My mother was the no-nonsense worrier, a hard worker, the one who didn’t have time enough for me unless Lothian had time for me. Mother was also in charge of the Grayson finances, meaning the little bit of stipend we got from my father’s death benefit, and the littler bit that still trickled in from Grayson Enterprises, the investment firm my grandfather had started, which was mainly bookkeeping, not investments anymore, because who had money to invest? And the little bit Lothian earned, which, combined with my father’s death benefit and the Grayson Investments trickle, was our entire income, and that, as I was to hear a hundred times a week, wasn’t enough.
One time, many years ago, Earl phoned me in California to say he’d had revelations about Mother and men and our paternity. What a joke. As if, by then, I hadn’t known the truth for years. My daughter says I was curt with Earl on the phone, that I “ranted and raved for hours afterwards.”
Did I mention Elyse is full of shit?
But, again, I digress.
My mother wasn’t ugly like Stella. Mother had a beautiful secret-like smile—which is how it had been painted in her portrait. And her nose was straight, not hooked like Stella’s. Mother had Stella’s pale hair, but whereas Stella’s hung to her waist when she let it down from the knot at the nape of her neck, Mother had cut hers into one of those bobs fashionable in the 1930's. I guess you could say Mother was very pretty; she had good skin, pale like mine, but on her it looked nice, and she had amazing cheekbones. She had the most amazing table manners too, holding teacups just so, dabbing the corners of her pretty mouth ever so genteelly with our old monogrammed linens—which I thought was just Mother putting on a show for Lothian. Still, I was at a loss to explain the significance of constant cleaning, or of ironing pillowcases and underwear, all of which Mother also set great store by, but all of which Lothian couldn’t have cared less about. We couldn’t afford men to take care of the grounds anymore, and Earl being useless, it seemed stupid to me, all that worrying about the insides of things when the outside of Grayson House was falling down around us—not to mention nobody ever came around to see how we were living anyway. The wings of Grayson House had been closed off, but the old mahogany furniture on the three floors of the main house gleamed from frequent polishing, and the wood floors shone too, where they weren’t covered with the intricately patterned rugs Grandmother said had been in her family for eons. Grandmother loved putting my mother and aunts in their places, saying everything in Grayson House had once belonged to her mother. Everything, that is, but Lothian’s massive RCA and Mother’s portrait, which Mother had hung directly over Lothian’s RCA, if only to have something of hers topping something of Lothian’s was my best guess.
The night of my first disastrous day of school, in the biggest of our two parlors, I stretched out on one of Grandmother’s rugs while the women cleared the dishes, tracing a loop-de-loop design in the pattern, thankful that neither Earl nor Stella had told of my humiliation at school. “Off the floor, Francis,” Grandmother ordered, entering the room. The other women trailed after her, Lothian and Stella seating themselves at opposite ends of the largest mohair chesterfield, loath to sit close enough to even accidentally touch, and Mother went to the other chesterfield. Grandmother took her place in her chair, in a far corner, and then the women raised the lids of the boxes at their sides and took up their needlework.
“Gentlemen,” Grandmother said, as I knew she would, “do not lollygag on floors.”
Earl, sitting in a chair in his corner of the room, smirked.
“That's right,” Lothian chimed in. “Gentlemen do not lounge, Francis. They sit in chairs. Look at Earl.”
I didn’t want to look at Earl. I wanted to smack him. Instead I got up and sauntered over to Lothian’s RCA, knowing full well I was pushing my luck, purposely adopting an “I don’t care” stance, staring blankly at the RCA’s mesh-covered grill.
“Don’t wander, Francis,” Grandmother reproved.
I glanced over my shoulder and noted that the sharp planes of my mother's face had gone soft. “It’s a Waterston,” Mother murmured. I faced the RCA again, hot on the scent of this thing that had gotten Mother to notice me. But it wasn’t Lothian’s stupid RCA. I looked up.
Mother’s portrait.
“It’s a Waterston,” Mother repeated. I stared at this painting as if I’d never seen it before, like I suddenly, passionately cared. Waterston sounded familiar.
