by Edwin West
She awoke suddenly and her first thought was of what Paul had said to her last night. She cowered beneath the covers, more alone and frightened than she had ever been in her life.
What a fool she was! Paul wasn’t her husband, he was her brother. He was her brother! How could she have ever done such things with him? How could she have ever shared his bed?
I’m lost, she thought in terror. I’m lost and there’s no way to get back again. There’s no way--ever.
Distantly, she heard movement from downstairs and she burrowed even deeper into the bed. She just couldn’t face him now. How could she ever face anyone again after what she had done?
But no matter what the emotions are, the body goes on. She lay in bed for almost half an hour until hunger drove her out. She dressed with trembling stiff fingers glancing apprehensively at the door, terrified at the thought that Paul might come in and find her naked. And then, timidly, she crept downstairs. ·
He was in the kitchen, his face gray, his hands holding a cup of coffee. He looked at her, his eyes bleary, and shook his head.
“Angie,” he muttered. “Forgive me. I was drunk. I’m not even sure what I said. Don’t pay any attention to it. It didn’t mean anything.”
She opened her mouth to speak to him, to tell a lie, to say that it was all right, it was forgiven and forgotten, but she couldn’t get the words out. All she could do was nod, her eyes wide and frightened, betraying her feelings.
She couldn’t forgive and forget. He had told her the truth. There was nothing to forgive. She couldn’t forget, because his words were seared into her mind. Nothing would ever erase them.
She moved heavily across the kitchen, as though the weariness of age were weighing her down, and she started her breakfast.
He followed her with his eyes, waiting. She knew he wanted her to speak, but she couldn’t. She just couldn’t.
At last, he broke the silence again. “Don’t you believe me? For God’s sake, Angie, I was drunk and out of my mind last night! You can’t put any stock in what a guy says when he’s stoned. You know that!”
Still she couldn’t speak.
He was getting more and more agitated. He got to his feet, kicking back the chair. “Angie, will you say something? This is ridiculous. Such a big fuss over a lousy coffee cup! Look at me. I’m going to rinse this cup out, right now. I’m going to wash it and dry it and put it back on its hook, right this minute. Are you watching me?”
She knew she was only making it worse for him by not speaking, but she couldn’t help it. She could only look at him with pitying, hurt, shame-darkened eyes.
I have no hold on you, she thought. I have no hold on you at all.
With a cry of rage, he hurled the coffee cup he’d been holding across the room. “Goddamn it, do you have to keep staring at me that way? I told you I was sorry. I told you it didn’t mean anything. I was drunk, Angie. Can’t you get that through your head? I was drunk!”
She managed at last to whisper, “I’m sorry, Paul.”
But that was wrong. “You’re sorry! You’re sorry? What the hell are you sorry about? Or are you sorry you ever took up with me? Is that it?”
She shook her head, mute again, straining to keep from crying.
“Then why the hell didn’t you go off with Bob?” he demanded. “He’s in the Army now, isn’t he?”
She nodded and looked away from him, knowing her eyes were only making it worse for him. What am I going to do? she thought numbly. I’m damned and lost.
“You should have gone with him,” cried Paul savagely. “You could have slept with the goddamn officers!”
She knew then that he wasn’t talking to her. He was talking to that girl he’d married in Germany. She sensed that she had only been a substitute for the girl in Germany, and she knew the girl must have hurt him very badly to make him want to pass on the hurt in this way.
Paul was storming around the kitchen now, red with rage, obviously no longer caring what he said, only caring that the words were barbed, that they could sting. “You think there’s anything special about you?” he cried. “You think I didn’t have better last night? Barbara Grant. Do you know her? She could teach you a hell of a lot!”
He’s gone from me, she thought woodenly.
“What do you think you’re going to do, hang around my neck like a goddamn albatross all my life? Is that why you broke up with Bob? Well, you’ve got another goddamn think coming, believe you me. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t live with it, having you whining and whimpering all over me forever.” He stopped in his tracks, glaring at her, and made a decisive gesture with his hands. “It’s stopped,” he declared. “It’s stopped right now. It’s all over, finished. It never even happened.”
Paul stood there, glaring at her as though hoping he had finally managed to say something that would get some sort of response out of her. But when she remained silent, he made an explosive noise and stormed out of the room. She heard him rush through the house and out the front door, slamming it viciously behind him.
And she was alone.
