Other Women

by Lisa Alther

  “I’d like to tell you a dream I had last night.”

  “Okay. Shoot.”

  “You and I were shopping in the Grand Union at the mall. I went over to the meat cooler and took out a leg of lamb. I unwrapped it and picked up a carving knife and trimmed off all the fat. Then I handed what was left to you. You seemed pleased. I felt…sheepish.” They laughed.

  “What do you make of it?” Hannah eyed the red tulips on her desk. They were lovely. She ought to stop discouraging clients from bringing gifts. She could use some new plants in here. And she had no big objection to candy, jewelry, perfume…

  “I started thinking about getting rid of the crap, getting down to bare bone.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. See? You don’t need me anymore. You can do it yourself.”

  Caroline felt a stab of panic and began casting around for a problem. Jason was still shooting small animals with his BB gun. Jackie had become secretive about his girlfriend. Suzanne was hanging around the cabin more than ever. But she didn’t much care about any of these.

  Hannah watched Caroline’s eyes dart around the room. “You’ll be surprised how easy it is to get along without me,” she said. “Millions of people do.”

  Caroline laughed despite her terror. Damn it, she felt able to cope. Surely there was some disaster somewhere for which she required Hannah’s help? What about the Harrisburg meltdown? The Yorkshire ripper? But all we can do is our best, which often isn’t enough. And Canadian geese were still flying up the lake in orderly Vs. Tulips continued to bloom.

  “Remember your list when you first came here?” asked Hannah, glancing at her stone Venus. “How would you describe yourself now? List your ten most characteristic qualities.”

  Caroline sat in silence, words marching through her brain like a color guard on parade. Wimpy, devious, malicious, she’d written last fall. But they didn’t sound right anymore. “Bright, imaginative, generous, serious…”

  “Talented?” Hannah pictured those shawls. “Funny?”

  Caroline nodded with an embarrassed smile. “Modest.”

  They laughed. Hannah looked her in the eye and said, “You are all those things.”

  They sat in silence for a long time, listening to the first faint chirps out the window of birds back from the south. Hannah looked down to the rippled lake, veined with gold by the spring sun.

  “So what do you want to do?” asked Hannah. There didn’t seem a lot left to discuss. If Caroline continued, they’d just be marking time until Caroline summoned the courage to leave. But that of course was reason enough to continue.

  Caroline was unable to answer, knowing it was time to end, but not wanting to. It had been so difficult to accept Hannah last fall. Now it felt impossible to give her up. But it was up to Caroline. She knew Hannah would sit there until the Second Coming, if that was what it took to get Caroline to take the initiative—and in doing so, to break her old pattern of waiting to feel dismissed. Finally she said in a low voice, looking across the parking lot like a lone astronaut surveying the dark side of the moon, “Okay. I’m ready. I know it’s time.”

  Hannah studied Caroline, who looked a bit green around the gills. But apparently once she made up her mind, she didn’t mess around. Just as well to get it over with quickly. “Sometimes I do a follow-up after six weeks. Do you want that? Or would you prefer to go cold turkey?”

  “Yes. Good. In six weeks.”

  Caroline stood up and took the appointment card. “Thank you. You’ve helped me so much,” she said in a choked voice. She reached out and patted Hannah’s forearm, like touching wood for luck.

  “You did all the work. I was just the excuse.”

  “Bullshit.” Caroline thrust the Cheever’s bag at her.

  “Thanks. What’s this?”

  “Nothing much.” Caroline walked quickly to the door, feeling as though she were wandering the streets of Hiroshima after the blast. But she’d made it to the door. She had to keep moving, or she was done for.

  Holding the unopened bag, Hannah stood up to watch Caroline depart, thinking about Mona when she was five and learning to ride a bicycle. She started out with training wheels, careening up and down the driveway. Once she came over in tears to Hannah on the porch, wailing, “Mommy, the bicycle keeps leaning over.”

  After the training wheels, Hannah loped alongside, holding the bicycle steady. The afternoon Mona caught on, all in a rush after so many crashes and scraped knees, Hannah was trotting along holding her arm. Finding her balance and pedaling faster, Mona grabbed Hannah’s hand. As she pulled away, Mona loosened her grip. Until only their fingertips touched, Mona’s exerting a downward pressure, her eyes fixed on the road ahead.

