Waltzing at Midnight (24 page)

Amy picked up the remote and shut off the television. “What’s going on?” she asked in her regular voice. “What’s wrong, Mom?

What are you fighting about?”

I didn’t answer her, just sat wiping tears off my cheeks.

“He didn’t hit you, did he? He looked absolutely crazy.”

“No, he didn’t hit me. Your father has never hit me. He’s 16

been a good husband.”

“What did you say to him?” Now her voice was accusing, realizing that perhaps I was the culprit.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said firmly.

“I wish somebody’d let me in on things,” Amy grumbled, walking out.

Back in my bedroom, I phoned Rosie’s house. Her voice mail answered, so I left a message. “Jerry knows,” I said simply, my voice flat. “Call me as soon as you can.”

I had a momentary thought that Rosie might not want me once I was available to her. Such things did happen. Regardless of how powerful my feelings were for her, I still didn’t feel that I knew her well. She kept so much to herself. She was a driven, competitive sort of woman. Perhaps it was the challenge that she’d been interested in, after all. Well, I thought, I hope that isn’t the case, but, if it is, then I would carry on without her, somehow. I felt a strength of conviction that was unfamiliar but reassuring. I took my wedding ring off my finger and put it in my jewelry box.

I lay in bed in the dark for over an hour, unable to relax.

Jerry wasn’t a violent man, I reminded myself. He’d never hurt a woman. He probably wouldn’t hurt himself. God, I didn’t want to tell him. What a nightmare he must be going through. At midnight, the phone rang. I was still awake and Jerry was still out. I answered midway through the first ring, hoping Amy was asleep. It was Rosie. “I just got home. Are you okay?”

“I’m okay, but Jerry isn’t. When I saw him last, he was threatening to kill you.”

“He won’t, will he?”

“No,“ I assured her. “Maybe I should come over in case he shows up at your house, though.”

“It’s too late to go out tonight. Don’t worry about it, love. I’ll be fine. I’ll call you in the morning. By the way, congratulations.

That was a big step. I’m proud of you.”

I fell asleep at some point because the phone woke me. I glanced at the clock. It was six thirty. It was Rosie again. “I got 1

a call from your husband,” she said. “He was drunk. He yelled obscenities at me.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Rosie.”

“That’s okay. I can handle it. After he calmed down, we had a long chat. In the end he was sobbing. I told him to take a taxi home and get some sleep. I just got off the phone with him and thought you should know in case he doesn’t show up soon. He said he was outside Bernie’s Tavern in his car. Apparently he’d just been sitting there since they closed. I made him promise me he wouldn’t drive. I called him a taxi, so I’m hoping he took it.”

Shortly after I hung up, Jerry stumbled in. He dropped his coat on the floor and lurched past me, not looking at me. Amy stood in the hall and watched him go into our bedroom. He had forgotten that he was sleeping in Bradley’s room. I saw a taxi out front, pulling away.

Amy had her arms crossed over her chest. Her pose was a challenge. “Okay, Jean,” she said authoritatively, “it’s time you started talking. I have a right to know what’s going on. I live here too.”

“Yes,” I said, resigned, “I suppose you’ll have to know eventually. How about after some coffee? It’s been a rough night.”

Amy made the coffee for a change, then sat with me in the kitchen for one of the most ominous discussions we would ever have. How does one do this, I thought. She waited patiently.

“What I have to tell you,” I began, then stopped, unable to look at her. “I mean, this is really hard.”

“Mom, is somebody dying?”

“No, no, nobody’s dying. It’s not quite that bad.” Okay, just out with it, I thought. “I’ve fallen in love with someone else. I’m going to leave your father.”

She looked at me in astonishment, as though trying to read me, as though she hadn’t noticed me before. “Oh, my God,”

she said, but not in the way she usually said it with tremendous emphasis on each word. This was a more natural response.

“A woman,” I said, feeling sort of frantic to get it out. “I’m in 1

love with a woman.”

Amy stared, her mouth open. Then she blinked at me and shook her head. Say something, I thought.

