Falling Angels

by Barbara Gowdy

  But what if Norma is shocked? Sandy’s pretty sure that Norma hasn’t even kissed a boy yet. And what if Lou wakes up and demands to know what the two of them are talking about? Lou will call her a stupid idiot for not being careful. She won’t say “pregnant,” she’ll say “knocked up.” She might start yelling and wake their father. Phone up Dave, yell at him. Who knows what Lou might do?

  Near dawn Sandy hears their mother in the t? room, and she gets out of bed and goes in to join her. Their mother gives her a sleepy smile and lifts the blanket for her to cover herself. A strong smell of their mother is under the blanket. It’s like an old picture of her, or seeing her tap shoes. Tomorrow night is her bath night. Wednesdays after dinner she brings her coffee mug and the kitchen radio into the bathroom and soaks in the tub, listening to a big-band program. Over the years the night and length of her bath have changed a couple of times because the program has. Sandy remembers that when she was little, their mother sang along with the music.

  “Can’t sleep?” their mother asks, squeezing Sandy’s hand.

  Sandy shakes her head. Their mother doesn’t let go of her hand, she’s so glad to have company. None of them sits with her on the couch anymore, Sandy realizes guiltily. When they watch t?, they sit on one of the chairs, or they lie on the floor. The couch seems to be their mother’s, Sandy tells herself, their mother’s private place—that’s the reason.

  On the t? the test pattern flickers off, and the words “THIS IS ONLY A TEST” appear, accompanied by a pulsing beep sound.

  “In case of emergency,” their mother explains, releasing Sandy’s hand and picking up her mug from the side table. “Such as nuclear war.”

  Sandy sees herself running with her baby through fiery explosions to the bomb shelter. She slips her hands under the blanket and gently presses her stomach.

  When their mother was pregnant with her, did she love her this much? Sandy can’t bear to think so, can’t bear it for their mother’s sake, because if she did, no matter how much Sandy ever loved her, their mother’s love was unrequited. Sandy lays her head on their mother’s shoulder. When was the last time she even thought of their mother? “Mommy?” she says.

  “Hmm?”

  “You know what? I’m pregnant.”

  The beeping on the t? stops. Sandy straightens to see their mother’s face. Their mother is still looking at the t?. She is frowning, and for a second Sandy is confused. Then she remembers that their mother doesn’t like talk about babies, and she is more confused. There must be exceptions. Her baby isn’t just any baby.

  Their mother looks at her. “Are you going to have an abortion?” she asks sternly.

  “No,” Sandy says. She is shocked.

  Their mother pats Sandy’s leg. “Good.”

  “I have a boyfriend. I’m going to marry him. Daddy met him. Did he tell you? Daddy likes him.” Their mother smiles. “But don’t tell Daddy anything yet,” Sandy adds anxiously. “Okay? I haven’t told him.”

  “When you have an abortion,” their mother says,“your body goes into mourning.” Her eyes are back on the t?. Her voice is back to being kind and soft.

  “But, Mommy, I’m not going to have one.”

  “Your heart breaks. Your tear ducts won’t close. Your hair follicles act up. Your hair just gives up.” She looks at Sandy again. “You can’t trick nature. You can’t dance to the music and then kill the piper.”

  On Saturday morning Sandy is being sick to her stomach in the fabric store washroom, when she is overcome with a superstitious feeling that not telling Dave will rebound on her baby. That her baby will be born deformed! She leaves work and goes straight to the hardware store, right through to the back, where Dave is fixing a toaster.

  “Princess!” he greets her happily.

  His big jaw drops at the news. He nods that they should keep it a secret and that they should marry sometime in July and tell everyone afterward.

  “I’ll make all its baby clothes,” Sandy says, talking to herself. “I’ll buy the material now. As long as I’m still working at the store, I can get a twenty percent discount.”

  At home, as she’s hanging up her coat, she sees Lou lying on the living-room chesterfield. Just lying there on her back, without a book and with her hands folded across her chest, her eyes fixed on the ceiling. “Are you sick?” Sandy asks her.

  Lou slowly turns her head. “I almost died.” She sounds proud.

