Women Within

by Anne Leigh Parrish

  Just as she had needed to believe that she was in love with him. On some previously unknown level within her, she feared she was incapable of love, and so sought it, or invented it.

  “I could never make you happy,” she said.

  “I do not require happiness. But I do require love.”

  “Are they not the same?”

  He laughed. “How little you know of the French!”

  She smiled. “No doubt.”

  His mood had improved in those few moments, yet there was still hunger in his eyes. Constance excused herself and went to her room, where she sewed a few rows of the tapestry, something she did each morning before leaving for the library. She had recently progressed to Betrothal and Marriage. The generic young girl who’d taken her First Communion was now a taller, though unremarkable, young woman looking down at her left hand, where an equally uninspiring kneeling male figure had just slipped an engagement ring on her finger.

  Now, nearly seventy years later, she held the canvas in her lap and went on remembering until her head drooped, and she was asleep. Eunice removed the canvas, then she and Sam got her into bed without waking her, courtesy of her sleeping pills, and left her to rest, dreamless.

  chapter three

  The offer from UCLA was not the one she wanted. She’d hoped it would come from an Ivy, but those all went to men. They had to be paid back for their service in the war, didn’t they? She was lucky to receive an offer at all really. Women who held PhDs were strange creatures. No one seemed to know what to do with them.

  That’s what Lois Maynard told her, at any rate. She still lived in the big house in Dunston. Constance had visited her there, after leaving Providence on her way west. Lois had grown frailer, though she still moved deliberately and in a way that suggested a larger person. Her hair was completely white now, pinned up and held with lovely silver clips.

  Constance asked if she was lonely, living by herself. Lois stared at her probingly. Constance understood. They’d never been much for direct speaking. Day after day of polite and distant interaction. The crises, such as they were, easily met. A hand on her fevered forehead, syrupy elixir dispensed; a quiet voice in response to tears caused by a playground slur, the command to always rise above.

  “I’m an old woman, and many think that an old woman shouldn’t live on her own. Your father, for one,” Lois said.

  “You’re in touch? I had no idea.”

  “Not for quite some time. Then he called just the other day, before you arrived.”

  Constance had had very little contact with her father over the years. He’d visited her once, when she was thirteen. He’d praised everything about her in a way that suggested he didn’t—and wouldn’t—worry anymore about her. Constance hadn’t assumed that this would come to mean he’d take no further interest in her. Before the visit, there had been letters and telephone calls, more at first, then dwindling to only on her birthday. Lois always said he was busy, and wasn’t the kind of person who tended to communicate all that well. Even as a child, Constance had understood that her feelings were being spared. From her mother she’d heard nothing, which was easier to accept, given her situation. Sometimes Constance had wondered if she were still crazy, or whatever the precise nature of her illness was, then she stopped thinking about it. She came to love living in Dunston and enjoyed Lois’s slowly increasing generosity. She had nice clothes, went to Smith, then to Brown, then abroad without having to pay for any of it herself.

  “What did he have to say?” Constance asked.

  “Your mother remarried.”

  Constance’s parents had divorced not long after she left Los Angeles. News of it had come in one of her father’s early letters. I’m afraid we split up, were his exact words. Another letter informed her that her mother had left the rest home and was working in a new theater troupe, managing costumes, never on stage herself. His tone was almost kind, as if he felt sorry for her. He’d called her, the poor dear.

  Lois suggested that they move to the screened-in sun porch. The summer day was hot and humid. The dining room they’d been in was paneled with dark wood. That, along with the heat, made it particularly oppressive. They sat side by side in dusty rocking chairs. Lois set herself to a slow rhythm of back and forth. Constance sat still.

  “Why would he make it a point to tell you? That doesn’t make any sense,” Constance said.

  “He called to ask for money. He’s given up the bookkeeping business, apparently. The moment I agreed, his mood improved. He went on and on. Your mother was just one of many things he mentioned.”

  “But why are they even in touch? They’ve been divorced for years.”

  “I guess they ran into each other. He was a bit vague about that.”

  The new husband owned a grocery store, Lois said. Constance’s mother went in to buy a loaf of bread. One thing led to another, as it does with lonely people. The husband was a widower. He had no children. He wanted children.

  “Which brings me to the second bit of news. You have a baby sister. As of about two weeks ago,” Lois said.

  Constance did the math. She was twenty-six. Her mother had had her before she was even twenty, but she was still pretty old to have another baby.

  “It doesn’t seem like it would have been possible,” Constance said.

  “She’s not young, it’s true. But the baby’s healthy. It’s really a miracle, when you think about it,” Lois said.

  The tone in her voice made Constance see how much she must have wanted a child once. Her late husband—Constance’s grandfather—was said to be a cold person. Yet he required companionship. After his first wife died, Lois was the answer, especially when Edgar, Constance’s father, grew up and went west. Lois was a widow in her forties when they met and married; he was at least fifteen to twenty years older still. A child wouldn’t have been a good idea, even if it could have been possible, physically.

