Now Peter really got angry. Look, can we talk about something else, please? This is entirely my business. I will deal with it. I wrote down the license number of the car we damaged, and I will find out from the authorities whose car it is, and make proper payment. So you can stop wondering about my ethics. And no, if you want to know, Cooper didn’t know. But she wants me to use her car. Cars need to be driven.
—Not on ice, said Ruben. Who knows what she’ll do when she finds out? She’s crazy. Or evil.
—Would you kindly stop it? Peter said. You know nothing about her.
Ruben stood and left the room. Peter called, Am I scaring you away?
—I should have stayed over there drinking my coffee. I shouldn’t have come over to your part of the room.
But Peter had shifted moods again He couldn’t seem to bear himself sometimes; he had to make himself change. But I wouldn’t have said that in your hearing if I didn’t want you to hear it, he said charmingly. I need you to remind me of my responsibilities.
Ruben stood in the doorway with her cup. The coffee was cold by now, but she liked carrying it around. Well, I guess I knew I was visible, she said. We all knew I was there.
—You were visible, said Peter. And audible. You farted once.
—Squirrel! said Mary Grace.
—Peter, said Ruben, I’m your mother.
—Well, so you are. Maybe I need to have my mother know what Fm like.
—Did you really write down the license plate number? said Ruben.
—No, said Peter.
She sat down again. She said, I miss your mom so much.
Mary Grace bent her wide, pretty head and held it down for a long time. She said, Once my mom told me something about you I think I wasn’t supposed to know.
—What?
—That she’d broken something here, something you cared about—a cup, I think. And she lied to you. She couldn’t bear for you to know that she’d broken it.
—Didn’t I see her break it?
—I guess you were in the bathroom, or answering the phone, and she broke it. She just wrapped it in a newspaper and threw it out, hoping you wouldn’t miss it for a long time, and then you’d think somebody else did it. It makes me cry to think of my mom that way. I can’t believe she did that.
—It doesn’t seem like her. Ruben couldn’t remember such a cup. She wondered if it was true that she’d cared about it. She wished she could remember. So many years. It could have happened in any of three kitchens.
—Squirrel, I’m so bad, Mary Grace said, now turning from Ruben. It suddenly reminded her of Harry talking about Berry’s laundry, and she wanted to ask Peter if he’d been bringing it home and washing it, a woman’s underwear, handled tactfully by this young man who made so many mistakes. Mary Grace was not bad. She had run away from school. She was supposed to be in her dorm room writing a paper.
—Hey, Peter said. I ran away and never even went back. You’ll go back.
—But I won’t write that paper.
—So you’ll flunk a course or two, Peter said. It turns out it doesn’t mean your life is over if you fail a class in college. A closely kept secret. Peter looked older than he was. He had a beard. He always seemed to wear blue. He was tall and he liked clothes that had straight up and down lines, corduroys or twills or narrow pants. He looked angry and potentially destructive, sitting there, lounging against the sofa, sometimes tipping his head back as if to show off his straight black beard.
I need sweetness, said Mary Grace. Peter stood up and Ruben thought he was going to lean over and kiss Mary Grace, but instead he walked out of the room and into the kitchen, just beyond it. She turned and watched him coming back, and he was carrying the canister in which Ruben kept sugar. She started to rise with anger. She thought he was mocking the girl’s sadness.
But Peter set the canister in front of Mary Grace, and she opened it, reached her hand in, brought it out with some sugar in her palm, and began to eat. Ruben folded her arms and put her head down on the coffee table and cried. The young people ignored her, and Harry, from whom work noises had been coming for a while from the room beyond the staircase, also ignored her. When she finished crying she heard Mary Grace say matter-of-factly. This is how we live at Dad’s house, too, and Ruben was startled by Dad’s house and also wondered whether Mary Grace meant they sat around crying, or they ate sugar, or both.
When Ruben looked up, Mary Grace was still scooping sugar out of the canister and licking it off her palm.
—You’ve gotten saliva into my sugar, said Ruben affectionately.
