by Mary Gordon
Anne stood in the doorway horrified, as if she were watching someone commit a private sexual act. She felt she had no right to be there, in her bedroom, watching someone unpack her bag. She wanted to go away, to say nothing, to pretend she hadn’t seen it. Then, slowly, outrage rose. Laura was going through her things. She shouldn’t have been doing that. It was one of those thresholds of civilization everyone agreed about.
“What are you doing, Laura?” she asked.
Laura raised her eyes from her task and smiled at Anne as if she’d said something foolish. “I’m unpacking your bag,” she said.
“I’d rather you didn’t do that.”
“I knew you were tired and I was going to do a wash while you were reading to the kids.”
“I’d rather you didn’t go through my things.”
“But I always do the laundry. It’s one of the things I always do.”
“I know that and I’m grateful. But I’d rather you didn’t go into my bags or my drawers.”
Laura walked out of the room. Anne closed the door for a moment, unbalanced by a sense of defeat. Shocked by the depths of her own anger, she had once again been too mild. But what should she have done? She couldn’t fire someone for doing what was helpful. What Laura did didn’t hurt anyone. It only gave offense. She had asked that it not be repeated. That ought to be it. But she felt she had made a mistake. Dealing directly with Laura had made Laura more daring. It had begun with her expressing her annoyance at Laura’s having forgotten to give her messages. As if it were the signal she had all the time been waiting for, Laura had, since then, assumed more and more. She had, as well, lost her shyness with Anne. Anne felt in her behavior the night that Ed had come, as well as tonight, a new note of defiance. She carried with her to the children’s room a sense of violation that made her unable to concentrate on the book she read.
“I’ve wanted to ask you about Laura,” she said to the children. She was conscious of wishing to punish. But she had to know what they felt. If they were unhappy, she would have to fire Laura. “Has she been acting different lately?”
“No,” said the children.
“Has she been acting nervous or unhappy.”
“What do you mean ‘unhappy’?” Sarah asked.
“You know, as if she’s not glad to be here.”
“No,” said both children.
“She cleans my room up a lot more,” Sarah said. “All the time. Sometimes she doesn’t put things back the right way.”
“I’ll say something about it to her,” Anne said.
“No, don’t, Mom,” Peter said. “It’ll make her feel bad.”
“All right,” said Anne. “But if she does anything that you don’t like, that makes you feel uncomfortable, you must tell me.”
She felt the children’s attention leave her. They were looking toward the door. She joined their glances. Laura was standing just outside the children’s room. She looked in at all of them, smiled, and walked down the corridor.
Anne and the children gave one another panicked, shamed looks.
“Do you think she heard us?” whispered Sarah.
“No,” Anne whispered back, unconvincingly. “And besides we weren’t saying anything bad.”
“Yes, we were,” said Peter. “Talking about people behind their backs is always bad.”
“Well,” said Anne, “she shouldn’t have been eavesdropping.”
“She wasn’t, Mother. The door was open,” Peter said.
She didn’t want to discuss with Peter the fine points that distinguished vrai from faux eavesdropping. He could too easily use it against her. And she wanted to leave the children. She felt desperate to apologize to Laura. But for what? She wanted, then, to assure Laura that she thought she was doing a good job, that she didn’t mistrust her. She knocked on Laura’s door.
“I was just going to run down to Friendly’s for some ice cream. What kind would you like?”
“I don’t care for any, thank you.”
“Okay,” said Anne. “But if you want some, please feel free to take some later. It’ll be in the freezer.”
“Thank you.”
Anne got into the car. Now she would have to buy ice cream that she didn’t want. How did she always manage to make herself appear in the wrong with Laura, even when she knew it was she who’d been offended? The girl had a kind of genius for offense, she thought. Or was it just that she herself was hypersensitive. She had read about women resenting other women who successfully took care of their children. Perhaps what had happened tonight was a result of meeting Mrs. Eastman; perhaps that had unsettled her. But that wasn’t it. Her response had not been odd. People weren’t allowed to go into your suitcase without asking; they weren’t allowed to lurk in doorways listening. Her car skidded on the icy road. If she got into an accident on this fool’s errand, it would be no more than what she deserved.
