Don't Put the Boats Away

by Ames Sheldon

  “I’m really sorry, Mother. I had no idea.”

  “You weren’t meant to know. I felt such anguish about his affair that I couldn’t face it.”

  Her father had an affair! That must have been terrible for her mother. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I pretended nothing had happened, but I drank more and more, and you know where that led. Sobriety required me to get honest with myself and with others. I’ve learned how important it is to speak with your husband about everything—even the tough stuff he may not want to hear.”

  She nods, wondering how her mother managed to live with his betrayal.

  “I’m going to get some more tea. Would you like some, Harriet?”

  “That would be great.” She hands her empty glass to her mother.

  While she waits for her mother to return, Harriet starts thinking about her own life. If she’d been honest with Ron early on, making it clear how she felt about his drinking, would they still be married today?

  Early in June on the day after graduation, Janice asks Harriet to come to her office.

  When she arrives, she taps on the open door.

  Seated at her desk, Janice says, “Come in, Harriet. Please take a seat.”

  She sits in front of the desk.

  Looking down, Janice appears nervous as she fusses with some papers. Finally she slides them over to the side and looks up.

  “I have to inform you that I’ve been selected to serve the new institution as director of the upper school. I regret that this means you will no longer hold that position. We’ll do a search for a new head of the school.”

  “You’re taking my job?”

  “I’m sorry, Harriet.”

  Desperately, she says, “I could teach chemistry again!”

  “Mr. Hodgkinson and Dr. Gepner aren’t going anywhere.”

  “Oh.” She starts to sweat. Drops of perspiration run down her back.

  “You will receive six months’ salary as severance and a letter of reference detailing your stellar performance.”

  She can’t speak. How could they do this to her? She has worked so hard for many years. She’s done everything the school asked of her—she even accepted Janice’s request that she leave teaching to become director of the upper school, and now they’re taking that away from her?

  Feeling wobbly, she stands and grips the front of the desk. “I’ve loved working at Hartley.” She’s about to lose control.

  “I know you’ll land on your feet, Harriet. For now, I advise you to take some time off. Think about what you want to tackle next. You can do anything you set your mind to.”

  When Janice stands, Harriet turns to leave.

  “I wish you well, Harriet.”

  The hell you do. You’re glad to have my job, she thinks angrily.

  Back in her office, she starts throwing her books and papers into one of the boxes she brought for her end-of-the-school-year stuff. Now it turns out she needs to take everything home with her. She pulls the posters from the Museum of Natural History off the walls and rolls them up. She refuses to cry, though her eyes feel hot. On the way out to her car with the first box, she glances into the chemistry lab, but her stomach clenches at the thought of going in there one last time, so she heads toward the door instead. She’ll miss so much about this place, even the smells of floor wax and dusty radiators. She’s glad Retta and Joey have already left for California; when she gets home, she’ll be able to sob without upsetting them.

  At the house, after she puts her boxes down on the kitchen counter, she moves into the living room and sits. Rocking back and forth, back and forth, she isn’t able to cry. She’s too hurt and scared. She returns to the kitchen and picks up the phone.

  “Mother, can I come over right now?”

  “Of course, dearie.”

  She rushes into her parents’ house, letting the door slam behind her.

  “Mother!”

  “I’m in the kitchen.”

  Eleanor is boiling a pot of eggs. It’s at least ninety degrees and so humid that her hair curls wildly all over her head.

  “They axed me! Janice is taking my job for herself.” Tears start to stream down her cheeks.

  Her mother quickly turns off the flame under the pot. “Let’s go out to the porch where we can talk. It’s stifling in here.” She pours two glasses of iced tea, and they start down the hall. Looking over, she says, “You go ahead and cry your eyes out, Harriet. It’ll be good for you.”

  Once they’re seated, Harriet puts her face in her hands. Eventually she looks up, pulls a Kleenex out of her pocket, and blows her nose. Finally she can speak.

  “I’m terrified, Mother. What if I can’t find another good job that’s interesting and challenging, and that pays enough? I’ve got to be able to cover Retta’s college tuition. I’ve been making $8,000 a year, and Retta’s tuition is $3,000. And Joey, I might have to pull him out of Warden—or whatever the new school is going to be called—his senior year. He’d hate that. What am I going to do for money?”

  “You have the money George gave you a year ago.”

  She shakes her head decisively. “I can’t touch that money—it’s my nest egg for when I’m old.”

  Eleanor reaches out to touch her arm. “We can help if you’re really strapped for cash, dearie.”

  “But I shouldn’t need to ask my parents for financial assistance at my age. I should be able to cope on my own.”

  “Please feel free to ask anytime.”

  “I know this isn’t really rational, but I feel as though Father fired me. It’s his fault I lost my job.”

  “Feelings are facts, Harriet. Don’t deny them.”

  “My job is my life!”

  “You do have your children.”

  “I know, but they don’t need much from me now.” She feels panicky. “What am I going to do, Mother? My whole world is falling apart.”

