“Is there anything else about it, any …?”
“I can’t stay on this subject. You have to wait a minute.”
Dr. Hopkins kept a box of tissues on his desk. Early in his therapy, Will had secretly been disdainful of anyone who might reach for them. Now he grabbed tissue after tissue, pressed them against his welling eyes and across his tear-swollen cheeks. He was beyond shame.
“I know it’s hard, Will. Believe me, I know.”
Will blew his nose, wiped his eyes a last time. The pain in his temples was subsiding. He had routed his demon—or retreated from it. “I don’t want my wife to see me like this. She would never be like this, sniveling and weak, crying like a baby.”
“We, all of us, have our moments of utter, childlike despair. All of us. She continues to be supportive, your wife?”
“Yeah, she’s a trooper. Jesus, this hurts!”
“There’s nothing tougher, I know. The allusion to skin has come up in some of our talks. I have a good friend, a doctor who’s one of the best people in the Northeast at treating burn victims. As many times as he’s seen it, he’s never gotten used to the pain patients go through when their dead skin has to be cut and washed away. The pain is part of the healing. Last time, we talked a bit about your parents, particularly your father.”
Father. For a moment, his temples throbbed again. “Sometimes I miss my father, and sometimes I think it wouldn’t have made any difference if he’d lived.”
“You told me you still feel sorrow on his behalf, now and then.”
“Sorrow? Yes. Anger, too. I lost a chance.… Here we go again.”
And so Will plowed the same ground, finding old stones and new nuggets. He had dreamed of going to Notre Dame; instead, he stayed in Bessemer and went to Saint Jerome’s because it was what he could afford.
He was a long time letting go of Notre Dame. He wanted to go there if he had to wait on tables and sweep floors. But Saint Jerome’s was what he could afford, with the scholarship from the Gazette. And because his mother needed money, he did indeed wait on tables and sweep floors.
“I grew up thinking dumb Catholic boys stayed in Bessemer and went to Saint Jerome’s, and the smart ones went to Notre Dame. A snob. Me! Now I’m not even much of a Catholic.”
“Everyone is a snob about something, Will.”
“I wanted to go to Notre Dame; I’d daydreamed about it since I was a kid. And my father wanted me to, even though we couldn’t afford it.… Here’s something: there’s a guy coming back for this reunion, someone I haven’t seen in twenty-odd years, and I resent him. Because he went to Notre Dame and I didn’t.”
“It’s so clear, Will, that your having to stay home left a big mark on you, in ways you don’t even know yet.”
“I remember his farewell party, when he was going off on an adventure. I remember thinking, after the party he was going home to pack. I was going home to pack, too, but only to go to a training seminar the Gazette was sending me on. He was leaving for good, but I was coming back. You see?”
“Control and self-esteem, Will.”
“Maybe I just like to feel sorry for myself.”
“There’s a lot more to your pain than self-pity, Will. I think there’s a terrible reservoir of guilt that we have to tap. Some of your pain comes from punishing yourself.”
“For what?”
Dr. Hopkins tapped the bowl of his pipe on the ashtray. “You’ll have to tell me that, Will. When you’re ready.”
Twenty
Ed Sperl’s first wife was sitting in a booth near the back of the little diner a half-block from the Gazette. Marlee spotted her right away and smiled a greeting.
Marlee joked for a moment with the grillman (once a month, no more than that, she ordered his pancakes, the best she had had anywhere). Then she went down the aisle to meet Olga.
“Hi,” Olga said. “Thanks for coming.”
“No problem. Been waiting long?”
“Ten minutes is all.”
The waitress came by. Marlee ordered two coffees and for herself, a tuna-fish sandwich. She guessed from Olga’s face that she was looking for the cheapest thing on the menu.
“I can recommend any of the sandwiches,” Marlee said. “And the soup is always good. Get whatever you like. My treat.”
“Oh, thanks, but I couldn’t …”
“The Gazette’s paying for this,” Marlee lied. “Get what you want.”
