Stepping

by Nancy Thayer

  A few days after the girls left, Charlie came home with a present for me, a new, handsome, expensive hardback book of essays by the famous intellectual woman. I thanked Charlie and tried to read the book, but couldn’t somehow get interested. I couldn’t remember why I had cared so much about seeing her in the first place. I put the book on the shelf and turned away from it. It did not interest me. I wanted only to be with Charlie, to be happy in his arms.

  * * *

  * Reader please note: the children were asked by their father if he could perform the tasks, but they invariably requested my services, and my services only.

  Three

  One brisk fall day in 1965, I was in a wonderful mood. It was October, and the girls had been gone for over a month, but I was still riding on the freedom I felt in those first few years whenever Charlie’s daughters left and my house, my life, my time, and my husband became entirely my own again. I had started my MA work that semester and been hired as a teaching assistant for two freshman composition and literature courses. I discovered that I loved teaching. It was not just that I now had my own money to buy gifts for Charlie, although that was certainly grand. It was more than that, more profound, it was as if a thick sturdy chunk of life had locked into place for me, as if a puzzle piece had filled a gap: now I knew who I was and what I wanted to do. I wanted to teach English to freshmen. And people were paying me to do it, and other people, younger people, were sitting in classrooms listening to me talk and acting as if they were learning things. It was marvelous. Life seemed to be all of a piece.

  I walked from the university to my home that day fairly skipping with a normal everyday glee. The trees seemed to shimmer past me like great gleaming flames. Children laughed from swing sets. The scent of applewood in fireplaces filled the air. That night Charlie and I were going to a jazz concert with friends. Everything was right. Earlier that day I had mailed Caroline and Cathy two enormous funny gay Halloween cards. In my happiness I was generous; I wanted Charlie’s girls to be happy, too.

  When I got home, Charlie waited until I had taken off my sweater and made myself some tea. We sat down in front of the fire together. Then he handed me some pieces of paper.

  “Today’s mail,” he said. His voice was grim.

  The first sheet was a Xeroxed copy of a letter from Adelaide Campbell to her lawyer, Jonathan Pease.

  Dear Jonathan,

  I am taking the time and trouble to set this all down in writing, although I still don’t understand why you want me to do it this way. I don’t think you are being a very good lawyer for me.

  As I said on the phone the other evening, I want you to sue my ex-husband, Charles Campbell (the bastard), for a raise in child support. I want it doubled.

  As you know, I am not receiving any alimony, in spite of the fact that I cooked and cleaned and washed and ironed for Charles Everett Campbell for almost ten years. But I’m not complaining about that. I have a job as a secretary now, and although this means I can’t be home when my little daughters need me, after school, or baking cookies, I am making enough money to take care of my own needs. I do not want any money for myself.

  But I do want more money for my children. I don’t think it’s fair that they should be deprived when their father and his new wife have two homes, one in the city and one in the country. They also have two horses. Two cars. And my daughters reported that my husband’s new wife has at least thirty expensive dresses and a complete set of leather luggage and diamond jewelry. Why should she have so much and my little girls have so little?

  It is true that Mr. Campbell sent the girls home this summer with new clothes. I suggest that if he had so much money to spend buying them new clothes, that money should be given to me. I am their mother, the girls live with me, and I have to wash the clothes and be sure that they’re warm and good enough. It is not fair for Mr. Campbell to impress the girls with new clothes and toys. Perhaps he thinks he will buy their love that way, but I assure you he will not.

  You said when I called the other night that it might be better if we settled out of court. I don’t want to do that. I want to take him to court and I want the child support doubled, and I want him to pay the court fees, and since I will have to fly back to Kansas I want him to pay the plane fare and my expenses. I want to go to court. I want the child support doubled. I have a reliable friend, Mrs. Anthony Leyden, and she will verify in writing that Mr. Campbell’s new wife has very expensive clothes. Why should she have expensive clothes when we’re living in a rented house? I tell you, I’m mad enough to spit nails, and if you won’t take this to court for me, I’ll get a lawyer who will.

  Please phone or write me immediately regarding this matter.