“What’s that mean, being a Waterston?”
“It means a man named Matthew Waterston painted my portrait. He was very famous. Still is, I should say. This whole area is filled with famous artists, Francis. Has been as far back as I can remember: Howard Pyle in Wilmington, N.C. Wyeth and his brood in Chadds Ford, and then Matt—”
“That’s enough, sister,” Grandmother interrupted. Grandmother never called my mother by her given name—Magdalene. It was always “sister,” and said like she had something sour in her mouth. Her knitting needles flashed in and out of the piece she worked on, fast, like thin silver daggers, and I wondered why she didn’t stab herself with those daggers, and then I hoped she would; and then I wondered why Grandmother had said that was enough and why she wanted to switch the subject. I opened my mouth to ask Mother who Matthew Waterston was exactly, and why in the world he’d have wanted to paint a picture of her.
Lothian cut me off. “He’s gone,” she said, not looking up from her needlework. “Matthew Waterston is gone because of your mother.”
Interesting—mere mention of Matthew Waterston made both Lothian and Grandmother edgy.
“Not true,” Mother said.
“Is true. And children are to be seen, not heard,” Lothian added.
I stared at Lothian rather pathetically, manipulating for more of Mother’s attention. Small and delicate like a doll, with skin nearly translucent, my younger aunt looked liked she might break. Her teeth were almost clear too, like old porcelain, but whiter, and I often wished she’d bite down hard on something and all those teeth would crack right off, sparing me. She had a job at the Western Union, which made her the only woman to go into East Chester on a regular basis, and I thought it intriguing, one of us having a life in town apart from Grayson House—it was a mystique only heightened by the arguments I overheard at night, invariably started by Lothian. All the women would end up getting involved though, and while I could never make out everything that was said, let alone understand what any of it meant, the argument went something like this: Lothian once had a young man who’d gotten away from her and it was all Grandmother's fault he’d gotten away. Lothian would shout next that it had actually been my mother’s fault the young man had gotten away. At which point my mother would point out that he existed only in Lothian’s head. He didn’t exist anymore! And then Stella would screech at the top of her lungs—what Stella always did when things got out of her control. And that’s when Grandmother, in her most imperious voice, would tell everyone to shut their traps. But Lothian, shooting for the last word, would yell it had actually been Stella’s fault that her young man had gotten away—and, in fact, everything was always, always Stella’s fault, starting with Matthew Waterston. And that was the real reason Stella had “more than a nodding acquaintance” with the loony bin! Because of what had happened to the Waterstons!
It worked. Mother intercepted my pathetic expression. “Never mind,” she said to Lothian. “He's my son. I'll tell him when to be quiet.”
Lothian smiled. To the untrained eye it probably looked like a sweet smile, but I knew better. My stomach started churning and I wanted desperately to hum. Mother got to her feet.
“Sister,” Grandmother warned.
“Why,” Mother asked her, “do you encourage Lothian to mock me?”
“You made your bed,” Grandmother said calmly, needles flashing.
“That's the problem,” Lothian said conversationally, getting to her feet and smoothing her sweater over her hips. “Magdalene made a bed. Several of them, I hear. Isn't that the problem,
Mama? Tell her, Mama.”
“Yes—I've told her.”
My stomach pains were unbearable, and for some stupid reason I looked to Earl, who was staring at his feet. I knew once we were upstairs he’d say I’d started the whole thing, but it wasn’t true. The most innocent question could start the women off.
“You couldn’t keep him,” Mother said to Lothian, sounding sad. “Really, no one could.”
Was him the one who’d gotten away? Were they starting in with that again?
Lothian lunged for Mother, but like a flash Stella inserted herself between her sisters and whirled like a top, stamping her huge feet and waving her long arms, twirling so hard and fast her pale hair came loose from its knot and its thin strands flayed the air, putting me in mind of what an escapee from the Portsmith asylum might actually look like.
“Stop it!” Stella shrieked. “Stop it!” This sounded like “Awpa! Awpa!”
