The Sitter Page 4

  She knew she had kept Larry at her breast far too long, but he was a tough habit to break. And, there had been a time or two...when he'd been a bit older...she had probably gone too far. But surely God, in his wisdom and mercy...

  Catherine had a wonderful life, what with Larry growing up so fine, and with her job working for old Emma down the street; what was she dredging up old garbage for?

  Since she had gone to work for Emma, she had few friends from the old days. Those who had kept in touch were probably confused by her contentment. Her husband had run off and she was supposed to be suffering and mad as hell.

  “But,” she asked herself, “what kind of a life would that be?”

  Catherine knew herself so well she sometimes didn't bother to answer the questions she put to herself. Whatever the Good Lord's reason for arranging her life as he had, she knew her duty was to thank Him daily, do her very best at raising her boy, and to do whatever good works came her way. Catherine was pleased as punch to be doing just that.

  Fluffing her damp, bright hair with her fingers, Catherine smiled at herself in the mirror, blew a kiss toward the door to Larry's room, and on clean bare feet she padded softly into her bedroom.

  *****

  “Jeannie,” Steven says, lying next to me, the covers kicked off. “We have to talk about Kevin...and Larry.”

  I am wide awake, watching the moonlight filter through the branches of the giant Eucalyptus tree just outside our bedroom window. I love the huge window our bed faces; it takes up most of the wall and is half-moon shaped nearly two stories high. There is a breeze and the shadows of the branches move across the bedroom ceiling, giving it a velvety, dappled look. I find it comforting, soothing.

  “Why must we do that, Steven?” I ask.

  “Well, you saw them together today. Hell, Jeannie, Kevin misses Larry; you had to see that.”

  “So? He'll adjust. In time.” I roll onto my side, turning away from him. Adjust. What a meaningless word. Too much to ask of anyone. And, we don't owe Larry anything, Steven.”

  “I know that.” He moves closer and slides his hand under my arm and onto my breast. His lips are close to my ear, his voice thick and heavy. “But we do owe Kevin. It's damned upsetting to find out your kid's been crying all day at pre-school, you know?”

  “Yes, it is. I think we should keep him home a while longer, Steven. He'll be fine. He doesn't need Larry Cutler to--”

  “He's been home too long as it is.”

  “My God, Steven, how can you say that? It hasn't even been a month!” I push his hand from my breast and edge away from him. “Give the boy some time, can't you?”

  “Don't you see what's happening here?” He sits up, leaning against the fabric head board. “Jesus, Jeannie--he's getter worse not better! Tonight's one of the few he hasn't been in here begging to sleep with us. And, what about his nightmares?”

  I sit up next to him. “You think having Larry Cutler around is going to change that? You think Kevin's going to calm down because he'll get to be with the sonofabitch who allowed his big brother to drown?” Steven reaches for me and I slap his hand away.

  “I don't mean he'd be our sitter again, Babe. I don't want him here any more than you do. I just thought Larry could hang out here a little with Kevin...supervised of course! Not alone with him! Give me some credit, will you?” He grabs my hand and holds it to his chest, tight against him. I try to pull away, but he holds on. “Jeannie, you act like Larry murdered Stevie, and now I'm asking you to let him have a shot at Kevin.”

  I don't answer.

  “Normality,” Steven continues, his voice controlled, patient. “Kevin needs some familiar normality. He's lost his big brother; does he have to lose Larry as well?”

  “Yes, he does, Steven. We all do. And...what about my feelings toward Larry?”

  “What about them, Jeannie?”

  He is angry. I am making him angry. I jerk my hand from his grasp. “Where are you, Steven? Where the hell are you? How can you...” I pause and start over. “Maybe you can allow Larry to come into our home after what he's done; I guess that's your prerogative. But . . . knowing how I feel about him. . . how strongly I object, I don't understand—”

  “It's really very simple, Jeannie.” His voice is softer now, it fairly oozes humane patience. “I'm asking you to accept Larry here on a very limited, controlled basis, for a very limited and controlled piece of time. This would be done for one reason only, and that reason is Kevin, whom I think would--”

  “Does this have anything to do with Brandon?”

