Silver

by Hilma Wolitzer

  “She’s not due for over three weeks,” I said. “You know that. And I think she’ll hold out as long as she can.”

  “Then is this an ordinary social call?” he said, with clear delight. “I mean, you’re not selling magazines or anything, are you?”

  I had to laugh. “No,” I said, “but maybe that’s not such a bad idea.”

  “Why? Do you need money?” he asked.

  “Who doesn’t?” I said. “But I’m okay, actually. I live pretty sparely now, like a cloistered nun.”

  “Are you celibate, too?” he said, and then, into the awful silence, “I’m sorry, Paulie. That was really out of line, wasn’t it?” His pain was palpable, and I thought: Ah, now you know what it’s like.

  “Yes, it was,” I said, thinking I might have led him into saying it for that small moment of revenge. But that wasn’t the whole purpose of my call, was it?

  Howard must have been wondering the same thing. “What’s new?” he said. “That I’d want to hear about, that is.”

  “You’re the one who’s supposed to have news for me,” I reminded him.

  “I only wish I did.”

  “Maybe you’re not trying hard enough,” I said.

  “Are you kidding, Paulie? What do you think I’ve been doing for the last few weeks?”

  The truth was, I’d pictured him starting out to look for Jason and then staying on at some club to listen to the music and meet women. “I’m not sure, Howard,” I said, suddenly wanting more revenge. “But you haven’t found him, have you?”

  “Why don’t you try it yourself if you think it’s so easy,” he said.

  Why, indeed? Because, I told myself, I had enough to do comforting Sara. And because I still longed for some unlikely bond to develop between Howard and Jason. But I said, “Maybe I’ll just do that,” and we said goodbye with the courtesy of contained rage.

  I dialed Sharon’s number immediately, afraid of having to think too much between calls. We talked about Gil mostly, and Sharon kept lapsing into the present tense and correcting herself. “Gil says—I mean said …” It was as if she were trying to resurrect him through memory, and then convince herself that he was really gone. She said that her days were all right once she got to work. But when she came home, the silence of the house was oppressive. “I keep thinking I hear his key in the lock,” she said, and then she began to cry. If we’d been together, I would have put my arms around her. Instead, I murmured, “I know, I’m sorry,” until she stopped crying. Her despair made me feel ashamed of my own, without actually diminishing it. “It could be worse,” my mother always said when something trivial seemed tragic to me, but that had never cheered me up, either.

  I opened Ruth’s book again, with determination this time, but I didn’t even get my money’s worth of solace. Art was like love, in some ways—it wasn’t dependable, and you had to give your whole self up to it. It was only when I remembered the baby’s heartbeat that I began to feel a little better. I realized that I hadn’t told anyone else about it, as if it were some great secret I couldn’t share, or as if I hadn’t really believed my own ears.

  30

  SO PAULIE HAD A lover, and I was probably the last to know. Of course the possibility had occurred to me before, but I’d given it the same fast, nervous attention I usually gave to thoughts of my own death. I knew that she’d had somebody while I was living with Marie. When I used to take the children out on weekends, Jason would tell me all about Douglas—how he played horsey with them, and made good grilled-cheese sandwiches for breakfast. So-called friends hinted that he was a good-looking, good-natured kid, a drugstore cowboy and probably a stud. It was completely unreasonable and unfair of me, but I was jealous then, too. It didn’t matter that I was the one who’d left, the one who’d been unfaithful first. All I kept thinking was that I wanted to kill the guy. I controlled myself, of course. I didn’t even pump Jason about what else Douglas did, with Paulie, and he never volunteered that information. I simply let my imagination fill me in.

  This time I found out what I didn’t want to know by tricking Annie into telling me. She and I were sitting in her living room after dinner, waiting for Spence and Sara to come back from Baskin-Robbins with our dessert. “Have you seen Mom lately?” I asked, and Annie blushed so violently I had to look away.

  “Yes,” she said in a small, careful voice. “We’ve had lunch a few times. She’s doing fine.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I said, and then, without losing a beat, “Have you met what’s-his-name yet?”