  Hannah saw Mona needed only to realize she was now riding the bike on her own, so she lowered her fingertips and fell back. As their fingertips touched for the last time, and brushed apart, Hannah felt a pang of joy and pride, mixed with anguish—at the loss of the little girl who couldn’t ride a bicycle. As Hannah and the other children cheered, as Mona rode back, her eyes bright with triumph, Hannah first understood that parenting was a series of such small daily deaths, and that learning to let go of your charges was as crucial as learning to take them on.

  She hadn’t been prepared, however, to let go of Mona and Nigel so soon or so completely. Sometimes she dreamed about that last moment with Mona as their fingertips brushed apart, and woke up to find her face wet with tears.

  Which was why she now tried to make sure that nothing and no one was ever that important to her again. Call it self-preservation. If you attached your heartstrings to people and objects, you were dooming yourself to heartbreak, because they all eventually vanished.

  But she still felt twinges as clients departed, and sometimes a genuine pang, such as at that very moment watching Caroline cut off an oncoming car to pull her Subaru into the line of traffic up the street. Hannah shrugged with less aplomb than usual, feeling irritated with Caroline for being a menace on the streets. For coming into her bloody life, and then departing like all the others.

  The brakes squealed on the tan Maverick Caroline had just cut off. Her body was seared with a blaze of physical fear. But her numb brain didn’t give a shit. Let him crash into her. What did she care? She’d as soon be dead as face the upcoming weeks without Hannah.

  As she glanced into the rearview mirror at the incandescent face of the enraged driver, she reminded herself that Hannah was willing to go to lunch once the therapy was finished. But probably that was just her way of easing Caroline out. Why would Hannah want to lunch with an insect? Then Caroline recalled today’s extra appointment. People would say anything, but you could rely on what they did. Besides, if she couldn’t get along without Hannah, she had no business stopping.

  Turning onto the lake road, she tried to visualize pileated woodpeckers, Canadian geese, tropical plumage. But her stomach continued its dull grind. She might have to pull over and throw up. She remembered vomiting in the storm sewer as Arlene climbed on the trolley that last time. How in hell had thinking about dumb birds helped her feel better? All these things she thought she’d been learning—they were mirages. The whole therapy was one big farce. She felt better because she had Hannah to lean on. Without Hannah, she felt as awful as the first day she walked into her office, all those months and all those dollars ago. She felt more awful because emotions she used to have under control had been stirred up like some hideous witches’ brew. Frog eyes and lizard tails kept swirling to the surface.

  Pulling up in front of the cabin next to Suzanne’s Toyota, Caroline pounded the steering wheel. That damn Hannah had a hell of a nerve, coming into her life, eliciting all these feelings and then departing, leaving Caroline stuck with them.

  Plunking the second pot of tulips on her table, she realized she placed the first pot on Hannah’s desk just as she had placed the plastic hydrangeas on Marsha’s grave. Broiling chicken, she brushed her hand against the oven coil. “Goddam motherfucking son of a bitch!�
�� she screamed, shoving the hand under the faucet and turning on the cold water. The odor of burned flesh filled her nostrils. Her stomach churned with nausea. She might as well die along with Marsha and Hannah. She could put one limb after another under her broiler. mother found broiled to death, the newspaper would read.

  “Are you all right?” Diana called down the stairs.

  “No!”

  A long pause. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Yes. Stay out of my way.”

  “With pleasure.”

  At supper Jackie asked, “Hey, Mom, what did you do to your hand?”

  “Burned it.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Yes.” As she studied the white blisters and angry red skin, she began to cry.

  “What’s wrong, Mommy?” asked Jason, holding a drumstick in one hand.

  “I guess I’m sad tonight.” She wadded her napkin in her fist. Her shoulders began to shake. Burying her eyes in the napkin, she gave herself over to wracking sobs. It was no use. There was a yawning void in her heart, which Hannah used to inhabit. What was she supposed to do about it? She didn’t even have next week’s appointment ahead, at which she could discuss with Hannah how much she minded not seeing her anymore.

