“I can’t believe you agreed to take Roadblock!” Anita said to me, a big smile on her face. She sat in my living room sipping Lapsang Souchong.
I smiled back at her. Three days had passed since the pen hearing when the earth seemed to shift in its orbit.
“Well, once Laurel and Dennison decided to give their marriage another try, someone had to take him. Laurel never really wanted the divorce. And when Paula showed up and told Dennison that she’d fallen in love with a man she met at the Starbucks near the university, the silly lug decided he didn’t want it either. Roadblock so they claimed, was the only obstacle to their getting back together, so I agreed to take him.”
Anita shrugged. “And Andrew? Was he heartbroken? You gave me the distinct impression he was quite serious about Laurel.”
I laughed. “That was the impression he’d given me, but somehow finding Lawrence’s letters has driven all thoughts out of his head save the idea of making up for lost time. He’s been here regularly and is talking about going out to visit James with me.”
Anita reached across the coffee table and patted my arm. “So you decided to take my advice after all,” she said.
I shook my head. “Andrew decided for me. He is a bossy man. I suppose that’s what comes of being a commanding officer in the reserves.”
It was Anita’s turn to laugh. “I doubt that’s the reason, Marian.”
“You never know,” I replied. “Who’d ever have expected him to have such a sudden change of heart? Of course, I’m not at all sure that his going with me to visit James is a good idea. He’s so opinionated and seems to dislike Patricia intensely. Of course, he’d only stay with us for one day and then head out to Carmel to visit Rosemary.”
“Rosemary?” Anita asked.
“The wife before Paula’s mother. She’s an architect and is doing quite well. I always liked her a lot but never understood why she married Andrew.” I sighed. “She is so capable and smart that I envy her at times.”
“Does Patricia dislike Andrew?” Anita asked.
I was startled. “No, not at all. She thinks he’s hilariously funny, especially when he’s at his most pompous and serious.”
Anita nodded and drank more tea. “I don’t understand what exactly it was that precipitated Andrew’s change of heart either. Of course, I’m glad of it,” she said, “for your sake and for his. But I’d like to understand.”
“He realized that I’d taken Phoebe in because I loved Jenny and believed, mistakenly as it turned out, that Lawrence would eventually warm to his daughter. And he understood that his father had lied about his relationship with Jenny and about Phoebe’s conception.”
“What did Lawrence tell them?” Anita demanded.
I took a deep breath. “He told them that he and Jenny had been close in high school and that after she left, he put their relationship behind him and married me, her best friend. He didn’t tell them that he’d been intimate with her on that trip out west that he took right after James’ birth. He made it seem as if I was delusional in my insistence that Phoebe was his child. He told them I wanted a daughter, not two sons.”
Anita looked sad. “I’m so sorry, Marian.”
“Well, I’m angrier than I am sorry. I should have forced him to talk to the boys in my presence instead of believing him when he promised me he’d tell them about Jenny and Phoebe and then trusting him when he swore he’d done so. And I have to admit, Anita, that I’m angrier at myself for my gullibility than at him.”
“Are you still angry at Andrew and James for taking his side and believing him, not you?” Anita asked.
I shook my head. “Oh no, not anymore. What he told them was quite plausible. It’s what he didn’t tell them that was important. He made it seem as if no one in her right mind would take in the child her husband had had with her best friend. So I was either insane or the child wasn’t his. That was his line, and if I’d been Andrew or James, I’d have believed it.”
“But he didn’t tell them about your history with Jenny.”
“No, he didn’t tell them how she’d saved my life, not once but twice, or how the two of us had sworn to stand by each other forever. Why would he have told them that? He didn’t even believe in our friendship. He did everything he could to undermine it. Sometimes I think that was why he had his fling with her. Not because he still loved her, but because I still did.”
“Did you tell Andrew about Jenny and you?”
“Yes, about the swimming accident when I was twelve and the car crash when I was sixteen. He had no idea. I should have told him and James a long time ago, but there never seemed to be an opportunity.” I shook my head again. “It was my fault. I should have made one.”
