The Whore's Child by Richard Russo Page B

In
Durham
?” I was certain that some kind of trust had been violated. Could it be that we’d loaned them the money without a distance clause in the contract? We’d been prudent enough to ensure against neighbors on either side, but we were so focused on the threat of strangers that we failed to take family into account. Another failure of imagination.
    Faye bends over the railing and holds out a delicate hand for me—half grateful, half suspicious—to take. “I know this is the last thing in the world you need, but I think you should go over there. Today,” she adds, in case there’s a shred of doubt in my mind that whatever this is about, it’s serious.
    â€œWhat,” I say.
    Now that she has my attention, she seems reluctant to do anything with it. She’s looking for the right way to say it, and there is no right way. I can tell that much by looking at her.
    â€œJulie says . . . Russell hit her.”
    I am shocked, though I’ve known for some time that their marriage was in trouble. To make matters worse, Russell has recently quit a good job for what he thought would be a better one, only to find that several large loans needed to start up the project he’s to direct have not, as promised, been approved. It could be weeks, he admits. Months.
    â€œI’m not sure I believe Russell would hit Julie,” I tell Faye.
    â€œI do,” she says in a way that makes me believe it too. When my wife is dead sure, she’s seldom wrong, except where I’m concerned.
    â€œWhat am
I
supposed to do? Hit
him
?”
    â€œShe just wants to see you.”
    â€œI’m right here.”
    â€œShe thinks you’ll be angry.”
    â€œI
am
angry.”
    â€œNo, that she didn’t come to see you in the hospital. She feels guilty.”
    â€œShe didn’t know I’d be grateful?”
    â€œShe thought you’d be hurt. Like you were. Like I was.”
    â€œThirty years we’ve been married and you still confuse me with yourself,” I tell her. “I didn’t want Julie at the hospital. I didn’t want
you
at the hospital. Heart surgery would’ve been a different story.”
    â€œThere are times I think you could use heart surgery. A transplant, maybe. This is our daughter we’re talking about.”
    â€œOne of our daughters,” I correct her. “The other one is fine. So’s our son.”
    â€œSo is Julie.”
    I would like to believe her, but I’m not so sure. Before the wedding, I’d wanted to take Russell aside and ask him if he knew what he was doing. In time Julie might turn out fine, as well as the other two, but she somehow wasn’t quite ripe yet. Not for the colleges she’d been in and out of. Not for a husband. Not for adult life.
    As I am not ripe for intervention. My daughter may not be an adult, but she’s acting like one—getting married, having houses built, borrowing money. And I don’t, on general principle, like the idea of trespassing once people have slept together, because they know things about each other that you can’t, and if you think you’re ever going to understand what’s eating them, you’re a fool, even if one of them happens to be your own daughter. Especially if one of them happens to be your own daughter.
    â€œWe cannot tolerate physical abuse,” Faye says. “You know I’m fond of Russell, and it may not be all his fault, but if they’re out of control, we have to do something. We could end up wishing we had.”
    I would still like to debate the point. Even as Faye has been speaking, I’ve been marshaling semivalid reasons for butting out of our daughter’s marriage. There are half a dozen pretty good ones, but I’d be wasting my breath.
    â€œJulie thinks they should separate. For a while, anyway,” Faye says. “That makes sense to me. She wants to insist, and she wants you to be