Bygones

  “I know. I'm just being honest, Michael.”

  “You don't think you can ever trust me again?”

  She only studied him, wondering herself. Soon he spoke again.

  “I've been thinking about a lot of other things. The fact that both of us are working now—I think I've come to terms with that, and I'd be willing to share the housework, and not even fifty-fifty. Sometimes it might be sixty-forty, other times forty-sixty. I realize now that when both people are working it's got to be a cooperative effort that way.”

  She smiled. “I have a housekeeper now.”

  “Does she cook for you, too?”

  “No.”

  “Well, there, you see? We can take turns cooking.”

  Bess was getting sleepy. “Know what?”

  “What?”

  “I like being convinced. Go on.”

  “I've even given some thought to my hunting. I know you used to get upset when I'd leave you to go hunting but now I have the cabin and you can come along . . . light a fire in the fireplace, bring a good book . . . how does that sound?”

  “Mmm . . .”

  “It'd be good for you to get away from the store, relax a little more . . .”

  “Mmm . . .”

  Her hand below his ribs lay heavy and motionless.

  “Bess, are you sleeping?”

  Her breathing was regular, her eyelashes at rest upon her cheek. He braced up on one elbow and reached beyond her, caught the side of the bedspread and flipped it over her, then did the same on his side. She murmured and snuggled deeper. He put a hand on her waist, drew a knee up against her belly, nestled on his side with his forehead near hers and thought, I'll only stay for a half hour or so . . . it's so nice here beside her . . . if I leave the light on it'll wake me up again in a while.

  Chapter 16

  RANDY GOT HOME AT 2:15, pulled into the driveway and sat staring at the silver Cadillac Seville. What the hell is he doing here? He glanced up at his mother's bedroom window, found the light on, shook his head in disgust and slammed the van door behind himself.

  Inside, the entry chandelier was aglow, as well as the lights in the upstairs hall. Something was scattered on the steps. He went up to get a closer look and discovered an empty box of condoms, along with its contents lying strewn all over two steps. He picked one up, studied it as it lay in his palm and glanced at the head of the stairs. He started up cautiously, passing a piece of clothing, and when he reached the top, peered around the corner along the hall. More clothing left a trail—a man's trousers, shoes, his mother's little white thing that she wore after her bath. At the far end of the hall her bedroom door was wide open and the light was on.

  “Mom?” he called.

  No answer.

  He proceeded to the doorway, stopped just outside and called, “Mom, you all right?”

  Again, no answer, so he stepped inside.

  His mother and father were lying curled up together spoon-fashion, naked, with the bedspread haphazardly covering them to the hips. Michael's arm was looped over Bess's waist, his hand near her breast. From the looks of the room they'd had a wild one. Pillows lay scattered on the floor around the bed, which itself looked as though a twister had struck it. The empty packet from a condom lay on his father's side of the bed beside a soiled handkerchief.

  Randy felt his face flame but just as he made a move to retreat, Michael came awake, lifted his head and discovered Randy in the doorway. He glanced sharply at Bess, still asleep, caught the edge of the bedspread and drew it up to cover her naked breasts. Once more he looked across the room at his son.

  “Randy?”

  “You got balls, man,” Randy sneered, “coming here like this.”

  “Hey, Randy, just a min—”

  But Randy was gone, his footfalls thundering angrily down the hall, down the steps.

  Bess squinted awake and mumbled, “Michael? What time is it?”

  “Two-fifteen. Go back to sleep.”

  She clambered onto her knees and began scraping the spread back. “Let's get under.”

  “Bess, Randy's home.”

  “Oh so what. So now he knows. Shut off the lamp and get under.”

  Michael shut off the lamp and got under.

  In the morning he awakened to the sensation of being watched. He was. When he opened his eyes he found Bess with her head on the only pillow still remaining on the bed, her face turned his way, studying him.

  “Hi,” she said, looking quite pleased with herself.

  “Hi.”

