Lynn was putting herself into her daughter’s place, trying to imagine her remorse, to feel the fright that must still be hers when she considered some of the turns her life could have taken. And hesitating, she said softly, “There will be a right time for you, Emily. You know that now, don’t you?”
Emily turned back to her. “I know. And I’m fine, Mom. I really am. Believe me.”
She was an achiever, competent and strong. A young woman with purpose, Lynn thought as always, certainly not your usual high-school senior.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do believe you.” And then to relieve the poignancy of the moment, “But have you had your dinner?”
“Half of it. I thought you might not like being alone.”
“I don’t mind at all. Go down and finish. Just hand Bobby to me first. He’s going to be hungry in a minute, I can tell.”
And sure enough, the boy woke just then with a piteous wail.
“Turn on the lamps before you go. Thanks, darling.”
When Emily walked out she left no suspicions and no enigmas behind to fog the air. Lynn took a deep, pure breath. From belowstairs came the pleasant buzz of talk. She could imagine them sitting at the table; Robert at its head was carving and serving the meat in the old-fashioned style to which he kept. The back door banged; somebody was letting Juliet out. Someone was walking through the halls; heels struck the bare floor between the rugs. These were the sounds of the family, the rhythms of the house, the home.
Let Helen peer and delve; she means well, but never mind it. And never mind poor, dear old Jean’s And Robert is still a good husband to you? It is the natural curiosity of a lonesome woman, that’s all it is.
These last few days, these last few months, had been so rich! Before then it had been a cruel year, God knew, but was pain not a part of life too? Miraculously now, a new spirit seemed to have come over them all, over Robert and the girls, and because of them, over herself.
And she lay with the hungry baby at her breast. Little man! Such a little creature to have, by his simple presence, brought so much joy into this house! Lynn was feeling a cleansing gratitude, a most remarkable peace.
PART FOUR
Spring 1989–
Fall 1990
The enormous room was packed. Every table had been taken, and, reflected in the mirrored wall of this somewhat typically gaudy hotel ballroom, the audience was impressive in its size.
“This man,” said the mayor, “this man on whom we gratefully bestow the Man of the Year Award, has accomplished more for our community in the few years he has been among us than many, including myself, who were born here, have done for it.”
Affectionate and friendly laughter approved of the mayor’s modesty. Nevertheless, thought Lynn at the pinnacle of pride, it is true.
“The list of his activities fills a long page of single-spaced type. There’s his work on behalf of the hospital, the cancer drive, the new library, so sorely needed, for AIDS, education, for the whole recycling program that has set an example to the towns around us. I could go on and on, but I know you are waiting to hear from Robert Ferguson himself.”
Robert had grace. Beside him on the podium the town’s dignitaries, three men and a pleasant-faced woman with blue-white curls, looked nondescript. It was always so. Wherever he went, he was superior.
“Mayor Williams spoke of a list,” he said. “My lists are much longer. They contain the names of the ones who are really responsible for the success of whatever good causes I have been helping. It would take hours to tell you who they are, and I might miss some, and I mustn’t do that. So I’ll simply tell you that we owe a debt of hearty thanks to all those people who manned telephones, gathering the funds we needed, who stuffed envelopes, gave benefit dinners, wrote reports, and stayed up nights to get things done.”
His voice was richly resonant, his diction clear and pure, but unaffected. There wasn’t a cough or whisper or creaking chair among the audience.
“And above all, I must give full credit to the company of which I am fortunate to be a part, to General American Appliance, of whose magnanimous gifts, not only here in our community but all over the country, you are certainly aware. The extraordinary generosity of such great American corporations is the wonder of the world. And GAA has always been outstanding for its public service. We care. And here in this relatively little corner of the United States, you have been seeing the fruits of our caring.
“And so I thank my superiors at GAA for encouraging my little undertakings here and covering for me whenever necessary, so making it possible for me to find the time I need.
