“To you, maybe. Not to me.”
“Good for you. Rage against the dying of the light.”
“That’s Dylan Thomas,” she says. “Haven’t you got an Emily Dickinson line?”
Straight off he gives her a verse.
Behold this little bane—
The boon of all alive—
As common as it is unknown
The name of it is Love—
Alice gives a shrug, and pulls a face for him. What can you say?
“Don’t you just love her half rhymes?” he says.
“I love everything about her,” she says. “Emily believes in love.”
“But she calls it ‘this little bane,’ ” he says. “And ‘the little toil of love.’ ”
“I don’t care. I say she wanted to love. I say she did love.”
Alice’s defiance, based on nothing. Nick’s response takes her aback.
“I wanted to love. I did love.”
What can you say to that?
“I just didn’t know it at the time. Then the time came when I did know it. But it was too late.”
“This was Jack’s mother?”
“Yes. Laura.”
“There must have been others.”
“There’ve been others, yes. But not like that.”
“It’s not as if you haven’t had your chances. And by the way, you are married.”
“So you’re still angry with me.”
“Why should I be angry with you?”
“Because of Marcia. Because of your dad.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” She jumps up, gathers her papers together. “Your sex life is your problem. My father’s my problem. I don’t need this.”
Ridiculously, she finds herself in the grip of a tantrum, like a two-year-old child. She knows it’s entirely unnecessary but she can’t control it. Sensing she’s about to burst into tears, she runs out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
In the safety of her room she does cry, a little, but it’s mostly out of frustration with herself. What was that all about?
About Marcia. About my dad.
She hates Nick, knowing she resents his afternoon with Marcia. She hates his knowing she has a father who didn’t love her, which makes her into someone looking for love from an older man. She hates being understood more than she understands herself. She hates the feeling that he’s in control and she isn’t.
That’s a lot of hating. Who knew I was so wound up?
She decides to get out of the house. She needs some kind of supper anyway. She pulls on a coat against the night chill and goes out, not looking to see if Nick’s still in the kitchen, not announcing her departure.
She walks up Main Street and goes into a pasta restaurant near the center of town. It’s a plainly furnished place, priced for a student clientele, and only about a quarter full. She sits at a table by the window and orders herself a large glass of pinot grigio and a bowl of carbonara. Her wine comes and she drinks it fast, staring at the street outside, seeing nothing.
This wasn’t meant to turn into my story.
She’s angry at herself for being angry with Nick. She replays their conversation in her mind, seeing as she does so his quizzical face gazing so steadily at her, silently interrogating her, finding answers she does not mean to give.
Not many people passing on the sidewalk. But there’s one who has come to a stop and is looking back at her through the glass. Then the ghostly onlooker gives a little wave. Alice stares.
It’s Marcia.
Now she’s coming into the restaurant. To her table. Why?
“Hi,” she says. “I thought it was you.”
“Hi,” says Alice.
“Mind if I stop for a few minutes?”
“No, sure,” says Alice.
Marcia sits down at the table facing Alice, puts her elbows on the table top and her face in her hands, and starts to weep. She cries noiselessly, helplessly, her tears running down between her fingers.
“Sorry. I’ll be okay in a minute.”
Alice drinks her wine and waits. Marcia snuffles, and dabs at her eyes with a tissue, and gives Alice an apologetic grin.
“That wasn’t the plan,” she says.
“Is this Nick?”
“No. Well, yes, I came in because of Nick. But I’m not crying over Nick. What’s that you’re drinking?”
“Pinot grigio.”
“I need some of that.” She waves at the waitress.
“I’ll have another one,” says Alice. “You want something to eat?”
“I’m never going to eat again. I am so fucked up you wouldn’t believe. You know about body dysmorphia?”
“Yes,” says Alice.
“I’ve got body dysmorphia and mind dysmorphia and spirit dysmorphia and anything else you want to name. I have scaled heights of self-hatred that aren’t even on the map.”