—I’m sorry.
Ruben moved closer to Mary Grace and put her arm around Deborah’s baby. And your teeth, lovey, what about your teeth.’
Peter left to do Berry’s laundry, and Ruben took a nap on the couch. Mary Grace watched television and then she took a nap, too. They waited and waited for Peter and finally had supper. Ruben liked being with Mary Grace and none of the other children. Then Peter came home and took Mary Grace to Jeremiah’s. Ruben went back into the living room. When she’d napped, someone—Harry or Mary Grace—had put a blanket over her, and it seemed like a good idea to get under it again. Lying there, she heard Peter come in. He went into the kitchen and she could hear him opening a can. Soup prob-ably. After a while Ruben got herself up, wrapped the blanket around her, and went into the kitchen, where Peter was perched on a stool eating soup and crackers. She’s pretty fucked up, he said.
—Berry?
—No, Mary Grace. My new love.
—Is she your love?
—She is my love. I think I want to marry her.
—But you just got the idea. Aren’t you just being kind to her because of Deborah?
—No. And I didn’t just get the idea. You think I’m stupid because I left college.
—That’s not true.
—Or because I’m kinky.
—Are you kinky? she said.
—Sure, he said. I like old ladies. I want to fuck Cooper, even though I also want to be faithful to Mary Grace. And I like women’s underwear. I do Cooper’s laundry so I can look at it, handle it. Does that truly horrify you? Maybe you were a bad mother to raise me to be this way. He laughed in a childlike way that made her feel better. She went to bed.
Mary Grace did not go back to college in the next few days. On a night when Peter was out, Toby Ruben and Harry ate spaghetti and broccoli with garlic and hot pepper flakes at their old oak dining room table, which was older than the children and full of dents and gouges.
Harry said, When you said Deborah came into the store, did you mean her ghost?
—Is that possible? said Toby.
—I would assume not, Harry said. I thought you meant you imagined her.
—I wouldn’t have been surprised then, Toby Ruben said.
—That’s true.
They fed Granny the leftover broccoli. Ruben said, Does Granny like broccoli more than anything?
—Not more than running in the woods, said Harry, and Ruben remembered the two dogs running in the November woods, and how she’d thought they might be chasing a deer. Maybe they were pretending.
—What do you like best? Ruben said.
—Best of everything? Best in the world? Harry said. I have to think. I like fucking a lot.
—I like pretending Deborah’s alive, but then I cry.
—I don’t think you can ask yourself yet what you like best, Harry said.
—I like weather, Ruben said. It was true that being out in rough weather was still good, but now Deborah couldn’t be with her. She said, I hate it so much that Deborah died.
—I know.
—Do I say that every hour?
—Just about.
She said, Why should I be able to walk in the cold when she can’t? There we were together, and then one of us was gone. Why should it be Deborah and not me?
—I know, he said.
She said, But I love it when Peter laughs. I love it when Stevie feels he has to exp
lain something. Do you know that Stevie thinks nobody understands life except him, and it’s his responsibility to explain it?
—No, said Harry. He had pushed back his chair and was folding his napkin. I never noticed that.
—I can’t think of a good example. Yes, I can. When he comes home, the first night, he looks around at us and tells us what we’re up to. He says, I see you’re buying lots of red things, if I’ve bought red pot holders. That’s not a good example after all. . .
—Maybe what I like most, said Harry, is reading, at a certain point in the book, when you can’t stop and yet there’s more.
—Fucking followed by ice cream, Ruben said then, deciding that that was something she really did like a great deal, and it was feasible, so they left the dishes on the table and took each other a bit shyly in each other’s arms. They weren’t used to approaching it from precisely that direction. They went to bed and in the fervor of experiment tried this and that. For the first time since Deborah died, Ruben didn’t weep when the first good, loose feelings went through her. After they’d made love and lain in the bed for a while, Harry said, Now the ice cream.
