Women Within

by Anne Leigh Parrish

  “You know, Eunice and the daughter seem to be buddies now.”

  “Really? Well, maybe Eunice can shed some light on this as well, if anything gets worse.”

  Sam didn’t know what could get worse. Saying your daughter wasn’t your daughter was pretty damn bad.

  “Families are tough. My grandparents—case in point. Couple of real jerks, if you’ll pardon the expression. Drove my mother nuts. Though, she was probably well on her way there, anyhow, on account of how I got into the world.”

  Sam could see that Angie wasn’t interested in all that.

  “Well, I’ll leave you to it then,” Sam said, and left.

  She thought about the times she wished she’d come from a big family, and the one she’d invented for Suki. Then she thought about all the people in the world who had a big crew and wished to hell they didn’t. Sylvia Plath knew all about that. Poor Sylvia, sticking her head in an oven.

  Against a silence wearing thin.

  The door now opens from within.

  Oh, hear the clash of people meeting —

  The laughter and the screams of greeting:

  The reception area was empty except for Janet at the main desk, reading a book, definitely not poetry, or even literature as far as Sam could tell. Probably another one of her stupid, steamy romances, the kind of thing you found in a drug store next to the cheap sunglasses. Well, to each his own. The automatic doors whooshed open to admit Laverne Welker and her granddaughter, coming back from another outing. The granddaughter was probably Sam’s age. She always looked fierce, if not downright pissed off. Laverne waved at Sam.

  “Great day out there, isn’t it?” Sam asked, her voice overly loud. She’d learned that it was better to blare a little than to have to repeat yourself.

  “Very nice, very nice,” Laverne said. Her tone was high and wobbly, but cheerful. The granddaughter glared at the carpet.

  “Well, have a good one,” Sam said. She went out the door they’d just come in so she could cut across the field and enter the nursing wing through a back door. Fresh air kept you going. Soon, when the weather turned nasty, she’d have to keep a coat with her if she wanted to duck outside.

  Her cell phone buzzed in her pocket. She wasn’t supposed to have it on her at work but leave it in her locker. To hell with that, she’d thought after Karen explained the rules. She just turned the volume off. The buzz was mild, not audible to anyone else except maybe Eunice, who didn’t care one way or the other.

  It was Flora. She was going away for the weekend with Chuck.

  “It’s Wednesday. Why are you telling me now?”

  “Because we’re leaving tonight.”

  “It’s not the weekend yet.”

  “Chuck’s weekend, I meant.”

  Chuck worked at Greene’s Nursery over in Dryden. Obviously, his days off were Thursday and Friday. Flora had probably mentioned this. Yes, Sam was sure now that she had.

  “Where you guys headed?” Sam asked.

  “Buffalo.”

  “What’s in Buffalo?”

  “His sister.”

  “Oh. She sick?”

  “No. But he thought it was time we met.”

  Sounds serious.

  No doubt her mom and Chuck would tie the knot and sell the house. Or keep it, and he’d move in. Either way, that place of her own couldn’t happen fast enough.

  “Well, have a blast. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she said.

  “Oh, you.”

  Her mother didn’t hang up. Sam had reached the door of the nursing wing. She was anxious to get inside now, and back to work. She’d been gone a good twenty minutes at that point.

  “Samantha, listen,” her mother said.

  “Yeah?”

  “You know what Friday is, right?”

  “Nope.

  “Well, honestly! You should. It’s the anniversary of your grandfather’s death.”

  “And?”

  “And I won’t be there to visit the grave. I want you to go for me.”

  “Are you nuts?”

  “Don’t be rude. You don’t even need to buy flowers, if you really don’t want to. Pick some from the yard and tie them up with some ribbon from the drawer in the kitchen.”

  “Forget it.”

  “Samantha!”

  “If it’s so important to you, why don’t you go yourself?”

  “I told you. I’m going to Buffalo with Chuck.”

  “Go a different day.”

  “We can’t.”

  “Too bad.”

  Flora sniffed. Sam gave up.

  “All right. I’ll go,” she said.

  “While you’re there, say hi to your grandmother, too.”

  They were buried side by side. Sam remembered the discussion of how expensive cemetery plots were. There’d been some yelling about it, though she couldn’t remember from whom. Maybe it was she herself who’d yelled, telling them all to shut the fuck up. Though of course that hadn’t happened. She’d gotten slapped down every time she opened her mouth.

  chapter twenty-two

  When the day came, Sam’s courage sagged. She didn’t want to go to the cemetery alone. She enlisted Lucy to come along. They’d take the kids, make a day of it. Lucy thought that was a lousy idea. It was fine for Sam to like the thought of watching the little monsters race and tumble all over the place, because at the end of the day she could go home to peace and quiet. For Lucy, not so much. She called her mother and told her to come over. Lucy’s mother was bad-tempered and strict. That, and hating to babysit, made her a great choice for keeping the kids in line.

