The Husband (13 page)

Peter, his heart thundering, heard the front door open. He expected anger on Rose’s face. Instead, it had the lines and pulse of surprise and fear.

“Oh,” was all she said.

He cautioned himself. Play it safe. Say the least. But he found the words running. “I thought you were—I mean, you said you’d be—weren’t you supposed to be at Amanda’s for the evening? How is she?”

“I was.”

“She has those…again?”

“It wasn’t cramps.”

“Rose, you’re shaking.”

“Here are the car keys. Jack’s there now with a bunch of the family. Go over and keep him company.”

Lightly, lightly. “I really don’t feel like Jack tonight, really. I’d rather not.”

“Please. He needs you.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Could you get me a glass of water?”

“Sure, but why don’t you—?”

“Never mind the water.” Rose folded herself into a chair, her bony knees raised high, her shoulders hunched, making her chest seem convex.

“My mouth is dry,” she said. Peter went through the swinging door to the kitchen to fetch the water, wanted or unwanted, to give himself time to think, but the image of Elizabeth and Rose unspeaking in the same room stayed in his mind until he came back quickly and gave hunched Rose the glass. He noticed the black smudge of mascara, wet, at the right eye. Outside, he heard the horn of a passing car. He didn’t realize Rose was talking to him, ignoring Elizabeth, until Rose had said a sentence or two.

“And when Amanda phoned, I said I’d finish watering the garden. That was when I phoned you at the office so you’d know where I was. I finished watering the garden. The hose needs picking up, I forgot to put it away. I changed my clothes. It was an hour between watering the garden and calling and changing and driving over, and I rang. I thought she might have gone out to the corner for something, you know? I tried the door and went in and there, right on the other side of the door, going into the kitchen, a chair was knocked over and a glass dribbling all over, and Peter, she was against the counter, her mouth open. I wanted to scream, she looked so awful. I mean, her teeth looked so false and one breast was hanging out, I mean, completely out of her housecoat like a limp bag. I found the doctor’s number pasted near the phone and I called, and he said not to worry, he’d come right away, and he came. Peter, Amanda is dead.”

Rose hadn’t touched the water in her glass. Suddenly she was looking at it with revulsion, as if it reminded her of the spilled water in Amanda’s kitchen. She set the full glass down on the carpet next to her chair.

“The doctor said it was a heart attack, not a belly-ache. The symptoms are sometimes the same, he said—but that’s not fair; Amanda’s just halfway through life, she’s my age. Go, go, Jack’s waiting for you. I tried to make him come here, but the relatives wouldn’t let him.”

It took a second for Rose to rise from the chair and to put the sticks of her arms around Peter, sobbing, “Peter, tell me you love me!”

Peter stared over Rose’s shoulder at the expanse of the gray carpet and Elizabeth at the other side of the room.

“Peter, you’d better get over there,” said Elizabeth, speaking for the first time.

“What is she doing here?” said Rose, her voice rising, her face a red blemish of anger.

Elizabeth, very quietly said, “Please don’t look at me that way, Mrs. Carmody.”

“What is she doing in our home?”

“You’re upset, Rose,” Peter said.

Elizabeth asked, “Can I get you anything?”

“What did she say?” Rose asked Peter.

“Can I get you anything?”

“I’m not a visitor here,” said Rose, trying to flatten the piercing sound of her voice. “I’ll get myself—Peter, where is that water?”

Peter got the glass from beside the chair. He found a Miltown in his pillbox.

“Can I help you?” repeated Elizabeth.

“Don’t let her touch me!”

“I wasn’t going to touch you. Your husband and I finished the afternoon at a client meeting, and he suggested he might show me his home.”

She turned to Peter. “You knew I wouldn’t be home.”

“Take the pill, Rose. Drink the water. It wasn’t on purpose. It happened that way.”

Rose swallowed the pill with some water.

“What was that pill?” she asked.

“A pill.”

“Tell me.”

“Arsenic,” said Peter.

“Peter, please,” said Elizabeth.