  Jason was standing beside her, patting her shoulder and pleading, “Don’t be sad, Mommy.” His world was tottering, just as her own had tottered on days when Hannah was down or tired. More so, because Jason couldn’t even drive a car, or write checks. But she couldn’t hold it together for him any longer. She lay her head on her arms on the table and wept. It was all over. She couldn’t do it anymore.

  Now Jackie was standing on her other side, also patting her. Jason was saying, “I love you, Mommy. So does Jackie. Don’t you, Jackie?” Somehow she had to pull herself together. “So does Amelia,” said Jason, shoving the struggling cat into Caroline’s face. “Arnold too. Don’t you, Arnold? Here, boy!” Arnold leaped up and down barking. On his last bounce he grabbed the chicken breast off Caroline’s plate.

  Caroline sat up with a deep sigh. “Would you get that mutt out of here?” She blotted her eyes with her crumpled napkin.

  “Are you okay?” asked Jackie, studying her with his dark serious eyes.

  “Yes. I’m all right now. I’ve had a hard day. Please don’t worry. Whatever happens, I’ll always take good care of you two.” They looked simultaneously relieved and bored, as though this were what they needed to hear, but they couldn’t afford to let her know how badly. “Tell me some jokes,” she said weakly, getting herself another chicken breast as Arnold splintered bones on the hooked rug.

  The boys dragged out every bathroom joke they’d ever heard. They also summarized the plots of Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and The Muppet Movie. Pretending to listen, Caroline reached out and touched the waxy red petals of the tulips with her fingertips. Yes, they were beautiful. They were a fucking miracle. But in a couple of weeks they’d be withered and dead. Like everything else in her life. Just as Hannah said many weeks ago, her parents, Marsha, Arlene, Jackson, David Michael, Hannah herself had given her wonderful experiences, helped her develop skills and strengths. But where were those bastards now? Never more would she sit on that tweed couch, opposite Hannah in bare feet, choking on Hannah’s smoke, watching her sharp blue eyes and kind smile, listening to her lousy jokes and wise words.

  Jackie’s voice as he explained something about R2D2 was cracking. He had some scraggly hairs in his armpits, and a girlfriend who saved him a seat on the school bus. Jason spent his spare time in the woods stalking birds and chipmunks with his BB gun. Soon they’d be gone. Never again to burst through the door and show her the garter snake they’d just trapped. Never to turn her living room into a space capsule or the interior of a submarine or a hockey rink.

  Caroline could hear the rumble of Diana and Suzanne conversing upstairs. Soon Diana would be gone. Never again to lie in Caroline’s arms all morning watching snow swirl out the window. Never more would they run through sunny green fields together, walk through fiery stands of maples, ski through new snow, make love through a balmy spring night.

  Even Amelia, who was sitting watching Arnold crunch chicken bones, having curled up on Caroline’s bed all winter, now preferred to stay out hunting all night. Where did this leave Caroline? Alone.

  Reassured, the boys departed to their room for homework. As Caroline washed the dishes, her burned hand hurting so much that tears filled her eyes, she tried to think positively. Like the aerial photo in Hannah’s office, what you saw depended on how you focused. Her life was in ruins, true. But somewhere in the wreckage surely a daisy bloomed? She still had friends to play poker with, to bowl with. She still had a badly paid job, a healthy body. She could add new ingredients now that she knew she was the chef. Maybe she should take up macramé. She could weave a shroud of many colors. Or a new Pink Blanky. What about smoking? Even Hannah smoked. Somehow the void had to be filled. But with what?

  She fixed herself some coffee, turned on the TV, and sat on the couch for the news, hoping to fill the void for the time being with familiar routines. Some nights Walter Cronkite appeared to have the world under control, and one could go to sleep relatively confident of waking up the next morning still alive. Unfortunately, not that night. Walter’s henchman was describing Idi Amin’s predilection for filet of small child. Caroline felt the slow grind in her stomach rev up like a B52 taxiing for takeoff. But this time she was ready for it: She felt undefended without Hannah, and was shifting her terror onto the world at large.

