The Promised World (7 page)

He touched her shoulder, but he couldn’t think of how to respond. He’d never understood Lila’s intense attachment to the characters in her books. Certainly he’d never thought she’d seriously believed they were real. What was she saying?

“This is why it’s over for me,” she said flatly. “My career is finished.”

He didn’t have time to argue the point with her, but later that morning, he decided to write her dean and Stafford anyway. It had to be her grief talking. She’d worked too hard to throw away a great position at one of the most prestigious schools in the country. And she loved her work. Without it, what would she have? What would she do with her days—spend them lying in bed?

Apparently, that was her plan, at least for the time being. When Patrick returned from teaching late that afternoon, Lila was exactly as he’d left her. Still in bed, still in her robe. Hadn’t even combed her hair.

When the pattern repeated for two days, on Friday morning as soon as he got to his office, he called a therapist his wife’s friend had recommended and made an appointment for Lila on Monday at ten, the first available opening. Then he took a deep breath and called his former sister-in-law.

He hadn’t spoken to Ashley since the funeral, but Lila had,
repeatedly. Every time, she begged to be able to speak to Pearl, but Ashley said her daughter was too busy to come to the phone. When Lila asked for William, she got the same response. And when she requested a better time to call, Ashley said she didn’t know and hung up. Then a few days ago, Lila got a notice from a law firm saying that Ashley had retained counsel and that all Lila’s questions about access to the children had to go through them in the future. Lila was choking back tears, but she vowed to keep at it and visit them as soon as her own lawyer gave her the go-ahead.

Unfortunately, the new lawyer Lila hired had been unable to convince Ashley’s lawyer that Lila had a right to visit her nieces and nephew. “It probably won’t last forever,” the new lawyer said. Lila told Patrick that the guy had sounded bored. The lawyer added, “Perhaps the mother believes they need time to heal as a family first?”

But even the bored but optimistic lawyer admitted that they would probably have to have a hearing. Eventually. He wasn’t willing to start the process until he gave the kids time to “heal”: maybe July or August, he said.

Patrick knew his wife couldn’t wait that long, and he’d made up his mind to do something about this, today. He felt like he had to take some action to help Lila and couldn’t think of anything else to try. But he didn’t bring up the subject with Ashley. He was never that good on the phone and he knew this would take his best effort. He merely asked if she’d be around and told her he’d like to come to Harrisburg for a little talk.

“Lila’s having problems, isn’t she?” Ashley said. Her tone wasn’t unkind, but the question annoyed him. He said they’d talk about it when he got there.

It was a good day to take a little trip. He only had two classes to teach on Friday, and it had been easy to find a replacement. Joyce
Little was new in the department and eager to make friends. She said she’d teach for Patrick before he even told her he’d make it up to her someday. He meant he would teach her classes if she ever needed him to, but she said he could pay her back by taking her to lunch next week. He said he’d try; he was thinking that it depended on how Lila was feeling.

Joyce said, “Your wife’s situation. Oh, of course. I’m sorry if that sounded insensitive.”

He thanked her, but as he left, he wondered how Joyce knew, and whether his whole department knew. The thought bothered him. Patrick really liked the people he worked with, but he was a firm believer in keeping his private life private.

As he drove along the turnpike, he focused on a lecture he was giving next week. He was exhausted by the situation with Lila, and the lecture was much easier to think about. He could make the lecture better, but he couldn’t make his wife better. He hated feeling so powerless.

Even though he hadn’t been to Billy and Ashley’s house since last summer, he had no problem finding it. It was a little stone cottage down by the river, nice actually, with a sunroom in back and a small living room with a fireplace. There was one bedroom downstairs, and two upstairs for the kids. Pearl shared the bigger room with her sister, Maisie. William had his own tiny room with spaceship wallpaper that his dad had put up when they moved in.

Ashley led him into the kitchen and asked if he wanted coffee. He said no thanks. He was already anxious about what he’d come to tell her; the last thing he needed was caffeine.

