Patricia stands, smiling, and greets him with an air kiss on either slablike cheek.
“Wonderful news, darling. The girls will be accompanying us to Iceland. Don’t worry about the fuss—I have a call in to the au pair service the Kellermans use for their grandsons’ visits.”
The lovely thing about Randall is that as long as his needs are taken care of perfectly, he generally doesn’t care what else is going on. He’s like one of those houseplants that require exactly the right amount of light but otherwise don’t really impact everyday life, like an orchid. The judge is quite explicit in his requirements, and Patricia treats her job as his handler as, well, a job. He’s rich as Croesus—eight figures, when they’d married—and when the littlest thing gets on his nerves, he simply pivots and plans a trip with his friends to escape completely. Patricia can’t see a single reason why having the girls along should be an impediment.
“Patricia, are you out of your got-damned mind?”
She winces slightly; his country-boy accent only comes out when he’s truly angry.
“I simply thought—”
“Did you, though? Sugar, we discussed this. It was in the prenup. There will be no outsiders to the marriage brought into the house. No homeless daughters, no bankrupt sons-in-law. Neither my no-good brother nor any of my shiftless cousins.” It comes out cuzzins, syrupy and full of hate. “I have no intention of supporting anyone else’s children, which is why I chose not to have any of my own.”
Patricia is well aware that’s not true. He has at least two byblows—that she knows of—and although he doesn’t technically support them, he does pay their extremely young mothers to keep their mouths shut and stay away.
“I thought it might be fun,” she says with a breezy shrug.
“Your definition of fun is very different than mine, darlin’.”
“Hi, Grandpa Randall!” Brooklyn calls, having finally noticed something other than the Fourth of July pool noodles Patricia fished out of the garage.
Randall gives the child the same sort of stare he saves for the squirrels that keep breaking into the attic and defecating everywhere. He raises one hand in a wave, but he doesn’t smile or offer any attempt at pleasantry. Before now, he’s always put in a little effort, smiling and pulling pigtails and offering sticks of gum still warm from his pocket. Brooklyn, at least, doesn’t respond to the snub and goes back to her game with her older sister, who’s watching Randall with a worried frown. Too clever by half, that one.
In Patricia’s experience, with a man like Randall, clever doesn’t go nearly as far as pretty and sweet.
“Like I said, we’ll just bring along an au pair and you won’t hear a peep—”
“Mrs. Lane.”
He never calls her that unless she’s in trouble. Sugar, honey, sweetheart, but never, ever that stuffy, distant reminder that she’s just an extension of him now, and she’d better watch her step if she wants to stay that way.
“Yes, Randall?”
He reaches out to grasp her upper arms—more of a pat than a grasp, really. They don’t touch very often, and if she’s honest, she hates the feel of his skin. It’s always warm and slightly damp, like a frog’s belly. He’s a sweaty man, the judge.
“Sugar, I’ve been meaning to have a little talk with you for quite some time, and it looks like today’s the day. You’ve forced my hand here. Considering the state of the world, I’m retiring.”
She…had no idea.
He’s never mentioned it.
Retiring?
Visions of the future they’ve often discussed flutter through her mind, trips to Hawaii and Bali, opulent resorts where she’ll see him only at luxurious dinners and then wake up in adjoining rooms to toddle off to massages by the sea as he goes off to golf or pester the local girls. “Congratulations, darling! That’s a big decision.”
“And we’re getting a divorce.”
Patricia freezes. It’s as if a glass has shattered, something very precious and fragile and expensive, and there is no safe place to walk anymore.
“A divorce?”
Randall sits down on the patio couch, wipes off his sweaty pate with his handkerchief.
“It’s not you, honey, it’s me. I’m getting too old for all of it—work, the law, the Elks. You. Takin’ care of folks. Dr. Baird says I need to focus on my health. I need to take some time for myself and not worry about anything else.”
Anything else but secretaries and golf, Patricia thinks but doesn’t say, because underneath the placid matriarch perfectly made up with fifty-dollar lipstick there still lurks a scrawny, desperate, clutching waitress in Goodwill clothes who’s willing to do anything to survive.
“But who’ll take care of you? Keep you company? You said yourself that your arm is awfully empty without me on it.” She sits down beside him and pats his leg, but he gently moves her hand away.
“That’s just it, sugar. If I’m not workin’ and runnin’ for office and showin’ up to all those boring-as-hell charity events, I don’t need anyone on my arm. If I give up work, I don’t have to act so respectable all the damn time. And this.” He gestures at her granddaughters, splashing in the pool. “It’s the last straw. I don’t want to ever come home and hear all this caterwauling. Water everywhere. Children are a goddamn pestilence.” He grimaces and shakes his head. “I’ve worked myself to the bone for too long for…this.”
He makes to stand, but Patricia holds up a hand, her brain struggling to settle on the right thing to say to change his mind, or at least stall him.
“But divorce, Randall? Honestly, I can just pack them right back home.” She doesn’t want to—oh, but she would hate to crawl back to Chelsea of all people! But she needs Randall more than she needs her pride. Or, to be more accurate, she needs everything that comes with Randall. The house, the money, the social standing.
He was never the marriage’s attraction, himself.
But without him, she’s back to being Patty, a pitiable thing with no resources, no home, no kingdom to rule.
Randall takes her outstretched hand between his own and rubs it like he used to do with Rosa when she burned dinner or broke a vase. On the surface it’s comforting, but being pinned down like that, even for a moment, is a warning to any weaker creature, the cat’s paw landing on the back of the unwary mouse, its claws not yet out but threatening. Pressing down.
“Just between us, this is a better way to do it. Retiring means I’m livin’ on interest, and let’s be honest, honey. You been spendin’ real big lately. So here’s what I’ll do. I’ll be putting the house on the market, but you can live here until it sells.”
He releases her hand and stands, cracking his back like he’s standing up straight for the first time in a long while. He smiles up at the sun.