by Nancy Thayer
But Tom only sat there in his blue-and-white-striped bathrobe, rubbing his hand over his stubby chin, shaking his head at her in amused wonder. Tracy, who had been just hovering, sat down with a plop on the sofa next to her husband and watched him.
“Well, well, well,” Tom said slowly. “Who would ever have thought it. Little Suzanna. So you like women.”
“Tom, I don’t like women. I love a woman. One woman. A person.”
“Well, well, well,” Tom said again. “I’m sorry if I seem a little slow on the uptake, Suzanna, but you’ve got to admit I deserve a little time to work this one through.” He was quiet for a moment, then said, smiling triumphantly, “So all along you were a lesbian.”
“I don’t think that’s quite fair,” Suzanna said, but didn’t see how she could go further. Did he really want her to review their past love life in front of his new, young, intimidated wife? That would be pointless and cruel. “I don’t think I was a lesbian all along or that I am a lesbian now. I hate labels. I think I am just a woman, who once loved a man and lived with him and who now loves a woman and wants to live with her. But you’ve got some power over me, Tom, because of the children. And I need to know your feelings about it—about the children.”
“I’m not sure what you’re saying,” Tom said.
“What I’m saying,” Suzanna said, and to her fury tears came to her eyes, she did feel so desperate, so caught, “is that you can cause me a lot of trouble if you want to. I suppose you have the power to ruin my life now. Oh, don’t be so dense. Must I spell it out to you? Because of my—situation—you can legally gain custody of Priscilla and Seth. You can force me to give them up, to have them come live full-time with you.”
“Oh, Suzanna, we would never do that!” Tracy said, eyes wide with earnestness.
The girl’s outburst made Suzanna look at her, really look at her, and she saw Tracy sitting there in her slinky red lounging pajamas and realized that here was an ally. Tracy might look like a frail young thing, but she wasn’t stupid, certainly not stupid enough to turn her little love nest into a family bulky with someone else’s children. Thank God for that much, Suzanna thought, and began to relax a little.
“Do the children know about you and this other woman?” Tom asked.
“No,” Suzanna said. “They know we are friends. Close friends. They know Madeline spends the nights with me sometimes. If we move in together—well, we can’t move in together unless it’s okay with you. I can’t risk losing them if you’re going to be terrible about it. I’ll just have to not live with her. If we do move in together, well, I’ll tell them that I love Madeline. That we care for each other. That I like having another adult around. But I don’t think I need to go into any sexual details. They’re still so young.”
“You’ll have to tell them sometime.”
“Of course. I know that. But not quite yet. I don’t think. Well, there’s been no reason to tell them anything, yet. And if you—”
“So what is it you want from me?” Tom asked. “My blessing?” His voice was light, sarcastic, but Suzanna knew well enough what a stinger he could have hiding there. How had it worked out, she wondered, that this vain cynic could sit in judgment on her life, could have her happiness at his mercy? She had to look away. It would not help for him to see the anger in her eyes.
“Your blessing would be nice, actually,” she said softly. “I certainly have given you and Tracy whatever blessing I could. Where the children are concerned, I mean, and this is about the children. Tom, I’m doing everything in my power to be a good mother to Priscilla and Seth. They’re turning into happy, nice, good people. I don’t do anything in front of them, I never would. But it’s so nice to have another adult in the house, to share things. It’s lonely living alone, being responsible at night when the children are sick, or when I’m sick, and I’m happier, I’m a better person, knowing that there’s one person in the world who cares for me, it—”
“Oh, Christ,” Tom said. “Cut it out. There’s no need to get maudlin. What do you think I am, some kind of monster?”
Suzanna began to sob. She covered her face with her hands and leaned forward so that her forehead touched her knees. She was furious at herself for this display of emotion, of weakness, and terrified that it was happening, that this torrent of tears should overtake her now, on enemy territory. But she had been so stiff with fear during the three-hour drive over, so afraid of this moment of confrontation.
“What is the matter with you?” Tom said, annoyed, upstaged, discomfited by her tears.
