Three Women at the Water's Edge (25 page)

Dale rose, restless with annoyance, carefully put the sleeping cat down in the chair, and left the room. She checked on Danny and Jenny—both children had fallen asleep on the sofa, so she adjusted their blankets and then quickly left the family room. The
family
room; well, the television was there, and the stereo, and it was not as formal a room as the living room, or as large, and the furniture seemed older and less expensive, but still it was a nice bright room, done in bright blues and yellows; it was a cheerful room. The house was a cheerful house, Dale thought, Daisy had been happy when she had worked on it, and this happiness showed in every doorframe and windowsill, in every curtain and rug. Dale shook her head and went into the kitchen to make a big pot of tea.

Daisy lay in her bedroom staring at the ceiling. She was tired, but she could not sleep. She heard Dale moving through the house and smiled at the sound—oh, it was such a pleasant sound, that of a friendly adult moving capably about the house. She often thought she missed just that, the simple presence of another grown-up human being. It occurred to her that she should go down and help Dale, but she was so tired, and it was so sweet lying still underneath the quilt. Still she could not sleep, and her thoughts drifted away from Dale and focused finally on what Dale had told her.

Her father. Her daddy. He had always been so strong and optimistic, and she almost could not bear the thought of him as Dale had described him, pitiful and pathetic, burrowed in his grief like some surly animal, almost greedily licking at his wounds. He was better than that. Oh, they’d be a fine pair if he came up for Christmas, Daisy thought, smiling to herself: they could sit by the fire together like a pair of invalids and commiserate. Yes, they would be a fine, maudlin, mawkish pair. For Daisy had all too clearly seen herself in Dale’s description of their father—how many nights over the past month had she sat in a chair or in bed or in the bath, sniffling and crying and thinking over and over again how lonely she was, how afraid. Now she was as irritated with the thought of herself like that as she was at the thought of her father. She would have to hold on to that irritation, Daisy thought, and use it somehow to force herself into a newer mood, into some sort of positive action. But then it seemed her thoughts went into helpless circles: she was five months pregnant, she had two young children, she was lonely, she was afraid—what could she do?

After a while, she heard Dale climbing the stairs, and she decided that for now she could do at least this much: she could put on a pleasant face. She sat up and smiled.

“Tea—how nice!” she said.

Dale sat on the end of Daisy’s bed and together they drank the sweet tea and talked about Daisy’s house. Daisy didn’t have to pretend pleasantness as she talked with Dale; she became almost vivacious as she described all the work she had done.

“But you haven’t seen the attic yet!” she exclaimed. “Come on, bring your cup up, let me show you!” And she threw back the quilt and went ahead of Dale, moving up the back stairs as lightly as her stomach would allow.

The attic was a wonderful place, perhaps the most wonderful place in the entire house, because it had once been the servants’ quarters in the days when people had live-in servants. So the original oak woodwork was unpainted, and the walls were papered in lovely old pale-flowered paper, and the windows in each room were leaded and rounded or triangular or oval in shape, and the ceiling slanted down differently in each room, giving the rooms strange and magical shapes, as if they had been cut like diamonds or emeralds into small jewels of rooms. The water view from the windows was quite fantastic; one could see far out onto the horizon. There were four large rooms in the attic, each with built-in wood drawers with large ornate brass pulls. The light fixtures were electric, but looked like candle sconces. There was a delightful bathroom with a shining wood floor and a mammoth white porcelain clawfoot bathtub, and a huge porcelain sink with porcelain taps that said hot and cold in an inky blue. The walls in the bathroom were wainscoting; it was one of the most charming rooms in the house.

“I
love
it!” Dale said, wandering through the wide hallway and in and out of each angled, slanted, cozy, elfish room. “If I lived in this house, this is where
I’d
live!”

“I know,” Daisy said. “It’s marvelous. But it’s too many stairs for me and the children to climb. Still, it’s a shame to let it sit here empty—
Oh, Dale!
” Daisy stared at her sister, then rushed into and out of each of the bedrooms.

“What is it?” Dale asked. “What’s the matter?”

“Each room has its own radiator,” Daisy said.

“What?”

