Whispers

  The books had been packed, and the cartons put in the front hall. Tom was already there when the car stopped in the driveway.

  “He’s got a driver with him to help him carry,” he reported to Lynn, who stood half hidden in the living room. “Are you afraid? Why don’t you go back into the den?”

  “No.” She could not have explained why she wanted to look at Robert, other than to say it was just morbid curiosity.

  He wore a dark blue business suit out of the proverbial bandbox. She did not know whether it was surprising or not that he should be as perfect in his handsome dignity as he had ever been.

  No greeting passed between him and Tom. It took several trips from the house to the car before the books were removed, and they were all accomplished in silence. She had thought and feared that perhaps he might try to talk to her and to plead, but he did not even seem to notice where she was standing.

  On the last trip Eudora came out of the kitchen to give him a vindictive smile as she passed.

  Ah, don’t, Eudora! It is so sad. So very sad. You don’t understand. How can you, how can anyone, except Robert and me?

  At the doorstep Juliet came from the back of the house, wagging her tail at the sight of the man who had been her favorite in the family. When Lynn saw him stoop to caress the dog, she ran to the door. Something compelled her, and Tom’s wavering touch did not restrain her.

  “Robert,” she said, “I’m sorry, so sorry that our life ended like this.”

  He looked up. The blue eyes, his greatest beauty, had turned to ice; without replying he gave her a look of such chilling fury, of such ominous, unforgiving power, that involuntarily, she stepped back out of his reach.

  Tom closed the door. She went to the window to watch Robert walk down the path; it was as if she wanted to make sure that he had really gone away.

  When Tom put a comforting hand on her shoulder, she was whispering, “To think he was my entire world. I can’t believe it.”

  With his other hand on her other shoulder he turned her about to face him.

  “Listen to me. It’s over,” he said quietly. “Let it be over. And now, I believe you promised me some lunch.”

  On a little table in front of the long window, she had set two places with a bowl of pink miniature chrysanthemums between them.

  “If I can’t eat outdoors when cold weather comes, I can at least look at the outdoors,” she said, to start conversation.

  And she followed his gaze across the grass, which was still dark emerald, although the birches, spreading their black fretwork against the sky, were quite bare.

  They talked, and Lynn knew it was prattle, that, comfortable as they appeared to be, there was an underlying nervousness in each of them. The moment was approaching. At some time before they were to leave this room, she was certain, a momentous question would have been put. It was incredible that even now, she could be still uncertain of her answer, although it seemed more and more as the minutes passed that her answer ought to be yes.

  Thoughtfully, Tom peeled a pear, took a bite, pushed it aside, and began.

  “We’ve had a rather special understanding, a feel for each other, haven’t we?” And he paused as if waiting for confirmation, which she gave.

  “That’s true.”

  “There are things I want to say, things I’ve thought about for quite a time. What’s brought it all to a head is that you’ve reached a turning point. Kane told me the other day that you’re about to be free.” He picked up the pear and then put it back on the plate. “I’m being really awkward.…”

  Lynn said lightly, “That’s not usual for you.”

  “No, it’s not. I’m usually pretty sure of myself. Blunt, like a sledgehammer.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, still lightly, “I found that out one day at the club pool.”

  He laughed, and she thought, He’s acting like a boy, a kid scared to be turned down.

  “Well,” Tom resumed, “perhaps I should organize my thoughts, begin from the beginning. You remember, I think I’ve told you about that night at my house when we were dancing and I confessed I’d had the intention of dancing you right into bed—you were so blithe, so sweet, so fresh-from-the-farm, and I had always been rather successful with women. That’s an awful thing to say in 1990, so forgive me for saying it, will you? I hope you’re not going to take it too badly.”

  “No, go on.”

  “Well, aside from that, I was mistaken in being so sure of you that night. I knew that later and was ashamed of myself, too, especially when on the very next morning I saw what trouble you were in. I surely wasn’t going to add any other complications to your life. I suppose you’re wondering what the point of all this rambling talk can possibly be.”

