The Wintering

by Joan Williams

  Jeff walked to the window with the whiskey bottle and tilted it to his mouth. Having recapped it, he said, turning, “Poor baby.” That struck Amy as being condescending, and she looked at him, a little less sorry for having refused.

  “—who can’t melt,” he had concluded.

  Against the edgeless sun visible at the window, he seemed all the same color, hard to distinguish. “You may think too highly of your body, Amy,” he said. “It’s, after all, flesh and blood. And, I worry that you’re never going to be able to love anyone.”

  How ridiculous, she thought, running over in her mind the people she already loved, her family despite all the things they had done to her, and she loved him, though not in the way he wanted. Could she help that? Old shame filled her as she stood and drew up her pants, uncomfortable that he did not look away. Not speaking, she gathered things to take to the car. She waited for him then at the door. He put the last scrap into the stove and came on, bringing the lunch basket. Still silent, they crossed the schoolyard, passing left-over sad playground equipment, a tire hanging lopsidedly by a frayed rope, a huge tractor tire on which the children had climbed.

  “I thought I could help,” he said. “I know you’re not frigid. You only need to have something frozen inside you melted. Something your past did to you. But I guess I’m the wrong one.”

  Miserable, she said, “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not fatal,” he said. “It’s a momentary sadness like a star falling. But we’ve put so much time into this, it seems a shame it’s ended.”

  They spoke little on the trip back to town. But Amy was surprised that he stopped at the bus stop for her to get out, though the bus had not come. They said hardly goodbye, and he drove away. She had felt so disgruntled on the drive that she had argued with him even when he mentioned that it was going to rain. But he had been right. Rain was coming down torrentially by the time the bus reached Delton. She was drenched in the moment it took her to run inside the station. She was so cold that she had difficulty opening a locker where she had stored inconsequential packages, to pretend that, having gone to the movies, she had done a little shopping. With these few things, she felt homeless, that they were all her possessions, and she started from the bus station.

  She went home in a taxi, and got out a block away, hoping to dash up the driveway and enter the house through the back way, not to be seen. Her father was standing on the back steps waiting for a lull in the rain before going out to the garage. When she rounded a corner, he stared at her so strangely that Amy wondered, too, whether she were in the wrong place.

  This was his daughter? his face asked. His eyes strayed to where a button was missing from her coat, and her hands, without gloves, were wet and red as a scrubwoman’s. He would offer no advice, not to be an old fogey like most parents. Standing convivially, jiggling change in his pockets, he observed Amy’s small packages. He remarked how glad he was she had been out shopping again. Spend all the money she wanted! Offering, he thought that she had never looked worse. Her hair that could be pretty hung around her face like wet mop strings. And with an observant look on his face, he said, “I ought to get you a car of your own.”

  Amy, hesitating at the bottom step when he spoke, started toward the porch’s shelter.

  “I don’t need a car,” she said. “I’d like the money, instead, to go away.”

  Amy, I can’t bear the silence. I can’t. Will you take me back into your experience? I had thought I could stand it, but I can’t. I know that now. Naturally, it hurts when you say no. You had said you wanted to be free, and I wanted to help you become so. I may be the wrong one. But until you find someone else, let me keep trying. You need someone so much. Your past has made you so vulnerable to hurt, I can’t help but worry about you. Once before I told you, I’ll he anything to you you want me to be. I only think now there’s confusion on both our parts about what you want from me. There were questions when I got home that day. I had been needed to go for a prescription. The night before, Jessie had made a mess of dinner and that day had burned Amelia’s birthday cake. I’ve been appointed to find out what’s wrong with her. Neither liquor nor pills will help me. One of the things we had between us was truth. I think we still have that. So will you tell me truthfully if you really do want to be free of me completely. If so, then I’ll quit this. I promise.

