Next to Love (25 page)

“I won’t be late,” Grace promises. “Morris has to get back to Boston.”

Babe leaves a covered plate for Claude on the stove and makes another dinner for Amy and her in Grace’s kitchen.

“Do you think my mother is going to marry him?” Amy asks as soon as they sit down in the small breakfast nook.

Babe stares across the table into the dark slanting eyes and full lips, and for a moment she is looking at Charlie.

“Do you? I’ve only met him occasionally. You’re with them all the time.”

Amy stops with a fork full of pork chop in midair. “I think he’s going to ask her, but maybe that’s just because I want him to.”

“You like him?”

She nods.

“Well, for what it’s worth, I don’t think he’d be talking about leaving Boston and opening a practice here if he wasn’t planning to marry her.”

“He says he’s always wanted to live and work in a small town.”

“What do you want to bet he has never lived and worked in a small town?”

Amy looks up from her plate. Her black eyebrows are set in a quizzical frown.

“That’s a joke,” Babe says.

“How come your jokes aren’t like everyone else’s?”

“Oh, sweetie, how I wish I knew the answer to that.”

Amy stabs a string bean but does not lift it to her mouth.

“Do you think she’ll say yes?”

“I don’t think she’d be seeing this much of him if she wasn’t thinking of marrying him.” The word comes hurtling out of nowhere. Tease.

SHE IS ON HER WAY
upstairs to kiss Amy good night when the phone rings. She picks up the receiver.

“How are things on the babysitting front?” Claude asks.

“I should be home soon.”

“It’s okay. I’m a grown-up. I can be left alone.”

“I didn’t mean that,” she says, though she did. “Is something wrong?” Other than our whole lives.

“I just wanted to hear your voice.”

How long has it been since he said something like that? Since he called from Fort Dix right before he shipped out.

“No, more than that. I wanted to tell you something. I know things have been rough on you—”

“Not as rough as on you,” she interrupts, but he ignores her and keeps going.

“I know I’ve been rough on you. But not anymore.”

She cannot imagine where this is coming from. She does not dare ask.

“I’ve been sitting here thinking about it.”

Don’t, she wants to shout. Stop thinking about it. Forget about it.

“What I’m trying to say is I know I haven’t been exactly easy to live with. I also know you deserve better.”

“I’m not complaining.” The hell I’m not. You think because you don’t say anything, he doesn’t know how you feel?

“Maybe not, but I wanted to tell you that from now on things will be different. From now on you won’t have anything to complain about. That’s a promise.”

“In that case, I’d better hurry home.”

“Take your time. No rush. And drive carefully,” he adds. “The roads are icy.”

She hangs up the phone and starts up the stairs again. She will not get her hopes up. He has promised new starts in the past, though he has never telephoned her at someone else’s house with the news. But she cannot help herself. She is her mother all over again, believing her father’s promises of abstinence and hard work and putting a little by for the children.

But something about this call is different. From now on you won’t have anything to complain about. She stands on the landing, remembering his buddy Dumbrowsky’s letter to his wife. You’ll be better off without me. Then he went into the garage, closed the door behind him, and turned on the car engine. And he wasn’t the only one. She sees the welt of puckered white flesh across Mac’s wrist. And she pictures the bottle on the right side of the top shelf of their medicine cabinet. Take one at hour of sleep as needed. Occasionally she checks the contents, though she hates herself for snooping. A few days ago, she was pleased to see that the bottle was almost full. She thought he wasn’t taking the pills because he didn’t need them. It never occurred to her that he was hoarding them.

She is down the hall in a couple of steps and swoops into Amy’s room. “Up, Amy, up!”

The light is still on, but she has fallen asleep waiting for Babe. She rubs her eyes.

Babe grabs a sweater and a pair of dungarees. “Come on, sweetie. On the double.” She pulls back the covers and begins tugging the sweater over Amy’s head.

“I have to take off my pajamas.”

“No time.”

“Where are we going?”

