by Doug Burgess
They’ve begun the kind of argument that can go on for hours. “We were talking about Emma,” I remind them both firmly.
“No,” Constance corrects me. “We finished talking about her.”
“I haven’t.” We stare at each other for a long moment. Constance finally looks away.
“Go on, then. What the hell difference does it make?”
“Grandma,” I say to her, “this is really important. Did Emma ever mention a daughter? Or a grandson?”
But there is no answering spark in her eyes. They have gone opaque. “What do you mean? I had the child, not her. Emma never had any children. She was an old maid. A silly old maid with no one to love her. That’s true, isn’t it? Silly, silly, old maid.”
“She had Teddy,” I remind her. “Don’t forget those letters. They carried on right up until she died.”
“That’s right!” Irene chimes in. “She had Teddy, Maggie.”
“If you can call that anything,” Constance adds. But the two of them nod in unison.
“Bullshit,” my grandmother barks. This is what Dr. Renzi calls a “behavior.” She never used to swear, not even when she and Grandpa argued. But since the dementia set in, a whole new vocabulary appeared. The Sarahs look embarrassed. “More coffee, dear?” Aunt Irene asks.
“She sent those letters to herself,” Grandma says, looking at me. “Teddy was dead.”
There is an awkward, worried silence. Grandma’s memory is usually pretty good for things more than thirty years back, and I wonder if this is something ominously new. I look at the other two, waiting for them to sigh or tap their foreheads, but they don’t. They haven’t moved. Something titanically heavy drops from the sky and lands on the floor in front of us.
“That can’t be true?” I whisper, aghast.
Aunt Irene slumps in her chair, like a meringue gone soft in the heat. Her eyes fill with tears, and the rolls of fat under her arms wobble with grief. “It was so terrible,” she says. “He died at Khe Sanh. They never found the body.” She turns to Aunt Constance, as if inviting her to continue, but Constance is staring out the window at the darkness.
“Then what was all the rest?” I ask angrily. “A fairy tale?”
The women shrink from that phrase: Irene with a soft shudder, Constance with a derisive snort. “It wasn’t our story to tell,” she snaps. “You’re better off not asking about things you can’t understand.”
“What story?” Grandma asks, suddenly confused. “Was I supposed to tell a story?”
“Emma got the telegram right after his last letter,” Irene goes on, as if the words are being drawn out of her with a hook. “We were with her then. She read it, tore it up, and then read Teddy’s letter again. I guess that became the reality; the rest disappeared. We waited for her to snap out of it, but she didn’t. And then the letters started coming. We knew what she was doing, of course. She didn’t. I think her brain sort of split in half. Part of it knew she couldn’t handle his death, so it kept writing letters and sending them, for the rest of her life.”
“And you knew the whole time?” I whisper.
“Everybody knew,” snaps Aunt Constance. “Good Lord, I ought to recognize her handwriting. Wally knew, too, of course, but he never said a word. Which is the nicest that could be said for him.”
“So you all kept on pretending?” Before I finish, I know the answer. Of course they did. The whole town did. It’s the New England way.
“It just seemed easier,” Aunt Irene admits.
The image is almost too good to be true. Aunt Emma, deceiving herself, deceiving the Sarahs. And the Sarahs, undeceived, deceiving her. All to spare everyone’s feelings. “Poor Emma,” I sigh.
For a moment we sit in silence, contemplating the past. “Of course, it might not have been like that,” says Aunt Constance.
Irene looks startled. “What do you mean? Certainly, it was! What else could it be?”
“Oh, come off it, prudy. You heard the rumors. There could have been another reason for sending those letters. It kept old man Avery away, and the others too. If you ask me,” Aunt Constance shifts comfortably in her chair, settling in for a good gossip, “Emma might not have liked men all that much.”
“Oh!”
“I wouldn’t be too surprised,” Constance goes on, ruminatively. “I mean, what do you want to believe? That she was so in love with Teddy Johnson that she lost her marbles?”
“Yes!” Aunt Irene cries.
“Or it could have been a damn clever scheme. Maybe she was never all that sweet on him to begin with. I was sorry when he died, and I was sorry for her, but come on, fifty years?”
