by Sally Mandel
“Do you ever do that by hand?”
“Nope,” he said, then glanced briefly at her from under the bushy eyebrows. “Except every once in a while.”
“It must be slower,” she said. He either grimaced or smiled, Sharlie wasn’t sure which.
“Good—what do you call it—good therapy,” he said.
Now Sharlie saw that his eyes were laughing—the same way Brian’s did, except that the rest of his face didn’t change at all. The man would be a whiz at poker, she thought.
“Yours or the cow’s?” she asked, and he chuckled a little.
“Both, most likely. I get down in the mouth or mad and I get me and my stool and sit by this old lady here,” he leaned against the side of the cow. ‘Takes the sting out of me after a while.”
“I bet she likes your fingers better than those steel things.” He didn’t answer her, just watched the pail fill up at his feet.
“Mister Morgan,” Sharlie said shyly.
He peered at her with such intensity that she almost lost her nerve.
“Will you … do you have time to teach me?”
His face broke into a grin. “Just let me get my stool,” he said, and disappeared into a neighboring stall.
Brian stood in the doorway, peering into the dim light of the barn. The shadowy forms puzzled him. Marcus here now? But what was Dad doing? What were they both doing, hand-milking? He moved closer and stopped dead in his tracks as Sharlie and his father turned around to look at him. Sharlie’s face was flushed from hard work and pleasure. His father looked embarrassed, but pleased as well.
“Brian, look at me!” Sharlie exclaimed. “Do you believe it? I learned very quickly.”
His father nodded. “Better farmer already than you ever thought of being.”
Sharlie flinched at this but then returned to her cow and said, “Why didn’t you tell me this was so terrific?”
Brian stood watching as she became absorbed in her work. Then he left the barn to walk back to the house in confusion, his feelings a jumble of gratification, irritation, and a vague, disembodied jealousy. Mostly he felt he’d been manipulated into a position he wasn’t sure he was prepared to accept. But he wasn’t certain he was so angry about it, either.
He fixed himself some breakfast, toasting his bread on the stove burners as always. What did they have against electrical appliances in this place anyway? It had taken years to buy an electric iron finally instead of that cumbersome thing his mother had to heat every few seconds. Brian munched on his toast and thought about the scene in the barn. Every now and then he’d shake his head and smile.
After a while, they came clattering up the porch steps outside, Sharlie’s voice happy and comfortable and his father chuckling. He hadn’t heard that sound since long before his mother died.
They burst in, and Sharlie said, “Quick. Liquid refreshment. All that squirting …”
The old man pressed her into a chair and went to the refrigerator to pour her a huge glass of milk. When he cracked a raw egg into it, Brian began to protest, but Sharlie put her hand on his arm.
“Drink this. You’ll get another one in a couple of hours.”
Sharlie sipped and made a face. John Morgan took the glass from her and rummaged through the cupboards until he found the vanilla. He added a generous dollop to her milk, plus a tablespoon of sugar. Then he took a fork and stirred the mixture rapidly, his strong wrist whipping.
She took another sip, smiled at him, and swallowed some more. He stood over her until she drank it all, then glanced at Brian with triumph. “She ought to have one of those with every meal. Fatten her up in no time. Damn, she’s just a slip of a thing. Look at those arms.”
“Your father says he’ll come see us in New York,” Sharlie said. Brian’s eyes widened while John Morgan looked out the window. “If I can milk a cow,” she continued, “your Dad can ride the subway. Right, Mister Morgan?”
“Guess so,” he muttered.
Sharlie kept her voice neutral as she stood up, holding tightly to the edge of the table. “I’m kind of tired all of a sudden. I think I’ll go rest awhile.” She leaned over and gave Brian a kiss, then planted one on her father-in-law’s cheek. He looked startled at first, then both men’s expressions pleaded, Don’t leave us here alone together. But Sharlie turned and walked out of the room.
She had to haul herself up the stairs by force of will. She was dizzy and weak, and had begun to feel the disorientation again, the sensation of being disconnected to the world and the people around her. It was as if she were watching everything from a distance.
She lay down on the bed and thought about the first time she’d felt it, during her most recent trip to the hospital. In the beginning she had been frightened and wondered if another undetected medical problem had arisen. Then the strange feeling faded, not completely, just enough to leave her with a slightly shifted perspective. It was as if she no longer stood in the center of her life, with the people she cared for revolving around her. Rather, she was edging slowly toward the circumference of the circle. At first the implication of her displacement seemed terrible, but gradually she acknowledged it as a merciful process. She knew that once she stood well outside the circle, it would be far less painful to turn and walk away from it.
She awoke to see Brian staring down at her solemnly.
“How long have you been here?” she murmured.
“Just a few minutes,” he lied.
She turned her face away from the late afternoon glare streaming in the window. Brian went to pull down the shade. “You don’t feel so hot, do you?” he asked her.
She shook her head. She could feel tears beginning behind her eyelids and kept them shut tight. Two steps away from the center, one step back, she thought. That must be the way it would happen.
“Tell me about your father,” she said.
“Thanks for leaving me there like that, you witch.”