  “That you want to be honest about your feelings. Isn’t that the point?”

  “Precisely. Honest and open, which brings me to the present.”

  He stopped to take a drink of water that she knew he must not really want; it was only a means of delay. His forehead had creased itself into three deep, painful lines.

  “So what I want to say is—oh, hell, it’s difficult—I think we’ve come to the time we should stop seeing each other.”

  “Stop?” she echoed.

  “Oh, Lynn, if you could know how I have anguished over this! I’ve thought and thought. Probably I should have ended this months ago but I couldn’t bring myself to do it because I didn’t want to end it, and I still don’t want to now. But I know I must. It wouldn’t be fair to you—or to myself—to go on misleading us both.”

  Tom took another drink of water and, to cover his agitation, adjusted his watch strap. Lynn was tingling and hot with shame; the blood beat in her neck.

  “You haven’t misled me, not at all,” she cried. “I can’t imagine how you ever got such an idea!”

  Suddenly he reached and grasped both her hands. She tried to wrench them away, but he held them fast.

  “You wouldn’t want an affair, Lynn, while I would. But I don’t want to get married again. I’m not the man to start another life rearing an adolescent girl and a toddler. Playing with Bobby for an hour is something very different. It wouldn’t be right for any of us.”

  The irony of this, she was thinking. How foolish of me to have been so sure, to have misread—

  He was tightening his hold on her hands; his voice was urgent and sad.

  “Lynn, if I were starting life again now without all these experiences I’ve had, I would look for a wife like you. There’s no one with whom I’d rather have spent my life. If I had met you in the beginning, I would have learned things about myself.… I’ve had two divorces, as you know, and other involvements besides. I live a certain way now, without obligations. It’s a long story. No, don’t pull your hands away, please don’t. I know you haven’t asked me to psychoanalyze myself, but I have to tell you.… I wouldn’t do for you, Lynn, not in the long run. In the kind of life I lead, with the people I know, we are wary with each other. We don’t expect things to last.”

  “I don’t expect anything either. Not anymore. And you don’t have to tell me all this.”

  “I wanted to. I did have to, because someday, I hope you’ll find someone steady and permanent, not like me. I could have been that, I know that much about myself. But now—well, now I’m not the faithful type, and I know that too.”

  “Robert was faithful,” she said for no reason at all, and her lips twisted.

  “Yes. Confusing, isn’t it?”

  She pulled her hands away, and this time he released them.

  “I’ve hurt you. I’ve hurt your pride, and that’s not at all what I intended to do.”

  “Pride!” she said derisively.

  “Yes, why not? You have every reason for it. Oh, I knew I’d be too damned clumsy to make this clear! But I couldn’t simply stop calling or seeing you, could I? Without any explanation? It would have been far worse to leave you wondering what was wrong.”

  She said nothing, because that much was t
rue.

  “I only want you to move on now, Lynn, and you can’t very well do that with me or any one man hanging around.”

  Still she said nothing, thinking, I have been rejected, and the thought stung hard. A woman scorned.

  Yet he had not scorned her.

  “Lynn? Listen to me. I only wanted not to mislead you, even though you say you expected nothing.”

  “That’s so,” she said with her head high.

  “Then I’m glad. You’ve had betrayals enough.”

  When he stood up from the table, she rose, too, asking with dignity whether he was leaving now.

  “No. Let’s sit down somewhere else if you will let me. I have more things to say.”

  He took a chair near the unlit fire and sighed. She had never seen him so troubled.

  “I told you once, didn’t I, that I used to do matrimonial work? I quit because it wore me down. Too many tears, too much rage and suffering. The price was too high. But one thing it did was to teach me to see people, and that includes myself, far more clearly than I ever had.”

