Read Breaking the Ties That Bind Online
Authors: Gwynne Forster
Breaking the Ties That Bind (30 page)
“I’m not,” Kendra said, “and I’m taking some of this home with me. That’s the great thing about living alone—you can take your meals when and as you please.”
Ed laid his grilling tongs on the table beside him, wiped his hands on his apron, and walked over to where Kendra sat beside his teenage daughter. “By the way, Ginny’s trial comes up Tuesday morning, and this time she is either going to jail or to a facility for rehabilitation.” Kendra’s gasp brought only a shrug from him. “I told her that if she approached you by mail, Internet, phone, or in person before you got your degree, I’d turn her in. That was the agreement between her, the judge, and me when I paid her bail the last time. Neither you nor anyone else can help, so don’t try to intervene.”
“I didn’t realize that when I told you what she did.”
“I know you didn’t. You’ve been playing masochist to her sadist most of your life, but not anymore.”
“Right,” Dot said. “A person can’t abuse you unless you let them.”
Kendra promised her uncle that she wouldn’t interfere, but she skipped class and sat in the courtroom while the judge heard the case. At the end, he sentenced Ginny to “one year in an institution for rehabilitation where you will be an inpatient. If you leave there without official permission, you will spend the remainder of the year in jail.”
“I can’t go now, because I have to feed my cats and close my apartment,” Ginny said.
“She doesn’t have any cats, Your Honor, because she has been allergic to cats since birth,” Ed said.
The judge shook his head slowly. “A policewoman will go with you to pack what you will need in the hospital. If you give her any trouble, she will handcuff you and take you to jail where you will remain for one year. That’s all.”
Ginny looked around and with head high, she walked over to Kendra. “You came here for the kill, did you? Ed wouldn’t have known about this if you hadn’t told him. I wish I’d never seen your daddy.”
Kendra stared at the woman who gave her life. “I pity you,” she said, and she did. With that, she left the courthouse, headed for the subway, and half an hour later walked into her philosophy class. No matter what happened, she’d hold her head up. If she was going to let Ginny Hunter bring her down, it would have happened years earlier.
She got through the school day, ate a ham sandwich with a container of hot cocoa at a fast-food shop on Georgia Avenue, and went to work. For once, she didn’t feel like playing jazz or making small talk with callers. When she answered the phone at nine o’clock, Jethro Hayes was on the line.
He identified himself. “I always enjoy your program, KT, and not only the music, but your warm and witty exchanges with the listeners. I notice that you’re not feeling too well tonight, and I’m calling to let you know that your listeners always understand. I’d appreciate it if you’d play ‘If.’ Remember, KT, that there isn’t a river on the planet that hasn’t been crossed. Thank you.”
He hung up before she could thank him for calling in. He had intended to cheer her up, but he had only reminded her of what she’d lost.
When she got into her father’s car that night, she asked him, “What would you say if I decided to visit Mama? I don’t feel guilty about her having been sent there, because I know she deserved that and more. But I want to be sure that she is being treated for whatever’s wrong with her.”
“Do what you think best, Kendra. You have to live with yourself. But I don’t think it wise for you to allow yourself to become a part of her treatment.”
“That won’t happen.”
“Have you and Sam terminated your relationship?”
“He has telephoned me a number of times since that night, but I don’t take the calls. I just can’t face it.”
“You can’t face what? You don’t know what he wants to say.”
“Papa, he told me more than once that he loved me. That night, when I was so miserably unhappy, was the time for him to demonstrate it.”
“And since you’re perfect, you don’t plan to forgive him. Right? According to you, you gave her a hundred and thirty dollars, and her response was that she knew you had more and that you were stingy. Not a word of thanks. Then she turned to him and asked him for money. I’m sure he thought you shouldn’t have given her a dime.”
She turned so that she could see his face. “That’s what you think, isn’t it? Would he have loved me more if I had walked past her, and got into his car? To me, that would have been heartless.”
“I divorced Ginny for doing to me what she’s doing to you, and I don’t blame Sam for being afraid of her and of what would happen to him if he married you. You need to show him that you won’t let her use you as she did that night. Have you gotten the result of your story on Italy’s food and its people?”
“Professor Hormel told me that he’ll have a full report at the end of the week. He’s read it, and he likes it.”
“Then I don’t suppose you need to worry.” He parked in front of the building in which she lived. “Think about what I’ve told you tonight.”
“Yes, sir.” She hugged him. “Good night, Papa.”
Sam sat in the lobby waiting for Kendra. He had telephoned her nearly a dozen times, but she hadn’t taken his calls, and he had refused to resort to subterfuge and conceal his caller ID. He wanted her to answer his calls in full knowledge that it was he on the line. She entered the building with her head down, looking neither right nor left. He didn’t like that, because he’d never seen her walk with her head bowed. He walked with quick steps to arrive at the elevator when she did.
“Wh . . . what are you doing here?”
“You ask that? I’ve called you nearly a dozen times, but you won’t take my calls. I need to talk with you.”
“Oh. Does this mean I’m finally going to know what you wanted to say to me the night you confused me with Mama and clammed up on me? Let me tell you something. You said you loved me, but when you had an opportunity to prove it, you shut down like an engine that had run out of gas.”
With his hand at her elbow, he urged her into the elevator, though he knew that in her present frame of mind she was hardly aware of it. “Are you saying that you don’t want to hear what I have to say, that you don’t care how I felt that night?”
“How could you have felt, compared to what was going on inside of me when you didn’t support me?”
