Answered prayers

19

FAITH'S CONCERNS ABOUT THE HOUSE PROVED TO BE well founded, or somewhat at least. Although her attorney was slightly reassuring on that score. She heard from him the day after she'd called, as she walked in from school. She was doing well, but having to struggle to concentrate. She was so distracted that the papers she was writing weren't as coherent as she would have liked them to be, and her grades reflected it. But she was hanging in.
She answered the phone as she walked in the door. The attorney didn't have great news.
“You were right. He wants you to move out. He's giving you ninety days.” That meant the end of May.
“Oh my God. Can he do that?” Faith went pale.
“Only if you agree. And I don't think you should.” She was relieved to hear him say that at least. She had visions of everything she owned on the street. “He owes you half of it for community property, and if you want your money out of it, then you should sell the house. If he wants his half, he can force you out in time, and require you to sell. But he's going to have to make some kind of settlement with you, and if you want his share of the house as part of that, that's what we'll do. I think I can get that for you, Faith, if that's what you want. If not, I can't force him to let you stay and tie up his half indefinitely.”
“I want to keep the house,” she said in a strangled voice. All she really wanted was not to move, not to change anything, to hang on to whatever she could of a familiar life that had lasted for twenty-six years. She was fighting change as much as she was losing the house.
“We'll take him to court on it. I haven't had any kind of official notice from them about it yet. Let's wait and see what he does. He has to give you time, in any case. He can't force you out until this is resolved.”
But it didn't take him long. She had a letter from his attorney by the end of the week. It had been addressed to her lawyer, of course, but it said that Alex wanted her to move out, and put the house on the market as soon as possible. They had given her a few days of grace and wanted her out by the first of June. It was the cruelest thing she could think of, throwing her out of her house. The only thing worse had been bringing his girlfriend home to her bed, and lying to their kids.
Brad was reassuring her as often as they spoke, and she had left half a dozen messages for Ellie, but she wouldn't return the calls. It was an enormous relief when finally, in the first week of March, Zoe told her that Eloise was coming home.
“Why didn't she tell me? She hasn't returned any of my calls.”
It came as no surprise to Zoe. The two sisters had had a huge fight on the phone, with Zoe defending their mother, and Eloise defending their dad, each convinced that the other had been handed a raw deal and a pack of lies.
“You don't know what you're talking about!” Zoe had screamed at her in the middle of the night. It had been morning for Eloise. “He f*cking walked out on her. I saw her that week. You should have seen the condition she was in!”
“She deserves to be. She's been asking him for a divorce behind our backs for a year. And now she's forcing him to sell the house.”
“It's all lies, don't you get that, you moron? That's who he is. He's kicking Mom out on her ass. He wants her out on the first of June.”
“The hell he does. He has no choice. He says she wants a lot of money from him. And that's disgusting too. Mom is a total bitch, and it's all her fault. You just don't want to see how evil she is.”
“You're blind,” Zoe accused her older sister. “You've been brainwashed by him.” In the end, they had hung up on each other, and Zoe had the unpleasant task of informing her mother that Eloise was planning to stay with Alex during the week she'd be in town. She was staying in the apartment he had sublet, and refused to stay at the house. She was only going to go there to pick up some things.
She arrived in New York on St. Patrick's Day, and had a week off. It was a full two days before she called her mother, who had been sitting in the house, waiting to hear from her, and feeling sick over it. All she could get at Alex's apartment, once Zoe gave her the number, was an answering machine. And Ellie had returned none of her calls. Faith was so desperate to hear from her that she hadn't even gone to school, but at least she was staying home, studying for exams.
She nearly burst into tears when she finally heard Ellie's voice. But the conversation was brief and to the point. Ellie said she was coming over to pick up some clothes, and she said that she hoped her mother wouldn't be there. For a nearly twenty-five-year-old woman, she sounded incredibly childish to Faith, and needlessly cruel. But she was being tutored well.
Faith was in her bedroom, when Eloise came home. It had taken her a month to move back into her own room. It wasn't practical to live in Zoe's room, and she had finally decided to swallow her pride and her revulsion at sleeping in her bed again. She was lying on it, when she saw Ellie walk down the hall. She had seen her mother too, and said not a word.
Faith walked to her bedroom doorway, and stood watching her. “Eloise, are you going to say hello?” she asked softly, with immeasurable pain in her eyes. Zoe would have killed her sister if she had seen her mother look like that. Eloise was made of sterner stuff, and had a cooler heart.