  So many solitary people, and now this baby, this sister! Constance didn’t know how she felt about it.

  “I got the sense that your father hoped you would see him—all of them—once you get yourself settled in L.A.,” Lois said.

  “I can’t imagine why I would.”

  Lois closed her eyes for a moment, as if fatigued.

  “Just try to remember that family is family,” she said.

  “I don’t think of them as family at all.”

  “No. I suppose not.”

  Constance remembered being very young, holding her mother’s hand, having her hair brushed, her face washed, her feet helped into socks and shoes. Her mother’s touch had been soft. Then it turned rough, and then was absent altogether. She tried to imagine the woman her mother was now. Did she look at her baby’s face and remember Constance at that age? But there was no point in thinking about any of that. No point at all.

  A blue jay soared from the top of a pine tree at the edge of Lois’s yard. Its color was startling, and caused a sudden surge of joy in both women. They watched the bird light on one branch, then another, then lift off and disappear into the stand of trees separating Lois’s yard from her neighbors. Neither was thinking any longer about Constance’s mother and father, or of Los Angeles. They were firmly in the present, wishing for the bird to return, then resuming other trains of thought when it was clear that it would not.

  “Do you ever think about visiting England again?” Lois asked.

  “I’ll be able to, when I get my first sabbatical.”

  “You enjoyed your summer there.”

  “I did.”

  “Your letters were amusing, all about that horrid little Frenchman and Professor Spalding.”

  Constance cast her mind back
. She’d wondered from time to time how Jean-Phillipe was getting along. He’d promised to write and never did. She never wrote, either.

  “I enjoyed the story about getting a fancy piece of needlework from that old woman.”

  “It was a nice surprise.”

  “Do you still have it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Here, with you?”

  “Yes. Would you like to see it?”

  “That would be splendid.”

  Constance climbed the stairs to her old room, opened one of her two suitcases, and reached down below all the summer blouses she had carefully folded, thinking how warm it would be in her next home. The canvas was rolled and slightly mashed from being transported. She tucked it under her arm and returned to Lois. She sat and unrolled the canvas across her lap. In that white summer light the gray wool she had used for a baby’s blanket took on a pearl-like luster. She had never noticed that before. The wool was new and not particularly high quality, an ordinary two-ply, but she saw then that one of the wrapped threads had more depth than the other. She couldn’t imagine how such an effect had been achieved. She had learned how wool was spun. She’d observed it years before, on a farm there in Dunston, and again in England when she took herself alone on a day trip to Colchester. A miracle of nature, clearly. It pleased her enormously.

  Lois examined the canvas.

  “Quaint,” she said.

  “More like propaganda.”

  “Aren’t you cynical!”

  “Well, honestly.”

  “If you think it’s silly, why do you work on it?”

  “I like to embroider.”

  “Might I try a row or two?”

  “Of course.”

  Lois’s fingers were twisted with arthritis, yet she sewed well. Constance had never seen Lois hold a needle and thread before. She mentioned this.

  “Oh, I’m an old hand at this sort of thing. I was responsible for many seat cushions, in my day. All that fine work, just to receive someone’s posterior.”

  She worked the baby’s cradle slowly and carefully. She examined her stitches. She seemed satisfied.

  “I’m tempted to jump ahead,” she said, pointing to the empty figure of Widowhood.

  “I don’t have any black yarn.”

  “When you get there, let her wear red. Why not?”

  A pleasant breeze brought the smell of freshly mown grass from somewhere, yet did little to ease the heat. Even so, Lois shivered. She ran the needle through a bare patch of canvas to secure it until next time, and looked at Constance.

  “You know, I’ve been thinking. I’ve spent an awful lot of time here in this big old house. Drafty in winter, too close in summer. I might just take a trip out to see you when you get settled. Wouldn’t do a bit of harm to shake myself up a bit.”

  Lois looked quite pleased with herself. The thought of travel, for the first time in years, certainly since Constance had come to live with her, had brought color to her face. Constance could see the much younger woman she once was, and that she’d been lovely.

  chapter four

  Eunice helped Constance into a clean dress and combed her hair. Then she checked her nails and gave them a little trim. She wiped her nose. She straightened the room, made the bed, and emptied the trash basket, though it contained little.

  Eunice worked alone. Sam was somewhere else. Constance was glad. She preferred Eunice. She was quiet and delicate. A deep thinker, that one. Wasted on caring for the elderly certainly. But maybe she saw it as her life’s calling. That was hardly likely though. Only a fool would love touching old bodies.

  “Why are you smiling?” Eunice asked.

  “Just thinking about old bodies.”

  “I see.”

  “You think I’m off my rocker.”

  “Just full of surprises.”

  Constance had refused her prescribed sleeping pills six days before. Her mind had been slow to clear at first. Now, she felt like herself again. Saucy, someone to be taken seriously, or at least not quickly dismissed.

