by Belva Plain
“What about when the kids come home, Emma? What about dinner tonight?”
“I shall not eat with you all tonight, because my eyes are too swollen. But tomorrow I will be perfectly normal. I shall give my lessons, and live as I have always lived. The only difference will be that I will not share a bed with you. That’s asking too much.”
In the morning, her door was locked. Wrapped in a concealing bathrobe, she opened it when he knocked.
“You look better this morning,” he said. “I hope you’re feeling better.”
“I’m feeling very well, thank you. My heart is broken, but otherwise I am feeling very well.”
“What can I do for you? Tell me.”
“You can tell Rea that I’m late this morning, but that I’m much better. You can make sure that the boys catch the school bus. Then take Eileen to nursery school. I’ll pick her up. I will have pulled myself together.”
“Emma, I know how this must hurt a woman—”
“You don’t know anything. What can a man know about how a woman feels? Not long ago you all thought we weren’t smart enough to vote. But I’ve been thinking, I lay awake all night thinking, and a lot of things made sense all of a sudden. That woman almost always had an excuse whenever we invited her here. When I went for a fitting of one of her gowns with their ridiculous prices, I sensed a coolness toward me. Very polite she was, of course, but cool. Now I know why.”
Yes, and he knew, too. She with her rich aunt, her Paris and London and her music, her house, her children . . .
“I should have suspected. In the back of my mind, maybe I did suspect. After all, I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“Emma, I’ve told you the whole truth. It was one small, nasty episode that should not have happened. But women do forgive. They forgive a lot more than that. In France, women put up with mistresses. Even their presidents—”
“This isn’t France. But still, maybe they’re better off that way. Then the wife can do what she wants, too.”
“You don’t mean that.”
From below came the sounds of a morning’s commotion; the boys were happily scuffling in the hall, Eileen was calling for Mommy, and Rea was shrieking that they would be late for the bus.
Emma shut and locked the door in Adam’s face; he ran downstairs to quiet the commotion; after that, he would try to quiet the commotion within himself.
All was in proper order. Eileen, who had graduated at the age of three from the high chair, sat comfortably on a pile of telephone books. Adam started the dinner with the usual invitation: “Let’s take turns around the table and tell what happened to you in school today.”
After each had reported, the conversation usually drifted in the parents’ direction: news, sports, politics, friends, plumbers’ bills, a movie, a book, or what the vet said about the little white poodle’s teeth.
Lately, though, this comfortable pattern had changed. The remarks and observations traveled from everyone to everyone else, except between father and mother. And one day, Jonathan had something to say about that.
“What’s wrong about you and Dad? You don’t talk to each other.”
“Why, nothing,” Emma answered. “We’re all talking to each other.”
“Dad,” Jon persisted, “are you and Mom angry?”
“I’m not at all angry at anybody,” Adam assured him. “But people feel less like talking at certain times than at others.”
And he sent a significant look in Emma’s direction.
She understood the look. He was telling her that there was no sense trying to hide anything from an intelligent boy like Jon.
Then Eileen said, “I need a plate for Susie’s dinner. And I need another dolly like her, only with a red dress this time.”
“Ask Blanche for another. She gave this one to you,” advised Andy.
“She went away, didn’t she?” James said. And when Emma asked how he knew that, he explained, “I was at my friend Paul’s house for lunch, and I heard his mother say so.”
Emma sat stiffly as if every muscle were tense. Never would she rid herself of that picture, of that vile woman with Adam, of the lace dress slipping down. And of him . . . And of her . . .
Day after day, she sat there proper and erect and cheerful before the children, but never acknowledging either by word or look that Adam was present, too.
“It’s been more than a month,” he said as they passed each other on the stairs. “How long can we go on like this? Is there no such thing as forgiveness? Am I to be doomed and punished forever because of one wrong act?”
“You’re not punished. You’re not doomed. You’re well taken care of. The house is peaceful. Your meals are on time, your clothes are pressed, your children have a caring mother—you have nothing to complain about except that I will not, I cannot, share your bed.”
Back in the room where Simon’s photograph still stood on a chest, she sat on the bed and stared at his weary old face. Possibly he had gotten Adam’s mother “in trouble” and had abandoned her because he had found somebody else. These days, her mind was full of such ugly thoughts. It was unlike her to have suspicions and ugly thoughts. These thoughts do not belong with the love of music. Yet many composers of the world’s most exalted music had often done very ugly things. If it had been that one time, then perhaps, no matter how awful it was or how it hurt, it would be possible perhaps to say that the wine had done it.
Yesterday Adam had asked her what they should say about Uncle Leo. They had been speaking over the phone, which Emma found easier than speaking in person. “The kids are asking more questions,” she said, “so our answers must be consistent. Jon wonders where Uncle Leo is. I told him again that he had gone back east.
“It didn’t satisfy him. He said he knows there’s something wrong, and what is it? It’s almost impossible to fool Jon.”
