Twilight Child (37 page)

 “I never
found it good from far away,” Molly said, cuddling closer, warming him.
Outside, in the distance above the trees, he saw the first pink edges of dawn.
The inkiness was disappearing. It reminded him more of twilight than of dawn.
Everything nowadays reminded him of twilight. He knew what that meant.

 “A man's time
sure runs out quickly,” he said.

 “Men again.”

 “People. I
meant people.”

 “I know what
you meant, Charlie,” Molly said, reaching out to touch his arm. But before they
went up to bed, he picked up the crumpled cigarette wrapper that he had earlier
thrown on the floor and again tossed it toward the trash can. This time, he
didn't miss.

 It was too
bright a day for heavy hearts, he told himself, remembering the other bright
days long ago that ended in riven flesh and rivers of blood.

 “Good day for
the nursery,” he said to Molly, mostly to chase the morbid thought. Above all,
he warned himself, he must be alert to fend off these depressing images of
doom. “I told them I had private business for a couple of days. They were
really damned nice about it. Said they liked a man who had a feel for growing
things. Funny, I never thought I did.”

 “Shows how
much you know.”

 “Live and
learn.”

 “We're doing
that, all right.”

 Without
having to say it last night, they both knew that if Tray was denied them, they
could not stay in Dundalk and would have to move on to somewhere else.
Anywhere. New places meant new beginnings. Somehow they would have to learn how
to excise the ghosts of the past.

 They crossed
the long, curving Francis Scott Key bridge. Over the railing, Charlie could see
the great port, merchant ships at anchor, shooting water plumes from their
bulkheads. At the south end of the harbor was Sparrows Point, the giant
Bethlehem works, where he had spent the better part of a lifetime. The plant
was quiet now, mortally wounded by time, obsolescence, and the old Japanese
enemy.

 “Won't say
I'm not scared,” he confessed grudgingly.

 “No, don't
say that. Actually I'm petrified. Do you think he'll know me?” Molly had
primped and patted and pulled herself together with more care than she had
taken in years.

 “You're his
Gramma. Nobody forgets his Gramma.”

 He hadn't
told her that of all the horrors of that day at the school, the worst was the
vague light of recognition in the boy's eyes. Time had eroded his memory. Not
completely, of course. But they were there: the first unmistakable signs of
obliteration. No point in telling Molly about it now, he thought. If, by some
miracle, they did win the right to see him, it would be a long, hard road back
to the easy joy they had taken in each other's company. Maybe they could never
get back to that point.

 They parked
the car in the lot across from the courthouse, and he looked at his watch. It
was ten minutes to ten. Yet neither of them made a move to get out of the car.

 “What's
wrong?” Molly asked.

 “Will they
let him say hello?”

 “I hope so.”
She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Do I look okay?” she asked.

 “Not like a
Gramma. I tell you true.”

 They got out
of the car and moved slowly toward the courthouse. It surprised them to see the
courtroom nearly empty, except for the clerk and the stenographer. The
courtroom had a musty smell. They took their seats. Soon Forte arrived with
Peck. Probably had breakfast together, Charlie thought with disgust. Conspiring
to manipulate their lives. What did it matter to them?

 “Are both of
you all right?” Forte asked. Groomed to perfection, he offered a mouthful of
white teeth in a shy conciliatory grin.

 “Will she
make her decision today?” Molly asked.

 “Probably,”
Forte said, taking out his yellow pad. “After the boy—”

 “I want your
promise,” Charlie said suddenly. He sensed Molly watching him with questioning
eyes. “If it becomes too much . . .” He looked toward Molly and
swallowed. “I mean if it gets hard on Tray. We call it off.” Molly smiled
thinly and nodded in agreement.

 “I'll do the
best I can.”

 “Nothing
hurts my grandson. Understand?”

 “Don't
worry.”

 “I want a
promise.”

 “You're the
client.”

 “I know that,
and this thing is out of control.”

 “I'll try—”

 “A promise.”

 “A promise it
is.”

 Molly gripped
his hand. They heard movement behind them and turned. Tray came in looking like
a man in miniature, the image of Chuck. Charlie felt his heart leap to his
throat. The boy walked between Peter and Frances, holding their hands. They
moved to their places quickly; the boy sat between them. He was so busy
examining the high ceiling that he didn't notice them.

