by Andre Dubus
The drinks came and she told the waiter she’d have a hamburger with everything but onions; her father ordered a salad, then winked and patted his belly, and she thought of him naked with that blonde, whom she would see forever in a black coat stepping into a taxi.
‘Then you heard me on the phone. On Holy Saturday, you said.’
She nodded and sipped her tea. She was smoking fast, deeply, knowing she would need another as soon as she finished this one, while he sat calmly, drinking without a cigarette, and it struck her that perhaps he was a corrupt, remorseless man. She tried to remember the last time he had received Communion. Of course at Easter he had stayed in the pew while she and her mother went to the altar rail; returning to the pew, she had kept her head bowed, hoping he was watching her. She didn’t know about Christmas because, while she was on a date, her parents had gone to midnight Mass. She couldn’t remember the Sunday of Thanksgiving vacation, but she knew he had received last summer, kneeling beside her. So apparently he still had the faith, but he sat calmly, enclosing a mortal heart, one year away from fifty: the decade of sudden death when a man had to be careful not only about his body but his soul as well. Now she was shaking another cigarette from her pack.
‘How much do you smoke?’ he said.
‘A pack.’ It was a lie, but one she also told herself.
‘I should have paid you not to, the way some parents do.’
‘Or set an example,’ she said quickly, but then she flushed and lowered her eyes. She wasn’t ready to fight him and, looking into her glass of tea, she thought if her own husband was ever unfaithful, she didn’t want to know about it.
‘I suppose that’s best,’ he said. ‘What if you made a mistake?’
‘Did I?’
‘No, I just wanted to see if you’d be disappointed.’
‘That’s sick,’ she said, ‘it really is.’
‘Suppose your mother had seen that letter.’
‘I sent it to the bank.’
‘Letters get seen. Suppose I was sick or something, and they’d sent it home?’
‘People get heard talking on the phone too.’
‘That’s right, they do. And I sounded like a—wait a second.’
He took her letter and a pair of glasses from his inside coat pocket, put on his glasses, and scanned the pages.
‘Here it is: “That voice on the phone was not yours. I might as well be honest and say it was the voice of a silly old man. I was so ashamed that I couldn’t move”—’
‘Daddy—’
‘Wait: “I would think at least your respect for Mother would keep you from making a phone call to your mistress right in our home”.’
‘Well it’s true.’
‘True? What’s true?’
He took off the glasses and put them and the letter in his coat pocket.
‘What you just read.’
‘You think I don’t respect your mother?’
‘I’d think if you did you wouldn’t be doing what you’re doing.’
His smile seemed bitter, perhaps scornful, but his eyes had that look she had seen for years: loving her because she was a child.
‘So you want me to stop seeing this woman before your mother gets hurt.’
‘Yes.’
‘And go to confession.’
‘I hope you will.’
‘Just like that.’
‘Don’t you still believe in it?’
‘Sure. Do you?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘Are you a virgin?’
‘Me!’ She leaned toward him, keeping her voice low. ‘Oh, that’s petty. That’s so petty and mean and perverted. Yes, I am.’
‘What, then? Semivirgin? Never mind: I didn’t come for that. Anyway, I went to confession.’
‘You did?’
Now the waiter was at their booth, and she was thankful for that, because she felt she ought to be happy now, but she wasn’t, and she didn’t know what to say next. She watched her hamburger descending, then looked over her father’s shoulder, blinking as though looking up from a book: a group of boys and girls came in and sat at a long table in the front. When the waiter left, she said: ‘That’s wonderful.’
‘Is it?’
‘Well, of course it is.’
‘I don’t feel so good about it.’
‘I won’t listen to that. I’m not interested in how hard it is to break up with some—’
‘Wait—I didn’t feel good while it was going on, either. You think I like being involved with this woman?’
‘But you’re not involved, Daddy. Not if you’ve been to confession.’
‘You sound like the priest. I told him the first mistake was sleeping with her. He bought that, all right. But he wouldn’t buy it when I told him I felt just as sinful about leaving her. She’s alone, you know. She didn’t cry when I broke it off, she’s too old for that, but I know she hurts now. It’s not love, it’s—’
‘I should hope not.’