Before he could get to his point, he had to listen to Ashley talk about why she was screening all the calls that came into her house. “A lot of nuts want to talk to my kids,” Ashley said. “Some father’s rights guy called and cussed me out last week. They’re obsessed with what they say I did to Billy. One of them said they’re
going to use my case to change custody laws. I said go ahead and try.”

“Must be difficult,” Patrick said evenly. “On you and the kids.”

“The kids don’t know anything about it. Me and Kyle keep our mouths shut when we’re around them.”

“Kyle?”

Ashley shrugged. “Yeah, he’s an old friend. I went to high school with him and then didn’t hear from him until a year and a half ago. We connected through one of those online things, classmates-dotcom? Ever tried that?” She smiled. “It’s cool. You find out what happened to all these people you’ve forgotten about.”

“But he’s staying with you now?” Patrick tried not to sound disapproving. He’d seen a man’s jacket and boots by the front door, but he’d stupidly assumed they were Billy’s.

“Temporarily.” She coughed. “It’s kind of complicated.”

That’s when Patrick knew Ashley had a boyfriend, just like Lila said. Lila claimed there had to be another man because Ashley couldn’t manage alone, but Patrick thought his wife was just angry. Now that he knew it was true, he wondered what kind of mother Ashley really was. Letting a boyfriend move in with her so soon? A man she hadn’t seen in years?

“Where is he now?” Patrick said lightly, hoping the guy wasn’t going to barge in and interrupt their conversation.

“He’s out trading his car for a truck. He likes to haul things. Usual man stuff.”

As Patrick had never hauled anything in his life, he couldn’t comment on this. He wished the topic of Kyle hadn’t come up because it flustered him. He’d always liked Ashley and found her to be reasonable enough. Truth be told, he’d thought she had her hands full with Lila’s brother. He’d even felt sorry for her, living with a moody man like Billy.

Despite his discomfort, he slowly started presenting his case
for why his wife should be allowed to visit the kids. He mentioned Lila’s long-standing relationship with them and all the holidays and birthdays the kids had spent with their aunt. He emphasized that, though the children’s father had clearly been unstable, their aunt would always be an important connection to their father’s memory. She might even be crucial to their healing—a fact about the “grieving process” he’d found the night before on the internet.

He said a lot of other things and Ashley patiently listened to it all. She had a nice face; he’d always thought that. She looked like a warm, tolerant person. She was wearing a light blue sweater, faded jeans, and house slippers; her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she wore tiny gold earrings. The very picture of a friendly suburban mom. Naturally, he thought he was getting through to her. Why wouldn’t he be? He was only asking for what was right.

When he was finished, Ashley folded her hands. “Do you know what Billy did to that boy?”

“No, but Lila didn’t have anything to do with—”

“It wasn’t just hitting him or the things a pervert would do. That would be bad, but William could have gotten over that someday.”

Patrick was trying to comprehend how she could sound so casual about child abuse, when she continued, “No, this was way worse. He could have gotten William killed.”

He let her describe in great detail the risks Billy had taken with their son. He wanted to know the facts in Billy’s police file, but after he’d heard it all, his first response was relief. What he’d been imagining was so much worse, actually: something along the lines of what Ashley had called “things a pervert would do.” At the very least, he thought Billy had done something that had caused physical harm to William, as opposed to being only so dangerous it could have harmed the child. But “only so dangerous” didn’t make sense and Patrick knew it. Billy was a parent; he’d had an absolute responsibility to keep his child safe. Ashley was right to take this
to the police and he told her so, though of course he would never admit that to Lila.

It hadn’t occurred to him yet to wonder why Billy had done all this. But Ashley had her own theory: Billy was crazy. And not only Billy, but his sister, too. “I know she’s your wife and you don’t want to think anything bad about her, but there’s a lot you don’t know. A lot I didn’t know, either. A lot I still don’t.” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “No need for me to find out now, but you’d better, if you don’t want Lila flipping out like Billy did.”

He was nervous, but he said, “Lila is fine. She just wants to see your kids, which is perfectly normal. They’re all she has left of her family.

Ashley stood up and went to the kitchen counter. She reached inside a jar that said Tea and pulled out a small envelope. When she sat back down, she said, “This is a sympathy card I got the day after the funeral. Who do you think it’s from?”

