Abruptly, he stood, towering above her.
“This is none of your business,” he replied, quietly but firmly. “My choices have nothing to do with you.”
“But they do,” she countered. “They have everything to do with me. You said yourself—you said it, that I’m your wife forever. So what kind of future do you want us to have, Henry? Whatever we want, we have to make it so. It’s not going to come from you moping all day.”
Even as she spoke, she knew she’d said too much. His face reddened and a vein popped out on his forehead.
“What makes you think you can tell me what to do?” he yelled. “You weren’t there. I repeat—because obviously I need to say it again and again—you were not there. You have no idea what it was like. And you have no place telling me how to run my life.”
He leaned over her—one arm on the davenport’s back, over her head, the other grabbing her shoulder. His grip wasn’t tight—he still didn’t have the strength he’d had before he left for Europe—and yet, he overpowered her physically.
She tried to stand, and he pushed her down. Her head snapped against the davenport’s tall back.
She stared up at him. Neither spoke.
It wasn’t as if he’d hit her, she told herself. He’d simply prodded her. Just a little.
“Henry,” she pleaded. “I love you. I’ve always loved you. I want what’s best for you. What’s best for our family.” She felt tears stinging her eyes, and she wiped them away.
Her actions, her words, seemed to still him. He took his hand off her shoulder and fell onto the sofa next to her.
“I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. “I know this isn’t easy for you, either.”
He looked away, toward the window. “You just have to trust me,” he said. “You have to let me figure this out for myself.”
He bit his lip, and she could see the clash of emotions in his eyes. “You figure out your life, Silja,” he said. “And I’ll figure out mine.”
He put his hand on her shoulder again—gently this time. “Trust me. It will work out.”
• • •
After that night, the tension between them slackened. Henry’s voice was gentler when he spoke to her. He thanked her for making breakfast, for taking a load of laundry to the washroom in the Alku’s basement. One day he brought home an iced cake from the local bakery and they had it for dessert, much to Ruby’s delight.
Silja didn’t ask him for anything. She didn’t bring up the psychiatric hospital again.
He wanted time; he wanted to be left alone to figure it out—well, fine. She would give him all the time he needed.
She would do whatever it took to set their world aright.
Taking her focus off Henry, Silja set upon the task of finding herself gainful employment. She contacted her favorite professor from Hunter, Dr. Elizabeth Franck. When she’d graduated with the highest honors, Dr. Franck assured her that with all her business contacts, she knew companies that would clamber to hire Silja. “You’re the smartest girl I’ve ever met. And the most conscientious,” Dr. Franck once told her. “Any employer will see that and value it.”
What she didn’t say—didn’t have to say—was that Silja was a plain-featured girl. Silja thought it must have been the same for Dr. Franck when she was younger. Like Silja’s mother, Dr. Franck was of the generation that changed the way women worked and thought and lived. The generation of females who started the twentieth century with modern ideas and brave plans—college! voting!—ideas that must have shocked their own mothers.
And which females had those valiant notions? The plain ones, Silja thought. It was, and always had been, plain girls who moved mountains.
She knew, although Dr. Franck never came right out with it, that when she said employers would value Silja, she meant companies prefer to have plain girls around. At the reception desk, sure—you want a pretty girl. But back in the trenches, you want plain girls who will devote themselves to the company.
With Dr. Franck’s help, Silja found a job with Littleton Foods, an outfit that supplied foodstuffs to restaurants and hotels. She was hired as a field representative in the frozen foods division. To her surprise, she enjoyed it. Over time, everyone—her boss, her fellow reps, and her contacts in the field—came to respect and appreciate her. Silja could walk into a restaurant’s kitchen and take a seat in the manager’s office, opening her portfolio of product descriptions and sketches, and work with the manager to create a custom order. They concentrated on the job, the way two men might. She took up smoking—everyone in the restaurant world smoked, and it was diplomatic to join them, so she littered the managers’ ashtrays with lipstick-stained butts. She dressed conservatively, never showing off the curves that had softened and become even more generous after Ruby’s birth. She and the manager shook hands at the end of their meeting, and the next day a truckload of exactly what he required showed up on his loading dock. By that evening, guests were raving over the sumptuous fare in front of them.
