American Wife

by Curtis Sittenfeld

  Then my mother walked into the living room, and her eyes widened. “Alice, how lovely, but I wasn’t expecting you until next weekend.”

  “We’re just stopping by,” I said. “I wanted to introduce you to—This is Charlie. Charlie, my mother.”

  “Dorothy Lindgren,” my mother said, and she and Charlie shook hands. There was an extended silence, and then my mother said, with less enthusiasm than I might have anticipated, “Why don’t you two come sit in the other room?”

  Had this been a bad idea? It wasn’t until we’d entered the dining room, where they didn’t usually linger this long after lunch, that I understood: There, sitting at the table, wearing a plaid short-sleeved shirt, sipping from a coffee cup that seemed especially dainty in the grip of such a heavyset man, was Lars Enderstraisse. Without looking at her, I immediately sensed my grandmother gloating; I also sensed my mother’s twittery discomfort. “Honey, you know Mr. Enderstraisse,” she said. “Lars, you remember my daughter, Alice, and this is her friend—What’s your last name, Charlie?”

  “Blackwell,” I said quickly.

  “By all means, call me Lars,” Mr. Enderstraisse said.

  Charlie and I sat at the chairs without place mats or plates in front of them. “Can I get you two some ham?” my mother said, and I replied, “We already ate. I’m sorry for not calling ahead, but we just were in Houghton.” By this point, I very much regretted our decision to arrive unannounced. Another silence descended, and my mother said, “Let me at least get you something to drink.”

  At the same time, I said, “Oh, we’re fine,” and Charlie said, “I’ll take a beer if you have one.”

  “I’ll help.” I stood. “Anyone else?”

  “Beer does a real number on Lars’s stomach,” my grandmother announced authoritatively. Although I may have been the only one to notice, my grandmother was emanating supreme self-satisfaction.

  “Bloating, gas, and the like,” Mr. Enderstraisse—Lars—affirmed. He spoke genially, and I wondered, was he really dating my mother? I had never seen him not wearing a postal uniform.

  “Alice, sit,” my mother said, and uncertainly, I complied.

  “Alice, I’ll bet you haven’t heard about the breakin at the Schlingheydes’.” My grandmother had turned to Charlie and me. “It’s the talk of the neighborhood. Don and Shirley slept through the whole thing, but in the morning, they saw that a kitchen window had been shattered and the television set was gone, along with Shirley’s silver. Now, the bizarre bit is that they found half a turkey sandwich left out on the drain board, with just a few bites taken from it and the other half gone. Can you imagine having the presence of mind to fix a snack at the same time you’re robbing a house? He’d even spread mayonnaise on the bread.”

  “When was this?” I asked.

  Over her shoulder, my grandmother called into the kitchen, “Dorothy, was it Sunday night?”

  “Monday,” my mother said as she appeared in the doorway carrying Charlie’s beer. “It sounds to me like a very disturbed person.”

  She passed the beer to Charlie, who said good-naturedly, “Some friends of my folks got robbed one time in the sixties, and the thief left behind a shoe.” Charlie had, of course, no idea how irregular Lars Enderstraisse’s presence was.

  “I hope you’ve been keeping the doors locked,” I said.

  “Oh, the Riley PD will catch the fellow in no time.” My grandmother’s tone was festive. “If Sheriff Culver manages to tear himself away from Grady’s Tavern for more than an hour, that burglar won’t stand a chance.” Without warning, my grandmother said to Charlie, “Now, what is it you’ve done to earn a visit to Alice’s ancestral home?”

  “I’ve won her heart.” Charlie grinned, and I felt a nervous curiosity about whether he and my grandmother would like each other. While they shared a certain high-spiritedness, I was not certain it was of the same variety, and sometimes different varieties of a similar tendency were worse than total dissimilarity. Under the table, Charlie took my hand.

  “Charlie, are you also a teacher?” my mother asked.

  “No, ma’am, I’m in the beef industry.” When Charlie squeezed my hand, I wondered if he could tell I was tense. “I divide my time between Houghton, Madison, and Milwaukee.”

  Did Charlie assume that I’d previously told them who his family was? Given that I hadn’t, perhaps I ought to now, when my indirection was on the cusp of turning into an outright lie.