She was walking in her backyard, searching for green shoots. It was the first of March, any day the crocuses would be appearing. Last spring, seeing her crocuses, she had conceived a plan: she would plant a bank of them in a circle around the oak that stood on the small rise at the far end of the garden. But in the fall at the nursery, she’d stood before the trays of bulbs for over an hour, unable to decide on which she wanted. She loved the vivid yellows and dark purples, but then she loved the cream-colored blossoms, and the white with violet stripes, the pale yellow folding out of the gold stamen at the center like a flame. In the end, she bought four dozen bulbs all mixed. She hadn’t the courage for a unified field; she couldn’t live with leaving so much out.
There had been an early-morning rain. It made the lawn a patched affair of snow and mud and grass. The sun shed gray light weak as water. It was a healing weather; the sense of failure she had awakened with was beginning to fall away. She had awakened believing what she was trying to do for Caroline was impossible. She wasn’t good enough; Caroline deserved better. She botched everything in her life. She’d been wrong in her handling of the business of Michael, clumsy in her dealings with Laura. And her mind was not first-rate.
Ed was waiting for her in the kitchen.
“I was wondering if I could bring my wife by for lunch today. She was in a real good mood this morning. And she asked me to ask you. She hardly ever wants to do anything, so I thought I’d ask you, even though it’s awful short notice. If you can’t do it, believe me I’ll understand.”
“No, of course, it’s fine,” she said, feeling panicky. “I’ll just go down to the deli and get cold cuts and things.”
“That’d be great. It’d be easy for her to eat. You know, soup or things like that, they can be a problem for her. It upsets people, you know, the way she eats. Most of our friends can’t handle her. She upsets people, her looks, and sometimes she says things that are a little off the wall. Even her family doesn’t want to see her now. Bunch of drunks,” he said, in the first unkind tone Anne had ever heard him use. “They should be proud she did so well for herself. She even started college before she got sick.”
From her bedroom she watched Ed and Brian getting out of the car. Ed had never come in a car before. Always he arrived in his white van and pulled into the driveway. But the day must have seemed special to him. He parked in front of the house. When he got out she saw he was wearing a shirt and tie and a corduroy jacket. How handsome he looks, she thought proudly. He waved when he saw her at the window. She could see that he was glad to see her, that her face at the window gave him particular pleasure. Little Brian ran up the steps to her, dressed in flannel slacks and a blue blazer, and jumped into her arms when she opened the door.
Ed walked around the car to open the door for his wife. The sight of her was shocking. If Anne hadn’t known, she would have thought that Rose was a retarded girl of, perhaps, twenty. She had the bloated look brain-damaged people seem to have, the skin that always seems susceptible to rashes or to boils or small diseases that ought to be able to be kept back. Her legs were swollen and she was wearing
flat suede oxfords. Her coat was too small for her; it wouldn’t button, so she kept holding it closed, furtively, shamedly, looking around her to avoid uneven ground. Ed held her elbow. With every step he told her how well she was doing.
“You must be Anne,” she said when she was three steps from the top of the stairs. “I’m Rose, but you know that. But who else could I be looking like this?”
“You look fine,” Anne said. “I’m glad you’ve come.”
“Well, you can say I look fine, what else can you say? Of course you didn’t know me before. I was considered very attractive. When we first got married, people said they didn’t know how Ed Corcoran snagged such an attractive girl.”
“I still don’t know. It must have been my brains,” Ed said, laughing.
“No, Ed, I used to be smarter than you. It was sex appeal. My husband and I had a very passionate sexual relationship. I suppose you wonder if we still have intercourse in my condition. Everybody wonders that. I’m here to tell you that we do. That part of my brain still functions. I can still perform my wifely duties, don’t you worry.”
