The Clock Winder (22 page)

Not that you would be all that interested in my wedding, I guess, but it seemed like a good excuse to get in touch with you and tell you a lot of other things I’ve wanted to say—

When you left so suddenly I realized that those last few days must have been hell for you, only none of us thought of it at the time, and I wanted to apologize on behalf of my family and also to thank you for taking such good care of Mother—she used to write about you and she was always so pleased to have something offbeat, like a girl handyman, that could make her feel unconventional right in the safety of her own home—

I
hope you aren’t too disgusted with us. We are not as unhappy as we must seem. Sometimes when we are all together things start going wrong somehow, I don’t know why
,
and everybody ends up feeling they can’t do anything right, and anything they try to do will make it worse. Everybody. Even Mother, maybe. But we love her very much, and we are a very close family, and Matthew is closest of all. I wish I could make you see that
.

Well, so I am married—my husband’s name is Brady Summers and he’s in his last year of law school—next year we’ll be moving to New York where he has a job with a corporation—

I’m going to like being so near Melissa and Andrew, who is the most interesting of all my brothers although of course Matthew is very interesting too—we will all have lunch together on Wednesdays at this little restaurant Andrew likes to go to, which will be fun—

I
should say also that I’m not a
frequent
letter writer, so if it should happen that you’d like to keep in touch I won’t be disappointed if you wait months to answer—then too you might not want to write at all, which I would understand. Thank you again—

Sincerely
,                          
Margaret Emerson Summers

JULY 4, 1961

Dear Elizabeth Abbott:

I picked a revolver off a policeman at a parade today. It’s for you
.

Yours very truly,          
Andrew Carter Emerson

Dear Matthew
,

How are you? I’m doing just fine
.

I have a job taking care of an old man who I like very much. I’m having a nice summer
.

The reason I’m writing is to tell you not to come in
August. I’m not angry or anything, I just don’t think there would be any point to it
.

Sincerely,
Elizabeth

JULY 11, 1961

Dear Elizabeth
,

What do you mean, point? When did you start caring whether things had a point?

I’m coming anyway. This is important. You are the first person outside my family I’ve ever loved and I’m worried you may be the last
.

Matthew

Dear Margaret
,

Congratulations on your recent marriage which I was very happy to hear about. I’m not much for writing letters but will try to keep in touch
.

I know that your family is very nice and I always did like your mother, only I had to start school again. Thank you for writing
.

Sincerely,
Elizabeth

JULY 15, 1961

Dear Elizabeth
,

I know that my last letter must have sounded rude. I’ve been thinking things over since then. I woke up last night and suddenly I saw this whole situation in a different light—not me being steadfast and patient but just pushing you, backing you against a wall, forcing a visit on you and talking on and on about love when you don’t want to listen. Is that how you see it, too? You’re younger than me. Maybe you’re just not interested in settling down yet. Maybe I was always afraid of that underneath, or I would have called you on the phone or come down there one of these weekends
.

You
will have to discuss this with me somehow. I don’t know what to think any more
.

Mother is back from visiting Mary and Margaret. I don’t know that traveling did her that much good after all. She looks tired. When I went to see her yesterday she was just putting the permanent license plates on the new car. She didn’t have the faintest idea how to go about it. I suppose Dad or Richard always did it before, and then you last March. Anyway she was just circling the car with them, looking at the plates and then the car and then the plates again and holding a little screwdriver in her hand like a pen. I would have given a million dollars to see you coming across the grass with your toolbox. I even thought you
would,
for a minute. I kept looking for you. Then when I was putting the plates on for her Mother started crying. Without you we are falling apart. The basement has started seeping at the corners. Mother says she wouldn’t even know what to look under in the yellow pages, for a job like that. Elizabeth should be here, she said. She knew the names of things
.

I don’t know how to think all this through any more, except to ask if you would mind writing and just telling me if you love me or not, no strings attached. If you don’t want me to come in August, I won’t
.

Matthew

Dear Alvareen
,

How are you? I’m doing just fine
.

I’m writing because I asked Mrs. Emerson to send my drill, but so far she hasn’t. Could you do it, please? The combination one, that sands and grinds and all. It’s on the left-hand side of the workbench. There is a metal case you can put it all into compactly. If you mail it to me you can keep that other five dollars, I bet the postage will come to nearly that anyway. Thank you
.

Sincerely,   
Elizabeth     

JULY 18, 1961

Dear Elizabeth Abbott:

The bullet will enter your left temple. Although I prefer the heart, for reasons which I am sure you understand
.

Yours very truly,          
Andrew Carter Emerson

JULY 23, 1961

Dear Elizabeth
,

Well I have mailed the drill like you asked. It’s no surprise about Mrs
. E.
not sending it as I believe she is mad at you, also out of town quite alot. Turning into one of those visiting mothers. She had a fight with Margaret’s new husband who she didn’t hit it off with and came back early. Now she’s off seeing Peter in summer school. Melissa up there is going through some kind of breakup with her boyfriend and always calling on the phone “where is she, you think she’d be home the one time I wanted to talk to her.” Honey
I
don’t know I tell her. I only come in with my key and dust out these rooms that is seldom used anyway. If I had the strenth I would find me another job. My husband is so bad with the arthritis he just all the time moans and groans. Well the Lord knows what He is doing I suppose. I must close for now as I am not feeling too well myself these days
.