Suzanna could not lift her face to his. “Don’t you see how it is for me?” She spoke through wet hands, and she wanted to say: Oh, Tom, you loved me enough once to marry me, can’t you love me enough still to wish me happiness? “I could marry any kind of dreadful man this world could produce, and still keep custody of the children. But because I want to live with a woman …”
“My sister’s gay,” Tracy said. “She and her lover spent part of the Christmas holidays with us. We’re not quite as medieval as you think.”
This announcement did make Suzanna lift her head. She stared at Tracy in amazement. Then she smiled. How she had misjudged her ex-husband’s new wife, with that ready bitterness that lay so close at hand, thinking that simply because the girl was young and pretty and went around in clothes that Suzanna could never again dream of wearing, she was also provincial and dense. There is a possibility, Suzanna thought, meeting Tracy’s stare, that as the years go by we could all end up behaving civilly toward each other.
“Look,” Tom said, “it’s fine with me if you want to move in with a woman. I don’t suppose she’s terribly wealthy? It would be awfully nice to have the child-support payments reduced, and if you’re going to have another income …”
Suzanna studied Tom for a moment to see if he were blackmailing her. “Well,” she said at last, “no, she’s not wealthy. But she does work. It wouldn’t be fair to expect her to pay any of the children’s expenses, but, Tom, let me see how it works out. Perhaps if two of us live together, sharing the basic mortgage, utilities, that sort of thing, perhaps I could do with less from you.”
That was the way it had ended, in agreement. Suzanna finished her scotch and they all talked politely about the weather and national news, careful not to mar this tenuous peace. Then Suzanna bundled the children back up and drove them home. Seth and Priscilla were confused by the quick trip to their father’s, by the fact that they didn’t stay long and this time Mommy went and talked, but in the way of all children who move through a world where so much is confusing and unexplained, they accepted it without much of a fuss. Suzanna put down the backseat so they could stretch their legs out in the hatchback, and covered them with a blanket she kept in the car, and the children slept for all three hours back. Suzanna was weak as she drove, and not quite happy, because she was so surprised. She had badly misjudged her ex-husband, it seemed. She had forgotten, or worse, had never realized, what capacities he had for generosity and tolerance. Perhaps he was nicer than she had ever thought, and she had just not allowed those qualities to develop in him. She drove wistfully through the winter’s night, slightly hypnotized by the glare of snow and ice against her headlights, reflecting in a melancholy way on the lost opportunities in her life.
But when she drove into the driveway of her house and saw it lit up by the headlights of her car, and saw the kitchen window shining with light—Madeline had a key to the house, Madeline would be there now, worrying about Suzanna’s disappearance—Suzanna’s heart expanded with joy; she felt as buoyant inside as a helium balloon. She had done it! They could do it! What a way to start the new year!
After the first rush of exhilaration, Madeline and Suzanna had settled down to the serious business of working out a life together, and much of it was not fun. They looked at houses which had the luxury of large adjoining bedrooms, and they looked at houses which had small adjoining bedrooms, but they very quickly realized that even with their two income
s combined, they could not afford a very big house. The interest rates were too high, so high that they would end up paying more for a small house than Suzanna was paying now for the house she and Tom had bought in 1970 when the interest rates were relatively low. This was a pedestrian bit of knowledge, not in keeping with the dreams of love, but one they had to deal with.
They ended up having a small wing built onto Suzanna’s house. This provided a downstairs bedroom and study for Madeline, with a tiny circular wrought-iron staircase leading up into a corner of Suzanna’s bedroom. It was an attractive addition, but an expensive one, costing almost as much as the equity on the main house itself. The builders began in early spring as soon as the weather was good, and Suzanna often came home from school and sat with her children drinking lemonade, watching the walls go up. She wished that Ron Bennett were still alive, because she thought that if he had done the work, this addition would have been much nicer. And she didn’t care for the builder she hired; he was taciturn, abrupt, and condescending, a gruff chauvinist. Still, when the work was done and the builders were gone, Suzanna and Madeline painted and wallpapered the rooms, and made this new addition theirs, part of their life together. Suzanna would tuck the children in bed on the second floor, then go into her bedroom, which with the addition of the spiral staircase was now expansive with happy possibilities: Madeline coming up the stairs, Suzanna going down.