She sees Alice’s bewildered look.
“Too much information, right? Listen, all I wanted to do was tell you about Nick. I owe him my life. He has saved my life. Quite literally.”
“How did he do that?”
“I’ve been planning to kill myself for months. I’ve got the pills. I’ve written the letters. Farewell, cruel world, and all that crap.”
She’s laughing as she speaks and running her hands through her blond hair and looking so pretty and full of life. Nothing makes any sense.
“But I’d made Nick this promise that I’d say good-bye in person, right? So I go to say good-bye. And he talks me out of it.”
“How did he do that?”
“Hey, guess what? He talked me into it!” She shakes her head and bites her lower lip and starts crying again. “He sat me down and he held my hands and he said to me, ‘okay, let’s do it.’ He made me act it all out in front of him. I acted out drinking down the pills and getting sleepy. ‘Now you’re falling asleep,’ he says. ‘Now you’re asleep. Now your heart’s stopping. Now you’re dead.’ ”
Alice listens, awed. Her pasta comes. She doesn’t eat.
“ ‘Now you’ve died,’ Nick says. ‘All that stuff that bothered you doesn’t matter anymore. It’s gone. It’s over. Do you see that?’ And the crazy thing is, I see it! I’m like, what the fuck! I’m dead! I don’t need to give a shit anymore! And ever since I’ve been walking round town like I’m in a dream, and I don’t know how to tell anyone that this miracle has happened, but I want to talk about it. And then I saw you, and you’re Nick’s friend, and I just had to . . . I’m sorry, I know this must all seem pretty wild to you—but I had to tell someone. I needed, like, a witness, before it all goes away.”
She starts crying all over again.
“That’s okay,” says Alice, not knowing what to say. Marcia’s mood has infected her, and she wants to cry too.
“Isn’t it something else?” Marcia says. “How did he know to do that? You know what he said when I left? He said, ‘You’ll feel bad again in a while. This isn’t going to last. So when it comes again, do what we’ve done again. Die again. Then you’ll be free.’ ”
“Wow!”
“I think he’s an old soul.”
She reaches across the table and Alice gives her her hands to hold.
“I’m dead,” she says. “I’m free.”
Alice smiles. It’s all insane but she can’t help being moved.
“I thought you were up there having sex,” she says. “And all the time he was saving your life.”
“Oh, we’ve done that,” says Marcia. “Way back. Not for a long time now. He’s too smart. He knows I’m crazy.”
“What went wrong, Marcia? How did it get so bad for you?”
“Give my mom a call. She’ll tell you. Hey, you know what?” Now she’s laughing again. “I should kill my mom. Not for real, but the Nick Crocker way. Get a gun. Bang! You’re dead now, Mom! Get off my back!”
She lets go of Alice’s hands and stands up.
“You eat. I’m going. Thanks for being my witness.”
r /> • • •
Walking back to the house, Alice thinks she’ll make Nick some kind of apology. But what can she say? There’s no form of words that doesn’t get into assumptions she had no right to make. It’s hard enough dealing with her own confused responses to Nick without inviting him to join the party.
He’s in the big room downstairs, stretched out on a couch in a pool of lamplight, reading Don Quixote.
“Sorry I went off like that,” she says. “I think it must have been a blood sugar low.”
“You got something to eat?”
“Yes. I’ve had a bowl of pasta and a glass of wine.”
He smiles up at her, his reading glasses pushed high on his brow.
“It’s my opinion,” he says, “that there are no griefs that can’t be assuaged by a bowl of pasta and a glass of wine.”
“Marcia joined me for a while.”
“Marcia!”
“She saw me through the window. She told me what you’d done for her.”
“That poor kid is in big trouble. She needs more help than I can give her.”
“You were good, Nick. You did a good job there.”
He gazes at her and she sees that he understands. This is her apology. Her peace offering.
“How was the pasta?”
