Women Within

by Anne Leigh Parrish

  Moonshine nodded, once more bent over the fabric.

  The baby had these huge brown eyes, Eunice said. She’d gotten so used to the eyes of old people. So many had thin white bands around the iris—cataracts, maybe? But this baby, the whites of her eyes were flawless, like a pearl or something. Eunice guessed that what she found so weird was figuring that transit—from flawless to old and messed up. Once, when she was young, she looked at the backs of her own small hands, and how smooth they were; compared them to her grandmother’s hands, which were bumpy and veined, with brown spots, too; and thought there was no way that her hands would ever look like that. But now, she could see the veins distending beneath the surface of her skin just a little, and in time, that would only get worse.

  “Getting old has to suck,” Moonshine said.

  “Beats the alternative.”

  Again, Moonshine studied her. Then she laughed.

  chapter sixteen

  Eunice’s mother wondered if she should look into Lindell. Living there would be very convenient in times of need. She’d twisted her ankle. Eunice had had to buy groceries for her, tote her laundry down to the basement of the apartment building, wait for all the various cycles to complete, fold everything—even the sheets, although they were just going back on the same bed—then bring the heavy basket upstairs, and put everything away. It was a pain in the ass. She told her mother so.

  “Well, it’s not like I twisted the damned thing on purpose,” she said.

  By then her hair was completely gray. She’d had it cut short, which made her look either fierce or weary, depending on her mood.

  “In a place like Lindell, there are always people around to help. And don’t worry, I’d suggest they assign me someone else, to spare you any embarrassment,” she said.

  Eunice sat down at the little kitchen table, which for some reason her mother had covered with a piece of lace cloth. Coffee stains were numerous, also dried egg yolk. Her mother had developed a fondness for eggs, and cooked them in the middle of the night when she couldn’t sleep.

  “It’s expensive. You can’t afford it,” Eunice said. She knew this from overhearing the residents and their family members talk about financial matters in front of her, as if she were invisible or deaf.

  “You’re just saying that.”

  “Check for yourself then.”

  Her mother’s exhausted expression said she’d already looked into the matter and was just hoping for some magical solution. Eunice considered this change in her character. She used to be a fairly practical person, when she wasn’t drinking, that is. But the drinking, too, had gone by the wayside, which Eunice found more perplexing that anything else.

  “You’re on the wagon again, aren’t you?” Eunice asked.

  “Says who?”

  “I haven’t had to hit the liquor store since you got laid up.”

  Her mother fixed her with an appraising stare.

  “How long has it been this time?” Eunice asked.

  “Four months.”

  Eunice whistled. That broke all previous records.

  “Why did you?” she asked.

  “Got bored with it.”

  Eunice learned the truth later, on another visit, when her mother introduced her to a neighbor, Jean. Jean was about her mother’s age, mid-seventies or so, even more slightly built than Eunice. Her right hand was missing the thumb and forefinger, yet she was quite deft when it came to both pouring out coffee and drinking it from a cup. She wore her hair in a bun. Sometimes she would remove the pins and rearrange it a little more tightly on the top of her head. She managed this task as easily as if she had all ten fingers.

  Jean was a Jehovah’s Witness. She told Eunice so the moment they met, as if it were the most important thing that could be known about her. Eunice didn’t care what she was, as long as she kept her zeal to herself, which of course she couldn’t. In less than an hour, Jean had suggested to Eunice at least four times that she read the literature that her own dear mother had grown so fond of. Eunice knew right then that she wouldn’t be visiting her mother too often in the future, for fear of being lobbied. Jean moved on from her beloved pamphlets to praise Eunice’s mother for having found a positive and healthy lifestyle. When she said this, Eunice’s mother didn’t look proud or at peace, just vexed.

  Eunice now understood the equation. Her mother wanted company, and Jean was the best she could get. Jean wouldn’t tolerate drinking, so her mother gave in and quit.

  She must be really lonely.

  For a moment, she felt guilty. Then she remembered growing up. The guilt vanished.

  Her mother called the following week and asked when Eunice could swing by. The carpet needed vacuuming. Eunice suggested that her mother ask Jean to do it. Eunice’s mother hung up without saying good-bye.

  The first snow of the season was early that year, and it took Eunice a long time to get home from Lindell. The pilot light in her trailer’s wall unit had gone out again. Lighting it was hard because she’d run through the extra-long matches she kept for just that purpose. She took a piece of newspaper, twisted it into a long thing taper, and held it to the flame on her stove. Then she cupped her palm around the barely burning end, pushed it into the far back of the heater where the idiots who had designed the thing had thought to put the most essential part, and pressed the button that let the gas flow.

  Better not go boom!

  After four tries, the gas ignited, and warm air began to blow. She knew the heater wouldn’t last the winter, so she opened the phone book and looked up places that sold used furnaces. She found the only one.

