She and Mel had called every friend or acquaintance Donna could ever remember Victor so much as mentioning—no one knew anything. No one had any ideas. Victor never talked about his plans to anyone—his office had been stunned by his sudden departure. They had no idea where he might have vanished. The airlines had been initially very uncooperative, unwilling, until the police stepped in, to go over the previous Saturday’s passenger lists. When the situation was formally explained to them, they grudgingly acquiesced, but after several days, each airline had come back with nothing. No Victor Cressy was anywhere on record. And there were simply too many single parents traveling with children to try to run them all down. Sharon, of course, would not even have required a ticket. If Victor had not used his real name, and he obviously had not, there was no hope in finding them through the airlines.
The bank where Donna had shared an account with Victor was likewise of no help. They could release no information, she was told, though as Donna was about to leave, a sympathetic teller had informed her secretly that Mr. Cressy had closed his account there months ago.
None of this came as any surprise to Donna, but it did come as a constant disappointment nonetheless. Ed Gerber had been kinder than Donna had prepared herself for—he seemed genuinely surprised by Victor’s actions—but he claimed he knew nothing that could be of any help. Mr. Stamler said he had various contacts in various states whom he said he would get in touch with immediately. He also arranged for the hiring of a private detective, who so far had turned up nothing except the fact that Victor had sold his car—for cash—to Ben’s used car lot on South Dixie. He had apparently dropped it off just after leaving Donna. The private detective had also called all airline limousines and taxis but no one remembered anything substantial. One cab driver thought he remembered taking a man and a couple of kids to the airport either Saturday or Sunday, but he couldn’t remember what airline, and even if he had, there had been nothing to stop Victor from then proceeding on to another terminal. It was all futile anyway, since the airlines had no record of any Victor Cressy. Knowing Victor, Donna thought, he had probably changed planes several times in several cities, enjoying every minute along the way.
They had sent pictures of Victor and the kids to everyone they knew who lived out of state, including Mel’s four sisters, two of whom lived in the L.A. area, and two whom lived on the East Coast, and his two brothers, one in the state of Washington and the other in Hawaii. They sent similar pictures and information to Donna’s sister, Joan, who was currently living in England, just in case Victor had managed somehow to get the children out of the country.
And finally they had come here to Connecticut. To see Lenore Cressy.
The woman’s eyes filled with tears as Donna poured out her story. With each new fact, the woman seemed to grow increasingly fragile. When she finally spoke, her voice was barely audible. “I never knew that I had grandchildren,” she said, making no moves to stem the flow of her pain.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Cressy,” Donna said with genuine feeling. “I asked Victor many times in the first years of our marriage to let me call you, but he was very adamant. I kept hoping you would call, but you never did.”
“I called for almost two years, but he would never speak to me. Finally, I stopped calling.”
Mel’s voice immediately trailed the older woman’s. Donna was startled—she’d almost forgotten he was there. “How did you find out Victor had gone to Florida, Mrs. Cressy?” he asked.
“A friend of mine, Mrs. Jarvis, a widow, she went down to Palm Beach to spend the winter. She ran into Victor at a movie one night. He pretended he didn’t know who she was, but she knew.”
Donna lowered her head. Another accidental sighting like the man skiing in Aspen, Colorado. How long until they had a similar accident? A month? Two? A year? Five years? Ever? The thought made her start to tremble. She looked around the well-appointed living room. The furniture was obviously old but, like its owner, meticulously maintained.
“Mrs. Cressy,” Donna asked, leaning forward in her seat toward the woman who sat across from her. “Can you tell me anything at all about Victor that might help me find him?”
The woman shook her head. “He always took things so to heart,” she said, remembering. “Even as a boy, you had to be so careful about anything you said to him, be careful he
didn’t take it the wrong way. His feelings were always so easily hurt. You had to be so careful.” Her voice trailed off, then continued. “He always worried about doing everything exactly the right way. He could never accept responsibility if something went wrong. It was always somebody else’s fault. He used to make himself sick with worry the first day of school every year—he was always worried that he wouldn’t go in the right door, of all things. Very concerned that he wouldn’t find the right door.” Again, she stopped.
