Such Good People

by Martha Whitmore Hickman

  Ginny returned from the kitchen, water in hand. “How is your mother?”

  “She didn’t break anything—I guess I told you that. She’ll go home tomorrow. But she’s frail. Very frail.” Suddenly, she put her face in her hands. “I really can’t think of losing her, not yet. Not someone else.” She reached for her handkerchief. “Oh, excuse me. I’m such a shambles these days. People will think I have no stamina at all!”

  “Nonsense. Who cares what people think?” And then, hesitant, she added, “I hope you don’t mind that I told Fred.”

  “Oh, no. I’d want him to know.” She sighed. “That’s always part of the issue, isn’t it—whom to tell? How soon? I can’t bear to be with anyone for long, if we’re going to be friends at all, without telling them. It’s almost like my name. ‘I’m Laura Randall. I have two sons. I had a daughter, but my daughter was killed,’”

  Ginny nodded. “That goes away—that need to tell everybody. I still remember the first time I didn’t. By then, we had Linda, so it was a couple of years, and someone said to me, ‘Do you have children?’ and I said, ‘Yes, I have a daughter, Linda.’ Before that, I always had to add, ‘I had a son, too, but he died.’ I used to wonder whether it was my anger—that I wanted other people to suffer, too. Or my need to keep him alive, not have him forgotten, dismissed so quickly. So quickly.”

  Laura, who had been staring into her lap, looked up at the repeated words. Ginny’s eyes were wet and Laura stood up and went to her and they put their arms around each other. Ginny pulled a tissue from the cuff of her shirt and wiped her eyes. “I still want to tell people sometimes. I look for an excuse. If someone says, after I tell them about the girls, ‘All daughters? No sons?’ I’m quick to jump at it—'I had a son, but he died in an accident as a child.’” She wiped her eyes again. “I guess I’m still angry,” she said.

  They were sitting on opposite ends of the sofa now. Laura picked up a pillow of needlepointed violets and held it against her pale yellow sweater.

  “Tell me about her,” Ginny said. “About you. Whatever you want.”

  So Laura unburdened herself of some of the things she’d wanted to say to Ginny in the car on the way home but had been too overwhelmed to begin—about what a wonderful child Annie had been, such a confident adolescent—“not like me”—at which Ginny shrugged her skepticism. “You were fine,” she said. She told about Bart and Philip and how they’d been so helpful during the first terrible weeks, about the memorial service, and the friend who sang “One Day at a Time”—“That’s how she lived, Ginny”—she leaned forward—“almost as though she knew she didn’t have much time.” She lifted her head in a gesture of pride at Annie’s courage. “Sometimes, though—” She looked at her friend and stopped.

  And then she began again. “There’s something else, Ginny. I hardly know how to talk about it.”

  “Go on,” Ginny said.

  “We were going through some hard times, Annie and Trace and I. She was very adventurous, very determined to do things her way. Sometimes that caused us a lot of pain, kept us on edge. What new thing was she going to try, what punches would we have to roll with next? So that when she died, that was all gone. There was a part of me—” She stopped and inhaled deeply. “I can hardly bear this myself, let alone tell you.” Her fingers worked at the welting on the pillow, kneading the velvet cording in and out.

  “Go on,” Ginny said.

  “In a way, it’s easier, having her gone!” She blurted it out, pulled the pillow even tighter against the sudden cramping in her diaphragm.

  “Good for you!” Ginny said, and reached over to put a steadying hand on Laura’s knee. Then she sat back. “Listen. Tommy was born with a mild case of cerebral palsy. You’d hardly notice it—a slight drag when he walked. But we had to massage his leg every day, do exercises. It was a nuisance. At times, I resented it—it took a lot of time; he fussed. Then he died and I didn’t have to do it anymore. Of course I’d have given anything to have that task again.” She spread her palms, empty. “But I didn’t. It was hard to allow myself that freedom. I’d invent jobs to do, or I’d sit, every morning and evening when we used to do the exercises, and dwell on my grief, how much I missed him. As though to use that freedom was to be guilty of his death. You see? If Annie’s death has some aspect of ease in it for you, that’s a side effect. It’s after the fact. It doesn’t make you an accomplice.”

