Family Matters

by Kitty Burns Florey

  It was still snowing lightly in the morning, but the blizzard seemed to be over.

  “We’d better wait, though,” said Frank. He looked perfectly at home in his chair by the kitchen window. His shaving things were on the shelf in the bathroom. “We could wait till noon or so.”

  “Not if she’s that ill, Frank, and wants to see me. Every minute counts.” Emily spoke from duty, without urgency. They had waited this long; surely, Fate would allow a little more time. She felt she needed a good deal of it.

  But Frank looked at her approvingly. “I want you to know I appreciate this, your coming back there with me. I know it’s not easy.” He finished his coffee in a gulp. “Tell you what—I’ll call Betsy and see how things are.”

  “You forgot to call last night.”

  They smiled at each other and touched hands across the table. “I forgot everything last night,” Frank said.

  “Imagine,” said Emily. “A couple of old farts like us.”

  She saw his smile turn sad; he was remembering Violet. In the light of the day (she thought to herself, with some bitterness) he was feeling a twinge or two of guilt, for forgetting his daughter in the arms of his old lover. Together they looked out the kitchen window. The air was thick with snow flurries, the fence a vague row of mounds like seals. She thought how she would hate to relinquish him. He would be different back home, in that house of death where Violet waited.

  “You’d better call,” she said.

  While he was at the telephone, she tried to prepare herself. It would be an ordeal, going to Helen’s house where Violet now lay dying. Her own mother had died at home. Emily, summoned by her brother, had been there at the end, and she remembered the nurses, the whispering, the dim-lit sickroom with its smells, the atmosphere somehow composed equally of crisis and boredom. And she thought of her Violet, tossing on the pillow asking like a child for her mother. Emily’s eyes filled with tears. She was ashamed of not wanting Violet as Violet wanted her. It was before her, the family reunion she had longed for once—herself and Frank and their daughter—but it was all wrong, it was grotesque, too late. Having Frank come to her was enough; the rest was beyond her. And yet she would go through with it, not for the sake of the old sweet dream, but for the sake of Frank, an old man who had driven all the way to her house in a snowstorm to carry her off.

  “There’s no change,” he said, returning. Emily dabbed at the tears under her spectacles with her napkin while he got the coffeepot from the stove. “In fact, she ate a decent breakfast, for once. French toast.” He poured out the coffee. “It’s funny—Violet used to be a vegetarian, a health freak, until she got sick. Then for a while she was eating the darnedest things—junk food, candy, a lot of that spongy white bread. And drinking! Bourbon, just like her husband. That guy could put it away! But now, of course, she doesn’t show much interest in food. Every once in a while she’ll surprise us, though, like this morning—French toast!” He laughed without humor. “These meaningless little victories.”

  Emily’s eyes were quite dry. “Whatever made her turn vegetarian?” she asked, to distract him.

  “Violet was always susceptible,” he said, his smile coming back. “She’d fall for things, and she had a taste for the far out. She was interested in UFO’s, and in vitamin cures. She took yoga for a while. She always liked astrology, in a wishful kind of way. Helen soured her on religion, but she seemed to have a craving for the supernatural.” He paused, musing. You could see his daughter had charmed him, whatever she did. “The thing was, Violet wasn’t a deep person, you couldn’t even say she was especially intelligent. There was never any question of her going to college or having much of a career. But she had a lively mind, within its limits. A great imagination, a lot of curiosity …” His voice trailed off; perhaps he had caught his use of the past tense.

  “A touch of the theater in her blood,” said Emily. She wanted Violet to be more real to her, but she was a ghost. “I wish I’d known her, Frank, long ago.” It’s too late, she thought. This curious daughter with the lively mind was nothing to her. She even felt a melancholy resentment that Frank should be distracted by her; she wanted him to herself.

  “She may hang on awhile yet, Emily,” he said. “You two may get to know each other pretty well.”

  Emily smiled reluctantly. “I’d like that, Frank.” But she wouldn’t She wouldn’t care if they never reached Violet’s bedside. But she would go, she would make one more sacrifice for him. Exactly what the sacrifice was she couldn’t have defined clearly—the sacrifice of her comfort, maybe, more than anything.