  “You should let yourself grieve, Harriet. Take the time to really give in to your pain and fear and sorrow. The children are with Ron this month, so you have an opportunity now to really dive into your suffering. I don’t think you’ve ever allowed yourself to feel sad over the demise of your marriage.”

  “I couldn’t afford to.” She didn’t have any choice but to focus on caring for her children.

  “You need to grieve now. Let yourself feel everything.”

  The idea frightens her, for it means losing control. “That doesn’t sound like fun at all.”

  “Once you get through it, you’ll feel so much better and stronger than ever.”

  “Hello,” George calls. “Where are you?”

  Eleanor replies, “We’re out on the porch.”

  Harriet lurches to her feet. Her face flushes; she wants to scream at her father.

  Her mother puts her hand on Harriet’s leg. “Don’t go.”

  George appears with a short glass of neat bourbon in his hand. He sits. “It’s a real scorcher out there.”

  Scowling at him, Harriet says furiously, “I will never forgive you for taking my job away from me.”

  She expects him to bluster but instead he says quietly, “I take it Janice has spoken with you.”

  Her voice quivering, she says, “You betrayed me, Father. You’re the one who encouraged me to take the upper school job. I could still be teaching chemistry if you hadn’t done that. And then you drove the merger through, which meant that I lost my job. This is all your fault.”

  He lights up a cigarette. “Actually, Harriet, I did not intend for you to lose your job. I wanted Janice to be named head of the new school, and you could have been director of the new upper school. But I didn’t get my way.”

  Surprised but undaunted, she says, “You’ve always pursued your own interests instead of looking out for me. I told you I wanted to work for Sutton Chemical once I got my master’s, but it was months before you offered me a job.” She knows she sounds childish, but she needs to say these things to him for once and for all.

  “I wanted
you to keep your options open in case you got a better offer.”

  “My goal all along was to work for you! Don’t you understand?” She’s near tears.

  “Then why didn’t you come back to work for me once the children were in school?”

  Taking a deep breath, she calms down a little. “I realized that money didn’t motivate me, while making lots of money is what drove you.”

  He taps the end of his cigarette into the ashtray. “Businesses must make money if they’re to survive.”

  She looks at her mother. “Frank was right,” she says. “I should have taken the research job at the Rockefeller Institute.”

  “I thought we had a good time working together at the company, Harriet. You learned a great deal there.”

  He actually sounds hurt. Touched, she says, “That’s true. I learned how to deal with a lot of different people.” She pauses a moment as her anger rekindles. “But now because of you, I have no job! I need a job. Independent women work. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  “Relax,” he says, smiling. “I have other plans for you.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m not quite ready to say more yet.”

  Although a wisp of hope starts rising, Harriet is still furious enough to doubt whether she can trust her father to consider her well-being.

  “I’m somewhat surprised by the resistance we’re getting to the merger,” he says. “One of the upper school teachers at Warden claims he can’t work for a woman, so he quit. Another teacher complained that girls use up all the oxygen in the room, and boys need more oxygen than girls, so the boys will suffer. Can you believe that!” He lifts his glass to his mouth.

  Eleanor snorts. “Outrageous!”

  “It’s a man’s world,” Harriet says. “Men expect preferential treatment and they always get it. Women as a class are disadvantaged.”

  George raises his arms, and after hooking his fingers behind his head, he leans back in a cocky pose. “It turns out that we have a serious problem with the differences in salaries at the two schools. Teachers at Warden have always negotiated their salaries, whereas teachers at Hartley are paid on a stepped system based on years of experience and academic degrees.”

  “It won’t be easy to resolve those differences,” remarks Eleanor.

  “And then we’re going to need more bathrooms at each campus for members of the opposite sex.”

  “You asked for it,” says Harriet.

  She rises to her feet. “I’ve got to go. Thanks for the tea, Mother.” She glances at George, neither smiling nor nodding, though her fury is abating. “Father,” she acknowledges.

  Eleanor jumps up and embraces her with such a warm hug that she feels comforted. Then her mother says, “I’m sure everything will turn out well in the end, dearie. You’ll see.”

  She decides to follow her mother’s advice. She spends the next three weeks by herself, walking and weeping and sleeping and thinking. She misses Ron. He was so much fun at parties and on the tennis court and in bed, and he was sweet with her and the kids. She questions everything. Did she neglect Ron? Is that why he turned to alcohol? Was she so caught up in the children that she didn’t give him the companionship he needed? Maybe she shouldn’t have delivered the ultimatum that he had to quit drinking or she’d leave their marriage. Regrets gnaw at her, but it’s too late to change anything. She cries a lot. Was it her bossiness that drove him away? Should she have deferred to him more? She has always tried to be a strong woman, but maybe she went too far. Did she simply become too independent in determining her own priorities without heeding his? This question makes her cry some more.

  Now she’s got to find a new job. She knows she’ll find something, but what’s it going to be? She’s embarrassed that she hasn’t stayed in any position for longer than a few years. It makes her look flighty. She’s much more serious than her track record suggests.

  Now what?