Predictably, Mother dropped onto a chesterfield, and Stella and Lothian faced each other, panting. I glanced around the room. Earl still looked mesmerized by his feet, and Grandmother, impervious, clicked her needles together. I’d have bet neither had even looked up. Lothian gestured pointedly at the portrait that had started it all.
“Francis dear, the day has finally come, and, well … Waterston be damned. There’s just one thing you need to know, and that’s why we let your mother keep her damn painting hanging over our heads. It’s a reminder, dear.” Carefully, oh so slowly, Lothian bent and put her embroidery hoops back in her box. “You see, it helps keep the hate alive. And hate is all we have left.” Lothian straightened and smiled. “I’m going upstairs.”
I switched my attention back to Stella, who was trying to comfort Mother. But Mother didn’t want comforting. “Stella, give me a minute!” Mother said, extricating herself from Stella’s frantic clutches. Even though Mother tried being kind to Stella, Stella never knew when she overdid. Pain crossed Stella’s horrible features. I could tell she felt rejected, and I felt the old solar plexus punch of compassion.
“Stella!” I cried, running to her, grasping her arm and burying my face at her waist. “Stella! It's all right! Please don't cry, Stella!” Stella’s arms slid over my shoulders.
“You're a good boy, Francis! You're a good boy! I don’t want fighting, Francis! No fighting!”
“It’s all right, Stella,” I crooned, unable to move my head. “I love you, Stella. It’s all right.” Stella’s fingers dug into my arms, hurting me, but it didn’t matter. Next thing I knew, Mother had her hands on my shoulders, too.
“Yes, he's a good boy,” Mother agreed. “He's my good boy. Now Stella darling, calm down and let me have my good boy.”
“Well, you did it again,” I heard Grandmother say, and then I heard the clickety-clack of her needles dropping into her needlework box, heard her say, “Come, Earl, it's bedtime,” and Grandmother and Earl left me immobilized, unable to breathe, held solidly in place by prostrate women.
“Well, that was stupid,” Earl yawned. “When’re you going to learn?”
“You’re stupid,” I retorted. I took off my shoes and stockings, folded my stockings inside my shoes. Removing my pants and shirt, I took my nightshirt down from its peg on the wall and pulled it over my head. I wondered what it might be like to sit in parlors like other families, listening to Aidan Madsen on WDEL hosting “Folks at Home,” instead of watching women fight. I wondered why my insides had to churn so much all the time, and why I even tried pleasing the women when there was never any pleasing them. I wondered what it would be like to be grown up, to be able to do what I wanted, without women telling me to take my hands out of my pockets, or to sit up straight and stop humming.
I started humming, and Earl told me to shut up and go to sleep, and I wondered why he had to be such a thorn in my side, and why the women had so much hate, and why in the world they wanted to keep it alive. If I’d have had all that hate, I’d have wanted to kill it. And then it occurred to me, an idea, and I wondered if Matthew Waterston was the young man who’d gotten away from the women and made them so mad at one another. It seemed likely.
“Earl,” I said, slipping between sheets and grasping my cramping gut, “who’s Matthew Waterston really? Is he alive or dead? Mother said he’s still famous, so he’s alive, right?”
Earl yawned again. “Don’t you know anything, stupid?”
“I don’t know why this Matthew Waterston’s name got the women so riled up. In particular, I mean. Is he the reason why the women hate men? Was it his running away that broke their hearts in two?”
I heard Earl turn over. “Where’d you hear that one?” Then, “Ask Mr. Madsen,” he said.
And that was it, the genesis of two things: the first being the notion that broken women could be fixed. The second being my idolization of Aidan Madsen, not only the most respected man in two counties, but a man who apparently knew all about Matthew Waterston breaking women’s hearts. And if Aidan Madsen, who’d rescued me once, could see himself clear to helping me out one more time and tell me how and where Matthew Waterston had done his heartbreaking thing to the Grayson women, then all I had to do was work backward from where he left off and pick up those broken pieces and put them back on the women. Then, with the women patched together, I could hum to my heart’s content, knowing I’d saved a life.
