Homecoming (7 page)

I’ll bet he hasn’t given them a cent because he disapproves of the marriage. At least I’ve set up trusts for my family that they don’t even know about. I’d like to give them things now, but they won’t accept anything. Ellen doesn’t want anything, and Mark’s very independent. Weil, I give him credit for that. So they’ll get theirs when my time comes. Except for Susan’s jewelry. Ellen already has it all, some handsome pieces, too, although goodness knows when she ever wears them. At least she has them. It wouldn’t have hurt those people to make a gift to the mother of their grandchildren, even though they don’t like her. Oh, well. As long as I never have to have any contact with them, and I won’t. That’s one thing you can be sure of.

Gene drank his coffee. Again, his glance fell on his mother’s letter. And again he wondered whether there was any reason for concern.

Come early
, she had written.
I’ll expect you not later than ten
.

Well, that was all right. An early riser, he would have a quick breakfast and start. But why
specifically at ten? Unless she was expecting a conference of some kind with a doctor or lawyer, perhaps. It hurt him to think of her with either one, for doctors and lawyers almost always meant some kind of trouble. She had enough worries already: Cynthia’s troubles, and then the irreconcilable breach between her sons.

He got up and wrote a memorandum:
Stop at bookstore for Mother. New book on English castles, plus a good novel. Also, chocolate macaroons, large box
.

O
n the other side of Central Park, Aaron Sachs and his wife, Brenda, were having their supper.

“We’ll have to start early to pick up Mark and Ellen downtown before we get on the road,” she said.

“Why they don’t have a car, I’ll never know. You’d think he could at least afford a cheap car.”

“I’m sure he can. But what does anyone want with a car on Manhattan Island?”

“Right as usual, dear wife.” And Aaron winked at her.

She was so reasonable that she sometimes,
when he was in a bad mood, annoyed him. Still, after all these years, she was his treasure, his “woman of valor,” good natured, vigorous, and almost as pretty as she had been on their wedding day.

At present he was not exactly in a bad mood, but he was tired. He had had some tough surgery and a sorry case that was bound to go wrong. Now this letter from Annette Byrne was a complication in his busy life. Who wanted to drive out into the country in the middle of winter to visit a woman one scarcely knew? They had been in her house only once before, and that was nine years ago. He picked up the letter and, propping it against his dinner plate, stained it with tomato sauce.

“Oh, that beautiful stationery,” Brenda said.

“Never mind the stationery.
It would mean a great deal to me if you would all come
, she says,
and it will be fun for Lucy and Freddie. We have a new family of swans to show them. So please do come
. Now, why should it mean a great deal to her? Why?”

“What’s so puzzling? She’s old and alone. She wants to have some time with her grandchildren
and her granddaughter’s family. Personally, I think it’s very gracious of her to include us.”

“We are Mark’s parents, aren’t we?”

“Even so.”

Aaron sighed. “I won’t be able to eat the food, you know. It’ll probably be baked ham.”

Brenda laughed. “Of course it won’t be. But whatever it is, we can eat vegetables. That’s what we always do, isn’t it? And we can do it again.”

“They don’t know how to eat, anyway. The food has no taste.”

“That’s why everybody goes to French restaurants, the food’s so bad.”

“I was only kidding, my literal wife.” And they both laughed.

“She’s a lovely woman, very simple in her manner, as I remember her. I have to admit, though, that I’m a little intimidated. I’m not used to grandeur. Not that the house is palatial, just the reverse. It has the kind of simplicity that costs a fortune, you know? And then the grounds, the gardens—”

“Anybody would think to hear you that you live in a hovel. Five rooms on Central Park West. Not too bad.”

“I didn’t say it was bad, idiot.”

“Then act accordingly. Don’t be humble. You’re an aristocrat, aren’t you?”

“Some aristocrat.”

“You grew up in a house in the suburbs, you went to a private school, and your grandparents were born in this country. I lived in Washington Heights with the rest of the refugees, and borrowed the money for medical school. So by my standards you’re an American aristocrat.”

He loved to tease her. She was so earnest, so literal minded, that he could always count on at least four or five seconds between the time she heard what he said and the time she realized that he was joking.