  Sincerely,

  Adelaide Campbell

  The next sheet of paper was a letter from Albert Dennison, Charlie’s lawyer. It was a formal legal letter, telling Charlie when he was expected to appear in court. At the bottom of the letter Albert had scribbled in pen, “Sorry, Jonathan and I both tried to get her to settle out of court, but she won’t. She’s mad. Call me if you want.”

  “Charlie!” I wailed when I finished the letter. “This is terrible! It’s unfair! Those are my clothes that my parents bought me last year. They’re old clothes! And it’s my car that my parents gave me for graduation from high school! I haven’t bought anything new except underpants and shoes since I married you. And one of the horses is mine. And the luggage is mine. And the diamond jewelry is mostly crappy rhinestone.”

  “I’ll tell them that in court,” Charlie said. Then, less grimly, “I don’t think it’s anything to worry about, Zelda. When we were divorced Adelaide got total possession of our house, which she sold at a good profit, and our best car, the new station wagon, and all the appliances, and all but a few pieces of furniture that had been in my family. And she got all our savings, dammit, except for five measly thousand dollars. She got the few stocks I had. I’m paying for a college trust fund for Caroline and Cathy and all their medical and dental bills, and a great chunk of my salary goes to them each month for child support. I really don’t see that they can squeeze any more out of me. I’m surprised at Adelaide; she had seemed quite happy with the financial arrangements. And no one can penalize me for what you’ve brought to our marriage. Jesus, I inherited the farm and have to pay taxes on it. We’re barely making it now. If they win more money, I’ll have to sell the farm.”

  At this somber thought we both stopped talking and stared at our hands. I fought back tears; I knew Charlie didn’t need any extra melodramatic misery at that moment in his life. But—sell the farm. He might as well have said, “We’ll just cut off part of our lives, cut off our legs as well, and one eye and a chunk of heart.” It was only one hundred scraggly Ozark acres with a ramshackle house. It wouldn’t bring much money at all if we sold it. But it meant everything to us, it was our own secret world within the world. To think of selling it, that little piece of land which had been Charlie’s parents’ and was now ours, made me want to lie on the floor and cry like a child and kick my feet and pound my fists. It made me sad, and it made me mad.

  It made me mad to think that this woman I had never met had the right to break into my life and to threaten to take away the things I loved. I felt helpless. And I knew that Charlie, in spite of his calm, felt helpless, too.

  He went to court on January 17, a cold Kansas Monday. He drove back to Wichita while I spent the day silently screaming in Kansas City. I went to class, but I couldn’t think, I didn’t care. I felt I had nothing to say to my students; I assigned them a pop in-class essay so they would have to write for fifty minutes and I wouldn’t have to struggle with words. I tried to work in the library, since final exams were just a week away. But nothing seemed important, nothing relevant. I felt as a farmer must feel when he stands outside in the perfect calm, looking up at a boiling green sky with the black twisting shape of a tornado coming closer, wondering how much destruction that tornado would wreak in his life, wondering how much of his
life and home it will shatter and smash and hurl away. The hours passed so slowly I couldn’t breathe through them. I felt I was strangling. Finally I started grading the in-class essays with a ruthless harshness I’d never felt before. I refused to let myself leave the library before all the essays were graded. That used up a good three hours. I expected Charlie back about seven. When I left the library it was six o’clock. I thought I had only one more hour to wait. I could not take deep breaths; my lungs had gone quite tight.

  I walked out of the library and down the sidewalk, essays and books and notebooks piled in my arms, staring at nothing. A car pulled up next to me.

  “Want a ride home?” It was Anthony Leyden, opening the passenger door of his car, leaning toward me, smiling his charming smile.

  We hadn’t seen the Leydens since the summer. Charlie had seen Anthony at work, of course, had gone out for beers with him and other professors now and then, but the four of us had stopped getting together. Once or twice June had called to invite us over, or Anthony had told Charlie we should come over for a drink, or pumpkin pie, or Christmas cheer, or whatever. But I had always pleasantly, politely, refused. I could see no reason to spend any time with a woman who so obviously disliked me, who had, as the lawyer’s later letters had shown, played a major part in Adelaide’s discontent. I hadn’t felt bitter; I had just not wanted to go. After the letter in October from the lawyer, with the copy of Adelaide’s letter, I had felt like biting and pulling hair. “I have a reliable friend, Mrs. Anthony Leyden, and she will verify in writing that Mr. Campbell’s new wife has very expensive clothes.” What other ridiculous tidbits had June Leyden been feeding Adelaide Campbell’s anger? During the days before the hearing Charlie talked to his lawyers and with Adelaide, and it seemed that June had fed Adelaide’s anger quite a lot.