“But Andrew knows now, and soon James will as well,” Anita tried to comfort me.
I shook my head. “All those wasted years…”
“It wasn’t your fault, Marian. Lawrence was responsible,” Anita said firmly, but that seemed too easy to me.
“No, Lawrence was partly responsible, and I was as well. His sin was greater, but I too was at fault.”
She shook her head. “And Jenny?”
I shrugged. “She was lonely and desperate. She left because he didn’t have the courage to marry her against his family’s wishes, but she never found anyone else she really wanted to marry. He wanted them to continue their relationship without marriage until his parents died. As it turned out, his father lived longer than Lawrence himself.”
I stopped talking and stood up. My joints ached and I realized I was tensing all the muscles in my body. I walked to the window and looked out before continuing, “When he went out there and told her that he and I were divorcing, she believed him. I know she should have checked with me. But she wanted to believe him.” I sighed. “It was stupid of me to think that my marrying him was all right with her.”
“You did ask her though,” Anita interjected.
“Of course, I did, but what was she going to say? ‘No, don’t marry him even though I can’t’? Three years had past, but that wasn’t long enough.” I grimacing, feeling my eyes start to tear.
“And then four more between the time of your marriage and Lawrence’s affair with her out west,” Anita said softly.
“It’s all ancient history, Anita,” I said firmly. “Jenny has been dead almost forty years. I can’t believe I’m still capable of being so upset by what happened.”
“Well, that bit of ancient history has had an incredible impact on your life, Marian,” she reminded me gently. “And you are still feeling its effect.”
I nodded. “At least it brought me Phoebe.”
Anita smiled. “Yes, it did. When are she and Steven due back?”
“In five days,” I said happily. “Only five more days.”
Anita helped me wash up and then we went outside to say hello to Roadblock. He was stretched out on the back step. Diva perched on the window ledge above him, looking down. When she saw us, she chirped and launched herself through the air at Anita, who caught her, tucked her under one arm, scratched behind her ears. Diva began to purr so loudly that she sounded like an old-fashioned alarm clock. When I told that to Anita, she said, “A washing machine on speed.”
I laughed, and Roadblock deigned to rise and come over to me. He brushed himself against my leg and then went to Anita and did the same. Diva hissed, but didn’t manage break loose and attack him. Anita held her firmly, and Roadblock didn’t stay long.
Once he’d stretched out again, Anita turned to me. “Do you think Phoebe will agree to change the name of the business?” she asked.
I smiled. “I don’t see why not. She’s a very reasonable woman when she chooses to be. And she almost always chooses to be now that Steven is with her.”
“He has been a steadying influence, hasn’t he?” Anita said.
I nodded. “Yes, he has. You know, Phoebe hasn’t had an easy time of it. The boys may have convinced themselves that I rejected them in favor of her, but that wasn’t the case. Lawrence, however, really did reject her. So she had no real parents. Her mother was dead and her father was pretending she wasn’t his child.”
“She had you, Marian. And she still does. And with a little tact and patience, she may come to have two brothers more than just in name sometime soon. Phoebe is going to be all right.”
“Oh, I know she’s all right, Anita. It’s just that it’s so easy to forget that she’s had a harder time of it than either of my sons. They’ve played up their deprivations, but she’s moved on with her life.”
“Oh, I think James moved on with his life as well, Marian,” Anita contradicted me. “You may not realize it because he’s done it without you. And he may have gone off in a direction you don’t approve of, but he has really made his own choices and seems to be happy with them.” She smiled at me. “Andrew is the one I’ve worried about, but I think he’ll be all right too.”
“I certainly hope so,” I said. “It’s not that I don’t approve of James, you know. I’ve just never been comfortable with him.”
“Never?” Anita inquired. “Surely never is a bit strong.”
“Perhaps it is,” I conceded. “But I can’t remember a time when I was comfortable with him.” I shrugged. “When he was a baby, it was hard for me to bond with him. I was going through so much with Lawrence.”
“That’s certainly not James’ fault, is it?”
“Of course not, Anita. I never said it was.”