“I asked you not to be here,” she stood facing her mother from down the hall. It seemed incredible that she was unable to distance herself from her parents' divorce, and felt compelled to take sides the way she had. But her father had used her well.
“This is my home,” Faith said calmly, “and I wanted to see you. I don't want you pulled apart by this mess. If Daddy is determined to do this, we have to survive, all of us, and we're still a family, whether he and I are together or not.”
“What do you care? You're the one who blew our family all to hell, and not him. You're even selling this house, so don't talk to me about your ‘home.’ “
“I don't want to have to do that, but I can show you letters from his lawyers telling me that I have to get out. He's trying to evict me, El. And I'm trying to stay.”
“He only has to do that,” she said, sounding like a petulant child, “because you want so much money from him.”
“We haven't even talked about that yet. I don't know what I want. Right now, all I want is to stay in this house. I swear to you on all our lives that that's true.”
“You're a liar,” Eloise spat at her, disappeared into her room, and slammed the door, as Faith stood wondering how her own child could be so hateful to her, so distrustful and disrespectful and unkind. It didn't say much about the way she'd brought them up, or the feelings Eloise had for her. She wasn't a child, she was an adult, and she was using nuclear weapons to destroy her mother. Alex had given them to her, but she hadn't hesitated to use them. It broke Faith's heart to think about the damage she would do. Their family would never be the same again. This was Alex's final gift to them.
Eloise came out of her room half an hour later with an armful of clothes and two small bags, as Faith watched her with an aching heart.
“Why do you hate me so much, Ellie?” Faith asked her quietly. She really wanted to know. She couldn't fathom what she'd ever done to her to cause a reaction like the one she'd had.
“I hate what you did to Dad.” For an instant, Faith was tempted to tell her what her father had done, about the woman he'd brought home, and the thong in her bed. But her own sense of decency compelled her not to malign Alex to their children, although the temptation to do so was getting stronger every day, particularly in the face of Ellie's accusations. But she didn't want to drag her daughters into their parents' war. Faith's morality prevailed at all costs, although she felt foolish for it at times.
“I didn't do anything to him, El. I don't know how to convince you of that. It breaks my heart that you have so little faith in me.”
“You never should have gone back to school. You broke Daddy's heart.” It didn't even occur to her how unreasonable his position was. She was completely under his spell.
“I'd like to see you while you're here,” Faith said, trying to stay calm and not sound as pathetic as she felt.
“I don't have time,” Eloise said viciously. “And I want to spend some time with Dad.”
“What about lunch?”
“I'll let you know,” Eloise said, and then clattered down the stairs and out the door. And as soon as it slammed behind her, Faith sat down on the stairs and burst into sobs. Other than when Alex had walked out on her, and when Jack had died, it was the worst day of her life. She felt as though she had lost her older child. She didn't even have the heart to call Zoe or Brad. She didn't bother to turn the lights on that night, and when it got dark, she went to bed.
What Faith didn't know was that Zoe had flown to New York, and met with Eloise, and the two had had another roaring fight. She thought it was disgusting of her to betray her mother, and to take sides with their dad. They had battled over it for hours, and then Zoe had flown back to Providence. She didn't even want her mother to know she'd been in town, and that she and Eloise were at each other's throats. She was sure it would only upset Faith more.
Faith felt as though she were swimming underwater as the days went by. She was trying to keep her grades up at school, and make peace with Eloise, though her efforts had no results. Ellie went back to London without seeing her again. And within two days of hearing that, Faith was in bed with the flu. She was still there when she was served with the divorce papers. And her lawyer was negotiating with Alex about the house. He was being a real bastard about it and said he still wanted her out. And in the midst of her miseries, she didn't even have the heart to write to Brad. He called her every day to see how she was, and sometimes she didn't even pick up his calls. She just sat staring into space, listening to his voice on the machine.
“I'm worried about you,” he said finally, after she hadn't talked to him for four days. He had called her at midnight, and she'd answered the phone.
“I'm okay,” she said weakly. She was still coughing from the flu, but had gone back to school.
“The hell you are. You sound tubercular, and you sound miserable.” He knew Eloise had gone back to London without seeing her, and it made him sick. She had been completely manipulated by Alex, and he hated what it did to Faith. It was just a very bad time. “You need a vacation. I should take you to Africa with me.”
“I'm sure Pam would love that.”
