“You heard Mommy’s voice?”
“Did you hear her, too?” He moved closer and then sat beside me on my bed, folding his hands in his lap and looking down.
“No,” I said, but I listened hard for any sound of her. Could she have come home during the night? Was she downstairs? “Did you hear her come home, Daddy?”
He didn’t answer. He really did look asleep, even though his eyes were open. It frightened me a little to see him this way. Suddenly, he put his hand over mine.
“Why is she doing this?” he whispered. Again, I listened hard. I didn’t hear a thing. “She’s punishing us. Of course, she’s punishing us.”
“For what?”
He didn’t answer.
“I’ll go look, Daddy,” I said.
I stepped out of bed, put on my slippers, and started out, pausing in the doorway to look back at him. He hadn’t moved or said anything more. He was still crouched over like someone who had fallen asleep in that position. I hurried on.
The dim chandeliers cast a short circle of bland yellow light over the first few steps of the stairway. We always kept the entryway light on below, but it was barely strong enough to reach beyond the slate floor. My eyes, now used to the darkness, captured the shadowy hallway and the entrance of the living room. A half-moon threw a ghostlike glow from the doorway, probably because it threaded a frail light around the not-quite-closed drapes. As I descended, the weak radiance grew a little stronger. She was there! She didn’t want to be in complete darkness.
More confident, I hurried to the doorway and gazed at the sofa, at the place where my mother usually sat, expecting her to be there waiting for me. Maybe she wanted to talk to me first, explain everything, and then go up to my father. He’d be upset, but how could I not rush to embrace her if she had come home?
There was no one. I remained in the doorway, waiting, watching every shadow to see if any would move and open to release my mother, who I dreamed would walk to me, brush my hair with her right palm, and lean to kiss me on my forehead.
“I’m back, my darling Scarletta,” she would say. “It was a mistake. Nothing. All will be well again.”
In a blink, my fantasy was gone. There were no sounds coming from any other part of the house, not even a creak caused by the wind. For me, silence always seemed to be deeper late at night. Everything that lived in fear of sunshine emerged. Mother had our house treated monthly to prevent ants, spiders, or anything creepy-crawly from establishing a home in our dark corners and especially our basement. Traps were set everywhere down there to squeeze the life out of any rodent that dared venture into our home.
My grandparents had done little with the basement. From the outside, it was approached through a double-panel trap door with a half dozen cement steps leading to the entrance. The basement ran almost the length of the house and contained our hot-water heater and furnace. On one wall, the north-side wall, there were shelves, but only the lower three had anything on them, all tools, wires, screws, and other plumbing and construction supplies.
No floors had been constructed. It was simply covered in silvery gravel. I never had any interest in going down there. It was always cold and damp and had no windows. The ceiling of it hadn’t been covered, either. Wires were visible, as was the plumbing, and there were always plenty of spiderwebs the few times I had gone down. It was a womb for nightmares.
Most of the other houses in our neighborhood had finished basements with bars and game areas. My grandparents had dinner parties but rarely anything more and saw no need to develop theirs. The basement was actually the only area of the house my mother had not changed. She wasn’t interested in a party room, either.
I turned on a hall light and walked to the kitchen. Maybe something had gotten into our house. Raccoons were capable of it. They could open doors that weren’t locked and certainly had more courage than rats. Recently, we had trouble with some raccoons that wanted to establish a family home on our roof. Mother had to call Animal Control to come and take them away. Right now, there were no sounds of anything scratching or moving inside or right outside our windows and doors. I waited a few moments and then turned off the lights behind me as I walked back upstairs, feeling even more tired.
Disappointment followed me. In my heart of hearts, despite how angry my father was, I was hoping I’d find my mother sitting in the living room, trying to build up the courage to return to her and my father’s bedroom. She was never good at apologizing for anything. If she was proven wrong beyond a doubt, she would simply grow quiet. Most of the time, she would change the subject or find fault with something else. She was especially this way with my father. Watching him closely after he had won an argument or a point, I’d see him look satisfied, but he never gloated. He swallowed down his successes as quickly as he swallowed his disappointments.
If my mother said anything at all to me after she and my father had a disagreement, it was usually something like “He’s right this time, but he’s wrong so much that it’s hard to notice or care.”
I always believed that my father’s love for my mother was stronger than any man’s love for any woman because he was so good at not getting upset with her. In the back of my mind, I imagined him thinking that whatever she had said or done paled next to the love she lavished on him when she was moved to do so. Besides, the most important thing to him was pleasing her. Who else would constantly side with his wife against his parents, even to the point of driving them away?
No wonder he was taking her deserting us so hard. There wasn’t any way to rationalize it, the way he was able to rationalize or ignore so many other things. His pride was terribly damaged. I was losing a mother’s love, but his manhood was seriously wounded. It was why he had put on such a show at dinner. I actually felt sorrier for him than I did for myself.
He wasn’t sitting on my bed, so for a moment, I thought he had returned to his. But when I stepped into my room, I saw him lying there, his head on one of my pillows. It was obvious he hadn’t simply lain back. He had my blanket over him, too. Did he think he was in his own bed?
