Margaret from Maine (9781101602690) (21 page)

“Are you serious? Give me his number and I'll call him.”

It was meant as a joke but it didn't quite work. Blake sipped her coffee. Then she reached over and touched Margaret's hand.

“Sorry. I meant it to be funny, but it wasn't really, was it?”

“I guess it's all too fresh to be funny.”

“But you don't think you'll see him again?”

“I don't know. I'm tired of thinking about it. It gets complicated pretty quickly. I saw that happening. Then there's Thomas to think of, and a whole bunch of practical concerns. But mostly it's Thomas. I don't want to put us all into a big blender if there's no resolution to it. Do you know what I mean?”

“I do, honey.”

“If I was the only one in the equation? I wouldn't let him go.”

Margaret smiled. She reached across and touched Blake's hand, wanting her to know everything was okay.

“If anyone deserves a little fun in her life, it's you,” Blake said.

“That's the thing. A little fun would be one thing, but this felt like more than that. You know all those clichés about true love and a soul mate . . . I never put much stock in any of it, but now I don't know. It's crazy, and I'm hoping a little distance will give me perspective, but we matched. We just did. In every way.”

“And . . . ?”

Margaret saw Blake's face. Blake sipped her coffee, but Margaret saw her lip curl in a little smile.

“And, yes,” Margaret said, “the bed part was good, too. Really good. You're such a little voyeur, Blake.”

“I'm glad, honey.”

“Actually, if it had been lousy it might have helped the situation.”

Blake smiled hard at that.

“Could you keep it casual?” Blake asked. “Just a thing you could visit now and then down in Washington? At least until he leaves.”

The car passed another acre or two of marshland. Margaret heard the peepers pushing their voices out into the chilly spring air even harder than before. She sipped her coffee, which was lukewarm now and tasted of cream.

“I guess I could propose it, but I like him too much for that. And maybe he likes me too much. He's a decent man. And if I feel this way after one little getaway, I can't imagine what it would be like if I had a steady diet of him.”

“Can you put it on a shelf and not decide right away? I mean, why does it have to be all one thing or another?”

“Time will eventually settle it. Maybe he'll meet someone. We didn't talk about it, but he wants to have a family, I'm sure. He was so good with Gordon, Blake, in just the little time he had with him. And he was good with other kids. He played with them.”

Blake nodded.

“The world's a funny place, isn't it?” Blake said.

Margaret let out a long sigh.

“Anyway, we met the president. President Obama was very personable and sweet. Now tell me about the Donny situation. We've just glossed over it. Tell me what you're thinking.”

Margaret let herself relax back into the seat and took a sip of coffee. She listened to Blake, hearing the old domestic litany: Donny working too much, not attending the soccer games, being distant, plopping down in front of the television. In time, Margaret's mind wandered, pushed by the intermittent sounds of the peepers, by the steady drone of the car tires on the asphalt. Safe inside her friend's voice, she imagined what it would be like if Charlie were waiting at home for her. She imagined him pushing open the door and stepping onto the porch, his arms opening, his smile wide and welcoming.
Oh, Charlie,
she thought, and then made her attention return to her friend, and she nodded, and made the appropriate sounds of bewilderment, of incomprehension at Donny's actions, but in her heart she called to Charlie.

* * *

In the first light of morning, Margaret wept into her pillow. At last she could let it come: she heaved deep, heavy sobs into her pillow and felt her body clench and release, clench and release.
Mercy,
she thought. She should have been a turtle, a lumbering, gentle creature buried in the pond mud, waiting for the turn of the calendar to wake her.
To have a shell,
she thought. She wept for Thomas and she wept for Charlie, and she wept for herself. She wept for the oak tree, the tree she loved, as it sifted the first light of dawn through its many fingers. She wondered how deep the tree's roots went, how far they had traveled in the darkness of soil, only to retrieve this spark of beauty for one hundred and more years. She felt, in her deepest crying, that if she saw the phoebe on the walk to the barn she might dissolve like vapor, like mist, and the bird would carry her away on its wings.

Eventually she rolled over and studied the light piercing the window, the familiar shadow of the oak as it warmed in the sun. A few minutes later she heard Grandpa Ben make his way downstairs, his heavy tread met finally by the
sprong
of the screen door as it opened and swung quietly shut. And what about tears for Benjamin, father to her husband, a plain, simple man who loved the cattle and brought white milk into the world with his two hands and his careful husbandry? When did his day come? When did his son return to him, his brave boy, and promise that his father's youth and energy had not been wasted?

