“Sir?”
“Some wandering slippers? Starting to ring a bell, Candidate Chance?”
“Ah,” says Bernard. “That.”
Charmichael furrows his brow. “Strictly forbidden, you understand. As is eating, for the record. Yes, even in dreams.”
“I thought that—”
“Any contact is forbidden, Candidate Chance. Regardless of the nature. This was all in the orientation, as well as the manual. Hard to miss, really. Section One, as a matter of fact. Was that not perfectly clear?”
“Uh, yessir. Yessir, it was, or I thought it was. Forgive me, sir.”
“Believe me, I’m trying, we all are. There’s hope for you, Chance. That’s why you’re here. If there wasn’t hope for you, you’d be . . . well, somewhere else.”
“But, sir, the thing is, she has no idea what’s coming. The shock might be too much. I gotta get to her, I gotta explain.”
“By my reckoning, Candidate Chance, you had nearly four decades to do that. Why the big hurry, now that you’re deceased?”
“I don’t mean just about me, sir. There’s a lot more. Stuff with the kids. Especially with Caroline. With all due respect, it’s liable to kill her, sir. She won’t understand, she doesn’t see it coming. Somebody’s gotta be there for her. Otherwise, it’s just . . . well, it’s just not—”
“Fair, Candidate Chance? There are a great many things you’re not taking into consideration, here.”
“But I see things I didn’t see then, sir. I know things—about Harriet, about Caroline—things I had no way of knowing then.”
“Had you looked a little harder, you might have at least suspected them, Candidate.”
“I gotta go back.”
“Out of the question.”
“What if I don’t comply?”
“Excuse me?”
“What will happen to me if I go down there again?”
“First, I’d say you better check your coordinates. That is, if you’re heading down anywhere. ‘Over there’ might be a little more accurate but still insufficient. ‘In there’ is probably the closest.”
“You know what I mean, sir. What will happen?”
“If you go rogue?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s just say there are measures in place. It’s not so different from your marines, Major. Think AWOL.”
“But what will happen? Will it affect them?”
Charmichael redoubles his meaningful gaze. “In a word, Candidate Chance: nothing. Nothing will happen.”
“I see, sir.”
“To you, that is, Candidate. Nothing will happen to you. Things will still happen. Just not to you. Do we have an understanding?”
“Uh, yessir. I believe we do, sir.”
“Good, then. Consider yourself warned.”
“Yessir. I will.”
“As you were,” says Charmichael, waving him off. “And, Candidate?”
“Yessir?”
“The salute is unnecessary.”
“Yessir.”
April 16, 1959
(HARRIET AT TWENTY-TWO)
Mrs. Bernard Chance, it has a certain ring to it. Anyway, it’s only a name—perhaps not the name you intended to make for yourself. But this is not your identity we’re talking about, this is a logical step. A practical one. This isn’t about your independence, this is about the rest of your life. This is about fulfillment. The kind of fulfillment no job can offer, at least not the jobs available to you. You knew from the start you’d never be a lawyer or a judge. You were destined for an administrative role. So, why not marriage? It turns out, your independence, like your salary, had a ceiling all along.
Besides, you’re pregnant.
Oh, but don’t despair, Harriet. Stolid, capable Bernard, whether he knows it or not, is willing. And he’s a man who knows a thing or two about duty. About commitment and sacrifice, plumbing and electricity. And he’s not a man who asks a lot of questions.
Just think, a spring wedding in Seattle, at the Rainier Club! Indoors, thank God, because yep, you guessed it, it’s raining pitchforks. The parking lot is a lake. The awnings are sagging. But nothing can dampen your spirits today.
You’re a gorgeous bride, Harriet—it’s true, look at the pictures. In your mother’s champagne-beaded dress, with the V-neck bodice, you cut an hourglass figure. You lost fifteen pounds starving yourself for this day. What’s more, you’re showing no outward signs of that little life taking hold inside of you, but it’s there, you can feel it, the promise of fulfillment glowing in your cheeks.
