Beloved (28 page)

He said nothing but continued to stare over his mother
'
s shoulder at Jane, who stared back. Suddenly Celeste McKenzie turned sharply and saw Jane behind the wing chair at about the same time that Mac himself realized she was standing there.

Poor Jerry found his voice at last.
"
Mom, this is Jane.
"

"Jane."
It was the first time Mac had ever used her name
—
that, she remembered afterward.
"
What the
hell
are you doing here?
"

"
S-spaghetti,
"
she stammered.
"
I brought some.
"

Celeste gave Jane a look of pure, cold contempt and flipped the comforter off her son.
"
Let
'
s go, Jeremy. The cab is waiting.
"

"
Celeste! Are you crazy? He
'
s supposed to take it easy.
"

"
Fine. He can do it at home. Get your things, Jeremy.
"

"
Mom,
"
the boy said in an agony of feeling.
"
Do I have to?
"

"
At least stay the night, Celeste. You can fly out tomorrow. I
'
ll make up a room
—
"

"
Never
!"
Celeste said, turning on him with irrational rage.
"
I will never, ever spend a night on
Nantucket
again!
"
Her face, so beautifully made up, was hard with fury.

As for Jane, she was edging toward the door when Mac caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye.
"
What the hell are
you
doing? Stay right there, goddammit!
"

Like a deer panicked by the headlights of a car, Jane became deathly still. Mac spun around to his ex-wife, all patience gone, his anger erupting with snow-white heat.

"
Who the
hell
do you think you are, coming in here and snatching our son! He
'
s
our
son
—
yours
and
mine! If he got hurt on your watch, do you think I
'
d rip into
you
that way? Do you think I
'
d do anything except grieve for his pain
— and yours? What
'
s the
matter
with you, Celeste? You
'
re getting worse, more possessive
—
more paranoid
—
about every one of his visits
!"

"
That
'
s
right
,
that
'
s
exactly
what I
'
m getting,
"
Celeste said, throwing her ex-husband
'
s fury back in his face.
"
Every time he comes back, I have to work to undo all the damage this place does.
Obviously
I blame you
—
you and your attitude! He won
'
t study, he wants to run wild all day —
after last summer he demanded his own
horse,
for God
'
s sake. He mopes in class for weeks and his grades suffer. And each time it gets worse.
"

She whirled around to her son, who was standing in front of the sofa
,
clutching the comforter against him
self
like a bulletproof vest.
"
Jeremy! Did you tell your father your grades in math and language after your Christmas vacation here?
"
She swung back around on Mac with a look almost of triumph.
"
C
'
s! He got C
'
s in both! How will he ever amount to anything if he won
'
t apply himself? How will he ever
—
"

She stopped herself mid-tirade.
"
Oh, God,
"
she said wearily.
"
We
'
ve been all through this. Come on, Jeremy.
"
Her voice became as gentle as a ripple on a beach.
"
It really is time to go home. I
'
ll wait in the cab.
"

She walked past Mac without looking at him. Then, at the door, she turned and gave her ex-husband a look so sorrowful, so poignant, that Jane caught her breath: When she was not raging, Celeste McKenzie was an extremely beautiful woman.

Mac turned away with a kind of smothered groan and said,
"
I
'
ll help you pack, Jer.
"

Celeste walked out. Jane murmured,
"
I have to go now.
"
But Mac wouldn
'
t let her. He put his hand on her forearm, encircling it.
"
No. Not yet.
"

Now that he mentioned it, Jane had no great desire to walk past Celeste as she sat brooding in the cab. So she nodded silently and went back to her seat in the wing chair while Mac collected Jerry
'
s medicine and followed him up the stairs to retrieve his things.

Jane sat in a state bordering on shock, staring at the restored brick fireplace. Her own parents had pretty much agreed on how to raise their two daughters; if they
'
d ever argued over Lisa and her, they must have done it in the privacy of their bedroom. Jane couldn
'
t remember anything between her parents resembling the hostility she
'
d just witnessed. And they
'
d never battled like that in front of strangers, of that she was certain.

