Stepping (14 page)

“Yes,” I said, and took the keys, not touching Charlie’s fingers. The skin under his eyes had gone gray. He looked old. “The girls will be fine,” I told him.

Then, “Come on, girls, let’s get your bags,” I said.

We went back downstairs, not touching, three zombies. The bags were packed and waiting by the open front door. We went out into the black night; it felt strange outside, like a new cold universe. As if in those few moments the very air of the world had changed. I settled the girls together in the front seat of the Dart and put their bags in back. Before I could get in, Charlie came out of the house, pulling the door shut behind him. He passed us by without looking at us and got into the back of the ambulance with Adelaide. The doors slammed shut; the ambulance screamed off. I felt betrayed.

Damn Adelaide
, I thought.

I got into the little Dart and started the engine.

“Don’t worry,” I said to the girls as I drove. “Your mother will be fine. Your daddy will come to the motel soon. Everything will be okay.” I repeated those words with several variations on the way to the motel. Of course I didn’t know that what I said was true, but it seemed the necessary thing to say.

Once at the motel, I ordered room service dinners for the girls and two big scotch and water drinks for me. The girls didn’t eat their dinners, but I drank my drinks right down. It was a crazy, spacy time, the hours we spent in the motel room waiting. Nothing seemed appropriate—eating, watching television, going to the toilet—everything seemed in bad taste and irreverent. The phone would not ring and the silence was loud. The girls
sat on chairs for the first half hour, looking at each other or the walls or at me, and I drank my drinks, but still felt cold and lost and strange. I didn’t know how to comfort the girls. It was not time to flip on
The Partridge Family
. I didn’t know what to do, how to make those awful minutes pass.

Finally I said, “Come on, girls, it’s cold; let’s get in our pajamas and get in bed. We won’t sleep, we’ll wait for your father, but at least we’ll get warmed up.”

Dutifully, zombie china dolls, they obeyed. I put on my nightgown, too, a nice unsexy flannel one I had brought just for that evening with them. Then I finished the last of my drink and crawled right into the middle of the double bed with the girls. I sat up and leaned against the headboard of the bed and pulled each girl up against me. Caroline of course pulled away a bit, put her head on a pillow and wrapped her arms around it. But she let the bottom half of her body lie touching mine. Cathy cuddled up against me, lay half on my lap. For a few minutes it was horribly awkward and our breathing sounded ridiculously loud. Then, I have no idea why, I began to sing. I had sung in church choirs and choral groups when I was younger and my voice was still a nice steady alto. I started singing an old lullabye: “ ‘Skitters are a-hummin’ on the honeysuckle vine, sleep, Kentucky babe …’ ” It had a soothing, Southern, comforting slow lilt to it in a deep, dark minor key. My mother had often sung it to me as she rocked me on her lap; perhaps that was why it came to me so easily then, when I was holding two children against me. The music seemed fitting, neither happy nor sad. I sang it three or four times. When I stopped singing, the room seemed stark and empty. So I sang some more. First hymns, all the hymns I could remember, even Christmas songs—the quiet, holy ones. I sang my serious sorority songs. Serious folk songs. “ ‘Lord, it’s one, Lord, it’s two, Lord, it’s three, Lord, it’s four, Lord, it’s five hundred miles to my home …’ ”

Of course, in my own way, I was praying.

Cathy cried quietly, head buried in my lap, soaking my flannel nightgown. Caroline lay stone-still, chilled, dry-eyed, staring.

I sang till my voice was hoarse. At least the time passed. At least we were warmed, there under the covers together.

Charlie arrived at nine, two hours after we had checked in at the motel. He said that Adelaide was all right, would be all right. They had pumped her stomach, and she
had thrown up the pills, and at eight she had awakened and was resting normally. He had talked to her. He had told her that he would take care of the girls until Monday. He told her he would pay for a plane ticket and arrange for Adelaide’s mother to fly up from Kansas to live with her for a while. He told her he would pay for some psychological counseling for a few months. He told her that everything would be fine.

We ordered up some more drinks and dinners from room service, and this time the girls, reassured by Charlie’s presence and Adelaide’s recovery, ate. They discussed Adelaide and the sleeping pills: apparently she had cheerfully helped the girls pack their bags, had brushed their hair and put them in pretty dresses, then told them to watch television, while she went upstairs to rest awhile. The girls had looked in her room only once, and then Adelaide had been sound asleep on her bed and they hadn’t wanted to bother her. They thought it couldn’t have been more than half an hour between the time she had gone upstairs and the time Charlie arrived; they had gone to her room during the TV commercial.

