First Love and Other Sorrows: Stories (17 page)

It was six-thirty on a hot August day that had not gone well for Laura. She was pottering around the kitchen, glancing occasionally out the back window to keep an eye on her four-year-old daughter, Faith, who was playing in the sandbox. The third time Laura looked out the window, it seemed to her there were insects in the air everywhere, and, clutching a bottle of insect repellent, she ran out and encased Faith in a thick oily film.

“Mommy, I don’t like this stuff,” Faith cried.

“It’s good for you,” Laura said absently, but after that Faith couldn’t play in the sand because the sand stuck to her and made her itch; and she took to following her mother around the kitchen, clutching at her mother’s skirt, and making whining noises.

This sort of thing had been going on all day.

Laura bore this nobly; she was three months pregnant, and she had told herself she must be careful not to hurt Faith’s feelings now that Faith was going to be displaced. Faith was bewildered by this sudden laxity in the air and grew more and more distraught, and finally burst into tears in the middle of the kitchen. Laura despairingly offered her an orange popsicle to eat, even though she knew it would ruin the child’s appetite for dinner.

At seven, Martin Andrews came up the front walk of their duplex garden apartment, and he knew the minute he entered the house that something was wrong. He was a well-knit and tall young man, with a firm and enterprising face, but suddenly he looked discouraged. Through the kitchen door he saw Laura crouched beside the kitchen table, holding the popsicle out to Faith, whose face was pink and streaked with tears. The vacuum cleaner was lying in the middle of the living-room floor. Cautiously, he put down his briefcase. “Hello, everybody,” he said.

“Oh, hello, dear!” Laura cried, and rose to go to him and kiss him, but Martin was opening and closing the front door to see why it stuck sometimes and sometimes opened freely. “These modern houses are put together with chewing gum,” he said. “I’ve had a foul day.” He kept his eye on the door, closing it slowly, with great care, watching it alertly. “Aha!” he said. “I see where it sticks.”

He looked hollow-cheeked and cowardly, bent over by the door.

“God,” Laura said. “It’s shocking, the way men are so full of self-pity.”

After that, Martin refused to talk to her or to tell her what had gone wrong at the office. In persecuted silence, he went upstairs and changed his clothes and put on bathing trunks. Then he and Faith played with the hose in the back yard, squirting each other and running around on the grass with noisy laughter, while Laura resentfully cooked pork chops for supper, putting out of her mind the fact that she always said that pork was indigestible when the weather was hot.

Martin put on shorts and a sports shirt, and the family had their dinner almost in silence. Faith told her father she had gone to the store with her mommy. “We had a letter from Aunt Dorothy today,” Laura said at one point. Martin raised his eyebrows and said pointedly, “You’re in a poisonous mood, and I’m not going to pretend you’re not.” Pale and haughty, Laura went to work fiercely on her pork chop, hoping that if she cut the pieces small enough they wouldn’t make her sick.

Immediately after dinner, she took Faith up to bed. Outside Faith’s bedroom window was the sunset, all crimson and runny. Laura laid the child in her bed, turned on the air-conditioner, and tiptoed out of the room.

She was wearing a sun dress, and suddenly she couldn’t bear the sight of her bare arms. She went to her bedroom closet and got down the box of her old maternity clothes. They were wrinkled and looked faded; after all, they were four years old, and her waist hadn’t enlarged enough for her to wear maternity clothes yet. Besides, she was keeping her pregnancy a secret so that it wouldn’t seem so long.

She leafed through the dresses in the box and finally pulled out what had been her favorite—her dress-up outfit, with a high white collar and long sleeves, and pleats. It hung loosely on her now, and it smelled of mothballs, but she didn’t care. She descended the stairs, and, in full maternity regalia, sweating, she did the dishes.

Martin was sitting in the back yard in a lawn chair drinking a highball, solitary in the suburban dusk. Laura turned out all the lights in the apartment and went outside. Down the row of apartments, several of the yellow back-door lights were turned on, signifying that the occupants were secreted in their yards, leaving only that light to guide them if their phones should ring.

The evening was no cooler than the day had been. “It’s so hot,” she said. “I’m tired of its being so hot.”

Martin drank from his highball glass. Laura watched the outline of his Adam’s apple in the darkness, and then she clumsily climbed into the hammock and lay there in her maternity dress, an absurd figure, dabbing with a Kleenex at her forehead.

