Bethlehem

by Karen Kelly

  “You’re right. Her name was Frances. Not Frank.” She looked at her daughter, whose face crumpled a little. “Sorry, honey. Sometimes, you just have to admit that you got it wrong.”

  The sentence snapped back at her like a rubber band, and she felt the sting of her own words. Admit that you got it wrong.

  And then Daisy pulled on the band and snapped it again: “Like Daddy.”

  “What?”

  “He said he was wrong and that’s why you went to bed. Last night when he tucked us in. And we didn’t read any books because he was too tired. But I think actually he was too sad. Because he was wrong.”

  Just in case that didn’t smart enough, Eileen Rafferty’s voice piped into her head again (a phenomenon that had plagued Joanna for most of her life): Think about Frank.

  Had she thought about Frank, even for a minute? Like Charlie, she had been reacting on instinct—a primal impulse that did not allow for circumspection or empathy. A septic shame crept over her, spreading the sting evenly across her skin. In all the months of feeling sorry for herself, of shifting self-pity to resentment, she had been determinedly oblivious to any need or want or fear that might have been pressing on—even crushing—her husband.

  She had to get to the hospital—not only for Helen, but also for Frank. She needed to face him, to assess the damage. Rising from the tiny chair, her instructions were as distracted as they were rushed. “You’re doing a great job with Harriet. She’s tired and needs to rest. I have to go and see how Grand Hedy is doing. Stay right here. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  She hurried down the stairs, wondering where her car keys might be. She rarely drove her Ventura these days—only when she went to Pennsport, really. She thought they were probably on the key peg by the service door, and she went to the kitchen.

  As she was crossing the worn tiles, the door opened.

  Frank stood aside, ushering in his mother and his sister. Susannah looked drained, and Gigi’s eyes were swollen and red. They all saw Joanna at once, but no one said a word. Gigi met her eye and shook her head—all the information required. She took her mother’s arm and led her to the hall, and Frank closed the door. He stood there for a moment, holding his hat and staring at the floor. And then he wiped his shoes on the doormat and walked right past her.

  Joanna grasped the edge of the big cast-iron stove. Helen was gone. The blow would have been staggering in any case—her absence would leave an abysmal hole in the house. But the fact that Joanna was standing on such shaky ground made her knees weak. Given recent events, she didn’t know how to approach her husband—or for that matter, the rest of the family—and the seismic uncertainty caused her to sway.

  She had to force herself back up the stairs to the bedroom. Frank was sitting by the window, still wearing his overcoat. His hands lay motionless on the arms of the chair, and his gaze was fixed on an indeterminate spot in the bleak winter landscape. He seemed so defeated, so vulnerable, that Joanna’s impulse was to take him in her arms, like one of the children. And then he turned his head, and almost broke her heart with four harrowed words.

  “Are you leaving me?”

  Pressing her lips together to suppress an aching cry, she could only shake her head.

  For a long moment he closed his eyes. The next question was uttered with a reluctance so ragged, it might have come through a thresher. “Have you been … unfaithful?”

  Unfaithful. The word hit her like a hammer, echoing her own thoughts, just hours earlier in Daniel’s bedroom. Could she explain it to him—the sudden realization, the recognition, the decision? It was just a moment. A single conflicted interlude. Would that excuse the betrayal? But in truth, it wasn’t just a moment. What about the months leading to that moment—the eagerness, the warmth in her heart, the emotional ante? She couldn’t deny any of it, and there wasn’t any other word for it: unfaithful.

  She didn’t have to answer—he saw it on her face. With an urgency that left a draft in its wake, he stood and strode out the door.

  * * *

  She didn’t know how long she had been standing there when a little bird flew by. It was only in her mind, but she saw it as clearly as if it had come in and perched on the windowsill. It was her parakeet, Pete—the chirpy companion she had taken home from the pet store just before she met Frank. From the very first, Frank was troubled by Pete’s cage. To Joanna, the sweet birdsong emanating from the little fluff of green seemed like happiness. But to Frank, it was terrible, tortured yearning. He was so worried about the bird’s psyche that Joanna started to tease him about having an ulterior motive for wanting to come up to the tiny apartment on Lombard Street. Despite some very compelling evidence to the contrary, she accused him of really just wanting to let Pete out of the cage.