Let’s be honest, you’re marrying down, as they say, a state of affairs that your mother will frequently remind you of in years to come. You’re marrying a man who would sooner pick up a bowling ball than brandish a club or a racket. Though he had other plans for you, your father does not begrudge your decision to marry a janitor. At least he’s a damn good janitor. No, your father has spared no expense on the wedding. The arrangements are elegant, perfectly tasteful. Everybody but everybody is there. People you don’t know or can’t place. Charlie Fitzsimmons is there. The Times runs a lavish paid announcement for the daughter of prominent attorney and local dignitary, Harriman Nathan.
You can already smell the shrimp puffs as the procession gathers in the wings and the organ sounds its note. You’ve never been surer about anything, Harriet. Not that you haven’t overcome a few nagging reservations over the past year. But you’ve managed to paint an idyllic picture of domestic life for yourself. It all starts with a honeymoon in Niagara Falls. A tiny house of your own in Seattle’s north end, paid for with your own money, just you and Bernard. And baby makes three. Just think, this very Christmas, you’ll hang those stockings. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves again.
Your esteemed father, eyes misting as he leads you up the aisle, voice faltering as he gives you away, whispers to you that he could not be prouder. And there, beside you at the altar, is a man who knows what he wants, a man who speaks his mind and demands his just. A man who served his country. A man who has a center, whether it’s moral or habitual. A man who vows to honor and protect you, in sickness and in health. To have and hold you, to love you and cherish you, from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, until death do you part.
Yes, Harriet, for the next fifty years you’ll eat what Bernard eats, vote how Bernard votes, love how Bernard loves, and ultimately learn to want out of life what Bernard wants out of life. Together you will see sickness and health. At times he will honor you. Occasionally, he will cherish you. Always he will protect you. But again, we get ahead of ourselves.
Right now, Harriet Nathan, that is, Harriet Chance, you are a beautiful bride.
August 13, 2015
(HARRIET AT SEVENTY-EIGHT)
Of course, Bernard’s still alive in her imagination—that’s only natural. Of course, she never heats the house above sixty-four degrees. Force of habit. Five decades of familiarity imprinted on her memory like a phantom limb. And yes, she still talks to him. These one-way conversations at the breakfast nook, or in bed, or while she’s rummaging through the junk drawer in search of a screwdriver have been a small comfort the past nine months.
But an actual physical presence, one that talked back, this could be problematic. How long before it happens in public?
Hectored by these thoughts, Harriet trundles her grocery cart ever so deliberately down the cereal aisle toward the All-Bran, her arthritic spine burning like fire and ice. Her shopping is light: an overripe cantaloupe, her calcium supplement, a quart of skim milk, three Eating Right single-serve entrees (including her favorite, beef portobello). Just enough to last her until the cruise.
Short as her list is, the grocery cart proves to be a burden. What, with its wobbly front wheel spinning uselessly on its axis, a quarter inch above the white tile, an imprecision that surely would have driven Bernard into a state of muttering contempt, all the more so because the ball bearings themselves, those stalwarts of angula
r contact, those silent bearers of axial loads, to whose manufacture and distribution the Major had devoted twenty-eight years of his professional life, are rattling around like so many marbles inside the wheel assembly.
“They couldn’t even get that right.”
“Shhh,” says Harriet, looking around the cereal aisle. “Not here!”
“Christ, if they’d just fit the damn bearings to the races properly.”
“Bernard, shush! Don’t make a scene.”
“Well, it’s like nobody gives a damn anymore. It’s all about saving a nickel.”
“Dear, your acid indigestion.”
“Reflux! They call it reflux, now. Indigestion wasn’t good enough!”
How many of these childish outbursts has Harriet endured over the course of the decades? Apparently, even death can’t stop them. Do they embarrass her? Yes, often. Do they try her patience? Yes, frequently. But the truth is, if only covertly, Harriet has agreed with Bernard’s grievances on nearly every count from lawn mowers, to stereo receivers, to family values—everything just seems to get worse. It’s true: they really don’t make them like they used to.