‘It’s a lie. Don’t you know that?’
‘What is?’
‘Adultery. A sweet lie, sometimes a happy lie, but a lie. You know what happens? We’d see each other for an hour or two, and that’s not real. What’s real is with your mother. The other’s just a game, like you and that boy in a car someplace.’
‘Would you please get over this compulsion of yours? Accusing me of what you’re doing?’
‘Compulsion—that’s a good word. Now I’m compulsive, old, and silly. Is that right?’
‘Well, you have to be old, but you don’t have to be silly.’
‘That’s absolutely right. And you don’t have to be selfish.’
‘Selfish?’
‘Sure. Why did you write a letter like that and hurt your father?’
‘I didn’t want to hurt you.’
‘Come on.’
‘I was worried about Mother.’
‘Come on.’
‘I was.’
He finished his salad and pushed the bowl away; then, smoking, he watched her eating, and now the hamburger was dry and heavy, something to hurry and be done with.
‘You did it for yourself,’ he said.
‘That’s not true.’
‘Sure it is. It’s okay for Richard Burton but not your father.’
‘It’s not okay for him either. I think they’re disgusting.’
‘Not glamorous and wicked? Not silly, anyway. Or old. You think your mother doesn’t know about it?’
‘Does she?’
‘Probably. The point is, we’ve been married twenty-five years and you can never know what we’re like, mostly because it’s none of your business. You know what she said two nights ago? After dinner? She said: You must have broken up with your girl friend; you’re not being so sweet to me anymore. Joking, you see. Smiling. So I smiled back and said: Sure, you know how it is. That’s all we said. Last night I took her out for beer and pizza and a cowboy show—’
In her confusion Jackie thought she might suddenly cry, for she knew the story was sentimental, even corny, but it touched her anyway. She looked at her watch: she had missed gym.
‘I’ll tell you this too, so you’ll know it,’ he said. ‘I don’t know one man who’s faithful. Not in here anyway.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘Or whatever it is.’ His dropping hand gestured toward his chest. ‘Some don’t get many chances. Or they’re afraid to see a chance.’
‘That letter didn’t do a bit of good, did it? Come on, I’ve already missed one class.’
‘I told you, I broke it off. And you know why? For you and me.’
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m not one of those daughters.’
‘Jesus—don’t they teach anything but psychology around here? Listen, Jackie: we’ll have a good summer, and I don’t want suspicious looks every time I walk out of the house.’
‘I don’t believe you anymore. I don’t think you even broke it off. ’
‘That’s right: I drove two hundred and fifty miles to l
ie to an eighteen-year-old kid.’
‘All right. You broke up with her.’
‘But I’m not saying it right. I should be happy, I should be thanking you and blowing my nose. Right, Peter Pan?’
‘What?’
‘You used to read Peter Pan, over and over. That’s what you were playing: Peter Pan, make everybody happy, save Wendy and Tiger Lily. Or maybe you were Tinker Bell. Remember? She flew ahead because she was jealous and she wanted the boys to shoot Wendy.’
‘Oh stop it.’
‘Okay. That was mean.’
He reached across the table and touched her face, then trailed his fingers down her cheek.
‘It just happens that I don’t like to tell people goodbye, especially if it’s a woman I’ve slept with. It reminds me of dying.’
‘I have to get back,’ she said. ‘I have a class.’
He signalled the waiter, paid, and left a two dollar tip on the table. She slipped out of the booth and walked out, feeling him behind her as though she were being stalked; on the sidewalk she stopped, blinking in the sun. Then his hand was on her arm and he led her to the car. As they rode to the dormitory she watched students on the sidewalks, hoping to see Gary, for she could not be alone now and she could not go to math, which was the same as being alone, only worse. They passed the classroom buildings and, looking ahead now, she saw Fran climbing the dormitory steps; when her father stopped, she opened the door.
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Sit a minute and cool off.’
He shifted on the seat, hitching his right leg up, and faced her. At first she thought she would look straight ahead through the windshield but she didn’t really know what she wanted to do, so-sitting straight—she turned her face to him.