“Vitamins,” said Peter.

“Stop that,” said Rose.

“It’s a placebo,” said Peter. “It’ll help quiet you down.”

The phone rang.

As Peter turned to answer it, Rose grabbed his arm. “Don’t leave me, Peter. Let your secretary answer the phone.”

Peter stopped. “She’s not my secretary.”

The phone insisted on being answered.

“Yes, yes, I know,” said Rose. “I’m sorry. Do you want me to get the phone, Peter?”

But Elizabeth was already at the phone and answering. “Mr. or Mrs.?” she asked. “I’ll get him.”

“Who is it?” asked Peter.

“Some excitable lady.”

Peter got to the phone, listened for a minute, then said, “I see. All right.” He hung up. “One of the relatives, Jack dropped a coffee cup and got pretty hysterical and lit out of there like a lunatic about five minutes ago and drove off. They say he said something about coming here. The relatives are pretty angry.”

“Why here?” asked Rose.

“Where do you expect him to go,” snapped Peter, “the American Bar Association? You’re Amanda’s next of kin.”

“I’d better go,” said Elizabeth, pulling on her gloves.

“Please,” said Peter, “I want you to stay.”

Elizabeth looked at Rose. “Is it all right with Mrs. Carmody?”

Rose stood motionless.

“Mrs. Carmody is not the only resident in this house,” said Peter.

The doorbell buzzed, silencing them. In a second, Peter was at the door, opening it. Jack walked in, stopped in the center of the room. Peter avoided touching him, as if death were catching.

In a quiet voice, very unlike himself, Jack acknowledged their presence simply with their names. “Peter. Rose.”

“This is Miss Kilter,” said Peter.

“A business associate,” added Rose.

Peter said, “I’m sorry, Jack. Rose just told me.”

“Hope you don’t mind my busting in.”

“Oh, no, no, I was just coming over when they phoned.”

“Damn son of a bitch relatives,” said Jack quietly. “Amanda and I never see them except at funerals. What the hell did they want to come to the house for? I guess it’s my fault. Thought I had to let them know. Had to make coffee for all of them. Bastards. I can’t make coffee. Amanda makes coffee.”

“Want a drink?” asked Peter.

“No, thanks. Mind if I sit?”

“No, no, go right ahead.”

“How do you feel?” asked Rose.

“What’s that?” said Jack absentmindedly.

“Never mind,” said Rose.

“When I’m here,” said Jack at nobody in particular, “I can’t believe anything happened there, know what I mean?”

“I know,” said Peter.

“I feel dead,” said Jack.

“You’re tired.”

“I know when I’m tired. I’m not tired. I feel like nothing. Dead.”

“It’s the shock,” said Rose.

Jack scratched his temple. “With her having rheumatic trouble since she was a kid, while I was coming home from work, I sometimes used to have a feeling I’d find her dead. You know what I mean? The truth is, I always felt that way when I was mad at Amanda, and I hoped I’d find her dead. Tonight I didn’t think anything of the kind. I just wanted to eat and watch television. I wasn’t mad at all, at anybody, and I came in and there’s Rose and the doctor and a sheet. Why the hell do they put a sheet over her face?”

“I don’t know,” said Rose.

Jack turned to Peter. “Do you know?”

“No.”

Jack swung around toward Elizabeth. “Do you?”

“No,” said Elizabeth.

“Don’t think about it, Jack,” said Rose.

“You know,” said Jack, “it’s ten years, ten or eleven, since I been to church. Damn sermon-preaching minister was just a kid. I guess he’s ten or eleven years older now. Do you think Amanda’s dead, I mean, like a doornail? No heaven. No hell. I guess not. I feel stupid crying. God, I haven’t cried in a long time. Amanda! I mean, do you think I’m crying because of Amanda or because of me?”

“Can I get you something to eat?” asked Rose.

“Like what?”

“There’s some ham and cheese.”

Jack shook his head.

“Beer?” asked Rose, thinking Jack might like some beer. Peter always said Jack was a beer man by temperament, even if he liked hard liquor.

