Chapter 15
Ken Baylor was hardly prepared for the confrontation he received when he got home. Screams and tears and recriminations, a torrent of threats he expected. But this?
Diane was sitting on the davenport in the living room, a dazed expression on her face. She was slowly knotting and unknotting a handkerchief. The children were outdoors playing in the back yard. Diane looked up, forcing a glassy smile as he entered. "Hello, Ken," she said gravely.
And he understood immediately. Bad news travels and by ten-forty-three of a Friday morning it had somehow, already, got this far.
"Aren't you going to ask me what I'm doing home so early?" he asked curtly.
"I know, Ken," she said, blinking back tears.
"How? Who told you?"
Her smile was wise, patient. "Some dear little student of yours called shortly after you left. He seemed to take great glee in describing what you'd done in the most graphic detail."
"And you believed him?"
"Yes, Ken, I'm afraid I did." She looked floorward. "You see, I already knew about Tessa Vareese."
He stood in stunned surprise. "You did? But how?"
"Ken, how stupid do you think I am? I knew something was wrong. I followed you one night, saw you go into her apartment building."
"You knew, all this time?"
"Yes, I knew. But I didn't know anything about this Conte girl. I'd never, in a million years, have dreamed...."
Ken was stunned. He found it hard to find words. "And you just let me go on like that? Knowing what I was doing...."
"Yes, Ken. I tried to understand...." she touched her fingers to her eyes, ". . . I guess I went a little wild myself. I kept hoping you'd get tired of her, come back to me. I kept hoping you'd find out that it was me you really loved."
There were no words to express the boarding house hash of emotions that Baylor felt at that moment. Confusion and wonder and sorrow and a most appalling sense of humility.
"What can I say, Diane? After the hundred kinds of rotten I've been..."
"I wasn't so level headed either, Ken. That first night, when I found out about you and that Vareese woman ... I went out of my head. I wanted to hurt you, get some sort of revenge." She shuddered. "I only managed to hurt myself."
"What do you mean?"
"I went to a motel with a man. I let him do anything he wanted to me."
Ken's heart hammered wildly, he felt his scalp pucker. "You ... did what?"
"It's true, Ken. I spent the better part of that night in a motel room. With Cory Shelby."
"Cory Shelby?" Rage swiftly grew within him. "That pervert hound? My God, what did he make yon do?"
Diane was contrite, her voice small. "There wasn't much he missed, Ken."
And as suddenly the rage was gone. Who in hell, he lashed himself, are you to sit in judgment of anything or anyone? After all, you drove her to that. She should be strong when you were weak?
Wanting to humble himself still further, wanting to make his punishment complete, he went to the box he'd brought in from the car, rifled through it, found the manila envelope containing Vic Richardi's masterpieces. Everyone else in town's seen these, why shouldn't Diane?
"Here," he choked, a strange spat of emotion coming over him, a rebirth of honest affection and respect, "look at these. See what kind of a hound I've been."
"Are you sure, Ken? That ... you really want me to see these pictures? I know what they are. That filthy little boy told me everything."
"The rotten scum! Go ahead, see what you think of me afterward."
Diane took the envelope, opened it, looked at each picture at length, her face becoming strained. Then she stacked them, replaced them in the envelope. Methodically she tore them into pieces, took them to the fireplace and threw them in.
Finally she turned, two thin trickles of tears working their way down her cheeks. She slowly walked toward her husband. Almost as if she were begging him to forgive her, she tucked herself against his chest, took one of his limp arms, put that around her.
"Poor Ken," she said, her voice cracking, "my poor, poor Ken. They crucified you, didn't they? It must have been awful." Her body was wracked with tremors, and involuntarily, wanting to confer comfort, a sharp stab of careening love going through him, his arms were about Diane. He held her, rocked her.
"We've both made mistakes." she said. "I've been selfish, I've locked you out of my life."
"I forgot how to be a husband."
"But I forgot first. I laid the groundwork for the whole disastrous thing."
"No, don't blame yourself. If I hadn't been so weak..."
She looked up, kissed him gently, smiled a wan smile. "Does it matter, really? We're both equally to blame, we've both made terrible mistakes. Does that mean that we're to toss what remains of our lives away, that we're not going to give ourselves a second chance at happiness? I'm willing to try to forget if you are. Maybe in time you'll learn to love me again."
"I do love you," be said, the insane frenzy of his rebirth making his chest swell painfully, making his breath come in great, coughing gasps. "I didn't know that then, but I do now. I've always loved you."
And he realized this was so. The involvement with Tessa had been out-and-out lust, a venting of too long repressed desires, and adventure in depravity. The thing with Patti had been a product of pity, of a desire to experience a forbidden, dangerous love. But had either of them really been love? Had there been real respect, or conferral of trust, any intention of long range involvement? No, only greedy pursuit of thrills and more thrills.
"I love you, Ken, darling," she repeated. "No matter what you've done, no matter what I've done. I'll stand beside you. We'll start over together."
"And if everything blows up in my face? If I have to stand trial? If I'm sent to prison?"
"Ken?" she said in alarm. "Do you really think you might have to?"
"It's hard telling. Law is an involved thing."
"I'll wait, Ken. I will. No matter how long. I want the chance to try again." Her lips trembled beneath his. "With you..."
It would be an adventure, Ken concluded. The greatest adventure of their lives. Working together, day by day, putting pettiness aside, living toward that future when his ugly heritage had been atoned for, their love could grow to become a towering thing.
It was a goal worth working for, a goal to give exalted meaning to their lives.
"How?" Diane stirred in his arms. "Where will we start?"
"That's hard telling. It won't be easy. Not easy at all We'll just have to play it by ear, live from day to day. Until we find out where we stand. We'll have to sell out, leave Glendon Falls." He grazed her forehead with his lips, felt a delirious joy go through him. From this tragedy, this happiness and discovery..."How will you like being married to a truck driver? Or to a shovel jockey?"
"I won't mind at all. I'll love you no matter what you do."
"This is unbelievable. That you'd stick with me. After all the foul things...."
She touched his lips with her finger. "Believe, darling. It's true. I love you, I'll always stand by you."
They kissed. Yearningly, lingeringly, a savage spark ignited within them all at once. A spark that would never go out again.
And for the first time in his life Ken Baylor knew the truest meaning of the word love.