Frog (10 page)

Flash of light outside. Lightning? No, sky was too clear before, but weather could have changed. He goes to the window. Headlights. Sounds of a car coming down the dirt road. He goes outside. Their car. She drives it as far forward as it can go without hitting the parking log, stops to shift it into reverse, sees him and waves. He holds up his hand. She backs into the parking space he cut out of the woods this summer. Hand brake, lights off and she steps out of the car as he comes around the front of it. “I was worried, where were you?” he says. “Say hello first, say hello.” “Hello. So?” “Grief, what a reception after so many hours. I tried to get you several times but our phone was always dead. There, now don't you feel bad?” and she puts up her face and they kiss. “I was just on the phone—thirty minutes ago, and it was working.” “Who called so late? I hope not my father.” “Wrong number.” “Then it must have started working again around that time till up to an hour and a half ago, because that was the last time I tried to call.” “Actually, it was for the Drickhoffs. I picked it up impulsively, so could be our phone still isn't working fully. We can worry about it tomorrow. But why were you so late in getting back?” “Can't we go inside first? It's getting cold for me.” They start for the house, his arm around her shoulder, other hand holding her hand. She looks straight up. “See any shooting stars tonight?” “I didn't look.” “You didn't even go on the deck for a minute? That's all it would have taken. The first clear night in three and the best week for it.” “I was only interested in the front of the house—our car coming down and you driving it.” “I met Rick and Arlene at the movie and went for tea with them.” They go inside. “That's what I tried to call you about.” “What place would be open now?” “Not now—before. Little past eleven. We got to the Frigate as it was closing. They didn't mind us having coffee and tea—we also wanted desserts but they were all out—because they were cleaning up around us. They do unbelievably well there and have a good menu. We should go. Hire a babysitter a few days in advance and make it an early dinner.” “OK. But why a little past eleven? Why'd it take so long to get there, is what I mean? When did the movie end?” “At eleven.” “Why so late?” “Why so many questions?” “Because I was worried. I imagined all sorts of awful things happening to you.” “Maybe you wanted them to.” “That's silly. Where'd that come from?” “I don't know. Interrogating me. I did try calling you though.” “But when you couldn't reach me, what did you think I'd think was happening to you?” “I thought you'd know everything was all right even if I didn't call you. I just thought, well, that you'd at least wouldn't get worried. Truth is, I thought you'd be asleep by now. That you'd read and have some wine and then get so tired from the rea ling and wine or maybe even television, that you'd go to sleep long before I came back. In other words, that you wouldn't even be in a mental state to worry. It's past one. What are you doing up? You usually get to sleep at ten—eleven, the latest.” “I was worried. Just never do it again, OK?” “What?” “If you can't reach me, then come straight home.” “Why? If I can't reach you and it's getting to where I was expected back much earlier, check the phone to see if it's working. If it isn't, assume I'm trying to get you but can't because the phone's not working.” “I tried the phone. I just remembered. I got a dial tone.” “Probably long after I stopped trying to call you, right? Because you don't think I'd call past twelve, do you? Not even past eleven-thirty. You'd be sleeping, I'd think. Or the Drickhoffs would, and the phone would wake them. I even asked the operator—you forgot to tell me something, I forgot to tell you this—and she said our connection wasn't working. And since there were no reports of lines being down, to try again in fifteen minutes. Well, fifteen minutes was eleven forty-five, so I wasn't going to try again. But that's it, all right? How was Olivia?” “She woke up crying before—the Drickhoffs call—but it was quick. Gave her water, sang a song, she went back to sleep. Actually, I carried her downstairs because I had to get back to the caller; I'd asked her to hold so I could attend to Olivia.” “That person say why she called so late?” “She said ‘pretty urgent.'” “It should have been very urgent. Extremely. Anyway, I'm sorry for the confusion and that you worried so much. I am.” “I thought you had a car crash. I even imagined it. Worse, I saw myself alone with Olivia for the rest of my life. At least the next fifteen years of it, and the two of us always sad that you had died. That the fetus died also so late in its development made me sad too. I thought people would feel sorry for me. I saw myself at your funeral. I saw myself not teaching classes this fall. Just grieving, mourning, going a little crazy, but taking care of Olivia for the next year best as I could. Real self-pity. I don't know why I went so far with these thoughts. That I'd never love any woman again as I did you. Like that. It's possible I took some pleasure in all the attention I got—but real sadness. I actually sat here crying for about a minute over my imagined loss of you.” “Maybe it was from the drink over there. How many you have?” “That only came after I started thinking about it. Could be you're right though. Brandy can do that.” “Brandy?” “I felt I needed something stiff to relax me. I even saw myself sitting here a year later drinking brandy from the same juice glass and staring out the window, remembering the night of the crash exactly a year before. Olivia was again upstairs. In my thoughts. I'd rented the cottage for the summer. Everyone said I shouldn't. That it would bring up old stuff better left where it was, but I said it was my final farewell to you. Of my mourning. That I had to come back here to get through the next few years. That's what I said, but I don't quite know now what I meant. Olivia wanted to come back too. She liked it that the Hahn kids were just around the loop. I did too. And another practical reason: that it was the one place around here I could afford. Maybe I'm nuts for having gone so far in these thoughts, and the crying. What do you think?” “I think that I'm glad to be back. And that I didn't die. Very glad of that. Also, that I probably shouldn't go to movies alone at night. Anywhere far alone. It's become too uncomfortable to drive, and what if the baby started? Oh, I could take care of that. But that if we go to White Hill or any long distance, for you to do all the driving from now on. That puts a big strain on you when we go back to New York, but what else can I do? I'll be even bigger then.” “I definitely should have had more control over myself before. Thought what you said I should have. Such as picking up the phone around eleven or so, or anytime when it's more than a half-hour after you said you'd be home. Next time I'll do that.” “There won't be a next time for months.” “With the next baby then.” “What next baby?” “Or if you change your mind one afternoon soon and go out alone and aren't back a half-hour after you said you'd be.” “Wait, whoa. What's with this next baby business? Not only that it came out of nowhere and doesn't much relate to what we were talking about, but who's having one?” “Don't you want to have three?” “Only if I'm carrying twins, which I'm not.” “Maybe if it's relatively easy having two, we'll want to have another. We should leave it open. I've always wanted—imagined having—three.” “First time you've said that.” “I'm sure I have before. I love it when you're pregnant. That's not why I want three. I just love having one and know I'll love, or very much think I will, having two, and want a third because I think if 11 be the right number for us and for the first two. They can play off one another, and other things.” “I don't understand. Maybe it's your brandy, or me. Anyway, it's not something to think or talk seriously about now.” “You don't want to have some brandy—can't have any, right? Why do I ask? I know you can't.” “Truth is, it's probably late enough to. Just about all the damage that can be done to it has been done. Still, best to play safe. I'm going to get some milk.” She kisses him. “Somehow I really enjoy all the attention I didn't know you were giving me before, morbid as it was. I just wish, my sweetie, it hadn't hurt you so.” Kisses him again and goes to the kitchen. He follows her. “How was the movie?” he says.