  When she picked up the phone to dial the number, she saw that the message light on her answering machine was blinking. The first message was from Moonshine, wanting to know if she wanted to go sledding. Eunice hadn’t pulled a sled since she was about ten, well over thirty years before. She hadn’t enjoyed it much. She’d gone with a schoolmate, Mary something. Mary was bossy and had the whole system laid out. Eunice was to give the final shove downhill, and then jump on at the last moment. Only Eunice didn’t make it onto the sled, which was unfortunate because Mary couldn’t steer the thing to save her life and ended up in the narrow creek at the bottom of the hill, freezing, soaked, and furious. It might be fun, though, to go again and see what it felt like now.

  The second message was from her mother. She was giving up the apartment and moving to a house in the country with Jean and Jean’s daughter.

  “They’ve agreed to take me in. Isn’t that just beautiful?”

  Good luck with that.

  Winter deepened. Snow fell hard. Sometimes Eunice stayed over at Lindell in one of the guest rooms. Normally these were for family members from out of town, though staff on late shifts were welcome to them too. Eunice liked being away from home, even though the comfort level in the trailer had come up a notch. She’d had the wall unit replaced by a guy she’d known in elementary school, Billy Simms. He asked her out. She said she didn’t know he’d gotten divorced.

  “Who says I’m divorced?”

  She gave him his check and told him to get lost. The landlord took three weeks to reimburse her. He said she should have called him first. Eunice didn’t see what the difference was. The damn thing was broken, and now it wasn’t.

  The day after Thanksgiving, three feet of snow fell. Eunice tossed her things in a backpack, persuaded her car to start after a few slow cranks, and crawled up the hill to Lindell. The staff was taxed. The residents were restless. The deepening drifts seemed to make them uneasy. Eunice thought they might get the sense of being buried, which naturally would be unsettling, given how close to death they all were. Most lay open-eyed in bed. Those who were still mo
bile turned their wheelchairs to the window to watch the snow until it was too dark to see.

  Eunice finished her rounds, heated up the casserole she’d brought in the microwave, and read a magazine alone in the kitchen. She was soon joined by Dean, one of the maintenance crew. He came in wearing a heavy jacket and insulated boots. He stamped his feet, leaving two small piles of snow on the floor. He took off his gloves, draped the coat on the back of the chair next to Eunice’s, and poured himself a cup of coffee. He had a sip.

  “Tastes like crap,” he said.

  “That’s because it’s been sitting there since dinner.”

  Dean took the filter out of the pot and threw it away. He obviously didn’t know what to do next, so Eunice told him to sit down while she took care of it. When the coffee was ready, she poured him a cup.

  She resumed eating. The food was lukewarm, but she kept on. Cold weather always made her hungry. She finished her meal, washed her bowl, dried it, and set it down on the table. Dean was staring into space.

  “Something wrong?” Eunice asked.

  “Woman trouble.”

  “Huh.”

  Eunice once again took her seat.

  “You don’t want to hear this,” Dean said.

  “Sure I do. Besides, it’s not like I got somewhere to go.”

  “You holing up?”

  “Yup.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Way better than driving through a blizzard.”

  “It would creep me out, staying here all night.”

  “Why? You spend most of it sleeping.”

  Dean considered the logic of this statement. His eyes were sad.

  “Aren’t you going to get stuck if you wait much longer?” Eunice asked.

  “Nah. Got a four-wheel drive with chains.”

  He looked at his watch. He removed a comb from the pocket of his flannel shirt and pulled it through his sandy hair. His gesture was slow, meticulous, and not at all fussy. He put the comb back in his pocket. The walk-in refrigerator cycled on. Sometimes at night, the whole building felt like a warm, sleeping animal making regular, comfortable sounds.

  “She says it’s all my fault,” Dean said.

  “Your wife?”

  “Yes.”

  Dean wore a wedding ring. It hadn’t been much of a stretch.

  “She says I’m smothering her,” he said.

  “Not literally, I assume.”

  Dean looked at her. He didn’t smile.

  “Holding her back, she says. Not letting her fulfill her dream.”

  “Which is?”

  “Hell if I know. I don’t think she knows either.”

  Eunice wondered what her own dreams had ever been. To get away. To find her own voice. To be loved. It all sounded so simple. Why did it feel so hard then?

  “She must have some idea,” Eunice said.

  “She was an artist when I met her. Sculptor. Made these little faces that weren’t quite human. She rented space from this guy way the hell out in the country, used his kiln. He let her live there. Some weird stuff happened between them, I don’t know. She ended up pretty freaked out. Wanted me to take care of her, protect her. So, I did. I would have anyway, even if she hadn’t asked me to. That’s a man’s job, a husband’s job.”

  “And now?”

  “I guess she doesn’t need to be protected anymore.”

  “What about love?”

  “Exactly.”

  Something clanged behind them. Maybe the range cooling off after being on for hours all day.

  “She still sculpt?” Eunice asked.

  “No. She works at K-Mart. Hates it.”

  “But needs the money.”

  He nodded.

  “She can still do her own thing, in her free time.”

