But the images came and would not be dispelled. They appeared every night when Claire lay down in this bed where she and Tom had been intimate, where the smell of him still lingered in the sheets, and the wrinkles on his pillowcase could still be faintly seen. If she lived alone until she was a hundred she’d never get used to his warm, breathing presence being absent from the other half of the bed.
Sometimes a contrary thought came, though she didn’t mean to be thinking in terms of getting even.
All right, so maybe you’ve got a mistress, Tom Gardner, but just don’t think you’re the only one who’s still got some sex appeal left, because all I'd have to do is snap my fingers and John Handelman would be right in this bed beside me!
Afterward she’d feel guilty, as if she were actually considering committing adultery, even though it had been only a hollow threat.
One of them had to honor their vows for the children’s sake, and if Tom hadn’t, she would. After all, children needed role models, and part of her greatest disappointment in Tom was his falling from grace in their eyes.
Her eyes would be bloodshot again in the morning ... damn him, too, for causing that ... and for making her live without him, which she hated ... and for making her the subject of school gossip ... and the target of John Handelman’s flirting ...
She was still missing him when she finally lurched off to sleep.
*****
The following day, she knew the moment Kent Arens walked into her classroom that he’d heard about her and Tom’s breakup. He’d always been distant and watchful. Today he seemed to be studying her with a somber intensity she could feel even when her back was turned.
She should have let Tom transfer him out when he’d suggested doing so. It was difficult to remain objective—let alone friendly—with your husband’s illegitimate child. Her disfavor showed. She never called on him, let her eyes linger on him, or said hello when he walked past her door. When their gazes tangled, neither of them smiled. She felt terrible treating him that way, but his work remained exemplary, his average a perfect 4.0, so she excused herself and submerged her guilt.
That Tuesday when fifth period ended and the students filed out, Kent remained behind in his seat. Claire pretended not to see him while she tamped papers and checked her lesson plan book, but his presence was hard to miss. He unfolded his leggy body and came to stand smack in front of her.
“I heard about you and Mr. Gardner,” he said.
She leveled a loveless gaze on him and said, “Did you?”
He stood at ease, wearing jeans and a pale yellow V-necked sweater, looking so damned much like Tom.
“I suppose it’s my fault,” he said.
Her heart melted as he faced her foursquare, owning up to guilt that wasn’t his.
“No, of course not.”
“Then why do you treat me as if I’m not here?”
She blushed. “I’m sorry, Kent. I didn’t realize I was doing that.”
“I think you do it on purpose, to punish me for being in this school.”
Hit squarely in her conscience, she took to her chair as if a blow truly had been delivered. It left her short-breathed and quivering inside.
“You’re very much like him,” she whispered.
“Am I? I wouldn’t know.”
“He’d stand up to me the same way if he were in this situation. I admire you for it.”
“Then why did you leave him?”
“Really, Kent, I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“If it isn’t mine, whose is it? This wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t moved into this school district. Am I wrong?”
They locked eyes for several seconds before she admitted, softly, “No, you’re not.”
“So if you’re not punishing me, who are you punishing? Him? Because if that’s what you’re doing, you should know that your kids are suffering too. I just don’t see any sense in that. I grew up without a dad, so I know what it feels like. Your kids have one and you’re taking him away from them. I’m sorry, Mrs. Gardner, but I don’t think that’s the right thing to do. Chelsea told me once how much she loves him, and yesterday in the locker room everybody could see that Robby was acting different already. He didn’t even lead the team outside for practice.”
“I had a talk with my children last night. I think they understand my reasons for leaving Tom.”
“Do you think he’s having an affair with my mother, or what? Because I asked her, and she said they’re not. Why don’t you just ask him?”
Claire was so stunned she couldn’t respond. What was she doing discussing the intimate details of her marriage with one of her students?
“I think you’re out of line, Kent.”
He iced over and backed up a step, a model of overstrained politeness.
“All right, then I apologize, and I’ll go.” He turned on his heel and made for the door with a military correctness, more in control than any seventeen-year-old she’d ever met. Good Lord, had he no fear of retribution? The average high school senior wouldn’t have had the temerity to speak up to a teacher that way. The remarkable thing was he’d done it with the utmost respect, the same kind of respect she and Tom had always maintained while disagreeing with each other. When she saw Kent’s back going around the doorway she was left with a grudging respect herself.
*****
By the end of that week more details had leaked out and everyone at HHH knew that Kent Arens was the illegitimate son of their principal.
Kent was being stared at.
Robby and Chelsea were being questioned.
Claire often detected sudden hushes when she walked into a room.
Tom had done some talking with Lynn Roxbury, who’d told him to forget about what people thought; he needed to reconcile his relationship with Kent in some concrete way before he could go on with his life.
He sent a note to Kent’s first-hour class, and this time Kent showed up at his office door in five minutes. When they were alone the two of them stood gazing at each other, still acclimating to the idea that they were father and son. It was a more precious moment than before, devoid of some of the complications and secrecy that had permeated their previous meetings. They could study each other wholly, searching eyes, shapes, musculature, and coloring without recoiling in shock at their similarity.