  Abruptly she stood up and switched off the TV. She could choose not to engage with this madness. She’d phone someone. Who? Not Hannah, not Diana, not Brian. Her father hated long distance calls because they cost money. Marsha was dead. She had no number for Rorkie or David Michael. Jackson already felt she was hysterical. Jenny! Maybe she’d even take her up on the invitation to share her bed. Anything not to sleep alone tonight. She dialed Jenny’s number. No answer. She dialed Pam. No answer.

  “Hi, babe. What’s up?” asked Brenda.

  “Nothing much. I’m just feeling crummy and wanted to hear a friendly voice.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Diana and I have called it quits again, and I’ve just ended therapy.”

  “Both at once? Don’t you and Diana ever get tired of breaking up? And why are you stopping therapy so soon? God, it’s a wonder you aren’t in the loony bin. Look, Barb and I are going to Maude’s for supper. Want to meet us there? Have a few drinks, a few laughs?”

  “Thanks, but I can’t. I have the kids tonight.”

  “Well, we’ll stop by on our way then.”

  “That’s okay, Brenda. Really. I’ll be fine.”

  “We’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  Caroline forgot she was dealing with an Emergency Medical Technician. By the time she fluffed cushions and picked up baseball cleats, Barb and Brenda were at her door carrying a bottle of rye and a plate of brownies.

  “Jeez, you don’t look so great,” said Brenda, ushering Caroline to the couch and handing her a brownie. “Eat this. It’ll raise your blood sugar level.”

  As Caroline ate the brownie, Barb mixed drinks on the kitchen counter. Brenda told about a burly man who’d been brought into the ER from a rowdy bar the previous night, dead drunk with a broken leg. When she cut off his trousers, she found he was wearing lacy bikini briefs and had a sausage taped to his inner thigh. Barb laughed so hard she spilled rye all over the counter.

  After a couple of drinks, and Brenda’s description of every accident in the area for the preceding week, Barb said to Caroline, “Are you sure you won’t have supper with us?”

  Caroline said, “No, thanks. I’m in charge on the home front tonight. But thanks for coming over, girls. You’ve cheered me up.” Saying it, she knew it was a lie.

  “Take two aspirin and go to bed with a friend,” said Brenda, exiting with a hearty laugh.

  As their car pulled away, Caroline wondered
if she herself would ever laugh like that again. Brenda had done her best, but there was nothing she could do. There was nothing anyone could do. It was finished. She’d tried everything. All that was left was to take a hundred and two aspirin and go to bed alone. She carried a glass of water into her bedroom and set it on the nightstand. Then she went into the closet, collected all the pill bottles from the shelf, and grouped them next to the water.

  Methodically she removed and folded her clothes. Then she put on her flannel nightgown. After brushing her teeth, she went into the boys’ room. Intent on homework, they scarcely glanced up as she kissed them good-bye and smoothed their hair.

  As she climbed into bed, eyeing her pill bottles, she remembered promising the boys at supper that she’d take care of them. Damn. She studied the Luke Skywalker glass full of water. She never broke promises. It set a bad example. Shit. She couldn’t even weigh the options and decide to stay alive. She was stuck here. She swept the bottles off the table and into the wastebasket on the floor.

  With a disappointed sigh, she scooted down in her bed, turned out the light, and pulled the covers to her chin. She began to examine her void from every angle. Eventually she realized it wasn’t really new at all. She’d carried this feeling of emptiness with her all her life. Like malaria, it flared up periodically. She pictured that toddler trying to find her way to the bathroom through the dark hall, pink blanket clutched around her shoulders for protection against the monsters and Japs lurking in the shadows. She felt the same terrified emptiness on the bus carrying flowers to Marsha’s grave. And looking out on her lawn covered with Rorkie’s toilet paper. And standing on the street watching Arlene in her office with Dusty. And entombed in Jackson’s neo-Tudor house, to which he rarely returned. And hearing David Michael’s headboard clatter against the wall on his nights with Clea. And listening to Diana by the fire the other night saying their relationship wasn’t working. In a flash she understood that her feeling of abandonment and despair had almost nothing to do with those other people. They were just ordinary flawed mortals, doing their clumsy best to get through life with some measure of pleasure and meaning. Her void was hers and hers alone.