"Ya don't hafta ask him," she said quickly. "I'll tell ya. He always wanted me, but he jus' thought I wasn't as good as you. Well, yer good, yer smart, and yer refined, but yer not with him when he wants ya to be. A man likes his woman at his side, don'tcha know that? Funny thing is yer suppose ta' be smarter than me and ya don't know half as much as I do when it comes to men."
"I don't believe you," I said weakly.
"Don'tcha? He told me all about yer wonderful
suite at Farthy, 'bout that picture of the Willies ya got hangin' over the bed, 'bout--" "Shut up," I said. "I don't want to hear any more of this."
"Okay, I'll shut up, but only fer now. I'm havin' Logan's child and he's gonna be responsible, ya hear? I want him ta take care of me forever and ever." She paused. I could hardly breathe. "He didn't even ask me if I had any protection that night. He jus' took me inta his arms and--"
I slammed the phone down, but I imagined that instead of being angry about it, Fanny was probably laughing. For a few moments I just sat there staring up at the picture of the Willies hanging above the bed. Then I crumpled on the bed and cried. My body shook so hard with the spasms of grief and pain, the whole room seemed to be vibrating.
Betrayed again, by the one man I thought I could always believe. By the one man who was always there. He was just like the others! It was unfair. Why was I cursed to try and trust and believe in the men whose love I needed, when they always betrayed me in the end? Fanny was right--I was dumber than she was when it came to men. Oh, Logan, how could you! How could you!
Slowly my tears wound down until I sat up, sniffling and rubbing my eyes red with my fists until they actually burned. I took deep breaths until I felt my heartbeat slow down. Then, gathering my wits together, I chastised myself for permitting Fanny to get to me. There was still a good chance she had made it all up. I had to hope for that.
With my fingers trembling, I dialed the number of the cabin in the Willies. The phone rang and rang and rang, but Logan didn't answer. I called the factory site, but again, no one answered. He might be at his parents' I thought, and dialed their number. His mother answered.
"Why, no, dear," she said, "he's not here right now. We invited him for dinner, but he's at the diner, having dinner with his foreman and one of the contractors. Is something wrong? Can we be of any help?"
"Tell him I want him to call me as soon as he returns," I said. "No matter what time."
"I will. Right away, dear."
Not more than five minutes later the phone rang. It was Logan calling me from the diner in Winnerow.
"What's wrong, Heaven? Something with Tony?"
"No, Logan. Something with Fanny," I said coldly.
"Fanny?" I heard him swallow deeply on the other end of the phone, heard the hesitation in his voice. My heart closed like a clam shell. "Ah . . ah . . . what are you talking about?"
"You know
what I'm talking about."
There was silence on the other end of the phone. "Heaven, I don't. What's wrong with Fanny?"
"You had better come right home, Logan," I said.
There was another long pause. "Heaven, what has Fanny been telling you? You know she wants to poison things between us."
"She's pregnant," I said. I wasn't going to add anything more.
"Pregnant? But--"
"I'm not going to discuss this over the phone, Logan," I said.
"All right," he said and sighed. "I'll start out immediately."
It was as good as a confession. I cradled the phone gently, as if it were a fragile baby bird and then turned and saw myself in the wall of mirrors. My neck and chest were covered with red blotches, a rash that had broken out because of my nerves. My face was so flushed I looked as though I had a terrific fever. My eyes were bloodshot and my hair, still wet from my shower and shampoo, drooped down the sides and back of my head. I looked like Jillian during one of her moments of madness.
As I sat there staring at this strange image of myself, my feelings raced from anger to outrage to self-pity. My husband had slept with my sister Fanny had at last found some satisfying revenge and given voice to her aching jealousy. I was hurt, mortally wounded. How much could love withstand? How much? People who came to Farthy would take one look at my face and see that I was a woman whose husband had betrayed her. Imagine what such information would be in the hands of someone like Amy Luckett. I imagined the vicious and arrogant girls of Winterhaven gathering around me to chant: "Heaven was betrayed! Heaven was betrayed!"
And then, as suddenly as it had come, the selfpity slipped off my image like a cellophane wrapper on a forbidden chocolate and was replaced with the heavier, darker wrapping of guilt. Troy. My beloved, beautiful, passionate Troy. I had betrayed Logan with Troy. But it wasn't the same, no, not at all. For I loved him, truly loved him with all my heart and soul even though he was more specter than flesh and blood. How could I refuse him, how? And it wasn't wrong, wasn't the same, it wasn't, because he was only a ghost of my love come back for a precious fleeting moment. My love was his life blood, and to have denied him that would have been to have denied who I was, the spirit that was purest and noblest in me. He had come back and then had returned to that unknown, unclear, mysterious world of oblivion, never to be heard from or seen again. Surely that made what I had done different from what Logan had done. I couldn't believe that Logan had any deep feelings for Fanny. It was lust, simple lust that drove him to her, and it was not love, but revenge and hatred that drove her to him She was merely an object of pleasure, a sexual distraction, a sorceress. At this moment I hated her for making my life tawdry, for turning what was pure into something soiled and base, and my hate for her gave me the strength to face the crisis.
No, I decided, I would not equate my love with Troy with Logan's carnal act. Logan was a man of flesh and blood, Troy a man of spirit and dreams Fanny was right--she knew more about men than I did. But I knew more about survival.
I said nothing about the situation with Fanny to Tony that night at dinner. I decided to let Logan explain his sudden return to Farthy himself. In any case I didn't want Tony ever to know. At dinner that night, as I tried to remain composed and seemingly serene, I saw that Tony looked somewhat revived, dressed in one of his light blue summer suits, his hair neatly brushed, but he made little conversation and from time to time simply stared across the table at me, his eyes taking on a glazed, far-off look like someone whose eyes had turned inward and who was really looking at some image or memory from his past. Between courses he sat with his elegant, wellmanicured hands templed under his chin, saying nothing, and then he lowered those fingers and drummed a mindless beat on the lace tablecloth and on my nerves.