  At first I had longed to call June on the phone or to confront her: “See my dress? Sure, it’s expensive, my parents bought it for me last year. Do you like my shoes? I bought them myself; I’m teaching now, I have my own money. I’m not a drab, dull drone like you, stuck at home in a greasy print housedress that’s five years outdated. Is that why you hate me so? Is that why you’re trying to take things from me?”

  But of course I didn’t call her. I yelled a lot at Charlie and at the walls when Charlie wasn’t home, but I decided that after all, it wasn’t worth it. If I called her it would only give her more food to feed Adelaide; I didn’t want to give those women anything of mine, not even my anger.

  But now here was Anthony, so charming and sure of his charm, offering me a ride. I lost control.

  “Do I want a ride home? With you? Today? You are perverse.” I turned and walked away, quickly.

  Anthony shut off his engine, jumped out of the car, and ran to catch up with me. He took me by the arm.

  “Why shouldn’t I offer you a ride today, Zelda Campbell?” He pulled me to him, smiled down in my face.

  I couldn’t understand it. He seemed to be flirting with me. I tried to back away, and his other arm shot out around me; I was locked in an absurd embrace.

  “I know what you’re afraid of, lovely little Zelda,” he said. “You’re afraid that since ol’ Charlie bear is away at that meeting, things might get a little too interesting for an unprotected little cupcake like you. You’re afraid that if I take you home now, I might try to eat you up. And you’re right, sugar bum, you’re right. Yum, yum, yum.”

  My head was spinning. There I stood on the university sidewalk with a professor who was also my husband’s best friend nibbling at my ears. Through all the confusion one word surfaced: “meeting.”

  “Meeting?” I asked, pulling away sharply. “You call a court hearing a meeting?”

  “Court hearing? What are you talking about, Zelda?” Immediately the monkey business stopped.

  “I’m talking about the trial Charlie had to go to in Wichita today. Adelaide’s suing him for more money. Partly thanks to your wife’s kindly letters of lies to Adelaide.”

  Anthony looked so totally taken aback that I couldn’t help but continue; a gleeful righteous anger spurred me on. “Dear June, your sweet, pure wife. Don’t you know she wrote Adelaide and told her that Charlie and I live in a fine house in the best part of town, with a pond and a statue? When it’s the tiniest house in the area, the yard is thirty feet square, and the statue is just a poor little brass frog! June wrote her all sorts of crap, my beautiful clothes, the silver in our dining room—Jesus, it’s all my grandparents’ silver—we have to go to court because my grandparents gave me a tea service! Your wife is a goddamned fink, Anthony Leyden. She tells Adelaide lies, she exaggerates what she sees, to keep Adelaide in a stew of envy and anger. I can’t stand the sight of her, and I can’t stand the sight of you, so back off and let me alone.”

  “Zelda,” Anthony said, “I didn’t know. I really didn’t know.”

  “We might lose the farm,” I said, and my voice began to quaver. “We might lose the farm, and I’d have to sell my horse. ‘Thoroughbred horses,’ June wrote Adelaide. Well, yes, they’re Thoroughbreds, and good ones, but one was mine before my marriage and Charlie’s wasn’t expensive. And Mr. Demes farms the bottom pasture and gives us hay from it for the horses in return for the rest of the hay free to himself. Oh, God, I don’t want to lose my horse—”

  I was beginning to cry. The January cold was starting to seep into my bones, and it had suddenly grown quite dark. I turned and ran down the street, away from Anthony. He didn’t come after me. I heard him get into his car and drive down the street, but I didn’t turn my head to see him go. I felt bad—Kansas Methodist guilt again—that I had blithered it all out to Anthony. He wasn’t, after all, responsible for his wife’s actions, and Charlie had probably not wanted to add any tension to his friendship with Anthony by squealing on Anthony’s wife. If Charlie hadn’t told him, I shouldn’t have, either.

