I had no heart for scolding her, I realized now. My earlier anger had been spent, and I believe it was at that moment that I understood the exact nature of my feelings for Birdie Freeman. For three months I had felt within me the warring factions of love and hatred toward her. It was not Birdie herself whom I hated, of course, but rather the softening of my heart, the stirring up of old remembrances, the gradual opening of gateways.
I did not want to love again, I told myself; indeed, I had vowed not to do so. Yet each contact with Birdie further eroded my defenses. I felt increasingly vulnerable, and this was what I hated. As I looked steadfastly upon the glint of the pale green stone in the center of her locket, I knew that I was guilty of fakery. As other women put on airs of various kinds, a behavior that I self-righteously denounced, I saw clearly my own falseness, for I had been pretending, quite convincingly, to despise someone whom I had grown to love.
Such knowledge could not be made public, however. Certain things were expected of me. I could not at the age of fifty become a different person. Or could I? Only recently had I finished a book—Stone Diaries by Carol Shields—in which a character named Alice made the following claim: “The self is not a thing carved on entablature.” Her point was that one can, by a force of the will, change himself in extreme, fundamental ways. For example, whereas Alice had lived for nineteen years as a contentious, domineering fault-finder, she decided after her first year of college to become a kind person and set about to do so. But I did not want to change! Or did I?
I felt that my course was set, but I saw trouble ahead. Thomas, for example, had for the fifteen years of our marriage allowed me my idiosyncrasies to an extent that others would certainly deem incredible. Ours was a symbiotic relationship, an exchange of goods and services, a business arrangement without physical union, yet I have already set down for you the slow changes at work between the two of us of late.
Though I still conducted myself in a brusque manner toward him, Thomas had begun in recent weeks, as reported in an earlier chapter, to approach me more directly and with less reserve. I know not to what cause to lay this change, although, as intimated previously, I believe that Birdie’s coming into my arena, so to speak, had distracted me. Sensing a shift—though I doubt that he could have defined it in words—Thomas had begun venturing closer. As proof, that very morning he had said to me as I opened the door to leave for work, “Margaret, I’m gonna cook our Thanksgiving turkey tomorrow.” I had set my lips and closed the door firmly without reply, as if angry, though in truth only mystified.
To return to Birdie, however, I cannot tell how long we remained silent following her request for forgiveness. I continued to gaze at the silver pendant about her neck, as if held by a hypnotist’s power, and she began to toy with it, tapping upon the peridot lightly, then running her finger around it in a tiny circle. I wanted to tell her to stop, to point out that the engraving was nearly invisible as it was and that she would erase it altogether if she did not take care, that her tampering with the stone could loosen it. But I said nothing.
A phrase from Willa Cather’s My Ántonia kept repeating itself in my mind as I watched the tiny clockwise motion of her finger: “What a little circle man’s existence is.” At length—most likely it was only seconds of time that had passed—she leaned forward, braced her hands upon my desk as she had done upon previous occasions, and repeated her question. “Will you please forgive me, Margaret? I’ll be sure to ask next time.”
I lifted my eyes to hers and spoke, my voice much louder than I had intended. “As I said, I will overlook the incident today, and it would be better for all if there were no next time.”
For an instant before she smiled and replied pleasantly “Thank you, Margaret,” I tried to imagine what she would have said had I opened my heart to her at that moment, had I said something like this: “Birdie, of course I forgive you. My anger is but an act, a poor attempt to cover my pride and fear. Please be patient with me and continue to be my friend, for I need your help.”
I permitted myself a brief interval of wishing—that my soul were as unobstructed as Birdie’s, that I could reach forward and touch others unabashedly, that I could speak with her simple honesty, that I were not so trussed with doubts and seasoned rage. I had read a book some months earlier called The Weight of Winter by Cathy Pelletier—not a riveting book, for I felt that the author’s style was still in its formative stages, yet compelling enough that I would not abandon the story midway—in which one of the characters resigns herself to remaining in the town where she grew up, reminding herself that if she were to grow restive she could always retreat to “that gauzy realm of wishing.” This seems to me, upon reflection, a most unsatisfactory way to live one’s life.