  “Oh, thank you,” Laura pressed her handkerchief against her eyes. “Tell me again.”

  “Dear Laura, listen to me— It doesn’t make you an accomplice. You didn’t wish for it. She’s not holding you responsible. Don’t you do it, either.”

  “Thank you.” Her voice was a whisper. In her mind, she looked for Annie, saw her face, the brown hair curling around it, the eyes clear, direct, bright. Annie would understand, wouldn’t she?

  “Thank you,” she said again. “I’ll try to believe it.”

  “Something else, Laura. When you start to do things on your own, maybe things you couldn’t have done, remember that you didn’t bargain for that, either, with her death. Keep the order straight. You acted second, not first.”

  Laura shook her head and smiled. “I may ask you to tell me that again later. Though I do know what you mean. I finally bought some new clothes a few weeks ago. At first, every time I put them on, it seemed I had abandoned her, turning toward a future she won’t share. Then I thought, The hell with that; there’s nothing in my future she won’t share. Though I sure wish the terms were different!” She lifted the pillow against her face, then put it back on the couch and patted it into place. “Well…” She looked at her watch. “Mother will think I deserted her.” She eased forward and stood. “I can’t thank you enough. I feel”—she touched her chest—“well, tons lighter, I guess.”

  They hugged each other. “Will you come over sometime and see Mother?” Laura asked.

  “Of course. But tonight—how about going out for a late supper with Fred and Tom and me? After visiting hours.”

  She hesitated a moment. Would Rachel mind? But Rachel would be going to sleep. She’d be safe with Ginny and Tom. And yes, it would be nice to see Fred. “I’d love to.”

  “Good. Come over here when you’re through. We’ll be ready.”

  *

  She’d been gone longer than she’d intended—a couple of hours at least. Hurrying along the corridor toward Rachel’s room, she saw at the end of the hall a bent figure in a paisley robe, a white-clad nurse on either side. It was her mother. The robe reached to just below her knees. Beneath the robe, her legs, white and thin as bones, angled in toward her feet. Laura stopped, remembered how as a young woman Rachel had been proud of her legs, remembered a day long ago when Rachel and Will had just come from a wedding. Rachel wore her rose chiffon dress and the black satin shoes with the sparkling beads. She extended a leg in front of her, pointing her toe. “Not bad,” she said. Her father stepped over and swung an arm under her mother and lifted her off the floor. “Daddy! She’s all dressed up!” Laura said. They twirled around, the rose-colored dress flaring out like a tent. When he put her down, her mother’s face was pink as the ruffle circling her shoulder.

  At the end of the corridor, the three women were proceeding at a slow, painstaking pace. Laura started toward them, apprehensive. Would Rachel be angry, feel neglected? When she reached her mother, Rachel said, “Hello, dear. You see I’m walking.” She turned from one to the other of the nurses. “This is my daughter Laura. She came all the way from Tennessee just to see me.

  Back in the room, they eased Rachel onto the bed. “They’ll be bringing supper soon,” the nurse said. Rachel lay back against the pillow and looked at Laura. “I’ll feast my eyes on you,” she said. But a haziness drifted onto her face and her eyelids lowered. She opened them again. “I’m tired. You don’t mind if I doze off?”

  “Of course not.”

  The sound of the supper arriving woke Rachel. She looked at the food—broth, chicken, canned bean
s, bread and butter, a half peach afloat in syrup, a small steel teapot with a tea bag beside it. She picked up the tea bag and dangled it into the pot. “They don’t know how to make tea,” she said.

  Laura sat by her while she ate, each bite a journey over the napkin, up the slope of her chest, past her chin to her mouth.

  Rachel pushed the tray away. “That’s enough.” She looked at Laura. “What about you? You could get supper in the cafeteria.”

  “Thank you. After visiting hours, I’m going out to supper with Virginia.”

  Her mother looked puzzled. “Virginia?”

  Laura leaned forward into the residual smell of canned beans. “My friend, Virginia Thayer. You remember her?”