“Mark loves her, you know. He’s mentioned her lots of times.”

“Who? Ellen? He should love Ellen. He married her.”

“Oh, Aaron, you know very well I meant the grandmother. She’s very close to them. But the two sons haven’t spoken to each other for years, Mark says. It must be a very difficult kind of balancing act for her.”

“WASPs. They’ve no sense of family.”

“That’s ridiculous. You shouldn’t use that word, anyway. A wasp is a mean insect.”

“Well, Anglo-Saxons, then. I’ve nothing against them—well, maybe I have. Some. They’re a cold people. And stingy. They don’t do a thing for their children once the children are grown and out of the house. I wonder whether her father knows about the pearls you gave Ellen, and what we’ve set aside for the grandchildren. Living in one of their homes must be like living in an icebox. They don’t express themselves. They walk around whispering politely, all buttoned up. No feeling.”

“Nonsense, Aaron, you don’t know anything about them. Those are ugly stereotypes; that’s all they are.”

“I know about people.”

“No, you don’t. You only know about people’s broken bones. How can you talk like this when your own daughter-in-law is the sweetest soul on earth? And you know she is.”

Brenda’s fine, dark eyebrows rose, as, waiting for a response, she watched him. Yes, he did like Ellen. She was making his son happy.… But how much different it would be if, for example,
Mark had married the Cohens’ daughter. She was a beautiful girl, and he had always hoped that something might come about. Or if not Jennifer Cohen, at least somebody from a family that could be joined to theirs. They’d celebrate the holidays together and feel at ease. What was he going to talk about up there at that fancy country estate? And he grumbled something inaudible to Brenda.

“You’re tired,” she said.

“I am not,” he answered, never wanting to admit that he was.

“Yes, you are. I can tell by your grumble. You’re tired, and this invitation has upset you besides.”

“Well, it’s made me think. It’s brought back things that I’ve tried to bury. Why, Mark doesn’t even go to the synagogue anymore. I asked him.”

“Mark knows who he is. He discusses it freely. He’s Jewish, but secular.”

“Secular! Where in blazes is the good in that?”

Brenda sighed. “Where the good is, I can’t answer. It doesn’t seem like much good to me. But it’s life, the world today, or part of it. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“I wonder what’s going to happen to the children. Look at them. So beautiful.”

In a double frame on the piano, they sat: Freddie, not yet two, was holding a ball, and pleased with it, smiled, showing his tiny teeth; Lucy, just six, had light, ruffly hair and a ruffly dress; her smile was piquant, already feminine.

“They both look like my mother,” Brenda said. “Take after her side.”

“So beautiful,” Aaron repeated, his eyes going moist. “Yes, but what’s to become of them, what will they be?”

“I suppose Ellen’s side thinks about it too. At any rate, there’s nothing we can do about that, either, Aaron.”

For a few minutes neither spoke. The little table on which they had their meals had been placed at the window so that they might look down at the park. From this height the skating rink looked like a mirror speckled with moving black dots.

“It doesn’t seem cold enough to be skating,” observed Brenda.

“Artificial ice.”

“Did I mention that Ellen’s painting is going to
be shown in one of those galleries near their apartment?”

“You told me.”

He knew she was making conversation. His morose humor, his dwelling on the old subject, were not fair to her. And forcing a bright tone, he said, “I think she has talent. Those landscapes she does are really pretty.”

“That’s just what’s wrong with them. They’re too pretty. They’re only skillful imitations of Winslow Homer’s country scenes. She even has a deer in the last one.”

“Don’t disparage it. I liked it.”

“Darling, excuse me, you’re a marvelous surgeon, but you really don’t know the first thing about art.”

Aaron waved his arm toward the farther wall, on which, above a grouping of stainless-steel-and-leather chairs, there hung an enormous painting of acid-green and bloody-purple tubes, snaked around each other.

“And you do? And that’s art? It looks like intestines.”

“Aaron! It happens to be very, very fine art.”

“Bunk. You’re reacting against a reaction. You
like this abstract stuff because your parents ridiculed it.” And he laughed, glad to have something to laugh about.

