Our Father

by Marilyn French

  It was the funeral of the decade, and he, Hollis Whitehead, had arranged the whole thing—with the assistance of the secretaries in the office of the governor and some presidential aides, of course. He, Hollis Whitehead, could count himself attorney for and trusted confidant of the greatest men in the United States. With a solemn self-consciousness of the weighty place in history borne by these great men, he took his place as one—if only a minor one—among them, at the end of the row where Evelyn waited for him beside the Upton nephews. And when he took his wife’s hand with bowed head and a humble heart, there were tears in his eyes. Dear old Cab.

  Ronnie sat at the computer for two hours, but barely saw the screen. She was merely moving words about. She decided to clear her head by taking a walk, and set out toward town, a longer walk than the one through the back woods. Everything seemed gray—earth, trees, sky. Her face was shadowed by the hood of her down jacket, but she was grateful for her Indian face, which she knew seemed impassive, concealed any tumult inside her. My face has built-in privacy, she thought.

  They hadn’t acted the way she thought they would last night, she had been being her old negative self. They hadn’t totally abandoned her, they cared about her, cared to some degree anyway, no, they cared a lot, they had the same feeling of connection she had, they too seemed to feel that their connection mattered profoundly, that it kept each of them from feeling like a fragment, the terrible feeling of being like a discarded hand or eye floating in space, eternally in search of the arm or head it belonged to. Blood ties were not like friendship, friendship could be changed, blood couldn’t, not ever—a family was something you were irrevocably tied to. It survived disagreements, conflict, even hatred. Even if the connection were severed, it went on living, it had a life of its own. People who hated their parents or siblings might avoid them for decades yet if they were reconnected with them, symbolically or really, they could rise into a tornado of ferocity, explode, even kill. Blood ties were stronger than marriage by far—husbands and wives could divorce and completely forget about the existence of the other. Look how little impression any of Mary’s marriages made on her—all except the last one, Don. …

  But blood ties …! Look at Mary yearning for Elizabeth’s love, approval, all these years; and Alex all these years gnawing her heart out for her sisters. And Elizabeth denying it, pretending she didn’t need anybody, but she was the loneliest of all of them, longed most for … something. No one ever longed for me of course. Oh, Momma did, what am I thinking? But here I was, completely unaware of wanting them, yet all the while wanting to be recognized as their sister, as his child, wanting it almost more than I wanted to breathe or eat or walk and I didn’t even know it.

  To live, you must love, Ronnie.

  Is that what she meant?

  Okay, so they feel it, but strongly enough to counter the effect of all those millions of dollars they’re inheriting? Strongly enough that when they leave here I’ll be anything to them but an embarrassment, a sister remembered but left behind, like some half-wit half sister who married years ago and is now an alcoholic slob living in a trailer camp out west somewhere.

  Too many differences among us. Even the surface ones are amazing really. Lizzie and Mary were at least raised Episcopalian and I guess they consider me Catholic and Alex seems to consider herself Jewish.

  But even if we were all the same everything, we’d have trouble understanding each other. Our take on things isn’t the same. We don’t inhabit the same mindspace, and we certainly don’t share the same … heartspace. Share enough feeling that we can reach across all the extremes of what we don’t share.

  It’s like the problem all the women’s movements have faced—women come from different classes, religions, colors. … No movement has ever been able to unify for very long, or in large numbers, can’t get past all the differences. Rich women need maids, need other women to be poor. Hatred among white, black, brown, yellow, red, all the variations, all the religions and splinter religions, how clever they are, the ones who made up, set up this system. Keeps us at each other’s throats while they sit safely in luxury raking in all the moolah. Start wars, send us off to kill each other while they stay home, make laws and weapons.

