John Saul: Brain Child

“I know,” Ellen sighed. “But every time Cynthia tells me what she’s doing with the hacienda, I get absolutely green with envy.”

Marsh set his pen down on the desk and faced her. “Then maybe you should have married a programming genius, not a country doctor,” he suggested in a tone Ellen couldn’t read.

While she tried to decide how to respond, her eyes surveyed the office. Despite Marsh’s objections, she’d insisted on decorating it with rosewood furniture. “This isn’t exactly what I’d call shabby,” she finally ventured, and was relieved to see Marsh’s smile return.

“No, it isn’t,” he agreed. “And even I have to admit that I kind of like it, even though I flinch every time I think of what it cost. Anyway, is that why you came down here? Just to terrify me with the idea of your shopping with Cynthia Evans?”

Ellen shook her head and tried to match his bantering tone. “Worse. I didn’t even come down to see you. I came down to pick up the corsage for Alex.” Marsh looked blank. “The prom,” she reminded him. “Our son? Sixteen years old? Junior prom? Remember?”

Marsh groaned. “I’m sorry. It’s just that there’s so damned much to keep track of around here.”

“Marsh,” Ellen began, “I just wish … Oh, never mind.”

“You wish I’d spend less time here and more at home,” Marsh finished. “I will,” he added. “Anyway, I’ll try.”

Their eyes met, and the office seemed suddenly to fill with the words that both of them had spoken so often they knew them by heart. The argument was old, and there was, both of them knew, no resolution for it. Besides, Marsh wasn’t that different from most of the husbands and fathers of La Paloma. They all worked too many hours a day, and all of them were more interested in their careers than in their families.

“I know you’ll try,” she said. Then she went on, her voice rueful in spite of her intentions. “And I know you’ll fail, and I keep telling myself that it doesn’t really matter and that everything will be all right.” Once again Ellen regretted her words, but this time, instead of looking irritated, Marsh got up and came to her, pulling her to her feet.

“It will be all right,” he told her. “We’re just caught up in a life we never expected, with more money than we ever thought we’d have, and more demands on my time than we ever planned for. But we love each other, and whatever happens, we’ll deal with it.” He kissed her. “Okay?”

Ellen nodded, as relief flowed through her. Over the last years, and particularly the last months, there had been so few moments like this, when she knew that she and Marsh did, despite the problems, still belong together. She returned his kiss, then drew away, smiling. “And now I’m going to get Alex his flowers.”

Marsh’s expression, soft a moment before, hardened slightly. “Alex can’t get them himself?”

“Times have changed,” Ellen replied, ignoring the look on her husband’s face and trying to keep her voice light. “And I don’t have time to listen to you recite the litany of the good old days. Let’s face it — when you were Alex’s age, you didn’t have nearly as much to do after school as he does, and since I was going to be in the village anyway, I might as well pick up the flowers.”

Marsh’s eyes narrowed, and the last trace of his smile disappeared. “And when I was a kid, my school wasn’t as good as his is, and there was no accelerated education program for me like there is for Alex. Except he’s probably not going to get into it.”

“Oh, God,” Ellen said, as the last of their moment of peace evaporated. Did he really have to convert something as simple as picking up a corsage into another lecture on his perception of Alex as an underachiever? Which, of course, he wasn’t, no matter what Marsh thought. And then, just as she was about to defend Alex, she checked herself, and forced a smile. “Let’s not start that, Marsh. Not right now. Please?”

Marsh hesitated, then returned her smile, though it was as forced as her own. Still, he kissed her good-bye, and when she left his office, she hoped perhaps they might have had their last argument of the day. But when she was gone, instead of going back to the work that was stacked up on his desk, Marsh sat for a few minutes, letting his mind drift.

He, too, was aware of the strains that were threatening to pull his marriage apart, but he had no idea of what to do about them. The problems just seemed to pile up. As far as he could see, the only solution was to leave La Paloma, though he and Ellen had agreed a year ago that leaving was no solution at all. Leaving was not solving problems, it was only running away from them.

Nor was Alex’s performance in school the real problem, though Marsh was convinced that if Alex only applied himself, he could easily be a straight-A student.

The problem, Marsh thought, was that he was beginning to wonder if his wife, like so many other people in La Paloma, had come to think that money would solve everything.

Then he relented. What was going wrong wasn’t Ellen’s fault. In fact, it was no one’s fault. It was just that the world was changing, and both of them had to work harder to adjust to those changes before their marriage was torn apart.

He made up his mind to get home early that evening and see to it that nothing spoiled his wife’s pleasure in their son’s first prom.

Alex Lonsdale leaned forward across the bathroom sink and peered closely at the blemish on his right cheek, then decided that it wasn’t a pimple at all — merely a slight redness from the pressure he’d put on his father’s electric razor while he’d shaved. He ran the razor over his face one last time, then opened it to clean it out the way his father had shown him. Not that there was much to clean — Alex’s beard, a month after his sixteenth birthday, was still more a matter of optimism than reality. Still, when he tapped the shaver head against the sink, a few specks appeared, and they were the black of his own hair rather than the sandy brown of his father’s. Grinning with satisfaction, he put the razor back together, left the bathroom, and hurried down the hall to his room, doing his best to ignore the sound of his parents’ argument as their raised voices drifted in from the kitchen.

The argument had been going on for an hour now, ever since he’d left the dinner table to begin getting ready for the prom. It was a familiar argument, and as Alex began wrestling with the studs of his rented dress shirt, he wondered how far it would go.

He hated it when his parents started arguing, hated the fact that as hard as he tried not to listen, he could hear every word. That, at least, would be something he wouldn’t have to worry about when they moved into the new house. Its walls were thick, and from his room on the second floor he wouldn’t be able to hear anything that was going on in the rest of the house. So when the shouting matches began, he could just go to his room and shut it all out. Every angry word they spoke hurt him. All he could do was try not to hear.

He finished mounting the studs, shrugged into the shirt, then began working on the cufflinks, finally taking the shirt off again, folding the cuffs, maneuvering the links halfway through, then putting the shirt on once more. The left link was easy, but the right one gave him more trouble. At last it popped through the buttonholes, and he snapped it into position.

He glanced at the clock on his desk. He still had five minutes before he had to leave if he wasn’t going to be late. He pulled on his pants, hooked up the suspenders, then eyed the cummerbund that lay on the bed. Which way was it supposed to go? Pleats up, or pleats down? He couldn’t remember. He picked up his hairbrush and ran it through the thick shock of hair that always seemed to fall across his forehead, then grabbed the offending maroon cummerbund and matching dinner jacket. As he’d hoped they would, his parents fell silent as he appeared in the kitchen.