twelve-year-old boys invited in for scones and marmite sandwiches. No wonder he grew up using social occasions to make his loved ones squirm.”
“Mothers!” Rosemary threw up her hands. “It’s a miracle we survive them. My problem is, I have no memory. I get lonely and forget how it was—and think Geoffrey was better than nothing. I need my friends to remind me that in fact it was worse. I only wish you’d been around, Simone, though we couldn’t have been friends. But after tomorrow you’ll see what I mean. You’ll understand what I’ve suffered.”
“Be careful, Simone.” Shelly opened her mouth in a studied, ironic yawn. “Very charming surface. But put Geoffrey in blackface and innate him—we’re looking at Baby Doc.”
On Saturday morning Simone rose early to wash her hair and dress with ritual concentration, not—certainly not!—as she’d dressed for Joseph, but as if for an event. As a girl she’d worn white to church like the girls in Joseph’s paintings, and later she’d had one good dress for important embassy functions. Now she chose a white T-shirt and blue jeans from the armloads of old clothes that, a few days before, Rosemary had thoughtfully dumped in a pile on the floor of Simone’s room. Simone found a pair of denims that fit—they were way too long to have been Rosemary’s. It was odd to think she might be wearing the clothes of the man she was going to meet. Simone put on lipstick and wiped it off—Rosemary would have noticed.
George appeared in a new sweatshirt and pants he kept scowling at and tugging. Maisie stood like a Victorian doll while Simone tied the sash on her dress. Then Rosemary knelt and squeezed the children as if they were leaving forever.
“Watch out for each other!” she called after them. “You know what your father is capable of.”
Then she caught Simone’s sleeve and said, “It’s safer to see Geoffrey as an ever-present threat. Right now he is feeling guilty and, by Porter standards, generous. The unstated implication is that we can go on living like this indefinitely—me and the kids starving to death in a falling-down mansion while he spends the cash flow on luxury toys for his weekend discretional children. And that’s the best we can hope for. At any minute he could decide he wants the house and full-time children. He has the money and lawyers to do anything he wants.”
A few minutes out of the driveway, the children erupted in conversation. They seemed to have been holding their breaths while making their getaway. George said, “That kid who got kicked off the bus for the whole year for tying up that first-grader with the bus driver’s belt?”
“It wasn’t the bus driver’s belt.” Maisie was nearly gagging with contempt. “It belonged to a kid in Special Ed sixth grade.”
George said, “There is no Special Ed sixth grade.”
Maisie said, “Yes, there is. Stupid.”
The banality, the shrillness, the underlayer of menace—these were voices Simone recognized, the voices of embassy children in normal American-child conversation. It was surely, she hoped, another sign of George and Maisie’s improvement. But why did it have to be on the road, where their happy chatter distracted her and made her driving uncertain? Nor was she sure she liked them being so buoyant en route to their father’s, who might be, as Rosemary warned, a rival and a threat.
The world was noisier in the rain, quick-tempered and aggressive, a sudden hail of drops on the roof, the liquid whisper of passing cars. A cruising police car so frightened Simone—suppose they asked to see her papers?—that it seemed a miracle when the police drove on by. When the road presented a new problem, a left turn across merciless traffic, Simone froze until George said, “Now. Go ahead. Turn!”
They drove past the sagging frame homes of greater Hudson Landing, with their asbestos-shingled porches flat up against the sidewalk. Simone saw an old woman pushing a child
“Mothers!” Rosemary threw up her hands. “It’s a miracle we survive them. My problem is, I have no memory. I get lonely and forget how it was—and think Geoffrey was better than nothing. I need my friends to remind me that in fact it was worse. I only wish you’d been around, Simone, though we couldn’t have been friends. But after tomorrow you’ll see what I mean. You’ll understand what I’ve suffered.”
“Be careful, Simone.” Shelly opened her mouth in a studied, ironic yawn. “Very charming surface. But put Geoffrey in blackface and innate him—we’re looking at Baby Doc.”
On Saturday morning Simone rose early to wash her hair and dress with ritual concentration, not—certainly not!—as she’d dressed for Joseph, but as if for an event. As a girl she’d worn white to church like the girls in Joseph’s paintings, and later she’d had one good dress for important embassy functions. Now she chose a white T-shirt and blue jeans from the armloads of old clothes that, a few days before, Rosemary had thoughtfully dumped in a pile on the floor of Simone’s room. Simone found a pair of denims that fit—they were way too long to have been Rosemary’s. It was odd to think she might be wearing the clothes of the man she was going to meet. Simone put on lipstick and wiped it off—Rosemary would have noticed.
George appeared in a new sweatshirt and pants he kept scowling at and tugging. Maisie stood like a Victorian doll while Simone tied the sash on her dress. Then Rosemary knelt and squeezed the children as if they were leaving forever.
“Watch out for each other!” she called after them. “You know what your father is capable of.”
Then she caught Simone’s sleeve and said, “It’s safer to see Geoffrey as an ever-present threat. Right now he is feeling guilty and, by Porter standards, generous. The unstated implication is that we can go on living like this indefinitely—me and the kids starving to death in a falling-down mansion while he spends the cash flow on luxury toys for his weekend discretional children. And that’s the best we can hope for. At any minute he could decide he wants the house and full-time children. He has the money and lawyers to do anything he wants.”
A few minutes out of the driveway, the children erupted in conversation. They seemed to have been holding their breaths while making their getaway. George said, “That kid who got kicked off the bus for the whole year for tying up that first-grader with the bus driver’s belt?”
“It wasn’t the bus driver’s belt.” Maisie was nearly gagging with contempt. “It belonged to a kid in Special Ed sixth grade.”
George said, “There is no Special Ed sixth grade.”
Maisie said, “Yes, there is. Stupid.”
The banality, the shrillness, the underlayer of menace—these were voices Simone recognized, the voices of embassy children in normal American-child conversation. It was surely, she hoped, another sign of George and Maisie’s improvement. But why did it have to be on the road, where their happy chatter distracted her and made her driving uncertain? Nor was she sure she liked them being so buoyant en route to their father’s, who might be, as Rosemary warned, a rival and a threat.
The world was noisier in the rain, quick-tempered and aggressive, a sudden hail of drops on the roof, the liquid whisper of passing cars. A cruising police car so frightened Simone—suppose they asked to see her papers?—that it seemed a miracle when the police drove on by. When the road presented a new problem, a left turn across merciless traffic, Simone froze until George said, “Now. Go ahead. Turn!”
They drove past the sagging frame homes of greater Hudson Landing, with their asbestos-shingled porches flat up against the sidewalk. Simone saw an old woman pushing a child
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