  I went home sunk in misery. I made a fire and heated up a stew and put on a lounging robe and waited for Charlie. The television weatherman reported blowing snow on the Kansas turnpike. Hazardous driving conditions. I didn’t worry about Charlie; I knew he was a good driver. But I thought I would go mad as the hours went by and I still didn’t know the outcome of the hearing.

  At ten o’clock Charlie came in the door. His face was so drawn and gray I nearly burst into tears.

  “Charlie—” I went to him and kissed him on the cheek. It wasn’t a moment for sexual love at all.

  “It’s all right,” Charlie said. He managed a smile. “It’s fine. Nothing’s changed. The court ruled against her. They think she’s getting enough. I don’t have to give her anything more. God, I need a drink. It was a long day and the roads were tough. Icy.”

  “Oh, but Charlie,” I cried, clapping my hands, “that’s wonderful. We won’t lose the farm!”

  I hung up his coat; he fixed himself a drink. Then he sat down in his chair in front of the fire and leaned his head in his hands.

  “She looked so awful, Zelda,” he mumbled. “Jesus, she’s like a fury from an old Greek play. She looks hard and bitter and wrinkled and crazy. That pretty young girl I used to love.”

  Every time Charlie talked about Adelaide it was as if he were kicking me over and over again in the stomach. It hurt. It took my breath away. Sometimes I had to sneak to the toilet and vomit. But I never told him that; he never seemed to guess. Now I said nothing.

  “She always had a temper,” Charlie went on, “and it got fiercer and meaner each year, but I never saw her like this. I think she’d kill me if she could. She was so upset when the court ruled against her. She screamed at the judge and at her lawyer and at me. Then she said she wanted my visitation rights taken away, she doesn’t want the girls to see me ever again. She was raving. She had dyed her hair reddish, and she looked awful. I felt I was looking at someone I’d never seen before in my life.”

  Charlie was quiet for a while, and so was I. What could I possibly say?

  “She seems stuck,” Charlie went on finall
y, “stuck somehow in her life. She can’t move on. She’s nourishing herself on her hate and anger, and it’s a terrible, terrible food. Four years ago, I know exactly when it was, Caroline was overnight at a friend’s and Cathy was asleep in bed. I said, ‘Adelaide, we’ve got to talk. I can’t keep living like this. I don’t love you anymore, and you don’t love me. We’re wasting our lives.’

  “ ‘No, we aren’t,’ she said, ‘we’ve got these two beautiful children to love. That should be enough for anyone.’

  “ ‘It’s not enough for me,’ I told her.

  “She started raging. ‘I cook for you, I keep a spotless house, I iron your sheets, I make homemade bread. And cabbage rolls—do you know how long it takes to make cabbage rolls? I iron your shirts. I make a nice home for you, I cook you delicious food. I’ve given you two lovely little daughters. Oh, Charlie, let’s have another baby. I want another baby so much.’

  “That’s all she wanted, her house and her babies. She didn’t really want me, she’d never wanted me, but rather a provider, a model husband and father. That night she even told me to have all the affairs I wanted. But not to leave her. She liked her life. Her nice house, her nice children, her nice security. She didn’t care if we ever slept together again unless I would give her another baby. And we didn’t sleep together very much after that. I didn’t want to make her pregnant, I didn’t want to be even more tied down …”

  Charlie’s voice trailed off. He stopped talking. He took a big drink of his scotch. We sat in silence for a while. I was miserable.

  “And now,” he said, “I don’t think she can handle it. Being married meant so much to her, the superficial, public part. She didn’t care how our marriage was in private, as long as she was married. God, we had the shiniest kitchen floor in the city. Now, being divorced, she can’t handle it. It’s as if she were trying to build herself a house to hide in, a house made of anger and hate and despair, all that’s left of our relationship, instead of stepping right out into the new world. I wish I could help her. But I can’t. It’s awful for her, it must be awful for the girls. Dear Lord, I wish she would meet some nice man and get married and have some more babies. Then she could be happy again.”