She didn’t want to like George, but she did. They’d have lunch together in the dining hall. At first they’d sort of bump into each other, as if by chance, and Justine would fawn all over him. Not that she found him especially interesting or attractive—somehow he just seemed to require the fuss, like on some level his ego was suffering. Sitting there at a little table over trays of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, she’d become critically self-conscious, painfully aware of her too-tight waistband, her hips nudging and stretching her corduroy skirt. Even her facial contortions were overanimated, overly enthusiastic and concerned. Soon their lunches together became regular, every Tuesday and Thursday after morning classes, at a table tucked in the far corner, overlooking the sculpture garden with its odd modern pieces, one of them a stone hand the size of a mailbox. George wore his professor’s uniform: crisp shirts that were always white, the crunchy granola blazer, khaki trousers and bow ties. Justine found herself puzzling over how long it took his wife to iron the shirts so diligently, since she herself considered ironing a complete waste of time. What was so wrong with wrinkles?
Catherine seemed nice, an unfortunate but fitting adjective. She was a frail specimen of female, too thin for her own good, Justine thought, and somewhat reserved, though George would apologetically explain that his wife was simply shy. Catherine was pretty in a washed-out, underfed sort of way that a lot of the women at the club—the weekenders—went in for. It was some kind of fashion statement, she’d decided, but, again, Justine could be tough on women. In truth, she didn’t find most of them all that interesting. Or, to be diplomatic, she just didn’t share the same interests. Most of the women her age were busy with their children. It was simply a different mind-set. She’d learned to tell people, her parents included, that she and Bram were trying, even though she wasn’t at all sure she wanted a child and he certainly wasn’t pushing her. This sort of personal choice was deeply out of fashion, yet Chosen was a place where you could escape the social underpinnings of conventional expectations. For the most part, they hung out with outcasts and nonconformists. Many of the women she knew were older, veterans of broken marriages, poets, feminists, lesbians. She went to a women’s group that met monthly, each member possessing a seasoned, ornery particularity that Justine admired, and with their help she’d made great strides in discovering her own personal strengths.
Blue was a good color for Catherine, she decided. She sat at her loom and began threading the yarn. It was a good French blue, like the chalky blue eye of a peacock feather, and the chunky wool brought to mind the generous sheep who’d made it. Good comfortable warmth, she thought. Just what a woman like Catherine Clare needed, because a town like this could be hard for someone like her. She wasn’t like the usual hardscrabble, weather-beaten women you saw walking around the village, showing off the life lines on their faces like circles in a tree trunk. These were countrywomen, indifferent to frivolity, to style and trends. They were as much a part of the landscape as the grazing livestock, and just as indifferent. In contrast, Catherine was fine-featured, delicate, with eyes the color of bells. Despite how little she thought of herself, her beauty did not go unnoticed.
2
A FLUKE HEAT WAVE came through at the end of the month, provoking brownouts even in Chosen. The news showed people all over the state sleeping on their fire escapes or out on their porches, and temperatures rose to a hundred degrees. The pool at the club became the Clares’ refuge.
On the steps in the shallow end, Catherine and Franny were having a tea party when Justine appeared, like one of those old-fashioned Hollywood movie actresses, in a one-piece suit and a terry-cloth robe, with a towel draped around her shoulders like a mink stole. I had a feeling I’d find you here. She joined them on the edge of the pool, and put her feet in.
Just up the hill, Bram and George were playing singles, grunting, cursing, sweating like pigs.
I’ve got polka dots, Franny told Justine importantly, pointing to her suit.
I love polka dots, Justine said.
Let’s sit here in the shade, Catherine said as they climbed out and dried off and spread their towels out in the grass.
You can’t get me! Franny challenged.
Oh yes I can, Justine said, clambering up and chasing her around, their ankles crosshatched with grass.
You. Can’t. Get. Me!
Big yellow leaves were dropping, slowly, slowly into the pool. It was nice under the trees with the wind blowing.
Watch this! Franny said, and did a somersault.
Now you can join the circus, Catherine said.
I had a feeling you were a monkey. Justine ruffled her hair, and Franny made chimp sounds and jumped around. Then she went over and plopped down on Justine’s lap. Well, hello, Justine said, pleased to have been chosen.
I tired now.
Catherine smiled at her sleepy daughter and said, She likes you, Justine. Do you mind?
Of course not. In less than a minute, Franny was asleep on her ample bosom. It’s the padding, she said. She’s so adorable.
Especially at moments like these.
Catherine lay back in the grass, cradling her head in her hands and looking up at the sky. They could hear the ball lobbing back and forth across the court and their husbands’ muted conversation. They were all becoming friends, she thought. It was good.
Justine. With her strong-coffee voice, her thick brown hair. She was unlike anyone Catherine had ever met. Sashaying around in her bathing suit, the hair on her legs as thick as a man’s. Catherine envied her easy pride, the fact that she actually liked herself, whereas, in her case, it had been impressed upon her long ago, by assorted freeze-dried mentors, that self-love was conceit. As a result, Catherine was vigilantly critical, fixing and fussing, sucking in her stomach, even resorting to punitive measures such as starving herself and throwing up. Getting her body back after Franny had been a chore. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d walked around naked in front of George. She liked to think of herself as modest, but that, she’d come to realize, was really just another word for insecure. Her beauty was the one thing she depended on to keep George interested. She worried she couldn’t maintain it, and worried it wasn’t enough.