I realized as Birdie turned and left my office that I would never be content merely to wish or to imagine myself more like her. What I was beginning to desire earnestly, I knew, was actually to be more like her. The truth could not be denied: I wanted to change. Yet I did not know how.
At the same time, however, the perfidy of my past rose up before me like a spectacular monster, and I heard its evil laugh, as if confirming an everlasting covenant with doom and damnation. I longed to call out to Birdie, to summon her back, to seek her help in exorcising the demon of my past, but I sat silently at my desk and watched her return to the kitchen. I saw Algeria and Francine move toward her as if ready to offer comfort. I saw Birdie smile and shake her head, and I remembered a curious thing I had once read in a magazine: that in certain eastern European countries when a man shook his head, he was signifying “yes,” and when he nodded, he meant “no.”
20
A More Excellent Way
As I reported earlier, events unfolded so rapidly during the months of October and November that I began to feel quite a stranger to myself at times. On the day before Thanksgiving, the truth had stirred within my heart that I cared for Birdie Freeman to a degree surpassing the ordinary. I was not prepared, however, to act upon the realization openly, primarily, I suppose, because affectionate behavior was foreign to me.
You can imagine the emotional rearrangement necessitated by such developments, one upon the heels of the other, so to speak, for only a few weeks prior I had suddenly come to see that I cared for Thomas in a way I had thought impossible. Truly, my feelings for both Thomas and Birdie were developments, for they had taken root imperceptibly and had bloomed quietly.
Looking back upon those months of awakening, I feel a pang of sadness that I continued to conceal from Thomas and Birdie for weeks to come such knowledge of my fondness for them. In fact, I believe that immediately upon understanding the altered state of my emotions, I assumed an even more severe behavior toward both. I am quite certain that my hardness of manner was grounded in uncertainty, in timidity, in distrust—in short, in fear. Most likely my sternness was not altogether convincing, however, for as I have said, Thomas had begun to deal with me more confidently, yet still with gentle forbearance and an underlying respect.
Upon a number of occasions, beginning with the week of Thanksgiving, the phrase too late haunted my mind. I could not rid myself of the conviction that an individual’s opportunity to make known his tender feelings to another could not last indefinitely, that doors forced open did not remain so permanently, that once a prime moment had passed it could seldom be retrieved. What’s more, I knew that a man or woman who failed to act upon the truth of his affections was forfeiting the joy of what I had begun to think of as “living honestly.”
Pressing upon me daily was the memory of two books in particular: Remains of the Day and 84 Charing Cross Road. In the first, the author, Kazuo Ishiguro, illustrates the failure to seize love, letting it wash away through one’s fingers like fine sand to be carried to the ocean depths. The story of the butler and the housekeeper is one of lost opportunity, of failure to speak openly and thus penetrate the barrier between them. Likewise, Helen Hanff, in her fine epistolary work 84 Charing Cross Road, tells of a friendship that, t
hough charming and satisfying on one level, nevertheless falls short of complete fruition because of procrastination. I began to feel an increasing burden to ventilate my soul, to fling open windows and breathe deeply before it was too late.
It is of some interest to me that much, perhaps most, of what I have learned about human interaction has come through books. While I believe that most people turn to fiction in order to confirm what they know of life, for most of my fifty-one years I have reversed the act—judging and validating life by the books I have read. “Yes,” I may say to myself, “what I overheard between the mother and her adult daughter in the parking lot of the library is realistic because I read a conversation similar in many regards in Alice McDermott’s novel The Bigamist’s Daughter.” Of physical, romantic relationships built upon love, my only knowledge is that which I have gleaned from fiction, for as of yet I have not experienced such union firsthand. If ever I do—and I have found myself wondering of late if such could ever come to pass—will I not say to myself, “This is what I have read in books”?
Thanksgiving Day dawned sunny and mild for November. Thomas set about early in the day cleaning his outdoor grill—a brick affair that he had erected in the backyard shortly after our marriage but had put to use only rarely, due to the fact, I suppose, that I did not care to relinquish my control over the cooking of the meat, preferring instead to start supper before he returned home from the hardware store. After scrubbing and hosing the metal rack, he began laying charcoal and hickory chips in the lower part of the grill. I watched him for a while through my bedroom window, which faces the backyard.
