“There’s just one thing about the custody,” Eddie interrupted him. “You’ve got to watch your drinking. No more DWI—if you get another drunk-driving conviction, you could lose custody of Ruth. Marion wants to know that it’s safe for Ruth to drive with you. . . .”
“Who is she to say I wouldn’t be safe for Ruth?” Ted shouted.
“I’m sure the lawyer will explain,” Eddie said. “I’m just telling you what Marion told me.”
“After the summer she’s had with you, who’s going to listen to Marion?” Ted asked.
“She said you’d say that,” Eddie told him. “She said she knows more than a few Mrs. Vaughns who’d be willing to testify, if it came to that. But she doesn’t expect to get custody of Ruth. I’m just telling you that you’ve got to watch your drinking.”
“Okay, okay,” Ted said, finishing his drink. “Christ! Why did she have to take all the photographs? There are negatives. She could have taken the negatives and made her own pictures.”
“She took all the negatives, too,” Eddie told him.
“The hell she did!” Ted cried. He stormed out of his workroom, with Eddie following behind. The negatives had been with the original snapshots; they were in about a hundred envelopes, all of them in the rolltop desk in the alcove between the kitchen and the dining room. It was the desk where Marion worked when she was paying bills. Now both Ted and Eddie could see that the rolltop desk itself was gone.
“I forgot that part,” Eddie admitted to Ted. “She said it was her desk—it was the only furniture she wanted.”
“I don’t give a shit about the goddamn desk!?
?? Ted yelled. “But she can’t have the photographs and the negatives. They were my sons, too!”
“She said you’d say that,” Eddie told him. “She said you wanted to have Ruth, and she didn’t. Now you have Ruth. She has the boys.”
“I should have half the photographs, for Christ’s sake,” Ted said. “Jesus . . . what about Ruth? Shouldn’t Ruth have half the pictures?”
“Marion didn’t say anything about that,” Eddie confessed. “I’m sure the lawyer will explain.”
“Marion won’t get far,” Ted said. “Even the car is in my name— both cars are in my name.”
“The lawyer will be telling you where the Mercedes is,” Eddie informed him. “Marion will send the keys to the lawyer, and the lawyer will tell you where the car is parked. She said she didn’t need a car.”
“She’s going to need money,” Ted said nastily. “What’s she going to do for money?”
“She said the lawyer will tell you what she needs for money,” Eddie told him.
“Christ!” Ted said.
“You were planning to get a divorce, anyway, weren’t you?” Eddie asked him.
“Is that Marion’s question or yours?” Ted asked.
“Mine,” Eddie admitted.
“Just stick to what Marion told you to say, Eddie.”
“She didn’t tell me to get the photograph,” Eddie told him. “That was Ruth’s idea, and mine. Ruth thought of it first.”
“That was a good idea,” Ted admitted.
“I was thinking of Ruth,” Eddie told him.
“I know you were—thank you,” Ted said.
They were quiet for a second or two, then. They could hear Ruth harassing the nanny nonstop. At the moment, Alice seemed closer to breaking down than Ruth did.
“What about this one? Tell it!” the four-year-old demanded. Ted and Eddie knew that Ruth must have been pointing to one of the picture hooks; the child wanted the nanny to tell her the story behind the missing photograph. Naturally Alice couldn’t remember which of the photographs had hung from the picture hook that Ruth was pointing to. Alice didn’t know the stories behind most of the photos, anyway. “Tell it! What about this one?” Ruth asked again.
“I’m sorry, Ruth. I don’t know,” Alice said.