Olga smiled her gratitude, then ordered a large bowl of soup as well as a sandwich. Marlee wondered if Ed Sperl’s first wife was genuinely poor and despite her plumpness, not eating well.
“How can I help you?” Marlee said, glad now that she had agreed to see this sad, fat, awkward woman.
“I don’t know how to say this right. It’s just that, I mean, when I called you last night …”
The coffee arrived. Marlee hoped Olga would use the interruption to get her thoughts together.
“Go ahead,” Marlee said.
“Do you ever, like, investigate things? I mean, do you as a journalist ever look into things involving insurance and stuff like that?”
“Gee, Olga, it’s tough for me to answer yes or no without more specifics.” Of course, Marlee thought, watching Olga rehearse her words; I should have known.
Marlee got several letters a month from women newly widowed or divorced who were baffled by insurance policies because their husbands hadn’t bothered to keep them informed or (much sadder) hadn’t bothered to keep up the premium payments. Usually, Marlee answered the queries by postcard, giving terse advice on where to go for help. Occasionally, a reader’s problem would be interesting enough for Marlee to devote part of a column to it. But Marlee had learned to be cautious about committing herself to meeting with people on their problems; if she said yes to everyone, it would use up all her time.
“What I mean—well, the way Ed died and all is probably gonna affect how much money—” Olga’s eyes welled with tears. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. Take your time.”
“It’s just … You see, when they said, you know, that he killed himself, someone from the benefits office at the Gazette, she told me there might be a problem on the insurance. And I know there’ll be a hassle on another policy Ed had.… Oh, this is so awful.”
“It’s okay. So Ed had you as a beneficiary even after you split up?”
“It was written into the divorce. Partly for our son’s sake.” Olga gulped, blinked hard, and seemed to gather her strength. “Bottom line is, the suicide ruling could lower the benefits. Cancel them, even, especially the policy with the private company.”
“I see.” But Marlee didn’t exactly.
“The lady in the benefits office at the Gazette, she said the publisher might do something on a personal basis, in view of Ed’s long years of service and all. She said something financial on a personal basis, but—” The tears came again, and Olga blew her nose.
Seeing the unpretty, grief-stricken face across from her, and noticing now that Olga’s clothes looked shabby and unlaundered, Marlee was filled with pity. If she could help this person just by listening, that was fine with her. She wished she could do more. “Take your time and eat your lunch,” Marlee said, as soothingly as she could. “If you like dessert, they have terrific apple pie here.”
Again, Olga seemed to gather her strength. “I was hoping you could talk to someone. About the insurance. Maybe write an article.”
“Gee, Olga. What could I say exactly? I mean—”
“I thought you might have some influence. I’m not ashamed to ask. I can’t afford to be ashamed.”
“You mean influence with the insurance people?” Marlee was only slightly offended; she was sure Olga was too unsophisticated to know that she was asking her to do something unethical.
“Could you? Maybe if you just said you were going to write something, you wouldn’t have to actually—”
“No. I can’t. No way. Even if I had any influence in a
situation like this—and I don’t, believe me—I couldn’t.”
“Okay. I just had to ask. I hope I didn’t, you know …”
“No. No. I hope you understand.”
Olga ate quietly, and Marlee said nothing for a while. The double burden of compassion and powerlessness to help the poor soul across from her was spoiling her lunch.
“He talked of us maybe getting back together, Ed did,” Olga said at last.
“I didn’t know that.”
“Yep, he did. Thing is, after he left me to go with that whore, I never totally lost the feeling for him. He didn’t for me either. You know?”
“Mmmm.” Marlee felt a blend of pity and disgust; it was hard for her to imagine how a woman could have so little self-esteem that she would continue to care for a man who had left her for someone else.
“He was a character. We were really talking about getting back together. He was getting tired of her, you know. The whore, I mean. He said he was due” to come into some money and we’d be set, once we got back together.”
“Ah.” Marlee didn’t want to hear more of this; it was too sordid and depressing. She watched Olga dive into the apple pie.