“I would love to hear the sound of a human voice,” she said at last. “The hoofs of the rescue party, sort of.”

Martin stirred in the lawn chair. “I’m sorry. I thought you liked the quiet.”

Laura made a disrespectful noise, a snort. “You’re angry with me and you know it.”

Martin said nothing.

“A penny for your thoughts, you bastard,” Laura said after a while.

Martin laughed abruptly, with obvious discomfort. “Why do you want to know? You’ll only get mad at me because I wasn’t thinking about you.”

Laura was stabbed by that remark—by the fact that he hadn’t been thinking about her. “No, I won’t,” she said. “Tell me.”

“I was thinking about Ferguson.” Ferguson was the head bookkeeper in the office.

“In August? When everyone’s on vacation?” Laura said incredulously.

“Yes,” Martin said, sighing, and picked up his highball glass and clinked the remnants of the ice cubes. The tinkle floated on the air, and Laura said, “Oh, do that again, Martin, please. It was so pretty.”

Martin laughed and did it again. Then he lifted the glass and sucked the ice cubes into his mouth and crunched them up. The noise was strangely sharp and clear in the darkness. All the leaves were absolutely motionless.

She was still hurt because he had been thinking about his office. “You’re a beast,” she said, and began tearing off bits of her Kleenex and dropping them in the grass.

“Me!” Martin was startled. He had thought she was coming out of her mood and growing peaceful.

“You torture me,” Laura said. “You play with my feelings. God, you must hate me!” She stretched out one arm in the darkness.

“Oh, Laura,” Martin said plaintively.

“And the baby, the poor child I carry. I can feel what you’re doing to it. It’s all knotted up. If you only knew how unhappy it is.”

“For God’s sake,” Martin said. “For God’s sake. Laura, do you realize your so-called baby is little more than a fish at this point.”

“Oh, you’re inhuman,” Laura muttered. “You really are.”

“And you’re the dark woman of the sonnets,” Martin said, plucking a handful of grass. He stood up, and, holding his glass in one hand, dropped the grass from his other onto Laura’s hair. “Stop picking on me, honey,” he said and went into the house. Laura lay in the hammock; the grass tickled her ear. Suddenly she was terribly frightened, and not at all sure that Martin would come back. He might get dressed and walk out of the house. He might find a woman somewhere. Laura wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come.

From the house, Martin called, “Laura! I can’t get the ice tray unstuck!”

Laura slid off the hammock. She walked slowly, drowsily, into the house. Martin was bent over the icebox.

“I must have some disease,” he said. “My fingers—Oh!” he said admiringly as Laura did something mysterious that loosened the tray in its bed.

Martin took out the tray and closed the icebox door. “I love the way you do things like that,” he said. “It’s really lovely to see—that flip of the wrist sort of thing. My.”

“You think of me as a clown, don’t you?” Laura sounded infinitely long-suffering and gentle. “I ought to wear floppy shoes and turn somersaults, I think. Would you be sorry if I never looked foolish again?”

“No, of course not,” Martin said unconvincingly, as he ran hot water over the bottom of the ice tray.

“If only—” Laura folded her hands over her bosom—an absurd, perspiring figure in her balloonlike maternity dress, with the smell of mothballs emanating from her, and on her face a look of such matchless calm thoughtfulness that it was impossible to believe she was serious. “God knows, I try to be intelligent, Martin. You should respect the effort I make, if nothing else, and—” But she couldn’t think of what to say next.

“Aunt Dorothy have anything to say in her letter?” Martin asked, sighting carefully as he dropped the ice cubes in his glass.

“They’re going to be in town next week,” Laura said wearily, turning away. “They’d like me to come in and bring Faith.”

“Well, do it, then.”

How sweet the silence of this hot evening was, Laura thought; it seemed to lie around the house like a great, dark cat.

“Yes, I suppose so,” she murmured. “But it’s so hot for a child. And she might catch something. Oh, I’m a terrible mother. I want to take her to see Aunt Dorothy, but I wouldn’t take her in to see most people. I wouldn’t take her in to see Cousin Eleanor, for instance. I use that child for my own purposes.”

“You don’t like Cousin Eleanor,” Martin pointed out. He restored the ice tray to the icebox. “You do like Aunt Dorothy. I don’t think that’s so awful.” He was careful to sound rational and friendly, but not too sympathetic, because he was afraid of what emotions sympathy might release.