She had no idea how long she stood there, leaning weakly against the refrigerator, before the bell rang. She knew only that she was there and she was lost and there was nothing left any more. Then the doorbell rang, rousing her, and she moved slowly through the house, not even wondering who it might be, not even caring.
It was Uncle James, smirking. “Hello, there, Angie,” he said, as though he felt very pleased with the world. “Is Paul around?”
“No,” she said flatly.
“Well, that’s okay, I’ll talk to you first.”
“No,” she said. “Let me alone.”
“This isn’t going to take long,” he assured her, stepping quickly into the house and closing the door behind him. “Just a minute, Angie, that’s all.”
“Please. No.”
“Just long enough for you to sign a little paper,” he said. He stepped around her and walked on into the living room, looking around approvingly at it, with the pride of ownership.
She trailed after him, stricken. “Please,” she begged. “Not now, Uncle James. Leave me alone.”
“Won’t take a minute,” he said briskly, turning to face her again. He withdrew a sheaf of papers from his inside coat pocket. “All you have to do,” he said, “is sign over your half-ownership of the house to me. That’s all there is to it. Here’s my pen and here’s where you sign.”
She looked at him blankly, not understanding why he should think she’d sign away her home.
He finally realized her bewilderment. “Oh, you don’t understand? Well, it’s simple, really. It all has to do with a window shade.”
She shook her head, not following him.
“You still don’t get it? Well, let’s put it this way: Paul should either have put that shade down earlier, or not at all.”
Then she remembered. After he had been here the last time, she and Paul had embraced in the living room, and then Paul had remembered to pull down the shade.
“That’s it,” he said, reading the expression on her face. “You remember it now.” He smiled and leaned toward her confidentially. “Here’s the way it is,” he said. “I really think you two ought to have separate apartments, do you see what I mean? And the situation being what it is, I have the feeling maybe the rest of the family would be on my side, after all.”
She shook her head, spasmodically.
“You don’t think so? Oh, you mean you don’t want me to say anything to the rest of the family? Well sure, Angie, anything to oblige. That’s why I brought this legal document along. Jake McDougall made it up for me. You’re an equal heir with your brother. Half of this house belongs to you. So all you have to do is sign that half over to me, and then your worries are through. See what I mean?”
“No,” she said. “I won’t.”
His smile broadened. “You haven’t really thought it over, Angie,” he said. “You think it over. Take your time.”
All at
once, she broke down. The tears that had been building in her all morning finally burst out, and she collapsed to the floor, screaming in misery, her body shaking with the violence of her weeping.
He stood staring down at her, amazed and disconcerted. “Hey! Hey, listen, it isn’t all that bad! Angie?”
But she couldn’t even hear him any more. All she could hear were the echoes of Paul’s words to her, and her own words to Bob and all the words that had gone back and forth, and they had all ended here, in desolation, ruin, terror and loneliness and despair.
He mouthed words at her, trying to get her to stop, but nothing could stem her misery until it was all over, and at last he beat a hasty retreat, saying, “I’ll come back. When you’re feeling better. I--I’II come back later. When Paul’s here.”
And he was gone.
It took her a long while to cry herself out. When her sobs finally abated, she hadn’t calmed, she had simply been drained. She was no longer herself. She no longer knew what she was doing or why. Getting to her feet, she walked into the dining room, sat down at the secretary and opened the desk-front part of it. She took out a sheet of her mother’s stationery, picked up a ball-point pen and began to write:
Dear Bob,
I have got to tell you why I did what I did. Why I broke off with you. When l tell you, you will never want to have anything to do with me again. I have done a terrible thing, and I know you couldn’t forgive me, because I can’t ever forgive myself. I’ve lost everything and ruined everything.
It’s my fault, it really is. I know you will blame Paul, but it isn’t his fault. At least, it isn’t his fault any more than it is mine.
I don’t know why I’m writing this to you, but I have to tell somebody. I can’t stand it any more, knowing what I’ve done and knowing I can never change it and I’ve ruined anything that was ever good. And I’m sorry that I hurt you. I was selfish and vicious and stupid, and I’ve hurt everybody. I’ve hurt myself, I’ve hurt you and I’ve hurt Paul.
I have to write the word. I have to write it down on paper and look at it. It is the most difficult word in the world to write.
Incest.