“Actually, she would. Especially if you went in her place. She hates third world countries, and she's dreading the trip. I've never seen so much medicine and insect repellent in my life. She's taking a whole suitcase full of that stuff, and packaged foods. Pam doesn't leave anything to chance.”
“Is she making you travel in black tie?” Faith asked, laughing finally. He always cheered her up.
“Probably. Actually, I'm flying through New York. I'm meeting her in London. She's going to fly straight there from here. I'm only going to be in town for one day, and a night.” This time he really had to meet with an attorney about a case. He was scared to death he was going to lose the kid to a law that could leave him vulnerable to capital punishment if convicted, and Brad wanted some advice from an attorney he respected in New York. He wanted to spend some creative time with him face to face, for an hour or two at least. “Can you have dinner with me, if you're still alive by then? What are you taking for that cough?”
“Nothing much. Cough medicine puts me to sleep, and I have three papers due.”
“I have news for you. Dead people don't get good grades.”
“I was afraid of that,” she laughed. “When are you coming in?”
“Thursday. Figure out where you want to have dinner and make a reservation, unless you want me to cook for you.” He was willing to do anything just to spend time with her, and he was relieved that Pam didn't want to go via New York. “I can't wait to see the boys.” But as soon as he said it, he realized he had reminded her of Eloise, and was sorry he had brought it up at all.
“I can't wait to see you,” Faith said. It had been nearly a month since his last visit to New York.
“Me too, Fred. Take care of yourself.” He thought she sounded terrible and was genuinely concerned about her. She had far too much on her plate. And he knew she had the added stress of waiting to hear from law school. But that was the least of her worries, and she didn't expect to hear for another month.
By the time he came to town three days later, she was feeling better and nearly over her flu. She looked thin and pale, and more stressed than she had a month before. But he also knew how upset she was about Ellie, and about the house. It accounted for a lot.
She had decided to make dinner for him, and said she really didn't want to go out. And that worried him too. He managed to talk her into going to Serendipity for a banana split afterward for dessert. And after she ate almost none of the dinner she'd cooked, he was happy to see her dig in. She had greeted him like the long-lost brother he was to her, and literally thrown herself into his arms when he walked into the house, and he had lifted her slim body right off the ground. She was even thinner than before.
“So how long will you be in Africa?” she asked, taking a huge mouthful of chocolate ice cream, and he smiled as he wiped a tiny spot of whipped cream off her nose.
“How come you always get food all over your face?” he teased, and told her he'd be gone for two weeks. He was faintly panicked about not talking to her. He liked knowing how she was, and being there for her. When she wasn't in a total state over the divorce, or something Alex had done to her, they talked or e-mailed each other every day, and had now for five months. She was part of the furniture of his life, and he counted on communicating with her. He not only listened to her problems and concerns, but shared his with her as well. And he didn't like the fact that she wasn't going to be able to reach him. He had given her a sheet of paper with several numbers on it. But they were contact numbers to leave messages for him, and nothing more. Just as he couldn't reach his sons on the game preserve where they lived, she couldn't reach Brad while he was with them. “It's going to be a long two weeks without talking to you,” he said mournfully. He could wait in line at the post office for several hours, as his sons did, hoping to get a line. But more often than not, they couldn't. And there was no way he could explain that to Pam.
“I know. I was just thinking of that,” she said, looking sad. She had always had friends over the years, women whose children had grown up with hers, or others she was on committees with to do charity work. But since Jack's death, she had become so solitary, Alex had never liked her friends, and it had become more and more difficult to explain why they didn't socialize with them. In the end, she had simply drifted away from them. The only person she confided in now was Brad. And once she went back to school, and now with Alex divorcing her, she had withdrawn from everyone, except Brad. Without question, he had become her best and only friend.
“You'd better behave while I'm gone, Fred,” he warned as he shared some of the banana split with her. “Can I count on you to take care of yourself?” He was genuinely worried about her.
“Probably not. But I'll be okay. Maybe I'll hear about law school before you get back. But it might still be too soon.”
“Just be good. Eat. Sleep. Go to school. Talk to Zoe a lot.” He hadn't met her yet, but from everything Faith told him about what she said, he admired her, and thought she gave her mother sound advice. It seemed strange to Faith too that he was going to London, and Eloise was there, but he couldn't visit her or take any messages to her. Faith made a point of calling her several times a week, just to keep the door open, but Ellie always brushed her off. The conversations were brief and to the point, if she got through at all. Most of the time, Ellie screened her calls, to avoid talking to her mother. It was rare that Faith got through.