Before the construction of the new addition, Suzanna had sat Priscilla and Seth down in the living room, planning to have a long and serious discussion with them. She was ready for any questions. She explained gently, precisely, that Madeline was going to be living with them permanently, that the new parts of the house would be Madeline’s rooms. Madeline was her best friend, Suzanna told them, and she would help Suzanna do the housework and cooking and even help drive the children here and there or read them books if they wanted. Madeline would help pay the bills, which would be a big help to Mommy. In short, Madeline would make Mommy happier. Suzanna hoped they could all live together happily.
“Okay, Mom,” Priscilla said. “Can we go play now?”
Suzanna smiled. Children, their minds! “Don’t you have any questions?”
The children both looked puzzled and bored. “Nope,” Seth said, and wriggled.
So she let them run off. She stayed on guard, apprehensive, the next few weeks, for any sign from the children that they were disturbed by the new arrangements. She waited for them to come home from school with tears in their eyes and stories of nasty comments made by schoolmates. She prepared herself for a crisis, but none occurred. It seemed very strange.
It was May when the moving van bringing Madeline’s furniture and boxes of books and possessions pulled up in front of Suzanna’s house. The weather was springlike and mild, and neighbors were jogging or strolling around. Suzanna waited until some of the older ones came by, looking with frank curiosity at the van. Then, unable to bear the suspense any longer, she charged out of the house and into the street to confront one of the couples, a pleasant older married man and wife who took their constitutionals every evening when the weather permitted.
“Hello!” Suzanna called.
“Hello, dear,” they said, “are you moving?”
“No, no. I’m having a friend move in. Madeline Meade. She teaches psychology at Southmark College. That’s why I had the addition built on. We’re good friends, and it will be so much easier having another adult in the house.”
“How nice for you, dear,” they said. “We worry about you sometimes, you know, living all alone like that without a husband for protection.”
They all talked a bit more about the weather, the children, the news, and then Madeline came out of the house, wiping her hands on her jeans, and walked out to the road to shake hands with the old couple and say hello. When everyone parted, Suzanna said to Madeline, “Why, it’s amazing. They seem to think this is perfectly fine. They didn’t raise an eyebrow. Do you suppose they wonder about our sex life?”
“I don’t know why they should,” Madeline said. “We don’t wonder about theirs.”
After Madeline moved in, there was a period of about two weeks when both women felt the town buzz slightly, as if a low-voltage electric shock had been passed around. When Suzanna pushed her shopping cart down the aisles of the Price Chopper, acquaintances who had formerly only said hello now stopped her for a long sociable chat, and Suzanna felt that they were looking her over, bright-eyed, searching her out for some sign. Once she had come upon Pam Moyer in the hardware store and Pam had smiled hello, then blushed scarlet. Ursula Aranguren reported that several people at the college who knew Suzanna slightly had bothered to ask if she supposed that Suzanna was a homosexual.
“I just told them that if you were anything, you were bisexual, since you have children,” Ursula said.
This conversation had occurred over drinks at a local restaurant; Ursula, Madeline, and Suzanna were having dinner together.
“But I don’t understand,” Suzanna said. “I thought there would be so much more of a to-do about it all.”
“Your timing’s all off for a to-do,” said Ursula. “Madeline should have moved in in January when we were all so bored we would have chewed any bit of gossip we could find to the rind. Last fall was taken up with Ron’s death and Johnny’s disappearance, and now Johnny’s come home and taken your limelight.”
“Oh, don’t talk that way, Ursula,” Suzanna said. “The last thing we want is limelight. I’ve been sick with worry about what might happen.”
“Well, I think you can stop worrying,” Ursula said, looking around the restaurant. “I can assure you I’m much more interested in finding someone to liven up my sex life than I am in hearing about anyone else’s.”