  One night Pete landed near the heat register and somehow managed to squeeze through one of the little squares. Joanna didn’t have a screwdriver, and the building supervisor was off duty. Frank had gone door to door, waking people up and suffering varied abuses before finally wooing one out of the old lady in 3B. Having sworn on the woman’s Bible to come back and fix her shower rod, he returned triumphant, wielding the screwdriver in the air.

  Joanna could see him with his arm stretched into the heat duct, murmuring softly to Pete with a bit of peanut butter on his finger. There was a dust bunny in Frank’s hair. From then on, nearly every moment he spent in the apartment found a feathered devotee hopping from one shoulder to the other. It didn’t bother Frank a bit, but it was more than a little disconcerting to Joanna—Pete’s peeping had taken on a whole new meaning.

  The memory seemed random, but then she saw herself climbing the stairs after a long night of work at the hospital. The beatnik-type from the apartment next door was coming down as she went up. She smiled at him, grateful for the fact that he had stopped blasting his collection of Burmese folk music while he worked. She was on night shifts then, and had spent many mornings fighting for sleep while her neighbor sculpted to a wailing zither. When the days had become suddenly quiet, Joanna didn’t wonder why. She just basked in the absence of twangy atonal resonance, sleeping a full night each day. It wasn’t until she bumped into him in the stairwell—noting his consideration and thanking him for it—that she learned Frank had been paying the man twenty dollars a week to keep his stereo off.

  She knew where this was going now. Resigned—willing, in fact—she fastened another button on her hair shirt. The next image was from some years down the road: she was at the frayed end of the rope—sleepless with a one-year-old and a colicky newborn. Waking with a start one morning, she realized she had been asleep since midnight. That was when Frank had taken Daisy from her stuporous clutch to wear a path on the living room carpet. With constant motion, it was possible to lull the baby to sleep; putting her down was another story. Joanna had looked around. Her husband wasn’t in bed, and the baby was not in the cradle. Padding to the living room, she found them both on the sofa—Frank flat on his back with an arm folded over his eyes, the baby sleeping soundly on her daddy’s chest, wrapped in a flannel blanket that had been secured to the upholstery with diaper pins.

  There was more—a flowing stream of acts and instances, each providing sworn testimony to her husband’s sweetness and constancy. The scenes ran past like a babbling brook, whose waters rushed away while calling back: Look what you had. Look what you may have lost.

  And then she heard an engine and the muffled crunch of tires on the gravel drive. By the time she moved to the window, Frank’s car was disappearing into the fading light of the day.

  * * *

  For the third time, Joanna started at the top of the page, trying to focus on the precocious narrative of Franny Glass instead of the precarious narrative of her own future. She was coiled on the divan in the library, unable to shake a phantom chill even under the insulation of a wool lap blanket. The children were in bed, tucked in after a sad little dinner in the kitchen. It had been just the three of them. The pall over the household had ex
tended to the staff; when Joanna had wandered into the kitchen, she’d found Hazel, the cook, absently scrubbing at a spot on the drainboard. The woman looked up, her face puffy and tear-stained. “Mrs. Collier said just soup tonight. She and Miss Genevieve are taking supper in their rooms.” She took a tissue from her apron pocket and dabbed at her nose. “I’ve got a nice pot of chicken and rice on the burner. I can serve you where you like—Mrs. Bonner has taken to bed.” She choked a little on the words.

  “Oh, thank you, Hazel.” Joanna went to the woman’s side, her voice solicitous. “Soup will be just the thing. But you don’t have to serve us. Why don’t you call it a day, too? I can feed the kids.” She hesitated. “Has my husband come in?” She didn’t think the car had returned, but she asked anyway.

  “No, ma’am, not that I’ve seen.”