  “What?” Sandy goes over to her.

  “A quack almost killed me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Lou looks back at the ceiling. “But here I am. And this is my room. And you’re all here. And there’s no place like home.”

  Sandy sighs. “I don’t get this joke,” she says. “Because you don’t look very good, you know. You’re white as a ghost.”

  “But I feel good,” Lou says fiercely, smiling. “Why did Dorothy leave Oz to go back to Kansas? I’ve been lying here trying to figure that out. What’s she got back in Kansas? A wrecked house, poverty, no friends for miles. And Almira Gulch is still going to take Toto to the pound. That hasn’t changed.”

  “Auntie Em,” Sandy says. “She misses Auntie Em.”

  Lou throws back her head. “Ha!” Her thin white throat reminds Sandy of how frail her baby is. “That old bitch,” Lou says. She imitates Auntie Em’s voice. “I know three farm hands that’ll be out of a job before long.” Her eyes are so eager, so rapturous that Sandy walks away from her, over to the window. “Auntie Ems,” Lou cries,“are one of the biggest weapons the mortal coil has!”

  Sandy looks out the window, aligning herself with the green grass, the little red maple covered in buds, the robin on the fire hydrant—all the signs of spring in their front yard.

  Vital Disconnection 1969

  No one hears their mother leave the house and push up the creaking garage door. All the windows are open, but everyone sleeps through the clanging of the aluminum ladder being carried to the other side of the house and dropped against the eaves.

  Pigeons running around on the roof sound like gangs of women in stilettos. How did their mother move so quietly up there? On the day of her funeral the three girls argue about it. Everything—the mystery of their mother’s whole life—seems to boil down to how she crossed right over their heads without waking them. She just tiptoed. She crawled. She slid, seated along the peak. She walked along the peak like a tightrope walker. She could have, she was a dancer! In that wind?

  “She floated,” offers the drunk, their father, and this shuts them up because naturally they don’t believe it, but they can picture it, their mother’s long white billowing nightgown. Because it’s an angel image.

  All the windows are open when their mother goes up on the roof. It’s hot and windy, the last day of May, the first hot day. Their father is sleeping in the rollaway down in the basement. At ten past four in the morning he gets up to use the toilet, the downstairs one, and he looks up at the window, which is above the sink, and sees a ladder standing there, outside. He hurries back to the rec room to pull on his trousers. Since his gun is in the bomb shelter, he leaves by the back door.

  The police will ask why didn’t he glance up at the roof before getting his gun. They won’t let him off easy about the gun. He’ll say that he thought that he was dealing with a cat burglar. That in the night the face can shine like a light. He’ll be precise about when things happened, crediting his glow-in-the-dark watch, which he wears to bed, and his habit of frequently noting the time. An old military habit, he’ll say.

  At four-thirty-five he wakes Lou and Norma. He speaks softly from their bedroom door. Their mother is on the roof and won’t come down unless she has whisky. He wants Norma to take a bottle up to her. He says he tried to but with his bad foot he couldn’t climb.

  “What’s she doing on the roof?” Norma asks, patting the bedside table for her glasses.

  Lou gets out of bed, goes to the window and raises the blind. “Hey, I can see her shadow,” she crie
s, pointing to the neighbour’s lawn.

  “Keep your voice down,” their father hisses. “We don’t want the whole street in on this. We don’t want a big production.”

  Sandy opens her bedroom door as they’re hurrying by. Norma explains.

  “Why has he got his gun?” asks Sandy, the first to notice.

  “Move it,” their father says.

  Outside, the wind whips their pyjama legs. It whips and lifts Sandy’s and Lou’s long hair and streams back their mother’s white hair. There she is, sitting beside the chimney, holding on to it with one hand and on to the roof with her other hand. She is vividly white and unreal, like a cutout.

  “Jesus Christ,” Lou says with a laugh.

  “Keep it down,” their father rasps.

  “How long has she been up there?” Norma asks.

  “I don’t know,” he mutters. “All night. I don’t know.”

  “Mommy,” Sandy calls quietly, waving.