Babe does not answer. This is not something you can explain to an eleven-year-old. She hustles her down the stairs, bundles her into her coat, pulls on her own, and races for the car, Amy in tow.

She tries not to speed. Then hears him again. Take your time. No rush. Pills are slow, but a razor to the wrist is speedy. A gunshot is instant. Her foot inches down on the accelerator. A car comes around the bend, its brights blinding her so she does not see the patch of black ice. She feels the car begin to skid and manages to resist the urge to slam on the brakes. They slide along the shoulder for what seems like a lifetime, then they’re back on the road.

She swerves into the driveway. From here, she can see no lights. She pulls the car into the garage and starts to turn off the ignition, then changes her mind. She cannot take Amy in with her. She does not know what she is going to find. She leaves the engine running—the garage door is open—and switches on the heater. She forgot to on the drive over.

“You wait here, sweetie.”

“Alone?”

“I’ll only be a minute.”

“It’s dark.”

“Wait!” She sounds like Claude. “I’ll turn the light on in the garage,” she calls back as she sprints to the switch beside the door, then into the house.

He is not in the den. She pounds up the four steps and races through the kitchen, on to the dining room, and around through the living room. He is not there either.

She starts up the stairs to the second floor. The house is quiet except for her own breathing. It sounds like a buzz saw in her ears.

The door to the bedroom is closed. He rarely closes it when he is alone in the house. A dim light seeps out from under it. She has never taken so long to cross that small hall. She opens the door. He is stretched out in bed with a book propped up on his chest.

She stands staring at him.

He looks up. “What’s wrong?”

She shakes her head. She cannot speak.

He gets out of bed, comes over, and puts his arm around her. That’s when she realizes how much she is sweating. She is sweating the way he does in his nightmares.

“You feel as if you ran all the way. What’s wrong?” he repeats.

“Nothing.” She coughs up the word, a bone in her throat. “Just give me a minute to catch my breath.” She remembers Amy. “Oh, my God, I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?”

“I left Amy in the car. I have to drive her home.”

“You brought Amy with you and left her in the car?”

She sees the understanding sink into his face and is on her way down the stairs before he can say anything.

HE IS SITTING
at the kitchen table, his good hand curled around a drink, when she gets home.

“I got back before Grace.”

“So our little secret is safe. Unless Amy talks about a strange ride in the night.” His voice curdles with cruelty, but he cannot help himself.

He watches her as she goes to the counter where he has left the bottle, takes a glass down from the cabinet, half fills it with scotch, and drops in a few ice cubes. She is still wearing her coat, and the bulk makes her movements awkward. Her face is gray; her cheeks sag. She is—he never believed he would think this—ugly.

She carries the drink to the table, sits across from him, and shrugs out of her coat. There is a stain on the front of her sweater. It is not the sort of thing he would normally notice. Now it disgusts him.

“What did you think I was going to do?”

She does not answer.

“Or were you overcome by a sudden need to see me?” Why is he doing this? She was worried about him. She loves him. That’s why he’s doing it. He does not deserve love. “You thought I was going to pull a Dumbrowsky, right?”

She still does not answer.

“Go into the garage and turn on the engine?”

“It was the line about my not having anything to complain about from now on.”

“Sorry to disappoint you”—why is he doing this?—“but I’m not that much of a hero. I have no intention of turning on the engine or even downing that bottle of pills in the medicine cabinet so you can live happily ever after with someone else.”

“Stop it.”

“Stop what? Talking about killing myself so you can find someone else?” He smirks. He never thought he was capable of gratuitous cruelty. Then again, he never thought he could kill.

He takes a swallow of his drink. “But I won’t put up a fight if you want to divorce me.” Grandstander.

He has spoken the forbidden word, the one she would wash her own mouth out with soap for uttering.

“Please stop it,” she says.

“But that’s as far as I’ll go. Divorce, yes. Suicide, no.” Prick.

“Stop it!” This time she shouts.

Is that what he wanted, to get her as angry as he is? Because suddenly he is calm.

He stands. “Come on, it’s late.”

