“Connie, please try to—”
“Get out,” she said.
“Connie—”
“Get out, you fucking son of a bitch.”
On the way from Logan International to the address she had given him in her last letter home, he kept remembering a springtime not too long ago, in 1968, several months after they’d moved into the Rutledge house. They had brought their big black tomcat with them when they moved from the city in December, and he’d run away while they were still unpacking the cartons. One weekend in March as Lissie, home from school, was telling them for the hundredth time how much she missed Midnight the cat, there was a sudden scratching at the back door, and there he was! Sitting there and meowing, just as if he’d never been gone for almost four months. “Well, now, hello,” Jamie had said, and Lissie had scooped poor bewildered Midnight up into her arms and danced around the kitchen with him and then called Scarlett Kreuger to tell her the cat was home, it was a miracle. He was killed the very next weekend, running across the road to escape a big Labrador who was chasing him. Lissie was back at Henderson by then, and her parents were afraid to tell her at first; it was Jamie who finally broke the news to her.
He was about to break the news to her now.
“You’re the one who left,” Connie had told him bitterly on the phone, “so you go tell your daughter.”
He paid the cabdriver and got out of the taxi. He was expecting worse, he supposed. The three-story house she was living in with Sparky was on a residential street lined with trees still bare from the onslaught of winter. A white picket fence surrounded the clapboard building, forsythia bushes tentatively budding against it, jonquils and crocuses timidly beginning to patch the brown lawn. He went to the front door and studied the name plates under the bell buttons. None for either a Croft or a Marshall. He rang the one marked SUPERINTENDENT, and a black woman answered the door and told him his daughter lived on the third floor, in apartment 3B. He climbed the stairs and knocked on the door. It was eleven o’clock in the morning, he hoped Sparky would not be there. He did not want to talk to her in Sparky’s presence.
She was wearing a long granny nightgown when she opened the door. Her hair was sleep-tousled. Her eyes blinked open wide the moment she saw him.
“Jesus!” she said. “Dad! What...?”
“Hello, darling,” he said, and stepped into the apartment, and hugged her. There was the aroma of stale marijuana in the air. The living room was modestly furnished with thrift-shop stuff. A psychedelic poster hung on the wall behind the couch. Beaded curtains separated the living room from the bedroom beyond, where he could see an unmade bed with no one in it. He hoped Sparky was already gone for the day.
“What are you doing in Boston?” she said. “You want some coffee? What time is it, anyway?”
“Eleven,” he said. “Where’s Sparky?”
“Must’ve left early,” she said, and shrugged. “Gee, Dad, this is really a surprise. Wow! I can’t get over it. Come on in the kitchen. Jesus,” she said.
There were dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. The refrigerator was a relic that had been painted white over its original baked enamel. She took a container of orange juice from it, and then poured a jelly glass half-full. “You want some of this?” she asked.
“No, thanks,” he said.
“Sit down,” she said, “I’ll make some coffee. How’s Mom?”
“Fine,” he said, and pulled a chair out from the kitchen table. The table was covered with a patterned oilcloth. It felt sticky to the touch.
“So what are you doing up here?” she asked. She had taken a can of coffee from the wooden cabinet over the sink and was searching for a spoon in one of the drawers. Her back was to him.
“There’s something we’ve got to talk about, Liss,” he said.
“I’ll bet I know what,” she said. “That letter from Brooke, am I right? Asking you to pay my half of the expenses from before I moved out.”
“Well, I’ve already paid those, Liss. It’s...”
“Then what? The long-distance calls Sparky made to Georgia?”
“No, no.”
“Well, it must be something pretty important to drag you all the way up to Boston,” she said, and put the pot on the stove, and struck a match. The gas jet ignited with a small pop.
“Lissie,” he said, “your mother felt I should be the one to tell you this.”
She turned from the stove.
“What is it?” she said.
“Lissie... Mom and I are separated.”
“What do you mean?”
“Living apart from each other,” he said.
“What? Come on,” she said, and smiled. He was watching her intently now, like a scientist gauging the reactions of a laboratory rat. She felt suddenly embarrassed, as if she had done something unspeakably horrible, when really she had done nothing at all. She waited for him to tell her this was just a little joke, he’d come up here to spring a little joke on her, they were still living happily ever after. He said nothing.
“Well... when did... when did this happen?” she asked, and sat at the table beside him.
“Two weeks ago,” he said.
“Gee,” she said. She was no longer smiling. She realized her hands were trembling, and she clenched them on the oilcloth-covered table top. “Well... where are you living? I mean, if you’re separated...”
“Mom went out to California. To see her sister.”
“Why didn’t she call me first? I mean, Jesus...”
“She wanted me to tell you.”
“And... where are you living, Dad? Are you still living at the house?”
“No, the house is closed. Your mother’ll be living there when she gets back.”
“So... so where are you?”
“In New York.”
“Where?”
“I’m living with someone, Liss.”
“Someone? Who?”
“A woman.”
“What?” she said.
“I’m sorry, Liss, but...”
“No, what do you mean? A woman? Who?”
“Her name is Joanna.”
“Well... well, who the hell is Joanna?”
“Joanna Berkowitz.”
“Do I know her?”
“No.”
“I’m not sure I understand, Dad. When did you...”
“Lissie, there’s still a lot we have to talk about.”
“Yeah, it would seem so. Are you getting a divorce? I mean, is this just a separation, or are you getting a divorce? Can you tell me that?”
“I’ve asked for a divorce, Liss.”
“And is Mom giving it to you?”
“Our lawyers are already negotiating. Jerry Warren’s handling it for me, your mother’s hired a law firm in New York. We’re hoping it’ll all be settled before too long.”
“And then what?” Lissie said.
“Joanna and I plan to get married.” He paused. “Lissie, the important thing for you to know is that divorcing a woman doesn’t mean divorcing a child as well. I think you’re old enough at nineteen to accept the fact that whereas I’m your father, I’m also a man in my own...”
“What does that mean, Dad?” she asked. “Does that mean you don’t love Mom anymore?”
“I guess that’s what it means.”
“Well, don’t you for Christ’s sake know? You left home, you’re talking about marrying this Joanna person, whoever the hell she is...”
“Joanna Berkowitz,” Jamie said.
“Great, she’s Joanna Berkowitz, who gives a shit? You’re telling me you’re going to marry her, and in the same breath you’re telling me you guess you don’t love Mom anymore. Do you love her or don’t you? It seems to me that’s the only important thing you’ve...”