“Are you serious?” she asked at last.

I nodded, realizing that I had not seen such a sober look on her face for years.

“Who? Who is your, uh…”

“GF?” My attempt to rouse her out of this uncomfortable solemnity didn’t work. Her expression didn’t change. “Rosie,” I said.Her eyes widened. She stared at me, unbelieving.

“I’m sorry, Amy,” I said, finally, just to break the silence.

She shook her head, obviously distraught. “Mom, how could you?”

She got up suddenly and ran out of the kitchen. I sat where I was, my life shattered around me. I drank my coffee absentmindedly, feeling helpless. I had hoped that Amy would be sympathetic, somehow. What did you expect? I asked myself.

That she would be happy for you? This is her family you’re tearing apart. A half hour passed and I didn’t move. I just sat staring at my hands on the table.

And then, unexpectedly, Amy returned. She poured me another cup of coffee and sat next to me. “Let’s talk,” she said in a mature tone of voice, settling in and looking at me with a frank and open expression. “So what are you going to do about it?”

I sighed. “Start a new life, I suppose.”

“No shit? At your age?” I smiled slightly, but didn’t answer.

“So you’re gonna unload Dad? We’re gonna be a broken home?

I’m glad this didn’t happen when we were little. Then we’d be like that kid in the book, I don’t remember her name—April, Tiffany, something like that, Has Two Mommies.”

“Heather,” I said, absurdly pleased that I finally got a literary reference that she didn’t know. The horrible thought that it could have happened before, when my children were little, caused me to shudder.

“Wow, Mom, I just never imagined…I never thought you, 1

well, you know…well, you’re my mom, you know what I mean?”

She shook her head. “Poor Dad.”

Amy and I sat and talked for a couple of hours. At first I was reluctant to answer her questions, but after a while it felt good, like a release valve opening. It was strange talking to my daughter about something this private, but, fundamentally, we had a good relationship, and I was grateful for that.

“I’m not a virgin, Mom,” she told me as the morning wore on. “I’m not surprised.”

“I was seventeen.”

“Jeffrey, right?”

She grinned. “Did you know?”

I shook my head. “No, but I suspected. Why didn’t you tell me then?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I thought you’d freak out or something.

Or put me in a chastity belt. I guess I didn’t think you and Dad could handle it. You know, you don’t think your parents have the same kinds of feelings you do because they don’t really let you see it, do they? They pretend to be so, like, whatever, you know. Like you, Mom, all in love like this. It’s sort of amazing to see wild and crazy in your parents. Like you can’t help yourself, it’s bigger than both of you. That kind of thing, at your age. Awesome.”

I felt better. I smiled at my daughter. “I hope you’re careful,”

I said. “About sex.”

She nodded. “For sure.” Then she winked at me. “You too.”

I was incredibly relieved to see that Amy wasn’t going to condemn me. She was turning into a beautiful human being and more mature than I had ever given her credit for. She seemed to understand exactly what was going on here. Her instincts were good, even if her ability to articulate them was less than impressive.

After a lull, Amy nodded, gazing at me across the table.

“Rosie, huh?” she said. “Wow.”

She took the coffee cups and rinsed them at the sink. Then she came up behind me and threw her arms around my neck, 10

hugging me. For the first time in quite a while, I felt hopeful about the future.

“What do you say we go pick up your father’s car?” I suggested.

11

I remembered wondering about the idea, in the abstract, of living alone, when I was housesitting for Rosie. Now I was going to find out what it was like. It was frightening. It was exhilarating. I rented a cheerful, west-facing apartment in mid-town and, within a week, had moved my essentials into it and had a functioning living space. I didn’t bring much, very little furniture, in fact, only a two-person dining table, two chairs, one easy chair and a nightstand. The only thing I bought was a bed.

Thankfully, there wasn’t much conflict with Jerry over possessions. The most difficult thing would be photos. Amy had volunteered to have duplicates made of all of those taken prior to the digital camera. Jerry, understandably distressed, claimed he didn’t care about them. “What good are photos?” he railed,

“when you’re destroying my life? They’re just reminders of what you’re taking away from me.” But I knew he would want them some day. They would be less painful some day, for me too.

