by Greg Fields
“I think I’d like him, Glynnis. We seem to have something in common. I suppose I can be as envious of him as I am of you.”
Glynnis paused now. She would not disclose Conor, to Martha or anyone else, in greater detail than was necessary for the moment. Conor was hers, part of her new self, an element in what she perceived as her emergence.
“Girl talk now,” whispered Martha. “Do you love him?”
But of some things Glynnis need not be protective. Of some things she could be proud. “Yes. Yes, I love him.”
“Have you slept with him?”
“Martha! There are some things that are off limits even for my darling sister. I won’t tell you that!”
“You don’t have to, Glyn. I have my answer. I had my answer even before I asked.”
“Let’s go to sleep, kid sister. This is going down dangerous paths.”
“Good night, Glynnis. And I am envious of you. More than I ever have been.”
The New England breezes had not intensified. The trees still swished softly; the old house creaked from time to time in weary protest against even the gentlest buffets of time and age. Downstairs the great clock ticked its thudding tick with a regularity that might defy the end of time itself or lead the morose to think of death, to think of the steady, stealthy, onward creep of man’s timeless and haunting agony.
Glynnis Mear rolled to her back and pulled the light blanket to her lovely chin. Summer was at its stub end; the air had grown chill disproportionately early.
For now I should have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept; then had I been at rest, With kings and counselors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves.
Job 3:13-14
The next day Glynnis and her mother went shopping through the crowded, cluttered, amorphous stores of downtown Boston. The day rose uncommonly cool for late August. The crispness of the air, blown over the harbor and carrying a hint of salt, of the faraway places, of the grandeur, spice and adventure of seaborne distances, put the city in good humor. The throngs pushing through the stores, usually impatient and grabby, moved in harmonious tolerance of one another. There were no arguments, no clogs, no delays. It was a spirit that descended on those rare serendipitous days when people are surprised by the clean, sweet, infinite exhilaration of life itself.
Glynnis shared in it fully. Browsing through the downtown stores with her mother, looking for nothing at all and so wanting to look at everything, she perceived at last a serenity that had been too rare since the death of her father. She abandoned for moment the twisting, wrenching pangs of divided passions; she saw no distortions, no grotesqueries in the life risen around her. She regarded her mother at once with a depthless well of affection, the force of which overwhelmed her and thereby weakened her. She saw her mother walk through the housewares section of an elegant department store and evaluate a lamp with her typically simple gestures—a gentle lifting of her head to rate the solidity of the base, her long fingers barely touching the cool metal when turning the price tag over and back. She walked delicately around the table on which it stood, her steps so light that they seemed ethereal, only the balls of her small feet touching the carpeted ground, her expression slightly quizzical but confident that whatever decision she might make regarding this object would be the correct one.
For Glynnis, watching her mother a few steps away, these simple movements summarized the boundless, piercing, self-abandoned love with which the woman had tried so passionately to collect the family after Robert Mear had passed, with which she had dressed every wound, dried every tear, given every gift, fixed every meal, and said every nighttime prayer to her children growing up, that defined the grace and beauty and soul of Florence Mear. When her mother returned and they resumed their walk through the store, Glynnis held her hand.
They shopped in the bright morning, then had lunch in a downtown restaurant neither believed they could afford. Afterward mother and daughter simply walked for the sheer pleasure of sunlight and sky. They walked through the Common, past the golden domed State House and up Beacon Hill to Luxembourg Square. They looked at the stately houses, the old city’s grande dames, and it made them both think of eras long dead. They returned the way they came, viewing the city from the other side. During their walk they spoke ceaselessly, commenting on what they saw—the forms of the houses, the connotations they evoked, friends and family. For the first time since her father’s death, Glynnis spoke of him with her mother warmly and comfortably, no trace of remorse. They relived their fondest moments and discussed the man’s proudly quiet character. When they at length reached the car for the short drive home, a shared serenity of this rarest of days settled around them like a protective shawl.
By the time they got home the Saturday mail had come. Florence Mear picked it up from the table at the side of the entryway and looked through it while Glynnis walked past her toward the kitchen.
“Not so fast, my darling daughter. You seem to have a letter here.”
“I do?” She turned back in surprise. Her mother held it out and as Glynnis took it from her hand she saw the District of Columbia postmark and recognized Conor’s return address. Why would he write her, and here of all places?
“It’s from the young man of yours, isn’t it?” Glynnis mother said, her face carrying the beginning of an amused smile. “You’ve still told me precious little about him, you know. A mother deserves at least a few details, don’t you think?”
Glynnis smiled back. “Perhaps I have no details to tell.”
“Nonsense. You’re marked with the stamp of romance. I think I approve, but I’m not certain yet. You have to reassure me.”
“Have you considered that you might be reading signs that aren’t really there?”
“I have but that’s not the case. You are my daughter after all. I believe I can read your secret codes better than most. Go read your letter. You can help me with dinner when you’re done. And really, I do think I approve of this young man of yours. I believe he’s very good for you.”