You and Bram—you don’t want kids?
You think we’re terrible, don’t you?
No—but you’d be a great mother.
Really? She looked at Catherine hopefully but quickly said, I wouldn’t know what to do with a baby.
It’s one of those things you just know.
I’ve never felt ready, though.
What about now?
Justine glanced down at Franny’s sleeping head. Maybe.
I wasn’t ready, either, Catherine confided. I didn’t want a baby. I didn’t even want to marry George. She knew she shouldn’t have said it, but the minute the words came out she felt the glee of liberation. I was too afraid to have her on my own.
Justine nodded, though Catherine doubted she would’ve made the same choice. She imagined that Justine would have terminated the pregnancy and moved on with her life. Catherine hadn’t been able to do that. She’d used religion as an excuse, but it wasn’t the fear of God that had kept her from doing it. Though she understood all of the arguments, she had her own principles. She valued freedom just as much as the next person—at least she thought she did—but the notion that freedom was a commodity of entitlement still eluded her. She’d been raised to believe there were always limits to freedom, and even now she didn’t have the courage to fight them.
For Catherine, religion had become a handy excuse for everything she couldn’t deal with, starting with how she really felt about George. Sometimes she wondered what her life would have been like if she’d had different parents, with different values, but you couldn’t choose who raised you and taught you what to believe.
How do you feel now? Justine asked.
What do you mean?
About George, obviously.
Sometimes Justine’
s boldness put her on edge.
The point is, have you grown to love him? You know, like people in arranged marriages.
Yes, of course I love him, she lied without reservation. He’s my husband.
They heard the squeal of the door in the chain-link tennis fence, and a moment later their husbands came toward them in their tennis whites, their faces bright red in the heat. They looked happy, well off. As they approached, the men saw that Franny was sleeping and lowered their voices. Catherine watched George register that it was Justine holding their sleeping daughter, not her. The expression on his face, as he gazed down at Justine, was one of tenderness, she thought, maybe even love, and she wondered if Bram had noticed. This brief interlude evaporated when Franny stirred and reached up for her father. Gently, he lifted her out of Justine’s arms and she settled onto his shoulder, cuddling up in the crook of his neck as the two couples walked down the lawn to their cars.
Whenever she rode in George’s car, especially with Franny, it became clear to her how differently they operated in the world. For one thing, he refused to put a car seat in the back. He claimed the seatbelt was good enough, citing his own childhood, but she knew there was more to it than that. Having a car seat in the back of his convertible would certainly mar his image as the freewheeling young professor. Though it wasn’t mandatory, she’d had a car seat in the back of her station wagon since they’d moved out here. George rarely rode in her car. He always made fun of her driving, accusing her of driving like a woman, swerving all over the road, which wasn’t at all true.
In George’s car, she always felt like an intruder. The leather seats, the faint smell of cigarettes were evidence of the things he did when he was away from her, doing whatever he damn well pleased.
He snapped Franny into her seatbelt and climbed in behind the wheel. She could smell his sweaty shirt. He pulled out of the long driveway onto the road, the wind in their hair.
It’s windy, Momma, Franny said.
Yes, it is, isn’t it? Catherine smiled at her daughter. She noticed a book sticking out of George’s briefcase and pulled it out, a tattered antique tome titled Heaven and Its Wonders and Hell. What’s this?
He frowned. It’s Floyd’s. He wants me to read it. He’s obsessed with that nutcase.
Swedenborg? She turned the book over in her hands, its binding splintered and worn.
You don’t have to worry, he told her. You’re definitely going to heaven.
Why does that feel like an insult?
It’s not an insult, Catherine. You’re one of the lucky few.
What about you, George? Where are you going?
Why does that feel like an insult? he mocked.
You know why. She sat there with her arms crossed. You always do whatever you want.
Oh—and you don’t? You got exactly what you wanted.
She just looked at him. There was no point in getting into it. He always turned it around, made it about her. It was his strategy for avoiding things he didn’t want to talk about. What she wanted? That was a question she herself had never been able to answer.
Good luck with this, then. She put the book between them.
You know I don’t believe in that crap.
Yes, I do. You don’t believe in anything.
He scowled at her, and she thought he’d come back with something mean, but he didn’t. They drove for a while without speaking, the wind hot against their faces.
How was your game?
He makes stupid mistakes. I fucking creamed him.
—
SHE TRIED to be a good wife. It was her duty; he was out there trying to make a living. When he got home he was tired. He had certain expectations, as if his idea of marriage came with a list of inclusions, like a brand-new car: the peck on the cheek, the gin-and-tonic, plate of cheese and olives, newspaper, the mail.
The rituals of civilized people.
She would lay the tablecloth, pressing it flat with her hand. She would fold the napkins and set out the silverware. She would look over at the window, light still pushing through until it got dark too early.
How was your day? she’d ask.
