children and they huddled beside Ann on the third-floor landing, like spectators at a bullfight.
'You broke into my room, you bastard,' she had screamed. She had been supervising a late buffet and had discovered the break-in when she returned. He had opened the door and confronted her, bleary-eyed with sleep.
'I needed a damned Maalox. I had a hiatus-hernia attack.'
'You have no right to break into my room.'
'All I took was the damned Maalox. It was too late -'
'There are all-night drugstores.'
'I needed it immediately. I had no choice. I had run out. Really, Barbara, I was in pain.'
'You had absolutely no right. That was violation of our agreement. A legal violation.'
'Bullshit.'
'Breaking and entering. I have every intention of calling the police.'
'There's the damned phone.' He had pointed to the phone in his room and in her anger she stormed in and picked it up, dialing 911.
'I would like to report a robbery,' she said. 'Barbara Rose, sixty-eight Kalorama Circle.' There was a long pause. 'I'm not certain what else was stolen. But I do know that 'a bottle of Maalox was taken. My husband broke into my bedroom. No. He did not rape me.' She took the phone away from her ear and looked into its mouthpiece. 'God damn it. We pay you to protect people. Not to ask silly questions.' She banged the phone in its cradle. He had rarely seen her so agitated and he was amused.
'Feel better?' Oliver had asked smugly. He leaned against the doorjamb, smiling.
'You had no right,' she sputtered, storming across the corridor, slamming the door behind her.
'Don't talk to me about rights,' he called to her through the door.
'This house has become a loony bin,' Eve had whispered.
'It's like a television show,' Josh said. 'I wonder how it's going to come out.'
Again Barbara took Oliver to court, resulting in an injunction that Oliver was forbidden to break into her room in the future.
'Will they put him in jail if he does?' Josh had asked his mother at the dinner table after she had announced the judge's decision.
'I'm afraid so,' she had answered gently. But Josh was visibly shaken and had thrown his napkin on the table and run up to his room. Later, after she had comforted him, Barbara had knocked at Ann's door.
'May I come in?' She had already opened the door. Ann was reading.
'Of course.'
Barbara wore a dressing gown; her face was cold-creamed, her hair pinned back. She looked considerably younger, more unsure and vulnerable.
'The worse part is having no one to talk with. At least Oliver listened. But I always felt I was hiding something. It never seemed like the truth.' She sat down on the bed and bit her lip. 'This is one hell of a trial by fire, Ann. It isn't half as simple as I thought.' She looked at Ann's face, pleading. There was no avoiding the confidences about to come, Ann knew.
'I suppose you think I'm an unfeeling rat.'
Barbara waited for a reply, for which Ann was grateful.
'Actually' - Barbara thumped her chest with outstretched thumb – ‘I hate myself for what I know in my heart I must do. If I were religious, I would think of myself as a female Job.' She bowed her head as her eyes filled with tears. They spilled down her cheeks. 'I'm not superhuman. I don't like what all this is doing to the kids. Or even Oliver. I just wish he would walk away and leave me alone. That's all I ask.' She looked up at the ceiling, her lips trembling. 'I suppose I could compromise. But I know I'll regret it for the rest of my life. I have to do what I have to do. Can you understand that, Ann?'
'Please, Barbara,' Ann said gently, sitting beside her on the bed, holding her hand with sisterly affection. 'Don't put me in a position where I have to make a choice of some sort. The whole thing is heartbreaking. I adore you all. I feel bad for all of you.'
'I'm not a beast, Ann,' Barbara whispered. 'Really, I'm not. In my heart I know I'm right. Looking back ...' She paused and sighed. 'I felt persecuted. Helpless. We have only one life, Ann. Only one. I wasn't happy.'
'I'm not here to judge,' Ann responded. But she was judging. How could Barbara be unhappy with Oliver? It was incomprehensible. I
'If only he had left the house, like an ordinary rejected spouse.'
'I'm sure it will all turn out for the best,' Ann said stupidly, disgusted with her hypocrisy. She wished she could be truly honest. She could sense Barbara's pain. She understood helplessness. But Oliver was someone special, a prize. Hurting him seemed willful, obscene. Still, she couldn't hate Barbara, whose anguish, despite Ann's feelings for Oliver, moved her. Suddenly Barbara embraced her. Ann felt the moist heat of her cheeks, the sweet, womanly smell of her body. She felt the fullness of her large breasts. In some oddly bizarre way, the closeness reminded her of Oliver, and she returned the embrace.
'Women understand,' Barbara whispered.
After a while Barbara disengaged herself and stood up, wiping her cheeks with her sleeve.
'You've been a real treasure, Ann. I want you to know that. We all owe you a debt.'
Ann felt unworthy of the gratitude.
