by Molly Giles
“You want me to run a music store?”
“Why not? What’s wrong with that?”
Nicky came to the kitchen doorway, Coco clattering at his heels, took a look at both of them, and said, “I’m going back to bed.”
“Good idea,” Neal and Kay said together.
“Everything’s ‘wrong,’” Kay said at last. “With all of it.” She thought of all the nights Neal had dragged home and she had met him at the door, taken his jacket, handed him a towel and a cup of steaming miso, all the times she had pattered after him like a trained dog, barking the same old questions: How was your day, dear? See anyone? Talk to anyone? Anything interesting happen? Have any thoughts, dreams, desires, plans, fears, feelings? “I can’t believe you never said a word to me.”
“I know. I should have. I tried to once. You’d been … I don’t know … you were drinking. You made some crack about … you seemed to think I was going to convert the stables into feed stalls and give pony rides and sell alfalfa, I don’t know, so I”—he raised his head—“kept the rest of my plans to myself. I wanted to be sure before I told you.”
“I don’t remember making jokes about it, Neal.”
“You have a sharp tongue. I’m sorry. But you do.”
“So it’s my fault you don’t talk to me.”
Neal met her eyes. “Sometimes,” he said. “Yes. It is.”
Kay took this in. It wasn’t bad. Like throwing a few lit firecrackers into a clothes dryer already loaded with ball bearings. “There’s a lot I haven’t told you either,” she said at last. “You’re not the only one sitting on secrets. I’ve been going through a lot too.” She waited. If she could talk to Neal about her last night with Ida, her last night with Francis, there would be no need to go to Charles Lichtman.
But Neal said, “You don’t know what worries are,” drained his glass, spun it wearily between his palms, and added, more to himself than to her, “I know I screwed up. But it’s all over now. And it’s worked out fine.”
“I don’t see how.” Kay let her breath out. “We’re still in debt. Only now we’re in debt to Glo Sinclair.”
“Yes, but now,” Neal explained, “we have time.”
Kay shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Us. You and me. We just ran out of time. Our marriage just ended.”
“Don’t do this, babe. I know I screwed up, but—”
“It’s not just you. It’s everything. You know what I think it is? I think it’s the garbage.”
“I have my priorities, all right?”
“No. Not all right. We’re married. Married people have each other as priorities. Married people talk about major investments that affect both of them. They make plans together. They make love together. They share what they’re going through.”
“The way your parents shared their cigarettes and booze?”
“We can’t hold a candle to my parents, Neal. We’re amateurs. We’re nothings.”
Neal opened his mouth, but closed it. He knows I’m right, Kay thought. He knows we’re through.
“So you think we should separate?” he asked cautiously.
“We are separated. How could we get any more separated? This is it.”
“Look. I know you’re mad right now but things are going to work out. I’m going to pull this whole stables thing together for you.”
“It has nothing to do with me, Neal.”
“It has everything to do with you. Everything I’ve done I’ve done for you.” Neal pushed his glass away and stood up. “I’ll stay at the shop for a while,” he said, “until you cool down. Tell Nicky I’ll call him.”
“Tell him yourself, he’s standing right there.”
But Nicky was gone by the time they both turned, the front door slamming as he ran down the street.
“You look like two ties twisted,” Mrs. Holland said.
Kay paused, her arms full of books. “I had a rough morning,” she admitted. She thought about telling Mrs. Holland that Neal had moved out and that she’d spent the last half-hour coaxing Nicky back into her car, but decided against it. “I still can’t find that ring,” she said as something to offer.
“I lost a diamond once,” Mrs. Holland said. “It fell out of its setting when I was walking in the city. The minute I saw it was missing I turned right around and retraced my steps. You know how shiny those sidewalks are. They put mica in the pavement. It looked like the whole block was paved with little diamonds. I thought I’d never find it.”
Kay waited. “But you did,” she prompted.
“It was lying right by the curb next to a fireplug.”