“Last—my family. My wonderful wife, Lynn—”
All eyes turned to Lynn in her daisy-flowered summer dress; Robert had been right to insist on a smashing new dress. Across from her at the round table sat Bruce and Josie, flanked by town officials. Bruce smiled as he caught her eye; Josie, who seemed to be regarding the chandeliers, had no expression. And a thought fled through Lynn’s mind: Robert has not mentioned Bruce.
“… and my lovely daughters, Emily and Annie, who never complain when I have to take some of the hours I owe them to go to a meeting. Emily will be graduating from high school on Tuesday, and entering Yale in the fall.”
Emily, serene in white, inclined her head to acknowledge the applause with the simple dignity of a royal personage. Her father’s dignity.
“… and our Bobby, four months old today, has been very cooperative too. He tolerates me—”
Laughter followed, then more applause, a concluding speech, a shuffling of chairs, and the emptying of the room. In the lobby people crowded around Robert; he had charmed them.
“How about a drink? Come back to our house. It’s early yet.”
“Thanks, but my wife’s a real mother, a nursing mother, and Bobby’s waiting,” Robert said.
He was glowing. It was as if there were a flame in him, heating his very flesh. She felt it when she stood beside him at the crib, watching the baby settle back to sleep after feeding. And surely she felt it when afterward in bed he turned to her.
“All those months we’ve missed because of the baby,” he whispered. “We have to make up for them.”
In the close darkness of the bed, without seeing, she yet knew that his eyes were thrilled, that their blue had gone black with excitement. She put her hand out to feel his racing heart, the heat and the flame.
The graduates, in alphabetical order, came marching down the football field through the lemon-yellow light of afternoon.
“Good thing that kid’s name begins with W,” Robert whispered.
He may be at the end of the line, Lynn thought, but he’s, still the valedictorian.
It was the finality of all this ceremony that was so moving. Childhood was indisputably over. These boys and girls would all disperse; these young ones, a little proud, a little embarrassed in their gowns and mortarboards, would be gone. The bedroom would be vacant, the customary chair at the table unoccupied, and the family diminished by one. Nothing would ever be the same. Two weak tears gathered in Lynn’s eyes. Reaching for her purse to find a tissue, she was touched on the arm.
“Here, take mine,” said Josie. “I need one too.”
Josie knew. Bruce knew, too, for he had taken Josie’s other hand and clasped it on his knee. Last year at this time things had looked rather different for Emily, alone and desperate with her secret. Now they were calling her name, handing the rolled white document: “Emily Ferguson, with highest honors.”
But Robert was chuckling, bursting. His girl. His girl. He was the first to scramble down from the benches to take her picture and rejoice.
Everywhere were cameras, kissing and laughing and calling. The PTA had set up tables on the grass for punch and cookies. People crowded in knots and got separated, parents making much of teachers, younger brothers and sisters finding their own friends.
Lynn, as she stood at a table to replenish her cup of punch, heard Bruce’s voice a few feet away.
/> “Yes, of course it’s a science and an art. You’re lucky at your age to be so sure of what you want to do.”
“Well, it’s useful,” she heard Harris say. “That and teaching are the only truly essential things”—and then, so apologetically that she imagined his fair skin flushing—“I don’t mean that business isn’t useful, Mr. Lehman. I don’t express myself very well sometimes.”
“Don’t apologize. I quite agree with you. If I’d had the ability, I would have wanted to be a doctor or perhaps a teacher of some sort.”
They caught sight of Lynn, who had filled her cup. Sure enough, Harris was brick-red.
“Congratulations, Harris,” she said.
“Thanks. Thanks very much. I seem to have lost my folks. I’d better run.”
They watched him dart back into the crowd.
“It touches you to see a boy like him. You just hope life will be good to him,” Bruce said.
“I know. I feel the same.”
“Robert would slaughter us if he heard us.”
“I know.”