“Look, I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m falling back into the same old patterns.”
Harriet looks up and down the aisle again. “Please, Bernard, not here.”
“Okay, fine,” he says. “But I’ll be back. We need to talk.”
The question still burrowing like a wood beetle inside Harriet’s brain is: Why? Why won’t Bernard go away? Why has he come back to move his slippers around the house and complain about shoddy workmanship? The conventional wisdom suggests matters unresolved, but Harriet has neither the courage nor the inclination to further contemplate her failures.
Though it’s barely 10:30 a.m., already she’s exhausted. The weight of the impending cruise sits on her shoulders, a heavy dread. If only she could cancel without breaking Mildred’s heart. From the beginning, Harriet hoped that Mildred would decline, so she wouldn’t have to go herself, but she should have known better. This is Mildred we’re talking about. She’s been counting the days since June.
Of course Harriet wants to honor Bernard, but a cruise? All that activity, the lack of familiar routine. All that newness. The mere thought of it is terrifying. Meanwhile, she may be losing her mind. Thank heavens she has her best friend to lean on. Mildred is a rock.
At the stand, the straw-haired checker with the flinty manner clutches Harriet’s Val-U-Pack coupons with white knuckles, unable to suppress a sigh. The line is stacking up into the aisle, and Harriet knows it. But for the life of her, she can’t find that five-dollar rebate from July’s circular. More and more frequently of late, she’s misplacing things. Car keys, recipes, thank-you notes. And, if she’s to believe Father Mullinix, slippers and WD-40. Hands a-tremble, she burrows around fruitlessly in her purse. She’s sure she put the voucher in the side pocket.
“Oh dear,” she says, fishing out her reading glasses. “I know it’s here.”
“Uuugh,” somebody groans near the back of the line.
“Tell me about it,” whispers somebody else. “Should have seen this one coming, right?”
Just when Harriet is about to abandon her search, she realizes she’s already clutching the voucher.
“Oh, here it is!” she says brightly, extending the coupon. “Silly me.”
Snatching it from her liver-spotted hand, the checker inspects it. “Um, this expired eight days ago.”
“You’re sure?”
“It says so right here: expires eight five fourteen. See: Eight . . . five . . . fourteen.”
It’s not just her children—the whole world is convinced she’s an idiot, benignly oblivious to the world around her, incapable of self-consciousness.
“Club Card?” says the checker.
“Oh yes,” says Harriet, unclasping her purse again. “Let’s see . . .”
Another groan from the back of the line, where a prematurely balding fellow with a five-o’clock shadow begins tapping his sandal anxiously on the floor. Harriet feels her face flushing. For heaven’s sake, what’s this young man’s big hurry, anyway? He doesn’t look particularly busy to Harriet. Really, what kind of grown man walks around wearing cutoff jeans and sandals on a workday? Bernard would have a field day.
“Would you like help out today?”
Harriet straightens herself up. “I can manage, thank you.”
The checker eyes her doubtfully. “Let me get Chad. Chad!” she calls.
Soon, her long-suffering associate, a stout, slump-shouldered boy with an enormous brow ridge and perpetually chapped lips, assumes his post at the butt end of the checkout stand, where he pauses for a long moment, awaiting instructions, mouth agape, nose running.
“Can you help this young lady out?”
Chad gazes blankly, first at the checker, then at Harriet, before licking his ravaged lips.
While Harriet finds the boy quite agreeable, she prefers it when Chad does not bag her groceries. For, in the five years that Chad has been handling Harriet’s groceries, the young man has not proven particularly adept at this charge, nor has he improved markedly over time—routinely stacking canned goods atop bread loaves, and crushing eggs beneath melons. Still, Harriet has always known the young man to be quite helpful in other respects: remembering daylight savings, for instance, reminding her to set her clock back. As far as Harriet can tell, he is under no obligation from Safeway, or anyone else, to do so. In an age of paranoia and declining social niceties, Harriet finds Chad refreshingly forthcoming, not only with his reminders but also with his personal observations. Such as the fact that he likes cats. Or that his aunt has eight of them. Or that one of them is named Stuart. Indeed, the young man is quite personable in light of—or perhaps because of—his condition.