Kay nodded and stacked the books onto the cart. She was about to wheel the cart away when she saw the college catalogue Mrs. Holland had placed there with a red arrow pointing to the Library Science section. She picked it up, turned to the page that gave admissions information, and jotted the phone number down. One day at a time, she reminded herself. One day at a time until five-thirty tonight.
· · ·
But five-thirty still seemed far away as she dragged up the path that afternoon at three.
“You ought to paint this porch.” She looked up to see Victor perched on a piece of newspaper on the top stair. Oh-oh. Victor never just dropped by. She smiled cautiously but he did not smile back. He continued to scrape at the stair with a pocketknife. “You could probably get Stacy’s brother’s friend Ed, he’s in the trades, to give you an estimate,” he said. “God, look at it. It flakes right off.”
Kay settled beside him, kicked one shoe off, and rubbed her aching ankle. “You said ‘God.’”
“What?”
“You took the Lord’s name in vain.”
“Yeah, well it’s an old habit. A bad habit. I’ve been working on it. Thank you for pointing it out to me.”
Victor cracked his knuckles, snapped his knife shut, and shifted on the step. He rolled the closed knife back and forth between his hands the same way he used to roll his marijuana cigarettes. Kay closed her tired eyes. “Do you miss Mom?” she asked.
“I don’t think about her much,” Victor admitted. “She was closer to you.” He pinched a dead leaf off a begonia and threw it away. “So what’s happening with you and Neal? I dropped by the frame shop and Neal said he was sleeping there tonight.”
“And tomorrow night and the night after that.”
“But it’s just temporary, right? A temporary misunderstanding?”
“No. I don’t think so, Victor. I think our marriage is over.”
“Because?”
“Because I was a bad wife and he was a bad husband.”
“What? He hit you? Beat you?”
“No. He withheld emotionally, as they say. He kept secrets. He lost money.”
Victor smiled and shook his head. “If it’s just money …”
“‘Just money’ are two words I never thought I’d hear from you. You take money more seriously than anyone I know.”
“Well, sure, but I don’t let it come between Stacy and I. Money doesn’t have anything to do with love, you know. And sometimes, you got to consider this, love doesn’t have anything to do with marriage. Marriage is holy. A holy contract you have to honor no matter what. So what is it besides money? Is it sex? Because sex, you know, that’s not important either. You already have a child.”
Kay shivered and pulled her sweater tighter across her shoulders. It was March but still felt like winter. For a minute she wondered what the summer would be like, if she would be sitting here rocking and fanning and growing old behind the fence by herself. No, she thought fiercely. I’ll be in Iceland or Jamaica or sailing the South China Sea with Charles Lichtman.
“I just need some time,” she said.
“That’s what I told him. I told him you’re the type who takes things hard. But after you sort it out you come back.”
“I do? That’s how you see me?”
“Course it might speed thi
ngs up if you both came in and talked to my pastor. Okay, okay, don’t have a cow, just a suggestion. But Stacy and I hate to see you guys so unhappy. It’s not good for Nicky. And Dad’s got enough to deal with.”
“Dad doesn’t care.” Kay bit her cuticle. “Did Neal tell you Glo Sinclair loaned him a lot of money? Why would she do that? Is she trying to snag Dad?”
“Snag him? No, Kay. She’s just a nice woman.”
“She doesn’t strike me as nice.”
“She just bought a pickup from me a few weeks ago. I think she’s nice.”
“A truck? Glo Sinclair in a truck?”
“I wouldn’t worry about her. She’s too skinny for Dad. Besides”—Victor looked, for a moment, as puzzled as Kay felt—“Mom just died.”
Kay hugged her knees. “Mom and Dad were happy, weren’t they? They had a good marriage. Remember how he used to whistle when he came home from work, and she would whistle back? I loved that. It made me feel safe. I always wished Neal would whistle.”
“Teach him,” Victor said.
“I can’t. I don’t know how myself.”
