Apart at the Seams (24 page)

Okay, Abigail didn't love her first husband, Woolley Wynne, and she even told him so before they got married, so maybe she doesn't count. And looking back, I realize that I didn't love Hodge. I needed him, or thought I did, but that's not the same thing; I know that now. So maybe I don't count either.

And yes, Tessa and Lee were able to work through their differences, get past the betrayal, and rekindle their love. It looks like Gayla and Brian might be doing that, too, which is great. And sure, Abigail and Evelyn would both say that on the second trip to the altar they found real and lasting love, but how do they know for sure? They've been married only a few years. And Margot is practically a newlywed. How do they know? How does anyone know? Who's to say that in a year, or five, or twenty, they won't get their hearts broken?

Dan cares about me. But who's to say that won't change? Or that I'm not wrong about him? After all, I was wrong about Hodge.

Could I love Dan? Really love him? I'm not sure. Maybe.

But I'm not sure I want to love him. Not unless I could be 100 percent certain that it would last, that things would never change, and that he would never hurt me or my children.

I want a guarantee against heartbreak, a lifetime guarantee. And the thing is, there aren't any. So where does that leave me?

P
ersonal angst aside, I had a really good time at Virginia's birthday party. We've never taken a field trip—not all of us together—but as we drove back to New Bern we decided we should do it more often. It was fun.

By the time Daryl parked in the church lot and then jumped out to open the door for us, it was a little after five. After saying our good-byes and wishing Virginia happy birthday one more time, everybody except Margot and Abigail, who had to stay for a meeting at the church, got in their cars and drove off.

I stopped to put some gas in my car and pick up a gallon of milk and a carton of eggs at the minimart, thinking we'd have breakfast for dinner, then drove to Abigail and Franklin's house to pick up the kids.

Franklin answered the door. “Did you have a good time?”

“The best. Virginia went skydiving! Can you believe it? Tessa too. We went to this fabulous deli for lunch and then shopping at a wonderful quilt shop in Vernon. And we got to ride in a limo! My first time! Of course, I'm sure Abbie already told you about that, but it was great. Really great. Thanks so much for keeping an eye on the kids so I could go, Franklin. Were they good?”

“Of course,” he said. “They always are. We went to play minigolf and then came back and spent the afternoon in the pool.”

I smiled. Franklin and Abigail are sort of surrogate grandparents for Bethany and Bobby. They love coming here. Of course, sometimes Abigail spoils them, but I guess that's all right. That's what grandparents are supposed to do, right?

“Well, I really appreciate you taking them for me.” I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “But we'd better get out of your hair. I bet you're tired after such a long day. Bobby! Bethany!”

Franklin put his hand on my arm. “Hang on a minute, Ivy. We need to talk before you go. About Bethany.”

My good mood instantly dissipated.

“What did she do? Whatever it is, I'm sorry.” I blew out an exasperated breath. “She's been such a pain lately.”

“Nothing,” he rushed to assure me, lifting his hands. “Nothing bad. She's a good girl, Ivy. And far more intelligent than any eleven-year-old I've ever met. But she's very upset about this reunification process she's being forced into by her father.” Franklin cleared his throat. “And she's hired me to be her lawyer.”

 

Bobby stayed in the living room watching television while Franklin, Bethany, and I talked in his study.

“What do you mean, you hired Franklin as your lawyer? Where did you ever get such an idea? And how do you think you're going to pay him?”

Bethany, who was sitting opposite me in one of the leather chairs that flanked Franklin's unlit fireplace, glared at me.

“I read about it on the Internet. There's a girl a little bit older than me whose parents are getting divorced. Her parents were so busy fighting with each other that nobody was thinking about what
she
wanted, so she decided she needed personal representation and hired her own attorney.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. Personal representation. Attorney. Where did she pick up words like that? Franklin was right; Bethany was smart. Too smart for her own good sometimes. Definitely too smart for mine.

