How to Make an American Quilt (20 page)

Such a corrosive rain as on Venus would be one of the most potent and destructive fluids in the solar system. It would burn away human flesh in a matter of minutes. Umbrellas would not help at all
.

Em Reed is not looking forward to stitching the next project, a
Crazy Quilt
. She knows the responsibility of the quilter is different in this sort of quilt. She knows, too, that while her contribution will appear to be random, it will, in fact, be freighted with personal meaning. (She has heard talk that they may assemble a bridal quilt for Finn Bennett-Dodd and Em does not know if she has the patience to put herself into a work that holds marriage as its center.) The other quilters will ask privately or speculate about her patches, and Em is not imaginative enough to lie. So she is miserable.

Not like Dean can lie, she thinks. For the past eight months he has been making regular, open visits to Constance Saunders, ever since Howell passed on. Em thinks widows should accept their solitude with grace and not attempt to replace the man they lost with another woman’s husband.

The worst of it, of course, is having to sit in the same room, quilting with Constance, Howell’s reading glasses large on her small face, sliding down her nose as she bends over the work. Watching her clumsy hands push the needle through the fabric, making Em wonder if her own hands look as graceless. Thinking Dean may even find Constance’s hands elegant; he used to find Em’s hands elegant, and Em knows what love can do to Dean. Everything is filtered
through his painter’s eye and faithless heart. Sometimes Constance whispers to Marianna, and though Em cannot make out what she is saying, she is pierced through the heart by the softness of her voice.

Anna Neale told her that it doesn’t matter, that as long as Dean keeps coming home at night that’s all Em needs to know. Em wants to say, Anna, you don’t know what you are talking about, since Anna never married, but refrains. She even stops herself from kicking Constance’s chair when she passes behind her or jabbing her with a sharp needle or screaming at her to find her own man. She may need the sympathy of the other quilters, if it comes down to it; but there is another reason, and it is that it would not change a thing in Em’s life.

What Em cannot bring herself to tell the other quilters is that this is not Dean’s first affair; the first one occurred in the early years of their marriage. It isn’t even his second affair. Dean wanted to be a painter (he was actually quite gifted) but his dream somehow failed him, leaving him to teach art to students with less skill and vision. He was frustrated, as creative people denied their outlet often are. He grew moody, restless, cruel within his own home, blaming everyone for his failure; blaming himself, too. Other days he would be buoyed by a sense of hope, happy and affectionate.

Still, three years into their marriage, Em considered divorcing Dean over that first affair. Dean was not what the circle would call a “decent man,” because of his changeable moods and thwarted talent; his unpredictable, cynical nature excluded him from the company of decent men. But no one knew that he was unfaithful to Em.

Em can still hear herself saying to Sophia Richards, “Don’t be ridiculous—she is his student and nothing more. Surely he is allowed to take on private students?” Or, again to Sophia, “Christ, I can’t believe how people in this town talk and talk and know absolutely nothing about anything.”

Sophia said, “Em, I’m your friend.” Her elbow was propped on
the table, her chin set on the back of her hand. Sophia seemed to look past Em with a gentle, unfocused gaze. “I know husbands,” she added. “I know Dean.”

This caught Em by surprise, caused her to wonder what Sophia meant by ‘I know Dean,’ then shook her head. Sophia understood nothing about her marriage. “No, not this time,” said Em.

Sophia shrugged her shoulders as Em resisted the temptation to confide in her best friend. She could not tolerate being placed in the position of confessing Dean’s betrayal and defending him at the same time.

Because Em hated the idea of marriages based on suspicion and mistrust, she virtually refused to believe Dean’s betrayal at first. She knew he was unlike the farmers, ranchers, and small businessmen who comprised the region; she married him for his lack of convention. Now she wanted him to behave like a “normal” husband. Em used to say to herself,
It is not within me to be “different,” though I long for it
. So, as with poor or socially unconnected women who marry for money or prestige, Em married a man who rough-handed convention because she was not brave enough to do it for herself.

Clearly, she saw marriage as a joining of complements to create a whole.