Donna stared long and hard at the woman who was obviously lost in her own memories. “Mrs. Cressy,” she persisted, “would you please call me if you hear anything from Victor? Please.”
Lenore Cressy’s voice was quiet. “No,” she said, simply and quietly.
Donna felt as if the word had been loudly shouted in her ear. For a second, she thought she had not heard correctly or that the older woman had misinterpreted her request. Lenore Cressy caught the confusion in Donna’s eyes. “You have to understand,” she said hesitating, obviously debating with herself whether or not she should call Donna by her first name or as Mrs. Cressy, and then deciding not to call her anything at all, “that eight years ago, I lost my only son because of something stupid that I did. I’m not about to make that same mistake again.” Once more, she hesitated. Donna substituted the word Donna for the pause.
“You won’t help me?” Donna asked, incredulously.
“For eight, years,” the woman answered, “I have been praying for another chance. I won’t lie to you. If Victor called me, gave me that chance, I’d never betray him again.”
“But you never betrayed him to begin with!”
“He thinks I did.” She stopped, her head moved slowly from side to side. “Funny, how sometimes the harder you try to do the right thing, the worse it turns out. I tried so hard with Victor and Janine never to interfere in their lives, always to listen to both sides if they ever came to me with a problem, not to judge them. I tried always to be fair. Look where it got me.” She looked back directly at Donna. “I’m sorry,” she said with great finality. “I won’t be able to help you.”
Donna felt the frustration rising in her voice, felt the tears edging up behind her eyes. “But they’re my children!”
The woman’s voice was calm. “He’s my son.”
“He’s a shit, what else can I tell you?”
Donna stared hard at the young woman who sat across from her amid the plethora of cushions on her bright cherry-and-pink flowered sofa. Janine Gauntley Cressy McCloud was perhaps a year or two older than Donna, her face full of interesting angles, her body lush with the early months of pregnancy.
“I spent three years on the couch because of that creep,” the young woman was saying. “It took me another three years after that to like men enough to marry one of them, and here I am now, almost thirty-six, finally about to have my first child. You know, even hearing that crud’s name still makes me angry, even after all these years.”
Donna compared herself silently with Victor’s earlier wife. Physically, there was a mild, superficial resemblance. They were both the same approximate height and coloring, the same general age range, but that was really all. Intellectually, Janine McCloud seemed more street-smart, less bookish. Emotionally, she seemed tougher,
more coarse. Not really what Donna had expected at all.
“We were married for two years, the most miserable two years of my life. Don’t ask me why. I honest-to-God have no idea. I tried—I really did. I wasn’t a child-bride or anything. I’d been around a bit. But I’d never met anyone like Victor. I didn’t know what to do for him—to make him happy. Nothing I did was right. I busted my butt trying to accommodate him, and you know what he does? He walks out! Announces he wants a divorce. I couldn’t believe it.”
“And Lenore?”
Janine McCloud stood up and walked to the window. It was night. Her husband was off playing basketball at the local Y. “Oh, her. She’s a real case. As bad as he is.”
Donna looked surprised. She remembered Victor’s assessment of his ex-wife’s relationship with his mother.
“I tell you,” the woman continued, “that whole family’s nuts. All two of them. You wanna know, I made a real effort to be friends with that woman. I was never very close with my own mother and Lenore seemed like a nice enough lady, although, at first, I tell you, she didn’t think I was good enough for her little boy and she made that very clear. If there’s one thing that lady is, it’s honest. But I was pretty persistent because it seemed important to Victor—I wanted him to be happy. So, I called her every day, I took her to lunch, I visited her all the time. I don’t think she ever really accepted me, but she tried—listen, she wanted Victor to be happy too. That was the main thing. Make Victor happy. He was her golden boy, all right. Victor Cressy could do no wrong. She always took his side, no matter what the argument. No matter how badly he behaved. She was always there to make excuses for him. He worked too hard,
she’d say, he was under so much pressure. I shouldn’t take everything he said so seriously. She was blind as far as he was concerned. She would do whatever he told her to do. I guess ’cause his father died when he was so young and Victor kind of took over, made all the decisions. And she likes that. But underneath it all, she’s a very tough little lady. You know what I used to call her? Not to her face, of course, just to myself. I used to call her Mighty Mouse!” She stopped, grimacing and shaking her head. “Hey, I’m not being very nice. I mean, when Victor walked out, she was really very sweet to me. I was in a bad way. Lenore was always there for me. Suddenly, Victor gives her some sort of ultimatum, and I guess it caught Lenore a bit off guard, she took too long to answer—I don’t know, and off he goes. Disappears. Wow! Really messed her up.” She stopped, walking back from the window to where Donna and Mel sat on the red-and-white striped love seat. “So what does she do? She cuts
me
off—right off. Same as him. Exactly. Just in case he comes back, he’s gotta see she’s no longer consorting with the enemy. Or something. Beats the shit out of me.”
