“I don’t want to burden you.”
“Burden me? You’re shutting me out. And don’t deny it.”
He hissed, “Can’t you keep your voice down? You’ll wake the girls.”
“Can’t you be honest with me? Why don’t you come home on Fridays anymore? Are you part of this family or not?”
“Don’t push me, Helen. That’s the last thing you should do.”
“I shouldn’t push? But you can push me away? Do you call this a marriage?”
“That does it.” He grabbed his pillow. “I’m not putting up with this.”
“Don’t, Wilson, please. Can’t you just tell me you love me?”
“Damn you and your badgering,” he said, stomping out.
Oh, God, what was happening to her marriage?
CHAPTER EIGHT
BARBARA AT FOURTEEN
New Haven, March 1928
Barbara caught her mother’s eye across the table corner and shoved her father’s letter aside. “I’ve read it, Mother. I’ve read it twice, and I still can’t make sense of it.”
Her mother flopped back in her kitchen chair. “He’s beyond reason.”
“On the telephone, he told me to keep my shirt on, that everything would be all right.”
“What else can he say? He knows what he’s doing is wrong.”
“Then he’s a coward.” Barbara wished she could tell him so to his face. “How can I ever trust him again?”
Her mother reached out and patted her hand. “Yes, he’s betrayed you, betrayed all of us.”
“Miss Whipple is taking advantage of him. He’s exhausted from working too hard.”
“It’s beyond disgraceful. A forty-year-old taking up with a girl half his age.”
Barbara studied her mother—her intense mahogany-brown eyes, the solid, broad nose, and the comely dip at the middle of her top lip—features so like hers that strangers often remarked on the resemblance. Only now, her mother looked beaten down, her eyes glassy, shoulders slumped, and mouth droopy. For weeks she’d eaten little and cried at odd times. Whenever Barbara asked her what the matter was, she mumbled something about feeling lonely. But now that she’d read her father’s letter, Barbara knew the real reason: He’d asked her for a divorce.
Barbara said, “If only he’d come home and spend the summer with us. Or take us to Maine for a real vacation.”
Her mother shook her head. “He insists on staying in New York.”
“He claims to treasure the times we spent exploring.” Barbara had recorded all their outings, some in story form and others in letters she’d kept drafts of, tales of mountain treks in New Hampshire, a rip-roaring canoe ride down the Ossipee, and hikes around Lake Sunapee and through Maine’s woods. “But if he can kick those aside now, it’s as good as saying he never treasured them.”
“I know, dear, he’s upset your whole world.”
“He’s not himself—claiming my life has been a jumble of two persons poisonous and destructive to each other.”
“It’s like he declared war on me,” her mother said. “He simply refuses to listen to my side of things.”
“I won’t believe all my fourteen years have been that way. Except lately. And that’s because of her.”
“What a hold she must have over him. Only I don’t see how it can last.”
“Listen to what he says here.” Barbara peeled off the first two pages of the letter and read from the last page. “‘You’re the staunchest, most dauntless person I know, and I refer not only to children but adults as well. You have the pluck of Charles Lindbergh, and I count on you now more than ever. Your mother needs you, and Sabra needs you.’”
Her mother clamped her lips together and dropped her gaze.
Barbara slapped the letter down. “But that’s not fair. I need him, too. And there can’t be two of me.”
“I can hardly bear it—you and Sabra abandoned like this,” said her mother.
“I’m going to write him and point out the fallacies in his letter.”
The basement furnace lumbered to life, belching cold air through the register and chilling her ankles. At first, she’d been terribly excited about their modern and roomy two-story home. But without her father treading its halls, discussing his editing projects over dinner, or beckoning her from his office, a hollow stillness engulfed it. The solid floors creaked not one bit, and her mother’s voice and even Sabra’s squeals barely carried through doors or up and down the stairs.
Her mother threw an arm over her chair back. “Certainly, write to him if you wish.”
“I’ll tell him he must take up the anchor of our rudderless family again.”
“Perhaps you can get through to him.”
“I’ll never speak to him again if he insists on a divorce.”
“He’ll always be your father, even if he’s not . . .”
“Don’t say that, Mother. You mustn’t give him a divorce.”
Her mother tugged a corner of her mouth into a wan smile. “You’re so strong-willed, Bar. I love that about you.”
“I know just what I’m going to write: Do you really want to be a dastardly scoundrel? You must consider Sabra. She’ll drown in the vortex of misery you’re creating. Your shoulders are the strongest in the family, and we need your steady hand.”
After all, he was her father. She could speak honestly with him about anything and everything, and he’d always respected her opinion. She’d wrestle his attention away from that beastly Miss Whipple.
Barbara bounced her head in a sure nod. “I’ll tell him how irrational he’s being.”
✭
Two weeks later, Miss Whipple invited herself for a “private conversation” with her mother. Barbara begged her mother to let her stay home, so outraged was she by Miss Whipple’s audacity—visiting the very family she was tearing apart. But her mother insisted she and Sabra spend the afternoon with their neighbor, Mrs. Tyler.
Then, during Miss Whipple’s visit, her mother telephoned her at the Tylers’. “Barbara, Miss Whipple has asked to speak with you. But it’s completely up to you.”
Barbara paused not one bit. “Do you honestly think I’d turn down this chance?”
She hurried home and found Miss Whipple sitting stiff-backed on the sitting room sofa, ankles crossed, and gloved hands cupped over a knee. Such gall: Miss Whipple making herself at home
