“Did you have kids?”
“No. By the time I married, children were pretty much out of the question, really. We married rather late in life. I was thirty-four, Frank was forty-four. Children would have just messed things up. At least that’s what I kept telling myself.”
“We play the hand we’re dealt,” he said softly. “Sounds like you made some better choices than I did. Still want to hear this?”
She nodded.
“Right. Well, when I got back from Vietnam in 1970, 1 had a three-plus-year-old little horror and a wife with the beginnings of a drinking problem. Once again, I didn’t really notice. I was off to the next rung on the ladder. My career, Liberalles. We sold the house, shagged off to Newport, Rhode Island, for department-head school-that was six months-and then back to San Diego for my department-head tour.
Oh, great: more sea duty. Not exactly the most stable family life. I was finishing up that tourthat was, I guess early 1972, when Galantz came calling.
Jack was about five. By then, Beth was using fruit juice laced with vodka just to get through the day, and I was just starting to wonder how this would all come out-especially Jack. “
“Did you get help with Jack?”
“Well, yes and no. We used some Navy counselors at Balboa hospital, but they were dealing with seriously disturbed kids-schizophrenics, kids with severe learning disabilities. To them, Jack was a discipline problem-not a mental problem, but behavioral.”
“They know a little bit more about that today.”
“I wonder,” Sherman said. “But in our case, there were two problems. The first was the old who’s-in-charge problem. Beth ran the household when I was away at sea, which was most of the time. Then I’d come home for a couple of weeks and try, to take over. Kids are smart: They learn to divide and conquer. But Jack posed a legitimate question: Whose rules did he have to follow? Did everything change just because Daddy was home?”
“I’ve heard other Navy people talk about that. And the second problem?”
“Five years ago, I would have said it was hers. But in retrospect, it really was mine. That’s one of the things Elizabeth showed me.
Basically, I didn’t much like my son, so I abdicated. Jack became Beth’s problem child, not mine. I seized on the excuse that it didn’t make sense for me to come home at irregular intervals and change all the rules.
By leaving her in charge, I could simply back out of the problem. I had an operations department and a career to worry about. Mommy can be in charge on the home front.
Mommy can own it. Again, in retrospect, pretty lousy for’ her.” Karen looked down at the table for a long moment. She was struck by the fact that his wife and her replacement had almost the same names. The waiter came by and cleared away the dishes and asked about dessert. Both declined and asked for coffee.
“How did she handle it?” she asked.
“She didn’t. Jack defeated her. He was wary of me, and he learned not to push things when I was around. But he just plain defeated her. I wasn’t much help. I think I lost respect for her because this kid had her number. And, of course, because of the drinking. Anyway, we went off to our first shore-duty tour, up at the graduate school in Monterey. Other guys took advantage of graduate school to get reacquainted with their wives after a couple of sea-duty tours. I was first in my class instead.
I simply took advantage. I think that was when Beth lost hope.”
“Surely you’re being a little hard on yourself, aren’t you?
Most divorce stories I’ve listened to have two sides.”
“Perhaps, but I’ve had years to think about it. Upshot was that after three more assignments, it all finally came apart. We were divorced in 198 1, when I was enroute to my first ship command. Jack was almost fifteen, and solidly hooked up with the teenaged hoods in school. D student.
Not stupid, mind you, just rebellious, uncommunicative, cigarettes, then dope. Beth was sustaining herself on near y a bottle of vodka a day. I had to be sent home from the Mediterranean one time to straighten things out when the neighbors got the social workers into it. Not the sort of thing up-and-coming commanders in the Navy are supposed to have to deal with.”
“What happened to Jack?”
“He bummed his way through high’school, graduated, and then got picked up for some low-level stealing with his gang. Because Jack was the youngest, he was offered a shot at the county’s youthful offenders boot-camp program. It was a brand-new thing back then, but, amazingly, Jack took to it. They contacted me toward the end of his program and asked if I could pull some strings, maybe get him into one of the services. The Marines, of all people, took him.”’ “Are you in touch with him nowadays?”
After a slight hesitation, he said no, prompting Karen to wonder what he was holding back.
“No,” he repeated. “Not since he was in Marine boot camp. He told me in the one and only letter I ever got from him after the divorce that he had been selected for the Marine recon battalion-that’s their Special Forces group. But then something happened in his third year, and he apparently was discharged early. I never found out what it was. Jack and I have had no contact since then. I’m sure I’m not the guy in his life’s story.”
“How do you feel about that now?” she asked, looking at him over the rim of her wineglass.
“Sad, I guess. He is my son. I feel a duty to love him.
But I still don’t like him.”
“People can change. Have you ever tried to find him?”
Another moment of hesitation. Some evasion there. But it was such a personal and painful story, she was ready to forgive any omissions.
“For my own sanity, I have to consider it ancient history,” he said.
“Long story short, these experiences are what conditioned my response to Elizabeth’s marriage overtures. I know now that the whole mess was mostly my fault-for being gone, for being too centered on my career.
The career worked; the marriage didn’t. Now I know what I do best.”
She cringed mentally at the bitterness in his voice and decided not to say anything for a minute. When she did, she was being very careful. “I think,” she said, “that most of us get one free shot at the love-and-marriage prize. You had a wife and child, but the marriage did not succeed. I had a good marriage for almost ten years, or at least I thought it was good, but then he just .’.. died. I never did get to play mommy. I’ve been up and down the emotional hill over that, but the reality is, that chapter of my life is simply closed.
That’s the main reason I’m getting out of the Navy on twenty.
“What do you mean, at least you thought it was good?”
Damn, she thought. I didn’t mean to let that slip out. “I told you that Frank died in the lobby of a hotel down in Washington. It was a residential hotel. I could never get a satisfactory answer from anyone who was close to him in the office as to why he had been there. In fact, the harder I tried, the quicker the shields went up. His junior partner finally told me just to leave it alone, for my sake more than anything else.”
“Wow. And you had no idea?”
“None whatsoever. I’ve often wondered if I simply got too complacent. I know I’m a reasonably attractive woman.
But Frank was wealthy and influential, if not downright powerful in the energy-lobbying industry. You know Washington. What is it, seven eligible females for every one male? Power is stimulating.”
It was his turn to hold his tongue. But then he smiled at her. “You are more than just reasonably attractive, Commander. Notice I used your rank, so that was an official observation, not personal.”
She smiled back at him and there was an awkward pause.
“So what’s next for you?” he asked, opening the way for her to talk about something else. She realized then how smoothly he had steered her off his own story.
“I have no idea. Frank made a lot of money as a lobbyist, so I’m financially secure. Once my release from active duty comes around, I’m probably going to close up the house in Great Falls and do some traveling. See what happens next, I guess. If I was twenty-one, I’d probably be trying to plan everything out. Now I’m just going to roll with it, see what happens.”
“Sounds very sane, Karen. But be careful. What might happen next is the male version of an Elizabeth Walsh will move into your life. That’s one thing I’ve learned: Life doesn’t just leave you alone just because you feel like sitting next few dances.” He stopped. “Christ. I can’t be out the lieve Elizabeth is gone. I miss her.” He paused to