The corners of her mouth twitched a little. “So?”
“So he says he’s really coming. I don’t know.” He stopped to shake his head. “There’s no way you could have made me believe it. He says he wants to see the agriculture exhibit.”
“Didn’t know there was one,” she whispered, fighting the urge to go back to sleep.
“And also the Statue of Liberty.”
They were silent a moment, Sharlie, through the mist, aware of a vague contentment.
Brian said slowly, “He’s smitten with you.”
She smiled at the word and opened her eyes. “He’s not bad himself. Reports to the contrary notwithstanding. He tell you about the mortgage thing?”
Brian nodded. “I gave him some advice. Not that he had the guts to come out and ask for it.”
“Oh, come on, Brian, have a heart.”
He took her hand and held it to his face. “Anyway, he’s full of helpful hints about what to feed you—all the stuff you’re supposed to give an undernourished cow.”
She laughed. “We’re going to have to tell him about me, or he’ll drown me in cholesterol.”
Brian said, “He thinks you look ill.”
“I am, honey,” she said gently, but suddenly he wouldn’t look at her. “Bri, would you do something for me?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Take me to the ocean.” He looked at her in surprise. “Instead of staying here, we could go to the Jersey Shore, couldn’t we? It’s not that far.”
“I thought you wanted to meet my brothers.”
“Well, I do. But I’ve got this urge, and we only have another two days. Could we?”
“All right.” His face was puzzled, but he didn’t question her. Sharlie realized that his loathing to press her emerged from his fear of her answer.
“We’ll go first thing in the morning,” he said. He opened their suitcase and started piling clothes inside.
“Are you hungry?” he asked finally in a muffled voice.
“No.”
“I’ll bring something up,” he said, still not looking at her.
“Bovine nutrients, please. On rye, and hold the mayo.”
He didn’t laugh, just continued packing in silence. His movements were clumsy, and he had to keep bending down to retrieve things that slipped off onto the floor.
After watching this for a few moments, Sharlie said softly, “Bri, I wish I could help.”
“I’ll manage. You rest.”
“I didn’t mean the packing.”
He froze for a second, then continued working deliberately.
“Can we talk about it?” she asked.
“About what?”
“About me. My not getting better.”
He turned around, and his face was fierce. “You’ve had a long trip. You’re worn out. You’ll be fine in a couple of days.”
She watched sorrowfully as he muttered something about her dinner and bolted from the room.
Brian marched around the kitchen pulling things out of the refrigerator and slamming cabinet doors, hoping that if he moved fast enough and made enough of a racket, the sensation in his chest would disappear. His lungs seemed to be packed with dry ice, burning and yet frozen, the icy vapor making it difficult for him to catch his breath.
He imagined himself in the midst of a nightmare, running along the beach on a foggy winter morning. Behind him loomed a huge dark shape, cold, steady, invincible. The faster Brian pushed his legs, the deeper he sank into the sand until finally he was using every bit of energy just to free his feet from the heavy earth. And behind him the shadow grew, thundering, its breath like icicles piercing the back of his neck.
“What’s for dinner?”
Brian started, dropped the glass he had been holding. It smashed on the floor. His father regarded him thoughtfully.
“Daydreaming,” the older man said.
Brian bent to pick up the shards of glass.
“I still spend a lot of time doing that,” Brian said bitterly. His father handed him the broom.
“Sharlie coming down?”
Brian shook his head.
“Still asleep?”
“No.”
“Gotta eat.”
“I’ll take her something.”
“She doesn’t look so good.”
“You’ve never seen her when she’s bad. I have, and right now she looks just fine. Tired. Anybody’d be tired.”
John Morgan looked steadily at his son. Brian swept furiously at the dark wood floor.
“She been real sick?”
“Yeah,” Brian said. The old man put his hand on Brian’s shoulder briefly, just long enough to stop the compulsive movement of the broom.
“Don’t do what I did, son.” His eyes bored into Brian’s. “There’s a lot of things I wish I’d of said to your mother. Too bad I was such a coward.”
“You don’t know she’s going to … what’s going to happen. You’re not a doctor.”
John Morgan just shook his head and took the broom from Brian. As he put it away, he spoke carefully into the dark mustiness of the broom closet. “Well, if you ever need anything … or her …” Then he shut the closet door and went outside in a hurry.
Brian watched at the window until his father’s wiry figure disappeared into the barn, then sat down at the table and put his head in his hands.
The next morning Brian packed everything up in the car before Sharlie even got out of bed. He took a tray to her and pressed her to eat, but she could only manage a swallow of orange juice.
He helped her dress, finally, and carried her down the stairs. “Don’t you think we ought to go straight back to Saint Joseph’s?” he asked.
“No,” she said firmly. “I’m not sticking one toe inside any hospital.”
“They could give you something.”
“They can’t do anything for me.”
He started to protest, but saw by her pallor that he was tiring her.
In the rutted driveway outside he moved the front seat of the car back into its reclining position and stepped aside for her.
“Your dad,” she said, supporting herself against the hood.
“You can say good-bye from there,” he said, motioning to the seat.
“On my feet I will,” she pronounced.
