Claudia’s face looked hurt and frightened. Her eyes widened and her lips trembled, but only for a moment. Within seconds, she was smiling again. “Yes, Grandmama.”
“I don’t guess there’s any point in asking who the young man is? I’m sure we don’t know his family.”
Claudia didn’t respond.
Delores sipped her drink. “You know I never considered it. But maybe
you
don’t even know who the father is. I hope this isn’t one of those situations like on television, where the girl has been sleeping with so many boys she has no idea who sired the child.”
Claudia didn’t speak.
“Do you know who the boy is?”
“It wasn’t a boy.” Claudia smiled as though she were playing a game.
“Well, you may not want to call him a boy. You may consider yourself an adult, but you’re not. You can’t take care of yourself, let alone a baby.” Delores shook her finger at Claudia. “You can laugh now. But you’ll be sorry about all this. What you
can
count on is that your grandfather and I are not going to sit around picking up after you. We’ve covered enough of your mistakes. So don’t be flippant, young lady. You’re hanging on by a very thin thread.”
Claudia was silent.
“Tell me, how could you have sex and not protect yourself? If you were going to have intercourse, you’re a bright young lady, how could you let it come to this? Why didn’t you make provision?”
“I wasn’t planning it, Grandmama. I wasn’t planning to have sex.”
“Well, that proves that you’re not an adult. Neither is the miscreant that you were bedding with. And I hope you don’t think he’s going to be of any help to you. You’ve been had, is what I would say.” Delores looked down at her feet and then back at Claudia. “Did you give him money?”
“No, Grandmama. He didn’t want money.”
“So he got what he wanted?”
Claudia shrugged.
“This is all so sordid and embarrassing. Aren’t you embarrassed?”
Claudia said nothing.
Delores touched her cool glass to her face. “And your poor uncle. I am not going to break his heart by telling him. He thinks so much of you. What do you think Carl Jr. would say if he knew?”
“I don’t know, Grandmama.”
Delores waved her hand, waved away the dirtiness of it all. “Well, there really is only one solution. You’ll have to have an abortion. You’re too young to raise a child. Your grandfather and I certainly are not going to do it. It’s the only way for you to avoid humiliation. Not that you’re capable of experiencing such an emotion. But you are not going to embarrass us and make us laughing-stocks.” Delores rose from the chair. “Well, that’s settled.” She turned toward the door and then turned back. “Do you have any other ideas? Do you have any objections to an abortion?”
“I wouldn’t dream of defying you or your solution, Grandmama.”
Delores turned and started down the hallway. She stopped. She had a right to know. She and Carl had a right to know. If they were going to pay for it, they had a right to know. She returned to Claudia’s doorway. Claudia lay facedown on the bed.
“Tell me, Claudia, who was it?”
“You don’t want to know, Grandmama.”
“Stop the
Grandmama
nonsense. I deserve to know. Your grandfather deserves to know. Who was it, Claudia?”
Claudia pressed her face further down into the bed.
“If you don’t tell me, I can make it very difficult for you.”
Claudia lifted her head. Her eyes sparkled, hard, almost maniacal. “Uncle.”
Delores grabbed the end of her caftan and turned to leave again, but turned back. “I am not going to put up with this discourteous behavior. I demand to know. You will tell me, now.”
“I said
Uncle,
Grandmother. The father is my uncle.”
Delores dropped her glass and slumped to the floor.
T
he tub of hot water felt good. Delores closed her eyes and pretended she was on a tropical island—an isolated island. There was no one around—no tourists, no servants, not even any family. Especially no family. She stretched all the way out so that she could lie back. The water closed up over her shoulders. She let it cover her ears. It edged up to the corners of her eyes and then finally covered the tip of her nose. There was no other person in the world. Her cocoon of water separated her from anything that might hurt her.
It worked. The tub of water distracted her as long as it was hot enough to burn her, as long as it was hot enough for her nerve endings to keep her mind occupied. When it cooled, everything came flooding back. Not that Delores could make any sense of it. She didn’t want to make any sense of it.
She lifted her head out of the water.