“We didn’t know she had taken sleeping pills, Daddy,” Caroline had pleaded. “Not till you came and we ran up to tell her and she wouldn’t wake up and we saw the bottles on the floor—”

“It’s all right,” Charlie said. “You couldn’t have known. And let me tell you what your mommy said, girls, at the hospital. She smiled at me and said, ‘Charlie, that was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Tell Caroline and Cathy that I’m sorry if I scared them. Tell them I’ll never, ever, do it again.’ ”

After a while the girls got into bed. They didn’t sleep, they probably couldn’t, with all the phone calls Charlie made. He called Adelaide’s mother and told her about the pills, and listened to her scream and cry and rave—Mrs. Fowler was her daughter’s mother—and managed to calm her down. He suggested that she come live with Adelaide and the girls for a few months; Mrs. Fowler was a widow, and lived alone. Then he called the airlines and made reservations, and called Mrs. Fowler back and told her when her flight was, on the coming Monday, and that she would have a prepaid ticket waiting for her at the ticket counter. He told her yes, he would also pay for her fare home whenever she decided to leave. He had her talk to Caroline and Cathy for a few minutes. Then he called the airlines and changed our reservations home to Monday instead of Sunday. He
called Anthony Leyden in Kansas City to tell him about the emergency. Anthony said he would cover for Charlie’s classes on Monday, and would also see to it that my profs and students knew I was absent because of an emergency. Then Charlie called the Ascrofts, who had been close friends of Charlie-and-Adelaide when they were still Charlie-and-Adelaide and living in Amherst. The Ascrofts still lived in Amherst, and it was George Ascroft who had found Adelaide her job at the university and who was partly responsible for Adelaide’s moving back to Massachusetts. After Charlie had divorced Adelaide, George and Susan Ascroft had written Charlie to tell him that they thought he was a cad and a creep and a villain, that they thought he was doing a nauseatingly, viciously monstrously evil and unkind thing by leaving his wife and daughters, and that they would no longer be his friend or have any contact with him. But when Charlie called that night, they agreed to meet him for a drink to discuss Adelaide and her problems and what they could all do to help.

Then Charlie called the hospital to check on Adelaide. She was sleeping peacefully, in good condition.

Finally there was no one left to call. The girls fell asleep, and Charlie and I sat up drinking slowly and talking guiltily in the darkened hotel room.

“I don’t love her, I don’t know her, I scarcely remember her,” Charlie said. “I feel as though I were doing all this for a stranger. But I have to help her; she needs help.”

“Yes,” I said. I knew he was right; he had to help her. Even I would help her, indirectly, however I could, by being good to her daughters. But I hated her. She had made the canyon come back between Charlie and me. She had made all of us, Charlie, me, her daughters, her friends, feel guilty, somehow vaguely, terribly guilty. It was her weakness, but we had to suffer for it. It did not seem fair. But of course I pitied her, too. I pitied her deeply. And I learned from her. Never in my life, I decided, would I let myself become so dependent, so vulnerable. I would become financially and emotionally independent, I resolved, so that if Charlie and I separated I would be able to laugh, to dance, to fly, rather than to mourn or collapse. I lay awake deep in the night on my side of that vast lonely canyon, while Charlie lay sleeping and tossing and moaning on his side. I lay awake deep into the night, and stared at the dark wall of the motel room, while Adelaide slept peacefully, in good condition in her lonely hospital bed.

The next day was again centered around Adelaide. My life with Charlie was completely dismissed for a while. I hung around and waited when necessary, or took care of the girls, or played chauffeur. In the morning Charlie took the girls to the hospital to see Adelaide. I waited in the motel room, thinking of the four of them, blue-eyed blonds in assorted sizes, together, gently talking. I took the girls to lunch and shopping for clothes while Charlie talked to two different clinical psychologists about Adelaide. Then I sat alone in the motel room again while Charlie and his daughters visited the Ascrofts. The Ascrofts had children Caroline’s and Cathy’s ages, so the girls were invited to play while Charlie discussed Adelaide with George and Susan. I was not invited. Charlie thought the Ascrofts might be offended if I came along. I sat for four hours pretending to read a book, wondering if my life would ever be simple again. At six I ordered a scotch and water for myself and at seven I ordered another one, and when Charlie and Caroline and Cathy arrived at seven-thirty, I was a little bit drunk. Not happy-drunk. Tired-drunk. Charlie said the three of them had eaten at the Ascrofts’ and now wanted to go to a new Walt Disney movie. I was too drunk and hungry and tired and melancholy to want to go, but I knew it was Adelaide’s crisis, not mine, and I didn’t want to act like a spoiled child who had lost the limelight. So I went. I ate two bags of popcorn and pretended to laugh.

