Small Blessings (12 page)

“A bit.” Tom put both hands around his coffee mug. Its warmth felt good. “I guess living isn't a concept I'm familiar with. I'm used to spending my days hurrying through this to get to that.”

“Until you climb the stairs to that office in the evening and bury yourself in Shakespeare.”

He shrugged. “Yes, until then.”
Let every man be master of his time.

“Well, I haven't done so hot myself in the productivity department over the last few years,” Agnes said. “The truth is I'm seventy-two years old, and I have no idea whether I can still really think, let alone prepare a brief or argue a case. No wonder all the women around here don't talk about anything that hasn't happened in their own backyards. The brain atrophies just like everything else. And God knows I've certainly felt sorry for myself.” Agnes made a face. “Self-pity is poison. I kept telling myself to quit whining, to accept Marjory as she was, and get on with it. But I couldn't do it. And now she's dead, for heaven's sake, and yet I keep right on punishing her for being who she was, and punishing myself because I couldn't fix her.” She shook her head. “Who the hell do I think I am, anyway? God?”

“Probably.”

She shot him a look. “Speaking of God,” she said, pulling herself up straight and squaring her shoulders. This must be the Agnes Tattle who had sat behind a desk and told mealymouthed women exactly what to do about their worthless soon-to-be-ex husbands. “You know, Tom, just between you and me, I don't think for one moment that Marjory killed herself. I think that, for some reason, my daughter was as close to happy as she was ever going to get, and if there is a God, that God is a merciful one who decided Marjory should be allowed to die when things were looking up. We both know in our heart of hearts that she couldn't have sustained even marginally upbeat feelings for long, but Marjory was as upbeat as I've seen her in ages when she got in the car with her goddamn scrapbooks and left for Charlottesville. If she killed herself, it was a Thelma and Louise thing. You know, there she was in her car, driving back to what she had to know would soon turn into the same old, same old, when she sees this glorious drop-off beside the road, and she has the impulse to fly away.”

Tom had dropped acid once in college. He still remembered the feeling it had given him, of being free from all boundaries, loose in a world with no natural laws. Was it too much to hope that Marjory had known something close to that?

“I hope you're right,” he said.

“Me, too,” Agnes said. “And you know, considering that Henry's on his way, her timing couldn't have been better. But while I'm on this talking jag, I want to say one more thing to you, Tom Putnam, before we seriously get down to the Henry thing.”

He smiled at her. Did he have a choice? “Okay.”

She glared at him. “I know you didn't love Marjory. Who could? But you stuck it out because she was helpless and wouldn't have lasted a month without you. I know I helped out with the daily maintenance, but you were the one who provided my daughter with an identity and a place to live where she could feel reasonably safe. And while you may have indulged freely in self-pity, you never lapsed into bitterness, and you never hated her, and you never abandoned her. I think you are one of the few people I've ever met who really has a heart and a conscience.”

Tom stared at her, his mind a whirl of caveats, disclaimers, denials. Agnes raised her hand. “I don't care whether your motives were grounded in inertia instead of high-mindedness. The truth is I don't really care what you
think.
That is the way you
acted.
It was a mixed-up mess of a situation, and no one could have been kinder to Marjory than you were.”

She stopped, waiting for him to respond. “Thank you,” he said, meaning it perhaps as much as he'd ever meant anything.

“You're welcome.” Agnes nodded decisively. Case closed. “Now, let's put all this aside for a while and move on to Henry. Have you thought about where he'll go to school?”

Tom realized his mouth was still open. He shut it, opened it again, and said, “No, I haven't. The truth is I'm not sure I've really
thought
anything. I'm still working on believing. I've yet to progress much beyond being stunned.”

“I see.” Agnes stubbed out her cigarette. “Well, while you work on believing, I'll work on to-do lists.”