  We all join in wholeheartedly, men hate women, whites blacks, straights hate gays, religions hate religions. …

  And you’re so pure? Jesus, I do the same thing, participate in this. All my life I’ve been part of it. Who don’t I hate? Rich white bitches looking down on a little chicana, straights who act homophobic, whites who treat people of color like a servant class, women who spend more on a dress than a working woman earns in a month, men who buy two three-thousand-dollar suits, exorbitantly expensive cars, stereos, airplanes, all the male toys, men who treat women like a servant class, men who look at women as if they were things to buy, who whistle at them on the streets, men who rape, murder, beat women, men who pay women like me too little to live on, men who pass laws that harm women, men who think they own women’s bodies, men who vote themselves more and more power, men who build armaments then make us pay for them out of our taxes, men who poison the entire earth, men who rule, men like him. …

  Him.

  But how can I not hate him? How can I not hate his kind? How can I not hate the system that gives them this power?

  And if I give up my hate, how do I hold myself together?

  She stood still on the grass under an old oak, thinking. Then she walked on, hands in her pockets, head bowed, tiredly, like a weary old woman.

  Alex, Mary, and Ronnie were drinking wine in the playroom. “Not that I need any more,” Alex sighed. “Good heavens, there was so much food and drink at that man’s house—what was his name?”

  “Worth, idiot!”

  “Yes.” Alex’s voice rose indignantly. “Worth a lot!” she giggled a little tipsily “People were drinking so much! I never saw people drink so much. Heavens, that President Nixon! And that big tall man everyone seemed to like so much, who joked about being in enemy territory, why did he say that?”

  “He’s a Democrat,” Mary said dryly.

  “Oh. Well, his face was the color of a watermelon. But all of them really … and they are the people who run this country? It’s shocking!”

  Elizabeth had not returned with the others. She had had Aldo drop her at her mother’s apartment in the Prudential Center (“Horrible place,” Mary bristled), where she would spend the night “and maybe even part of tomorrow!” Mary announced in shock. “I can’t believe she’d spend time with that bitch.”

  Alex glanced at her. “Do you know Elizabeth’s mother?”

  Mary raised her eyebrows. “I met her once or twice. Years ago, in Boston, when Lizzie lived with her.”

  “So how do you know she’s a bitch?”

  “Well, listen to how Lizzie talks about her!”

  Alex looked at her penetratingly, unsmiling.

  Mary raised her shoulders haughtily and turned her face away.

  Alex sipped her wine, gazing at Mary over the rim of her glass.

  “Really, Alexandra, you act as if you were our … priest … or something. What makes you so superior?”

  Alex looked surprised. “Is that how I’m acting? I’m sorry. It’s hard to know how to act when there are things you want to say and you feel you can’t say them. I always used to feel—too—embarrassed—ashamed—to say what I thought, and I decided I wouldn’t do that anymore. It’s hard to change your whole self.”

  “Why do you need to?” Ronnie wondered.

  “Because I’m a different person now. I’m … well, Alexandra.”

  “So, Alexandra, what is it you’re dying to say?” Mary asked sarcastically.

  Alex looked at her fingers. “Just that it’s so easy for us to call each other bitches, cows, all the things women call women—you know. Especially our mothers. Maybe Elizabeth’s mother is a decent woman. We don’t know. I think about how angry I am with my mother, how I—I actually hate her at moments, for lying to m
e, for not telling me, for letting me walk around feeling hollow where … something important—my heart, or my stomach or my courage—was supposed to be. But I know my mother is a good woman, a kind person, I know she meant the best for me. I have so much … bitterness, I guess it is … because I needed her to do something she didn’t do. Because I’m her daughter.”

  Mary studied her rings. “Okay. So you’re saying I’m just jealous that Elizabeth has a mother to visit and I don’t.”

  “That isn’t what I was saying!”

  “Well, but maybe it’s true.”

  Alex sighed.

  Ronnie was gazing at the two of them still dressed in their black dresses and hose and heels, Mary in a chiffon with a full skirt in layered panels, Alex in a silk and wool sheath that showed off her slender graceful figure. Ronnie was wearing dirty jeans and a torn sweatshirt. Especially for the occasion, she pronounced formally—but silently.