I had washed and thawed the turkey, given to us, you recall, by Birdie’s incurably talkative friend, Eldeen Rafferty, and it sat now in the refrigerator awaiting further attention. As I watched Thomas preparing the grill, I knew that I could choose one of two courses: I could obstruct his plans by hastily setting the turkey in the oven to bake, or I could allow him to grill the turkey uncontested.
I saw him check his watch and disappear into the storage shed. He emerged a few seconds later bearing a large sheet of metal that he placed over the top of the pit, turning it twice to determine the best fit. He had equipped the sheet with a wooden handle for lifting, for it was intended as a lid. This sheet of metal he then removed, sprayed with water, and wiped with paper towels. I saw that he had apparently taken a new roll of paper towels from the kitchen pantry and was using them quite profligately, as is usually the manner of men with disposable goods.
I reached my decision. I would leave the cooking of the turkey to Thomas. I dimly recalled a pheasant he had grilled some fourteen or fifteen years earlier, and I suddenly craved the taste of smoked fowl. In addition, I thought of the other dishes I planned to prepare for our dinner and realized that I could devote more of my time and oven space to those if I were not continually marking the progress of the turkey.
I spent the morning and early afternoon in the assembly of a yam casserole, shoepeg corn pudding, green bean bake, creamed broccoli, cranberry salad, yeast rolls, and a pecan pie. I am not given to cooking dishes in advance and freezing them. I prefer to eat my food on the same day that it is prepared. I had brewed tea the night before, however, and had set it in a sealed pitcher in the refrigerator.
We generally eat our Thanksgiving meal at two o’clock in the afternoon, but it was almost three o’clock when we finally sat down that day. Thomas had spoken very little during his comings and goings from yard to kitchen, but it was plain that he considered the grilling of the turkey to be not only a matter of great import but also an adventure he relished. When he finally brought the turkey into the kitchen on a platter, he carried it before him solemnly and set it upon the counter with the attitude of one presenting a sacrifice. We both studied it silently. It was fit to be pictured in a magazine.
“Ain’t he a dandy?” Thomas said at length.
“I hope the meat is not dry,” I said. “Grilled meat often is.”
“Depends on the meat and on the one doin’ the grillin’,” Thomas said. “You must’ve forgot what a hand I always was at outdoor cookin’.”
“Well, we shall see,” I said. “It looks satisfactory.”
Thomas loosened up and laughed with his usual abandon. “Yep, like my pop always used to say ever’ time we’d sit down at the table, ‘Looks good enough to eat!’”
Though I saw nothing humorous in the remark, I smiled slightly and turned again to the kitchen table, upon which I had laid a white tablecloth and our white dishes, our only set at the time. I had placed a neatly ironed green napkin beside the forks at each setting. Now I set a small dish of cranberry salad to the left of the forks at each place.
Thomas walked to the stove and lifted the lids of the casserole dishes one at a time. This is generally an act I greatly dislike. I had communicated to him early in our marriage that he could view the food when it was set upon the table and not before, for there is nothing more annoying when one is working in the kitchen than to have someone underfoot, especially a man who is only meddling and has no intention of volunteering his help. I let it go for the moment, however, with only a brief word. “Dinner will be on the table in five minutes. No doubt you will want to wash your hands.”
Thomas tested me further by turning on the faucet at the kitchen sink in order to wash his hands. I have told him repeatedly of my aversion to hand washing within splashing distance of food being prepared for consumption. The first time I told him this, some sixteen years ago, he grinned and said, “Prepared for consumption? Does that mean for eatin’? Now what else would you be preparin’ food for, Rosie?” He understood my point, however, and only rarely failed to go to the bathroom sink.
I set trivets upon the table and transferred the casserole dishes from the stove, then placed the turkey in the center of the table. After putting ice in the glasses, I poured the tea, checked on the rolls in the oven, and announced to Thomas that everything was ready. A few minutes later we sat down to our Thanksgiving dinner.