  “But what’s she doing up there?” Norma asks again. She is thinking of the time their mother wanted to go on the roof because there was no whisky in the house.

  “How the hell should I know?” their father says. He thrusts the bottle at her. “Okay, there’s two fingers’ worth here. Let her have it, then get her down. Tell her if she wants more, she has to come and get it.”

  He puts his gun on the grass to hold the ladder steady as Norma climbs. The wind whistles. Stepping onto the roof, Norma is almost blown backward. She drops awkwardly into a crouch, which causes her glasses to fly off. They slide into the eavestrough.

  “Leave them,” their father whisper-yells.

  Their mother turns her head in Norma’s direction. Norma can only make out the slow swivel of their mother’s head and her face like the moon.

  Down below, their father hunches against the wind to light a cigarette. Lou takes the opportunity to dart up the ladder.

  “Hey!” he growls, making a grab for her leg.

  But she is already out of his reach. She laughs. If she were still pregnant, she’d probably be too out of kilter, too middle-heavy to climb ladders.

  “She won’t let go,” Norma says when Lou reaches them. Norma is sitting beside their mother and holding the bottle at their mother’s mouth.

  Lou moves over to the chimney and stands there, looking at their father and Sandy looking up. The little orange flare when their father inhales his cigarette strikes her as an assault. Pitiful. She has an urge to spit on him. “It’s great up here,” she says. She laughs again, exhilarated.

  “She had that nightmare,” Norma says. “That’s why she came up.”

  “Which nightmare?” Lou tosses her head back to feel her hair blow. It’s not so dark that she can’t see the clouds. They gallop over her. The clouds seem to be what’s making the wind.

  “You know,” Norma says. “The one she had in the bomb shelter.”

  “Yeah, but I never knew what it was about.”

  Their mother speaks. “Suffocation,” she says in a frightened voice. “No air. A terrible weight. A terrible urge.”

  Now Lou notices how rigidly their mother is sitting. “You better get down,” she says, worried for the first time.

  “I can’t.” She indicates with a nod at Norma that she wants another drink.

  “There’s none left,” Norma says gently. “You have to come down, Mom.”

  Their mother shakes her head.

  “Lou! Lou!” It’s their father, calling hoarsely through cupped hands.

  “She’s too scared to come down,” Lou shouts.

  “Shut up!” he shouts. He checks the time on his watch, then takes a step back and bumps into Sandy. Sandy hurries away from him, but it is only to get another view of their mother. She is torn between their mother and her unborn baby, between going up to help their mother and not taking any foolish risks.

  “You better phone the fire department,” Lou shouts as loudly as before.

  “I’ll phone,” Sandy offers.

  “No!” their father shouts. He throws down his cigarette. “Okay,” he says, whisper-yelling. “Everybody calm down. Everybody shut up and calm down. Lou, you get in front of your mother. Norma, you get behind her. Crawl to the ladder together. Take it easy.”

  “I can’t,” their mother moans.

  “What if you had more whisky?” Norma asks her.

  “No. You go. Leave me.” She bows her head. Her hand slips down the chimney.

  “Jesus.” Crouching, Lou plants her hand over their mother’s. “Hold on,” she says. Their mother’s toes are curled like a little bird’s. Lou calls down to their father: “Phone the fire department! She can’t hold on much longer!”

  “Goddamnit, keep your voice down!”

  “PHONE THE FUCKING FIRE DEPARTMENT!”

  Their father flails around as if expecting to see all the neighbourhood lights switch on. Across the street one does.

  “Daddy …” Sandy pleads.

  “All right, that’s it.” Their father scoops up his gun and points it at the roof. “Mary,” he calls to their mother,“come down right now, or I start shooting.”

  “For Christ’s sake,” Lou snorts.

  Their mother begins to stand but can’t and sits back down, hard.

  “Don’t move,” Norma says, grabbing their mother’s arm. Their mother is shaking. “He’s just trying to scare you. We’ll phone the fire department.”

  “At the count of ten,” their father calls.

  “I’ll phone,” Lou says to their mother and Norma.