“And each room has its own window, and its own cupboard. Unfortunately there are no closets, but those could be added, or maybe hooks would be sufficient. Dale. Dale! Why couldn’t I rent the attic out as apartments? Or as rooms. Student rooms! Or whatever. Look, a little kitchen could be put in here at the end of the hall, and the bathroom is so large—well, there are four fabulous bedrooms. I could rent them to college students. We’re within easy walking distance of the university. It would have to be all boys, or all girls, but then maybe not, not these days. But I could fix it up, and rent the rooms, and I’m sure I’d make enough money to pay the taxes and perhaps some of the mortgage or some of the fuel bills. Then I could stay here! We wouldn’t have to move!”

Dale looked at her sister, whose hair was sticking out in frazzled clumps from lying so recently on a pillow, and whose face was pink with excitement. Dale wanted to cry, she found her sister so touchingly hopeful, so vulnerable.

“It might be a good idea,” she said cautiously. “You’d have to check the cost of putting in a kitchen. And then you’d have to get some furniture—”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Daisy said. “There would be a lot to do. But then I could keep the house—and I’d have
people
in the house. More life. Young people clattering up and down the stairs, thinking of love or their homework. Oh, yes, Dale, yes! Now. Let’s go through this attic and make a list.”

But two hours later, as Daisy was driving Dale to the airport, Daisy was crying. Her face was red and blotched. Mrs. Wentworth had called shortly after lunch to say that an offer had been made on the house, a good offer; could Daisy please come down to the real estate office at four that afternoon so that she could explain it to her and to Mr. Mitchell at the same time?

Daisy had taken her children to her friend Karen’s house; Karen would keep them while Daisy took Dale to the airport and then went on to the real estate office. So there was nothing cheerful in the car; the backseat seemed only a filthy backseat, without any sign of energetic joy, and the front seat was absolutely dismal. Daisy cried; Dale felt hopeless.

“The bastard,” Daisy was saying. “The bastard. Oh God, Dale, never trust a man,
never
. Marriage is a pack of lies. Love is a nasty trick. No wonder mothers cry at weddings; they’re thinking of all the misery their daughters will face in the future. And these damned deceitful songs! Someone should murder Barry Manilow!”

Daisy hit the radio with her gloved fist so hard that Dale was afraid she had broken it, but the violins, the tender masculine voice, the surging of desire continued to flow out from the radio like a river that Daisy’s worst wrath could not stop.

“These love songs that make women mushy and weak. Love! Sex! What tricks! What lies! All those times Paul held me in his arms, telling me how he loved me, how I possessed his soul, how my slightest touch moved him so greatly, how he was no longer afraid of death because he had experienced the best life had to offer—why do people
say
such things! We should all have our tongues cut out. All we can talk is foolishness and lies. What are we anyway, what are people? Fucking machines. That’s all it’s really about. At least that’s all men are about. Oh, Dale, I married the wrong person,
everyone
marries the wrong person. I wanted a family, I wanted a big house full of children and Sunday picnics—I wanted to be the goddamned Brady Bunch. Instead I’m just an old wrecked divorced woman, and I’ve got to give love to all these little children, and there’s no one around to give love to me. Oh,
damn
Paul, why did he stop loving me? Or what’s wrong with nature, why doesn’t it involve the man equally in the child-rearing thing, why don’t women carry the babies but men nurse them or something? It just does not work out the way it is now, it just does not work. Why couldn’t Paul love the children the way I do, and be involved with them the way I am, and have his sexual energies channeled toward them—for just a few years? This way is so lopsided, so unfair. Or I should have been Victorian; then he would have had to stay married to me, I could have kept the house, he could have screwed around on the side, I would have had ten children and been happy. Oh, Dale, Dale, never fall in love, never get married, it’s all a farce, it’s all a bad joke.” Daisy had to stop talking to blow her nose.