She nearly began to cry again, but she was from Maine, deep Maine, so she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and went into the bathroom. She used the toilet, then washed her face, and then she dressed in jeans and heavy socks and slid quietly downstairs.

Benjamin had left the back door open and she followed him out, blinking a little at the new sun. And for an instant the scent of lilacs assaulted her. The fragrance entered her heart and made her grip the banister railing to steady herself. Common lilacs, she remembered, common as she herself was, and she held up two great heads from the dooryard bush and breathed in the scent of sweetness and pleasure and springs remembered even as they were lost.

Daisies

Chapter Twenty-five

M
argaret did not remember driving to the hospital, but suddenly she arrived. It unnerved her to travel the distance without being fully conscious. She remembered picking up groceries for shepherd's pie at the Shop 'n Save, and she remembered dropping a quilt—a family heirloom, probably past saving—at the dry cleaner's, but the final quarter hour had passed automatically, a hum of time without any resonance. She had been like that since she had returned: the reunion with Gordon, the early morning with the cows, the gentle questions from Ben had all been somehow removed from her full comprehension. She was aware of making phrases, responding properly, but her heart was somewhere else. Even the lusciousness of Gordon—and, yes, she had kissed him and hugged him and made him understand he had been missed—had not fully penetrated the hangover left by Charlie. And now her preoccupation had pinched her consciousness shut while she drove, and she did not like knowing that.

She shook herself and climbed out of the old pickup, then reached across the front seat for the bundle of lilacs she had cut for Thomas. It had astonished her to find them still fragrant, still in the middle of their blossoming. She felt as though she had been away for a year, but it had only been a long weekend and the lilac heads, slightly gone by, still sent a marvelous fragrance into the air.

“Hi, Margaret,” Julie, the hospital receptionist, said when she entered. Julie wore a flowered smock and she had done something new to her hair, but Margaret couldn't focus to see it. Margaret stiffened her shoulders, trying to pay attention. She took a deep breath and stopped for a moment.
Julie,
she reminded herself. Margaret nearly squinted with concentration. She stared at Julie's round face, her round eyes, the bead of a telephone mouthpiece suspended under her chin. A perm? A color change? Margaret couldn't quite put her finger on the change. Her eyes glazed over and Julie could not swim out of the fog that surrounded her.

“How was your trip?” Julie asked, filling in the conversational gap. “Washington, right?”

“It was wonderful. Thanks. I can't believe I'm back.”

“Lilacs, huh?”

“The last of them, I think.”

“They're so amazing,” Julie said and lifted from her seat to smell the bundle that Margaret held over the reception console. Margaret saw Julie clearly for a moment.

“You went blonder?” Margaret asked.

“I did. Life is more fun as a blonde. Isn't that what they say? Do you like it?”

“I do. It's flattering for you.”

“Ronny said I look like Jean Harlow, the old movie actress. I didn't even know who it was. I had to Google her name. I don't see the resemblance, but Ronny thinks I look sort of sassy.”

“Then it's worth it.”

“People think it's a perm, but it's not.”

“It's very becoming,” Margaret said and realized that word sounded hopelessly old-lady-ish.

“So you must be eager to see Tom.”

“I am.”

“Those lilacs are just the thing.”

For a man who won't even know I'm there
. Margaret finished the thought for Julie.

“Well, I should head up,” Margaret said instead. “I'll see you on the way out.”

Julie nodded. The phone had buzzed and she began speaking with her official voice.

Margaret walked through the hallway and stopped at the elevator. A few people smiled at the lilacs. She smiled back, her face pasted on.

* * *

Gordon stood between his grandfather's knees and drove the Farmall tractor. He liked driving it better than just about anything, but he didn't get to do it often. Today felt a little like a holiday, though, because his mom was home and the milking was finished and they had shepherd's pie scheduled for dinner. Gordon loved shepherd's pie; it was his favorite dinner, although he liked certain desserts better than any meal in the world. Still, driving the tractor, his hands on the large wheel in front of him, his grandfather's thick shirt behind him, made him jiggle a little in his legs. For a moment he thought he had to pee, but then his body calmed and he felt warm and happy and centered.

