How to Make an American Quilt (21 page)

And then it would all pass and she would apologize and he would apologize and they would renew their promise to love and take care of each other, Em convinced that one recovers from these things as one does an illness.

Now it was happening all over again and he was telling her, “The only thing I can change or control—the only adventure I can find,” he said, “is love.”

Em flew at his face, beating him about the head with a vicious fury. Pantings and yelps escaped her throat as she attacked him. He had taken advantage of her understanding nature. Dean did not
fight her off but shielded himself. Em had tried to give him what he needed—understanding, forgiveness. Having satisfied those needs, he created more needs and turned to someone new for satisfaction. His personal needs were greater than her understanding, greater than the sum of their marriage.

Em walked out. She went to her mother’s house. She was thankful that they did not have any children.

At her mother’s house she discovered that she was pregnant.

And still she did not go back.

D
EAN CALLED HER
at Christmas. He said, “Merry Christmas, Em,” and she hung up on him without a word because she knew that he had nothing but contempt for the holidays, for the “poor fools” who thought these things mattered and don’t get him started on the absence of true religion in the month of December. She was eight weeks pregnant and laid low by morning sickness and a sort of general malaise. Her mother said, “When I was first pregnant with you all I ever did was eat and sleep and wish for it to be over.”

“Did it get better?” asked Em from the sofa, where she lay with closed eyes, in a half-dream state that included a curiously welcome hallucination of Dean.

Her mother held out an unwrapped chocolate kiss to her daughter, who parted her lips, allowing her mother to place it in her mouth.

“Well,” her mother said, smiling, “yes and no. That is, the second trimester was the best, but the other times, honey, you’ll have to decide for yourself.”

“Thanks for the encouragement.”

“Sweetie, if you want a fairy story, ask your doctor about pregnancy. I’m sure he’ll tell you whatever you want to hear.”

“Will I ever stop being so tired?” Em felt as if her voice were floating, circling around her there on the couch. She wished her mother would catch it, nail it down.

“Sure, sweetie.” She patted her daughter’s leg, as Em drifted off into a nap.

HAPPY NEW YEAR
said the telegram, signed
LOVESTOPDEAN
, which Em tore up and dropped in the garbage. There was a delivery of irises and King Alfred daffodils with a hand-painted box of chocolates for St. Valentine’s Day. Birthday greetings came in April, followed by a big basket of lilies, marshmallow chicks, and an alabaster egg for Easter. All of which ended up in the trash. All of which arrived by messenger and not delivered by Dean. “At least he knows not to show up himself,” said Em.

Sophia Richards stopped by occasionally, pregnant by this time with her second child, often with serious little Duff in tow. She had begun quilting over at Glady Joe Cleary’s house and insisted that Em join them. At first, Em said no, she rather liked being at her parents’ house and not having to travel through Grasse, where she might catch a glimpse of Dean, with god knows who on his arm. She liked being here, away from Grasse, with no thought of anything. Only her mother’s soothing company or watching her father in his workshop.

O
NE EVENING
, at dusk, during that very hot spring, Em, seven months pregnant, sat on the porch of her parents’ house. She had just emerged from the small wading pool her father built when she was a child. Her belly was straining against the fabric of an old slip of her mother’s. As she sat on the porch, wringing water from the hem of the wet slip, running her fingers through her short hair, and
shaking herself free of the water, Dean drove up. She froze and gripped the arms of the metal chair she was sitting in; her body pulled slightly forward, as though involuntarily drawn to him. Em did not rise as he approached (she was a very clumsy woman in her seventh month and could no longer trust her sense of balance).

“Hey, Em,” said Dean, standing before her.

“Hi,” said Em, smiling.

Dean leaned toward her, fingering her wet hair. Then he fell to his knees, placed his body between her parted legs, running his hands around her wide hips. His cheek resting on her tight belly.

Em’s hands did not move from the arms of the chair. She thought,
If you cry now, I swear I will never come back;
she had not forgotten the way he had seduced her with his tears in the past.

But Dean did not cry; on the contrary, he seemed quite content. And seeing him happy (though she suspected that he could not sustain it in the long run; his romantic nature canceled out long-term happiness; it is romance and cynicism that are hand in glove, not romance and happiness) won her back.

I
N THE GATHERING DARKNESS
Em tries to tell herself that Dean has been detained at school, but she knows he is somewhere with Constance. She marches upstairs and begins to throw her things into a valise. She cannot quite believe that at age sixty-three she is finally going to leave him. The humiliation of having to see Constance in the quilting circle and Dean insisting that there is nothing more than friendship between them has become too much to take. She tries calling their daughter, Inez, to tell her that she is coming up to stay with her. Inez, who now lives in a small, expensive house in Mill Valley. She’ll say, I only need a place to get my bearings.

No answer. Em looks at her watch, sits on the bed, impatiently jerking her foot up and down. She had not told Inez that she and
Dean were separated during much of her pregnancy. Or that Dean refused to have any more children once they had Inez. He said, “No. Out of the question. I can’t imagine loving another child as much as I love Inez. I want to keep this pure.” Pure? What the hell was
that
about, wonders Em for the millionth time, except more evidence of his selfishness: what Dean wants, not what she wants.