Round Robin (31 page)

“Only I have to be real careful what I say here and how I say it. I don’t want to drag out any more family skeletons you’d rather leave in the closet.”

Robin felt a shiver of fear pass through her. Even though she planned to permanently remove Manfred from her life, she didn’t want him to leave with the knowledge of what she’d done. She didn’t want his last memory of her to be a shameful one.

“Don’t say anything,” Robin said.

“Oh, no, I have to say it now. I want to say it now.”

Robin waited anxiously while Nancy considered her words.

After a moment, she said, “Maybe it’s this simple. You know how Dad always blamed himself for not looking out for you better?”

“Yes, and I’ve told him a million times that’s crazy. He couldn’t have done anything, he didn’t know what was going on.”

“But I did,” Nancy said.

Robin looked as if she’d been pole-axed.

“What?” she whispered.

“Not all of it, of course. But I found out Jeri was pregnant before you did, and I knew who the father was.”

“How?” Robin asked. “How could you know?”

“Charlie and I went to a drive-in one Saturday night, and when I went to the ladies room I found Jeri there crying. I made her tell me what was wrong.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Robin asked, anger starting to build on her face.

“I should have ... I would have ... except Jeri begged me not to. She said she was going to have an abortion.”

“Oh, my God,” Robin said.

Nancy smiled sadly and nodded her head.

“Yeah, that’s been my dirty little secret all these years. I knew. Maybe in time to have helped you. And you know how I hate secrets. Keeping that one just about drove me crazy more times than I can tell you. I think keeping that secret was what made me, maybe, just a touch driven all of my adult life. I want things out in the open and perfect so I can see them and control them. So nobody will get hurt.”

Nancy opened her arms, inviting understanding if not an actual embrace.

“I’m sorry, Robin,” she said. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

Robin didn’t seem inclined to understand or forgive; forget about a hug.

Nancy let her arms fall and got to her feet.

She said, “But, now, I am who I am. A hard-ass, unyielding perfectionist. So I’m going to put it to you straight. This man,” Nancy said, glancing at Manfred, “is someone who can make you happy. He’s strong and good and kind. He was willing to cross an ocean to take on the bastard who’d frightened his daughter. With the same courage and generosity, he’s been willing to dig up and help you confront the prick who has made you miserable all these years. And, Robin... ” Nancy had to draw a deep breath for what came next. “Robin, you say goodbye to him, you say goodbye to me, too.”

Robin looked at them, first Nancy and then Manfred, lines of mulish determination still etched in her face, but with tears in her eyes, too. But before she could say anything, before she could decide which way to cast her fate, the phone rang. She took the easy way out and went to the kitchen to answer it. Unfortunately, the call gave her no refuge from personal upheaval.

“Mom?” Robin said. Then she listened, and her face grew ashen.

“What? What is it?” Nancy asked.

Robin wailed, “Oh, God. We’ll be right there.”

“Tell me,” Nancy demanded as Robin hung up.

“Dad’s in the hospital,” Robin said still reeling from what she’d heard. “He’s had another heart attack.”

Now, the two sisters fell into each other’s arms. But only for a second. Then Manfred took each of them in one hand and led them toward the door.

“I will drive,” he said. “You will give me directions, please.”

Chapter 29

Patti Phinney looked ghastly. Her hair stood on end as if she’d been electrocuted. Her eyes were red and swollen. Her mouth was a puffy, twisted wound.

She embraced both of her daughters the moment they entered the waiting room.

Manfred stood three steps back, Bianca sheltering, silent and trembling under his right arm.

The little girl looked up at her father and whispered nervously in German, “Will God take Herr Phinney from them now?”

Manfred replied softly in the same tongue, “I don’t know.”

But he understood Bianca’s fear perfectly. If Robin’s father could be taken, why not hers? “Would you like to say a prayer for Dan?” Manfred asked.

Bianca nodded, tears falling from her eyes.

Manfred stopped a passing orderly and asked if the hospital had a chapel. He was given directions. Manfred caught Robin’s eye. He steepled his hands to indicate their intention and led his daughter away.

Patti Phinney began to sob as Robin and Nancy got her seated.

“Mom,” Nancy asked, “what happened?”

Patti took the tissue Robin gave her, blotted her eyes and blew her nose.

“Your f-father and Monsignor Wrightman... ”

It took several minutes before Patti Phinney could compose herself sufficiently to tell the story. Nancy took one of her hands and, after a second’s hesitation, Robin grasped the other.