Sunday it was more or less the same: in the morning Charlie and his daughters went to see Adelaide. In the afternoon the three of them went to visit the Ascrofts, who had invited another couple who had once been friends of Charlie-and-Adelaide. I went to a matinee, some foreign film with subtitles I didn’t try to understand. Sunday night the four of us had a big dinner together at the Wiggins Inn. It was an expensive dinner, and I didn’t enjoy it; the food was good, but my spirits were low. I felt the canyon between Charlie and me widening, deepening, hourly. I was tired of being silent and subservient, tired of not being touched or talked to. I wanted to fling my wineglass dramatically across the room, to yell, “I’m strangling in this stupid soap opera you’ve got going! I want out! I want to start my own life!” But all I did was to accidentally knock over my water glass, causing all four of us embarrassment.

Monday morning Charlie and I drove Caroline and Cathy to school. Again Cathy cried when Charlie said goodbye. Caroline ran off into the safety of the school without speaking. Charlie and I rode in silence to the airport in Hartford. He had to meet
Adelaide’s mother, Mrs. Fowler, at the airport and drive her back to Hadley. Then he and Mrs. Fowler brought Adelaide home from the hospital. I waited—again, I waited, long, blank drizzling hours—while Charlie drove back to Bradley Field so that the two of us could catch our six-o’clock flight back to Kansas City. I didn’t want to meet Mrs. Fowler, and Lord knows she wouldn’t have been pleased to meet me. But I would have sold my soul to be able to watch Charlie as he got Adelaide from the hospital. Was he tender with her, I wondered, solicitous? Loving? Did she fall against him and cry? When he entered that lovely red brick colonial with her, did he want to shut the door behind him and stay?

It was at the Hartford airport, waiting through that long March day, watching people kiss and hug and reunite, that I thought it. I thought that the only way I would ever have Charlie completely to myself would be for Caroline and Cathy to die. Then the ties would be cut. If Adelaide died, we would have to raise Cathy and Caroline ourselves, and I would never be free. But if the girls died, there would be no more reason for Adelaide to see or talk to Charlie ever again. He would be all mine. Of course I knew I wouldn’t kill the girls myself, and at that moment I didn’t actively wish them, those two small girls,
dead
, but still, still, thoughts of plane crashes flickered about my mind like a fire playing, and I thought how clean a plane crash would be, how certain, and how final. I would not have willed it to happen, but if it had happened, I am not sure I would have minded. How confused, how jealous, I was.

Somewhere above Illinois, on our United flight to Kansas City, Charlie, who to that moment had been silent, suddenly rose and went back to the rest room. He was gone a long time. When he returned, he was ashen and shaky. It was obvious he had been sick. When he sat down again, he leaned back and closed his eyes. And reached out to take my hand. And held it tight. The canyon between us closed instantly, with a magnificent jarring crash, like two continents joining after an ice age.

“Zelda,” he said, “I’m so sorry. It was hell for me; it must have been just as awful for you.”

The sympathetic words made tears spring to my eyes. “Charlie,” I said, “tell me truthfully. Do you want to go back with her? That would solve everyone’s problems.”

A real smile broke out across Charlie’s face. He shook his head. “Oh, Zelda, my love,” he said, as if that were the answer. Then, “No, heavens, no. I’d like to have my
girls with me, but I don’t want to go back with Adelaide. I don’t know why I ever married her in the first place. And now she just bores me. Annoys me. I don’t even feel sorry for her after this weekend, and that’s the truth. I feel irritated. It’s as though she feels the only way she can be important anymore is by being weak and pitiful. And her sad little trick will cost me plenty financially, the phone calls, the fare for her mother, the damned psychologist. I hope to hell he helps her. She’s got to get straightened out. What kind of model is she for the girls? It’s crazy. If I had been run over by a truck, she would have carried on bravely and started a new life. But since I chose to leave her, she can only fall apart. God, what a mess. It makes me sick.
She
makes me sick.”