Such Good People

by Martha Whitmore Hickman

  Wryly, bemused, she stood up and went to this same mirror again. What she saw wasn’t the wide-eyed child who’d found in her own hands and in her mother’s blessing the vision of a future worthy of a fateful beginning, but a middle-aged woman, her face drawn, deeply shadowed, eyes swollen from mourning for a dead daughter. Startled, her voice harsh, she asked of the face in the mirror, “Is this it? Is this the reason you were saved?”

  Rachel sat propped against a pillow in her chair at the end of the table. They had finished dinner. Carlena was busy clearing up the kitchen.

  “Is Bart serious about Paula?” Rachel asked.

  “Yes, he is,” Laura said.

  “Are they going to get married?”

  She hesitated. She’d like to tell her mother about their living together, but how would Rachel take it? “I don’t know.”

  They moved on to other things—Rachel’s friends, the visits of Ella and Jackson, the pattern of Rachel’s days. “I read a lot,” she said. “I like a few things on television. I go to bed early.”

  “Do you sleep the night through?”

  “No. I wake too early.”

  “Then why go to bed so soon?”

  Rachel looked off at the black glare of the window. “I get tired. There isn’t much to do.”

  *

  When her mother fell asleep, Laura went upstairs, began putting clothes in drawers and closet.

  In the back of the closet, she came upon two old prom dresses. The rose lace—that had been a favorite. She slipped it from the hanger, held it against herself, and swirled once around the room. There was another favorite—aqua taffeta with tiers of ruffled skirt. Useless to anyone as hand-me-downs, they had stayed here for the dress-up play of visiting granddaughters—Annie and her cousins.

  At first, Annie had loved putting on the dresses, asking Laura to tell her about the parties, the boys who accompanied her when she wore these glamorous clothes. She would listen, eyes wide, then hoist the dresses up so the long skirts didn’t drag, parade around the house, the tarnished chain of a purse hanging from her wrist.

  The last few years, the dresses had hung unused. The questions about Laura’s adolescent social life had stopped. Any mention Laura made—of chaperoned hayrides, of dancing class with programmed instruction and parties that ended at ten o’clock, of dates that culminated in a shared fudge sundae at the drug-store—was met with derision. “Dancing class!” Annie said. “The Stone Age!”

  “It wasn’t so dull,” Laura protested, then thinking of the solitary gyrations of the young in what currently passed for dancing, added, “We even touched each other when we danced.”

  Annie raised her eyebrows. “There are other ways to do that,” she said.

  *

  Annie had had her first boyfriend in sixth grade. “The dashing Keith Mitchell.” It was Laura’s phrase. She’d seen him at a school concert—taller than the others, dark, his hair shaggy over a handsome face. He announced the program. Afterward, she asked Annie, “Who was the announcer? I thought he was quite dashing.”

  Annie laughed. “You and everybody else. That’s Keith Mitchell. He’s president of the Student Council.”

  One late afternoon, there’d been a ring of the doorbell. Laura went. A boy with dark hair, a canvas newspaper bag slung over his shoulder, asked, “Is Annie here?”

  “Annie—” Annie came from the den. “Keith! Hi!”

  He smiled, awkward, his thumb running under the strap of the canvas bag. “I finished early. I was going by your house. I thought I’d see if you were here.”

  Laura retreated to the kitchen. A half hour later, Annie came back. “It was the dashing Keith Mitchell,” she said, her voice shimmering with excitement. She went toward the phone. “I gotta call Janet.”

  The friendship between Annie and Keith prospered. In junior high, they went to basketball games. He would come over and they’d sit on the steps outside, or walk around the block, hand in hand. Once they were gone for two hours. It was dark when Annie came in.

  “Have a nice time?” Laura asked.

  “We were in the backyard, talking.”

  “Why don’t you invite him in? You could talk in here.”

  “Mother!” Annie said. “We’re not doing anything.”

  She had believed Annie then. Of course she wasn’t “doing anything,” as she put it. Later, with Gordon…perhaps they should have known. Not that Annie had lied to them; they had never asked. When they did learn, she and Trace had been so enlightened, modern, accepting, trying to wrench themselves into another world, caring more than anything to keep talking, trying to understand, stay close. She had tried—

  Anyway, her own thought interrupted her, I thought you were glad she was adventurous, especially since she had so little time. I was. But it was hard. I accepted it. I did well with it.

  And she never gave me credit.

  A sob caught her off guard. She sat down on the bed, gripping her knees. Was that always the way it was—mothers and daughters pulling away from each other until each learned to stand alone and they could be friends again? For some, it took a few years; for some, decades? A slow struggle or a quick one and then healing, new strength? Had she and Annie been on their way when Annie’s death cut across it all, left it unfinished? Fright cupped at her stomach. Did she love me? Was I a good mother? She began to summon images of Annie’s approval, pack them close lest anything slip between them: Annie’s “Nice,” on seeing the pastel drawing she was working on that day on the cabin porch; Annie on the phone last winter when, visiting Rachel and Will in Hadley, Laura had called home, discouraged, dismayed with herself, needing to talk to someone, and Annie had said, “Mom, Mom, it’s okay. I love you.”