  He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “This is from Betsy,” he said, smiling. “She’s so grateful to you for changing your mind.”

  They sat over their coffee all morning. By noon the radio announced that road conditions were still hazardous but that the plows had been out and the roads cleared.

  “Listen,” Frank said. “I’ve got brand-new snow tires and a two-year-old Cadillac. I drove her yesterday without any trouble at all, and it was much worse then. We’ll keep to the main roads. I’ll take Nine up to Ninety-one and then get right on the pike. We’ll take it slow, and if it gets bad we’ll stop.”

  “At a motel,” Emily said with an extravagant leer. “We may be snowed in for days.” She saw with pleasure how his smile hadn’t changed—how his lips twitched briefly before first one side, then the other, stretched humorously. A cautious, lawyer’s smile, all the more valued. She called Ellen Morris, her neighbor, about feeding the cats. They were really going, then; there was no turning back. If it started snowing again, they would simply wait. If they got stuck on the road, they would stop until things improved and then go on. There was no hurry, Frank said. He would wait, and be cautious, and bring her back alive. She was his prey. He had hunted her down, and he wouldn’t let her get away now.

  They were merry, though, starting off—as unlike a cat and its mouse as it was possible to be. The day was bleak and sunless, but the roads had been neatly scraped and the snowbanks glittered with their own cold light. Frank’s car had been parked outside all night and was covered with soft snow, and she stood on the steps under the fanlight snow falling lightly on her mink, and admired him cleaning it off. He was quick about it and only slightly short of breath as he stowed their suitcases and helped her in.

  “It’s like feathers,” he said. “Won’t amount to much. The worst is over.”

  The roads were nearly deserted, but one lane was plowed all the way up Route 9, and they could proceed slowly. From time to time they turned on the radio. There were lists of school closings, cancellations, snow statistics. They were calling it the Great Blizzard of ’78.

  “Nonsense,” said Frank. “This is nothing.”

  “It doesn’t seem all that dangerous,” Emily said. It was cozy in the car, and she had faith in Frank’s driving—steady and sure, but relaxed. He wasn’t a bundle of nerves behind the wheel as so many old people were—as she was herself. Snuggling into her furs, she watched his profile.

  “We’ll make it,” he said jauntily. “This is a good car, as good as a jeep in weather like this.”

  “I should have come before, Frank,” she said. “I don’t know why I didn’t want to see you.”

  “You hated me, didn’t you?” He took his eyes quickly off the road for a tragic, braced look at her. “Didn’t you?”

  It pleased her, how she had become the important thing to him again. “Yes,” she said, and then, “No. I tried to, Frank, for years. But I never managed it. I just tried not to think about you. It was bad for me, like smoking.”

  “I was a fool.”

  “Did you ever love her?” Oddly, it was something she had never asked.

  He considered. “When we were engaged—then I was fond of her. She was such a good, domestic creature. I wanted a home and a family, Emily, and I thought she was cut out to provide them. She was different before the tragedy, no one will believe that”

  “Before the baby died?”r />
  “Before the baby died,” he said, but his tone was odd. Emily studied him—an unfair advantage, she knew, because he couldn’t study her back. “You know …” he said, and seemed to be groping for further words.

  “Yes?”

  “You know, the baby didn’t die, not right away.”

  She blinked, startled. “What baby? Helen’s?”

  “Mine and Helen’s.” He turned his face just slightly to her, but kept his eyes on the road. He was smiling slightly.

  “What do you mean, it didn’t die?”

  “She lived for two days. She was—horribly deformed, Emily. She had a little flipper instead of a right arm, and her face was all askew.”

  “Helen’s baby,” said Emily, and great, shocked satisfaction filled her. “Poor Helen.”

  “She took it hard, wouldn’t have anything to do with her. She just screamed and screamed when the baby was born. We never told anyone what she was like. And Helen never let me in bed again. But you know that.” He reached out and touched her gloved hand with his.