  “Give me that mirror, won’t you?” Constance asked.

  Eunice gave her the hand mirror from the top of her dresser. Its face was dusty. Constance asked Eunice to clean it for her. Eunice wiped it with a rag she had in her pocket.

  “Thanks,” Constance said.

  She supposed the wrinkled, blotchy mess in the glass belonged to her. Mirrors were evil things. You had to confront the relentless process of time. Nature was so cruel. Surely, at the end, though, there was mercy? She passed the mirror back to Eunice.

  “She’ll be here soon. You just sit there and enjoy all this lovely sunlight until then, okay?” Eunice said.

  Constance didn’t want to see her. She had no choice. Meredith had requested a formal evaluation. She wasn’t sure that Constance was still capable of rational thought. The meeting would begin with a social worker. Depending on her recommendation, a doctor might also be consulted. Constance could ask to see her files and the notes from her quarterly care meetings, which she no longer attended though it was still her right to. They might give a hint about what the staff thought of her mental acuity, which was a lot better now since she was off the pills. That decision came upon her suddenly one morning at breakfast as she stared stupidly into her oatmeal, the tapestry in her lap because Eunice had let her take it with her just that once, and was met with concern from the nurse who came around every evening with the medications cart. They’d always been optional and could be discontinued if she wanted. And now, she wanted.

  Meredith wasn’t young, though sixty-six wasn’t as old as it used to be. She wore it well, Constance supposed. She was fashionable, in a quiet, understated way. In her career as a financial planner, looking successful was important. She had a number of elegantly cut jackets and slacks. There was often a silk scarf, a broach on the lapel, a heavy bangle bracelet. Makeup was minimal, hair was short, more gray than white. People trusted her. She gave an impression of wisdom coupled with serenity.

  She wasn’t wise. She formed attachments with some of her clients, usually men, though sometimes a woman, that were not of a romantic nature so much as a form of psychological dependence. She wanted friends. Most people were confused by being asked over to dinner or to the movies or to go along to the mall to pick out a pair of shoes for an upcoming conference. Nearly everyone begged off, made a polite excuse, or simply didn’t return her call. As far as Constance knew, Meredith had never lost a client after displaying her social neediness, but then she couldn’t be certain.

  Nor was she serene. She had a sharp edge. Old disappointments could suddenly surface, and she would talk bitterly about things she’d been denied or missed out on. These included a father, siblings, joining the Girl Scouts, learning to ride a horse, knowing her way around a kitchen, even how to iron. The makeup of the family Constance hadn’t been able to help. Everything else had essentially been up to Meredith to ask for, or show an interest in. Constance didn’t offer things because she assumed if Meredith wanted anything badly enough, she’d have made her desire known.

  Constance was dead sure that Meredith wanted this evaluation so she could be put in charge of her money. The current arrangement was that the manager at the bank drew up a small number of monthly checks and brought them by for her to sign. These were to Lindell for her rent, a donation to a homeless shelter, and another to an organization that helped women become small business owners in Africa. There had been no irregularities; the account was never overdrawn. The bank saw to that. It wasn’t, therefore, a question of competence, but of access. Meredith wanted a peek at Constance’s accounts. She wanted to know what was coming to her when Constance died. Why c
ouldn’t she wait? How much longer did she have anyway? She was already vested to make medical decisions for her if things got dire. Now she wanted a power of attorney, to write checks herself.

  But then, it was possible that Meredith wasn’t acting out of greed, but a sense of duty, affection, even. She was capable of that. A tender heart had once been hers.

  What was that silly little dog’s name? The one that limped, and then had to have the offending limb removed? There had been a series of pets, then little friends from school to whom Meredith clung in a way Constance couldn’t bring herself to discourage, then that piano teacher she was absolutely agog over. Mr. Brian. An older man, but with a youthful attitude. Meredith was a poor student, but she imagined that she would blossom under his kindly gaze. She always described the way he looked at her. With something more than an interest in her musical development.

  The poor child. How lonely she had been! Constance had been aware of it, yet wouldn’t let herself be moved. Youth was naturally a lonely time. Hers certainly had been. Later, after graduate school, when Lois opened herself in a way that brought Constance in, she wasn’t lonely. Those had been good years. Lois moving to Los Angeles had been strange, at first, then very welcome. They spoke often of the house back in Dunston. Lois never could bring herself to sell, and so rented it to an endless stream of professors and their children, who left marks on the walls; on the furnishings; and, on the slanted ceiling of one upstairs bedroom, a series of dates written in pencil, a child marking time, as if wishing it to pass more quickly, often with a short statement: Ma says no more baseball until the math grade comes up. Feb 5, 1952; Debbie won’t give me the time of day, Nov 9, 1954. When Lois died, at the age of 92, the house came to Constance. She still owned it, still rented it out. Lately she’d had the idea to turn it into a center for women who needed basic life skills: how to apply for a job, what to wear for an interview, how to balance a checkbook.