Bitter Sweet (58 page)
‘You’re no idiot, now stop talking that way.’
‘But I’m o... old enough to know b... better. And I b... believed hiiiiim.’ The words wailed like a siren as Maggie wept with abject totality.
‘So, you believed him,’ Brookie repeated.
‘He s... said he’d m... marry me just as soon as... he .. he... c... c... could get a d... div...’
Maggie’s words dissolved into an unchecked spate of weeping that echoed around the kitchen like a bagpipe through a glen.
Brookie rubbed Maggie’s palpitating back. ‘Bawl all you want. Then we’re going to sit down and talk, and you’re going to feel better.’
Childishly, Maggie claimed, ‘I’ll never f... feel better ag... again.’
Brookie loved Maggie enough to smile. ‘Oh, yes, you will. Now come on. You’re getting snot all over me. Blow your nose and swab your eyes and I’ll make some iced tea.’
She plucked two tissues from a box and guided Maggie to a chair. “Sit down there. Empty those bilge pumps and catch your breath.’
Maggie followed orders while Brookie turned on the water and opened cupboard doors. During the making and drinking of lemon tea, Maggie gained control and spilled her emotions, omitting nothing, pouring out hurt, disillusionment and her own grave faults in one unbroken current.
‘I feel so stupid and gullible. Brookie, I not only believed him, I thought I couldn’t get pregnant anymore. When I told Katy she gave me a lecture on condoms and I was so embarrassed, I wanted to die. Then she screamed at me that she’d never consider my bastard her sister or brother, and now she’s packed up and gone to Mother’s. And Mother God, I don’t even want to repeat the tongue-lashing I took from her, and I deserved every word of it.’
‘You through now?’ Brookie asked dryly. ‘Because I have a few comments to make. First of all; I’ve known Eric Severson all my life and he’s not the kind who’d use a woman and lie to her deliberately. And as far as Katy goes, she’s still got some growing up to do. She just needs some time to get used to the idea. When the baby is born she’ll change her mind, just wait and see. And about Vera- well, nobody said raising our mothers was going to be easy, did they?’
Maggie gave a halfhearted smile.
‘And you’re not stupid!’ Brookie pointed a finger at Maggie’s nose. ‘I’d probably have thought the same thing about birth control if I’d had hot flushes and screwed up periods.’
‘But people will say -’
‘Piss on people. Let them say what they want. The ones that matter will give you the benefit of the doubt.’
‘Brookie, look at me. I’m forty years old. Aside from the baby being illegitimate, I have no business getting pregnant at my age. I’m too old for parenting and there’s a real risk of birth defects at my age. What if something -’
‘Oh, come on now. Look at Bette Midler and Glenn Close. They both had their first babies after forty, and no problems at all.’
Brookie’s positive attitude was addictive. Maggie cocked her head and said, “Yeah?’
‘Yeah. So listen - what’s it going to be? Natural childbirth? You need a coach or anything? I’m an old pro in a delivery room.’
‘Thanks for offering, but my dad’s going to do it.’
‘Your dad!’
Maggie smiled. ‘Good old Dad.’
‘Well, good for him. But if anything comes up and he can’t make it, just call on me.’
‘Oh, Brookie,’ Maggie said wistfully. The worst was over, the storm calmed. ‘I love you.’
‘I love you, too.”
Those words, above all others, healed, replaced self esteem and gave a brighter outlook. The two women sat at right angles, their forearms resting on the scarred tabletop near a crockery pitcher of cosmos and larkspur Maggie had picked during her earlier spurt of angry energy. Maggie said quietly, ‘I don’t think we’ve ever said it before.’
‘I don’t think so either.’
‘Do you think you just have to get old enough before you can say it comfortably to a friend?’
‘I guess so. You just have to learn that it feels better said than unsaid.’
They smiled and shared a moment of silent affection.
‘You know something, Brookie?’
‘Hm...’
Maggie rolled her cold glass between her palms, studying her iced tea as she admitted, ‘My mother has never said it to me. ‘
‘Oh, honey...’ Brookie took one of Maggie’s hands.
Maggie lifted her troubled gaze, allowing herself to come to grips with the tremendous void Vera had left within her.
She had been raised Christian. Everything from television commercials to greeting cards had instilled in her the canon that to do anything less than love a parent was depraved.
‘Brookie,’ she said solemnly, ‘can I confess something to you?’
‘Your secrets are my secrets.”
‘I don’t think I love my mother.’
Brookie’s unwavering eyes held Maggie’s sad ones. She gripped Maggie’s hand reassuringly.
‘I’m not shocked, in case you expected me to be.’
‘I expect I should feel guilty, but I don’t.’
‘What’s so precious about guilt that we all think we should feel it at times like this?’
‘I’ve tried very hard, but she returns nothing, gives nothing. And I know that’s selfish, too. You shouldn’t evaluate love based on the returns it brings you.’
‘And where did you read that, on some greeting card?’
‘You don’t think I’m degenerate?’
‘You know me better than that. What you are is hurt.’
‘I am. Oh, Brookie, I am. She should be the one holding my hand right now. Am I wrong? I mean, if it were Katy pregnant, I’d never turn her away. I’d be there for her every minute, and I’d hide my disappointments, because I’ve realized something in the last year or so. People who love one another occasionally disappoint one another.’
‘Now, that’s the kind of common sense I believe, too. It’s much closer to reality.’
‘I thought, when I moved back here, that it would be a chance for my mother and I to build some kind of a relationship, if not overtly loving, at least accepting. I’ve always had the feeling she never accepted me, and now, well . . she’s made it clear she never will again. Brookie, I pity her, she’s so cold, so ... so closed off from anything nurturing or caring, and I’m so afraid Katy is becoming like her.’
