by Marge Piercy
“I got your phone number from her address book. You have the same last name. Her name is Mary Elizabeth.”
“That sounds like my mother, but I only have one sister, and she lives in Chevy Chase. Her name is Cindy.”
“What’s her last name?”
There was a short silence. “We aren’t a tight-knit family. I’m trying to remember. Austin. That’s it! Her husband’s name is … Ron Austin. But Mother never lived with her. They didn’t get along.”
“You have no other sisters? Maybe a sister-in-law?”
“I was married before, but Mother wouldn’t have anything to do with my ex-wife. No, you got the facts wrong. Mother never lived with Cindy.”
“So how do you reach your mother? Do you have a phone for her?”
“We write letters. I have her address.” He read off the number of a post office box in Kenmore Square. “Once in a blue moon, she calls me, but she’s not much for the telephone. Says all she can think about is how much it’s costing.”
While he was talking, she checked out the address book she had taken from Mary Burke’s oversized purse. Ron and Cindy Austin were listed, at a Chevy Chase address. “What do you want me to do about your mother?”
“It seems to me you’re doing just fine. It’s hard for me to do anything more than cheer on the progress from this distance.”
“Well, frankly, you could send her some money. I don’t know when she’ll be able to work again.”
“I’ll see what I can do, but I have a family, and business here is pretty slow. I’m trying to keep a small business afloat, and it’s not easy. I’ll see what I can do, but I’m not a rich guy. I have a wife and two little kids, and child support from my last one. Now my sister, her husband rakes it in. They live high. It’s them you should be hitting up for some money for Mother.”
After the call was over, she pondered. No doubt this guy was mildly upset about his mother, but Mary Burke was too distant from his present life. She was not a priority. It was late to call the daughter in Maryland; that was for tomorrow. Hit up, huh? She wondered whether when she was Mrs. Burke’s age, if she needed help, would David think she was hitting him up?
She was not overjoyed about having a sick and feverish woman she barely knew on a personal level lying like a beached and dying whale in her bed. She felt petty in her objections, but she also felt invaded. Further she could see the responsibility for resolving the situation landing right on her head. Tomorrow she must call the daughter. Sons could slough off obligations more readily than daughters, and perhaps Mary was closer to her daughter?
Maybe there was some relative in the Boston area she referred to as her daughter. Families had different branches. Maybe a child by a previous marriage or even a child borne out of wedlock in the scandal that would have represented forty years ago. One she had given up for adoption? Perhaps Leila was being too dramatic. This daughter might turn out to be a cousin, or the daughter of a close friend. Whoever the woman was that Mary lived with, Leila would track her down. She wanted her bedroom back.
She scanned the newspapers until the day she had left. There was a fire. Abandoned building, homeless squatters. Suspected arson. Woman identified as Beverly Bozeman. Leila sat up abruptly and Vronsky stared at her. That was the name of the woman who had been raped and left for dead; the woman Mary Burke had taken an intense interest in. Three killed in a fire. Too much coincidence here. She was beginning to wonder about this invisible home.
Carrying Waif and followed by Vronsky, she went to bed in David’s room. She felt uncomfortable, invading his privacy. She rarely entered his room, unless he asked for something. She tucked Waif into her armpit and Vronsky curled against her thigh, but she was awake long after they dozed off. She felt like an overworked and understaffed social service agency, with more clients than she knew how to handle. Her life had become a series of external catastrophes. She had not had time all week to think about the end of her marriage and what she wanted, how she intended to live now. She had a sudden great urge to see Zak, to bury herself in him. She longed for some warm and intimate and very personal comfort. She wanted to be something more than a resource, at least for an evening.
Tomorrow she would tackle the problem of the daughter.
FIFTY-TWO
Mary
Mary came out of her burning fever gradually. At first she had no idea where she was. Then she remembered and she tried to bolt. She struggled out of bed and made it halfway across the room before she fell. A strange woman appeared, a nurse, and helped her back to bed, scolding her as if she were a retarded child. “Now, now, Mary, we mustn’t do that. If we want something, we have to call out or ring this bell. You see? On the bedside table. Mrs. Landsman left us a little bell.”
