A Widow for One Year

  "Listen--I'll call you tonight," Hannah told her. "You might feel like unloading a little later. I'll call you."

  "Let me call you first, Hannah," Ruth said.

  "Sure, we could try that, too," Hannah agreed. "You call me, or I'll call you."

  Hannah needed a taxi back to town, and the taxis were in one place, Allan's car in another. In the wind, in the awkward good-bye, The New York Times became more disheveled. Ruth didn't want the newspaper, but Hannah insisted that she take it.

  "Read the obit later," Hannah said.

  "I've already read it," Ruth replied.

  "You should read it again, when you're calmer," Hannah advised her. "It will make you really angry."

  "I'm already calm. I'm already angry," Ruth told her friend.

  "She'll calm down. Then she'll get really angry," Hannah whispered to Allan. "Take care of her."

  "I will," Allan told her.

  Ruth and Allan watched Hannah cut in front of the line waiting for taxis. When they were sitting in Allan's car, Allan finally kissed her.

  "Are you okay?" he asked.

  "Strangely, yes," Ruth replied.

  Oddly enough, there was an absence of feeling for her father; what she felt was no feeling for him. Her mind had been dwelling on missing persons, not expecting to count him among them.

  "About your mother . . ." Allan patiently began. He'd allowed Ruth to collect her thoughts for almost an hour; they had been driving for that long in silence. He really is the man for me, Ruth thought.

  It had been late morning by the time Allan learned that Ruth's father was dead. He could have called Ruth in Amsterdam, where it would have been late afternoon; Ruth would then have had the night alone, and the plane ride home, to think about it. Instead Allan had counted on Ruth not seeing the Times before she landed in New York the following day. As for the prospect of the news reaching her in Amsterdam, Allan had hoped that Ted Cole wasn't that famous.

  "Eddie O'Hare gave me a book my mother wrote, a novel," Ruth explained to Allan. "Of course Eddie knew who'd written the novel--he just didn't dare tell me. All he said about the book was that it was 'good airplane reading.' I'll say!"

  "Remarkable," Allan said.

  "Nothing strikes me as remarkable anymore," Ruth told him. After a pause, she said: "I want to marry you, Allan." After another pause, Ruth added: "Nothing is as important as having sex with you."

  "I'm awfully pleased to hear that," Allan admitted. It was the first time he'd smiled since he saw her in the airport. Ruth needed no effort to smile back at him. But there was still that absence of feeling for her father that she'd felt an hour ago--how strange and unexpected it was! Her sympathy was stronger for Eduardo, who had found her father's body.

  Nothing stood between Ruth and her new life with Allan. There would need to be some sort of memorial service for Ted. It would be nothing very elaborate--nor would many people be inclined to attend, Ruth thought. Between her and her new life with Allan, there was really only the necessity of hearing from Eduardo Gomez exactly what had happened to her father. The prospect of this was what made Ruth realize how much her father had loved her. Was she the only woman who'd made Ted Cole feel remorse?

  The Standoff

  Eduardo Gomez was a good Catholic. He was not above superstition, but the gardener had always controlled his inclination to believe in fate within the strict confines of his faith. Fortunately for him, he'd never been exposed to Calvinism--for he would have proven himself a ready and willing convert. Thus far, the gardener's Catholicism had kept the more fanciful of his imaginings--in regard to his own predestination--in check.

  There had been that seemingly unending torture when the gardener had hung upside down in Mrs. Vaughn's privet, waiting to die of carbonmonoxide poisoning. It had crossed Eduardo's mind that Ted Cole deserved to die this way--but not an innocent gardener. At that helpless moment, Eduardo had seen himself as the victim of another man's lust, and of another man's proverbial "woman scorned."

  No one, certainly not the priest in the confessional, would fault Eduardo for having felt that way. The hapless gardener, hung up to die in Mrs. Vaughn's hedge, had every reason to feel unjustly done-in. Yet, over the years, Eduardo knew that Ted was a fair and generous employer, and the gardener had never forgiven himself for thinking that Ted deserved to die of carbonmonoxide poisoning.

  Therefore it wreaked havoc on Eduardo's superstitious nature--not to mention strengthened his potentially rampant fatalism--that the luckless gardener should have been the one to find Ted Cole dead of carbonmonoxide poisoning.

