Murder at the Washington Tribune - Margaret Truman [86]
“I don’t like him with Roberta.”
“Why? Oh, because of—”
“Yeah, because of that! What does Roberta want to talk to us about?”
“I’ll fill you in later. It’s nothing serious. She came early and we talked. Everything is fine.” She went to the stove and picked up where she’d left off preparing dinner.
Joe went to the living room and snapped the stereo into silence. The sudden hush was louder than the music had been. He returned to the kitchen and again looked out to the patio, where Roberta was laughing loudly at something Michael had said.
“Enough!” Georgia said. “Either tell him to go, or pull yourself together and welcome him.” Her tone said she meant it.
“All right,” Joe said. “We’ll get through the evening, but after that—”
“Yes, Joe, after that we’ll talk. Now go out and join them and make him feel at home.”
Her acceptance of Michael’s presence astounded Joe. It had been late into their courtship that he told her about his brother and what had happened to him. He’d done it with trepidation, certain that knowing he had a brother who’d murdered, and who’d been judged to be criminally insane, might sour her on the relationship with him. It didn’t, although she had, at times, demonstrated concern.
• • •
It was early in their marriage. They’d gone out for a pizza and saw a movie. After the show let out, they’d stopped in a coffee shop for dessert; Georgia loved ice cream, especially coffee ice cream, and Joe was always happy to indulge her frequent yen for it. They’d recently begun discussing a family. He knew she wanted children, and like her yearning for coffee ice cream, he was happy to oblige. It wasn’t a deep-seated need for him. He simply assumed that children came with marriage, and he was willing to assume the responsibilities of fatherhood.
“Want to start tonight?” he asked in the coffee shop, his hands on hers.
“Start what tonight?”
“Having a kid.” He gave his best leer, and winked.
“Oh.” She blushed, and looked around to see whether others had overheard his proposition. She slid her hands from beneath his and resumed eating her ice cream.
He tried to read her mood. Usually, she was ebullient, a glass-half-full person who seemed always to be smiling and never morose, never scowling. But it was a scowl on her pretty face that night.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Come on, Georgia,” he said. “I know when something’s bothering you. What is it?”
“Not here.”
They drove home in silence. After they’d changed into pajamas and were ready to go to bed, she said, “I’m sorry, Joe. I know I’m not being fair. Something is bothering me.”
“So, tell me. Have I done something wrong? Did I say something that upset you?”
She slowly shook her head. They were in the bedroom, sitting side-by-side on the bed. A full moon visible through the room’s skylight cast uncertain light over the room. She turned, gripped his hands, and said, “Joe, I’m afraid.”
“Afraid? Of what?”
“Of having a child.”
He laughed. “I think I know what you mean,” he said. “I’m not the one who’ll have to waddle around for nine months and give birth. But women do it every day and—”
“It isn’t that, Joe. It’s—it’s Michael.”
“My brother?”
“Yes.”
“What does he have to do with us having a child?”
She didn’t respond, nor did she have to. He knew what she was thinking, that it was possible that madness was in the Wilcox genes, that any child they had might carry those genes.
“That other Wilcox boy’s the one I’d be worried about. Insanity is in the blood and genes, runs right through a family like any other disease.”
Those words overheard from the churchgoing neighborhood woman were etched in his mind, and had been since she uttered them so many years ago.
“Look,” he said, trying to mitigate the anger he felt, not at what she thought, but because he resented having been put in this position by a brother, “things like Michael’s problem aren’t carried in anyone’s genes.”
“How do you know that?” she said.
“I just know it, that’s all.”
“You can’t be sure, Joe. My mother—”
“What about your mother? Did you talk to her about this?