State of Siege

FOUR

Under a bright sky, Paul Hood, his wife Sharon, their just-turned-fourteen-year-old daughter Harleigh, and their eleven-year-old son Alexander eased into their new van and set out for New York. The kids were hooked to their respective Discmans. Harleigh was listening to violin concerti to get herself in the mood for the concert; every now and then, she would sigh or mutter a mild oath, awed by the composition or discouraged by the brilliance of the performance. She was like her mother in that respect. Neither woman was ever satisfied with what she’d accomplished, Harleigh on the violin, Sharon with her passion for healthy cooking. For years, Sharon had used her charm and sincerity to lure people away from bacon and doughnuts on a half-hour weekly cable TV show, The McDonnell Healthy Food Report. She had left the show several months before to devote more time to putting together a healthy-eating cookbook, which was nearly finished. She had also wanted to spend more time at home. The kids were getting older faster, and she felt they should all spend more time doing things as a family, from having dinner weeknights to taking vacations whenever they could. Dinners that Hood had missed more often than not and vacations that he’d had to cancel.

Alexander was much more like his father. He liked personal challenges. He enjoyed computer games — the more complicated, the better. He liked crossword puzzles and jigsaw puzzles. As they drove, he listened to some flavor-of-the-month singer and worked on an acrostic puzzle. Beneath the puzzle book, on his lap, was a short stack of comic books. To Alexander, there was no outside world right now. There was just what was in front of him. Paul couldn’t help but feel proud of the kid. Alexander knew his own mind.

Sharon Hood was sitting quietly by her husband’s side. She had left him a week before, taken the children, and gone to stay with her parents in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. She’d returned for the same reason that Hood had resigned from Op-Center: to fight for their family. Hood had no idea what he’d do next in his career, and he wouldn’t be putting out feelers until they returned to Washington on Wednesday. He’d cashed in some stock he’d bought during his years as a broker, enough to run the household for two years. Income wasn’t as important as satisfaction and banker’s hours. But Sharon was right. The wholeness of what he felt in the car, imperfections and all, was something very special.

One of those imperfections — the largest one — was still between Hood and his wife. Though Sharon took his hand and held it as they started the trip, he had the feeling that he was on probation. There was nothing he could pinpoint, nothing that seemed different from any other drive they’d taken. But there was something that stood between them. A resentment? Disappointment? Whatever, it was the reverse of the sexual tension he felt with Ann Farris.

Paul and Sharon talked a little at first about what they were going to do in the city. Tonight was an official dinner with the families of the other violinists. Maybe a walk through Times Square if they got done early enough. On Saturday morning, they’d drop Harleigh off at the United Nations and then do what Alexander had requested: visit the Statue of Liberty. The boy wanted to see up close how it was “erected,” as he put it. At six they’d head for the soiree, leaving the young man in the Sheraton with its built-in video game system.

Paul and Sharon wouldn’t be permitted to attend the United Nations reception, which was being held in the lobby of the General Assembly Hall building. Instead, they’d be watching the concert on closed-circuit televisions in the second-floor press room along with the other parents. On Sunday, they’d take in an afternoon performance of the Metropolitan Opera orchestra doing Vivaldi — Sharon’s favorite — at Carnegie Hall, after which, at Ann Farris’s recommendation, they’d head up to Serendipity III for frozen hot chocolates. Sharon wasn’t happy about that, but Hood pointed out that this was a vacation, and the kids were looking forward to the dessert stop. Hood was sure she was also unhappy about the fact that Ann had suggested it. On Monday, they’d drive out to Old Saybrook to visit Sharon’s parents — this time as a family. That had been Hood’s idea. He liked Sharon’s folks, and they liked him. He wanted to regain that stability for the family.

Because it was a Friday, traffic thickened going into and out of Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Newark. They finally reached New York at five-thirty and checked into the hotel on Seventh Avenue and Fifty-first Street. The tall, busy hotel was a Sheraton now; Hood remembered when it was the Americana years before. They arrived just in time to join the other families for dinner up the street at the Carnegie Deli. The meal was rich with pastrami, roast beef, and hot dogs. The only couple the Hoods knew was the Mathises, whose daughter Barbara was one of Harleigh’s closest friends. Barbara’s parents both worked for the Washington police department. There were also a few mothers — two of them attractive, single parents — who recognized Paul from his tenure as mayor of Los Angeles. They treated him with celebrity-worthy smiles and asked what it was like to “run” Hollywood. He said he wouldn’t know. They’d have to ask the Screen Actors Guild and the other motion picture unions.

All of it, the food and the attention, made Sharon uneasy. Or at least it brought out whatever discomfort she had been feeling since they set out. Hood decided to try to talk to her about it when the kids went to bed.

There was one thing Sharon had been right about, though. Paul had been away from home too much. As he watched Harleigh interact with the other teenagers and their parents, he realized he was observing a young woman and not a girl. He didn’t know when the change had happened, but it had. And he was proud of Harleigh in a different way than he was of Alexander. She had her mother’s charm along with the acquired poise of a musician.

