Stepping

by Nancy Thayer

  That night, after the children were in bed, we sat up late into the night again, but talking sensibly this time rather than arguing. That day an envelope had come in the mail for me from the little college where I was to teach; it contained a one-year teaching contract. There was a friendly accompanying letter from Jim Steele; he said he was eager to meet me and to have me join the department. Second-semester classes would not begin until the first of February, he wrote, but it would be good if I could come in before then, to learn about their system of teaching freshman comp, to get acquainted with the texts, and so on. I told Charlie that I wanted to go home after the first of the year, so that I would have time to get the children settled and into nursery schools, so that I would have time to get organized for my work.

  “Zelda,” Charlie said, “are you sure you want to do this? Are you sure you need to do it now?”

  “I’m sure,” I said. “I’m absolutely sure.”

  “We could go to Greece in January,” he said. “I have to lecture there. We could take the children and spend two weeks sitting in the sun on some warm island.”

  “I don’t want the sun and some warm island,” I smiled. “I want a classroom full of pimply-faced kids who aren’t sure of the difference between a semicolon and a colon.”

  “What will we do for sex?” Charlie asked.

  “I don’t know what you’ll do,” I said. “But I know what I’ll do. I’ll sublimate. I don’t want sex with anyone but you. And I’m craving work so much that it will be a real substitute for me until we’re together again. I feel very strongly about this. It will be hard working full-time and taking care of the children without you. I’ll be too tired for sex. I’ve discovered I don’t even want sex with anyone but you. And, Charlie, I promise you, I won’t see Stephen. I don’t want to see him. And in spite of all that’s happened, I think he is a good and honorable man. I know he won’t try to see me anymore. He’s my friend now. But what about you? What will you do for sex?”

  “I don’t know, Zelda,” Charlie said. “I really don’t know. I feel very committed to you, even now. Especially now. Perhaps I’ll see if the Fulbright people will let me finish early. I could be home in April. And I can always go back to the States once or twice to lecture somewhere. I could stop by in February or March for a quick screw.” We both laughed, and then he went on, his voice more serious, “What I don’t know how I’ll handle is missing the children. It will be awful not having Adam and Lucy around. It makes me want to weep to think about it.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I asked, amazed, astonished, overjoyed. “You’ll miss those noisy, messy, troublesome little kids?”

  “God, yes, of course I will,” he said. “They give me the happiest moments of my day.”

  “Oh, Charlie, oh, Charlie,” I cried. “Thank you!”

  “Thank you?” he echoed. “For loving my own children? Zelda.” He looked at me.

  I looked at him, really looked at him, this man I had seen almost daily for thirteen years, and I saw him. He loved my noisy children; he loved me. He was doing the best he could, he was letting me go free while still admitting that we were dedicated to each other.

  “God,” I said, “I love you so much. You’re so good!” I went into his arms and began to cry. “I don’t want to be away from you,” I said. “I don’t want the children to be away from you, and they’ll miss you terribly. But, Charlie, I feel this is my one big chance, to teach at a college near a place where you teach, to have it all, my career, my children, and you. I want it so much.”

  “Then don’t cry,” Charlie said. “It looks like you’ve got it.”

  We made love that night for the first time in a long time, and it was rich and warm and affectionate, and touched with a bit of new strange exhilaration, as if we were making love with someone slightly new. After that we mentioned Stephen less and less and discussed our future more and more. And Christmas came, and Lucy had the chicken pox, and I felt better deep inside; I realized that life would never be perfect, there would always be trouble and trials, and that, in my superstitious point of view, was right. Perfection is cold and clear and unmoving. Life is warm and muddled and complicated. And good.

  * * *

  It is January 4, 1978, and these things have happened:

  Lucy has completely recovered from her chicken pox. A few scabs spot her body here and there, but she doesn’t mind them, nor do I. We all laugh at the patch of blond hair that has turned green from the medicine I had to dab on a pox in her scalp. She will look a bit odd, but she will be able to make the trip home. And Adam is healthy; we all are.

  Cathy, who is now twenty, has dropped out of university in the middle of a semester and run off to California with a handsome boy who plays the guitar.

  Caroline has been accepted by the biology department at the graduate school where Charlie teaches. She said she is sick of New Haven and feels she needs to get back into contact with the “real” world. She wants to know if she can come live with us on the farm in January.

  Adelaide has remarried. Her new husband is vice president of a bank and apparently has lots of money, but Adelaide has decided to keep working; she is proud of her position at the university now, and feels that she is rather indispensable, and intends to work there until retirement. She and her new husband, whose name is Bob, have bought a smart town house, and alternate cooking gourmet meals there in the evenings when they come home from work. They were married over the Christmas vacation, and honeymooned in Bermuda. Adelaide is happy, and calm.

  We know these things have happened because in the past few days we have been bombarded with letters and telegrams and telephone calls. We know that Adelaide is calm because of the way in which she handled Cathy’s disappearance with the guitar player.

