Last Resort (28 page)

“Sure you will,” Lee told her, stroking her back and shoulders as she began crying again. “It just takes time. It’s hard to break these old habit patterns, these old guilt patterns, after so many years.”

In the end, Jenny hadn’t gone home till nearly midnight, and then only because she was afraid that Wilkie or a doctor or a nurse might call. When she proposed leaving after supper, Lee had pointed out, quite correctly, that she was in no shape to drive. Then, somehow, she had ended up, exhausted and blurred with wine and tears, in Lee’s bedroom.

Wilkie had probably not slept much last night either, Jenny thought now, coming to the lumpy end of a row of knitting and starting back. But while he was lying uncomfortably awake on a hard hospital bed, his sleep broken by noises and interruptions, she had been on another wider and softer bed, under an orange Indian spread patterned with huge pink and red flowers, fading in and out of tears and sleep, letting Lee hold her and stroke her and kiss her.

It had felt familiar and comfortable, but strange too, because the things Lee began to do after a while were things Wilkie had never done—or if they were the same, Lee did them so much slower and softer that Jenny, when she wasn’t drifted away into unconsciousness, felt as if she were dreaming.

But she wasn’t always dreaming, Jenny thought. Sometimes, now and then, she had been aware of everything: the way the wind pushed the leaves against the screen outside Lee’s window, pressing them together, and the colored-glass chimes on the porch glittering and tinkling in the porch light. The softness of Lee’s sun-browned skin, and her dark, springy hair thick on the sheets, like raveled raw silk—She had wanted everything that happened, because Lee was so kind, because Lee loved her, and she loved Lee. And because Wilkie had turned into a person she wasn’t sure she even liked, who didn’t like her.

It was true what Lee had said: she had to get used to the idea that her marriage was over, and that probably, as soon as he was well again, Wilkie would tell her so. She had to get used to the idea that he loved Barbie Mumpson, absurd as that seemed, because how could anyone love someone as silly as that?

But those things weren’t logical; Lee had said that last night. “After all,” she had said, “when you look at it rationally, it’s improbable that any two people in the world should care so much for each other. Only sometimes it happens.”

“But isn’t it sometimes, I don’t know, sort of ridiculous?” Jenny had asked. “I mean, take us. Two middle-aged women.”

“Love is sort of ridiculous, sure,” Lee said, “but also it’s not ridiculous. The way I see it, anyone has the right to be in love. It’s just a dumb convention that they have to be the same age and race and religion and class, and they can’t be the same sex. You’re just goddamn lucky if you love anyone and they love you back.”

Jenny turned her knitting again and saw that the last dozen rows were distorted and uneven, as if she had been alternately pulling the yarn too tight and letting it fall slack. Now the sweater looked the way she felt, full of lumps and no use to anybody.

“Jenny!” a voice called from above.

“Coming!” She dropped her work to the tile floor and began to climb the stairs.

Wilkie did not smile as she came in. He lay there with a pale, inward expression, under a painting of a sunset with pink flamingoes flying across it. “Did you get the
Times?”
he asked.

“Yes, here it is.”

“You might read some of it to me. Just run through the headlines, I’ll tell you what I want to hear.”

“All right,” Jenny said. It wasn’t a new request—Wilkie had made it sometimes in the past when his eyes were tired—but not for many months. “
DEMOCRATS TEST STRENGTH
,” she read in a flat voice. “
U.S.-CANADA RIFTS GROW OVER TRADE
.
NEW PLAN FOR AILING BANKS. DOLPHIN COURTSHIP
.”

“Yes, read that one.”

“‘As much as puppies or pandas or even children, dolphins are universally beloved,’” Jenny read. “‘They seem to cavort and frolic at the least provocation.’” It’s like when the children were small and he was working so hard on
Whispers in the Dark,
she thought, up all night so many nights watching the creatures that never come out till the sun goes down, straining his eyes through special binoculars. At dawn he’d come home and I’d have his breakfast ready, oatmeal with cream and brown sugar, or bacon and scrambled eggs, and after he’d told me how the night had gone I’d read to him from the
Times.
We were happy then.

“‘... Their mouths are fixed in what looks like a state of perpetual merriment,’” she continued in a monotone, not trying to take in any meaning, but noticing that Wilkie too was smiling very slightly. We’re doing the same things, she thought, but we’re not the same. It’s over between us: all that has to happen is for you to say so. From now on Barbie Mumpson will read the
Times
to you.

