For Love

by Sue Miller

  Harvard Square is jammed with traffic, and Lottie has to move slowly through it. She’s so gracious to jaywalkers that she infuriates the guy behind her, who leans on his horn to encourage her to get into the right spirit. As she approaches the gourmet sandwich shop near Porter Square, she remembers Ryan and their comradely lunch on the back stoop the day before. She parks and goes in.

  The place isn’t as full as she expects. She looks at her watch and is surprised to see it’s one-thirty: the lunch hour is mostly over. She realizes she hasn’t eaten yet today. While the young man behind the counter – who might be moving underwater, everything happens so slowly with him – fixes her expensive sandwiches, Lottie has a cup of coffee and a brownie in the little back room. She has to shift the chewy cake to the left side of her mouth, away from her sore tooth.

  There’s one guy sitting alone back here, smoking what smells like a Gauloise and reading a paper; and there are eight or ten people gathered around several tables they’ve pushed together in the corner, having a meeting of some sort. It is orderly in the extreme. They raise their hands to make their announcements; gatherings are planned and signed up for months ahead of time.

  They are wearing Earth shoes; two of the men have beards, the women have on peasant blouses and ethnic jewelry. Their goodness, their worthiness, are apparent. ‘Terry and Felice are going to have a potluck the week before Thanksgiving to plan the Christmas events, and they need to know how many are coming. A show of hands.’ With her face bare of makeup – not even washed, she remembers! – Lottie probably looks like a potential member. Yes, a woman catches her eavesdropping and smiles warmly. Someone else speaks of the need for visits to Naomi in the hospital, and some time is taken working out a good rotation. There’s a discussion of the Christmas ‘events’ – are there too many? not enough? It’s noted that it is a tough season to get through. There are moans of agreement.

  These people are Lottie’s age or maybe just a little younger. She is incredulous and, she notes, slightly jealous, even while she knows she wouldn’t be able to sit through a whole meeting like this. But to fill your life with such harmless happiness seems remarkable to her. Who cares if it’s makework? There is something to be said for the sheer mad organization of it. Does your group have a purpose? she wants to ask. Are you concerned with some greater good? Or are you, say, a volleyball team with social life appended? They are still at it when she leaves to get her sandwiches from Mr Thorazine.

  She pulls up in front of the house and looks at it. The porch sags, she sees this clearly as if for the first time. And without the shutters the neighboring houses have, the house itself looks blank-eyed, a pale woman with no makeup. Still, it will sell. It will all take care of itself. It will sell, and this part of her life will be gone, finally. And she will be nothing but glad. She thinks of her mother again, her mother and her yearning for home. Is it this building, this street, she yearns for? Somehow Lottie doubts it. It’s probably finally as abstact as the pang Lottie can sometimes feel when she hears the word ‘mother.’

  Lottie suddenly remembers a moment of seeing her home just this freshly once before: when she’d come back from college in final defeat. Seeing it and thinking, No. She’d yearned for it while she was away, she’d convinced herself it was the right thing to do, to leave college, to come home and save more money before she tried it again. But stopped then in front of the house, having hauled her suitcase up from Harvard Square, she couldn’t believe how cheap it looked, how little and shabby. Somehow it wasn’t the home she had in mind.

  That night her mother had made a meal, she remembers, and they sat together at the kitchen table to eat, as they hadn’t, it seemed, in years. Chicken and mashed potatoes. Her mother had a glass of beer by her place. They ate in silence. Neither of them really knew what to say. That her mother was glad she’d come home was clear. Lottie can’t remember her own feelings; perhaps she didn’t have any.

  But then somehow Lottie’s mother started talking about Cameron, about how ‘high and mighty’ he was. Her mouth had shaped a bitter curve. ‘He always thinks so well of himself, he’s always trying to be what he’s not.’ And then her voice had warmed. ‘That’s not the way you are, Charlotte. You’re more down-to-earth.’ She said a number of other things, all meant to make Lottie feel allied with her – but what Lottie was feeling was a growing sense of shocked clarity: her mother had wanted her not to make it! She had seen Lottie as less than Cam! Lottie had remembered then all the small things, mostly things not done, that had made it harder for her to get out, to go. All the ways in which her mother had insisted, somehow, that Lottie was hers. That to have ambition, to want out, was to be ‘high and mighty,’ to think well of yourself. Oh, why not? she wants to cry out now on behalf of that younger Charlotte.