Glynnis went up the stairs to her room and closed the door. She sat on the edge of her bed, puzzled and excited. She wanted to read Conor’s letter casually, to dwell on each separate thought, to replay his most attractive words and phrases. She loved his mind, especially when it unraveled before her like a tapestry. His rhapsodic intellectual wanderings, the boyish energy in his words, his lilting command of a language made romantic by his mastery of it continually charmed her. Glynnis wanted to take her time with this, to bathe in the words.
She opened the envelope carefully, pulled out the sheets, and read what Conor had written her:
Glynnis,
I trust I’ve timed this letter to arrive while you are still at home. It comes, really, on the wings of a pure whim. I’ve been thinking of you all week as usual. Tonight I have no desire to do anything other than sit at the small desk in my/our bedroom and revel in every memory, every sensation, every response you’ve created in me. Writing is both a safe way to lay myself open to you, and a risky one. Safe because I can construct my words at my own pace and evaluate each thought completely before I relay it, and risky because, once committed to paper, each word becomes indelible.
I thought, too, that I might write you in Boston simply to reach you in a part of your life to which you’ve allowed me limited entrance. I’ve told you that I would love to meet your family, Glyn, and to see where it was those remarkable sensitivities and passions were nurtured. I’d like to get to know each one of them, and read parts of you in what they say and do, how they think, and who they are. If, as I suspect, you are a composite of all the people and places that have come before, then I must know them thoroughly. And they must be rare, rare people. So this letter, representing my thoughts and structured through my words, penetrates where you have not permitted my body. Romantics, particularly naïve ones, tend to view such tings symbolically.
Lately when you’re not around I’ve been taking account of the course of my life
over the past several months. The joy of each of my days has created a new standard for me, and I fear that the days ahead will have trouble matching the magic of what’s around me now. I take careful account, and contrast who I want to be with what I see.
I’ve looked closely at the people who share this space with me—those with whom I work, the blank, sullen faces on the bus in the morning, the bored mothers in the stores with their squalling children. It’s sad, Glyn. Perhaps it says something about human destiny, but I hope not. If so, then everything we’ve created for ourselves must be transitory. That thought terrifies me.
I’ve concluded what I think I’ve already understood for a long time—that most people find their lives a cold, burdensome thing. They feel too little harmony with what they do, and they define themselves solely by habit. Work is a device, relationships are predetermined to fail, pleasures are nothing more than diversions between obligations. You can see it in them, Glynnis. You can see it in deadened footsteps and glossy eyes and flat, lifeless voices. They’re beaten down, hopelessly and thoroughly depressed.
I cannot imagine myself going through life that way. I cannot imagine not viewing my work as purposeful, or seeing it only as a paycheck to support the material way I live. I cannot imagine not believing in what I do. I cannot imagine relationships grown automatic and therefore unexciting. I cannot imagine rising each day and thinking only of responsibilities I would rather not meet, people I would rather not see, and tasks I would rather not perform.
How does it happen, Glynnis, and why do they put up with it? Why do they allow it to happen? The seduction of convenience? We are, in the end, an incredibly materialistic society, and we’re obsessed with our gadgets and our conveniences. We’re conditioned from birth, I think, to adjudge ourselves along material lines. We are besieged by advertisements that are essentially mindless, we feel the pressure of our peers. We see so rarely that there are alternative ways of going through this ether. In growing up, do you remember once hearing about Gandhi, other than the name, or Dorothy Day? My heroes were sports stars or actors and actresses, people who made a lot of money and led glamorous lives. We’re given such things as our standards, as our goals, and we’re taught to grab more, and earn more, and have more, but so seldom are we challenged to be more. And I think in the end most people come to feel a vacuum in their lives—a vacuum of purpose, of genuine human compassion, of true personal value, all swept away by a consensus that says we do not define ourselves that way. We define ourselves by what we have. And cheat if you can, lie if you must.
We’ve been so fortunate, Glynnis. I find myself now continually in wonder, and continually challenged. I see challenges all around me—the challenge to fit myself into a complex society in such a way that I can feed myself and those I love while doing some good within it, the challenge to keep my passions alive and fresh, to see something worthwhile in every responsibility I accept, to find dignity in the human character however it’s presented, to remain aware that life can be a process of endless discovery.
I’m proud of the way I developed. Without sounding vain, I think I’ve worked hard to keep myself fit in every way—physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally. Thank my parents, if you ever meet them. They instilled everything in me which you might perceive as good. They’re older now, of course, and a bit jaded themselves. But there are moments when the excitement of living, the pure joy of being alive, breaks through their routine, and they become children again. I can see it in them, those rare occasions when I see them at all, and it makes me so proud. There’s depth of character in both of them well beyond their circumstances. They’ve managed to avoid most of the snares, most of the deadening blows. They’ve denied the common and damning conclusion that life is merely a series of tasks, and they passed their sense of wonder on to me. For that alone, I’ll cherish them until I die.
The room where I sit tonight is filled with so many memories of you. I can see that you have become the most precious component of what I’ve tried to create for myself. You are the final determinant of all meaning. You have taught me the sweet peril of commitment, the tender joy of vulnerability. I am a baby at your breast, and you convince me of the infinite newness, the majestic potentiality, the sheer raw ecstasy of human experience. All I create, all I do, falls softly in your gentle lap.