“Just because you don’t believe in true love…”
“Just because my Harvey ran off with that slut cousin of yours, you mean?” This is degenerating into one of their bickering matches, but Aunt Constance stops herself. Her tone becomes surprisingly gentle. “Well, you’re right. Maybe Emma had the right idea. Make everybody think you’re a little crackers, and they’ll leave you alone. God, wouldn’t it be wonderful to be left alone?”
There is real longing in her voice and Irene’s too. I can see what is going on. Faced with the riddle of Emma Godfrey, which her death has done nothing to solve, each of the Sarahs created their own interpretation. Why would a spinster send herself letters and pretend they were from an old love? Aunt Irene, a kindly and incurable romantic, turns it into a Harold Robbins novel. Aunt Constance, who has been thrice divorced and lives with three bad-tempered Wolfhounds, sees it as a wish for solitude. Perhaps they are both right.
Having stated their respective positions, both camps retreat. Aunt Constance disappears back into the kitchen. Aunt Irene starts channel-surfing.
I look over to Grandma. She smiles, winks. For that moment it’s still Grandma, the one I remember. I love these brief flickers, when she peeks through the fog of her illness and sees me again. Like all precious things, they are becoming rarer. She squeezes my knee and leans in confidentially. “They’re trying to kill me,” she whispers.
“Oh, Grandma.…”
“Shh!” She casts an anxious glance at Aunt Irene before continuing. “I’m telling you, it’s true. They know I know. I saw his body. Poor Teddy, blood everywhere. And I can’t keep all my marbles in one pocket anymore.”
What is this? My brain, reeling, reaches out for something conventional. “Nobody’s trying to kill you. These are your friends.”
Maggie snarls. “They’re poisoning my food. They want to shut me up. Murderers!”
Irene’s got American Idol on and is placidly humming along with a Gaga tune. I desperately hope she can’t hear this.
Then Aunt Constance comes back in, holding a Pepsi.
“Ask her!” Maggie screams. “Ask her who she dropped into Quicksand Pond! She knows! Teddy never made it out of Little Compton alive!”
I have to give Aunt Constance credit, her hand doesn’t even shake. “I think it’s somebody’s bedtime,” she says.
“You mean me,” says Grandma.
“I mean you.”
“I’ll take her up,” Irene offers quickly. She heaves herself out of her chair, takes Grandma’s arm. The two of them totter towards the stairs like old friends.
I’m left with Aunt Constance and Grandma’s last outburst. I can’t think of a way to bring it up. What’s the proper form for asking a seventy-five-year-old woman if she killed a man and buried him in Quicksand Pond fifty years ago? A terrible thought passes through me. What if Grandma is right, what if all her secrets are spilling out, what if they are trying to shut her up? The thought is ludicrous, hurtful. The Laughing Sarahs are not like that. But then I catch a glimpse of Aunt Constance’s hands working themselves in her lap. Large, thick fingers, chapped and veined but still powerful. Hands that could rip the lanterns off a wreck in the middle of the bay at nightfall or wield a tire
iron to silence whoever might still be on board. Or push a body into the muck, watching the brackish water close around it. I don’t know these women.
“Your grandmother,” says Constance severely, “is getting funny. You shouldn’t pay too much mind to the things she says. She can’t keep stuff inside anymore.”
I’m still trying to unpack that statement, which seems to have two contradictory parts, when she goes on, “You shouldn’t have brought all this up. It bothers her. Bothers me too, come to think of it. Whatever sins poor old Emma had, she paid for a thousand times over, so what’s the use of talking about it? I’ll tell you something, since nobody else will: Teddy Johnson had the loosest fly in Newport County. And that’s all I’ll say about that.” She turns up the television, a clear signal conversation is over.
But I’m not about to give up. “You mean he cheated on her, and she…?”
Constance looks away from the set, irritated. “Shut up,” she orders. She puts down her soda, thinks for a moment. Finally, she sighs. “Here’s the deal. I’m gonna tell you this because if I don’t then you’ll hear it from Maggie in bits and pieces and drive me fucking crazy with each one. But after I tell you, you will never, never bring it up again. Not to me, not to Irene, not at Christmas, not on birthdays, not even on your deathbed. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Turn off the damn recorder.”
