“We had a test today, a pop quiz? It was on metamorphosis...”
Good, you said it right.
“I know all about—”
“That’s great, kid. Where’s your mother?”
“Upstairs. In the tub.”
“I’ve got some work to do in my office. Let me know when dinner’s ready.”
“Okay, Dad.”
Jack left her and headed downstairs.
* * *
Jenny could hardly keep her eyes open, the hot water drawing her inexorably toward sleep. She was exhausted. She’d been working in her darkroom this afternoon, developing the roll of film she’d shot yesterday after meeting Richard, and had almost ruined it by bathing it in the wrong sequence. She caught herself in time, but realized then just how frazzled she was.
Seeing Richard again had stirred up a lot of old feelings, and after leaving him Jenny found herself roaming the streets in a kind of melancholic daze, her favorite Nikon slung around her neck. She wound up shooting a group of toddlers having a very messy birthday picnic at Brighton Beach park. It started out as a diversionary tactic, an attempt to dispel the gloom in her heart, but several of the prints she ended up with were really quite good.
She’d always had a creative streak and, until she married Jack, had intended to channel it into a career as a professional photographer. She’d already signed up for the prerequisite courses at Algonquin College when she fell head over heels for him.
Jenny raised her left hand out of a drift of bubbles, her engagement diamond winking richly in the glow of the overhead spots. She smiled a little then, and when she closed her eyes again she remembered the night Jack had slipped the ring onto her willing finger...
* * *
“And once I finish my residency,” Jack was saying, “we can get you enrolled at the College.” They were parked on a secluded hilltop overlooking the city. It was January first, a cold, blustery night, but they were cozy in Jack’s aging Biscayne. “That’s just two years away, Jen. You’ll only be twenty-two.”
Jenny wanted to take in every word Jack was saying, but her eyes kept drifting to the ring he’d slipped onto her finger only moments before. It was an enormous diamond set in a cluster of smaller diamonds and it must have cost a fortune. Jenny was speechless. She would have said yes had he pushed a two dollar mood ring onto her finger.
But Jack hadn’t really popped the question yet. Not officially. He was running ahead, detailing his plans, and she could barely keep up with him.
“By the time you’re done with your courses,” he was saying, “I should have enough money socked away for a house, a proper house. Dr. Talbot has practically guaranteed me a position on staff at the Med Center. He says if I do an extra year of ICU, I’ll be eligible for the directorship in my first year.”
Jenny looked up from the ring. The gist of what Jack was saying had finally registered—he wanted her to put off her education—and she wanted to add her thoughts, set things straight from the outset. But she was afraid to blunt his enthusiasm. It had been hard enough to get close to him; she didn’t want to spoil the moment by raising doubts. She decided they could work out the details later.
“So what do you say, Jen?” He raised her hand between them, nudging her ring finger higher than its sisters. “Will you marry me? I’ll make you the happiest girl in town.”
“Oh, Jack, of course I will. You know I will...”
He kissed her gently. So gently.
“We’re going to be the best,” he said, kissing her again. “You and me. I’m going to make you so happy. You’re going to have my baby—bab
ies
—and we’re going to give the Fallon name some roots.”
What about my education?
But that once burning question seemed unimportant just now. They could work out the details later.
* * *
But the details never got worked out. “I want to start a family.” Jack’s voice, a stern echo down a corridor of lost years. They’d been married only six months. “How can we manage that with you taking courses full-time? Maybe you should think about correspondence courses. That way you’d never have to leave the house. We don’t need the extra money. I can make more than enough for both of us.”
Correspondence courses,
Jenny thought now.
Yeah, right.
She’d let it go for a long while after that, years, pouring her heart into their home and her dreams of motherhood. They didn’t discuss it again until shortly after her last miscarriage. And ironically, Jack was the one who brought it up. Kim had started junior kindergarten that fall and Jenny mentioned to him one morning that with Kim in school, she had no idea how she was going to fill up her time.
“Why don’t you get back into photography?” Jack had said. “Take a couple of classes a week.”
So she had.
