The Letters of Shirley Jackson

by Shirley Jackson

  me, i went to bed and slept for two hours. elmira did the dishes, stanley watched the kids, and the dodgers lost.

  friday—8 days later

  left this letter open because i wanted to add more to it, and have finally gotten a breathing space to write a little. our life has settled down considerably, and everything goes as smoothly as it could under circumstances. elmira has been terrific, and is as kind and sweet as anyone i ever knew. the children all love her. and larry got offered a new place to visit, and went off on saturday morning very pleased, and saturday afternoon a small blonde girl named kathy, just jannie’s age, arrived, and spent all saturday afternoon running away and most of saturday night yelling mommy. i thought i was going to have to send her back, and jannie was so worried, but on sunday she quieted down and by now she cries when we mention leaving. she and jannie adore each other. it has been amazing for jannie, and i have never seen her enjoy herself so much. laurie and bobbie are not completely happy together, but get along well enough, and bobbie is a little bit homesick. he is due to leave next wednesday, but kathy can stay longer if we want her, and i think we do. she and jannie are so little trouble—not half the trouble that jannie was alone—that i would really hate to see her go.

  without elmira i could not have gotten through this week, particularly since on sunday a friend from bennington arrived with his three children—two girls fourteen and thirteen, and charlie, who is laurie’s age, and they stayed for dinner and then he asked if we had room for the two girls overnight, since he had so much junk in the car he didn’t think he could make it back to bennington with all three. so i said sure, and the overnight turned into five days, so we have had seven children in the house. elmira and i figured that we made twenty-five sandwiches every noon.

  i have been working through it all—mostly late at night. the television broadcast of lottery stirred up a lot of talk, and they are thinking of doing another of my stories, and the script for the broadcast is being published, in a magazine article on something like the possibilities of television. which means that i have been getting more requests for reprints. someone is trying to make it into a ballet.

  bobbie is playing chopsticks. the two little girls are dancing on the lawn. laurie is upstairs digging out his baseball suit. baby is asleep. elmira is sweeping. stanley is in his office. most wonderful of all, i am going into new york tonight to have dinner with him. elmira said sure, she could take care of things. it’s my first time out since the kids got here, and i need it.

  love, s.

  • • •

  “For $25.00 the least it could do is coast downhill.”

  [To Geraldine and Leslie Jackson]

  thursday [August 1950]

  dear mama and papa,

  am writing because of news. a most amazing thing. i want you to brace yourselves.

  this afternoon we got us a car, and tonight i had my second (professional) driving lesson and the school says i should get my license next week. i am having a lesson every day until tuesday and then they take me by the hand and take me into the examiner and he asks me what seem to be a number of silly questions (“what is the brake used for?”) and i drive for him and then i have a license and i can drive my nice new car, which stanley insisted upon having put into my name since he is positive he will never learn to drive and it would be silly having it in his name. so i have a car all my own. it is a 1940 buick, two-tone green, and we bought it from friends and so have a reasonable idea of its competence, although i have not as yet driven it. i have driven in it a number of times, to the beach and back with the people who used to own it. it is about the same style middle-aged family car that everyone else around here drives. so i will be taking stanley to the station and the children to the beach and the groceries home from market, just like everyone else.

  anyway the man came tonight at seven-thirty and i drove until nine-thirty, through traffic and stop lights and past dogs and everything, the last hour in the dark, and did beautifully. i am just past the stage where i lean down to look on the floor to find out where the clutch is, but only just barely past.

  when i went this afternoon to get the car registered in my name, and they handed me a set of license plates i was feeling exactly like the children when they got their new wading pool, and i have been proudly showing everyone my certificate that the car belongs to me. i never felt so odd. stanley says he expects i will not write for months because i will be too busy riding around in my car. i wouldn’t be at all surprised.

  love to you both,

  s.

  this is a week after the first letter, which i did not send because i wanted to send you further news of my masterful driving.

  anyway, i have had a lesson nearly every day, but due to climatic conditions (thunderstorms every day just at my lesson time) and various crises, have not yet taken my test. i take it next tuesday and my teacher is confident that i will pass if i remember to let the clutch out EASY on a hill. today and yesterday we have spent going over and over the test area, doing everything he is likely to ask me, and except for the hill i am perfect, and do not get unduly nervous in traffic, although heaven knows what i will do without an instructor sitting next to me. i’ve been driving my own car, too, and i love it.

  naturally there have been small difficulties. for instance, my attempting our driveway without estimating my speed, and crashing into the stone wall, while eric screamed “second, second,” and i said “What? What?” and the little girls sat on the front porch and laughed their heads off and wanted me to do it again. and the trifling affair when i was practicing u-turns for my test and forgot where the brake was and rolled back into a telephone pole and it will cost fifteen bucks to get the lock on the trunk fixed. all of which amuses stanley infinitely. i took all the children riding up and down our driveway and they seemed mildly impressed, but they all want to know when will i take them to the beach?

  i will learn, you know, now i’ve started. for one thing, the people won’t take the car back. keep your fingers crossed on tuesday. eric says pray that the tester doesn’t have a hangover.

  love,

  s.

