The Breakdown Lane by Jacquelyn Mitchard
“I have my sources.”
“Did you just hear?”
“Yesterday.”
“And you came right away,” I breathed, gratitude like honey filling my throat.
I reached up and touched his face, ignoring his flinch, like a leap in the line of a lie detector’s pen. “I’m memorizing your face.”
“So soon forgotten!” he joked.
He leaned over and kissed me, my husband, flattening his hand on my belly, opening his lips to just such an aperture through which our inner lips could touch. It was not, no, it wasn’t passion I felt, but redemption, a wafer on my tongue. He smelled of Leo, coffee beans, wintergreen, and Ivory soap. His arms sinewy, never large but strong enough, were around me, pulling me upward as if I were a child. “Were you in a place that had no phone service? Did something…what happened?”
“You don’t know?”
“Don’t know? Were you hurt? In the hospital? Because I—”
“The children came to find me, Julie. Caroline and Gabe.”
“Honey, the kids were at my sister’s. All of spring break. Don’t tell me you were in the Hamptons.”
“They were never at your sister’s.”
“Wait.” I sat down on the bed.
“They, ah, told you they were going to Janey’s, and they told Janey they were going with my parents, and they took a bus to New England….”
“A bus? Alone?”
Leo chuckled. “They were pretty intrepid.”
“Intrepid? I can’t even take this in. You knew about this and you didn’t stop them?”
“I didn’t know about it. I gather only Cathy knew about it.”
“Cathy. Cathy! ”
And then the baby cried, again. It had been no dream. And all the swords that had been hanging over my head fell at once.
I said, “Who’s that?”
“Well, Julie, that’s Amos.”
“Amos?”
“My son. I had a baby, Julie, with a woman in upstate New York, a woman I love very much. Maybe not the way we loved each other once upon a time, not the way you can love someone the first time, but not every love has to—”
“You had a baby! You had a baby! You brought your baby to my house!”
“Well, he needs his father, Julie. You’d be the first to say that. Joy isn’t feeling well right now….”
I tried to swallow the irony of this. Then, I stepped back and spit on his chest.
“Jesus!” he cried, leaping up as if I’d scalded him.
The older kids sidled in then, one after the other, Caroline holding the little dark-haired baby, her eyes the huge eyes of a child in some cheap painting. Gabe fixed his stare out of the window at the swing set where all of them had played.
“You can feed him, Caro,” Leo said. “Just put some…do you have spring water…?”
“And juice,” Gabe said softly, “and fresh air. And windows that open and close.”
“Just warm it a little. Joy likes him to take it room temperature.”
“Give me the telephone, Gabe,” I said, standing up, thankful that I didn’t falter or wobble. “I have to get a witness for this. I think this may be unprecedented.” I began to dial Cathy’s number, believing that I otherwise might abscond my body and kill him. I might try to take the receiver to bash in his skull or the half smile on his face. Then I realized I was dialing Connie’s number. Cathy had lost her cell phone. “You were at my sister’s house.” Gabe shook his head ruefully, hating even then to disobey. “You weren’t at my sister’s house. You lied to me and got away with it because of the medicine. You knew I couldn’t catch you. You went to…him.” I am putting them in the middle of him and me, I scolded myself, making them a prize or a carcass. “And you made Cathy go along with it.”
“We went to get him,” Gabe said.
“And you got him. Now what?”
He huffed, exasperated. “Wasn’t that what you wanted, Mom? Just a chance to talk to Dad? Wasn’t that what you kept moaning for when you were out of it?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t imagine this! I didn’t want his…spawn.”
“There’s always catch and release.”
“Don’t joke,” I said, my head throbbing. “I want to work some things out before Cathy gets here with Aury. I don’t want a scene for Aury. As for what you did, it was foolish and stubborn. You could have been killed or hurt….”
“We called Cathy every night. She knew.”
“It was foolish on Cathy’s part then.” I went into the kitchen, and reached up into a cupboard for a bottle of aspirin. But I couldn’t manage the aspirin bottle; Leo had to do it, and the water kept sluicing through my fingers as I tried to cup enough to wash down the chalky pills. Acutely aware of being clad only in a flannel shirt, I asked everyone to leave while I went back into my room and dressed, which I did with care and extraordinary slowness.
As I pulled up my slacks and wrapped my belt—my once-upon-a-time once-around belt—around twice, I thought about the fact that Leo had not come home until someone cornered him in his lair. Played music on his guilt. As I tucked in my shirt and turned up my collar, as I brushed pigment on my jaw to fool the eye away from the slack, I thought about the fact that he had another child, another marriage. Not a marriage, better than marriage. A love match. I didn’t dare consider how this made me feel. Practical action. I would think only about what I might do for myself with Leo’s transgression. I brushed out my hair and ran mousse through it.
Wisconsin was a no-fault divorce state.
Surely, they could make an exception. If this wasn’t fault, I didn’t know what was.
No.
Well.