“Then let’s not fool him. Tell him that there’s been an argument, but it’s your personal business and that’s that.”
“He also sees that you’re not talking to me. They all know that you don’t sleep in our room.”
“I’m not comfortable anymore in my old bed.”
“That’s nonsense, and they know better. Boys of their age think about sex seven days a week. I remember my own thoughts about my father and mother. There are odd moments even now when that old story, the sad truth or the sad untruth of it, rushes into my head.”
“I’m sorry you have that memory, but I can’t help you.”
“I’m not asking you to help me. But think of the children.”
“So you believe they’re going to be ruined for life because I don’t sleep with you?”
“What kind of question is that? Emma, please . . . I want you back. I’m so sorry that I hurt you.”
“I have to call for Eileen. I have to hang up.”
When the telephone clicked, a wave of silence swept through the house. One could drown in such lonely silence. She went into the kitchen to say something unimportant to Rea, if only to hear the sound of a voice.
“I hope you’re feeling better this morning,” Rea said.
“A little, Rea. Thank you.”
She knows. Of course she does, although she can’t ever guess why.
Soon the whole community that is our world, our friends, the parents of our children’s friends, and everybody at Cace Arnring, will know that all is not well in our house. Well, let them. I have no shame, she told herself. I have my pride. It’s not my fault, anyway.
It was almost devilish, though, how in the most innocent conversations the subject came up. At a school concert one night, a neighbor described the dress she was to wear at a wedding.
“Seven years old if it’s a day. But it’s a Madame Blanche, the most beautiful flowered chiffon, and I plan to wear it forever. Her work was art.”
People were joking one evening at George Cace’s house. An invitation from one of the Caces was not to be turned down, short of a medical emergency. There, one of the guests, a woman with a
poor sense of humor, brought Blanche into the conversation.
“One of the dressmakers—Mrs. McQueen, I think—was a very good friend of hers. She always said that Blanche had a crush on your husband, Emma, and all of them knew it. Well, why not? A good-looking guy like him? I’ll bet she did.”
“What rot!” Adam exclaimed. “I hardly spoke ten words a month to that woman.”
In silence they rode home together. There Emma went directly to a closet where her best clothes hung in dust-proof bags. She drew them out: embroidered white silk, blue velvet, flowered summer linens—the needy would have them all. If no adult had use for such as these, let their children parade in them on Halloween.
And for the next three evenings, reporting a bad contagious cold, Emma did not come to dinner.
Her head ached. She wished she could go to sleep earlier and sleep longer, although even that did not always bring relief because of her dreams. There was in particular a repeated dream of frustration: She was in the car on the way to the dock, where, as so often before in her life, she was about to board a ship going to Europe. She could see it, a huge, dark whale nosed alongside the pier with smoke coming out of its funnels. It was about to sail. But the car was stuck in traffic, so that she had to jump out of it and start to run. Now she was running as fast as she could, yet she couldn’t seem to move ahead. Her legs moved up and down in the same place. And the ship glided slowly away without her, while she was still running.
In the evening they had always taken a walk together. It had been a private time while the boys were doing their homework or already asleep. Mostly, they used to talk, but sometimes they would stop to hear the cricket chorus, or an owl’s hoot, or merely the rustle of trees in the wind.
Adam called it “listening to the world, the real world.” She understood. The town, the store, the money—all these would rise and fall again, as they always had done, but crickets, birds, and wind would stay. They always had.
Watching at the door to the rear terrace and seeing him climb back up the hill, she knew the familiar route he had been walking. The tall black poodle lay down beside him as he turned to look out again at the view. He was holding the little white dog and stroking its back.
She read his mind. He was thinking now how short life is, the life of this loving, gentle little animal, and every other life. Such moments were almost religious. He had not had them very often, as well she knew. But he had them, and she was the only person who knew that about him. To others he was the smart man who “got things done.”
But no one else could know. Not even his own mother, if she had lived, might have known that in a public place he could not bear to see a child being struck in anger and had to be held back from interfering; that he would not wear any tie except striped ones; that he wanted his breakfast coffee to be lukewarm; that he slept without a pillow, and naked in the summer; that he hated having to be well dressed and starched at work; that he overtipped wherever he went because “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”
When she began to cry, she backed away from the door and ran upstairs to the room that she had taken for her own. There, at the window, she looked down again. He was still there, stroking the dog and looking out toward the quiet fields. And she was still crying.
Time came rushing back: that day in the dining car on the train, the lover on the riverbank, the bed on the wedding night, the baby Jon and all the other babies, and then time again, rushing away, never to come back.
We are two halves of a whole, he says.
After a while when it was dark, she heard him coming up the stairs. He would be carrying the old white poodle, who could no longer climb. By the small sounds he made, she could tell that he was walking to all the children’s doors to listen and check that lights were out. Then he would lay the dog beds on the floor of the hall. After that, she heard him go to the bedroom and close the door.
