Baker Towers

by Jennifer Haigh

  She rose and scooped her own oatmeal from the pot. The last bite was the sweetest, caramel-flavored and slick with butter. In the parlor she turned on the television. The set was a gift from her brother Georgie; each Christmas he sent a wonderful present from Philadelphia. The television had arrived two years ago. It hadn’t worked at first, until Sandy fiddled with the antenna and wrapped its branches in tinfoil. Then they watched television every evening, Lucy and Joyce and even Sandy, when he had nothing better to do. Her mother stayed in the kitchen, where the old radio now sat. She preferred it to television. Lucy suspected that for her there wasn’t much difference.

  She waited for the set to warm up, then adjusted the antenna. Her mother’s eyesight was something they never talked about; it was hard to know what she could see and what she couldn’t. She could still bake bread—every Friday she made four loaves. She moved from room to room with relative ease, but she seldom left the house. A few times Lucy had used this to her advantage, claiming the weather was bad when her mother sent her outside to play. Afterward shame overcame her. She vowed never to do it again.

  It terrified her to think that her mother couldn’t see her, a dreadful foretaste of the day she would leave them forever. Yet in one way—a horribly selfish way—it was a relief. Lucy’s fatness was on display to the rest of the world, but her mother would never see her that way. She’d remember Lucy small and perfect, as she’d been at her First Communion, the prettiest one in her dress and veil. And as long as her mother didn’t know, Lucy could pretend it wasn’t happening: the rapid fleshing of her thighs, the rolls at her middle, the new clothes that fit for a month or two and then never again.

  She didn’t eat all that much. An average amount, in her estimation. An average person would eat more than Joyce, who took tiny helpings and then pecked at her food like a bird. Lucy ate only oatmeal for breakfast, though she sometimes stopped at Bellavia’s on the way to school. (Mrs. Bellavia baked bread every morning. With the leftover dough she made a special, tiny loaf for Lucy.) She ate lunch in the school cafeteria; the cook, an old Polish lady who liked her, gave her extra helpings of her favorites: mashed potatoes with gravy, thick noodles with buttered bread crumbs and cheese. After school she walked to McClanahan’s for a bag of penny candy. Joyce kept a jar of change in the kitchen cupboard. Lucy had learned to fish out the coins without making a sound.

  More, but not much more. It didn’t seem fair.

  The water pump chugged in the basement. Dorothy was running a bath. Lucy went into the kitchen and returned with a slice of buttered bread. Joyce had a strict rule about not eating in the parlor, but Joyce wasn’t home. Lucy sat back and ate it, luxuriously, on the couch.

  “Well, she looks all right,” said George.

  He and Joyce sat at the kitchen table drinking black coffee. Brown, really: he could almost discern the flowered pattern at the bottom of his cup. The family brew was famously weak, hot water faintly flavored with coffee. In truth he preferred it to Marion’s espresso, to date the only thing she’d ever concocted in their kitchen.

  “She’s a little better,” Joyce agreed. “A month ago she couldn’t get out of bed on her own. Really, Georgie. She scared me half to death.”

  “What I can’t figure out is why she won’t talk.” When he arrived from Philadelphia the night before, Dorothy had greeted him warmly, clinging and a little weepy; but that was nothing unusual. He’d tried talking to her at dinner, but she had simply smiled. When she did speak, her answers didn’t make sense. How nice, she said when he asked how she was feeling.

  “She’s been alone a long time,” he said. “Maybe she just got out of the habit.”

  “Don’t be silly. There’s more to it than that.” Joyce rose and washed her cup at the sink.

  “You’re looking good.” It was, he thought, different from good-looking. Joyce’s hair was carefully set, her blouse tucked neatly at her waist. The kitchen, too, was immaculate. His sister ran a tight ship.

  “I’m tired.” She said it matter-of-factly, as though it were just a piece of information. “Mama had a doctor’s appointment yesterday, and Lucy has parent-teacher conferences on Monday. It’s always something.”