“Sit down, Rose. Let Anne take your coat,” said Ed. He didn’t seem embarrassed.
Anne was happy to go into the other room, where Brian followed her.
“Can I have a pop?” he said.
“We’re about to have lunch, sweetie. But you can have one for dessert.”
“Okay. Can I play in Peter’s room?”
“Peter’s in school. But you know how to be careful.”
“I know there’s stuff I’m not allowed to touch. So I never touch it,” he said self-righteously.
“That’s good,” Anne said. She kissed him on the forehead. He was such a nice child, such a good child. What a wonderful father Ed was to have kept him happy in the tragedy he had to live out.
“Don’t you be any trouble or you’ll get it from me,” Rose said to her son.
“He’s never any trouble,” Anne said. “He’s a lovely little boy.”
“That’s because we don’t let him get away with anything,” said Rose. “You can’t let them get away with anything nowadays. With the drugs and all. I think my husband lets him get away with too much. He can be very fresh.”
“I keep being amazed at how well behaved he is for his age. My children would never have been that good about not touching Ed’s tools and things,” said Anne.
“Well, there are a lot of spoiled kids around,” Rose said.
“Rose is very interested in art,” Ed said pleasantly.
“Perhaps you’d like to look at some of my books. Or borrow them,” Anne said.
“I have this Andrew Wyeth book I love. And Christina’s World, that’s my favorite painting. Ed told me he told you about my idea. To go down there on that hill where he did that painting. It’s still there, you know. I thought I could get into that pose, like Christina. Then Ed could take my picture. It would be appropriate, because I’m crippled, too. Ed doesn’t think it’s a good idea. Do you, Anne?”
“I think it would be lovely,” Anne said, trying to look steadily at Rose. She continued to wear her sunglasses in the house, so it was impossible to see her eyes.
“You see, Ed, she thinks it would be lovely. You’re the only one who thinks it wouldn’t be a good idea.”
“Maybe, then, if Anne thinks it’s a good idea, we’ll go in the summer. When the weather gets nice.”
Rose snorted. “Seeing is believing.”
“We’ll go, maybe,” he said. “Maybe we’ll take Anne and all the kids and make an outing of it.”
“Of course, in the summer, my husband will be home,” Anne said quietly.
“It must be very hard on you, being separated from your husband. Physically, I mean. Of course, I don’t know if you and your husband have a very sexually passionate relationship.”
“I miss him very much,” Anne said. “Would you like to look at this book on Renoir while I’m fixing lunch?”
“Can I help?” Ed asked.
“You can open the wine.”
Ed followed her into the kitchen and closed the door. “She’s not embarrassing you, is she?” he asked.
“Oh, no,” Anne lied. “I think she’s doing very well.”
“She is. When you consider what she’s gone through. She had to learn to walk all over again; she couldn’t even dress herself. Still, she upsets most people; there aren’t many places we can go without me worrying she’ll get someone upset. But I knew you’d understand.”
“Of course, Ed. Everything’s just fine.”
“I knew it would be. I knew this was a place where we could all relax and have a good time. Not worry.” He gave Anne a hug that was over as soon as it began.
Laura came into the kitchen sullenly when Anne called her for lunch. She greeted Ed with the air of a headmistress ready to dismiss, at the slightest sign of infraction of the rules, the scholarship pupil reported to be of great promise. Anne tucked a napkin under Brian’s chin and kissed the top of his head. She pushed his chair into the table. She liked Brian for himself, liked him as much as any child she’d known, but he received, deflected, the tenderness she felt for the person of his father. That he was Ed’s child softened the boy’s lines, blurred him beautifully, as if he were a child in a picture or a story she had loved while she was still a child.
“What a nice boy you are, Brian,” she said. “I’m always so glad when you come to visit.”
He rolled his eyes to the top of his head so that his irises disappeared.