They walked back to her house afterward, and he came in for a little while. They sat in her bedroom this time, and he built a fire. He sat in the same comfortable chair Alex always had, and she sat at Brad's feet while he stroked her hair. There was something so enormously comforting about him, and so loving. She couldn't help thinking how lucky Pam was. But then she realized that Pam no longer saw this side of him, nor wanted to. She kept him at arm's length and had for years. And whatever comfort she needed, she got from her friends. While Faith basked in the sunlight of all the unspent affection he had to give.
“I'm going to miss you, Fred,” he said quietly, as she leaned next to him, still sitting at his feet, and he reached down and took her hand. They sat in silence that way for a long time, staring into the fire. And for the first time, Faith was aware of feeling something she never before had for him. It was as though she felt a dam opening, and a tidal wave of feelings rushing out toward him. She had no idea what to do about it, or what to say to him, if anything. But when she looked up at him, she looked suddenly afraid. “Are you okay?” He saw something in her eyes, and didn't understand what it was. “Is something wrong?” There was something very wrong, she told herself silently. She had no right to these feelings for him, and never would. All she could do was shake her head. “You looked scared all of a sudden, were you thinking about the house?” Not knowing what else to say to him, she nodded her head. But it wasn't about the house, it was about him. She was suddenly terrified that Zoe might be right, not about Brad, but about herself. She was so happy with him that she suddenly wanted more of him. She was falling in love with Brad. She knew he would be horrified, just as she herself was. The last thing she wanted to do was upset his peaceful life, as hers had been. Whatever it was she was feeling for him, she knew it had to be denied. He could never know.
She was strangely quiet that night, and he noticed it. He was equally cautious about taking advantage of her, and not being inappropriate. He wanted her to be comfortable and feel safe with him at all times, and she did.
It was nearly midnight when he left. He had to get up early the next day. He was going straight from his meetings to the airport while she was still at school. She offered to skip classes and go to the airport with him, but he didn't think it was a good idea to disrupt her life for him.
“I'll call you from the airport in London. And after that, we're just going to have to be big kids for the next two weeks. Think you can?” There was no other choice. But they were both unnerved at the prospect of not being able to communicate for two weeks. Faith knew the bond they had formed with each other was unusual, and had become addictive for both of them. It was going to be a test of their self-sufficiency to manage without it now.
“I'm going to have withdrawals without talking to you,” she confessed.
“Yeah. Me too.” But there was nothing they could do.
He held her tightly in his arms for a long moment before he left, and hugged her so close, she could hardly breathe.
“I love you, Fred,” he said to her just as Jack would have done, and yet she felt so much more for him.
Somehow when neither of them had been looking, Brad had slipped into another part of her heart, and she had to get him out of there again, without him ever knowing where he'd been. It was up to her to do the work, she knew, and she said nothing of it to him, as she kissed his cheek and waved when he left.
Faith was up and left the house by seven-thirty the next day. She walked the two blocks to St. Jean Baptiste Church on Lexington Avenue, in a freezing rain. It seemed suitable punishment to her, and what she deserved. She went to confession before mass began, and spoke in whispers to the priest. She knew she had to confess. She had to tell someone. She had done a terrible thing, and she had only just discovered it herself. She was in love with him, with her whole heart and soul, and he was married to someone else, and intended to stay that way. She had no right to jeopardize his life, his marriage, or his peace of mind. She told herself, and the priest in the confessional, that she had abused the brotherly friendship he had extended to her, and now she had to find a way back from what she felt for him.
The priest gave her absolution, and ten Hail Marys to say, which seemed far too small a penance to Faith. She felt certain she deserved far greater punishment for the feelings she had for him, and the pain and risk she would create for him, if he ever found out.
She said the ten Hail Marys, and an entire rosary, on the beads he had given her, and as she held them in her trembling hands, all she could think of was him.
She was still deeply troubled when she walked home in the rain afterward. And when she got home and listened to her messages on her answering machine, there were two from Brad. He had called before he left the hotel to attend his meeting, and he was thanking her for the night before. His voice was as gentle as it always was, his words just as kind. And as she felt a wave of love for him wash over her as she listened to him, she closed her eyes. She was glad now that he was going to Africa, and that they couldn't talk to each other while he was gone. She needed time to turn the tides of what she felt for him, and to return to what they had once had. She had two weeks to pry him loose from her heart again, and heal the scar.