by Ede Clarke
“I sent it to Jersey, to his folks’ house,” I calmly explained, hoping my demeanor would rub off on her a bit. “I don’t expect you to understand. No one seems to get it. But, it’s still there. . . between us. You have to remember that when he left, he had no choice. He didn’t leave me, Candy, he left school. We really never broke up.”
“Again! You’re going with the ‘he never really broke up with me,’ again?!” Candy interrupted. “He left and went back to Jersey and then visited twice the first year and then he never came back, Patty. Oh, yeah, you went there twice, and there were the drunk calls at 2 and 3 in the morning through our senior year, but come on, the thing died. He just didn’t have the guts to say it, but I’m sure he was hoping you’d figure it out when four years go by without a real attempt at contacting you, you know? I mean you haven’t heard from him since the week of undergrad graduation, more than two years ago. And that was when you called him. Do you not remember how devastated you were when he confirmed he had received your graduation invitation? You had just assumed it didn’t get to him, but that wasn’t it, Patty. And two years later you’re setting yourself up again? Why? Why?” she pleaded with me in tears at this point. “It’s like a drug or something, Patty. Stop!” and then more quietly, finally exhausted, she ended with, “. . . It has to stop . . . ”
But of course I sent the invitation anyway, knowing Candy loved me and her heart was good. But that she didn’t understand love that lasted. Her parents were divorced and she couldn’t stick with a guy if her life depended on it, even a decent guy, and there had been several. I mailed the invitation and told no one. It felt a little strange mailing it because I still felt so close to him. It was almost like notifying a parent of the birth of their own child. Would they not turn and look at you in confusion and say, “I already know.”
About a month later I sat in a lecture hall with a few dozen other graduate students putting the last marks down to prove we could graduate that next week. It was my last exam, and I remember it with a fever pitch like few other things in my life. I had gotten little sleep, so I was on that euphoria that often can be the result. During the exam while looking at the test booklet on my desk I was focused. But, as soon as my eyes would waft upwards and find a blank canvas on the cream-colored walls, the last twenty-four hours would play back in vivid detail, including telephone rings, shrieks, weeping, bodies, doctors, police, paperwork, smells, and the eventual notification that it was over—two and a half hours before the exam had begun. They didn’t die instantly, but were both in comas. So, I saw them alive for most of the night even though they didn’t look alive. Then the machines were finally turned off and I was told they were both dead.
“Describe the importance of Asian and European research techniques and improvements and its significance in America in the late 19th century to the present.” Once I read the questions, I could focus and spit out a decent few pages on the topic. Just had to keep my eyes off void spaces. “I’ll just call them and tell them what’s happened,” Candy told me over and over throughout the evening into the early morning, “They’ll let you reschedule.” But the truth was I wanted it to end. I was finished with school and had one more day and wanted it to end. So it did. I buried my parents and then graduated. It was all over.
And then I called Russ. “Hi! Patty! Great to hear from you. How are you?” he always seemed happy to hear from me.
“Hey, Russ. Doing okay. Been a little hard lately, but I’m hanging in there. How about you?” I told him, suddenly not necessarily wanting to trust him with too much.
“I’m doing good. Still in school. Still coaching. Still not drinking. Same old thing. What about you? Still at UB?”
He remembered. “I graduated last week.”
And then it came, “Oh, yeah, I think I got a thing in the mail. That’s right. Congratulations. Wow! Masters in Library Science. What will you do now?”
“Erie Public offered me a position in their research department. I start in two weeks. So, you got the invitation?” I asked him.
“Yeah, thanks for sending it.”
“You’re welcome,” and I left it at that. Amazing. That I continue to put myself through this. “My parents died the day before my last final. Car wreck. Candy and her parents have taken care of things . . . and me. . . and everything.” I think I told him as a punishment. To make him feel bad. And in doing that, I tainted their death. I had used it as a weapon. I couldn’t take back the infliction that had been made on him or on my memory of my parents. And I hated him for that.
I hated him for that because I hated myself for that. And I felt that way for several years, until one day Candy told me that Russ’s mom had known of my parents’ death through another mutual friend and that Russ and his family had discussed it before I had called him after graduation.
“He knew?” I asked Candy.
“Yes, Patty,” she confirmed.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“To give yourself a break about it and to hopefully let him go, see him for who he is.”
“Sometimes people have a good heart, but don’t do the right thing. That doesn’t make them a bad person,” I defended him.
“It also doesn’t make you a bad person to love someone who you shouldn’t love,” she told me.
“I’m not pretending he’s something he’s not just to make myself feel better, Candy. I’m just explaining that love isn’t always the way it’s intended to be. He does it his way, that’s all.” She walked away and we didn’t talk about it for a long time after that.
One night while at a Friday night fish fry dinner with Mad and her parents, Kenny finally told me something that he had concealed for years about my parents’ death. “Patty, I didn’t tell you when it happened because I didn’t want you to have one more thing to deal with on top of everything else at that time. You were trying to graduate, bury them, get a new apartment, start a new job. It was crazy. But, I think I need to tell you this and Bethy has wanted me to tell you for a long time. So, here goes.” He paused and I braced myself. “The cause of the accident was rain, but it was also because your Dad was drunk.”
