The Escape Artist

  "Does Jessie seem depressed to you?" Kim asked as she worked.

  "Seem?" Adam didn't take his eyes from his canvas. "No, she doesn't seem depressed. She is depressed. So was I until recently."

  "Well, maybe she needs some…you know…professional help."

  "She saw a psychiatrist for a while. We both did. We were both on antidepressants. Jessie still gets into a funk now and then, but believe me, she's much better than she was. And I am much, much better." He sidestepped toward her and planted a kiss of gratitude on her neck, then returned to his own canvas. "Listen." He changed the subject. "I was wondering if you might like to go with me to Washington on Saturday? There's an exhibit at the National Gallery I'd like to see."

  She bit her lip. She would have to tell him about Philadelphia sooner than she'd wanted to. "Oh, Adam, I'm sorry," she said, "but I have plans for the weekend." The words came out in a rush, and she wondered if he heard the guilt behind them. "Actually, I have to go out of town."

  "You do? Where are you going?"

  She studied the tip of her brush, thinking. If anyone came looking for her, asking questions about her, it would be better if Adam didn't know where she was. But she couldn't lie to him any more than she had to.

  "Philadelphia," she said. "I'm visiting a friend there." She hoped he and Lucy never compared notes.

  "Oh." Adam began playing with the paints again, and she almost thought the topic was finished. But it was not. He glanced over at her. "Is this friend, by any chance, the man who's 'still in your heart?'"

  She hadn't expected the question, and she hesitated long enough to let him know he was right. She knew that he would believe no other answer.

  "There's a possibility that he'll be there," she said. It was, after all, only a possibility.

  Adam nodded without speaking and returned to his work, and Kim wasn't certain if the tension she felt between them was real or imagined. They painted quietly for another twenty minutes or so before Adam set down his brush and left the room. She heard his footsteps on the stairs and figured he was going to get something to drink, but when he didn't return after a quarter of an hour, she knew he was more upset over her plans for the weekend than he'd let on.

  Her first thought was to leave. She could get Cody out of Liam's bed and let herself out quietly. No confrontation, no conflict.

  Grow up, she told herself. Escape would have been Susanna's way out. Kim was supposed to be a different sort of person.

  With an apprehensive sigh, she covered her palette, then walked downstairs to the first floor.

  He was sitting in the living room by the window, barely visible in the dark, and she knew her announcement had troubled him deeply. She walked into the room and sat down in the chair nearest his.

  "I'm sorry if my plans upset you," she said.

  He drew in a long breath. "Well," he said, "I guess you and I made it pretty clear right from the start that we weren't viewing our relationship as something serious. At least we said that. I'm not sure I meant it, though. I realize that now. I don't like the idea of you seeing him."

  She nodded. "I don't blame you. I'd feel the same way." She wasn't sure that was the truth, but what else could she say? "And I'm not certain that I will see him. But I have to, if I can. We left too many things unfinished."

  "So this is some sort of… closure then?"

  She sighed and sat back in the chair. "Adam, I don't know what it is," she said. "I can't make promises to you. Or to him. If you need more of me than what you've got… well, I don't know what to say. I can't give it. Not right now." The fear of pushing him away with her words took hold, and she felt her body tense. She needed him at least as much as he needed her. Yet she wouldn't lie to keep him.

  "So," Adam said, "my choice is to either end my relationship with you or accept the fact that you'll be sleeping with someone else this weekend and I'd better get used to the idea, huh?"

  His words brought tears to her eyes. She remembered how it felt to care about someone when you knew they were sleeping with someone else. She stood up and walked behind his chair. Bending low, she put her arms around his neck, kissed the top of his head.

  "I don't even know if I'll be seeing him, much less anything else," she said. "I'm sorry, Adam. I'm trying to be honest. I've tried since the start."

  He squeezed her hand where it rested on his chest. "I know. I wish you'd be deceitful and bitchy, instead. It would make things much easier." He slipped out of the circle of her arms and stood up. "Back to work, all right?"