“After Manfred picked up Bianca, I made a bite to eat for your father,” Patti began. “He promised me he’d eat it even though he said he didn’t have much of an appetite. I asked him if he wanted me to cancel my dinner plans with the monsignor, but he said no. Then he joked that maybe I should bring Monsignor Wrightman by after dinner in case he needed the last rites.”

Patti slipped her hand out of Robin’s and covered her face for a moment. She choked off another round of sobbing, and then she took Robin’s hand again and squeezed it gently.

“We did stop by. I joked with the monsignor that maybe this was the time I could finally get Dan to convert.”

Patti and Monsignor Wrightman had entered the house. Dan Phinney hadn’t touched the light dinner his ex-wife had prepared. He was lying on the sofa watching television and received them both with good humor. They were talking for a few minutes when Dan suddenly clutched his chest, looked at Patti, and then his eyes rolled back in his head.

The monsignor moved quickly to Dan’s side, felt for a pulse and when he didn’t find one told Patti to call 911. Then he began to administer CPR. In between breathing for Dan, while he compressed Dan’s chest, the monsignor prayed for the repose of Dan’s soul.

The emergency crew arrived and rushed Dan and Patti off to the hospital. Dan was resuscitated en route and was alive when they reached the hospital. He was taken directly into surgery. Monsignor Wrightman arrived at the hospital in his car minutes later. He was trying to comfort Patti when he started having chest pains. He’d been rushed off for tests. Patti couldn’t believe all of this was happening. She didn’t know what to do.

An hour had passed before she thought to call her daughters.

And now they were all here together.

After all these years.

Each of them hoping desperately that the man they all loved would live.

Bianca lay asleep on Manfred’s shoulder as he sat in the front pew of the chapel. They were the only ones left in the room. The eight-year-old child nestled against the great mass of her father, seeming no bigger than an infant. Manfred stared through the dim light of electric candles to the altar and the lank figure nailed to the cross wearing his crown of thorns. He was the ultimate survivor, Manfred thought. His humanity, suffering and resurrection were what gave Christianity all of its power.

The lesson was compelling: Believe in me and even death shall have no hold on you.

Dying wouldn’t be the end, it would be a doorway.

How could anyone do better than that?

Manfred asked himself if Dan Phinney was on the other side of that threshold right now.

He felt Bianca’s heartbeat against his chest and wondered if his faith would hold when the time came for him to leave her.

He felt a soft tap on his arm and turned to see Robin.

“Dad’s out of surgery,” she said quietly. “He’s stable.”

“Good.”

“They say the first 24 hours are the most critical period. ”

“We will stay.”

Robin shook her head. “There’s no point. He’s being moved to the cardiac care unit. Nobody will be allowed to see him until tomorrow, and we’ll be called if we’re needed. Nancy’s taking my mother home.” Robin looked at Bianca asleep on her father’s shoulder, and thought once again how angelic she could look.

“Are we still to go?” Manfred asked.

Robin knew what he meant.

She said, “When we get home I’ll tell you a story. After you hear it, you can decide if you want to stay.”

Chapter 30

They talked in the basement, in Manfred’s apartment, with Bianca tucked snugly away in her bed. They sat in the kitchen. Manfred served coffee since neither of them expected any sleep that night, and when Robin didn’t object he began to bake strudel. They could eat what they liked, Manfred said, and he would take the rest to Mimi when the deli opened.

They passed the first hour talking about Dan and encouraging each other that he would be fine, and when she finally was ready Robin got down to it.

She looked at Manfred and asked, “What did Nancy tell you?”

Manfred stopped stretching the dough for the strudel and sat down. He told her what he knew. A man named Phil Leeds had hurt her badly.

Robin shook her head.

“I hurt myself. I used to blame Phil, but it was my doing. Nancy didn’t go into detail about what happened?”

Manfred shook his head.

“But she did give me Jeri Whitman’s name. I saw her today.”

Robin’s jaw sagged.

“You saw Jeri?”

“Yes.” Manfred repeated the only detail of the visit he thought was important at the moment. “She said to tell you she was sorry.”

Robin shook her head.

“Was Phil still with her?”

“No, not for a long time.”

Robin hesitated for a moment, then asked, “Was there a child ... no, the baby would have to be a young adult by now. Was there a young man or woman living with Jeri, someone about twenty years old?”

Manfred said no. “An infant, and I saw pictures of two other children. One looked to be about Bianca’s age, one a bit older.”

A look of rue crossed Robin’s face and her eyes lost focus.

“She was my best friend. We swore we’d never lose touch with each other, buddies to the end, and now I don’t know the first thing about her.”