‘When you come home you’ll have to carry your load, the same as Mother.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘Meaning don’t look at me that way anymore. Mother doesn’t.’
‘She must be terribly hurt.’
‘The difference between you and your mother is she knows me and you don’t. Here: take this.’
Now the letter was out of his pocket, crossing the space between them, into her lap.
‘Read it over tonight and see who you wrote it for.’
‘For her,’ she said, looking down at her own handwriting of a week ago.
‘Think it over. And take this.’
Raising himself, he got his wallet; she was shaking her head as, barely looking at them, he pulled out some bills and pressed them into her hand. She left her fingers open.
‘Get a dress or take your boy friend to dinner. Go on, take it.’
The top one was a five, and it was a thick stack; she folded it and dropped it in her purse.
‘I’m not buying you, either. It’s just a present.’
‘All right.’
She was looking down, her warm cheek profiled to him, knowing it was a humble posture, but she could not lift her eyes.
‘I want you to be straightened out by June.’
‘Maybe I shouldn’t come home.’
‘Yes you will. And you’ll be all right too. Now give me a kiss.’
She leaned toward him and kissed his mouth, then she was hugging him and, closing her eyes, she rubbed them quickly on his coat. He got out and came around her side, held the door open, and walked with her up the sidewalk and dormitory steps.
‘Be careful driving back,’ she said.
‘Always.’ Then he was grinning, shrugging his shoulders. ‘What the hell, I’ve been to confession.’
She smiled, and held it while he got into the car, put on his sunglasses, waved, and drove off. Then she went inside and took the elevator to her floor. Fran was lying on her bed, wearing a slip.
‘What happened?’
Jackie shook her head, went to the window, and looked down at the girls walking to class.
‘What did he say?’
‘He broke up with her.’
‘Great! So it’s okay now.’
Jackie left the window and lay on her bed.
‘I’m going to cut this afternoon,’ she said. ’do you think we can find Dick and Gary?’
‘Sure.’
‘Let’s go someplace. Maybe to a movie, then out for dinner. It’s on me.’
‘How much did he give you?’
‘I don’t know, but it’s enough.’
‘Okay,’ Fran said. ‘We won’t tell the boys how you got it, though.’
‘No,’ Jackie said, ‘we won’t.’
She closed her eyes. When Fran was dressed, she got up and they went down the elevator and out into the sunlight to find the boys.
Goodbye
ON A SUNDAY morning in June, Paul and Judith finished cleaning their apartment, left the key in the mailbox, and drove across town to the house Paul had left on a grey and windy day last March. It was the first house his father had ever bought: a small yellow one with a green door, a picture window, a car port. His father had bought it four years ago, when they moved from Lafayette to Lake Charles; it was a new house, built for selling in a residential section where at first there were half a dozen houses and wide, uncut fields where cottontails and meadowlarks lived. There were few trees. My prairie, Paul’s mother called it. Now the fields were lawns and everywhere you looked there was a house, but still she said to friends: Come out to the prairie and see us. She said this in front of Paul’s father too, her tone joking on the surface, yet no one could fail to hear the caverns of shame and bitterness beneath it. Come to my little yellow house on the prairie, she said.
Now, with hangered dresses lying on the back seat, and his new Marine uniform with the new gold bars hanging in a plastic bag from the hook above the window, he came in sight of the house, rectangular and yellow against the pale blue of the hot afternoon, and he felt a sense of dread, as though he were a child who had done something foolish and disobedient, and now must go home and pay the price. But he was also in luck (though he couldn’t actually call it that, for he had planned it, and left enough cleaning and packing for after Mass so they wouldn’t arrive in time to have lunch with his father): his mother’s Chevrolet stood alone in the car port, his father’s company car was gone, and glancing at his watch, Paul imagined him about now within sight of the oaks, the fairways, the limp red flags. He reached across the overnight bag and took Judith’s hand, this nineteen-year-old blond girl who he knew had saved him from something as intangible as love and fear. He held her hand until he had to release it to turn left at what he still thought of as his street, then right into the driveway where, as though in echo of his incompetent boyhood, he depressed the clutch too late, and the Ford stopped with a shudder.
