The Right Hand of Evil

CHAPTER 16

The clouds gathering in the sky were a perfect reflection of Janet's mood-dark and angry, promising that before the day was over a major storm would rage over St. Albans. But there would be no storm in the Conway house that day. No matter what Ted's condition might be when he eventually came home-if he came home-she would ignore it. Her suitcase was already packed and waiting by the door next to the boxes she'd packed for the children. She would simply put Molly in the Toyota, pile the boxes in, and leave. If school wasn't yet out, she'd wait for the twins in front of St. Ignatius, and they'd leave from there.

No more arguments.

No more fights.

No more scenes.

But what if Ted didn't come home?

What if he'd wrecked the Toyota?

That won't happen, she told herself.

But what if it did?

She tried to come up with a list of people she might call to come and rescue her and the children from St. Albans. Only there wasn't a single person she felt she could ask to come down and pick them up.

And that, she thought morosely as she gazed out at the gathering thunderheads, was something she should have thought about years ago, when she first realized Ted's drinking was eroding her friendships. In those days, she'd told herself her friends were wrong about Ted, but now, nearly twenty years later, she knew they hadn't been.

And now, when she'd finally decided it was over, there was no one left for her to call.

Janet was about to turn away from the living room window when she saw a car pull into the driveway. A moment later a woman picked her way through the tangle in the front yard-a woman whose bearing marked her as someone who counted, at least in St. Albans. Though her dress was linen, she was the type who could wear it all day without a single wrinkle daring to show. Her hair was ash-blond and framed her face in the simple blunt cut that seemed never to go out of style for a certain sort of woman.

"I'm Marge Engstrom," the woman said as Janet opened the door. She was smiling easily, her hand extended. "For the last half hour I've been trying to think of some clever reason why I'm here, but I'm afraid I'm not very good at dissembling. My husband is the mayor of St. Albans, and he sent me. It seems you have a problem. May I come in?" Somehow, Marge Engstrom managed to slip through the door before Janet really thought about whether she wanted to invite her in or not. "This is a terrible intrusion, isn't it? But since you don't have a phone yet, what could I do?" She scanned the expanse of the huge entry hall and her smile faded. "Oh, my, this is a mess, isn't it?" As she heard her own words, she reddened. "Oh, Lord, listen to me. Phil always says I talk before I think, and there I go. I'm so sorry. I-"

"It's all right," Janet assured her. "It is a mess. In fact, it's a horrible mess!" Stop! she told herself. Whatever the reason she's here, it isn't to hear about your marriage. She took a deep breath, then started over. "Would you like a cup of coffee?"

"Actually, I'd like to see this house," Marge told her. "And maybe you can tell me just what it is that has Father MacNeill in such an uproar?"

By the time they entered the kitchen half an hour later, Janet had decided she liked Marge Engstrom's directness and the warmth the woman exuded like a comfortable old blanket. Marge had told her exactly why she was there, and what the purpose of her proposed dinner party was. For her part, Janet had held back from unburdening herself to this woman she barely knew.

Still, she had to say something. But what?

That she was going to be out of town for a few days and they would set something up when she got back? "Don't ever lie, Janet," she heard her mother admonishing her from the dim reaches of her childhood. "Lying only makes a bad situation worse." If she told the truth-that her husband was a drunk, and she was planning to leave him that very day-what chance would Ted ever have-

Ted!? Why was she worrying about him? Besides, didn't Marge Engstrom-and everyone else in St. Albans, for that matter-deserve to know the truth? Before she could say anything, though, she saw their old Toyota pull into the driveway, towing a trailer filled with more building supplies-at least five times as much as Ted had brought home the day before.

Who was going to unload it all, with Jared at school? she wondered. Unless she did it herself, she was sure the supplies would remain in the open trailer to be ruined as soon as the steadily building storm broke. And when Ted heard about Father MacNeill's visit to Phil Engstrom, she knew exactly what would happen.

First he'd get mad.

Then he'd get drunk.

Then he'd start feeling sorry for himself.

Then he'd start blaming her, or the kids, or anyone else he could think of. And given the hangover he was still undoubtedly nursing after last night, she suspected he'd probably already had a couple of drinks this morning. She braced herself for the scene to come, wishing there were some way to get Marge Engstrom out of the house, or at least to warn her. But it was too late. Ted was already coming through the back door.

"Do I smell coffee?" he asked. "Boy, would a cup of that taste good right now!" Janet, already on her feet, started toward the stove, but Ted waved her back to her chair. "Sit, sit! I can get it myself." Picking a cup out of the sink, he rinsed it, and, as he filled it with coffee, offered one of his dazzling smiles to Marge Engstrom. "I'm Ted Conway," he said. "And you'd be Phil Engstrom's wife, right?"

Janet stared at him, bewildered. After last night, his eyes should be bloodshot, his face haggard, and his mood even nastier than it had been yesterday afternoon. But his eyes were clear, there was a buoyancy to his step, and he was treating Marge Engstrom to the brilliant white smile Janet hadn't seen in years.

A smile she knew would darken into black rage as soon as Marge explained why she'd come, to invite them to a dinner party she was proposing for Saturday evening.

