by Andre Dubus
‘Dirty. Because he said that about Edith?’
‘Yes. She’s a sweet girl and she doesn’t deserve that, and I don’t want any part of it.’
‘But until he said that, you felt all right.’
‘We can stop this now. Or do you want to know whether his nose was to the left or right of mine?’
‘Do you remember?’
‘We were lying on the floor and he was on my right, so I’d say his nose was to the left of mine.’
‘Lying on the floor, huh? Goodness.’
‘I’d squatted down to get a beer from—Oh shut up.’
‘I was only teasing.’
‘You were doing more than that. You’re glad he kissed me.’
‘Let’s say I’m not disturbed.’
‘Well I am.’
She got out of bed for a cigarette and when she came back I pretended to be asleep and listened to her smoking deeply beside me. Then she put out the cigarette and started touching me, the old lust on quiet signal, and I mounted her, thrusting the sound of bedsprings into the still summer night, not a word between us, only breath and the other sound: and I remembered newly married one morning she was holding a can of frozen orange juice over a pitcher and the sound of its slow descent out of the can drove us back to bed. I could feel her getting close but I still was far away, and I opened my eyes: hers were closed. I shut mine and saw Edith this afternoon oh love; then I thought she is thinking of Hank, behind those closed eyes her skull is an adulterous room, and now he was here too and he had given me the forty dollars and it was Hank, not I, Hank who was juggling us all, who would save us, and now we came, Hank and Terry and Edith and me, and I said, ‘Goodnight, love,’ and rolled over and slept.
2
ON A MOONLIT SUMMER NIGHT, in a cemetery six blocks from my house, lying perhaps among the bones of old whaling men, in the shadow of a pedestaled eight-foot bronze angel, Hank made love to my red-haired wife.
At midnight I had left them on the front porch. Edith had the flu, and Hank had come over late for a nightcap; it was the day after payday and I gave him ten dollars which he didn’t want to take. We drank on the front porch, but I was tired and I watched them talking about books and movies, then I went to bed, their voices coming like an electric train around the corner of the house, through the screen of my open window. I slept. When I woke my heart was fast before I knew what it knew. I lay in silence louder than their voices had been, and listened for the creak of floor under a step, the click of her Zippo, a whisper before it died in the air. But there was only silence touching my flesh, so they weren’t in the house; unless making love in the den or living room they had heard my heart when I woke and now they were locked in sculpted love waiting for me to go back to sleep. Or perhaps they were in the yard and if I went outside I would turn a corner of the house and smack into the sight of her splayed white legs under the moon and the white circle of his wedging ass.
The clock’s luminous dial was too moonlit to work: with taut stealth I moved across the bed, onto Terry’s side, and took the clock from the bedside table: two-twenty. I waited another ten minutes, each pale gray moonlit moment edged with expectancy, until I was certain it was emptiness I heard, not their silence. And if indeed they were listening, I would cast the burden of cunning on them: I rolled over and dropped my feet thumping to the floor, and walked to the bathroom next to my room and turned on the light. I flushed the toilet, then went out through the other door, into the kitchen, the dining room, the living room, and stepped onto the front porch. The night was cool and I shivered, standing in my T-shirt so white if they were watching. His car was parked in front. Their glasses were on the steps. I picked them up: lime and gin-smelling water. Then I went to bed and waited, and I saw them under the willow tree in the backyard, the branches hanging almost to the grass, and I asked myself and yes, I said, I want the horns; plant them, Hank, plant them. I wanted lovely Edith now there with me and twice I picked up the phone and once dialed three numbers, but she would be asleep with her fever and there was nothing really to tell yet, I didn’t really know yet, and after that I lay in bed, quick-hearted and alert, and waited and smoked.
At ten minutes after three he started his car. I ran tiptoeing to the living room window as his car slowly left the curb and Terry stood on the sidewalk, smoking; she lifted a hand, waving as Hank drove down the street. He blinked his interior light, but I couldn’t see him, then his car was dark, just tail lights again, and then he was gone and the street was quiet. She stood smoking. When she flicked the cigarette in the street and started up the walk, I ran back to the bedroom. She came in and crossed the living room, into the dining room and bathroom. She stayed there a while: water ran, the toilet flushed, water ran again. Then in the kitchen she popped open a beer and went to the living room; her lighter clicked, scraped, clicked shut. When she finished the beer she plunked it down on the coffee table and came into the bedroom.
‘Where’ve you been?’
She got out of her clothes and dropped them on the floor, and lies cracked her voice: ‘I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep so I went out for a walk.’
She went naked to the living room and came back shaking a cigarette from her pack and lit it and got into bed.
‘Terry.’
‘What.’
‘You don’t have to tell me that. I woke up at two-twenty.’
She drew on her cigarette. Still she had not looked at me.
‘You bastard. Did you ever go to sleep?’
‘Yes.’
‘I wish I could believe that.’
‘I was tired.’
‘You could’ve brought me to bed.’
‘You could’ve come with me.’
She threw back the sheet and blanket and got out of bed and went fast, pale skin and flopping hair, out of the room. She came back with a beer and got into bed and covered up and bent the pillow under her head so she could drink.