“I’ve got to get out of here.”
The woman muscled her back into bed. “What you have to do is rest, drink lots of water and get better. You had pneumonia and your lungs were full of fluid. You were dangerously ill.”
“I’m better now.”
“Yeah, you’re better. You can talk like a human being instead of groaning and moaning and carrying on. Right. But if you try to push your body, you’ll have a relapse.” The big woman snapped her fingers. “Just like that.”
She was frightened but she could not stay awake. She sank into an exhausted sleep, waking to her coughing. The room was dark. This time she remembered where she was. It was a disaster. She vaguely remembered Mrs. Landsman coming into the room and talking to her.
When the nurse brought in soup on a tray, she asked, “You came here this morning?”
“Honey, I been taking care of you, this is the third day. You sure you don’t recollect? You told me all about your son.” The woman was perhaps a few years younger than Mary, not as big as she had appeared at first.
“My son? I don’t remember. I have to leave here.”
The woman put a bony hand on Mary’s shoulder. “You don’t have to do anything but mind me and rest. Now drink your soup.”
“Where is Mrs. Landsman?”
“She’ll be home later on. She and her boyfriend’re out eating Chinese. She’s paying for me, you know. You got a good friend there.”
Mary didn’t feel up to explaining that Mrs. Landsman was not her friend, but her part-time employer. She was surely fired. The service would not put up with her disappearing for days. “What day is this?”
“You finish up that bowl of soup, and I’ll tell you. No way otherwise.”
Mary slowly spooned the warm soup into herself. Sweat broke out on her forehead. She slid farther under the covers.
“It’s Wednesday. Mrs. Landsman found you here on Sunday. I been coming in every day since Monday A.M..”
“I have to call the service I work for.”
“Mrs. Landsman already called them. She called your son and your daughter too. Called the doctor. Remember her? A strong-built lady.”
Mary frowned. “I think so.… Mrs. Landsman called my daughter?”
Nodding, the nurse carried out the tray. “You ask her about that.”
The whole card house of her life had collapsed. Now what would become of her? The service must know she was homeless, and they would never keep her on. Her daughter must know too and would not let her see her grandchildren ever again. Cindy would pretend that Mary was dead before she would admit to allowing her mother to be homeless. It would be shameful. It was all too shameful for everyone, including herself. What was going to become of her?
She would have to go back to a shelter and start over again. But she was older. It would be harder. Still, she had her nut put away. They couldn’t touch that. If Mrs. Landsman thought Mary was going to pay her back for a nurse and doctor, she would never admit to having that account. Unless Mrs. Landsman had found the checkbook. She looked for her cany-all and her bag. Mrs. Landsman must have taken them, or how would she have found Jaime and Cindy? She imagined Mrs. Landsman going through her things, all that she owned in the world, her precious, pitiable th
ings. And the sleeping bag. Mrs. Landsman must have seen the sleeping bag.
Wednesday she had come from the emergency room over here and slowly cleaned the house. The next day she had cleaned for Mrs. Anzio in Watertown. She had already been coughing hard, weak and feverish. That night she had returned to Mrs. Landsman’s, giddy and sick. Friday she had not been able to get up for work and then everything blurred.
She hauled herself up on the pillows in the bed. It was Mrs. Landsman’s bed. She was scared. What would become of her? She heard voices downstairs. The nurse strode in. “Mary, I’m leaving now. See you tomorrow. You keep drinking that water beside your bed, you hear? Mrs. Landsman is back.”