  It was Eduardo's wife, Conchita, who first sensed that something was wrong. She'd picked up the mail at the Sagaponack post office on her way to Ted's house. Because it was her day of the week to change the beds and do the laundry and the general housecleaning, Conchita arrived at Ted's ahead of Eduardo. She deposited the mail on the kitchen table, where she couldn't help noticing a full bottle of single-malt Scotch whiskey; the bottle had been opened, but not a drop had been poured. It sat beside a clean, empty glass of Tiffany crystal.

  Conchita also noticed Ruth's postcard in the mail. The picture of the prostitutes in their windows on the Herbertstrasse, the red-light district in the St. Pauli quarter of Hamburg, disturbed her. It was an inappropriate postcard for a daughter to send her father. Yet it was a pity that the mail from Europe had been slow to arrive, for the message on the postcard might have cheered Ted--had he read it. (THINKING OF YOU, DADDY. I'M SORRY ABOUT WHAT I SAID. IT WAS MEAN. I LOVE YOU! RUTHIE.)

  Worried, Conchita nonetheless began cleaning in Ted's workroom; she was thinking that Ted might still be upstairs asleep, although he was usually an early riser. The bottommost drawer of Ted's so-called writing desk was open; the drawer was empty. Beside the drawer was a large dark-green trash bag, which Ted had stuffed with the hundreds of black-and-white Polaroids of his nude models; even though the bag was tied closed at the top, the smell of the Polaroid print coater escaped from the bag when Conchita moved it out of the way of her vacuum cleaner. A note taped to the bag said: CONCHITA, PLEASE THROW THIS TRASH AWAY BEFORE RUTH COMES HOME.

  This so alarmed Conchita that she stopped vacuuming. She called upstairs from the bottom of the stairwell. "Mr. Cole?" There was no reply. She went upstairs. The door to the master bedroom was open. The bed had not been slept in; it was still neatly made, just as Conchita had left it the morning before. Conchita wandered down the upstairs hall to the room Ruth now used. Ted (or someone) had slept in Ruth's bed last night, or he had at least stretched out on it for a little while. Ruth's closet and her chest of drawers were open. (Her father had felt the need to take a last look at her clothes.)

  By now, Conchita was worried enough to call Eduardo--even before she came downstairs--and while she was waiting for her husband to arrive, she took the large dark-green trash bag from Ted's workroom and carried it out to the barn. There was a code panel that opened the garage door to the barn, and Conchita keyed in the proper code. When the garage door opened, Conchita saw that Ted had piled up some blankets along the barn floor, thus sealing the crack under the garage door; she also realized that Ted's car was running, although Ted wasn't in the car. The Volvo was chugging away in the barn, which reeked of exhaust fumes. Conchita dropped the trash bag in the open garage doorway. She waited in the driveway for Eduardo.

  Eduardo shut off the Volvo before he went looking for Ted. The tank was less than a quarter full--the car had probably run most of the night--and Ted had slightly depressed the accelerator pedal with an old squash racquet. It was one of Ruth's old racquets, and Ted had pressed the racquet head against the accelerator and wedged the handle under the front seat. This had kept the car idling high enough so that it hadn't stalled.

  The trap door to the squash court on the second floor of the barn was open, and Eduardo climbed the ladder; he was scarcely able to breathe, because the exhaust fumes had risen to the top of the barn. Ted was dead on the floor of the squash court. He was dressed t
o play. Maybe he'd hit the ball for a while, and run around a little in the court. When he got tired, he lay down on the floor of the court, perfectly positioned on the T, the spot on the court he'd always told Ruth to take possession of--to occupy, as if her life depended on it, because it was the position on the court from which you could best control the play of your opponent.

  Later Eduardo regretted that he opened the large dark-green trash bag and examined the contents before he threw the bag in the trash. His memory of the many drawings of Mrs. Vaughn's private parts had never left him, although he'd seen her private parts in shreds and tatters. The black-and-white photographs were a grim reminder to the gardener of Ted Cole's fascination with demeaned and demoralized women. Feeling sick to his stomach, Eduardo deposited the photographs in the trash.

  Ted had left no suicide note, unless one counts the note on the trash bag--CONCHITA, PLEASE THROW THIS TRASH AWAY BEFORE RUTH COMES HOME. And Ted had anticipated that Eduardo would use the telephone in the kitchen, for there on the notepad, by the kitchen phone, was another message: EDUARDO, CALL RUTH'S PUBLISHER, ALLAN ALBRIGHT. Ted had written down Allan's number at Random House. Eduardo made the call without hesitation.