 

chapter 6

The Book Store closed at two on Saturday. At twenty minutes past two, her workday over, Rose walked down the dappled, leafy lane that led to her cottage, admiring the fields, the sky, the venerable old bank barn; in fact, admiring everything. Until, that is, she swung her eyes toward her own cottage—
whoosh!
—all joy wisped away. Ray's car was in her driveway, and Ray himself sat on her front steps, talking forcefully into his cell phone.

Any dolt could tell that Rose had bruised both Ray's feelings and his ego by moving fifty miles farther away from him. “You haven't even looked for work in Washington,” he'd said to her on their last weekend together before she'd left Charlottesville. “I'm sure you could find something up in D.C. or northern Virginia, and then we could try living together.”

Ray had taken her hand at that point and looked at her in a way he'd meant to be appealing but Rose had found exasperating. She'd taken her hand back immediately and said, “No, we couldn't. I live by myself, remember?”

Ray
had
remembered, of that she was certain, but he stubbornly refused to accept that her stance about their living together was caused by anything other than logistics. In Ray's mind, if Rose moved to Washington, then there would be no reason for them
not
to live together. She, however, knew better. What her moving to Washington would mean was that, in a very short time, they wouldn't be seeing each other at all.

Ray was an arts editor for National Public Radio, a position he frequently equated to being pecked to death by ducks. Ten more steps and she could hear his end of the conversation. “I don't know what other options there
are
at this point, Frederick. They need more sound to mix the story, and they need it by ten tonight. So
you
need to get yourself back out there and get some!” He punched
OFF
, obviously furious throughout his entire being. When, Rose wondered, was the last time she had felt that angry at anyone? That
anything
at anyone? Opportunities for strong emotion generally made her feel what she was feeling now, ponderous and inert.

She trudged another few steps and was there. Home. The current iteration. “Hi, Ray,” she said.

“Freelancers!” Ray momentarily glared up at her, as though she were one of them.

“I'm sorry,” Rose said. Which she was, but not about anything to do with freelancers. She was sorry because her weekend had become so … so
cluttered.

Not that Ray would notice how she was feeling. In his mind it was delightful for them both that he was here. Predictably, he shook off his phone call, smiled up at her, and with a very Ray-like flourish held up a wrapped package. “I brought you a cottage-warming present,” he said. “And I brought myself! I'm here to help you unpack!”

*   *   *

The problem was that Rose hadn't
wanted
help unpacking. And now here it was, Sunday morning, and here, still, was Ray. He sat across from her at the breakfast table, scarfing down walnut pancakes that she, for some strange, throwback
housewifely
reason, had felt obligated to fix.

Why hadn't she just told him yesterday, kindly but directly, that she didn't want him to stay? Usually she could tell anyone anything. Or almost anyone practically anything. So, as unpleasant as it was to face first thing on a Sunday morning, the unsettling truth was that Ray shut parts of her down rather than opening parts of her up. And surely, Rose thought, if she were really meant to be with someone, that wouldn't be happening. The cottage was quiet except for the sound of Ray's chewing and the aggressive ticking of his cottage-warming present, an antique pine shoe box of a clock with an appealingly primitive face. It banged away from its new home atop her pie safe. Something about
hearing
time pass unsettled Rose, made her discomfortingly aware of all the things she was
not
doing.

“I
love
these pancakes!” Ray said again, grinning at her like the small boy he so often became when delighted. Ray's moods tended toward the mercurial; excesses of joy trod the heels of excesses of angst and irritation. “I could eat your walnut pancakes until I pop!”

Rose made an effort to smile back at him. “Relationship,” she thought, was the wrong word to describe this thing she had going with Ray. A ship was too stable, too steadily on course. Relation-
boat
would be better. A little tippy boat that drifted with the wind and the ripples.

“I'm glad you like them,” she said, pushing her own plate of pancakes to one side, half-eaten. The half she had eaten sat lumpishly inside her. Or could that sodden lump be her heart? A thought came, unbidden and unwelcome:
There is no happily ever after for me. There is only serial monogamy with a succession of Rays.
“What would you like to do today?” she asked politely.