‘I’m lonely, that’s why. I’m a woman, I’m sorry, I can’t be anything else, and I need to be told that and I need to be made love to, you don’t make love with me anymore, you fuck me; I sat on the steps with him and he held my hand and listened to me talk about this shitty marriage because all you ever see is the house, you don’t see me, and he said let’s go see the bronze angel, we’ve never seen it in the dark, and I was happy when he said that and I was happy making love—’
So she had really done it, and I lay there feeling her wash down me, from my throat, down my chest, my legs, then gone like surf from the sea, cold like the sea.
‘—and I lay afterward looking up at her wings and for the first time since leaving the porch I thought of you and for a moment under her wings I hated you for bringing me to this. Then that went away. I wanted to go home and seal up the split between us, like gluing this shitty old furniture, I wanted to clap my hands for Tinker Bell, do something profound and magic that would bring us back the way we used to be, when we were happy. When you loved me and when I never would have made love with someone else. And all the way walking home I wanted to hurry and be with you, here in this bed in this house with my husband and children where I belong. And right now I love you I think more than I have for years but I’m angry, Jack, way down in my blood I’m angry because you set this up in all kinds of ways, you wanted it to happen and now it has and now I don’t know what else will happen, because it’s not ended, making love is never ended—’
‘Are you seeing him again?’
‘No.’
‘Then it’s ended.’
‘Do you thrink making love is like smoking, for Christ sake? That if you quit it’s over? It’s not just the act. What’s wrong with you—it’s feeling, it’s—’
She drank, then sat up and drank again, head back for a long swallow, then she lit a cigarette from the one she was smoking.
‘It’s what,’ I said.
‘Promises.’
‘You promised to see him again?’
‘I didn’t say a
nything. Opening my legs is a promise.’
‘But he must have said something.’
‘I wish you could hear your voice right now, the way it was just then, I wish I had it taped and I’d play it for you till you went to a shrink to find out why your voice just now was so Goddamn oily. You like this. You like it. Well hear: it took us a long time to get to the cemetery because we kept stopping to kiss and when we did walk it was slow because we had our arms around each other and his hand was on my tit all the time and when we got to the angel we didn’t look at her, not once, we undressed and got down on the ground and we fucked, Jack, we fucked like mad, and I was so hot I came before he did; the second time I was on top and it was long and slow and I told him I loved him and you, you poor man, you sick cuckold, look at your face—Jesus Christ, what am I married to?’
‘Will you stop?’
‘Why should I? You ought to be knocking my teeth out now. But not you. You want to watch us. Is that it? Is that what you want, Jack?’
I sat up and was swinging at her but stopped even before she saw it coming, and my hand opened and I pointed at her eyes, the finger close, so close, and I wanted to gouge with it, to hit, to strangle, the finger quivering now as I tried not to shout beneath the children’s rooms, my voice hoarse and constricted in my throat: ‘Terry, you fuck who you want and when you want and where you want but do not do not give me any of your half-ass insights into the soul of a man you’ve never understood.’
Then she was laughing, a true laugh at first or at least a smile, but she lay with her head back on the pillow, throat arched, her shoulders and breasts shaking, and prolonged it, forced it cracking into the air, withering my tense arm, and I got out of bed so I would not even touch the sheet she lay on.
‘Oh God: half-ass insights into the—what? The soul of a man I’ve never understood? Oh my. You poor baby, and it’s so simple. You think you’re a swinger, free love, I can fuck whoever I want, oh my how you talk and talk and talk and it all comes down to that one little flaw you won’t admit: you’re a pervert, Jack. You need help. And I’m sorry, I really am, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I made love with Hank tonight and he wants to see me tomorrow—or this afternoon really—and when I finish this beer I’m going to sleep because the kids’ll be up soon and you’re not known for getting them breakfast—’
‘I’ll do it. Forget it, I’ll do it.’
‘Fine. Do that. That’s one thing you can do. You can’t help me with my other problem any more than I can help you with yours. See, I’m a big girl now and I knew what I was doing tonight and I don’t know if I can very well say tomorrow—today—well gee Hank that was last night but this is now and gee I just don’t want to anymore. I mean even you with all your progressive and liberal ideas will have to admit that even adultery has its morality, that one can cop out on that too. So I have things to figure out.’
‘Yes.’ I started leaving the room. ‘Do what you can.’
‘Oh, that’s good.’ I stopped at the door but didn’t look back. ‘That’s what all my good existential friends say whenever I want advice: Just do what you can. Well, I will, Jack, I will.’
I went to the kitchen and drank an ale and when Terry was asleep I went to bed.
