The Dearly Beloved

by Cara Wall

  These thoughts spread themselves out in her mind like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. She turned them over, night after night, so that they were right-side up, corners and edges identified. But she did not put them together. If she put them together she would be fused, her life would be fixed and determined, ready to be sprayed with glue and mounted as a trophy on a wall. She wanted to keep the pieces separate; she wanted to live in the spaces between them for a little longer.

  But in the spaces were her parents. That was the truth, and as she grew bigger and bigger, slept less and less, she could not remain frozen against it. In the spaces her mother baked cookies and her father fixed cars. In the spaces they stood close to each other at the kitchen sink, washing and drying with a kiss or two in between. In the spaces, her mother smoothed Lily’s blankets, kissed her forehead, turned out the light, and her father said, “That book will still be there in the morning.”

  There was no way to avoid these memories now. The babies were stirring them up as they twisted and turned. There would never again be a day when she would not remember that she was an orphan. The babies had brought suitcases of grief, and they were unpacking them inside of her, leaving the work of so many years in disarray.

  At the end of the term, she went out with her colleagues for one last drink. She was tired of Charles’s solicitous attention, the way he slid out of bed in the morning as quietly as possible, so she could sleep in, stirred his coffee without clanking the spoon. She was tired of him looking at her incredulously, tired of his happiness, his confidence that their relationship had been restored. She wanted to be with people who didn’t believe in miracles.

  “Dr. Barrett!” Her colleagues smiled as she stepped down the dark steps into the bar. “Come, come,” they said, making space for her at the tables they had pulled together. “We were just discussing economics, but now that you’ve arrived, we’ll turn ourselves to literature.”

  There was a silence. Lily felt it pulling at her like an undertow. These men had lost their families and jobs and freedom, just as she had. They had picked themselves up and learned to live with it. Just as she had. In the past, that had inspired her, made her glad to be part of their revolution. But tonight, she saw that behind their conviviality their eyes were flat and dull, their pockets empty, all hope stolen long ago. Would she look at her children with the same indifference? She didn’t want to. It struck her that she had been wrong about these men. She had admired the ways they were different from Charles without seeing how similar they were to her.

  Lily took a deep breath. She would have children. She would have to care for them. She would have to love them. She would have to risk the chance that they might die. The horror of it turned her stomach inside out.

  She went home. Charles was sitting on the sofa, nodding into the telephone.

  “That must be difficult,” he said steadily. “I see. How hard for you. What can I do?” She knew he was talking to a parishioner; she wanted him to talk to her in the same way.

  She stood in the middle of the living room without taking off her coat. She watched him nodding in the yellow light of the lamp.

  Charles said, “Call again if you need to,” and hung up the phone. Then he said, “Hello,” and held out his hand.

  Lily pulled her hat off and said, “Does it really help these people when you listen and then try to say something profound?” Her hair was full of static, stuck to her head. “I need to know if it helps them.”

  “I hope so,” Charles said.

  Lily’s demeanor alarmed him. Pregnancy did not agree with her. She was restless and sick, spent nights alternately pacing the halls or leaning, pale-faced, over the bathroom sink. She gained the appropriate amount of weight, but her face had thinned, throwing her cheekbones into high relief and leaving her almost gaunt. She could not sit anywhere for more than five minutes. She was cranky, demanding, and tossed so violently in the night that he often woke up cold, found all their blankets on the floor. As her belly grew bigger and she began to waddle, she was so changed to him that he could not imagine how different she felt to herself.

  And when the babies started to kick, he noticed her recoil. He wanted to follow her around, keep his hand to her belly, know what the babies were doing every minute of the day. But she wanted them to stop. She sat down, took deep breaths, closed her eyes until they were once again still.

  Now, to his relief, some wisdom within him revealed to him that Lily was afraid. Charles could not believe he had been so stupid or blind.

  He put his hand out again. “You know,” he said, “I think these babies are going to be fine.”

  “You can’t know that,” she said. “How can you possibly know that?” And to Charles’s complete surprise, she began to cry. She sat down—still and composed, as usual, but the tears fell from her eyes as if she were so full of them, they could not help but overflow.

  “Will you tell me how to love them?”

  He was so full of compassion and grief for her he could not answer. She smiled ruefully.

  “I’m like a church member, aren’t I?” she said. “Calling you up for your advice.”

  “Do you want my advice?” he asked.

  “Can you leave out the part about God?”

  “Probably not,” Charles said.

  The next day, Charles went before the session to ask for money to buy a house. He was expecting two children; he could not raise them in a tenement. He had a wife who craved freedom; if he could not give her that, he could give her a real home.

  “I know it’s not the best time,” he told the session. “I know we’re not working out like you thought we would.” He raised his hands in front of him. “But James got the manse,” he reminded them. “We’ll move into anything, but it’s got to be soon.”

  Within a month, the session found them a town house on Twelfth Street. It stood in the middle of the block, sturdy between its neighbors, redbrick, tall windows, a plain, practical black gate guarding the stairs. He took Lily to see it on a Tuesday. It was late October, the first truly brisk day of the year. He had not put a coat on over his blazer. He paced up and down through the fallen leaves on the sidewalk as he waited for her to arrive.