  She nodded uncertainly, but with relief nevertheless. The conversation was over. Yet she knew neither of them had said all that needed to be said.

  She followed him up the stairs to the studio, and they continued to work together for another hour or so. The tension was gone, or so she thought, and she felt the usual camaraderie between them, but when it came time to decide if she should stay over or not, he didn't suggest it and she didn't ask.

  –26–

  Peggy was getting antsy. She waited in the tiny Russian Cafe, nursing an iced tea. She should have guessed Linc would be late. Probably he'd forgotten. Or maybe he'd never intended to keep this date with her to begin with. She was about to give up on him when she spotted him at the front door. Leaning back in her seat, she tried to relax.

  "Sorry I'm late," he said as he sat down across from her.

  "I'm just relieved you're here," she said. "We really need to talk."

  "I don't think we have a damn thing to talk about, frankly," he said. He looked as though he'd aged in the past few weeks. There was a tired look to his eyes, and his lips were pressed into a tight, tense line. The small gold loop in his left ear was ridiculous.

  She pushed a menu toward him. "Let's order first, okay?" she said.

  Linc ordered the goulash and she did the same, although she was not in the least hungry. She could take the leftovers home to Jim.

  "Look, Linc," she said after the waitress left their table. "You don't have to admit to me that you know where Susanna and Tyler are. I feel quite certain you do, but my purpose here isn't to grill you about that. My purpose is to get you to see that Tyler's welfare is in danger as long as he's with her."

  "I don't agree."

  She rolled her eyes. "Look, just the fact that she took off with him doesn't show the best judgment, does it?"

  "It shows her desperation. It shows how frightened she was about losing her child. Sort of like how frightened you are."

  He leaned toward her. His blue eyes were so intense that she had to force herself to hold his gaze. She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off.

  "You know how you feel?" he asked. "Well, trust me, she felt ten times worse about losing him. She gave birth to him. She carried him around in her body for nine months."

  "There are plenty of birth mothers who carry their babies for nine months and still don't care a whit about them."

  "That isn't true of Susanna, and I think you know it."

  "No, I really don't know it. It's not that I think Susanna is a terrible person, but I do think she's misguided. And to be honest, I think you've done some of the misguiding." She immediately regretted her words. She didn't want to put him on the defensive.

  "Susanna's perfectly capable of guiding herself, mis- or otherwise."

  "Linc, listen to me, please. She needs help. By disregarding that fact, by pretending she's a perfectly sane, untroubled person, she'll never get the help she needs."

  "Gee, I didn't realize you were so concerned about her needs."

  She tried not to react to his sarcasm. Instead, she looked down at her hands. "Do we have to be enemies, you and I?" she asked quietly. "Is there any way we can work together on this?"

  "I don't see how. You think she's a terrible mother and I think she's a terrific mother, and never the twain shall meet."

  "Terrific mothers don't cut their child off from all the people who love him and from good medical care. Her running away only proves how unstable she still
is. She's…infantile." Jim had used that word to describe her. "She's poorly educated. A high school dropout. A very dependent person who probably can't take care of—"

  "Oh, I know what you mean," Linc said. "It's terrible how those dependent women are always running off to raise their children on their own."

  She wanted to tell him to go to hell, but bit her tongue instead.

  "They probably let her out of the psychiatric hospital too soon," she said. "I'm not blaming her for her breakdown. It makes sense that someone like Susanna, who was so totally dependent on her husband, would—"

  "Peggy, just shut up, all right?" Linc interrupted her, shaking his head. "I'm going to tell it to you like I see it, and you're not going to like it, and that's fine. But I am going to tell you anyway." He waited while their bowls of goulash were set in front of them, then began again. "You have bought into Jim's propaganda," he said. "Yes, it's true that Susanna was a high school dropout. Her father was dead, she had no support whatsoever from her mother, who was an alcoholic, and she couldn't continue to live at home. So yes, she dropped out. She lived with my mother then. Did you know that?"

