by Nancy Thayer
Yet someone was crying. Dale glanced around, suddenly filled with dismay: how could anyone be crying on this sunny, fine day?
She saw a small child, a little boy of around five in red swimming trunks, standing a few feet from her, staring out at the ocean and rubbing his eyes and crying. She looked all about, but could see no parent in sight. She rose and padded across the soft sand and knelt down next to the little boy.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Are you lost?”
“No,” the little boy cried. “My mommy’s back there, with my brother.”
“Then why are you crying?” Dale asked. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s my plastic raft,” the little boy said. He pointed to a bright yellow object that bobbed up and down on the waves of the ocean about twenty yards out. “Mommy told me not to let it go, but I did, and now it’s gone out so far I’ve lost it. I can’t get it back.”
“Well, stop crying,” Dale said. “I’ll swim out and get it for you. Okay?” She rose, eager to do the deed, grinning with pleasure at a problem so easily solved.
The boy looked at her in amazement. “But you can’t swim out that far,” he said. “That’s way out. That’s dangerous.”
Dale laughed. “No,” she said. “It’s not so far for a big person. And I’m a good strong swimmer. I won’t drown.” And she walked to the edge of the water, and boldly plunged into the cold. She began to swim with even, strong, completely sure strokes, to rescue the toy for the child.
Ten
One Saturday in late May the sun came out strong and full and the entire day was golden and fresh and warm. Since it was a Saturday, all the girls on the third floor were free from work. Daisy heard them giggling up and down the back stairs, but paid little attention to them; she had so much to do. She had settled Danny and Jenny in front of the Saturday-morning cartoons on television and carried baby Susan with her in a backpack as she moved around the house tidying up. She was in the laundry room off the kitchen, folding diapers, when Sara and Ruth Anne burst in on her.
“You’ve got to come outside,” they shouted at her. “It’s just heaven. It’s so warm!” They were both wearing startlingly bright bikinis, and their tight bellies shone with the whiteness of winter.
“Umm,” Daisy said, “all right. In a while. I’ve got to fold this laundry.”
“Well, hurry!” they told her, and turned away.
Daisy stood dumbly, a rectangle of white cotton cloth in her hands, and watched the two young women rush back out through the kitchen to the sun. Ruth Anne needs to lose a few pounds before she hits the public beaches in her bikini, Daisy thought, then shrugged. Who was she to cast a critical eye? She wouldn’t dare show up in a swimming suit, let alone a bikini. Oh, it wasn’t fair. Those girls looked so fine, even with their bits of plumpness here and there, they looked so young and healthy and all of a piece that they fairly glowed with it. Even the way they moved, almost bouncing off the balls of their feet with their energy and enthusiasm for life—while Daisy still collapsed into a chair whenever she could. Daisy wanted to sink down into the pile of laundry and cry. Susan had been born two months ago and after the euphoria of birth had worn off, the exhaustion remained. Susan still awoke at two in the morning for her feeding, and for the past week both Danny and Jenny had had colds and coughs. They managed to sleep through their coughing, but Daisy couldn’t; she would lie in her bed, listening, so tired she felt she was drugged to the bone, saying to herself that if Jenny coughed again, she would get up and give her some more cough medicine. But she knew that if she woke Jenny to give her the medicine, she would have to rock her for a long while to get her back to sleep, and she felt simply too tired to deal with that. So she lay in her bed, waiting for one more cough, and then one more before she finally fell back to sleep. Susan liked to wake at six in the morning, and so Daisy began her days in a state of queasy dizziness, and not even the richest, creamiest coffee could get rid of her headache. Oh, it was hard, it was so hard, to be alone in the house, the sole protector and caretaker of three small children. The first month had been a little easier, because first Jane and then Karen had taken Danny and Jenny into their homes, and the four upstairs girls, entranced with the novel presence of a tiny baby, had volunteered to take care of Susan now and then during the day so that Daisy could sleep. But now the novelty had worn off a bit, and although the girls still dropped in spontaneously to peek at the infant, they were more interested in their own lives, their clothes, boyfriends, jobs, amusements. Daisy had to keep talking herself out of begrudging them their freedom, their irresponsibility. They’re only eighteen and nineteen, she kept telling herself. I was free at that age, too; I didn’t have to take care of children. But still she found herself making a bitter mouth from time to time as she compared her present state to that of the girls.