From her head to her feet, fear shivered and trembled. A person looks for some precious thing that has been dropped in the darkness, and prays to find it.
She knocked on the door. “Adam? It’s your Emma. Please, I want to come in.”
Ten months later, the family stood for the second time around a bassinet festooned with pink ribbon and looked down at a small object wrapped in a pink receiving blanket.
“It’s nice that she’s a girl,” Andy said. “She can play with Eileen and keep them both out of our way.”
The older boys laughed. Adam wondered what they were actually thinking; most boys in their middle and late teens did not suddenly find themselves presented with still another baby sister. Yet everyone seemed pleased and very interested.
“I think she’s going to have red hair like yours and mine, Mom,” Andy said. “See that little fuzz on her head?”
“The main question,” Emma said, “is her name. Dad and I had the idea of letting all of you come up with some suggestions.”
“Her name can’t be Susie,” Eileen said, “because Susie is my doll and belongs to me.”
“Of course,” Adam assured her. “The name cannot be Susie. How about Emily?”
The boys agreed that that sounded too much like Emma.
“How about Virginia, after Jon’s girlfriend?” James suggested, which naturally brought a furious denial from Jon.
“I don’t like her anymore, and you know it. Never did like her much, anyway.”
Andy giggled. “What about Kate, like Kate Smith? You like fat girls.”
So it went with laughter and argument until Jon made a serious suggestion.
“How about your mother’s name, Mom? Eileen’s named after Dad’s mom, so this should be your turn.”
Adam said quickly, “Louise. That’s the name we both like, and if none of you can come up with something nicer, that’ll be her name. Louise. So now you boys have two little sisters to watch over, and I know you will.”
“These two girls may well grow up to watch over their brothers,” Emma said, laughing. “We women are pretty tough.”
Adam would not have guessed that this brave little boast of hers, made with her children surrounding the bassinet, could have disturbed him. But, like an arrow, it had gone straight to his heart, or his brain, or wherever it is that memories are stowed away but never lost. Ten months ago she had knocked on the door, and now this baby was here. Twelve months ago, he had lain in bed and pleaded: Please, God, don’t let him come back. Please. That is what Leo had done to him. Leo, to whom he had never been anything but kind.
You’re rotten, you’re hideous, you poison the air with your stench. May God damn you.
Leo had brought out a side of Adam that he hadn’t known existed, a corrosive hatred he hadn’t known himself capable of.
He looked at his two elder sons. Thirteen and fifteen, they were, still a good way from manhood. Yet somehow they brought a young man to his mind: his own brother Jonathan, who had been old when he was still a child. Truthful and trustworthy were the words. Decent, humane.
That evening he called these sons aside to ask them for something. “It is very important that you will give me your word and keep it. It is about my brother Leo. Will you give your promise that you will never speak of him, never even mention his name at all, to anyone? It is a very serious, grown-up thing that I am asking of you. As far as I am concerned, he does not exist, and he should not exist for you, even when you marry someday, and for as long as you live. Will you do this?”
Two pairs of startled eyes met his. Very serious, they were. He saw the men they would become in only a few more years: decent, responsible, and strong. He saw, too, that they understood his plea, that they knew, as they had known from the start, that something important had happened within this family, probably some man-woman thing. Yes, boys their age know everything about it, except for the pain that can come with it.
He saw that they knew he was treating them like men, and they responded like men. Each shook his hand. “Solemn promise,” said Jon. “Scout’s honor,” said James. Then Ad
am kissed his sons, thanked them, and went back upstairs to Emma.
Chapter 22
Time hurries by. New green leaves sprout; a season has passed when they brown and fall; all of a sudden, it is another year.
This was a good town, and it had been especially good to Adam Arnring. He felt sometimes as if he were sailing once more over smooth seas, with hardly a ripple to disturb his balance. His business, in spite of the Great Depression, was surviving. His children were healthy, and if sometimes they caused any worries, the worries were very minor ones.
It would be easy, he thought, to take those blessings for granted. But peace and plenty are not given to everyone, and those who have them must make willing repayment. And so it was that Emma gave free lessons to talented children who could not afford to pay, that Adam added acreage and playgrounds to the park he had already given to the town, that he and Emma made a concert hall out of the aged movie theater and brought orchestras to play there, and made small gifts to people like Archer’s son, who wanted to go to a famous chef’s school in New York.
So the years slipped away. Then suddenly it was Sunday, December 7, in the year 1941, and life took a sharp turn with the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
The following May, one day after graduating from college, without waiting even to discuss the matter with his parents or waiting to be drafted, Jonathan went directly to be recruited into the air force. Then he and Elizabeth Daniels went down to City Hall and were married. Having done that, they rang the doorbells at their respective homes and made their joint announcement.
What is a parent to do or say? There is nothing at all to do; this man of twenty-two has not waited to be urged or forced; he has rushed to fulfill his obligations to his country. What can a parent say, but show good cheer and pride while gamely stifling his fears?