  Jeff

  She wouldn’t eat lunch, Edith had thought, but feeling tired must mean that she needed food, and having set down her grocery bag, she opened a package of cookies. The chocolate taste set up inside her a feeling of starvation, for food, excitement, sex, something, and one cookie led to another. Having no name for what she wanted, Edith continued to cram cookies into her mouth until, at least, hunger was sated. Afterward, she could have cried over the cellophane bag, emptied. Instead of asking Mallory if she were too fat, which obviously she was, she now asked him frequently how much too fat she was, considering her age? He muttered something always about looking healthy, neither telling the truth nor avoiding it. This avoidance made her eat more, as if to force him to say what he really thought.

  Whistling, the postman went down the other side of the street, his breath smoking O’s, as fragile as the sky. That morning, tree limbs had been perfectly preserved in ice, which now melted in unrelenting drips against the house. Edith, holding a letter toward the light, thought, if only Amy had stayed here and married and been like the other girls, I wouldn’t be in this dilemma!

  The letter against the light, she could make out only that it had been scrawled in red pencil, but it did reveal that Amy had not told Mr. Almoner she was leaving. What did that mean? If Amy had run away from him, perhaps she cared enough to come back if he asked. Edith’s heart set up a rhythmic thumping, only partially because she was walking upstairs. Would Amy come back? Edith wondered where the years had gone when she had complained about being exhausted from running after Amy, keeping her from moving knickknacks about the house. How she longed to be exhausted in that way again.

  She did not glance at stack after stack of numbered canvases in her closet, having given up painting. Now, in her tufted pink chair and confronting her life, she thought that, Yes, she would give in and eventually buy expensive silk slacks and a silk shirt to be worn out covering her stomach, and she would go with Mallory to some semitropical place and there attempt native dances, further ruining her skin with martinis and sun and catch a fish and pose, or in a flower lei, for a picture to be sent back to the hometown paper. At night, wearing a flowery dress with a matching cashmere sweater similar to the other ladies’, she would pose again behind an exotic rum drink, or on deck behind a life preserver bearing some cruise ship’s name. This is my life, Edith thought, dialing the phone.

  “Hello. I understand you have a ceramic class. I’m interested in taking it three mornings a week.”

  Enrolled, she went downstairs to a house filled with ceramic ashtrays and bunnies and urns presented by friends. Now she could give ceramic presents in return. The letter on the kitchen table, the water boiling, reminded Edith again of her dilemma. One thing we had between us was truth. The envelope when it was resealed did not seem steamed. She would make Mallory a big white ashtray for his office, and he would say, “Honey, you’re just as artistic and talented as you can be,” though it would be a replica of all the ashtrays taken out of the kiln that day. She was tired of pretense and wished Amy had told her what she was looking for. Gaiety was a covering up for fools, pretensive and easy. She was wrong then to have despaired of Amy’s mournful face. Only how did you make sense of truth and honesty? Edith wondered. It was by dishonesty she had learned of her failures and more about her daughter. While the cycles of her life revolved still with the moon, Amy saw her only as her mother, which was natural. Though, touched by the right person, Edith knew she might abandon even Amy. Who was to touch her?

  Opening a box of crackers and eating, Edith began to clean pantry shelves. The work would take up most of the day. Something else might
happen tomorrow. She finished a cracker, dried her hands, and put Almoner’s letter into an envelope addressed to Amy before taking from her desk a sheet of plain stationery.

  Never would it occur to Amy her mother had had a lover. Amy was too young to appreciate one, having never done without love. Knowing how much she could bring to an affair, Edith yearned with Mr. Almoner, addressing an envelope to him.

  About the letter, he thought, a beldame straining toward vicarious intrigue and no longer protecting her only chick. What had changed her? Maybe she thought he might lure Amy home again, though he did not think he had that power. Though she had written the letter, the composition teacher at Miss Somebody’s finishing school might well have been looking over her shoulder; however, she had been cagey enough not to use her feminine blue stationery.

  Dear Mr. Almoner:

  May I take this opportunity to tell you that my daughter, Amy, has gone to New York City for an indefinite stay. I have forwarded her your recent letter. Her address is as follows: No. 2 Beverly Place.