Mine.
***
Hot breath on my eyelids. Lips grazing my cheek. I squeezed my eyelids tighter, hoping the tiny teeth would not bite down this time, or at least not too hard.
“Please,” I pleaded.
“Jamie,” she sighed like always. “Oh, Jamie.”
Why did she always call me Jamie?
The lips moved away, but her breathing remained ragged. I couldn’t open my eyes, not yet, because I knew it was coming. I prayed for it not to come and then I prayed for it to hurry and come, and then I promised myself that the next day I’d make myself get up and out with the dawn like Earl always did.
She wore gloves and smelled of lilacs, which meant she was ready for town. “Jamie,” she sobbed, agitation growing. “Why, Jamie?”
The first blow landed on my ear.
“Where it won’t show,” she hissed, mean now. Then another and another after that to the top of my head. I knew better than to cry out, for sooner or later crying made things worse. And then Lothian said to me what she always said when she was finished: “You know why.”
I always cried afterwards. I cried a great deal. Not because it hurt so much, although it did. But because Lothian was wrong. I didn’t have a clue. I didn’t know why she wanted to hurt me, or why she hated me—why anybody hated me. I was just a kid. A little kid. And there was no one to ask. Not my mother, she was too busy. And not Grandmother because she’d say I was looking to start a scene. And forget Earl. Earl lived for me getting shot down instead of him. And if Stella had ever found out what Lothian did to me, there’d be no end to the shrieking. Besides, if I’d told on Lothian, I’d still have gotten the devil, probably even more so. Ha, no probably about it. Worse, Grandmother would’ve sent Stella packing to that Portsmith asylum she was always threatening her with. And if Stella had ever really gotten herself locked up in the loony bin, then Mother would’ve wanted to beat Lothian to a pulp because she’d be so mad about Stella getting sent away. But then Mother would’ve had to win her match against Lothian in the very first round, and that was the next problem: Mother had never won anything against Lothian without Stella running interference for her.
I hated Stella for being so pivotal. But you can see why I couldn’t tell anyone about Lothian hitting and biting me and calling me Jamie. Possibly, the better reason for not telling is I just didn’t want to burden Stella. Yes, I did love Stella—just like I’d love all the women once they were fixed. Do you see? Despite the hurt done to me, I was a very thoughtful boy. A loving boy. A boy on whom everyone and everything depended. The women just didn’t give me enough credit.
AIDAN
Pe
nnsylvania 1933
It had been nearly five years since I’d last spoken with Magdalene Grayson. For that matter, since I’d even seen her. Five years, an eternity. Amazing, considering our proximity, because we lived a mere mile apart. But I’d worked hard at our “estrangement,” making short shrift of the communiqués between us, glancing over my shoulder whenever I was in town, keeping an eye out for her just in case.
I saw the boy first, his profile, and my heart thudded. Unbelievable—the spitting image of Jamie. I adjusted my spectacles and ducked inside the nearest shop to catch my breath. But then I felt compelled to take another look and one at Magdalene as well. After all, it wasn’t as if a hard reason existed for not exchanging civil greetings. Our relationship wasn’t one of open warfare. We did correspond, if infrequently, and this was a day I had dreamed of, a meeting I’d played out in my mind a hundred times, projecting everything right down to the most minute detail: what I’d say to Magdalene, her obvious pleasure at seeing me, the brief repartee we’d share, and then finally the regret in her eyes.
A regret lighted by a flash of belated recognition that I was the one she’d always wanted.
Only now, here was the boy. Here was Jamie’s twin.
Oh, it was foolish—but I’d always been foolish when it came to Magdalene Grayson. Which was why I dreaded those missives of hers and the responses required of me.
My eyes watered, making Magdalene and the boy only a smear, and my consciousness slipped through a new crack in its casing, moving tentatively back in time, until I saw myself with Matthew Waterston and Lear Grayson lounging under the old oak, ever-present gins well within reach. Matthew stood before an easel, paintbrush in hand, laughing at something Lear was reading aloud.
The Angry Woman Suite Page 6