  “Because of the child?” He nodded. “Was she like—like a thalidomide baby?”

  “I guess so. She was grotesque, I suppose. It wasn’t just the deformed arm, the crooked face—there was something about her. The nurse in the delivery room threw up when she saw her, and Helen screamed when she came to until the baby was taken away. They gave Helen something to calm her down. But, you know—” He paused, still smiling. “I went up to the nursery to see the little thing. She was surrounded by nurses—nursing sisters, they were, Helen went to the Catholic hospital. Some of them were crying, they knew the whole story, they didn’t know what to do. I don’t suppose they’d ever encountered a mother who rejected her baby so violently. But I picked her up. Her little flipper waved around and she made sucking motions with her mouth and then she began to cry, and she sounded just like any other baby, Emily. She was—cute. I began to love her, in spite of the horror of it. I named her Anna, after my mother. But she died in my arms the next evening.”

  They had reached the Massachusetts Turnpike. Emily looked at her watch; it had taken them over two hours. Outside, it was snowier; the flurries had changed to a swirling mist of snow. The windshield wipers became caked with ice, and Frank got out to clean them off. The snow whipped into the car when he opened the door. Emily took his hat and brushed snow off it onto the floor. She was ashamed of her joy in Helen’s suffering; she thought what a fine man Frank was, really—but weak. The thought just tickled her mind that he would have been finer and stronger with her as his wife instead of his bit of fluff. She smiled to herself as he edged the car back onto the highway.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me?” she asked. “About Anna.”

  “It was my secret,” he said lightly, but seeing she wanted an answer, he went on, “I don’t know, Emily. I suppose it was odd of me not to tell you. But I was so used to keeping it from people, and it made Helen sound so—made her sound unbalanced.”

  Emily thought about it. “It makes her sound less unbalanced, it seems to me,” she said. “I mean, a deformed baby is a reason.…” She remembered the beauty of her own baby, the magical perfection of her. “If I had known about Anna, I would have had a lot more sympathy for Helen.”

  She meant it and was surprised at herself. It was the first pang of regret she’d ever felt for Frank’s wife.

  “The poor woman,” she said, and another thought struck her. “You really stacked the cards against her, didn’t you?”

  “Only because I didn’t want to lose you,” he said placidly.

  “Frank!” At her tone he turned and looked at her, then back at the road, frowning. “Frank, love doesn’t excuse everything.”

  He put one gloved hand over hers on the seat. “I thought it did. I’m sorry.”

  Exasperated, she pulled her hand away. “So no one knew but you?” She knew he wanted to drop it, but she persisted. “You and Helen?”

  “Marion knew. It’s probably the only real bond between us.”

  “She knew, and I didn’t.”

  She saw that he was undeceived by her forced lightness of tone, as she had meant him to be. “She was there at the time, Emily. She was Helen’s sister! It wasn’t a conspiracy—she was at the hospital.”

  “The meddling bitch.” It was crazy, to be jealous of Marion Palmer, a worn-out old tart, and of course it wasn’t Marion—not only Marion—she was lashing out at; it was his whole, full, populated life contrasted with her own. He could even love, all his life, the poor deformed baby he’d held only briefly fifty-odd years ago. Easy enough, to love a memory … But, damn it, he’d had a real, actual daughter to bring up, and a granddaughter, too, and she’d had none.

  They rode in silence for a long time. The years had been erased last night, but now they came back with all their torments. Emily felt old and creaky and galled.

  At random, she asked, “Did you ever go to bed with her? Marion Palmer?”

  He didn’t answer, and she stared over at him. “You did!”

  He made a gesture of impatience. “We had an affair, back in—oh, I don’t know—years ago. It was nothing.”

  “Nothing! My God, Frank!”

  “And you never had another man, all those years when you refused to see me?”

  “Refused! You make it sound like you were battering down my door. If I recall, there were two letters and one phone call!”

  “Answer my question.”

  “Of course, I had other men. But that was different—you know it was different, Frank. Marion Palmer!” She saw an exaggerated Marion, all corpulence and makeup and flabby thighs spread wide. Her men, at least, had been thin, narrow, neat, sober—like Frank.