Still, it wasn
'
t the first time that a mother and father had fought over a child
—
certainly not in
this
house. Two hundred years
'
worth of parents had come and gone through it, had courted and wed and given birth to children they later agonized over in one way or another. Jane stared at the cold and unused hearth, with its crumbling, powdery bricks and centuries of soot stains. If only it could talk; surely it would have an answer to the McKenzies
'
impasse.

Jane heard a heavy tread and a light one on the creaking wood steps but did not turn to watch Mac and Jerry pass through. It was only after she heard a faint and demoralized,
"
Bye, Jane,
"
that she peeked out from behind one of the wings of the chair and said,
"
Bye, Jerry.
"

But by then the boy was out of sight.

Jane stayed where she was and prayed that Mac wouldn
'
t get into another shouting match; she
'
d done enough eavesdropping and overhearing for a lifetime. But she heard nothing, only a low exchange of voices, then the slam of car doors. The cab drove off, and she got up to leave. She met Mac just inside his kitchen door.

"
That wasn
'
t pretty,
"
he said bluntly.
"
I
'
m sorry you were here to see it.
"

If he was in pain, he was doing a good job of masking it. Or maybe he was just emotionally exhausted; Jane was. She smiled wanly and said,
"
Pretend I didn
'
t see it.
"

"
How the
hell
can I do that? Celeste and I were going at it like a couple of stevedores, and I
'
m supposed to pretend you didn
'
t see it?
"

"
Okay! Pretend I did see it, and don
'
t do it again,
"
Jane said, more sharply than she meant to.
"
Anyway, it
'
s Jerry you should be worried about, not me.
"
She turned to go.

"
I know, I know. Do you think I don
'
t know that? Sit down! You
'
re always so jumpy. You drive me crazy with that nervous energy of yours. I
'
m making us coffee,
"
he said in exasperation.

She turned and snapped,
"
Perfect. I
'
m jumpy and you
'
re irritable. Who the hell needs coffee?
"

Mac was standing at the stove indecisively, one hand still on the coffeepot, when he noticed Jane
'
s shopping bag on the butcher block table next to it.
"
What
's this? Oh, right:
food. Fine. You can have some with me. Is it hot?
"

"
I didn
'
t make that for me,
"
she said quickly.
"
I made that for you and your son.
"

He took it the way he would a blow to the stomach. She watched his expression contract with pain, then heard the pain trickle out on a sigh:
"Oh, Christ ..
. Jerry.
"

"
But actually, I
am
kind of hungry,
"
she volunteered hastily. She could see that he was reliving the scene in his mind, that he
'
d be doing it again and again.
"
Do you want me to start water boiling for the pasta?
"

"
Pasta?
"
he said vaguely.
"
Oh. The noodles. Yeah, use the pot on that shelf. Wait, you can
'
t reach it,
"
he said as Jane tried to snatch it by a handle. He came up behind her and reached up for it, his arm stretched alongside hers, his body looming behind hers.

It was as if she
'
d backed into a furnace. Immediately she felt the heat, felt encompassed by him, by his size. She stiffened and Mac moved deliberately away before he slapped the pot on the counter for her. She didn
'
t dare look at him, didn
'
t dare acknowledge the mocking look in his eyes. He knew that she felt threatened by him. Knew it, and despised her for it.

The question was,
why
did she always feel so threatened? She never reacted to Bing that way, and Bing was a lot more free and easy about touching
—
accidental or otherwise. So whose fault was it, Mac
'
s or hers? She took the pot over to the sink to fill it, feeling as self-conscious about using his kitchen as she would about using another man
'
s shower.

Mac was dumping the sauce into a pan for reheating.
"
Celeste is doing a great job with Jerry and his education,
"
he said without looking at her.
"
Just a great job
—
he
'
s in a day school,
"
Mac added, his voice low with a kind of rueful pride.
"
After that it
'
ll be prep school
—
Exeter
, or
Andover
.
"

"
Oh yes; your boy is very bright,
"
Jane said with feeling, grateful that Mac was calming down.

He stopped to give her an ironic look.
"
Naturally you would recognize academic potential.
"
He was silent for a moment, then tried again.
"
Despite what Celeste says, I
'
m not trying to sabotage Jerry
'
s education
—
"

"
Of course not, I realize that.
"