  June 1968

  Lucy is already sitting in what has become their usual booth at the back of the Triangle Bar. It’s been a few weeks since they started seeing each other, right after Nat moved out of the house he’d shared with Dorie. Now he and the children live in a bungalow not far from the place that’s now Dorie’s.

  As he hurries toward Lucy, his unbuttoned blazer flapping, she spots him and smiles broadly. Her eyes look positively sparkly. He quickly removes his jacket and places it on the seat before he sits down.

  Seeing that she has a beer in front of her, he says, “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting long.”

  “Not at all. I’ve only been here a few minutes.”

  As he slides into the booth across from her, he says, “I really appreciated your help this morning.”

  “The poor woman panicked when you told her about the lesion in her daughter’s heart. It took both of us to convince her that Stacy would die if you weren’t allowed to operate.”

  “They both seemed pretty calm when I checked on them before coming over here.”

  “I’m happy to hear that.”

  He waves a passing waitress over. “Could you get me a Manhattan with just a whisper of vermouth?”

  Lucy leans forward and touches his hand. “How is it going, Nat?”

  “There’s a lot to adjust to.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “I met with an attorney a couple of days ago to start divorce proceedings. He said the only way I can get sole custody is if I document Dorie’s negligence. I need to get a statement from the neighbor who called me when Dorie locked the kids out of the house. I’ll talk with their teachers to see what they’ve observed. And the court will likely appoint a psychologist to interview the older kids. I don’t like this going around behind Dorie’s back, but I have to protect my children.”

  “It’s none of my business, but I’m curious.” She hunches her shoulders slightly. “How do you take care of four children while you’re at work?”

  “I’ve hired an older lady to come in afternoons, oversee their homework, and start supper. Once school ends for the summer, she’ll be there all day to drive them to their lessons and other activities. We’ll see how she works out.”

  “Do you trust her?”

  “She comes highly recommended. She’s a young grandmotherly type with lots of energy.”

  “I bet she’ll need it.”

  He pauses, worried suddenly by her response. “Are you daunted by my having four kids?”

  “Not at all. I’m the oldest of five. I helped raise my brothers and sisters, so I know what it takes. Actually, I always hoped to have a big family myself, but after Olivia I wasn’t able to get pregnant again.”

  It’s such a relief to hear this! Much more relaxed now, he muses, “I was terribly young when I married Dorie. Innocent. I’d known few girls of any kind. I had no idea what I was getting into.”

  “It takes a long time to learn what somebody’s really like.”

  “That’s for sure. I suppose I’m still young in some ways.”

  “I like catching glimpses of the boy in you.”

  The waitress returns with his Manhattan. He raises the glass. “To the future.”

  Lucy picks up her beer. “To the future.”

  Staring into each other’s eyes, they each take a drink.

  Once he puts his glass back on the table, he asks, “What is Olivia up to this summer?”

  “She’s going to Girl Scout camp for a week in July, taking swimming lessons, and reading lots and lots of books. What about your children?”

  “I’m taking them East for a couple of weeks to our family’s summer place.”

  “That should be fun.”

  “I wish you could come with us.”

  She shakes her head. “Oh no, Nat, I couldn’t do that. I haven’t even met your children.”

  “Oops,” he says. “I guess that was premature.” He doesn’t mean to pressure her, but he’s sure she’s the one for him. She’s so warm and caring, honest and direct. “Well, someday s
oon I’d like them to meet you.”

  She sits up straighter. “We’ll have to think about the best way to handle that. How are your children dealing with being separated from their mother?”

  “I think they see this as a temporary adventure, though I certainly get a sense of relief from Abby. She hasn’t said anything—she’s not going to bad-mouth her mother.”

  “Of course not.”

  He takes a drink of his Manhattan. “Do you need to hurry home, or do you have time to eat something?”

  “Olivia’s at a friend’s house for the night, so I have all the time in the world.” His heart speeds up. Is this an implicit invitation? He remembers the time he met her here right after Bobby Kennedy was shot. He was so upset by the assassination that he wanted to rush into her arms, and while she stood facing him with her arms folded tight against her stomach, it almost seemed as if she was holding herself back from hugging him. They’ve barely touched each other—so far. He says, “Let’s order then. I could do with a hamburger and fries.”

  “That sounds good.”

  After they place their orders, he can’t think what to say next. He is so drawn to her he can hardly think. He wants to kiss her, but if they start, will he be able to stop? If they get too involved and Dorie finds out, he’s sure she’d use that against him.

  Lucy asks, “Do you know why it’s called the Variety Club Heart Hospital?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Would you believe that the money to build the hospital was raised by people in the entertainment business?”

  “No way, Jose.”

  “Dr. Morse Shapiro, who ran a children’s rheumatic fever clinic, and another physician who specialized in tuberculosis convinced the local chapter of the Variety Club that there was an acute need for a special heart hospital for children that would be part of the university hospital.

  “Really?”

  “Since members of the Variety Club are part of the motion picture industry, they decided to make a movie, and they got actor Ronald Reagan to urge audiences to make donations toward the fight against heart disease.”