“I've paid Uncle Franklin a retainer of forty-six dollars, everything I had in my savings account. And I told him I can either pay him the rest out of my allowance when it comes in every week or I'll come and clean his office for him every Saturday morning.”

Franklin lifted a hand. “We're still negotiating that part,” he said. “I've accepted Bethany's retainer, but none of it has been applied to her account. Like most attorneys, I offer my initial consultation gratis.”

“That means free of charge,” Bethany informed me. “It's Latin.”

My mouth dropped open, literally. Was he serious? Was she?

“Don't look at me like that,” Bethany said. “I had to do something. I don't want to see him, not even if somebody else is there. We did that before he was sent to jail, remember? It was awful. I don't want to see him at all. I told you that, but you won't listen to me. No one is listening to me!”

I covered my face with my hands and rubbed my forehead. “Bethany,” I said, after lowering them, “it's not that I'm not listening to you. It's that there's nothing I can do about this! Believe me, I've tried. I've asked Arnie about this a hundred times, but he says there's no way around it. Your dad wants to meet with you and your brother. He insists on it. And according to the law, he has a right to do that.”

“But what about my rights?” Bethany said, clutching the arms of the chair. “You don't have to see him! Arnie got a restraining order for you! Why didn't he get one for me?”

“Because . . . because it's different for me, baby. I don't feel safe around your dad. He used to hit me, and—”

“He hit me too,” she said, her voice low and accusatory and much too hard for a little girl who had skinned knees and a crush on the lead singer for One Direction. “Remember?”

“I know,” I said softly. “That's why I finally ran away from him, remember? Because it was the only thing I could do to protect you. Because you're the most important thing in the world to me. And I'm still trying to protect you. I'm doing everything I can, but my hands are tied.

“The law is the law,” I continued. “You can't change it. The best I can do is cooperate with the legal process and do everything I can to make sure that your visits with your father are supervised and stay that way.”

I turned my head and wiped the tears from my eyes. I felt so powerless. She and Bobby mean the world to me. Doesn't she know that? If there was anything I could do that would keep Hodge from them, I would.

“Tell her, Franklin. Arnie knows what he's talking about. He's a good lawyer, isn't he?”

“Yes, he is. One of the best in the county. And I'd know,” Franklin said, swiveling his head toward Bethany and then back to me, “since he works at my firm. But, Ivy, you've made one assertion that isn't entirely correct.”

Franklin rose from his chair and stood next to the fireplace, resting one arm across the mantel, turning toward us and raising his voice just slightly, as if he were addressing a jury.

“The law is not
the
law, as you claim. Not always. Very often the law is what the court
interprets
it to be, and that can differ, depending on the circumstances of the case, the individuals involved in the suit, and the viewpoint of the judge.

“And Bethany,” he said, smiling down at my daughter, “has brought something to my attention that Arnie may have overlooked, something I think we should take under consideration.”

He raised his brows and looked at Bethany, who picked up on his cue.

“Well,” she said, “after I found out about the girl on the Internet who got her own lawyer, I wondered if there might be some other things that had happened in courts that might help change the mind of the judge. Some . . .”

She looked questioningly at Franklin.

“Precedents,” he said. “Legal precedents.”

“Right. Legal precedents. So I started going to the library to see what I could find. Mrs. Baxter, the research librarian, helped me. First of all, I found out that, according to the state of Connecticut, if I was twelve instead of eleven, the court would have to at least listen to what I want. Even then, the judge might still say I had to meet with my dad, but the court would have to hear me out. Well, I'm going to be twelve in six more months, and that just didn't seem fair to me. Why should it make such a big difference?

“So Mrs. Baxter and I did some more research, and we found some cases where the court decided that some people who were a few months younger than the age of preference—that's the age you have to be for the court to take what you want into consideration,” she explained, “were able to get the judge to say that they were old enough to make their own decisions and deny visitation to a parent they didn't want to have contact with.”

