Circle of Three

by Patricia Gaffney

  Oh, yeah, delicious, hilarious irony. While we shuddered in horror, we drew closer and closer to the object of our revulsion, finally fated to understand her. To be her. The punishment and the reward all in one.

  The toilet flushed; water ran. Mama came out of the bathroom and crossed the room to where her suitcase lay open on the floor beside the sofa. She squatted over it and pulled out her nightgown.

  I started to get up. “I didn’t think it was so late. You’re probably exhau—”

  “Stay, sit, sit, I’m not tired. I just want to get out of this dress.”

  I’d forgotten her trick of taking off or putting on clothes without showing any skin. The dress was unzipped and pulled off the shoulders, bra modestly removed with the back turned, flannel nightgown donned over the head, then dress, half-slip, girdle, and stockings pulled down from underneath. The brief flash of my mother’s pale, fleshy back, soft and sagging where it used to be firm, gave me a tender, hollow feeling. Protective. I didn’t want life to teach her any more hard lessons. If it meant she was happy, I wanted her to stay exactly as willful, overbearing, and controlling as she was right now. How long would that resolve last, though? Another five minutes?

  She sat down beside me, opened a jar of cold cream—Jergens; the flowery scent smelled as old as time—and began to smear it over her cheeks. “I’m not so sure I should’ve told Ruth about her great-grandfather,” she said.

  I knew what she meant, but I said, “Told her what about her great-grandfather? Which one?”

  “My father.”

  “Oh—you mean about the cirrhosis?”

  “She probably can’t make the connection now, but she will eventually. Between liver disease and alcoholism,” she explained, a little testily, when I continued to look blank. “You know your grandfather was a drunk.”

  “Well.” I did and I didn’t. Mama had never said it like that before: a drunk. But I had speculated. I’d known something wasn’t right about Grampa O’Hara—whom we never went to see, although he only lived an hour away in Nelson County. On a farm. Some sort of tenant farm, apparently, that she could never mention, and so she rarely did, without a visible tremor of disgust. The fact that she was saying these things now put me on the alert.

  “And he wasn’t the only one. Ralph drank, too, and Walter was heading that way before he died.”

  “I didn’t know that. Did I ever meet Uncle Ralph?”

  “You were too little to remember. We only took you out there to see them once.” The way she said them—it was the way she always spoke of her family, coldly, unsympathetically. “I couldn’t wait to get out of that house.”

  “You left when you were eighteen.” I knew this story. She’d gotten a job at an auto repair shop on Ridge Street in Clayborne. Pop was a student at Remington. They courted for two years, and married each other a week after he got his part-time instructor appointment.

  “Seventeen. I’ve always said eighteen. Doesn’t sound as tacky.” She took a wad of clean tissues out of her robe pocket and began to wipe cold cream off her face. Softening, wrinkling old face, skin drooping at the strong jaws. She didn’t look as sure of everything as she used to. The thing I disliked most about my mother was her bossiness, but if she lost that, who would she be? A diminished woman, not a new one. I didn’t want that. I didn’t know what I wanted.

  “Seventeen?” I laughed. “You never told me that.”

  “I never told you my father and my brothers were moonshiners, either. And if you ever tell that to another living soul, I’ll skin you alive.”

  “Mama!”

  “Hush, you’ll wake up Ruth.”

  I stared. “Moonshiners,” I said in a thrilled whisper.

  “Not even good ones. They drank up most of the product before they could sell it. We were dirt poor. I hated everything about my life. Nobody abused me—nothing like that, that’s not what I mean. But they were nasty, loud, dirty men, wild men, and my mama just took it. She had about as much backbone as a crawfish. I got out. I got out and made something of myself.”

  I almost smiled, amazing as these revelations were. She didn’t look very fierce in the old pink quilted robe, her face stripped of makeup. She didn’t look very self-made. What she looked like—I’d have died before telling her—was the woman in old photographs of Grandma O’Hara.

  “What do you mean, they were wild men?”

