Arthur Hailey - Overload

Van Buren glanced at the Examiner again. "Nancy made the most of it all, and has given you the hardest time; she goes for the jugular as a habit.

You two don't seem to like each other."

Nim said feelingly, "I'd gladly cut that bitch's heart out. If she had one."

The PR director frowned. "That's pretty strong, Nim." "Maybe. But it's how I feel." Nim thought: It was Nancy Molineaux's description,

"Nimrod Goldman . . . today stands in disgrace," which had really got to him a moment ago, had really hurt. Not least, he admitted to himself, because it was true.

"Daddy," Leah said, addressing Nim across the dinner table, "will you get to spend more nights at home now?"

There was a moment's silence in which Nim was aware that Benjy had put down his knife and fork and was watching him intently, silently endorsing his sister's question.

Ruth, too, who had been reaching for the pepper mill, changed her mind and waited with the children for Nim's answer.

"I might," he said; the suddenness of the question, and having three pairs of eyes focused on him, were disconcerting. "'that is, if I'm not given a lot of other work which could keep me at the office late."

Benjy, brightening, said, "And at weekends too-will you get more time with us, Dad?"

"Maybe."

Ruth intervened. "I think you are being given a message."

She smiled as she said it, something she had done infrequently since her return home several days ago. She was more serious than before, Nim was aware, at times preoccupied. The two of them still had not had their definitive, heart-to-heart talk; Ruth seemed to be avoiding it and Nim, still depressed from his recent experiences, had not felt like making the effort on his own.

Nim had wondered in advance: How did a husband and wife treat each other on the wife's return after she had been away for two weeks, almost certainly with another man? In their own case the answer seemed: Exactly as before she left.

Ruth had arrived back without fuss, had collected the children from her parents, then picked up the threads of life at home as if she had never dropped them. She and Nim continued to share a bedroom, as they always had-though not a bed; it seemed a long time since Nim had left his own twin bed to join Ruth in hers. But in other respects their regular life resumed.

Of course, Nim reminded himself, in the past there had been similar situations-in reverse-when he returned from extramarital excursions which, at the time, he believed Ruth had not known about, but now suspected that she bad. And one final reason for the quietus was, again, Nim's bruised ego-bruised elsewhere. He simply wasn't ready for more emotion yet.

Now they were all at home, having a family evening meal, the third in three days, which, in itself, was unusual.

"As you all know," Nim said, "there have been some changes at the office but I don't know yet how everything is going to work out." He noticed something about Bcnjy and leaned forward, inspecting him more closely.

"What happened to your face?"

Benjy hesitated, his small band going up to cover a bruise on his left cheek and a cut beneath the lower lip. "Oh, it was just something at school, Dad."

"What kind of something? Were you in a fight?"

Benjy appeared uncomfortable.

"Yes, he was," Leah said. "Todd Thornton said you're a fink, Daddy, because you don't care about the environment and want to spoil it. So Benjy bit him, but Todd's bigger."

Nim said severely to Benjy, "No matter what anyone says about anything, it's wrong and stupid to go around hitting people."

His son looked crestfallen. "Yes, Dad."

"We had a talk," Ruth said. "Benjy knows that now."

Beneath his outward reaction Nim was startled and shocked. It had not occurred to him until now that criticism directed at himself would find a target in his family also. He said softly, "I'm truly sorry if anything that happened to me has hurt any of you."

"Oh, that's all right," Leah assured him. "Mommy explained to us how what you did was honorable."

Benjy added eagerly, "And Mom said you had more guts, Dad, than all the others put together." Benjy made clear, by the way he snapped his teeth together, that he enjoyed the word "guts."

Nim had his eyes fixed on Ruth. "Your mother told you that?"

"It's true, isn't it?" Benjy asked.

"Of course it's true," Ruth said; she had flushed slightly. "But your father can't say it about himself, can he? Which is why I told you."

"So that's what we tell the other kids when they say anything," Leah added.

For an instant Nim felt a surge of emotion. The thought of Benjy fighting with his small fists to defend his father's reputation, then Ruth, rising above the differences between the two of them, to protect his lion or with the children, left Nim with a choked-up feeling close to tears. He was saved from more embarrassment by Ruth's exhortation, "All right, now let's everyone get on with dinner."

Later, while Nim and Ruth were still at the dining table sipping coffee, and the children had left to watch TV, he said, "I'd like you to know that I appreciate what you told Leah and Benjy."

Ruth made a dismissing gesture. "If I hadn't believed it, I wouldn't have told them. Just because you and I aren't Romeo and Juliet anymore, doesn't mean I've stopped reading and thinking objectively about outside things."

"I've offered to resign," he told her. "Eric says it isn't necessary, but I may still." He went on to speak of the various possibilities he was considering, including a move to another power company, perhaps in the Midwest. If that happened, Nim asked, how would Ruth feel about moving there with the children?

Her answer was quick and definite. "I wouldn't do it."

"Do you mind telling me why?"

"I should think it's obvious. Why should three members of our family-Leah, Benjy, me-be uprooted, go to live in a strange place, and mostly for your convenience, when you and I haven't yet discussed our own future together-if we have one, which seems unlikely."

So there it was, out in the open, and he supposed the signal for their serious talk had come. How strange, he thought, that it should happen at a moment when briefly they had seemed closer than in a long time!

He said, with the sadness that he felt, "What the hell happened to us?"

Ruth answered sharply, "You should be the one best able to answer that. I'm curious about one thing, though-just how many other women have there been in our fifteen years of marriage?" He was aware of the recent hardness he had observed in Ruth as she continued. "Or maybe you've lost count, the way I did. For a while I could always tell when you had something new going-or should I say 'someone' new? then later on I wasn't so sure, and I guessed that you were overlapping, playing the field, with two or even more at once. Was I right?"

Having trouble in meeting Ruth's eyes directly, he answered, "Sometimes."

"Well, that's one point settled anyway. So my guess was right. But you haven't answered the first question. flow many women altogether?"

He said unhappily, "I'll be damned if I know."

"If that's true," Ruth pointed out, "it isn't exactly complimentary to those other females you must have felt something for, however briefly.

Whoever they were, I'd say they deserved better from you than not even to be remembered."

He protested, "It was never serious. None of it. Not with any of them."

"That I do believe." Ruth's cheeks were flushed with anger. "For that matter, you were never serious about me.

"That isn't true!"

"How can you possibly say that? After what you've just admitted Oh, I could understand one other woman; maybe two. Any wife with 1sense knows that happens sometimes in the best of marriages. But not scores of women, the way it's been with you."