“Is that true?” I asked Franklin, who nodded. “Why didn't Arnie tell me that?”

“Probably because he didn't think of it. Unless Bethany had brought it to my attention, I doubt I'd have thought of it either. It just doesn't happen very often,” Franklin said. “And when it does, there's usually been a record of documented abuse of the child. Hodge did strike Bethany. We know that, but there was no legal complaint filed at the time—”

“I didn't think to do that,” I said, my eyes filling again. “I just wanted to get away. If I'd stuck around and called the police, who knows what Hodge would have done? He'd have gotten out of it somehow, told the police that it was all a big mistake. He can be so convincing. And then, once they were gone . . .”

Franklin, looking uncomfortable at the sight of my tears, took his handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to me. “It's all right, Ivy. You were right to do what you did. At that moment, the most important thing was to get the children away from him.”

Bethany got up from her chair, walked to mine, and perched on the armrest. “Don't cry, Mommy,” she said.

She hadn't called me that for years. Hearing her say it now just made me want to cry more, but I swallowed hard and pulled myself together.

“Franklin,” I said, “do you really think there's a chance you can get the judge to listen to Bethany?”

“Maybe. It depends on the judge. If it was Judge Treadlaw, the man who was presiding over the case when Margot was trying to get custody of Olivia, I don't think we'd stand a chance. Treadlaw is a lazy judge. He'll go exactly by the book because it's easier. But Judge Dranginis has been overseeing this case so far, so I believe it's worth a try. She's a
thinking
judge, someone who will look at the big picture.

“But we've got to be able to convince the judge that all this is Bethany's idea and that you're not influencing her or trying to prejudice her against her father in any way.”

“Sheila Fenton already thinks that's exactly what is going on,” I grumbled. “She thinks Bethany refuses to see Hodge because of me, and it's just not true! I've bent over backward and bit holes in my tongue to keep from saying anything bad about Hodge to the kids. Sometimes I think I've gone too far,” I said, thinking of Bobby and how little he understood about how and why we'd come to New Bern. “But I wanted them to make up their own minds.”

“And they will,” Franklin assured me. “Whoever is supervising the visits will make sure Bobby is safe, and time will take care of the rest. If Hodge has really changed his ways, good. And if he hasn't, Bobby will see through it. Bethany's not the only intelligent child you've raised,” he said, giving her a wink. “And I think the fact that Bethany took the initiative to hire me as her lawyer will work in our favor,” he continued. “It will help underscore the fact that her desire to prohibit contact with her father truly was her idea.”

“Okay, but I can't let you take the case for a forty-six-dollar retainer. I've got a little money put by,” I said, wondering if the tires on my car would hold out a few more months. “I can write you a check tomorrow.”

“No!” Bethany exclaimed, removing her arm from my shoulder. “I want to do it myself! Uncle Franklin and I worked out a deal. He needs my help. I'm not just going to clean his office; I'm going to help organize his files too. I've got a whole system worked out with color-coded tabs and everything.”

“Bethany and I have discussed this,” Franklin said. “We're going to work out a contract for exchange of services. If I can show that to the judge, it will help underscore the fact that Bethany is doing this on her own.

“And she's right, Ivy. I could use the help; you've seen my office. Ever since Mrs. Simpson retired, I can't find anything. I'll be Bethany's lawyer, and she'll be my junior clerk. It'd be excellent training for a future attorney,” he said, ruffling Bethany's hair with his hand. “This young lady has a gift for argument.”

“She certainly does,” I mumbled.

“So can I do it, Mom? Can I?” she begged, her eyes wide and innocent.

“If you want to. I'm still not sure this will work, but I guess you can't lose anything by trying, can you?”

B
rian moaned and clapped his hand to his chest. “Oh! This is amazing.”

“Yeah?”

“Fantastic! Absolutely the best
aloo gobi
I've ever had in my life. Better than that curry place we used to go to in London, in the East End. Remember?”