Alexander was focused on his plate of well-done potato pancakes. He would press the back of his fork on them, wait for the grease to rise from the top, and then watch to see how long it took for the grease to soak back. His mother told him to stop playing with his food.

Hood had reserved a suite on an upper floor. After Alexander had a look around the city with his binoculars — marveling at what he could see on the street and in other windows — the kids went to sleep on cots in the living room, giving him and Sharon some privacy.

Privacy and a hotel room. There was a time when that would automatically have meant lovemaking, not talk or uncomfortable silence. Hood found it disturbing how much time and passion over the last few years went to other things, like guilt or holding their individual ground instead of holding each other. How had things gotten to that point? And how did a couple get them back to where they should be? Hood had an idea, though it would be tough convincing his wife.

Sharon slid into bed. She curled on her side, facing him.

“I’m a mess,” she said.

“I know.” He touched her cheek and smiled lightly. “But we’ll get through this.”

“Not when everything is pissing me off,” she said.

“Apart from the food, what else bothered you?” Hood asked.

“I was angry at the parents we were with, at the table manners of their kids, at the way the cars raced through red lights or stopped in the crosswalks. Everything got to me. Everything.”

“We’ve all had days like that,” he said.

“Paul, I can’t remember when I wasn’t like that,” Sharon said. “It’s just been building and building, and I don’t want to spoil things for Harleigh or Alexander this week.”

“You’ve been through some rough times,” Hood said. “We both have. But the kids aren’t stupid. They know what’s been happening with us. What I wanted, what I hoped for, was that we not let anything get to us while we’re here.”

Sharon shook her head sadly. “How?”

“We’re not in a rush,” Hood said. “The only thing we have to do over the next few days is to build some good memories for ourselves and the kids. Start to pull ourselves out of this funk. Can we focus on that?”

Sharon placed her hand on his. There was a hint of garlic from something she’d cooked the night before. That didn’t do a hell of a lot for passion either, Hood had to admit. The routine of life. The smells that became more familiar than that unforgettable first scent of a woman’s hair. The chores that turned the tip of your angel’s wing back into a hand.

“I want things to change,” Sharon said. “I felt something in the van driving up—”

“I know,” Hood said. “I felt it, too. It was nice.”

Sharon looked at him. Her eyes were moist. “No, Paul,” she said. “What I felt was scary.”

“Scary?” Hood said. “What do you mean?”

“The whole ride up, I kept remembering the drives we used to take when the kids were small. Out to Palm Springs or Big Bear Lake or up the coast. We were so different then.”

“We were younger,” Hood said.

“It was more than that.”

“We were focused,” Hood said. “The kids needed us more than they do now. It’s like monkey bars. You’ve got to stand close together when their reach is small. Otherwise they fall.”

“I know,” Sharon said. Tears began trickling from her eyes. “But I wanted to feel that togetherness today, and I didn’t. I want those good times again, those old feelings.”

“We can have them now,” Hood promised.

“But there’s all this crap inside,” Sharon said. “All this bitterness, disappointment, resentment. I want to go back and do things over so we can grow together, not apart.”

Hood looked at his wife. Sharon had a habit of looking away whenever she was confused and of looking directly at him when she was not. She was looking straight into his eyes.

“We can’t do that,” Hood remarked. “But we can work on fixing things, one at a time.”

He pulled her closer. Sharon moved across the bed, but there was no warmth in their proximity. He didn’t understand this at all. He was giving her what she had wanted, what she said she needed, and she was still withdrawing. Maybe she was just venting. She hadn’t really had a chance to do that. He held her silently for several minutes.

“Hon,” Hood went on, “I know you haven’t wanted to do this before, but it might be a good idea if the two of us talked to someone. Liz Gordon said she’d give me some names, if you’re interested.”

Sharon didn’t say anything. Hood held her closer and heard that her breathing had slowed. He craned back slightly. She was staring at nothing and fighting back tears.

“At least the children turned out all right,” she said. “At least we did that right.”

“Sharon, we did more than just that right,” he said. “We’ve made a life together. Not perfect, but a better life than a lot of people. We’ve done okay. And we’ll do better.”

He pulled her close again as she began to sob openly. Her arms went around his shoulders.

“That isn’t what a girl dreams of when she thinks of the future, you know?” she wept.

“I know.” He cradled her tighter. “We’ll make it better, I promise.”

He didn’t say anything else. He just held on as passion sent Sharon’s regret into a power dive. She would bottom out and then, in the morning, they’d start the long climb back.

It would be difficult to take things slow and easy, as he’d said. But he owed that to Sharon. Not because he’d let his career dictate his hours but because he’d given his passion to Nancy Bosworth and Ann Farris. Not his body, but his thoughts, his attention, even his dreams. That energy, that focus, should have been saved for his wife and his family.

Sharon fell asleep snuggled in his arms. This wasn’t how he wanted to feel closeness, but at least it was something. When he was sure he wouldn’t wake her, he released her gently, reached over to the night table, and snapped off the light. Then he lay back, staring at the ceiling and feeling disgusted with himself in the hard, unforgiving way you can only at night. And he tried to figure out if there was a way he could make this weekend a little more special for the three people he’d somehow let down.