The War of the Roses

The drink steadied him and he lit a candle, carrying it to the mirror to view himself. Surveying his face, he shook his head with despair. His beard was growing out, his eyes were encased in deep circles, and his bare torso seemed pocked and scarred.

Opening the door of his room, he half expected to see her unconscious body on the stairs and he was already feeling his disappointment at not having heard her screams of pain. He had wanted, more than anything, to hear her scream.

Standing in the hallway, he felt a strange sense of deja vu, and for a moment was disoriented, lost in dme. Strange odors seemed to permeate the air, but now, suddenly, he could pick out the familiar smell of her cooking again. The idea of it seemed bizarre, considering what was happening.

Turning suddenly as if she were prodding him, he saw a note Scotch-taped to his door, written carefully in what seemed now a much surer hand.

'This can't go on, Oliver,' the note said. 'We must talk. Meet me in the dining room at nine.'

The note was oddly tranquilizing. He felt a brief wave of shame, which changed quickly to hopefulness. Perhaps he was emerging finally from the nightmare. Was she coming to her senses at last? He read the note again. Of course. This could not indeed continue to go on. As if to buttress his optimism, the clock in the foyer offered nine chimes. Aware of his nakedness, he went back to his room and put on a print robe. The least he could do was dress for a possible reconciliation.

26

Ann had registered for summer school, more as a ploy to keep her in town than to acquire additional credits toward her master's. Only a sense of guilt and regard for her dwindling finances kept her going to classes. What she had on her mind was the Rose family, particularly Oliver.

Other than making brief phone calls to his office, a subterfuge to hear his voice and check his attitude, she had resisted any further contact. In the first place, she told herself, she had had more than her fair share of unrequited love. It was foolish, adolescent. Worse, it was one-sided. She was not a fool, she assured herself. Besides, it was time to find out whether he missed her. It annoyed her to be at the mercy of such a treacherously time-consuming and obsessive emotion. Yet, no amount of self-imposed discipline could chase it away. It was a curse. Its most insidious damage was to give her a sense of hope? hope that once the divorce was finally settled, he would choose devotion over indifference. She could make him a truly happy man. Besides, she loved the children. Every day she expected a call. None came. She wrote to the children. Periodically, she telephoned Eve.

'Do you see Mom and Dad?' Eve had asked.

'Oh, occasionally,' Ann lied.

'I got a letter from Dad and one from Mom,' Eve volunteered vaguely. Ann detected her unhappiness. 'The principal problem for Josh and me is how we're going to handle Parents' Day.'

Ann caught the tone of rising anxiety. Deliberately, she did not react, offering placating humor instead.

'I should be home,' Eve said. 'It was wrong for them to send me here.'

'It's their problem, Eve. They have to work it out.'

'I know.' But nothing could move her. *I should be home with them. They need me.'

'They'll be fine.'

The words were uttered without conviction.

When she didn't hear from Oliver for a couple of weeks, Ann called Oliver's office, only to be told that he had left for vacation. She wondered vaguely why the children hadn't mentioned that in their letters, which were becoming increasingly anxious.

After much debate with herself she called the house. A recording informed her that the phone had been disconnected. Armed with innocuous questions, she called Goldstein and Thurmont. They, too, were on vacation.

Nevertheless, her curiosity was aroused. Why hadn't they told the children? The mystery irritated her, giving rise to all sorts of black prognostications. Unable to remain passive, she walked up Connecticut Avenue one afternoon to Kalorama Circle. From the outside, the house seemed its old gleaming, imperious self. She went around the back to the garden and looked through the glass panel of the garage door. The Ferrari was a battered hulk, a fact that both startled and confused her, but Barbara's station wagon and Eve's Honda were in their accustomed places. They offered no clues. Perhaps the couple had somehow reconciled and were now vacationing. And how had Oliver's prized Ferrari been wrecked? She allowed her mind to dismiss everything but the central question: Where were they? And why hadn't they contacted the children?

Walking around to the front again, she met the Washington Star paper boy, whom she knew casually.

'They canceled,' he said with a shrug.

'You mean stopped delivery for some stated period?' she inquired.

'No. Canceled,' the boy answered, throwing a paper on a neighbor's stoop.