Antonia's Choice (38 page)

Chris covered my hand with his. Before I could pull away, he held it. His palm was damp.

“Did this freak you out in the beginning—this whole thing of going to psychologists and having them tell you how you've screwed up your son's life?”

“It isn't like that!” I extricated my hand from his grip. “It was weird at first, yeah, because I didn't know what to expect. But I did whatever I had to do for Ben.”

Chris ran his hand through his hair. “That's what I want to do, too, Toni. I want to be here for Ben—and for you. I want us to be a family.”

I couldn't say anything. He rubbed the sides of his khakis with his palms.

“It's too late, isn't it?” he said.

“Not for Ben.”

“I'm talking about us.”

His eyes shimmered as he looked at me.

“I can't tell you that yet,” I said. “I'm not playing games with you—it's just that I can only focus on Ben right now. I think we both need to do that.”

Chris nodded. His face was working, straining against his emotions, and I couldn't watch it. It was painful to see him struggle, and the pain scared me.

“I think I'll turn in,” I said, in perfect non sequitur fashion. I stood up, flailing my arms in vague directions. “There are blankets
and pillows there for you. The couch isn't too bad. I've gotten some pretty good sack time on there myself from time to time.” He didn't answer, so I left him to his tears.

Whether Chris ever actually lay down that night, I never knew. He was up and dressed when I dragged myself into the kitchen the next morning after a night of wrestling my own pillows. He was standing in front of the refrigerator staring at our box drawings, while I myself stared at the coffee pot, where the coffee was already brewing.

“You're an imposter,” I said. “Chris Wells does not make the coffee.” I looked around. “Did you do the laundry, too?”

He shook his head, still studying the paper. “I don't know anything about your life now. This—” He tapped it with his knuckle. “Your whole apartment. You never decorated like this before.”

“I never decorated before period. I had no choice this time.”

“I like it.” He turned to me. His eyes were bloodshot, forcing themselves to be alert under what I knew must be the relentless fatigue of anxiety. “I like what's happened to you.”

“Don't go there.”

He put his hand up. “I know. Today is about Ben. What happens first? I want to help.”

“We make sure we're wide awake and have our own stuff taken care of,” I said, “because getting him going is sort of like pushing toothpaste back into the tube.”

“Three or four cups of that?” He nodded toward the Mr. Coffee.

“That's it,” I said.

He smiled the slow smile.

Don't let the smile get to you,
I told myself as I turned to my coffee mug.
You haven't got time for that smile.

I know I have never given the stirring in of nondairy creamer that much focus.

We did spend the day on Ben, getting him to school, then talking over breakfast at the popular Pancake Pantry on Twenty-First
Avenue—me explaining all I knew about what had happened to Ben, how it had affected him, what we'd done so far to help him toward healing, what lay ahead. Chris swallowed through it all as if every gulp were painful, while the blueberry pancakes that people out on the sidewalk were waiting in line for went cold on his plate.

Back at the apartment I got ready for work and drew Chris a map to Doc Opie's office so he could meet me there when I got off and brought Ben over.

Chris was in the living room as I did a final assessment in the mirror of my usual black-and-white waitress ensemble. It was now hanging loosely on what Reggie referred to as my “tragic meatless bones,” giving me the basic scarecrow look.

“You'll pass,” Chris said.

I caught his eyes in the mirror, and I couldn't help grinning.

“You're so hateful.” I grabbed my purse and turned to him. His face was suddenly pensive. “You okay?”

“A little overwhelmed,” he said. “A little scared. A lot scared.”

I just nodded.

“I'm sorry, Toni. I'm sorry for everything.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

As I left, I could feel the buckwheats rising in my throat.

When Ben and I arrived at Doc Opie's that afternoon, Chris's Beamer was parked out front, but he wasn't in the waiting room. I raised my eyebrows at Alice.

“Your husband's finishing up a session with the doc,” she said. “He called this morning and set it up. Doc just happened to have a cancellation.” She gave me the YMCA grin. “Sounds like a God-thing to me.”

