and she had decorated it in her favorite colors, beige and fawn for backgrounds
and olives and reds for accents. People said she had a flair for decorating,
and she was entertaining ideas of studying the art when the kids became
semi-independent. Besides, it gave her an excellent answer when the social
queries shifted to the future.

 “I have a yen
for professional decorating,” she would say, pausing. “When motherhood moves
from full to part time.”

 Tray bounded
out of the car and made faces at Goldy, the Labrador that now stood on its hind
legs barking a greeting behind the kitchen bay window. Tray stuck fingers
inside his puffed cheeks and crossed his eyes. The dog responded with louder
barking, leaving mist marks on the panes.

 Frances
lifted the baby out of the car seat, opened the door, stepped over the pile of
mail on the hall floor, and deftly avoided Goldy's surge toward the front lawn
bushes. The tall clock in the hall struck five, which meant she was running
slightly behind a self-imposed schedule that culminated in cocktails at seven
with Peter and dinner at seven-thirty. Tonight, she decided, was a dining room
night. The announcement of her news required a bit of human engineering.

 She gathered
up the mail, put it on a kitchen countertop without looking at it, changed the
baby, put him in the playpen, prepared the children's dinner, and put two
baking potatoes in the oven for her and Peter. Then she made a salad, put out
the steaks, and set the dining room table with the good crystal and silver and
cloth napkins on the lace tablecloth. She was conscious of purring along at a
high energy level, which augured well for a good pregnancy. Her two earlier
births had gone off with peasant-woman routine, even with Peter in the room
during labor and delivery of Baby Mark. It was all she could do to stop him
from taking pictures. Again, the past intruded. When Tray was born, Chuck had
been out hunting with his father and she had had to interrupt Molly at a PTA
meeting to get her to drive her to the hospital.

 Maybe I could
send my daughter off by herself to be born, she thought, as she uncorked a good
Beaujolais to let it breathe, as Peter had taught her.

 “I've come a
long way from Dundalk, baby,” she said often to Peter.

 “It's only
thirty miles.”

 “And a
thousand light-years.”

 “You
exaggerate.”

 “But I have
narrowed the gap, haven't I?”

 “There wasn't
any. It was all in your head.”

 Computers,
which made them a good living, were only one side of Peter Graham. He not only
liked fine wine, lovely paintings, good books, and classical music, he took the
time and exercised the patience to make Frances understand why it was important
to make a place for these things in her life. Above all, he was tolerant of her
lack of education, and she never felt put down.

 She ascribed
finding Peter to pure luck, which she superstitiously refused to analyze. There
was such a thing as accepting a good thing with grace and not repeatedly
counting her blessings as if she were afraid they would go away. But she let
him go on about his own good fortune in finding her. Although she wouldn't dare
admit it to him, she always loved hearing him say it—especially in the afterglow
of their lovemaking.

 “What I
always wanted was a family,” he told her from the beginning. “Wife, kids,
house, dog, love, security, friendship, devotion, absolute honesty, kindness.”
He paused. “All of it. Satisfactions of body, spirit, and emotions.”

 “I wish I
could put things that way,” she said in response.

 “They're just
words,” he said. “It's in the doing. And in that regard, you're more eloquent
than I am.”

 It was little
touches like that which made Peter so endearing.

 So she had
happily converted what were essentially her most potent skills, motherhood and
wifehood. As it turned out, she offered much more in good household management
than he had any reason to expect. On her part, she asked him, acutely conscious
of her naiveté, to “teach her things,” a request that he had eagerly begun to
fulfill by unraveling for her the mysteries of the home computer on which she
assiduously kept all the household information. He also joined her in a daily
helping of
The New York Times
on the ground that it would give them both
a world view, stressing that it would also force him out of the narrow tunnel
vision of most scientists and engineers. It was, indeed, an accurate measure of
their security that she wasn't the only one confessing her shortcomings.

 All this came
under the heading of truly balancing the equations that had eluded their first
marriages, including the part of it they called, with stifled giggles,
“bedhood.” That element of the equation seemed in perfect balance. Maybe too
balanced. She wondered if her upcoming little revelation would require some
adjustments on one or another side of the equal sign.

 After the
children's dinner, she let Tray watch television and settled down to the mail
with the baby at her breast. She was still making good milk, and the marvel of
watching and feeling the process of his acquiring nourishment in this way
always filled her with the sweet warmth of indescribably joyous feelings.

 She opened
the mail, junk mail first, then bills, then what seemed to require slightly
more concentration. One letter in an impressive envelope caught her eye and she
assumed it was for Peter. It was only after she had gone through the pile that
she noted it was addressed to her. She was puzzled at the return address,
Banks, Pepper and Forte, and turned it over a few times before opening the
envelope with the tip of her nail.

 It took only
the first line of the letter to spark her rage. She felt the blood rush to her
head. Her breath grew short and gasping as she shifted her weight in the chair.
The abrupt movement made Baby Mark lose the nipple although his little lips
continued to suck. Frustrated, his frown deepened and his face grew scarlet,
but before he could let loose with a scream, she had the nipple in place again.
With that brief movement, the letter had floated to the floor, requiring her to
detach the baby, pick up the letter, and begin the nursing process again.

 “I have been
retained by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Waters to seek legal means to secure
visitation rights with their grandson, Charles Everett Waters III.”

 The words,
she knew, would be indelible in her memory.

 “Rights!” she
cried. Again her body twisted in anger and again Baby Mark lost the nipple.
This time she returned it before he realized it was gone, smoothing his head
with gentle caresses and kissing his little hands. She resented this terrible
imposition, this intrusion, this breaking of the sacred rhythm between a
nursing mother and her child. How dare they? She tried to calm herself, to
concentrate on the baby's need for contentment, to tamp down her outrage.

 “How dare
they?” she whispered, trying desperately to cap her indignation. Hadn't they
agreed to let her and Tray alone? Selfishness. Pure selfishness, she decided.
Hadn't she made it clear to Charlie when he precipitated that ridiculous
incident at Tray's school by lying to the school authorities and interrupting
his class on the pretext of giving him that silly wagon? It was confusing to
the child, perhaps damaging. He had a new father, a father more authentic than
the original, and new grandparents. Peter's parents, although they lived in
upstate New York, were as solicitous and loving as any grandparents could be.