Back to the 80s novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: The Garden
Russell Dunleavy lays out his terms in the garden, Lorna lays out hers, his two children test her, and her mother tells her he has already paid for her.
Russell Dunleavy came to the house at ten on Tuesday morning, and he didn't come to the front door.
He walked around the side of the house to the garden, where I was cutting back dead roses with Margaret's good scissors.
I saw his shoes first.
They were black, plain and well worn, the shoes of a man who spent his days on concrete.
Then I looked up.
He was tall, with wide shoulders and dark hair going gray at the temples.
His nose had been broken once and set a little crooked.
His eyes were dark blue, and they were taking me apart without any hurry at all.
"You're not Vivian," he said.
"No."
"I met Vivian twice, at dinners. She asked me what my truck company made."
"What did you say?"
"I said trucks."
I laughed before I could stop myself.
His mouth moved at one corner.
It wasn't a smile, but it was close to one.
"I'm Lorna," I said. "I'm the one who got the dress."
"Russell."
He looked at my cheek.
Margaret's slap had left a yellow-green shadow along the bone, and the powder didn't cover it.
His face went still.
"Who did that?"
"Does it matter to the deal?"
"Yes."
"Then I fell."
"Lorna."
"My mother. Yesterday. She won't do it again."
"No," he said quietly. "She won't."
Two small faces were pressed against the window of a blue station wagon at the curb.
A boy in a baseball cap, and a little girl with dark pigtails and a rabbit squashed under her chin.
"Your kids?"
"Ricky is nine. Posy is five."
"They don't want me."
"Ricky doesn't want anyone," he said. "Posy wants a mother who can braid."
"I can braid."
"Can you?"
"I can learn by lunch."
He studied me for a moment.
Then he told me the whole thing in about thirty seconds, in a flat voice.
His wife had died two springs ago.
His company had a yard in Norwalk, three hundred men, and a note at Ellacombe Savings.
My father had told him a marriage between the families would make the bank very patient.
"I'm not going to pretend I'm doing this for love," he said.
"I need a wife for my children and a bank that stops circling my yard."
"And I need to get out of that house."
"That I figured out when you didn't ask me anything about the money."
"I have terms," I said.
"Go ahead."
I put down the scissors.
"Nobody touches me in your house unless I say so. Nobody. Not you, not your mother, not a housekeeper."
"I haven't got a mother who'd try."
"Second. I want my own bedroom, and my door stays mine."
His jaw moved.
"You can have the east room. The door locks from inside."
"Third. I meet your children today. Before the wedding, and without you in the room."
"Done."
"And fourth," I said, and my voice dropped without my asking it to.
"If I decide I want the other bedroom, you don't get to be surprised."
He was very quiet.
I didn't know where that had come from.
Both of the women in me had said it, and neither one took it back.
He took one step closer.
He smelled of cedar soap and diesel, and under it, warm skin.
He lifted a hand slowly and tucked a loose lock of my hair behind my ear.
His thumb passed over the mole, behind the ear, and stayed half a second too long.
My breath caught.
"Understood," he said.
His voice had gone rough.
"Come meet them."
The boy rolled the window down an inch.
"Are you the one who's marrying my dad?"
"I'm Lorna. Are you the one with the baseball cards?"
Ricky looked at his father, outraged.
"You told her?"
"Posy told her," Russell said.
"I did not," said Posy, around the rabbit.
"Do you play checkers?" I asked Ricky.
"I'm very good."
"Good. I'm very bad. I've got a whole week to lose to you."
Something almost curious flickered across his face and was put away at once.
"You're not my mother," he said.
"No," I said. "I'm just better at checkers than your mother. Your father says she was terrible."
Russell made a noise like a cough.
Posy held out a bent dandelion through the window.
"It's for braiding," she told me solemnly.
I took it.
Then I went back in through the kitchen door, the dandelion in my fist.
The house was too quiet.
Margaret was standing at the bottom of the back stairs with her arms folded.
My father stood behind her with a checkbook in one hand.
"You were out there a long while," she said.
"Mr. Dunleavy is a talker."
"Mr. Dunleavy is a buyer."
She smiled, thin and satisfied.
"His lawyer's runner brought the check while you were in the garden."
"Forty thousand dollars, for the engagement costs."
"Your father deposits it by noon."
"That's your price, Lorna."
"The bank will have it. You're sold."
I looked at the checkbook in my father's hand and thought of the green ledger in the drawer under it.
"Then I'm worth a great deal more than that," I said, "and you're going to find out how much."
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