Wilkie’s eyes were half-shut. “‘Their behavior and enormous brains suggest an intelligence approaching that of humans—’” Jenny continued, lowering her voice to a hum. “‘—or even, some might argue, surpassing it.’”

“The usual guff,” Wilkie muttered. “Thanks, that’s enough. Think I’ll try to sleep a bit more now.”

“That sounds like a good idea. Oh, I forgot to tell you. Gerry Grass stopped by a while ago.”

“Mrh,” Wilkie said, without interest.

“He asked me to say he was very sorry you’d been sick, and hoped you’d be better soon,” Jenny said, reporting Gerry’s words but not his gestures or the subtext of his message.

Gerry had held her hand in both his large warm hands, stared into her eyes with his large warm eyes, and assured her that if she needed him for anything at all, he was right there. Even in her preoccupied condition, it had been clear to Jenny that he was repeating his offer. Well, she had thought dimly and rather dismally, maybe that’s what I’m supposed to do with my life next.

The trouble was, she liked Gerry Grass, but she couldn’t love him. For one thing, she couldn’t believe he was a good poet. Jenny had often been moved by poetry: Wordsworth and Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson, especially. “The soul selects her own society ... She had begun quoting those lines to Lee yesterday, and Lee had joined in, so that they finished the poem in a soft, close chorus. Gerry’s poems didn’t rhyme or scan, and the collection of essays whose proofs she had been reading for him was even worse, being wholly concerned with himself and his impressions and opinions of other poets. It wasn’t the sort of book that would ever make a real difference in the world.

What Lee did, though, had made a difference and would continue to make a difference. She listened for hours to women who stayed in the guest house, like the therapist she had been, but she didn’t charge them anything. And quite often, when someone was in trouble or couldn’t pay, she let them stay there for almost nothing or even absolutely free.

“Is there anything else I can do for you?” she asked Wilkie, lowering her voice in case he was already asleep.

“No thanks. Wait—There is one thing. You can keep that silly girl out of here.”

“Girl?”

“You know. My new fan. She called my room twice this morning, before you got to the hospital.”

Jenny sat silent, her mouth half-open.

“You know who I mean. Came to the hospital with me. Wants to save manatees.”

“Barbie? You don’t want to see Barbie?”

“No. Certainly not now.”

“I thought you—” Jenny heard her own voice, a kind of hysterical gulp, and swallowed the rest of the sentence.

“What?” her husband murmured drowsily.

“I thought you liked her.”

“Well, I suppose I’m grateful to her. Ought to be anyhow. But she exhausts me. Bores me too. I can’t be bothered with fans now.”

Jenny swallowed again. Liar, liar, she thought. “Barbie’s not just a fan,” she said, her voice shaking. “I know all about it. I saw you kissing her on Sunday.”

“What?” Wilkie repeated, but this time the word was a firecracker.

“I saw you. Right out in front of this house. On Valentine’s Day.” Jenny laid out the facts in a tone that wavered but made each word an accusation: of adultery; of cold-blooded hypocrisy; of blatant public exposure.

“Nothing of the sort,” her husband said, raising himself on one elbow, frowning heavily.

“I saw you, from the living room window.”

“That’s ridiculous, I never—Wait a second.” Wilkie pulled himself up into a sitting position. “Was this the day that poor fellow in the wheelchair drowned at the beach?”

“I guess so. Yes.”

“I remember.” He stared past Jenny, the frown between his bushy piebald eyebrows deepening. “Yeah. She stopped me at the gate, tried to give me some pamphlets. I was exhausted after all the fuss over the accident. Shaking with cold. All I wanted was to get inside, have a hot shower. So I took her handouts, I figured that was fastest, and she jumped on me and gave me a big sloppy kiss.”

“I-uh,” Jenny stuttered. Maybe he’s not lying, she thought. Or else he’s lying awfully well.

“You didn’t think, darling—You couldn’t—”

“Yes, I did,” Jenny said. “Anyhow I wondered—I mean, you’ve been so strange, you’ve hardly spoken to me for months. I thought you were angry with me about something. But then after Sunday I assumed you were probably involved with Barbie Mumpson.”

“That is totally insane,” Wilkie said with force. “I had no idea—You must know, Jenny, I could never seriously care for any other woman. You should have realized that. After all these years—And a goop like, what’s her name, Bobbie. How could you possibly believe that?”