  “Dr. Rusten? Only once, by accident. Spence and I ran into them on the street.” My heart tripped along without interruption, and Annie cleared her throat. “He wears glasses,” she said.

  I tried to imagine that street scene, and was touched by Annie’s discomfort, her obvious loyalty to me. I wondered what kind of doctor he was, but I didn’t ask. Jesus, I thought bitterly, Paulie’s mother will be thrilled. I made myself smile at Annie’s anxious face. “He’s divorced, isn’t he?” I said, pretending this was information I’d once known but had simply forgotten.

  “No, he’s a widower. I think his wife died a few years ago.”

  And now he had my wife. “Well, it’s good that Mom’s not lonely,” I said, as if we were talking about an elderly person in need of simple companionship. In the meantime, the news was slowly seeping through me, like poison.

  When Sara and Spence showed up with the ice cream—ices for me, in deference to my diet—I said I wasn’t too hungry, the understatement of the year. They were all solicitous, worried that I wasn’t feeling well. “I just don’t have enough room,” I assured them. “Keep it in the freezer for next time.”

  Sara ate her Rocky Road sundae steadily, with a preoccupied expression on her face. God, she was tremendous. Maybe there was a gang of babies in there, all of them rejected by their daddy. The last time I’d seen Sara, I asked if she had any leads for me before I went out to look for Jason again. She drew herself up with effort and said fiercely, “Don’t. I don’t want you to find him,” and the subject was slammed shut between us. But that night Spence took me aside and told me that Sara had received some money in the mail from Jason. It had been forwarded by the friends who’d sublet their apartment. I got very excited. “Where is he, for Christ’s sake?” I demanded. “And why the hell didn’t you tell me this right away?”

  Spence put his hands up as if to ward off a blow. “Listen, Sara would kill me if she knew I was telling you now. And it doesn’t matter much, anyway. She burned the envelope in the fireplace, claimed she couldn’t make out the original postmark.”

  “Did she burn the money, too?”

  “No,” he admitted. “She tried to give it to me, toward expenses. Boy, it was like Monopoly money. She had this stack of tens and twenties.”

  “He sent cash like that through the mail?” I said. I don’t know why I was so surprised; it was something my mother always did, and Jason wasn’t famous for his common sense, either.

  “Shh, Dad. Hold it down, will you,” Spence said. “Yeah, he sent cold cash.”

  “Was there a note?”

  “She wouldn’t tell me that. And she got a little crazy when I asked her, so I guess there wasn’t.”

  I remembered Sara’s defiance that afternoon, the sorrowful, furious way she’d said, “Don’t. I don’t want you to find him.” I knew that she wouldn’t tell me anything, either—if there was anything to tell—even if I grilled her for a week. So far, I had done everything I could to find Jason, except go to the police. The news about the money was reassuring; at least I knew for sure now that he was safe somewhere. But how could a big, strapping kid with a bulky set of drums just disappear like that? I probably should have hired a private detective a long time ago, before his trail had cooled. But I’d read somewhere once that you couldn’t deliberately get lost in America anymore because of the technology. They’d put your face into a computer, and it would show up on computers everywhere in the country. Someone would rec
ognize you before too long. Jason didn’t even have to be in the metropolitan area; he could be anywhere at all. He had a couple of friends in L.A., for instance, musicians who were trying to make the Hollywood scene, and he might have gotten the same idea. The Coast would certainly put a lot of mileage between him and his troubles.

  Now, as I watched Sara eat her ice cream, I thought I’d ask around, then maybe head out West myself, and prove to Paulie that I was trying hard enough to find him. Dr. Rusten. Shit. Who the hell was he, and how had he latched on to Paulie so fast? But I really didn’t want to know anything about him, didn’t want to picture them together. I already saw him taking off his glasses and turning blindly to kiss her. The moment I’d asked her that stupid question about celibacy, I knew the answer. Probably before I’d asked it. Paulie was an intensely sexual woman; she’d always be with someone. The rotten joke was that I was the celibate now. It wouldn’t go on forever. One day, I’d go into another bar and meet a woman who was as lonely as I was, and I’d go home with her and stay for a while. But right then that seemed even lonelier than being by myself.