  “Not abusive,” she said again, “not in a physical way. They yelled all the time, drunk or sober. Everything revolved around them, they were the kings and my mama was their servant. So was I till I got out. I can tell you I never looked back.”

  “So you came to the big city, and Pop swept you off your feet.”

  “Swept me off my feet.” She snorted. She closed the cold cream jar, wiped her hands with the last tissue, set everything aside on the coffee table. “I wanted a man who couldn’t hurt me or change me. I wanted marriage because I thought it would keep me safe, but the last thing I wanted in a husband was gumption.”

  Gumption? She hadn’t said anything I didn’t know, but still, I felt defensive on Pop’s behalf. “So you never really loved him?” I wanted a hot, stinging denial—I didn’t care if it was true or not.

  “I admired him. I loved it that he wasn’t a country boy. He was a scholar—that swept me off my feet. He was probably poorer than I was in those days, but he always wore a suit and a tie. You could never, ever understand what that meant to me.”

  “So you never—”

  “I learned to love him. Your father is a fine man, he has plenty of good qualities, he most certainly does. A solid marriage comes along when both parties know what they want and aren’t blinded by—”She waved her hand dismissively. “Extraneous things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Unimportant details. Things that don’t last.”

  Excitement, sex, chemistry, good looks—was that what she meant? What if she meant love? And I had an idea what this conversation was really about. Jess.

  “You said you were lonely,” she went on, fastening the top button of her robe. “I’m saying I just don’t think it’s that rare, that remarkable. Everybody’s lonely. A man can’t make you happy.”

  “I know that.”

  “You have to make your own happiness after you’ve picked as wisely as you can. You have to weigh things like compatibility, good blood, having the same goals—”

  “Good blood?”

  “Nobody has a perfect marriage, honey. Yours and Stephen’s was as good as most.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I observed. And mother knows best,” she said, laughing quickly, making it a joke. “Never forget that.”

  I smiled back grimly. “Did you know I used to see a therapist when we lived in Chicago?” Of course she didn’t know, I’d never told her. “One time he said to me, ‘All my women clients come to me to talk about Mommy. But do you know, after a while it almost always turns out she’s not the problem. It’s Daddy.’”

  We watched each other.

  “About a year ago, Ruth said something. Just a casual remark, but it struck me. Stephen was in his study with the door closed—as usual. She wanted to tell him something, show him something, I don’t remember anymore, and she was complaining to me because he wasn’t available. She called him ‘the Invisible Man.’ And I remembered—that’s what I used to call Pop when I was a kid. To myself. I’d seen the movie, I guess, and that’s what I started to call him. The Invisible Man.”

  Mama shook her head slowly. “No, no, I don’t see that. Stephen was nothing like George, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  It was exactly what I was getting at. “I didn’t think so, either.” But then I saw them standing outside that night Stephen died, and it was like a puzzle coming together, the last piece in place. Click. “It’s true, Mama. I married my father.” How clever of me. From two different men, I got the identical oblivion and inattention, the same ironic, distanced, fastidious, cerebral frame of mind. A de
pressing insight, but it wasn’t brand-new. Saying it to my mother gave it an unwelcome freshness, though, like a bad smell that hadn’t had time to grow stale.

  “No,” she scoffed. “No, no. I mean, why would you?”

  “Well, maybe…to get it right. That’s why they say we do these things. You know, repeat the experience that didn’t satisfy you in your childhood, try to make it work in adulthood.”

  “No, I don’t think so. They’re both academics, that’s all. That’s as far as it goes. Stephen had opinions, for heaven’s sake. He had likes and dislikes, he had ideas. George…” She heaved a sigh and didn’t finish—to my relief. I’d heard enough from her about my father’s shortcomings for one night.

  “Stephen had a temper,” I conceded. “He did like to have his way.” So did Pop, but he got his by quiet, passive means that were probably even more infuriating. “You know, we didn’t really know each other that well when we married. Ten months. He was a scholar, of course, very smart, dedicated, very ambitious—like Pop.” I whispered, “I think it’s true, Mama. I think I married my father.”