“The one on Brick Lane. What was the name of that place?” It came to me, and I snapped my fingers. “Sheba! Really? Better than Sheba?”

“Better than Sheba.”

He picked up his fork. “Darling,” he mumbled, his mouth full of
aloo gobi,
“where did you learn to make Indian food like this?”

I poured a little more wine into my glass and rested my chin on my hand, smiling at him through the flickering light of the candle.

“Well, you know how I like to buy cookbooks?”

He nodded. I took a bite of tandoori chicken and washed it down with a sip of sauvignon blanc.

“Funny thing, but since I've come to New Bern, I've actually found time to start reading them.”

I laughed and Brian laughed, too, and he was so beautiful, and the night was so beautiful, and everything was so perfect that I could have cried from sheer happiness.

Brian touched the rim of his glass to mine. “Happy anniversary, darling.”

“Happy anniversary.”

I swallowed my wine and rested my cheek on my hand, giving him a coy look. “Do you want to open your present?”

“You don't want to wait until after dinner?”

“No,” I said, and jumped up from my chair and grabbed his gift from the sideboard, where I'd left it. “I can't wait for you to open it.”

Brian swiped a starched white napkin across his mouth—I'd set the table with my best dishes and linens for the occasion—and tossed it on the table.

“Good, because I can't wait for you to open yours either.” He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a blue envelope.

“You first,” I insisted, coming back to my seat and thrusting the package into his hands.

“Let's see,” he said, teasing me. “A big, flat, skinny square. Hmm . . . too small for a Ferrari. I'm guessing it's an album. Something for my collection? Brilliant!”

“Open it!”

He did, and the look on his face was all I'd hoped it would be. He was absolutely floored.

“You are kidding,” he said, his eyes widening as he tore the paper away. “Is this what I think. . .It is! I can't believe it!” He looked up at me with a stunned expression. “Darling, it's fantastic! Where in the world did you find it?”

“A used book and record shop in Vernon.” I laughed. “Can you stand it? I've searched every used record store in Manhattan for this, spent hours online, hoping I'd find one for you, and it turns up in some little hole-in-the-wall shop in the middle of Connecticut. Do you like it?”

“Like it?” He gave me an incredulous look. “Of course I like it. I love it. It's probably the best present I've ever received. Thank you, darling.”

He pushed himself halfway up in his chair, leaned across the table to give me a kiss, and then sat down again and turned the album around, examining the back.

“This is just amazing. I can't wait to listen to it. Noel Gallagher singing ‘Wonderwall,' live and unplugged, just his voice and a guitar, at some little club in Japan. Can you imagine what it would have been like to actually be in the audience?”

“Do you remember what year ‘Wonderwall' was released?”

“Nineteen ninety-five,” he said without hesitation.

“That's right,” I said. “The same year we got the apartment, remember? The twins were in second grade. After so many years of scrimping and saving, renting that tiny one-bedroom, we finally moved into a bigger place. I'd just finished my undergraduate work and we were so happy, remember? I thought that finally everything was going to be easier, better. We both thought so.

“You used to sit on the chair in the kitchen while I was making dinner and the kids were running in and out, and you'd sing ‘Wonderwall. ' When you got to that one line, about maybe being the one that saves me, you'd sing it right to me, like it was true. Like you thought I was the one person in the world who could save you. And, the thing is,” I said, swallowing back tears, “I thought the same thing about you.”

He got up from his chair, came around to my side of the table, and took me in his arms. “I love you; do you know that? I really do. And I'm sorry. I was such an idiot.”

“Don't,” I whispered. “You don't need to apologize again. I forgive you.”

“Do you really?”

I nodded, and we stood there for a moment, holding each other tight. I didn't want to let go, but after a minute, Brian loosened his grip a little.

“Now it's your turn,” he said, and picked the blue envelope up from the table.

