Margaret from Maine (9781101602690)

by Monninger, Joseph

  Chapter Eight

  Gordon dreamed of the basement stairs. The stairs led from the kitchen directly to a dark place in the basement. He did not like the stairs, nor the basement, for that matter. The basement smelled of dirt and water and raspberry preserves. A jar had broken there long ago, but the odor never left; the sticky juice clung to the wooden shelf and the cement floor like a bloodstain.

  His eyes fluttered under their lids. His breathing became short and uneven. His bladder pressed to be released, but it was not painful, not overly full. His right leg kicked a little—at spiders, probably, at rats—and his foot happened to touch the side of a toy truck. In his sleep, in his childish obliviousness, he mistook the side of the truck for his mother’s foot. Instantly his heart settled. He rolled a half turn onto his belly and spread his arms out like a man falling. Only he was not falling. He was in bed, and his mother was near, and in his universe nothing else mattered.

  The basement dream disappeared. All dreaming disappeared and he slept down deep in his body, his breathing measured and quiet, his long lashes touched with the slightest moisture, his skin warm and quiet on this soft spring night. The saw-chuck guy, fallen to the floor in Gordon’s newest turning, kept his rifle aimed at the dark space under the bed, his vision sharp and ready for the appearance of any monsters, any creatures of bed dust and rug scatter that dared to threaten his boy.

  * * *

  Charlie felt he could kiss her forever. He had never experienced anything quite like it. How did such a thing happen? He had been with women before, a reasonable amount anyway, but he had never felt this tremendous urge to kiss. It reminded him of high school kids groping each other in the local library, but Margaret was not a kid and neither was he, and yet here they were. It did not matter how he kissed her. He could begin softly, delicately, and little by little the kisses would build until the entire world seemed contained in them, until her body pressed into his and he had to run his hands everywhere, over every inch, and then, like the tide, like water pulling back through marsh grass, they would subside and become gentle again.

  “Where did you come from? Where did you come from?” she whispered.

  “Shhhh.”

  Then more kisses. He felt his body respond and he entered her and continued to kiss her, the kiss an anchor, and in some way he could not define, the sex, the bodies joined, meant nothing. The kiss meant everything, it obscured and conquered everything, and the movement of their bodies together was a secondary gift. To be able to kiss and to have that, too, that second thing, was nearly more than he could bear. He whispered her name, realizing that they could find this in each other whenever they wanted. He drove into her and felt his body grow urgent and heavy, but then her kisses brought him back, and they glided together in perfect rhythm. Outside a wind pushed a branch beside the streetlight and the shadows fell through the window and covered them, and sometimes he kissed her mouth, and sometimes he kissed the wavering motion of a branch, and spring air leaked quietly into the room and lifted the edge of a piece of paper somewhere on the floor.

  After, after it all, he kept kissing her. She continued kissing him, rising into him, and he held her and felt his body tremble and she kissed his neck, his shoulder, and he wondered if love could begin like this, as simply as this, and if it could stay by its own power.

  “You’re lovely,” he said a little later. “So lovely.”

  “I can’t believe how it feels to be with you.”

  “I’ve never . . .”

  She shook her head against his shoulder. The tree shadows danced on her ribs and across her breasts. She raised herself up and kissed him. For an instant everything began again, but she broke away and slid to his ear.

  “Do you have any eggs?” she whispered. “I am so hungry. . . .”

  “Oh, you just get better and better.”

  “Because I’m hungry?”

  “Yes. Exactly. Exactly because of that. I’ve got eggs and bacon, both fresh from a farm nearby. I can make you breakfast. It’s the only thing I have to eat.”

  “I’m famished.”

  “When we kiss . . .”

  She shushed him. She put her fingers over his lips.

  “I’m going to wear your shirt. I’m not eating eggs in a ball gown. Get up and rattle those pots and pans. It’s the least you can do for a girl.”

  But he couldn’t gather the necessary determination. He rolled on top of her and kissed her and the marsh began to fill again with water. He kissed her over and over, and what he wanted to say was something about love, about what she meant in his arms, but he remained silent and full, his eyes on hers.

  * * *

  He cooked well. He wore a pair of jeans and a hooded sweatshirt that said Army on its front, and she wore a large white shirt of his, its length at midthigh. She drank an enormous glass of orange juice. She could not begin to describe how good the juice tasted. She passed it over to him and he sipped it on the run, his attention on the stove. The bacon smelled remarkable. At some point he had turned on a swing station, something low and pretty, and now and then she caught a riff of familiar music. The music made it seem that a party took place down the hall, in another building, and their pleasure, she felt, was enhanced knowing they did not have to go there. Twice while he cooked he stopped and kissed her.

  “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I was awake past midnight?” she said.

  “What time is it, anyway?” he asked and slid a plate toward her. He put his own plate in front of his spot, but he waited for the toaster to ring. When it did he pulled out the slices—thick rye—and shook his hand at the heat. Then he sat down in front of his plate and smiled at her. He took her hand and held it.

  “Twelve twenty,” she answered. “The witching hour.”

  “I’m starving. I was too nervous to eat in front of you at the ball.”