  That day long ago, when Paulie caught me packing to go off with Marie, she demanded to know what we did that was different, that was better, and I had a flash of sexual frenzy—of tongues and tangled limbs. But God knows I wasn’t going to give Paulie any of the details. I didn’t want to hurt her more than I already had. Things had been pretty rough between us for a while by then. It was one of those endless winters—snow piling up over slush over snow. I remember looking out the window of our building at the empty, ghostly playground and wishing that I’d loved my father better, that I’d learned to ski, that I’d taken more courses in music theory and had tried composing. One of the kids or the other always had croup or something that winter. We’d try to make love and listen for their breathing at the same time, which really put a crimp in desire and performance. But maybe that’s too easy, only a handy excuse. The thing was, I was almost always tired in bed, more inclined to sleep, to go unconscious, than anything else. And Paulie would crawl in next to me, smelling of Shalimar and Vicks and sad desperation. “Talk to me, Howie,” she’d beg, but what could I say? That we’d made a bad bargain in the backseat of a car? That good intentions become shit in the grind of years? Or maybe just that I loved her and the children more in the abstract than I did in the flesh.

  And what could I say about Marie and me? I’d met her one Saturday morning in that same dreary playground, where she sat reading on one of the benches, uniquely, alluringly childless. The only one not pushing a swing or a baby carriage, or screaming orders about sharing toys and not throwing sand. Of course I loved my children—God, I was crazy about them! We could have been a family of devoted chimps as we entered the playground, with Jason swinging from one of my hands and Annie wrapped like Cheetah around my neck. When they released their hold on me and ran off to the monkey bars, where they belonged, I sat down on the other end of Marie’s bench. I couldn’t say what I intended, beyond settling my ass somewhere, and maybe making some grownup small talk. It was a cold day. The kids were bundled into their snowsuits like a couple of inflatable toys. Annie’s cheeks were brightly chapped, and the snot was already frozen on Jason’s upper lip.

  Marie and I said hello to one another and the words floated out in clouds of vaporous breath. We introduced ourselves and pointed out our respective buildings in the complex. She kept jiggling her high-heeled boots in place to keep warm. Her long hair was gypsy-black, and even in her red winter coat I could see the compact tension of her body. “Do you know who you remind me of?” I asked, and when she shook her head, I said, “Carmen. When she does a few flamenco steps before she starts singing the Habanera?”

  Her feet grew still, and she laughed in a surprising, rich contralto. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I promise not to sing.” But she knew it was her dark passion I’d perceived, not any musical impulse.

  We talked a little about the book that lay face-down in her lap now, some best-selling spy thriller that I was sure Paulie would have sneered at. We both said, agreeably, that it was supposed to be good escape reading.

  “What do you want to escape from?” she asked suddenly.

  I laughed this time and opened my arms in an all-encompassing gesture. “This,” I said, and I might have meant Queens, or February, or Planet Earth. “How about you?” The kids began calling to me then, the usual “Daddy, watch me, hey, look at me, Daddy” routine they pulled whenever I had a minute to myself. I just waved to them, as if they were casual acquaintances whose friendship I didn’t want to encourage.

  Marie smiled at me in conspiracy and I smiled back. “The cigarette factory,” she said. And then softly, seriously, “My husband.” It took me a few moments to realize she was still answering the question about escaping.

  We stayed there on the bench, even when the wind began whipping around us and Jason yelled that he was too cold, he wanted to go home. He was probably getting tired, and his mittens were soaking wet from some sandbox slush. I called him over and gave him my gloves, and he ran off again, flapping them around like useless leather wings. I put my hands in the shallow pockets of my windbreaker and then took them right out again to blow on them. They were freezing, but the rest of me was warm, was racing with blood. I felt myself begin to thaw, to rouse from my long hibernation. And I thought by her face that Marie knew I’d just bought us a few more minutes of whatever it was we were beginning.

