The Burden of Proof (5 page)

"Daddy didn't change diapers," she said.

"I did not?" asked Stern. Surprisingly, he could not recall precisely.

"How could you have changed diapers?" asked Peter, awakened somewhat by the opportunity to challenge his father. "You were never here. I remember I couldn't figure out what a trial was. I thought it was like a place you went. Another city."

Marta called out for John: "Are you going to change the baby's diapers?"

John, carrying a thirty-cup percolator, entered the sun room for a moment. He looked as bad as everyone else, baffled and grieved. He shrugged gently in response to Marta's question. John was a taciturn fellow. He had few opinions that he was willing to express.

In another room the telephone rang. It had been pealing incessantly for two days now. Stern seldom spoke. The children answered, responding tersely with the time and place of the funeral, promising to share the condolences with their father. Most of these conversations seemed to end the same way, with a labored pause before the instrument was cradled. 'Yes, it's true,' one of them would quickly answer. 'We have no idea why."

Silvia emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron, beckoning to Stern. This call, apparently, he could not avoid. In passing, he touched his sister's hand. A woman with a staff of three at home, Silvia had been here toiling tirelessly for three days, running, organizing, taking care.

"Ah, Sandy. What a sad occasion. My deepest sympathy."

Stern had gone up to their bedroom, still dark and shuttered, to take the phone. He recognized the voice of Cal Hopkinson. Cal was a lawyer.

When Sandy's beloved friend Harry Fagel had died two years ago, Cal, Harry's partner, had become the Sterns' personal lawyer. He updated their wills and each year filed tax returns for the trusts left for Clara. Cal was a practical fellow, amiable if not particularly appealing, and he came rather quickly to the point. Since Marta was in town, he wondered if Stern might want to come down with the children in the next few days to discuss Clara's will.

"Is that necessary, Cal?"

Cal pondered in silence. Perhaps he was somewhat offended.

He was one of those attorneys who lived for details, mowing them down each day in the belief that if they went untended they would overgrow the world.

"It's not necessary, Sandy, but it sometimes helps to prevent questions later. Clara left a large estate, .you know."

Did he know? Yes, it came back to him that he did. If the truth were told, in these moments in which he was too harrowed and weak to avoid it, he could barely see Clara through the glimmer of gold when he had married her. Poor boy weds rich girl. It was a dream as thrilling and illicit as pornography. And in keeping, he had practiced the usual cruel repression. Early on, Stern stilled Henry Mittler's obvious suspicions with a vow to his father-in-law that Clam and he would live solely on his income. Thirty years passed in which Stern feigned not to care about Clara's fortune, in which he left the details of management to her and those he suggested she employ, and at the end, in the sorest irony, the lie was truth.

"Is there some surprise in Clara's affairs of which you wish us to be aware, Cal?"

A lawyer's pause here, the habit of a man who had learned to measure every sentence before he spoke. Cal probably considered it unprofessional to answer.

"Nothing to shock you," he said at last. "I'm sure you have the general picture. There are probably one or two points we should discuss." Cal had laid just enough emphasis on "shock." Surprise but not devastation, in other words. Now what? he thought. A .careful, tidy person always, Clara had left behind her, with no sign of concern, a murky, littered wake. Stern said he would speak to the children and prepared to end the conversation.

"Sandy," said Cal abruptly. Merely from the tone, Stern could tell what was coming. "This is such upsetting news.

You must forgive me for asking, but was there any sign?"

No, he said quickly, no sign. He clapped down the phone in a barely suppressed temper. Cal really was a clod, he thought. Stern closed his eyes and took a further moment of retreat in the dark bedroom, listening to the harsh chorus of mingling voices that rang up the stairwell. He was in his soul too solitary to brook this continuing intrusion.

It was as if there were some large ear pressed to him, attuned to every breath. The thought of the funeral was suddenly unbearable. A death of this nature would stimulate' lurid interest in many. They would be there in teams, in droves, associates and friends and neighbors, come to observe the toll of grief and to eye Stern in a subtle accusatory fashion. Even in those he knew best who had come last night, he could detect that grim curiosity.

What was the story? they all wondered. What exactly had he done to her? Clara's suicide had exposed some dark grisly secret, as if there were a grotesque deformity which previously lay hidden on the body of their married life.

Not certain if it was the loss or simply the humiliation, Stern remained a few more minutes, weeping in the dark.

"Do you want a boy or a girl?" Marta was asking as Stern returned to the card table.

Some confusion swam across Kate's fine dark features. This was the first time, of course, that anyone had put the question.

"We both want a healthy baby," said Kate.

"Naturally, you do," Marta said. "But if you could pick, what would it be--a healthy boy or a healthy girl?"

"Marta," Stern said, with his cards fanned before him. He had been counting his points again--it was as if he had never seen the hand.

"This is not the kind of question a mother-to-be can always answer."

Kate had been thinking. "I'd like a girl." She smiled at all of them.

"Girls are nicer."

"Do they let girls on football teams now?" Peter asked.

"How far have things gone?"

"John would love a girl," Kate responded instantly, "Of course," said Stern.

Peter touched his sister's hand to reassure her--he was merely being himself.

"Mothers always say that girls are harder in the end," Marta volunteered.

"That's not what Mommy said," Kate answered. "That's what she said to me," said Marta. With that utterance, the two sisters stared at one another, some darkling learning looming up between them. For all her brash convictions, Marta was a person of humbling doubts about herself and her place in the world, and she had dwelled more openly than any of them in the last few days on memories of Clara. Much unfinished business, Stern estimated. For the moment, she turned to her father for help. "Isn't that what she said, Dad?"

"Your mother," Stern said, "took the rearing of each of you seriously.

