How it Ends (24 page)

“A dress, shoes, and a
hat.
I hope they’re green, Margaret. You always look lovely in green.”

“Thank you, dear, but that’s not it,” she called.

“I know!” he announced, his words distinctly slurred. “You bought a fur coat! What kind is it, Margaret?”

“Don’t be silly,” she called back, dabbing cheap perfume everywhere, rolling on bright red lipstick, rimming her eyes with black pencil, and smearing rouge on her cheeks. She gazed at herself, astonished, almost sick with anticipation because she looked like someone else, like a woman who
knew
things, knew how to excite a man, knew
how to get everything she wanted, and so she turned on the phonograph and played the record album of boudoir music she’d bought, turned on the bed lamp she’d covered with a sheer black scarf, and—

“I know,” he said. “It’s a mink! You bought a mink, you little minx!”

She said a brief prayer, took a deep breath, and shaking, opened the bedroom door and stepped out into the living room.

“No,” she said and didn’t know whether it was the shoes with their sassy high heels or the fact that she was nearly naked in the main room of their house or the gin or the deck of cards that had showed her what she was missing or the fact that he was sitting there, mouth open, eyes wide, staring at her with a look she had never seen before, a riveted look that made her sashay straight over to him, lift the glass from his slack hand, and straddle his lap. “The ladies magazines say that all you handsome, brilliant young physicians should always have your hands full after dinner.” And when his fingers, cold and damp from the glass, crept up and gripped her thigh, when his breathing came heavy, she took his face between her hands and kissed him hard.

He only said no once, tried to hold back once when he was propped above her on his knees and shook his head as if to clear it and said,
Margaret, no, I shouldn’t, you don’t know—

Do it,
she’d said, pulling him closer. Touching and stroking him, delirious, crazed by the powerful heat, yearning for this moment like none other, ever, loving him with every cell, wanting him, and so he did, and she locked herself around him and watched his face, saw the fierceness and discovered the second expression wasn’t concentration at all but need, yes, need because she needed him and he her and this,
this
was how they should be, laughing, tumbling, kissing, loving all the time…

When it was over and he had collapsed, hot, sweaty, smelling of gin and her new cheap perfume, gasping and mumbling and nuzzling her
throat, her neck, she whispered,
I love you,
and he whispered it, too, and fell asleep with his arms tight around her.

Right before she fell asleep, when she was lying there drowsing in a beautiful, dreamy haze, wondering at the miracle, hoping they had made a baby, her arm draped across his stomach and her hand settled at his hip, her fingers found a small, scab-covered sore on his side, ran idly over it, and returned to nestle in his chest hair.

She slept.

When she woke up the next morning, he was already gone and she spent the day in a delicious delirium, wondering what would happen when he got home. Would he sweep her up in his arms and carry her straight to the bedroom, or would they flirt with each other, prolonging the anticipation over dinner, and then fall into bed? Or maybe not bed at all, maybe he’d ask her to dress up again and they would use the couch this time instead of stumbling together into the bedroom like they had last night?

Oh, it could be anything!

Except that when he got home he ignored her upturned mouth, went straight to the bottle of gin on the counter, and poured it down the sink. “I will not have any more alcohol in this house,” he said without looking at her. “I don’t know what got into you last night but if it happens again, which I promise you it won’t, I will arrange for you to see a colleague of mine who specializes in female disorders.”

“What?” she’d whispered, hand at her throat.

“Last night’s tryst was…tawdry,” he said, still without looking at her. “You’re the wife of a highly respected physician. You have a responsibility to remain above reproach—”

“Thaddeus, we’re married,” she cried. “What we did was between a husband and his wife—”

“I cannot reason with you when you’re like this,” he said coldly, turning away.

“Like what?” she cried. “Upset because for the first and only time in five years my husband made love to me and now he won’t even
look
at me?”

“Lower your voice,” he said, pausing in the doorway.

“Thaddeus, please don’t shut me out,” she said, coming up behind him and touching his arm. “I
love
you.”

