“How nice,” she said, happy that she had taken a moment to brush her hair and put on fresh lipstick, happy that the coffee table which she had chosen with John and the fireplace which had seen many fires built by John and the low sofa where John had slept sometimes, had all seen fit to welcome the stranger with grace. She sat on the sofa and smiled at him when he handed her a glass; there was an odd illicit excitement in all of it; she was “entertaining” a man. The scene was a little marred by the fact that he had given her a martini with neither olive nor onion; it was the way she preferred her martini, and yet he should not have, strictly, known this, but she reassured herself with the thought that naturally he would have taken some pains to inform himself before coming.
He lifted his glass to her with a smile; he is here only because I am here, she thought.
“It’s nice to be here,” he said. He had, then, made one attempt to sound like John, in the car coming home. After he knew that she had recognized him for a stranger, he had never made any attempt to say words like “coming home” or “getting back,” and of course she could not, not without pointing her lie. She put her hand in his and lay back against the sofa, looking into the fire.
“Being lonely is worse than anything in the world,” she said.
“You’re not lonely now?”
“Are you going away?”
“Not unless you come too.” They laughed at his parody of John.
They sat next to each other at dinner; she and John had always sat at formal opposite ends of the table, asking one another politely to pass the salt and the butter.
“I’m going to put in a little set of shelves over there,” he said, nodding toward the corner of the dining room. “It looks empty here, and it needs things. Symbols.”
“Like?” She liked to look at him; his hair, she thought, was a little darker than John’s, and his hands were stronger; this man would build whatever he decided he wanted built.
“We need things together. Things we like, both of us. Small delicate pretty things. Ivory.”
With John she would have felt it necessary to remark at once that they could not afford such delicate pretty things, and put a cold finish to the idea, but with the stranger she said, “We’d have to look for them; not everything would be right.”
“I saw a little creature once,” he said. “Like a tiny little man, only colored all purple and blue and gold.”
*
She remembered this conversation; it contained the truth like a jewel set in the evening. Much later, she was to tell herself that it was true; John could not have said these things.
*
She was happy, she was radiant, she had no conscience. He went obediently to his office the next morning, saying good-by at the door with a rueful smile that seemed to mock the present necessity for doing the things that John always did, and as she watched him go down the walk she reflected that this was surely not going to be permanent; she could not endure having him gone for so long every day, although she had felt little about parting from John; moreover, if he kept doing John’s things he might grow imperceptibly more like John. We will simply have to go away, she thought. She was pleased, seeing him get into the car; she would gladly share with him—indeed, give him outright—all that had been John’s, so long as he stayed her stranger.
She laughed while she did her housework and dressed the baby. She took satisfaction in unpacking his suitcase, which he had abandoned and forgotten in a corner of the bedroom, as though prepared to take it up and leave again if she had not been as he thought her, had not wanted him to stay. She put away his clothes, so disarmingly like John’s, and wondered for a minute at the closet; would there be a kind of delicacy in him about John’s things? Then she told herself no, not so long as he began with John’s wife, and laughed again.
The baby was cross all day, but when Smalljohn came home from nursery school his first question was—looking up eagerly—“Where is Daddy?”
“Daddy has gone to the office,” and again she laughed, at the moment’s quick sly picture of the insult to John.
*
Half a dozen times during the day she went upstairs, to look at his suitcase and touch the leather softly. She glanced constantly as she passed through the dining room into the corner where the small shelves would be someday, and told herself that they would find a tiny little man, all purple and blue and gold, to stand on the shelves and guard them from intrusion.
When the children awakened from their naps she took them for a walk and then, away from the house and returned violently to her former lonely pattern (walk with the children, talk meaninglessly of Daddy, long for someone to talk to in the evening ahead, restrain herself from hurrying home: he might have telephoned), she began to feel frightened again; suppose she had been wrong? It could not be possible that she was mistaken; it would be unutterably cruel for John to come home tonight.
Then, she heard the car stop and when she opened the door and looked up she thought, no, it is not my husband, with a return of gladness. She was aware from his smile that he had perceived her doubts, and yet he was so clearly a stranger that, seeing him, she had no need of speaking.
She asked him, instead, almost meaningless questions during that evening, and his answers were important only because she was storing them away to reassure herself while he was away. She asked him what was the name of their Shakespeare professor in college, and who was that girl he liked so before he met Margaret. When he smiled and said that he had no idea, that he would not recognize the name if she told him, she was in delight. He had not bothered to master all of the past, then; he had learned enough (the names of the children, the location of the house, how she liked her cocktails) to get to her, and after that, it was not important, because either she would want him to stay, or she would, calling upon John, send him away again.
“What is your favorite food?” she asked him. “Are you fond of fishing? Did you ever have a dog?”
“Someone told me today,” he said once, “that he had heard I was back from Boston, and I distinctly thought he said that he heard I was dead in Boston.”