Olga’s eyes brightened. “Did you, um, like Ed? I mean, were you friends?”
God, what a question. “Well, he was a guest at my last party. But we didn’t travel in the same circles. And I never—”
“Oh, no. I didn’t mean that.” A smile, almost a chuckle, from Olga.
“They did a nice write-up on him,” Olga said.
“The obituary? Yes, it was nice.”
“A good send-off. Ed would have liked it.”
Marlee smiled as sweetly as she could without feeling like a hypocrite: she had almost gagged reading Ed Sperl’s obituary. Most newspapers, including the Gazette, had a habit when burying one of their own of running a much bigger and more laudatory obit than the dead person deserved. That had certainly been true with Ed Sperl; the obit had made him sound like Edward R. Murrow, H. L. Mencken, and Gay Talese rolled into one person.
Marlee had her own epitaph for Ed Sperl: here lies a drinker and a chaser, a dinosaur who slept with cops and couldn’t quite redeem himself by telling good cop stories and entertaining cub reporters at parties.
“Maybe you could write something,” Olga said. “In your column.”
“Huh?” Marlee was more stunned than if a piece of ceiling plaster had fallen onto the table.
“If you could say something about, about how he loved life and all. Even a little mention. I’d really appreciate it.”
Marlee was tuning out Olga’s words and despite her lingering compassion, starting to tune out Olga herself. What in God’s name is this woman thinking of? Marlee thought. I know she’s naive about newspaperdom, but goddammit, if she reads my column at all, she has to know it’s mine.
“… even just a little something, it might be enough to make people ask if he really killed himself. You know?”
“I’m sorry. What? My mind wandered for a moment.”
“I was saying, if you could just write a little something about what a live wire Ed was—you mentioned he was at your last party—and how he loved life so much. It might help.”
“Help? Help what?”
“Help with the insurance. If you sort of hinted, personal-like, that you think maybe Ed didn’t kill himself. One of my brothers, he used to sell insurance, and he said the insurance company might not want to fight it if there was a story in the newspaper that maybe Ed didn’t commit suicide.”
I thought I was here so this woman could lean on my shoulder, Marlee thought. I’m the naive one.
“No,” Marlee said. “I can’t do that. I just can’t.”
“I already talked to the police, down in Horning, and they …”
Again, Marlee was trying not to listen. “No. I’m truly sorry for your grief, but I can’t help. Not like that.”
Olga sighed. For a moment, Marlee was afraid her lunch guest would start to cry again, but it seemed she was out of tears for now.
“Okay then,” Olga said. “I had to try. Thanks for the lunch. I hope I didn’t take too much of your time.”
“Not at all. I’m sorry I can’t do more. Lunch is the least I, the Gazette, can do.” But Marlee was glad Olga was getting ready to leave.
“He was something, Ed was. Some nights, I lay in bed thinking … Never mind. I bet a woman like you must think I’m a fool, giving a damn about a man who did what Ed did.”
“Olga, I try not to judge how people should live.”
“I guess one reason I don’t want to think he killed himself is that, if he did, what’s it say about me? I mean, he wasn’t gonna come back.” Here came the tears again.
Marlee bowed her head. However disingenuous Olga was, she was suffering. When Marlee looked up, Olga was getting to her feet.
“Was Ed unhappy at work, that you know of?”
“I almost never talked to Ed about work. Our jobs were so different.”
“I keep thinking, why would he do what he did? I guess I don’t want to believe.”
“I’m really sorry, Olga.”
“Thank you. You know, maybe my brother was right, the one who used to sell insurance. He said Ed drank so much he was a beer-brain, and a beer-brain is apt to do anything. Anyhow, thanks for the lunch.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I do like your column. I’m sure you help a lot of women.”
Marlee nodded in appreciation, then listened to Olga’s heavy, graceless feet going toward the door.
Tonight, Marlee would jog and take a slow, hot bath. Then she would turn on the phone machine to keep the world out, lie in bed with Nigel next to her, and sip some wine—as much wine as she felt like.
