Love Has The Best Intentions (12 page)

This was a nightmare. “Karen, do you remember
a couple of weeks ago when Petey cut his lip on the coffee
table?”

“Sure. You hauled him in for stitches and it
healed beautifully. Didn’t Dr. Dee come in especially to take care
of him—Rose, is that when it started?”

“Nothing started! Dr. Dee was kind enough to
come to the ER at night since poor Petey absolutely terrified of
the doctor on call. He blew up a plastic glove like a balloon and
talked in a Donald Duck voice until Petey giggled and only then
were we able to get him strapped into the papoose board for the
stitches—”

I paused for breath and Karen jumped back in.
“Yeah. The doc made quite an impression on Petey on how he took
care of his ‘mouff’ and your son told anyone who would listen.”

“Exactly!” I chimed in eagerly. “Petey
started calling everyone Dr. Dee, including the dog. Last week he
adopted Emily’s bald-headed doll and named it Dr. Dee. He slept
with that doll, insisted it eat with him, and hauled it around in
his red wagon. This morning, I woke up to find the doll tucked
under the covers beside me. Emily was sick during the night and
Petey beat me getting up—”

I had to quit explaining because of Karen’s
loud chortling. “I can’t believe this,” she gasped. “You did sleep
with Dr. Dee!”

“Except my Dr. Dee is six inches—not six
feet—tall, has no hair, and doesn’t snore.” I massaged my aching
temples. “Not that I know if the real Dr. Dee does. Snore that is.
Anyway, Petey was trying to be kind by sharing his doll. He made a
general announcement to that effect in the grocery store and Nancy
must have overheard him. Stop barking like a hyena, Karen. This
could ruin an innocent man’s practice, not to mention my
reputation!”

Karen stopped gurgling long enough to
acknowledge that, yes, I had a problem. The two of us batted
various solutions around, but couldn’t knock anything over the
fence (living with a sports nut has rubbed off on me). When I went
in to break the news to Alan that his wife’s name was now
inextricably linked to another man’s, I found him snoring in his
chair.

I kissed his bald spot which, to Alan’s
chagrin, had recently started growing faster than Petey. “Good
night, sweet prince. If you don’t come to bed soon, I’ll call the
hospital and see if Dr. Dee’s available.”

Grunting something unintelligible, my hubby’s
eyes popped open. “Half time over already? Hon, move over, please.
You’re in the way and Grant’s at the foul line.”

Whimpering “Foul!” I retired to a hot bath
and some serious thinking. Athletes got compensated for cheap
shots—why couldn’t wives? Although I was extremely concerned about
Dr. Dee’s reputation—not to mention my own—I couldn’t banish the
sneaking suspicion that Alan was taking me for granted.

I discovered over the next several days that
squashing a juicy rumor is more difficult than killing the
occasional flea that our cocker spaniel picks up in the yard.
Rumors can leap higher and quicker than any insect and, like cats,
they have more than one life. My attempts at damage control only
uncovered several other versions of Dr. Dee and me giving way to
our passions in his office, each more titillating than the one
involving the blocks and the kiddie table.

Karen checked in occasionally to bray
hysterically and report that the wisecracks were running rampant
through our strata of friends. After three days of receiving
tittering phone calls and cold stares and intercepting knowing
glances, I concluded that even Dr. Kevorkian couldn’t kill this
rumor.

That evening, I caught Alan staring at me
over the dish of whipped potatoes I was passing him. “What’s the
matter? Do I have spinach caught between my teeth?”

He shook his head. “No,” he said in a rather
strangled murmur. “I was just thinking how lovely you look
tonight.”

The moment would have been a tad more
romantic if the kids hadn’t exploded in giggles. Alan continued to
gaze at me as though he’d never seen me before. To my surprise, he
insisted on helping me clean the kitchen, hovered like an attendant
on a suicide watch while I folded laundry, and even kissed the back
of my neck as I stood on tiptoe to stack towels in the linen
closet.

I turned to confront him. “All right, Alan,
what’s going on?”

“Going on? I don’t know what you mean.”