  She looked as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  “I think,” I said, “I spent the first half of my marriage trying to fix it, and the second half trying to be happy in spite of knowing it was broken. Just trying to make the best of things. Do you remember that time I called you in the middle of the night? From Chicago, when Ruth was little? I started to tell you—oh, a little of what was wrong, and you said—well, I don’t remember, but after that—”Yes, I did, I remembered perfectly; she’d basically told me to suck it in, get over myself, welcome to real life. “After that, I pretty much gave up trying to change things between Stephen and me. And now that he’s gone, I worry that I was wrong. Maybe I should’ve done more, maybe I shouldn’t have given up so easily. Do you remember that night?” I asked when she kept silent.

  “I remember you were drinking.” She pressed her lips together tightly. “I don’t take drinking talk seriously.”

  Had I been drinking? It wasn’t impossible. But—“I wasn’t drunk, for heaven’s sake. I wasn’t!”

  She shrugged: Who’s to say?“Well, Carrie, I did not know you were that unhappy,” she said disapprovingly. “I truly did not.”

  “I wasn’t,” I said, determined to be honest, although I wasn’t sure why anymore. The intimacy we’d both wanted from this frank talk seemed to elude us more the longer it went on. “Or if I was, I didn’t know it. I think I spent a lot of time in a daze, frankly, not happy, not unhappy. Sleepwalking.”

  I looked away, blindsided by longing, a sudden surge of possibility. I could call Jess. I could dial his number and hear his voice. I could call him right now.

  “Sleepwalking,” my mother repeated in a flat tone. “All I can say is, you could’ve done much worse. If Stephen was a little like George, why is that such a bad thing?”

  “It’s not—”

  “One thing I know, life’s too short to sleep through.” She stood and started snatching up the tissues she’d thrown on the coffee table.

  “I agree with you, I’m—”

  “Maybe you’d better wake up and smell the coffee. You had a good husband, you’ve got a beautiful child—really a very privileged life in many ways. I hope you’re not thinking of throwing it away for something that’s not worthy of you. Count your blessings, that’s what you should do. Get up, Carrie, I need to pull this sofa bed out.”

  “Mama, what are we talking about?” I said, not moving. “What am I throwing away? What’s not worthy of me?”

  “You’ve got a good job now, and you’re lucky to have it. You’ve got a boss who’s steady and safe, and he’s interested in you. What’s funny about that?”

  “Nothing.”

  Oh, I was dying to tell her how steady and safe my boss was. I’d kept it from her for a jumble of lousy reasons—embarrassment, a need to keep her from being disillusioned, uncertainty over her reaction—she might not believe me, or she might find Brian and slug him. Telling her now seemed nasty, though; the timing was just too perfect.

  She didn’t like my smile, which must’ve looked more like a smirk. “So Brian Wright is not good enough for you? You’re not interested in a man with prospects?”

  “A man who wears a suit and tie, you mean.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Not a thing. You want to talk about this, Mama?”

  She flushed. “What do you mean? We are talking. I’ll tell you what I want—you to get up so I can make my bed and go to sleep. I’m tired, I’m an old lady.”

  “I take it that’s a no.” I was as angry as she was. I stood up, because I was used to obeying, but I wasn’t finished. “I don’t like the things you’ve been saying about the Arkists,” I said, pulling the coffee table out of the way. She stopped throwing cushions off the couch and stared at me. “Why are you doing it? You can be opposed to the project, that’s up to you, but why do you have to take the lead in it, Mama? You didn’t have to start a committee, you didn’t have to write a letter to the damn editor.”

  “Why shouldn’t I? I’m a member of the community, I can voice my opinion.”

  “You know why. Because this means something to me.”