“Earth to Chad,” says the checker.
As Harriet and Chad inch their way across the crowded lot, the boy seems uncharacteristically reserved. It’s not raining, yet Chad has failed to comment on the lack of rain. Has he sensed her low opinion of his work? She’s relieved when he finally breaks his silence.
“My birthday is June 23,” he observes.
“Well, that’s nice, dear.”
“When were you born?”
“November the sixth, darling.”
“What year?”
Harriet can feel herself blushing again. She can’t possibly hold the child responsible for such a gaff.
“Dear, that’s an impolite question. But if you must know, the answer is 1936.”
My God, it sounds impossible. Harriet has outlasted climates. She’s on geological time. And yet, daily, she feels the minutes of her life grinding slowly to a standstill. The sight of the Olds is just one more reminder of her shrinking existence.
Skip is even firmer than Caroline on the subject of driving. Last year, he almost ruined Thanksgiving for Harriet with his exhortations.
“Look, Mom, it’s nothing personal,” he assured her in the kitchen as she basted and stirred and boiled. “This is about your condition.”
“Osteoarthritis?”
“No, age,” he said with a mouthful of deviled egg. “I’m sorry, Mom, but eighty is just too old to drive—”
“Seventy-eight.”
“I’m just saying, there’s a law that says you can’t drive before a certain age, and there ought to be one that says you can’t drive after a certain age. You’ve got a busted taillight and a chipmunk plastered to your wheel. And what happened to that rear-side panel? Did you hit something?”
Harriet averted her attention to the gravy.
“Not a pedestrian, I hope?”
“Good heavens, no! A shopping cart. And it hit me, Skip!”
As it happened, the cart really hadn’t been Harriet’s fault. Come to think of it, it had probably been Chad’s fault. He was supposed to wheel the cart back—not leave it sitting there in her blind spot (on an incline, no less!). Still, Harriet can hardly blame the poor dear. The least she can do, though,
is gently remind him, this time.
“Chad, dear,” she says as he slams the trunk closed, licking his lips. “Could you please remember to wheel the cart back?”
September 11, 1988
(HARRIET AT FIFTY-ONE)
Yes, we’re getting ahead of ourselves again, but hey, it happens, Harriet. The reflective mind is a pinball, pitching and careening, rebounding off anything it makes contact with. Really, how can we not think of Mildred at this juncture? As always, you’re counting on her.
Mildred Honeycutt, ever your savior, and right from the start.
Here you are, Harriet, in the airless basement of St. Luke’s on that scorcher of a Sunday so long ago, nervous, reluctant, miserable, as your poor, untouched Bundt cake all but collapses under its own weight in the stultifying heat. Thank heavens for Mildred Honeycutt, with her cropped hair and bold, disarming nature, not only for extending a welcome on behalf of the entire congregation but for having the courage and politeness to wash two slices of your disastrous confection down with her weak coffee.
You are taken immediately by Mildred Honeycutt. And let’s face it, her attentiveness has everything to do with it. At fifty-one, you feel overlooked. You never thought you’d miss that licentious slap on the fanny. But twenty-nine years of rigorous routine and loyal service to your family have made a wallflower of you, Harriet, or that’s what you think, anyway.
Look at the way Mildred blushes as she pours your coffee. Why, she can hardly look at you. And yet, when she thinks you’re not looking, she can’t seem to take her eyes off of you. She makes you feel fascinating. Admired. Mysterious.
How long has it been since you’ve had a friend—your own friend? Not Margaret Blum but a trusted confidante. Yes, Harriet, you long for companionship outside of Bernard’s influence. Somebody to commiserate with. Somebody you can complain to. Somebody to listen to you without offering advice. How is it that you’ve so rarely managed to achieve this? Why is female fellowship forever so elusive to you? Are you different from other women?