by Greg Johnson
“I think—I think he’s having a difficult time,” Abby said carefully. “I haven’t talked to him in a while. At least a week.”
“He hasn’t been returning my phone calls, either,” Valerie said quickly. “And that’s not like him. I think your mother is the only person he likes any more! He does adore you, Lucille!”
Abby’s mother lowered her eyes in the bashful, pleased gesture she used often these days. As Thom had said recently, their mother had “found her element” in these surprising new friendships with Valerie and Connie. She seemed at least a decade younger; her fretting and complaining had all but ceased. She could still be forgetful, but since her amnesia seemed to encompass all the formidable sins she’d once charged against her children, Thom and Abby were hardly in a mood to complain. Laughing, Thom had said that Valerie and Connie had become her “surrogate children,” since they were so much needier and responsive than her real ones. Her brother’s lighthearted remark had caused Abby an obscure, deep-cutting hurt, but she’d said nothing; she’d laughed along with his joke. Privately, she’d thought that Thom, as well, was doing so much better than she could have hoped, even a few weeks ago, that she dared not quibble with good fortune. Nor had she the time lately to give much thought to Connie, though she resisted Valerie’s exaggerated assumptions.
“I think he’s just busy,” she said. “Hasn’t he started working part-time with Warren? And I know the estate matters still aren’t completely settled.”
Lucille raised one eyebrow. “He needs to quit that job—it’s silly for someone like him to be driving all the way to the suburbs, just to work as a glorified secretary. He’s too smart for that, and he certainly doesn’t need the money!”
“But I thought the point was to put some structure in his life,” Abby said. “Isn’t that what Warren—”
“And his father keeps threatening to visit!” Valerie cried. “Connie said that every day when he gets home, he’s afraid the old man will be sitting there on the doorstep, waiting.”
Lucille was shaking her head; her pale-blue eyes looked misty. The waiter had brought their lunch, but she hadn’t touched her fork.
“I don’t think the real problem is his father,” she said. “It’s that the boy lost his mother. It’s so tragic.”
Abby glanced at Valerie: sometimes Lucille, one of whose favorite topics was the importance of family, seemed to forget what she knew about Valerie’s background, her early years spent as what Valerie called, with her hoarse laugh, “a sad little orphan.” Her middle name, it turned out, was Ann, and when Valerie was seven or eight, a mean stepsister had called her “Orphan Annie.” For a while Valerie had endured the nickname at school as well. But as usual it didn’t seem to bother her when Lucille made insensitive remarks; she was nodding emphatically, her eyes squinched half-shut in sympathy with Connie’s “tragic” past.
Valerie said, “He’s so sweet-natured, really. It is like he’s still just a boy sometimes.”
“In more ways than one,” Lucille laughed. “He’s such a scamp. The other day, he was driving me down Peachtree…”
Picking at her salad, Abby again tuned out. She wasn’t hungry; she was seldom hungry, these days. Since their trip to Key West she had lost ten pounds (or was it fifteen?) though Thom was the only one who noticed. He laughed that the extra weight had transferred onto him, by osmosis, and it was true that with the new drug “cocktail” he was using, he’d never looked better. Yet he was concerned about Abby. She’d told him nothing, of course, but since that rather embarrassing moment in Key West (He wasn’t from… England?) she could feel his kindly, slightly oppressive attention, the way he surveyed her clothes, her body, her face each time they met. Only for him, she’d thought more than once, did she pay attention to her appearance at all.
She could imagine at this point in her life withdrawing to some private hermitage, a place without mirrors or other people where she might wear the same clothes every day and become lax about bathing and eat only what was required to stay alive. Or stop eating altogether, if she chose. Stop thinking, too. Days and nights bleeding one into the other without pattern so that really she might stop everything: stop altogether. There was a poem of Emily Dickinson’s she’d taught every semester, Because I could not stop for death, He kindly stopped for me, and now she understood those words for the first time, in her blood and bones. She seldom indulged such morbid thinking, but when she did, her heart convulsed in such deep and thrilling pleasure that she drew back, afraid. The emotion was not unlike the most perilous depths of her passion with Philip DeMunn, who existed now only as an abstracted memory—a face wreathed in smoke or mist, an insidious voice in her ear—but one lacking the power to harm or even to trouble her attention for more than a moment or two. Her new thoughts were elsewhere.