Constance
Emma was always the toughest. Even when we were kids. And the most passionate. The things she wanted, she wanted desperately. It’s a mistake, wanting anything too much. Because even after you get it, you’re terrified you’ll lose it again, and then in the end, of course you do. Your aunt Irene, now, she’s different. Her mother used to say she came out of the womb laughing. I don’t know if that’s true, but Irene’s always been full up to burst with everything. She overflows. With what? Oh, you know: joy, happiness, life, all that crap. You know. You’ve spent enough time with her. Don’t tell her I said any of that.
But Emma—Emma was hollow. She was born wanting. I blame her father: Ephraim Godfrey was a nasty, prideful, greedy son of a bitch. The kind that would think he was doing you a favor by borrowing twenty bucks, then sneer at your ingratitude if you asked to be paid back. And Miriam Godfrey—Emma’s mother—was like a great big sponge that soaked up everything around it. They were a rotten pair, no question. It’s amazing, if you think of it, that Emma didn’t end up a monster.
I credit your grandma. You don’t know what she was like then. I wish you did; she’s actually a lot like you. She was the first of us to wear slacks—no, I don’t mean it like that. I just mean she was ahead of her time. Everybody wanted to be like her, even me. And Emma. Emma was so dreadful at first. Such a big showoff. Everything had to be the newest, the shiniest, the most expensive. Well, Maggie just knocked the stuffing right out of her. “Why, Emma,” she’d say, “that’s a lovely dress you’re wearing! Did you make it yourself? Oh, I see; is it from Woolworth’s? Cuz I saw the spitting image of it on the mannequin, marked down seventy-five percent. You take my advice and return that dress, go buy the cheaper one and a pair of shoes to go with.” And your grandma just kept on smiling like a buddha. Oh, Emma would steam!
A dress is one thing. A man is another. And Emma wasn’t a little girl anymore. She saw Teddy, and she wanted him—and that was that. He had a reputation. I know Irene left that part out. Makes a better story. But he wasn’t some random lifeguard—we knew him. Hell, it’s Little Compton; of course we knew him. And even then, even before that day at the beach, we knew he was bad news. Told Emma so. But it’s like that necklace she brought back from St. Thomas. The man who sold it to her on the pier told her it was black pearls. She came off the boat waving it around, wore it every damn day. My father was an oysterman, and what I don’t know about pearls isn’t worth knowing. The necklace was paste. Not even a good imitation. But even after I told her and showed her the difference between hers and the real thing, she kept right on wearing it and telling everyone it was real. Like she could change reality just by wishing it so.
That was the vogue back then. All these self-help books telling you that you could do anything if you just willed it enough. And if you tried and failed, you just weren’t applying yourself enough to the task. Fucking Dale Carnegie.
Anyway, Emma set out to change Teddy into what she wanted him to be. And he went along, at first. Maybe he actually loved her. I will say, she played her hand well. He was used to girls falling all over him. But Emma was always cool, always remote. She could talk about Nietzsche or Cubism or the Bauhaus movement. Never simpered or giggled or asked him which movie star he thought she looked like. Teddy had never met anyone like her. She made him feel like it was an honor if she deigned to smile in his direction, and the novelty of having to work for the thing, rather than it just being handed to him, carried him halfway to the altar. Not all the way though. Because, as much as you want them to, people don’t really change. They can fake it for a bit, even convince themselves, but in the end, they are what they are.
I told her so. We all did. One afternoon I sat Emma down on the couch in your grandma’s parlor and said Teddy was a sweet man and handsome, but it was a certain fact he had laid everything except the North Sea cable, and Emma was a fool to think any different. Why, even now he was carrying on with some bartender’s daughter in Cranston, not to mention the girls he picked up round the naval base. And those were just the ones we knew about. Did she seriously think he’d give it all up for her? What if he gave her some loathsome disease, syphilis or the clap? And what, in God’s name, if she got pregnant? What then? Emma just sat there, saying nothing, smoking one cigarette after another. When I was finished, she stood up, ground out her cigarette, and said, “Teddy’s asked for my hand. I told him yes. The wedding’s in June. So go fuck yourself sideways.” And walked out. She and I didn’t speak for months.