But Ted's smile didn't darken. It simply softened into an expression that looked more like sympathetic regret than anything else.

"Well, I guess I can't expect everyone to think my idea's as terrific as I do," he said. "I'm just glad we're not going to be totally on our own." His eyes shifted to Janet. "Do we have any plans for Saturday night?"

As if we've had plans for any Saturday night in the last ten years, Janet thought bitterly. She shook her head.

Ted turned back to Marge Engstrom. "Then we'll see you on Saturday. Can we bring anything?"

Bring anything? Janet silently echoed. The only things Ted had ever taken to a party were the half-dozen drinks he'd belted down before they got there. But what did it matter, really? With her and the kids gone, the odds of Ted even remembering the dinner party were next to zero, and the chances of him showing up sober were far less than that. And whatever chance he might have had at enlisting the mayor's support would vanish.

But it wasn't her problem anymore.

"I'll have to check the calendar," she said. She'd been covering up for Ted for so many years that her voice betrayed none of her emotions. "Perhaps I'll call you tomorrow?" But when Marge left a few minutes later, the neutrality vanished from her tone. "Where have you been?" she demanded. "Do you have any idea what it's like to wake up and find that your mate-who was so stinking drunk he couldn't stand up straight the last time you saw him-has taken off in the car?" Ted opened his mouth to reply, but Janet didn't give him the chance. "Of course you don't! And you never will, as long as you're married to me. But that's going to end, Ted. I've had it! Do you understand? I've finally and forever had it!" She paused, her breath momentarily spent, and braced herself for the explosion.

"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I don't know why you've put up with it all these years."

The genuine contrition she heard in his voice threw Janet totally off stride. She'd been prepared for the usual scene: a fight, building until she was finally reduced to tears. Only then, after he'd shouted her down, battering at her defenses until she had none left, would he finally gather her in his arms and promise that things would be different. But never, not in all the years since the drinking had started, had he suggested that she shouldn't have put up with his drinking at all.

But even now she was certain that whatever he said, his motivations were simple-to keep her with him, to keep her taking care of him. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why would you know?" she asked, her voice reflecting the exhaustion she suddenly felt. "You've been too drunk to know anything, haven't you? Too drunk to know why you lose your jobs, and too drunk to know how frightened your kids are of you. And way too drunk to know what you've done to me."

Molly, standing up in her playpen and clutching at the netting with her tiny fingers, began to cry, and Janet reached down to scoop her up. "It's all right, baby," she cooed. "Mommy and Daddy aren't going to have a fight. We're not ever going to fight again." Her eyes shifted back to Ted. "I'm leaving this afternoon," she told him, "as soon as I get the few things I'm taking with me into the car." Scout, who had been curled up on the floor, suddenly rose, whining almost as if he knew what she was saying. "Don't worry, boy," she told the big dog. "We'll take you, too." Once again she braced herself against the attack Ted might mount on her determination, marshaling her grievances like an army, ready to repel anything he might say. Once again, he surprised her.

"Let me tell you what happened last night," he said so quietly it commanded her full attention.

But she didn't lower her guard an inch. "You mean you remember?"

Ted nodded. "Every bit of it. After you left, I kept drinking, and started wandering around the house. And everywhere I went, all I saw was a mess." A painful smile twisted his lips. "It was like looking at myself," he went on, his gesture sweeping over the kitchen and beyond, to the tangled mess of the grounds surrounding the house. "Everything about it's been let go, just like I've let myself go. Another few years, and it's literally going to fall apart," He turned back to Janet and met her gaze steadily. "Just like me," he went on. "Last night it finally came to me. I'm not just killing our marriage, and my relations with my kids, and my career. If you can call that job at the Majestic a career," he added derisively, but without even a hint of the self-pity Janet had always heard in his previous pleas. "I'm killing myself, too. I decided I didn't want to die."

Janet felt the first tiny crack develop in her defenses, and fought against it. "And," she asked, deliberately edging her voice with sarcasm, "having stumbled drunkenly upon this great truth, what exactly did you decide to do about it?"

Ted flinched, but didn't try to turn away. "I made myself sick," he replied. "I went down in the basement, and I threw up more than I've ever thrown up in my life." For the first time since he'd begun to talk, a genuine smile played around the corners of his mouth, and a sparkle of humor lit his eyes. "And you have to admit, I've thrown up some doozies in my life." When Janet failed to respond to his stab at a joke, his smile fled. "Look at me," he said softly. "Just look at my eyes."

Don't do it, Janet told herself. But she could feel the cracks in her resolve widening, and finally she allowed herself to look into his eyes.

Something had changed.

It wasn't just their clarity, which was surprising enough, given how much he'd been drinking last night. Still, if he'd really thrown up most of it, it might be possible that he'd slept it off.

It was as if he read her mind: "When you drink as much as I've been drinking, it takes a hell of a lot to bring on a hangover."

Janet made no reply, but still she gazed into his eyes. There was something familiar there, something dimly remembered.

And then she knew. It was as if she were looking into Ted's eyes when they'd first met, and she'd felt as if she could sink right into him through his eyes, or float in their blue clarity forever, needing nothing else but him, and his caress, and the look in his eyes when they beheld her.

