Promises (36 page)

It was all quietly polite. And yet the atmosphere was unnatural. The small talk that followed this exchange was meaningless, merely a time-filler. And he missed them so! They hadn’t had Thanksgiving with him, and
they wouldn’t have Christmas. Children went with the mother. So his thoughts ran.

When lunch was over, the two children went outside while Adam and Randi had coffee.

“I really did think Julie would be pleased with the piano,” Randi began.

If she would only drop the subject! It had been kind of her to buy the thing; obviously, though, she did not realize that it was an ancient, jangling wreck that had never amounted to much when it was new. At home Julie had her mother’s baby grand, meticulously kept, a gift from Jean in the prosperous days of her second marriage.

“Don’t feel bad,” he said patiently. “She’s very upset right now.”

“Well, it’s trying to see a kid sitting there moping. She scarcely says a word.”

“It’s been awfully hard for her, Randi. I knew there would be some effects, of course, but I didn’t expect her to take this so hard.”

“For heaven’s sake, you haven’t died or been put in federal prison, Adam. The fact is, darling, your kids are spoiled.”

“No, Randi. They’ve got their faults, as we all have, but they’re not spoiled.”

“Tell me why Danny has to lug that dog along everywhere he goes.”

“He doesn’t take it everywhere. He takes him here so he can have a good run. Besides, the dog is a comfort to him now.”

“Comfort! You’d think he was being tortured. Your kids have it pretty good, darling. You’re just a sweet
soul, Adam Crane, just too darn softhearted for your own good.”

He felt hurt. And yet it was true that neither Danny nor Julie had been exactly endearing today. On the other hand, why should they always be on their best behavior? But, back to the other hand, it was true that Randi was always lovely to them. And she hadn’t had any experience with teenagers.… And no doubt it was an imposition to expect her to entertain them every Sunday.… Although there was really no other time for him to see them except on the weekends.… And she was so even tempered, so sweet, so rarely the least bit cranky. Surely, she was entitled to have an opinion about the kids.…

“Oh, now I’ve upset you,” she murmured. “You’re thinking I don’t like your children.” She got up from her chair and took his face between her hands to kiss him. “Darling, I’m sorry. You know I like them. For heaven’s sake, they’re yours! But can’t I feel free to express myself honestly sometimes? Anything I say is for your good. Please don’t misunderstand. I love your kids! Tell me you’re not upset. Please?”

“I’m not upset.”

“Truly. Smile when you say it. Please?”

He smiled.

They were quiet on the ride home. Danny wanted music on the radio, some singing group with one of those crazy names that Adam could never remember, the Cemetery Bouncers, or something equally crazy. Ordinarily, their racket would lift off the top of his head, but today, full of thoughts, he was almost grateful for them.

The hardest thing about this homeward ride was seeing
the two go up the walk to the front door of what had once been his home. At the curb he was about to say as usual, “See you Sunday,” when Danny turned back and asked, “Are you ever going to go in with us?”

“Well, we’ll see,” he replied, knowing that Danny, walking away, had recognized the answer for the fatuous evasion that it was.

The car had begun to roll when he saw Megan approaching from the end of the street. She was carrying books, so that he guessed she had come from the library. His heart leapt. She was lovely in her dark blue skirt and sweater with her long hair, still wheat colored from the summer’s sun, lying on her shoulders. He hadn’t seen her since the day he left. Sliding over to the passenger’s side, he leaned out of the window and called, “Megan! Megan! How are you?”

She stopped. “Wonderful,” she said coldly. “How do you think I am?”

“Not very well, I know. I worry terribly about you. But we can’t talk here. Won’t you please come with Julie and Danny to see me?”

“No, not at that woman’s house. You can’t be serious.”

“Don’t say that, Megan. Randi’s a good person, kind, warmhearted.”

“Oh, yes, warm like a cobra. And you ask me to be civil to her after what she’s done?”

He was tired, so tired. How was he even to begin to explain himself to this young daughter?

“What she—and you—have done to Mom, who is so brave! You threw her away as if she were a used paper towel. You don’t care about her at all.”

“I do care very much about her, Megan.”

The girl’s eyes flashed. “Then why don’t you come home? We could start again—we could all love each other again—” Her voice broke.

“Megan, I can’t. It’s not so simple. I can’t explain.… You don’t understand.”

“Is that all you can say? ‘You don’t understand’? You’re right. I don’t understand how you can turn your back on us and walk away. Sometimes I wake up at night and think I’ve only been dreaming that you’ve done it.”

Her eyes were fixed upon him; her body was stiff and tense. And he knew that she was waiting for the answer he was unable to give, knew that she was in pain. A few seconds passed, while he watched the hope die on her face.

“You don’t even support us decently,” she cried then. “That old rattletrap car.”

Adam interrupted. “I paid half the cost of the transmission.”

“It’s still an old rattletrap. And we need winter clothes. And the lawn mower’s too heavy for Danny. What’s going to happen to us?”

He pleaded. “I’ll do more. I’ll try. I know you need things, but I’m spending all I can. I have no extra money right now, nothing to spare. Really not.”

“You have money enough for
her
.”

“That’s not—who told you that?”

“Don’t tell me you live there for nothing. And you bought her a gold bracelet and afterward a gold necklace for her birthday. Mom never had things like that.”

Randi must have shown them to Julie, he thought. A weight sank inside his chest. It was all so complicated, so difficult.

Megan’s bright, frightened eyes were fixed upon him. “The way you’ve made all of us so sad,” she said, “even a thirteen-year-old boy like Danny. He used to be jolly and funny, but not anymore. And it’s all your fault! Do you want to know something? I despise you and your dirty woman with you.”

