Crazy in Love

by Luanne Rice

  “Loretta, I told you she forgets whether she had breakfast or not—that’s why I hired you, to watch her when I leave the house. Thanks to you, Pem set herself on fire.”

  Loretta’s lower jaw gathered strength and jutted with full force. “Excuse me, lady, but don’t accuse me of that. This is the hardest job I’ve ever taken, and I’ve taken hard jobs. You want a maid, cook, babysitter, and nurse all rolled into one body. Last night your grandmother soiled her sheets for about the twentieth time since I came to this house, and I was just taking them across the way to wash them at your sister’s. Don’t go accusing me of anything.”

  “She’s sorry. Aren’t you sorry, Georgie?” Clare asked.

  But I was watching Honora’s kitchen turn into a charred skeleton. The sturdy frame was now spindly and black, like an evil charcoal forest. Although the fire was out, billows and tendrils of smoke continued to pour through holes that had once been walls. I thought of the mornings Clare, Honora, and I had sat in that kitchen, wondering whether the plane had landed safely in New York. I thought of the family meals we had cooked, of the cakes we had baked. I thought of Honora’s gallery of finger paintings, now ash.

  “It’s just the kitchen, Georgie,” Clare said. “It’s not the whole house.” She squeezed my hand.

  “Loretta,” I said, “you’re fired.”

  “And good riddance!” Loretta said. Somewhat hysterically, I thought. I was aware that we were paying her more than the going rate. “You won’t find anyone to do what I did, not even if you pay dollars more an hour. And the person I feel sorriest for is your grandmother, the way you force her to eat at all hours, give her liquor when it’s terrible on her system. I might consider reporting you.”

  “Let her go,” Clare demanded when I started to follow Loretta. “Why did you fire her? What are we going to do about Pem?”

  “First of all, I’m going to take her to the doctor. Then she can stay in my house. Nick’s been wanting to move home anyway.”

  “I think he meant you and him, not the whole entourage,” Clare said. “Come on—I’ll drive with you to Dr. Cooke’s.”

  The firemen reported extensive smoke damage, but told us the house would stand. They wanted to stay, to make sure the fire was out. Dr. Cooke’s office stood high on a hill, overlooking Black Hall and the mouth of the Connecticut River. I refused to look toward Bennison Point. I didn’t want to see plumes of smoke.

  Dr. Cooke treated and bandaged Pem’s arm. Then he gave her a complete physical and pronounced her in excellent health. “It’s a shame about your mother,” he told us.

  “You never saw any sign of a heart problem?” Clare asked. Dr. Cooke had been Pem and Honora’s doctor for many years.

  “It’s a mystery. She had a little high blood pressure once in a while. I never treated it because it always went away.”

  “Really?” we asked. She had never told us about it.

  “Why don’t I check yours, while you’re here?” he suggested, and although he was neither Clare’s doctor nor mine, we eagerly accepted his offer.

  “Hmmm,” he said, loosening the cuff on my arm. “Yours is a tad elevated.”

  “Oh no. . . .”

  “Are you pregnant by any chance?”

  I nodded.

  “Because high blood pressure can sometimes occur during pregnancy. But I’d have it watched by your doctor.”

  “I will,” I promised.

  Clare and I were silent in the car on the way home.

  “Can you believe Honora had high blood pressure and didn’t tell anyone?” she asked after a few miles.

  “No. It gets me so mad.”

  “I’m going to drive you to the doctor myself,” she said.

  “The doctor says it’s not uncommon during pregnancy.”

  “Still.”

  “I promise to take care of it. Will you drop me and Pem at my house? I’m a little tired. I want to take a nap.”

  “That’s definitely common during pregnancy. The desire to sleep constantly.” She glanced at me. “It must have been awful, seeing Pem on fire like that.”

  “It was.” I couldn’t get the image out of my mind, the gentle curls of flame creeping along her sleeve.

  “Listen, you go to sleep, and I’ll take Pem. And I’ll take your tape recorder and do my part for the Swift Observatory.”