For a moment, I didn’t know what to do. Should I wake him and show him where he was, explain that maybe he had sleepwalked here? I had no idea whether he had done such a thing in his life. Would suggesting that upset him even more? Should I go to his bed now and just leave him in mine? That was easier, but wouldn’t he feel silly in the morning, maybe terribly embarrassed? That would make me feel worse for sure.
I approached slowly and looked down at him. He was so deeply asleep. If anyone had drunk too much, it was he with his martinis, the bottle of wine, and two vodkas with coffee. I stepped out of my slippers and, as quietly and smoothly as I could, returned to my bed. I looked at him so comfortably back into his sleep. I rarely had seen him like this. He seemed younger, almost a little boy again.
Mother was always jealous of Daddy’s skin, how smooth it was, remaining untouched by time, not a wrinkle, really. Other men his age had something to mark the years, early crow’s-feet, creases around their noses, a deepness or darkness under their eyes, and even more prominent noses and lips. I had heard friends and business associates who hadn’t seen him for years call him Dorian Gray. When I asked my mother who that was, she just smirked. Eventually, I looked up the name and saw it was a character in a novel who remained young and handsome while his hidden portrait changed continually to reveal more and more of his aging, tormented soul.
It made me wonder if my father was aging inside, too. Maybe all the suffering and unpleasantness he had swallowed was eating away at him unseen. One day, he would just shatter and fall into all the signs and symptoms of age. He’d lose his perfect posture, walk slower, fall asleep in his chair more often, and have gray hair overnight.
As I studied him asleep, I wondered if he was dreaming. Was he thinking of Mother when they were young together? Was he recalling the day he realized he was head over heels in love with her? Was he remembering a dance, a walk, or a kiss? How long would all the
good memories last? How long would they be strong enough to keep him from crying himself to sleep every night? How long would it be before he decided it was time to bury even the vision of her?
One afternoon, I would come home from school and see that her portrait above the fireplace had been removed. In its place, perhaps, would be that portrait of his parents, a painting my mother had quickly shoved into some corner of the attic. I remembered the day she did that.
“Why didn’t they take it with them?” she asked my father when he voiced some hesitation. “Do they want to remind us daily how much you owe to them?”
“I earned everything my father has given me,” Daddy said, somewhat indignantly. He didn’t mean it to result in my mother pouncing and following through on her wish, but she did.
“Good. Then there’s no reason to keep it there.”
Daddy didn’t argue about it anymore. He was never a cowardly man. It wasn’t that. It was surely because of how deep his love for her was. Would I ever find a man like him, a man who would be as devoted to me as he was to my mother, a man who wouldn’t dream of hurting the woman he loved, even in the smallest of ways? Maybe men like him didn’t exist anymore.
When would my mother realize what she had lost when she left him, left us? Sure, she might be with a younger man who lived on the edges, spontaneous and wild, but would that be enough? Perhaps he was so much richer and not only didn’t have to work but didn’t want to, and therefore she had nothing with which to compete. However, I was confident that after the novelty of it wore off, she’d hope to return. I had to have that hope, and I believed that secretly, my father had the same wish.
I turned over to go back to sleep and drifted off quickly, falling so deeply into it I didn’t toss or turn. I woke before he did. Sometime during the night, he had slipped his arm around my waist. The moment I felt it, I was surprised and didn’t move. Then I slowly turned and gently lifted his arm away as I sat up. He opened his eyes and blinked rapidly first. I thought the realization that he had crawled into my bed to fall asleep would amaze and even frighten him, but he brought his hands to his face and scrubbed his cheeks.
“What time is it?” he asked, as if he slept here with me every night.
I looked at my clock. “Almost seven,” I said.
“Oh, damn. I have a meeting in Summerville at eight.” He sat up quickly and brushed back his hair. Finally, he looked at me. “You had a nightmare,” he said.
“What?”
He smiled. “You’re just like you were when you were very little. You’d never remember them the next day. That’s a blessing only a child can enjoy, forgetting dark and ugly things. I’m afraid I have to rush. I’ll have breakfast on the road,” he said. “Okay?”
I nodded.
He was the one with the blessing of forgetfulness, I thought. I recalled every single moment of last night. Was he forgetting because he wanted to forget or because he really did? Which was worse?
He hurried out, obviously eager to get to work. I sat there amazed but suddenly very worried, too. Most people would probably tell me I should be grateful that he had woken with enthusiasm for his company.
“Your father has accepted his fate and is going on with his life,” they would say. “He’s not staying home and pining over what your mother has done to him. That would only make things more miserable for you. Follow his lead. Go on with your life.”
Daddy was dressed and down the stairs by the time I had showered. I guessed he was really in a rush. He didn’t even shout “good-bye,” “have a nice day,” or “see you later.” All I heard was the sound of the car being started. When the garage door went up, the house would vibrate a little. My mother hated that, but there wasn’t much that could be done to subdue the sounds.
