Roadblock VI
Restored in October 2026 from a 2003 copy of the original PenBase page saved by the Wayback Machine; Pentrace’s own database copy had been cut short.
The sun was warm on my face, and I would no doubt have continued with my happy reverie had not a harsh but familiar voice addressed me, “Hey, you there! Wake up!” Then after a brief silence, “My God, Mother, what are you doing here?”
I opened my eyes slowly and focused on the large male figure looming over me. Andrew, my older son, looking red in the face with annoyance, frowned down at me. He used to get the same expression when he was a frustrated or confused eight year old, struggling with a concept or a skill he could not master.
“I am visiting an acquaintance with a friend,” I said calmly. “What are you doing here?”
Andrew continued to look irritated. “You were sleeping out in someone’s backyard,” he announced accusingly. “And why do you have that awful cat on your lap?”
Roadblock had his yellow eyes fixed on Andrew and his tail was moving back and forth slowly. I could feel it brush my knees.
“He’s not an awful cat, and I was not sleeping. I was daydreaming while waiting for Laurel to return from whatever she needed to do in the house.”
Andrew scowled. “So that woman is a friend of yours?”
“What woman?” I inquired, summoning a bit of irritation of my own. “Do you mean Laurel, the owner of this house?”
“She doesn’t own it yet,” Andrew snapped. “Her husband does. At least for another few days.”
“Soon to be ex-husband,” I said sharply. “The house is part of their divorce settlement, if I’m not mistaken.”
Andrew just grunted because he could not contradict me without putting himself at risk of being wrong. Andrew never admitted he was wrong. I found that a most unappealing quality. It was definitely something he’d inherited from his father, not me.
“Don’t grunt like a boar, Andrew,” I said. “It is most unattractive.” I stretched my back which had become stiff from lack of motion. Roadblock meowed plaintively and jumped off my lap. He glowered at Andrew and paced past him with visibly raised hackles. I wanted to chuckle but controlled myself. The cat had the same reaction to Andrew that I often did myself.
“You didn’t tell my what you are doing here,” I said. “I take it from your way of referring to her that you are not a friend of Laurel’s.”
I could tell that Andrew wanted to tell me that his presence was none of my business, but he felt guilty because I had answered his questions–more or less. He always chewed his upper lip when he felt guilty. Finally he sighed.
“I’m here with Barbara’s daughter Paula,” he said stiffly. “She has come to pick up something for her fiancé.”
Barbara was Andrew’s most recent wife. They’d been divorced for a little over a year. She was a good twenty-five years his junior, but she told me that being married to him had aged her so that she felt as if she were twenty-five years his senior. I’d never passed on that remark to Andrew, though I’d been sorely tempted on occasion. Paula was Barbara’s younger daughter from a previous marriage. If what I suspected was correct, she had inherited her mother’s tendency to become involved with older men.
“Her fiancé? Who might that be?” I inquired.
Andrew flushed. “Your idiotic friend Laurel’s soon to be former husband,” he replied. “But you knew that, didn’t you, Mother?”
I smiled as sweetly at him as I could. “No, I did not, though I did suspect. And Laurel is neither an idiot nor my friend. We met only one time before and that was when she was a child.”
“So what are you doing here?” he demanded, looking perplexed rather than annoyed this time.
“Anita needed a ride,” I said. “She doesn’t drive anymore. And she promised that Laurel would tell me the story of how she came to fountain pens through adversity.”
Andrew sneered, “I’m not surprised that a story about fountain pens would interest her, but why should you care about coming to fountain pens through adversity, whatever the hell that means?”
I sighed. “I bought a fountain pen, Andrew. Nothing too expensive and not the least bit collectible. But my arthritis has been bothering me, and Anita said writing with a fountain pen would be easier.”
He rolled his eyes. “That’s ridiculous. You should get yourself a big fat roller or ballpoint with a rubberized grip.”
“But I got myself a fountain pen, Andrew, and it is working out well,” I said with a sigh. “What do you have against Anita or fountain pens anyway?”
Andrew looked surprised. “Why, nothing! I’ve always liked Anita Carswell, you know that.”
It was true. Both of my sons have always liked Anita. At first I assumed it was because they’d never been in her math classes and hadn’t seen the strict, demanding side of her. But it turned out that, unbeknownst to me, she’d tutored both of them in math at my husband’s request. He never told me why their grades in math jumped, but eventually James did. I can remember clearly his informing me that Anita was a great teacher and “a really cool person though you’d never think so to look at her.” That had amused me greatly at the time though the context had been James’ complaining that I was not a cool person and wishing that I could be more like Anita.
“Mother, why are you staring out into space like that?” Andrew demanded. “Are you ill?”
I shook my head. “No, Andrew, I’m fine. I find myself recollecting a lot of the past today. I was just thinking about James and his fondness for Anita.”
Andrew smiled. “Well, she got him through algebra which was no mean feat. James never had much of a head for math.”
“She helped you too.”