Eventually Irene leaned on me. She said not to make Emma choose between her friends and her man because we wouldn’t like the choice and then we’d be stuck with it. That was true enough. So instead we pitched in, helped her plan the wedding, picked out her trousseau, hired the caterers.
Then the war came, and Teddy was drafted. I think he was relieved. They had already set a date and booked the Congregational and hired the Knights of Columbus Hall and a six-piece band. Irene was making the cake. The thing had a momentum of its own, and if the draft letter hadn’t come, I think he might have found himself married out of sheer inertia. So instead of a wedding, we planned a going-away party. That was for Saturday.
I’ll never forget Friday night as long as I live. September 15, 1966. That was the night Jack Benny came back to host The Red Skelton Show. Me, Irene, and your grandma sat around the old Emerson with its big fuzzy yellow speakers and screen like a fishbowl. Then the curtain went up, and the band started to play “Holiday for Strings.” A cheerful voice announced, “Live in Technicolor, brought to you by Pep Pet Supplies…”
Just then Emma came in. She walked right through the back door, stumbling a little like she’d been chased. It was a clear, cool evening, but she was soaked to the skin. Her hair was limp around her shoulders. Her hands and arms were bright red, scalded. And there was a livid bruise just coming in under her eye. But she was eerily calm. She might have been returning from church. “Oh,” she says, in this weird voice, like a piece of hollow glass, “the show’s on. Did I miss anything good?”
“Emma!” Irene cried. “What happened to you?”
She looked from one of us to the other. “Nothing at all,” she said. “Just an accident. Teddy’s cleaning it up.”
I’ll bet he is, I thought. I’d seen this often enough. My momma, God love her, used to tell people she tripped over the rug when she was vacuuming. Happened so often one of the other wives at church seriously recommended she see a doctor for balance issues. As if they didn’t know. But they knew. You just didn’t talk about things
like that then. What good would it do? Couldn’t get divorced, couldn’t make ’em stop going down to the Boy and Lobster on a Friday night. Your grandpa—well, you know about him.
So when Emma told us it was an accident, we just took her into the bathroom, cleaned her up, and sat her in front of the television. She didn’t move, didn’t blink. Damn, I thought, Teddy really got her. But maybe it was a blessing in disguise. I always knew he was a bastard, and now she knew as well. Like a fool, I was already thinking about the future: Teddy would go off to Vietnam, the engagement would fizzle, and that would be that.
But then Red Skelton ended and Petticoat Junction came on, and Emma still hadn’t moved. She stared at the television screen like it was talking just to her.
“Honey?” Irene called to her, “Are you okay? Do you want something to eat?”
Emma got this weird look on her face. Like she was trying not to laugh. It was terrifying. “Why, no, thank you,” she said in that same flat, lifeless voice, “I made lobsters for Teddy. They are his favorite. Boiled with some drawn butter and mayonnaise sauce. And new potatoes.”
That sounded good, but I had to wonder why she was here and not eating those lobsters with Teddy. By the looks of things, she’d emptied the whole pot of boiling water onto herself. Or he had. Irene and me just glanced at each other, didn’t know what to say. Your grandma went into the linen cupboard and got out a spare duvet and pillow. “You can stay here tonight,” she said.
“No. I can’t. I have to go home and clean up.”
“You’re not going back in there alone,” I told her.
“I have to. Teddy…”
“I’ll take care of Teddy,” I promised. The three of us stood up together. Emma just shrugged. As if she weren’t soaked and scalded. As if the whole thing had happened to someone else.
“Suit yourself,” she said.
Well, as soon as we got to the house, I could tell something was wrong. The front door hung open, letting in every bug in Christendom. One of the lamps in the living room had been knocked sideways, and a vase was smashed on the floor. The light shone right in our faces. And the house was awfully quiet. So quiet that I could hear the hiss and pop of the burners on the stove; she’d left it on. But no sign of Teddy. “Where is he?” I asked Emma. I was beginning to wish I’d brought my twelve-gauge. Or at least a rolling pin.