The Book Club

by Mary Alice Monroe

  The doorbell rang and Midge felt a surge of excitement flood her, despite her misgivings. She hadn’t seen her mother in over a year.

  Opening the door, it was as though she’d seen her mother just yesterday. Her smile widened as her gaze devoured the petite woman at the threshold. Edith never changed. She looked as radiant as ever. In contrast to herself, Edith was a tiny woman, just five foot two, with the bones of a sparrow. In fact, that’s how Midge always saw her mother, as a small, delicate songbird with brilliant plumage, bright, dark eyes and movements that were quick yet graceful. She always dressed to the nines, as she put it, coordinating her shoes and bag to her outfit.

  Edith’s bright eyes appraised every inch of her daughter with a mother’s clipped efficiency. Then stepping back, she tilted her head, pursed her lips, raised one perfectly plucked brow and gave Midge a sweeping perusal referred to as the look. Without a word spoken, Midge understood that her own artsy-chic choice of clothes, her graying hair, her unmade-up face, did not win her mother’s approval. It was all so quick, and so devastating. Midge felt the heat of shame but kept her smile rigidly in place.

  “Well, aren’t you going to give me a kiss?” Edith’s flippancy was a buffer.

  “Of course!” Midge bent low to wrap her arms around her mother, feeling as always like a giant beside her. Yet, close up, she relished the feel of her mother’s arms around her, the scent of her familiar perfume.

  “Come in, Edith,” she said, swinging wide her arm.

  “One moment, dear. I have to collect my luggage from the limo.” Her mother had insisted she come by limousine ever since her friends in Florida regaled her with stories about how it was the only way to get to and from the airport. “No fuss, no muss!” she’d told Midge after Midge had argued how she would be happy to pick up her own mother, for heaven’s sake.

  “Let me help,” Midge said.

  “No, no,” Edith replied too quickly, her gaze darting back and forth with anxiety. “The driver brings up the luggage. It’s part of the service, you see.” The way she said it implied, What did I tell you? “You just stay put.”

  Midge waited by the door, craving a cigarette for the first time since giving them up over a year ago. A few minutes later she heard the measured footfall of a man carrying a heavy weight. Sure enough, the tall, muscular driver in a cheap, black suit labored up the stairs loaded down with two immense suitcases. Midge’s mouth slipped open as she gasped with the sinking realization that this was enough luggage to last a whole heck of a lot longer than a week.

  “I’ll be right back with the others,” the driver said, turning the corner of the stairwell.

  “Others?”

  Edith just waved her hand and disappeared back down the stairs. Midge didn’t move a muscle as she waited, then watched the gentleman carry up a dainty hat box tilting precariously atop a taped, brown mailing box big enough to carry an entire wardrobe. A few minutes after he’d disappeared again, Midge heard the gentle tapping of high heels on the stairs. She opened her mouth to ask why on earth Edith needed so much luggage when her throat seized, her eyes bugged and her breath stilled.

  Edith turned the corner and advanced the final two steps in a mincing motion, with a coy expression on her face. But all Midge could see was the small, smudgy ball of white fur and buggy black eyes in her arms.

  “You brought your dog?” she croaked, incredulous that even her mother could be so callous of her feelings that she’d bring her dog along for a visit without asking.

  “I just couldn’t leave Prince,” Edith replied, her voice too high. She was stroking the wiry white curls of her toy poodle’s head so hard she pulled the eyelids back, causing Prince’s eyes to bug out all the more. “He got a terrible case of diarrhea the last time I left him at that horrid Dog’s Day Inn. I swear I thought my baby would perish if I submitted him to that torture again. Honey, I’d perish of loneliness without him. Oh, please don’t be angry at me. He’s such a good boy and I promise I’ll keep him out of your way. Why, Prince is such a little thing, you won’t even know he’s here. Just like me!”

  Midge was choking back her fury, swallowing so hard she couldn’t speak. It’s only for a few days, she told herself over and over again, breathing deep. In and out... She stepped aside, swinging her arm open, allowing her mother to pass.