  They took Sam’s car. She’d recently bought a used station wagon. She fantasized about throwing everything she owned in the back and just taking off, as she had before. She had no plan to, now that she was working. But knowing she could, if she really wanted to, was comforting.

  Sam hadn’t been to the cemetery for years, and had no idea where the graves were located. She expected to find someone on duty, manning the little house at the entrance, but it was empty.

  “Now what?” Lucy asked. Her voice was light, full of energy. She was so happy at the change in her routine that she’d traded her brown turtleneck for a sleeveless pink one with small white buttons down the front. Sam was in her work clothes: red stretch pants and a red and white smock. She’d had time to put on something nicer but decided not to. She saw no point in making any attempt to honor or show respect to the people she’d agreed to visit.

  “They’re under a tree, I think,” Sam said.

  “Place is full of trees.”

  “A big one.”

  They looked all around and settled on the tallest tree they could see, an elm quite a ways off. Sam suggested they drive along the path that wound through the grounds, but Lucy wanted to walk. It was such a beautiful day, she said, and the exercise would do them both good.

  “I saw your mom leaving with her boyfriend,” Lucy said.

  “Yeah?”

  “I mean, I’ve seen him before, of course. He comes over a lot, doesn’t he?”

  “Lives there half the time.”

  “They seem happy.”

  “Suppose so.”

  “You don’t like him?”

  “Can’t really say. He’s all right.”

  “She’s been on her own a long time, I guess.”

  “True.”

  “What happened to your dad?”

  Sam slowed her pace.

  “He died.”


  “How old were you?”

  “Maybe around two.”

  “So, you never really knew him.”

  “She never really knew him.”

  They had left the cemetery road and were walking in newly cut grass, over one grave after another. Sam told her the whole story.

  “Jesus, your poor mother,” Lucy said.

  Other people had said the same thing over the years. While Sam understood that her mother was a victim, she’d always wanted something better for her. For them both really.

  “She didn’t name him. She could have named him,” Sam said.

  “I know, but his family had money, you said. They’d have gotten a good lawyer and trashed her on the stand.”

  Sam stopped and stared at Lucy.

  “You like Perry Mason reruns or something?” she asked.

  “My husband’s a cop, remember?”

  “Right.”

  They came to the tall tree they’d seen from afar. None of the graves below it belonged to Sam’s grandparents. The shade was pleasant. Sam and Lucy sat. Someone had recently placed a bouquet on one of the graves. Just as when she’d realized that no one was taking care of the ivy at Lindell, Sam was annoyed. Why underscore the fact that all things die?

  She picked up the bouquet and brought it to her nose. The carnations were spicy and the lilies almost sickeningly sweet. They were lovely, she had to admit. Maybe it was someone’s way of celebrating a person’s life, or life itself, even if the irony was blunt.

  “I was supposed to bring flowers,” Sam said.

  “Take those. But then, we still don’t know where the damn graves are, do we?”

  Sam returned the flowers to their original spot. She ran her hands over the grass. She picked up a fallen autumn leaf, bright red. It, too, signified death.

  Lucy lit a cigarette. She offered one to Sam. Sam declined. In the distance, a lawnmower started roughly, spluttered, fell silent, then began again. The sound dimmed as the mower moved farther and farther away from where they sat.

  “This is nice. Just sitting. No kids,” Lucy said.

  “They must keep you busy as hell.”

  “Damn straight.”

  The strain in her voice was clear. Yet, there must be good moments, too. Why else would you have them in the first place? Okay, accidents happen. Once, maybe twice, but four had to be intentional. At least Sam hoped so. A woman who didn’t control her womb was an idiot, she thought. Unless it was a case of what happened to her mother.

  Sam had often wondered why she hadn’t gotten an abortion, not that she was sorry she was alive, of course. Only, when she imagined being attacked, raped, impregnated, and then going through with having the baby, it all seemed so monstrous. But of course the grandparents would have made the idea impossible. They were so into the will of God, they would have preached acceptance, forbearance, humility. Sam was sometimes sorry they were dead, because she’d tell them a thing or two about life that they’d chosen to ignore. Like all about self-determination. And compassion.

  Lucy said something to her that she didn’t entirely register.

  “What?”

  “I said, Halloween’s coming and the kids are going nuts.”

  “They dress up?”

  “Of course!”

  Sam didn’t know why she’d asked that question, since they’d trooped across the road last year and banged on her door. They all seemed to have been made up as pirates. Flora had baked chocolate chip cookies. She didn’t usually bother with Halloween, but the addition of a young family nearby motivated her to be neighborly. Lucy didn’t know them all that well at that point and politely declined. Flora had been crushed. Sam explained that store-bought candy was better because it was wrapped. There had been cases of tampering, and parents were wary. Flora was blue, so Sam ate many of the cookies, herself.

  “You make ‘em yourself, the costumes?” Sam asked.

  “I do now. Glen’s sort of picky about that.”