  Sincerely yours,

  Edith Howard

  Mister Jeff had sayed, Come here, Jessie. I want to talk to you. Then Miss Amelia come from choir practice and had the mail. He read his letter and it taken a time for him to understand, seem like. Then he so pale, I ast if he needed a pill. He sayed “No” and something about his last cast, but not fishing talk. Probably about that girl and none of my nevermind, unless he told me. My dough was ready. I let it set and finally had to get him some water. He taken a pill quick. Sho do worry me about Mister Jeff’s heart.

  Then Vern come. I had done seed his car at the end of the drive and thought, this one time he could wait. But young folks don’t expect to for nothing. Think old folks here to hop toad to they biddin’, shoot. I thought Mister Jeff and me done been here together long time ’fore Vern got hisself born by mistake. Mister Jeff sayed, “Jessie, guess this the spring I’ll finally make that garden I always been going to make.” I sayed I sho would be glad. I was telling him about where to set out the ’matoes when Vern come up the back steps. He seen Mister Jeff and me setting there. His eyes pop out asting me, Why? Honey, I could have told him. Evening was coming on and Vern stood in the shadows. He ain’t going to come in, mad enough at having to come to the back do’. I had done tole him, “Come on to the front. Mister Jeff, he don’t care. It his house even if Miss Amelia act like it hers.” Vern had did told me he’d wait till didn’t nobody have to go to the back. “Time going to come, Aun-tee,” he say; and I sayed, “Let it.”

  Remember how Momma always sayed, “Live so that if your hen have eggs, your neighbor got eggs”? But Vern don’t want to listen, not to nothing. Standing out on the porch thinking I don’t see him. I wanted to say, I see you, baby. Thing is, you don’t see me. I know what he do see. He see me coming across the flo’ with these big old bosoms shaking and Mister Jeff’s slippers flopping on my feets. Can’t keep nothing on my feets but house shoes. I can’t go on no march. I told Vern, though, if it give him hope, then march. Miss Amelia say these corns come from shoes too little. Me and her been treating ours together. Vern don’t want to hear, time was when didn’t colored or white folks have nothing round in this part of the country. Think nobody have had such a hard time as him. That’s young people. Mrs. Uncle Tom; Vern thinking that just as clear. Here I’m at, boy. I just soon tell him so. He in the shadows whispering, “How long ’fore you can go?” I sayed, “I ain’t coming.” Then he say, “They won’t let you off?” He sho quick to bitter. I sayed I been coming and going here like I wants all the time I been here. I ain’t coming ’cause I ain’t coming. Too old. Lord have mercy so much angry in young peoples today. I sayed I’d stay home and read the Bible. Only place they is any religion left. And pray Vern don’t kill somebody yet. Then Mister Jeff seed him and say, “Hidy, Vern,” and act like he don’t notice Vern don’t say “Hidy” back. I told Vern, “Wait,” then go on ’bout his business. Them stairs is gettin’ me down. I brought me back this book I had did cut the insides out one time, and Vern knowed what was in it. I told him, “This the place we got to live. We got to get along. But take this on to meeting and when you at the lunch counter, buy something on me.” He sayed, “I ain’t got served yet.” I sayed he would be. He sayed, “Aun-tee, you give me it all? Three hundred dollars. That is all you got in this world.” And I sayed, “You wrong about that.”

  Mister Jeff ast me, “Did he come for you to go to church?” I sayed, “I ain’t going to meeting, my corns hurts me too bad.” He sayed, “He’s gone then?” and I sayed, “Gone, now, but you ain’t seed the last of Vern.” Then Mister Jeff say Miss Amelia want him to find out what is the matter and don’t anybody care I have did burned the dinner and the cake, but they care about what is the matter and have he or her or Miss Inga did something wrong? So I sayed, No, they have not, that something just been on my mind that’s settled now. Then he look up quick knowing it have to be something about Vern, what I give him, or me not going to meeting. I sayed, “What the young peoples do is what they is going to do and I am too old to take part. I have give all I can. Tell Miss Amelia everything going to be the way it was befo’.”

