Acts of Love (42 page)

“When you make something up.”

“Good. You just took an oath. Do you know what that means?”

“I promised to tell the truth.”

Judge Carruthers smiled. “Very good, Ali.” She turned to Fisk. “You may proceed.”

Fisk walked up to Ali slowly, his lips parted in a smile that he hoped was comforting but which wavered slightly in the corners. “Hello, Ali.”

“Hello.”

“I'm going to try to keep this as brief as possible. Honey, did you go with your sister and father on a camping trip up to Fletcher's Mountain on the weekend of October 20?”

“Yes.”

“Did you have a good time with your father?”

Ali nodded.

“And did he say anything about going again?”

“Yes. He said we'd all go next time.”

“Your mother, too?”

“Yes. All of us.”

“Did you drive back to Hardison with your father and Julia on Sunday, October 22?”

“I guess.”

“Ali, when you got home that afternoon, did your mother and father start arguing?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you do?”

She looked at Ted, leaning forward, leaning to her. “I went into the kitchen to get a glass of orange juice.”

“And where was Julia?”

“She stayed in the living room.”

“When you were in the kitchen, what did you hear?”

“I heard them fighting.”

“Had you heard them like that before?”

“Yes.”

“The same way?”

“I guess.”

Fisk glanced down at his notes and then at Ted, but his attention was solely on his daughter.

“Ali, did you hear Julia say anything?”

“Yes.”

“What did you hear?”

“Julia yelled, ‘Stop! Don't!'”

“And then what did you do?”

“I went out to the living room.” Ali spoke in such a quiet voice that Judge Carruthers leaned down and said, “Can you speak a little louder, sweetie?”

“I went out to the living room,” Ali repeated.

“And what did you see?”

Ali played with her fingers, rolling them around each other.

“What did you see?” Fisk asked again.

She put her index finger over her thumb, her thumb over her index finger. “I saw Julia jump on Daddy,” she whispered.

Fisk's shoulders relaxed. “This is very important, Ali. I want you to think hard. Did Julia jump on your father before or after the gun went off?”

She rolled her fingers one last time. “Before.”

“I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.”

“Julia jumped on him before the gun went off.”

The courtroom erupted into loud murmurings and rustlings. The old man in the back slapped his friend's knee so heartily that he let out a yelp of surprise. The jury, who had been craning toward Ali, turned to the rear for just a second. Sandy dug her nails deep into her thighs, cursing beneath her breath as she looked over at Ted's profile and saw a slow smile seep across his face.

“You're positive that the gun went off only after Julia jumped on your father?” Fisk's voice had gained the confidence that he had been only simulating before.

“Yes.”

“I have no further questions.”

“She's lying!” Sandy gasped, lightheaded, breathless.

“Order,” Judge Carruthers said.

“But she's lying!” Sandy cried out, rising now, grasping the oak railing in front of her.

“Order,” Judge Carruthers insisted. “I will not have this in my courtroom!” She banged her gavel with all her force.

T
HE LIGHT FILTERING
through the maze of barren branches just outside the three large windows fell across the bleached living-room floor in shadowy tentacles. The men who had worked on the house had urged Ted to clear more of the dense, three-acre lot, but he had refused. The house, simple and unadorned, sat, a sparsely furnished oasis, amid woods that threatened to engulf it at the slightest provocation. When they had first moved in two months ago, the last of the leaves brushed against the panes, an insistent scratching throughout the day and night. Now, in midwinter, there was only the silver-white of the snow clustered on the ledges and on the branches and on the hills rising beyond them, refracted into the room. There was no furniture with pattern or intense color; there were no paintings or photographs on the walls. The house could not be seen from the road. It was exactly as he had planned it.

Ted put his mug of coffee down on the white wood counter that separated the open kitchen from the living room. All was air and space and order. He rubbed a water spot from the countertop and glanced at his watch. He finished his coffee in one last gulp, put the mug in the dishwasher, and walked to the base of the stairs, directly in the center of the floor plan.

“Julia? If we're going to do this, you'd better get your butt in gear. It's already three o'clock. Are you coming?”

He rested his hand on the newel, waiting for a response. Never a patient man, he had been forced to do too much waiting in the past ten months. Waiting for his house to be completed. Waiting, despite the not-guilty verdict, for business to return, for the stain to dissipate. Waiting for his daughters to forget the past. He frowned as he listened futilely for footsteps. A few feet away, nestled deep in an armchair, Ali watched him closely. She preferred now to keep him constantly within view. There was a time, after the trial, when she clung to him so tenaciously that he doubted if she would ever let go of his hand or leave his side. He could not help thinking that she was collecting her due, that he owed her; and, of course, he did. Still, he wondered when, if ever, she would be sated. He smiled reassuringly at her and then called back up the stairs.