  “So you’ve told me I must find a man to marry me who will be faithful and permanent, ready to cope with my children. But that’s not what I want. Right now I don’t ever want to depend on a man again.”

  “Right!” The syllable exploded into the room. “Right! What I was going to tell you is that you shouldn’t look for any man at all. Not now. You should look to yourself only. Put yourself in order. You don’t need anyone. That’s been your trouble, Lynn.”

  “What are you doing, scolding me?” The day was awful, first seeing Robert and now undergoing this humiliation, for say what one would, it was humiliation. “If you are scolding, it’s inhuman of you.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean it that way. It’s only that I know what you are and what you can be. I want you to be your best, Lynn.” He finished quietly. “Robert didn’t. He wanted you to be dependent on him.”

  Her right hand, reaching for her left, tried to twirl the rings that were no longer there. Remembering, she put her hands on the arms of the chair. And, meeting Tom’s look of concern, admitted, “Until he left, I had never balanced a bank statement. I had hardly ever written a check.”

  “But now you do both.”

  “Of course. I’ve had to.”

  “Tell me, whatever happened to Delicious Dinners?”

  “You know what happened. I had Bobby instead.”

  “Why can’t you have both?” he asked gently.

  Lynn shook her head. “The very thought is staggering. Money and child care, a place and time—I don’t know how to begin.”

  “This very minute you don’t, but you can learn. There are people who can tell you how to start a business, where to get the right child care, everything you’d need to know. Step out into the world, Lynn. It’s not as unfriendly as it often seems.”

  For an instant the crinkles smiled around his eyes, until the look of concern replaced them again, and he asked, almost as if he were asking a favor, “Don’t you think you can try? Look squarely at the reality of things?”

  She smiled faintly. “Yes, that’s what Josie used to say.”

  “And she was right.”

  The cat plodded in from the kitchen, switched its tail, and lay down comfortably at Tom’s feet.

  “He’s made himself at home here, hasn’t he? What do you hear from Bruce?”

  The change of subject relieved Lynn. “Postcards with picturesque scenery. He writes to Annie and me, he tells about his work, which seems to be going well, but doesn’t really say much, if you know what I mean.”

  “I had a card from him, too, just a few lines, rather melancholy, I thought.”

  “Hell never get over Josie.”

  “I don’t think I ever felt anything that intense,” Tom said soberly. “I suppose I’ve missed something.”

  “No. I’d say you’re fortunate.”

  “You don’t really mean that.”

  “Well, maybe I don’t.”

  “Will you think seriously about what I’ve just said? Will you, Lynn?”

  It was his look, affectionate and troubled, that finally touched her and lessened her chagrin. Aware that he was making ready to leave, she got up then and went over to take his hand.

  “You are, when all is said and done, one of the best friends a person could ever want. And yes, I will think seriously about what you said.”

  So it ended, and for the second time that day she stood at the window to watch a man walk out of her life.

  He had told her some rough truths. Put yourself in order. Be your best.

  In a certain way these admonitions were frightening. Indeed, she could, she wanted, and would need to be an earner again. She had already been thinking about refreshing her secretarial skills, renting an apartment, and squirreling away for the inevitable emergencies whatever might remain to her after the mortgage company got its share.

  It would be a meager livelihood for a woman with a family, yet it would be manageable; the hours would be regular, which meant that good day care for Bobby would not be too hard to find. But this was not at all what Tom had meant by “be your best.”

  She walked into the kitchen and stood there looking around. Everything sparkled, everything was polished, from the pots to the flowered tile, from the wet leaves of the African violets to the slick covers of the cookbooks on their shelves. Peaches displayed their creamy cheeks in a glass bowl on the countertop, and fresh, red-tipped lettuce drained from a colander into the sink. It came to her that this place was the one room in the house that had been completely her own; here she had worked hour upon hour, contented and singing.