“Daisy,” Dale said, taking advantage of her sister’s momentary silence, “don’t be so upset.” Although Daisy’s words had upset Dale more than she could say, more than Daisy could guess. “Look. Be sensible. That house is enormous, and would be difficult for you to keep up. There are lots of lovely smaller homes in Milwaukee, and homes in neighborhoods where there will be other children for Danny and Jenny to play with. They will probably be happier somewhere else. And you’ll be less exhausted; just think of all the energy it takes just to get from your bedroom down through that huge house into the kitchen. You’ll find another, smaller house that you like better; you know you will. And then you’ll have your lovely new baby, and you can just totally devote yourself to your children and have a lovely gooey time like you have talked about so much. And then in a year or two you can start losing weight, and you’ll meet new men, you know you will, you are beautiful, Daisy, really you are. And just because Paul wasn’t a good father, a good husband, well, that doesn’t mean all men are bad. All men can’t be bad; come on, Daisy, that doesn’t make sense. Men are people. Men can be good. And lots of people can have good, fine, solid marriages. Don’t be so despairing. You’re young, you aren’t even thirty yet, and you’ve got two wonderful wonderful children, oh, Daisy, I love Danny and Jenny so much, you’re so lucky to have them! Stop beating at yourself, try to be optimistic, try to be cheerful, it will all work out, it
will
.”

On and on Dale went, on and on, so that she was babbling, turned sideways in the seat of the car toward her sister, talking earnestly, rapidly to Daisy, as if the sheer quantity of hopeful words could offset Daisy’s dismal ones. Dale continued to talk this way, on and on, until they got to the airport. Daisy had to be on time for the real estate appointment, and so could not go into the terminal with Dale, but dropped her off at the departure gate. The two sisters kissed clumsily in the car, and Daisy still cried, her eyes swollen and bleary and her face puffy and sad, and Dale stroked her sister’s cheek and wiped some tears away, and looked her sister in the eyes and said, “Oh, Daisy, it will be better, it will,
it will
. I’ll call you tonight, I promise. Don’t be so sad. I love you.”

“Thank God you love me,” Daisy bawled shamelessly. “You’re the only adult who does.”

“Oh, Daisy, what nonsense!” Dale laughed, and kissed her sister again, her lips tasting salt. “Now cheer up! I’ll call you when I get home.” And she crawled out of the car and went off into the airport, carrying her overnight bag and large suitcase and purse with the competent ease of an experienced traveler.

Daisy watched her sister walk off, slim in her jeans, young and slim and carefree and capable; all the things Daisy was not. She wished for one brief moment that she were her sister; then thought of Danny and Jenny and the new child inside her and changed her mind, and was glad, no matter what, to be herself. But as she pulled away from the terminal, looking over her shoulder to check the traffic, she did wish in spite of herself that Dale weren’t quite so perfect, that she at least had fat thighs or perhaps less thick and shiny hair. She did not wish ruin on her sister, she was not truly jealous of Dale; and yet she knew that she would honestly be a little happier in her life if Dale had fat thighs instead of such long straight smooth ones. She blew her nose again and tried to compose herself so that she wouldn’t be a total mess at the real estate office. She dug a Snickers candy bar out of the bottom of her purse and began to eat it as she drove. She turned the radio to a news show; two men were droning on about the crisis in the Mideast, and this relaxed Daisy greatly. She was really rather glad to hear about crises elsewhere, because they did not seem to affect her, and yet they made her feel not quite so alone, not quite so
picked on
by God and the Fates. She liked thinking of the two newsmen, wearing pin-striped suits and vests and ties, mumbling away in some smoky room that had never seen the likes of any human under five feet of height. Their drama seemed so elegant and composed, so grown-up, so civilized, so theatrical, so clean compared to hers. Although as she continued to think about it, she knew that she preferred her drama, messy as it was, to theirs, because those men had only words to work with, and she had all the materials of life: flesh, fabrics, foods. There those men were, thought Daisy, juggling entire nations of people, and yet they touched no one, not with their hands: so what sort of satisfaction could they get? Those poor men, Daisy thought, they had to live in such a stilted world, such a distorted world: it was all words for them. While Daisy had words, too: the talk and laughter and confidences of her good women friends, the chatter of her children, the radio, television, magazines and newspapers. But she had so much more than that, she had what balanced it all out: substance. The bodies of her children which always filled her senses with a rich heady joy—she was always greedy to hug or see or smell her children, and sometimes at night she stood above their beds, looking down at them enraptured, as if filling up her soul with the knowledge of their existence before entering the dark night of sleep. And food, she liked food, liked handling it, and felt a personal, intimate response to each kind of food. Sometimes she would stand in her kitchen struck still with awe, with wonder, at the intricacy of the food she held in her hand.