Mr. Innocence in the flesh. Still clutching
my armload of towels, I leaned back against the wall. “Isn’t there
a game tonight? Somewhere in the world some people engaging in some
meaningless sport?”

He smiled. A sheepish, guilty grin, just as
that kiss had been sheepish and guilty. I’m an excellent lip
reader.

Alan chewed the aforementioned object, lower
version. “I’d rather spend time with you.”

All my inner alarms were going off. “I’d
rather you were frank with me. What’s going on? Are we broke? Is
your Aunt Ada coming for another six week visit? Did you run over
Mindy (the cocker spaniel with the occasional flea) in the
driveway?”

“No.” Alan rubbed his chin. “Honey, we need
to talk. I ran into Estelle and her perverted idea of
friendship—”

Then the other shoe dropped. I widened my
eyes in a disingenuous fashion. “And how is dear Estelle?”

“She said some rather disturbing things.”
Alan’s skin had a greenish cast. “Things that made me realize we
need to talk.”

I put my hand on his arm and said in my most
sincere voice, “Alan, what is it? You can tell me. You can trust me
to stand behind you, no matter what you’ve done. Forged checks,
committed arson, slept with another woman—”

Alan gulped. He looked like a man who’d just
taken a punch below the belt. “Uh, actually, she was talking about,
about our marriage being in trouble ...”

“Oh, that.” I waved an airy hand. “She was
probably referring to my affair with Dr. Dee.”

Alan was a man stuck in neutral, trying to
shift gears while his mental engine raced. “I didn’t know—”

“If you count it as an affair.” I creased my
brow in a pensive frown. “Technically, we only slept together once
but I’ve seen him naked quite a few times.”

“Rose! You mean you and the kids’ doctor have
been—” He groaned, sagging back against the opposite wall. “It’s my
fault. I haven’t been home much and when I’m here I’m usually doing
yard work or watching some stupid game on television—”

“True.” Grandpa used to tell me that a worm
will squirm on the hook as long as you keep his head above water.
Although I knew it was wicked, I added, “Petey’s really attached to
him.”

“You’ve actually been having an affair with
Petey’s doctor?”

One more squirm to make up for the annual New
Year’s Day college football marathon. I murmured with downcast
eyes, “Dr. Dee listens without interrupting whenever I want to
unburden my heart.”

Alan raked both hands through his thinning
crop of hair. “Rose, tell me the truth. Are you in love with this
man?”

Studying my husband’s stricken face, I
glimpsed the great gulf that yawned between us. Suddenly, the
situation didn’t seem so funny anymore.

My tongue had somehow turned into a tongue
depressor which I manipulated with difficulty. “Alan, if we were
truly two souls become one, like we promised each other on our
wedding day, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

He said nothing, his lips pressed in a pale
line, fear filled eyes searching my face.

I couldn’t stop probing the wound. “Alan, we
never talk any more. We haven’t just drifted apart, we’ve been
swimming in opposite directions.”

Still he said nothing. The towels weighing
down my left arm had turned to lead, heavy as my heart.

I studied Alan, trying to freeze this moment
in my memory. The moment when my safe world crashed down around my
head, when I realized that an unseen destroyer had crept in and
chewed away the once strong foundations of our marriage.

Alan’s slacks and shirt seemed to hang on a
body that within the last five minutes had become gaunt. His dear,
handsome face was the haggard face of a stranger. Merciful shock
held the pain at bay, kept me from falling to the floor and curling
into a ball.

He touched my arm. The towels fell in a
multi-colored heap at my feet. “Rose, you haven’t answered my
question.”

I watched the warm rain of tears spatter on
the backs of my clasped hands. “If you have to ask, Alan—” I choked
up.

An eternity passed while we stood there in
the narrow passage, inches apart in reality but miles emotionally.
The central air sighed on, breathing cool air up through the vent
behind me to caress the backs of my legs.

Alan said thickly, “If I have to ask, that
means we don’t have an ordinary communication gap, but a Grand
Canyon between us. I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t know you any
more, Rose. We’ve become separate people.”

