Writing the letter, with Jeff’s newly read book beside her, Amy saw suddenly whether or not love could have been made through the title page was not the point, at all: joy was: exultation at the book’s being done: after so much work, the book was simply an extension of himself. They could have tried love that way, if only to laugh. The result, probably failure, would have brought them up short against the condition people needed to be reminded of occasionally, fallibility; Amy suddenly wondered what she was to make of herself; that was what mattered.
My heart aches for those days, in the woods; it hurts: those lost days. Where has the time gone? I’m older. I don’t fool myself any longer. There won’t be anybody to fill your place in my heart, thoughts, to ever even understand me as you do, to console, love, feel for me as you do. If I’d let myself stop and wonder and worry about it, I would be afraid (I said I wouldn’t be, and I’m not in the way once I would have been, of what the future is to hold in this way). Probably, I’ll go through life looking for another you. Oh Jeff, the sun, the red roads, the house, the school, the woods, the trees, beer and talk. Have I written you all this before? It seems I might have, but I had to say it all again, to tell you that I love you. To think of you, I think of sun and laughter and a sort of lovely sadness. It’s in every face, building, and in everything I see and do. I go to sleep thinking, Someday he will be so damned proud of me. Oh, thank you for that.
She put down the pen, thinking she had to let her mother redecorate her room. How childish to have said she wanted everything to stay the same. The curtains were frayed, their linings stained brown from sun and in-blown rain. Edith had a swatch of material pinned to the old ones, of some satiny material, sleeker, and with a barely discernible silvery pinstripe. The flowery look of the room would be gone, and about time, Amy thought.
Of course, I shouldn’t have run off the way I did, without saying anything to you. You were right that I was thinking about a young man, and that I was not sure what I was thinking but
When she found the letter some time later, Amy wondered what that qualifying but had been about. What had she been going to say? Fluctuating, she had been going to pose some alternative. The letter being broken off seemed appropriate to the reason it had been; life could stop as short; it could seem unfinished. She had left the letter on her dresser and wondered who had moved it. The cleaning lady might have, while dusting. If it had been moved by Aunt Dea would she have read it? Her mother would not have moved it, as she had been too distraught to have been cleaning up. Time had passed; the letter still had relevance, but Amy felt herself not the person who had begun it. The bottom of her wastebasket was scattered by the pieces. Once, she had written Jeff that she was sick, and he had replied, that if he could, he would be the sickness. She thought of her father, his look, and knew she could not have been so generous. When we are so vulnerable, must we die looking horrible? To look at her father’s skeletal face, she could only think how glad she was to be living. All the time she had been going forward, seeking life, he had been retreating, his done. Could they not have at some point, passing, touched? When he lay in his hospital bed, and she looked at his face, she tried to remember in their life together what words they had said. Children think their parents’ lives center entirely on them. What thoughts, what feelings had her father had about which she had known nothing? He had once passionately loved her mother; Amy tried to imagine the night she had been conceived. She could see only the man she had always known, elderly-seeming always to her. Her thumb touched to her middle finger, she formed a circle with which she enclosed her father’s wrist. She remembered his carrying her at a gallop on his shoulders. Now, he could not lift his head. He had difficulty speaking. Open, his eyes stared. But did he understand? Did he know her? Amy asked, bending over him. Did he know her, at all?
She felt that she was drowning in his breathing, which was hampered by phlegm. Below his wandering mouth was a dark hole, from which he sent out sighing and melancholy and caught sounds, some like the sound a straw makes sucking, emptily, at the bottom of a glass.