I thought about how I could manipulate whatever there was left of him, against him. But I didn’t think there was much left. He seemed too assured, too impatient with our dullness, our mess. He’d probably anticipated everything. And I still loved…the rain-drenched…
No. A guy who could kiss his wife, then draw his very next breath, and explain how very much in love he was….
No.
Some people don’t deserve second chances.
But he doesn’t want one, a carping notion nagged. If only Leo had something he needed that I could refuse.
His parents would be home tonight.
A last glance in the mirror and then I walked, with what I hoped was a regal bearing, out into the living room. Caroline was feeding the baby in the rocking chair.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a cradle I could use?” Leo asked.
“I wouldn’t,” I said, “happen to have a cradle that you could use.” I crossed the room and selected one from a group of my father’s canes, canes he’d used as an affectation. I didn’t really need it that day, but I wanted, perversely, for Leo to see me using it.
“You need a cane?” he asked.
“Yes, for some things,” I told him. I studied his face, the shifting kaleidoscope of my children’s features that surfaced and vanished with his expressions. “I could use it now to crack your skull, but I don’t want to go to prison. I would like you to go to prison. However, what you’ve done isn’t against any law, except the ones that have to do with personal morality. Biblical-type laws. Your parents will want to see you, before you leave….”
“I was planning on staying a few days.”
“Where were you planning on staying?”
“At a hotel. A friend’s.”
“Leo, you have no friends,” I said softly, realizing that this was, in fact, true.
“I have friends in Sunrise Valley.”
“Is it possible that you—” I began to laugh, despite my shame—“live in a place called Sunrise Valley?”
“Is it possible that you live in a place called Sheboygan? On Tecumseh Street? West Side Julieanne Gillis?” Leo sniffed.
“Go upstairs, kids.”
“We, uh, don’t have an upstairs, Mom,” said Caro. “We have a down the hall.”
“You know that’s what I
Caro smiled sadly.
“Be careful with his head, and you have to burp him more than once or he’ll throw up…” Leo said as Caroline left.
“He changed his name,” Gabe said over his shoulder.
“I call myself Leon there,” Leo said as Gabe disappeared.
“I call you beyond belief,” I answered. “Anywhere.”
“Julieanne, I don’t expect you to understand or forgive this. I might not have been able to, at one time in my life. But I’ve read up on this. Relationships have a shelf life. Between adults, that is. Our relationship had a life. It doesn’t mean that it wasn’t real.”
“And so, this thing with…I didn’t get her name.”
“Joyous?”
“Joyous? Her name is Joyous?” I was being gutted, and yet I couldn’t help enjoying this one on some level. “Your…pal’s name is Joyous?”
“Well, Joy, yes. It’s a chosen name.”
“Like Leon. I’ll bet she’s…don’t tell me….”
“She makes jam.”
“Oh, God help you, Leo.” I sat down on the window seat. “You’re a caricature. And do you expect this meeting of souls to last? Forever?”
“She’s also a Pilates instructor.”
“Oh that explains it, then. She reminded you of me.”
“In answer to your question, we’re taking it one day at a time. That’s the only way Joy would do it. We’ll take this as far as it works for both of us….”
“Are you a complete idiot? You have a baby in the other room. Is that taking it one day at a time? You erased one family; are you going to erase another?”
“No, this feels, somehow, different.”
“Lee, it feels different because she feels different. Like, her boobs. Get a grip. She makes you feel twenty-five, too. Do you think that’ll last? And why the hell do I even care? I guess because you’re still my children’s father.”
“This was never about the children.”
“But you said it was, Leo. You said it was about too much of too much. You never went to Colorado to take photographs—”
“I did, but she went with me. She wanted to know that I was completely free of…”
“Of what? The family you snookered?”
“I didn’t decide to have another baby,” Leo whispered. “I didn’t even decide to…leave you. It unfolded that way. It was a turn of events I honestly didn’t expect. But when it did happen, I thought things happen for a reason….”
“Just not necessarily a good one, as Gabe would say.”
“I thought it over, and I realized that this might be my last chance….”
“For a young girl? For a young girl to fall for your over-the-hill self?”
“For a life of passion. For a life of my own.”
I pointed down the hall with my cane. “Good luck with a life of your own. You have four children now, Leo. But three of them live with me. And I assume that after we divorce, you’ll be paying child support in the amount of twenty-something percent—is that right—of your salary?”
“Jules, I probably don’t make half of what you make anymore. I do a lot of pro bono work and work for the community I live in.”
“Well, you can still give me twenty percent or whatever it is of what you make. Not for me. For them.”
“That’s why we need to talk, to do this fairly for all the children involved here,” Leo said. “I love my children, Julie. If you’re not up to their care, I’ll gladly take them back with me. All of them. I think the fairest thing we can do is to let the money your father put aside for the education of the children go to work for you now. This is the time for you to break that trust. Let me invest it. Or let someone else invest it, if you don’t trust me.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Really?”
Why shouldn’t he think so? Did he think I wouldn’t take care of my own, now that I knew the chips were irrefutably down? I had the present on my mind, how to afford Interferon, not the Ivy League.