There was mocha almond ice cream in the freezer and they were eating it in the living room, naked under their bathrobes, when they heard feet and voices on the porch. Granny, who’d been eyeing the ice cream bowls, ran to the door and barked as a key turned in the lock. Harry pulled his robe over his knees. In came Peter, Berry, and Mary Grace. Toby Ruben stood up and checked her robe and offered ice cream ail around. Sure, said Berry.
—One of my parents’ best traits, said Peter. Ice cream in the house all the time.
—We never had that, said Mary Grace. She was wearing an old black wool coat that Ruben was pretty sure was Peter’s.
—When we’re married, said Peter, there will always be Ben & Jerry’s, no matter how poor we are.
—To your health and that of your bride, Berry said hoarsely, with a huge yellow-toothed mocking smile.
—Mary Grace, said Ruben, are you on vacation? She was being parental and difficult on purpose. She knew Mary Grace was not on vacation.
—She’s taking an unscheduled break, Peter said.
—I’m playing hooky, Mary Grace said, with an unconvincing smile. Anxiety filled the living room, squeezing out sexual sweetness. Berry and Peter and Mary Grace sat in a row on the sofa.
Mary Grace said, I should call Daddy. He’s crying tonight.
But she didn’t stand up.
Berry said, Why is he crying?
—Because my mother died.
—Oh, yes, said Berry. I forgot. Berry’s dark eyes bulged slightly and her white hair stuck out all over her head. It was as short as a man’s. She had big features. She wore the same dark green smock she’d worn the only other time Ruben had seen her, when she came to their house the day after Deborah had been hurt. Ruben hadn’t seen her since then, and she felt angry at Berry before she remembered why: because Berry had said if her friend was dying, she’d have to find new friends. Berry sat with her elbows on her knees. She’d put her dish on the floor for Granny to lick without asking whether that was all right. She looked around mischievously at all of them. She was an old woman, but she sat like Peter, like a kid.
Berry had to have known it was unsettling to toast Peter and Mary Grace as a bride and groom. She was unsettling.
Then she said, Nothing fancy in this house. I can come in my work boots.
Berry did wear leather work boots that looked dusty. Mary Grace wore her snow boots.
—Berry, said Ruben, slightly mollified, do you still make sculptures?
—We all make sculptures, Berry said. You are making one right now.
Ruben had her ice cream bowl on her knee. Her leg was bent at the knee and the bowl was on top. Berry sketched in air a shape that consisted of a straight line and a broken line and a round object.
—Will you visit my class? Ruben said. I promised my stu-dents I’d invite you.
—What time is this class? When Berry heard that the class met in the morning, she said she’d visit it if Ruben would buy her breakfast beforehand. I like The Paragon, on Winthrop Street, she said.
—Sure, said Ruben. It’ll be fun.
—Since I take it you are not offering me an honorarium.
—No, said Ruben. Of course I should, but the college won’t give me any money for it. She wondered if she should pay Berry herself.
—Cooper’s rich, said Peter. He had said it before. She can do it as a good deed. Famous people should give a little.
—Are you famous, Cooper? Mary Grace asked her seriously.
—I am, said Berry. And they all laughed. She said, Five or ten years ago, I didn’t know whether or not I was famous. I thought I’d go and take a look at my outdoor pieces. There were seven, but two were destroyed, one accidentally. The five were widely separated. It took weeks. They were in parks, and the parks were alike. I’d leave my car and walk until I found the park, courthouse square, what have you. I liked catching sight of what I’d made. Once, it was a windy day. This was in upstate New York. I walked—finally I saw a patch of green, and there it was. It’s called Magnet. It’s a big curved stone and riveted to it is a shape like a bird. It has been described as cynical and witty, but I wasn’t amused when I made it, which was during the war. Of course it was covered with pigeon droppings—Berry grinned around at them all. She continued, Not much was going on in that neighborhood. I sat down on the ground and waited for something to happen. Now if this was television, a wise old black man and a smart little kid would come along, and say my piece had consoled them through heartbreak. But nothing happened except the thing sat there and I sat there.