  “Where's your pillow?” His head was flat on the mattress.

  “I seem to remember we threw it on the floor.”

  She smiled and said, “So we got caught, huh?”

  “Did we ever.”

  “Did he come in here?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “He said, ‘You got balls, man.' ”

  Her smile turned lurid. “Yeah, you do. Mind if I fondle them a little bit?”

  He grinned, pushed her hand away and regretfully told her, “Listen, missus, our son's in the house, and he's royally pissed.”

  She gave up her pursuit and said, “So what are we going to tell him?”

  “Hell, I don't know. You got any ideas?”

  “How about, ‘Forty-year-olds get horny, too'?”

  “Cute. Very cute.” Michael sat up on the edge of the bed, flexed his arms and stretched.

  Bess braced her jaw on one hand and reached up to ruffle his tousled hair.

  “He probably won't get up till nine or so.”

  “Then I'll stay till nine or so.”

  “You don't have to. I can talk to him.”

  “You're not the one he'll be angry with. It'll be me. I'm not leaving you here to do my dirty work while I slink off with my tail between my legs.”

  She let her palm ride down the center of his back. It was a good, straight back, still firm and tapered.

  Michael looked back over his shoulder at her. “Did you ever think when we had him that we'd end up making excuses for something like this?”

  She smiled.

  He rose, fully naked, and she watched him move around the foot of her bed through the bathroom doorway on her left. He left the door open, which brought a smile to her lips and some pleasant memories of married life. After taking care of morning necessities, he leaned against the vanity top, inspecting his face, rubbing sandmen out of his eyes.

  “You know how I knew you were having an affair?” she asked.

  He said, “How?” opened a drawer, found her hairbrush and started using it.

  “You started closing the bathroom door.”

  From her vantage point she saw the rear half of him, the front half cut off by the doorway. He stopped brushing, tipped back at the waist, peered into the bedroom and said, “Really?”

  “Mm-hm.” She was lying on her side, with her head cradled on a folded arm, wearing a soft smile. He left the bathroom and walked toward her, undeterred by his nakedness, dropped down to sit on the bed at her hip.

  “There . . . you see?” He touched her nose with the back of the brush. “I left it open. Now doesn't that prove something?”

  They smiled at each other a long time while he sat with one hand braced on either side of her, their bare hips separated by a single layer of sheet. It had rained during the night. The morning-cool air came through the open window bringing a faintly dank smell resembling mushrooms. Somewhere in a metal downspout droplets of water made a modulated blip, blip, blip. It was one of those sterling stretches of minutes that come along rarely in a relationship, certainly the most idyllic for Michael and Bess since their divorce. She hated to tarnish it.

  “Michael, listen . . .” She rubbed her palms lightly up and down his arms. “I'm not going to lie to Randy and tell him you and I are getting married again, because it's just not true. I need some time to think things through. This . . . this affair we've started . . . well, it's just that, an affair,
nothing more. If Randy has trouble adjusting to that, then so be it but I won't vindicate myself with a lie. Do you understand what I'm saying?”

  He withdrew to the edge of the bed, turning his back on her. “Sure. You're saying I'm good enough for you in bed but not out of it.”

  She sat up, touched his back. “No, Michael.”

  He rose and found his underwear, stepped into it and followed the trail of clothing still decorating the hall and steps. When he returned he was half-dressed, carrying her white cover-up and a handful of condoms. He tossed them on the bed along with the empty box. “There.” He buttoned his shirt and began stuffing it into his trousers with angry shoves. “Keep them handy, then, because I can promise you I'll be back. I won't be able to resist it but we'll be setting one hell of an example for our kids, won't we, Bess?”

  “Michael, you came here! I didn't come to you, so don't blame me for what happened!”

  “I want to marry you, damn it, and you're saying no, you'd rather have an affair; well what kind of—”

  “That's not what I'm saying.” She jumped up and grabbed her cover-up from the foot of the bed, flung it over her head. “I don't want to make the same mistake again, that's all.”