“Yes, of course,” Laura said, laying her hand to her cheek. “I forgot that. Sometimes I get myself all upset over nothing.” She felt disappointment washing back and forth in her chest, like waves. “I think I won’t take Faith, anyhow. All those diseases…”

“Then don’t take her,” Martin said. He added water to the Scotch he had already poured.

“But Aunt Dorothy will be so disappointed.” Laura wrung her hands, hoping that now she was on the trail of her real unhappiness, that her quarry wasn’t far ahead.

“Laura,” Martin said. “Aunt Dorothy can live without Faith. So can practically everyone, except us.”

Laura interrupted. “You’re jealous of her,” Laura said. “Oh!” she added inanely and went out the back door, across the lawn, toward the wonderful, comfortable hammock, suspended in the darkness. Martin walked behind her, and as Laura started to climb into the hammock, she felt him holding it steady for her. She sank down on the cloth and lay with her eyes closed. When she opened them, she saw Martin looking down at her. “What’s wrong, lovebug?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Laura said. “That’s it. I just don’t know. Everything seems so awful, so sad—especially me. I—I’ve done something awful, I suppose. I suppose it’s my subconscious or something getting back at me, but I don’t know why. I don’t know why at all. I don’t understand one thing I do.”

“But you must have some idea,” Martin said. “Please tell me. I promise not to get angry. Please tell me, Laura dearest. Let me help. I can’t stand it when you’re like this.”

“Oh, it’s the most dreadful feeling…dreadful.”

Somebody in the row of garden apartments was playing the radio loudly, and the music of a string quartet swam on the heated, motionless air. Someone else had hung a Japanese Lantern in another back yard, and it glowed like a frail moon among the dark leaves of the bushes and trees. And in the middle of this whole scene, Martin bent over the hammock, peering helplessly at the strange, distorted figure of his wife wrapped in that absurd maternity outfit.

“Martin, I’m no good,” Laura said. “I’m a terrible person.” She paused but she wasn’t getting any nearer to what she felt. “I’m growing older,” she whispered, “but I don’t act older, and I’m ashamed.” But that had nothing to do with anything, and in the darkness Laura sighed and folded her arms over her forehead, hiding her eyes. “Martin, I really don’t know what’s wrong. Isn’t that silly.”

Martin was bent over, his arms around the entire hammock, holding Laura to his chest. He looked very uncomfortable bent over like that, and Laura suddenly embraced his head, pressing it tight against her breast.

“You mustn’t talk,” Martin whispered. “If you say things, Laura, you’ll start to believe them. I know you. Just don’t say anything. Just lie here and relax. In the morning this feeling will go away, I promise. But I can’t stand to hear you talk like this. It kills me, Laura. It really does. I think the heat’s just got you down. God, I’m all distraught!” He moved his head out of her embrace and kissed her sticky cheeks. “If you knew what it does to me to hear you talk like this, you wouldn’t do it.”

Laura turned away; the last thing in the world she wanted was to talk about Martin.

“Listen,” he said, “I have to go inside a minute. I’ll be right back, and I don’t want you to be upset while I’m gone.”

“All right,” Laura said. She smiled at him, but it was a sickly smile, and she was grateful it was dark and he couldn’t see her too clearly.

Lying in the hammock, she covered her eyes with her arm and listened to Martin’s footsteps moving rapidly toward the house. Then the screen door slammed and the sound died slowly on the night air.

Oh, why can’t I feel better? Laura thought. Why am I unconsoled?

And quickly her mind poured forth accusations, reminding her of her temper, her foolishnesses, her selfishness. She stifled a groan and stirred on the hammock. She was low, she was terrible, she would never be able to show Martin she really loved him and wanted to be good, because her wicked nature got in the way. And she was punished for this because when he tried to console her, she didn’t feel consoled. “I’ll never really know how much he loves me,” she thought. “There’s no way I’ll know. I can only suspect it.” At that her tears started to flow, and it seemed to her that she had found one of the secret springs of sadness that water the whole world. She wasn’t a fool to feel sad at all.

She cried mostly for Martin’s sake. “Poor Martin!” she thought. “Poor Faith!” She couldn’t cry for herself because she disapproved of herself so severely. “They’re saddled with the most awful woman, and we’ll never know how much we love each other, never, never, never.” And each time she thought this, her tears flowed faster.