He told her about his students, his classes. The other professors, he said, were aloof, preoccupied. Yours?
What could she tell him? While their daughter watched Romper Room she’d vacuumed, mopped the kitchen floor, cleaned the bathrooms and, when Franny spilled her applesauce, mopped the floor again. Washed the dishes, did the laundry, brought the warm sheets in from the line. They had lunch during a rain shower, then went outside in rain boots and slickers, twirling their umbrellas like geishas, and climbed the grassy hill to the ridge. There were always things to see: the birds, so varied and surprising; the smallest flowers. Catherine took Franny’s umbrella and let her run down the hill, her little red slicker vivid across the green grass. They stomped through puddles, splashing their legs with mud. Later, when Franny napped, she had a cigarette out in the field, under the rising moon.
They’d given him three classes, sixty students in all. At night, with stacks of papers to grade, he’d close himself up in his study. When Franny made too much noise, banging her tambourine or rattling her maracas, he’d whip open the door and shout, Stop making noise! How can Daddy get anything done?
Later, lying in the dark, she’d sense something, someone, standing there at the foot of the bed. Sometimes she’d wake out of a deep sleep shivering with cold, as if she were sleeping on a bed of snow.
One night she woke to the piano, a single note playing again and again.
She shook George awake. Did you hear that?
Turn off the goddamn light!
She lay awake, waiting, waiting…for what she did not know.
Then, around three every night, the drama with Franny started. She’d scamper across the hall, whimpering, and climb into bed on Catherine’s side. I scared, Momma.
Catherine didn’t mind—in fact, she preferred knowing her little one was safe and sound beside her—but George wouldn’t have it. As stern as a drill sergeant, he’d get out of bed, scoop her up in his arms and carry her back to her room, kicking and screaming.
Children don’t sleep with their parents, he explained the first time. She needs to learn that.
Heart pounding, Catherine lay there listening as her daughter cried.
Leave her alone, he warned. You’ll be sorry if you get up.
Sorry how?
You’ll be sorry, he muttered.
What, George? What did you say?
But he didn’t answer. Furious, he turned away.
I’m not sleeping in here with you. She whipped off the covers, went into Franny’s room and climbed into bed, holding her very tightly. You’re safe now, she whispered. Go to sleep.
You’re going to spoil her, George said the next morning, from the doorway of Franny’s room. That’s what’s happening here. You’re the problem, Catherine, not Franny. It’s you.
This went on for weeks. Exhausted and a little desperate, she finally sought the guidance of their pediatrician, who confirmed that nightly disruptions were routine for small children in a new house; it could take them up to a year to adjust. He wrote a prescription for a mild sedative. It’s very gentle, he told her. It’ll help you get her back on track.
She thanked him and took the prescription, but had no intention of filling it. Aside from Tylenol or antibiotics, she didn’t approve of giving drugs to children.
When George came home, she told him what the doctor had said, and they argued about it. He dug through her purse, searching for the prescription, then went to fill it himself. Later that night, he added a dose of the purple syrup to Franny’s bottle. Within minutes of drinking it, his daughter was fast asleep.
Even so, Catherine lay awake, awaiting the usual disturbance, but it didn’t come.
What do you know, George said the next morning before pushing off to work. The miracles of modern medicine. Designed to help totally incompetent parents like us.
She broke down and called her mother.
What is it, Catherine? You sound upset.
She considered saying something completely irrelevant, keeping the conversation light and happy, like her mother preferred it, but right now she needed her help. I miss New York, she said, which was code for so much more. She missed their old apartment, the little table where she’d drink her coffee and sketch still lifes and watch the slow tugboats on the river. She missed the neighborhood, the Chinese grocer who’d put his palm on the top of Franny’s head like he was checking a cantaloupe for ripeness, the Polish woman at the bakery who always gave her a free cookie, the bowlegged shoemaker who’d fix George’s worn-down heels. Churches, the smell of incense and melting wax, anguish. I miss my work, she said.
You’re making a life with your husband, her mother said. For Franny’s sake. Isn’t that what matters most?
It was what her mother had done for her and Agnes. Sacrifice. The tradition of compromise had been handed down through the generations like everyday china.
George and I, she said. We’re not…
You’re not what, dear?
Compatible. It was the most diplomatic word she could think of.
Your father and I aren’t, either, and look how long we’ve lasted.
Catherine stood there, twirling the cord around her finger—tighter, tighter. She wanted to say, He’s odd, insensitive, I’m afraid of him, but only said, We’re not getting along.
It’s difficult with a small child, her mother told her. I know you don’t believe me, but it’s the same for everybody. Franny comes first, you know that. Love takes time. And marriage isn’t easy. It never has been.
I know, she heard herself say.
And think of yourself alone. Raising Franny. It’s not easy to be a single mother, either, you know, with everything on your shoulders, plus the financial strain. I don’t know what you could afford—you don’t have a steady salary, and your work, well, it doesn’t pay much, does it? Remember your poor aunt Frances, look what happened to her. You’ll end up being a waitress somewhere, leaving Franny with strangers. Can’t you try, Cathy, to just make the best of it? Do it for Franny, she added.