Julia came down at last, her new white ice skates slung over her shoulders, the knotted laces catching the ends of her long hair. “I told you, I don't want to go.”

“And I told you, Sunday afternoons are family time. You can lock yourself in your room six-and-one-half days a week with your head between the stereo speakers, but not on Sunday afternoons.”

Julia frowned at him. “You're just saying that because that's what Mom used to do.”

Ted scowled. Julia, once so eager only for release, had lately become the guardian of the past, holding Ann up like a voodoo doll before his every step. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

The three got their coats from the front-hall closet, and Ted bent down to help Ali zip her parka while she stood still and limp, watching his hands at work. He locked up behind them and watched as Julia and Ali hurried through the cold air to the car at the top of the driveway. Both girls sat in back, though at opposite ends of the seat, looking out of their separate windows. Ted, seeing them through the rearview mirror, was rebuffed once more by the dense silence between them, inert, impenetrable. He turned on the radio and they drove down the steep and curving incline of Candle Hill, listening to the halftime show of a Buffalo football game.

When they got to the parking lot at the far end of Hopewell Lake, Julia was the first out of the car, jumping up before Ted had pulled his key from the ignition. By the time Ali and Ted had walked to the lake's frozen edge, pulling on their gloves and mittens as they went, she was already seated on a bench, worming her feet into her skates as she looked up at the people already skating, their colorful coats and caps bobbing against the white ice, the white sky. She hurried off just as Ali reached her side.

Ted kneeled and laced Ali's skates tight, so that her ankles wouldn't turn in, though it did not seem to help, and both Sundays since they had started coming, Ali had left with sore muscles and wobbly legs. “Okay, that should do it. I'll meet you on the ice.” He gave her a pat on the back, as if to push her on her way, but she did not budge, only waited patiently for him to put on his own large black skates.

Ted stashed his shoes next to the girls' under the bench and rose, taking Ali's hand. “All right, then.” As they took the first tentative steps onto the choppy ice, he looked out and saw Julia's green parka and tight jeans far off to the right. Already, she had found the boy she had come to see. He knew that she tolerated these outings only because of the boy, though Ted did not know his name, did not even know if it was the same boy every week, though he suspected it wasn't. He never asked, just as he avoided thinking about the breasts that had suddenly sprung like tepees over the summer, the paper tampon wrappers he had spotted in the trash. They were huddled now, away from the others, moving just enough to keep their balance. He led Ali in a slow, halting patrol of the perimeter, staying where she felt safest, a few feet from the edge. “You're doing well,” he told her, and she smiled, happy to please him. “I think you should try it on your own.”

“I don't think I'm ready.”

“Come on, Ali, try it.” He let go of her hand before she could protest and headed away from her, the sharp, frigid air filling his throat, his lungs, as he inhaled deeply, looking back just once to be sure she hadn't fallen. He wended his way around a couple skating with their hands crossed before them, their strides and their laughter an awkward attempt at fitting into each other, shy and new. The very sight of grown-ups on dates depressed him, particularly in the daylight, and he dug his blades into the ice, hurrying away from them. He looked back to the edge and saw Ali climbing off the ice, standing on the ground, watching him, waiting for him. He made a figure eight. On his last rotation, he noticed Julia taking off from the boy, speeding too close to the center, where her blades sank a quarter inch into the softer ice. He had just started to go to her when the boy reached her, calling out her name in fear, admiration, and desire. She returned a few strides to safety, laughing at his cowardice. Ted did a couple of quick turns and then started back.

In truth, he found these escapades to the lake boring, and he had bought them the skates only because he could not think what they might do together on Sunday afternoons. Julia was, of course, right. It had been Ann's idea originally, formulated and instigated when he had been spending too much time away from them. Family Days, she had called them, smiling hopefully, insistently, inescapably.

He remembered now the first faltering Sundays after the trial. He took the girls from Sandy's house two days after the verdict, showing up at eight in the morning to find Ali already by the door, alone, her suitcase neatly packed, her schoolbooks in a bag hanging from her shoulder, all expectancy and relief. He kissed her smooth cheek. “Guess you're not the type to keep a man waiting,” he teased. She smiled up at him and reached for his hand.

“Where's Julia?” he asked.

Ali pointed to the living room.

Ted walked back and spied Julia, sitting in the dark, her feet up on the coffee table, her arms crossed.

“You ready?” he asked.

She didn't answer.

“Julia?”

“I'm not coming.”

Ted stood in the doorway looking down at her. “I'm afraid you are.”

“Sandy said I could stay with her.”

“Sandy has no say in this.”

Julia looked beyond Ted to where Sandy had come up behind him, leaning in the doorway, holding Julia's suitcase in her hand. “I'm sorry, kiddo,” she said quietly.