  “One …” their father says, and then,“Hey,” to Lou, who is scrambling down the ladder. When she touches ground, she pushes the gun barrel away from her.

  “Look,” he says. His face is gullied with shadows. “I’m not going to shoot, for Christ’s sake.” Lou runs to the front door. “Where are you going?” he yells. “You better not phone!”

  Sandy comes up behind him. “Daddy …”

  His arm swings out and hits her across the neck, knocking her backward onto the grass. She cries “Oh!” in surprise. He gapes at her, his arm still horizontal, the gun at the end of it aimed at the house. “Go get Lou here,” he says.

  Sandy sits up and cups her stomach. She is so concerned about the jolt to her baby that she is on the brink of saying so. Spilling the beans.

  Up on the roof their mother has come to her feet. She clings to the chimney. The wind is caught under her nightgown and swells her up.

  Norma, still standing, has a hold of their mother’s ankle and can feel that she is steady, no longer shaking. She doesn’t know whether to urge her to stay put or to climb down. “Don’t look down,” she warns.

  Without glasses, Norma sees only that their mother’s head is lowered. She doesn’t see their mother’s final countenance. Their mother squirms her foot, and Norma thinks this means she wants to climb down. So Norma lets go of her. In a balletic, yielding motion their mother’s arms lift. Then they make slow, backward circles, signifying, Norma realizes a half second too late, that she has lost her balance.

  On her way down everyone but her cries out. Her hand brushes Sandy’s arm. When she hits the grass, there is the faintest thud. She lands on her back. Sandy drops down beside her. Their father drops down on her other side, grabs her shoulders, listens for her heart, checks his watch, begins mouth to mouth. The girls cover their own mouths with their hands. They don’t ask if she’s dead. By her eyes, they know. Even Norma, down on the ground now but without her glasses, can see that their mother’s wide-open eyes are dead.

  The fire engine arrives, siren blaring. “She went up to rescue the cat,” their father tells the fireman who kneels beside him.

  Neighbours have come over in pyjamas and nightgowns and hair curlers. The man from two doors down says, “Our cat?” because his is the only house that has a cat, on this street, anyway.

  “Our cat,” their father says. “We just got it.”

  More sirens are approaching. The fireman who is examining t
heir mother sits back on his heels and rubs a hand down his face. Another fireman spots their father’s gun at the foot of the ladder and goes to pick it up, then doesn’t. Norma asks this fireman if she can get her glasses out of the eavestrough, and he looks with suspicion at her and at the gun, then back at her before telling her to make it snappy.

  The wind dies. There is the calmness of dawn. Everyone, including their father, talks in undertones. To all the questions the police ask, he comes up with passable lies. The girls nod corroboration. When their father goes off in the ambulance, they decline offers of help from women neighbours.

  Inside the house Norma turns on the t? and makes breakfast. They eat in the kitchen, with the test-pattern hum in the background, as if it’s any early morning. Lou says that you could see Mrs. Kent’s droopy tits through her negligee and that Mr. Albee, the man who asked if it was his cat, knew their father was bullshitting.

  After breakfast Norma decides to vacuum. She has a hard time aiming the plug into the outlet. She hears Lou telling Sandy to take the day off work. “I’m on commission,” Sandy says, and Lou says,“They’ll pay you anyway. For Christ’s sake, your mother just died.”

  Norma lets go of the vacuum cord. When she straightens up, the room spins. She goes into the kitchen, where her sisters are. “Our mother just died,” she says. Lou and Sandy seem far away and tiny. They look at her as if she has spoken in a foreign language. “I think I’ll leave the vacuuming,” she says, falling onto a chair.

  Midmorning their father returns, wearing another man’s shirt. “Call your Aunt Betty,” he says, clutching Norma’s shoulder as he passes her. He takes a bottle of whisky out of the cupboard and disappears into their mother’s bedroom.

  Lou makes the call. “I’ll be right there!” Aunt Betty screams. “Don’t bother,” Lou says to the dial tone. As soon as she hangs up, the phone rings. It’s a reporter asking if their mother is the same Mary Field who dropped her baby over Niagara Falls. “No,” Lou says and slams down the receiver.