  She followed the sparrow’s flight path throughout the open, airy loft, seeing her home as her mother might. The upholstered sofa and chairs clustered before a brick fireplace were mismatched and tossed casually with oversize kilim pillows. The long, curved bar that surrounded the kitchen was littered with corked wine bottles, piles of books and assorted sculptures. In the far corner, before a spread of tall windows, two heavy wooden easels stood empty beside paint-splattered tables topped with neatly organized brushes. Against the wall were stacks of completed canvasses.

  Midge liked to think her place was a statement of her dedication to talent, not fashion. But she could tell by the expression on her mother’s face that she saw it as a decorator’s worst nightmare. Her breath held, however, when her mother’s gaze alighted on the wall-size paintings that filled the west wall of the loft. Midge felt about her work as any mother would when someone inspected her children. Or for some people, their dog. She waited in a tense silence.

  “Could you get Prince a bowl of water, dear?” Edith asked, turning to face her with a starched smile on her face.

  Midge’s breath hitched. Edith had nothing to say about her paintings. They were dismissed without notice or a word.

  “Sure,” she forced out, turning away so her mother wouldn’t see her disappointment. “How about some wine for you? I’ve uncorked a nice bottle of Margaux.”

  “Oh no, dear, I never drink red wine anymore. Those sulfites give me a headache. Please say you have a martini? Vodka? With a lemon peel?”

  Midge closed her eyes against the headache that was already forming in her temples. “No lemons, but I’ve got olives.”

  Edith sighed with disappointment. “That’ll do, I suppose.”

  Midge gritted her teeth and plopped an olive in Prince’s water, too. She hoped the little bugger would choke on it.

  After the martini was served and she was fortified with a glass of the Margaux, Midge felt her equilibrium slowly return. They briefly discussed Edith’s flight to Chicago, the books she’d been reading, her bridge game, the nasty change in weather—safe topics that broke the ice. The conversation moved up a notch when her mother complained about how her grandchildren’s manners were shocking. “It’s like eating a meal with animals!” she said, slipping Prince a dog treat. The dog chewed the biscuit with noisy relish, dropping crumbs all over Midge’s sofa with fearless abandon.

  As the sky darkened and a second drink was poured, Edith relaxed by slipping off her jacket, easing back into the sofa’s cushions and announcing that she found her condo in southern Florida utterly confining and the lifestyle boring.

  “There’s no culture,” Edith said, plucking out the olive with a wrinkled nose. “There’s no there there. Florida’s great if you like to walk on the beach every morning and pick thousands of shells. But after you’ve done that...” She rolled her eyes. “C’est tout! Besides, I miss my old friends.”

  “You’ve made new ones.” Midge wasn’t feeling sympathetic. Her mother had been hell-bent to move to Florida years back, dragging her back and forth to help find the condo, all the while professing that she couldn’t endure another Chicago winter.

  “Everyone’s too old down there,” Edith continued. “One foot in the grave. And there’s not a decent man to be found. They’re all either hobbling around or married. I’m lonely for some male companionship. And I’ll tell you,” she added, perking up, “the man I saw in the airport bar...” She rolled her eyes suggestively, then sipped daintily from her martini, closing her eyes and almost purring. “Oh là là.”


  Midge shifted in her seat, uncomfortable with the notion of her mother scouting out babes in the bar. There was something smarmy about listening to one’s own mother’s love stories—especially when she herself didn’t have any.

  “Please tell me you didn’t try to pick him up....”

  “No,” she replied with an incredulous expression, “another woman met him there, probably his wife.” She tsked, then leaned farther back into the sofa’s cushions and looked long and hard through a drunken haze at her daughter. “But what if I had? What would be so wrong with that? Do you think because I’m of a certain age I can’t attract a man any longer? Or, God forbid, that I don’t want one?”

  “No, Mother, but there’s such a thing as dignity.”

  Edith threw back her head and laughed a throaty laugh. “I think we have more than enough of that in you for one family. You’d do well to drop a little of yours, darling, and go out and mingle more. Shake it up. It’s no wonder you haven’t met a decent man. You’ll never find anyone if you don’t hunt.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to hunt for anyone.”