I chose something nicer to wear today. I was anticipating talking with Chet. By now, Jackie had surely informed him I’d be at the party. When I brushed my hair and checked my appearance, I felt a little guilty. My mother was gone a second day, and I was thinking of a boy, dreaming of a romance. But in a funny way, I thought she might approve. She might think I was growing into the woman she wanted me to be, independent, strong, even resilient enough to deal with what she had done to us. I could see her watching me from a distance and smiling. She had brought me up well; she didn’t have to feel guilty about going off. I could handle it.
I paused before going downstairs to make my breakfast and turned to look in at Daddy’s room. The bed looked like it had never been used. I struggled to remember more of last night’s details. When we came home, he had gone into the kitchen to get a glass of water. I was sure he had said good night before I started for the stairway. He hadn’t come to my room before going to his. In fact, I was in bed so fast and had the lights off so quickly I didn’t even recall the sound of him coming up the stairway.
Could it be that he had remained below, maybe sat in the living room a while, and then fell asleep in his chair? It made sense. He woke up, changed for bed, and then . . .
Then what?
By that time, had he thought he had heard my mother? Did he come directly to my room and never get into his own bed? Maybe I had jumped too quickly to conclude he was doing surprisingly well since my mother left us. Seemingly, it hadn’t disturbed his ordinarily organized life. Sometimes my mother would make fun of that. He had one of these very large calendars with every meeting, birthday, anniversary, car service appointment, dental and medical appointment, just about anything that was set to happen, penciled in. He kept it on a wall in the kitchen.
To tease him, my mother would scribble in some illegible appointment on a date two months or so ahead and then tell him she didn’t know what it was. Maybe he had forgotten. She’d look at me with a wry smile. She wouldn’t confess it was a joke, either. Eventually, I’d whisper it to him so he would realize what she had done.
“Very funny,” he’d say. Then he’d tell her that if it wasn’t for him, she’d miss her next dental cleaning or something.
“I’d just schedule another, Raymond. The tail is not going to wag this dog.”
She would accuse him of being a frustrated military officer or something, even though he had never been in the service. Everything he owned, all his toiletries, drawers, clothes, and shoes were kept as neatly as by someone who was trained to do it. All was in its proper place. “You can go on living,” Mother would tell him sarcastically, but she often praised his personal habits when he wasn’t around.
“Most men are slobs,” she told me. “They’re spoiled by their mothers and expect their wives to pick up after them. Your father’s mother was too selfish to be a mother, so he had to take care of himself. Maybe that was good. Now I don’t have to do it.”
I knew I was quite a bit neater than most of my classmates primarily because of my father’s and mother’s own personal habits. As far as I could tell, there weren’t a half dozen other girls in my class who made their beds before they left for school and made sure all their things were put away, hung up, or dropped in the basket for washing. My mother wasn’t gone three days, but I was clearly going to take on most of her household duties. I had done them with her enough times to slip into the role.
What surprised most of the women she did socialize with was that we didn’t have a maid, not even once a week like some other families. My mother hated the idea of some stranger—for that’s what she would be in her eyes no matter how long she had worked for us—seeing her personal things, touching her clothes, knowing little particular details about her. My father wasn’t as concerned about that, and I certainly wasn’t. But he didn’t see our not having a maid as some sort of negative comment about his success or our standing in the community. Sometimes I heard him brag about having a wife who could handle domestic chores and still keep herself looking like a magazine cover model.
My father told her that the wives of his associates and friends complained that she was making them look bad.
“They don’t need me for that,” she told him. “Th
ey do a good job of looking bad themselves.”
Now I was about to turn to leave my parents’ bedroom and go down to make myself some breakfast when I spotted what looked like that envelope my father had waved in the air when he told me my mother had left us. It was on top of his bureau. Somehow I assumed he would have locked it away or at least hidden it in the bottom of some drawer.
I walked to it slowly.
Did I really want to read this? Was there something even more terrible to read, something so terrible that my father had left it out deliberately? Reading her words, even though it had been done on a computer and printed out, would make her desertion more real and more devastating for me. I didn’t even want to touch it.
But it was impossible to resist. When you read words written by someone you know, know well, especially your mother or father, you hear her or his voice while you read. I couldn’t help wanting to hear my mother’s voice, even in my own mind.
I took the envelope, opened it, and pinched the paper within as daintily as someone touching ancient parchment, afraid it might crumble in her fingers. I unfolded it and read.
Raymond,
The nicest way to put this is I’ve fallen out of love with you. It’s the nicest way because it implies I once was. Although you were oblivious to it, it was happening for years. That’s not surprising. You’re so absorbed in your business that you don’t see what’s right in front of you. You are a good father, however, and I’m confident you will do right by our daughter. I think she’s more like you than me anyway, and I’m sure she will get over this situation, maybe sooner than you will.
Perhaps I could have gone on with you for a while longer, but I’ve met someone else, someone who lives in the same world I do, hears the same rhythms, and wants the same pleasures. We’re going out of the country to start our lives together. He’s not as rich as you but rich enough not to have to work, something you could never stand no matter how much money you had. Remember? Your work is who you are? Well, maybe it is, but it’s not who I am.
The Silhouette Girl Page 15
