17
IVY PULLED ONTO Capricorn Avenue, the street where her sister lived in Irvine, a “planned community.” The houses were all a uniform color—some variety of beige—and were landscaped with railroad ties and olive trees and junipers. Twenty years ago neighborhoods like this were going to be the future, but time hadn’t been kind to them, and the aluminum windows and Spanish lace stucco and rough-cut wood had deteriorated at about the same rate that the houses had gone out of style. The neighborhood didn’t have any air of financial poverty about it, just a poverty of imagination that was depressing, and for the hundredth time Ivy reminded herself that she couldn’t live happily here, no matter how close she was to the supermarket and the mall. Darla hadn’t exactly thrived here either.
A truck sat in Darla’s driveway with a magnetic sign on the side that read “Mow and Blow.” Ivy parked on the street and headed toward the house, past the three gardeners who worked furiously on the front lawn. There was the terrible racket of the mower, edger, and blower all going at once, the three men racing against the potential rain. The sky had gotten dark again, full of heavy clouds. All the blinds were drawn in the front of the house, as if no one were home, but that was just Darla’s style—the house dark and the TV constantly on for background noise or distraction or companionship. Darla rarely paid any attention to it.
Ivy rang the bell, and her sister opened the door, saw who it was, and burst into tears. Ivy walked in, putting her arm around Darla’s shoulder. The house smelled of dirty ashtrays and cooking odors, and on the television screen two soap opera people accused each other of treachery. Ivy shut it off and yanked on the drapes cord, trying to brighten the place up. The two-story house to the rear loomed above the fence, though, shading the sliding glass door. Rain began to patter down onto the concrete patio slab just then, and Ivy nearly slid the door open in order to pull the kids’ big wheels and bikes under cover. It was hopeless, though; the backyard, a narrow strip of patchy brown Bermuda grass lined with weedy brick planters, was strewn with toys and knocked-over lawn chairs and an expensive-looking propane barbecue that had clearly been rained on all winter anyway.
“How are you holding up?” Ivy asked.
Darla sobbed out loud, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “Jack’s gone.”
“For good?”
Darla shrugged.
“Has he been drinking?”
She nodded. “He agreed to go to the marriage encounter, like I told you, but then he started going out after dinner. And last night he didn’t come home at all.”
“He’s a dirty shit.”
“He’s seeing somebody, some barfly. I know he is. I’m all packed.” She gestured in the general direction of the bedroom, then let her hand fall to her lap.
Darla looked pale, and she’d gained a couple of pounds since Ivy had seen her last, which was when? Last month some time, Ivy realized guiltily. Her hair needed some work, too, and she had yesterday’s makeup on.
“You slept on the couch last night?”
Darla nodded. “I waited up for Jack, but …”
Ivy tried to think of something to say to her, but realized she’d said it before. The junk-strewn backyard and darkened house was some kind of reflection of Darla’s fate, something that had crept up on her over the years. Walt was right about Jack. Drunk or sober the man was a creep. It was no secret to anybody else; how could it be a secret to Darla? How could any of this be a secret to Darla? “Where’s Eddie and Nora?”
“At daycare.”
“You want me to pick them up still? It’s your call. I said we’d take them, and I meant it.”
“Thanks.” Darla shook her head tiredly. “What I decided … I decided to go home for a while.”
Ivy looked at her. “Home?”
“Ann Arbor.”
“With Mom and Dad?” Their parents had retired to a two-bedroom house on a rural lane. It was idyllic, all hardwood trees and gardens and pastures, but there was hardly any room for the children, for Eddie and Nora.
“I’ve got an interview back there,” Darla said. “Receptionist at this doctor’s office.” She started crying again. “I just have to get out,” she said. “Anywhere. Away from this. Goddamn Jack can have it if he wants it.” She waved her hand again, taking it all in.
“What about the kids?” Ivy asked. Suddenly it wasn’t just a week-long marriage encounter; it was what?—indefinite? “Are you thinking of taking Eddie and Nora back to live with Mom and Dad?”
“Jesus, Ivy, I don’t know what to do. I booked a flight this morning with Jack’s Mastercard. You said you’d take care of the kids for a while, so … I guess I just need some space.”
Space. Ivy hated that word. Darla needed considerably more than space. What she was doing was running, but she had no idea from what, aside from Jack, who she should have run from years ago. Darla hadn’t had a job in ten years. She didn’t need to; Jack brought home the bacon along with the grief, and Darla had always been satisfied with that, or was supposed to be.
“It’s okay with Walt, isn’t it?” Darla asked. “About Nora and Eddie? He’s such a goddamn hero. How did you marry someone like him and I married something I scraped out of a garbage can?”
“Luck,” Ivy said.
“Men are such shits.”
“Some of them.”
“I didn’t mean Walt. I just thank God Jack isn’t their real father, the lying shit.” She shook her head. “It killed me when Bill walked out on me and the kids, but at least he wasn’t the kind of weak … asshole that Jack is.”
“I talked it over with Walt last night,” Ivy lied. “He’s all for taking the kids.”
“You sure, sis? Because if you’re not sure …”
What? You’ll what? Ivy thought it but didn’t say it. She should have told Walt last night, but he was being such a—well, such a shit. Now he’d just have to be surprised. “Sure I’m sure,” she said. “What will Jack say about our taking the kids? He’ll think that’s his territory.”
“He can’t have them,” Darla said heatedly. “He … I’m afraid he’ll hurt Eddie.”
“Why?”
“He has before, when he’s drunk.”
“Okay then, to hell with Jack.”