  • • •

  [To Geraldine and Leslie Jackson]

  tuesday [August 1950]

  dear mama and papa,

  you must not be too shocked, nor must you decide that nothing is safe any more, because i promise you it will be a while before i get as far as california, but as a matter of pure fact—this is true, honestly—i went today and i passed my driving test and now, apparently, i know how to drive, at least that is what the man told me. i was so frightened that i didn’t know at all what i was doing, and apparently did unconsciously all that i had been taught, because i made a u-turn and started on a hill, and parked magnificently, and when he told me i had passed i sat there with mouth open and said “what?”

  everyone is so surprised, including me. this afternoon, after i got the license, i drove the kids to the store, and parked, and got my groceries and drove home, without hitting one single thing. and then tonight i took stanley for a ride and he hung on to the window sill the whole time but all he said was “oh” every now and then. the dog is so positive that i cannot drive that he will not move from the driveway when i come up. i nearly ran him over this afternoon and stalled the car in the driveway. i also stalled it on the principal intersection here, but that was not because of the dog. one of the things the driving school taught me was not to listen to people blowing horns and yelling at me; these are of course inferior drivers who are careless and must be forced to go slowly.

  when the instructor this afternoon told me to park he waited until the last minute and so i was going fast and i turned into the parking space like a wild creature and brought up against the curb like duke snider sliding into second. the instructor had his foot over on the brake when i finall
y stopped, but i beat him to it and when he caught his breath he said “my, you came fairly close,” and i told him sweetly that the official book said no further than twelve inches from the curb. my teacher was standing across the street waiting for me and he said i looked like barney oldfield making a fast turn. we took the course almost exactly backwards, so that the hill i have never been able to start on i came to going down, and started without even thinking on a strange hill. i made a left turn into traffic while the tester’s hair turned white, and very intelligently avoided hitting a little boy who ran out in front of me. i also got around a coal truck without spilling a single coal. and now that i have the little paper that says i can drive you should see me.

  as i say, i am hesitant about driving to california for a few days yet. however, if one of these days the nose of the two-toned green buick pokes through your front door, glance at the license plate, and if it is connecticut 470, it is me.

  there is no news except my car. i have spent very little time on anything else, in the evenings—i do not know how to turn on the car lights, but the garage man promised to tell me—i have to stay home and write. my novel is nearly done, but has taken an unexpected automotive turn. we still have two visiting children, and this afternoon when i came home there were five children, stanley, and elmira, on the front porch, all yelling “did you pass? did you pass?” i was completely unable, by the way, to drive home after the test. my teacher had to drive me.

  anyway, i have a new toy. next time you write, send detailed instructions for backing up to a gas pump. i am beginning to run low.

  love from all,

  s.

  * * *

  • • •

  On October 1, 1950, Laurie rides his bicycle out of the driveway directly into the path of a car, and is thrown badly. Taken to the hospital by ambulance, he has suffered a severe concussion, broken thumb, and badly cut shoulder. It is his concussion that frightens the doctors and Shirley and Stanley so much, and the first hours and days are very stressful.

  [To Geraldine and Leslie Jackson]

  wednesday [October 4, 1950]

  dearest mother and pop,

  just a short note—i didn’t dare send a telegraph for fear it would frighten you—to say that laurie is substantially better, and the doctors are reasonably sure that he is out of danger. they let us visit him last night for half an hour, and we found him conscious and aware of the fact that he was in the hospital and hopping mad at the nurse, who gave him baby food for supper, and he nagged her into letting him have some ice cream. they have moved him out of the dark, absolutely silent room where they had him at first into another room with three other kids, where they felt he would feel more cheerful, which he does. that in itself is of course a sign of great improvement. he still cannot sit up or move around very much. the doctor said he could have one toy today, and so he is getting his birthday radio, and he has even gotten permission to listen to the world series.

  there is still danger of some damage to his brain, but they are pretty sure by now that any bad effects would have shown already, and except for a splitting headache he seems to be in perfect possession of himself. last night he insisted on knowing how he got into the hospital, and when we told him he was hit by a car he would not believe us, and the story of coming to the hospital by ambulance struck him as terribly funny and he thought we were making it up. he does not remember one single thing that happened on sunday, and of course if he never remembers the accident that is perfectly all right with everyone. he is also very much annoyed at his broken thumb, which is horribly swollen and crooked because they won’t set it for fear of further shock to the nervous system. they had to sew up his shoulder but did it while he was still unconscious and decided to let the thumb wait until it really bothered him. they are very reluctant to give him any kind of anaesthetic or sedative because of the head, but he is really quite good about the headache, which is the only bad pain he feels. he is being very brave about everything and the doctors and nurses all compliment him for that. he was mildly worried about his birthday and missing his party but we promised him a big party when he came home and that satisfied him. we are hoping that he will be able to come home sooner than the two or three weeks they first thought, but of course no one will say.