She thought of calling Carl Jr. on the phone so he could put the whole sordid lie to rest. But she didn’t want to call him. She didn’t want to hear the disquieting silence on the other end of the phone while he tried to think of a clever lie. She didn’t want to hear that peculiar sound—that note in his voice that only a mother could hear, would know—that would tell her that he was lying. She didn’t want to think back on other things in the past, things she might have overlooked.
When Delores had come to, after hearing Claudia’s terrible news, Carl was holding her and yelling for Claudia to call for an ambulance.
“No, I’m fine,” she had insisted until Carl calmed and decided she was right, he didn’t need to call. When he was sure that she was fine and had gone to his study, she tiptoed to Claudia’s room.
“We mustn’t tell anyone. Especially not your grandfather, it would kill him.”
Delores had scratched at her elbows and rubbed her hands together.
“It would kill him. We’ll just keep this to ourselves.”
She couldn’t look Claudia in the eye.
“Not that I believe you for one minute. Why should I believe you? It’s not as though you haven’t lied about a thousand things. I don’t even know why I’m trying to help you, when you’ve made up such a horrible lie about your uncle. Particularly when he’s been so attentive to you, when he’s been your champion on so many occasions.”
Delores had scratched her scalp and then wrung her hands.
“No, we won’t tell anyone this horrible story. You don’t have to tell me who the father is. I won’t ask you anymore. What difference does it make? There won’t be a baby, so there’s no need to even inquire about the father.”
She had grabbed Claudia’s arm.
“But you will not, under any circumstances, mention this to anyone, especially not your grandfather. We’ll just take care of this little problem and we’ll find you a new school. A private school so we won’t ever have to deal with anything like this, again. You’d like that wouldn’t you, Claudia? A new school—a new start.”
The hot water was her reality now. The pins and needles dimmed the pain of her granddaughter’s revelation. It wasn’t possible was it? It wasn’t possible. Things like this didn’t happen to people like them. Claudia was simply trying to deflect trouble. Delores pushed away the temptation to consider that Claudia might be telling the truth. She pushed away thoughts that tied the time Carl Jr. became so attentive to his niece with the time that Claudia began to act out in school.
It wasn’t true. Delores didn’t want to think about it. It was all a lie.
“And you won’t create a lot of emotional histrionics over this. You won’t cry or throw tantrums. This will all just go away. No one will know. It will be a vague memory—if you remember it at all. I will forgive you for the things you said—accusing your uncle—and we won’t speak of it anymore.”
If it were true, she and Carl would have to call the police, wouldn’t they? The police would have to arrest Carl Jr., wouldn’t they? Her beautiful, brilliant, upstanding son would have to go to jail, wouldn’t he? A jury, because he was rich, would no doubt convict him, wouldn’t they? He would spend his life in prison with murderers, liars, thieves, and perverts, wouldn’t he?
If it were true, Carl Jr. would be the bad one. Claudia would be held up as a poor little victim. The world would turn upside down.
Carl Jr. was innocent. But even if he wasn’t, what was the point of reporting him? Claudia was already on the road to ruin. It made no sense to sacrifice his life for hers.
If Carl Jr. did do it she wouldn’t be able to hug him anymore. She wouldn’t be able to look at him and be proud. Carl might despise his son. There would be a scandal. The people at the club, the people at work—everyone would point and whisper.
Did you hear about Mrs. Judson?
They would laugh and call her names.
There must be something wrong with her, something wrong with her family.
They would be happy to see her taken down a peg.
Delores turned on the hot water, again, and sank beneath the liquid veil. She and her granddaughter wouldn’t talk about it ever again. Claudia would keep her mouth shut and everything would be fine.
When she drove to work Monday morning, Delores went right through a stoplight. When she walked into the office, she had difficulty determining what was real. Was what happened Friday real? Had she really gone to the school for Claudia? Did Dr. Green really say her granddaughter was pregnant?
“My uncle is the father.”
It was hard to tell. If all that was reality, then how could people be sitting at desks? How could the clocks still be ticking?
“Good morning, Mrs. Judson.”
Delores walked past without speaking.
She didn’t turn on the lights in her office. She just sat with her coat still on, in her chair behind her large desk, and looked out her window over the city. Her appointment book lay closed.
