Young Wives by Olivia Goldsmith

Author:Olivia Goldsmith [Goldsmith, Olivia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007482030
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2000-12-14T05:00:00+00:00

31

Frank gets tough

Jenna lay face down on the bed, her arms thrown like rags to cover her head. Michelle sat beside her. Her daughter had come in from school and burst into tears without speaking before running up to her bedroom. It took all of Michelle’s self-control to hold herself back for almost ten minutes and give Jenna privacy to cry off some of her feelings. After all, Michelle thought, even though I’m the only one she has to comfort her, I’m part of her pain.

She had knocked on Jenna’s door, walked in, and sat on the corner of her daughter’s canopied bed. She put her hand on her daughter’s back, in the place between her shoulder blades where, from the time she was tiny, she always liked to be rubbed. But Jenna jerked herself away from under Michelle’s hand as if it were a branding iron. So Michelle just sat at the foot of the bed.

Since the indictment had hit, and all of them had been pictured in the newspapers and Frank had been on all of the local news programs (looking as much like a criminal as the media made most indicted people look) the children had fallen apart badly. Jenna came home from school either pale and silent or hysterical. And Frankie … Michelle took a deep breath and tried not to audibly sigh. Her son was too young to understand most of what was going on, but not too young to be hurt by name-calling and the fact that no one would play with him at school recess or after school. Plus, there was the loss of Kevon, who—as far as her son was concerned—had abandoned him personally.

Only Pookie could comfort Frankie, but apparently not well enough. Frankie had begun wetting his bed and woke up crying, cold and shamed when he discovered what he had done. She had thought that poor Jada was worse off than she was; her life was destroyed and her children, at least for the time being, had been stolen from her. But Jada at least had a chance to get it all back.

Poor Angie, on the other hand, had lost a man she loved, and to her friend who betrayed her. Worst of all was her pregnancy. That poor, poor girl, Michelle thought, and despite it all, she was using her time to help others. She had even helped Michelle. She pushed the thought from her mind. She didn’t want to think about what she was going to have to do about Frank.

Michelle knew she had to think positively. She was going to the custody hearing and would get to see Jada and Angie triumph. But for her, for Michelle, there could be no triumph. Being with her children and watching them in pain was unbearable. Being with Frank and knowing he was guilty was unbearable. The thought of being without Frank, on her own, stigmatized and jobless, was unbearable.

Now Michelle reached out and touched her daughter’s ankle. Jenna pulled

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