  But as grateful as Ruth would be to Allan for taking charge, she could not stop searching the Sagaponack house for the note she was hoping that her father had left for her . That there was no note confounded her; her father had always been able to say something self-justifying--he'd been tireless in defending himself.

  Even Hannah was hurt that he'd left no word for her, although Hannah would convince herself that a hang-up on her answering machine must have been a call from Ted.

  "If only I'd been there when he called!" Hannah would say to Ruth.

  "If only . . ." Ruth had said.

  The memorial service for Ted Cole was conducted in an impromptu fashion at the public school for grades one through four in Sagaponack. The school board, and the past and present teachers at the school, had called Ruth and offered her the premises. Ruth hadn't realized the degree to which her father had been a benefactor of the school. He'd twice bought them new playground equipment; every year he donated art supplies for the children; he was the principal provider of children's books for the Bridgehampton library, which was the library used by the schoolchildren in Sagaponack. Moreover, unbeknownst to Ruth, Ted had frequently read to the children during Story Hour, and, at least a half-dozen times during each school year, he came to the school and gave the children drawing lessons.

  Thus, in an atmosphere of undersize desks and chairs, and with the surrounding walls displaying children's drawings of the most notable themes and characters from Ted Cole's books, a local remembrance was held for the famous author and illustrator. A most beloved retired teacher at the school spoke fondly of Ted's dedication to the entertainment of children, although she confused his books with one another; she thought that the moleman was a creature who lurked under the terrifying door in the floor, and that the indescribable sound like someone trying not to make a sound was that of the misunderstood mouse crawling between the walls. From the children's drawings on the walls, Ruth saw sufficient numbers of mice and molemen to last her a lifetime.

  Except for Allan and Hannah, the only noticeable out-of-towner was the gallery owner from New York who'd made a small fortune selling Ted Cole's original drawings. Ted's publisher couldn't come--he was still recovering from a cough he'd caught at the Frankfurt Book Fair. (Ruth thought she knew the cough.) And even Hannah was subdued--they were all surprised to see so many children in attendance.

  Eddie O'Hare was there; as a Bridgehampton resident, Eddie was no out-of-towner, but Ruth hadn't expected to see him. Later she understood why he'd come. Like Ruth, Eddie had imagined that Marion might show up. After all, it was one of those occasions at which Ruth dreamed that her mother might make an appearance. And Marion was a writer. Weren't all writers drawn to endings? Here was an ending. But Marion wasn't there.

  It was a raw, blustery day with a wet wind blowing from the ocean; instead of lingering outside the schoolhouse, people hurried to their cars when the makeshift service was over. All but one woman, whom Ruth judged to be about her mother's age; she was dressed in black, she even wore a black veil, and she hovered in the vicinity of her shiny black Lincoln as if she couldn't bear to leave. When the wind lifted her veil, her skin appeared to be stretched too tightly over her skull. The woman whose skeleton was threatening to break through her skin stared at Ruth so intently that Ruth jumped to the conclusion that the woman must be the angry widow who'd written her that hateful letter--the so-called widow for the rest of her life. Taking Allan's hand, Ruth alerted him to the woman's presence.

  "I haven't lost a husband yet, so she's come to gloat over the fact that I've lost a father!" Ruth said to Allan, but Eddie O'Hare was within hearing distance.

  "I'll take care of this," Eddie told Ruth. Eddie knew who the woman was.

  It was not the angry widow--it was Mrs. Vaughn. Eduardo had spotted her first, of course; he'd interpreted Mrs. Vaughn's presence as another reminder of the fate to which he was doomed. (The gardener was hiding in the schoolhouse, hoping his former employer would miraculously disappear.)

  It was not that her skeleton was breaking through her skin; rather, her alimony had included a sizable allotment for cosmetic surgery, of which Mrs. Vaughn had partaken to excess. When Eddie took her arm and helped her in the direction of the shiny black Lincoln, Mrs. Vaughn did not resist.

  "Do I know you?" she asked Eddie.

  "Yes," he told her. "I was a boy once. I knew you when I was a boy." Her bird's-feet fingers were like claws on his wrist; her veiled eyes eagerly searched his face.