She had been writing the letter when Edith rushed in, wildly, to say he had been taken to the hospital, having collapsed at a meeting. Edith eventually stood at his bedside, her face knotted like writhing hands, insisting he would get well, he would! But Amy grasped the situation and said that no, he was dying. Having found the letter again, and wondering who had moved it, Amy thought of a myriad of helpful things Dea had done: none of them large. More importantly, they were the little things that bridged one day to another; the coffeepot was always clean, her stockings washed, her room straightened. Everyone is glad for a little break in routine. In his own way, Joe performed similar small thoughtfulnesses. As if to accumulate miles, he travelled the hospital’s corridors, finding out of the way machines which produced sodas, mints, crackers, small toys; once, he brought to the room miniature Scotties, one black and one white, which were magnets; finally, Edith smiled. The food accumulated like an animal’s hoard. He kept bringing things. Amy felt about Aunt Dea and Uncle Joe the emotions she had felt at their house with Quill; these emotions endured. People needed places to go back to, people to resee; it gave life a design, she thought; that was necessary for her. Staring at her father’s familiar face, from which unbelievably life was going, she knew she had to rely on something, and chose love.
Frequently irritable, he struck out at anything that came too near, even a shadow’s flicker. He often knocked the tube from his throat. Demanding, he rejected afterward what he wanted. Private nurses were continually quitting. That he flailed against muteness Amy found admirable. The final nurse was motherly and scolding and more strong-willed than he. She threatened to tie down his hands if he did not behave. In recognition of tenderness, he looked at her, suddenly, without vacancy in his eyes, and was quiet. Days began and ended. Amy wrote Jeff a short note saying where she was, thanking him for the book. He wrote back sympathetically, and that he looked forward to the long letter she promised.
Guided into the hall, she wondered what the sense was in whispering. What possibly could the doctor tell them, she wondered, that her father did not know. Having motioned her and Edith into the corridor, the doctor said it was only a matter of hours. Her throat worked against her and Edith thought, if only she had known something to offer besides ceramic ashtrays. She went back into his room. Facing the window, she saw a cold early spring rain beginning. In the corridor, Amy had sensed the three of them there had been, unwittingly, a little impatient at the idea of someone else’s death. Why die? they had wanted to ask, parting from each other a little shamefacedly, as if someone might ask it. The doctor, turning away, plunged a thick thumb to the elevator button. Amy went back into the room where Edith had opened the window and drank a soda left by Joe, which was flat. “Couldn’t I get you a fresh Coke?” Edith said hopefully.
“This is all right,” Amy said, while opening a package of mints from among Joe’s accumulated pile. He was not good with money. Billy Walter came forward to help with practical things. He had come by the hospital every day after work. Though feeling timid, Edith asked Amy if she were going to marry him.
“Can I,” Amy had asked, “think about it while Daddy is like this?” the latter an afterthought in her own ears.
She never would have tied down his hands! said the nurse, coming out of his room and crying. She could not think when a case had moved her more. Did they know the last thing he had said, clearly? “All he had ever wanted in life was to be a good man.”
Edith, full of pain, felt her thoughts confirmed by the look on Amy’s face. “You never know,” Edith whispered. By not changing her expression, Amy agreed. She determined, as she came down the hospital steps, late that afternoon, with her mother and Billy Walter, that her life must come to something. An old blind Negro stood there and, at the moment of their passing, put his hand up to the rain, then stuck wet fingers into his mouth. Billy Walter had bought newspapers in the lobby. Edith gratefully accepted one and stu
ck it as shelter over her head. Amy declined.
Passing the dancing school on their way home, Billy Walter sped up. He and Edith, almost desperately, continued their conversation, staring in other directions. But, “Look!” Amy cried. Neither looked, and Billy Walter hurriedly repeated something he had been saying, something practical about their lives, capturing Edith’s attention. Look, Amy repeated, to herself. At the window, couples were silhouetted. From the street, the three in the car caught a whiff of music. Amy saw, as they passed, wind instruments lifted triumphantly to blare, and gaiety and glitter emanated from the building. Outside, in an impatient line, people stood waiting to get in; in the grey day, expressions on their faces were happier. Having concluded his advice, Billy Walter was silent. Edith said, “Billy Walter, whatever would we do without you?”
At the same instant, Amy announced, “The dancing school’s a success.”
Putting down her pen and resting, Dea said that she did not know just how soon after the funeral they could announce the engagement. “Why announce it?” Amy said. “Everyone knows.”