  My grandmother lit a cigarette she’d extracted from a pack beside her plate. “You must be paying a pretty penny at the gas pump.”

  “Charlie, I heard Alice say your surname is Blackwell,” Lars Enderstraisse said. “I don’t imagine you’re a relation to Blackwell sausage or the former governor.”

  “I should hope not,” my grandmother said cheerfully. “What a chokehold that man had on this state!”

  In a loud voice, as if I could retroactively cover up her remark, I said, “Harold Blackwell is Charlie’s father.”

  There was a silence, and Charlie was the one who broke it. He said, “Nothing like politics to inspire passionate disagreement, is there?” He smiled—a feeble smile, but he was trying.

  “Your father is Harold Blackwell?” A confused expression had contorted my mother’s features.

  “And Charlie’s running for Congress next year,” I said. “But it’s a secret, so don’t tell anyone.” I glanced over to see if he was irritated, and he appeared to be less than thrilled, though it was hard to say whether this was because of my grandmother’s comment or my own lack of discretion. But wasn’t it better to get all of it over with at once? Or would this visit be the abrupt death knell of our relationship, the revelation of how little, against the backdrop of my upbringing, we actually had in common?

  “Running for Congress—goodness gracious!” my mother said, and I was reminded of my ignorance of her political leanings. “What an exciting time for you.”

  “I won’t announce my candidacy until January,” Charlie said. “Frankly, I’ll have a tough road ahead of me with an incumbent like Alvin Wincek. But I can honestly say it would be a privilege to serve the people of Wisconsin’s Sixth District.”

  Please don’t use your speech voice, I thought. I couldn’t even look at my grandmother.

  “You’re a Republican like your father?” she said, and when I did dare to glance at her, I saw that she was staring unabashedly at Charlie.

  “Indeed I am,” he said, and his voice contained a jovial defensiveness.

  “In a progressive town like Madison, I’d think that would put you out of step with your peers,” my grandmother said.

  “Appearances can be deceiving.” Charlie’s tone was still perfectly civil. “The students holding their protests are loud and strident, but the backbone of Madison is hardworking middle-class families.”

  Both of you, stop it, I wanted to cry out.

  “A Republican I really admire is Gerald Ford,” my mother said. “What a difficult situation to enter into, and his poor wife, struggling like that with her health.”

  “Jerry is a loyal foot soldier,” Charlie said. “He’s a man who knows his strengths and limitations.”

  There was a pause as we all tried to determine which direction the conversation would go. Charlie seized the reins. “This is a lovely home, Mrs. Lindgren,” he said and it was clear that the Mrs. Lindgren he was addressing was not my grandmother but my mother. “How long have you lived here?”

  “Oh, mercy, it’s been—help me, Emilie—we came here right before Alice was born, so I suppose thirty-one years. Now, Charlie, you must have met Alice’s dear friend Dena. Mack and Lillian, Dena’s parents, are just across the street, and they moved in not but six months after we did.”

  “I have met Dena,” Charlie said warmly. “She’s the life of the party.”

  “Oh, she’s a pistol. Lillian tells me business is booming at her store.”

  “How’s her sister?” I asked.

  “I think she’s d
oing better now.” My mother smiled. “Charlie, did Alice tell you her father managed Riley’s branch of Wisconsin State Bank and Trust?”

  Charlie smiled too, but blankly.

  “They also have branches in Madison,” I said. “There’s one at West Washington off the square.”

  “They’re the best bank in the region.” My mother nodded fervently. “Are you sure I can’t get either of you something to eat? Alice, I made apple kuchen again last night, and you were exactly right about adding sour cream to the dough.”

  “That I can vouch for,” Lars said. “I must say that if I’d known when I woke up this morning I’d end up sitting across from the son of the governor of Wisconsin, I’d have brought along my camera. Everyone at the post office will be tickled pink when I tell them on Monday.” Directing his comment at Charlie, he added, “That’s where I work, at the one down on Commerce.”

  I willed myself not to be embarrassed or to give in to adolescent shallowness.