_______

A break. Olivia's watching the one hour a day of TV they allow her to. Denise is in the bedroom nursing their three-week-old baby. He pours coffee out of the thermos—this morning's, but doesn't want to spend time making fresh coffee—and goes into his room and shuts the door. What to do? An hour, but only if Eva falls asleep right after she's fed. She doesn't, then if Denise doesn't ask him to walk her to get her to sleep or gently bounce her to bring up the bubble. First a postcard to get started.

“dear jack: sorry for not writing sooner, please excuse my now writing a pc but it forces me to be brief, also excuse that i leave just a 10th of an inch margin on both sides and start at the very top and will end at the very bottom, with maybe the bottom half of my last line left on the platen, but this way i can get in as much as i do. of course all i usually manage to get in is this explanation and the preceding excuses, look, your rt about what you said, remember what that was? i doubt ive room to go over it here, it was in your last letter, you say you keep copies of all yours, so you mt want to check it to find out. as for summer rental you want to take, we plan to be in that area also, so if thats whats stopping you—are not being there-excuse me: ‘our'—dont let it. of course—so many of courses; why, when im so concerned about this pc's limited space?—of course if it ends up where we cant afford the house we want and hv to go to cheaper pastures—browner ones—just hv to go elsewhere—what can i say? also, youre rt about my work (at the end of your letter; other ‘rt' was in the middle), so what if—oops, out of space, best to m, your pal, h. ps: no time to correct thi”