They were all giddy now about buying new spring clothes and rushed in to show Daisy clever little slips of dresses or a new shirt which they wore braless and tucked into their jeans. And Daisy would admire them appropriately—and she really did admire them, they did look so pretty, but she had to keep swallowing back her envy. She wanted those pretty, skimpy clothes, she wanted a pretty, skimpy body. Instead she was still wearing her loose old maternity clothes, because whenever she nursed she had enormous breasts and was unable to lose much weight. And she was far too tired to even think of exercising, although this time, as with the last two times, she had promised herself she would start immediately doing leg raises and waist bends. Now her own body seemed to her a loose collection of sagging sacks which she unceremoniously stuffed into yet another shapeless set of sacks so that she could go through her days. At least her hair looked good. She had left the children with a sitter one day and gone out to The Clip Joint where for two luxurious hours other people tended to her needs. They washed her hair and massaged her scalp and cut her hair into short crisp layers that she could wash easily in the shower and brush dry. She was pleased with the haircut, because it made her eyes look larger and her face look thinner, and even more so because it gave her such hope. Whenever she ran a brush through her hair, she released the fragrance of the perfumed shampoo she had chosen for herself, and she felt this fragrance fall around her briefly like a mist of hope; the pleasures of self-indulgence and vanity were all slowly coming back to her. Because of this new haircut, she had been brave enough to try to look really pretty, like the old Daisy she had been, for the meeting she had had yesterday with Paul.
Paul. Now he was out in California with Monica—with Monica, his new love, and his new job. He had called yesterday before he left town for good, to tell Daisy he would like to come over to say goodbye to Danny and Jenny and to see Susan. Daisy had washed and set her hair and put on makeup and then tried for over an hour to find some combination of clothes that would make her look attractive; she had ended up throwing almost everything she owned on the floor in despair. But she had vowed to herself that she would not let Paul see her again in her old baggy robe, and finally she had gotten into a pair of jeans which she could not zip and her favorite maternity smock which hung down over the gap where her stretch-marked belly protruded from the open zipper. Each time she bent or sat, the zipper bit into her belly, and the seam of the jeans pressed into her crotch, but she could tell by the mirror that at least she didn’t look pregnant anymore, and perhaps she looked almost slim again. And she had been gratified by Paul’s first words: “Why, Daisy, you’re looking wonderful!”
“Thank you,” she said shyly, as they stood in the front hall. “You look wonderful, too.”
And he did: there he was, her husband—now her ex-husband—just as tall and handsome and lean as he had been the day he had walked out of her life. It was hard for her to look at him without loving him, in spite of everything. Whatever it had been that had caused her to love him at first was still at least partly there for her, and she had to turn her face away to hide the way she felt. “Would you like to see the baby? She’s in the playpen in the kitchen.”
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She led Paul back through the house to the kitchen and together they stood and looked down at tiny, wriggly Susan, who was lying on her back, wearing one of Jenny’s little old pink terry-cloth pajamas. She was cooing rapturously at her fist and trying to get it up to her face and into her mouth. Daisy leaned on the playpen, looking down, instantly amazed all over again at how healthy, how well formed, how really adorable her baby was. Who could resist falling in love with such a lovely child, she thought—and then looked up at Paul and saw, with a plunge in her heart, that he could, he could.
“Would you like to hold her?” Daisy asked.
Paul looked uncomfortable, but “Sure,” he said.