Ray was eyeing her unfinished pancakes. “You going to eat those?”

“Nope. They're yours if you want them.”

Ray pushed aside his own empty plate and slid hers into position. “Yum!”

The kitchen window was wide open. Sunshine shone through it onto the black-and-white linoleum floor tiles like a stage light. Professor Putnam floated by among all the dancing dust motes.
But you're Marjory's guest …

When Rose was little she had fallen in love with “The Walrus and the Carpenter.” For several years, Mavis had kept a copy behind whatever bar she was tending, and certain customers had been allowed to read it to Rose before she'd been sent upstairs to bed.

One stanza floated back to her. Ray's clock beat its time like a metronome.

The moon was shining sulkily,

Because she thought the sun

Had got no business to be there

After the day was done—

“It's very rude of him,” she said,

“To come and spoil the fun!”

“I don't think we should see each other any longer, Ray,” she said.

Ray had just forked a good-sized chunk of pancakes into his mouth. “Wha'?” he managed.

Ray, showered and packed, was ready to leave in twenty minutes. When he emerged from the bedroom carrying the old Boy Scout knapsack he used as an overnight bag, Rose was sitting on the floor of her tiny living room, sorting through a box of books. She started to get up, but he shook his head.

“Don't come out with me” was all he said as he headed out the front door.

And that, evidently, was that. The end of the affair.

Rose just had time to think about how sad it was that the two of them were to end in such paltry fashion before Ray was back. “My car won't start,” he announced. “Now what?”

Now not much,
Rose thought. Ray's car was a 1969 Volvo 1800S sports car. Its only dependable feature was its undependability. Ray drove it because he loved the way driving it made him feel about himself. When it was drivable, that is.

The tiny town attached to the college shut up tight on Sundays. Nary a mechanic would be available until tomorrow. Besides, they'd probably have to have it towed to Charlottesville in order to find a mechanic who could work on it.

It's just as Mavis always says,
Rose thought.
Life can't go long without showing its funny side.

 

chapter 7

A crash from below woke Agnes while it was still full dark on Monday morning. Her bedroom was directly over the kitchen. She rolled over, looked at the illuminated face of the clock, and read 3:48. She and Tom had agreed to leave to pick up Henry in Charlottesville by five. She'd set her alarm for 4:15 in order to have a half hour on the back steps to drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, and prepare herself for whatever was to come. If she went back to sleep now, chances were she'd have more weird dreams about Marjory. Why not just get up and get on with it?

Agnes pulled on the clothes she'd laid out the night before—navy putter pants, a navy zip-top, and navy Keds. Tom was moving around below her—or rather,
clomping
around. The man was a klutz; he made noise by existing. Heading down the stairs, Agnes wondered what he'd broken this time. Please, please,
please
don't let it be the coffeepot!

It was not the coffeepot but an ugly antique chicken figurine Marjory had taken a fancy to on eBay, paid way too much for, stuck on a high shelf, and, after a week of frenzied delight, forgotten. Amazingly, the thing hadn't shattered but had broken into three neat chunks. When Agnes reached the kitchen, Tom was staring down at the chunks as though he could read them like tea leaves. “I was trying to get down my travel mug, and
this
happened.”

“Oh, for Pete's sake!” Agnes hoped Tom knew the disgust in her voice was directed at the chicken and not at him. Hurriedly she scooped up the chunks and dumped them into the trash. “Good riddance to bad rubbish! Literally!”

“I was going to do that,” Tom said. “Clean up the mess, I mean. I'm sorry I woke you.”

“Don't be. Getting rid of that ugly chicken was worth losing a little sleep.”

Abruptly they were grinning; two naughties who'd gotten away with something. Once again.

“Do you want some coffee?” Tom asked.

“Heavens, yes.”

Agnes sat down in her usual chair. Perhaps someday soon she'd shake up her morning routine by sitting in a different one, but things were going to be shaken up enough today without that.