Next morning I woke first, alert and excited, though I had slept only four hours. Everything was quiet except birds. I got up and dressed, watching Terry asleep on her back, mouth open; I stepped over her clothes on the floor, and going through the living room picked up her beer can and brought it to the kitchen. In the silence I could feel the children sleeping upstairs, as if their breathing caressed me. I went outside: the morning was sun and blue and cool air. I drove to a small grocery store and bought a Globe and cigarettes. Then I drove to a service station with a pay phone and parked but didn’t get out of the car. It was only five minutes of nine on a Sunday morning, and they would be asleep. Or certainly Hank would. But maybe she wouldn’t, and I drove to their street: all the houses looked quiet, theirs did too, and I went past, then turned around in a driveway and started back, believing I would go on by; then I stopped and walked up their driveway to the back door and there she was in the dim kitchen away from the sun, surprised, turning to me in her short nightgown, a happy smile as she came to the door and pushed it gently so the latch was quiet. I stepped in and she was holding me tight, and I stroked her soft brushed hair and breathed her toothpaste and soap.
‘Are you all right now?’
‘The fever’s gone. Was it fun last night?’
‘They made love.’
She moved her head back to look at me and say, ‘Really?’; then she was at my cheek again. ‘She told you?’
‘She didn’t want to, but I knew, I had waked up. They went to the bronze angel.’
‘Are you jealous?’
‘No.’ She was holding me, rubbing her cheek on my chest. Her kitchen was clean. ‘They might see each other today. If they do, we can get together.’
‘We’ll have the kids and they’ll have the cars.’
‘Shit.’
Water started boiling; she let me go and turned off the fire. Then she was back.
‘How are you?’ I said.
‘Still weak, that’s all. I told you the fever’s gone.’
‘I mean about them.’
‘Fine. I think it’s fine. He’ll be asleep for a long time.’
‘He might wake up.’
‘We’d hear him, we’d be right under the bedroom. He always goes to the bathroom first.’
‘Sharon,’ I said.
‘She’ll sleep too.’
We started for the door; she stopped and put instant coffee in two cups and poured water. Then we crept through the house to the guest room.
When I left, after drinking the coffee that was still warm enough, Sharon was coming downstairs. Before getting into the car I squinted up at the bedroom where Hank slept.
At home I didn’t go in; I sat on the back steps to read the sports page. I could smell Terry’s cigarette, then I heard her moving and she came outside in her robe, hair uncombed, and sat beside me and put a hand on my shoulder. I nearly flinched.
‘I was scared,’ she said. ‘When I woke up and you weren’t there. I thought you had left.’
‘I did. To get cigarettes and a paper.’
‘What took so long?’
‘Driving around looking at the bright new morning.’
‘Is it?’
I looked up from the paper and waved a hand at the trees and rooftops and sky.
‘Blink your eyes and look at it.’
‘Your beard’s beautiful in the sun. It has some blond and red in it.’
‘I got that from you and the kids.’
‘I thought you had left me.’
‘Why should I?’
‘What I said.’
‘That’s night talk.’
‘I know it. Just as long as you know it. I was being defensive because I was scared and when I’m scared I get vicious.’
‘Why were you scared?’
‘Because I have a lover.’
‘Is that what you’ve decided?’
‘I haven’t decided anything. I made love with Hank so I have a lover, no matter what I do about it. You really don’t care?’
She had the right word: care. So I must get her away from that. The way to hunt a deer is not to let him know you’re alive.
‘I care about you. It’s monogamy I don’t care about.’
‘You’ve said that for years. I’ve waked up with that whispering to me for years. But a long time ago you weren’t that way.’
‘A long time ago I wasn’t a lot of ways.’
‘I couldn’t let you do what I’m doing.’
‘Are you doing anything?’
‘I don’t know yet.’
‘But you want to.’
‘If I knew that I’d know something.’
‘Why don’t you know it? I know it.’
‘How?’
Her han
d was still on my arm; I was scanning box scores.
‘You stayed out there with him because you wanted to and I think you came home planning to see him today and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, but when you found out I knew about it then it got too sticky. Just too bloody sticky. To all in one night leave monogamy and then have to carry it out with your husband knowing about it, staying with the kids while you—’
‘Oh stop,’ her voice pleading, her fingers tightening on my shoulder. ‘Shhh, stop.’
‘Isn’t that so?’
‘I don’t know. I mean, sure I wanted to, and I like Hank very much; in a way I love him, and I love you and nothing’s changed that, what’s with Hank is—’ she squeezed my shoulder again and looking at the paper I heard the fake smile in her voice ‘—it’s friendly lust, that’s all. But it might not be marriage, living like this.’
‘We’re married. You and I are married. So it has to be marriage.’
‘It might not be for long.’
‘I wish Boston were a National League town. You mean you’re afraid you’ll run off with him?’
‘No. My God no. There are all sorts of ways for a marriage not to be a marriage.’
‘You’re just afraid because it’s new.’
‘If I kept on with Hank you’d want a girl. You’d feel justified then. Maybe even with Edith, and wouldn’t that be a horror.’
‘Seems strange to me that while you’re deciding whether or not to make love with a man you call your lover, you’re thinking most about what I’ll do.’
‘That’s not strange. You’re my husband.’
‘It is strange, and it’s beneath you. This is between you and Hank, not me.’
She took a pack of cigarettes from the carton I’d bought and sat smoking while I read.
‘Are you hungry?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘Pancakes and eggs?’
‘Buckwheat. Are the kids up?’
‘No. I think I’ll take them to the beach today. Do you want to go?’
‘I want to watch the game.’
‘I think I’ll tell him no.’