Sitting numbed on the way back from Key West, she’d seen herself rushing into an emergency room and demanding the test, demanding to know, but by the time their plane touched the ground, she’d understood she was in no hurry. There was even a kind of pleasure in the waiting, which seemed an eerily miniature but heightened reflection of these months she’d spent in Atlanta, waiting for some new life to begin. Using the Yellow Pages, she had found the name of a woman gynecologist in Buckhead—the combination of the simple name “Dr. Kim Smith” and the expensive address were somehow reassuring—and had made the next available appointment, which was several weeks away. But Dr. Smith had turned out to be a tiny Korean woman who, glimpsing the involuntary look of surprise on Abby’s face, had quickly explained (with an endearing, shut-eyed smile) that she’d married an Atlanta dermatologist while still in med school at Emory. Embarrassed, Abby said she was pleased to meet her, and in fact she liked the woman at once. When her feet were in the stirrups, she’d said casually, “Doctor, I think I may have been exposed—” but her throat went dry.
“Yes? Exposed?” Dr. Smith said, her head bent.
“Yes, I’d like the test. The HIV test.”
Later they’d talked over the options in a calm, clinical way, as though discussing a third person not in the room, and then a nurse had drawn Abby’s blood. That was last Friday, and today she was returning to discuss the test result and future options. Abby had hoped she might get a phone call from Dr. Smith’s office, saying the test was negative and she needn’t come in, after all. Spending so much time with Thom and his friends, she knew that did happen sometimes. There had been no call, but she tried not to read anything into that. She felt strangely calm.
She hadn’t told her family or friends, because certainly they would not be calm; and everything was going so well, at least on the surface. Her mother’s visit had dragged on, much as Abby’s had when she first arrived, and in the past week Lucille had even stopped apologizing for “overstaying her welcome.” It was strange: here they were again, mother and daughter sharing Abby’s condo, while their more expensive town house outside Philadelphia, still crammed with their furniture and most of their belongings, sat empty and silent. Aunt Millicent had sent over her maid to gather and ship more of their clothes, along with a few personal items, and the other day her mother had remarked that she “didn’t miss the rest.” Abby knew the feeling: except for a few books and photographs, she didn’t miss anything, either. Nor did she mind sharing with her mother this glorified apartment with its two tiny bedrooms and rented furniture, since the tension between them had lessened almost to nothing.
These days her mother claimed to be “excited” about Abby’s enrollment in the doctoral program, and she spoke about Thom, whom they saw every day, so fondly that Abby sometimes wondered if their mother had forgotten the estrangement, the old snarls and resentments, the past itself—or at least had willed herself to forget. Shyly, Thom had asked Abby if she thought their mother should have some “memory tests” done—adding quickly that he didn’t think she had Alzheimer’s, not at all, but she did seem vague and fuzzy about some things, and repeated herself so often—but Abby had not answered except to give
him a brief pained look that had translated, she supposed, into Let’s don’t rock the boat. Not now. He hadn’t mentioned the idea again, though Abby supposed he was right. After her dealings with Dr. Smith were concluded, she imagined that was next: focusing on their mother. Sorting out the details of their future, such as where everyone was going to live, and how. And why.
Somehow none of this seemed pressing, and Abby had the strange idea that it would fall easily into place. Eventually, they would traipse up to Philadelphia, collect all their things, and come back here. Last Sunday, the three of them and Connie were driving home from a movie at the Tara when Lucille had the sudden idea they should see their old place, so without a murmur Thom had driven them to Sherwood Forest: to Friar Tuck Road. Paused before the house, which looked exactly the same, Abby had felt little emotion; she had no idea what the others felt. Lucille had said in her airy voice that meant nothing, “Maybe we should try and buy it back!” Thom laughed. Driving home, he’d talked about the soaring real estate prices in this neighborhood.