  Edith waved her hand dismissively. “Of course you do, honey. You’re just too shy. You keep your nose stuck in your paints. Stick by your mama, I’ll show you a few tricks of the trade.”

  She clicked her tongue and ran her palm along her hips in what she clearly thought was a sexy move. Midge thought she was going to be sick. In a flash she remembered the first time she’d come home from Boston College. It was parents’ weekend and her mother didn’t want to come out East just to hang around a bunch of rah-rah-rahing freshman parents. So Midge decided to fly home to surprise her. And, too, because she didn’t want to hang around the dorms while all the other freshmen’s parents were getting tours, participating in events and taking their kids out to dinner. When her mother had opened the front door, however, she was not happy to see her. Why are you here? she’d asked in a heated whisper, then looked over her shoulder into the house. Grabbing her purse, she’d closed the door behind her and, stuffing a few twenties into her hand, told Midge to go to the Carlyle Hotel in town. She had a houseguest. When Midge moaned and asked why she couldn’t just sleep in her own room, Edith merely rolled her eyes, clicked her tongue, and said with that same coy expression how her friend didn’t know she had a college-age daughter and she didn’t want him to know, either.

  “I’m homesick,” Edith was saying, still stroking Prince’s head. “I miss the Midwest. The smells, the accent, the life-style. I miss the city.”

  Midge prickled that her mother didn’t mention her own name in that lineup. “But what about your life in Florida? Your friends there? The condo?”

  She shrugged her slim shoulders as though to say, What about them?

  Midge glanced quickly at the mountain of luggage and swallowed hard, sensing with thinly disguised dread where this conversation was headed. She could feel the migraine building power like thunderclouds.

  “What about Atlanta?” she offered eagerly as a detour. “It’s a great city, nice climate, and Joe and Liz would love to have you nearby.” Her brother and his family would kill her if they’d heard what she’d just said. Edith drove Liz crazy with her less than subtle suggestions on how to raise the boys.

  “I suppose,” she said with a sigh.

  Midge’s blood went cold and she set her wineglass down on the wood table. Drawing herself up, she met her mother’s gaze and asked directly, “Mother, how long are you planning to stay?”

  Midge held her breath as her mother’s face turned impish.

  “Indefinitely,” she said, brows up and eyes bright.

  Midge must have screeched or jolted, she didn’t know, but Prince leaped to his tiny paws and jumped from Edith’s lap. He scurried across the wood floor with his long nails clicking to stand at Midge’s feet, and yelped so hard his whole body left the ground. Midge heard the barks as explosions in her already aching head and raised her hands to her ears.

  “Hush, Prince,” Edith called out, clapping her hands. “We must be good guests. Stop that. Come here right this minute. Prince!”

  Midge stared down into the bulging black eyes of the little dog who, it was quite obvious, obeyed no one but himself. She lowered her head to within inches of the bouncing ball of white fur, took a deep breath, then bellowed, “No!”

  Instantly the poodle stopped barking and lowered itself belly-down on the carpet, eyes quivering in submission. Across the carpet, her mother sat upright with her hands flopped in her lap and her mouth agape, as though she’d lost all her wind. Midge felt a soaring triumph that she’d managed not only to silence a runt of a dog, but for once, her mother.

  * * *

  March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. Eve had always liked this expression, though she didn’t know why exactly. Probably because it implied: Let the worst blow in, let the cold winds howl.... We can endure because we know in our hearts that kinder, gentler times are ahead.

  She said this phrase to herself often in early March. There were still a good two months of cold, iffy weather coming. She always wanted to slap the person who felt compelled to remind everyone in March that, “It can always snow in Chicago in May!” She was so ready for the warmth of sunshine on her face again after this long, hard winter—for some joy in her life after so much sadness. Putting the house on the market was hard enough, but waiting in limbo for someone to buy it was even harder. The torturous waiting had accomplished one feat, however. It made her eager to clean out her closets and rid herself of mountains of clutter that she’d accumulated over the years. How could she have collected so much stuff? Stuffed animals, baby clothes and paraphernalia, half-finished craft and sewing projects, piles of children’s artworks, old books... It was endless.

