Women Within

by Anne Leigh Parrish

  “I’d-a cracked his head open with a skillet, he ever tried a thing like that,” Elvie said.

  Carson looked for work but found nothing. Eunice suggested that he apply to the maintenance staff at Lindell, then regretted opening her mouth. If he got a job there and did badly, she’d look like a fool. Maybe she already looked like one. Her relationship with Carson was something she shared freely with the residents, most of whom didn’t answer, unlike Elvie, who always had something to contribute.

  “Put your foot in his backside. Take charge,” Elvie said, and slapped down a Queen of Hearts.

  Finally, Carson got hired on at the gun factory, not on the line, but as a custodian. He swept up after hours. He seemed to like it. He said it gave him time to think. Eunice hoped that with all that time thinking, things might improve.

  One morning Eunice went to work and learned that Elvie had died in her sleep the night before. Eunice felt both sad and ripped off. Elvie hadn’t seemed unwell when Eunice had seen her last. There had been no chance to thank her for her harsh but fair words. Eunice had come to feel that thanks were in order because Carson had suggested that one day they might actually consider tying the knot. He’d been so vague about it that it took Eunice a moment to realize she was receiving a proposal of marriage.

  Eunice took her grief over Elvie to her father, whose health hadn’t been too good of late. He suffered from a chronic cough and tired easily, yet wouldn’t go to the doctor. Eunice’s mother had discovered the joy of playing bingo and was usually out in the evenings, though Eunice knew for a fact, as did her own father, that bingo was offered locally only on Wednesdays at the community center. Eunice’s father said he didn’t mind his wife getting out and having a little fun. The question, Eunice thought and kept to herself, was with whom.

  He expressed his sadness over the loss of Elvie. Eunice then spoke of Carson and the recent turn of events.

  “You want to get married?” her father asked. The fabric on the arms of the chair he sat in was worn and black. Eunice thought that one of these days she might take it outside and set it on fire.

  “Maybe,” she said.

  “That sounds like no.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Either you want that ring, or you don’t.”

  Eunice realized that Carson hadn’t presented her with an engagement ring. She’d seen a nice one at a jewelers in the mall. It was small but elegant. She hadn’t mentioned it to Carson.

  “I don’t know what the big deal about marriage is, anyhow,” she said. She was on the couch opposite her father’s ruined chair, the same couch from her own childhood that creaked loudly when someone sat down.

  “Commitment,” her father said. He was sipping from a can of beer. Two empty cans lay crumpled at his feet. “Marriage is a promise, a vow.”

  “I know all that.” Eunice’s head hurt. The summer air was thick and humid. Thunder sounded dully in the distance.

  “No, you don’t. No one knows, until they’re in it up to their eyeballs.”

  Eunice didn’t have to ask her father what it had been like being married to her mother. Yet she remembered a sprinkling of happy moments or at least times when they were neither screaming nor avoiding one another in cold, stony silence. One winter night they had sat in front of the fire laughing. A summer afternoon had been spent working together in the garden. They both had taken her into town the Halloween she was in second grade because the houses where they lived weren’t close enough together to make a good haul trick-or-treating. Eunice didn’t believe in fairy tale romances and happily ever after, but she did expect that the good times would slightly outnumber the bad. Maybe that was more likely to happen if you didn’t get married and just lived together instead. She didn’t want to feel trapped by a wedding ceremony. It wouldn’t do either her or Carson any good. She told her father exactly this.

  When he stopped coughing, he said, “You’re just trying to talk yourself out of the whole idea, which means you’re not ready to jump in.”

  Eunice got him another beer, though he hadn’t asked for it, then offered to stay until her mother returned. He waved his hand dismissively in a way that meant there was no point in waiting, not because he wasn’t lonely, but because it might be quite late when her mother got back.

  The night was thrown with stars. Their beauty helped Eunice reflect. She and Carson were a good match. He wasn’t much, and neither was she. Time to face facts. She wasn’t important, and she never would be.

  If Grandma Grace were still alive, she’d probably say that sort of attitude was a bunch of baloney. She’d tell Eunice to get off her duff and figure out what she wanted from life, and then to go out and get it.

  Grandma Grace had done a number of things with her seventy-nine years on earth. Before she was married, she lived for a while in New York City and worked as a waitress. That had been back during the First World War. It would have been hard to be a woman on her own. She also learned how to type, and got a job working for a law office until the man who ran the place set his sights on her in a way that strongly suggested the altar was not in mind. She came back to Dunston with some savings and sold baked goods from her own kitchen, which living in the middle of downtown made easy. Grandma Grace was known for her bread and rolls.

  The business went under in the Depression, which she always said was just as well because she was a mother at that point, and working and taking care of a little girl was pretty hard. Eunice’s grandfather wasn’t drawn to the usual occupations, and fenced stolen goods. He got arrested from time to time, which always made a heavy load for Grandma Grace.

  “He helped around the house, which was rare for a man in those days,” she often told Eunice.