He was lonely, too, she thought with sadness, and that is why he came, bringing a destiny with him: now I will see him come every evening through the door and think, this is not my husband, and wait for him remembering that I am waiting for a stranger.
“At any rate,” she said, “you were not dead in Boston, and nothing else matters.”
She saw him leave in the morning with a warm pride, and she did her housework and dressed the baby; when Smalljohn came home from nursery school he did not ask, but looked with quick searching eyes and then sighed. While the children were taking their naps she thought that she might take them to the park this afternoon, and then the thought of another such afternoon, another long afternoon with no one but the children, another afternoon of widowhood, was more than she could submit to; I have done this too much, she thought, I must see something today beyond the faces of my children. No one should be so much alone.
Moving quickly, she dressed and set the house to rights. She called a high school girl and asked if she would take the children to the park; without guilt, she neglected the thousand small orders regarding the proper jacket for the baby, whether Smalljohn might have popcorn, when to bring them home. She fled, thinking, I must be with people.
She took a taxi into town, because it seemed to her that the only possible thing to do was to seek out a gift for him, her first gift to him, and she thought she would find him, perhaps, a little creature all blue and purple and gold.
She wandered through the strange shops in the town, choosing small lovely things to stand on the new shelves, looking long and critically at ivories, at small statues, at brightly colored meaningless expensive toys, suitable for giving to a stranger.
It was almost dark when she started home, carrying her packages. She looked from the window of the
taxi into the dark streets, and thought with pleasure that the stranger would be home before her, and look from the window to see her hurrying to him; he would think, this is a stranger, I am waiting for a stranger, as he saw her coming. “Here,” she said, tapping on the glass, “right here, driver.” She got out of the taxi and paid the driver, and smiled as he drove away. I must look well, she thought, the driver smiled back at me.
She turned and started for the house, and then hesitated; surely she had come too far? This is not possible, she thought, this cannot be; surely our house was white?
The evening was very dark, and she could see only the houses going in rows, with more rows beyond them and more rows beyond that, and somewhere a house which was hers, with the beautiful stranger inside, and she lost out here.
All She Said Was Yes
What can you do? Howard and Dorrie are always telling me I’m too sensitive, and let myself get worked up about things, but really, even Howard had to admit that the Lansons’ accident just couldn’t have happened at a worse time. It sounds awful when you come right out and say it, but I’d always rather be frank and open than mealy-mouthed, and even though it was a dreadful thing to happen anytime, it really made me furious to have our trip to Maine ruined.
We’d lived next door to Don and Helen Lanson for sixteen years, since before our Dorrie and their Vicky were born, and of course, living next door and with the girls growing up together, we’d always been friendly enough, even though you don’t have to get along with people all the time, and frankly, some of the crowd the Lansons knew were a little too fancy for us. Besides, they were never secret about things and expected us to be the same, and it bothered me sometimes when I stopped to think that for sixteen years we hadn’t had a day’s privacy; I like friendly neighbors as well as the next one, but it was a little too much, sometimes. I used to tell Howard that Helen Lanson always knew what we were having for dinner, and of course it worked the other way around, too; whenever the Lansons had one of their fights we had to close the windows and go down to the cellar to keep from hearing, and even then Helen Lanson was sure to be over the next morning to cry on my shoulder. I hope the new neighbors are a little more—well—reticent.
Howard and I felt terrible when it happened, naturally. Howard went out with the State Police, and I offered to go over and tell Vicky. It wasn’t the kind of thing I relished, you can imagine, but someone had to do it, and I’d known her since she was born. I was thankful that Dorrie was away at camp, because she would have been heartbroken, living next door to them all her life. When I went over to ring the doorbell that night I really couldn’t think how the child was going to take it; I never did think much of parents going out and leaving a fifteen-year-old girl alone in the house—you read all the time about men breaking into houses where girls are alone—but I supposed Helen always figured Vicky was all right with us home next door; we certainly don’t go out nearly every night like the Lansons did.
But then, Vicky was never much of a one for minding things, anyway; I know that she opened the door that night right away, without even asking who it was or making sure it wasn’t some man; I never let Dorrie open the door at night unless she knows who is on the other side. Well, I might as well come right out with it—I don’t like Vicky. Even that night, with all the trouble ahead for her, I couldn’t make myself like her. I was terribly sorry for her, certainly, and at the same time all I could keep thinking was what I was going to do when she heard the news. She was so big and clumsy and ugly that I really couldn’t face the thought of having to put my arms around her and comfort her—I hated the idea of patting her hand, or stroking her hair, and yet I was the only person to do it. All the way over from our house I had been wondering how I was going to say it, and then when she opened the door and just stood there looking at me—and never a “hello” or anything from her; she just wasn’t the kind who offered things, if you know what I mean—I almost lost my courage. Finally I asked her if I could come in, because I had to talk to her, and she only opened the door wider and stood away, and I came in and she closed the door behind me and stood there waiting. Well, I know that house almost as well as I know my own, and so I walked into the living room and sat down and she came along after me and sat down, too, and looked at me.