His smile broadened. “Yes, I remember her explaining sine waves to me. Until she did I never understood the connection between the definition of a sine function and the wave.” He shook his head. “I wish I’d had her as a tutor when I studied statistics at college.”
We were silent for a moment. The silence was surprisingly companionable, but then Andrew had to ruin it.
“I’m surprised you were thinking about James and not Phoebe,” he observed.
“Please, Andrew, don’t start!” I didn’t want to plead with him, but I noticed that my voice had a begging tone to it. He seemed to enjoy my discomfort.
“And how is our little girl?” he inquired sarcastically. “Is she enjoying her romantic interlude with the accountant? Quite a comedown from the sort of fellow she’s usually taken up with, isn’t he? But then he is your business manager, so she’s just showing good sense and consolidating her theft of our property.”
“Andrew, you know better!” I said angrily. “You and James have no interest in running the business. Phoebe does. Why you want to inherit a business you dislike so intensely is beyond me.”
He sneered. “Oh no, it isn’t, Mother. You know perfectly well why we want the business. We want it because it is rightfully ours.”
I rolled my eyes. “This conversation is getting us nowhere.”
“Where did you want it to go, Mother?”
I shook my head. “I’ve never understood your hostility to me, Andrew. Why, when your father sent you and James away, is it his memory you cherish so, while you are so offended by my living, breathing presence?”
Andrew looked at me coldly. “You know the answer to that as well, Mother. Going off to military school was the best thing that ever happened to me. It made me what I am today.”
I struggled to hold my tongue, wanting more than anything else to tell him exactly what I thought of the man he’d become, a selfish, uncaring prig who’d been unable to stay married for more than six months to any of his three wives. But instead I merely replied, “Could you say the same thing about James?”
Andrew shrugged his shoulders. “James, my dear Mother, is not my problem. The fact that he never adjusted to military discipline or to any structured environment may explain why he’s off raising organic turnips with that lunatic wife of his.” Andrew smiled mockingly. “Have you heard that she’s become a high priestess in some cult or other?”
I started to object, but he interrupted me. “I know, I know! You’re about to tell me that you don’t care what Artemisia or whatever her name is does as long as James is happy. But do you seriously think any man could be happy living the disordered life he lives?” Andrew shook his head. “And you finance his incapacity, Mother. Don’t think I don’t know! That makes you a whatchamacallit…, uh, I think the word those psychological types use is ‘enabler’. Of course, they’re mostly quacks and charlatans, but in this instance, they may have a point.”
I looked out at the garden as Andrew raved on. He was a lieutenant colonel in the army reserve, and he never tired of praising structure and order and discipline. James, on the other hand, was and had always been rebellious and more artistic. He had suffered terribly in military school. It always surprised me that he didn’t run away or do something self-destructive. Of course, one could say that his decision not to attend college was self-destructive, though I’m not sure that college had done much for Andrew. James simply distanced himself from all of us. The day after he finished high school he hitchhiked to California and went to work as a field hand on an organic farm. I’d seen him all of twice in the intervening thirty years, once when he married and once when he returned for Lawrence’s funeral. We spoke by phone four times a year, at his wife’s insistence, he’d given me to understand. Apparently her religion required contact with one’s parents on the solstices and equinoxes, or so James said. He also informed me at Lawrence’s funeral that instead of staying for the reading of the will, he would be leaving on the next plane and his lawyer would handle all matters of his inheritance.
When Andrew stopped to catch his breath, I stood up.
“I’m going inside,” I said as calmly as I could. “Laurel has obviously been detained, and I’m getting bored.”
I walked towards the back door, leaving Andrew, open-mouthed, behind me. When I reached the door and pushed it open, I felt something brush by my leg and looked down just in time to see Roadblock scoot past me and around the corner. I began to follow him around the corner and through the doorway that connected the kitchen to the rest of the house, but I froze in my tracks when I heard a horrified scream. Startled, I struggled to identify the sound. The voice was human and since it was neither Anita’s nor Laurel’s, I pushed bravely on into the living room.
Paula, whom I had met only once, at Andrew’s wedding to her mother, was standing on the sofa batting with her purse at Roadblock.
“Go away you horrid beast!” she screeched. “I’m not going to let you cripple me the way you did Dennis.”
I increased my speed, intending to rescue my feline friend from this deranged woman, but before I could get to him, Anita had scooped him up in her arms. He began to purr immediately.
“I’ve got him,” Anita said calmly. “You can come down off the sofa now.”
Paula glared at her mistrustfully, as if she expected Anita to release Roadblock the moment she was on level ground again.
“Take him away!: she ordered.
At that moment I heard a sharp intake of breath and realized that Laurel had been in the room for Paula’s assault on the cat. I looked in her direction just as she said firmly, “No! The cat will stay and you will leave. Right now!”
She took several steps in Paula’s direction, and Paula raised her purse again and swung her arm back. But before she could launch it, Andrew’s voice commanded, “Hallo! What’s going on here?” He snorted. “Women!” And then he jogged quickly over to Paula and grabbed the purse.
“Paula! Stop that this instant!”
I don’t know when the last time was that I’d been so glad to see my son.