  "Yes. Jim mentioned it."

  "And she worked as a waitress to make money, and she studied like the devil to get her GED. And go to—"

  "I know you're trying to defend her, but you're digging her grave even deeper," Peggy said. "Her father was dead because her boyfriend—you, in case you've forgotten—murdered him. You left that part out. And I know that both her parents were alcoholics, and I'm supposed to want Tyler to be with a woman who was raised in that sort of environment?"

  Linc closed his eyes, and he looked as though he were trying to draw patience from somewhere deep inside himself. "I wasn't her boyfriend," he said, leaning across the table and looking at her squarely. "I was her neighbor, period. She can't help what her parents were, and she doesn't even drink. And being raised the way she was only made her want to be a better mother for Tyler." He lowered his voice. "And yes, I killed her father. I killed him to stop him from hurting his wife and his daughter. And although I am anti-gun and anti-taking the law into one's own hands, I've never been able to muster up regret for what I did. He was a terrible, cruel, and abusive husband and father and human being."

  She was fascinated by his candor. "Did he abuse her sexually?" She had wondered about that. "Maybe that's why she's so… disturbed."

  "No, nothing like that. Verbal and physical abuse are quite degrading enough, though. And frankly, it's amazed me how undisturbed Susanna is, given the environment she was raised in."

  This was going nowhere. "Look," she said. "It's ridiculous to argue about all of this, about who's sane and who's insane, and who should have Tyler, because that's already been decided. What we have to figure out now is—"

  "I'm not done," Linc said. He swallowed a spoonful of goulash while she waited. "So," he said, "Susanna got her GED and went to college. But she dropped out, not because of a lack of ambition, but because Jim asked her to support him as he finished school himself. He never told it to you that way, I bet. Maybe you'd like to ask yourself exactly who was dependent on whom, huh? Susanna was planning to go back to school, but then Jim wanted to go to law school, so they still needed her income. Her turn would come later, he told her. And so she waited. She worked in that bank, which she hated, because it was steady money. And when Jim finally started working, she applied to go back to school." He took a swallow of water. "She loves art, and she's very talented. Did Jim ever tell you that?"

  "You make Jim sound like some chauvinistic despot," Peggy said. "If Susanna was so unhappy, why didn't she just tell him, 'Sorry, Jim, it's my turn now.'"

  "Good question," Linc said. "And the answer is simple. Because she loved him and she trusted him, that's why. She believed him when he said her turn would come later."

  "Well, I'm sure he—"

  "I'm not done." He shot her a withering look, and she closed her mouth. "Finally," Linc continued, "they could afford a house. Susanna spent weeks looking and found a terrific house in Wonderland. She was so excited about it. Couldn't wait to decorate it herself. And then to make things even better, she discovered she was pregnant."

  "But things weren't good between her and Jim at that point. She must have known—"

  "Known what? Jim wasn't telling her anything about being unhappy. As a matter of fact, she thought that things were going to be great. He had a super job, she'd finally be able to go back to school, a baby was coming. Life looked like it was going to be perfect. Until that day she came home early from her business trip and discovered that Jim wasn't the loving, faithful husband he'd pretended to be. That Jim was fucking some lawyer."

  "Keep your voice—"

  "And that was who he planned to live in Wonderland with. He'd let Susanna find the house, let her fantasize, while all the time he was setting his trap for you."

  Peggy looked down at her untouched lunch, her insides churning. "I guess this was a mistake, trying to get together with you. You're impossible." She reached for her purse. She would put a twenty on the table, leave her bowl of goulash, and get out of there. But as soon as Linc realized her intent, he grabbed her wrist.

  "Look, you asked me here," he said. "You listen to me. Then you can leave and not believe a word I say, but you're going to hear me out. I know you think Jim wants Tyler just as much as you do. But guess what? Susanna wasn't making it up when she said Jim wanted Tyler aborted."

  "I don't believe that for an instant. Not an instant."