They drove up to the apple orchards, where they planned to meet Noel Grummond and the boys with the biosolids truck. Gordon didn't know what “biosolids” meant, nor did he fully understand the project, but he knew his grandfather needed the tractor up in the apple meadows. Gordon was aware of the apple meadows; the trees were in late bloom and they appeared to be a white cloud beneath the white clouds in the sky. His grandfather often talked about restoring the orchards, pruning the old trees, but that work was best done in late winter and Grandpa Ben never got around to it.

Halfway up to the meadows, they drove through a pocket of cows that had wandered into the dirt path. Gordon felt the tractor gear down and brake a bit. The cows didn't seem frightened or worried by the tractor, but they slowly split, like wood leaning into a maul, and he heard his grandpa yelp a little to get them moving faster. Gordon steered carefully, aware of his grandfather's hands next to his. Mud covered the cows, dotting them and turning their tails into weighted bells of liquid, and they smelled—even on this good early summer morning—of hay and clotted manure and milk.

Gordon released one hand from the steering wheel and dug into his right hip pocket for the saw-chuck guy. He took him out and propped him on the steering wheel, shooting at the cows. And he wasn't sure what happened next, but suddenly the saw-chuck guy spun free of his hand and tumbled down. The tiny plastic man slapped against the deck of the tractor and continued spinning, hurtling down to the back left wheel and disappearing. Gordon's stomach wrenched. He leaned to the left, trying to see, and he felt Grandpa Ben pull him back straight behind the wheel.

“Pay attention, Gordon,” Grandpa Ben said, but the saw-chuck guy was gone, buried in grass and cow imprints and the swollen soil of early summer.

* * *

Blake had just returned from dropping Phillip at swim class when she saw Donny's truck pull into the driveway. Her stomach flip-flopped. She opened the cupboard to the right of the sink and glanced at herself in the note-card-size mirror some housewife had placed there long before they owned the house. She had always been grateful for the mirror, wondering why more houses didn't have one. She pushed at her hair quickly, then closed the cupboard door and turned on the water in the sink to have noise. For a passing instant she felt she might be sick, and she wondered what Donny would think if he walked through the door to find his wife heaving in the sink.

“Morning,” Donny said, coming through the door.

“Morning.”

“Just grabbing some stuff. Where's Phillip?”

“Swim class, then he has a playdate with Maryanne's boy.”

“How was Margaret?”

“Fine.”

“She have a good time?”

Blake nodded.

“So we're going with one-word answers today?”

“I guess.”

“That's two words.”

“What do you want me to say, Donny?” Blake asked and turned.

He stood in the doorway, brown and slightly grassy. She hated to admit it, but he looked good. Detestable, really, that he would thrive under the current circumstances. She felt her face flush. He might have been a stranger standing there. Whatever she felt, he seemed to feel it, too, because in two steps he came across the room and then his hands roamed everywhere. It was nearly violent. She couldn't pretend it wasn't, but it was exciting beyond anything that had happened to her in months, and she met his hands and met his requests, and before long they both stood leaning against the sink, their pants absurdly down on their legs, their breathing hard and fast and stunned. Her limbs quivered. The water still ran in the sink.

He didn't kiss me,
she thought.

“I don't hate you,” he said, slowly dressing. “I hope you know that.”

“I know that.”

“I'd like it if you didn't hate me.”

“I don't, Donny.”

“It's for the best.”

“What is?”

He shrugged.

“Is there someone else?” she asked.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

He made a little sideways motion and finished buttoning his jeans.

“I'll make all the payments,” he said. “You don't have to worry about that.”

“This is really what you want?”

He shrugged again. She waited, wondering if he would answer.

“Go ahead,” she said, “get what you came for.”

He nodded. When she turned the water in the sink off, she heard him upstairs, going through their bedroom, removing more of his clothes. She kept both hands on the sink, listening. Drawer, closet, closet, closet, drawer, bathroom, under the bed, closet. She followed his movements and did not move until he came back downstairs, whatever he had taken shoved into a large duffel.

“If Phillip asks,” she said, her eyes locked on the window over the sink, “where should I say you're staying?”

“I'm staying at Billy's right now.”