  “Thanks, Clare,” I said. I’d been asking her for days, and that was the first time she’d agreed to do it.

  Clare Swift Macken

  “Georgie, this feels too anonymous, talking with no one here. We’re not used to that, are we? There’s always someone here. Remember how we always wanted to share a room, even though we could have had rooms of our own? Everyone thought we were crazy. Eugene and Casey would die if they had to share a room.

  “So, Mom’s dead. Honora’s dead. That’s what I’m supposed to talk about. You told me you wanted to hear all my reactions to her death. Why don’t I feel anything? I’m too self-conscious doing this. Let’s just say I’m really sad.

  “Let’s see. I’ll tell you this—you made her very proud. She loved the Swift Observatory. That’s why I’m doing this, recording this message. It’s for the greater glory of something Honora cared about, in memory of her. Some mornings we’d all be sitting at her kitchen table, the three of us, and you’d excuse yourself, to hurry home and wait for Nick to call. Honora always applauded that—she thought you were an exemplary wife. But sooner or later we’d get around to talking about your work. First the bay profile, later the Observatory. She’d say, ‘Sweetie, with all these degrees between us, why can’t we come up with something that interesting to do?’ She was afraid I was bored, which I never was. I think she was, though. After Weather Woman went off the air, and she became a real homebody, I think she wanted something more.

  “She kept trying to convince me to show my work, or to go into biochemical research. She was endlessly passing me clippings about classmates of mine who had made it big. The big giveaway was always ‘Donald will find you more interesting if you pursue your career.’ Look where it got her and Dad!

  “She was great when I found out about Donald, though. God, I wish I could see your face right now. Yes, Georgie, Donald had an affair. A big one, too, not some cute little kiss after lunch one day. Six years ago he had a six-month affair with someone from his office. They were in love. They wanted to open their own firm. Mom told me, ‘Give him the heave-ho, you don’t need a bastard like that.’ I was ready to do it too. I always wondered why you never noticed. I think it’s because you didn’t want to see my marriage breaking up. You’d see me crying and ask me what was wrong, and I’d say I had my period. That year I had my period forty-one times, and you never noticed. Mom and I talked all the time. After I kicked Donald out, he wanted to come home. I wasn’t going to let him. But Mom had a long talk with him and convinced me he meant business. He wanted me and the boys, and that was that. ‘Forgive but never forget’ is what Mom said. At first I thought that would be impossible, but I found out it wasn’t.

  “I know how you must have felt seeing Pem burning today, because I saw Honora having her first heart attack. At least you could do something—roll Pem up in that rug and put out the fire. I couldn’t do anything. Just drive Honora to the hospital. I was so afraid she would die. I sat in the waiting room, saying my prayers, wishing someone was with me. I felt terrible in that waiting room. You were in New York, giving those interviews, and I was so furious with you. I thought Honora was dying of pride for you. Because her last act before the heart attack was to drive all over the state in search of fifty copies of your interview.

  “Isn’t it strange, the way we’ve always thought we’d live to be a hundred because of Pem’s people? Name one who died younger than ninety. I hate myself, but I almost cried today when the doctor told us Pem was in good health. What’s going to happen to her? Her mind is already gone. She’s worse than a retarded child. At least nature makes a place for retarded children. But what about an old l
ady whose body has outlived her mind? No one wants her. I don’t, and I don’t think you do either. I love her, but I don’t want her anymore.

  “I don’t know. I dream of Honora every night, and I keep wishing she’d give me a message about Pem. She refuses. Last night she came out of the sea, draped in seaweed. She looked beautiful. She glowed with bioluminescence. The kelp was brown and shining, luxurious. The other seaweed, I can’t remember its name, was green like lettuce. ‘We need to have a chat, my dear dearie,’ she said. ‘Things have changed, or haven’t you noticed?’ When I woke up I wondered whether she was trying to tell me something about Pem, but it wasn’t clear.

  “She was a good mother. Is a good mother—just because she died, she doesn’t stop being our mother. But I’ll tell you, Georgie: I’m not sure she’d approve of what we’re trying to do with Pem. Taking care of Pem was Honora’s job, and I’m not sure she’d want us to do it as well as she did.”