  “I don’t see the difference,” he said. “You had a grudge against Marion—I never did. She was handy and, God knows, she was willing. And I owed her a lot”

  “I can’t believe it. Marion Palmer, of all people.”

  “Jesus, Emily! It was years ago!”

  She would have screamed at him, would have called him some terrible name, but the car swerved just then and skidded across the road, where it plowed into a snowbank. She gave a little cry and pressed her hand to her heart.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “No harm done. Let me just get us out.”

  He put the car in reverse and they heard the wheels spin when he gave it gas. He shifted to forward, back to reverse. The car rocked, the wheels whined against the snow, but they stayed put.

  “I could get out and push,” he said dubiously.

  “You’ll do no such thing!” cried Emily. The feeling in her chest scared her—it was as if a large dog had sat down there, suddenly. Her pills were in her suitcase, her suitcase was in the trunk. He tried the car again, and this time it stalled and wouldn’t start again.

  Outside, in the swirling snow, there was no ground, no horizon, no perspective. Then the wind stopped and they could see the highway. Two cars crept slowly by at long intervals.

  “We’ll wait,” Frank said decisively. “Somebody’ll stop or alert the troopers. Damn these roads! All the plows do is make them slick.” She could tell he was embarrassed by his inability to get them out

  “We were crazy to come,” Emily said with difficulty.

  He moved closer to her and kissed her cheek. The wind blew the loose snow against the car windows and away again. “There’ll be a trooper along soon,” he said. “Or another snowplow. We could follow the plow right to New York State, maybe. You know, speaking of Marion, she told me I should get a CB radio. Wanted to give me one for Christmas. I should have listened to her, for once.”

  Emily drew a little away from him. “You do botch things up, don’t you?”

  He gave a short, mortified laugh. “I don’t believe anybody’s ever accused me of that but you, Emily.”

  “Maybe I’m the only one who was in a position to notice.”

  They were silent for a while. The drifting snow was beautiful to Emily—the whiteness of the eart
h in its old age seemed appropriate. But the car was cold, and her chest hurt; the heaviness wasn’t passing as she’d thought it would.

  He drew close to her again and said, “It’s never too late, you know, Emily.”

  “Too late for what?” Her voice frightened her.

  “For us. We could get married.”

  “Why now, Frank? Why all of a sudden—after thirty-five years?”

  They sat in silence; Frank smiled out at the snow. Looking at him, Emily felt her heart lurch, as if the big dog had gotten up, shaken himself, and plopped down again.

  “Frank?”

  “I’m thinking, Emily—trying to sort things out.”

  “No—it’s my pills. I need my pills. I need my pills.”

  He turned to her. “Oh God, Emily, where in hell are they?” She could see that her appearance frightened him.

  “My suitcase—the trunk.” She pressed her hands to her chest, but when he started to get out she stopped him in panic. “No! Don’t leave me! Frank—” Her voice dropped to a whisper.

  “Emily, for Christ’s sake! Let me get them!”

  “Please, Frank, I’ll die if you leave me!”

  They were still at this impasse when the troopers arrived.

  Chapter Nine

  Betsy

  In the house on Stiles Street, they waited.

  Violet, waiting in the dim-lit sickroom for her reunion with Will, slept and woke, slept and woke, listened to the silence made by the snow and wondered what it was. Betsy and Marion sat in the kitchen waiting for the phone or the doorbell to ring. Marion kept the radio on. The “Storm Watch” with a mixture of pride and horror announced that it was the Northeast’s worst since the famous blizzard of ’88. Marion listened with the same mixture, in which satisfaction was lightly mingled: she had told him so.

  “But I don’t worry about Frank,” she said, keeping her back resolutely to the window. “Frank can take care of himself.”

  “Why don’t they call?” Betsy asked for the twentieth time. She had heard nothing of Frank and Emily since early that morning, when her grandfather had phoned. “Your grandmother is coming with me,” he’d said, and his voice was noncommittal. “Tell Violet her mama is on her way.”