They were silent for a while, then Victor said, “I never felt safe. Dad was always gone and Mom was always mad about something. Or sick.” He rubbed his forehead. “You did all the cooking, didn’t you? You made my lunch. What were those coconut cookies you used to make? Macaroons? I liked them. And I liked those stories you used to tell me at night.”
“What stories?”
“About the brave brother and sister who escaped from the witch and lived on the moon.”
Witch? Again Kay heard the tune Zabeth had sung in her ear the afternoon of Ida’s memorial—and again she tried to suppress it. The Munchkins’ singsong had insinuated itself into some mental repertoire and she found herself humming it when she was driving or working at the library, always stopping with a frown, hand pressed to her lips, guilty. Caught.
“I always felt bad about my own escape,” she said now, adding, as Victor looked at her blankly, “about leaving you alone with them, when I dropped out of school to be with Biff.”
“Were you gone long? I don’t remember. You came right back, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Oh yes. When Mom had her hysterectomy. But I should have taken you with me. And then we both should have stayed away.”
“Why? Was it that bad? I just remember being cold. Every new house we moved to got colder and colder. The truth is,” he continued, “I don’t remember much about Mom or Dad or our childhood. None of it matters anyway. My real life didn’t start until I found Jesus.”
Kay glanced at his handsome face set against her in profile. She remembered enough for both of them—Victor wiping Ida’s red lipstick off his mouth, Victor squirming as Francis flicked his report card aside, Victor sitting under the piano counting the coins in his piggy bank while Kay banged through Bartok. “At least you found your real life,” she said. They sat in silence for a while and then Victor looked down at his watch and stood.
“I gotta go. But hey. I’ll pray for you. And Neal. And your marriage.”
“Do you think prayer will help?”
“God, Kay! Are you kidding? Of course it will help.”
“There you go. You said ‘God’ again.”
“Your trouble,” Victor said, shaking his trouser crease straight, “is that you’re a joker. You can’t take anything seriously. You’re always looking for ways to make fun of people.”
Kay opened her mouth to say, I don’t have to look very far, but closed it and waved as Nicky kicked through the gate.
“Daddy home?” Nicky asked as he trudged toward them, his sweatshirt hood pulled up over his head.
“No, honey, he’s not.”
Nicky went into the house and slammed the door.
Kay looked down at the porch floor after Victor left and noticed he had scraped a bare spot on the stairs that almost matched the bare spot Francis had picked off the shingle. Between the two of them, she wouldn’t have to do any prep work before she painted the porch for repossession. She rose to go in and prep herself for Charles Lichtman, then remembered something. The garbage. She went down the driveway and lugged the empty can back in from the street.
Fifteen
Francis woke up in the leather chair with an open book in his lap and looked at his watch. Still early. So why did he feel as tired as if he’d been working all day and all night? Those nights are over, he reminded himself. The strain of pushing Ida’s wheelchair up the driveway so she could watch the moon rise over the mountain, the 2 A.M. crying jags, the ritual of lifting her on and off the commode, the backache from shampooing her hair in the sink while she cursed him—he didn’t need to do these anymore. Yet for weeks he’d been unable to do anything else. He’d been telling the truth when he told Kay he slept all the time. He did. He put the yoga tape Mimi Johns had given him in the VCR, lay down on the exercise mat, and fell asleep. He went to the therapist Howard liked so much—some grim female named Tanya Tamar—and fell asleep. He slept in the movies with the Junior Bentleys and he slept in the car waiting for Father Bliss to show up for their golf game. Sunny-at-the-Office knew to tell clients he was busy so he could sleep at his desk.
