The Most Perfect Gift

by Hubert Furey

  “He’s still on the phone,” Aaron replied, slicing through another thick piece of homemade bread.

  “Still on the phone?” Rachel queried. The answer had surprised her.

  It was totally unlike her husband to take telephone calls during the family meals. He put in a lot of time in his job at the university—he had published more than the rest of the faculty put together—but, once home, his family came first.

  Mealtime gatherings around the table were almost sacred to him. He never answered the telephone during mealtimes. It was one way he kept the world of work out. The family was always instructed to take the message. This must be a highly unusual call.

  “He’s been on the phone for a half-hour now,” interjected Mark, sopping up the last remaining gravy on a crust of bread. “Some lady. I wanted to take a message, but she insisted on talking to Dad. She talked pretty low. I could hardly hear her.”

  Rachel stiffened, conscious of feelings that had never appeared before in her marriage. She dismissed them immediately. She had no time for petty jealousy. Besides, she knew that women who tried to flirt with her husband at the university parties usually gave up in boredom, particularly if Aaron had taken advantage of the misunderstood opportunity to deliver another passionate lecture on Wordsworth or Shelley.

  But a disturbing feeling arose and wouldn’t go away. Mark detected the change of mood in her face.

  “Relax, Mom, she’s probably from the telephone company looking for last month’s payment.” He was laughing. After Jenna, Mark was the next-best tease in the family.

  “Or last year’s payment,” exaggerated Aaron, grinning. He, too, was enjoying the joke at their father’s expense.

  “The envelope is probably still in his inside coat pocket,” laughed Moira.

  Rachel hadn’t smiled. She couldn’t explain it, but she felt uneasy, for the very first time in their marriage. Still, she maintained her composure, giving no indication of the way she had begun to feel inside.

  What was she thinking? One thing she never had to worry about was her husband’s fidelity. Unlike a lot of the other married men she had come to know throughout her life, her Aaron was as faithful as they come. Still, the uneasiness persisted. She stood up and pushed back her chair, turning in the direction of the little study where Aaron had gone to answer the phone, masking her inner thoughts by an affected tone of authority.

  “Well, bills or no bills, his food is getting cold, and I’m not waiting for him anymore. And,” she added, trying to be playful, “this other woman is just going to have to wait.”

  “Atta girl, Mom,” the children chorused. They liked the way their mother turned the little family crises into occasions for laughter.

  “Technical knockout, first round,” Moira trumpeted, her fists in make-believe swings at an imaginary opponent.

  Their laughter soothed her uneasiness as she walked toward the study, feeling ashamed of her earlier reaction. The disturbing feelings returned, however, as she approached the study door. It was mysteriously closed, totally unlike Aaron. It mortified her the way he took even his important calls from the university in front of any Tom, Dick, or Harry who happened to be sitting at the kitchen table. He was so open. But this time?

  The sounds of his voice from beyond the door were muffled, and she found herself straining to hear, something she had never done before. She had never eavesdropped on a telephone conversation. It was beneath her. Yet now she had to know—must know—what was going on behind that door. There was something strange, something ominous about the low tones of conversation, something that induced a sense of foreboding that she had never experienced before, and it frightened her. She rapped on the study door, surprising herself by the harshness of her knock.

  She thought she heard Yes, yes, I will do it, look, I can’t leave right this moment, I will do it, and the receiver clicking on the telephone before her husband opened the door and stood facing her.

  She stood aghast at the scene which greeted her, totally unprepared for the shock of her husband’s appearance: the distraught look on his face, the unmistakable fear radiating from his eyes, the palpitation in his jaw as he attempted to greet her. A good-looking man of strong build who looked every bit the quiet intellectual professor, he now looked sodden and disturbed, his normally well-groomed, greying hair totally unkempt.

  Beads of sweat clung to his forehead, and the hand clutching the door was trembling. He held his glasses in his right hand, exposing sunken, tormented eyes that now panicked at the sight of his wife. She knew immediately that something was terribly, terribly wrong. She could not, must not, think the worst. The headlines of the recent scandal in the university flashed across her mind, but she dismissed them instantly. It was simply impossible. Her husband wouldn’t know how to steal five cents.

  She was the first to speak, her voice controlled, disguising the suspicion and dread that she was trying to fight but which was rapidly taking hold of her.

  “It must be an important person to keep you from your dinner like this.”

  Even to her it sounded cutting, although she had not intended it to be. He barely noticed. Instead he stood up and tried to go past her, avoiding her eyes.

  The strange, unexpected behaviour compounded the suspicion and dread that now completely controlled her, and she intercepted his movement, grasping his arm as he passed, making him face her. She had to know, and she knew only one way to find out. She looked at him directly, searching his eyes for the confirmation she knew she wouldn’t—couldn’t—accept.

  “Aaron, why are you so upset? What is going on? Are you in trouble of some kind?”

  The headlines returned. She knew it was nonsense, but she asked him anyway.