“Not great.”
“Amherst can do better. Let me take you out to dinner one of these nights. We can go on with our conversation.”
“Sure. I’d like that.”
“I’ve none to tell me to but thee,” he says.
More Emily Dickinson.
“I don’t think I get you, Nick.”
What she means but can’t say is, I don’t get how I feel about you.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “People are ungettable. That’s just how it is.”
Up in her room she goes through the Collected Poems until she finds it.
I’ve none to tell me to but thee
So when Thou failest, nobody.
It was a little tie—
It just held Two, nor those it held
Since somewhere thy sweet Face has spilled
Beyond my Boundary—
11
Sue Dickinson maintained her pose of not being aware of the rumors. Mrs. John Jameson, a near neighbor, asked after Austin when she met Sue on the main street, adding as an apparently casual afterthought, “I passed him the other day out driving, and with charming company.”
“You mean Mrs. Todd, I suppose,” said Sue.
“I’m sure they had a delightful outing. We all so admire Mrs. Todd. I always say she brings a touch of Paris to our little village.”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Sue. “I’ve never been to Paris. Nor, I believe, has Mrs. Todd.”
Sue was busying herself at this time with the redecoration of the Evergreens. She had decided that the great central hallway, which rose up through two stories, must have new wallpaper. Austin came home from his college office to find her taking measurements, with the help of Ned.
“I can’t bear this old paper anymore,” she told him. “It must all come down.”
“Come down!” exclaimed Austin. “Have you any idea of the cost? I forbid you to do any such thing.”
“You forbid me?”
Sue trembled as she spoke.
“It’s an unnecessary extravagance,” said Austin.
“You dare to talk to me about what’s necessary?”
“There will be no new wallpaper. I have nothing more to say.”
Austin retreated to his study. Sue remained standing where he had left her. Ned looked on in trepidation. Then Sue went to the nearest wall, the wall that framed the door to the parlor, and prized up a section of the wallpaper with her fingernails. When she had enough to grip, she tore it from the wall in a long strip.
Ned cried out in alarm.
“Don’t!”
She tore off a second strip. Then climbing the stairs, she began to rip at the paper wherever she could, tearing out patches all the way up.
“He forbids me!” she cried as she tore. “He forbids me!”
When she reached the landing, she sat herself down on the top step of the stairs, breathing rapidly. Ned came to her, dismayed.
“You mustn’t mind so,” he said. “You mustn’t.”
“He was never like this before,” Sue said, speaking in a low hurried voice, as if to herself. “She has done this to him. She has poisoned him. He’s too unworldly. He’s a good man, but he’s weak. She has taken advantage of that. There is such a thing as evil in the world. We must fight against it. We must not let it win.”
• • •
From this day on, Sue chose to act as if Mabel did not exist. Her name was never mentioned. When encountered on the street, she was cut. Mattie and Gib, the younger children, without ever being told the reason, understood that Mrs. Todd had become someone to fear and shun. Ned, deeply conflicted, withdrew into silence.
At the other house, the Homestead, Sue’s declaration of war on Mabel had the effect of confirming the Dickinson sisters in Mabel’s support.
“Any friend of our brother is a friend to this house,” said Vinnie.
Mabel clasped Vinnie’s hands in hers and allowed a shine of incipient tears to brighten her eyes.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” she said. “I thought Sue was my best friend in Amherst, and now I’ve lost her.”
“Sue is nobody’s friend for long,” said Vinnie. “She contrives to quarrel with everyone in the end.”
“So I can go on calling on you?”
“You must call, and Austin must call, and Emily and I open our arms to you both. Our house, as Emily says, is a house of love.”
The fact was that Mabel, accustomed to being loved by all, was bewildered by Sue’s hatred. Somehow without ever addressing the matter clearly, she had persuaded herself that Sue would come to understand and allow her love for Austin.
“If she truly loved you,” she said to Austin, “she’d be proud that others love you too.”