E
M WANTED
to stick with Dean (after that first girl), not consider divorce, because she understood his anger and his unused gift; she eventually forgave him, because she understood him, but she was no longer sure that she liked or respected him. Oh, she still loved him, but he did not feel like a friend to her any longer. She can recall sitting in a bath when the water had turned lukewarm, the bubbles deflated and all but dirty little edges of foam clinging to the tub corners. She remembers being half turned toward Dean, who
crouched beside her on the bathroom rug (his large feet leaving indentations in the pile), her wrinkled, waterlogged fingers gripping the edge of the tub as she tried to puzzle out his affection for the other girl. “But,” she asked, confused, “is it something I am not doing? Is it me?” And then, as if she were commenting on someone else’s life instead of her own, “To think we love each other.”

It occurred to her that perhaps she did not respect herself. Is it possible to cleave to a man before the eyes of God, become one with him, be unable to respect him, yet retain self-respect? Particularly if you view marriage as combined halves that make a whole? She did not know; they were already too much a part of each other to know.

And, later, when she stood in their bedroom in her robe, Em broached the idea of divorce, prompting Dean to weep freely in her arms, telling her to do what she had to do, begged her not to go, admitted that he was hard to live with but loved her just the same.

In her heart, Em mistakenly thought that this man was meant to be her burden, the experience to strengthen her, make her so powerful nothing could touch her.

A
YEAR LATER
she discovered that Dean had a new woman. All Em knew was that she was two years older than Dean and had something to do with the college that employed him. Em sobbed and asked, “How could you do this to me again? Why do you keep doing this?” Deep inside she wondered with a sort of detached curiosity if perhaps she was unlovable or if there were strict time limits to the length of loving her and maybe three or four years was its duration. “Why are you doing this?”

Dean was quiet, his voice low and defeated. “I do love you,” he told her.

Em’s tears washed the heels of her hands, the backs of her slim fingers.

“Em,” he said, “I am a man out of control. I can’t be a painter; I can’t improve my lot and I can’t live with it. I’m cynical and hard and cursed to see the world in romantic terms.”

Em looked at him with furious, wet eyes. She thought him a remarkably selfish sonofabitch. She said, “You bastard.”

And she thought of something else: When only a year before he had ended the first affair, the girl called the house, once or twice, crying for Dean. “If I could just talk to him for a minute,” she said, “I could get some sleep tonight and never bother you again. I promise.” But Em would have none of her promises and only turned the phone over to Dean, whose face took on a harsh, irritated expression when he said, taking a deep breath, “What do you want from me? I have already said all there is to say.” Then his voice yielded just slightly (with an imperceptibility only a wife could detect) and he said, “I know. I know. Didn’t I tell you this was not good. Couldn’t you tell?”

Em had crossed her arms and pulled her mouth into a tense line, causing Dean to turn his back on her and cut the conversation short. But Em could’ve sworn she heard him whisper
baby
into the phone just before he said he was sorry, he really was, but it was over and she would have to accept it. Down the receiver came into the cradle and Dean wandered from the room, but not before he stopped and gently touched Em’s bare arm. She heard him in his studio, stapling stretched canvas to a wooden frame, and then silence; a brush stroke is like a whisper in a cave and cannot be heard unless you are in close proximity.

At that time, Em would bang up to their bedroom or take long, angry walks, her steps violent, often mumbling to herself; reminding herself that he showed remorse and good faith, that he promised not to do it again, and that everyone makes a mistake and where would we all be if we didn’t express a little forgiveness now and then? And at other moments, even worse, for no reason, Em would
feel herself in a fury—sometimes in the middle of a perfectly good dinner or day outing or dance—where she would be inexplicably happy in Dean’s presence, loving him, and like a sudden fever her anger would well to the surface, blacken her mood, and cause him to pull away, contrite. She would turn to him, regardless of where they were or what they were doing and say, “I want to go home.
Now
.”

There was the day when they drove down to Los Angeles to see an exhibit at the Museum of Art and she hauled off and clipped him, closed-fisted, in the jaw, when only a moment before she had snuggled beneath his arm.

“What the hell is it with you?” he demanded, holding down her arm, his grip tight, looking, Em thought, as if he wanted to strike her in return.

“I never should have allowed you to be forgiven. I should have forced you to leave.”

“Is that what you want?”

“What I
want
,” she said in measured tones, “is for you and that girl to never have happened. What I
want
is to punish you. I don’t feel as if you have suffered.”

“Very nice, Em.”

“I want to hurt you.”