Edith called from upstairs frantically, “It’s customary!” knowing Amy could be serious.
“If you’re tired, I can finish writing these thank-you notes,” Dea said. “You look pale.”
“I’ve been indoors too much,” Amy said.
Dea remembered telling Edith, once, it was Amy’s salvation that she was pretty since she always had her nose in a book and seemed to know nothing but what came out of them. That Amy had made so many of their present decisions had been a surprise. Dea said hesitantly, “Indoors because of writing your book?” and offered a compliment: “I never thought you had any stickablity, Amy. But your momma says you spend too much time writing, that you aren’t even looking after buying a trousseau.”
“I can buy a trousseau any time,” Amy said.
Dea, hoping Amy was going to make that boy a nice wife, said, “What’s the book about?” at the same time picking up her pen. She could continue writing thank-you notes for flowers, as her notes were similar and mechanical.
“It’s kind of a history of a city,” Amy said evasively. “About a man struggling to succeed in the world and how differently people see him. In a way, he’s sort of like Daddy—”
“My brother!” Dea said, slapping down her pen. “Listen here, Amy, I want to know what you’re going to say about my family! Now, don’t you say something you shouldn’t. I’m sure you know your granddaddy had the same little weakness as your daddy.” Amy, she knew, would not, and she hoped could not, write the raw things Mr. Almoner wrote. Dea preferred to believe his influence forgotten. Having been told he was not well enough to leave home often, wondering if Amy knew that, and deciding it best to let sleeping dogs lie, Dea kept quiet. This book business, anyway, she considered something to help Amy pass time. After she was married, she would have other things. Amy could never publish anything. Long ago, she and Edith had decided that. Imagine! she thought. She watched indulgently and full of love the way Amy sat thoughtfully composing each note, as if to every individual one needed to say something different.
“Write something happy in your book,” Dea said, watching Amy frown. “You’re too serious. You ought to be writing about your life, anyway. It’s old folks supposed to be concerned with the past.”
But already what Dea had said was past, Amy thought, looking up, to stare at her aunt’s well-meaning face, and past it at spirea bushes in bloom and beginning to shed; below them, the ground seemed covered with sleet. As quickly as Dea had spoken, as quickly as the blooms fell, life could be taken, all was past. She bent her elbows sharply to the table, licked shut another envelope and added it to her pile.
“Are you,” Billy Walter said, not really a question, “dreaming about the living or the dead.” How long was she going to mourn? he wondered. He took her hand and toyed with it, his other beating time on the table to the band’s music. After an intermission, being refreshed, the men played blaringly. He pulled his glass toward him, shoved Amy’s toward her. “Let’s get some drinking done around here,” he called to everyone at the table.
“When you think,” Amy said, after emptying her glass, “that I’m thinking about my father, I’m a lot of the time thinking about my book.”
“Have another drink and cheer up,” he said. “Hell, we need Quill here to liven up this party.” People kept asking, Where were he and Lydia? No one could remember, lately, Quill’s being late for a party. Their appetizers, grapefruit halves, were wrinkling, the maraschino cherry in the center beginning to spread color. Waiters were removing dessert plates from the others. The two empty chairs made everyone feel silent, and Cindy leaned forward to say she hoped Quill’s and Lydia’s baby was not sick.
Billy Walter restlessly tapped his heels to the floor. “They’re evidently not coming for dinner. Let’s get a nigger over here to clear their places and bring more setups.”
“Billy Walter!” Amy said, shushingly.
“A Ne-gro.” He looked at her in a set way. “Honey, today I ate spareribs with some Negro clients. How many Yankee friends you have who even know any Negroes? I’m doing business with them every day. Now, I can’t take this dullness.” Waving toward a waiter, he poured himself and Amy another drink.
“Quill’s probably had some trouble with his daddy today,” Cindy said. “You know how it is when you work for your daddy. You can’t tell your daddy a thing. Lydia’s probably trying to get him calmed down. She says Quill comes home every night so maddd at his daddy, she thinks he’s going to explode.”