As he follows her up the stairs, he waits for the desire that is often the aftermath of spent anger to rise. He is limp as a towel.

EVEN AS SHE DOES IT
, she knows she is making a mistake. Marie Bours, the girl her cousin Louis left at the altar, whispers a warning in the darkness, but she does not listen. At least wait until morning. The light will burn away this rush to self-destruction. But perhaps she is not rushing toward self-destruction. Perhaps she is grasping at freedom. He has said the word. Divorce. But she cannot leave him, so she will force him to leave her. She would rather be a slut, whore, temptress, tease, than a woman who walks out on her husband when he is down.

He is lying with his back to her. She puts a hand on his shoulder. “Are you awake?”

The dark shadow that is his head nods.

“I want to talk to you.”

He groans. Talk to me, she used to say. Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me what you see in those dreams.

He turns on his back. “I meant it about the divorce,” he says to the ceiling. “If that’s what you want.”

“This is about me. It has nothing to do with you.” Is that true?

He turns his head on the pillow to look at her. “Go on.”

“Remember that letter about how grateful you were to me for following you to all those camps?”

“I was. I am.”

“Something happened to me then.”

“You mean losing the baby?”

“Something else. Before that.” There it is, the timing. He is a smart man. He will put it together.

His hand moves toward the lamp on the night table.

“No! Don’t turn on the light. I won’t be able to say this if you turn on the light.”

He rolls on his side to face her. She wishes he hadn’t. It would be easier to tell this to his back.

She has difficulty starting, but once she does, the words flood out, a rush of guilt, rage, and relief so intense it runs through her body in spasms. The stench of the station bathroom. The door bursting open. The sweaty palm stifling her screams. The doctor who wanted to lock up all army wives for endangering good American boys. Tease. The last word comes out like a sob. Then the room goes silent.

They lie facing each other in the darkness. She can see the outline of his features, but she cannot read his expression. As she heard the story, her cousin Louis gave Marie a couple of slaps in the bargain. If he hits her, he will make it easy. She will not live with a man who beats her. She is not that much her mother. But she knows Claude will not hit her.

He puts his arms around her and draws her to him. At first she cannot interpret the movement of his body. Then she realizes. For the second time in their life together, he is crying. The thought that she might have lost him, the idea that she tried to drive him away, terrifies her.

HE LIES ON HIS BACK
with her head on his shoulder, his hand cradling her skull. He is remembering their running toward each other on the platform that night; and the rooming house with the lumpy bed, their first bed; and the hospital room, the memory of which still, after all these years, brings back the sickly sweet reek of flowers and loss. Through all of it, and the months and years after, she has not said a word. She has kept it from him, a lie of sorts, he supposes. If the baby had lived, she never would have told him. But she has told him. Something went off in her tonight, his imagined suicide, and the story spilled out, just as Herb’s brains did. He cradles her head on his shoulder with his good hand, just as he held Herb’s head, and cries for all the casualties.

AUGUST 1952

Babe and Amy lie side by side on the blanket, each propped up over a book. They often come to the pond together. Grace refuses to join them. After she came home from the hospital, she began coming to the pond again, and before she and Morris married, they took Amy skating here all the time, but she has not been back since she and Morris returned from their wedding trip to Bermuda last May. Babe does not mind. She feels a companionable glow spending time alone with Amy like this, more companionable perhaps than mother and daughter. She has many of the pleasures and few of the responsibilities. The thought is not new, but it is heresy, so she keeps it to herself.

Amy looks up from her book, and, sensing the movement, Babe does too.

“Can I stay at your house tonight?” Her braces flash in the sunlight as she speaks. Then she must remember they’re there, because she presses her lips together.

Babe puts her finger between the pages of
The Caine Mutiny
to hold her place.

“We don’t call it the Amy Gooding Bedroom for nothing.”

Amy grins, her braces momentarily forgotten, then returns to
Anne of Avonlea
. A curtain of dark hair falls forward to hide her face. As a baby, her hair was curly, but now it is as straight as Charlie’s was and iridescent in the beating sunlight.