The elevator door opened, and he walked with her to her apartment door. “I wanted to see you that night to ask you if we could plan a life together, and if you would be willing for us to get psychiatric help for your mother. I have discussed her case with experts, who say we should never cater to her, because that only encourages her in her self-centeredness. You gave her almost all the money you had. I saw how she acted and heard what she said to you, and I knew she always acted that way, and yet you still pamper her. It was too much for me to accept. I haven’t cried since my mother died, but that night I cried for you, for me, and for her.”
She stared at him. “Have you thought how you would have felt toward me if I had just walked past her—or any woman who appeared to be homeless—and gotten into your car? I can’t deal with this right now, Sam. With the help of my uncle—her brother—the judge in her case committed her for one year to an institution for psychiatric care.”
“With your concurrence?”
“I was present at the sentencing, and I have decided to check on her once or twice a month to see that she is indeed receiving treatment. I don’t feel responsible for her, but if she gets better, maybe she’ll leave me alone.”
“I see. What about us?”
“I don’t know. This feeling is so raw. I’ve tried not to think of that night. Maybe it’s about her. Maybe it’s about you. It could be both. I’ll try and sort it out.”
“Do you think you can take my phone calls?”
“I don’t know. I’ll try to. Good night.”
“Good night, and thanks for not having me arrested for harassing you.”
Her eyes widened. “That never entered my mind. Good night.”
The next afternoon, Sam received a text message from his father. “Can you drop by for supper tonight, say, about seven? See you then.”
Hmm. That sounded more like a command than an invitation.
He got there a few minutes before seven, and they embraced each other, as usual.
“I brought you a bottle of Hine’s fine VSOP Cognac. That stuff you served last week was lousy. So what necessitated your command to dinner?”
Jethro released a hearty laugh. “Feeling testy, huh? How about a beer? I still have some of those great porterhouse steaks Bert gave me. Steak, baked potato, asparagus, and sliced tomato is what you’re getting.”
“That’s hard to beat.”
They ate in the kitchen, as they did in the years after Sam’s mother died. “What’s on your mind, Dad?” His father’s silence was getting to him. He hoped that his dad didn’t have a health problem.
“What went wrong between you and Kendra? You’re both unhappy. I see it in you, and it’s evident from the change in her demeanor when she’s on the air. What happened? I’ve been expecting you to tell me that you’ve asked her to marry you.”
“This is a first-class meal. No wonder you don’t hire a full-time cook.”
“Lacey’s here to clean and do the laundry three times a week, and she always cooks dinner. That’s more than enough for me. Are you going to answer my question, or are you telling me to butt out? I’ve got a personal interest in this.”
“Such as?”
“I’d like to be a grandfather. Look. Let’s cut to the chase. I like that girl. What’s wrong with her?”
“It isn’t her; it’s her mother. A more distasteful woman will be hard to find.”
“Have you seen any of that in Kendra?”
“Actually, she’s everything that her mother should be, but the thought of having that woman in my life makes me sick.”
“Start at the beginning, and don’t leave anything out.”
They talked until late in the evening. Jethro got a snifter of cognac, inhaled it, and then sipped slowly. “Aren’t you proud of Kendra? I can’t see how she got where she is with a burden of that measure and significance. She’s right that you should have supported her that night. She’s not only hurt, but I think she’s deflated.”
“That’s possible. I was listening when you called in during her show, and what you told her touched me. That’s the night I waited for her in the lobby of her apartment building.”
“You still love her, so get busy before she convinces herself that she can live without you. And you should know that if you meet her needs, she won’t need a mother who abuses her.”
“I hear you. What about you and Edwina? I had thought you two would be married by now.”
“Don’t worry about Edwina and me. I’m not foolish enough to lose her again. And if you think you want to spend the rest of your life loving a woman you can’t have, let me tell you that you don’t. I have time; you don’t. When I was your age, you were four years old.
“I’m planning to go fishing the first part of March, and I’m hoping I can persuade Bert to go with me. With a business like his, he must have some reliable workers who can maintain the shop for him.”
“He does,” Sam said. “Why not wait till spring break, and I can take the boat out?”
“Good idea. I’ll see what Bert thinks. I’m glad we had this talk. I don’t want to see you lose that woman.”
“And I don’t want to lose her.”
Sam drove home, all the while pondering his next move. Inside his apartment, he reminded himself that he had won Kendra’s trust by being straight and honest with her, and that he wouldn’t resort to clever tricks. At half past twelve, he telephoned her and held his breath.
“Hi, Sam.”
“Hello, Kendra. You can’t know how happy I am that you answered the phone. I had dinner with my dad, and we spent the evening talking about you and about you and me. I’m . . . this is so unnatural. I can’t say what I’m thinking and feeling. Can you and I be together Sunday after you finish studying?”
“I’d like that, Sam. I ought to be free around one.”
“Any news about the story you wrote on your visit to Italy?”
“Oh, yes. Professor Hormel told me today that each of my professors gave me an A, plus I get a semester’s credit for it, and that’s a bonus that I hadn’t expected.”
“Congratulations. I’m proud of you and happy for you, Kendra. You deserve every reward that you get.”
She wasn’t dancing for joy, but she was happier than she had been for a long time. She meant to stand her ground and, for as long as her mother was in that institution for treatment and care, she would discharge her filial responsibility, even though Ginny Hunter did not and never would deserve it. Surely, Sam could live with that. She sent an e-mail to his iPhone.
I’ll be studying in the Library of Congress tomorrow, from eleven to five in the main reading room, at First and Independence, SE. The reading room is the best place to study, if I need reference books. It’s so good to be in touch. K.
She washed her stockings and underwear, showered, got ready for bed, and went into a sound sleep.
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