When he had unloaded what they needed for the night, he went to the kitchen. In the refrigerator were two six-packs of Busch-Bavarian beer. There were also cantaloupes, which he and Judith could not afford, and for a moment he allowed himself to believe his last day and night at home would be a series of simple, tangible exchanges of love: his father, who rarely drank beer, had bought some for him; he would drink it, as he would eat the roast tonight and the cantaloupes tomorrow. But when he took a beer into the living room, where his mother and Judith sat with demitasses poised steady and graceful above their pastel laps, his mother said: ‘Oh, you found your beer.’ Then to Judith: ‘His Daddy brought two six-packs home yesterday and I said those children will never drink all that, but all he said was Paul likes his beer. And I got some cantaloupes, for your breakfast tomorrow.’
‘Good,’ he said, and sat in his father’s easy chair.
After a while his mother went to her room for a nap. Judith got a magazine from the rack and sat on the couch, under a large water-color of magnolias, painted long ago by a friend of his parents. Paul was looking at Sports Illustrated when his mother called him to the bedroom. She stood at the foot of her bed, wearing a slip and summer robe.
‘Would you get my pen from under the bed?’ she said loudly, motioning with her head toward the living room and J
udith. ‘Your young body can bend better than mine.’
‘Your pen?’ He even started to bend over, to look; he would have crawled under the bed if she hadn’t stopped him with a hand on his arm, a finger to her lips.
‘I went to see Monsignor,’ she whispered. ‘To see if you and Judith were bad. I—’
‘You did what?’
Her hand quickly tightened on his arm, her fingers rose to her lips; he whispered: ‘You did what?’
‘I had to know, Paul, and it’s good I went, he was very nice, he said you were both very good young people, that the bad ones don’t get into trouble—’
‘You mean pregnant?’
Nodding quickly, her finger to her lips again: ‘—that only the innocent ones did because they didn’t plan things.’
‘Mother—Mother, why did you have to ask him that? Why didn’t you know that?’
‘Well because—’
‘What’s wrong with you?’
But he did not want to know, not ever—turning from her, leaving the room, down the hall past the photographs of him and his sisters, Amy and Barbara; he had only this afternoon and tonight to be at home, and he did not want to know anything more. Judith was looking at him.
‘I think I’ll go run,’ he said.
‘In this heat? After drinking a beer?’
‘Yes.’
‘But your things are packed. And they’re clean.’
‘I’ll unpack them and you can throw them in the washer when I finish.’
Under the early afternoon sun he ran two miles on hot blacktop; for a while he ran in anger, then it left him when he was too hot to think of anything but being hot. When he got back his mother was sleeping. He took a beer into the shower and stayed a long time.
At six-thirty his mother began watching the clock, her eyes quick and trapped. She was in the pale green kitchen, moving through the smell of roast; Paul and Judith sat at the table, drinking beer.
‘Don’t y’all want to go to the living room instead of this hot old kitchen? You don’t have to stay in here with me.’
Paul told her no, he didn’t like the smell of air-conditioned rooms, he wanted to smell cooking. He was watching the clock too. Certainly she must remember the meals after Amy and Barbara had gone: if she didn’t talk, the three of them ate to the sounds of silverware on china. There was nothing else her memory could give her, unless she had dreamed this night of goodbyes out of some memory of her own childhood, with the five brothers and four sisters, the loud meals at that long table where he too had sat as a child and watched black hands lowering bowls and platters, and had daydreamed beneath the voices, the laughter of the Kel-leys, who had once had money and perhaps dignity and now believed they had lost both because they had lost the first. The lawyer father had died in debt, with his insurance lapsed, and the sons had sold their house, whose grounds were so big that, when Paul played there, he had not needed to imagine size: it seemed as large as Sherwood Forest. Jews bought the house, tore the vines from its brick walls, and painted the first story pink. Maybe they had got around to painting the top story; he didn’t know. He hadn’t been to New Iberia in years, and when his mother went she refused to pass the house.