  “You’d be surprised that even in a town like Riley, people send their mail to the most unusual of places,” Lars was saying. “The other day a gentleman shipped a package all the way to Brussels, Belgium.”

  “Where Audrey Hepburn was born,” my grandmother said.

  There was a lull, and Charlie, who appeared neither troubled by nor interested in Lars’s employment, said, “Mrs. Lindgren, have I missed my chance at the apple kuchen?”

  “Not at all.” My mother sprang from her seat. “Alice?”

  “None for me, but let me help you,” I said.

  In the kitchen, a foil-covered pan sat on a burner, and my mother turned on the oven and stuck the pan inside.

  “Charlie can eat it cold, Mom.”

  “But it’s so much better warmed up. I just wish we had a little vanilla ice cream left—you don’t think I ought to run down to Bierman’s?”

  “You definitely shouldn’t.”

  “I had no idea he was the son of Harold Blackwell,” she said, and then, after a beat, “I know Lars’s presence must be quite a surprise. I was in buying stamps one day, and we got to talking—he’s a very kind man, Alice.”

  “No, he seems like it. I’m sorry I didn’t call to say we were coming.”

  “No one will ever replace your father for me.” There was a fierceness in her expression, as if she expected that I would not believe her.

  “Mom, I think it’s fine. It’s good for you to, you know, socialize. You two should come to Madison for dinner, either with Granny, or just you and Lars if you want to come when Granny’s in Chicago.”

  My mother appeared confused. “Did Granny tell you she’s going to Chicago?”

  “Isn’t her visit to Dr. Wycomb in the next week or two?”

  My mother shook her head. “Granny hasn’t visited Gladys Wycomb in years.”

  I was startled. “Does she not have the energy anymore?”

  “Well, she’s eighty-two,” my mother said. “She’s so sharp that it’s easy to forget.” My mother had picked up her egg timer, and I watched her set it for seven minutes. As she did, she said, “I’ve been meaning to say, Alice, thank you for selling the brooch. I know we probably didn’t get as much as it was worth, but every little bit helps.”

  WE DID NOT stay long; I think all of us, with the exception of my grandmother, had found the encounter draining. My mother insisted on sending Charlie home with the portion of kuchen he didn’t eat, and the five of us stood in the living room exchanging goodbyes. “I can see why Alice speaks so fondly of where she comes from,” Charlie said to my mother, and his voice was loud and confident but also distant—it was the way I’d later see him speak to constituents. When my grandmother shook his hand, she said, “I never voted for your father, but I always admired your mother’s sense of style. There’s a picture I once saw of her in a stunning fox cape.”

  Charlie was not smiling as he said, “I’ll tell her you said so.”

  In the car, I directed him out of town, and after we reached the highway, neither of us spoke for nearly ten minutes. “I’m sorry if that was awkward,” I finally said. “You were a good sport.”

  He said nothing.

  “Are you angry?” I asked.

  “You lecture me on how to behave, but you might want to save some of your etiquette lessons for your grandmother.”

  “Charlie, she’s eighty-two years old. And she was joking around.”

  “You must find her a hell of a lot funnier than I do. You’ll give me crap for saying this, but there are quite a few nice Republican girls out there who’d be plenty happy to date me.”

  “I’m sure that’s true.”

  “If we’re going to stay together, I need your support. Running for office puts pressure on a man. I’ve watched my father go through it, and now my brother, and it ain’t easy. It’s exhausting. I have to go out there and convince voters that I deserve to be elected, but if I can’t even convince the girl I’m dating, how ass-backward is that?”

  I was quiet, and then I said, “I would vote for you.”

  “Lucky for you, I’m not running in your district.”

  “Do you not believe me that I would?”

  He looked over. “Sure, I believe you. Why shouldn’t I?“

  “Charlie—”

  “It’s not like you have to put your money where your mouth is.” He leered a little. “So to speak.”

  “You’re not being fair.”

  “Alice, loyalty is everything to my family. There’s nothing more important. Someone insults a Blackwell, and that’s it. Starting in grade school, kids would think they’d lure me into an argument, or they were just busting my chops—I don’t care. I don’t try to convince people. I cut them off. So for me to hear your grandmother—”

  “I wish she hadn’t said that.”

