“Lou said he’d call me back. So I started dinner. The kids were out front with Sally. Sally Burke.”
“I gave them half an orange each and she was helping peel them. I could hear her talking to them and they were giggling. They were . . . oh hell, I just . . .”
The noise of water being poured, a glass being set down.
“Thank you . . . I . . . then I called them inside.”
Setting the table, standing over the stove, she thought about her conversation with Arnold Green. About Frank, pushing his way into the apartment last month, telling her he was going for custody of the kids. And why. His sneering face, as he’d listed all the nights she’d been out late, all the men she’d spoken to. Danced with. Flirted with.
“You’re not fit to be a mom.”
“They need someone reliable taking care of them.”
“Your own mother agrees with me.”
She watched the kids eat, all the while brooding and prodding that tender spot his words had left. Then she said: “Wanna go for a ride?”
Frankie and Cindy, both holding their plastic cups up to their mouths, finishing their milk.
“Come on, let’s go, before it gets dark.”
The kids in the backseat, covered by the blue blanket, giggling at the adventure, Ruth alone in the front. Jaw clenched, hands tight on the steering wheel. That son-of-a-bitch thinks he can take my kids away? He can think again. I know Frank. I know he can’t manage alone. He must have a woman. And I’m going to find her.
“Let’s play a game, okay? Look out for Daddy’s car!”
If I can find your car, I can find your place, and who knows what I’ll find there, Frank? All about your new life and your new girlfriend. How dare you talk to me about the men in my life! There ain’t no way you’re living like a monk, you goddamn hypocrite.
You call me a bad mother? You got a big shock coming, and you’re too dumb to realize it.
Driving for an hour, the kids in the back growing quieter until she heard Cindy snoring gently and Frankie mutter something in his sleep. Still no sign of Frank’s car.
She yawned. Shook herself. Realized she was too tired to keep driving. Turned and headed for home, stopping for gas on the way.
“I undressed the kids, washed them—they had grass stains on their knees from playing in the park and they made a mess when they were eating dinner. I put fresh T-shirts and underwear on them, and I put them to bed.”
“Nine-thirty.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. You think I let my kids stay up all night? It was nine-thirty.”
“Then I started cleaning the apartment. Mr. Green told me that the court would inspect it and it would have to be reported as a good home for the kids. So I was in the middle of a big cleaning project—you know, painting the hallway, clearing out closets, replacing the broken screen in the kids’ window.”
“What? No, I had a spare one—I got an air-conditioner in my room, so I had a spare screen—my old one.”
“Well, I took the screen into their room earlier in the week but I noticed some . . . some dried dog mess on it. We used it to fence in Minnie’s puppies when they were just born and I guess it was never cleaned right. So I put theirs back—the broken one—but I couldn’t bolt it in. I’m going to . . . I was going to clean mine and replace it as soon as I could.”
“No, I closed the window. To keep the bugs out.”
“Then I collected all the empty bottles around the apartment and put them out for the garbage. I made a pile of old clothes. Mostly Frank’s stuff that he’d left behind when he moved out. I washed the dishes. Then I was tired, so I sat on the couch and watched some TV.”
“Um . . . The Fugitive. On CBS.”
“Until about eleven-thirty. Then I called Lou again.”
“No, not at home. He was at Santini’s. On Williamsbridge Road.”
The phone rang out ten, twelve times before one of the hostesses picked up. Ruth asked for Mr. Gallagher and the girl asked who was calling. When she heard it wasn’t Mrs. Gallagher, her voice became less refined.
“Gimme a minute. I’ll see if he’s around.”
She put the receiver down and Ruth listened to her heels clicking into the distance. Music, laughter, the clink of glasses. She wondered what Lou was doing. Who he was with. Why he was taking so long.
Finally she heard footsteps, a change in the air as he picked up.
“Hello?”
“Lou, it’s me. You didn’t call me back.”
“I was busy, sweetheart.”
Her legs were tucked beneath her on the sofa. She tapped ash into an overflowing saucer.
“You could come over.” She hated the pleading note in her voice.
“Where are you?”
“Home.”
“I’m tired, Ruth. I’m just gonna have a drink and go home.”
He wasn’t alone. She knew he wasn’t, just as she knew he wasn’t going home. He was with the bowling girls again. The women who said they were going bowling to get away from their husbands. When she’d had a husband, she had been one of them.
After she hung up, she felt like she had an itch she couldn’t reach. She fell back on the couch, smoking and thinking.
The phone rang. She snatched it up, her voice breathy, but it was only Johnny.