  “So how was the funeral?” she asked finally.

  “Oh, splendid,” Mary sneered. “Totally splendid. Eulogies by the bishop, the president, the governor, the former president, the former secretary of state, the senior partner in his old law firm, oh, and much much more …! They all found him the most distinguished man of his generation, of course that was easy for them to grant him, he’s not part of their generation. They called him brilliant, a great political strategist, god we probably wouldn’t have won World War II without him, a great sense of humor—he must’ve reserved it for men, at least I never saw it—a man who could keep secrets—well, that part’s true—confidant of the heads of state of half the western world, along with the heads of their secret service agencies, their banks, their military forces …”

  “I didn’t hear that, Mary!” Alex protested.

  Mary grimaced and leaned toward Alex. “I know, sweetheart,” she said. She reached out and patted her hand.

  “Oh, was I being naive again?” she wailed faintly.

  “So who was there?” Ronnie asked hungrily.

  “I told you!” Mary repeated several dozen names, starting with the president, but the last ten or so were unknown to Ronnie.

  “The real rulers of our world, my dear,” Mary explained.

  “And where did they all sit?”

  “Hollis and the governor’s protocol officer drew up a list.” Mary sketched the seating plan for Ronnie. “Most of the family sat in the Upton pew,” she concluded.

  “What about Elizabeth’s mother?”

  “Oh, she was someplace in the back. Way back. I didn’t see where.”

  “And was there a servants’ row?” Ronnie asked with a nasty smirk on her face.

  Mary bristled. “I don’t know. I think Aldo was sitting someplace in the back, but Mrs. Browning said she’d just stay here and do her job, that she’d prefer to mourn in her own way.”

  “Ummm.”

  How did the girl manage to make everything she said sound so snippy?

  “And how was the reception?”

  “Splendid. Overflowing with food, drink, and famous names.”

  “Did the president come?”

  “No, he had to fly to California to give a speech. But Nixon and Vice President Bush stopped in for fifteen minutes. Worth was quietly overjoyed, you could see him counting support as he pumped hands. I’ll bet you anything he runs for governor next election. Hollis was so impressed, if he hadn’t thought it undignified, he would have knelt to him. …” Mary laughed.

  “And were you formally presented to all of them?”

  “Yeees!” Alex drawled, sprawling back in her chair. “God I was livid with fright. My hands were cold as ice. But they didn’t really even see you, you know? Except Mary, they kind of looked at her, didn’t they Mare?” She made goo-goo eyes at Mary, who grimaced-grinned. “It didn’t matter. Except I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to curtsey or not, and I kept wanting to and Lizzie kept hauling me up by my arm.” She giggled again.

  “What’s Worth’s house like?”

  “Smaller and darker but grander than this one. No comfortable back playrooms or sun rooms. But it has a similar feeling. It smells exactly the same as this one, you know—beeswax and lavender—and every surface shines. Full of old furniture and paintings, some of the windows have nineteenth-century stained glass. Nice. It hasn’t been let go like this place.”

  “And what did people talk about?”

  “What people always talk about—gossip about each other: sex, politics, money—only in a disguised way of course, you know, deals.”

  “I would have hated it, wouldn’t I?”

  “You probably couldn’t have contained yourself. You would have leapt up on a table and begun giving a speech damning all these men to eternal hellfire. You might have livened things up a bit.” Mary raised an eyebrow. “So you did wish you were with us! You would have liked to be there!” Mary crowed.

  “Just wondering what particular kind of obscenity it was,” Ronnie said airily, then smiled nastily. “So Mary, didn’t you spot a potential husband in that huge crowd?”

  She grimaced. “Several. Really makes one wonder about oneself. Ones old self.” She turned to Alex.

  Alex smiled at her radiant with gratitude. “So you do understand!”