Releasing Maggie’s hand, Brookie refilled both their glasses. ‘Katy is young and impressionable, but from what I see of her around Todd, you don’t need to worry about her being cold.’
‘No, I guess not.’ Maggie drew wet rings on the tabletop with the bottom of her glass. ‘Which brings up something else I needed to talk to you about, the two of them. They’re .. well... I think they’re...’
She looked up into Brookie’s eyes and found a grin.
‘Intimate is the word I think you’re struggling for.’ ‘So you’ve seen it, too.’
‘All I have to see is the hour he’s coming in every night, and how he gulps his food at suppertime in a mad rush to get over here and pick her up.’
‘This is awkward. I...’ Again Maggie stopped, searching for a graceful way of expressing herself.
Brookie filled in the gap. ‘How can you say to your daughter, be careful, when you yourself are carrying an unexpected bundle, right?’
Maggie smiled forlornly. ‘Exactly. I’ve watched it happening and said nothing, because I’d look like a hypocrite if I did.’
‘Well, you can stop worrying. Gene and I talked to him about it.’
‘You did?’ Maggie’s eyes widened in surprise.
‘Well, Gene did. We have an agreement- he’ll talk to the boys and I’ll talk to the girls.’
‘What did Todd say?’
Brookie flipped up a palm nonchalantly. ‘He said, Don’t worry. Everything’s cash, Dad”.”
The two women’s faces brightened and the found themselves laughing. They sipped tea awhile, filtering their parental experiences through memories of themselves and their first sexual encounters. At length Maggie said, ‘Things have changed, haven’t they? Can you believe you and I are sitting here calmly discussing the active sex life of our children as if it were the rising price of fresh vegetables?’
‘Hey, who are you and I to point fingers? We, who once risked discovery on the same boat?’
‘We? You mean you and Arnie, too?’
‘Yup. Me and Arnie, too.’
As their eyes met, their memories harked back to a day after prom aboard the Mary Deare, when they were young and ardent and turning cornerstones in their lives.
Brookie sighed, leaned her jaw on a fist and absently rubbed the condensation off the side of her glass. Maggie took up a similar pose.
‘Eric was your first, wasn’t he?’
‘My first and my only, besides Phillip.’
‘Did Phillip know about him?’
“He suspected.’ Maggie glanced up pointedly. ‘Does Gene know about Arnie?’
‘No. And I don’t know for sure about any of his old girlfriends. Why should we tell each other? They were meaningless. Part of our coming of age, but meaningless today.’
‘Unfortunately, my first one is not meaningless today.’
Brookie pondered awhile, then ventured, ‘To think I was the one who gave you his phone number and said, “Don’t be silly, why can’t you call an old boyfriend?”‘
‘Yeah, it’s all your fault, kid.’
They exchanged salty grins.
‘So, how about if I dump the baby on you occasionally when I need to get away for an evening?’
Brookie laughed. ‘That’s the first healthy thing I’ve heard you say about the baby. You must be getting used to the idea of it.’
‘Maybe I am.’
‘You know what? I didn’t want the last two I had, but they have a way of growing on you.’
Brookie’s choice of phrases brought a second welcome laugh. When it faded Maggie sat up straight in her chair and turned serious again.
‘I’m going to dump one more confession on you, then that’s it for today,” she said.
Brookie straightened, too. ‘Go ahead. Dump.’
‘I still love him.’
‘Yeah, that’s the tough part, isn’t it?’
‘But I’ve given it some thought and I’ve decided it-took six months for me to fall in love, I should give myself at least that long to fall out of it.’
How does one fall out of love? The longer Maggie went without seeing Eric, the more she missed him. She waited for the withering as a farmer awaits it during weeks of drought, watching over his struggling crops and thinking, .just die and get it over with. But like weeds that can survive without nourishment, Maggie’s love for Eric refused to wither.
August passed, a hot, tiring, oppressive month. Katy went back to school without a good-bye, Todd left for basic training, and Maggie hired an older woman named Martha Dunworthy who came in daily to do the cleaning. In spite of Martha’s help, Maggie’s days were long and regimented.
Up at
to bake muffins, prepare juice and coffee, set the dining room table and make herself presentable. From
to
breakfast was available and she made sure she sat with each of her guests for a brief time during the meal, realizing that nor trmndlmess and hospitality was the charm that would bring them back. When the last one had eaten, she put the dining room in order, then the kitchen, checked out guests (often a lingering parting since most of them went away feeling like personal friends). She accepted payment, filled out receipts and sent them away with picture postcards of Harding House, her business card, and hugs on the back verandah. Checkout usually overlapped inquiry calls which began around
(numerous since autumn was approaching, Door’s heaviest tourist season).
The short-distance calls weren’t bad; they were usually from the chamber of commerce checking on room availability.
The long-distance ones, however, were time consuming and required answering dozens of repetitive questions before most reservations were made. When the guests were gone she recorded the day’s take in her books, answered correspondence, paid bills, laundered towels (the linen service did only bedding), picked and arranged flowers, supervised Martha’s cleaning and went to the post office. Around
the next night’s guests began arriving with their inevitable questions about where to eat, fish and buy picnic supplies. Between these daily duties, there were Maggie’s own meals to be prepared and eaten, banking to do, and whatever personal task she had set for herself that day.
She loved innkeeping - she really did - but it was exhausting for a pregnant woman. She was at the beck and call of others nearly around the clock.
napping was impossible given the constant interruptions, if the best guest didn’t pull in until 10:3o, she was still up at that hour. And as for days off, they didn’t exist. At night when she’d fall into bed, her legs aching and her body weary, she’d rest a wrist across her forehead and think, I’ll never be able to do this and handle a baby, too. The baby was due around Thanksgiving and she’d accepted reservations through the end of October, but some days she wasn’t sure she’d make it until then.
