An Act of Love (29 page)

“Why not?” Dr. Travis asked mildly.

“Because my stepfather hates me.”

They all looked at Linda. Her cheeks burning, she said, “Emily, that’s not fair. That’s not true. Owen doesn’t hate you, not at all.”

Emily stared at her ripped thumbnail. Linda could see the beads of blood speckling the skin.

“Emily?” Dr. Travis asked gently.

“I have nothing more to say. What I say doesn’t matter,” Emily said, and began to rip at the other thumbnail.

“Emily, it does matter,” Linda insisted, leaning forward. “Honey, Owen loves you.”

Emily looked up at her mother with burning eyes. “Owen hates me. Bruce hates me. And you’re on their side. I’m completely alone.”

“
No
, you’re not alone.”

“Yes, I am,” Emily insisted, her voice low and even and defeated. “You’ve chosen Bruce and Owen. I’m alone now, and I will be for the rest of my life.”

Linda’s throat twisted. It was Dr. Travis who spoke.

“Sometimes situations seem hopeless. And sometimes that’s all right. Sometimes we need to stand back and let our mysterious minds sort things through for us. We all know by now that there are no instant changes. Unlike television situation comedies, we can’t find the solution to our problems in half an hour. Sometimes …”

Linda listened, desperately wanting to cross the room and grab Emily’s hands and hold them tightly, tightly, so she would stop tearing at herself. But she did not move. The group began to discuss another family, and other problems, and finally broke for the night. The patients brought out desserts: sugar cookies cut in Christmas shapes and iced
and decorated with silver balls and red and green sugar. Linda took a cup of coffee and a cookie and went to sit next to her daughter, who was still slumping next to Bill, engrossed in ripping another nail.

“Want a cookie, darling?” she asked.

Emily didn’t reply.

Linda took a bite, and as if Emily were a baby, made an exaggerated noise of appreciation. “Mmmm. Did you help make these? They’re awfully good.” It had worked last week with the gingerbread. Emily had talked, then.

Tonight she didn’t reply.

Linda pulled a metal folding chair around so she could face Emily. Emily and Bill. Bill didn’t seem to show any signs of leaving them to themselves for a private talk, and finally Linda said, “Emily, I can’t leave here tonight knowing you feel so abandoned by me. Sweetheart, you have always been the most important person in my life. You always will be.”

Emily did not respond.

Linda went on, thinking her way through it all. “Dr. Travis is right. Sometimes solutions don’t come as fast as we’d like. And this … this business with Bruce is profoundly difficult. It will take a long time to untangle. But Emily, Owen does love you. And I do love you. You
must know
that.”

Emily did not look up.

“I’ll tell you one thing I can do. I can spend Christmas with you. Christmas Eve and Christmas day.”

Emily looked up. Linda saw the eagerness in her eyes, and her heart lunged with an answering hope.

“I’ll talk to Dr. Travis about it tomorrow. I’ll take a room at the Academy Inn, and if you can leave the hospital, you can come stay with me, and if you want to stay here, that’s fine, too, and we’ll have our own little celebration. We’ll go out for dinner. See some movies together. What do you think?”

Emily nodded. “Okay.”

Linda felt almost as exhilarated and exhausted as she had after giving birth to Emily. “Okay.” The other parents were leaving. Patients were drifting out of the dining room. “I’d better go, darling. I’ll call you tomorrow.” She hugged Emily good-bye. Emily did not return the hug, but neither did she recoil. That was something.

“Thanks, Mom,” Emily murmured into Linda’s shoulder.

“Oh, Emily, I love you,” Linda said. And for once she left the hospital feeling just a little optimistic.

“
Christmas Eve and
Christmas Day?” Owen said, incredulous.

“Owen, what would you have me do?” Linda stared at the boxes of tea in the pantry. Herbal or Hu-Kwa? She was tired from the drive home, from the emotional evening with the Family Group at the hospital, her head ached and ached from thinking about all this, and she knew she should drink herbal, the other would keep her awake at night, but she didn’t want the listlessness of herbal tea, she wanted something robust and hot inside her.

Behind her, Owen was talking. “First of all, I think you should have been a little less precipitate. You should have asked Dr. Travis whether or not she thinks it is a good idea. You might have asked my opinion. You might have considered me. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, why promise both? Why not spend one day with her and one with me? This way, Linda, I hate to say it, but you’ve let her manipulate you exactly as she wants.”

Linda poured the boiling water over the tea. Steam rose around her. She wished it would rise and rise, enclosing her in a cloud. She turned to her husband.

“I can’t talk about this tonight,” she said.

“What?”

“I’m so tired, Owen. I’m overloaded. I’m going to take my tea and stare at the television.”

“I thought we were having a discussion here.”

“Yes, well, I’m taking your advice. I’m going to sleep on the matter before we talk about it some more. I won’t be so
precipitate
again.” She was amazed at how bitchy she sounded. She was amazed at how it didn’t bother her at all. As she left the room, she could feel Owen’s anger blossoming behind her like a dark cloud.

The administration building
of Westhurst College had once been a summer “cottage” for a New York multimillionaire named, appositely, Banks. At the turn of the century Mr. Banks and his wife and children retreated to the relative coolness of the Berkshire Mountains in western Massachusetts, but by the 1970s his heirs had found their own vacation spots, and so they sold the building and grounds to the trustees of the newly created liberal arts school. The great red barn was renovated with skylights and wooden floors and turned into studios. Modern, and not particularly attractive, dorms were built around the circumference of the campus, and miniature replicas of the main building with all its Gothic arches were erected to house theaters, auditoriums, and classrooms.