  “You were nervous? About going to a ball with me?”

  He nodded. She squeezed his hand. He poked his chin a little to tell her to eat.

  “I liked you, Margaret. I wanted to impress you, I guess.”

  “You did.”

  “Please, eat while it’s warm. Don’t insult the chef.”

  She held his hand with her left hand and ate with her right. He had scrambled eggs, adding pepper and paprika, and they tasted delicious. She bit a piece of bacon in half. She had always been a sucker for bacon, but she rarely tasted bacon as good as the pig they raised on the farm. Someone had matched that bacon here in Washington, D.C., and she ate the remainder of the piece in greedy bites.

  “So,” she said, “I could protest and tell you that I am not this sort of girl, but I guess it’s too late for that. Do you think I’m a shameless hussy?”

  “Yes,” he said, “I definitely do.”

  He wiggled her hand and looked at her. Then he moved off his chair and kissed her on the neck. She felt her body respond—it amazed her how her body responded to him—and then he moved back to his chair.

  “I think you’re wonderful,” he said. “Your reputation is safe with me. It’s just one of those things.”

  “I haven’t had one of those things, but I believe you. I can’t even tell you what you did to me.”

  “It was amazing, wasn’t it? I’m not fishing for compliments. I’m just surprised at how natural it all felt. It’s never been quite like that for me.”

  “I mean everything,” she said. “You’ve been kind and thoughtful. You are thoughtful.”

  “It’s all a pose. I’m really very shallow. How’s your breakfast?”

  “You even cook well.”

  “Just breakfast. That’s my entire repertoire. Oh, and I’m not too bad on a grill. Do you like to cook?”

  “I do. It’s a little wasted on Ben and Gordon, but I do. I’m always trying something new. I like looki
ng at new recipes. I make soups. On the farm we have a lot of fresh food.”

  “It sounds like a good life.”

  “It is most of the time. I have my bad days, like anyone, but for the most part it suits me. I’m a dairy farmer and proud of it! Support your local dairy!”

  She smiled and he smiled back. He ate. She bit into a piece of rye bread and liked it. She wanted more juice. She stood and went to the fridge and when she passed by him he put one arm around her waist and drew her toward him. He pushed back the hair along her neck and kissed her there, just beneath the ear, and it sent a jolt through her body that made her flinch and move to one side. She nearly spilled the juice.

  “Should we talk about tomorrow?” he asked, returning to his food. “Today, actually.”

  “Please.”

  She poured juice into the glass they shared. Then she climbed into her seat again.

  “I’ll pick you up at eight. We need to be early for security checks and so on. It will probably take us an hour to clear security, then they have a buffet for you. You can have a second breakfast there.”

  He smiled. He reached over and took her hand again.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “some of the bill sponsors will be buzzing around. Congresswoman Gilden will be there. She’s one of the main sponsors and she carried it through the House. She’s from Illinois. The nice thing about the bill is that it cuts across party lines, so there won’t be the usual muttering from one side or another not liking it. Politically it’s very safe. Then President Obama will come in shortly before ten. He’s usually prompt, from what I’ve heard.”

  “Have you met him before?”

  “Once,” Charlie said. “He’s very relaxed, very low-key, but he has astonishing charisma. Maybe all presidents do, but he’s good at working a room. That was my impression, anyway.”

  “How long will the actual signing take?”

  “Not long. It’s ceremonial. He’ll want you behind him for photo ops. And a few press people will probably ask for your name, but that will all be handled by the PR folks. Then by ten thirty, eleven, you’re done. The president will leave and then people will wander off.”

  “Have you done a lot of these?”

  “No. One or two. This is the biggest bill yet.”

  “We can handle it.”

  “Then we should go somewhere fun. Do a little sightseeing. Unless you have other plans. We can go see the monuments if you like.”

  “I would love to see the monuments, but I don’t want to take up your whole weekend.”

  He looked at her. He wiggled her hand again.

  “You are my weekend,” he said. “I thought that was pretty obvious.”

  “I was hoping so.”

  “I’m crazy about you, Margaret. Too crazy, maybe.”

  “I feel the same way.”

  And she did. That was the remarkable thing. She knew it suddenly and also knew it to be true. It was that easy. She rose and slid into his arms and she kissed him. She felt as though she could kiss him every minute of the day and never grow tired of it. When she lifted her lips off his she whispered that she had to go, that she needed to get back to the hotel, that she needed to be where Gordon could reach her. Besides, she said, it felt like she should be alone on the night before the signing. He nodded. And it did not surprise her when he pulled on his coat and made movements to go as she dressed back in the ball gown. He was the kind of man who would see her home, who would make sure the babysitter got back safely, and who would never think of putting a woman in a cab and sending her off. She wondered as she followed him out the door if someday, some distant day, Gordon would be the gentleman she knew Charlie to be. She hoped so. She could think of nothing better than to meet the world with the kindness and consideration that Charlie demonstrated in the smallest action. It was enough, almost, to wish to write a letter to his mother. How you raised your son, she would say, did not go unnoticed. One day, she hoped, a woman might think that same kind thing about her.