 “He didn't
see us,” Molly whispered.

 “He will,”
Charlie said with some trepidation.

 The big
courtroom clock read fifteen minutes after ten. Still there was no sign of the
judge. No one said a word. They waited. Then Forte cleared his throat, and the
boy looked toward where they were sitting.

 “That's
Grampa,” he cried with excitement. Charlie lifted his hand and waved. Tray
waved back and smiled, and Charlie pointed to Molly.

 “And Gramma,”
the boy said.

 “Hi,
darling,” Molly said, her eyes quickly filling with tears.

 “See? He
recognized you. There's nothing to cry about.” He had all he could do to blink
away his own tears.

 At that
moment, the door leading from the judge's chambers opened. “All rise,” the
clerk said, and they stood up. Judge Stokes breezed through the door, lips
pursed, unsmiling, tight-faced. She had no visible soft edges, Charlie
observed, looking for signs of compassion. There was a severity about her that
he had not seen yesterday, and suddenly he was frightened for Tray. He turned
quickly to look at the boy, but Tray was busily absorbed in assessing this
phenomenon of a mysterious black-robed woman who sat high above them. To his
eyes, Charlie thought, she must, indeed, seem awesome.

 “Will counsel
for the parties approach the bench?” the judge said after the ritual of her
entrance. Both men rose and walked to the bench. Charlie strained to hear what
they were saying in fervent whispers. Occasionally, one of the men would shake
his head. Then the other would nod, and the scene would be repeated.

 “What's going
on?” Molly asked.

 Charlie
shrugged. Again, he felt overwhelmed by an acute sense of powerlessness. Other
people seemed always to be deciding his fate. He looked toward Tray.
Apparently, he had lost interest in the conference at the bench and was
scribbling on a pad. Frances turned at precisely the same moment, and Charlie's
gaze locked onto hers. He wasn't sure what he saw in her eyes. Confusion?
Animosity? Concern? That was in his own heart. He couldn't tell what was in
hers. I never knew you, he thought with regret.

 Finally, the
two lawyers returned to their seats.

 “It's the
best deal we could work out,” Forte said.

 “What is?”

 “She'll take
the boy alone in chambers,” Forte said.

 What did that
mean? Charlie wondered.

 Judge Stokes
looked up from her desk and nodded, then coughed into her fist.

 “Counsel has
waived the right to be present when I interview the boy in my chambers,” she
began. She scrutinized the faces ranged in front of her. She stopped and looked
directly at Frances. “There will be no court reporter present and no lawyers.
Just the boy and myself.” She paused and looked at the boy. “Charles Everett
Waters the third,” the judge said gently.

 The boy,
surprised to hear his name, leaned toward his mother.

 “Would you
bring the boy up here?” she asked Peter, who stood up. Taking Tray's hand, he
brought him to the bench.

 “Up here,”
the judge said. Peter brought him up to where the judge sat. From that height,
the boy looked down at his mother. He was obviously confused, and Charlie
thought he might be on the verge of crying. They watched intently as the judge
talked to the boy in low tones, then made a gesture for Peter to leave.
White-faced and tense, he came down from the bench and walked, stiff-legged,
back to his seat.

 Up there,
Charlie thought, Tray looked tiny, alone, reminding him of a tiny piece of
flotsam bobbing on a muddy puddle—powerless. Like him. A victim. Stop, Charlie
protested in his heart. After a few moments of earnest conversation with Tray,
the judge turned to the adults in the courtroom.

 “Court is adjourned
for an hour,” she said, standing up. She took the boy by the hand and started
to move toward the door of her chambers.

 “No,” Frances
cried.

 Startled, the
judge turned. Frances had stood up. She leaned slightly over the table,
balancing herself with her knuckles. So she, too, felt helpless, he thought.
But it gave him scant comfort. Peter stood up beside her, kissed her cheek,
whispered something in her ear, and eased her back into her seat.

