Blessings (33 page)

“I know that I’ve been very lucky. I had a wonderful childhood, and I still feel all the warmth of it. I didn’t have to become an adult overnight the way you did, and I’m very, very thankful for that.”

“And I,” Jennie said, “am very, very thankful to your parents for giving you that wonderful childhood.”

Now she hesitated between her native instinct to express herself, letting the waters flow, and her learned control, protecting her privacy, damming the waters.

And she said, frowning a little, feeling a tension in her forehead, “I want to say things that I’ve made myself forget. I worried so! I wondered whether you were still alive. Perhaps some childhood disease … or an accident? And I thought, What would become of you if they died? It could happen. Your birthday was such a bad day for me. I never looked at the calendar when November came.” She glanced at Jill, who turned her eyes away as one turns from the sight of pain.

“Jennie—don’t. There was never anything like that.”

“You’re told you will forget, once the child has been given away,” Jennie murmured. “But it’s not true. You don’t.”

“That’s what Peter says. You don’t forget.”

Peter. What had he to forget, for heaven’s sake? But of course he had plenty, and of course, being the person he was, he must have lived through sadly troubled hours. I’m in such a strange mood today, Jennie thought. I seem to feel a kind of pity for the world, even for all these chatting strangers, sitting here at lunch in this beautiful place. How can anyone know what any one of them has endured or will have to endure?

Yes. Peter.

“I’ve been thinking—” Jill began, and stopped. “You won’t be angry if I tell you something?”

Jennie had to smile. “I won’t be angry.”

“All right, then. What I’ve been thinking is, is there maybe a chance that you and Peter could ever—I mean, you both got along so happily last night. Not right away, of course. But maybe sometime?”

“Jill, don’t fantasize. Please.”

“Oh, but is it really fantasizing? I don’t think so! I have a feeling that Peter would—”

Jennie interrupted. “Why? What has he said?”

“He hasn’t actually said anything. I just have a feeling.” Jill laughed, moving her hands so that her scarlet nails sparkled. “Full circle. It would be so tidy! I’m a very tidy person. Compulsive, almost.”

“I’m not,” Jennie said rather dryly, looking down at her own unvarnished nails.

There was a silence until Jill spoke, flushing as brightly as Peter could. “Oh, I’ve said the wrong thing! I only meant, now that the man you were going to marry—” She stopped. “Oh, worse and worse! I’ve really put my foot in my mouth, haven’t I? People always tell me I should think before I open it. I’m awfully sorry, Jennie.”

She seemed for the moment so extremely young and so contrite that Jennie could say only, “It’s okay. Really, okay. Just a difference of opinion.”

Jill said more happily, “Well, that’s what makes horse racing, as Grandpa always says.”

“Yes, my mother always says it too.”

“Shall I ever see your mother?”

Oh, Mom had so wanted a grandchild! She never would have moved away to Florida if there had been one.

“I don’t know, Jill. I don’t know whether it would be the best thing for her if I were to tell her about you now. I’d have to think hard about it.”

Jill nodded. “I understand. I do understand a lot better than I did last week, you know.”

Jennie touched Jill’s hand. “You’ve told me, and I’m thankful for that. How about a piece of cake to wash down another cup of tea?”

“My weight. I’ve got to watch it.”

“Oh, have a piece. You don’t do this every day. Besides, you’re skinny.”

“Men like skinny girls.”

“Not all men.”

“My boyfriends do.”

“Did I hear plural or singular?”

“Plural. I did have a special one all last year, but I decided it was dumb to be tied down to one person, especially when I wasn’t in love with him. He was very smart, a physics major, and nice-looking, but that’s not reason enough to give all my time to him. Don’t you agree?”

“I definitely agree.”

“Someday,” Jill said earnestly, “I want to love somebody so much that I can’t imagine living without him. And I want to be loved like that in return. Is that too romantic, too unrealistic for the 1980s, do you think?”

“No.” Jennie spoke very softly. “I should say it’s the only way.”

“So in the meantime I’ve been selective. Right now I’ve got three who like me a lot. One’s a musician and gets tickets for everything, even when they’re sold out. We go to the opera on Saturday afternoons. I learned to like it in Santa Fe. You’ve heard about our opera there, I’m sure.”