Brian gave her an exasperated look and went off to the barn. In a few minutes they emerged together, and as they approached the car, Sharlie noticed that they were conversing as they walked, both with their eyes on the ground but at least talking.
John Morgan stood in front of her, his blue eyes so clear and sharp that she experienced the same sensation she’d so often felt with Brian, that he was peering straight into the center of her head.
“Well, Sharlie,” he said, his face somber.
“Well,” she said, smiling up into his rough face. He held out his hand, and she took it, the skin leathery and warm around her fingers. She knew suddenly that her journey would be easier if she could only hold that hand right to the end.
“You’ve been good for my boy,” he said quietly.
“I hope you’re right.” He nodded. “I worry about that,” she said, looking at him with a question in her eyes.
“Don’t. He’ll be okay.”
She nodded and reached up to kiss the sun-browned face. “I’m so glad,” she murmured, and knew he shared her conviction that they would not see each other again. She held his arm as she slid into the car and lay back against the seat.
Brian shook hands with his father, said a gruff good-bye, and got in to start the car. John Morgan saw Sharlie’s pale hand wave to him, a tiny white butterfly disappearing behind the trees. He stood watching until he couldn’t see it any longer.
Chapter 54
“How long will it take us to get there?” she asked.
“Couple of hours. Three, maybe.” He looked at her. “You in a hurry?”
“As a matter of fact …” Her voice was feeble. Then she seemed to slip off into sleep, or at least she kept her eyes closed. Her hair fell back from her face, and Brian could see the spot just under her left ear where her pulse surfaced. More than once he nearly drove off the road looking for the tiny beat.
Around noon Sharlie opened her eyes and lifted her head to look out the window.
“I smell salt air. Are we close?”
“We’ve been driving along the coast for about half an hour. It’s just the other side of that rise.”
She put on her glasses and strained to see over the low pine trees that fringed the empty highway. Brian turned off onto the shoulder of the road, got out, and raised the back of her seat. Before he could straighten up, she put her hand behind his neck, brought his head down to her face, and kissed him. She felt him press hard against her mouth for a moment, then pull back.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, with his face so full of sorrow it was hard for her to look at him.
“If there’s one thing I know in this world,” she said, running a finger down his cheek, “it’s that you would never hurt me if you could possibly avoid it.”
He tried to stand up, but she kept her hands on his shoulder, holding him.
“I wish I didn’t have to hurt you, Bri.”
He looked down at the folds of her dress. It was the one she had bought at Bloomingdale’s, the one that initiated the Battle of the Batter. She had discovered it looked attractive with a cowl-necked jersey underneath. But even with the addition of a bulky sweater, it hung loose on her now.
He looked at her with pleading eyes. ‘Then don’t.”
She sighed and dropped her hands.
He said, “Please don’t give up.” She sat still, feeling his fingers close around her arms. “I won’t let you go. I will not let you.”
She looked down, her face shielded by a curtain of soft dark hair. After a moment he saw drops splash against the hands she had folded neatly in her lap like a polite little girl at the dinner tabl
e.
“God …” Brian said in a strangled voice. He shut her door firmly, got back in the car, and drove out onto the highway again.
The trees along the roadside gradually thinned out, and she could catch occasional glimpses of the sea beyond a long expanse of marsh. The tall green grass moved with the wind, and she watched the breeze approach from far off, rippling the surface of the swamp. A fishing boat purred through the grass, pushing it aside and leaving a green wake behind. Here and there tiny wooden shacks rose on stilts above the water.
Her father had talked to her of the sea. How she had yearned to see it, and how eagerly she had listened to his descriptions. Her sudden urgency to visit the seaside now seemed like the need to complete a circle—the ending meeting the beginning. If the circle is complete, it can be set aside. Sorrowfully, but with a sense of appropriate finality.
She wanted to see the shore, to walk along it, or if she couldn’t walk, then stand where the water rushed up against the sand. Then she could go home.
Brian insisted that they spend the night right there, and she was too weak to argue with him. Tourists were scarce so late in autumn, and they had no trouble finding a room that overlooked the deserted beach. Sharlie spent the afternoon in bed, staring out the window at the sea curling into froth against the sand. The colors pleased her—gray sea and sky, pale clouds, white-breaking waves, a foreground of soft gray-beige shore. Bright sunshine and brilliant colors had begun to disturb her. They jarred her like harsh noises, too loud, too discordant for the hushed, contemplative world she had entered.
When Brian went out to run along the beach, she saw him wave up toward her window, his lean body growing smaller, long denim legs disappearing against the sand. She fell into a kind of half sleep after that and didn’t wake up until the middle of the night.
Brian had left the curtain open. He knew that she hated the darkness now and was comforted by the pale light that usually filtered through their window at home. But there was no moon tonight, and no street-lamps to brighten the sky. She woke up aching and disoriented, and in the heavy darkness she began to panic. She felt like a little girl, all alone in a terrible black world. She was sick, and there was no one to help her. She could cry for help, and nobody would hear her feeble child’s voice through the oppressive weight of the night. She began to whimper quietly, trying to muffle the sound against her pillow.