Mary thought she was going to pass out. She kept wishing she was still sleeping in the squat with Beverly beside her, safe together, cold but in good company. She would wake up from a terrible dream and it would be last Wednesday. Her only friend had died. Houdini and Mouse had never wakened. They were all dead. Only she remained to mourn. She wished she had died in her sleep, that she had never, never roused to her bleak hopeless life. She was tired of fighting disaster. She was exhausted. She wished she had died over the weekend when she was raging with fever lying on this bed that belonged to another woman—as everything belonged to somebody else.
Mrs. Landsman came into the room. “Ms. Odell says that you can talk now. That’s the nurse who just left.” Mrs. Landsman was wearing a blue silk dress with a V-neck, not the way she dressed for work or around the house. She had nice legs, Mary noted with surprise. Mrs. Landsman’s face was flushed. She seemed nervous and stood just inside the door. A man entered behind her. He was only a little taller and about her age, slender, with curly, almost kinky hair and glasses. Was this what the nurse called her boyfriend? Mary didn’t believe it. Middle-aged women who were dumped didn’t show up a month later with a boyfriend, believe her, she knew.
Mary didn’t say anything. She felt the less she said, the better.
Mrs. Landsman came reluctantly, cautiously into the room. “You had pneumonia, as I’m sure the nurse explained. I found you here very, very ill when I returned from San Diego Sunday night.”
Mary realized she had to say something. “I’m sorry about being here. I collapsed when I came to feed the cats after work.”
“I understand. But where else would you have gone?” Mrs. Landsman came a few steps farther and pulled up a chair beside the bed.
The man leaned against the dresser that had used to be Mr. Landsman’s. He looked interested and mildly amused. Mary kept glancing at him, waiting for him to speak. She was not used to men who hung back and kept quiet when women were speaking. Maybe he just felt it was none of his business and he was better out of it. So why did he stay in the room? He made her nervous. “I’ll leave as soon as I can. I tried to leave today, but I couldn’t make it across the room.”
“I’m going to move you into my son’s room tomorrow. I have to come and go all the time in here to get my clothes.… But if you left here, where would you go?”
“Home, of course.”
“Nobody has an address for you. Even your daughter only has a post office box.”
“You talked to my daughter? What did you tell her?”
“Mostly I tried to get information from her. She doesn’t know much about you, does she?”
“She has her own problems. She has two kids, one in college and one in prep school. They have a big mortgage and they have a lifestyle to keep up.”
“I gathered as much.” Mrs. Landsman sighed.
“Mrs. Landsman, please leave my children alone. I’m not their responsibility. They have their own lives. I don’t want anybody interfering between me and my children.”
“You should call me Leila. And I should call you Mary. After all, we seem to be living together, for a time. You don’t have a home, right?”
Mary said nothing. Her heart was constricting in her chest. She could feel the sweat breaking out on her forehead. “I have to rest. I can’t talk any longer.”
Mrs. Landsman stood. “Don’t be frightened. We’ll figure out what to do. Frankly I’m ashamed that I didn’t realize you were in trouble long ago.”
“Did you tell the service?”
“Only that you had pneumonia and couldn’t be back to work for some time. I said you’d call them when you could work again.”
“They won’t stand for this. Disappearing.”
“They obviously didn’t pay you enough to live on, anyhow.”
“When I get better, I’ll look for a job as bank president.” Mary began coughing spasmodically.
Mrs. Landsman laughed. “Rest. I assume Ms. Odell gave you your antibiotic before she left? Great. Okay, good night.”
Mary tried to think what to do, but even her fierce anxiety could not keep her awake. She had dreams of running, of being hunted, of danger and pursuit, but she slept on. When she woke, she heard soft voices in the next room. They were murmuring, laughing. He was in there with her. Mary was shocked. She had not thought Mrs. Landsman that sort of woman. She wasn’t even legally divorced yet.
Still, Mary thought, women survived as they could. Who knew where Mrs. Landsman had found him, but she did seem to have a boyfriend. He didn’t look sleazy. Maybe she’d landed on her feet. Mary was astonished. She would swear on a stack of Bibles that Mrs. Landsman hadn’t been fooling around. Yet here she was showing off her legs and going to bed with another man.