  “You need a vacation,” he said automatically. Marion’s friends went to France or Italy every summer, Palm Beach or Bermuda in the winter. The moment he said it, he realized it was a ridiculous suggestion. In Bakerton nobody took vacations.

  “The front porch is starting to settle,” said Joyce. “Would you mind taking a look?”

  He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “What about Baker? They’re the landlords, after all. They’re supposed to maintain the place.”

  “I’ve talked to them already. Daddy built the porch. They say it’s not their problem.”

  “I forgot.”

  “Oh, Georgie.”

  His sister didn’t waste words, George reflected; her tone said everything. Her weariness and disappointment, the countless ways he had failed the family, the deep sadness his selfishness would have caused their father, if only he had lived to see it.

  He drained his cup. “I’ll go take a look.”

  He went out to the porch. Joyce was right: the floor listed to one side. A few boards had been replaced recently, but most of the wood was original, the planks his father had cut nearly thirty years ago. A boy then, George had watched him cut the wood with a handsaw. His father had been proud of the porch, the first on Polish Hill. It had set their house apart: a company house, yes, but different from the others. He had painted the boards forest green, a handsome color. The paint was blistered now, peeling in strips.

  Gingerly he tested the floorboards. A few gave slightly with his weight. He imagined driving across town to the lumberyard, buying nails and two-by-fours. There his vision faltered. No way could he fit the lumber into his Cadillac. He could bang a nail as well as the next guy, but the finer points of leveling and cornering were beyond him. He was as helpless a carpenter as Marion was a cook.

  He glanced across the street. A truck had pulled up to the Stusicks’ house, and two portly, balding men—Gene’s older brothers, he realized—were struggling with a brown plaid sofa. The house had been empty since Gene’s mother died. Now, apparently, someone was moving in.

  “Hey there,” he called. “Need a hand?” He jogged easily across the street, grabbed a corner of the sofa and helped heft it up the front steps. “Who’s the new tenant?”

  “No tenant.” The taller brother—Fred—wedged his end through the front door. “You didn’t know? Baker’s has the whole hill up for sale.”

  “No kidding.” George glanced over his shoulder, wondering who would buy a company house on Polish Hill. Cheap little cracker boxes, even when they were new; and the houses hadn’t aged well. His mother’s windows leaked cold air. One day soon the roof would have to be replaced.

  “Gene bought it,” Fred said, as if answering his question. “He’s rolling in the dough now. He’s a boss over at the Twelve.”

  They wedged the sofa through the front door. The house was as familiar to George as any he’d ever known; his whole childhood he’d traipsed through its rooms. Most of the old furniture had remained: the braided rug, the worn armchair where Mr. Stusick had read his Polish paper, the telephone table draped with a crocheted doily. On the wall, the same photographs found in every house on the Hill: Pope Pius and John L. Lewis, the legendary president of the Mineworkers, a face as familiar as family. Apparently Ev would inherit these items. George supposed she would keep them; how else would you furnish a house on Polish Hill? Marion’s abstract art would look ridiculous here, as utterly misplaced as Marion herself.

  They set down the sofa.

  “Think that’s where she wants it?” Fred asked.

  The other brother shrugged. “That’s Gene’s problem.”

  “True enough.” Fred wiped his hand on his trousers, then offered it to George. “Thanks for the hand, George. Stop over tomorrow, if you’re around. Ev and Gene’s girl is ma
king her First Communion. They’d be glad to see you.”

  “I will,” said George.

  Again he crossed the street. His mother was sitting on the front porch. “Georgie?” she said as he climbed the stairs. A question in her voice. The realization hit him like a sucker punch: she couldn’t see. At least, not well enough to recognize him.

  “Hi, bella.” He called her this rarely, hadn’t done so in years. He’d known her eyes were bad, but still.

  “Where you been, Georgie?”

  “Across the street. Looks like you’ve got some new neighbors. Gene and Ev bought the old homestead.”

  “Eee!” She clapped her hands. “I always love that Evelyn. That’s a nice girl.”

