Hope Street: Hope StreetThe Marriage Bed Read online

  “Maybe you could feel a little forgiveness, honey,” she said. “You’re stuck with a bunch of people who did the best we could a long time ago.”

  “A long time ago,” Claudia echoed, raising her eyes to Joelle. “What about now?” She was on the verge of tears, too. Joelle opened her arms, but Claudia leaned away. No, mommy kisses weren’t going to cure anything today.

  Suffering the sting of her daughter’s rejection, Joelle stood and started stuffing things back into the carton. Her musical jewelry box. The marble egg. The book containing photos of a long time ago, of the people who’d made devastating mistakes with the best of intentions.

  BOBBY’S HEAD ACHED AND HIS tongue felt like a strip of sandpaper inside his mouth. He’d been drinking water all day, and he’d managed to consume some saltines and half an apple at noon. But the heat and glare of the sun assaulted his brain. Too bad he couldn’t spend the day in his air-conditioned office, but a blue-stone patio had to be installed around a free-form pool in Arlington, and Bobby was better than any of his employees at cutting the stone slabs to mesh with the pool’s amorphous shape. So he was at the job site, exposed to the elements.

  The two crew members working with him were sweating like marathoners, their faces red and shiny. Bobby considered telling them they could take off their shirts, but the customer was home, no doubt spying on them through the windows that overlooked her backyard. Bobby thought having the guys work shirtless might be disrespectful. He had never forgotten the lecture he’d received when he’d removed his shirt while mowing the cemetery lawn in Holmdell.

  If he could keep his shirt on, so could his crew. They were good kids, college boys working for DiFranco from mid-May through the end of August. They could probably hold their liquor better than he could, too.

  He lifted a twenty-pound slab of stone from the pile, carried it over to the pool and laid it on the sand-and-pebble bed he’d groomed as the patio’s bottom layer. He appreciated the weight of the slab, the way it tugged at the muscles in his back and arms. Sweat burned his eyes. He told himself that a little exertion, a little suffering, might make him less aware of his headache.

  As if his throbbing skull was the only thing bothering him. Hell, his hangover was nothing compared with the real demons gnawing at him.

  Joelle must despise him. Last night he’d turned into someone he’d sworn to himself he would never become: his father. He’d gotten ripped, he’d smashed a vase, he’d crushed a bunch of flowers. He’d let his rage blind him.

  Yet he’d been unable to apologize. Last night he’d felt too ill. He’d fallen asleep sometime before eight, and he’d regained consciousness at six that morning, much too early to wake Joelle. He’d remained in the shower a long time, but she’d still been sleeping when he was washed and dressed, so he’d left for work without talking to her.

  He wouldn’t have known what to say, anyway. “I’m sorry I got drunk yesterday, but I’m not sorry I destroyed those damn flowers.”

  “I’m sorry I made myself sick, but after all these years, we should have left the past alone. We shouldn’t have torn away all the scar tissue and let the old wounds start bleeding again.”

  “I’m sorry, Joelle, but it’s killing me that that guy, the big love of your life, can march into our house and make you see things his way.”

  In his jeans pocket his cell phone vibrated. He nestled the stone into place, straightened up and dug out the phone. A glance at the tiny monitor informed him it was Mona, his office manager. He flipped the phone open. “Mona?”

  “Hi, Bob. You got a call here at the office.”

  He shrugged. Mona’s job was to take messages, not to interrupt him at work—unless the call was an emergency. “From Joelle?” he asked. His anger went forgotten. Was she all right? Had she been in an accident? Had something happened to Claudia or the babies?

  Of course, if Joelle faced an emergency, she could have phoned him directly. She knew his cell number. But maybe after last night, she was afraid to call him. Maybe she was annoyed about his sneaking out of the house that morning while she slept, instead of waking her up and having it out with her. Not that he knew what the “it” he was supposed to have out with her was. Apologies? Recriminations? Accusations? Howls of outrage?