It wasn’t that Mary didn’t understand trying to make another marriage. She had come up to Boston with a man she had known for years through Jim. Doug had been divorced two years before. Doug had been taking her out to dinner now and then for a couple of months, when his firm transferred him to Boston. He wanted to bring someone he could trust who would help him get settled. She had no office skills beyond simple typing, but she knew how to organize. She had become his personal assistant at the Boston office of a chain that sold and installed office equipment, making decent money and wearing nice clothes and having a sweet little apartment.
She had not been with Doug in Boston more than two weeks when he pressed her to become intimate with him. She had not been comfortable with the idea, but she understood she had little choice. She wanted him to marry her. She could see herself in the nice house she had found for him in Waltham. At first Doug was uncomfortable in Boston. He had been living in the Washington area for twenty years. He knew how to do business there. In Boston he was lonely. He found the climate harsh. He missed the Tidewater area. He seemed to have no idea how to re-situate himself physically or socially.
She found the house, she arranged for his things to be moved North, she waited for the movers and unpacked him. She bought the household things he needed. He arranged for her to have a credit card so that she could buy for him. She felt almost married again. For the next two years, she had constantly hoped he would marry her, but did not feel that she could push him.
Still, she had her own nice little apartment in Allston, near the Green Line. She was covered by medical insurance. She was making enough to get by comfortably, to go down and visit her daughter and the grandchildren. She was saving to visit her son in Hawaii. She was making a new life.
Then Doug got interested in a woman at an interior decorating firm they were working with. The relationship between Mary and Doug tapered off gradually. About two months after he had stopped seeing her, she got her pink slip. Reorganization. Her position was being eliminated.
Eight months passed before she got the job in the stationery store in Kenmore Square. By then she was living in that one-room walk-up. She had thought she had come down in the world. She complained to her daughter, until Cindy stopped taking her calls.
Mary caught on. She stopped complaining. She stopped describing her tiny walk-up to Cindy or worrying aloud about her lack of medical insurance (the storekeeper couldn’t afford to give it to her and the job didn’t pay enough for her to buy it on her own) and how badly she needed a car. She shut up about herself, and Cindy wa
s once again willing to talk to her from time to time about the children and how well they were doing and her own problems with making ends meet in her upscale household. The kids always had to have what the others around them, often from more affluent families, had, whether it was clothes or a car or sporting equipment.
She asked herself if she had loved Doug. Certainly she had been fond of him. She had been dependent on him, while believing him to be entirely dependent on her. She was replaceable. He was not.
She could recall Jim’s slightest inflection, the way he had of scratching the back of one ankle on the front of the other. Mosquitoes always seemed to bite him on his ankles. She remembered walks they had taken in Shenandoah, the rustic cabin where they had made love. She remembered buying apples and apple syrup in the fall, and how he had loved cider that was just turning fizzy. She could close her eyes and see the nape of his neck or his knees.
She could scarcely call up Doug’s features. All the photographs of both of them and almost everyone in her life except for a couple of snapshots of her children and grandchildren in her wallet—they had gone the way of her other possessions. She had lost her mementos, but not her memories.
So she understood what Mrs. Landsman was grasping at. She could not blame her. Mrs. Landsman had just been much faster about it. Maybe it was the difference in their eras of growing up. Also she had been older than Mrs. Landsman when Jim had left her, forty-six. She did not know Mrs. Landsman’s age, but she was probably in her late thirties. It made a big difference, those eight or ten years.
It did not bother her to hear little noises through the wall. She had not been interested in sex for years. What she dreamed about was much more elemental: to have a place she could call home. She remembered a homeless man who had moved into a park on the border of Newton and Brookline undetected for years. He had built himself a rude shelter, but he had lived there peacefully, bothering nobody, among the deer and the rabbits. But the park authorities found him. They tore down his lean-to and thrust him on the streets, all in the name of conservation.