  “All right, then. We’ll be fine here—you go ahead now. Consider yourself off duty.” She took the scrubbing pad from Hazel and set it down. As the cook tearfully removed her apron, Joanna went to find the children.

  And so it was that they ate their desultory dinner at the scarred pine worktable, over pensive talk of strokes and funerals and heaven. And when the children said their prayers that night, they invoked a new angel.

  * * *

  The Salinger had gone down like ice cream when Joanna had started the book a few days earlier, but tonight she couldn’t digest a bite. She had picked it up as a distraction—she didn’t know what to do with herself. Frank hadn’t returned yet. Every creak in the house caused a little clutch in her stomach. She was staring blankly at a sentence when Susannah appeared in the doorway. The book fell to floor as Joanna jumped up. “Oh… I’m … so sorry.” Her eyes welled. It was the first she had seen of her mother-in-law since the moment she learned Helen was gone, and she felt the loss more sharply for it. “I can’t imagine how you must feel. It doesn’t seem possible. She was … something special.” Wavering, her voice trailed off. She wrung her hands nervously as her mother-in-law crossed the room.

  “I’m going to have a brandy.” Susannah sounded spent. “Would you like one?” There was a small bar in the library—a polished walnut cabinet that housed several crystal decanters and a variety of short-stemmed glasses. She opened the cabinet.

  Joanna had never tasted brandy. “Yes, thank you. That would be … good.” She sat back down.

  Susannah filled two snifters generously, and then handed one to Joanna and sat down next to her. She gave her glass an appraising look. “It would appear I rather leaned on the pour.” With a shrug, she sank back, resting her neck on the cushion. “Oh well. I think circumstances call for a little … suspension of rectitude … don’t you?”

  Suspension of rectitude. If only she knew. Or did she? She had no idea what Susannah thought. But someone had suggested to Frank that he might find his wife at the cemetery, and it hadn’t been Helen.

  Any suspicions her mother-in-law might have had were eclipsed, however, by grievous circumstance; Susannah’s mind was on Helen as she clinked her glass lightly against Joanna’s. “To Mother.” She took a sip and squeezed her eyes shut, pinching the bridge of her nose. After a gathering pause, she spoke. “Yes, she was special. I’ve been on the telephone with Itty. We agreed we can just quit trying—we’ll never rise to her standard. It’s unachievable.” She exhaled deeply, and took another sip of brandy. “I suppose I was lucky. I had a mother—the finest one—for over half of a century.” She looked at her glass again, swirling the amber liquid. “But that doesn’t necessarily make it easier. In a way, it’s harder. I’m very accustomed to having her. It will be a difficult habit to break.”

  This perspective had never occurred to Joanna, but she saw a truth in it. She nodded mutely. Despite the sorrowful topic, she couldn’t help feeling a bit relieved at the companionable tenor of the conversation.

  “I haven’t been able to reach Kit.” Wearily, Susannah veered into the safer emotional waters of tasks at hand. “It’s the same time in Peru as it is here … that has always surprised me … but no one picks up. I’ve got Itty trying. I hope he’s not incommunicado in some godforsaken place, like before.” She tapped her finger on the rim of the glass, going over a mental list. “I’ve spoken to most of the family—Mother was the last of her generation, but there are some cousins. Now, there’s a paradox: a long life yields a sparse send-off.” Her ironic expression softened then to a faraway tenderness. “She deserves all the presidents, like Eleanor Roosevelt had.” It was a poignant, reflective moment, but, in the blink of an eye, it was back to business. “I believe Agnes Wright is still alive. Probably still in Pittsburgh. I don’t think old Vance has given over the reins at U.S. Steel yet. I’ll have to track down their telephone number … not enough time to send a note by post. There might be a few others.… I’ll have to look through her book.” She gazed at the window, thoughtful. “And I suppose I should notify our set. I mean, my set.” She corrected herself with a sad shake of her head. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the sole possession of old friendships.”

  Joanna was touched by the comment. It was possibly the most personal thing she had ever heard from her mother-in-law. Susannah Parrish Collier didn’t have a self-pitying bone in her body, and Joanna had never heard her utter a whimper about her widowhood. Now she realized something: the fact that some skin doesn’t show scars does not mean there haven’t been wounds.