Well, there was nothing like getting right to it, so I tried to say something gentle first; what I finally settled on was looking very serious and saying, “Vicky, you’re going to have to be brave.”
I must say she didn’t help me much. She just sat there looking at me, and I suddenly thought that maybe all the unusual excitement, with Howard driving off in the middle of the night like that, and all the lights on in our house and my coming over the way I did, might have let on to her that something was wrong, and she might even have guessed already that it had to do with her parents, so the sooner she heard the truth, the better, I thought, and I said, “There’s been an accident, Vicky. Corporal Atkins of the State Police phoned us a few minutes ago, because he knew you were alone here and he wanted someone to be with you.” It wasn’t much of a way to go about it, I know, but I would much rather have sat there talking all around the subject than tell her what I had to say next. I took a deep breath and said, “It’s your mother and father, Vicky. There’s been an accident.”
Well, so far she hadn’t said a word, not a single word since I came through the door, and now all she said was, “Yes.”
I thought it must be shock, and I was glad that Howard had thought to call Doctor Hart before he left, to come and help me with Vicky, and I began to wonder how long it would be before the doctor came, because I’m simply no good with sick people, and would be sure to do the wrong thing. I was thinking about the doctor, and I said, “They always drove too fast—” and she said, “I know.” I sat there waiting for her to cry, or whatever a girl like that does when she finds out her parents have been killed, and then I remembered that she didn’t know yet that they were killed, but only that they had been in an accident, so I took another deep breath and said, “They’re both—” I couldn’t say it, though, just couldn’t bring out the word. Finally I said, “Gone.”
“I know,” she said. So I needn’t have worried.
“We’re so sorry, Vicky,” I said, wondering if now was the time to go over and pat her head.
“Do you think they really believed they were going to die?” she asked me.
“Well, I guess no one ever really believes . . .” I started to say, but she wasn’t listening to me; she was looking down at her hands and shaking her head. “I told them, you know,” she said. “I told my mother a couple of months ago that it was going to happen, the accident and their dying, but she wouldn’t listen to me, no one ever does. She said it was an adolescent fantasy.”
Well, that was Helen Lanson for you, of course. Adolescent fantasy is the way she talked, and pretended she was being honest with the child. It wasn’t any of my business, of course, but I can tell you that Dorrie got spanked when she did something wrong, and none of this psychological jargon to make her think it was my fault, either. “I guess everybody told them,” I said to Vicky. “You can’t drive the way they did without asking for trouble. I spoke to Helen about it once myself—”
“That’s when I got over being sad,” she said, as though she thought she ought to excuse herself. “I told her, and she wouldn’t believe me. I even told her I’d have to go and live with Aunt Cynthia in London, England.” She smiled at me. “I’m going to like London, England; I’ll go to a big school there and study hard.”
Well, as far as I knew, Aunt Cynthia in London, England, hadn’t even been notified yet, but if this child could sit there coolly not five minutes after hearing that her parents had been killed in an accident and make plans for her future—well, all I could say is that maybe some of Helen Lanson’s psychology paid off, in a way she might not like so much, and I just hope that if ever anything happens to me, my daughter will have the grace to
sit there and shed a tear. Although it’s probably kinder to believe that Vicky was in shock.
“It’s a terrible thing,” I said, wondering how long before the doctor could make it.
“Aunt Cynthia will get here on Tuesday,” she said to me. “The first plane will have to turn back because of engine trouble. I’m sorry about your trip to Maine.”
I was touched. Here was this girl, after the most terrible disaster that can happen to a child, and she could spare a thought for our trip to Maine. It was certainly just the worst luck in the world for us, but you can’t always expect a child to see things from a grown-up’s point of view, and even if the news about her parents didn’t bring a tear, I was pleased to see that the girl could still feel for somebody. “Try not to worry about it,” I told her. Of course we just couldn’t take off for Maine the morning after our next-door neighbors had been killed in an accident, but there was no point in Vicky’s bothering about that, too. “Please don’t be upset,” I said.
“You won’t be able to go later in the year because it will be too cold at the lodge. You’ll have to go somewhere else, but please don’t go on a boat. Please?”
“Of course not,” I said; I didn’t want the doctor to come in and find us talking about my worries, so I said, “You’ll come over and stay with us until your aunt comes.”
“In Dorrie’s room,” she said.
Well, I hadn’t really planned anything yet, but of course Dorrie’s room was the best place for her; you never know when you’re going to need the guest room for company, and Dorrie would be away at camp for the next two weeks. “We’ll pretend that you’re my little girl for a while,” I said, and wondered if it was the right thing to say—it certainly sounded silly enough—and then thought that after all, I had had as much of a shock as she had, and then I heard the doctor’s car outside and I confess it was a relief. I still don’t think it was natural for a child to sit there and listen to news like that and not even jump.