He should also write his mother. No, quicker to call. Goes into the kitchen and dials. “I knew it was you,” she says. “How? When I heard the ring I thought ‘That has to be Howard; it can't be anyone else.' Crazy, right?” “Well, it isn't Howard. It's Jerry.” “Don't tell me. I know my sons' voices. Jerry talks faster, higher, and he only calls Monday, from work, between one and two, which must be his lunch hour. So I'm always here then, because one time he called later in the day and gave me an argument why I wasn't here between one and two when I ought to know by now that's when he calls. He's never called from his home once. Has he ever called you from there?” “I don't know.” “Four times he's called from a hospital, all the other times from work. Once each when his three children were born and once when he was in one after his heart attack, which he still denies he got. Gas, he says, but a paralyzing attack of it. He called that day to say don't visit because he was getting his clothes on now to go home, but they convinced him to stay two more weeks.” “Good. Listen, I've the train schedule for this weekend.” “I don't know—you don't think you'll be too busy and tired from it all?” “We can manage it, believe me. And I want you to see Eva before she's grown up.” “I know I mentioned this before, but where'd you ever get that name? I mean, some names, even with just the initial, one could say it stands for somebody in the family. But Eva? Nobody in our family had a first name with E in it in anyone's memory, and your father-in-law says nobody in his or Vela's either.” “It's a nice name. Dark, eve, feminine. Or near dark. We also wanted it to be as strong as the name Olivia—but also to contrast with it—which we thought of as airy, light. And she is dark—her skin coloring and hair.” “That's now. Her skin might not get lighter but her hair could all fall out and come in as blond as Olivia's. And you chose the name before you had her, didn't you?” “Even if she turns out to be light in everything—hair, skin and weight—still, we like the sound of the name. But what are you saying, you don't want to see her because you don't like her name?” “Don't be silly.” “Only kidding. But look, I'm really in a hurry, so what about this weekend?” “Why you rushing so? Keep on like that and you'll get as sick as Jerry. Take it easy; you now have two babies to take care of.” “OK. But how about the nine o'clock on Saturday and I'll pick you up at the station at 11:47?” “I can take a cab when I get there.” “Please, don't argue, Ma. I really don't have the time. And it's easy—not like New York. Always a parking spot at the station. Or the ten o'clock and I'll pick you up at 12:35.” “Why is one ten minutes longer than the other?” “Probably an extra stop. Metropark or someplace. So, either of those okay?” “Ten o'clock. That way I won't have to rush. What do you want me to bring?” “Nothing. No, if I say nothing, you'll go over an endless list of things, so bring bread and cheese. A good slab of parmesan would be nice, and smoked mozzarella. Anything you want. A corn bread and seeded rye unsliced. But don't overload yourself. Take a cab to Penn Station. Call for one—Love Taxi, for instance—and they'll pick you up at the door. And keep your pocketbook closed when you're there and your hand on the clasp. We're all looking forward to seeing you.” “Thank you.” “Before I forget. Get a special senior citizen round-trip ticket. The regular round-trip discount fare isn't good for Sunday, but the senior citizen one is.” “I hate going up to the ticket counter—” “Do it, don't be ridiculous. You're fifteen years into your senior citizenship, so take advantage of it when you can really save. If I could get away with it, I'd do it too. No I wouldn't—I mean, illegally—but do what I say.” “All right.” “Much love from Denise and me.”

He goes into his room, sits back and thinks. I should do one of my projects now. I should start retyping it. I should get it going and finish the first page in the forty minutes or so I've left or maybe if I come back to it tonight when the kids are asleep or Olivia's asleep and Eva's feeding and work on it every day like that and finish the whole thing in about two weeks. I never feel good unless I've a project going. End one, begin one, work on one, end one, and so on.