  "Believe it. Susanna called me the night after they fought about it. She was in tears. He'd gotten her the names of doctors and offered to pay for it. He even suggested a few low-tech ways she might take care of the problem herself."

  "Why am I listening to this? If Jim had ever wanted Tyler aborted, which I don't believe, it was only because he thought he might be yours."

  Linc stared at her, wide-eyed. "Oh, Jesus," he said. "That's rich."

  "He did. He even asked me how I would feel if it should ever come out that Tyler was yours and not his."

  "Well that's one thing you don't have to worry about, Peggy. Tyler is not mine. Susanna and I never—not ever—had sex until quite a while after Tyler was born. Not when we were next door neighbors. Not when she was married to Jim."

  He sounded so sincere that she almost believed him. "Whether you and Susanna were lovers or not is a separate issue," she said. "The fact is that Jim loves Tyler, and he—"

  "Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't." Linc shrugged. "I can't speak for how Jim feels now, but I'm telling you, Peggy, he didn't want shit to do with that baby until he realized you wanted a child and couldn't have one. Then all of a sudden it was 'Are you taking care of yourself, Susanna? Taking your vitamins?'"

  "That's an ugly accusation."

  He laughed. "You bet it is." He took in a breath and cocked his head at her. "I think you're a catch, Peggy. Not for me, I hasten to add, and I know that doesn't upset you. But you're one in a million for someone like Jim. He knows that, and I believe he'd stand on his head in the middle of traffic if that's what he had to do to hold onto you. Making his ex-wife look like an unfit mother is nothing."

  "Forgive me, Linc, but I'm having trouble believing the word of a convicted murderer over that of my husband."

  He smiled at her. His teeth were very white, and for the first time she could detect what some women saw in this man.

  "You know, Peggy, I don't dislike you." His voice had suddenly softened. "Actually, I admire you. You work for Legal Aid when you could be making a ton of money privately. I respect that. And I know your heart's in the right place. I know you love Tyler, and I know you're genuinely worried about him."

  A lump rose in her throat. "Do you know if he's okay?" she asked. "You don't have to tell me where he is, but can you just tell me he's all right?"

  He shook his head. "I don't know how to say this any more clearly. I don't know where he is. Susanna left me as much in the dark as she left you. Sh
e did that on purpose, I'm sure. She didn't want me put in the position of having to cover for her. So I don't know where they are. But I can just about guarantee you that Tyler's safe and happy. Her whole point in leaving here was to be able to take care of him. I won't help you find her."

  It was unbearable, the kindness in his voice. She didn't want tenderness from him. She didn't want to see him in a sympathetic or credible or amiable light. She wanted to slough off all he had told her, discard it and return to her former disregard for him.

  "That show you did the other night?" she asked.

  He nodded. "You're right. I did play a couple of Suzanne and Susie songs. I miss her. I hope she's someplace where she can hear my show and know I'm thinking of her."

  She looked down at her lunch again, then at his. His bowl was nearly as full as her own. "We didn't do too well with the goulash," she said.

  "We weren't here to eat."

  She nodded. It was, perhaps, the first thing they'd agreed on. With some fear in her heart, she thought it might not be the last.

  She felt sick the rest of the day and although she'd never planned to tell Jim about her lunch with Linc, she knew too much had been said and too much needed clearing up for her to keep it to herself. She managed to wait until they had finished dinner and were sitting in the living room reading the paper. Trying to read the paper, at least. She couldn't concentrate.

  "I had lunch with Linc today," she said finally.

  "You did?" Jim looked up from the sports section. "Why?"

  "I thought he knew something. I was still thinking about that weird show he did on Sunday and I needed to pick his brain."

  "What there is of it to pick." Jim set the paper down on his knees. "I wish you'd told me you were going to do that. I already had one wife seeing Linc Sebastian behind my back."

  "This was hardly the same thing," she said. "Anyway, it was something I wanted to do on my own." She realized that Jim had not asked if she'd learned anything about Tyler. That would have been the first question out of her mouth.