  “Yeah?”

  “He says I’ve got nothing but time on my hands, I can at least make my own costumes. Besides, it’s cheaper.”

  Lucy’s expression darkened.

  “He must work a lot,” Sam said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t usually see his car in the driveway, so I figure he’s out working, overtime maybe.”

  Lucy said the truth was that her husband had a hard time being at home, what with the four kids and all, and a lot of the time he stayed over at his parents’ place.

  She stubbed out her cigarette against a bumpy tree root. She put the butt in her pants pocket. She looked at her watch. The lawnmower stopped. Sam suggested they get going. They were never going to find the graves unless they covered every square inch of the place.

  They ambled slowly, not talking. Sam didn’t feel guilty for not trying harder to find the graves. It was too bad in a way, though. She would have liked to spit on them. Flora had specifically asked her to lay her palm on each stone, first her father’s, then her mother’s, close her eyes, and think well of them, if only for a few seconds. That was as close to praying as Flora ever came. As a small girl, Sam got hauled off to church every Sunday until one time she pitched a fit so bad that after her grandfather finished beating her with his belt he relented and said she could stay home and read the Bible in her room. No Bible ever came her way, however, for which she was glad. She also took it as a sign that her grandparents had given up on her.

  That was when she’d discovered poetry. A single volume of Tennyson was on a shelf in the living room, under a vase that held a bouquet of plastic red tulips. The book had been necessary to keep the vase from toppling, which it did the moment Sam removed it. She threw away the broken pieces and the flowers, too, awaiting her brutal punishment, though none came. She decided that the universe was rewarding her curiosity, and though the poems were a bit dense and hard to make sense of, Sam had been transported far from the peeling paint and scratched wood floors of her small bedroom.

  From then on it was the library that kept her alive. She loved the space as much as what it contained: the smell of dust, the scratched wooden tables, the ceiling fan over the reception desk that spun silently, but not the women who took her card and checked out her books. They looked at her with curiosity, sometimes pity. She always wondered if they had heard the rumor about her mother and Henry Delacourt, though she also knew that her wretched grandparents had forbidden Flora ever to speak of it outside the family.

  “How did you and your husband meet?” Sam asked.

  “I got T-boned at a light, and he was the cop who showed up.”

  “Romantic.”

  “Not at all. I was pretty badly shaken up. The other driver was a jerk, so Glen put him in the back of the cruiser, and I had to call my mother to come get me. The car was totaled.”

  “Well, you got a new car and a husband out of it.”

  “Another used car, actually.”

  “Not a used husband?”

  Lucy didn’t see the humor. Sam let it go. Her parked car came into sight as they reached the top of a low hill.

  “Did you always want a large family?” Sam asked.

  “No.”

  “A surprise blessing, then.”

  Lucy snorted.

  “Only someone with no kids would say that. No offense,” she said.

  “None taken.”

  . . .

  Sam awoke to voices breaking the night. One was deep, sonorous yet harsh. The other was high, screeching, at times louder than her partner’s. Sam understood that
she was hearing Lucy and Glen across the street. The digital clock by her bed read 2:47.

  “Jesus Christ,” she said.

  Silence came abruptly. The noise didn’t resume. Sam stretched, and was glad her mother wasn’t home. She’d have been up and glued to the living room window otherwise. Flora was a terrible snoop, living vicariously, drawn to all sorts of drama, especially the kind that caused weeping and rage.

  The pounding on her front door woke Sam a second time. The sky was still dark. Sam didn’t bother looking at the clock. She sat up and burped.

  Fucking onions.

  Then she put her bare feet on the floor and wriggled into her ancient bathrobe, realizing how badly she needed a new one, and then recalled some of the nicer ones the folks at Lindell had.

  Thinking about bathrobes at a time like this.

  Her heavy lame gait took her down the stairs, through the living room, dining room, and kitchen, to the door where Lucy’s frantic face was clear through the glass.

  She let Lucy in and told her to take a seat at the kitchen table.

  “Let me guess, he belted you one,” Sam said.

  Lucy shook her head. Her hair was everywhere. She’d thrown a sweatshirt on over her nightgown. Her nosed dripped. Sam brought her a piece of paper towel.

  “He’s losing his mind. He says he’s going to shoot himself in the head,” Lucy said.

  “Wait, what?”

  “I took his gun and threw it outside.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. In the ditch along the road.”

  “Where are the kids?”

  “My mom’s. She took them after we got back from the cemetery. I just had a feeling he might be in one of those moods.”

  “He’s done this before?”

  Lucy nodded.

  Sam scratched her head. She was hungry, but her stomach still danced from the onions she’d spread on her meatloaf sandwich at dinner. She opened the front door and peered into the night. A street lamp cast a pool of yellow light to one side of Lucy’s house. If she’d tossed the gun in that part of the ditch, Glen would have to pass through the light to find it, assuming he knew where it was.