Berry stopped talking and Harry said, But what made you know you are famous?
—You don’t think I am, do you?
—I have no evidence one way or another, said Harry. But I thought this story was going to be how you realized—
Berry said, People nowadays have predictable minds, which is worse than evil. People who think evil but unpredictable things are not as bad as people with predictable minds.
—Do you mean I have a predictable mind? said Harry. I happen to be extremely interested in this story, because I am the budget director of the parks department for this city. We’ve installed some sculpture ourselves, and considered doing more, and I’m always looking for insights.
—I don’t agree, said Mary Grace, to Ruben’s surprise. Look at Hitler. If he hadn’t been creative maybe he wouldn’t have figured out the gas chambers.
—Boredom is the worst, said Berry, giving her a big smile. You can’t help all this delicate moral deliberation, Hitler and the like, because your mother died. Get over it and go back to thinking clearly.
—I never thought clearly, said Mary Grace.
—Poor motherless child, Berry said. Then she smiled at Ruben. Are you naked beneath that soiled wrap? Ruben pulled it more tightly, said, Of course not, stood up.
But Harry said, She is, she is, and so am I!
—Carnal adventures! said Berry. I’m afraid we interrupted you.
—We were going to lick the ice cream off each other, Harry said.
Ruben was upset that Mary Grace was hearing these things, and hearing them about her, who should have done nothing all day but mourn Mary Grace’s mother. She left the room and climbed the stairs, her hand seeking comfort from the dark carvings on the banister, which often seemed like something she hadn’t earned and wouldn’t have expected to have. The dark curved woodwork belonged in a fancier, cleaner house. Mary Grace was laughing and blushing and looking in all directions when Ruben looked over the banister at her. Berry was giving Harry her big grin, full of yellow teeth.
Peter had one leg bent at the knee, the ankle crossed over the other knee, and he rocked forward and back, just a little, like a boy pretending he was old. Ruben could see that he, too, was a sculpture, and wondered whether Berry meant that these days she just looked at the shapes of things, the shapes
things happened to make. Climbing the stairs, Ruben worried for a minute about Peter, but sometimes the worry was terrifying and just now it was not. In the bedroom she took off her robe, put on a flannel nightgown, and went to sleep, her living room full of people, her arms around dead Deborah under the blanket.
For days and days, not much of Peter. He’d spent nights at Berry’s before, and when he passed through, sometimes he said he was staying there. Some days he stayed with Mary Grace.
—Jeremiah doesn’t mind?
—He doesn’t notice.
Sometimes Peter appeared in the kitchen, sitting on the step stool at the counter, eating cold cereal any time of day. Once, she heard the television in the night, but he was gone by morning. Harry said one morning, He dropped out of college and now he’s dragging her out of college, and Ruben felt Deborah’s dismay from where she was helplessly dead.
—He learns as much from Berry as he did in school.
—And is she learning from Berry?
—They’re always together. A threesome.
—I’m not so sure. I think he tantalizes each of them with the other, Harry said. I think Berry’s a witch. She’s teaching Mary Grace to worship the devil.
—Witches are like Druids, Ruben said. Not wicked.
—I don’t mean Berry’s a Druid, Harry said. I mean she’s a bad old woman.
Ruben was surprised, because she thought Harry liked Berry, and she had liked her more after the ice cream night, though she didn’t know why. One day she waylaid Peter in the kitchen. I want to see Berry’s sculpture, she said. She thought she might describe it to the students in advance of Berry’s visit, which was set for the last class of the term.
—I’ll take you, Peter said, but she had to ask twice more. Ruben realized that she expected the sculpture, somehow, to be comforting, despite Berry’s peculiar notions. Berry seemed to understand that feeling bad is sometimes necessary. Some of Ruben’s friends tried to help her feel better, but that was not allowed, was not possible, was not desirable. Whenever Ruben stopped and looked inside herself, she saw a woman flinging her arms wide and screaming, a sculpture of grief.
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