“Well, I’m glad you’re being reasonable, given your condition and its instability. Before I left to come back here with the kids, I scanned the Net about MS. It can really throw you some curves. I know that.”
“I did cabrioles earlier today, before class, and a ballotte, in ballet class.”
“You can still do that?”
“Yes. Sometimes.”
“Because Gabe gave me the impression that you were virtually bedridden.” He glanced at the cane.
“I can do that, too.”
We stood like prizefighters, listening to each other’s breathing.
“Do you know what time my mother and father will be here?” Leo finally asked.
“Six. About six. They’ll go to their apartment. And then probably come here. Their plane lands at four. They sold the condo in Florida. Their share.”
“Why? I promised—”
“Don’t even think about it. Leo! Your parents are never going to let Joy into their house.”
“You’d be surprised what a baby can do.”
“I thought that period of your life was over, Lee. Circa our daughter. Our two-year-old daughter.”
“You make it sound like a crime.”
“A crime? It’s a sin, Leo. And boy, talk about retiring and being here now. Little Amos is going to punch some holes in that bubble.”
Leo sighed. “And, well, you might as well know. You’re going to find out anyway. Joy is pregnant again.”
“Well, Lee, that about covers it,” I said, surprised by my own restraint, my ease at speaking around the stone in my throat. “You aren’t just a man who’s had ridiculously bad luck and bad judgment. You are a world-class twit. You will now have five kids to support. You make me want to go take a shower. And Aurora was supposedly what pushed you over the edge. You blamed me and you blamed little Aurora, and I bought it.”
“Who is…where? Some kind of day care?”
“She should be here soon.”
“I hope you send her to a decent place.”
“I do, Leo. I send her to Connie’s. About two mornings a week. The rest of the time, I am her day care. Just like you always wanted.”
“Leave it alone, Julie. Where is my daughter?”
“She’s out with Cathy and Abby. Cathy and Abby live here now. They rent a room from me. I need the money and the company and sometimes the help. You must know that I sold the house to Liesel and Klaus….”
“I heard that, yes. From Gabe.”
“Well. No one was able to find you. None of your family.”
“Not keeping in touch, that was wrong. I see its effect on the children. But I was desperate, Julie. I was as ill, in my own way, as you are.”
“You fruitcake,” I said. “I think of you as many things, Leo. Snake comes to mind. But I never think of you as stupid. There is no comparison between your so-called desperation and my health. There is no way that, in any way, you were as bad off before you left as I am now.”
He smiled mildly. “I don’t expect you to understand. It’s all colored by rage for you. And pride.”
“Well, yes,” I said. “But hey. You know about market studies. If you took a hundred women and asked how many of them would feel rage if left alone with three kids, with diminishing health and mysteriously vanishing funds, by a husband who didn’t even have the grace, not to mention the balls, to explain what he was really doing, I wonder what percentage of that target population would feel…rage.”
The front door opened, and I could hear Cathy half laughing, shouting down the little girls, “Wait, wait! I want those boots off.”
“Here,” I said. “We’re in here.”
“Daddy!” cried Aury, as if she was seeing an exotic animal.
Leo’s face crumpled in honest longing and misery. “Dolly! You must have grown a foot!” He held out his arms an
“The prodigal asshole,” Cathy said, unwinding her scarf. She stood astride the arch of the door. Her yellow coat and braided knit hat shouted health and functionality.
“Hi, Cathy,” Leo said, recovering. “Didn’t Connie ever teach you that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all?”
“I don’t see anything nice in this room except Julieanne.” Aury ran past her and clambered up next to me on the window seat, popping her finger into her mouth and trying to diminish herself behind me. “And now your daughter.”
“She hears in your tone of voice that you despise me. That’s why she ran over there.”
“Maybe she just has good taste.”
“Stop it,” I said. “This is…it’s sickening.”
The baby wailed, and Leo startled.
“No! ” Cathy said. “What’s that?”
“That is Amos,” I told her. “Amos Stern. Leo here goes by another name when he’s having adventures in paradise. Amos is one of those,” I told her. “And wait ’til you hear. Amos isn’t the only member of the new clan. Leo here’s starting a dynasty with his new love.”
“Tell me you’re kidding,” Cathy said. “Leo, even you wouldn’t be such a shit.”
Caroline called. “I don’t have any more baby milk.” Cathy’s eyes saucered.
“She means formula,” I quickly explained. “It’s not Caroline’s baby. It’s not that bad. Leo’s new friend, in New York State, is on the way to having not just this baby, but another baby.”
“You make it sound worse…” Leo began.
Cathy sat down hard on the hall bench. “No, Leo. It’s actually worse than it sounds.”
“A baby?” Aury cried. “Daddy, did you bring me a baby? A really baby?”
It stopped being funny then. Even in a lousy way.
“Aury,” I said, and gathered her onto my lap. “Aury, listen…” Caro came stumbling into the room, the wriggling Amos having squirmed halfway down her cropped sweater.
“Daddy, help!” she cried, and Leo leapt up.
“Daddy, help!” Cathy and I repeated, but tears sprang into my eyes, and I stood, holding Aury’s hand.