  "You saw the drawings!" Mrs. Vaughn whispered. "You carried me into my house!"

  "Yes," Eddie admitted.

  "She looks just like her mother, doesn't she?" Mrs. Vaughn asked Eddie. She meant Ruth, of course, and Eddie disagreed, but he knew how to talk to older women.

  "In some ways, yes--she does," Eddie replied. "She looks a little bit like her mother." He helped Mrs. Vaughn into the driver's seat. (Eduardo Gomez would not leave the schoolhouse until he saw the shiny black Lincoln drive safely away.)

  "Oh, I think she looks a lot like her mother!" Mrs. Vaughn told Eddie.

  "I think she looks like her mother and father both, " Eddie tactfully replied.

  "Oh, no!" Mrs. Vaughn cried. " No one looks like her father! He was one of a kind!"

  "Yes, you could say that," Eddie told Mrs. Vaughn. He closed her car door and held his breath until he heard the Lincoln start; then he rejoined Allan and Ruth.

  "Who was she?" Ruth asked him.

  "One of your father's old girlfriends," Eddie told her. Hannah, who heard him, looked after the departing Lincoln with a journalist's fleeting curiosity.

  "I had a dream they'd all be here, all his old girlfriends," Ruth said.

  Actually, there was one other, but Ruth never knew who she was. She was an overweight woman who'd introduced herself to Ruth before the service in the schoolhouse. She was plump and fiftyish, with a contrite expression. "You don't know me," she'd said to Ruth, "but I knew your father. Actually, my mother and I knew him. My mother committed suicide, too, so I'm very sorry--I know how you must feel."

  "Your name is . . ." Ruth had said, shaking the woman's hand.

  "Oh, my maiden name was Mountsier," the woman said in a self-deprecating way. "But you wouldn't know me. . . ." Then she'd slipped away.

  "Gloria--I think she said that was her name," Ruth told Eddie, but Eddie didn't know who she was. ( Glorie was her name, of course--the late Mrs. Mountsier's troubled daughter. But she'd slipped away.)

  Allan insisted that Eddie and Hannah join him and Ruth at the Sagaponack house for a drink after the service. By then it had begun to rain, and Conchita had finally freed Eduardo from the schoolhouse and taken him home to Sag Harbor. For once (or once again) there was something stronger than beer and wine in the Sagaponack house; Ted had bought an
excellent single-malt Scotch whiskey.

  "Maybe Daddy bought the bottle because he was thinking of this occasion," Ruth said. They sat at the dining-room table, where, once in a story, a little girl named Ruthie had sat with her daddy while the moleman waited in hiding under a standing lamp.

  Eddie O'Hare had not been in the house since the summer of '58. Hannah had not been in the house since she'd fucked Ruth's father. Ruth thought of this, but she refrained from comment; although her throat ached, she didn't cry.

  Allan wanted to show Eddie his idea for the squash court in the barn. Since Ruth had given up the game, Allan had a plan to convert the court into either an office for himself or an office for Ruth. That way, one of them could work in the house--in Ted's former workroom-- and the other could work in the barn.

  Ruth was disappointed that she didn't get to go off with Eddie alone, because she could have talked all day to him about her mother. (Eddie had brought with him Alice Somerset's other two novels.) But with Eddie and Allan in the barn, Ruth was left alone with Hannah.

  "You know what I'm going to ask you, baby," Hannah told her friend. Of course Ruth knew.

  "Ask away, Hannah."

  "Have you had sex yet? I mean with Allan," Hannah said.

  "Yes, I have," Ruth replied. She felt the good whiskey warming her mouth, her throat, her stomach. She wondered when she would stop missing her father, or if she would stop missing him.

  "And?" Hannah asked.

  "Allan has the biggest cock I've ever seen," Ruth said.

  "I didn't think you liked big schlongs, or is it someone else who said that?" Hannah asked.

  "It's not too big," Ruth said. "It's just the right size for me."

  "So you're fine? And you're getting married? You're gonna try to have a kid? The whole deal, right?" Hannah asked her.

  "I'm fine, yes," Ruth replied. "The whole deal, yes."

  "But what happened ?" Hannah asked her.

  "What do you mean, Hannah?"

  "I mean, you're so calm--something must have happened, " Hannah said.