“You keep our biz in business,” the manager at one midtown hotel said to her. “You’re one smart dame, Silja.”
19
* * *
Angie
That night, with PJ and Ruby both sleeping soundly in their respective rooms, I took Paul’s hand and nodded toward the hallway and the master bedroom. He sighed and followed me, closing the bedroom door softly behind us.
I felt as if I’d been waiting a lifetime for this. Watching his face, I slowly undressed, button by button on my blouse. I turned around and looked at him over my shoulder as I reached behind myself to unfasten my skirt, tooth by tooth on the zipper, finally letting the loosened material fall to the floor.
I stepped out of my slip and underthings as Paul took off his own clothes. We stood naked and clinging to one another, our kisses long and deep, his hardness unyielding against my thigh.
Paul groaned. “What you do to me . . .” he murmured, and pulled me toward the bed.
I glanced apprehensively at the neatly made coverlet. As desperate as I was to make love with Paul, I didn’t want to do it in Silja’s bed.
Paul read my thoughts. He grabbed the coverlet and spread it out over the carpeting.
“Come down here,” he said, lying on the floor. “I’ll keep you warm, Angel.”
I dropped to my knees, then on top of him, my legs on either side of him. He slid his hands across my bottom, gently squeezing my buttock cheeks. He lifted his head and took one of my breasts and then the other into his mouth, kissing my nipples. I looked down, enjoying how round and full my breasts were against his lips.
I loved his body heat, the way his skin smelled like fresh air after a rain shower, how his chest hair tickled my ribs when I leaned over him. I adored everything about him. But there was more to our lovemaking than that.
I wanted another baby.
Not long after PJ’s birth, I’d been fitted for a diaphragm. Since I never nursed PJ, I knew the possibility of getting pregnant again right away was very real. And in the first few months, when PJ was tiny, I’d been keen to prevent it.
But now PJ was six months old and such an easygoing baby. There was no reason we shouldn’t start trying for a second. I’d always wanted a big, tight-knit family, like the one I grew up in. Babies year after year, like my mother had.
I knew Paul thought we should wait, but I figured once I was pregnant, he’d get used to the idea—and even, I hoped, become enthused. After all, look how close he and Henry had been. Wouldn’t he want the same for his own children?
“What about your diaphragm, Angel?” Paul asked me.
I hesitated a moment and then said, “Thanks for reminding me.” I went into the bathroom, closing the door behind me. I opened Silja’s vanity drawer, where I’d stored my plastic diaphragm case when I unpacked the night before.
Reaching into the drawer, I was surprised to feel two such cases. I had to take them both out to determine which one was mine—the yellow one; Silja used a white case for her
diaphragm.
I stuck Silja’s case back into the drawer and opened my own. I regarded the rubber half-moon, pushing it with my index finger, watching it spring back to shape.
Paul was just nervous, I decided. All men were, when it came to pregnancy and babies. That didn’t mean they didn’t want a family.
I looked at my reflection in the mirror. I imagined a giggling baby girl. A beribboned, pink-clothed girl with half my features and half Paul’s.
I took one more look at the diaphragm in its case, and then resolutely closed the clasp. I returned to the bedroom and lowered my body once more on top of Paul’s. Reaching between my legs, I took him in my hands and guided him inside me.
“Now,” I said, settling my weight onto his until I was crushed against him. “Now, Paul, and don’t ever, ever stop.”
• • •
The next morning, I sighed in contentment as Paul and I sat on the barstools drinking coffee. I leaned toward him and blew hot breath into his ear. “You’re magic to me,” I whispered. “I love every second I spend with you.”
Paul smiled and finished his coffee. He rose from the barstool. I stood, too, and went around the counter. I opened the packet of bacon I’d bought yesterday at the market. I fiddled with the knobs on Silja’s fancy electric range, trying to determine which setting I should use to cook the meat.