  Then Mister Jeff up like a shot. I thought he had did seed something out in the yard. I didn’t seed nothing. The ground could be turned soon and I sayed, “Carry us up to the Western Auto. We could be picking us out some seeds.” But Mister Jeff already going out saying, “I won’t be here come springtime, after all.”

  “But why the train?”

  Amy thought of her mother and father asking why take two days when she could get there in a few hours. She could not have explained it was because she did not want to go. They would have asked, then, the expected, Why go? And she could not have explained. But on the bus, having left Jeff, she had stared out at kudzu vine being beaten frenziedly by the rain, later dashing itself onto Delton’s streets, knowing that she had to leave. Two Negroes on the bus had loudly argued and her seat companion, redolent of false-teeth cleanser, leaning close had said, “They’re so shortly out of Africa, you know, we’re not safe.” Turning away, Amy had thought more resolutely that she was going.

  Spring was a fantasy, the conglomerate colors of the countryside, swiftly viewed from the train, were like a carnival, with redbud and forsythia and jonquils fusing, though nothing of the startling sweetness of the outdoors disturbed the stale air in the sleeping coach. In New York, the intense explosion of the season was sidewalks filled. Under striped umbrellas, like fairytale mushrooms, men sold hot dogs, their signs also reading Bagels. Feeling she had plunged into a new life, Amy determined to try everything; though, parsimoniously, she held close her purse pretending she must be careful of money. She had decided to accept only income from stocks in her name. Then, at the last moment, relenting, she took a large check from her father. The spring wind now was chill and blew cinders along the street.

  Sitting in a taxi, Amy tried to recall Nancy, her college roommate, and could remember only someone faceless who always wore plaid shorts bicycling. When Nancy had written that she was moving from her parents’ uptown apartment, downtown to Greenwich Village, Amy had decided to join her. Nancy had written that she was not even going home for weekends, which Amy had felt showed true independence.

  Now, she felt pressed in upon by small worries, riding along, and was disappointed to find she could not yet meet every situation with the aplomb she wanted. The phrase “cool as a cucumber” went through her mind. With suitcases falling over onto her and nibbling a cuticle, she worried about how much to tip the driver and whether Nancy would be at home to let her in; if not, how she was going to manage her luggage alone? She had foolishly expected, in her first moment of freedom, to be without confusions. Instead, she was filled with small ones. Staring out at muddled streets, Amy wondered whether she had made a mistake to leave home. Perhaps her father did love her and maybe her mother had meant something besides what she had said. “Amy, if you go away, I’ll never get you into Junior Leagu
e,” Edith had cried despairingly.

  “In New York for a visit, young lady?” the taxi driver asked. He waited comfortably behind his wheel while Amy dragged her suitcases to the sidewalk. “To get a job,” she said. “Good luck to you,” he said. She tipped him too much, not only because she was fearful of not giving enough, but because she wanted to feel one of all the small working people up against the world.

  Her new residence she thought marvellously depressing, with haphazard and dented garbage cans lining the sidewalk in front. The building seemed squeezed in as an afterthought to fill up space between two larger ones. Not only were the mailbox slots inside glassless, the foyer could hold only one suitcase at a time. Nancy’s white card, in one slot, stood out from the others, clean and engraved. Having buzzed, Amy was admitted through a second door. Propping it open, she dragged her suitcases from the sidewalk into the hall, expecting Nancy to run helpfully down the stairs. When only silence came, she started up, dragging the heaviest bag. Random lights gave the stairwell a dim, dirtyish and appropriate air, but Amy hoped there were not roaches or rats. Rounding the first landing, she was disappointed that a baby cried behind an apartment door and that there were cooking smells and the sounds of tables being set. She had expected all the boring details of the everyday world to have disappeared. Down the roundy stairwell, making no move but to lean over the bannister, Nancy cried, “Don’t give up! There are only three more flights.”