The only person he woke up for was Glo. Ever since they’d returned from the Southwest, Glo came at dawn. She let herself in the back door, went into the kitchen, brewed decaf so dark it almost fooled him at first, poured fresh-squeezed orange juice from one of her own trees into a frosty goblet and unwrapped a low-fat croissant from the new French bakery down the hill. She put these on a tray along with a dozen different vitamins and Chinese herbs, slipped into his room, set the tray on the nightstand with a rose, walked back to the door, said, “Wake up, Francis,” and left him alone. When he had stretched and sipped himself into consciousness she returned, silent as a geisha, and knelt to tie his walking shoes. Then, still without a word, she led him out of the house, up the driveway where she unleashed Pal, her fat golden puppy, and the three of them walked on the mountain, Pal dancing in a comical celebration of life, Glo moving easily at his own slow pace, the sun gilding the day as the year moved into spring. She had taken him to a hypnotist to cure him of smoking, she had bought him tickets to the Open next month, and she had given him the red Alfa to drive until his Porsche got rebuilt. This morning, hesitant, he had put his hand on her hip for the first time and left it there, feeling her smooth muscles flex and flow as they walked.
“I’m sorry I can’t do more right now,” he’d said. She’d looked at him as if he’d been speaking Siamese and said, “We have time.”
He wasn’t sure. He’d felt stirrings he didn’t like, silent breakages occurring along the heart lines, in his lungs. He was almost seventy years old. When he looked in the mirror he saw his brother Harry’s face, hangdog, accepting bad news as if he deserved it. Well Harry might, but I don’t, Francis thought. He looked at the book on his lap, a gift from Peg Forrest called Closure; Saying Goodbye to a Loved One. Blah blah and more blah. But one thing Peg had underlined might work. Make a ceremony. Create a ritual. He got up and began to pad around the house gathering some of Ida’s things together—things that for some reason he hadn’t wanted the kids to take—the silver mirror. A handblown champagne glass from Venice. A red silk negligee. A photograph of Ida as a six-year-old, all curls and dimples, another photo of her just a few years ago, naked in the swimming pool, tanned arms reaching up to him. Her white Bible. The rosebud demitasse. He put these items in a shoe box and drove the old highway out to the coast. It took an hour to get there and it was almost sunset when he arrived. He and Ida used to drive out here and neck to get away from Kay and Victor. He parked and threw the box off a cliff into the sea.
When he let himself back in the house the phone was ringing. “Did you read the book?” Peg asked. “Did you do what it said?” Her earnest, warm, relentlessly sympathetic voice made his stomach churn.
“I made a dump run,” he admitted.
“And did it make you feel better?”
“Didn’t make me feel worse.” He rotated his arm, still sore from the throw, and again heard the box burst open on the rocks, the explosion it made, like a woman’s laugh. Not Ida’s. Glo’s? He had never heard Glo laugh. That was one of her charms. “Felt a lot like littering.”
“Oh you,” Peg said indulgently. “You make a joke about everything.”
“Not about everything.” He remembered an old quip of Kay’s. “Just about the things that matter.” He told Peg he was sorry, but he was too tired to come to dinner or lunch; he never went out for breakfast; he’d get back to her soon. “And now if you’ll excuse me, Peg, I really do have to take another nap.”
It was dark inside the White Oak but not dark enough. Kay adjusted her sunglasses as she scanned the stools along the length of the bar, taking in the mismatched tables and chairs jumbled across the wooden floor, the alcove with the dart board. Charles Lichtman wasn’t here. She rubbed her damp palms against her thighs and moved to a table in the corner. She would give him five minutes. That was fair. Then she would go home and curl up under the piano like a dust clot.
“Can I get you something?” the bartender asked.
“Oh no,” she said brightly. She sat down and looked up as if fascinated by the moose antlers, paper leis, and copper wash boilers suspended from the ceiling.
“Hi there.” One of Nicky’s teachers waved to her across the room. A grey-haired couple looked up over their beers and nodded; they had been at the library that morning, checking out books on Bali. Wishing she’d brought a book herself, Kay reached in her purse and pulled out an AA pamphlet, shoved in there months ago.
“Just for today,” she read, “I will have a program. I may not follow it exactly, but I will have it. I will save myself from two pests: hurry and indecision.” She took a breath and looked up, calmed. This was good. This was like reading a recipe for a complicated but delicious dish she would never make. She read it again. Then she folded it back and looked at her watch. Two more minutes.