Robin cleared her throat and looked at Manfred.

“Phil Leeds was Jeri’s boyfriend. Only I didn’t know that. I thought he was just the guy she worked for, the manager of a donut shop. Jeri went to work there after we graduated from high school. I went to college.”

For a moment Robin was silent as she had trouble giving voice to her story.

Manfred said, “I am no one to judge you. You do not have to tell me this if you don’t want to. My only thought was ... when something bothers me I must confront it. I know no other way. But perhaps my way is not your way.”

“No, you’re right,” Robin said. “You’re right and Nancy’s right — and I don’t want to lose either of you.”

She bit her lip and then continued.

“I used to go to the donut shop to meet Jeri when she got off of work. She had a car and she had a paycheck and we’d go out to eat or to a movie, and more often than not she’d pay. Everything was fine until one day she told me that Phil wanted to take me out, and would I do her a favor and go out with him? Well, that was something that never would have occurred to me on my own. I mean, I’d seen Phil and I knew he wasn’t my type.” Robin laughed. “And I didn’t even know what my type was.

“But Jeri kept harping at me, go out with him, go out with him one time, just one time. So I decided to hold my nose and do it — and Phil surprised me. He was polite and courteous. He dressed nicely and he poked fun at himself instead of others. He had a pretty nice car for a guy in his early twenties, and he brought me flowers. Sounds perfectly lovely, doesn’t he?”

Manfred hated him already.

“Well, one date turned into a lot of dates. The only thing I thought was funny at the time was he kept making excuses not to come into my house and meet my family. But that didn’t bother me too much because pretty soon I was sure we were going to be married and then, of course, he’d have to meet everyone. In fact, Phil was the one who started to talk about getting married after the fourth or fifth time we went out. Just little teasing jokes at first, but then the discussions turned fairly serious.”

“He wanted sex,” Manfred said bluntly.

“No, I wanted sex. I was the one. See, Phil didn’t touch me for quite a while. I mean, he’d give me a kiss when he dropped me off after a date, but he never tried to paw me. At first, I thought that he was being gentlemanly, that he had great manners. Then I started to wonder if it was me, I didn’t turn him on. But he still kept buying me romantic gifts and talking about getting married, so I had a hard time figuring it out.

“Then one night he invited me to his apartment, and I couldn’t believe the place. Most of my friends still lived with their parents. And the ones who did have their own apartments had hand-me-down furniture and chipped dishes. But Phil’s place looked like a small corner of the Playboy Mansion. You know, leather sofas, chrome and glass coffee table, deep carpeting, framed posters, fantastic stereo system, recessed lighting, for God’s sake. I was bowled over. My parents’ house wasn’t that nice. And Phil said this was just the beginning for us.”

“The donut business must have been very good to him,” Manfred said dryly.

“Yeah,” Robin snorted.

She was about to continue when Bianca cried out softly in her sleep.

“One moment, please,” Manfred said, and went off to investigate.

Robin sipped her coffee, not begrudging the interruption, but envying Manfred his opportunity to be a good dad. It was nearly enough to make her weep.

She was under control when he returned a moment later.

“I am sorry,” he said. “You were saying.”

“That was the night we first had sex. I had no intention of leaving that fantastic apartment until we did. I’d been promised a future and I wanted a down payment on it.”

“Of course, that was just what he’d intended.”

Robin gave Manfred a baleful look.

“Where were you when I needed you?”

“Striving to build Socialism, I believe.”

“Yeah, so you had your problems, too.”

Manfred nodded.

“The next month was wonderful. At the time, I couldn’t imagine life being any better. I had a wonderful boyfriend. He had a wonderful apartment. And we had wonderful sex there every chance we got. Phil told me that he was just the manager of one donut shop now, but he was learning the business, he had ideas how to improve on it and someday soon he was going to open his own chain of shops and we’d be rich.”

Robin seemed to sink under the weight of the old false promises. Then she looked at Manfred, as imposing as Everest, and she drew strength from him.

She went on, “It never occurred to me to think about birth control. So like any dumb bunny I got knocked up. At first, it scared the hell out of me. I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t know what I was going to do. Then a great feeling of peace came over me. Why was I worrying? I had a boyfriend who wanted to marry me. He had a good job and great future. We’d have a terrific place to live ... and I was head-over-heels in love with the baby I was carrying. So when I was two months gone I told Phil.”

“He was not pleased,” Manfred said knowingly.