  “She’s ruining her life,” Adelaide said to Charlie on the phone during a transatlantic phone call. The call had been placed at eleven o’clock Massachusetts time; Adelaide had waited up that late so that we would not be awakened before six Finnish time. There was only a slight hint of hysteria in her voice. “Do you suppose there is anything you could do about it?” she asked Charlie. “She always did want to please you.”

  “Perhaps this is the right thing for her to do,” Charlie said.

  “Oh, Charlie, you always were so exasperating,” Adelaide wailed. “You’re a college professor. How can you believe that dropping out of college is the right thing for your daughter to do! I wish to God I had had a college education; then my life wouldn’t have been such a nasty grind when you left me.”

  “Maybe she’ll finish college later,” Charlie said. “I can’t say I’m pleased that she’s dropped out after the tuition’s been paid, but Cathy’s not a dumb girl, and this must have been what she needed to do.”

  “Oh, Charlie,” Adelaide sighed.

  “Well, I’ll write to her. I’ll call her and find out what’s going on. Do you have her address or phone number?”

  “No,” Adelaide said. “All I know is California.”

  “California is a pretty big place,” Charlie said. “Why don’t you just relax? And when she gets in touch with you again, ask her to get in touch with me.”

  “She’s only twenty,” Adelaide said. “My baby. But I suppose you’re right. There isn’t much we can do until she lets us know where she is.”

  “Caroline wrote us that you’re married now, Adelaide,” Charlie said. “Congratulations. I hope you’re happy.”

  “I am. I am happy, Charlie. Very happy. Although this Cathy business does get me down. I was hoping that I’d never have to talk to you about anything again, but this worries me, not knowing where she is or what she’s doing.”

  “I’ll do what I can to help,” Charlie said. “I promise. As soon as she gets in touch with you—or Caroline or me—I’ll try to find out what’s going on. In the meantime, relax. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Adelaide said. Then she said, “Charlie? Thank you.”

  “Thank you,” Charlie said.

&n
bsp; The children were still sleeping when Adelaide’s phone call came, and I sat in my nightgown and robe, drinking hot tea, fighting down irrational jealousy and trying to be glad that at least Adelaide and Charlie could talk pleasantly to each other.

  “As the world turns,” I said to Charlie.

  “When you get home,” Charlie said, “perhaps you can talk to Caroline and find out more about what Cathy’s up to. There might be some friends who would know where she’s gone, or what her plans are.”

  “I’ll try,” I said. “I’ll write you if I find out anything.”

  “And you’ll have to decide about Caroline,” Charlie said. “If you want her to come live with you.”

  “That’s easy,” I said. “Of course I want her to come. I like Caroline. It will be fun having her there with me, great just to have another adult in the house. I’m going to have a lot of long, lonely nights.”

  “You can sit up grading your precious freshman comp essays,” Charlie said. “That should keep you happy.”

  I smiled. “I think you’re absolutely right. Charlie, I can’t wait to be home, to teach again.”

  * * *

  And now, on this cold January morning, I am doing the final necessary things so that I can go back home. I will let the children sleep a few more minutes. Last night I laid out all their clothes and packed their little backpacks full of books and toys and raisins and gum so that our long flight home will be tolerable. I scarcely slept all night, and have been up and dressed for almost an hour. While Charlie shaves in the bathroom, I pace one more time these small gray rooms, checking to see that I have not forgotten anything. I pause in each room to stare out the window at the gray Helsinki sky, at the stern modern apartment buildings and the autoroute, at the shivering birch and spruce and pine trees. In a while Gunnel, my friend, will come to drive us all to the airport, and all this will be behind me. I am not sorry to be leaving, but really I am not sorry that I was here.

  I see that I have forgotten something. My Finnish fortune. It is a small, twisted, silvery piece of lead which created itself for me at a Finnish New Year’s Eve party just a few nights ago. It is a custom in Finland to tell one’s fortunes on New Year’s Eve by melting a small block of lead in a special long-handled pan over a fireplace fire, then quickly throwing the melted lead into a pail of cold water. The melted lead immediately congeals into a solid shape, and the shape is symbolic of one’s fortune for the next year. The final product is actually extremely pretty, like a small sculpture, glistening and silver, feathery and delicate and charming. Our hosts at the Finnish New Year’s Eve party helped Charlie and me cast and read our fortunes, and we took turns with all the other guests holding up the sculptures and guessing what they meant. Some were easier than others: several fortunes looked like sailboats, which delighted the Finns, who love to sail. One was full of dark spots, which indicate money, and of course that made that person happy. Charlie’s, if we all used our imagination, resembled an airplane, which was fitting, for he had more lecture trips lined up for the coming year than ever before.

  My lead fortune, everyone agreed, looked like a series of steps. Twisted, knobbed, convoluted, ornate steps.

  “It’s not to predict your future,” one Finn said to me. “It’s to help you remember your past here—all those steps you had to climb to get to your apartment!”

  We had all laughed. Earlier that New Year’s Eve, when the clock had struck midnight and we watched out the window as the sky filled with bright fireworks, I had cried. I had cried out of happiness and exhaustion and fear and hope. Charlie had put his arms around me and held me tightly, and I had cried all the more, knowing how I would miss the comfort of his arms in the months to come.