  At the end of the meal, her mother piled the dishes in the sink, saying she’d do them the next day. Perry Como was on; she wanted to watch. When Lottie didn’t join her in the living room within a few minutes, she called out, ‘I hope you’re not doing those dishes in there, Charlotte. I said I would, and I will – in the morning.’ The height of graciousness.

  Lottie had sat for a while at the table, thinking in a variety of befogged ways about what she should do next. For so long she had simply wanted to be where she was. Now she saw she couldn’t stay, and a void seemed to yawn in front of her. Life. Lottie hadn’t a glimmer of an idea about what came next.

  And now, twenty-five years later in her car in front of the house, she has something of that same feeling. Bridges burned, it seems. Decisions to be made. She sighs. She can hear what she assumes is Ryan’s radio faintly from the back of the house. There are little kids on bikes pedaling in big looping circles behind her in the wide street. She opens the door and heaves herself out of the car. She walks slowly up the front stairs, and then through the empty rooms to the back of the house. The back door is open, and through the rusty and paint-dotted old wooden screen, she sees the dappled sunlight as blotches of lighter green in the scraggly yard. She pushes the door ajar.

  Ryan is almost next to her on the ladder – it startles her – painting the window to his bedroom.

  ‘You look starving,’ Lottie says, holding up the white paper bag with the sandwiches in it. ‘I have lunch.’

  He starts down. ‘I actually ate a couple of hours ago, so I’m not. Starving. But I’ll take some coffee if you want to make it.’

  When he comes in, Lottie is already at the sink, rinsing out the coffeepot. She puts the kettle on to boil. ‘Why didn’t you make coffee?’ she asks.

  ‘I did. It was horrible,’ he says. ‘Hey, where did you go? I thought you were sleeping late. Then I thought you were really sleeping late. And then I thought you must be dead, and I checked on you and you weren’t even there.’

  ‘The Cameron chase again. I found him.’

  ‘Oh. How is he?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t talk to him, actually. But I know he’s okay, which is the main thing.’

  ‘But where has he been this whole time?’

  ‘Oh, out and around. A little crazy, as you might suspect.’ She thinks of his voice on the telephone. ‘But he seems to be back to the normal routine now.’ She spoons the grounds into the paper filter. ‘He visited Mother today.’ This is true. It sounds normal, and it is true.

  But Ryan is barely listening. ‘Well, good,’ he says. ‘And I found out about the service. Jessica’s service.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And it’s tomorrow, at twelve-thirty. I wrote it all down. Elizabeth came over and told me. She wants you to call her when you get in. Like, now.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘She said it was very important, quote unquote.’

  ‘Okay. I will in a bit.’

  ‘I just deliver the messages.’

  He goes into his room. Lottie hears him washing up. He comes back bent forward from the waist, his hands and face dripping. He uses three or four paper towels to dry himself.

  ‘You look as thoug
h you’re just about done out there,’ she says. ‘True?’

  ‘When I finish these windows. I figure a second coat tomorrow, and that’s that. Unless you want me to do any more inside.’

  ‘I don’t think so, hon. There are a few more things I can do. But we’re not about to start anything radical.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. So. I’ve been trying to decide whether I want to go directly home, with you, and then come back east and visit Dad; or stop to see him on the way to Chicago.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know exactly when I’ll be heading back to Chicago.’ The water is starting to boil. She’s glad to have to turn her back to him.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Of course, you can go on ahead of me. I’m sure Jack will have no problem with that.’ She pours the water into the grounds, watches it begin to dribble through.

  ‘I don’t think so, actually. I mean, no insult intended, it’s just that it is his house, you know. I just … I don’t know. I’d rather you were there.’

  ‘There’s a room all set for you. All your stuff.’ She turns around now and rests her buttocks against the sink.

  ‘No. I know. It’s just, you know. The car and all. And … well, I’d just be more comfortable.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘So. So I guess i’ll go to Dad’s for a week or so. That’s about what he’s been talking about, lengthwise.’ He gets a cup out of the cupboard and comes to stand by the pot. The dripping has slowed. He looks at Lottie. His face seems vaguely fearful to her. ‘Think you’ll be heading back by then?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says lightly.