  all our neighbors have gone over it so thoroughly to get the details and have made a point of checking to see if there was any blood on the street—there wasn’t—and trying to get touching details like how does his dog feel, to which the only answer is that his dog feels terrible, which he does. the only thing is that it was completely his own fault; he came down the driveway on his bike without stopping at the road, and the poor old lady tried to stop fast and skidded into the bike. he was apparently not hit by the car itself, or not violently; all his injuries came from being thrown from the bike. there was fortunately a plain-clothes policeman nearby—we never did find out where he came from—and he took charge, calling the ambulance and forbidding anyone to move laurie, which it turned out was absolutely the wisest thing to do. we entertained laurie last night with the story of the ambulance tearing down the boston post road with the siren going and everything getting out of the way, and going through stop lights, and laurie was very sad that he didn’t remember it. he was out of his head most of the time, and not in a coma until after he had been in the hospital for a couple of hours, which was apparently very cheering for a fractured skull because apparently an immediate coma is bad.

  the phone rings every ten minutes and the doorbell rings every half hour and the neighbors have gotten together to get signs posted on our road to warn cars about children. joanne has been invited out every day for lunch and the afternoon and elmira and her mother, who are both still with us, of course, tiptoe around making special fancy dishes and have everything ready for laurie’s beloved red-kidney-bean-sweet-potato-dumpling soup when he comes home. one little girl who regards him with special favor is making him a basket of presents, and one terribly thoughtful person sent us a bottle of scotch. my publisher called this morning and said there was no hurry about finishing my book, and the dentist allowed me to cancel my appointment. we get an almost daily apology from the people who walked in casually sunday afternoon; they were driving up from new york and stopped in to say hello, and came in the front door with the remark, “it’s like a tomb in here.”

  must go. phone. love from us all.

  s.

  • • •

  [To Geraldine and Leslie Jackson]

  thursday [October 5, 1950]

  dearest mother and pop,

  i have been at the hospital most of the afternoon and evening, and both stanley and i are very happy at the way laurie seemed to be feeling. all his ailments are much less than they were, particularly his shoulder, which had begun to trouble him yesterday. the doctor took the stitches out yesterday, and they gave him an anaesthetic for it, which is itself good news. his thumb has not been set, and is very swollen but apparently does not bother him much, and the doctor said they would not set it until it hurt enough to justify the shock of setting it. his head, which is still the worrisome thing, does not trouble him as much as yesterday.

  he has his radio, and was listening to the ballgame when we arrived today. he also has a lot of comic books which he is not usually allowed, and a set of cowboys on horses which annoy him because they won’t stand up on the bed. he asked for a coloring book and crayons which i took him tonight and when we left him he was lying on his stomach coloring with the radio going, full of ice cream and not seeming at all sick. his two doctors still visit him every day but of course we can’t get any word from them about when he can come home; they want to be absolutely sure about the head, of course. he remarked tonight that he expected he would have a scar on his shoulder, and seemed very pleased at the idea.

  we were invited out for dinner last night, in bronxville, and stanley
persuaded me to go. we went to the hospital first and then when they chased us out we headed for bronxville on the merritt parkway, and got halfway and had a flat tire. we sat on the parkway for an hour, starving and getting later and later, waiting for the garageman, who finally came and fixed the car; we arrived for dinner at ten o’clock and got a cold sandwich. everyone insisted it was too late for us to head home so we called elmira and told her we were staying over, and we came back early this morning. it was a good party and, except for having to stay over, probably what we both needed. most of the people were from the new yorker and knew laurie, and so we both spent most of the evening telling people he was fine. bill shawn,*7 stanley’s boss at the magazine, is a highly neurotic and frightened little man, and he and his wife are both in constant fear of some horrible thing happening to their own children, and he was so afraid to ask about laurie that when he heard the news on monday morning he made someone else call first to ask how laurie was before he could call himself, and last night he came timidly up to me practically crying and reassured me for fifteen minutes about how everything was going to be all right before he dared ask how laurie was, and when i told him laurie was fine he went yelling off to find his wife and tell her because she had been afraid to ask. our hostess had obviously warned everyone not to talk about it because everyone kept starting to talk about it and then stopping and getting red and changing the subject. after a while everyone got tight and there was no more trouble. once i knew i didn’t have to drive home i got tight too and so did stanley and i think it was better for us both than anything else.