  “Oh yes, I guess I do. Remember me to her. You haven’t seen her in a long time, have you?”

  “Not until yesterday. She brought me from the airport.”

  “I see.”

  They talked of other things—of Rachel’s fall, of Ella and Jackson, of whether Carlena would need groceries from the store. Rachel’s attention came and went. She recognized it herself. “I’m sorry I’m not any brighter tonight, dear.”

  “It’s no wonder, Mother, after a day like this.”

  Rachel closed her eyes again. Laura watched her, a sadness coming over her. You are going from me. There are things I need to say to you. Shall we manage it, you and I?

  When she was sure Rachel was asleep, Laura picked up the newspaper and read through it, looking for familiar names—Thibedoux, Ferriante, Alger. She had known many of them in school. They were running the city now.

  When the voice came over the loudspeaker—“Visiting hours are over. Will all visitors please leave”—she kissed her mother’s forehead, touched her hand. The pattern of Rachel’s breathing shifted, but she did not waken.

  In the corridor, Laura stopped at the nurses’ station to say, “My mother’s asleep.”

  The nurse looked up, startled.

  She went on, took the elevator down, and went out into the night.

  Light from the stone fireplace played on delft tiles along the wall, flickered on a set of hanging copper pots, shone in miniaturized tiny fires—reflections on the glass of the hurricane lamp, the empty wineglasses—at the Country Pedlar Inn, where Ginny and Tom, Laura and Fred sat finishing their coffee.

  “I’ve always liked this place,” Fred said, the sweep of his hand taking in the restaurant, its deep alcoves and candlelight.

  “I have, too.” It had been Laura’s suggestion that they come here—readily agreed to by the others. “Trace and I had our wedding-rehearsal dinner here.”

  “Did you?” Fred’s eyes lingered on her, as though somewhere in his mind he was trying to imagine that event.

  “We missed each other’s weddings,” Ginny said. “How could we have let ourselves grow so far apart?” She reached for Laura’s hand. “No more,” she said.

  Laura took the hand offered her. “No more.”

  The evening had gone well. Laura liked Tom—straightforward, courteous, watching his wife’s pleasure in her girlhood friend.

  It had been Fred who’d greeted her, again, when she’d arrived at the door after leaving Rachel. He had exchanged the corduroy jacket and denim pants for a navy blazer and gray slacks. “Come in, Laura.”

  They stood in the hall. “Ginny and Tom will be here in a minute,” he said, and then, his voice heavy with the weight of it, his blue eyes steady on her, he asked, “How are you, dear? It must be hell for you, losing your daughter.”

  “Yes. Thank you, Fred. It is. I guess I’m doing okay.” She could feel the tears start to rise and she turned, grateful for the clattering of shoes on the stairs—Tom and Ginny.

  Ginny leaned forward, the tie of her red silk blouse falling forward onto the hand she extended. “Laura, this is Tom.”

  He shook her hand—“How do you do?”—a tall man, dark-haired, dark-suited, his necktie a proper stripe.

  “How do you do?” she answered. “I’m so happy to meet you after all this time.”

  “Virginia has told me so much about you,” he said, his tone slightly formal. “I hope your mother is doing well.”

  “I think so.”

  “I do extend my condolences—your daughter…” He stumbled, awkward, uncomfortable in extending sympathy for a loss with which he was so familiar. Why the stiffness? Suddenly, she remembered Trace—his matter-of-fact tone, describing the events around Annie’s death.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Ginny took her arm. “Let’s go.” They went to the car, and the men followed along behind.

  During dinner, much of the conversation had been reminiscences of Laura and Ginny’s adolescent years in Hadley. The men listened contentedly, every once in a while asking a question or making a comment.

  “Of course you were here, too.” Tom shifted his attention to Fred.

  “Yes. But I was older. Two years seems like a lot of time when you’re sixteen and full of your own importance.”

  “You were quite the star,” Laura said. “I think half the sophomore class had a crush on you. I did.” She laughed, startled at her admission.

  Fred’s smile was benevolent. “I liked you a lot, too even though you were my sister’s friend. We even managed a couple of dates, as I recall.”