The founders of Westhurst had been progressive, optimistic, and full of revolutionary ideas about education. Westhurst did not require its students to take basic core courses of science, math, English composition, and history, but did offer those courses in case students wanted to take them. Mostly students concentrated on their particular interest in art—sculpting, painting, acting, composing or performing music, writing fiction. Over the years some of their graduates had achieved prominence in their fields. For every student who gained admittance to Westhurst, twelve applied. It was a popular place.

Bruce knew all this, and it made him nervous. He had great grades, but in courses that didn’t matter here: math, biology, Latin, computer science, physics. But he wanted to go here. He really wanted to go here. Alison was going here, and he wanted to be near her.

He sat now in the waiting room of the admissions office, trying not to look apprehensive. His appointment was at three o’clock. It was two forty-five. His father had picked him up at Hedden after his noon class and driven him here, bringing along a bag of McDonald’s hamburgers and fries to eat on the way. Nervous, Bruce had stuffed it all in his mouth, chewing to relieve his tension, and now the food sat in his stomach like a ball of lead. He felt ill.

He’d worn the wrong clothing. It had been a hard call this morning, deciding what to wear, and finally he’d taken the more conservative approach. What every guy wore to a college interview: gray flannels, button-down white shirt, blue blazer, school tie, loafers. Now he was painfully aware of the other guys waiting to be interviewed. One had a shaved head, tattoos, earrings, and a ring through his nose. The other was a flaming gay man with a magenta silk shirt worn long and loose over wide silky trousers. Those two
would be admitted just for their looks, Bruce thought miserably.

“Dad?” he asked in a whisper.

Owen looked up from his book.

“Should I take off my tie? Unbutton my shirt?”

“I wouldn’t,” Owen replied. “Listen, this school is always praising itself for its diversity. You can be their token conservative.”

“Dad, I’m not conservative. You know that.”

“Not politically. But compared to others …”

“Thanks,” Bruce retorted. “That’s just what I needed to hear right now.”

“You’ll be fine,” Owen assured him.

But Bruce was not so sure. Then a door opened and a young woman came out, her batik garments fluttering. An older woman stood in the doorway.

“Bruce McFarland?” She smiled.

“Break a leg,” Owen said. “Break both of them.”

Bruce followed the woman into her office. She reached out to shake his hand. “Hi. I’m Annie Sebelius. Sit down, please.”

At least the room looked ordinary. Paneled in wood, shelves and desk stacked with catalogues and files, a normal office chair for Bruce and one for the admissions officer. What should he call her? Ms. Sebelius? Or Annie, because this was supposed to be such a relaxed atmosphere? Bruce tried to slouch a bit in his seat.

“I see you’re at Hedden,” the woman said. She was petite, very blond, with pale blue eyes surrounded by rays of wrinkles. “How do you like it there?”

He was prepared for this and answered honestly. “I like it a lot. Great teachers. A good solid foundation, intellectually, but a liberal philosophy in general.”

“We’ve never had an applicant from Hedden before,” the woman said. “Now, this year, suddenly, we have not one, but two.”

“You must mean Alison Cartwright.”

“You’re friends?”

He hoped he wasn’t blushing. “Yes. Good friends. She’s an excellent pianist.”

Annie Sebelius scribbled something on a pad. What the hell is
that
? Bruce wondered. He sat up straighter, anxious. He hated women like this, who were superficially friendly but privately judgmental.

Annie Sebelius opened a folder, studied it, then looked up at Bruce, smiling. “And
what is your special artistic interest?”

He’d tried to be prepared for this question, too. “Well, my father is a novelist. My stepmother is a novelist. And my mother is an artist. She makes dioramas, she’s pretty well known. Michelle Lourier?”

Ms. Sebelius blinked and shifted in her chair. She smiled a terrible little smile. “Yes, Bruce, I see that on your application. But we’re not interested in admitting your
parents
to Westhurst.” Her voice was ever so gently sarcastic when she emphasized the word “parents.” “We want to know what
your
artistic specialty is.”

Bruce took a deep breath. “I know I’ve concentrated on the sciences in high school, but this year I’ve begun to realize that I really want to focus on the arts.” He tried to look abashed. “I kind of hate to admit it, but … I think I want to be a novelist.”

Annie Sebelius stared at him, pursing her lips in odd little jerks. She looked like a goldfish with a bone stuck in her lips.

“Have you published a short story in your school literary review, or written anything for the school newspaper?”

He shifted on his chair. “Not yet. Like I said, I’m just now realizing what I want to do.”

“Which authors do you admire the most?” she asked.

Bruce opened his mouth to respond and went blank. He couldn’t think of one single writer. “Well, uh, we’re reading Whitman in American lit—”

“Contemporary. Someone the school hasn’t chosen for you.”

His hands were sweating. He wiped his palms on his thighs. Desperately, he changed tack. “I’m also thinking, uh, I’m really good at computers, you know? And I really want to do computer graphics. The art you can do on those things is amazing.” He was warming up to his topic, he was on the right road now. This was something he could talk about with confidence.

“I’m not sure we at Westhurst would call the images generated on computers
artistic
,” Sebelius said. Again that smug sarcasm tinged her words.