"Come with me," he said now. Lifting Molly out of her arms and settling her gently back into the playpen, Ted took Janet's hand and led her out of the kitchen, through the entry hall and the living room, to the small room in which she'd found him last night.

The empty bottle still lay on the sofa, and the box of full ones still sat on the hearth, just as it had last night. As Ted lifted a bottle of vodka from the box, broke its seal, and opened it, Janet felt a cold emptiness in her stomach. Was he planning to prove that he'd changed by having a drink? But instead of raising the bottle to his lips, he held it over the sink in the wet bar that had been built next to the fireplace and tipped it up.

Its contents flowed down the drain.

He reached for another bottle, and drained it, too.

And then another, and another, until every bottle in the box was empty. "Have you ever known me to do that before?" he asked.

In her mind, all the assurances and all the promises he'd ever made echoed.

"I don't have to drink-I like to drink."

"Just because it's here doesn't mean I'll drink it."

"I won't touch a drop, but we have to have something to serve company, don't we?"

How many times had she heard it? How many variations had there been? And the couple of times she'd simply poured out his liquor herself, he'd only replaced it, usually within the hour. He'd even had a rationalization for that: "Even if I decide to have a drink-which I won't-wouldn't you rather I had it here?"

No! she had wanted to scream. I don't want you to drink at all!

But no matter what she'd said, it didn't do any good. There had never been a time-unless they ran completely out of money-when there wasn't any liquor in the house. Then she remembered the trailer behind the Toyota.

Again it was as if he'd read her mind. "And I didn't buy any more," he said. There was a flash of lightning, a crash of thunder shook the house, and the first drops of rain began to fall. "Oh, Jesus," Ted cried. "I've got to get all the stuff in the trailer into the carriage house before it gets ruined!" Dropping the last of the bottles into the sink, he raced through the house and out the back door. By the time Janet caught up with him, he was already digging deep into the trailer's depths. "There's some plastic drop cloths-" His hand closed on something and he pulled it out. "Here!" he cried. Ripping a plastic bag open, he pulled one of the polyethylene sheets out and began shaking it open. A minute later he and Janet had it stretched out over the trailer, protecting its contents from the storm. But already the wind was starting to pull at it; in a few minutes it would be gone. "Get in the car," Ted told her as the rain came down harder. "I'll open the carriage house doors, and you can pull it in."

"The garage isn't big enough," Janet protested.

"Back it in," Ted replied. "I'll guide you." The rain was pouring down in sheets now.

"But you'll get soaked-" Janet began, but Ted was already pulling the double doors of the carriage house open. She got into the Toyota, and a moment later Ted was calling out instructions to her.

Janet edged the trailer back, twisting the wheel first one way, then another, trying to maneuver the trailer through the doors into the shelter of the carriage house. Twice she had to pull all the way forward and start over again.

Meanwhile the rain came down harder, until she could hardly see Ted, even with the windshield wipers going full blast.

On the third try, she managed to ease the trailer-and the back half of the Toyota-into the carriage house, and cringed when she felt the right rear fender scrape against the doorframe. Getting out, she dashed into the shelter of the structure, where she found Ted adding another sheet of plastic to the trailer, and tying both sheets down with a length of clothesline. "I wondered why I bought this," he said as he secured the last corner. "Now I know." He looked up through the rafters at the badly leaking roof. "Maybe I ought to get up there and fix that right now."

"Are you crazy?" Janet demanded. "You'd slip off and break your neck!"

"But-"

"No 'buts,' " Janet said. "Let's get in the house before it gets any worse."

Together, they sprinted across the yard to the back door, ducking into the kitchen just as another bolt of lightning ripped at the clouds, followed by a crash of thunder that sent Molly into a fit of terrified screaming. This time it was Ted who plucked her out of the playpen.

"It's okay," he crooned. "Just a little thunder. Can't hurt Daddy's little sweetheart."

As she watched him soothe their youngest child, Janet tried to decide whether this was just another performance designed to keep her here.

But if this were an act, it would take a far better actor than Ted had ever been.

Soaking wet, he was gently soothing Molly's fears away, and when the little girl was finally quiet again, he actually smiled at Janet. "I think it went pretty well out there, all things considered," he said.

Janet looked straight at him. "You do know I hit the doorpost with the right rear fender, don't you?" she asked.

Ted shrugged. "With that car, who's going to notice? I'm amazed you were able to do it at all, the way that rain's coming down." After a moment's silence he said, "I know you have to go." His voice was very quiet. "I'll get the trailer unhitched." He hesitated again, and she could almost feel him searching for the right words. But it was as if he knew it was too late, that there weren't any right words anymore. Once again his eyes-as blue and clear and deep as on the day she'd met him-found hers. "I'm sorry," he said softly. "I'm sorry for all of it." He started toward the back door, and she knew-knew deep in her soul-that he was telling her the truth.

Something inside him had, indeed, finally changed.

"Ted?"

He paused, then turned to look at her.

"Maybe one more day," she heard herself say. "Maybe the kids and I can stay one more day, and see what happens."