  “Oh for Christ's sake, Jeannie!” Steven sits up, and slides to the edge of the bed. He sits there, hands rubbing his face. “I never should have told you about Brandon.”

  The first time I heard the Brandon story, we were flying back to California from a brief holiday in Paris. It was late at night, the drinks were free, and we were both tossing them back. This was early in our marriage and we were still telling each other our life stories. These glimpses into our pasts we both found fascinating. I could tell from the way Steven clutched my hand though, that this one was going to be serious.

  “We were living in Little Five Points, a neighborhood in Atlanta, and I had a neighbor--Brandon McCloud--he was a year younger than me, just sixteen. I had a basketball hoop on my garage door and Brandon came over a lot to use it with me. We had a good time together. Even though I was just a year older than him, I could tell he really looked up to me. Always asking what I thought about stuff.

  “I had a learner's permit. Dad was always taking me out in his Chevy stick shift for driving lessons. I loved the stick. Using the stick gave me a sense of participation in the driving process, a sense of significance. I shared all this with Brandon and he was fascinated. He started going out with my dad and me on the lessons just as a passenger. One time we found him waiting in the car for us, just kind of hanging out there.

  “Well, long story short, I took him out with me one afternoon.”

  “You mean without your dad?”

  “Yeah, just for a short drive.”

  “Dear God, Steven!”

  “I know, I know. The guy begged me and I knew I could handle a short drive on my own. I drove out of town a mile or so, into a kind of rural area. I...let him take the wheel.”

  I shook my head, stunned.

  Steven closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “I hadn't counted on him getting so damned excited. He was so happy! We came to a bend in the road, a pretty big curve and, for some crazy reason, he sped up!”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Yeah. Well, he couldn't handle the curve and drove off the road and hit a tree. A big one. He hit it with the left side of the car. Jeannie, it was as if he was aiming for it!” Steven waved at the attendant for two more drinks. “This was before air bags and his head...his whole upper body slammed into the dash. His head went into the windshield.”

  “What about the seat belt?”

  “I realized then he wasn't belted in.”

  “Oh, Steven...”

  “I knew he was dead, Jeannie, there was no doubt about it. His neck was all weird and his head was smashed...” Our drinks arrived and we both drank almost half in one gulp.

  “So...what did you do?”

  “No cell phone of course, so I walked about a half mile to a house and used their phone to call the Highway Patrol--maybe it was the police, I don't remember. This guy asked me if we needed an ambulance and I said no--the driver was dead. He told me they were sending one anyway...to be sure.

  “My buddy Brandon was dead. And I was disgustingly alive. The guy on the phone told me to wait for the authorities at the scene. I sure as hell did not want to do that, but I did. Fortunately, I remember very little of what happened after that. It was like being drunk, on the verge of a blackout...kind of in and out.”

  “Somehow, Steven,” I say now, “you are comparing yourself to Larry Cutler.”

  “You have to admit, don't you Jeannie, that there is a simila
rity? It's obvious. I don't take proper care of Brandon, and he dies. Larry doesn't take proper care of Stevie and--”

  “You weren't Brandon's sitter, Steven. He was responsible for himself!”

  Steven stares at me. “His parents, his friends, everyone blamed me.”

  “It's not the same thing at all! Brandon was a pig-headed idiot. He wrote his own ticket, he created his own death.”

  I move over to Steven and sit on the edge of the bed next to him. He puts his arm around my shoulders and pulls me close. “You may be right, Jeannie. But I still think, for Kevin's sake, that we should allow him some supervised time with Larry--”

  “Absolutely not!” I pull away from him and scramble off the bed. “I don't know why, Steven, you can't understand my feelings about Larry. I cannot allow Larry Cutler in this house, Steven...ever again!”

  I settle into the double bed in the guest room next to Kevin's bedroom, and I know I will never sleep. My heart is pumping hard and it feeds my sense of outrage.