  “Not to hear her tell it.”

  “Hm.”

  Lillian Gish would have found a way. She was no quitter, no complainer. Eunice hadn’t thought of her in a long time. All her life she’d wanted to possess her fire and determination. Sometimes she had.

  “You like silent movies?” Eunice asked.

  The sudden lift of his eyebrows said she might as well have asked if he liked star anise or pickled pigs feet.

  “The university sometimes has a festival where they show two or three in a row. It’s sort of fun. Take your wife one night. She might like seeing people fight without words. Well, not heard words, anyway.”

  Dean lifted his head. He looked over Eunice’s right shoulder, as if the stackable stainless steel cart behind her held a bag of gold.

  “You’re smart,” he said.

  “How so?”

  “You got my wife’s number. She’s a brooder, not a screamer.”

  “Clams up?”

  “Says, ‘If you don’t know what you did, I’m sure as shit not going to tell you.’”

  “Sounds like my mother.”

  “I feel for your dad.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Then I feel for you.”

  Dean watched her closely. Eunice let a certain thought cross her mind. Lillian would have looked away shyly, then back again, full force.

  Those eyes of hers! If only I had those eyes!

  But, she didn’t. At the moment, her eyes felt empty. Dean must have seen that, too.

  He pushed up his sleeve to check his watch, then stood up and said good-night. He left his coffee cup on the table.

  chapter seventeen

  Moonshine was desperate. The damn cat had given birth to six kittens. She had to get rid of them. The cat wasn’t even hers in the first place.

  “Just wandered in and stayed. I suppose I shouldn’t have let her. I didn’t know she was pregnant, but that’s probably why she was looking for a home, right?”

  Eunice didn’t know anything about cats. She’d never owned a pet. She’d begged her parents for a pet rabbit once when she was about ten. Her mother made quick work of that desire when she said Eunice would wake up one morning and find it dead. Whether her mother was suggesting that she would kill it herself or that rabbits just didn’t live very long, Eunice never knew.

  Of course she agreed to take one, a tiny orange female she named Lillian. The routine vet bills were expensive, but she got a discount by going to the clinic run by the university. She didn’t like leaving Lillian alone during the day but had no choice. She bought her a scratching post she studiously ignored, preferring to sharpen her claws on the upholstery. The site of her frayed fabric was depressing. She got good at finding cheap slip covers to put over her sofa and easy chair, and changed them routinely.

  Then there was the matter of the litter box. She cleaned it every day, sometimes twice a day, but Lillian was prolific. She was a sweet, healthy cat who seemed to adore Eunice. She slept in her bed, on her very pillow, and would knead Eunice’s long hair and purr into the early morning hours. Eunice loved it. She felt connected to Lillian in a way she’d never really felt toward another human being. She supposed it was a survival skill on the part of cats to make people love them, a skill Eunice had to admit she herself sadly lacked.

  The vet advised her to keep Lillian inside all the time.

  “Cats live longer that way. Mother nature is full of peril.”

  He was young, probably just out of school, and his poetic turn of phrase made Eunice anxious. She imagined the crushed carcass of Lillian under the car wheels of a careless driver or gripped in the jaw of huge, savaging dog.

  Lillian had
other ideas. She dashed out the door when Eunice was bringing in groceries. Eunice saw her furry hind end vanish through the low hedge separating her trailer from the one next door. The escape didn’t last long, because it was still winter and bitterly cold. Within minutes Lillian was meowing pitifully below the kitchen window where Eunice was frying chicken for their dinner, though the vet had cautioned against feeding her “people food.”

  As the weather warmed, Lillian’s illicit forays grew more frequent and lasted longer. Sometimes Eunice just left out an open can of cat food to lure her home. She’d reappear faithfully after a couple of days.

  “You need to get that cat spayed, or you’ll end up in the same fix I was,” Moonshine said. She’d given away all but one of the kittens, whom she’d just had neutered. The vet clinic was so committed to controlling the pet population in Dunston that it offered to do the surgery for free.

  Eunice took three days off from work to stay with Lillian afterward. She didn’t need to. Lillian’s spirits were as fine as ever. The worst part seemed to be wearing the plastic cone around her neck to prevent her from disturbing the few stiches in her stomach. Eunice sat with her and ran the tip of her finger along the smooth skin where the fur had been shaved. Lillian purred madly, and when Eunice lay down, wrapped herself up in her hair.

  The day the cone came off, Lillian disappeared. Eunice didn’t even know when she’d had the door open long enough for her to slip out. The usual cat food can didn’t bring her back. Nor did standing by the door calling her name until one of her neighbors drove by and gave her the finger. She canvassed the park. No one had seen her. Many of the residents had dogs, which meant Lillian would steer clear of those particular trailers. The last one, closest to the water and surrounded by elegant weeping willows, was where Lillian had decided to hole up. The occupant was a twenty-something graduate student in photography. Her arms and legs, even her neck, were heavily tattooed.