  Grandma Grace got friendly with certain cops. She never specified the terms of these friendships, but Eunice was pretty sure money changed hands so that her grandfather could go on selling hot cars and radios and stay out of jail. He accumulated a little cash, but not very much, because times were still pretty hard all around, so Grandma Grace went back to work when Eunice’s mother was old enough to go to school. She always felt bad about that.

  “Maybe that’s how come your mom turned out to be such a sourpuss, because I wasn’t around enough.”

  Grandma Grace learned how to keep books. She got a job in a dental office. The dentist had family money, and also did well in his practice. He taught Grace about investing in solid stocks. She bought Boeing and other industrial companies that ramped up during the Second World War. Her returns were phenomenal, though she kept that to herself. She didn’t want her husband knowing what she had. The stocks were all in her name. Even after he died, she lived modestly so she could keep her fortune, which came to Eunice decades later, and which Eunice lost.

  But there was no point in thinking about that. Eunice had made up her mind. Carson it would be.

  Music was playing inside the trailer. A woman laughed. Then Carson said, “Hey, be careful.” Eunice opened the door. The woman was someone she recognized from the trailer park. Eunice didn’t know very much about her except that she was divorced. She was older than Eunice by about ten years, which put her around Carson’s age. She was sitting in his lap, drinking from a bottle of beer. The trailer smelled of marijuana. Eunice didn’t know Carson smoked marijuana. He’d never mentioned it before. Carson stared at Eunice and stopped smiling.

  “Oops,” he said.

  The woman looked at Eunice. She got off Carson’s lap. She put the bottle of beer she’d been holding on the coffee table. She didn’t use a coaster. Eunice kept a small stack on the table and always encouraged Carson to use one.

  “It’s not what you think,” the woman said.

  “What do I think?” Eunice asked.

&nbs
p; “You remember Mandy, don’t you, honey?” Carson asked.

  “No.”

  “I should go,” Mandy said. Her T-shirt had a picture of a unicorn on it. The unicorn was silver, shiny, and grinning. Mandy was grinning too. Her eyes were red and squinty. Where was the pipe? Eunice wondered. Didn’t you smoke marijuana in a pipe?

  “Don’t rush off on my account,” Eunice said. Mandy hesitated. She coughed without covering her mouth.

  “Nah, hate to be a party pooper, but I got work in the morning,” she said. Mandy glanced at Carson as if she hoped he’d ask her to stay. He didn’t. She left.

  “I didn’t know she got a job,” Carson said.

  “Sounds like you two have gotten pretty chummy.”

  “We talk now and then.”

  “Especially when I’m not here. With her in your lap.”

  “Come on. She was just fooling around.”

  “That’s my point.”

  “I can’t talk to you when you get like this.”

  Eunice sat down in the stolen chair. She was glad she hadn’t found Mandy sitting in it. It was a nice chair.

  “Elvie died,” she said.

  “The cat?”

  “What cat?”

  “You know, that lady across the road. The one with the cat.”

  Was there no female neighbor Carson didn’t know?

  “The lady at Lindell. The one I was friends with.”

  “Oh. What she die of?”

  “Living too long.”

  Carson sighed. He went and got himself another bottle of beer. He returned to the couch.

  “You should get some sleep,” he told her.

  “You should move out.”

  “Why? Because I had someone over when you weren’t home? I had to. You don’t like my friends.”

  “So, you were just being considerate.”

  “Yeah.”

  Eunice leaned back in the chair. She closed her eyes. In homes all over America this same scene was being played. Whatever the circumstances, however the different actors got where they were, it always ended the same.

  “This is my house, and I’m not leaving it,” she said.

  “You’re really kicking me out?” His surprise sounded genuine. For a moment, Eunice felt herself caving in.

  “Look, if it’s about Mandy, don’t worry. She’s leaving soon,” Carson said. He was leaning forward now, trying to lessen the distance between them.

  “Where’s she going?”

  “Moving out, that’s all I know. She has family in Binghamton.”

  Binghamton was all of thirty-five miles away. Carson’s car got terrible gas mileage. He’d be asking for money, or to borrow her car, in no time.

  Eunice went to bed. Carson slept on the couch. He’d stayed up late. She’d heard him moving around well past midnight. She left for work in the morning without waking him. She didn’t go home right away when her shift was over. She swung by the cemetery to talk to Grandma Grace. Her advice was the same as it always was, and Eunice would take it, if she knew how. Before she left, she asked Grandma Grace to say hi to Elvie, if she happened to run into her.

  Carson and his things were gone when she returned. The stolen furniture remained, only because he hadn’t figured out a way to take it along, Eunice was certain. She sat a moment, then called a locksmith to come change the lock. She thought it best that he not decide to pay a visit at some highly inconvenient moment.