This wasn’t an automatic decision, this apartment. In fact, it wasn’t really my decision at all. I had assumed that when I left 12

my marriage, I would move in with Rosie and we would begin our idyllic life together as a couple. She, however, saw things differently.

“I think you need to be on your own for a while,” she said.

“Leaving your house was just the first step. There’s more to leaving a relationship than that, especially such a well-entrenched one. I hope you understand.”

“No, I don’t understand. I want to be with you. That was the whole point.”

“You’ve never been on your own. Everyone should know what that’s like. It all sounds silly, I’m sure, but I think this is going to be a really valuable experience for you, and a necessary one. I’d rather you came to me when you weren’t running away from something else. That way, it will be a real choice you make.”

I really didn’t understand, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. Although it felt like rejection, she assured me that it wasn’t.

Regardless of where I moved to, I knew that moving was the right decision. Jerry and I had nothing to hold us together but the past. Once I had finally made and acted on the decision, it had been much easier than I’d ever expected. Far from stepping off a cliff into a freefall, as I’d imagined, it was more like stepping onto terra firma. As soon as it was done, a serenity descended over me. For the first couple of days, all I felt was relief.

Amy, assuming the role of emotional nursemaid to her father, had become a sort of rock for us both. She even attempted to cook for him a couple of times, which went to show how sorry she felt for him. She helped me unpack and set up my new living space, presenting me with the most cheerful of demeanors throughout.

Whatever her own heartbreak was over this family disaster, she kept it out of our sight. Very thoughtful, I realized, and probably rare under such circumstances.

Just as I got settled, the day that my new bed was delivered and set up, in fact, Rosie left town to attend a political convention in San Diego with our new mayor.

“Bad timing,” I said to her over the phone as she packed her 13

suitcase.

“Yes, I’m aware of that,” she said. “Can’t be helped.”

“You’re going to miss our Chinese visitors. I’m going to have to deal with them all by myself.”

“Oh,” Rosie said with a laugh. “I thought you were going to say you wanted me to help you break in your new bed. But it’s all about work with you, isn’t it?”

“The other goes without saying. I can’t wait to get my hands on you again. But this Chinese thing is scaring the shit out of me.

I thought you’d be here.”

“Well, the dear boy needs me. He’s a little unsure of himself.”

“He’s not the only one,” I said. “You’re going to be running the city whether you’re mayor or not, aren’t you?”

“Mike needs some help right now, but he’ll find his footing soon enough. He’s a good man. Oh, and he says the doll museum deal is all but signed thanks to you. He told me to relay his appreciation.”

“That’s great.”

“Yes, it is. Excellent work. And my other news is that I got a letter of apology from Tanya. Must have nearly killed her to write it.” Rosie laughed. “I’ll show it to you next time you’re over.”

“Congratulations. You’ll withdraw your ultimatum, I assume.”

“Oh, sure. I don’t think she’ll be giving me any more trouble, at least for a while.”

“Rosie, call me whenever you can the next couple of days.

I’m sure I’ll be in the middle of a potential disaster every hour.”

“Don’t worry, Jean. You’ll do fine. You can handle it. I could tell by the itinerary you drafted that you know what you’re doing. Just don’t forget about political ideologies, that’s all. And I think I will be able to be here for the last day anyway. We’re flying into Sacramento early. If you schedule the museum tour for afternoon, I can make that. Which I’d like to.”

“Okay. I’ll count on that, then.”

“And once our visitors have left, I expect an invitation to your 14

new place.”

I could hardly wait for that day myself. It had been a long time since that blissful night in San Francisco, so long, in fact, that it had taken on a dream-like quality. I knew that it hadn’t been a dream, though, no matter how fantastical it appeared in my memories. I longed for something more mundane between us, something run-of-the-mill, if that was possible. I had trouble imagining run-of-the-mill where Rosie was concerned, but I needed to get there, somehow.