  “As a public servant, you rally your supporters, and you try to win over the people on the fence, but your detractors, forget it. You’ll never get ’em. If you’re smart, that’s not how you use your time.”

  We both were quiet, and I said, “What about this: What if we don’t talk about the political stuff? Spending time with you this summer has been the most fun I’ve ever had. It really has. But I don’t want to pretend that I believe things I don’t. I don’t want to stand at a rally chanting slogans.” (The number of times I have stood at a rally chanting slogans, chanting onstage, with cameras rolling—years and years ago, I lost count.) “What if I support you not as a politician but as a person?” I continued. “What if we put our differences to one side, you don’t try to convince me and I don’t try to convince you, and we just appreciate being together? Am I crazy, or is that possible? I can assure you I’ll never tell anyone if I disagree with you—that’s no one’s business but ours.”

  “Let me get this straight,” he said. “I’m running for Congress on the Republican ticket, you’re a hippie who promises not to admit it in public or around my family, and together we make beautiful music?”

  I hesitated. “Something like that.”

  “And I can’t even try to convince you that Jimmy Carter is a pathetic chump?” But his tone had lightened; I didn’t need to hear him say we were on the same side again to know we were. “To answer your question,” he added, “no, you’re not remotely crazy. I’ve dated crazy girls, and you don’t qualify.”

  “Thank you.”

  He was looking over at me again. “You’re an unusual woman, Alice.”

  I smiled wryly. “Some might say that you’re an unusual man.”

  “You have a strong sense of yourself. You don’t need to prove things to other people.”

  Did I agree? It had never felt to me like I had a strong sense of myself; it simply felt like I was myself.

  “I have this image in my head,” he was saying. “We’re old, older than my parents are now. We’re eighty or hell, we’re ninety. And we’re sitting in rocking chairs on a porch. Maybe we’re up in Door County. And we’re just really happy to be in each other’s company. Can you
picture that?”

  My heart flared. Was he about to propose?

  “I don’t think I’d ever get sick of you,” he said. “I think I’d always find you interesting.”

  This was when my eyes filled with tears. But I didn’t actually cry, and he didn’t propose (of course he didn’t, we’d been dating for a month) and for another long stretch, neither of us spoke.

  We had just pulled onto Sproule Street when I said, “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  “That’s an auspicious start to a conversation.” He parked in front of my apartment and turned to me, his eyes crinkly, his lips ready to pull into a smile. I knew I had to forge ahead quickly or I’d lose my nerve.

  “When I was a senior in high school, I was in an accident,” I said. “I was driving, and I hit another car, and the person in the other car died.”

  “Jesus,” Charlie said, and I wondered if telling him was a mistake. Then he reached out to tug me toward him. “Come here.”

  I put up one arm, holding him off. “There’s more. It was a boy I knew. I had a crush on him, and I think he had a crush on me, too. There were never repercussions in the legal sense, but the accident was my fault.”

  Again, Charlie reached out for me, and I shook my head. “You have to hear all of this. I felt very guilty afterward. I still feel guilty, although I’m not as hard on myself as I was then. But I ended up”—I took a deep breath—“I ended up sleeping with Andrew’s brother. That was the boy’s name, Andrew Imhof, and his brother was Pete. It was just a few times, and no one knew about it. But I got pregnant, and I had an abortion. My grandmother arranged for a doctor she knew, a friend of hers, to do it. I never told Pete, or my parents, or anyone.”

  “Alice—” He pulled me in so we were hugging, and this time I let him, and his skin was warm and he smelled exactly the way I’d come to expect him to. Against my neck, he murmured, “I’m so sorry, Lindy.”

  “I don’t know that I’m the one who deserves sympathy.”

  He drew back so we were making eye contact. “You think I haven’t made mistakes?”

  “Of that magnitude?”

  “As a matter of fact, I thought I got a girl pregnant in college. She missed her period two months in a row, and we were both beside ourselves. She was down at Sweet Briar when I was at Princeton, and I wondered if I could get away with pretending it wasn’t mine even though I knew I was the only fellow she’d slept with. When she did finally get her period, I never talked to her again, so how’s that for not deserving sympathy?”