“Is that what this is about?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I hope it’s the alcohol, but I’m not sure it is.”
He was quiet, and then he said, “When did you turn against me?”
“That’s not fair.”
“May? January? Two years ago?”
I said, “I know you’ve struggled with getting older, your fortieth birthday, your twentieth college reunion, but I wish you hadn’t been as—I guess what I’m trying to say is that there’s such a thing as suffering quietly.”
He laughed then, a dark chuckle. “Yeah, and apparently, you’ve cornered the market on it.”
“I’m going to sleep,” I said. “Everyone here is in bed, and I don’t want to disturb them. If you’d like, we can talk tomorrow.”
“Listen to yourself. You’re a fucking ice queen.”
“Please don’t insult me.”
“What do you want? What am I supposed to do?”
“I told you—I want space.”
“Alice, you know I can’t stay in this house alone. Come back here, that’s all I’m asking, and we’ll figure things out. I won’t, you know, molest you at night—hell, I’ll sleep in a different room. But this house gives me the fucking creeps.”
“I thought you were at the Ramada Inn.”
“That place gave me the creeps, too. I had to check out.”
“So you’re at home right now?”
“Where else would I be?”
“Our house isn’t creepy, Charlie, and we live in a very safe area. Did you close the living room and dining room curtains?”
“What if I drive out there?”
I was sitting at the kitchen table, and I closed my eyes. “Why don’t you call Arthur and Jadey? You should call soon, though, because I’m sure they’re about to go to bed if they haven’t already.”
“Yeah, and then I can be humped by Lucky all night long.”
“You could call John and Nan, or Ginger—”
“I don’t want to stay with any of my brothers! I don’t care to broadcast my personal business. I want to sleep at my own house, with my wife next to me, and my daughter down the hall. And you know what? Most people wouldn’t think that’s a whole hell of a lot to ask.”
I said nothing, and for a while, he said nothing, either. At last, in a less combative tone, he said, “Is Ella asking about me?”
“She misses you. If you’d like to call during the day tomorrow, I’m sure she’d love to talk.”
After a pause, he said, “Just so you know, you’ve sliced open my chest, you’ve pulled out my heart, and now you’re squeezing it with your bare hands, so I hope this exercise in marital introspection, or whatever the fuck you’re doing, I hope it’s worth it.”
“I’m going to bed, Charlie. I sincerely hope you can figure out a sleeping arrangement that makes you comfortable.”
“Don’t hang up on me.”
“I’m not hanging up. I’m saying good night. Good night, okay? Good night. Are you going to say it back to me?”
“Does our marriage mean nothing to you?”
“Charlie, I’m not hanging up on you, but if you don’t say good night back to me, I am going to hang up the phone. So for the last time, good night.”
“Fuck you,” he said, and then he was the one who ended the connection.
WE WERE AT Pine Lake when I heard the child crying—a girl, it sounded like, somewhere behind me—and I’d been aware of the crying for over a minute when I realized with a start that the child was Ella. I was sitting on a towel on the sand, my mother next to me in a folding chair, wearing not a bathing suit but slacks and a short-sleeved blouse; her one concession to the setting was that she was barefoot, holding her flats. She’d been telling me about the controversy over the location for Riley’s proposed statue to honor Korean War veterans—there was great disagreement about whether it ought to be on the shore of the Riley River or downtown on Commerce Street—and I turned, glancing over my shoulder, then jumped to my feet. “Mom, wait,” I said. “I’ll be back.”
Pine Lake’s beach wasn’t large—perhaps a hundred yards across—and though this had not been the case in my youth, there were a lifeguard and ropes indicating the sanctioned area for swimming. The beach was part of Pine Park, and in the grassy area near the sand were picnic tables and grills. The beach’s parking lot was gravel, and one corner was occupied by a frozen-custard truck whose side was a sliding window. Just outside this truck stood my daughter, wearing flip-flops and a bathing suit, her long hair wet and tangled, her face twisted and red as she sobbed hysterically. When I approached, she lunged toward me—she wailed, “Mommy!” and it was a heart-wrenching thing to hear—but her movement was stopped by a teenage boy who wore a white apron and was holding on to her wrist. Several people in the area, some snacking on candy bars or hamburgers, had stopped to watch.