  George waited.

  “Georgie,” she said. “How come you never marry her?”

  He laughed uneasily. “That’s ancient history, Ma.”

  “How come?” she persisted.

  “It was Ev’s decision. I was overseas, and somewhere along the line she decided she liked Gene better. Good choice, if you ask me.”

  “But how come? If he was here, I could understand. But he was in the war, too. How come she like him better?”

  “Maybe he wrote better letters.” Across the street Gene’s brothers were moving a kitchen table. George lowered his voice, hoping his mother would take the hint.

  “I guess it was my fault,” he admitted. “I stopped writing.”

  “You stop?” She clapped a hand over her mouth, as outraged by his behavior as if it had happened yesterday. “Eee, how come?”

  He shrugged. “Ev was all hot to get married. I had my doubts, but she couldn’t wait. I had a furlough coming up, and without telling me, she went and talked to the priest. That burned me up.” He paused. “Remember that time I was supposed to come home?”

  “That furlough!” she cried. “And then they don’t let you come.”

  “That’s right,” he said. “And you know what? I was relieved—that’s how bad I didn’t want to get married. After that I never wrote to her again. I guess she got the message, because the next time I came home, she and Gene were engaged.”

  His mother eyed him for a long moment. A flush crept over his cheeks. What does she see when she looks at me? he wondered.

  “I’m not proud of it,” he said. “It’s just about the most cowardly thing I’ve ever done. But there you have it.”

  Still his mother said nothing.

  “It worked out for the best, though. For both of us.” He forced a cheerful tone. “Gene’s a good man. And I’ve got Marion now.”

  Across the street Gene’s brothers got into the truck.

  “Georgie,” she said, “are you happy?”

  “Sure. Sure I’m happy.” He rose, feeling his heart. “You don’t know Marion; you haven’t had the chance. But trust me, Mama.” He bent and kissed her. “She’s a wonderful girl.”

  THEY’D BEEN MARRIED seven years. Compared with other periods in his life—adolescence, the navy—his marriage seemed much longer, though in fact little had happened. The first year passed in a haze of sex and alcohol. He was working for Marion’s father, at the flag-ship Quigley’s store downtown. The old man had put him on the sales floor. To learn the engine, he’d explained to George. If you want to know how a machine runs, you’ve got to watch the gears grind. Quigley’s own son was spared this indoctrination: Kip, when he showed up at all, spent his days behind a desk. Meanwhile George hawked furniture and appliances, menswear and ladies’ shoes. No one told him so, but he understood that he would have to prove himself. A son-in-law was not a son.

  He started in Men’s Furnishings. Long days on his feet, a tape measure around his neck, fitting trousers to grumpy old codgers with balding legs and gin-blossom noses. The customers resembled his father-in-law; George had an unwelcome mental picture of how Arthur Quigley must look in his shorts. Yet he didn’t mind the old coots; he’d have enjoyed their company, if not for the misery of his daily hangovers. Every evening, Marion waited for him with a pitcher of martinis. They drank for an hour or two, then tumbled into bed. Afterward they drank some more. Often they fought bitterly; though the reasons for the disputes, or how they resolved themselves, he rarely remembered in the morning. Sick, red-eyed, he struggled out of bed. Even in top form, he was not a natural salesman; with dry heaves and a splitting headache, even less so. Marion slept late and looked fresh and lovely when he returned in the evening; but George wondered how long he could sustain the pace. His marriage stretched eternally before him, fifty years of nausea and crippling migraines. Something would have to give.

  Something did. Marion became pregnant. She blamed George—silently at first; later with streams of invective, acrimonious and profane. She spoke of traveling to Switzerland, “to have it taken care of”—a procedure she’d apparently undergone before. Then her father suffered a stroke, and for reasons George didn’t wholly understand, Marion changed her mind. The baby was born a month premature, so small George might have held him in one hand, if he’d dared. They named him Arthur, for Marion’s father.