  So that’s when she’ll do it. Good. And then she’ll see. She imagines her return: she imagines Jack, absurdly, standing as he was, in the driveway with the old dog, watching her approach, just as he watched her depart.

  Well, whatever happens, she says to herself, Ryan deserves some time in Chicago. He deserves to see his friends, to move in with his books and trophies and yearbooks and sports equipment and old letters and homework; all the stuff he’s religiously saved all his life with an avidity and affection that has always startled Lottie.

  Together they watch the last drops filter through. Then Lottie lifts the paper cone and grounds, still dripping a little, and throws them away.

  Ryan pours a cup and sips it, carefully. ‘Okay. So that’s set. I’ll call Dad in the next day or two, then. Let him know.’

  Lottie watches him for a moment. ‘You going to work some more?’ she asked.

  ‘Mm-hmm.’

  ‘I think I’ll come out and help you, hon.’

  ‘You’re supposed to call Elizabeth.’

  ‘I got the message, thank you. I will call her, later.’

  ‘Okay.’ He shrugs.

  ‘I’ll go change into painter’s stuff,’ Lottie says.

  ‘Fine with me,’ he says, and heads, carefully balancing his full cup, toward the back door.

  While Lottie is upstairs, though, Elizabeth comes over. Lottie hears her in the hall, calling, the way she did earlier in the summer.

  For a second or two, Lottie thinks of not answering, simply hiding. She doesn’t want to hear about Cameron’s midnight visit. She doesn’t want to defend taking Elizabeth’s letter, or to talk about what Larry – Lawrence – was doing over here for so long last night. She doesn’t even want to discuss the lies Elizabeth has told about Jessica and Ryan, about Cameron and Jessica.

  But somehow she’s been implicated in all this; somehow there is this scene to play out too. And then, she tells herself, she will be finished. ‘I’m up here,’ she yells back.

  She hears Elizabeth come to the foot of the stairs. ‘Shall I come up?’

  ‘No. No, I’m changing. I’ll be right down.’

  She takes her time, carefully folding the clothes she’s removed. Finally, carrying her paint-dotted, worn-out running shoes, she starts down the stairs.

  Elizabeth begins to talk before Lottie has reached the landing. ‘Charlotte, listen, you have got to do something about Cameron. I came over earlier. I’ve been frantic. I need your help.’

  Lottie raises her hand, as if to ward this off, to slow Elizabeth down. ‘This stuff is between you and Cameron, Elizabeth. Whatever’s going on is strictly between you two. There’s nothing I can do – that I’m going to do.’ Lottie sits down on the stairs and starts to put one of her shoes on.

  Elizabeth is silent. Lottie ties her shoe, not looking at her. Then Elizabeth says urgently, ‘Char, please,’ and Lottie lifts her head. Elizabeth’s eyes are glistening. ‘You’ve got to listen. He’s gone crazy, Charlotte. He sneaked into the house last night. I … In the middle of the night, I woke up. I heard a noise, and there he was. Just standing there, in the bedroom. God! Looking at me! At Lawrence and me. I was terrified.’

  ‘Of what, exactly?’ Lottie’s voice is calm. She slips her other foot into its shoe.

  ‘What do you mean? Of everything! Of him, for one. Of what in God’s name he was doing. Of Lawrence’s waking and seeing him, and … who knows? A fight? I mean, what did he want? What if Lawrence had seen him?’ Elizabeth’s hands are in motion all this while, the silver bracelets glinting.

  ‘What did he want?’

  Elizabeth stops. She stares at Lottie. ‘How can you be so calm? I find this … This is very irritating, Charlotte. Your response. This is crazy, his behavior. And you know it. He’s out of control.’

  ‘What do you think he wanted?’ Lottie repeats. She bends to tie the other shoe.

  ‘How would I know? I called him, actually, this morning, and for once he answered the phone, and I asked him just that. And he said some ridiculous thing about wanting to make himself look at it. At us. Jesus.’

  ‘Well, so that’s what he wanted.’ She pulls the bow tight.