Which means that from time to time she felt challenged." Stern smiled diplomatically at Marta. "I believe I said a club."

"Pass," said Marta.

Kate passed.

Peter was quiet, his face closed within the same stormy, anguished look of the last few days. He was wondering, perhaps, what his mother had said about boys. Eventually, he became aware of the three of them watching.

"A heart," he said, when the bidding had been reviewed for him.

"Well, I hear congratulations are in order!" Dixon had emerged from the kitchen, where he had been with Silvia.

His arms were wide and he was full, as usual, of stuff and personal ceremony. He had missed Kate and John last night and now crushed Kate to his side, where she received her uncle's embrace stiffly. "Where's that husband of yours? I didn't think he had it in him." Dixon wandered off, presumably to look for John. Kate shot a starchy look at his back, seemingly unimpressed by her uncle's coarse humor or his jokes at her husband's expense.

The truth, Stern knew, was that he tolerated Dixon more freely than anyone else in the family. Dixon's base side had always impelled in Clara some clear negative response, which, out of loyalty to Silvia, had grown more pointed after the period six or seven years ago when some aspect of Dixon's sportive sexual life--the details were never shared by Silvia--had led Stern's sister briefly to dismiss him from their household. With Dixon, as in most things, the children had tended to follow Clara's lead. Peter and Marta and most especially Kate had always enjoyed an intimate bond with their aunt, who, childless, had showered them with favor. But that attachment had never run to their uncle.

In response, Dixon adhered to the example of potentates throughout the centuries: he purchased indulgence. Over the years, he had taken every opportunity to employ the members of Stern's family. He had Stern and John on his payroll now, and each of the children had worked as a runner for MD on the floor of the Kindle Countally at Marta. "I believe I said a club."

"Pass," said Marta.

Kate passed.

Peter was quiet, his face closed within the same stormy, anguished look of the last few days. He was wondering, perhaps, what his mother had said about boys. Eventually, he became aware of the three of them watching.

"A heart," he said, when the bidding had been reviewed for him.

"Well, I hear congratulations are in order!" Dixon had emerged from the kitchen, where he had been with Silvia.

His arms were wide and he was full, as usual, of stuff and personal ceremony. He had missed Kate and John last night and now crushed Kate to his side, where she received her uncle's embrace stiffly. "Where's that husband of yours? I didn't think he had it in him." Dixon wandered off, presumably to look for John. Kate shot a starchy look at his back, seemingly unimpressed by her uncle's coarse humor or his jokes at her husband's expense.

The truth, Stern knew, was that he tolerated Dixon more freely than anyone else in the family. Dixon's base side had always impelled in Clara some clear negative response, which, out of loyalty to Silvia, had grown more pointed after the period six or seven years ago when some aspect of Dixon's sportive sexual life--the details were never shared by Silvia--had led Stern's sister briefly to dismiss him from their household. With Dixon, as in most things, the children had tended to follow Clara's lead. Peter and Marta and most especially Kate had always enjoyed an intimate bond with their aunt, who, childless, had showered them with favor. But that attachment had never run to their uncle.

In response, Dixon adhered to the example of potentates throughout the centuries: he purchased indulgence. Over the years, he had taken every opportunity to employ the members of Stern's family. He had Stern and John on his payroll now, and each of the children had worked as a runner for MD on the floor of the Kindle County Futures Exchange during school vacations. When Peter had gone into private practice, Dixon had enrolled MD with Peter's HMO, and even made a short-lived attempt to utilize Peter as his personal physician, although, predictably, they did not get along, quarreling over Dixon's smoking and his general unwillingness to follow advice. Perhaps, Stern had long thought, all this family employment represented Dixon's best efforts--a way to share his imposing wealth, with which he himself was so involved, while maintaining the centrality that he desired in any circumstance.

"Will you name her for Mommy?" Marta inquired of Kate. She seemed more absorbed than her sister with this baby.

Silvia, passing through the solarium, frowned at Marta's directness, but both young women were accustomed to it.

Marta had always had her way with Kate.

"I suppose," said Kate. "Either a boy or a girl. Unless you would mind, Daddy."

Stern looked up from his cards--but he had not' missed a word.

"It would please me if you chose to do this." He smiled gently at Kate.

In his fie, he felt a sudden closeness in the room. Dear God, the turmoil. Things seemed to come at him from all directions. He felt like those paintings he would sometimes see in museums and churches of St.

Sebastian shot full of arrows and holes, bleeding like a leaking hose.

To his enormous chagrin and surprise, he found he had started, silently, to cry again. The tears ran down both sides of his nose. Around him, his children watched, but made no comment. The days, he supposed, would go like this. He removed his handkerchief from his back pocket and found the medical laboratory bill he had examined early this morning. He had entirely forgotten it.

"I shall return in a moment." He headed off to find a Kleenex. Better jam his pockets. From the kitchen, he looked back to the sun room, where his Children, grown up but wounded by their grief, awaited him.

Oh, how these children had mattered to Clara! he thought suddenly. What a worshipful passion. She had been raised with servants, by well-intentioned but limited nannies and governesses. She would have none of that with her own.

Again an image: Coming home, One of those occasional evenings when he was here before they were all in bed, to find her on her knees in the kitchen. Peter sat at the table reading; Marta was crying; Kate was having her dress hemmed. The little girl, her shins blotched, stood motionless as her mother fingered the garment. On the stove, a pot was boiling over. Lord, the clamor and the ferment. Clara looked up to greet him and puckered out a lip to blow a stray lock that had fallen down into her eyes. She smiled, smiled. It was miserable, hard work, as it had always been, a numbing routine of humdrum tasks, but Clara found music in the banging and tumult of family life.