  “I can see the writing on the wall. We'll get together once, maybe twice a week, we'll make love, and afterwards we'll go through this same scene, me saying ‘Let's make it honest' and you getting angry, and then both of us getting angry. Well, that's not what I want, Bess. I want what Lisa wants—the two of us back together for good.”

  She stood before him, a little angry, a little repentant, a lot afraid. No matter what they'd agreed about shared guilt during their first breakup, he'd been the philanderer and the hurt still clung.

  “Michael,” she said calmly, “I don't want to fight with you.”

  His shirt was on, his pants were zipped, his belt was buckled.

  “Okay,” he said. “I've called you twice. It's your turn next time. See how it feels to be the one who comes begging.”

  He strode toward the door.

  “Michael . . .” The tone of her voice was tantamount to a reaching hand but he'd already disappeared around the door. She hurried to it and yelled down the hall, “Michael!”

  He called back as he reached the top of the stairs, “Tell Randy I'll call him and explain.”

  Randy's voice came from below.

  “You don't have to call him, he's here.”

  Michael's footsteps faltered, then continued more slowly to the bottom of the steps, where Randy stood, bare but for his blue jeans, which were zipped but unbuttoned. It startled Michael to see for the first time the dense pattern of hair on Randy's chest and around his navel, proof that he was as fully mature as Michael himself.

  “Randy . . . I'm sorry we woke you.”

  “I'll just bet you are.”

  “I didn't mean it that way. I had every intention of talking to you about this. I wasn't going to skip out and leave it to your mother.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, that's the way it looked to me. Why don't you just leave her alone?”

  “Because I love her, that's why.”

  “Love—Christ, don't make me laugh. I suppose you loved her then, too, when you had an affair with another woman and walked out on her. I suppose you loved me, and Lisa, too!”

  Michael knew it would do no good to declare he did. He stood in silence. Randy replied as if Michael had answered.

  “Well, that's some way to show your kids you love 'em. You want to know how it feels to have your father write you off? It hurts, that's how it feels!”

  “I didn't write you off.”

  “Aw, fuck that, man, you left her, you left us! I was thirteen years old. You know how a thirteen-year-old thinks? I figured it must've been my fault, I must've done something wrong to make you leave but I didn't know what; then Mom finally tells me you had another woman and I wanted to find you and smash your face, only I was too little and skinny. Now here you are, crawling out of her bed—well maybe I should smash it now, huh?”

  From the top of the stairs, Bess reprimanded, “Randy!”

  His icy eyes looked up. “This is between him and me, Ma.”

  “You will apologize to him at once if for nothing more than your offensive language!”

  “Like hell I will!”

  “Randy!” She started down the stairs.

  Randy's face wizened with disbelief. “Why are you taking his side? Can't you see he's just using you again? Comes down here saying he loves you—man, that's just bullshit! He probably said the same thing to that other floozy he married but he couldn't make that marriage stick, either! He's a loser, Ma, and he doesn't deserve you and you're a damn fool for letting him in here!”

  She slapped Randy's face.

  He stared at her in shock. Tears spurted into his eyes.

  “I'm very sorry I had to do that. I've never done it before and I want you to know I hated it. But I cannot allow you to stand there berating your father and I. Neither one of us are blameless but there are proper, respectful ways in which to talk these things out. Now, I think, Randy,” she said quietly, “that you owe us both an apology.”

  Randy stared at her. At Michael. Back at her before spinning and hitting for his downstairs bedroom without another word.

  When he was gone Bess put her hands to her cheeks and felt them burning. She turned to Michael, who stood forlornly, studying the toes of his shoes. She put her arms around him. “Michael, I'm sorry,” she whispered in a shaken voice.

  “It's been coming for a long time.”

  “Yes, I suppose so but that doesn't make it hurt any less.”