The buzzer had been sounding for a while before she answered. “Mrs. Judson, are you all right?”
She didn’t respond.
“Mrs. Judson, Tonya is here for your nine o’clock meeting. Should I send her in?”
Delores didn’t want to talk to Tonya. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. She opened her appointment book and flipped through the pages. Why were they meeting? She couldn’t remember. She wanted to curl up on the floor until it was all over. Her training, forty years of practice, took over. “Of course, Matilda. Give me just a few moments and then send her in.”
By the time Tonya entered Delores’s office, all appeared to be right. Delores sat behind her desk, pen in hand, as though she was preparing to take notes. “Good morning, Tonya.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Judson. I hope your time away went well.” Tonya looked at her strangely. “Should I turn on the lights?”
Delores nodded and forced herself to smile. “Yes, of course. Thank you. I was resting my eyes.”
After Tonya turned on the lights, she sat in the chair across from Delores. “Mrs. Judson, I’ve been thinking about Michelle. I know you want me to take care of the matter quickly, but I don’t believe that I can. Two weeks hasn’t given me enough time to judge by.”
Delores nodded. “It’s been a while now with Michelle and there doesn’t really seem to be any improvement.”
Tonya moved her hand up and down forcefully, emphasizing each word. “What I would like is a few more months. As her team leader, I need the autonomy to make that call. I don’t want to throw anyone away—”
“There doesn’t seem to be any improvement.”
“Well, Mrs. Judson, I beg your pardon, but while you’ve been away, Michelle has made some changes. We just need more time. A few months would be—”
“How many months, Tonya?” Delores didn’t have the desire to fight.
“Well, I think that I would be able to make a decision within two or three months.”
Delores forced herself to scribble in her planner. “Which would you prefer, two or three?”
Tonya’s eyes widened. Clearly she was surprised. Her look said something was out of sorts. “Well, I think two months would tell me. If everything goes smoothly we could submit the papers for her promotion.”
“All right, Tonya. We’ll meet then. Get on my calendar.” Delores willed herself to look pleasant as Tonya rose to leave. Just before Tonya left the doorway, Delores called to her. “Tonya?”
The woman looked bewildered. “Yes, Mrs. Judson?”
“Would you turn out the lights?” Exhausted, she buzzed her receptionist. “Would you hold all my appointments and calls for the next fifteen minutes?” Delores Judson closed her eyes and laid her head on her desk.
T
here is something about having no one to talk to that slowly siphons away life. A burden that one cannot share grays the hair, furrows the brow, and bends the back.
Delores Judson had built a safe life behind the walls of success, wealth, and power. No one came into her life that she did not let in; she carefully orchestrated each encounter. The walls made her secure from any thieves, any pains, and any complications that might try to insinuate their way into her life.
She worked at her success to make it strong and impenetrable. Delores had started small as a struggling secretary. But each promotion brought her in contact with a new businessman, industrialist, or czar and she learned from them. She studied their needs—what was missing, what they needed to make their kingdoms complete. What they didn’t have, she became or learned. It was her mission to acquire what they needed.
She stacked each one of those needs like bricks. When she had gained enough experience and savvy, when she had built enough connections and the right network, she used those elements like mortar to seal the bricks together. Her wall was firm and sure. Others could come and see it. They could touch, even, but she gave nothing away.
Delores learned the value of each of her bricks. She calculated the worth of her knowledge and her skill and bled the price from each one she encountered. She used her wealth to make her inaccessible to things distasteful and contrary. Her riches stalled off the approach of those who could not meet a certain acceptable standard of attractiveness, intelligence, or giftedness. Delores used her wealth to fortify her wall.
Her success, her bricks, and her wealth, conferred upon her a certain amount of power—power to make the rules. Because Delores was intelligent and resourceful, she took the seed of power her successes gave her and cultivated it. She nursed it, watered it, weeded it, and even pruned it when need be. Soon her seed grew into a vine, laden with purple, delicate flowers. A vine that stealthily approached others and, where it detected a suitable place, wrapped itself around the unsuspecting tenant. After the tenant was strangled and died, Delores’s pretty vine took its place. The further her vine spread, the greater her control grew. And her power extended the protection of her wall beyond its physical barriers.