Ted ignored her, keeping his eyes firmly on his daughter. “Come on, Jewel. It'll be all right, you'll see.”

Julia kicked the coffee table, and two magazines fell to the floor.

“Now,” he insisted, and something in his tone made her stand up—sneering, biting her lip, but stand up nevertheless, and follow.

Sandy handed her the suitcase as she passed. “Julia?” she whispered, but if Julia heard, she made no response.

Julia lugged her suitcase to the front door, which Ali was holding open, and the two started out as Sandy watched silently, exhausted by her own helplessness. The girls had just gotten down the front step when Sandy pulled Ted back by the forearm. “I'll be watching you,” she said.

“I think it would be better if you didn't see them for a while,” he answered evenly, and he drove them off to his apartment at the Royalton Oaks.

That first night, he folded out the couch where Ali and Julia had always slept side by side on visits, and plumped the pillows for them.

“I'm not sleeping with her,” Julia proclaimed, coming in from the bathroom.

“Why not?”

She looked at him with all her adolescent absolutism, pure, imperturbable. “Because I don't sleep with liars.”

Ali, holding a glass of milk, stood by and did not say a word.

“It's over, Julia,” Ted said quietly. “Let's just let it be over.”

“You may think you won,” Julia hissed, “but we both know she didn't see what happened.”

Ted did not answer for a long moment. “You can sleep on the bed or you can sleep on the floor, I don't care.” He turned to leave the room.

“Where are you going?” she called after him. “To be with one of your girlfriends?”

He thrust his hands deep into his pockets and regarded her for a long moment. “I'm sorry for what you saw,” he said. “I'm sorry for what happened. I made a mistake. But the only thing that matters is that I loved your mother, Julia.” He continued to look at her, as if waiting to see the words enter, seep in. When she lowered her eyes, frowning, he turned and walked slowly from the room.

Julia took a pillow and slept, as she did every night thereafter, on the gray-carpeted floor, her cheek when she awoke tattooed with its nubs. Gradually, the initial rawness of her fury at Ali's betrayal wore itself out, and she was left with only a withering contempt for her younger sister, and sometimes pity, for Ali's blitheness had been replaced by a hesitancy that left her constantly peering over her shoulder, waking in the night. Nevertheless, Julia made no attempt to soothe Ali when she heard her whimpering in her sleep a few feet above, alone in the double bed. They never spoke of Ali's testimony; there were no accusations or explanations; there were no confidences. Ali, who wanted most to erase everything but the present, made hopeful entreaties to Julia, shy offerings of a shared sandwich, a seat on the couch in front of the television, requests for help with book reports, but after meeting only stony silence she withdrew, waiting in the corner for Julia's eventual forgiveness, and satisfying herself with Ted. Sundays were morose affairs, spent at the mall or the movies, where the necessity of talk would be lessened. After two months, they rented a house from a family of a professor who was away for a year on sabbatical in London. Julia spilled a bottle of black ink on their Moroccan rug and refused to clean it up. The blot remained, untouched, in the center of the living room that the three of them were never in at the same time.

As soon as construction started, Ted would take the girls on Sundays to see the progress of the house on Candle Hill, the cement foundation, the framing, and finally the roof, the windows, rising week by week before them. Julia would stand at a distance, irate and frightened by its inevitability, while Ali grasped Ted's hand and spoke of paint colors.

Ted glanced back at the shore and saw Ali sitting by herself on the bench, unlacing her skates and putting her shoes back on. She sat with her arms crossed, watching the other skaters on the lake. It was Ali who had unpacked first, come out of her room first; Ali who sat down for dinner at precisely six-thirty, calling Ted and Julia to the table, insisting on it; Ali who had remembered on their grim Thanksgiving that they hadn't made the cornucopia that Ann created each year, nuts and fruits and dried apricots spilling from a horn of plenty, and had refused to eat until they devised a reasonable approximation.

He skated over and walked with spongy legs to the bench where she sat.

“Can we go home soon?” she asked.

“Cold?”

She shook her head. She no longer enjoyed being out in public, no longer wanted to see friends. She wanted only to be in that house, in her upstairs room, the sheer white curtains silhouetting the rise of the hill where their property gave way to state-protected land.

Ted rose. His feet back in his shoes felt leaden and flat. He walked to the edge and called Julia's name. He knew that she heard him, though she pretended not to.

“Julia,” he bellowed once more, cupping his hands to his mouth.

Julia turned toward the land, saw her father calling her, and ostentatiously turned around, practicing the backward skating the boy was teaching her. She made a V with her feet, toe to toe, while he gently pushed her along.

“Why are you stopping?” the boy asked.

Julia did not answer, but kept looking over his shoulder.

Sandy, a few yards away, her thin legs buckling beneath her, laughed as John reached for her too late and she fell to the ice.