  After a moment, I consider the fact that Steven is usually proven correct in his reasoning. That has been a sometimes maddening facet of our marriage. But how could I allow Larry back into our lives? Even on a temporary basis? There is simply no way. I do not believe that Kevin will be deprived in any way if he never sees Larry Cutler again. Sure, it might be tough for a while but I know he'll come around. Steven is feeling sorry for Larry, and I know it's because of Brandon.

  Bertie has mentioned to me that some kids and adults as well are referring to Larry as Poor-Larry-Cutler, all one word. He is the hard luck kid of the year...but I don't care. Steven does, however, and that's his problem.

  Steven. My beloved. Where is he?

  At the University of Oregon where we met, he was ever so popular with the coeds. With an inspired campaign of clever strategy and freely given sex, I snatched him from the lustful and adoring women who were surrounding him. I was thrilled to win him. But I can't find that man now. Where do they go--the men we fall crazy in love with?

  I think of my parents and what used to be my family. My parent's marriage had been almost idyllic. It had been love at first sight for Marie and Keith. They married later than most and didn't have me until Marie was thirty-seven. Then, at the age of forty, she astonished everyone--especially Keith--by having twin girls, Laura and Melissa. For me, this was an event of astounding and life-altering magnitude. At first it was all good. The twins were special and treated as special. I was not, but my mother made a point of including me in the care of the twins and I basked in my new importance and the excitement of having pretty little twin sisters. Gradually though, as they grew and developed personality, I felt my own dimming. I felt myself fading--a passive shadow of myself.

  My father was a music appreciation teacher in high school and his love was directing choir. I knew I was a disappointment to him because I turned out to be tone deaf. Laura and Melissa of course had perfect pitch.

  There was a saying I'd heard back then about the number of children parents should have: One for Mom, one for Dad, and one for the fates. Though I am the first born, I know I am the one for the fates.

  There was something I did well though--I could draw. Anything I saw I could draw. I was a talented copy artist. Marie was proud of my ability, while Keith simply ignored it. It was because of Marie's encouragement that I went on to develop this talent through high school, and then at the University of Oregon where I met Steven.

  Marie was killed in an auto accident my senior year and Keith--devastated by grief--died the following year. After these deaths my sisters and I seemed to have nothing to hold us together.

  Calmer now, my thoughts turn to what has become a morbid, yet satisfying habit. In my head, I re-write the afternoon it happened. One version is Larry's daring rescue of my son. Another, the appearance of an unusually fierce rain squall that forces them to abandon the fishing trip. The one I particularly favor is that Larry is the boy who drowns, and I commiserate endlessly with Stevie that it surely is too bad about Poor-Larry-Cutler.

  Tuesday, August 22nd

  It was early and Steven heard the soft in and out of her breath, but didn't trust it. Was she faking? His hand rested lightly on her arm; she allowed that at least. Steven was never physically tired anymore; his fatigue was mental. His boy was always in his mind's eye--shining there. Steven grew weary, though, of Stevie's presence in his head and yearned to forget, at least for a time.

  Moving his hand lightly against the cool skin of Jeannie's arm, he ached for more of her. She could make it so much better but since Stevie, she had rejected any move he made toward physical intimacy. He wanted to take her mindlessly, without conscious thought, without complication. They could use sex as a healer, a path to recovery--if there was such a thing as recovery.

  Jeannie shifted slightly, her arm moving beneath his hand. Back when their bodies were new to each other, he'd loved the middle of the night. Loved to awaken lying next to her, his hand on her bare hip, his face in her fragrant hair. Steven had only to touch her, to brush his hand lightly across her breast, and half asleep she would turn to him, hungry and eager. Their love in those days had been a treasure. Had they spent it all?

  After an hour or two of fitful sleep, Steven woke, feeling drained and spent. Again. It was as if he worked all night at some meaningless and insignificant task, one he hadn't a prayer of ever finishing. All that stayed with him in the morning was frustration and numbing fatigue.

  His current work, a layered pastel portrait of the Gant twins, was at last finished, and Joel and Alicia Gant were coming by this morning to have a look. This portrait of five-year old Amy and Alice--and his promise to have it completed by the first of September--had saved him from even deeper depression. Though it had been a help to him, he was looking forward to its final acceptance. He had a substantial waiting list of future clients, but no real enthusiasm for the next project.