She oughtn’t to have agreed; it was complicity with Bruce against Robert. And as they stood there drinking out of their paper cups, she avoided his eyes. It occurred to her suddenly that they had never had a dialogue; they were always in a foursome or more.
Presently, Lynn said, “Emily’s having a little party tonight. Want to come and supervise the fun? They’re all over eighteen, and Robert’s allowing one glass of champagne apiece. One small glass.”
“Thanks, but I think not. We’ll call it a day.”
That was strange. She was wondering about the refusal, when she met up with Robert.
“Did you see Bruce talking to young Weber?” he demanded.
“Only for a second.”
“Well, I watched. Bruce deliberately sought him out. Your fine friend. I consider that disloyalty. Unforgivable.”
Not liking the sarcasm of “your fine friend,” she answered, “But you’ll have to forgive it, won’t you, since there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“More’s the pity.”
“It’s all over, anyhow. Emily’s started a new chapter. Let’s go home for her party.”
The next day in the middle of the afternoon, Bruce telephoned, alarming Lynn, who thought at once of Robert.
He understood. “Don’t be frightened. It’s nothing to do with Robert, and I’m not at the office. I didn’t go in today.” His voice was clearly strained, as if there were something wrong with his larynx. “Josie was operated on this morning. I’m at the hospital in her room. She’s still in recovery.”
“Why? What is it?” Lynn stammered. “It’s not—”
“Yes,” he said, still in that strangled voice. “Yes. The lymph. The liver. It’s all through her.”
A wave of cold passed through Lynn. Footsteps on my grave, my grandmother had used to say. No, Josie’s grave. And she is thirty-nine.
She burst into tears. “I can’t believe it. You wake up suddenly one morning, and there’s death looking into your face? Just like that? Yesterday at the graduation she was so happy for Emily. She never said … There’s no sense in what you’re telling me. I can’t make any sense of it.”
“Wait. Hold on, Lynn. We have to be calm for her. Listen to me. It wasn’t sudden. It’s been going on for months. All those colds she said she had, that time I went to St. Louis last winter to fetch Annie, all those were excuses. She was home, too sick to move; she almost didn’t get to the graduation yesterday. She wouldn’t have chemo—”
“But why? She had it before and came through it so well!”
“This is different. We went to New York, we went to Boston, and they were all honest with us. Try chemo, but without much hope. That’s what it came down to, underneath the tactful verbiage. So Josie said no to it, and I can understand why, God knows.”
Lynn asked desperately, “Then why the operation now?”
“Oh, another man saw her and had an idea, something new. She wanted to refuse that, too, but you grasp at straws and I made her try it. I was wrong.” And now Bruce’s voice died.
“All these months. Why did she hide it? What are friends for? You should have told us, Bruce, even if she wouldn’t.”
“She absolutely wouldn’t let me. She made me promise not to worry you. She said you had enough with the new baby and …” He did not finish.
“But Josie’s the one who always says you should face reality.”
“Your own reality. She’s facing hers, and very bravely. She just didn’t want to inflict her reality on other people as long as she could face it alone. Don’t you see?”
“ ‘Other people’! Even her best friend? I would have helped her.…” And afraid of the answer, Lynn murmured the question, “What’s to happen?”
“It won’t be very long, they told me.”
She wiped her eyes, yet a tear slipped through and dropped on the desk, where it lay glistening on the dark leather top.
“When can I see her?” she asked, still murmuring.
“I don’t know. I’ll ask. Maybe tomorrow.”
“Does Robert know?”
“I called him this morning at the office. They needed to cancel my appointments. I have to go now, Lynn.”
“Bruce, we all love you so, Emily and Annie.… I don’t know how to tell Annie.”
“I’ll talk to her. Annie and I, you know we have a special thing.”
“I know.”
“I have to go now, Lynn.”