“He’s hurting me,” Ella cried, and I said to the boy, “I’m her mother. What’s going on here?”
“She stole an ice-cream cone!” The boy was irate. He was about five feet six and pale, with fair close-cropped hair and a wispy mustache.
I set my hand on Ella’s wrist and nudged the boy’s hand away—firmly but not aggressively, I hoped. “I’ll take her,” I said, and to my relief, he released her. Immediately, Ella buried her face against my waist. “If you’ll tell me what happened, I’m sure we can solve the problem,” I said.
“She stole!” he repeated, and he pointed to the gravel, where a melting blob of vanilla ice cream was loosely joined to a cake cone. “She tried to take it without paying.”
Ella was mumbling against my stomach, protesting.
“What, sweetie?”
She pulled her head back, and her face remained tear-stained and flushed. “He wouldn’t let me sign for it!” She quickly hid her face again.
I said to the boy, “There’s been a misunderstanding. We don’t live in Riley, and where we live, we pay by—” It wasn’t worth it; explaining the rules of a country club could only be more damning. “If you can wait, I’ll get my wallet,” I said. “Did she have anything besides the ice cream?”
Ella lifted her head. “I didn’t even have the ice cream! He took it back!”
“You licked it,” the boy retorted, and I said, “How much was it?”
“A dollar seventy-five.”
“My wallet is in the car, which is over there.” I pointed. “The blue Volvo station wagon, do you see it? You can watch me walk there, and then I’ll come right back. Ella, will you come with me?” I smiled at the boy and at the other people who were observing us, then detached Ella from my torso and took her hand. As we headed in the direction of the car, she let her hair hang in front of her face. “I hate it here,” she said softly.
WHEN WE GOT back to the house, Jadey had called three times; Lars had dutifully noted the time of each call, down to the minute, on the pad of paper by the kitchen phone.
I went upstairs to return the call; I didn’t particularly want to talk to her, because I didn’t know what there was to say about the situation, but if I didn’t, it seemed clear she would keep trying, which would presumably increase my mother’s suspicion. And my mother had to suspect already—it could only be her midwestern reticence that was preventing her from asking me outright why we had descended so abruptly on her household.
“So you did it,” Jadey said. In the background, I could hear Lucky barking, and Jadey said to someone, “Put him in the yard.” I heard Winnie protesting, and Jadey said, “I’m not asking your brother, I’m asking you.” To me, she said, “Chas showed up here close to midnight last night.”
“How did he seem?”
“I only saw him for about a minute, and he took off early this morning, but he told Arthur you’re pissed at him. You didn’t file for divorce, did you?”
“No,” I said quickly. “No, we’re just—Ella and I are spending some time here for a while.”
“Alice, this is me you’re talking to. I won’t repe
at what you say, especially to Chas, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
I was more worried that she’d repeat it to Billy Torks or to one of her female friends.
“Were Reunions a disaster?” she said. “Remember what I told you—these guys set foot on campus and they go crazy. They get so caught up in the moment.”
“It wasn’t that,” I said. “Not completely, anyway. Jadey, I appreciate your concern, I really do, but I just need some distance.”
“No, do what you have to.” She lowered her voice—perhaps Winnie had returned to the room. “When you’re ready to come back, we’ll be waiting for you.”
THAT NIGHT, ELLA and Lars went to bed around the same time, and my mother and I watched Knots Landing together. I had assumed we’d be chatting while the show played, but to my surprise, I could tell from her body language that she’d become quite a devoted viewer, so I remained quiet except during commercials. When the program finished, she turned toward me, smiling in a shy way, and said, “I suppose it’s a bit pulpy.”
“Pulp has its charms.”
“I’m so sorry about poor Ella at the beach today. Do you know, I believe that was Tim Ziemniak who scolded her. I peeked over at the ice-cream truck as we were leaving.”