Sincerely,   
Alvareen     

JULY 25, 1961

Dear Elizabeth Abbott:

Now prepare to die
.

Yours very truly
,          
Andrew Carter Emerson

Dear Andrew Carter Emerson:

Lay off the letters, I’m getting tired of them. If I’m not left alone after this I’ll see that you aren’t either, ever again. I’ll fill
out your address on all the magazine coupons I come across. I’ll sign you up with the Avon lady and the Tupperware people. I’ll get you listed with every charity and insurance agency and Mormon missionary between here and Canada, I’ll put you down for catalog calls at Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward. When they phone you in the dead of night to tell you about their white sales, think of me, Andrew
.

Sincerely,             
Elizabeth Abbott    

8

“This is a story about an outlaw,” Elizabeth said. “I got it from the library.”

“Let me see the cover,” said Mr. Cunningham.

She held it up for him—a pulpy book too lightweight for its size, with a picture of a speeding horseman looking over his shoulder. Mr. Cunningham nodded and let his head fall back onto his pillow.

He was growing smaller day by day, Elizabeth thought. He reminded her of a fear she used to have: that once grown, free to do what she chose, she might dwindle back into childhood again. Life might be a triangle, with adulthood as its apex; or worse yet, a cycle of seasons, with childhood recurring over and over like that cold rainy period in February. Mr. Cunningham’s hands were as small and curled as a four-year-old’s. His formless smile, directed at the ceiling, had no more purpose than a baby’s. He was in bed nearly all the time now. He lay propped on his back exactly as she had placed him, his arms resting passively at his sides. “I do like westerns,” he said.
His S’s whistled; his teeth were gnashed helplessly in a glass on his nightstand.

“Chapter one, then,” Elizabeth said.

“Couldn’t you just tell it to me?”

“It’s better if we read it.”

“I’m not up to that.”

She flattened the book open and frowned at him, considering. They were doing battle together against old age, which he saw as a distinct individual out to get him. They read books or played checkers, pinning his thoughts to the present moment, hoping to dig a groove too deep for his mind to escape from. His attention span grew shorter every day, but Elizabeth pretended not to notice. “Isn’t it depressing?” people asked when they heard of her job. They were thinking of physical details—the toothlessness, the constant, faltering trips to the bathroom. But all that depressed Elizabeth was that he knew what he was coming to. He could feel the skipped rhythms of his brain. He raged over memory lapses, even the small ones other people might take for granted. “The man who built this house was named Beacham,” he would say. “Joe Beacham. Was it Joe? Was it John? Oh, a common name, I have it right here. Was it John? Don’t help me. What’s the matter with me? What’s happening here?” When he awoke in a wet bed, he suffered silent, fierce embarrassment and turned his face to the wall while she changed his sheets. He viewed his body as an acquaintance who had gone over to the enemy. Why had she supposed that people’s interiors aged with the rest of them? She had often wished, when things went wrong, that she were old and wise and settled, preferably in some nice nursing home. Well, not any longer. She sighed and creased the book’s binding with her fingernail.

“We can read tomorrow,” Mr. Cunningham said. “Today, just sum things up.”

“If that’s what you want,” said Elizabeth.

She turned to the first page and scanned it. “It seems to be about someone named Bartlett. He starts out getting chased by a posse. He’s riding through this gulch.”

“What’s he wanted for?” Mr. Cunningham asked.

“Well, let’s see. They say, ‘In the course of his career as a gunman.…’ Probably one of those guys that hires out. Now he’s coming to a shanty, there’s a woman hanging out the wash. Her hair is the color of a sunset.”

“Red, they mean,” Mr. Cunningham said dreamily.

“Who knows? Maybe purple.” Elizabeth snorted, and then caught herself. All these westerns were getting on her nerves. “He asks her for a dipper of water from the well. Then when the posse comes up she hides him away, she tells them she hasn’t seen a soul. She brings him beef stew and a canteen, and he sits there eating and admiring her.”

“This talk about water is making me thirsty,” Mr. Cunningham said.

She laid the book on its face and poured him water from an earthenware pitcher. “Can you sit up?” she asked him. “I just don’t know.”

She helped him, raising his head in the crook of her arm while he took small, noisy gulps. His head was strangely light, like a gourd that was drying out. When he had finished he slid down and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Even that much movement had been an effort for him. Resettling himself among the sheets, he gasped out the beginnings of defeated protests. “I can’t get—” “It don’t seem—” Elizabeth smoothed her denim skirt and sat back down. She was conscious of the easy way her joints bent and the straightness of her back fitting into the chair. Wouldn’t he think of it as a mockery—even such a simple act as her sitting down in a Boston rocker? But it didn’t seem to occur to him. He stared
at the ceiling, flicking his eyes rapidly across it like a man checking faces in a crowd. Sometimes it seemed to her there
was
a crowd, packing the room until she felt out of place—dead people, living people, long ago stages of living people, all gathered at once into a single moment. She waited for him to call out some name she had never heard of, but he was still with her. “Go on,” he told her. “Get to the good part.”