Sunburn: A Novel(75)
“He has rights, Polly.”
“Don’t talk to me about his rights. There’s already a new woman, with her own kid. I know Gregg. He’ll marry her. She’ll favor her kid. Then they’ll probably have a kid together and Gregg will favor that kid. Jani’s a strong little girl. That’s why I could risk being away from her for a few months. But she’s not strong enough to rely on Gregg. No one is that strong.”
“Polly, did you kill Cath?”
“Did you really think I was the kind of woman who would abandon her kid? Because if you believe that of me, you might as well blame me for Cath and anything else. If you already think I’m a monster, I’m not going to persuade you otherwise.”
There’s a flaw in her logic, but Adam is too overwhelmed to nail it. And, once again, she has sidestepped the question about Cath.
He goes over to the jukebox, tries to remember the selection he pressed not that long ago, when they danced here together. Why is it so hard to find this time? Ah, Double A, Double 1. He presses it. Spanky and Our Gang start to sing, but the notes can’t cover the sound of crunching gravel, the bar door being slammed open hard enough so it almost bounces off the wall.
“You bitch,” Gregg says from the door, running toward Polly like a linebacker. “You crazy sick bitch. Where’s my daughter?”
Polly dives for the gun, bobbling it a bit, and Adam realizes his fears were well placed: she has no idea how to use a gun. It doesn’t matter, because before she can do anything, Gregg is on her, dragging her to the floor, while she tries to hold on to the weapon with both hands, kicking and flailing, even biting him.
The fight between them seems almost intimate, filled with the passion and bitterness that only two former spouses can manage. She never loved Gregg, Adam is sure of that, but she definitely hates him now. It’s as if Gregg is every man who ever hurt her or disappointed her. And Gregg, who has no compunction about hitting a woman, fights her on her terms, slapping and scratching and pulling hair.
Adam attempts to pull Gregg off Polly, succeeds only in loosening one of her hands from the gun. She yanks Gregg’s hair with her free hand, but no matter how hard she tears at his hair and face, he won’t let go, they are tangled together as if they may never part. Gregg has closed his hand over hers, Adam needs to step in to grab the gun, who has the gun, where is the gun—
June 11, 2017
Baltimore, Maryland
Polly studies the tomatoes at the farmers’ market. It’s not even summer officially, which makes these lumpy heirlooms quite suspect. “Tomatoes this early?” she asks the farmer, an older man. Then she realizes he’s probably about her age, late fifties. She never remembers how old she is.
“Hothouse,” he admits. “But just as good.”
She’s dubious, still she sorts through them, looking for two that are ripe and ready. She has Nueske’s bacon at home, some American cheese. She needs only to pick up a loaf of good bread from the organic baker, a head of Boston lettuce. Jani specifically requested “your famous grilled cheese sandwich” for lunch today and Polly seldom says no to either of her daughters. Besides, Jani has just graduated from law school, UB, near the top of her class. How can Polly deny her a grilled cheese sandwich? She asks for so little, this second child, has accepted with unfailing good grace that family life has to center on Joy’s needs. Jani hasn’t found a job yet, but only because she’s choosy. No Wall Street, no white-shoe firm for passionate Jani. She plans to represent people like her sister, although through a nonprofit, not a money-churning personal injury firm. How Jani loves to sneer at the cheesy commercials for such lawyers, the refrigerator magnets they send out with the Yellow Pages.
Polly doesn’t have the heart to tell her that it was just such a lawyer who made their life—their little jewel of a house, Joy’s ability to live with them—possible. It’s not important.
Should she get a good cheddar? Adam always said that nothing melts like American cheese. Maybe a mix of the two, though, so you get the best of both worlds—a perfect melt and more flavor.
Polly just hopes Jani won’t start harping on her new favorite topic: Polly dating. While Jani seemed to appreciate having Polly’s attention focused on her and Joy all these years, she is suddenly intent on pairing Polly up with someone, anyone. She talks about Match.com and eHarmony and the lonesome law professor who looks a little bit like Ichabod Crane, but is so funny. Polly doesn’t even bother to tell Jani that she has no idea who Ichabod Crane is. She says only: “I’m happy, honey. I can’t be any happier. I had a true love, once upon a time and that’s more than most people can say.”
Jani assumes that true love was her father, Gregg. Why wouldn’t she? Stories are like dough. Did Adam tell Polly that? No, but it sounds like something he would have said. Put your hands in your stories, work them, but don’t overwork them. Polly has always told Jani that the summer of 1995 was a “rough patch.” She ran away, she took a job in a small Delaware town, took up with another man. “I never expected things to end the way they did.”
Who can contradict her story? Fourteen years ago, when Jani was only eleven, her father was executed for the murder of Adam Bosk. Gregg always insisted it was an accident, that Polly was the one who grabbed the gun, fired the fatal shot. But there was the convenient fact of that restraining order she had started to pursue, via Barry Forshaw, only two weeks earlier, the belated police report on Gregg’s attempt to stalk her back in July. Polly feared Gregg. He was dangerous. The record showed that.