“Roy and Patty’s son?” Roy had been my classmate all through school, and his father had been my dentist; Patty had also attended Benton County Central High but graduated a few years after us.
“I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it,” my mother said. “He couldn’t be but fourteen or fifteen, and I’ll bet he takes his responsibilities awfully seriously.”
“Ella will be all right,” I said.
“Having her here, it makes me think of you at that age.”
“Oh, Ella’s a lot spunkier than I was,” I said. “She’s a real ball of energy.”
“Well—” My mother paused, and her tone was reflective in that way that is inevitably sad, because the past is sad. “What I remember,” she said, “is that you were always such a dear little girl.”
I felt a great surge of affection for her in this moment; I had been so lucky to be raised, to be loved, by a calm, uncomplicated mother. I often had not appreciated her, I thought, overshadowed as she was by my more showy and entertaining grandmother. But really, the older I got, the more I observed the cruelties family members inflicted on one another, out of jealousy or ignorance or private despair, and sometimes for sport—people could be so savage in such banal, daily ways. This was what I didn’t want for Ella: for nothing but chance, the chance of her birth, to put her at the mercy of Charlie’s selfishness and immaturity. To be around an adult who acted thoughtlessly and impulsively and then to watch it go unchecked, unpunished—I felt that could give a child a misunderstanding of the world, hindering her ability to see logical patterns. I did not care if Ella went to Princeton, if she was exceptionally pretty, if she grew up to marry a rich man, or really, if she married at all—there were many incarnations of her I felt confident I could embrace, a hippie or a housewife or a career woman. But what I did care about, what I wanted most fervently, was for her to understand that hard work paid off, that decency begat decency, that humility was not a raincoat you occasionally pulled on when you thought conditions called for it, but rather a constant way of existing in the world, knowing that good and bad luck touched everyone and none of us was fully responsible for our fortunes or tragedies. Above all, I wanted my daughter to understand that many people were guided by bitterness and that it was best to avoid these individuals—their moods and behavior were a hornet’s nest you had no possible reason to do anything other than bypass and ignore. And I loved Ella, I loved her immeasurably, but I wondered if she wasn’t already being influenced by what was worst in Charlie and by my indulgence of his shortcomings. She would mimic us—surely she would, all children did—and would it be his entitled sulkiness or my martyrish passivity that she’d emulate? I didn’t want her growing up thinking that I endorsed his choices; at the same time, I didn’t know how to give voice to my dissent except by leaving him.
Beside me on the living room sofa, my mother said, “Will Charlie be calling again tonight, do you think? If he will, I might as well unplug the phone in our room.”
“I hate to inconvenience you,” I said, but she’d already stood.
“It won’t take a minute.”
In her absence, I looked around the living room, which still contained the broad square couch and chairs my parents had purchased in the early fifties, the maroon-spined Encyclopaedia Britannicas, Lars’s recliner, the painting over the fireplace—a knockoff of Picasso’s Le Guitariste that my grandmother had given them one Christmas and which I am pretty sure neither my mother nor my father had ever liked.
When my mother returned, I said, “I hope you weren’t up for long after Charlie’s call last night.”
“Don’t give it a thought. Will he be joining you here? Even if he’d just like to come for dinner, we’d be delighted to have him. Lars is very keen to give his suggestions for the baseball team.”
“So I hear.” We exchanged smiles. “Charlie has a lot keeping him busy in Milwaukee, so I don’t know that he’ll make it out, but that’s kind.” A little hesitantly, I said, “You and Dad never really quarreled, did you? You always seemed very compatible.”
“Oh, heavens, all couples quarrel.” My mother had sat again, and as she spoke, she picked up her needlepoint canvas, which had been resting since the previous night on the shelf beneath the coffee table. She was making a throw pillow cover with a rose on it.
“But you and Dad never had serious fights, did you? Where you considered ending the marriage?”