“We do look a lot alike, don’t we?” Tom said.
Kent nodded, barely perceptibly. He was still staring at his father, who had come around his desk and stood a mere four feet away. Between them hummed a ripe fascination. “Everybody in school knows about it now,” Kent said.
“Does that bother you?”
“At first it did. Now though, I don’t know. I’m ... well, I’m sort of proud of it.”
Tom’s heart gave a little kick of surprise.
“I would like sometime for you to see the pictures of me when I was your age.”
Kent said, “I’d like that too.”
Silence hovered again while they thought of possibilities, considered making up for lost time, and wondered if they could create some future as father and son.
Tom said, “My father would like to meet you.”
“I’d ...” Kent swallowed hard. “I’d like to meet him too.”
“I’m living with him now, you know.”
“Yes, I know. I’m sorry I caused that.”
“You didn’t, I did. But it’s my problem and I’ll handle it. Anyway, Dad and I were wondering if you could come out to the cabin this weekend, maybe on Saturday.”
Kent’s face flushed. “Sure. I’d ... well, heck, I mean that’d be great!”
“You could meet Uncle Clyde too, if you want.”
“Sure.” Kent was smiling outright.
“Uncle Clyde and Dad like to rib one another a lot, and you never know what it’ll be about, so I warn you, you’ll have to take it with a grain of salt.”
Kent looked awestruck, perhaps a little giddy. “I just can’t believe it, that
I’m really going to meet my grandfather.”
“He’s a great old guy. You’re going to love him. I surely do.”
Kent just smiled and smiled.
“Well, listen,” Tom said, “I shouldn’t keep you away from class anymore. Do you need a ride on Saturday? Because I could come and get you.”
“No, I think Mom will let me use the car.”
“All right then ... two o’clock maybe?”
“Two would be fine.”
“Here, just a minute ...” Tom returned to his desk. “I’ll draw you a map.”
While he slashed lines with a pencil, he was conscious that Kent had come right around the desk to stand beside him. “Watch for a line of pine trees along here, and then when you turn in, bear right at the Y, and Dad’s place is only about a hundred yards in. It’s a little log cabin, and you’ll see my red Taurus parked by the back door beside his pickup.”
Tom straightened and handed the paper to Kent.
“Thanks. Two o’clock ... I’ll be there.” He folded the paper and creased it with his thumbnail. Once. Twice. Thrice, unnecessarily. There was nothing more that needed saying at the moment. They stood near, held in thrall by the possibility of touching, realizing that if they did they would cross a threshold that would forever alter their relationship. Their eyes gave away what they felt, how they yearned ... and feared ... and faced the moment with fast-tripping hearts.
And then Tom took him, and he came, and they pressed together heart to heart. They stood motionless, holding fast to one another in a flood of emotion. To have found each other became a miracle, a gift they had not expected life to give. At that moment they felt rich with it, blessed.
When they parted and looked into each other’s eyes, they saw wellsprings near flowing.
Tom touched his son’s face, a mere resting of a palm on a cheek, while Kent’s arms slid free of his father’s sides. He tried to speak but failed. No smile intruded on the moment, no word marred its perfection. They stepped back, Tom’s hand fell, and Kent left the office in the kind of silence reserved most times for temples.
Fourteen
On Saturday morning Tom said, “Dad, come on, let’s clean up the place.”
“What for?” Wesley took in the exploding magazine rack, the tilting pile of newspapers, the skewed slipcovers, and the disastrous kitchen sink. Junk everywhere, and none of it clean.
“I don’t know how you can live in this pigpen.”
“Doesn’t bother me none.”
“I know, but Dad, please, could we just make it look presentable for once?”
“Oh, all right.” Wesley budged himself off his kitchen chair. “What do you want me to do?”
“Just one thing. Throw away every single thing that you haven’t touched in six months, and after that, take a shower and put on clean clothes. I’ll do all the rest.”
Wesley looked down at his baggy trousers and khaki shirt. He looked up at Tom. What’s the matter with these? was written all over his face. He looked down again, flicked a scale of dried egg yolk off his shirtfront, and gave a sniff that could have meant anything. Then he started sorting newspapers.
Clyde came over at quarter to two, looking spiffy. He, unlike his brother, took great pride in dressing the part of a dandy. He took one look at Wesley and said, “Great balls of fire, would you look at him! Tom, give me a jackknife so I can carve this date on the wall.”
“Just shut your trap, Clyde, before I shut it for you!”
Clyde chortled in his throat. “What’d you have to do, Tom, handcuff him to the shower wall? By God, you clean up real purty, Wesley. You play your cards right, I’ll take you to the whorehouse later on.”
Kent arrived promptly at two. He pulled up in the Lexus and got out to be greeted by all three of the men waiting on the back stoop.
Tom went forward. Here was that awkward moment again, like back before the two of them had hugged, filled with uncertainty on both their parts.
“Hello, Kent.”
“Hello, sir.”
“Well... you’re right on time.”
“Yes, sir.”
After a clumsy pause, Tom said, “Well, come on... meet Dad.” He ushered the boy forward to the base of the step, shot through by indecision about how to introduce them. In the end he decided to forgo any mention of their blood relationship and let time take care of that.