“Still, you ought to buy it,” Connie said. “It’s such a pretty house!”
But none of the Sadlers had replied, and that had been that.
The waiter was saying, “Dessert, ma’am? Coffee?”
“Look, you hardly touched your chicken!” Valerie cried.
Abby pushed her plate away, trying to smile. “Sorry, wasn’t hungry…it was delicious, though.”
“We’ll take the check,” Lucille said. She turned to Abby. “Honey, we’re going over to Lord & Taylor—you’ll come with us, won’t you?”
Valerie said, “Their spring stuff is on sale already, can you believe it?”
“No, I—I’ve got an appointment,” she told them, for the second time, and for the second time she steeled herself for their inquiries, wondering what she would say. Why would Abby have an “appointment”? But again they didn’t ask.
On their way out of the restaurant, she lagged behind her mother and Valerie, who were chatting busily about Connie’s upcoming dinner party, where supposedly they would all meet his father. Possibly the dinner would not even take place. According to Thom, Mr. Lefcourt’s visit to Atlanta was scheduled one day, canceled the next, then on again, then off again, all according to whether father and son had spoken peaceably or argued violently in their most recent phone conversation.
“Warren is moving out for a few days,” Thom had told her, “since he thinks Connie and his dad need privacy, but Connie seems to think the opposite. He wants us around as a kind of buffer. There’s safety in crowds, he said.”
Abby wasn’t looking forward to the dinner, whether Mr. Lefcourt was there or not, but she could think of no excuse not to come. When Connie phoned the previous week, he’d sounded shrill and enthusiastic, but there was a disconnected quality to his words, as though he might be talking to anyone. When she’d accepted the invitation, he’d said, as if consulting a list, “Fabulous! Now, let’s see, I need to call Abby and Valerie—no, I mean—what did I say? Goodness, I don’t think I was cut out to be a hostess!” Abby had given a dutiful laugh, issued her white lie about looking forward to the party.
“Me too—bye now!” Connie had cried. “See you Saturday! Bye, sweetheart!”
As the three women parted outside the restaurant, among the sparse traffic of well-dressed people drifting through the mall, Valerie said, “Bye, hon,” and hugged Abby tightly. To Abby’s surprise her mother followed suit, lunging forward with a quicker, more awkward hug. Such embraces were hardly her style. She was craning her head, eyes trained on the far distance as though seeking out Lord & Taylor. Abby knew that she and Valerie were dying for a cigarette, too; among Valerie’s other attractions, Lucille now had a smoking buddy.
“Well, my car’s the other way,” Abby murmured, but the other two had already blended into the crowd, their heads bent close together, and in this way Abby’s lunch obligation was concluded.
She glanced at her watch: 1:35. Her doctor’s appointment was at two o’clock, so she reasoned that the timing had been perfect, at least.
Usually, Atlanta had an abbreviated spring, the cold weather lingering through most of March and the insufferable heat descending a few weeks later, but this year the late-April afternoons turned just warm enough to coax the trees to leaf out, the dogwoods and azaleas to display their full riot of color. The long evenings were crisp and cool. Joggers and dog walkers streamed along the winding sidewalks of Morningside and Virginia-Highland, the Midtown parks and outdoor cafes throbbed with conversation, laughter, and music in such a picturesque mingling of black and white—rollerbladers and the elderly, families with small children and gay couples holding hands—that it might have been staged by Atlanta boosters portraying the city’s inclusive and harmonious spirit. Around six o’clock on the evening before Abby’s doctor appointment, her brother had knocked at her door, but when she answered and motioned him inside, he shook his head. He’d brought the dogs along and held a leash in each hand; though they strained to race inside, lunging at Abby’s legs, Thom scolded them.
“No, girls—back!” He looked up, grinning. “And as for you girls, come outside and take a walk with us?”
Abby had checked with her mother, who didn’t want to go—she was afraid she’d miss Wheel of Fortune—but Abby welcomed the diversion. She slipped a nylon windbreaker over her sleeveless blouse and took one of the leashes Thom handed her; they started out.