  “No, it wasn’t from Joelle. That’s the thing.” Mona hesitated. “It was from a woman and she said it was personal. I just—it’s none of my business, but you were in a kind of a mood this morning, and…I thought I should let you know about this call.”

  A woman? Personal? He might have hit a pothole with his wife—or maybe plunged into an abyss—but he couldn’t think of another woman who would phone him with something personal.

  “She said her name was Helen Crawford,” Mona informed him, “and it was important and it was personal. She requested that you call her back. I stuck the message in the top drawer of your desk. I didn’t think it should be lying around on your blotter where someone might see it.”

  “I don’t know anyone named Helen Crawford.”

  “Whatever. I’m just passing the message along.” Mona hesitated. “Something’s going on with you, and to tell you the truth, I’d rather not know. But I don’t want to be taking these kinds of messages, okay? Tell her to call you directly.”

  Mona could be a sweetheart. She could also be a prig. Right now, she was being a bitch. “I don’t know what kind of message this is. I’ve never heard of Helen Crawford. So stop implying things.”

  “I’m not implying anything,” Mona said, sounding put-upon. “I’m just telling you I decided it was best not to leave this message lying on your desk in full view.”

  “Thanks.” He flipped the phone shut, wondering whether she thought she deserved his gratitude for having insinuated that he’d gotten a phone call from…What? A girlfriend? A mistress? A customer who’d hired him for more than just landscaping?

  Honest to God. Not only did he have fissures in his relationship with his wife and his daughter, but now the third most important woman in his life—his loyal officer manager—thought he was screwing around with someone named Helen Crawford, whoever the hell she was.

  He’d figure it out later. His life was already a disaster, possibly beyond redemption. If his mystery caller wanted to mess things up even more, let her try.

  But not now. He had to finish building a patio. He had to get one thing right in this long, hot, miserable day.

  EIGHT

  August 1971

  BY THE TIME SHE FINALLY HEARD from Bobby, she’d already received an official letter from a medical officer:

  Dear Mrs. DiFranco,

  This is to inform you that your husband, P/FC Robert L. DiFranco, was wounded in the line of duty during a routine patrol. He was brought to a field hospital to be stabilized and then evacuated to a military hospital in Hawaii for further treatment. If you have any questions…

  She’d had questions, tons of them. But when she’d dialed the phone number provided in the letter, the woman at the other end of the line had offered no answers. “I’m sure you’ll be kept informed about his condition,” the woman kept saying. “I’m honestly not sure about the extent of his injuries, but the doctors will be in touch.”

  The doctors weren’t in touch. Joelle had no idea what had happened to Bobby, how serious his injuries were—the words stabilized and evacuated scared the hell out of her—or what would happen next. She drifted through her days in a trance, feeding Claudia, changing her diapers, feeding her again, laundering her smelly little outfits, rocking her, singing to her and all the while wondering whether she would be a widow before she ever saw Bobby again.

  He’d told her, when he’d offered to marry her, that if something happened to him, she could use her widow’s benefits to support herself and the baby. Now something had happened to him. She didn’t want benefits. She wanted him. She wanted him home. She wanted him well. She wanted him to be Bobby D, with a cocky smile and a swagger, lecturing her about his truck’s sticky clutch pedal and bl
asting his Doors albums. She wanted him to know she had a daughter—they had a daughter. Had his “routine patrol” occurred before he’d received her letter about Claudia’s birth?

  At least that question was answered when a letter from him arrived a couple of weeks after the letter notifying her that he’d been wounded in action. He must have left his letter behind when he’d gone on his “routine patrol,” and someone had eventually found it and mailed it to her.

  Like all Bobby’s letters, it was brief. Writing wasn’t his thing. He scribbled:

  Dear Joelle,

  I got the photo. You are both so beautiful. I wish I could be there with you and hold the baby in my own arms. Take care of her for me. Take care of yourself, too. Thank you for naming her Claudia.