 Charlie felt
something give way inside of him. The black-robed judge, boy in hand, turned
and walked toward the door. He saw the scene in slow motion. An image, like a
developing Polaroid picture, began to appear in his mind. The judge, the boy,
moving inexorably away from him, levitating, space as well as time
disintegrating. The pores of his body opened. He felt the sensation of melting.
In the image he could see his own trembling hands, pleading more than reaching,
trying to stop the movement of the judge and the boy. Then they disappeared and
he heard the sound of the door closing, and the Polaroid image dissolved
instantly.

 “What is it,
Charlie?” Molly asked. There was no hiding things from her, and she sensed what
was going on in his heart.

 “It's no
good,” he said. “Either way.”

 She nodded.
He saw her lashes brush her cheeks and he knew what he must do.

 FOREWARNED
was not forearmed. Now Annie knew what Sam Compton
meant when he said everybody is innocent, everybody is guilty. Including
herself. Too bad life didn't come with an instruction book at birth. The worst
of it was that everybody was not only both innocent and guilty but right and
wrong. Anguish had seemed to fill the courtroom, the way she imagined mustard
gas must do, clinging to everyone. Burning everyone.

 Back in her
chambers after the first day of the hearing, she had fallen into her chair
exhausted, slipped a rarely used pint bottle of scotch from her lower drawer,
and poured herself a stiff shot in a paper cup. Tossing her head to help it
down, she felt it burn as it plummeted. The muscles in her neck contracted and
her face flushed. Carter came in just in time to see the effect.

 “It looks
easy on paper,” she said, when her breath came easier.

 “The written
words, unfortunately, don't come with stage directions.”

 “Believe me,
I have a working understanding of dispensing justice. I can understand
insurance scams, robbery, confidence games, fraud, embezzlement, even murder.
Nice and clean. Greed and violence. But this—this is an enigma.”

 “Nevertheless,
the law is clear.”

 “That's easy
for you to say. I was there.”

 “The law is
the law.”

 “Now I know
what the beadle really meant in
Oliver Twist
when he said that the law
is ‘a ass.' Remember?”

 “Ass or lady,
Justice still wears the blindfold.”

 “That doesn't
stop her from hearing.” She was about to say “feeling” as well, but she held
her tongue. He'd see it as a female reflex, and even though she was his
superior, it would, she suspected, somehow diminish her in his eyes. The
conclusion made her testy.

 “Will you
need more case law and citations?” he asked.

 “As much as I
can get.”

 “I've got
more. The key issue in all of them is—”

 “I know.” She
waved her arm. “Best interests of the child.”

 “Mommy and
daddy know best.”

 “That, too.”

 “You might
want to read them tonight. I've stuffed them into your briefcase. I assume
you'll want to rule tomorrow.”

 “After I talk
to the child,” she said, leaning over to put the bottle back in the bottom
drawer. She could still taste the sour aftertaste.

 “That
difficult?”

 “Very.” She
did not tell him that the young lawyer had hit a chord inside her. Despite all
her own warnings, she had remembered Peggy's words that morning. “Why don't you
ever do what I want to do?”

 “Well, it is
within the purview of the Maryland law . . . so long as both
lawyers and a court stenographer are present,” Carter said, a trifle
arrogantly, she observed.

 “I'm fully
aware of that; also of the unwritten law around here that a judge, if he or she
promises accurate reportage of the interview, may waive that rule and interview
the minor child alone.”

 “It could be
dangerous on appeal. A technical violation.”

 “I don't
think I'll get any objections on that score. Both lawyers are worse than
barracudas. They'll tear the child apart if they get at him. I just want to see
what kind of a kid this is and if he's really as happy as they all make him out
to be.”

 Besides, it
was all she could think of. For some reason she felt that Carter had better be
given a logical explanation. “Maybe we ignore too much what kids think in these
matters. Maybe this business of mama knowing best is a myth.” Take me, for
example, she thought. Suddenly she found herself cataloguing her own
relationships. With her own parents. They had been undemonstrative. No one had
ever said how much they loved each other. And with her grandparents. On her
mother's side they were the same stuff, scattering wisdom, advice, and
aphorisms like rice at a wedding. The traditional view prevailed. Family was
family, and family obligations were rigidly enforced by guilt and custom. On
her father's side, they were all doctors like him, busy and self-absorbed, but
the same conditions prevailed. Did they matter? Did they really matter?