“Let’s head toward Wildwood,” her brother said. “It’s so pretty in there.”
As they meandered north on Rock Springs toward Wildwood Drive, an older residential street divided by a deep ravine and dense lovely growths of water oak and magnolias, both Mitzi and Chloe raced ahead, enlivened by the crisp evening air and the rare thrill of an outing.
“I’ve been so busy at work,” Thom said, “I haven’t been walking them much. Outside to do their business, then right back in.”
“I’m glad you thought of this,” Abby said. She hadn’t brooded over the next day’s appointment with Dr. Smith, exactly, but she’d felt tense and out of sorts, especially after a conversation this morning with her graduate adviser at Emory; the man had seemed to be hinting, and not very subtly, that Abby ought to forget about graduate work and stick to high school teaching. And her mother had picked this day to quiz her about money: how could she make ends meet for three or four years, and what if she couldn’t get a teaching job once she did get her doctorate? Abby had murmured something about fellowships and part-time teaching, but her mother’s queries had been pertinent enough. “If you’d gone to Penn instead,” Lucille said, “you could have lived at home for practically nothing, just like—” She’d stopped herself before finishing the phrase, just like you’ve been doing. “I mean, I don’t like the idea of your paying rent, honey—you know that.”
Again Abby had told her mother that she shouldn’t worry—she had plenty of money saved. “Partly because you have been so generous,” Abby said, and her mother had smiled, mollified. She was so easy to make happy, these days. Then the phone had rung, and Lucille answered—it was Valerie, but evidently she was calling for Lucille—and Abby was left again to her eerie mood of anxiety and resignation, hope and indifference. She didn’t know what she felt but at least, she thought with a dim smile, she knew that she didn’t know. That was progress.
She told Thom, “I’ve felt cooped inside all afternoon.” Today her adviser, with an audible sigh, had handed her the formal reading list for the week-long written exams she’d take once her course work was completed, and though she’d read most of the titles, she knew she’d have to reread them. Even the books she’d taught many times had faded quickly from memory as if lost to a distant past, a long-ago self. After lunch she’d picked up a new paperback of Dickens’ Bleak House and retreated to her bedroom, but her attention kept wandering. After an hour she saw that she’d read only twelve pages. The novel was nine hundred pages long and such an intense wave of lassitude and hopeless indifference ha
d overwhelmed her that she’d shut the book and thrown it against the wall.
She’d sat waiting patiently for a fit of tears, but the tears did not come.
“How’s Mom doing?” Thom had said. “Is she driving you crazy?”
“Oh, no—she was on the phone with Valerie a couple of times. They’re like teenage girls, those two. Planning their shopping expeditions, talking endlessly about Marty as if he were Valerie’s high school boyfriend instead of her fourth husband.” Abby laughed. “Mom seems happy, though, even if she is more forgetful, a little confused sometimes….”
“Has she said anything about going home—back to Philly? Not that her being here is a problem,” he added quickly.
“Every few days,” Abby said, “especially after Aunt Millie calls, she’ll say she ought to ‘get out of our hair,’ but she doesn’t sound too convinced. Yesterday she asked if I wanted to go to the Botanical Gardens sometime. Everything is so much prettier here, she said, than in Philadelphia. I just about fell over.”
For a minute or two, they walked along in silence. Mitzi and Chloe trotted eagerly, plunging ahead with new energy once they’d turned onto Wildwood with its dense shade and cooler air. Attracted to the foliage along the ravine, Chloe crossed in front of Mitzi, and the leashes got tangled, so they stopped while Thom patiently undid them. Abby shivered, gripping the windbreaker close against her throat.
“You wouldn’t vote for her moving back here, would you,” she said.
“Me?” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind. What about you?”
Thom handed her Chloe’s leash and they resumed their walk.
“I guess it wouldn’t make sense,” Abby said. “Her living up there alone.”
Thom said with a chuckle, “I think it’s great that she’s getting along with Valerie so well—and Connie!”