But Suzanna still worried. When June came and she walked down the hall from her classroom to her daughter’s classroom for the final parent-teacher conference of the year, her stomach cramped so she could hardly stand. She had mentioned her new living arrangements casually over the past few months to the other teachers as they sat sipping their Tabs in the teachers’ lounge, and no one had said, “My God, Suzanna, does this mean you’re a lesbian, unfit to teach children?” She thought that now and then when she entered the lounge, conversation among the other teachers stopped for a moment—but that always happened, because there were factions in the school, some teachers for certain school policies, some against; there was always some small squabble going on. She had not felt personally snubbed by the other teachers. But what if Priscilla’s teacher had been noticing some personality change, or felt that Priscilla was unhappy, becoming maladjusted? But Priscilla’s teacher gave Suzanna a glowing report: she was fine, cheerful, learning easily and well.
“I was afraid that she might be exhibiting some signs of—oh, I’m not sure what—unhappiness, I suppose,” Suzanna said to the teacher. “I mean, since Madeline’s moved in.”
Martha Martin was in her fifties, and today she looked tired. “I don’t see why she should,” she said. “I think the important thing when someone new enters a household—man, woman, or child—is to discuss this change with the child and to be sure to continue to give the child the affection and attention he or she is used to. And clearly you’ve done that.”
“Well, then,” Suzanna said, “thank you.” She rose and went to the door.
“Suzanna,” Martha called, so that Suzanna turned back. “Priscilla is really all right. It’s all all right.” She smiled.
Perhaps it really was all all right, Suzanna thought now, for here she was, in her church, at a wedding, with her children on one side of her and her lover on the other. The summer had been a quiet one. She and Madeline had started a huge vegetable garden. Tom and Tracy had taken the children on a camping trip to Canada for a month. Without the usual contact of fellow teachers at the school or other parents to arrange activities for the children, Suzanna had become slightly lonely, as if a void were expanding around them. And she had thought: Ah, this is what it’s goin
g to be. Not a noisy reaction of angry people, but a simple falling away. We’ll be snubbed. Even Madeline agreed that it did seem the town was drawing back a bit, studying the situation in its conservative way. But at the end of the summer the Vandersons had their annual all-day swimming and barbecue party, and the invitation that arrived in the mailbox was addressed to “Suzanna, Priscilla, and Seth Blair and Madeline Meade.” They had all gone to the party and had a good time, talking easily with everyone.
And now they had received a similar invitation, addressed to them as a pair, from Leigh Findly, for Mandy’s wedding, and here they sat. We’ll never have this, Suzanna thought, this public affirmation of our love, a wedding. But we are living together happily, accepted by the town. We will live out our lives here, the children will grow up, we’ll go to parties, weddings, funerals, concerts, and plays here. We will, we do belong. It seemed to her that people were kinder than she had ever supposed, and now as the sanctuary glowed with flowers and music, Suzanna’s emotions expanded accordingly.
The family provides the world for children, but the town provides the world for grown-ups. We are all living here like a group of relatives, second cousins twice removed, stepsisters, would-be spouses, misplaced aunts and uncles; we’re incestuous, marrying and divorcing one another, meddling in one another’s affairs, counting on one another when our cars or marriages break down, turning to one another for a good game of tennis, bridge, or sex. We pass the gossip around as greedily as children whispering the game at a birthday party, but we mean one another no harm.
Why, consider Johnny Bennett, she thought, for just then he entered the sanctuary, following his mother and sister to a pew on the groom’s side. He ran off last year with Liza Howard, Suzanna thought, and jilted poor Sarah Stafford, and created a big scandal. Perhaps we all did talk about it a lot, for the truth is, it cheered us up considerably: the fact that Liza and Johnny, who live among us, who are part of us, could do such a thing made us feel capable of exciting things, too. Exciting sexual things. Lust and drama. Escape. We thrilled with it for days, imagining how it must have been. Of course we all felt sorry for Sarah, but not too sorry, after all. She just went off to Paris for the year, and the newspapers have been full of little tidbits about her social life, the parties she goes to, the gowns she wears. She’s probably delighted she didn’t marry Johnny, she’ll probably come home married to a count.