  He didn’t sign his letter Love, Bobby. He never signed his letters with love. Neither did Joelle. She figured he was avoiding the word for a reason and she’d best avoid it, too. Maybe the idea of love scared him. Or maybe he just didn’t love her. She believed she loved him—but they’d spent less than twenty-four hours as a married couple before he’d left. Did she love him or did she love what he’d done for her? Did she love him as a friend, a husband or the father of her baby? Did definitions matter when she felt guilty for devoting more time to worrying about him than about Claudia?

  She loved him. She felt so many things when she thought of him, but add them all together and they equaled love. She couldn’t expect Bobby to love her, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that she loved him.

  The weeks dragged. She fretted that she was a terrible mother, so tired all the time, her breasts leaky and aching, her eyes scratchy from fatigue. When she sang to Claudia, the lullabies were out of tune. When Claudia awakened in the middle of the night for a feeding, Joelle staggered to the crib she’d bought for fifteen dollars at the Goodwill thrift store, lifted Claudia out and plugged a breast into her mouth. She didn’t coo to her. She didn’t babble and nuzzle her daughter’s soft, sweet belly. She was too weary, too frazzled…too afraid of what Bobby would be like when he got home. If he came home.

  Thank God the preschool where she worked gave her a maternity leave. She could barely manage her own child, let alone nine others. Her housemates spoke in murmurs and handled her chores when she neglected them. When day after day passed with no word from Bobby or his doctors, they hugged her and assured her that everything would be all right.

  Then, at last, he phoned. The call came at 10:00 p.m. She’d already bathed Claudia, dressed her in one of the terry-cloth sleepers she’d stocked up on at Woolworth’s and was trying to get her to nurse before bed when Lenore hollered up the stairs, “Joelle! Hurry! Bobby’s on the phone!”

  Joelle nearly tripped racing down the stairs. Bouncing against her shoulder, Claudia fussed and whimpered. They skidded into the kitchen, where Lenore held the receiver of the wall phone while Suzanne pulled a chair from the table closer to the wall so Joelle could sit while she talked. She grabbed the phone from Lenore, settled Claudia into the crook of her arm and drew in a deep breath. “Hello?”

  “Jo?” He sounded faint. But he was alive. He knew who she was. Whatever his injuries, they hadn’t affected his mind.

  “Bobby.” She said his name just to taste it, to savor the fact that he was connected to her. She wanted to chant it over and over, to croon it, to cheer it—but that would waste precious time. “Where are you?”

  “Hawaii.”

  “You’re still in the hospital?”

  “Yeah. I can’t talk long. A nurse rigged this call. I just…” Claudia began to fuss again, mewing like a kitten. “Oh, God,” he said. “Is that her?”

  “That’s Claudia.” Joelle’s cheeks were as damp as Claudia’s, but she laughed, too. “That’s our baby.”

  “Oh, God,” he said again, softly, like a prayer.

  “How are you?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “What happened to you?”

  “I can’t…” Long-distance static filled the line. Then he spoke. “I’m okay. Making progress.”

  “Did you—” she couldn’t think of a tactful way to ask “—did you lose anything?” She watched the news and read the newspaper. Lots of soldiers arrived home missing limbs, in wheelchairs, paralyzed, damaged beyond description.

  “A body part? No.”

  She started breathing again.

  “My leg is f—screwed up,” he said, considerately editing out the obscenity. “I had surgery. They put me back together again. They’re gonna send me home once I’m vertical.”

  “Vertical?”

  “Walking. Or crutching, I don’t know. You’ll have to find us a place to live with no stairs. I’ve got to do rehab before I can deal with stairs.”

  “All right.”

  “Call Fort Dix. Someone there’ll help you with housing.”

  “Are you in a lot of pain?”

  “It’s not too bad.” He chuckled. “They give me drugs.”

  She was desperate to know more. What did “screwed up” mean in regard to his leg? What kind of rehab would he need? What drugs was he taking?

  If he’d wanted to go into detail, he would have. Clearly, he didn’t wish to. “Should I contact your father?”

  The laughter left his voice. “And tell him what?”

  “That you were hurt?”

  “No.” His tone was gentler when he added, “I’m okay, Jo. I’m gonna make it, and I’m gonna come home. All right?”