Amy knew she had lost count of her drinks. What else was there to do? Setting the rim of her glass against her nose, she began on another glassful. Billy Walter, jumpy, both knees bouncing, decided he was going off to dance, since Amy sat like a stone and said she did not want to. She watched him head toward a blond divorcée, who rubbed pelvises when she danced. He lumbered off, his shoulders so broad, she remembered watching him, with her heart pounding, run across a football field when they were in high school. He had been the captain of the team. She had been willing to die, if he would look at her! The most ecstatic moment of her life had been when, finally, he had invited her to a movie. That evening, walking back to his car, he had dropped a matchbook into a gutter. When they reached a corner, he suddenly had whirled and run back to get the cover, which had his name printed on it. He had explained that, remembering it, he wanted nothing with his name on it in the gutter. How strange, she had thought. Now, she considered that at an age when she had never thought of it, Billy Walter had felt aware of who he was.
To be attentive, Cindy’s husband refilled Amy’s glass. She had looked down in surprise to find it empty. With the ghost of Billy Walter and herself in the room, younger, Amy began the drink, wondering how when you were old, it was possible to contain all your memories. People at the table chatted about inconsequential things, assuming that since she was silent, she was brooding. Had she and Billy Walter had a fight, they wondered. She looked at them a little blankly and tried to keep up a conversation, sorry her reverie had been broken. She sought silence again, by drinking.
“Potato chips?” Cindy offered a bowl. Amy shook her head, aware someone was pouring into all the glasses lining the table. She felt sick, smelling liquor. She hoped to avoid what amounted to a steady stream of questions about the wedding, her plans. Vaguely, she wondered why she was not jealous about Billy Walter and the divorcée. Others, she knew were watching her, solicitous. Her glass kept being refilled; a way of comforting her, the others felt. Dizzy, she began to eat potato chips, one after another, hoping they might make her soberer. She was either uninteresting, or had nothing in common. The husbands had drawn together at one end of the table, to talk about their afternoon’s golf game. Billy Walter had gone out to the golf course with the divorcée.
Cindy, grouped together with the wives at Amy’s end of the table, was saying intently, “What are we going to do about a car pool for day camp this summer?”
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br /> “Mondays,” said another girl, “would be my best day to drive. Except every third Monday, I have sewing club.”
“I could take Tuesday,” Cindy said, “except that has been my grocery shopping day.”
“Count me in. I’ll take Wednesdays,” said another girl.
Cindy looked worried. “I don’t know but one other soul sending a child to the camp. If we only have four, there’s an extra day each week for someone to drive.”
Amy looked up, seeing blurrily that new setups had arrived. She found the potato-chip bowl empty. She felt pale, and tried to look interested. There was nothing to say, and nothing to do but finish her drink.
“Well, who is going to take the extra day which week?” said one of the girls.
Cindy said insistently, “I can never drive on Fridays. That’s my bridge club. Though I can change my grocery shopping day for the summer.”
Another girl said, in mock worry, “We’re boring Amy.”
“Oh no,” Amy said, beginning to stand up. “I just have to go to the ladies’ room.”
“Who’s going to take Monday?” said the girl, and they leaned toward one another as Amy left.
Objects were ahead in the room, which had to be carefully circumvented. Like a sailor, she set a fixed point, the ladies’ room door, and attempted a steady course toward it. The last potato chips would not go down, and made a burning sensation where they seemed stuck, ready to rise, at the back of her throat. The club’s band was engaged in a particularly agonized number, and people had stopped dancing to watch them play, and crowded close to the bandstand. Billy Walter and the girl had come back inside, hand in hand, to watch with the crowd. Amy prayed only to go unnoticed. The music seemed to make the room sway. Florists had decorated with forced spring blooms, which in the warmth and in the lateness of the hour, had begun to shed. Petals lay along her way, some from roses or redbud, pale pink. Looking down, Amy thought how meaningless to have once coveted a wreath of buds for her hair, and she gave up that old dream willingly.
The Wintering Page 35