  The birth changed her. Once an insomniac, she now spent whole days in bed. She wept easily, an astonishing development: in all the time he’d known her, George had never seen her cry. At night he came home to the house they’d bought—a large colonial in Newtown Square, a few miles from his in-laws’—and mixed himself a drink. Upstairs his wife and baby cried, indifferent to each other and to any ministrations he might offer. He had hired a temporary nanny. Arthur was small and terrifyingly fragile. Until Marion was ready to look after him, George reasoned, his care was best left to a professional.

  How to care for Marion, he had no idea. With increasing frequency, doctors came. Once she overdosed on sleeping pills—accidentally, she later claimed; though George had his doubts. Her obstetrician was no help, and neither was the Quigleys’ family doctor. Marion dismissed them as idiots, and refused to see a psychiatrist. Then George found Ezra Gold.

  Gold was an internist with offices on Park Avenue. George paid him extra to come to Philadelphia; later, when Marion was well enough, she took the train into New York for her checkups. She returned from each visit with a new prescription: for anxiety, insomnia, an underactive thyroid. Amber plastic bottles lined her bathroom shelf. She swallowed pills with breakfast, at bedtime. And in the space of just a few weeks, she got better.

  The transformation was astounding. For the first time George could remember, she slept through the night. She rose when he did, dressed and smiled at him across the breakfast table. She did not paint—she’d stopped during her pregnancy when the turpentine nauseated her, and had no desire to resume. She didn’t read, or play with Arthur, but her demeanor was sane and pleasant. In the afternoons she shopped or had lunch with old schoolmates from Miss Porter’s and Bryn Mawr. That, too, was new: she’d never shown the slightest interest in girlfriends. Her oils and canvases gathered dust in the attic. The temporary nanny moved into a spare bedroom upstairs.

  At first he was filled with relief. Only later, when the crisis was past, did he understand what he had lost. At night, with the new, changed Marion sleeping peacefully beside him, he remembered the mysterious, voracious woman he’d married, her unpredictable passions, the shocking detour his life had taken when they met. He wondered where she had gone.

  He didn’t miss her; not at first. The old Marion had fascinated him; but he couldn’t remember being happy in her presence. His memories were tinted like an old photograph: yellow with anxiety, red with anger, green with drunkenness, blue with lust. But at least he had known her. The new Marion—a polite, remote woman, carefully coiffed, who stared absently at the television while he read the newspaper, who clutched his arm as they crossed the street, who poured herself a single drink at bedtime and fell dead asleep on the couch—was a stranger to him. A different woman had led him into this Philadelphia life with its invisible codes of behavior; a place where he would forever remain a stranger. She’d regarded Main Line society as an elab
orate maze constructed for her amusement, and she’d enjoyed leading George through it, laughing at its provincialism and pretense.

  Shortly after they’d bought the Newtown house, new neighbors moved in across the street, a pleasant young couple named Peter and Libby Hill. Peter was an attorney with a year-round suntan; he played golf every Saturday and had once asked George to come along. Though George didn’t golf, he’d have liked to learn. But he had refused the invitation, because while Marion found Libby merely tedious, she despised Peter Hill. He was perfectly vacuous, she said; smug, venal and nearly illiterate—though how she’d gleaned all this from the occasional pleasantries they exchanged, George had no idea. The invitation had never been repeated; like the rest of his well-heeled neighbors, Peter Hill remained a stranger. Now, without Marion’s ironic commentary, these people no longer struck George as ridiculous. He found them exotic and utterly intimidating, and felt himself completely alone.

  He had loved to make her laugh. He was an excellent mimic, a fine physical comic. Working at Quigley’s had provided him an abundance of material. At the end of the day, with a few drinks in him, he’d entertained her by impersonating the boozy customer who couldn’t fasten his suspenders, the stout woman in the shoe department who refused to step on the fluoroscope because she thought it revealed her weight.

  “It’s an X-ray machine,” George had explained. “It shows us the bones in your feet, so we can fit your shoes properly.”