Donna heard Victor repeating the same phrase during their first incredible dinner together in New York, undoubtedly borrowing an expression of his ex-wife’s, making it sound so charming because it was so incongruous.
“I really can’t help you any,” Janine Gauntley Cressy McCloud continued. “I mean, the only thing you can predict about Victor is that he’ll never do what you predict.” She sat down. “Wow. I’m beat. Talking about him is almost as bad as living with him.” She ran a hand through her shoulder-length hair. “I can’t believe how much anger I still have inside me, after all these years.”
I can, Donna thought, and stood up to leave. There was no further point in staying.
Donna sat silently for a long minute before she found her voice.
“He won’t come here,” she said. “It was a dumb idea.”
Mel looked around the dimly lit interior of the small, crowded New York restaurant. “Good food, though,” he said, trying to joke her out of her increasing gloom. “You should eat something.”
“I’m not hungry. Please don’t patronize me.”
Mel was instantly apologetic. “I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to be patronizing.”
Donna shrugged her shoulders, reluctant to look at him.
“We’ll find them,” Mel assured her. “I promise you.”
“How? When?” Please, someone, give me some definite answers.
“Someone’s bound to see him. A week from now. A month from now—”
“A year from now—”
“Possibly. Possibly more.”
“Oh, God, Mel.” Donna felt needles of panic pricking at her sides.
“The important thing is for you to stay well. To stay healthy and on top of things. You can’t let this destroy you. You have to keep going on, trying to live a normal life—”
Donna looked at him angrily, knocking over a spoon from her side of the table, hearing it fall noisily onto the floor. What was the matter with Mel all of a sudden? What was he talking about? Living a normal life?! Her children were gone! “What kind of normal life—”
He cut her off. “You’re reacting exactly the way he wants you to, Donna. And I understand it. Believe me, I understand it. But you have to stay strong because, don’t kid yourself for a minute, this is going to be a long struggle. You have to keep hoping; you have to keep looking. But most of all, you have to keep living!”
“What are you talking about?” she hissed. Several heads turned in their direction. “My ex-husband kidnaps my babies! The police won’t help. Nobody can help. We fly up to Connecticut and waste a day talking to two women Victor hasn’t seen in at least eight years, hoping they’ll be able to tell us something—anything—”
“Did you really think they’d know anything?”
“Yes!” Donna blurted, admitting the truth to herself for the first time. “Yes, I really did! Every time we go anywhere, like coming here, I think we’ll see him; every time we ask anyone anything, I always think they’re going to tell me exactly what I want to know!”
Mel reached across the table and covered both her hands with his own. “Oh, baby—”
“I can’t help it, Mel. I just can’t believe any of this is happening.”
A waiter walked over and replaced her spoon. Donna glared at him. “Look, Donna,” she heard Mel’s voice continue. Why didn’t he just keep quiet? She didn’t want to hear any more words of encouragement, of discouragement, of hope, of despair. Words, words, words. “We’re doing everything we can. We have detectives out, ads in the newspapers—”
“I know what we’re doing,” she said curtly.
Again he was apologetic. “I’m sorry. Of course you do.”
“I don’t need you tell me what’s being done.” She stopped abruptly. “Oh, Mel, I’m sorry. Listen to me, for heaven’s sake! The one person who never lets me down, who’s always there when I need you—”