He stiffened but didn’t pull away and when he spoke, his voice was stern but tired. “And I you, Margaret, but what happened last night cannot happen again.”

“Ever?” she said, voice cracking.

He nodded once and went into the living room to smoke his pipe and wait for dinner.

“And it hasn’t, but, Louise, my God, it has to just one more time before I die,” Mrs. Boehm said, blotting her eyes with a tissue. “It won’t be the same, I know that, since this last operation, but if only he would lie down beside me and hold me again, touch me, and…I know I shouldn’t say this to you, but there are other things a man and a woman can do besides intercourse. It’s true. I’ve read about them.”

I rose and went to the window, far too embarrassed by what she’d confessed to look at her. These were the most personal of moments, intimate interactions that no stranger should be privy to.

I didn’t know what to do except to help her be beautiful and get Dr. Boehm up into that room.

“Argh!” I buried my face in my hands. “This book is making me crazy. One more chapter?” I peeked out at Gran.

Her eyes were closed.

Sighing, I rose and turned off the CD player.

“If we ever get through this book on tape and you get a chance to listen to it, trust me, you’re not going to believe it,” I said to my mother after supper, and then, trying to gauge her mood, said casually, “If Daddy only messed around with you once in like eighteen years of marriage, would you have stayed with him?”

She stopped rinsing a plate and gave me a funny look. “Well, I guess it would depend on why.”

“Because he had syphilis?” I said brightly.

“Because he…what the hell kind of book is that, anyway?” my mother said.

“A very intense one,” I said, half to myself. “And not at all what I thought it was going to be.”

“No serial killers or stuffed wives?” my mother said.

“Not so far,” I said, retrieving the glasses from the table. “It’s actually kind of sad. Women didn’t have it so good in the olden days, did they?”

“Are you asking me because you think I was there?” my mother said, eyebrows high.

No,” I said, cracking up, and then my mother highjacked the conversation and took me back to her glory days and we didn’t get serious again.

But I thought about Margaret Boehm that night, doing everything she could to win her husband’s affection and attention, and I really didn’t like the way it made me feel at all.

It made me feel like I understood.

I was helping Seth clean out his SUV because he finally found just the right classic MG online and needed to sell the SUV to buy it, and I found an earring—definitely not one of mine—under the back bench seat.

It came out in a handful of McDonald’s wrappers, which made it worse because we always went to Burger King. I stood there staring at it, a small hoop with three little blue beads, kind of bent like it had been ripped from an ear, and he noticed my stillness and said, “What?” I held it up and said, “An earring…and it isn’t mine,” and he got all insulted and went into this rant, saying I’m so suspicious and what else does he have to do to show me that he loves me, and then I started feeling bad because he said it hurt every time I doubted him and he hated being blamed for things he didn’t do. He was getting loud and that was embarrassing because we were out in front of his garage, so I was just like,
Okay, forget it,
but he said,
No, it’s not okay,
and then I started to cry because he was so cold and distant, so I went over to him and whispered,
I’m sorry, okay? I
do
trust you and maybe the old owner left it, right? Maybe I jumped to conclusions,
and he said,
Yeah, maybe you did,
but he then put his arms around me and said,
You have to trust me, Hanna, okay?
And I was like,
Okay, I do.

And I do, I do…I just…I don’t know.

Maybe it’s me.

I was setting the table for supper one night and my mother was making the pasta salad and I said real casually, “What would you do if Daddy ever cheated on you?”

And I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t her easy, “Divorce him.”

“You would?” I said, shocked. “Just like that?”

“Of course,” she said, giving me a curious look. “Why, what did you think I would do?”

“Well, I don’t know, but not that,” I said. “You would break up our family?”

Oh my God, my mother hit the roof, and I was so not expecting it that I just stood there with my mouth hanging open.