  Elizabeth’s face changes, watching her. She says, ‘Charlotte, you think this is crazy too. Don’t tell me that you don’t. This is absolutely nuts.’

  Lottie gestures back toward the kitchen. ‘I have some stuff I have to do now, Elizabeth. Do you want to come out and talk to me while I paint?’

  ‘No,’ Elizabeth says. ‘Charlotte, look. What I would like is for you to get him under control. I have one more day here to get through, just this service tomorrow, and then I’m gone. And I’m just terrified. I’m really scared.’

  ‘That Lawrence will find out.’

  ‘No!’ she wailed. ‘No, not even that. Lawrence is gone, I told you that. I mean, that’s the point, really. I’m alone now. I’m alone and I’m terrified.’

  Lottie stands up. She’s on the third step. She’s taller than Elizabeth up here. She likes the feeling. ‘Elizabeth, I’d like you to try to understand that I haven’t got a prayer of controlling Cameron, as you put it. I can’t even get in touch with him. And if he’s hurt or angry, or whatever … I don’t know, maybe he has a right to be. You’ve treated him shabbily. You’ve been a real shit through this whole thing. No one else has mattered, not Cam or Jessica or even Ryan, for God’s sake. You’ve lied to everyone around you. Telling Jessica’s mother she went out to moon over Ryan.’

  Elizabeth’s face is livid, suddenly. Her hand rises and rests on her bosom, the carefully painted nails set wide apart.

  ‘Oh, that’s the least of it, of course,’ Lottie says, disgusted with herself. ‘I mean, that can’t hurt Ryan, really. Or anyone, I suppose, for her to think that. But you’ve just been so damned … self-serving, at every turn.’

  Elizabeth turns away. She draws a slow breath and exhales loudly. Then she says, in a small voice, ‘There’s a lot at stake for me, Char.’

  ‘And not for Cameron?’

  She looks directly at Lottie. ‘This is my marriage. It’s my life. It’s my children’s life.’

  ‘Isn’t it possible, just possible, that he sees this as his life? That he sees his life, in fact, as – preposterously, of course! – of equal importance to yours?’ Lottie smiles a harsh smile.

  Elizabeth is shaking her head. ‘Somehow he h
as to know, he had to know, that it was a fling. It was a summer romance. We never talked about the future, I never lied to him. If he thought otherwise, he deluded himself. Himself.’

  ‘Well, then. I think he may have deluded himself. What a pity.’

  ‘That tone is hardly helpful, Charlotte.’

  Lottie snorts, a bitter laugh. ‘Let me say, Elizabeth, that I feel no obligation to be helpful to you. I was helpful to you with your husband.’ She pauses for a second; she’s aware of a flush rising to her face. ‘Your little soirée. And then I found out that you’d led him to believe Cameron and Jessica were somehow involved. And I still kept my mouth shut, which was asking a lot. Or doing a lot. Unasked. So the idea that I now have any further obligation to you just … boggles my mind. For God’s sake.’ Lottie comes down the steps. ‘And now I have to go help Ryan, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘I do mind.’ Elizabeth is standing in the way.

  ‘Well, that’s too bad, then.’ Lottie moves to step around her, but Elizabeth steps sideways.

  ‘No; you need to listen to me for just a minute. What I’m telling you is important. Charlotte, listen!’ Her voice shrills.

  Lottie moves past her, crosses the dining room. Elizabeth is walking directly behind her. ‘You have to talk to him. Listen. I’m warning you, he’s dangerous, Char.’ Her voice rises as she speaks.

  As she’s stepping toward the screen door, Lottie looks back at Elizabeth.

  ‘He is; he’s dangerous. Charlotte, in San Francisco – listen to me!’ Her voice rips, and she grabs Lottie’s elbow. Her fingernails dig in, and Lottie cries out. Through the old screening, she sees Ryan rise and turn to look in at her, confused, and then start to move up the steps; but freeze in the dappled sunlight when he hears Elizabeth, behind Lottie, begin to cry – a raw, gasping sound.

  ‘In San Francisco I had … to get a restraining order. Do you understand what that means? I had to go to the police.’ She releases Lottie; she covers her face. ‘I had to tell them he meant to hurt me. That he wouldn’t leave me alone.’ Lottie has turned to watch her. ‘Oh, God.’