He only had two days in Greenwich when he got back, but he went for a long quiet walk with Pennie and they cried together for the dreams they had lost. The page had turned, and the next chapters of their lives remained to be written. Pennie had a busy year ahead of her, while applying to college.
It was an older and wiser Pennie who began her senior year of high school in September. She was quieter and more mature. It had been a summer of coming of age. She knew she would never be quite the same again. But growing up was like that. Her parents treated her as an adult now, and she knew she could never be a child again. She was a woman, with all the joy and sorrow that entailed.
* * *
—
The summer hadn’t been an easy one for Paul and Eileen either. They’d had endless discussions and arguments over what they thought Pennie should do about the pregnancy. And more than she’d ever realized before, it had shown Eileen how bitter Paul still was about the sacrifices he had made when he married her because she was pregnant. In a way, through what happened to Pennie, they had relived it. And the revelations had shown Eileen the fissures and scars in their marriage. Although Paul loved her and their children, she saw now that he had never fully forgiven her for the circumstances which forced him into marriage, yet he had wanted Tim to do the same thing, and perhaps ruin his life too. He wanted Tim to suffer the same life sentence he had. And when Pennie lost the baby, they were left with the things that had been said, and the anger in Paul that had been smoldering for years, like a forest fire that had been contained, but never fully extinguished.
In September, Paul started meeting with more clients for dinner again, and he didn’t include Eileen. The angry words of the summer had not been forgotten yet. She was busy anyway. Seth broke his arm during recess in the first week of school, when an older boy pushed him and he tripped and fell on the playground. And Mark, seeing what had happened to his brother, punched the eighth-grader in the face, broke his two front teeth, and got suspended for two weeks. Paul and Eileen had to go to school and listen to a lecture from the headmaster. They put Mark on restriction at home. They disapproved of the act of violence, but Paul thought it was noble of him to defend his brother, which Eileen didn’t entirely agree with, so more arguments ensued between them. Since Seth had broken his right arm, and was right-handed, Eileen had to do everything for him.
In the first month of school, Pennie’s grades had slipped, after what she’d been through, and Eileen had to prod her constantly to fill out her college applications. Pennie had to keep up her grades, scores, and volunteer work in order to get into the caliber of college she wanted. Eileen felt as though she was running from one child to the other with never a moment’s rest in between, and she was worried about Pennie. In some ways, it was easier having Paul busier than before with his clients, which gave her more time with the children. But in another sense, he was never around when she needed him to subdue the boys or even drive them around on weekends, when she was trying to encourage Pennie to fill out her college applications and work on them with her. September was so insanely busy she hadn’t had time to talk to her friend Jane in weeks either. She felt like she never sat down or had a free minute.
Pennie hadn’t heard from Tim since he’d started school, and Eileen thought it was for the best. They needed to get on with their lives, and Tim was busy doing that, keeping up with his classes and making new friends. For now at least, his time with Pennie was over. Who knew if, years down the road, they might start things up again. But at least they hadn’t been forced to get married and become parents in their teens.
* * *
—
Pennie still hadn’t restarted her social life after the rigors of the summer, and Eileen noticed that she went to bed early, usually watching a movie or a TV series on her computer before she went to sleep. She had become solitary without Tim. The twins always went to bed early.
The house was quiet, while Eileen was reading in bed one night, waiting for Paul to get home. It was his third client dinner that week. She hardly saw him now, except on weekends, and then he often played golf or tennis with friends. And she was too busy to object.
He got home just after eleven that night, and when he came in, she could tell that he’d been drinking. He often ordered good French wines at client dinners, and enjoyed them as much as the clients did. He was in high spirits when he came in and saw her tucked in but still awake with the book in her hands. It was a book one of the mothers at school had given her about making the best of turning forty. So far, she wasn’t convinced.
“You’re still up?” He looked surprised.
“I was waiting for you.” She smiled at him.
“Why? Checking up on me?” he said with an edge in his voice.
“No. Should I be? Did you have a nice time tonight?” she asked innocently, happy to see him.
“Very. New clients. From Australia. Those guys know how to have a good time,” he said blithely. He bent down to kiss her then, on his way to get undressed, and she got a whiff of a distinctive woman’s perfume, and looked up at him, surprised.
“Did your Australian clients have a woman with them?”
“What makes you ask?” He narrowed his eyes at her.
“I could smell a woman’s perfume when you bent down to kiss me.”
“For chrissake, Eileen. What is this? The Inquisition? Yes, they had a woman with them. One guy brought his wife. Is there anything else you want to know? Fingerprints? Shoe sizes? Blood types?” He was instantly nasty about it. Sometimes, when he drank too much, it gave him an edge, or he could even be quite mean and not remember it the next day. She rarely questioned him about where he went and who he saw. She didn’t think she had to. Even if their marriage wasn’t perfect, she trusted him and had no reason not to. She’d never been concerned about him, and didn’t have a jealous nature. He never flirted with other women when they went out, although he was entertaining when he wanted to be, along with his natural good looks, and women were often attracted to him. But Eileen was sure he never pursued any of them.
He stormed off to the bathroom then and slammed the door. He was back five minutes later in his pajamas, slid into bed beside her, and she could still smell the perfume on him. She leaned over to kiss him, and got a strong whiff of it on his neck. It wasn’t just on the clothes he’d worn to dinner, it was on his skin. She backed away and looked at him then, as though seeing him for the first time, and she felt like there was a stranger in bed with her.
“Should I be worried?” she asked him with an open, sincere look.
“Of course not. I sold myself into slavery eighteen years ago, didn’t I?” He had a nasty look in his eyes when he said it, and the comment hurt. She wasn’t sure if he’d intended it to, or if “in wine, there was truth.”