She walked away.

That he had lived to hear the vituperation, this outburst, from his beloved child, his Megan! Megan was even tempered, cerebral, prudent.… Megan was a gem.…

And wondering how he would manage to drive back without having an accident, he shifted gears and moved slowly away. It seemed to him that no matter how he tried, he would never be able to make her or perhaps anyone else ever understand. Even at the office he had caught glances, and even once in the washroom had overheard remarks.

“I hear he’s getting a divorce.”

“She’s probably better off without him, the cold son of a gun.”

“I always liked Margaret.”

The fools! What did they know about it? It was none of their business. They were, all of them, a superficial, antiintellectual lot of money-grubbers, anyway.

Some of them had real power, nevertheless. Hierarchy gave them the right to humble and humiliate. Even Ramsey, who was generally fair and quiet-spoken, had given him a nasty turn last week. He flinched now as he remembered the Monday morning, when after a late night, he and Randi had both overslept.

“What can you be thinking of, Crane? Half an hour late for an appointment with a man who stands to
give us two hundred thousand in business! He flies in from Chicago and you keep him waiting! Punctuality is a matter of common courtesy, no matter who the person is, but here it almost looked as if you were indifferent.…” And so on, and so on.

Adam smarted. And he worried. The rumors about a possible takeover had now become too loud and frequent to be ignored any longer. The company was no IBM, to be sure, but it was attractive enough to arouse the interest of any of the country’s largest software producers. This possibility had even been mentioned by a couple of stock analysts in their last month’s reports. If the stories were accurate, who could tell what the future might hold for him? Possibly something wonderful. Or not.

Expenses were swamping him. Living with Randi, it certainly behooved him to pay half of them, and they were higher than he was used to. Naturally, he had known that she had a big mortgage, but he had not realized how big. She had bought the house on the proverbial shoestring. And the monthly payments rolled around. Still, she never demanded anything much.

But he was always aware of what she wanted. One thing she wanted was to have a baby. And he had promised that they would have one as soon as he was divorced. My God, but lawyers took so long! For them to file a paper was to move a mountain.

Perhaps because she was not yet bound to him, he felt—or he thought he felt and did not want to feel—that he must make sure of her, must satisfy her and keep her happy. She made
him
so happy! She made him feel like a man who was lord of the earth.

“You worry too much,” she would tell him when
they were in bed together. “You always did. Years ago, it was your marks and your career. Now it’s the office and your kids, when the only thing that’s really important is the two of us.”

When you come down to it, she’s right, he thought. The thought was like an arc light flooding his brain.
The only thing that’s really important is the two of us.
Yes, yes, he said to himself. In spite of everything, I have never been as happy as I am now. And that’s fundamental.

When he reached the house, he saw her waiting for him at the door. Hearing the sound of tires on gravel, she had come, as she always did, to greet him.

“T
his makes more sense than having you come back another day to finish all this stuff. We only have twelve more pages to go through,” said Larkin.

He collected the residue of the sandwich-and-coffee lunch and put it neatly in the wastebasket. All his motions were economical, as were his balanced sentences. If the subject weren’t so nasty, Margaret thought, it would be a pleasure to hear him speak. The thought amused her.

“Mr. Larkin,” she said then, “can you tell me what sense it makes that I must answer these ludicrous questions? ‘How many rooms are there in the house and to what use is each of them put’? As if, after all these years of living there, he doesn’t know.”

“As I’ve told you, don’t look for sense. It’s the law. Your house is part of your assets, and so it figures in the settlement.”

“My assets,” she mocked. And aware that she was probably being a nuisance, she apologized. “I’m sorry,
Mr. Larkin. I realize that this kind of emotionalism is wasting your time.”

“You’re entitled to some emotionalism. Don’t worry about it, Margaret. And by the way, if you’re to be Margaret, then I must be Stephen. Now, page fifty-four. Take your copy and let’s get to it.”

When they were finished, he slapped his files shut. With the cessation of speech came an awareness of the surroundings, of wind shaking the windows and a torrential rain sluicing the glass. Stephen got up and looked out.

“The streets look like a river. You’d better stay here until this dies down. These downpours don’t usually last long.”

“I’ll sit in the waiting room and read,” she said, rising.

“No, stay here and tell me how you’re getting along.”

Making a small gesture, as if to convey that a clear reply was impossible, Margaret began, “I’m going through all the correct motions, I know I am. I’m holding things together for the children, I know I am. But inside—inside I see my life cut in two: before Adam, and after Adam. It’s like a map of Europe before the end of Communism and after, with all the countries having different names and shapes. Now I’m a different shape, and I’ll soon have a different name too. One of the things that troubles me is the thought of the other woman’s bearing the name that has belonged to me for nineteen years. Silly, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think so. To you the name is a symbol of everything she’s stolen.”

“Tell me, I’ve wondered, with all you’ve seen, have
you had many cases in which the husband sues the wife for adultery?”

“Only a few. Women know that adultery shatters the intimacy and the trust of marriage, that a marriage afterward can never be the same. That’s why adultery usually ends in divorce, and that’s why women, as compared with men, usually don’t try it.”

“Do you mean, then, that men don’t know all that beforehand?”

“Most of them don’t. I should imagine that Adam Crane, when he started this affair, had no intention of ending up in the divorce court.”

“You’re saying that the affair took on a life of its own.”

“A sad life, and saddest of all for the children.”

Margaret’s next words escaped her. “Your daily work must be sad for you too.”

“Very.”

She was curiously conscious of the man, of his hand with its immaculate nails, the wristwatch, the dark suit, the dark, glossy hair.… But this was absurd.