The evening we had eaten at the Field Pea Restaurant, Virgil Dunlop had asked if he might “bless the food,” as he termed it. We had acquiesced, of course, not caring to argue the matter publicly, and he had prayed quite without inhibition, only barely lowering the volume at which he spoke. It was a custom that I had been familiar with as a girl; both my mother and my grandparents had said grace before meals. I had ceased private prayers some years before fleeing from my grandparents’ home, having seen the inefficacy of prayer in general and of my prayers in particular, and I had not heard a prayer uttered at mealtime since the age of seventeen. Thomas had never given any indication to me of having prayed in his lifetime.
You may imagine my astonishment, then, when upon sitting down for our Thanksgiving dinner, Thomas cleared his throat, inhaled deeply, and said to me, “Rosie, it’s such a pretty table you’ve gone and fixed up that I think it deserves somethin’ special. Is it all right with you if I…well, I thought I might…you know, just say a little somethin’ before we eat.”
“What do you propose to say?” I asked as if confused, though in truth I suspected his meaning.
He did not answer but instead bowed his head and recited the following: “For this food we give thanks and ask…and ask to be fed and filled with…with plenty.” He paused a moment, seeming unsure of the next step, and then said, “Amen.” Neither of us looked at the other while we unfolded our napkins and placed them upon our laps. Thomas took a noisy drink from his glass of iced tea and said, “Now I’ll cut the turkey,” and he picked up the carving knife and proceeded to do so rather expertly. I had all but forgotten that during the months before we were married and for some time thereafter, he had demonstrated his meat-carving skill quite regularly. I cannot say why he had ceased the practice over the years, but most likely it was again my own impatience to get a job done that led me to take over not only the preparing of the meat but the slicing as well.
Thomas has large and powerful hands. As he carved the turke
y, the thought came to me that they were also capable. I believe that one’s character in many ways is imprinted upon his hands. Though I often avoid looking into a person’s eyes, I most often study his hands closely. I have a vast mental catalog of them. I remember my mother’s hands as if they were my own. As I grew to adulthood, in fact, one small pleasure to me amid the abundance of pain was the recognition as I looked upon my own hands that they were becoming very like what I remembered my mother’s to have been. If I have “set a store,” as Thomas would say it, upon any of my physical attributes, it would, I suppose, be my hands. This is one way that Birdie had first wedged a crack in the door of my heart, for you may recall that she had more than once spoken of them in favorable terms.
“That is certainly more than enough turkey for the present,” I said, realizing that Thomas had now sliced a sixth piece. He laid the carving knife alongside the platter and reached for my plate, upon which he placed a slice of breast meat. I rose at the sound of the oven timer and removed the rolls from the baking sheet to a serving basket. Excluding Thomas’s repeated murmurs of “Mmm-mmm,” we spoke very little as we served our plates from the casserole dishes, buttered our rolls, and so forth.
Something must have sparked within Thomas an urge to reminisce, however, for once his plate was full, he began talking of Thanksgivings past. In most families I believe it is the wife whose words weave colorful, unbroken monologues of repeating patterns; if not the woman, then certainly the children. Thomas, residing in a home with a silent wife and without children, had, I suppose, taken to talking in order to fill the emptiness, at times conversing more or less to himself, although I was almost always listening even when it may have appeared otherwise.
His memories this day spanned many decades, mingling stories from his boyhood with those of recent years, including even the Thanksgiving dinner of a year ago, when I had baked a huckleberry pie from berries that I had frozen during the summer and Thomas himself had made vanilla ice cream in our wooden churn to serve with the warm pie. I recalled my threefold irritation over the homemade ice cream: first, that he had set the churn in the bathtub without a protective cloth beneath it to prevent scratches, of which several resulted; second, that the expenditure of time and ingredients was completely unnecessary, considering the fact that I had bought a half-gallon of Sealtest vanilla ice cream two days before for the express purpose of complementing the huckleberry pie; and third, the season seemed inappropriate for homemade ice cream. I am sure that there are those, however, who would say the same about grilling a turkey outdoors on Thanksgiving Day.
Some Wildflower In My Heart Page 27