  Did she want Annie’s blessing? Or was it her daughter’s forgiveness she craved—and for what? For still being alive, for winning? She opened her mouth and gulped in air. Do you forgive me for letting you die?

  “Oh!” She swung her feet to the floor and turned on the light. Ten-thirty. She wished she could talk to Trace. He was at that meeting in Chicago. Would Virginia still be up?

  She found the number in her purse and went to the phone in the upper hall. “Ginny, it’s Laura. Sorry to call so late.”

  “Not late at all. Tom and I were just talking about you. How are things going? How’s your mother?”

  “She’s okay. She’s asleep. Downstairs. I mean, she sleeps downstairs. I guess she’s okay. I don’t know.”

  “You don’t sound too great. Is it rough being home this first time?”

  “Oh yes.” She looked at the wall, the light coming in from the street. “Yes. Yes, it is. Those dresses—” She broke off in a staccato gulp of air.

  “Dresses?” Virginia said.

  “In the closet.”

  “Listen, Laura, you want me to come over?”

  She swallowed. “Sorry, Ginny. I’ll get hold of myself. Not tonight. But soon. Tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow’s fine, but I’d be glad to come now.”

  “No. There’s Carlena. Mother might wake up.” She took a deep breath. “I feel better already. But come tomorrow. About three?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  *

  In the night, Rachel fell. Laura didn’t hear her. The deep sleep into which she’d fallen prevented it. Carlena heard her, from her room at the top of the stairs, went down, and helped Rachel back to bed. The next morning, she was stiff and sore. Carlena called the doctor. She came back from the phone. “He thinks we should get an X ray, just in case. He’ll send an ambulance.” Aside, she whispered to Laura, “He wants blood tests, too, he don’t like her falling.”

  *

  Rachel hadn’t broken anything. The doctor wanted her to stay overnight, for observation. He came and talked to Laura while the nurses wheeled Rachel to her room. “There’s some deterioration in the blood vessels,” he said. “She has a recurrent bladder infection; it may require catheterization. Her medicine keeps her heartbeat steady.” He slipped his glas
ses back into the pocket of his coat. “There’s nothing critically wrong—just some deteriorations of age.”

  Laura winced. “Of course. She’s lost a lot of ground since I saw her last.”

  “None of us is getting any younger.” He was about to go.

  She spoke quickly. “Since my father died she’s been lonely. Do you think she’s all right, my mother—getting good care?”

  “She misses your father, of course. Yes, she’s getting good care. If you girls were closer, it would be easier for her. But she does pretty well.”

  He hurried away. You girls, Laura thought. Why not Howard, too? Why was it always daughters? And—with a lurch in her heart—what if there wasn’t a daughter to help parents grow old?

  *

  In the hospital room, Rachel sat against the raised mattress, the piled pillows, her hair combed back, the water bottle, the box of tissues on the green bedside table. “Well!” she said when Laura came in. “We never know what next, do we?”

  “I’m glad nothing’s broken. How’re you feeling?”

  “My leg aches. No worse than usual. My arthritis bothers me all the time.” She launched into a long account of the wait, the discomfort of the X-ray table. “I suppose I’ll have to ask Carlena to sleep downstairs with me so she’ll hear me get up. You can help her bring a cot from the attic.”

  “Those cots aren’t very comfortable. You have a bell by your bed—if you need help.”

  “I know, but I forget to ring it.” Rachel’s voice was querulous.

  “Mother! Wouldn’t it be simpler to remember the bell than drag Carlena’s bed downstairs?”

  A look of disapproval settled on Rachel’s face. “My mother and I never had a cross word,” she said. “Anyway, when my mother was sick, she always had somebody with her—my father, or a nurse. Sometimes I slept with her.” Her gaze glanced off Laura and she stared into the hall.

  “We’ll work something out.” Laura picked up a newspaper from the dresser. “Want to see the paper?”

  Rachel held her hand out stiffly. “I guess so.”

  Laura stood. “I have to make a phone call.”

  “What for?”

  “Virginia was coming to the house this afternoon. I might meet her somewhere instead.”

  “You’re going to leave me?”

  “Just while you’re having a nap. Now that I know you’re okay.”

  “Oh.” Her mother returned to the paper.

  Laura found a phone booth in the hall.

  “Fine,” Virginia said. “Why not come here? There’s someone here who’d like to see you.”

  “Oh?” She didn’t inquire. She went back to the room. The orderly had brought an extra lunch. She and her mother ate, saying little.

  Rachel began to settle herself for her nap. “Don’t stay too long,” she said.

  Laura gathered her things and hurried down the hall.

  In the car at last, she put her forearms on the steering wheel and rested her head against them and took several slow, deep breaths.

  Then she straightened up, started the car, hoping that Virginia’s friend, whoever it was, wouldn’t interfere with their visit.

  At Virginia’s house, she lifted the knocker, let it fall.