  “It’s too close to the church,” Lily said.

  It was just across the street from the church’s side door. People would see her coming and going. They would know her schedule, which bags she brought home, whether or not she had brushed her hair. But she took a good look at the building anyway, at its straight lines and the panes of glass in its windows. It was almost like looking in a mirror.

  “We’ll buy a quarter of it; the church will buy the rest,” Charles said. “That way we’ll own something.”

  “You’ve been inside?” Lily asked.

  He nodded. “Five bedrooms. Can you imagine? And a garden . . .”

  In spite of herself, Lily was intrigued. “Let me in,” she said.

  Charles reached into his coat pocket for the keys. “It’s a little beat up,” he said, “but I think we can get it ready before the twins are born.”

  He turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door. He was right: The house was beat up. The staircase had no banister; plaster peeled off the walls. The moldings had been painted over so many times that they could hardly see the patterns carved into them. But it was a beautiful house. The front hallway floor, under the fallen plaster flakes, was tiled black and white. The staircase leaned drunkenly against the wall to the right of them, but past it Lily could see the kitchen—big—and past that, a glass-paned door that led to a garden. She opened the door to her left.

  “A study,” Charles said. “It looks out on the church, so if they need me, they can knock and you won’t even have to see them.”

  “Let’s go upstairs,” Lily said. They picked their way up carefully and found, on the second floor, two big bedrooms and a bathroom with a claw-foot tub. On the third floor there were three small bedrooms and a bath with a sloped ceiling. There was a skylight in the hall.<
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  “What do you think?” Charles asked hesitantly.

  Until that moment, Lily had not known why she wandered through the city, why she followed men she barely knew to various and sundry bars. She had not known why she listened to their stories, why she created some of her own, in her head, as she walked; where she would go, someday, how she would get there, whom she would befriend when she arrived. She did not know; she had not analyzed. She had simply let herself live in her fantasies, imagining herself glamorous and far away. She had wandered because it meant she could be alone, because it meant the landscape was always different, because it meant she did not have to care for anything longer than the moments she held it in front of her eye.

  “I don’t know,” she said, heading back down the stairs. There were no fixtures in the kitchen, but it was big and square, with room enough for a table. The garden was paved with flagstone. There were cedar planters around the borders and a linden tree at the far end.

  “Can you live here?” Charles asked. His eyes searched hers.

  She stood in front of him and looked up. She had been wandering because she had lost her way. She had not thought of it that clearly before. She had wandered because it seemed her only choice, because Charles would not give up his faith, because she could not find one of her own. She had been desperate, rootless. She had been wandering because she had forsaken her first home, traded grief for freedom, had not known she needed a new one. Now, Charles had found it for her.

  He was looking at her eagerly. She would never be free again.

  But she would also never be alone. Charles would sit on a hundred benches in a hundred schools, waiting for her to come down a thousand steps, because he loved her. They would have babies and raise them in this house, a house full of noise and laughter. She could not shake the feeling that she had come full circle, that she had lost two people and was being given two more. It was like the clasp of a bracelet once clicked open, now snapped closed.

  And Charles had done this. Charles had seen her fear and, against all odds, had helped her. She could give up her doubts now. They seemed as slight as handkerchiefs, and his certainty was as solid as the world.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Charles saw the look of relief on Lily’s face, realized that he had succeeded—he had reached her. He had brought her back to the land of the living.

  James called doctors. Every day he chose a name out of the yellow pages and introduced himself as a reverend, which almost always got him put through. All of them said some version of: Miscarriage can be caused by many things. I suggest you keep trying, and pray. There are procedures we can try—if necessary—but you’re young, and it’s early days yet. Two miscarriages—early, early days. He did not tell Nan about these calls. He knew she would hate him for talking about her with other men, and she would hate the idea of involving a doctor in this part of their lives. To her, babies were miracles, not medical procedures. But he had to do something. He always had to do something.

  The church was stable. Their ministers had turned into family men. There were children singing hymns and even more children to look forward to. These were straightforward talismans, traditional hopes. The church was once again classic and comprehensible. Attendance was soaring.

  James had pulled back from his revolutionary sermons; he knew what a peaceful church meant to Nan. He did not want to interfere with her healing—not that Jane Atlas would let him. She had reassigned him to congregational meetings and monitored his wanderings. He could not let her catch him more than ten blocks from home. But Nan was getting better, and he was getting restless. He needed a new cause to champion.

  Nan, too, needed a new project. In September, from her window she had watched children going back to school in new shoes, book bags too big for their small backs. To her relief, this had made her glad. She loved the first weeks of school, when blackboards were clean, binders empty, blue-lined pages blank. It was a new beginning, a chance to reinvent oneself.

  Now Nan knew she needed to make a correction. She needed to let go of her bitterness and make amends.

  “Let’s throw Lily a baby shower,” Nan said to the knitting circle.

  The usual swift clicking came to a stop. The women looked up from their needles, stared at her incredulously. Nan shrugged without looking at them. “It seems like the right thing to do.”

