He grimaced. “That’s what addiction does, honey,” he said. “It dulls even the maternal instinct. I’ve seen it happen a thousand times.”
“I mean, I don’t know how much she knows about how Anton is doing.” Delores’s voice was incredulous. “What if he was unhappy with us? How could she abandon him like that, without even making an effort to see him?”
“Well, she did it once, didn’t she? Abandon him?” He heard the strange, harsh note in his own voice. “You think a few years in the slammer will change that?”
Delores turned to him, shocked. “This news is going to break the little fella’s heart. So what do we do?”
David focused his pale blue eyes on a spot beyond his wife’s shoulder, afraid to look her in the face. “I don’t know,” he mumbled.
Delores sighed and reached for his hand. “To tell you the truth, I was looking forward to getting our life back,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong—I’ve grown very fond of Anton. I don’t regret what we’ve done to, you know, help him. But it’s hard, taking care of someone else’s kid. And we are not spring chickens anymore. Know what I mean?”
His heart hammered so furiously that he felt light-headed for a moment. Was Dee going to fight him on this? After all the strings he’d pulled, the hurdles he’d overcome? Somehow he had not stopped to entertain this possibility.
Delores was looking at him, waiting for him to answer. “What would you like to do?” he said, hearing the tightness in his voice. “Have him be shunted from one foster home to another?”
Her head shot up and her eyes flashed with sudden anger. “Don’t you dare lay this on me, David. It was your idea to go down this road. And as always, I went along, just to make you happy. In any case—”
“Wait, what? You did it to make me happy?” David felt his face flushing, felt a muscle work in his jaw. “You have some gall, Dee. I did this for you. For us. Because I thought—foolishly, as it turns out—that having a child in the house would—” He cut himself off, frightened by the look on Delores’s face.
“Would do what, David?” Dee’s voice was low. “Bring James back? Help me forget my only son? Erase the memory of my James in that coffin? What did you think would happen just because you brought a stranger into my house? And now you want me to do what? Kiss your ring in gratitude?”
He stared at her wordlessly. “This is how you feel? After all this time?” he finally whispered. And then, louder, “If this is how you felt, why the hell did you say yes? I never . . . I would’ve never done this thing if you’d objected.”
She spat out a laugh. “Did I say yes, David? Did you even ask me if this is what I wanted? I mean really ask me? Or did you just assume what was best for us?”
He turned his back on her, afraid that he was going to cry. He picked up the small jewelry box on their dresser and set it back down absently, trying to gather himself. “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I—I had no idea. You must’ve resented me so much these past two years.”
“David.” Delores sighed. She patted the edge of the bed. “Come here. Come sit next to me.” She rested her hand on his thigh. “Sweetheart. I know you meant well. I know that, okay? It’s just that, you’re like a hurricane and I . . . Everything that’s in your path just gets swept along.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said again. But he was wondering when he and Dee had drifted this far apart. Should they have gone for therapy, as she had wanted after James’s death? He had refused, unable to bear the thought of talking to a stranger about his beloved son. And Dee had fallen so silent in those early months after the funeral. Often he would come home to find her sitting quietly in James’s room, looking out the window. Something twisted in his gut then, but when he tried to ask her about her day and whether she’d left the house, she would smile that strange new smile and look away.
But that was years ago, David thought. Slowly, it seemed as if she had found her way back—volunteering again at the Rape Crisis Center, resuming her activities for the League of Women Voters, working alongside him in the yard. And yet it was true—he had lost the laughing, irreverent woman he’d fallen in love with. That Dee was gone, replaced by the woman who was sitting beside him, telling him that she wanted her life back. That he would have to relinquish Anton after all. David’s stomach heaved at the thought.
He felt claustrophobic, their large bedroom closing in on him. He took her hand, kissed it lightly, and mumbled, “I need some fresh air. I think I’ll go to the track and run a few laps. I shouldn’t be long.”
“You’re not eating?”
“You go ahead,” he said, not meeting her eye. “I’ll grab something on my way back.”
He forced himself not to notice the droop of her shoulders as she turned away from him. “As you wish,” she said.
When David got home at nine, Anton and Delores were on the couch watching TV, Delores’s arm flung casually around the boy. David shook his head imperceptibly, unable to reconcile Dee’s resentful words earlier in the evening with the tableau of domesticity in front of him.
“Hey, David,” Anton said, his eyes glued to the television set.
“Hey, buddy. How was your evening?”
“Fine.”
Delores, he noticed, had not bothered to so much as acknowledge his presence. He stood around uselessly for another moment and then headed for the shower.
When he walked into their bedroom a half hour later, Delores was gathering her pillows. “What’re you doing?” he asked.
“I’m sleeping in the guest room tonight,” she said. “I want to watch some TV and don’t want to keep you up.”
“I don’t mind. Tomorrow’s Saturday—”
“—and you have the pancake-breakfast fund-raiser,” she interrupted. “You have to be at St. Michael’s by eight, remember?”
He moved toward her and put his hands on her shoulders, searching her face. “How do you do it, Dee? How—?”
“Do what?”
“Watch out for me even when you’re mad at me?” He bowed his head. “I . . . You’re the most important thing in my life, Dee. If you don’t know that by now, I don’t know what . . .” He felt the tears roll down his cheeks and brushed them away roughly.
“David. Calm down. It’s okay. We’ll figure something out. Okay? But please. Just for tonight I need a good night’s sleep.” She kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll wake you in the morning. Now get some rest.”
Alone in bed, he thought back on what had just happened, what he’d just said. It was true. Dee was the most important thing in his life. Between her and Anton, it wasn’t even close.
But then something churned inside him. Why should he have to choose? Most men didn’t have to decide between their children and their wives. But Anton was not his blood. And therein lay the rub.
He took several deep breaths, trying to calm his mind. Control yourself, he scolded himself. Nothing’s been decided yet. Maybe Dee will come around. She cares about Anton. You know that. Now try and sleep.
But throughout the night, his hand kept feeling the empty place in the bed where Dee ought to have been.