“Well, laugh away. It’s good to see you being funny.”

“Incidentally, how is it that you admire Annette Byrne’s things? If you like the stuff in this room, you can’t like her Chippendale.”

“Well, I don’t like Chippendale. But her things are good of their kind, and they’re put together with taste.” She reflected, “Ellen has taste, too, along with her other good qualities.”

Aaron nodded. “True. True. Listen, you don’t have to persuade me to go. Save your energy. I’m going next week. I don’t look forward to it, but I’ll do it. Call up and tell her we’ll be there.”

“No, I’ll write. When you receive a letter, you answer with a letter. That’s proper. They’re very proper people.” And suddenly, a dark expression passed across Brenda’s face. “You know what? It’s only the father who puts a bad taste in my mouth.”

“You just met him once.”

“Yes, and that was once too often. I felt such
anger, the only time in my life I felt such anger. It stuck in my throat. I hated him.”

“The feeling was mutual, you can be sure.”

“Shriveled like a prune, his dry lips, and his eyes like pins pointed into my eyes. Who does he think he is, the duke of Westminster or somebody? The duke would be more gracious.”

“Not if his daughter had run off and married our son, Brenda dear.”

They both laughed. Then Brenda said seriously, “If I should ever run into him someplace, I’d—I’d make a scene. I don’t know what would happen.”

“You’d get your name in the papers, that’s what would happen. Not that I wouldn’t mind joining you. He looks down on our Mark! Mr. Hitler. He only needs a mustache to look like him.”

“Tell me. How does a girl like Ellen come from such a father? And how does a woman like Annette have such a son?”

“God knows. Maybe it’s in the genes. Don’t ask me, I’m not a psychiatrist, or God either.” Aaron stood up and shoved his chair toward the table. “Come on, enough of this. If you still want
to go to the movies, I’ll stack the dishes in the washer while you repair your face. Hurry, or we’ll be late.”

“Aaron, I just had a horrible thought. You don’t think she’d have that man there, would she?”

“What man?”

“Ellen’s father.”

“Are you out of your mind? Of course she wouldn’t. By the way, don’t forget to pick up a little something to take along.”

“I know. Mark told me what bakery to go to on the East Side. Annette likes chocolate macaroons.”

A
t four o’clock in December, the short, dark afternoon was over. Electric light filled the enormous room, glaring above the rug on which Freddie played with his blocks and Lucy, sprawled on her stomach, studied the first-grade reader. It shed a softer light on the easy chairs and bookshelves at the far end of the room, brightening the easel with the unfinished painting at the north window. And, at the opposite end, it brightened, too, the stove, the sink, and the ironing board, where Ellen was at work.

Despite the short afternoon it had been a long day. The days began around six o’clock when,
from the other side of the partition that divided one space into three small sleeping rooms, there sounded Freddie’s early stirrings in his crib. First came a chirping sound, part speech and part song; what thought could he be expressing and from what heard music came those few sprightly notes? Next came the rattle and pounding of the crib as he propelled it back and forth against the partition. Last came his demanding call for attention, meaning a diaper change and breakfast. There was no use, even on a holiday or Sunday, in covering one’s head with the blankets, no escape from that demanding call. It was time to get up.

“Rise and shine,” Ellen’s father used to say when it was time for school. And now that was her own morning greeting to her own children. Funny, she reflected, how you trail all these tag ends, this miscellaneous baggage, along, even when you move from your first life into another one that’s removed one hundred eighty degrees.

She still used her mother’s linen place mats, even though she had to iron them herself. They were too precious to bring to the Laundromat, as were the handmade dresses that Gran bought for
Lucy. Lucy had few occasions to wear them, but they were lovely. Ellen had worn such dresses herself when she was growing up in a long-ago time of children’s concerts and Upper East Side birthday parties with crepe-paper hats and loot bags to take home.

This was another world in which she lived now. It was hardly a world of poverty—not by any means—but it was surely different. Here expenses mattered very much. You had to watch them, to make some careful calculations before spending anything at all. It bothered her father, who was always questioning, always offering to buy, to pay for this or that, and always meeting with refusal. Mark’s parents did the same and, in the same way, met refusal.