It looked like a card. Last year the only thing he'd given me on our anniversary was a card. I wasn't disappointed—not really. After all, I'd only given him socks. I hadn't been expecting anything extravagant. The longer we'd been married, the more practical we'd become in our gift giving. And that, I now saw, was part of the problem. We'd gotten practical about our relationship, too, complacent, supposing it would just go on like it always had. We'd forgotten to take delight in each other. Now we were learning to do that again. And to remember all we'd done and been for each other over the years and take delight in that too.

“What is it?” I asked, knowing from the self-satisfied smile on his lips that it wasn't just a card.

“Just open it.”

I slipped my finger under the edge of the envelope and pulled up the flap. “Oh, Brian,” I breathed, my hand lifting to my mouth to cover my surprise. “Oh, sweetheart. I can't believe it! Italy? We're really going back to Italy?”

“And Scotland,” he said. “As long as we're going to Europe, I thought we'd spend a few days with Nate.”

“Oh, sweetheart! What a wonderful idea!”

Brian's little smile expanded into a grin. “I cashed in my airline miles since the beginning of time. All these years I've spent on the road finally paid off. After Scotland, we'll spend a few days in Tuscany, touring the vineyards and taking that couples cooking class you told me about. I booked us into a beautiful boutique hotel, used to be an old monastery.

“And here's the
big
surprise,” he said, though I couldn't imagine anything bigger than what he'd already told me. “We'll be spending the second week floating down the Brenta on the
Lucia Dolce
. No crew cabin this time. I've booked the best suite on the barge.”

I gasped. “The
Lucia Dolce
? You're kidding. You mean it's still operating after all these years?” I laughed with surprise as Brian nodded his head.

“She had a complete overhaul about four years ago and looks better than ever. Vincent retired, and his son, Alex, took over as captain. But Mario is still in the galley and grumpy as ever, they tell me. He's seventy-one now and refuses to retire.”

“Seventy-one! Was he only forty-six when we were on the barge? That's the same age we are now. At the time, I thought he was ancient.”

“Back then, anybody over thirty seemed ancient to us.”

Brian wrapped his arms around my waist. “There's just one problem. I had to use airline miles for our tickets—even coach class to Europe costs the earth these days, and if I had to pay for tickets, we wouldn't be able to afford the rest of the trip. I wasn't able to get us seats until mid-September, after the school year starts.” He drew his brows into a questioning line. “Do you still want to go?”

“Of course I want to go! What a question!” I laughed.

“You sure? Last time I tried to surprise you with a trip, you were convinced your clients would die if you were out of touch with them for a weekend, let alone two weeks.”

I reached up and pushed his hair from his forehead, then slid my fingers down his temple, cheek, and neck, to the skin just above his collar opening, sliding my hand underneath his shirt as I kissed him.

“That was before. Things are different now. It'll take a little juggling, and I might have to put in some longer hours before and after the trip, but I'll figure out a way. I can't think of anyplace I'd rather be than Italy in September. Or anyone I'd rather be there with than you.”

I kissed him again, and he kissed me back, so sweetly, taking his time. He moved closer, stroking my hair, sliding his hand down my back and letting it linger there a moment before reaching the front, undoing the top button of my dress, tracing a trail of slow kisses along the curve of my neck to my collarbone, his lips brushing over that soft spot of flesh that makes me melt. I kissed the top of his head, bent low and still lower as his lips moved from my neck to the swell of my breasts.

He reached for the second button, but I pushed his hand away and undid it myself and the next, and the next, and the next, stepping back so he could watch as I opened the dress, slipped the fabric slowly back over the curve of my shoulders, and let it slide off my arms and fall to the floor in a silken heap.

I lifted my eyes to his. “I think we can finish dinner later, don't you?”

“Brilliant idea,” he said with a soft little laugh. “Indian food is delicious reheated.”

I smiled and moved backward, taking hold of his hand as I stepped over the folds of my discarded dress and urged him toward the staircase.

“It's even better for breakfast.”