Twenty-one
The publisher had made the suggestion with a smile, had even affected a breezy manner after knocking on the door to Will’s office and sticking his head in: “How about driving out to the country club and seeing how the remodeling is coming?”
The invitation was a command, no matter how pleasantly conveyed, and before Will could guess how far behind he would be on his work, he was sitting in the publisher’s air-conditioned Lincoln.
“Beautiful day, eh?”
“Sure is,” Will said.
Actually, it was on the muggy side, but the air-conditioning shielded the publisher from the weather, just as (or so Will imagined) the tinted glass shielded him from the decay that was slowly spreading out from the city’s center.
“Do you mind a little detour?” the publisher said, almost shyly.
“Course not.” What else was Will to say?
The publisher took a sharp turn down a side street, then another turn, then another. Now he steered his Lincoln up a street lined with rotting houses and overflowing garbage cans. Men and women sat on front steps, sweating idly in the summer heat, their brown faces staring with curiosity and resentment at the passing car.
The publisher slowed the Lincoln almost to a stop. “See that house, Will?” The publisher pointed to a sagging, three-story, wooden building that hadn’t been painted in years. “That was my father’s house, Will. I spent my childhood there. A long time ago.” The publisher’s voice had dropped to a sad hush.
“Ah.”
“Yep. Right there in that side yard. I used to throw sticks for my dog to fetch. Part collie, part shepherd. A mutt, really. Lived to be thirteen.”
Will’s annoyance had evaporated; he was touched that the publisher had shared part of his past with him.
“Sort of sad, what’s happened to Bessemer. Don’t you think, Will?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe we can help turn things around, Will. I hope so. The city needs it. Its people need it.”
“Yes.” Maybe I’ve been judging him too harshly all this time, Will thought.
“’Cause if we don’t turn things around, Will, if we don’t attract new jobs, new vigor, there’ll be hell to pay.”
“The fire
next time.”
“What? Well, whatever. Things can’t go on like this, Will. We need new business and industry.”
“I agree, sir.” And he did, although he didn’t dare say that Bessemer also needed more leadership and generosity from some of the businessmen and industrialists who were already there.
“I look at these people, Will, and it just … It makes me sad and sick.”
“I know the feeling, Lyle.” He was moved by the publisher’s nostalgia and social conscience.
“Yep, Will, it makes me sad. If jobs aren’t found for these people, if they aren’t put to work, the drug-and-welfare mess is gonna grow and grow. And pretty soon we’ll see people like this on our streets.”
It was a twenty-minute drive out of the city to the country club. On the way, they passed the reservoir and old stone houses that many decades before had been homes for the steel and coal and shipping millionaires and the bankers who had made Bessemer what it was, good and bad. Those millionaires were long dead (though their descendants were still the community’s aristocracy), and some of the mansions had become private schools or nursing homes.
A few of the mansions remained in the families that had built them. And the biggest mansion of all, on the biggest estate grounds of all, had become the Bessemer Country Club. Long ago, it had belonged to Andrew Carnegie, who used it as a summer getaway for hunting, fishing, and riding. The steel tycoon’s wealthy guests had ridden in their horse-drawn carriages up the tree-lined, serpentine drive that the publisher’s Lincoln now negotiated.
The publisher parked in the shade of a huge tree, near several trucks that bore insignias of contracting, plastering, and plumbing companies.
“I love it out here, Will. Don’t you?”
“It is lovely.”
That much was true. The gray-stone mansion stood like a fortress, as it was in a sense—against time and social change. It had once been the estate’s main house; now it housed the country club’s formal dining room, a first-floor bar and grill overlooking the golf course, lockers and offices.
Down a steep slope, off to one side, was a long, narrow building that had once been the stable area. Now it housed grass-cutters and rollers and other greenskeeping machinery. In front of the building, facing a grassy area separated from the eighteenth fairway by out-of-bounds stakes, was a driving range.
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