 Harold's
parents, on the other hand, were on a totally different wavelength. They had
been affectionate and demonstrative. Harold had been their pride and joy, and
his death had been an inconsolable blow. And although she understood this, she
could never shake the idea that, in their hearts, they somehow blamed her for his
death. It made her uncomfortable to be around them, and consequently, she saw
very little of them in recent years. Suddenly she caught herself up short. That
was one more thing they hadn't warned her about in domestic law. It forced you
to look inside yourself.

 “If you'd
like, I could give you a draft opinion.”

 “On which
side?”

 “Both if
necessary. Pick one.”

 “Just like
that?”

 “You're the
judge.”

 “I'm glad you
remembered.”

 Peggy wasn't
home when she arrived, which, while not ominous, was certainly questionable.
Annie tried to make it a point to be home for dinner, if only to show her
presence and mothering authority and illustrate the necessity of “quality time”
shared between herself and her daughter. Lately, it had been an illusion. Dinner
had been as trying as breakfast. At night, Peggy was only slightly less surly.
Nevertheless, she had tried to linger over the table, forcing Peggy into
conversation. Most times it was a monologue with Annie trying to engage her
daughter's interest in the events of her day. Peggy, on the other hand,
revealed little. For a time, she had volunteered to help her with homework, but
that, too, had been rejected.

 She had
defrosted chicken breasts, but decided at the last moment on steaks instead.
Steaks were Peggy's favorite, although when Peggy asked for them, Annie
ordinarily complained that they were too expensive. She took out a carton of
frozen asparagus, also a favorite of her daughter's. Hesitating, she reached
for the frozen french fries, weighing the psychological implications. Something
fattening might clear the air between them, she thought, act as a kind of peace
offering. Her day's ordeal in the courtroom had, without her noticing,
triggered a compelling reason to find the key to end her own domestic problems.
The Grahams and the Waterses were tearing each other apart, and it frightened
her to think of what venom could be stirred up in domestic relationships.

 While she
sliced fruits for dessert, she listened to old Beatles tunes on the radio. The
station was having a retrospective, and it was shocking to realize how much
time had passed since they had provided the background music to her life.
Harold had loved the Beatles. Memories of her early life flooded into her mind.
Her life was divided into two parts, pre-Harold and post-Harold. The first part
was defined by Harold's struggle to succeed in what for him had become a
hostile and alien world. The pain of it assaulted her. Everything he tried came
to nothing, and this failure had taught her that the enemy of success was the
inability to deal with initial rejection. Harold could never handle that.
Rejection could be corrosive, debilitating, and, in Harold's case, an
instrument of death. She had learned that lesson well, along with ways to cope
with it, overcome it, defeat it.

 From his
early demise, she had also learned the precious value of time. She became
compulsive about filling every moment with a useful, productive pursuit. Life,
in the final analysis, was time. Living was the efficient use of that time. And
achievement was based on high-quality use of that time. It was a philosophy
that worked well for Annie, and somehow she had managed to pass it along to
Laura. Yes, she had sacrified for it, made compromises. Why couldn't Peggy
understand? Why did they have such a clash of perceptions?

 “You want to
be a judge just so you can be boss, have other people under your thumb,” Peggy
had once told her during an argument. It was an observation that she had
seriously considered.

 “I want to be
a judge so that I can help other people,” she had countered.

 “Help? A
judge sends people to jail. A judge hurts people.”

 “That's not
true. A judge is a kind of referee for civilized society. Someone has to be
sure the rules are obeyed and punish those who break the rules.”

 “Punish.
You're good at that.”

 “Not only
punish, decide what's the best course of action for people.”

 “How can you
decide when you don't know what's best for your own daughter?”

 “Because with
my own daughter I'm too emotionally involved. I can't see the forest for the
trees.”

 “That's
because you don't look.”

 These
arguments always devolved into recriminations and, for her, guilt. Sometimes,
when the guilt became too pervasive, she blamed Harold for leaving her alone,
for killing himself, for saddling her with this burden.