I turned to watch as Paul crossed the room, opened the front door, and bent down to retrieve the newspaper on the stoop. He flapped it open and began to read. Remembering Jean Kellerman’s visit, my hand trembled as I pulled a carton of eggs from the refrigerator. When I closed the door and turned around, Paul was standing over me, fuming.
“What the hell is this about?” he shouted, slapping the newspaper on the counter in front of me.
My heart racing, I set down the eggs and picked up the paper.
No Mother Would Do Something So Violent
By Jean Kellerman, Special to the Stonekill Gazette
While the coroner’s office confirmed that Stonekill resident Henry Glass, 39, perished from suicide via poison, the dead man’s sister-in-law agrees with officials that Mr. Glass’s missing wife could not be involved.
“I can’t imagine a mother could do something so violent to the father of her child,” Angie Glass told this reporter in an exclusive interview.
Mrs. Angie Glass concedes that she does not know Mrs. Silja Glass, 38, very well. “I only met her once. But no mother would do something like that.”
But would she? On Monday, Silja Glass left her family a note indicating she was leaving them. The note has been placed in evidence, and reporters were not permitted to view its contents.
Was the note a ruse? Did Silja stage an abandonment to cover up something more sinister?
No one seems to know. A prosperous businesswoman in the New York City hotel industry, Silja was last seen leaving her Manhattan office Monday after work. She reportedly maintains an erratic evening schedule, sometimes commuting home at rush hour but other times later in the evening. She drives a silver-gray 1958 MGA sports coupe back and forth from the Stonekill station to the couple’s glamorous home on Stone Ridge Road. Her MGA was found at the station late Monday night. Police have since towed and impounded the vehicle.
On Wednesday evening this reporter interviewed passengers exiting the rush hour trains to determine if anyone remembers seeing Silja. “I know the lady you mean, but I can’t say whether I saw her on Monday,” said Mr. Bert Meyer of Albany Post Road, Stonekill. “She keeps irregular hours. Sometimes on the train, sometimes not.” He added, “Besides, I’m usually too fixated on getting home for dinner to pay attention to folks getting off the train.”
Other commuters echoed Mr. Meyer’s sentiments. Police were also observed interviewing passengers, presumably asking similar questions.
It’s probable, therefore, that Silja Glass did not return to Stonekill on Monday evening. The couple’s seventeen-year-old daughter found her father’s body in the woods just behind the family home, with a poisoned teacup by his side.
Mrs. Angie Glass, a maternally minded individual hailing from Wisconsin, asserts that she will see her niece through this catastrophe. “At a tragic time like this, a girl needs mothering,” the young, fresh-faced Mrs. Glass said. “I’m lucky to be here so I can step into that role.”
This is not the first time the Glass family has come under scrutiny in our humble hamlet. In 1951, Mr. Glass’s brother, Paul,
[Continued on page 3]
I shook open the paper to turn to the inside pages. Paul, hovering behind me, smacked it out of my hand. He picked it up from the floor and folded it, tucking it in the back pocket of his pants. “That’s enough,” he said gruffly, glaring at me. “You don’t need to read the rest.”
Fearfully, I raised my eyes to Paul’s. “Half those things, I didn’t even say,” I told him, my voice wobbly. “She—the reporter—put words into my mouth.”
“Of course she did!” Paul slammed his fist onto the counter. A vein stood out on his temple. I had never seen him so angry. I stepped back.
My action seemed to give him pause. He took a deep breath and regarded me carefully. “I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper. But please, Angel, please—” He reached forward and gently took hold of my shoulders. “Promise me you won’t talk to her—or any reporter—ever again.” He tilted my chin so our eyes met. “Promise me.”
“I promise,” I said, weak with relief that his anger was subsiding.
He released me. “That’s my girl.” He leaned over and inspected the bacon on the stove. “Smells wonderful,” he said. “I’m going outside for a bit of fresh air. Call me in when it’s ready, would you?”