  For no particular reason she took a cookbook from a shelf; it fell open to the almond tart that she had made for that fateful dinner at Tom Lawrence’s. And she kept standing there with the book in hand, thinking, thinking.…

  Le Cirque, they’d said, applauding. The finest restaurants in Paris … Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, a bit absurd, isn’t it?

  She walked back into the hall and through the rooms and back to where Tom had sat. “Put yourself in order,” he said. So possibilities were there. You started simply, took courses, studied, learned. People did it, didn’t they? You took what you might call a cautious chance.…

  And after a while she knew what she must do. The thing was to move quickly. Hesitation would only produce too many reasons not to move. She went to the telephone and dialed her sister Helen’s number.

  “I have a surprise for you,” she said.

  Helen’s voice had the upward lilt of eager curiosity. “I’ll bet I know what it is.”

  “I’m sure you don’t.”

  “It’s about a man named Tom. Emily and Annie have both told me things. Isn’t he the one who sent the needlepoint chair for Bobby?”

  “You have a memory like an elephant. No, it’s not about him or any other man. It’s about me and what I’m to do with my life. I’m going into business for myself.”

  And a kind of excitement bubbled up into Lynn’s throat. It was astonishing how an idea, taking shape in spoken words, could become all at once so plausible, so inevitable, so alive.

  She could almost feel Helen’s reaction, as though the wire were able to transmit an intake of breath, an open mouth, and wide eyes, as Helen shrieked.

  “Business! What kind, for goodness’ sake?”

  “Catering, naturally. Cooking’s what I do best, after all. I’ve been baking cakes to order, but we can’t live on that.”

  “When did you decide on this?”

  “Just an hour or two ago.”

  “What next? Out of the blue, just like that?”

  “Well, not exactly. You know it’s been in and out of my mind for ages. I’ve toyed with it. And now things have come together, that’s all. Opportunity and necessity.”

  “And courage,” Helen said, rather soberly. “It takes money to open a business. Is your lawyer getting any more out of Robert or something?”
br />   “Nothing more than you already know.”

  “It’s not much, Lynn.”

  “I wouldn’t want more from him even if he had it.”

  “Well, I would. You are the limit, you are. Where’s this business going to be, anyway?”

  “Somewhere in Connecticut. Not this town, though. I want to get away.”

  There was a silence.

  “Helen? Are you there?”

  “I’m here. I’m thinking. Since you want to get away from where you are, why not make a big move while you’re at it?”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as coming back here. You’ve been away only four years, and everybody knows you. People will give you a start here. Doesn’t that make sense?”

  Lynn considered it for a long minute. It did seem to make practical sense. She had perhaps not thought of going “home” because it might seem like going back for the refuge of family and a familiar place. But then, what was wrong with that?

  “Doesn’t it make sense?” Helen repeated.

  “Yes. Yes, I believe it does.”

  “It will be wonderful to have you here again! Darwin,” Lynn heard her call. “Come hear the news. Lynn’s coming home.”

  The house, with its furnishings, was sold overnight. A formal couple, impressed by Robert’s formal rooms, walked through it once and made an acceptable offer the next day.

  Except for the kitchen’s contents and the family’s books, there was little to take with them. There were Emily’s desk and Annie’s ten-speed bicycle; to Lynn’s surprise she also asked to keep the piano, although she had not touched it since the night when that finid dissonant chord had crashed. Carefully, in a carton lined with tissue paper, Lynn packed pictures and photographs, treasured remembrances of her parents on their wedding day, of her grandparents, and her children from birth to graduation. When these were done, she stood uncertainly, holding the portrait of Robert in its ornate silver frame. As if they were alive, his eyes looked back at her. She had an impulse on the one hand to throw it, silver and all, into the trash, while on the other hand she reflected that posterity, perhaps at the end of the twenty-first century, might be curious to behold a great-grandfather. By that time probably no one alive would know what Robert Ferguson had really been, and his descendants would be free to praise and be pleased by his distinguished face. So she would let the thing lie wrapped up in an attic until then.