Daisy bent over and took the baby out of the playpen, carefully supporting the wobbly head. Paul took his daughter into his arms with a conscious awkwardness. He studied her for a while. “She’s pretty,” he admitted at last. “And she doesn’t look at all like Danny or Jenny.”
“I know,” Daisy said. “I think she’s going to look like Dale. Although I’m not sure yet that her eyes will be brown; they seem to be getting lighter.”
Paul, obviously aware that he should do something, gently bounced the infant against him for a minute and said with forced heartiness, “Well, she’s certainly all there. But she’s so light. I’d forgotten how small babies are.”
Susan began to root around against his chest, searching with her mouth for a milky breast, nuzzling at him with her whole face, pushing at him with tight demanding fists. This always made Daisy go weak in the knees with love, but Paul brought Susan away from him, held her out to Daisy and said, “Could you put her back now? I’d do it, but I’m afraid I might drop her.”
So Daisy took the baby and settled her in the playpen, and busied herself awhile adjusting the pads and giving the baby a pacifier and a pink rattle in the shape of a flower. So this was the contact that her third child would have with its father, she thought grimly, and struggled to hold back tears. Poor baby, she thought, poor little fatherless girl—and poor, lonely, pitiful me. For a moment she felt almost overcome with self-pity.
“Where are Danny and Jenny?” Paul asked. “I brought them a little present.”
“They’re on the third floor with the girls,” Daisy said. “I’ll call them.” She went to the back stairs and called up to her children that their father was there, then turned back to find Paul staring at her with an expression she could not fathom. In the clear afternoon light it seemed almost that he was looking at her with love.
“You look tired, Daisy,” Paul said. “I mean you look awfully pretty, but you look tired, too.”
“I am tired,” Daisy said. “It isn’t easy.”
“I know. I know.” Paul sank down into a kitchen chair and put his head in his hands a moment, then looked back up at Daisy. “I’m sorry about all this, you know. Or maybe you don’t know. Maybe you can’t know how sorry I am. I feel I’ve fucked up so badly. I mean the children—I wish people could somehow keep from making mistakes. Or I wish at least we could erase them.”
“Mistakes?” Daisy asked. She had to lean against the doorway for support; she was unnerved by Paul’s sudden willingness to talk, and by the way he was looking at her. “Do you think of the children as mistakes? Would you erase them if you could?”
“Oh, I know it sounds heartless to you, and I don’t mean it that way. But yes, I suppose I do think of the children as mistakes. We were so happy before the children came, Daisy; I keep remembering our first two years together, I keep thinking of those years over and over again. We had such good times. I felt we were on our way somewhere together. And then the children came and stopped everything, threw everything off track. We never got to go to Europe together, we never got to enjoy having money together, we hardly even got to know each other. I love Monica now, but I can’t say I love her any more than I loved you at first, and I hate it that my life is so messed up and fragmented this way. God, Daisy, before the children you were so happy, so lighthearted, so full of laughter and good ideas, I loved being with you. There’s no one like you in the world, you know. Monica’s wonderful, but she’s so—serious, often. You were just such a pleasure in my life. I loved knowing someone like you.”
“Oh, Paul,” Daisy said, “I’m still that person. Or I can be that person again. I still have fun, I still laugh—” For one wild instant a great hope sprang up within her, a silly false television commercial sort of vision of herself and her three children and Paul all walking along the edge of the lake, frolicking, loving each other, being a family. In her eagerness she found herself crossing the room to stand at the table next to Paul’s chair. She put her hand on his shoulder. How solid he was, how hard, how big. A man. She felt the old sexual desire move through her like a current from her hand on his strong firm arm down through her body.
“I know, Daisy, I know,” Paul said. “But it’s too late. It really is. I just don’t like children. I don’t like living with them, I don’t like having to focus my life around their needs. I’ve thought about this a lot, and I know I’m being selfish, I’m horribly selfish, but I had so little chance when I was growing up to do what I wanted, and I want to be in control of my own life now. I have to have my life. I want to enjoy my pleasures.”
