Bodies and Souls

by Nancy Thayer

  Ron rose and walked through the house to his study. Here he kept the household bills and warranties, the children’s health records, all the information needed to run a house. He sat down at his desk and pulled out the file marked Insurance. If he were to die now in some sort of accident, his insurance company would pay his wife the full premium: two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That would cover the money he owed the rec center, and leave Judy relatively well off, although sooner or later she would have to get a job or remarry. It would see Cynthia through college. If Judy were widowed, Ron had no doubt that Gary, who was their lawyer as well as their friend, would do everything in his power to protect her. Gary would handle Judy’s financial affairs, and he would see to it that no nasty rumors got about. Whatever security was left to this family, then, was contained in this file folder. It was their salvation. Ron put the folder back in his desk and shut the drawer, then sat for a moment looking at the polished burled walnut wood of the desk. He ran his hands over the smooth surface, appreciating its cool, solid perfection. Wood grains, he thought, were like snowflakes: similar, but surely never exactly alike, like lives.

  He turned off the light in the study and went as quietly as possible up the carpeted front stairs. In the master bedroom, Judy lay curled on their king-sized bed, the brown afghan pulled up over her. Ron smiled when he saw her there, still dressed, even wearing her shoes. He knew what she had planned, to wake up at nine-thirty to find out whether or not Johnny had come home. But he reached over and switched off the alarm. She was in a deep sleep, and he did not want to awaken her. He just wanted to look at her again, this woman he had lived with for over twenty-five years. She did not look much older than when he had first met her. She still wore her hair in a braid, she was still slim and supple, and except for a few lines around her eyes, her face was unmarked by signs of stress or worry. He had given her a good life. They had given each other good lives. Now she lay there, safe in her sleep, trusting him to close up the house for the night. Trusting him. She had never failed him, and he would not fail her now.

  When they had first moved into this house fifteen years ago, Judy had spent the winter months studying gardening books and drawing up sketches of how the flowers should be planted at each side of the house. She plotted wind and drainage conditions, sun positions, the weeks each flower would bloom, the heights and colors each flower would attain. All that first spring and summer she worked at her planting, and to Ron’s eye the result was marvelous. But the second summer, when the first perennials began to bloom, he came home from work one evening to find her in the garden, furiously digging out a bed of marigolds she had planted the week before.

  “What in the world are you doing?” he had asked.

  “I’m taking these damned things out,” she said. “They ruin the effect. They look … too common.”

  “I think they’re pretty. A pretty color,” Ron offered.

  “Oh, yes, they’re a pretty color by themselves, but with the other flowers—they ruin the overall effect. I want it to be perfect.”

  She had kept on digging, until she’d gotten all the marigolds out and replaced them with a border of sweet alyssum.

  Ron had been slightly amused by this, but as the years passed he had grown to admire his wife for her persistent efforts toward perfection. It seemed to him that the unspoken motto of her life was that this was her life, and she would live it well, or not at all. He had no doubt now as he stood watching her that she would approve of his decision, if she could know of it, and that, if she were in his place, she would make the same choice.

  He went back down the stairs and into the kitchen. The fire was dying out; he scattered the last glowing embers about with the poker, then drew the screen. He took his brandy glass to the sink and rinsed it and the other three and stacked them in the dishwasher, then sponged off the countertop and checked to see that the cork had been put back firmly in the brandy bottle. He put the untouched raspberry pie back into the refrigerator. Then he walked through all the downstairs rooms of his house, quietly, just looking.

  Back in the kitchen, he scrawled a note on the chalkboard that hung by the telephone: “Had to go to the office for a while. Will be home soon. Love, R.” He put on his coat and hat and gloves, like any man afraid of catching cold, and went out into the night.

  The rain was coming down heavily now, and the air had grown bitter; he hurried toward the garage. Once inside his car, he sat awhile, considering the possibilities. It was not often, he supposed, that human beings got to choose just where in the world to die. But it was important that he choose carefully. He did not want to be only maimed or injured. The roads into the mountains would be the most logical places for an accident, but he had no reason to be going into the mountains. He did not like the idea of having the accident right in Londonton—it might make people have sad memories, or become superstitious—but in order to appear realistic, it had to be somewhere near his home or office. It seemed the best place was the bridge that passed over the Blue River.

  He backed the car out of the garage. When he turned out of his driveway, the car slid on a wet patch, and he laughed at the irony of it: wouldn’t it be terrible if he had an accident before he arrived at his destination?

  He drove slowly down Slope Road, past the Vandersons’, past the Moyers’. Good-bye. The houses he passed were clearly occupied by people getting ready for bed, for the downstairs windows were dark, while on the second stories one or two lights still shone; as he passed one house, the light went out. It was just a little after ten o’clock on Sunday night. Ron imagined all the people shuffling around in their robes, completing familiar tasks before tucking themselves into the gentle blanket of sleep. Death was like sleep, it was said; he was not afraid of death. He was only afraid, now, of somehow bungling this one last task left to him, and so he set himself to gather all his competence toward it.