And that had been the closest she’d ever come to cheating on Jack. The instructor at the Algonquin College photography course had taken an immediate interest in her work. And, more gradually, in Jenny herself. Flattered by his attentions, she’d met him once outside the classroom, a hasty tryst in the parking lot of the Bayshore Shopping Center, but she’d been so terrified Jack would find out that she had quickly nipped it in the bud. She attended two more classes, but when the instructor persisted in his advances Jenny dropped out and continued her studies on her own.
After months of experimentation, she settled on black and white. She liked the starkness of it, the challenge of capturing mood without color. She shot whatever appealed to her: the old cast-iron street lamps along the Rideau canal, the tarnished copper spires of the parliament buildings, the hump-backed willows along the shores of Dow’s Lake. But her real love was portraiture, and with time even this narrow interest became more focused.
She happened upon a drowsing wino one afternoon in the park, a harmless looking tramp sunning himself in a drift of autumn leaves. Perhaps unethically, Jenny took advantage of the man’s snoring stupor and shot two rolls of film. The old boy shifted a lot during the half-hour session, striking new and interesting poses, and afterward, Jenny was amused to discover he’d been aware of her presence all along.
“When you’re in my kinda shape, lady, you learn to get bombed with one eye open. There’s always some other bum tryna get what you got. Say, you got a dollar?”
Jenny gave him ten dollars, but not before wringing a solemn promise out of him: weather permitting, he was to meet her again tomorrow—same time, same place—and bring along as many of his confederates as he could muster. Ten-spots for everyone.
That was the beginning of a quiet pursuit, a quiet passion. By the time Kim was in grade school Jenny found new subjects for her eager shutter. Again at Jack’s suggestion, she became a part-time volunteer at the Children’s Hospital—and it was here that some of her most heart-wrenching portraits were conceived. In many cases Jenny’s photographs were all that remained of tiny lives that had never known a moment’s joy. She had portfolios full of the stuff.
“Hi, lazybones.”
“God, Jack, you startled me.” He was leaning in the doorway behind her. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Not long,” he said, coming into the room. “What were you thinking about?”
Jenny felt her face redden. “Nothing special. What’s new?”
“Ryan had a death in cardiac today.”
“Oh, no. What happened?”
“Equipment failure. The guy was a friend of Ryan’s, too. An M.D.”
“That’s awful. It wasn’t his fault, was it?”
“No, but try telling him that. I took him out for a drink after work, let him talk it through. He’s pretty thick skinned, though. He’ll be okay.”
Jenny’s feelings for Ryan were corrupted by a bitter pang. Sometimes Jack’s capacity for compassion surprised her. She wished he’d bring more of it home.
She said, “When do you want to eat?”
“Half hour. I want to try out my new baby first.”
“Not another gun.”
Jack smiled. “A real sweetheart.” He sat on the edge of the tub and began stroking her swollen belly, tracing heart-shapes in the light film of suds.
“What is it this time, a Howitzer?”
“Cute, but you’re not far off.”
“Boys and their toys.”
“Don’t knock it babe. We’ll be the only ones on the block ready for the yellow horde when it comes. And believe me, it’s coming.”
Jack’s tracing finger moved to Jenny’s right nipple. The pigment there had gotten deeper and the skin was supersensitive. His touch aroused her instantly.
“My boobs have gotten bigger,” Jenny said with a trace of pride. She was small breasted and knew Jack liked ’em large. “Have you noticed?”
“You bet I have.”
She touched his teasing finger. “We’ve got a while...why don’t you climb in here and—”
Jack took his hand away and stood. “Save it, kid.” He smiled and left the room.
The rejection burned in Jenny’s face like a fever.
It’s always when he wants it. Only when he wants it.
A few minutes later she heard the dull, repeating thud of Jack’s new toy three stories below. She climbed out of the tub and wrapped herself in a robe. Her pot roast should be just about ready.
* * *
The main reason Jack had purchased their home was the thick-walled bomb shelter its original owner added to the idyllic canal-side site. A full thirty feet long and twelve feet wide, the never-used bomb shelter had converted quite neatly into a sound proof target range.