  Lily had helped her. When Nan had asked, Lily had saved James’s job, forsaken her anonymity, and never demanded anything in return. Now, James told her, Lily was suffering. It was her job to help, and she felt strong enough to do it.

  The knitting circle bought soft yarn, mother-of-pearl buttons, and panels of lace from France. They drew cards to see who would make blankets, booties, sweaters, and caps. They knitted in secret, at home, so that when Lily opened her gifts, they could all be surprised. They smiled at one another conspiratorially during coffee hour, and Nan finally felt connected to a circle of confidantes. She knew her mother would be proud.

  Nan drew one of the two cards that said baptism gown. For a moment, she wanted to put it back. She knew Lily would hate a lacy costume, no matter how well she knitted it. Lily would hate the whole idea of a church christening, and she would hate Nan for suggesting it. But, Nan thought, the gown wasn’t for Lily; it was for one of the twins. And it was for Charles. Surely he would want the children baptized. His family would want to come to the ceremony, and his mother would want her grandchildren well-turned-out. It was tradition. It was for Charles. That’s how Nan decided to think about it.

  Nan swore James to secrecy—he was absolutely not to tell Charles, but he was worried. It seemed obvious to James that Lily would not want a baby shower—she hated small talk, she hated church, she hated people she didn’t know. She was afraid for the babies and afraid for herself. To surprise her seemed cruel. He knew Nan had not considered that, because she was creating for Lily the very thing she most wanted for herself. It was a heartbreakingly meaningful gift, but she and Lily were very different people. He imagined the appalled look on Lily’s face as Nan yelled Surprise! He imagined Nan’s embarrassment when she realized the party was a burden for Lily, the strained civility that would follow, the awkward gaiety of the guests in the room. So he told Charles, who said “Huh” and then “what a nice idea,” and then stared at James, nonplussed.

  It was painful to watch Nan wrap the gown and tie the white ribbon with care. James was not at all sure he had made the right decision, and as the date approached with no word from Charles, he began to hope Lily might attend after all, that his ruining of the surprise might make the whole party possible.

  The night of the shower Nan crossed the path from the manse to the church full of excitement. It had been a hard surprise to engineer.There was no obvious way to get Lily to the church, so Nan had told Charles she was organizing a parenting class that he and Lily should attend. She knew his own excitement, and his worry for Lily, would get him there. She was excited to see them pull open the door, expecting a lecture, and instead find the knitting circle, lemonade poured, gifts in hand.

  Nan had knitted the most beautiful dress she could—long and white with tiny crosses embroidered on the hem. She knew Lily would hate the crosses, but the woman knitting the second gown had put them in, and Nan wanted the twins to match. She was proud of it, and couldn’t wait for Lily to open the yellow paper and see the effort she had made, in gratitude.

  When Nan reached the fellowship room, most of the knitting group was already there, standing in a clump and giggling, clutching bright packages in their hands.

  Jane Atlas caught sight of Nan, waved her over. “What’s in the box?” she asked.

  “Cookies,” Nan said, coming back to herself, smiling brightly. “Let’s set them out.” She had baked sugar cookies in the shape of bassinets, iced pink and blue and green. The knitting circle let out a collective sigh. They spaced them out carefully on a plate lined with paper doilies. Then they sat on chairs in a circle, as they always did, waiting
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  The door opened; they put their hands on the arms of their chairs, ready to jump up, but it was only Charles. He stuck his head inside the door and said, “I’m sorry. Lily’s sick.” Nan knew from the pained set of his shoulders that James had told Charles about the shower, that Charles had told Lily, and that Lily had refused to come.

  He smiled apologetically. “Should I stay?”

  The women of the knitting circle looked at Nan. “Oh,” she said. “No, that’s all right. I’ll just bring the presents by tomorrow.” Charles was visibly relieved.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  For a moment, no one spoke. In the silence, Nan realized that soon all of these women would be gone. All of the women like her mother, who believed in baking and visiting, raising children, and long afternoons spent at home. Soon, all the women who understood her would be gone, and she would be left with women like Lily, who would expect her to make her own, solitary, way in the world.

  “Well,” Jane Atlas said loudly, clapping her hands. “The party wasn’t really for her, was it? It was an excuse to outdo one another. So let’s open everything and be impressed.” She put a hand on Nan’s shoulder, and Nan was comforted.

  PART THREE

  1966–1970

  SIXTEEN

  When Jane Atlas checked herself into the hospital for chest pains, James and Charles visited her the same afternoon.

  “You’ve got your schedules for the week,” she said, “and I’ll be back Monday. Don’t know what you’d do if I wasn’t!” Those were the last booming words she said to them. That evening, as Nan was packing a bag of sandwiches for her own visit to the hospital, a nurse called to tell her that Jane had died. Nan stood in her hallway so long without hanging up her phone that Charles got a continuous busy signal and had to run to the manse to make sure James and Nan had heard the news. When James opened the door, the three of them stared blankly at one another, none of them having any idea what to do now that Jane was gone.