Free Up Island by Anne Rivers Siddons Page A

another level, this caressing of my lares and penates put off the day when people came battering back into my life and it tumbled on again. I knew that. I figured I had about three days, four at the most, before the calls and visits began.
    At the end of the third day, I turned the phone back on.

    64 / Anne Rivers Siddons
    The calls came, from my mother first: “Will you please call us? We’re worried sick about you. If you don’t call us today, we’re coming over whether you want us or not. Do you need a doctor? Is Teddy all right? Have you talked to…you know, Tee, yet?”
    From my father: “I trust you to let us know when you want to talk, baby. But don’t shut us out much longer. There’s nothing so bad we can’t find an answer to it. Love you.”
    From Sally and Kevin in Washington, in tandem: “What’s going on down there? Has Tee lost his mind? Do you need anything? Want to come up for a while? Want us to come down there and kill him? Call, Molly. We’re worried.”
    From Caroline’s husband, Alan: “When do you think you could come see us? We want to know you’re okay, and I’m worried about Caroline. I’ve never seen her like this. You’d think her dad had died. She can hardly take care of Melissa.
    It would help if her father would call or come by himself; if you talk to him, will you tell him she’s drowning? Or give me his number; I’ll tell him myself. What a godawful thing to do…”
    From my committees and boards and panels: “Don’t worry about a thing. We’re coping splendidly. Why don’t you just take the summer for yourself and let us do some of the work now? Only, if you think you might want to take longer, do let us know; we’ll need to make some plans for the fall.”
    Translation: “If you’re going to be divorced by fall, maybe you’d better think about passing the torch. We love you, but you’re not going to be who you were, and we need all the strength and bucks behind us we can get.”
    The luster and largesse of Coca-Cola rarely stands UP ISLAND / 65
    behind ex-wives. A new divorcée would be a millstone indeed.
    From Livvy: “Okay. I know. Burrow in. You have two and a half more days and then I’m coming over and get you.”
    From Sheri Scroggins every day, on the answering machine, since I hung up whenever I heard her voice: “This is not helping anything, you know, Molly. We feel for you, but it’s only making things worse, you hiding like that. We really need to talk. Tee is in terrible shape.”
    From Tee, once, also on the answering machine for the same reason: “Molly, please call. Please answer. This can’t go on. It’s not fair to any of us. Sooner or later we have to sort things out. I’ll come by myself. Or meet you someplace…”
    From Ken Rawlings, our longtime lawyer and longer-time friend: “Molly, please understand I’m not calling in any official capacity. I’m sorry as hell about this whole thing. But it would be in your best interests to talk to Tee, and the sooner the better. You can afford to be generous, babe, you’re holding all the cards. I love you both, and wish to hell this hadn’t happened, but since it has, be the gal I know you are and call Tee. Or me. We’re going to take care of you.”
    “Are you going to?” Livvy said on the morning of the fourth day. True to her word, she had been on my doorstep at nine.
    I knew she would be.
    “What, call Ken? Hell, no. Or Tee, or the Eel Woman, either. I know what they want, but it’s going to be harder than that for him to…you know.”
    “Get a divorce. Say it. D-I-V-O-R-C-E. Well, if you’re not going to call Ken, you better call somebody. A lawyer, I mean. If you don’t know any divorce guys, 66 / Anne Rivers Siddons
    I can recommend somebody who can eat Ken Rawlings for breakfast. And he doesn’t have a thing in the world to do with Coke.”
    “Why? I’m not giving Tee a divorce. Not for that little nothing. Not for some little…piece of ass. He can beg until