  “When all is said and done, I’ve lived a good enough life. I’ve been a good enough man,” he said aloud, feeling the need to say something conclusive.

  Then he just concentrated on his task. He turned off Slope Road, drove down the hill past the college, and entered the square. Here the lights were bright, and cars were parked along the curb; moviegoers at the last show, students at the Pub. At the end of the square the Congregational Church loomed up, white and narrow. He paused to look at it one last time, thinking as he had thought so many times before what a grand and gracious piece of architecture it was.

  But it wouldn’t do to hesitate too long, so he turned right and drove down Main Street, past all the Colonial houses, until finally the Blue River was in sight. The street was still fairly well lighted, and the blacktop glistened brightly in the rain. The wipers of his car went rhythmically back and forth, but the rain was coming down hard now, and sticking to the windshield. Automatically he turned on his defroster, as if safe driving were a real concern.

  The bridge over the Blue River was modern, steel-supported for safety, but there was a spot just before it where, if a man accelerated, and jerked the wheel to the right, and held his breath and aimed, a car could fly off the road and hit the ground, then bounce and plunge straight down into the depths of the river. At this spot the river was not deep enough to cover a car, but it was night, and black, and raining, so it would be morning before anyone spotted the trunk of the Mercedes sticking up, like a bright yellow upended barge. And even later when those attempting rescue discovered that the front driver’s section of the car had been smashed in, and washed over by the rushing river all through the night.

  Part Three

  Saturday morning

  September 4, 1982

  All summer long Leigh had devoted herself to her flowers. In the early spring she had had a man come with a Rototiller to plow up and fertilize her backyard until all the rich black soil lay exposed, a patch of farmland in the middle of town. Then, working with great care, she divided the backyard into precise rows, and she planted zinnias, dahlias, begonias, gloriosa daisi
es, snapdragons, calendula, petunias, and marigolds. She spent most of her summer evenings sitting on her back patio with a drink in her hand, reading a book and looking up from time to time to study the garden in the summer light—listening to the gentle shoose-shoose of the sprinkler, watching the water rain down on the ripening leaves. It was the sweetest summer she could remember, full of dreams of blossomings, and at the end of the summer she had an acre of flowers blooming in every imaginable shade of yellow.

  The first Saturday in September, when all the flowers were at their finest, she rose at five-thirty, when the sun was just lighting the sky. She put on her usual gardening outfit—blue jeans, a baggy T-shirt, sneakers—and went out into her backyard. With exquisite patience, she cut down all the yellow flowers. She put them in boxes and baskets. At seven-thirty Patricia Taylor arrived to help her. They loaded their cars with the flowers and drove to the church. Inside the sanctuary, they arranged the flowers in bowls and set them in all the windowsills. They tied the flowers into bouquets and garlands and draped them along the ends of the pews and along the walnut balustrades leading to the chancel. They brought in two long walnut tables and placed them at the front of the church on either side of the main aisle, and arranged the flowers so that they covered the tables completely, rising up in sprays and spires, cascading down in leafy scallops almost to the floor, smothering the tabletops in layers of variegated golden leaves. It was an inordinate display, and the mixture of these common household flowers gave an air of gaiety to the white-and-gold church. The sun streaked through the high windows, lighting on the flowers, causing them to gleam with a buttery luster, and warming the air so that the entire sanctuary was filled with the mingled fragrance of all those flowers. Finally Leigh and Patricia’s work was done.

  They stood at the back of the sanctuary, admiring their handiwork. The church was dazzling with yellow flowers. They had done what they could to surround their children with beauty, to festoon the hall of their celebration with fresh living gold, as if with promises, with hope.

  The women went home then to array themselves for the wedding; it was to take place at ten-thirty that morning. As Leigh drove to her house she hummed and smiled, feeling grateful that the sky was a flawless brilliant blue. The temperature was climbing into the seventies; it would be a perfect day. And she felt so clever for having planned this garden last spring and for having planted it in the early summer. She had planted all those seeds like a good witch plotting destiny. For after Michael and Mandy had been living together, Leigh had realized that they really were good together, good for each other, and she began to hope that it would last, this lucky love they had found. She and the Taylors had made an agreement with the children in the fall: if you live together and make good grades in school and show us you’re responsible, you can get married next fall. Now “next fall” was here and the children were getting their wish—their wedding—and everyone was happy.

  How the world had changed, Leigh thought, that parents—and one of them a minister at that—would join together to postpone a marriage to force their children to do what not so long ago would be considered “living in sin.” But really, Leigh decided, marriage was such a feudal concept, all tied up with keeping control of wealth, power, and the proper bloodlines. It was so outdated. It all came down now to the individual in this singular century, and individuals were choosing to marry or not with one goal in mind: their own happiness. Of course what many were finding out was that over the long term, marriage does not provide happiness, and it certainly doesn’t assure it. After all Leigh had been through and seen, she would not have minded if her daughter had never married. She might even have been relieved, although she would like to have grandchildren. But marriage was no longer a prerequisite even for that. There was something still seductive about the idea of family, complete with mommy, daddy, and children, but the truth was, Leigh thought, that the happy traditional family was as rare as a happy marriage. And if happiness were the measure, what family after all could be considered happier than the one created by herself and Mandy?