“No idea.” He hated rhetorical questions. What was the point of asking him when he couldn’t possibly know?

“It’s from Billy and Lila’s mother.” He started to object, but she said, “Hold on, I know what you’re thinking. Their mother is dead. I thought that, too. That’s what he always told me.”

He felt really angry then, though he tried to keep his voice steady and reasonable. “You said a lot of ‘nuts’ have been calling.” He pointed at the envelope in her hand. “That must have been from some lunatic, too.” When she didn’t say anything, he added, “If the mother was still alive, don’t you think she would have come to the funeral?”

“Billy’s mother said she wanted to come.”

He snapped, “I wish you wouldn’t call her that.”

“She said she wanted to meet me and her grandkids, but she couldn’t come because she was afraid.”

“Of course she was. Afraid of being discovered.” He hoped he wasn’t smirking. “Because Lila would know immediately that she was a fraud.”

“No,” Ashley said slowly. “Afraid
of
Lila.” She handed him the envelope. “Here, see for yourself.”

He pulled the card from the envelope. The woman called herself Barbara, which was Lila’s mother’s name. She got that part right, but so what? It wouldn’t have been hard, given all the newspaper stories. She went on for a paragraph about how sorry she was for Ashley and the children before she threw in the claim that she was afraid of Lila. Which, to Patrick’s mind, was exactly what he’d been saying. She was afraid of Lila denouncing her as a fake.

He was oddly calmer now that he’d seen it. It was ridiculous, and he told Ashley so.

“I thought that myself at first. So you know what I did? I wrote to the old gal. She had a return address in New Jersey, and I sat down and wrote and asked her for proof.”

Ashley reached under a bowl of fruit and there was another envelope. This time she didn’t hesitate before handing it to Patrick. Inside the envelope was a photograph. There was no mistaking that the two children were at least related to Lila: the girl looked like Pearl when she was younger and the boy looked uncannily like Billy. The only thing that surprised him was how much shorter the girl was than the boy, but he knew that wasn’t meaningful because even though Lila had grown up to be taller than her brother, she could certainly have been smaller as a kid. On the back of the photo, someone had written:
Billy and Lila, summer 1981.

“Maybe she found this.” His hand was shaking a little. He dropped the photo on the table and crossed his arms. “It doesn’t prove anything.”

Ashley sounded kind, even a little sorry for him. “It sucks being lied to by the person you thought you were closer to than anybody in the whole world, doesn’t it? I know how you feel.”

Patrick didn’t respond, though he was sure Ashley didn’t know how he felt, because Ashley’s mother was still alive.

Over the last twelve years, he’d tried so hard not to think about his mother’s death. It was the worst thing that had ever happened to him and the only way to deal with it was to force himself not to go there. Even when he was stuck on the phone, listening to his father’s memories and regrets, he always made sure he was in front of his computer, too, so he could read the news or science blogs or something, anything to distract himself.

He could feel his jaw tightening. He’d never realized until this moment how much it had always meant to him to know that he and Lila had this bond. She rarely spoke of her mother, either, but he’d always assumed this was because she, too, was trying to avoid feeling this devastating loss.

Lila’s mother could not be alive. It was that simple. It was as unbelievable to him as anyone being afraid of his gentle, soft-spoken wife.

He placed his hands flat on the table. “Are you telling me you won’t let your kids see their aunt because some nut claims to be scared of her?”

Ashley looked out the window behind him. “I don’t know what happened to Billy and Lila when they were kids. Something did, though; I’ve known that for years. My husband became crazier and crazier as William got older.” She shook her head. “Hell, maybe you’re lucky you and Lila don’t have any kids.”

“Thanks,” he said, without attempting to hide his sarcasm.

“She’s got some problems, that wife of yours. That’s what I told the lawyer. Anybody who would lie about their mom being dead to their own husband—that’s somebody troubled.” She lowered
her voice. “All I know is that my kids aren’t going to suffer another minute from the Cole curse.”

Patrick laughed. “ ‘The Cole curse’? Come on, you sound like a superstitious idi—”