“I guess,” I said.

I tried to find something suspicious, something threatening about Chris seeing Doc Opie alone, but my mind hit dead ends. I was merely surprised. Chris had been a nervous wreck about seeing him with
me.
Going in alone must have been like facing a firing squad.

I sat down next to Ben, who was studying a puzzle.

“Where's Daddy?” he said, without looking up.

“He's having a session with Doc Opie.”

“Are they talking about me?”

“Only stuff you told Doc Opie he could tell. I think mostly he's telling Daddy how he can help you.”

Ben was quiet as he dumped the puzzle pieces onto the table. Still intent on them, he said, “We don't gotta go back to Richmond for Daddy to help me, do we?”

I caught the inside of my mouth between my teeth. Chris had promised that we wouldn't, and yet every chance he got he was saying he wanted us to be a family. If I trusted his promise to Ben, I could be setting Ben up for disappointment.

But his promise was all I had to go on. That and the tears I had seen over and over in Chris's eyes.

“We're staying here,” I said. “Isn't that what Daddy told you?”

“Does he always tell the truth?”

He finally looked up at me. His eyes were worried, but probably no more so than mine.

God, can you help me out here?

Ben was stiffening as he watched my hesitation.

“Daddy has always told you the truth,” I said.

Ben nodded. “Do you think Daddy knows how to pitch?”

The door opened then, and both Doc Opie and Chris appeared.

“Why don't you ask him?” I said.

“Ask me what, Tiger?” Chris squatted down next to Ben. His body seemed more relaxed now—at least his hair wasn't standing on end. But there was still deep worry in his eyes.

Ben stopped, puzzle piece in hand, and looked up at him shyly. “Can you pitch a baseball?”

“Yeah. I'm no Roger Clemens, but I can get it across the plate.”

“You could pitch to me?” Ben said.

Chris closed his eyes and swallowed hard. “You bet, Tiger. I can pitch to you as soon as we get home.”

Ben nodded—and then he looked up at me and grinned. “He can pitch.”

Doc Opie took Ben in for a short session, which left Chris and me in the waiting room, sitting awkwardly next to each other in beanbag chairs. We must have looked like Raggedy Ann and Andy, flopped there side by side but unable to speak.

Finally, Chris said, “He's a nice guy.”

“He's a great guy,” I said. “He's saving Ben's life as far as I'm concerned.”

“I'm sure you've had something to do with it.”

“Maybe—somehow—in spite of myself. It's God showing me what to do—that's the only way I can explain it.”

“God pretty much explains it all.”

I turned to gape at him. He had his eyes closed.

“I've never heard you mention God before,” I said. “All the times we went to church. That whole year you were parish treasurer—you never talked about God.”

“Who'da thought, huh?” he said.

When Ben came out and the two of us went in, Doc Opie had a grin the size of a slice of Mayberry watermelon on his face. I was tempted to tell him not to jump to any conclusions, but he looked so content I didn't want to ruin his picnic.

We talked about how far Ben had come, how far he had to go. He warned us that having Chris in the equation would seem like a step backward at first, but that was due to Ben's having to readjust.

“The more consistently you're with him, the better,” Opie said to Chris.

I tilted forward in the papasan chair. “Ben doesn't want to go back to Richmond. He talked about it last night. He mentioned it out in the waiting room just a few minutes ago.”

I looked at Chris, but he was studying his hands.

“He has bad associations with Richmond,” Doc Opie said. “That's not an insurmountable obstacle if it has to be dealt with at some point.”

“Does he need another obstacle right now, though?” I heard my voice getting tight.

“The fewer he has, the better,” Doc Opie said. “But we can help with any that can't be avoided.”

“I think we can avoid this one.” I leaned back in the chair and massaged my jaws with my fingertips.
I hope I can trust you, Chris. I just pray that I can.