Jack declined the beer.

“I could warm up some beef stew,” suggested Rose.

“I don’t want anything. You know what I want? A grown-up son. Isn’t that crazy? I want to put my hand on a grown-up boy’s shoulder and say, ‘It’ll be all right, kid,’ and we’d both look at his mother, and the kid and me’d be a real comfort to each other.”

Rose said, “Your brother Frank’s boy is over there with him.”

Peter noticed the first sign of emotion in Jack. “That kid’s a car thief!” Jack answered in anger. “I don’t mean that. I mean a son of mine! You know something, Rose, Peter, I’m fifty-six and I’m never going to have a son! Maybe I’m never going to have a wife again. I’d like to have a wife like you, Rose.”

“Jack!” said Rose.

“I mean, if you weren’t married. Do you know what I’m saying? I don’t know what I’m saying. Why did I come here? Rose, you’re Amanda’s best friend.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“In some ways you’re like her.”

“I am?”

“Will someone shut me up?” said Jack. “What I mean is, sometimes on Sunday mornings Amanda sleeps late and you know me, restless, so I’d get up and fix breakfast, and go out for a walk and buy the Sunday paper, and if the weather is nice I’ll read the Sunday paper in the park, and when I’ve read all the goddamn stinking ads, I watch the kids playing hockey the way they do, and it’s noon before I get back, and there is Amanda still asleep and when I looked at her I’d think she was dead.” Jack was weeping freely now. “When,” he asked, “is Sunday?”

Peter had to wait until the small stone of silence slid down his throat. “Day after tomorrow,” he finally said.

“What am I going to do on Sunday? I mean, can you think of your life completely different? My father was eighty-four when he died and he wasn’t sick much, but we’d all been waiting for him to go, I guess, ’cause it was about time and he bored everybody, including himself. He kept postponing it from year to year and then he died, and it was like finishing reading the newspaper—but who expected Amanda to die? You knew her, Rose. Did you expect her to die?”

“No,” said Rose.

“Did you, Pete?”

“Miss,” he said to Elizabeth, “I forgot your name.”

“Kilter,” said Elizabeth.

“Well, you didn’t know Amanda at all, but would you expect a woman not yet fifty to die without warning me?”

Elizabeth shook her head.

“I mean, you’re all sitting there like you don’t know what to say, and what I want you to say is, if Amanda weren’t dead I’d have a chance to treat her different.”

“Sure you would,” said Rose.

“That’s a fucking lie,” said Jack. “I’m a lousy husband.”

“You’re not a lousy husband,” said Rose.

“I’m a lousy widower, that’s what. Peter, I bet you didn’t think of that. Next time I’m asked, ‘Married or single?’ by some jerk with a questionnaire, I say, ‘Widower.’ That sounds like a woman, not like a man. Widower. Amanda’s still in the house. I’d better get back to the house. Those goddamn relatives will be screwing up the funeral arrangements and getting Amanda someplace in a dog cemetery or having her cremated. Remember how Amanda was afraid of fire? She used to hate lighting the damn stove. It’d be a sin to cremate her.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Peter.

“The hell you will. You got company.”

“I was just leaving,” said Elizabeth.

“Hell, no! I feel better, really I do. I’m going for a ten-minute drive, and I’ll be back at the house. Maybe all the relatives’ll have died too, wouldn’t that be a present! Where’s my hat?”

“You didn’t bring a hat,” said Rose.

“I always wear a hat. Amanda likes hats. I tell her it makes me bald, but she likes hats. Liked. Got to remember.”

At the door, Jack turned. “You know the goddamn government won’t even pay burial expenses because she didn’t have Social Security and wasn’t a veteran? I hate the goddamn government. So long, kids.”

“Take care, Jack,” said Peter.

“You take care.”

When Jack left, there was a moment in which no one said anything, and then Rose said, “Jack’s a nice man.”

“Just because Amanda’s dead doesn’t make him a nice man.”