I do not sleep well without you. In my sleep I grope for your missing body and stir when I do not find it. Odd that I should perceive your presence now as the norm when we have had so few nights together. Still, I have a hard time adjusting to your absence at night; I do not want to adjust. In my restlessness, then, I am keeping a part of you with me. I think constantly of the comfort of just sleeping with my arms around you. Nothing more physical than that is needed to reassure me, although I think often of making love to you, too. The sweetest times, Glynnis, with you beside me asleep, my arms across your shoulders, the side of my hand brushing your breast, our legs bent in tandem. Sometimes I would stroke your beautiful hair without waking you, and I would nestle my face as deeply into it as I dared, smelling your constant scent of lilacs. Mornings, too, when we would fix our breakfast, and you smiling for no reason so that I would be moved to grab you and swing you around the kitchen, and then into the day. You in the dim light at day’s end, your eyes dreamy and your body alive, reaching for me, the soft pressure of your clothing against me, the taste of your tongue and your hands on me to return to where we had begun.
I shall leave this house this week, and we shall not see it again. That note of finality saddens me because, what we’ve created between us, we’ve created here. This place is our cradle; it breathes our lives at the very core.
I will leave you now, my lady, to your mysterious family and the Boston summer. I will leave you, with your long hair that smells of flowers, with your soft skin, and with your secretive eyes that see all sides of me. I will leave you in word, but never in thought. I am with you there, in prim and tidy Boston, although you cannot know it. I shall always be with you. I shall haunt you, in body and in thought, all the days of your life, and you will haunt me. Love itself is haunting, and we cannot do without it.
Conor
Glynnis reread Conor’s letter several times before folding it carefully and tucking it into her traveling bag. She would reread it countless more times before the pages tattered at their edges and the young man’s words became so familiar to her as to lose their power. She would keep the letter, his first letter, close to her, carrying it with her when she felt detached from Conor by circumstances of time and space. She would protect it as she would an heirloom, or a precious stone.
Nearly an hour passed before Glynnis returned downstairs to join her mother in the kitchen. Her mother was chopping carrots. “Welcome back to the nether regions. Your young man’s letter was not bad news, I trust?”
“No. He just wanted to write. Feeling lonely, I suppose,” and Glynnis said nothing more about it. The rest of the evening she remained fairly silent, speaking in sentences rather than paragraphs, as the awesome weight of passion pressed in on her from its singular direction. It gratified her and troubled her. She went to bed early to allow the naked musings of a sleeping mind sift through her reactions. There were no conclusions. There were only impressions, fleeting and ephemeral, like hope, like terror, like life itself.
***
When Conor Finnegan arrived at the apartment in the Friday twilight, only Tom McIlweath was in. He could tell by the parked cars that lined both sides of the street: Rosselli’s and O’Hanlon’s were not among them. Finnegan found a spot a few houses away. He trotted the short distance of uneven sidewalk, leaving his bags in the car. He would tote them in later. Now he only wanted to see his friends. His excitement had grown proportionately the closer he got, and during the latter stages of his drive he had scarcely been able to contain himself.
Finnegan bolted up the narrow wooden stairs two at a time. He flung open the unlocked door to find Tom McIlweath, who had heard his approach, waitin
g for him.
“Mac!”
“Conor!” and they shook hands warmly, Finnegan grasping McIlweath’s hand in both of his, then slapping him gently on the shoulder.
“Where are Lanny and Dan? Wasn’t Dan supposed to get in today?”
“They ran to the store for some beer and steaks. You haven’t eaten yet, have you?”
“No, I drove straight through. Three and a half hours of Maryland, Delaware and Jersey swamplands. I’m starved.”
“Good. We’re going to fix a nice spread.”
“Then wash it down?”
“While we compare summers. Mine was dull, and that’s all I’m going to say about it. But yours I want to hear about. In detail, with special emphasis on female experiences.”
“I’m sorry you and Anne couldn’t make it down.”
“Me too, but there was no time. I would have enjoyed it, I’m sure. I should have come down alone.”
“You’ll have your chance. Maybe you can help me move down after we graduate.”
“Then you want to go back?”
“More than anything. Mac, I couldn’t begin to describe it all—what I saw, what I did. What I felt. It was tremendous. The best experience of my life. I came of age, I think, all at once, like a supernova.”
“Typical Conorian overstatement. I see you haven’t lost your penchant for hyperbole. That’s good, and I’m envious. But I had no such experience, Conor. I’m still underdeveloped. A bit tanner, but still underdeveloped. Perhaps I should get into politics, too.”
“Go ahead. There’s room for all of us—you, me, Lanny. And then we can retire together in thirty years and become political consultants. McIlweath, Finnegan and O’Hanlon, offices in Washington, New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, and World.”
“You’ve given me top billing and I’ve done nothing to earn it.”
“All you need is a total lack of ego and the willingness to make an ass of yourself. Convictions, ideals and ethics are purely optional. In fact, they’re something of a burden.”