Eating cake, drinking tea, Jill rattled on about men, friends, grades, and books.

“Then there’s this group I go with. There’re about eight of us and we’re open to everything, rock and disco —I love to dance—and now a few of us are wading through Proust in French for our seminar. It’s a challenge, let me tell you.”

All this energetic cheer was, Jennie knew, partly for her benefit, to create an optimistic atmosphere, but also it was because Jill was feeling comfortable with her. And Jennie, listening not so much to words as to tone and mood, said to herself again, How young she is! How innocent and wise, how trusting and wary, how very dear! No real wounds yet except for the one I gave, and I think that’s healing. I’m healing it for her now—thanks to Peter, who made me do it. Maybe she’ll get through her years with no wound more terrible than this. I hope so. Some people do.

When they parted, they kissed each other.

“I wish for you,” Jill murmured, “whatever you wish for yourself.”

What I wish for myself, Jennie thought as she walked away. At this point and after everything that’s happened, I just don’t know. I’m only drifting.

“In bed already?” Peter asked when she answered the phone.

“Yes, I want to get up very early and get down to the office.”

“Are you sure you’re ready to go back into the rat race?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

“You haven’t heard anything? Do you mind my asking?”

She dodged purposely. “Heard what?”

“You know. From … him.”

“It’s over, Peter,” she said somewhat sharply. “I’ve already told you that.”

“God, what a shame! I don’t understand people.”

“Peter, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay, okay. I just want you to know you have me.”

She didn’t answer.

“You’re not alone in the world.”

The phone clicked.

“Jennie? Are you there?”

“I’m here.”

The phone clicked again.

“That noise. I thought you’d hung up on me.”

“You know I wouldn’t do that.”

“I was thinking. You know I mentioned something about next summer. Do you think you’d like that? Just a week or so out on the Indian reservation, you and Jill and I?”

In spite of herself, she was touched. And she answered softly, “Peter, I can’t think that far ahead.”

“All right. Another time, then. I really called just to find out how it went today.”

“Oh, it was good! We saw some wonderful things. She wanted to see some eighteenth-century portraits for her art history class, and then we went to the Egyptian wing. She’s very well read, very bright.”

“She’s a treasure, Jennie. We produced a treasure, you and I. Sometimes when I think of her I have to chuckle, she’s so much like you.”

“Like me? Why, she’s a carbon copy of you.”

“She looks like me, but I mean her attitudes, that high indignation over injustice. And a temper. What a temper!”

“You think I have a temper?”

“Can you ask? You’ve got a fierce one! And stubborn! Once you’ve made your mind up—when you made it up to get rid of me before Jill was born.” He fell silent and then said sadly, “I’ve worn a hair shirt ever since. Believe me, Jennie.”

“Don’t, don’t,” she whispered. “This is no time to talk about it.”

“I suppose it isn’t. Well, take it easy, will you? Don’t overwork yourself tomorrow.”

When she hung up, she thrust aside the document she had been reviewing. From somewhere in the old building came the sound of music, someone’s record player turned on too loud. But it was pleasing, a piano concerto, melodious and nostalgic. Wine and roses, she thought, and put her head back, closing her eyes. The bed was soft and the quilt so beautifully warm, making sleep seem possible this time …

Peter, in a white summer suit, danced under paper lanterns. She was troubled because she knew so little about him. They really had spoken only of Jill. Now Jay came, his dark, mournful face framed in a doorway. Then someone who was neither Jay nor Peter, but both of them, was standing over her in a painful light. And she was terribly sad because she didn’t know who it was.

Waking, she saw that the lamp was glaring into her eyes. Now, switching it off, she was wide-awake again. For a long time she would have to lie staring into darkness.

T
he peach-colored silk blouse rustled, her mother’s gold bracelets clicked on her wrist, and her feet slid into the black lizard pumps that she had been saving for “afterward.” Since there was to be no afterward, she might as well wear them now, might as well put her best foot forward. But she was jelly inside.