I was stunned. My Dad was an alcoholic but hadn’t had a drink since before I was born. “But, Kenny, he didn’t drink anymore.”
“Well, honey, he apparently started up again, because he was very drunk the night of the accident. And your Mom had been drinking too.”
“Okay. Thanks for telling me. Strange that I didn’t know they were drinking, but okay. Suppose at this point it doesn’t matter much. Let’s just talk about something else, okay?” I asked.
“Sure,” Kenny said.
“Are you angry, though?” Bethy asked.
“No, I’m not angry.” How could I get angry when I hadn’t felt much about their death since soon after their burial. I did wonder, though, if Russ had finally stopped drinking. Last time he called me he told me he had to make amends to those whom he’d hurt. So he kind of apologized, for nothing in particular, and then we caught up a bit, and then he said he’d give me call sometime. Hope he quits drinking too.
The years at Erie Public were years of growth and solace. I was surrounded by several communities that challenged and encouraged me. Candy and I increasingly enjoyed our stolen time together whenever we could get away, catching each other up on our careers and passions that we were able to live out in such a large and unabashed way for a while. Grateful for our correct choices in study and work, we were even more grateful for each other and for her parents, who were always there when something awful or wonderful unfolded in our lives.
“My Mom said you called her to tell her about your promotion,” Candy once told me.
“Yeah, is that okay?” I wasn’t sure why she was bringing it up.
“Oh yeah, made her feel great. Made me feel great, too. You’re letting them in more and more.”
“Can’t help it,” I smiled back at their daughter who had their same gracious heart.
“Haven’
t heard you talk much of Russ lately,” she added. “Is that because it’s quieter or because you know I’ll get upset?”
“It’s a bit quieter, I think. It seems more distant. He’s still there, but that place is farther away and less clear. Maybe when I’m happier, I don’t want him so much.”
One of the ongoing conversations Candy and I had was whether married life would stunt us, our beings, our work, our identity, our choices, our future. “It’s becoming increasingly impossible to find a man who isn’t afraid of me because of my work,” was Candy’s problem while working her way up through Creative Services. “Why is a mechanic okay with dating me, but a stock broker intimidated? I don’t get it and I’m sick of it.” We often encouraged each other to not settle and hold out for someone who wouldn’t limit us, but be a partner. But, the longer I was at Erie Public the more I wondered why marriage is so sought after. These were the years I went to several weddings a summer and also began to go to the baby showers. It was what people do, I observed: Get born; get educated; get a job; get married; get kids; get grandkids; get retired; play a little again; and die.
“I think your problem is that you are always looking at the next thing, Patty. You are relentless. Maybe if you just relax a minute you won’t be so afraid that a husband would stand in your way,” Candy told me one day at Parkside when I explained marriage was looking less and less attractive to me.
“If you take away sex and growing old with someone, it just doesn’t look that great,” I had told her. Frank overheard us while approaching our booth.
“One day you’ll want to love someone else more than you want your dreams,” he told me.
Candy and I looked at each other and then I told him, “Then I better hurry up and reach my dreams before that happens.” I chuckled, but Candy and Frank looked at each other and seemed frustrated. “I was just kidding, guys,” I sighed. “It’s not that I think my life will be over if I’m a wife and mother,” I told her, “I just don’t want to be trapped into it. I mean, what if I suddenly want something else? Decisions that you can’t take back are usually made out of emotion or something. I mean that is serious stuff that should be made from the head instead. And you’ll never know while making the decision if you’re doing the right thing.”
Candy paused for a minute and then said, “Well, considering you haven’t been on a date in, what, a year, I think you’re doing a good job of not having to make that decision, aren’t you?”
“What about you?” I quickly flung back, “If you would let a guy hang around more than three months you might actually let him get to know you and love you. And, by the way, I just happen to find great literary minds more interesting and entertaining than the moth balls that walk these streets. You bring to my doorstep the intellectual equivalent of Hemingway or Fitzgerald, then I’ll go out for the night.”
At that we sat there, looking past each other’s heads over our tall wooden booth, and said nothing for several minutes until Candy finally added, “We love what we do, don’t we?”
I shook my head with a little smile creeping in and replied, “Yes. And there is nothing wrong with that.”
Chapter Six
At least the memories of Russ usually were accompanied by memories of Candy—looking out for me; being honest with me; never hesitating to be a real friend. As I sat in the wingback chair I noticed the time and was shocked that I had been fantasizing and remembering for over an hour, filing through various life stages. Most of the memories embarrassed me a great deal, I often found myself blushing even though no one was around. The last few years or so I wanted Russ less, and it helped to remember my past mistakes to bring me back to making better decisions today. Remembering is important. History is important. Whether good or bad, proud or shame. So, I closed My Antonia and put it back on the shelf, satisfied that my longing for Russ and the fantasy-help he could have never offered was far from my yearning. We still contacted each other once in a while, playing phone tag at its least committal level. Every eight months to a year one will call the other and leave a message. It was currently his turn and it had been almost a year, so I figured it would come soon. But, I didn’t count on it, and I no longer thought of him when the phone rang. After all, we somehow always managed to miss each other and just leave a message.