  Ronnie looked at them curiously. Alex was gazing through the sliding doors to the terrace at the dark woods beyond. Her face wore an expression of almost blissful serenity. Mary was staring down at her hands, folded in her lap, as if she were contemplating some profundity. Christ. If these were the new women, give me back the old.

  “So Elizabeth’s mother did come to the funeral?”

  “Yes. In an imitation Chanel suit, can you imagine?” Mary said acidly.

  Well, the new Mary’s not that different from the old.

  Alex spoke up petulantly. “We didn’t even get to meet her! I was so disappointed, I told Elizabeth I wanted to meet her. She just disappeared afterwards, of course, she wasn’t invited to Worth’s house. But we could have gone up when we dropped Elizabeth off and had a drink with her! I told Elizabeth that! But she just brushed me off, she just said, ‘Some other time, Alex.’ She said there wasn’t enough time but I don’t know what the rush was. She didn’t even remember to call me Alexandra. She certainly had time for all those important men. She wasn’t too busy to talk to them!” she added in a wounded voice.

  I think I liked the old Alex better.

  Alex seemed to sulk for a while, then turned brightly to Ronnie. “Oh, it was a horrible day, Ronnie! Horrible! So stiff and boring and …”

  “Pretentious,” Mary put in.

  “YES!” Alex cried. “I wish you’d been there, Ronnie! We could have giggled together.”

  Well, maybe she’s not so bad.

  “So what did you do today?”

  Ronnie shrugged. “Took a walk. Did a little soul-searching.”

  “You too? I thought you already had everything figured out, had done enough soul-searching for your whole lifetime,” Mary said, not maliciously, even, perhaps, with affectionate acceptance.

  “You did?”

  “Sure. You seem to be the only one of us who has it together in her head. Your generation, I guess.”

  “But maybe what I have is a headful of garbage. …”

  Mary looked over at her appraisingly. “Well, if so, it’s no worse garbage than we carry around. At least you have a purpose in your life.”

  “I have a purpose in my life,” Alex said dreamily.

  “And what is that, pussykins?” Mary asked patronizingly.

  “To be a blade of grass and crack concrete,” Alex confessed.

  A blade of grass to crack concrete. Imagine that. What can she mean by it? But isn’t that the ideal, somehow? Supple and green, tender shoots of grass, nourishing earth, animals, giving off the wonderful sweet wet smell of dew in the morning and when it’s cut the dew just seems to pour out of it and yet it is so powerful, it can crack concrete, burrow the road, check a marble mausoleum, eat up a city if you give it ti
me, crack through all the life-killing edifices of our effort to prove that we preside over grass, that we are supreme. …

  Who would have thought of Alex coming up with something like that? Isn’t that what I want to be, isn’t that what environmental work means to me, don’t I study a moss that stops the onslaught of the machines, a moss that stands up and cries out that its place in nature is essential, that we cannot do without it, that each small thing figures as intrinsically in the whole as the large things, and nothing is marginal. …

  Ronnie was sitting cross-legged on her bed in her underpants and T-shirt, staring at the night sky and smoking.

  Where did she ever come up with that ambition? And how does she expect to realize it? With her millions, maybe. What on earth will her husband say? Giving all that money to the starving Armenians? Hey, Alex, how about a little glance closer to home. …

  Well, that’s her problem.

  Mine is this hate.

  How not be part of it, a hating structure? How escape and still stand for yourself? Can you give up hate and still fight, still stand as hard as you have to?

  Can you oppose without hatred?

  Hating—that’s drawing a line in the sand and saying, okay, across this line is evil, on this side is only murky. Can you understand and oppose without hating?

  How.

  To live it is necessary to love, Ronnie.

  How can I love …?

  Try to think of him giving you one kind glance, one touch, performing a single kind act. …

  Forget it.

  Try to think of him giving Momma a kind glance, touch, act. …