I grabbed his arm as he started to walk away. “Kiss me first,” I pleaded. “Tell me you love me.”
I closed my eyes and waited, and after a moment, I felt his lips, warm against my own.
When he moved away from me, I opened my eyes. He glanced toward the stove. “Don’t let that burn, Angel.” He turned and opened the sliding glass door, stepping outside. I watched as he opened the paper and held it before his face. I removed the bacon from the pan to a plate covered in paper towels, then cracked eggs in a bowl, added milk, and contemplatively began whisking with a fork.
I wanted desperately to call Dorrie, Carol Ann, or one of my friends. I longed to hear a familiar voice. I wanted to report the events in New York and get an outsider’s take on the situation. I stared at the telephone mounted on the kitchen wall, my fingers itching to pick it up and dial one of the well-known numbers.
No. More than talking to my sisters or friends on the telephone, I wanted to go home. That’s what I wanted, really—simply to go home.
Well, I had no one to blame but myself. Paul had been right. He should have come alone. He could have taken care of things in Stonekill. He didn’t need my help making the arrangements, nor my presence at Henry’s funeral.
In addition to supporting Paul, I had expected my role to be that of Ruby’s caregiver—to provide a sympathetic ear, a shoulder to cry on as the girl struggled to understand why her mother had left her. But I could tell Ruby had no desire to confide in me. Ruby probably saw PJ and me as decoration at best. A nuisance, more likely.
I would have been better off staying home. I could have stayed in Door County with the baby, blissfully unaware of what it was like in Stonekill. From afar, I could have grieved for Henry. I could have gone to St. Mary of the Lake on Sunday morning and said prayers for his soul. I could have spoken on the phone with Paul, asking if there was any more news about Silja. And after we hung up, I could have headed to my parents’ house for Sunday dinner, where there would have been polite questions about Paul’s family before the talk turned back to UW-Badgers and Green Bay Packers football, as it always did on autumn weekends in my parents’ household.
I could have stayed home in my normal life, with my normal family. And yet, the decision to be in Stonekill, to be a part of this p
eculiar experience, was entirely my own. I had no one to blame but myself.
The phone I’d been staring at rang, interrupting my thoughts. Startled, I reached over and grabbed it. “Glass residence.”
There was no response. “Hello?” I said. “Is anyone there?”
After a moment, I heard a woman’s voice, one I didn’t know. “Mrs. Glass?”
“I’m sorry,” I replied. “Mrs. Glass isn’t here right now. She . . . ”
I trailed off, not sure what to say. Not sure how much the caller, whoever she was, knew about Silja’s disappearance.
“Is this Mrs. Paul Glass?” the caller asked.
“Oh,” I said breathlessly. “Yes, that’s me. This is Angie Glass. I’m Paul Glass’s wife.”
There was a pause, and then the woman said, “This is Mrs. Hawke, the principal at the high school. I was just calling to check on Ruby.”
“How kind of you.” I glanced outside. Paul was still standing on the patio. He had finished reading the paper and was smoking, his back to me. “Ruby is . . . she’s doing her best, Mrs. Hawke. She won’t be at school today. It’s the day of her father’s funeral.”
“Yes, so I’ve been informed,” Mrs. Hawke said. “One of my teachers will be attending to represent the school.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you.” I stirred the raw eggs in the bowl, reluctant to put them on the stove—I didn’t want to overcook them—until the call was finished.
“Well.” Mrs. Hawke’s voice was crisp. “We’re all very sorry here at the school, Mrs. Glass. Please accept our condolences.” She paused again. “And, as well, please pass them on to . . . Paul.”
I wasn’t sure, but I thought I heard the principal’s voice bristle when she said Paul’s name.
I looked outside again. Paul sank into a patio chair, his back hunched. I watched him with sadness. Poor fellow.
“I’ll do that,” I said. “Thank you for the call, Mrs. Hawke.”
20
The Glass Forest Page 9