She harrumphed and put Diva down on the sidewalk. “All of your children will be fine, Marian, and so will you,” she said gently. Then she chuckled. “I’m not so sure about Dennison and Laurel. What a pair they are!”
“Did it surprise you that they’ve gotten back together?” I asked. “You don’t seem very surprised, just amused.”
Anita twinkled. “You’re right. I’m not surprised. They need each other. Who else would put up with either of them?”
“Well, Andrew was quite ready to put up with Laurel,” I reminded her.
“Only because he thought she needed him,” Anita replied. “Andrew needs to feel needed.”
“Yes,” I replied with a chuckle. “It feed his sense of importance and gives him a justification for his bossiness.”
“I thought you liked Laurel,” Anita said.
“I did and I do within very severely circumscribed boundaries, which she seems to have difficulty recognizing and accepting. I was quite touched by her fond memories of me from her childhood. I admit that. And therefore I was inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt to a greater extent than I might otherwise have done.” I laughed. “Yes, I like Laurel, but I’m inordinately relieved that she won’t be my daughter-in-law.”
Anita nodded. “I can understand that. It was very nice of you to take Roadblock. I hope that won’t give her the wrong impression though.”
“The wrong impression?”
Anita nodded again. “She does tend to impose.”
I smiled at her. “Yes, she does. But I consider Roadblock a gift. He’s a good old boy and a better father to Diva than Lawrence was to Phoebe, not that she’s got him properly intimidated.”
Anita threw back her head and laughed out loud. “Oh Marian, you are a piece of work!”
“Come into the study,” I ordered her. “I think I have something there that will interest you. Roadblock isn’t the only gift Laurel gave me.”
I led the way, not looking behind me to see if she was following. When we got into the study I seated her at Lawrence’s desk and walked over to the bookshelf behind her.
“When she dropped Roadblock off, Laurel told me this pen had always given her the creeps and she hoped I’d take it off her hands,” I said.
Anita turned her head to see what I was talking about. I had a box in my hand and didn’t hurry to reveal its contents to her, but she knew somehow.
“It’s Kristin’s Vacumatic, isn’t it?” she said. Her question was really a statement and I treated it as such.
“She told me she found the idea of her grandmother’s friendship with Kristin disturbing and Bella’s turning the pen into an object of worship after Kristin’s death nauseating. When I pressed her, it turned out that she’d always been jealous of the claim Kristin’s memory had on her grandmother’s time and attention. So she gave me the pen, telling me she didn’t’ want or need it anymore, now that she had all those lovely, inked L.E.s.” I handed the box to Anita. “Will you show me how to fill it?”
She nodded. “It needs some restoration, but I can do that for you.” She took the pen out of the box. “I didn’t replace the diaphragm when I had it in my hands before. I felt it wasn’t right to do so, since the pen was Laurel’s and when I asked her if she wanted it repaired, she told me not to bother.” She looked at me. “Do you want to dip it to see how it writes?”
I stared at her in confusion. “Can I do that without having the whatchamacallit… Vacumatic replaced?”
Anita shook her head. “The diaphragm, Marian. Vacumatic is the name of the pen.”
I shrugged. “Well, can I?”
She snorted. “Would I have asked otherwise?”
“You might have, Anita Carswell, just to see me splash ink all over myself.”
Anita shook her head. “Go get a bottle of ink, Marian,” she ordered. “Then if you enjoy the nib, you can drive me home and watch me replace the diaphragm.”
“I can hardly wait,” I grumbled. “What if I don’t like the nib?”
She grinned at me. “Then you can watch me replace the diaphragm and install a new nib for you. I have at least a handful that fit that pen.”
“Which ink?” I asked.
She looked at me blankly. “What?”
“Which ink? Blue or black?”
She rolled her eyes. “Whichever you prefer. What difference does it make?”
“How do I know if it makes a difference or not?” I demanded. “I’m not the incorrigible fountain pen addict here, Anita Carswell. You are!” Then, satisfied that I’d had the last word, I went off to fetch my bottles of ink.

THE END