Stranger On Lesbos (25 page)

He had been a sturdy youngster, recovering from the ordinary diseases of childhood easily. His cuts and bruises healed quickly, and he had never been inside a hospital except to have his tonsils out. She was both amused and chagrined at the fears that waited, grinning and gibbering, in the back of her mind. Polio, muscular dystrophy, epilepsy. She knew all this came from reading too many magazine articles, but it was all she could do not to take his temperature, just the same. And when she woke at night, sweating because she had just remembered a neighbor's child who died of leukemia, she had to fight off an inane impulse to tiptoe into his room and see if he was all right.

That he had no noticeable symptoms was some comfort. But not much.

Then it occurred to her that his trouble might not be physical. He's worried about something, she thought. That was worse, in a way; because what could he be worried about, and what could she do about it?

He had been a cheerful little boy who made friends easily. He had never come to her for sympathy, or, later, advice. Now and then, when he was small, she wondered if a girl might not be more companionable. Still, she was proud of him. He had adjusted to school, from kindergarten on. In clothes, behavior and opinions he was practically a carbon copy of the other boys in his age group, and while grown-ups might be scornful of such conformity (even while they bought the things the advertising agencies wanted them to buy), it was evidently necessary to the young. Basketball, television, Saturday movies, ham radio, girls. He had a paper route at fourteen and delivered groceries at sixteen, like his pals.

His mother had taken for granted that he was happy. She had enough to do, without fretting over imaginary problems, she reminded herself when some doubt of her motherly role nagged at her. Anyway, you can't do a thing for kids that age except see that they have clean clothes and enough to eat. They live in a world of their own.

Well-adjusted, that's what they call a boy who goes around with a nice bunch and does all right (two B's and two C's) in school. It was what she had wanted all through her hungry shabby adolescence
to belong. Now she wondered if it was enough.

Something's the matter with him, she thought, whisking through her Saturday housework. He's worried about something. Well, whatever it is, it's not my fault. He's had everything the other kids have. Bill's going to send him east to college
not Harvard, that's too expensive, maybe Dartmouth. She ran her dustmop around the edges of the living-room rug, reflecting as she always did at this point in the weekly cleaning that when Bob's college fund no longer had to be considered, they would think about wall-to-wall carpeting.

He would leave in September; this was May. Four months. Then, as Bake was always pointing out, she could do anything she wanted to. She could "live her own life."

But I'm not sure what my own life is, she thought, emptying ash trays and stacking them to carry to the kitchen. It certainly isn't keeping house. That's enough for some women, I guess, but it isn't what I want. When she married Bill a well-kept house had been a symbol of everything she had missed as a child: security, standing in the community. But now the edge had worn off her need for security, and the people she had been seeing, the people whose approval meant something to her
Bake's crowd
had a different set of status symbols.

So fulfillment wasn't keeping house. And it wasn't adding up insurance premiums and writing form letters to remind people that their payments were past due. Most office jobs are a kind of housework, with a paycheck every two weeks to make them tolerable.

Books? At sixteen she had built a world out of them, only to have it shattered by the touch of Freddie Fischer's lips on her cheek. At thirty-five, trying to rebuild a universe of paper and printer's ink, she had met Bake and become engrossed in Bake's kind of love. She would always automatically reach out for anything with printing on it. But that wasn't enough, either.

She thumped the davenport cushions into shape and made her way to the kitchen, dustmop in one hand and piled ash trays in the other.

You're supposed to live for your children, she reminded herself, standing by the sink and looking vaguely at the breakfast dishes. For what? So they can grow up and go away from home, and leave you with nothing to do. Big deal.

As though her thoughts had materialized him, Bob came around the house and up the back steps.

Her heart contracted. To hide her concern, she piled dishes in the sink and turned on the hot water.

"Mom?"

"Hi." She had to ask; he was supposed to be at school, helping to decorate the gym for something or other. "Anything wrong?"

"Nope. What would be wrong?" He stood uncertainly in the doorway, a tall good-looking boy with a worried expression. "Dad home?"

"On Saturday morning?"

"Good old Saturday sales meeting, hah."

"Lunch will be late. Want a sandwich?"

"No, thanks. Look, Mom, I want to talk to you about something."

The urgency in his voice caused her to turn. He's grown up, she thought with an apprehensive tremor. As she would have done with a stranger, she wiped her hands and led the way to the living room. There she sat down on the davenport and folded her hands to hide her sudden trembling.

Bob sat in the big chair, in the formal position of one about to be interviewed. There was a brief, embarrassing silence. Frances waited, intensely curious and unable to think what could be the matter.

Bob lit a cigarette. "Mom
"

"Yes."

"I've been talking to Mari."

She tensed at the girl's name, feeling her face grow rigid with self-control.

"We want to get married."

"Well, she's a nice girl. When you're through college
”

"Right away, maybe in June. As soon as we graduate."

"June! But that's next month."

"That's right." He hurried on, not looking at her, determined to say what he had to say and get it over with. "Her dad thinks he can get me a job in Michigan, for the summer. I mean. His brother runs a canning factory there. Mari could work in the office."

The inevitable suspicion took shape in her mind. "Why all the hurry?"

"No reason, except gosh, we don't see any point in waiting." He looked at her squarely now. "We're not in trouble or anything like that. We just want to be married while we're still young."

"You can't take a wife to Dartmouth."

"To hell with Dartmouth. We're going to Urbana
you know, State U. They have housing for married students. It'll be cheaper, too. Mari has our budget all planned out."

Frances said coldly, "You're too young."

"Lots of couples do it. I talked to Dad. He's for it."

"Then why ask me?"

"Because." He crossed and uncrossed his knees, shifting uneasily in the cushioned chair. "Look, this is a pretty embarrassing thing to have to say to your own mother. I asked Dad to speak to you about it, but he won't. Lord knows it's his business as well as mine, but the old boy's pretty sentimental
"