  “We did. A Joni Mitchell concert with some friends. And then the ball game.”

  “After the game, we went to Charley’s and danced—right?”

  “Right,” she said, pleased that he remembered, and even now recalling the sweet seduction of the music and how well she and Fred had danced together.

  She gave a theatrical sigh. “And then you went off to college—lost to me forever.”

  “I thought about you, though,” he protested, the glow in his eyes soft. “You’d be surprised to know how often.”

  She smiled. “Could have fooled me.” His words warmed her nonetheless.

  She picked up her coffee cup, drank, put it down again onto the gold-rimmed green saucer. Her eyes caught Ginny’s, blue-gray in the candlelight, her dark lashes casting feathery shadows on her cheek. “It hardly seems that long ago, does it—all of that, those high school years?”

  “No.” Ginny was reflective. “Though so much has happened.”

  “Yes,” Laura said. She means Tommy, she thought. I mean Annie. Will it always be that way?

  Fred interrupted her reverie. “Ginny says you’re a painter?”

  “Not quite.” The question startled her, and she launched into a vague, wandering speech about her interest in painting but not knowing whether she’d be able to, about being fearful of being home alone all day but not wanting to run from that solitude, either.

  Fred was thoughtful. “You have good friends, I’m sure. I mean in Tennessee—where is it you live?”

  “In Woodbridge.”

  “Your husband teaches there. They must have art courses. Maybe you could take a class.” He said to Tom, “That’s where Laura and I first met—in an art class.” He turned back to Laura. “I think it was before you and Ginny were friends.”

  She nodded in agreement.

  He chuckled. “It’s a wonder I didn’t scare you off from the whole family. As I remember, I was a terrible snob at the time.”

  “Snob?” Ginny laughed and pushed her dark hair back from her face. “About what? Your superior artistic ability? You were good, I know, but not that good—not then. Were you?”

  “I think I was affecting a jaundiced view of the world—a junior cynic. Probably covering up my insecurities.” He smiled ruefully, bent his napkin back along the fold.

  “You?” Laura said. “I thought you knew it all.”

  “So did I,” he said.

  “So what are you doing now?” she asked. “You live on the Cape? I was there once, years ago. I thought I’d love to go back there someday and paint. All that sky and water and sand, and those wonderful slatted, beat-up lobster pots.” When was it she had been there? Long ago, with Trace, be
fore any of the children were born.

  “Come down sometime and take a crack at it,” he said. “We sure have lots of painters—summer, winter, spring, or fall. Come anytime.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “Maybe I’ll get back there someday. I was always going to take the children. Now…” The familiar lump rose in her throat. The next thing, she would be crying. Not here, please, she admonished herself, and rummaged in her purse for a tissue or a hankie. Where was it? She never went anywhere these days without a handkerchief. A folded white linen square appeared at her elbow. “Here, take mine,” Fred said.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “Well.” Tom shifted in his chair, realigned the meal check and signed charge slip on the small pewter tray. “We seem to be almost the last ones here. Perhaps we’d better go?”

  He went to get the car. Ginny retreated to the ladies’ room. Fred and Laura stepped out onto the veranda, breathed in the night air. Laura looked back at the lighted windows of the inn, remembering the occasion of the rehearsal dinner, so long ago, on an evening in early fall, an evening much like this.

  Fred followed her glance to the lighted windows. He seemed to read her thoughts. “It’s a lovely place,” he said. “Your husband—how is he? Do you talk a lot?”

  “Yes. Yes and no. He puts a lot of energy into his work.” She took a deep breath. “I need to put more into mine.” Chagrinned, she suddenly remembered. “I asked you what you do and never gave you the chance to answer. I’m sorry. I’m so preoccupied with my own stuff these days. So, what do you do? Travel? You were so good as Sky Masterson, I thought you might try the theater.”

  He looked startled. “You remember that?”

  “Always.” She closed her eyes, hugged herself in her soft yellow sweater. “You were a dream to all of us girls. A matinee idol. We vied for who would stand next to you at the final curtain calls.”

  He smiled. “Well, maybe I should have gone on with theater, though that’s not a very predictable life, either.”