“I can’t stand that you just said that,” she said, grabbing a bottle of Italian dressing by the neck and shaking it like she was trying to kill it. “If your father cheated on
me,
then
he
made the decision to risk every single thing we had together, knowing that this would destroy us, so no, Hanna, it wouldn’t be
me
breaking up the family, it would be him.”

“But you could forgive him,” I said warily.

She snorted. “Why? Why would I want to live with a deliberate cheater and a liar and a betrayer, with someone who was willing to hurt me like that just to get off?”

“Mom,” I said, flushing.

“No, I’m serious, Hanna. Why would I? Why would I think so little of myself to do that? And how could I even stand to look at him, not to mention touch him? No,” she said and twisted open the cap of the bottle, “we told each other way back in the beginning that there were several absolute relationship breakers and topping the list was cheating, so we both know that if either one of us did it, it would mean the end of everything.”

“Really,” I said, leaning back against the wall and watching her. “So that means if you cheated, Daddy would divorce you?”

“Absolutely,” she said with a brisk nod. “And I would expect him to.”

“Wow,” I said, more than a little uneasy. “I never knew that. What about unconditional love?”

She shook her head. “Think about what those words mean, Hanna, and then you tell me. Unconditional love. Love without conditions.”

“Yeah…?” I said, not getting it.

“All right, suppose your father came in from work every night, screamed in my face, called me all sorts of vile names, beat the crap out of me in front of you, beat you, too, brought home hookers, and did all sorts of disgusting things—”

“Ew, stop,” I said, scowling. “Daddy’s not like that.”

“Right, but if he was, and we had no conditions on our love, then I would still love and stay with him, right? Because with no conditions, then
any
behavior is acceptable, then I would just take whatever I could get, right? Do you see what I’m saying?”

“So there are conditions,” I said.

She sighed. “If you don’t believe me, go ask your father.”

So I did, plopping down onto the ottoman in front of him and poking the newspaper until he sighed and lowered it. “Yes?”

“What would you do if Mommy cheated on you?” I said.

“Beat the crap out of the guy and then divorce her,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Do you believe in unconditional love?” I said.

“Only for you, kiddo,” he said.

“Okay,” I said. “Would you ever cheat on Mommy?”

“No,” he said with absolute certainty. “No roll in the hay is worth losing what I’ve got.”

And that made my eyes sting, and in a little-kid move I hadn’t done in I don’t know how long, I reached over and hugged him, crushing the paper and making him grumble, but I knew it didn’t matter because he smiled and hugged me back.

It took me almost two hours of frantic digging through my catch-all drawer and the memory boxes in my closet but I finally found the worn, red talisman bag Gran had made for me back when I was little.

An acorn, for growth and potential.

Mica, because all that glitters is not gold.

A piece of the catalpa tree, for us, together.

I wanted to bring it to her, offer it up and say
See? I still have it, it still means something to me,
but I was afraid she’d start crying and
choke so I just tucked it into my pocket, and went to sit with her, and listen to the next chapter.

How It Ends

It would be an understatement to say it went badly.

We waited, Mrs. Boehm and I, from seven o’clock when we heard him come in from his workshop until almost ten, her with curls drooping and makeup fading, making pitiful small talk, indulging in busywork like cleaning off the other side of the bed just in case, and her lighting up every time there was so much as a creak in the hall.

At ten, angry and unable to bear her sinking hopes and humiliation anymore, I excused myself, went downstairs, found Dr. Boehm in his study poring over a taxidermy manual, and said as politely as I could, “Excuse me, Doctor, but could you come up and see Mrs. Boehm, please? It’s important.”

“Is she hysterical?” he said without looking up.

“No,” I said, wanting to slap him. “Will you come, please?”

“In a moment,” he said.

I waited, knowing what would happen if I didn’t, knowing he would either forget or willfully dismiss the request as he had dismissed so many of her others, and when several moments had passed, I coughed. More moments, and I cleared my throat.

“Are you coming down with a cold, Louise?” he said finally, glancing up at me.

“No,” I said, holding his gaze.