“Kent, this is my dad, Wesley Gardner, and my uncle, Clyde Gardner. Dad, Uncle Clyde, this is my son Kent Arens.” My son Kent Arens. The effect of that first declaration was far more powerful than Tom had expected. My son, my son, my son ... Happiness flooded him as he watched the encounter between his dad and the boy.
Wesley reached out as if to shake Kent’s hand, but held it at length, smiling at his face, looking from it to Tom’s and back again.
“Yessir,” he proclaimed, “you’re Tom’s boy all right. And darned if you haven’t got a little bit of your grandma in you too. I can see it in the mouth, can’t you, Clyde? Hasn’t he got Anne’s mouth?”
Kent smiled self-consciously. Then he let himself chuckle, and by the time he shook hands with Clyde, the worst moments were over.
“Well, come on inside, I’ll show you where I live.” Wesley led the way. “Your dad had me gussying the place up this morning, getting rid of the fish smell. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a little fish smell. Makes the place feel homey. You like to fish, son?”
“I’ve never done it.”
“Never done it! Why, we’ll fix that, won’t we, Clyde? Too late this year, but next summer when the season opens, you just wait! I put a cane pole in your dad’s hands when he wasn’t even as high as my hemorrhoids, and I want to tell you, that boy knew how to fish! We’re startin’ a little late with you, but maybe you ain’t spoiled yet. You ever seen a Fenwick rod, Kent?”
“No sir, I haven’t.”
“Best rod in the—” Wesley stopped himself and spun, directing a fake scowl at the boy. “Sir? What’s this ‘sir’ business? I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling pretty lucky today. Just found myself a new grandson, and if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to be called Grandpa, like all the rest of my grandchildren do. You want to try it out one time?”
Kent couldn’t help grinning. It was hard not to around a lovable old windbag like Wesley. “Grandpa,” he said.
“That’s better. Now come on over here. I’ll show you my Fenwick Goldwing. Just put a new Daiwa reel on it. It’s a whisker series, you know.”
Clyde piped up. “You listen to him and your mind’ll get tainted right off the bat. He thinks he’s got the best rod and reel in the world, but mine’s better. I got a G. Loomis with a Shimano Stradic two thousand, and you can ask him whose rod and reel caught the biggest walleye this summer. Go ahead, ask him!”
“Whose rod and reel caught the biggest walleye, Grandpa?” Kent asked, falling right in with their shenanigans.
Wesley scowled at his brother. “Well, damn it, Clyde, you hung your fish on that damned old rusty scale that was prob’ly used to weigh the whale that swallowed Jonah!”
“Old, but accurate.” Clyde grinned.
“Then tell him whose rod and reel caught the biggest northern!”
“Hey, wait!” Kent interrupted. “Wait, wait, wait! What’s a northern? What’s a walleye?”
Both men gaped at him in rank stupefaction. “What’s a walleye!” they blurted out simultaneously. They looked at him ... at each other ... back at him. Their expressions seemed to say, poor slighted child. Then Wesley shook his head. “Boy-o-boy, do we have our work cut out for us!” he said, reaching up to remove a fishing cap that wasn’t there, intending to scratch his head beneath it. “Boy-o-boy-o-boy.”
They had a fabulous day. Kent learned much more about his grandfather and great-uncle than he did about his father. He sat on a slip-covered sofa and listened to the two of them tell about when they were boys in Alexandria, Minnesota, and their folks had run a
resort. He learned that in the summers they’d slept in an unfinished loft over a shed, and at nighttime they peed in a fruit jar they kept under the bed until their mother found it while cleaning one time, and made them each lay a turd in the jar and leave it uncapped for two weeks before they could throw it away. It was a hot summer. The loft was ninety-five degrees by midafternoon, and well before the two weeks were up Wesley and Clyde had vowed to their mother they’d never again leave a pee jar under their bed, but would make the long walk down the path in the back even in the deep mosquitoey night.
Back then they’d had a friend they called Sweaty, who wasn’t the brightest light on the Ferris wheel, but he was so much older than the rest of the boys they claimed he’d had his driver’s license in sixth grade. Old Sweaty was mighty popular with the pre-driving crowd in their early teens. A bunch of them used to run around in Sweaty’s car, stealing watermelons and putting Limburger cheese on manifolds, leaving snakes in people’s mailboxes, gluing dimes onto sidewalks, and putting sugar in saltshakers at the local hangouts. They laughed and laughed about the Halloweens when they’d filled paper bags with dog shit, lit them on fire on people’s doorsteps, then rung the bell and run. And once they stole a huge bra and underpants from the clothesline of their English teacher, Mrs. Fabrini, and hoisted it up the flagpole at school.
“Hoo-ey! Remember how big she was?”
Clyde held out his hands as if holding two overstuffed grocery bags. “Like a couple of yearling pigs in a gunny-sack.”
“And back here, too!” Wesley swatted his rump. “Why, when the wind blew them underpants the science teachers took their classes outside ’cause they thought we were having an eclipse of the sun!”