“I almost died having him,” said Rose. “I was fine before I got pregnant with him.”
“I made my mommy very sick,” he said to Anne. He spoke seriously, but he didn’t seem disturbed.
“No, Brian, that’s not right. Something in Mommy’s body made her sick. Like when you get a sore throat or a cold,” said Ed.
“You know, Anne, I’ll never be all right,” said Rose confidingly.
“You’re fine, Rose,” Anne said, taking her hand.
“No, I’m not. I know what it’s like to be like you. Pretty and happy and on top of things. I remember that.” She began to cry.
Ed gave her a handkerchief from his hip pocket. “Look at how much better you are than last year, Rose. We were afraid you’d never walk again.”
“It would be better if I died. That’s what you think. That’s what everybody thinks.” She began to sob audibly—choking, gasping sobs that whipped the air like a storm.
Laura put her hand flat on the table, as if she had only to move her hand to make the storm stop. “If the Lord wanted you to be dead, you’d be dead in the blink of an eye,” she said, looking stonily at Rose.
Anne felt shocked and frightened. It was a terrible thing to say; she was sorry for Ed, for Rose, that Laura had said it. But she felt frightened because some curtain had been opened, some thick veil removed. It was the first time she had ever heard Laura mention the word “God.” If Hélène hadn’t told her, if she hadn’t seen Laura reading her Bible every night, she might never have known that Laura was religious. It was a secret she guarded, like royal birth. Now it was open, now Anne must look, for she had given it to Anne, like a spy who purposely leaves crude clues to his identity.
Rose turned her head to Laura. She had stopped crying, a final, complete stop, as if she had no sense that she had just shed tears. “That’s what the priest says. He says I’m alive for a reason. You’re lucky to have a boy and a girl,” she said, turning pleasantly to Anne. “I was hoping little Brian would be a girl. I love the clothes. They’re so much fun to dress up. Like little dolls.”
Anne was so relieved that Laura hadn’t offended Rose that she began to feel light-headed. “Unless you have a little girl like Sarah,” she said, “who has to be tied down to have a dress put on her. My mother sends her beautiful dresses with smocking. They just hang in the closet. Sarah says they’re creepy. She likes jeans.”
Ed laughed. “Sarah’s always involved in some enterprise. She’s afraid dr
esses will slow her down.”
Anne looked lovingly at him. He understood her children. He appreciated them, not as genre pieces but as complicated people, just as she did. So few men did that.
“Eddie, let’s go home now. Lunch is finished and I want to take my nap.
“Will you stay for coffee?” Anne asked, the pot in her hand.
“I want to go now,” said Rose.
Ed picked Brian up and walked Rose to the living room, where he helped her with her coat. In seconds they were out the door.
“I’ll be back next week,” he said to Anne over his shoulder. “I have a rush job I can get done in a few days.”
Anne waved good-bye. Don’t leave my house. Come back quickly, she wanted to say. She walked into the kitchen. Laura had already cleared the table and was doing the dishes. The set of her back was grim.
“I’ve had an idea, Anne,” she said, keeping her eyes on the sink. “I’d like to give the house a good spring cleaning. Top to bottom. The basement. The attic. Turn the mattresses, wash the curtains, clean out the closets, straighten all the drawers, shampoo the rugs and furniture.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” said Anne.
“But I want to. I enjoy it. It’s the time of year.”
“I was thinking that since the nice weather was coming you might want a few days off,” Anne said.
Some shelf dropped over Laura’s eyes, as if a shutter had been closed on a summer pavilion where the dancers still danced, the music went on, but to the outside there was a presentation of only darkness and a silence so severe it could be meant only as reproach.
“I thought it would be a good thing to clean the house,” she said, looking straight at Anne.
Anne felt as if the girl held a gun to her head. It was ridiculous, what she was feeling. Why should she refuse to have her house cleaned? There was no sense being absurd about it. If Laura wanted to clean the house, why not?