She put the receiver back and laid her hand on the desk, saying aloud, “I am heartsick.” And the words made literal sense, for her chest was heavy, and the cold tremble would not stop. Josie, my friend. Josie, the sturdy, the wise, fast moving, fast talking, always there. Josie, aged thirty-nine.
She might have sat in a fog of sorrow all that afternoon if Bobby’s cry had not rung through the fog. When she had taken him up from his nap and fed him, she carried him outdoors to the playpen on the terrace. With a full stomach and content in his comfortable, fresh diaper, he lay waving a rattle. Dots of light flickering through the emerald shade seemed to please him, for every now and then his babble broke into something that sounded like a laugh. At four months! She stood looking down at his innocence, knowing that there was no way on earth he could ever be shielded from heartbreak.
After a while she rolled the playpen over to the perennial border, where he could watch as she knelt to weed. A different reaction had begun in her, a need to move, to assure herself of her own vitality.
From a tough central root, purslane shot its multiple rubbery arms and legs like an octopus, crawling like cancer among the phlox and iris, peonies and asters, all the glad and glorious healthy life. With fierce hatred she dug out the roots and threw them away.
The sun had gone behind the hill, and the grass had turned from jade to olive when tires crunched the gravel. Robert, on his way from the station, had called for the girls at the pool, and the three were coming toward her as she rose from her knees. By their faces she saw that he had given the news to the girls.
“Is she going to die?” asked Annie, never mincing words.
The truth was as yet unspeakable. She could think it and know it, but not say it. So Lynn answered, “We don’t know anything except that she’s very sick.”
“Perhaps,” said Emily, “the operation will have cut it all away. My math teacher in junior year had cancer when he was thirty-five, and he’s old now.”
“Perhaps,” said Robert. “We shall hope.”
Alone with Lynn he gave a long, deep sigh. “Poor guy. Poor Bruce. Oh, if it were you …”
“Are we maybe rushing to a conclusion?” She clasped her hands as if imploring him. “Is it really hopeless?”
“Yes. He told me the only hope left is that it may go fast.”
Measured by the calendar it went fast, covering as it did only the short span of summer. And yet it seemed as if each day contained twice the normal count of hours, so slowly did t
hey move.
Once on a weekend they tried bringing Josie home. She was so light that Bruce, carrying her, was able to run up the steps into the house. At the window, where she could look out into the trees, he set her down and brought an ottoman for her feet. The day was warm, but she was shivering, and he put a shawl around her frail shoulders.
The cat bounded onto her lap and she smiled.
“He hasn’t forgotten me. I thought maybe he would have.”
“Forgotten you? Of course not,” Bruce said heartily.
We are all acting, thought Lynn. We know we dare not show tears, so we talk loud and briskly, we fear a moment’s silence, we bustle around and think we’re being normal.
A fine rain had begun to fall, so that the summer greenery was dimmed behind a silvery gray gauze. Josie asked to have the window opened.
“Listen,” she said. “You can hear it falling on the leaves.” And she smiled again. “It’s the most beautiful kind of day in the most beautiful time of the year.”
This time next year, Lynn thought, and had to look away. She had brought a dinner, light, simple food, white meat of chicken in herbs. Josie took a few mouthfuls and laid the fork down.
“No appetite,” she said, apologizing, and added quickly, “but as always, your food is marvelous. Someday you’ll do something really big with your talent. You should be trying it now.”
Robert corrected her. “She has her hands full at home. Right, Lynn?”
“I don’t know,” said Lynn, thinking that Josie’s skin, her lovely skin, was like old yellowed newspaper.
“But I know,” said Josie, wanting her way.
In the evening she asked to go back to the hospital, and Bruce took her.
Her flesh fell off, leaving her eyes sunken into their round bony sockets and her teeth enormous in the cup of her jaws. Yet in a brief spurt of energy a lovely smile could bring harmony to this poor face. More often, it seemed as though the medication was loosening her tongue. Indeed, when she was lucid, she admitted as much.