“I’m not having an affair.” I spoke quickly,
piling words like stones between us. “Petey named that doll he’s
been lugging around ‘Dr. Dee’. He was talking about it in the store
the other day, someone misunderstood and started a rumor—”

His hand reached across the yawning gulf,
past my makeshift barricade and touched the nape of my neck, as
gently as the cool air fanning my legs. “Ever since I talked to
Estelle, I’ve felt as though I’ve been under a death sentence.
Rose, I don’t want to live without you. You’re a part of me. I know
words without action are meaningless, but I love you.”

The anguish in his eyes caught at my heart.
In a mysterious process, Alan’s pain flowed into me, swaddling my
bruised spirit and staunching the internal bleeding.

Our faces were a breath apart and we did what
we usually did when our lips were in close proximity. But this was
no perfunctory kiss, no peck in passing. This was a momentous,
earth-shaking exploration, a first-man-on-the-moon venture, a kiss
which conducted months of negotiations in an instant and sealed a
peace treaty with a gesture more significant than any handshake in
history.

We were snuggled together in bed when Alan
confessed, “I never would have paid attention to that one woman
rumor factory if I didn’t already feel so guilty about the way I’d
been neglecting you and the kids. For taking you and our marriage
for granted, I humbly apologize.”

He kissed the tip of my nose and then his
lips travelled a penitent path down my throat.

Not fooled by the flowery language, I read
sincerity in every caress and allowed his fingers to do the walking
on the rest of my body.

Later, I said contentedly, “Estelle’s the
first to claim friendship, but she has no concept of the real
meaning of the word. At least you believe me. Now all I’ve got to
do is come up with a way to save Dr. Dee’s marriage.”

Alan didn’t seem too interested. “Is it in
trouble?”

“Wouldn’t you feel threatened if you were a
woman and you heard that a femme fatale like me was after your
husband?”

My lover’s hands were making another
pilgrimage. “Rose, please say that you forgive me for being an
absent husband.” He kissed me again.

Since my mouth was otherwise occupied, I knew
he didn’t really expect me to say anything. I managed, however, to
let Alan know that his apology was accepted. Lip reading isn’t the
only form of communication in which I’m fluent.

The next morning, after Alan had left for the
office and the kids were happily splashing in their cereal bowls, I
called Karen.

“You’ve got a definite lilt in your voice,”
she accused. “Are you sure you aren’t having an affair? Only a
woman in the throes of new love sounds this happy.”

Mindful of listening ears, I lowered my
voice. “Alan and I kissed and made up last night.”

“If you haven’t been involved in a
clandestine romance, what exactly were you making up?” Her tone
dripped suspicion.

“Lost time.” I chirped back. “Listen, Karen,
does your friend Joan still write those cutesy feature pieces for
the local paper?”

“Yes. But why do—”

“I’ve decided to go public.” I rescued my
daughter’s cereal bowl, which was in imminent danger of flooding
her lap. “I’m going to tell the world about Dr. Dee and me.”

Karen called Joan and Joan came through, with
a sweet piece about my son’s devotion to the doctor who had
sacrificed his evening to stitch up a little boy’s lip and the form
Petey’s hero worship took.

The coverage included a photo of Petey with
both Dr. Dees and a quote from me: “Petey’s been very generous
about sharing his doll. We never know which family member will wake
up and find it tucked in beside them. We’ve all slept with Dr.
Dee.”

Dr. Dee had the article framed and hung in
his waiting room. Several of my friends actually apologized to me
for believing the worst. Petey soon abandoned both his hero worship
and the doll, but “sleeping with Dr. Dee” is now a private code
between Alan and me to remind us of what we so nearly lost.

Sitting in Dr. Dee’s waiting room recently
with Emily, I was paging through a national women’s magazine and
came across an article wherein a therapist made the controversial
claim that a change of bed partners could actually be beneficial to
a relationship.

Which brings me to yesterday. Hearing a rumor
that Estelle Pendelton’s marriage is on the rocks, I went to the
library, photocopied that article from the magazine, and mailed it
to her. That’s what friends are for.

THE END

Half of My
Heart

(France; 1949)

The directrice was speaking again, her
heavily accented English hammering out the words in explosive
syllables.

“We are careful to supervise the studies and
the religious background for the children. They study hard, very
hard. It is the only way to improve, to advance one’s self.”