I can’t tell you any more. That’s it, that’s all of it, and I am so ashamed and dirty that I don’t know what I can do. I will never be clean again. No one will ever want me now. I know you won’t and I understand. It’s all right. I do understand, and I don’t blame you.
You don’t have to write back to me. I don’t know why I’m writing this to you. I suppose it would be better just to let you alone and stay away from you, but I wanted you to understand that it was so much better for you not to have married me, because of the way I am. I am dirty and filthy and no one could ever want to marry me.
Good-bye,
Angela
The letter took a long time to write, with frequent pauses, and slow painful forming of the letters with the ball-point pen. But at last it was done, and she addressed an envelope, affixed the stamp, put the letter into the envelope and sealed it. Then she left the house.
She walked somnambulistically, paying no attention at all to her movements. Her feet simply pushed out in front of her, one after the other, carrying her slowly to the corner where she dropped the letter in the mailbox. Then the feet turned her around again and brought her, just as slowly and even more reluctantly, back to the house.
She sat at the kitchen table for a long while, staring at nothing.
She was lost. She was doomed.
Closing her eyes, she tried not to exist.
She shouldn’t have sent the letter. But she couldn’t get it back now. It was in the mailbox. There was no way to stop it now. Bob was going to know the truth.
When at last she moved, it was as slowly and heavily as before, but with more direction, more purpose. It was a hot, bright day and all the windows in the house were open. Starting with the kitchen, moving steadily through the house, she closed all the windows. Upstairs, she closed the bedroom doors, then came heavily down to the first floor again, and back out to the kitchen.
There was a door between the kitchen and the dining room which was rarely closed. She closed it now and then went over to the gas range. She opened the oven door, turned the oven on full, to Broil, but didn’t light it. She turned on all four burners on top of the stove, and blew them out when they automatically lit from the pilot light. She removed the protective cover and blew out the pilot light.
Then she sat at the kitchen table, closed her eyes again, and tried again to stop existing.
This time, she was successful.
TWELVE
In dusk, Paul sat in the living room, gazing unseeing at the turned-off television set. His hand reached out to the · glass, brought it to his mouth, tilted it, returned it to the table. He blinked slowly, once. Other than that, he didn’t move.
The house was his. The whole house was his now. The attic, the basement, the three bedrooms, the bathroom and the flight of stairs between the first and second floors; the living room, the foyer, the two flights of stairs to attic and basement; the front yard, the back yard, the two porches, the dining room, the den and the kitchen where Angie had killed herself.
His hand reached out to the glass, brought it to his mouth, tilted it and found it empty. His other hand reached down to the floor beside the chair, brought up the bottle, turned it over the glass, returned it to the floor. He drank from the glass, put it back on the table. Dusk was turning to night.
The doorbell sounded.
He didn’t move, made no sign he had even heard it.
The house was his and Angie had bought it for him. After her death, all the relatives had assembled here and slowly the facts had come out. Not the facts of what he and Angie had been to one another. No one knew about that but he--and he knew it only too well. No, the facts that had come out had been those concerning Uncle James and his harassment of the two of them over the ownership of the house.
The relatives had decided that Uncle James had had a lot to do with Angie’s death. Paul told them she had been moody and depressed ever since their parents had died, that she had even broken off with her boy friend, and the relatives became convinced that Uncle James had only added to the burden she was already carrying. He was told, by his brothers and sisters and in-laws, to stay away from Paul, stay away from the house, and stay away from them.
Uncle James had blustered and fumed, but it was obvious that he, too, felt he had been part of the cause of Angie’s death. His guilt had kept him quiet and Paul heard from him no more.
No more. Had heard from him no more. Had heard from Angie no more, no more, no more.
The doorbell sounded again. Still he didn’t move.
He rarely moved, any more. He had sold the Chevy. He had quit his job. He was living on what was left of his discharge money, and what was left of his parents’ money. He was living in the house, very rarely moving.
The doorknob rattled and someone rapped sharply against the panel. Someone called out his name.
He turned his head, slowly, to face the entranceway from the foyer. There was no expectancy on his face. There was nothing on his face at all.
A chill breeze of September scurried low along the floor to curl around his ankles, and he knew the front door had been opened. He waited and saw the shape come into the entranceway and wait there. The shape spoke and it had Bob’s voice. “Why didn’t you answer the door?” it asked.
He didn’t move, didn’t speak.
“Turn a light on,” Bob ordered. His voice was low and harsh.