  She held him awhile. Though his arms automatically went around her, they applied no pressure, only hung there like limp ropes.

  Finally he pulled back and said in a strange, choked voice, “I'd better go.”

  “I'll talk to him when he's settled down.”

  Michael nodded at the floor. “I'll . . .” He didn't know what he'd do. Take another cooking course. Buy another piece of land to develop. Choose a sculpture for his gallery. Pointless, senseless, frantic scrambling by a man seeking to fill his life with meaning when the only meaning in life can come from people, not things.

  “I'll see you, Bess,” he said, and left, closing the door quietly behind him.

  * * *

  In his room, Randy sat on the edge of his water bed, doubled forward, holding his head in both hands.

  Crying.

  He wanted a dad, wanted a mom, wanted love like other kids. But why did it have to be so painful, getting it? He'd been hurt so much by their divorce. Why shouldn't he be allowed to vent this fury that had been building in him since the eighth grade, when they'd split? Couldn't they see what jerks they were making of themselves, falling back together this way for convenience? It wasn't as if they talked about getting married again—the word hadn't been mentioned. No, it was just plain lust, which made his mother as guilty as his father, and he didn't want her to be. Damn Lisa for stirring this all up. She was the one—Lisa!—who insisted they end the cold war. Now this.

  It had been bad holding things inside all these years but letting them out hadn't felt much good, either. Seeing the look of pain on his dad's face when he had yelled, “It hurts!”—that was what he'd wanted, wasn't it? To hurt his old man for once the way the old man had hurt him. Wasn't that what he wanted? So why was he doubled over here, bawling like a baby?

  Goddamn you, Dad, why did you leave us? Why didn't you stick with Mom and work it out?

  I'm so confused. I wish I had somebody to talk to, somebody who'd listen and make me understand who I'm angry at and why. Maryann. Oh God, Maryann, I respected you so much. I was going to show you I could be different than my old man, I could treat you like some princess and never lay a hand on you, and show you I was worthy of you.

  But I'm not. I talk like a gutter rat, and smoke pot, and drink plenty, and screw any girl who comes along, and my own father doesn't love me enough to stick
around, and my own mother slaps me.

  Somebody help me understand!

  Shortly, Randy's mother came to his door. She knocked softly. He swiped his eyes with the bedsheet, hopped up and pretended to be busy at the controls of the CD player.

  “Randy?” she called quietly.

  “Yeah, it's open.” He heard her come in.

  “Randy?”

  He waited.

  “I'm sorry.”

  He watched the knobs on the control panel blur as his eyes refilled with tears. “Yeah . . . well . . .” His voice sounded high, like when he was going through puberty and it was changing.

  “Slapping you was wrong. I shouldn't have done it. Randy?”

  He wouldn't answer.

  She had come up silently and touched his shoulder before he realized she was there. “Randy, I just want you to know something. Your dad asked me to marry him again but I'm the one who said no.”

  Randy blinked and the tears dropped to his bare stomach, clearing his vision somewhat. He remained with his back to Bess, his chin on his chest.

  “Why?”

  “Because I'm afraid of getting hurt again, the same as you.”

  “I'm never apologizing to him. Never.”

  Her hand went away from his shoulder. She sighed. Time passed. Her hand returned, warm and flat on his bare skin.

  “Randy, he loves you very much.”

  Randy said nothing. The damn tears plumped up again.

  “I know you don't believe that but he does. And whether you believe it or not, you love him. That's why you're hurting so badly right now.” Another pause before she continued. “The two of you will have to talk someday—I mean, really talk, without anger, about all your feelings. Please, Randy . . . don't wait too long, dear.”

  She kissed his shoulder and silently left.

  He remained in his windowless room, willing away tears that refused his bidding. He touched a silver knob on his CD player, let his hand fall to his side. He imagined going to his father's place and knocking on his door and simply walking into his arms and hugging him hard enough to snap their bones. How did people manage to do that after they'd been hurt this bad?