“He was terrified. He was livid. He almost foamed at the mouth. The sweet, gentle guy I knew had disappeared and he was replaced by an absolute madman.” Robin licked her lips and looked away from Manfred. “For just one moment I was absolutely panic-stricken that he was going to beat me up and cause a miscarriage.”

“Did he?” Manfred asked grimly.

Robin looked back at him. She could clearly see that Manfred was angry, very angry, that he would be perfectly willing to visit a terrible retribution upon a man he’d never met for something that had happened twenty years ago.

“No. It was like someone flipped a switch in his head. All the anger, the ranting and raving, the stomping around the room stopped in a flash. He hugged me. He held me. He took me to bed and we made love.

“That was the first time I stayed the whole night with him. In the morning he apologized and said he’d been so upset because he didn’t want to jeopardize the plans he had for us. Having a baby would be expensive, it could ruin everything. He just wanted me to think about that. Then he left me there and went off to work.”

“And you thought you could make him change his mind.”

Robin nodded absently.

“He kept making love to me.”

“He kept using you.” Knowing the sooner he grew bored, Manfred thought, the better for him.

“He kept talking about our future.”

“He kept lying.”

“I was sure he’d come to love the baby as much as I did.”

“He was incapable of love.”

“He’d have to marry me soon because I’d start showing.”

“He’d have to make his escape before it was too late.”

In a voice devoid of all emotion and inflection, Robin said, “I was almost four months pregnant, I’d been feeling my baby move inside me for weeks, when Phil gave me the ultimatum. Keep the baby or keep him. I couldn’t have both. If I chose him, he’d pay for the abortion and he promised we’d have all the kids I wanted when the time was right.”

Robin shook her head gravely, still not believing the decision she’d made.

“I won’t judge what any other woman does with her life, but I wanted my baby. I loved it. The idea that I could end my baby’s life was more horrible than I could imagine. I wanted to ask my parents for help, I wanted to ask Nancy. But how could I when I’d kept everything secret from them? I was too ashamed to go to the people who meant the most to me.

“The people who should have meant the most. But right then I couldn’t get past the thought that Phil was going to leave me. He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t. We loved each other. He was my baby’s father. We had to be together. We just had to — but he kept hammering me. ‘Make the choice, me or the kid. Me or the kid, make the choice. Choose goddamnit!’”

Tears fell from Robin’s eyes.

“I let him take me to an abortion clinic, and he was there with me, and he paid the fee ... and that was the last time I saw him. You talked to Jeri, so you can probably guess the rest.”

“He got her pregnant, too,” Manfred said.

Robin nodded.

“He was seeing her the whole time he was seeing you.”

Robin nodded.

“And he chose her over you.”

“Couldn’t very well support two families on a donut-shop salary, could he? Not when he had to steal from his employer to support his lifestyle.”

“How did he make your friend ask you to go out with him?”

“She was helping him steal. He blackmailed her; she told me the last time I ever talked to her. ‘Get me a date with Robin,’ he said, ‘or I lay the whole thing off on you.’ But, at the time, Jeri was very angry with me. She thought the whole thing had been my fault. After all, she’d told me to go out with Phil just one time.”

“Then when she became pregnant,” Manfred said, “she used the blackmail threat against him. ‘Marry me or we’ll see who the police believe.’”

Robin nodded once more. Her eyes were glazed with a pain that wouldn’t go away.

“So for people like them I killed the baby I loved so much ... and when I finally told my parents I wrecked their marriage because my dad supported me and my mom condemned me. And me, hypocrite that I am, I took my dad’s support and accepted my mom’s estrangement, but I condemned myself, too.”

Drained, Robin wiped the tears away and looked at Manfred.

“So now you know. You still want to stick around?”

“Ja,”
he said.

Robin called the hospital to ask about her father and Manfred looked in on Bianca again. Both of their loved ones were resting quietly. Robin and Manfred moved to the living room and sat opposite each other. The baking strudel filled the apartment with its heavenly aroma. After a lengthy, contemplative silence, Manfred spoke.

He asked, “Do you have any religion?”

Robin looked at him bleakly.

“I believe in God. For quite a while, I didn’t, but then I realized I was making a mistake. I needed God ... if I was going to have someone to punish me after I died.”

“I was raised to be an atheist,” Manfred said. “That was the official doctrine of any good East German. For most of my life I accepted without question that religion was just a pack of superstitions. That changed in prison. In my second year, I came to ask myself how I knew that I would ever be free again, how I knew that one day I would see my daughter again. And I did know both these things. But how? The only answer I could come up with was faith.”