On her way to the bus she analyzed herself. You’re dreading the return to the old life, the one you liked because it was so stimulating, so full of color while you were living it. But now you dread going back, because now you know it was empty jingle and jangle, for all the important talk, the plays and galleries and bright young men. The bus lurched. With every stop and start, it carried her farther downtown and farther back in time. She stared straight ahead. Desolation chilled her and she hugged her coat closer.

A woman got on and sat beside her. Moving to make room on the seat, Jennie was repelled. The woman had a hostile face; hard and jutting, it looked as if it had been cut out with a can opener. Jennie moved nearer to the window and pulled her coat tighter.

Suddenly the woman spoke. “Excuse me, but I do admire your shoes. I wish I could wear shoes like those, but I have such trouble with my feet.” She smiled and the eyes that had seemed so harsh shone mildly.

“Thank you,” Jennie said, adding, since it seemed only right to say something friendly, “They’re very comfortable.” And as intensely as the quick aversion had come, Jennie felt a rush of gratitude toward the stranger. To think that one could be comforted, that one could find human warmth in a trivial remark about a pair of shoes! And she arrived at her office oddly quieted.

“The flu really knocked you out, didn’t it?” Dinah observed. “You’ve lost weight.”

“A little, I guess. I didn’t expect you in on Saturday.”

“I’ll stay half a day. I’ve postponed all but the most important appointments so you can get your strength back.” She followed Jennie to the inner office. “Look at these. They came a few minutes ago.”

On Jennie’s desk in a tall, thin vase stood a spray of ruby-red roses, their heavy perfume sweetening the stale air. For a second she thought they might be from Jay. Stupid! She touched a lush, curved petal. There was no need to read the card, but she read it anyway, surprised that she could still remember the unusual script, partly cursive and partly printed.

“Good luck on your first day back. Love, Peter,” it said. And then, squeezed below, came an afterthought. “And Jill.”

Peter and his flowers! She fingered them thoughtfully.

“A dozen. I counted. Aren’t they gorgeous?” Dinah was impressed and curious. And as Jennie didn’t answer at once, she added, “There’s a pile of mail. I’ve sorted it and put the important stuff on your desk. There was a special-delivery certified letter that I opened. I thought you’d want me to.”

“Of course. What is it?”

“From those people up in the country. The land case.”

It was a short, typewritten note on Arthur Wolfe’s letterhead, written in his capacity as the new head of the Preservation Committee. She was informed that “other arrangements” had been made for legal counsel and was requested to send the bill for her services. And that was all.

She stood still, holding in her hand what was in essence a repudiation of her total self. A flush of shame prickled down her back, as if her body were burning. She had been stripped. How could they have done this to her? All her work, so dearly wrought, had gone for nothing. And yet, given the circumstances, how could they have done otherwise? And, anyway, would she want to continue working with Arthur Wolfe? No, it would be impossible, and Arthur Wolfe had seen that it was.

Yet her heart broke.

“Write an answer, Dinah,” she directed. “Say I acknowledge receipt of the letter and that I am not sending a bill for services. What I did, I did because I believed in it, and I never expected to be paid in the first place. Say that. And do it now, please, Dinah. I want it to go in the mail this afternoon.”

She kept standing there holding Arthur’s letter. Then suddenly something occurred to her that should have occurred before. She had every right not to be excluded from knowledge of events that she herself had set in motion! She had every right to know at least what was happening to Martha Cromwell. What if that man or those men had gone to the house looking for George’s tape? It would only be logical to try there, where the sick old woman was now alone, wouldn’t it? Cold fear shocked Jennie’s veins at the picture: the frame house hidden behind gloomy hemlocks at the end of the street, its front door darkened by overgrown vines on the porch. A man could slip in and slip out again, unseen and unheard… . She had to know.

Without another thought she picked up the telephone and dialed.

“This is Jennie Rakowsky. I’m a friend of Martha’s, and I’m calling to ask about her,” she said.

A young woman’s voice sounded against a background of buzzing talk. “Oh, I know who you are! You’re the lawyer who spoke so beautifully at the meeting that time.”

The words brought a little glow to Jennie, a glow that she needed just then, and she thanked the woman.

“How is Martha? I hear so many voices, and I’m glad she’s not alone in the house. I was afraid she might be.”