“That’s not Sue’s way,” said Austin.
“Can’t you talk to her? Make her understand that our love takes nothing away from her?”
“I wish that were so,” said Austin.
“What is it she wants? You’re still her husband. You still go home to her every night. If anyone has a right to feel unhappy in these circumstances, surely it’s me. I’m the one who can never be alone with you. I’m the one who must hide your letters, and send you mine in secret, unsigned. She has the most of you. In public she has all of you. Why can’t she be content with that?”
“She wants my love,” said Austin, “and she knows it’s you who has that.”
“Did she have it before? Did I take it from her?”
“There was no love in me before. I’ve learned to love because of you.”
Austin’s understanding of his wife’s mind was no more than guesswork. Sue never cross-questioned him, or spoke about Mabel in any way. She had decided to act with Austin as if there were no shadow over their marriage and nothing had changed.
“Ned and I have a mind to take out the sleigh,” she said one Saturday. “It’s a fine afternoon; it’s a crime to molder indoors. Ned fancies a run to Hadley and back before we lose the light. Will you join us?”
“I have papers to read,” Austin replied.
As soon as Sue and Ned had set off, Austin was on his way to Pleasant Street to suggest to Mabel that they take advantage of the fine afternoon. He proposed that they walk up the Leverett road. Mabel understood that Sue was otherwise engaged, and at once put on her outdoor boots and fur-trimmed coat.
As they walked through the town, keeping a little apart, conversing politely, there was nothing in their manner to give rise to any suspicion. If gossip had already begun to remark on Mr. Dickinson’s preference for Mrs. Todd, gossip had no actual indiscretion on which to feed. Austin himself had a clear conscience. He had done nothing against the laws either of God o
r man. His love for Mabel contravened no statute. If Sue chose to make herself miserable over it, that was her affair.
“Even so,” said Mabel, who couldn’t be as easy as he could, “how long are we to go on like this? You don’t feel it, perhaps, but I can assure you that I do. Am I to be treated like a pariah for as long as I live in this town?”
“I do feel it,” said Austin, “but what are we to do? Sue supposes that she can make me give you up. I will never give you up.”
They had left the town now and were walking between snow-covered fields. There was no one to overlook or to overhear.
“Have you told her so?” said Mabel.
“We never discuss the matter,” said Austin. “What purpose would be served? My mind is made up.”
“If she knew that, perhaps she would learn to accept matters,” said Mabel. “David and I talk about everything. He doesn’t go about looking black as thunder just because I choose to love you.”
“David is a wise man. Sue is not wise.”
“Even so, Austin. I think you might talk to her.”
“What am I to say?”
“Ask her to be civil. Tell her she gains nothing by this petulance. Order her to be civil. You are her husband.”
“She won’t take orders from me.”
“So am I to be snubbed and cut and humiliated forevermore?”
At this moment they heard the sound of horses’ hooves, and the Dickinson sleigh came up behind them. Ned was driving, with Sue by his side. It was clear from the shock on their rigidly averted faces that they had not expected to encounter the walkers.
Austin raised his hat. Mabel gave a bow. Neither Sue nor Ned made any acknowledgment in return. The sleigh swept on towards Leverett.
Once it was past Mabel exclaimed, “It’s unbearable!”
They stopped, and turned, and retraced their steps.
“She told me they were to take the Hadley road,” said Austin.
“You must see it!”
“Yes, I see it. Of course I see it.”
“You must say something to her!”
Austin was silent for a long moment.
“I will do what I can,” he said. “I think she must speak to me now.”
• • •
Austin was waiting in the parlor of the Evergreens when Sue and Ned returned. He stood grave and ominous before the fire, saying nothing at all, waiting for the accusation. Ned removed himself, glancing unhappily at his father as he went. Sue called for a pot of tea, and settled herself down with some embroidery. For a while neither spoke. Then Sue broke the silence.