  And now here I stand, rubbing my twisted piece of Finnish lead, staring at the sky, crying again. I am sad to be leaving Helsinki and the friends I’ve made here; I am very sad to be leaving Charlie, even for this little while. But I am going to go; it is what I want to do, it is what I have chosen to do. I have made a decision; I am going to carry it out. Still, I think I never will get over how relationships and people and meanings change.

  Last fall, in early September, just two days before we came to Finland, Caroline came up to the farm to see us and say goodbye. It was a Saturday, sunny and mild. She had Brad, her newest boyfriend, with her, and she was happy. She had graduated from college that spring and was now working for the government on a short-term federal project, studying gypsy moths, trying to find a way to keep them from destroying the trees and shrubs around New Haven. She had cut her hair to just below the ears, and given it a side part, and she looked much more mature, and less ordinary, than she had when she had had her hair long and straight and parted in the middle. She had been wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, and she had walked about the house and farm easily, relaxed, relaxed with the wonderful ease that comes from having a weekend off from a likable job and an enjoyable man to spend the weekend with.

  I was frantically packing. The dining room was layered with open half-full suitcases, jars of peanut butter and popcorn, and cartons of granola bars and Jell-O. I kept putting dresses and sweaters in and taking them out again, not sure what to take, not wanting to take too much or too little. I felt pressured and grouchy; I had been sad that I was losing the chance to teach again. People kept dropping by the farm spontaneously: the mathematician who was renting it for the year, wanting to go over the water system and fireplaces with Charlie; friends bringing goodbye gifts; adoring graduate students of Charlie’s. The children ran around outside in unmatched too small clothes; everything decent was packed. The beds were unmade, the dishes were undone, the washer and dryer were running, people were coming in and going out, piles of necessities accumulated around the suitcases, and I could tell I was forgetting something. There was no way in the world I could manage to take everything we would need in a strange country for nine months.

  Toward late afternoon Charlie went down to the cellar and came up with a few bottles of champagne. People kept coming and drinking a glass or two, but there was still enough for me to get slightly tipsy on, and that helped. Someone decided I shouldn’t have to cook dinner that night (I wasn’t planning to, anyway), and Caroline and her boyfriend volunteered to drive the long drive into town to get it. Adam asked to go along because he wanted to ride in Brad’s car, which was a great old wine-colored Jeep with a raccoon tail hanging from the antenna, and Lucy wanted to go because Adam wanted to go, and Charlie decided to go, too, so that he could drop some last-minute mail at the post office. I chose to stay home and take a long hot bath.

  Suddenly everyone was gone. The place was silent. Our dog fell asleep on the kitchen rug. The sun began to set. The champagne bottles were empty. I stripped off my jeans and sank into a luxurious bubble bath, soaking in the heat, the pleasure, the silence. Then I dressed again and went back downstairs. I couldn’t stand to stay in the house—there was too much demanding chaos in every room—so I went outside to walk around.

  The silence of a farm, of the countryside, without people, is a profound and mysterious thing. I can understand the people who become hermits and mystics, for being alone in the countryside exposes one to the powerful sense of life that shimmers in inhuman things. I walked about the farm, my farm, my home, looking at the orange and brown mums I had planted, at the last roses, at the apple trees now laden with fruit, the berry bushes now beginning to show spots of rust and scarlet and flame. Birds chittered in the trees, the trees themselves breathed almost audibly. There was a tension in the air, between the excitement of fall approaching and the restfulness of the more quickly approaching night.

  I walked up our dirt drive to the barnyard, where the horses stood. Dear Liza, dear Gabe. They were now nineteen and seventeen years old. They were standing together at one end of the barnyard, eyes half closed, doing nothing with that marvelous sense of significance that animals have. I went inside the barnyard and walked over to Liza and leaned up against her. It had been days since I had had the
time to ride her. I hoped she would make it through the cold New England winter. I wished there were a way to make her understand that I was going to be gone, but that I was going to come back. I stroked her neck. She was still in good shape, although the hairs around her mouth and in her mane had grown humorously gray.

  “I love you, Liza,” I said.

  She knocked her nose into my shoulder in reply. Gabe began to sniff around my hands and pockets, and sensing no sugar or carrots, stamped and snorted and walked away.

  I stood there leaning on Liza as the light failed in the sky. I felt a marvelous sense of loneliness; no, not of loneliness, but of aloneness, of individuality. The horse I was leaning on was truly a friend, a creature on this earth that knew me and loved me and responded to me and trusted me, a creature I knew and loved and responded to and trusted. I had known her longer than I had known Charlie or Charlie’s children or my own. It seemed amazing. I calculated years in my head, and no, given even the most optimistic measures, I knew it would not be possible for her to still be around to comfort me when my children had grown and left home. She, Liza, would leave us first.

  “I love you, Liza,” I said again, and wrapped my arms around her neck.

  Liza tolerated my affection for a moment, and then, bored with it, bent her neck away from my grasp and began to nibble at the stubbles of barnyard grass.