  Over the next several days, he was on her mind all the time, though he didn’t call or come by. She had no idea where he was living. She wanted to hunt him down and force an apology out of him but knew that was absurd.

  chapter thirteen

  George Nash was on the way out. He had no active disease. At ninety-six, he’d simply had enough. For the past two months, he’d not risen from bed. Everything was done for him right there. Eunice came in after the nurses had checked his vitals and helped him swallow his many daily pills. Meals were always soft—pudding, a boiled egg, soup. Eunice brought the spoon to his lips and was thrilled when he took the smallest bite. When his eyes opened and he took her in, they filled with joyous light.

  Sometimes they spoke a little. He asked what it was doing outside, what month it was, if the president was still a bum. One day he asked if she was married. She shook her head.

  “Don’t believe it,” he said. His voice was deep and quiet. Speaking was the one thing that seemed not to tire him.

  “Believe it.”

  “What’s wrong with the young men these days?”

  He’d been married fifty-four years. His wife had died over ten years before. Her picture sat on his dresser. She had a small oval face and a pert nose. Eunice liked to think she looked a little bit like her.

  Often they just sat, hand in hand, while the television played. Eunice loved the perfect smoothness of his skin. He still had a full head of hair, and she stroked it whenever she could.

  His family wanted him to spend his last days at home. Eunice didn’t want him to go. She knew she had no say in the matter.

  One afternoon, her supervisor, Karen, called her into her office. Alice, who had been promoted to manager of the entire home, was there, too. George’s son had visited just the day before. Eunice had been off then.

  “He told his father that they’re relocating him at the end of the month,” Karen said.

  “I’ll be sorry to see him go.”

  Karen and Alice both looked uneasy. Karen in particular. She tended to rub her nose when someone was late for work or a resident had fouled the sheets. She was rubbing it now.

  “Let me get to the point. His son, Marlin, says his dad doesn’t want to leave,” Alice said.

  “Really?”

  “It seems he’s formed a strong attachment to you.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “He told his son that he’s fallen in love with you.”

  Eunice shifted in her chair. She was deliriously happy, and knew better than to show it. She adopted a puzzled, concerned expression.

  “Now, sometimes residents take a special liking to someone. It’s not unusual,” Karen said.

  “But this is unusual, particularly because his mental state is uncompromised, as far as we can tell. Would you agree that he’s rational?” Alice asked.

  “Yes. Totally.”

  “So, at the very least, he believes he’s in love with you. Whether or not he actually is.”

  “How do you tell the difference?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Well, I mean, if you think you love someone, how could it ever be proved that you don’t?”

  Alice conceded the point.

  “You see, Eunice, the thing is, well the son wonders if something inappropriate may have taken place between you and his father,” she said.

  “As in … sleeping together?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Holy cow!”

  Eunice asked if it were even possible for a man George’s age. Karen assured her that it was. She hoped her sudden color would be taken as indignation or shock at such a suggestion, and not the truth, which was she’d thought about it, herself.

  Because she loved George, too. She knew it was crazy. Obviously there was something wrong with her. She couldn’t help it. Her heart always melted so easily.

  “Nothing happened,” she said.

  “We know. But the son is skeptical. He’ll get over that, I suspect, once his dad’s been moved,” Alice said.

  �
��You’re concerned about Lindell’s reputation,” Eunice said.

  “Naturally.”

  “Well, I’m concerned, too. And I resent that son of his, let me tell you.”

  “Of course.”

  “So, just try to bring George around to the idea of leaving. Can you do that?” Karen asked.

  “I’ll try.”

  Eunice didn’t try. She never brought the subject up. She hoped he might die before the son had his way, because that would fix everything, then felt terrible for thinking so.

  George didn’t die. If anything, he became more alert, as if gathering strength.

  “They’ll never keep us apart,” he told her, his grip on her hand so firm it was almost painful.

  “No, they won’t.”

  Eunice touched her lips to his.

  The day for George’s departure approached relentlessly. Eunice thought briefly of kidnapping him, or in her words, rescuing him. It would be the end of her career at Lindell, or worse, if there were criminal charges. Maybe she could talk to the son, lay it on the line, beg him to let her care for his father for as long as he had left in the world. But approaching him would get her in trouble. Aides weren’t supposed to reach out to family members. That was the job of the social workers. She could bring it up with one of the four on staff. In the end, her courage failed there, too.

  Marlin Nash asked to meet with her on her next day off. Karen thought it was a good idea.

  “When he hears how much you want to cooperate, he’ll feel better,” Karen said.

  Eunice didn’t care how Marlin felt.

  But she put on her best outfit, a navy blue pantsuit with a blue and white striped scarf. She wanted to appear serious, in charge, someone to be respected.

  He picked her up at Lindell. They went to lunch in College Town. Marlin looked around the wood-paneled, smoky room with distaste. He was in his mid-sixties, she guessed, and wore a three-piece suit, no doubt to intimidate her. He asked if she would care for a cocktail.

  “Martini, very dry,” she said. His mouth curled up on one side in an unmistakable smirk. He ordered one for each of them. Eunice had never tasted one before. She found it revolting, yet sipped it in a way she hoped would appear genteel and sophisticated.