  “Tell me what she does, what you do together,” Paulie cried, in the agony of my going. But it wasn’t so much what we did that was mysterious or special; it was more a condition we were in, a perpetual state of heat and wildness. And even though I knew it would have to burn out eventually, or that we would, I was willing to give up everything else for it. If Paulie’s current situation was anything like that, maybe I only had to wait it out. Only. But my instincts told me that this was different, somehow, more complicated. What really scared me was that she might be connected to this man out of bed, too, that they might have a life together. My life.

  “Dad,” Annie was saying. “Daddy, how do you feel now?” She was looking at me with grave concern. All three of them were.

  “I’m fine,” I told them, “great,” and I patted my tender, aching gut. “Let’s have those ices now,” I said.

  31

  THE BABY SHOWER WAS Katherine’s idea. She insisted that what Sara needed, in Jason’s absence, was a show of community support, a committee of friends to welcome her baby. It sounded sensible to me and even better than that to Ann, who had despaired of ever cheering Sara up again. It was pretty late in her pregnancy, and we made our plans quickly with a chain of phone calls and some hurried shopping. Katherine volunteered to have the shower at her house the following Sunday, and almost everyone else offered to bring food for the buffet brunch. We decided not to make it a surprise, because Sara had had enough surprises recently, and looking forward to the party would be a pleasure in itself.

  Ann and I went shopping together in Manhattan for baby gifts. Howard and I had already agreed that we’d provide Sara with the larger items of equipment, like the crib and stroller and high chair. The gift I most wanted to bring her, of course, was Jason, not dragged in by his hair, but willing and contrite, and eager to make up for lost time. Instead, I browsed with Ann in the infant department at Saks, both of us exclaiming over the exquisite tiny garments.

  “Isn’t this adorable, Mom?” Ann said, holding up a pair of delicate pink rompers for my approval. “Oh, this is so much fun.”

  Exactly what she’d once said about Sara, I remembered, and now look at her. I pictured the rompers all soiled and smelly, and I remembered the relentless sound of colicky screaming. It was astounding to think of my first, intimate connection to this full-grown woman, to her missing brother. “Sort of,” I said. “And then you have them forever.”

  “What?” Ann said, looking confused. “These things?”

  “No,” I said impatiently, “the chil
dren.” I grabbed her arm. “Listen, Ann,” I said, “having a child is probably the most radical act of your entire life.”

  She wriggled free of my grasp. “You sound kind of sorry you ever did it, Mom,” she said in a hurt voice.

  “Oh, no, darling, never! Well, sometimes,” I admitted, under her critical gaze, “but not for long.”

  “Don’t worry about Spence and me,” Ann said. “We’re in no hurry to populate the world. We’re still mostly each other’s child.”

  And Sara was like a child, too, at the baby shower—a fat, sullen, reluctant child the grownups were trying to amuse. Why couldn’t she have been this sullen and reluctant a few months ago, I thought meanly, as she was being steered into the room, and I was shocked by my own treason. But I’d begun to have a grouchy, skeptical view of our forced gaiety, of the whole celebration. All those foil-wrapped casseroles we’d lugged in, along with our gifts, as if this were a disaster area and we were the Red Cross. Most of the dishes would probably turn out to be variations of rice pilaf. And Katherine had rented a centerpiece, a huge Styrofoam stork with a baby doll slung from its beak in a diaper. Why would we want to perpetuate that myth, and especially now? There was a desperation to the shower that seemed particularly and pathetically female to me.

  Later, when Sara was surrounded by a mess of crumpled wrapping paper and tangled ribbon, she seemed happier and more relaxed, and surprisingly, so was I. Everyone had been very generous. Practical, pedantic Katherine had given Sara a book on breast-feeding and a little step stool that converted to a potty chair when you lifted the top. La Rae had brought a large, square box filled mostly with tissue paper, which Sara pulled out with half-feigned impatience until she came to the antique silver mug and spoon near the bottom. “Ahh!” and “Ooh!” we cried in spontaneous chorus as each gift was revealed. Oh, God, I thought, we’ll never be liberated from the burden of children and all their apparatus. Jason was traveling light, in comparison, with only his drums.