 “Why can't
you understand?” Ultimately, that was always Peggy's final refuge. “Why can't
you?”

 Always the
unanswered question, she sighed, which brought her thoughts back to the case at
hand.

 That morning she
had been dead certain that, career-wise, she wanted nothing more in the world
than this profession. It had nobility of purpose, called forth all her
resources, presented exciting daily challenges. What she was doing truly
mattered, changed lives. Now her resolve had been considerably reduced. It was
not easy playing God.

 Play it safe,
she warned herself, another echo of old Sam's advice, further buttressed by
Carter's comments that morning. “Don't take chances on getting these decisions
rolled back at you on appeal,” Judge Compton had cautioned. “It could hurt your
chances in the election if someone got it into his mind to criticize your bench
marks.” She remembered that she had snickered at the pun. But she wasn't
snickering now. She had already made a fatal error—she had become emotionally
involved. Worse, she was coming up on both sides of the issue. Hadn't Carter
offered to write an opinion for each?

 Complicating
the decision-making process was the element of politics so subtly injected by
her young clerk. He was, she realized, only being a realist. He'd go far, that
boy. A decision on the side of the grandparents might win her lots of support
from older voters. In an aging population, that was no small consideration.
Some might say she was pandering to a certain constituency, a disgusting
thought that she instantly rejected. On the other hand, it had a practical ring
to it. Unethical as well. What had he called it—grey power? Well, if they had
the clout to get a grandparents' petition statute passed in forty-nine states,
one had to sit up and take notice. Now she was sorry it had even entered her
mind. She would have to bend over backward in her decision.

 Peggy's
absence was beginning to nag at her now. She set the table, placed the steaks
and french fries in the broiler, began to heat the water for the asparagus, and
laid out the fruit salad. She looked at her watch, checked it against the
kitchen clock. It was after seven. Her vague panic was becoming more defined.

 She went into
Peggy's room. As always, it was sloppy, clothes were strewn around, candy
wrappers were everywhere but in her wastebasket, records helter-skelter. It
seemed to her more like the lair of some frightened and unhappy animal.
Inspecting it now, under the pressure of anxiety, she absorbed the atmosphere
of lonely desperation and abject fear.

 “Peggy,” she
whispered into the anguished air, assaulted now by overpowering guilt. “Have I
done this?” But what had she done? Had she set unattainable standards?
Unrealistic goals? Made unreasonable assumptions?

 But when she
left the room, she began to think that perhaps Peggy was being deliberately
spiteful, making her squirm for all the imagined injustices she had allegedly
perpetrated. It made her angry, but could not dissipate her anxiety. Despite
all the psychological posturing, Peggy was her child, her blood and tissue, her
creation, and, therefore, her responsibility. Soon, she was searching among
Peggy's things for notes, telephone numbers, clues. She found nothing. She
toyed with the idea of calling the police. But she knew too much about police
procedures and the negative value of publicity for someone in her profession.

 Since she
could barely remember the names of Peggy's friends, there was no one to call.
In fact, she couldn't think of a single person to call except Laura. She dialed
her number in Cambridge. A roommate answered.

 “Sorry, Mrs.
Stokes. Laura's gone to a concert.”

 “It's nothing
important, Sue,” she said quickly.

 “I'll tell
her you called.”

 By
nine-thirty, she was frantic with worry, genuinely panicked. She called her
parents in Washington.

 “Did Peggy
call?” she asked her mother. Background noises indicated that her mother was
having one of her regular bridge evenings.

 “Not here,
dear.” There was a brief pause. “Is everything all right?”

 Despite her
mother's lack of sentimentality, she was quick to pick up signals of anxiety.
Mothers know their daughters. She had told Annie that often enough. Did they
really? Not if Peggy was an example.

 “She's not home.”

 “Maybe she's
out with friends.”

 “Could be.”

 “Teenage
girls are a problem these days,” her mother said with dubious authority. “I'm
sure it's nothing.” In her mother's mind, only death and disease were
“somethings.” Everything else was solvable. On the surface, she was often
right. No, she decided, Peggy would never have contacted them. She had had more
than enough advice dispensed to her to seek out this grandmother's platitudes.