  The door opened. A man stood there—medium height, dark hair, pressed denim jeans, a tan corduroy jacket over a navy blue shirt.

  “Laura!” Blue eyes searched her face. He held out both hands, grasped her hand eagerly, and drew her into the house.

  “Tom?” She was startled at the intensity of his welcome. She had never met Ginny’s husband, but she had imagined a man of more ceremonial restraint.

  “No.” A chuckle came from deep within his throat. “Guess again.”

  “I…I don’t know,” she began, but something in the blue eyes—almost a deepening of color, a warmth half-joking, half-pleading—recalled to mind… “Fred?”

  He laughed, an arm light on her shoulder. “Ginny didn’t tell you I was here?”

  “She said ‘someone.’ She didn’t say her brother!” She said it almost accusingly, as though she should have been forewarned. “What brings you here? How are you?” Expecting a stranger, she had encountered Fred, of all people. Not that there would have been anything different to do, about seeing him again. Fred, whom she’d admired from afar—the handsome older brother of her best friend, always surrounded by girls, always out of reach. Obliquely, she looked at him again—the face lined by the passage of years, but still the same intriguing lift at the corners of his mouth, the smile that implied something unexpected and wonderful could happen at any minute, the eyes darker perhaps, but the same sparkle. “How are you, Fred?” she repeated the question. “Are you living in Hadley, of all places?” The last she had seen of him, he was about to go as a pilot to Vietnam, and maybe as a farewell to his old home-town—she could never figure out why—he had invited her to a first-of-the-season high school football game. She was a senior and he had two years of college behind him, and after the game they had gone to Charley’s and danced in the dim light. She remembered now the feel on her skin of her excitement and apprehension, and for the moment she forgot completely the devastating truth of her life.

  “No, I don’t live here,” he said. “I’m something of a transient, Laura. In fact”—he looked at his watch—“I have to leave right now for an appointment in Springfield. I was hoping you’d get here before I left. Ginny says you’ll be here for several days. Perhaps we can get together, catch up a little bit?”

  “I’d like that,” she said hastily, then thought, Nothing too demanding, please. Do I want to hold up a full half of a conversation?

  He was watching her face. “Maybe the four of us—you and Ginny and Tom and I—could have dinner some night.” His expression softened and he said, “Ginny told me about your daughter. I’m sorry.”

  “Yes. Thank you.” There it was. He knew. She would have wanted him to know. “It depends on how my mother does, but I’d like to, if we can.”

  Ginny came down the stairs then, slender and lovely in cream wool slacks and a silk shirt, a necklace of knotted gold rope.

  “Laura.” They hugged. Fred moved toward the door. “Good luck with the interview,” Ginny said. “Hope you land the job.”

  “Good-bye.” His glance swept them both, and he closed the door.

  “He’s looking for a job?” Laura asked, startled at this unexpected development.

  Ginny laughed. “He’s in the travel business—designs brochures, sales videos, that kind of thing. He’s checking out a new account.”

  “Has that been his work?”

  “One way or another. He says it supports his habit—which is travel. The more exotic the place, the better. He just got back from Iceland. Before that, it was the Galapagos Islands.”

  “He doesn’t live here. Where?”

  “He has a home—a small house on the Cape. But he’s not spent much time there since his marriage broke up.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Laura said, thinking back to the face that had greeted her at the door—a vulnerability she’d not remembered in the Fred Thayer she knew.

  “It’s been a while,” Ginny said. “His wife was a set designer. They lived in New York, then Paris. I think the vagaries of his coming and going were too much for her, or for them. She found someone else who could be around. They have one child—who’s with her mother.”

  They were still standing in the hall. Ginny put her arm around Laura’s shoulder. “Come on in,” and they entered the living room together.

  “Oh, what a lovely room,” Laura said. Modigliani prints framed the doorway. The room was filled with light—yellow and ivory and white fabrics, green plants on a glass-topped table, over the mantel a painting of large abstracted flowers—a single yellow lily by a blue iris. On the mantel, a triptych of family pictures and a tiny antique fire engine, its driver in a gilded helmet.

  “Thank you. Sit down. What can I get you? Tea? Wine? A glass of milk?”

&n
bsp; “Nothing, thank you. Well, maybe a glass of water. I can’t stay long.”

  Ginny left to get the water and Laura sat, still awhir at this unexpected meeting with Fred.

  She had not always admired him. They’d first met in a Saturday art class, even before she knew Ginny. Their storage cupboards had been next to each other—Taylor, Thayer. At the time, he’d seemed an obnoxious braggart, affecting artistic mannerisms. She was twelve. He was fourteen, and probably trying out roles for himself. By the time she reached high school, Fred was entering his senior year. He’d played Sky Masterson in the school production of Guys and Dolls. She’d been one of the girlfriends of the gamblers and with yearning in her heart had watched Fred move through the play. Did Ginny know? They spoke of casual crushes, other boyfriends, but somehow anything other than the most casual talk of Fred seemed out of bounds. Ginny must have known about that date. Or, suddenly shy, had she wanted to keep it just for herself? A brother is, after all, seldom a romantic figure.