  “I thought Frank should say the eulogy.” Practicalities again. “I hope it isn’t asking too much—he’s getting plenty of experience these days.” She glanced around the room. “Where is Frank?

  Joanna swallowed hard and pulled the lap blanket close. “I don’t know.”

  She didn’t feel it coming—it was as spontaneous and uncontrollable as convulsion. As she spoke, the words were pushed from behind by a sudden, shuddering sob. It wasn’t the first time she had been delivered up by her mutinous emotions that day, but the woe that had simmered over at Grange House seemed thin and watery compared to the thick misery that rose up now.

  This time, however, the person who reached out to comfort her was the one she would have least expected: her mother-in-law took her hand and squeezed it—the grasp strong and steadying. “Take a drink,” Susannah instructed. “It will help.”

  The glass trembled against her lips, but Joanna managed a sip of the brandy. It was acrid and biting, and it made her grimace. She tried again—forcing the medicine down. It burned in her chest. Exhaling the hot vapor, she regained a measure of composure. “I’m sorry. I don’t know where he is.” Sniffing, she dabbed the cuff of her sweater to her cheek and stared at her drink in bewildered despondency. How she could explain the betraying outburst without revealing the betrayal? How could she defend it to Frank’s own mother? What mother of what son would ever understand?

  But Susannah pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and pressed it into Joanna’s hand, and her words were as soft as the Portuguese linen. “I don’t have any illusions that I could ever possess Mother’s grace. But—despite my agreement with India—I can try.” She looked intently into Joanna’s eyes. “When I was a young woman, my mother gave me an exceptional gift. She said it was one that her father had given her. It was just a simple sentence, but it helped me through some pitch-black hours. What she said was this: ‘I’m never here to judge you; I’m only here to help you.’”

  Once again, Joanna had underestimated her mother-in-law. And this benefaction—this blameless compassion—enveloped her in a warmth that finally took the chill away. Or perhaps it was the brandy. In any case, she felt the relief of her childhood confessions—kneeling in redemptive absolution at the dim, latticed window. And in response, she found herself laying open her heart.

  She didn’t leave anything out—not the attraction, not even the desire. By the time she came to the end, dragging the last charred scrap from the ash heap, her voice was a hollow whisper: “I don’t know if he can forgive me.”

  Throughout the account, Susannah had been quiet. Now, wh
en she spoke, she astonished Joanna with another gift. It was a precious and fragile thing, with a cost that was incalculable. And it had been hidden in a wrapped box for a very long time. “There’s only one way to find out,” she said softly, “and that’s to give him the chance. You may not realize it, but this may have been a blessing. To live with deception is a terrible thing.” Her gaze moved again to the window, and her eyes became as distant as her words: “Let me tell you a story about deception.”

  Fourteen

  AUGUST 1925

  “I prefer Susannah.” Susannah couldn’t recognize herself in her pet name anymore. It mocked her, in a way that was almost jarring—like looking into the mirror to find a garish clown mask looking back.

  Helen sat on the edge of the bed, hands folded on her lap. “All right, then. Susannah. It’s time to come home now. Your father expects you. We can’t carry this out any longer.” The gentleness of her tone tempered the imperative, and she gazed tenderly at her daughter’s thin form—rocking in slow, unceasing rhythm. Helen sighed and shook her head sadly. “You can’t just wither away in this attic like a character from Dickens. I told your father that your train was arriving today. We can say you’ve decided to postpone Bryn Mawr. He’ll see that you still aren’t yourself. You can stay at home until … well, until you regain your balance.”

  Susannah’s hand moved slowly over the smooth maple arm of the rocking chair—an unconscious habit. “My balance.” She repeated the words absently and looked down at her feet, bare on the braided rug. It was all she could think to say. Nothing meant anything anymore. Simple language was incomprehensible mathematical theory. Life had tested her before, but this time she couldn’t pass. There was no book. There were no answers. There was just … nothing.