  The Goodwill truck had been a regular at her house over the past few months. The last things to go were Tom’s personal items. Clearing out these tangible memories were the toughest, not only for her but for the children. So, on this first day of March, while the children were away at school, Eve tied an apron around her waist, took a deep breath, then opened his bedroom closet. The sight of the row of dark suits and trousers, the line of laundered shirts and an array of colorful ties hit her like a blast of winter air. She gasped and let her gaze wander over the three upper shelves crammed with hats, gloves and who knew what else. Below the suits lay Tom’s shoes: plain leather tie, tennis and sandals. Eve squared her shoulders and entered the closet. It was time for this first letting go.

  Annie had already tidied up the banking, investments and retirement plans. Her friend couldn’t have been more patient, teaching her reluctant pupil what she needed to learn to take over her own finances.

  Now it was her turn to finish putting her house in order. She was resolved to get through this task quickly, but when she pulled out the first suit, the moment her hand touched the fine wool, her heart lurched. She brought the jacket to her nose and inhaled the faint scent of his body, still lingering in the fibers. She’d heard that scent was a great trigger of memories, and oh, it was true. They hit like a tidal wave, flooding her.

  But she was better at navigating her emotions now. She wiped her eyes, sniffed, and carried on. One by one the beautiful suits were neatly folded and placed in one of the three large boxes destined to go to charity. As she packed, she recalled with sweet nostalgia the last time she’d seen Tom wearing the navy double-breasted suit, or the brown suede jacket, or his dinner jacket and cummerbund. He looked so handsome in formal wear....

  The boxes filled quickly, and as she closed them up and taped them tight, she felt as though she were sealing away a part of her own history with them. She saved the military uniform from his Vietnam days, as well as personal pieces of jewelry and accessories—things the children would want to keep. Next she went through his toiletries, selecting those items that could be donated and those that had to be tossed out
. It pained her to discard even a half bottle of used cologne or leftover medications that littered the bathroom shelves. It was hard to think that anything that Tom had once held in his hands was garbage.

  By early afternoon, she’d completed a clean sweep. All that remained was the no-man’s-land of his upper closet—“the pit,” Tom had called it as he tossed anything and everything into it. Pushing back a fallen lock of hair, she climbed up the step stool and began sorting through the miscellaneous junk: flashlights, an old stethoscope, a blood pressure cuff, a few firecrackers, leather gloves and a dusty felt hat. High on the top shelf, behind a blanket, she found an old metal file box. Pulling it down she smiled with surprise. Why, she hadn’t seen this old thing in years! It was one of the few items he’d brought to their first apartment, that and an old brown leather recliner that was an eyesore. Her hand glided over the cool metal as memories of those early years of their marriage flitted across her mind. How young they were! They thought they’d known everything.... He used to store his important papers in here, treasured items that he held very dear and very private.

  Curious to discover what was still inside, she tried opening it, but it was locked. She climbed down the ladder and carried the box to the kitchen. After a few crude tries with a knife, the old lock popped open. She felt a tremor of excitement as she carried it to the table, sat in a chair and slowly opened the lid.

  Only a few items lay inside. She pulled out an old pocket watch, the glass of which was shattered. She recognized it as belonging to Tom’s grandfather, a keepsake from a man he didn’t remember. Next she discovered an old Roman gold coin that he’d received from his favorite uncle when he graduated from high school. Her heart beat faster, realizing that these were very special treasures. There was his first set of surgical tools, a ring of keys of no known significance and an old, canceled bank book that dated back to the year of their wedding. Inside the book was a photograph of the two of them looking very much in love on the beach in Cancun. Oh, and they were, she thought fondly, eyes misting. This was a photo from their honeymoon, and this was his canceled savings account for that trip. He’d saved for a year to take her away somewhere special. She pressed the book to her heart, then looked again into the box. She found a few Father’s Day cards from the children and her heartstrings tugged, grateful that he was so sentimental he’d kept these sweet mementos. He’d never told her.