I turned off the lights, one by one. As each lamp went dark, my resolve grew stronger so that by the time I reached the staircase, I was no longer beating myself up but felt even Candy might be proud that I was alone and not grasping, scraping, desperate for a fix, a resolution. Instead, I reached the top of the stairs, washed up in the upstairs bathroom, looked in on The Five, and then crawled into bed with only my actual situation on my mind. “Too bad Mom isn’t still around,” I thought as I pulled the covers high over my shoulders. “She’d be proud of me that, for this moment anyway, I demand people to pay rent if they want to take up room in my thoughts.” With that I felt witty and smart and capable, albeit sad and angry. I drifted off to sleep, shortly after remembering, and regretting, my recent vow to only paint a true picture of Ted to the kids.
“Yeah, I touched down a few hours ago. I’m home. Can I come over?” Candy asked, sounding a bit out of breath.
“Sweet words, my friend,” I confessed. “Please, do.”
“So how much did he leave you?” Candy asked, while leaning against the kitchen counter eating my homemade peanut brittle.
“Will you at least sit down and use a napkin or plate or something, Candy? I’m trying to teach the kids not to be animals, so this really isn’t helping,” I joked with her.
“Oh, sorry, Patty. Of course. It’s so good, though. And. . . ”
“I remember,” I interrupted her, “I remember not eating sitting down for years while at Erie Public, unless Mad and I made ourselves leave and go to the deli down the street.” I smiled at her.
“Yeah, you do know both sides of the street now, don’t you?” she said while sitting and taking a napkin from me.
“Yeah, I do. So. . . um. . . I don’t know how much he deposited. I haven’t wanted to look. I figure. . . ”
“You haven’t looked?” Candy interrupted.
“I think the amount will probably indicate his intentions, his time table. If it’s too much, I don’t want to know.”
“You’d rather just wonder than know?” Candy was surprised. “That’s not like you.”
“Well, this is different, you know. The Five are. . . I. . . Right now living one day at a time is okay to me. Every day I have with them is okay to me,” I got that out and then started to cry a whimpering, exhausted cry that had little energy to it and was not full of much body movement or water, just a lot of emotion that was being stifled by an exhausted vessel.
“Let’s get you onto the couch and I’ll finish up with things around here and take care of Jackie when he gets home and get dinner started. Just take a few hours, okay?” I must have said okay, because I woke up on the couch several hours later to Beth quietly humming while doing her homework at the coffee table near my bended knees and Hector putting together a new paper airplane he’d designed. “Hey guys,” I greeted them as I slowly sat up.
“I didn’t know you take naps, too,” said Lizzie as she came in from the kitchen.
“Are you sick?” asked Beth. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sleep in the daytime before.”
“Oh now, don’t be so dramatic guys,” broke in Candy from the kitchen as she came into the living room, too. “Everyone gets tired sometimes, right?” They all nodded, but still looked suspicious and worried.
“Any news about Dad,” Hector asked.
“No honey, still not sure when he’ll be home,” I said, deflated and without concealing my helplessness.
“Why hasn’t he even called?” asked Beth. “He could at least call.”
“Yes, that would be nice, wouldn’t it? To hear his voice a bit. Well, we’ll have to see, won’t we,” is all I could offer. “What time is it anyway?” I finally asked stil
l in a slight stupor, hoping it was late so I could just go to bed.
“Five-thirty,” answered Candy. “I’ll finish up dinner and then we’ll all have a nice meal. Be back in a few minutes,” she said while turning her back to us, heading into the kitchen.
I sat on the couch and wondered what Candy wasn’t getting done because she was making dinner for us. “Candy, don’t you need to get going? I can only imagine how much work you have to do after your being gone,” I yelled into the kitchen, still not wanting to get off the couch.
“You always tell us not to yell into the other room, that we have to walk into that room and then speak,” reminded Hector.
“You’re absolutely right.” So I got up and felt an immense weight on my limbs as I made my way into the kitchen. “I can finish this, really, I can,” I told her. “Feel free to stay if you want to eat with us, but you can get going if you need to catch up on email and prepare for tomorrow.”
She stayed until ten-thirty that night. Taking care of every little thing imaginable. I was able to read stories to Jackie and Lizzie and Clara while Candy did the dishes and made sure lunches would be ready for the next morning’s boxes. After they were all in bed, we sat and talked and talked. She rubbed my feet and made me tea and I remember thinking that because I had let go of Russ I could truly enjoy this. If I was still pining for him, this wouldn’t be enough, wouldn’t be satisfying. In fact, it would rob Candy of parts of her friendship to me. She must have sensed this shift in me, as over the last year or so she often talked of the peace I had recently found and the closeness we continued to share even though choosing different paths. “Thank you,” I told her as I took the cinnamon tea that she prepared for us. I wondered how many other moments of our friendship had I taken from her because I was so selfish.