“That was much more unusual then.” My mother was threading the needle, not looking at me, and her tone remained even. Still, I’m sure she understood exactly what we were talking about. “It’s not so uncommon to get a divorce now, but years ago, I didn’t know anyone who’d done it. I suppose the Conners were the first couple I knew—do you remember Hazel and William? People said he had a gambling problem. She was a nice lady, though.” My mother turned the canvas over, peering at a particular stitch. “There were times when your father made me mad, but I can’t say the thought of leaving him ever crossed my mind. I suppose I made a decision—” She paused. “There was a good deal of conflict in my family growing up, and it wasn’t pleasant to be around. It only causes more of the same—once people work themselves up, it hardly matters what the disagreement was about, does it? After I married, I decided if ever your father and I had a cross word, I’d meet him with kindness. I decided, if I think he’s wrong or if I think he’s right, I won’t try to prove it. I’ll remind him that I care for him in the hope it reminds him he cares for me, too. I was fortunate, because your father had a gentle nature.” She looked up, offering a willfully bland smile. “Not every man does.”
I’m not encouraging you to divorce Charlie, but if you do, I’ll understand—wasn’t that what she was saying, more or less?
She had turned the canvas over again, she was stitching steadily, and I leaned in to look at it more closely. I said, “That’s going to be a beautiful pillow.”
AFTER I’D CHANGED into my nightgown and brushed my teeth, I returned to the kitchen with The Old Forest, waiting for the phone to ring. It was ten-thirty, then five after eleven, eleven-twenty, eleven-thirty, and I felt a growing irritation, thinking how inconsiderate it was for Charlie to call so late. By twenty to one, I knew he wasn’t calling at all. My mother’s house was very quiet, no cars passed outside on Amity Lane, and my irritation changed abruptly to a lonely disappointment.
WHEN THE PHONE rang in the morning, we were finishing breakfast, and Ella answered. After listening for a few seconds, she said, “Mommy’s taking me ice-skating, and I know how to skate back-wards.” It was Charlie, wasn’t it? “In the mall,” Ella said. Then, practically shouting, “In the mall! Yeah, she’s right here.” Ella held out the receiver. “It’s Grandmaj.”
Without pre
amble, Priscilla said, “For crying out loud, Alice, get in your car and go back to Milwaukee. Chas sounds like a mess.”
I might have been tongue-tied anyway, but with Ella, Lars, and my mother right there at the table, I couldn’t think of a way to respond. Finally, I said, “If you wouldn’t mind holding on for just a moment, Priscilla, I’ll switch phones.”
Upstairs, the phone was still unplugged from the night before, and I got on my knees to stick the cord back into the jack, then lifted the receiver. As I sat on the edge of the double bed, I heard the phone downstairs being hung up, and I said, “Hello?”
“This is simply nonsense,” Priscilla said. “You knew he was a booze-hound when you married him. Now pull up your socks and fix things.”
“Priscilla, I don’t see Charlie’s drinking as a personality quirk. It might be less obvious from Washington than it is living in the same house with him, but he’s—” I hesitated, and then I went ahead and said it. “He’s drunk almost every night of the week. He’s an alcoholic.”
Priscilla did not react as if I’d offered a revelation. She said, “Whose fault do you think that is?”
“If you’re implying that I’m responsible for Charlie’s drinking, I have to object. He’s a grown—”
“Let me ask you this. What’s your job?”
“I don’t follow.”
“Indeed you don’t. You’re a housewife, my dear. It is your duty to ensure that your house runs smoothly. Just whose income do you imagine it is that allows you the luxury of staying home?”
“Priscilla, it’s not as if I’m sitting around eating bonbons and watching soap operas. But if I’ve disappointed you, I’m sorry.”
“Oh, I’m not surprised,” Priscilla said. “Great heavens, I’ve been waiting for this day for over a decade. Everyone knew you’d married down.”
I couldn’t resist the grim satisfaction of correcting her. I said, “You mean that Charlie married down.”
“Oh no, Chas married up. Why, Alice, he was a thirty-one-year-old wastrel, making that preposterous congressional run, no less, and he was dating waitresses. We couldn’t imagine what you saw in him!” She chortled, and as I sat there on my mother’s bed, bewilderment seized me.