  The two of them had lived very pleasantly together for eighteen years. She had helped Mandy become a fine woman, and Mandy had enriched her life. Certainly there had been tough times, angry words, but fewer, Leigh was sure, than if Mandy’s father had remained in the household. No, Leigh had not grown all those flowers and decorated the church so gloriously because her daughter was doing the proper deed, or even because she hoped to embellish the marriage with the luck of longevity. It was simply that this was the last occasion Leigh knew she could orchestrate in any way for her daughter. After all the years of helping her dress and do her hair, of painting her room and sewing her curtains, of driving her to stores to help her find the right clothes, of providing the brightest, smoothest, most beneficial life for her one lovely child, Leigh wanted to give this final gift. It was such a milestone for them. Now Mandy was on her own—or, more exactly, on her own with Michael. It was Leigh who now would really be on her own.

  She parked the car and went into the house through the kitchen. It was nine-thirty. There were signs that Mandy had risen and eaten breakfast, and Leigh heard her moving upstairs in the bathroom. She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table, looking out at the backyard. The yard looked strange now, slightly bare with all the yellow blossoms gone, but Leigh had foreseen this and planted enough other colors—reds, whites, violets—so that she was not faced with a totally stripped landscape. She stretched in the morning sun, luxuriating in the knowledge of a monumental task accomplished and a celebration ahead. She would not have even a moment to feel bereft—not that she should feel that anyway, for Mandy had been living apart from her for over a year now—because tomorrow she had to finish boxing up her valuables and packing up her possessions. Leigh was renting her house to a visiting professor and his family for a year, and she was going to spend the next twelve months of her life in Europe. She would spend the first six months in Paris, and the next six in Florence. She had already made the arrangements, written to friends, made plans to spend Christmas in Geneva with an old lover. It was the life she had longed to lead since she was a child, and at last she was going to lead it. Better late than never, she thought, and in fact, better late than early. Because this trip brought to her middle-aged body and soul the sensation of youthful adventure. She felt she was younger, freer, more fortunate than her own daughter. All summer long she had tended her garden and dreamed of the future, gorging herself on this last great domestic deed as if on homemade bread, knowing she was about to leave it all to taste the exotic.

  She rose, stretched again, and went upstairs. Mandy was just coming out of the bathroom, and she looked shining and elaborate, with makeup painstakingly applied and her hair brushed to a sheen. She was wearing only a white slip.

  “Flowerface,” Leigh said, and moved to kiss her daughter on the cheek.

  Mandy flinched back a bit from her mother’s kiss. “Mom!” she said. “You’ll streak my makeup! And look at you. It’s after nine-thirty and you’re still in jeans.”

  “Ah,” Leigh said, “but you should see the church! Don’t worry, baby, I’ll be ready.” She went into the bathroom and shut the door.

  Mandy wandered into her bedroom and stood in the center of it, looking around. She was completely ready except for putting on the wedding gown and veil, and she had forty-five minutes to wait before it was time to go to the church. She knew that any moment now her father and his wife would arrive, and so would her two best friends from college and her best friend from high school, who were going to be bridesmaids. They would all go to the church together. In a minute or two, the house would be filled with noise and movement. But for this one moment it was silent, except for the noise of her mother’s shower, and time retreated from her politely, like a docile servant bowing and backing out of the room, leaving her to her privacy.

  This was what she had wanted, this vivid honest moment of separation, when she could stand in the
middle of her childhood room as if still in the middle of her childhood, and wholeheartedly give it up with open hands. She had been happy here, in this house, in her childhood; but she had been a child; she would always be a child here. She was grateful for the ritual of marriage for providing that necessary sense that something was being officially and irrevocably renounced, and something else taken up. She needed the ritual of marriage.

  She sank down on her bed and began drawing her hose up her legs. She moved slowly, smoothing the delicate silken material against her. She had only recently bought a garter belt, since she had grown up in a panty-hose world, and she liked the way she looked in just her bra and panties and garter belt and hose—erotic, exotic, a bit tarty, in fact. She had read enough propaganda in the literature her mother and female teachers foisted off on her to understand that in this particular culture and time women were raised to be self-critical, even self-deprecating, to think of themselves as fat. In one feminist article she had read that in a survey taken of hundreds of women of all ages, weights, and body-types, 98 percent of them thought of their bodies as badly flawed in some way. They all need a lover like Michael, Mandy had thought, for over the past year she had lived with Michael she had developed a new appreciation of her own body, so that when she looked in the mirror she smiled and thought: Well, I’m not half bad.