  “You weren’t tangled up in that scandal in any way, were you?”

  Given the foreboding that had already taken hold, she would have been relieved if he had answered yes. Unable or unwilling to detach himself from her grip, he raised his eyes to hers and swallowed hard, but he seemed unable to answer, his jaw still shuddering violently. Suspicion and dread were now dictating the flow of questions, following each other in rapid succession, her voice demanding and direct.

  “Who was that woman? Why is she calling you? What is going on?”

  She was not so much interested in a single answer to any one of the questions as she was looking desperately for a reassurance that what she secretly feared didn’t exist.

  He looked at her helplessly, trying to move away from her presence, but she was too overpowering. She refused to let him go, her eyes holding his.

  She had to know.

  Rachel gripped his arm, making him wince, her tone louder, more demanding. She loved him more than anything, but she couldn’t help herself. She had to know. She shook his arm as she made a last desperate plea, a shrill, drawn-out plea that resounded in the room, leaving it horribly, sickeningly quiet.

  “Tell me . . .”

  She felt him tense, and she searched his eyes, waiting for him to speak. He looked at the floor for a long time, trying to think, then shifted his gaze past her to the front door before he spoke. His tone was beaten, resigned, and it made her skin feel cold and clammy.

  “I thought I would never have to tell you. But it doesn’t make any difference now.”

  His totally spiritless response appalled her, and she released her grip, but she remained standing directly in front of him, forcing him to slump back onto the study chair, his head bowed, wiping his forehead with his trembling hand. Outside, the rising wind rattled the study window as it tried to force its way into their presence.

  “Seven years ago, when Mikey was killed, I went crazy, drinking day and night. You remember that.”

  Under the intense pressure of her gaze, Aaron fidgeted, his hands shaking uncontrollably, but she waited for him to continue. He paused and looked toward the door
for a long time before resuming. She tensed, knowing for certain now what he was going to tell her, what she never would have suspected until just a few moments ago. His words came slowly, hesitatingly, striking her one by one like the frozen pellets of sleet that rat-a-tat-tatted off the study windows.

  “When I was drinking myself crazy, when Mikey was killed, I . . . became involved . . . with a woman.”

  He stopped after the announcement and looked at her, desperately hoping for some sign that she would understand, but his hesitating tone had done nothing to soften the terrible effect of his words. The fact that she had begun to anticipate it did not lessen the shock of the revelation. She stood there dumbstruck, unable to say a word.

  He continued to look at her, his eyes beseeching, speaking hastily in short, staccato bursts, wanting to reassure.

  “It was only short-lived . . . I was plastered drunk the whole time. She didn’t know I was married. I never told her. When she found out I was married, she dropped me, just like that. When I sobered up, I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to tell you—I’ve always wanted to tell you—but I knew I would lose you if you ever found out, and I couldn’t bear to lose you.”

  The anguished look in his eyes pleaded with her to understand, but she just stood there, impassive and unmoving, reeling under the full weight of his confession. Only slowly did the hurt and anger begin to show on her face, but she still made no comment, her only response being the slow, bitter shaking of her head as she watched him continue, in a voice that was becoming increasingly despondent.

  “Maybe you would never have found out, but she got pregnant. An affair of three days, and she got pregnant. She telephoned me different times after the baby was born. She didn’t want to make any trouble for me, or anything like that, but she did want some help with the expenses of the child. We never saw each other or spoke in person since then, until today. Now she’s . . .”

  Rachel never let him finish. She had heard enough. The numbing shock of the initial revelation had passed, and her body began to seethe with an anger that was rapidly consuming her, an anger that was pressing for release, an anger she could no longer contain. Her retort was explosive, the words of bitterness and contempt crashing savagely into the empty silence of the study as the howling wind pummelled it from the outside.

  “She! She! She! There is another woman.”

  Her voice was sharp and high-pitched, the voice of the harpy she had never wanted to be.

  “Not is, Rachel . . .”

  He was still pleading, in a second desperate, unconscious effort at reassurance.

  “There was another woman. It was over almost as soon as it began. It never meant anything. It never went anywhere. I taught extra classes so I could provide some help to the child and not interfere with the house, and now she’s . . .”

  He was continuing in the same weak, wilting tone, his voice reflecting the hopelessness of his position, but she wasn’t listening. She cut him off sharply a second time, not wanting to hear another word about this . . . this monster who had suddenly been thrust into the sacred sanctuary of her home.

  “Never meant anything! Never meant anything,” she fumed, groping for words to adequately convey the disgust and venom with which she wished to lash out at her invisible enemy. “Maybe not to you. You were too busy getting it out of your system, weren’t you, drinking it up and jumping in and out of bed with every barroom pickup you could lay your hands on.”

  It was savage, spiteful language that was meant to hurt. She had never used language like this before—to anybody—and it appalled her, but she couldn’t stop herself. Then, just as suddenly, she became cold, icy, the sarcasm cruel and biting.