“Barbie,” Jenny corrected. Suppose he’s telling the truth, she thought. Suppose he does still care for me, in some sort of way. But if that’s so he’s not guilty of adultery. He’s not guilty of anything except being unpleasant for months. I’m the one who’s guilty.

“Whatever. I’m very sorry you got that impression. I admit I’ve probably seemed preoccupied. I’ve seemed—I’ve been—” He frowned and looked away, out of the window, as if the words he was searching for might fly past like birds; then he looked back.

“Strange,” Jenny supplied, when he did not continue. “Very strange and cold and unfriendly.”

“I’m sorry,” Wilkie said for the second time, rather haltingly; it was not his usual habit to apologize. “It’s true, Jenny, I’ve had things on my mind. I didn’t want to burden you with them.”

“What things?” she demanded.

“Different things. How to finish the book, and I thought—” Wilkie paused for almost a minute. Jenny, waiting, did not speak. “I thought I was sick,” he said finally.

“You
were
sick, yesterday,” Jenny said, worried now. Was her husband losing touch with reality? Had he had a stroke, a memory loss?

“Not that,” Wilkie said slowly and gratingly, as if he were drawing the words up from an old well, with long pauses between the sentences while the bucket went down again. “I mean before yesterday. I thought I was seriously ill. For quite a while. Since last fall. I thought I had—” he paused again, swallowed “—cancer, actually.”

“Oh, that’s awful—You really thought—But Dr. Felch said—”

“Yeah, I know. It was a mistake.” He gave a weak half-smile. “At least I hope so. The head doctor at the hospital who came in this morning says the same as Felch. Says I’m in good shape.”

“But all this time, since last fall, you thought—”

“Well. Yeah. That’s probably why I’ve seemed—What was it you said? Strange. Unfriendly.” Wilkie’s eyes began to close, then opened again. “I suppose that’s why you had those absurd ideas about that girl,” he said. He gave a thin, wheezing sigh, and shut his eyes.

Still holding the
Times,
Jenny stared at her husband. It wasn’t like him to say what he’d just said, to apologize, to worry about his health. It was like another person, a wholly different sort of person. And as she thought this, Wilkie began to change while she watched, from a strong, handsome, healthy, but cold and unfaithful husband into a heavy, slack, elderly person with gray chenille hair and irrational fears.

She looked at his hand, fallen slack against the pink sheet printed with pinker flamingoes: the square-cut nails, the faded-red scar shaped like a quarter moon, the underwater watch. That was Wilkie’s watch; and the scar on the veiny hand was the one Wilkie had got fighting a brush fire in Canada while researching an article about wolves for the
Smithsonian.
The man in the bed was her husband, Wilkie Walker; but at the same time he wasn’t.

It was like in Convers last fall, she thought, only worse, because when after a minute or so Wilkie half opened his eyes again and looked at Jenny the illusion didn’t end. His expression remained unfocused, weak, even confused. And she wasn’t the same either, she too was weak and confused.

“Jenny?” Wilkie said, opening his eyes again. “Come over here.” He smiled and indicated a place beside him on the shiny pink bedspread.

“I—” She hesitated, then automatically moved to sit in the designated spot. Wilkie, levering himself up from the pillow, put one heavy arm around her, and gave her half a hug.

“That’s better, isn’t it, darling?” he said.

“Mm,” Jenny lied. Slowly, because it was so clearly expected of her, she leaned forward to touch the shoulder and kiss the dry, ruddy cheek of the person who used to be Wilkie Walker.

“All right now?” he asked.

“All right,” she repeated. But it wasn’t all right, she thought. Everything had changed.

“Why don’t you try to sleep a little more?” she suggested in the gentle, controlled tone of voice she would have used to a fretful child. “I’m going out now, I have some errands.”

“Yeah. I might,” Wilkie agreed, subsiding against the flamingo pink pillows.

“I’ll be back soon,” she lied.

This time there was no answer. Jenny left the bedroom, descended the stairs, got into the car, and drove to Artemis Lodge.

Alone in the house, Wilkie Walker did not sleep, but rather fell in and out of a restless doze. He was no longer in pain, but he felt heavy and waterlogged, like something washed up on a beach. Last night, still aching all over in spite of the drugs, he had rejected the little doctor’s diagnosis. In the morning, though, after speaking to the senior physician, he had had to consider that they might both be right. If so, he had not had a heart attack, but had passed a painful but non-life-threatening gallstone. Also, if the doctors were correct, he did not have cancer of the colon and was therefore not going to die agonizingly and shamefully in a few months, unless he killed himself first.