Jack took aim with his new snub-nosed .44, the preferred dispatching tool of Son of Sam, and squeezed the trigger. There was a tremendous explosion, perceived by Jack only as a dull concussion through his state-of-the-art hearing protection, and a hole as big as his fist appeared through the heart of the man-sized silhouette twenty feet away.
Jack squeezed off four more rounds, all head shots, then removed his goggles and examined the smoking sidearm. It was a balky little mother, but he was getting the hang of it. It was all in the squeeze.
He reloaded and adopted a shooter’s stance.
“Dad?”
Jack’s body jerked and the gun went off, the shot going wild. Furious, he swung on his startled daughter.
Kim stood in the doorway to her father’s inner sanctum with her hands over her ears, her round face scarlet from shouting his name.
“Jesus,” Jack said. He pulled off his earplugs. “How many times do I have to tell you? Never—
never
—disturb me when I’ve got a loaded gun in my hand. Do you want to get shot?”
“No, Dad. I’m sorry. Mom told me—”
“I don’t
care
what your mother told you.
I
told you never to bother me while I’m shooting. Do you think you can remember that?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“All right. Now what do you want?”
“Mom says it’s time to eat.”
“Tell her I’ll be right up. I’ve just got to clean this gun.”
ON WEDNESDAY MORNING AT EIGHT o’clock, Will Armstrong began a list of ear, nose and throat cases with Dr. Harry Katz. Even at the best of times Will could barely tolerate the man, and today was not the best of times. Not by a long shot.
When he got home from work last night, tired and hungry, Nina had come prancing down the stairs in a black, low-cut dress he’d never seen before and announced she was going out.
“Don’t you remember? My meeting with Stan?”
”Yeah, Stan. The fitness franchise guy. Dressed like that. What about supper?”
“There’s a casserole in the fridge, the boys’ favorite. Just pop it in the microwave.”
A kiss on the cheek and she was out the door. So Will fed the boys, watched a cartoon dinosaur movie with them, bathed them and tucked them into their beds. The thirst hit him hard after that and he sat on the couch with a bottle of scotch, waiting for his wife to get home. The twins woke him there at six-thirty this morning. He found Nina in the kitchen, humming to something on the radio, getting breakfast ready for the boys. He shut the radio off.
“What time did you get in?”
Nina said, “Late.” Giving him attitude.
“Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“I tried.” She opened the cupboard under the sink and fished the empty scotch bottle out of the trash. “Is this how you look after our boys when I’m out?”
“What kind of meeting goes on until the middle of the night? And what kind of message are you sending
Stan
the fitness prick in a dress like that? Did he ask you how bad you wanted to manage his place? Did you show him?”
Nina was pouring milk on the boys’ Cheerios and spilled some of it. “Shit,” she said, reaching for a paper towel. “I’m not going to get into this with you, Will. Not now. You’ll just have to trust—”
“Mom?”
The boys were standing in the kitchen doorway, frightened by the raised voices. Nina started to go to them and Will shouted, “Go up to your rooms,
right now
,” and the boys ran off in tears. Things went downhill from there.
“...bucking, Will.”
Will blinked and shook his head. “What?”
Katz said, “The patient is bucking.”
Will looked at his patient, a thirty year old male with nasal polyps. The guy was hacking on his E-tube. Will cranked the anesthetic up a notch.
Fucker
, he thought.
Lie still
.
When the patient settled, Will went out to the phone in the hall. As the door swung shut behind him, Katz glanced at Stacy, the circulating nurse, and shook his head. “What’s with him?”
Stacy leaned forward on her stool. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”
“Yeah, right. What’s the buzz?”
“I think his wife is...you know. Stoopin’ for the troops.”
Katz said, “No way. Where’d you hear this?” He dipped a steel polyp snare into the patient’s right nostril.
“From
him
,” Stacy said. “He’s on that phone all the time.” She mimicked Armstrong’s booming voice. “‘Well, who’s there with you, then? How come you didn’t answer when I called ten minutes ago? Why are you breathing so hard?’” She crossed her legs briskly. “He doesn’t seem to care who’s listening—” Stacy’s mouth snapped shut with an audible click.
Will came back in and stood over Katz. “You done?”