  The Gants were due at 9:30. It was 9:00 as Steven climbed the stairs to his studio on the third floor to prepare for the viewing. Originally a large attic, He had put in a good sized skylight, several large windows for both light and air, and added a full bath. A huge rectangular room, it was scattered with various cabinets, drawing tables and easels, as well as some white wicker furniture, including a couch. The couch was what most wicker furniture was not, and that was 'comfortable'. Steven knew this because he and Jeannie had made love there a few times. Happier days.

  The floor was a work of art in itself. It was made of oak planks, each one custom cut and laid diagonally. Everything was painted off-white. He had loved the studio's stark austerity, but these days it gave him little pleasure.

  The Gant painting was on a floor easel in the center of the room beneath the skylight. As he trained a floor spot on it, he heard Jeannie coming up the stairs. This was one of the few mornings she had taken charge again--made their breakfast, got Kevin up, dressed and fed, and driven him to preschool, for just the half-day. He was hopeful that perhaps Kevin was on his way back as well. If he got along all right this morning, Steven would insist he keep going to the school.

  “I don't know,” Jeannie said as she came into the room, looking worried. “He was kind of teary when I took him in. He may be coming down with something.”

  Steven didn't comment. Kevin was sick all right, sick with missing his brother. And, the banished Larry Cutler. Smiling at his wife, he tried to dismiss his irritation with her protective zeal.

  “What do you think?” Steven gestured toward the large painting. He adjusted the spot light.

  She walked to the easel, her sneakers soundless on the wood floor. Wearing jeans and a T-shirt, she looked good, though pale. “It's too much with that spot on it.”

  Steven usually liked this about Jeannie--with no dissembling, she always told him exactly what she thought. Lately, however, she seemed overly critical.

  “Too much?”

  “The natural light from the sky is plenty. It's sugary enough without adding artifici
al light.”

  “It won't be hung under the sky, Jeannie,” Steven said. “It will always be viewed by artificial light.” She shrugged and started for the door. “What do you mean, 'sugary'?”

  Sighing, she stopped and turned back to him. She brushed a stray hair from her face. “They're just too...sweet, those girls. Too perfect.”

  He peered intently at his work, now a little sorry he'd asked her opinion. Steven tried to see the portrait through Jeannie's eyes.

  In a forest setting Amy and Alice Gant were seated cross-legged on grassy ground, looking at a butterfly perched on Amy's finger. Each girl had an awestruck expression on her face, Alice's slightly more so. Their lips were slightly parted in admiration. Alice wore a deep lavender colored dress with white daisies on it while Amy's dress was pale blue. The grassy clearing where the twins were seated was shaded and there were shafts of sunlight coming through the overhead trees, spotlighting the girls. Some of the sunbeams illuminated their already bright yellow hair.

  “Of course it's 'sugary', as you put it,” Steven said. “That's the point. It's a romantic portrait--that's what I do. And, it's what their mother wanted. You want me to give them zits or something?”

  “You asked me,” Jeannie said, shrugging again.

  “Okay then.” She turned and left the room. Would it cost her so much to cut him some slack? He shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck.

  It was Jeannie who first went into portraiture, right after they graduated from the University of Oregon, each with a degree in fine art. It was Steven, though, who stepped in to help her when she began having trouble pleasing her clients. In a short time, he discovered his knack for painting children. Steven found he was a natural with kids, and was able to give each likeness at least a hint of the inner character and strength the parents fondly hoped their children had, or would soon develop.

  Then, he'd hit upon what proved to be a commercially sure-fire bit of fantasy. He would put the face of his subject on a doll in the painting, or a favorite stuffed animal. Other times, he would introduce small, dream-like scenes of what the little girl or boy liked to do--like playing with a puppy, or riding a tricycle--into the background of the painting. His work then became a many-faceted portrait of the child and the child's personality. Steven's work along these lines soon became enormously popular as well as highly profitable.