  She clucked her tongue and went back to work. “Foolishness. Your own daughter says you’re neglecting her. And for what? Ark animals,” she said in a harsh, sneering voice; if Ruth hadn’t been in the next room, she’d have yelled it. “In a barn, with a farmer. Two farmers.”

  “Well, now we’re getting to it. It’s got nothing to do with civic duty or church and state or good taste or—what was it?—small-town aesthetics. I should’ve cut it out of the paper, because you really outdid yourself.”

  “I didn’t write it, the committee did.”

  “But it’s your committee.”

  “I don’t understand your attitude.”

  “I’m explaining it to you.”

  “Not now you’re not, I’m going to bed. Honestly, Carrie, I’m tired.”

  I looked at her across the low, beige-blanketed sofa bed, weighing the pros and cons of prolonging the argument. I wasn’t used to picking fights with my mother, but I was even less used to her retreating from them. It seemed perverse, upside-down, and I had that impulse again to protect her. Anyway, we had a ritual: she decided what we fought about, I mollified her until I couldn’t stand it, we argued, she won or I backed off, and it was over. Comfortable as an old sweater. Look where it had gotten us.

  She turned away first, went to the closet to get down extra pillows. “So, tomorrow. Would Ruth hate it if we went to the Botanic Gardens after the National Cathedral? I’d like to go, but not if it’s going to bore her to tears.”

  She was good at this. A timely change of subject, along with a subtle reminder of who was the host on this trip, who were the guests. Gracious guests humored generous hosts; they didn’t start family fights at one in the morning.

  Message received, Mama. We kissed cheeks, said good night, and retired to our separate camps.

  I took a shower to calm down, get the argument out of my head. In a barn with a farmer kept ringing in my ears. After a little while the harshness my mother had given the phrase faded, though, and a gentler connotation took its place. I missed my farmer. Missed his barn. I put on my nightgown and stared in the foggy mirror at my new, alarmingly short hair, and wondered if Jess would like it. Men liked long hair on women—I’d always heard that. What if I’d made a terrible mistake?

  He touched my hair the last time we were together. Wednesday afternoon, in the ark barn. I took half a day off from work and went to Jess’s to paint animals. Landy wasn’t there, he’d had to leave early to go see his father.

  After he left, Jess didn’t talk. He wasn’t haughty or cold, he just didn’t say anything. On the Sunday before, he’d held my hand, but three days later he wouldn’t speak to me. Not that I blamed him—I’d pulled away, spoiling the natural progression. The unspoken natural progre
ssion. I think we both knew we were drawing closer—but slowly, slowly, and on my terms, of course. At my pace.

  “Come and look at this, tell me if the ears look funny,” I said in the dim, drafty barn, standing back from my almost-finished elephant. My masterpiece, I considered it in secret. Jess put down his drill and came to stand next to me. “No, they look fine.” “Sure?” “Yes.” He started to go back to his wheels.

  “I’m sorry about the other day,” I said quickly. “Getting defensive about my mother—God, that was stupid.” I trusted him to know what I was really apologizing for. “I don’t even know why I was mad. I thought I wanted to fight with you. But I don’t, that’s not what I want.”

  His eyelashes came down, shuttering his expression. My long, messy braid—gone now—lay on my shoulder, and Jess lifted his hand and stroked it with his fingers. What I felt was the slight weight of his wrist on my collarbone, strong as a burn. Through my jacket, two sweaters, and a T-shirt. “What do you want, Carrie?”

  Oh, just everything. I wanted him, mostly, but I was still afraid of him. I wanted to honor my husband’s memory. I wanted my mother to approve of me.

  “If I told you,” I said, making my voice playful, “would you give it to me? Everything I wanted?”

  “No.” He slid his fingers inside my collar and stroked my skin. “But I’d try.”

  I had to close my eyes. “I don’t know anyone like you,” I whispered, “I never have. I need some more time.” I looked at him, half afraid I would regret my words, but he nodded. “I’m not running away this time, I swear. But I’m standing still. Please, Jess—you do, too. Wait. Because it would be so easy…”