When we got back to the apartment, Chris and Ben played ball in the backyard while I cooked supper. I looked out the window several times, which was like watching progressive slides in a slide show. First slide—Ben swinging his bat, saying nothing to Chris's shouts of “Good try!” “Almost, Tiger!” and “Ooh, so close!” Second slide—Ben smiling slowly as Chris ran to catch the ball he'd tipped. Third—Ben laughing out loud as Chris chased him to base, ball in hand, stretching as if Ben were out of arm's reach instead of only inches ahead of him. Last look—Ben shrieking happily as Chris picked him up and put him on his shoulder, yelling, “Safe! Safe! The runner is safe!”

Once again, I had the urge to lean out the window and scream, “It's easy for you to show up and be the play-dad now, Chris!”—and yet I had the ache for more and more and more scenes like that, unashamed copies of Norman Rockwell prints.

I banged the wooden spoon on the edge of the skillet and let it drop to the counter.
I'm losing my center,
I thought.
I was doing fine, and then he shows up and here I am being pulled apart like Gumby.
It was making my jaw hurt.

I glanced at my watch. It was too late to reach Dominica for something that wasn't an emergency Reggie, I knew, was headed out for a weekend church retreat, and she'd probably tell me if I ate something I would feel better.

I went to the phone and dialed Yancy's number. She was better at processing this stuff with me, anyway. Sometimes I needed Reggie's unpolished country wisdom, and sometimes I needed Yancy's Southern sophistication. Unfortunately, I was getting none of it just then, because there was no answer at her house.

Hale?
I thought. Nah, he was all for me packing up and going straight back to Chris. Men. There was some kind of testosterone bond that made them all loyal to each other in the end.

I guess it's just me, then,
I thought.
Me and God.

We can do this, right, Father?

No audible answer.

Chris helped with bedtime that night, and it was obvious right away that the whole pitching-the-baseball thing had won him a lot of points. He did the song, at Ben's request. The little stinker said Daddy didn't sound as much like a frog as I did. Ben wanted him to read the story, too, and when it came time for prayers, he looked at his father and said, “Do you know how to pray, Daddy?”

I looked at Chris, too. This could be interesting.

“You know, as a matter of fact, Tiger, I'm just now learning how to really pray. I'm not as good at it as your mommy, but I talk to God best I can.”

Ben nodded solemnly, as if they had just exchanged something deep, man-to-man.

“You both pray, then,” Ben said. “Take turns.”

Chris looked at me, a little nervously, I thought. I was tempted to say, “Go for it, oh heroic father,” but I couldn't do it. There was something about playing games with the prayer thing that didn't sit right. So I came to Chris's rescue and said, “I'll go first.”

Chris did take his turn, and I had to squeeze my eyes shut to keep from gaping at him. It was the first time I had ever heard him pray, except to recite the Lord's Prayer in church. He was praying simply and plainly, sans the lawyer voice, in his Louisiana thick-as-molasses drawl.

I
know you're trying hard,
I thought.
But I never would have expected this.

After Ben finally drifted off, I went into the kitchen and made a pot of decaf and stood at the back window watching the end-of-summer fireflies wink among the tree shadows. I was noticing the small, seeing the details, the way Dominica had taught me. Yet how could a life that had become so simple still be so riddled with complexity and doubt? Hadn't Chris always had that effect on me? Coming in with his boyish charm and his slow Southern ways and then luring me into his courtroom and cross-examining me into someone I wasn't?

Ben and fireflies and baseball and two parents praying beside his bed. Could it really be that way—or should I just let things stay the way they'd been before Chris came for this visit? Ben and I were fine. We were healing. Chris could turn that upside down and inside out faster than he could smile, any day of the week.

The pot beeped at me, and I splashed coffee into mugs with a vengeance. It was a wonder I didn't end up with first-degree burns.

Chris was standing with his back to me, hands shoved into his pockets, looking out the window when I came in with the coffee. I was certain he wasn't observing the lightning bugs. In fact, I had barely set the tray on the toy-chest-coffee-table when he said, “Toni, I want us all together. Come home. Please.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. It was the only way I could keep from slugging him.

“You told Ben you wouldn't make him go back,” I said.