  “Come home,” she said. Claudia was sobbing now. So was Joelle. She didn’t care if Bobby could hear her tears in her voice. “Just come home.”

  “I’ve gotta go. Give Claudia a kiss for me. I’ll see you soon.” She heard a click, and then dead air.

  She should have told him she loved him. Maybe he didn’t love her, maybe he didn’t want to think about love, but she should have said what was in her heart.

  OVER THE NEXT SEVERAL WEEKS, Bobby sent her a few short, cryptic notes: They’ve got me doing some exercises. The dizziness is gone.

  What dizziness? she wondered.

  My hearing’s starting to come back.

  His hearing? He’d been deaf? If so, how had he been able to talk to her on the phone?

  Guy in the next bed is in really bad shape. I’m so lucky, Jo.

  How lucky could he be if he’d had to spend months in a hospital, dizzy and deaf and horizontal? When would he be vertical? When would he get home?

  He would get home in early September. She spent most of August searching for a first-floor apartment she and Bobby could afford, signing a lease and furnishing the place on pennies and ingenuity. Her housemates helped. She couldn’t imagine how she would have coped without them, and she was reassured when Suzanne was able to find a college student arriving in September who could take over Joelle’s room and her share of the expenses.

  Anxiety unraveled Joelle’s nerves as Bobby’s arrival date drew near. Renee had urged her to buy some sexy underwear for the occasion, but she was still breastfeeding Claudia, and while she’d lost her pregnancy weight, her breasts were fat and the skin of her tummy was still loose and puckered. She hoped Bobby wouldn’t be repulsed by the sight. She also hoped she wouldn’t be repulsed by the sight of him. What if he was scarred? How could she be fretting about her bloated breasts and baggy tummy after what he’d been through?

  How could she be worrying about appearances, at all? When he’d left her, nearly a year ago, he’d been her best friend. Now…she didn’t know. He’d fought in a war and she’d become a mother. Would they even recognize each other?

  The day before his homecoming, she drove his truck through a car wash and filled it with gas—he’d warned her never to let the needle drop too close to empty. At the grocery store, she splurged on a porterhouse steak and fresh strawberries and Suzanne bought her a bottle of red table wine because Joelle was still too young to buy that herself. The morning he was due, she made the bed with brand-new sheets, gave Claudia a bath and dressed her in her prettiest
outfit—a pink dress and matching pink socks that Joelle’s mother had sent from Ohio. Despite her swollen breasts, Joelle was able to fit into a sundress she’d sewn last year, a simple sheath hemmed several inches above her knees.

  Swallowing her nerves, she drove to McGuire, the air force base adjacent to Fort Dix. A dozen soldiers were scheduled to arrive on the same plane, and an officer corralled Joelle and the other waiting relatives into a fenced-in area near the tarmac. The sun beat down on Claudia in her stroller, and Joelle lowered its canopy to protect her.

  The other waiting relatives all seemed joyous. None of them appeared to be wrestling with dread the way she was. But then, the other young wives had probably been married for longer than a day before their husbands had left—and they probably were safe in the knowledge that their husbands loved them.

  The plane landed on a distant runway, then taxied over. Someone wheeled a stairway to the door. A woman in uniform opened it and the soldiers emerged, clad in their dress uniforms, many of them with medal ribbons pinned to their shirts. Next to Claudia’s stroller, a boy of about five waved an American flag. A few people snapped photographs.

  The last soldier to emerge was Bobby. She absorbed the sight of him, framed by the plane’s doorway. He was standing. His hair was longer than she’d expected, but she supposed he hadn’t needed a buzz cut while he’d been in the hospital. He handed a pair of crutches to the soldier in front of him, who headed down the stairs, leaving Bobby to maneuver the descent alone, his hands gripping the railings for support. His left leg was strapped into a metal brace that resembled a medieval torture device. He extended that leg in front of him and hopped down the stairs on his right foot. At the bottom of the steps, he took back the crutches, said something to the soldier who’d been holding them and then gazed at the fence. At Joelle.