At his words Daisy took her hand away and started to move off, but to her surprise Paul grasped her hand in both of his and sat staring up at her.
“But I’ll always love you, Daisy,” he said. “You. In my own way. I’ll always be sorry that it worked out this way, that you needed to have children, that you weren’t satisfied with just me, and that I’m not capable of having children in my life. I’ve been wanting to tell you this for a long time—that I’ll always love you. In my way. I—Well, I’ve brought you a present. You mustn’t laugh. It’s a sort of goodbye present. I got it on impulse yesterday. I was driving the car and I heard this song on the radio, and it seemed to say just what I feel. So I stopped at the first record store I came to and bought it for you. It’s in the sack with the presents for the children. It only cost about two dollars, it’s not much, but—I just wanted you to have it.”
“What does it say? How does it go?”
“I can’t remember it all. You’ll have to hear it yourself. But the refrain is—oh, God, I’m sorry to be so corny—the refrain is—” And Paul rose awkwardly and stood just a small distance from Daisy, looking shy and endearingly embarrassed. “It’s just something about someone always loving someone.”
“Paul—” Daisy said, and tears of real anguish came into her eyes. She longed to go to Paul, to embrace him, and damn it, damn it, not to let him go.
“Hi, Daddy!”
“DADDY! DADDY DADDY DADDY!”
And Danny and Jenny were suddenly there, stampeding down the back stairs and into the kitchen with all their childish wild energy unleashed. They rushed at Paul, meaning to attack him in their love, and Jenny fell over a chair leg and began to cry, angry at falling down, angry at not being able to reach her father as Danny had.
Paul and Daisy looked at each other; they exchanged the last strong look they would ever share, a look full of love and regret and—inescapably—of irony. “See?” Paul seemed to say. “See?” Then he and Daisy released each other from this shared gaze and Paul bent to pick up his son.
“Come here, Jenny, don’t cry, sit on Daddy’s lap and let me kiss your knee where you hurt it,” he said.
Daisy turned away and walked into the other room for a moment. She simply leaned against the wall, struggling to regain her breath and her sense of composure. When she went back to the kitchen, Paul was standing.
“I have to go now, kids,” he said. “But I’ve brought you a present. I left it in the front hall.”
Like some kind of roiling mob, Paul and Danny and Jenny and Daisy made their way back through the house to the front door where Paul had left a plastic sack sitting on the floor. He took out two presents: a fat baby doll for Jenny and a circus train set for Danny. The children squealed at the
ir presents and immediately thumped down on the floor to inspect them.
“And this is for you, Daisy,” Paul said, and handed her one thin 45-rpm record in its paper jacket. Then he kissed her lightly on her cheek and put on the coat he had flung across a hall chair and went hurriedly out the door.
Daisy stared at the closed door for a moment—the last, the final door which Paul would close against her—then said absentmindedly to the children, “What wonderful presents Daddy brought you,” and walked past them to the living room to put the record on the stereo. The music swelled out at her, melodramatic and sweeping, and Daisy stood next to the stereo and cried and cried and cried, until Susan’s fierce wails called her away from her own misery and made her go tend to her child. She picked up her baby and laid her on the kitchen table and put a clean diaper on her and put the soiled one in the diaper pail. She got a can of beer out of the refrigerator and poured it into a glass, speaking to Susan in a lulling voice all the while, “There, there, I’ll feed you in a moment.” She went into the family room and sank onto the sofa and began to nurse the baby. After a while Danny and Jenny came into the family room, complaining: Jenny wanted to see Danny’s new train set, but Danny didn’t want to share it right now, he had just gotten it, he didn’t have a chance to even look at it himself, Jenny was selfish and greedy, she had a new doll and he didn’t want to see her doll, and so on, and so on, until Daisy found herself nearly screaming:
“Jenny, you can look at the train set later. Leave Danny alone now and play with your doll. It’s a lovely new doll. And be quiet, you’re scaring the baby with your noise.”