She nodded. He paused a moment, and then he went out. She listened to his truck door slam and he drove off.

* * *

Margaret's hands trembled as she placed the stem ends of the lilacs in a vase she had requested at the nurses' station. Her stomach felt buoyant and troubled in her body and she still found it difficult to concentrate on the task at hand. One of the nurses—Gloria, an older woman who was competent but all business—looked up from her paperwork and smiled softly. Margaret smiled in return and finally slid the stem ends inside the vase.

“It's never easy,” Gloria said, but whether she referred to fitting the flowers in the vase or life in general, Margaret couldn't say.

“No, I guess not.”

“Still,” Gloria said and looked back down at her paperwork.

Margaret smiled. Then she nodded, more to herself than to Gloria, and carried the lilacs toward the Greenhouse. She could not stop the trembling in her hands. Did she feel shy? Was she ashamed? She couldn't pinpoint her emotion. She felt young and girlish, but in an insecure way, like a teen walking into a dance. She put her nose to the lilacs, trying to take strength from them. They were nearly gone by entirely, she saw now. She hadn't seen it clearly before, but she saw it now. She had misjudged them.

She counted the beds as she always did. One, two, three, and the fifth bed was Thomas's. She walked slowly around the bottom of the bed, giving the lilacs more attention than they deserved, her eyes staying away from Thomas's face. She trailed her free hand across his feet, let it dangle as she stepped up to the bedside table. She placed the lilacs on the table, the glass vase chattering slightly as she settled it. She took a deep breath. Then she turned and looked at Thomas.

Her eyes clouded. She bent down and kissed his forehead. She left her lips on him a long time. She reached and smoothed the skin on his cheek and gently brushed back his hair. He needed a haircut, she realized. A glance told her his nails needed trimming. She was glad to see that; it gave her something to do. She pulled a chair around to the side of the bed and opened the bedside drawer for clippers. When she had them out she sat and drew his hand over the edge of the bed. She turned his hand this way and that to get the proper angle for the nails, then suddenly she dropped the clippers and brought his hand to her face. She held it against her eyes and wept. Then she surged forward and she leaned across the bed, her body joined with her husband's, her head at last on his shoulder. She cried into his neck, sobbing, and she told herself to stop, that these tears served nothing, but she couldn't prevent them. She pressed more of her body against his, aware of his fragility, his thin ribs, his sharp chin. She felt his arms—those arms that had been so strong but had now become two dull hoses shrunken by atrophy—and she lifted one to cover herself. But the arm dropped and returned to the bed, and she lifted it again, once more, and each time the arm fell like snow casting away from an eave on a warm winter day.

“How are we?” a nurse said behind her.

Margaret had not seen the woman approach, but she shook her head. She tucked herself closer into her husband's body, and then she let the nurse slowly lift her away, let her pull her back, the woman's voice murmuring, “It will be okay, it will be all right.” But it wasn't okay, and Margaret sank to the side of the bed and knelt and held her husband's hand, and she asked forgiveness, and she asked for mercy, and she expected neither.

“IT IS NOT OKAY!” Margaret screamed. “IT IS NOT OKAY.”

Then things happened quickly. Her voice carried down the hallways. Margaret heard footsteps coming. She had caused a scene and she didn't care. She kept repeating the phrase—
it is not okay, it is not okay
—her voice raspy and broken, and when they came to her and tried to lift her she slapped at the hands. Then more footsteps. A male orderly appeared and she refused to cooperate. She clung to her husband's hand and she leaned down, taking refuge under the bed railing. She was aware of everything. It fascinated her; she felt divided. She was aware of losing control, and in being aware of it she wondered if that didn't prove it a counterfeit. In a tiny wedge of her mind she wondered what they would do, what anyone
could
do, if she decided to keep screaming. How long would they put up with it? And another part of her mind felt satisfied that she had finally done this, finally stepped over a line, finally told them all the truth, because it wasn't fine. No more pretend. No more noble wife. She wanted her husband back and she kicked twice at the male orderly before a woman in a gray pantsuit arrived and squatted next to her. It was Mrs. McCafferty, the hospital administrator. Margaret had had a thousand conversations with her about bills and government programs and veteran benefits. She was a small, blue-eyed woman, unquestionably of Irish ancestry, who was thin and reddish and close to retirement.