  NICK AND I MOVED PEM into our house, and he told me not to let her alone for a minute. All her clothes and many of ours reeked of smoke. Every day I hung more on the line to flutter in the wind, but nothing made the smell go away.

  “Let’s go home,” she kept saying, so often I thought I would strike her.

  “We are home,” I would answer, my teeth clenched. “Honora’s house caught on fire, remember?” I never reminded her of how it had started.

  The Avery Foundation continued to send me correspondence generated by my interviews. The piece in Vanguard had appeared, accompanied by Mark’s photo of me. In the end, the editor had chosen one of the traffic scenes, with a bus barreling at me from one direction and a taxi from the other. There I stood, cool as a model in a wind tunnel, loving the moment.

  One weekend John and Helen were passing Black Hall on their way to Watch Hill, and we invited them for lunch. It was a brilliant day. The Averys and I sat on the porch, watching the waves, while Nick was inside, taking a call from a client. I felt nervous; I hadn’t yet told them about my new plans for the Swift Observatory.

  “Great spot,” John said. “No wonder Nick’s willing to do that crazy commute.” His gaze kept sliding to the living room door; we could hear Nick speaking to the client. Perfect timing, I thought—for once, with John here, I was glad for Nick to get a business call at home.

  “Have you been able to work, Georgie?” Helen asked. “Or is it still too soon?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, I do have a new idea,” I said, clearing my throat. “I know you want me to travel, to expand my focus. I’m afraid what I have in mind is the opposite—I’m turning inward in a way. I’m interviewing my family.”

  Helen gasped. “But that’s courageous!” she said.

  “Do you think so?” I asked.

  “Of course. It’s much more difficult to put your family under scrutiny. It’s a challenge to be objective, and you need to be.”

  “That’s true,” I said, thinking of Clare’s recording. I didn’t know how to approach her; her revelation about Donald made me shy away from her. With a subject more distant, like Mona or Caroline, I would have probed. With Clare I felt frozen.

  “You must know I’ve wanted you to go farther afield,” John said. “I voted in favor of increasing your grant to promote travel. Still, this idea interests me.”

  “We trust your instincts, Georgie,” Helen said. “Take your ideas where you find them.”

  John was so obviously leaning toward the door, trying to listen to Nick, I laughed. John tilted his head. “That’s my client on the phone to Nick. My client, and he’s calling Nick Symonds.”

  “You’ve got to pass the baton sometime,” Helen said.

  “Let’s not hear a lecture about growing old gracefully,” John snapped, so harshly I felt startled. I had never thought of it from John’s angle, with young men like Nick moving in on their work, their clients. Helen sat very straight, her mouth set in a thin line.

  Nick stepped onto the porch. “Claude wants to know if this is the Black Hall branch of Hubbard, Starr. He’d like to speak to you, John.”

  John nodded and went inside to take the call. Helen relaxed. “I’ve got to learn when to keep my mouth shut,” she said. “I guarantee he’ll give me the silent treatment until we get to Watch Hill.” But I was thinking of Nick, of how he had saved the lunch by asking John to come to the phone.

  THE RECORDING DONE by Clare gave me pause. As the Swift Observer, I had to treat it as an artifact, as evidence, as the thoughts of a person who had recently suffered loss. She had spoken freely; I considered that an invitation to ask more questions, but I was afraid to. Of what I might hear? I avoided Clare all that weekend, and then she came to find me. I stood in the kitchen, washing dishes, when she walked in.

  “I spill my guts and you give me the cold shoulder? Is that right?” she asked. “No questions? Not even a sympathetic pat on the back?” She appeared frazzled, maybe three pounds heavier than she had been on Friday.

  “I didn’t know what to say,” I said.

  “God, I feel nervous,” Clare said. She sat down at my kitchen table. “I put away a pint of rum raisin before I had the nerve to come over. What did you think of what I told you?”

  “I’ve been thinking about Donald. How could he have done that to you?”