  Chapter Nine

  It was very early when Margaret entered St. Patrick’s Church. The sun had not quite cleared the city buildings and the short walk from the hotel had felt quiet and lonely and peaceful. The clerk at the hotel had outlined the directions, sketching a primitive map on the back of a receipt pad. She wondered in passing what he had thought of this woman, awake in the first hours of the day, asking for a church. A sinner, probably, she concluded. That’s what he must have thought. But she had taken the map and found the church without error, her only companion a newspaper truck that stopped while the driver jammed copies of the day’s edition into news boxes. The truck had leapfrogged with her as she went down the three blocks from the hotel, the driver hopping out and nodding at her the last time their paths crossed. When the truck finally pulled away, grinding its gears and letting the noise climb the building walls, Margaret watched a scatter of pigeons fly up and then sheer down and circle around a discarded pretzel.

  But now the church opened before her, quiet and empty, the red votive candles guttering at the wind the door created as it swung shut behind her. Instantly she felt herself transported to Our Lady of Lourdes, the church of her childhood. The smells—candle wax and flame, polish and shoe dirt—might have been borrowed from the little church in Maine and brought without a molecule lost to this church in Washington, D.C. She wondered if the Vatican did not have a recipe for air, a mixture it promoted so that Catholics, however old, could not escape the compelling atmosphere of their first church.

  To the right of the center nave she saw someone move, a person kneeling and praying, so she went to the left, walking slowly in the comparative darkness, her steps loud on the floor. It was a magnificent church, far grander than she had anticipated. Someone coughed back and to the right, and she turned and spotted a man stretched out on one of the pews. Homeless, probably. She kept walking, her eyes up at the vaulted ceiling. The hotel clerk had told her the church had been erected for the European stonemasons who built the White House. Whatever the origin of the building, it felt calm and beautiful. She walked slowly, observing the details of the building, letting her mind adjust to the stillness.

  Twenty rows from the altar, she paused and took her bearings. She felt herself compelled to genuflect, to cross herself as she had been taught, but she resisted. Instead she slid into the pew and sat for a moment, concentrating on her breath moving in and out of her lungs. It felt good to be in the church, she admitted, but she could not say for certain what had brought her there. Was it guilt? Was it her hope to remember Thomas clearly and perfectly for one instant before the ceremony? She couldn’t say with any certainty. Her mind felt jumbled and confused and it wanted to rush toward a contemplation of Charlie, of the night they had spent together, of his kisses and his body and his gentleness, and yet she felt herself betraying Thomas by doing so. She was here, after all, for her husband. It pained her to think that she had been so ready to be with another man on this of all weekends. It demonstrated a lack of character, she felt, and she placed her face in her hands and leaned forward to kneel.

  “Forgive me,” she whispered, but whether she prayed to Thomas or to God, or simply to the universe, she couldn’t say. She could not even say for certain if she did feel guilt. A merciful God, she believed, would understand that she was not made of wood or stone. A knowing God would comprehend the scalding loneliness she had experienced these past six years.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered into her hands.

  Her breathing caught and she began to cry. She cried a long time, her face trapped in her hands, her knees braced on the edge of the kneeler. Twice she heard the homeless man cough a long, spastic series of explosions, and she kept her face in her hands.

  Was it wrong what she had done? she asked herself. Had she betrayed Thomas in any real sense, or was it only the vestige of old, worn-out thinking? Thom
as could not know and therefore could never be hurt by her actions, but she had sworn a vow to him and now she had forsaken it. Truthfully, she had never been tempted before, had never even seriously considered the possibility. Where would she have gone to indulge such feelings? To the Ramada Inn bar over in Bangor? Would she have parked herself on a bar stool and waited for a local man to make an overture? Followed him upstairs to a motel room? The thought was hideous. But had she simply jumped at the first viable occasion, letting herself yield to Charlie because she could console herself that distance and the specialness of the occasion had given her license? It made her sick to think so. No, she wouldn’t believe that.

  After a time she looked up and took a tissue out of her coat pocket. Oh, my goodness, she thought. It was almost comical, she understood, to end up in a Catholic church the morning after she had slept with a new man. How true to type she was, she realized. More light came into the church through the stained glass windows, and a single barb fell on a statue close to the altar. It took her a moment to recognize St. Sebastian, his body pierced by arrows. Like Thomas, she thought. Like my dear husband whom I love, and always will love, but who is now gone except for his flesh. Except for his spirit, which resides in my son’s body and mind, and I will be true to that, to that portion of Thomas, on pain of death, on pain of torture, on pain of my immortal soul.

  She sat a while longer, waiting to see if she had any new impulse, any new understanding of her behavior. She still felt mixed up inside. Charlie had not been a fling. She would not believe that. But what was he? And why had he been so interested in a woman with a child from Maine? Had she misjudged him? She didn’t think she had, but women often believed what they wanted to believe when it came to men. Women wanted a connection to exist, and she realized she needed to rationalize the night in her head. It could not have been simply about sex. She avoided that possibility. But in the course of a night she had ended up with a man, and what kind of woman did that?