  “We’ve never figured it out. Even he doesn’t know. He says he’s never stopped loving me—but he loved her too.”

  “Were things . . . bad between you before it happened?” I asked, wanting the answer to be “Yes.”

  “Not that I could tell. A little duller than at the beginning of our marriage. It was a big shock.”

  “I never knew. I never suspected. Donald!”

  “I was so unhappy. Georgie, now you know why I get so pissed at you for those affair attacks you have about Nick. Why borrow trouble that way? Some days I listen to you talk about that Jean Snizort, or some other imaginary lover, and I feel like hitting you.”

  “I don’t blame you. Nick feels like it too. But I’m training myself to stop.” I watched Clare move the salt and pepper shakers around the table, like skaters doing figure-eights. “Honora was a brick during that time?”

  “Completely. She was great.”

  “That’s strange,” I said. “Because when Nick went to London without me, she drove me nuts with that motherly concern of hers. It made me really wish for privacy.”

  Clare laughed. “Privacy? In this family? I won’t say it doesn’t exist, but . . . we don’t keep secrets from each other for long. Look at me—I’m practically letting the Swift Observer read my diary.”

  “The Swift Observer had a hard enough time deciding whether she wanted to read it or not,” I said, smiling at Clare. Leaning toward her. Giving her a hug.

  A NEW NURSE ARRIVED, and everyone liked her better than Loretta. Beth Wilton had shoulder-length red hair; she wore bright sweaters over her uniform. Pem seemed mezmerized by the colors, like a child looking into a kaleidoscope. Beth dressed Pem every morning, then supervised her breakfast. She told me she wouldn’t bathe Pem or wash her clothes; I would have to do it myself or hire a different aide.

  “This is getting really expensive,” Nick said.

  “It’s Pem’s money,” I said. “It should be spent to keep her in her home.”

  “Except this is our home,” Nick said, although he agreed with me in principle. He worried about the amount of time I spent caring for Pem. “Go shopping with Clare for baby things,” he said one day. I did go, only to please him. But to my surprise, the shopping was fun, and Clare and I had a long lunch. We talked about being pregnant; she told me about the births of Eugene and Casey. For once, we both forgot about Pem.

  But not for long. Often I would find Pem asleep or crying. She never read or watched television; she hardly ever looked out the window.

  “Isn’t it gorgeous out?” I said one day.

  “We have a beautiful view at our house,” she said, thumbing her nose at my window, even though the view was essentially the same as
the one from Honora’s. I had given up trying to get her to record her thoughts. She feared the tape recorder. She hated to think a plastic box could hold her voice inside, then let it out when someone pushed a button.

  One night when we were at dinner, I cornered Donald in the pantry. “Clare told me,” I said.

  “She told me she told you,” he said, standing taller, as if preparing for a fight.

  “You love her?” I asked.

  “More than anything,” he said. I stood aside to let him pass. And Donald and I never mentioned the topic again.

  After dinner Donald asked me to bring him the tape recorder.

  “Don’t let him do that,” Pem begged, watching him lift the microphone.

  “This is Donald Macken reporting from Black Hall. Pem, will you tell us which three steamers used to leave the dock in Providence for Newport?” She shook her head, one finger held against her lips. “You know, the ones that used to be jammed if you weren’t there by nine o’clock?” Again she shook her head. “Then I’ll tell you. They were the Nina, the Pinta, and the Queen Elizabeth.”

  “The Santa Maria,” Pem said, scoffing.

  “Aha!” Donald said. When he played the tape back, Pem was grinning.

  Donald Desmond Macken

  “Pem always loved to play tricks, so she appreciates it when someone plays one on her. I have two little boys, and I’d be in deep shit if they raised half the hell their great-grandmother did. That’s what’s sad to see; Pem was so sharp when I married Clare. Nick didn’t know her when she was all there; she had started her big decline before Georgie met him. Pem directed our wedding. She had it all planned, exactly like Honora’s: where to have the ceremony, where to hold the reception, where to buy the wedding cake, which silver pattern to order from Lux, Bond. Clare and I didn’t care. We just wanted to get married.