  “So, what does the little tart want now, me and the children to move out so she can move in, or does she just want more money for her booze and bingo? She hasn’t got her welfare cheque yet, has she?”

  But she couldn’t maintain it. Her heart was breaking. “My God, Aaron, what were you thinking about? I lost a child, too. Mikey was my son, too!”

  She couldn’t go on. With these last choking words, she turned abruptly and ran from the study, too demoralized to even slam the door as she exited. She had broken, and she didn’t want him to see her cry. She raced toward the bedroom, shutting out his pleading calls.

  “Rachel, Rachel, please, it’s not that way. She’s . . .”

  She didn’t want to listen. She could not bear to be in his presence one second longer. She had to run, escape from him, from his presence, from everything that he now represented. She had to bury herself somewhere, anywhere—bury herself and never come back to a reality she couldn’t face and couldn’t accept.

  Her hand gripped the doorknob of her bedroom, but she halted, jolted back to herself by the broken faces of her five children. They were still sitting around the table, their bodies rigid with shock, their faces mute with anguish and disbelief.

  They had heard it all.

  In that awful, terrible moment she ached for them, but she couldn’t stop. She continued her retreat into her bedroom, pressing the weight of her body on the closed door to ensure Aaron couldn’t follow her, heaving with emotions that were tearing her asunder.

  She stood in that position for what seemed a long time, simply unable to fathom the meaning of the last few minutes, unable to comprehend how her world, anybody’s world, could be torn apart in one short, savage moment. And to have the children witness the entire scene. She closed her eyes to shut out the horrified looks on their faces. The first time they had seen their parents fight, and it had been about something like this: a cheap, drunken affair with some low, dirty . . .

  She sat on the edge of the bed, trying to think, but the numbing force of the blow she had received had dulled her mind and her senses, paralyzing her with the crushing force of its unexpectedness, leaving her devoid of feeling of any kind. A surge of something shot through her head, and she felt her chest tightening like a vise. Visions of the asthma attack in the emergency ward seven years before panicked her, forcing her into a control that she knew was imperative if she was to survive these next few minutes. It was all going too fast, spinning into chaos, and it could destroy her. It could destroy everything. Somehow, she had to get control.

  She forced herself to breathe deeply, seeking a relaxation, a calm that had to come. The fury returned, but she forced it out, gasping for rationality. She knew her anger, once stirred, was savage and irrational, and could ruin everything, as it had almost done once before, when she came close to losing her job.

  She heard the front door close, ever so gently, and it roused her. Through the bedroom window, her eyes caught the figure of her husband walking quickly down the narrow path alongside the driveway. The sight of him walking away, looking so distraught and beaten, evoked a sudden burst of tenderness, the first warm feeling she’d had for him since the confrontation, and a choking sense of loss enveloped her as he stopped by the gate to look back.

  Over the distance she felt their eyes meet, and for one quick, impulsive moment she wanted to rush out and call to him, but she couldn’t move. He turned and walked slowly away, his head bared to the December chill. A sharp gust of wind tore his scarf from around his neck and carried it high in the air, entangling it on the branch of a tree, but he walked on, totally unaware of the loss, his body bent, struggling against the gusting wind.

  She remained frozen to the bed, watching him disappear around the corner of the drugstore and out of sight.

  Rachel suddenly felt intensely alone and was seized with an overpowering desire to flee, to escape. Not to any place in particular, just any place clear of her home, the home which had become so stained and sordid. She had to get out of this godforsaken house as fast as she could, away from everything that represented what was: everything that reminded her of the love she once had and the marriage that she knew now was collapsing around her like a pre
carious house of cards.

  In one wrenching, irrevocable moment it had all been destroyed, devastated, and there was nothing else left to care about. She moved zombie-like through the bedroom door, not even reacting to her own image in the hall mirror, an image that now conveyed glassy, staring eyes and a dull, sallow, pale complexion.

  In her agitated state, she did not take time to dress properly, thrusting her arms savagely into the sleeves of her coat. One of her hands became entangled in the scarf in the sleeve, and she cursed again as she yanked it out and threw it back into the closet, ignoring it as it fell crumpled to the floor. She paused just long enough to grab her gloves and purse from the shelf as she simultaneously reached for the knob of the front door.

  A frightened voice stopped her, and she turned to see Moira standing before her, her face tear-stained, her eyes bulging with terror. The girl was swaying weakly, grasping the corner of the wall for support, calling to her mother in a frightened whisper.

  “Mom! Mom! You’re not leaving.”

  Beyond the girl’s trembling shoulders she could see again the frightened faces of her other four children, still around the dining room table, their bodies frozen and mute.

  The sight of her family shocked her back to a sense of reality. My God! What was she doing? She was no good like this, and she, more than anybody, knew it. The children were innocent; they didn’t have to be destroyed, too. She extended her arms to the girl, who ran to her, burying herself in her mother’s embrace, sobbing without restraint. Whatever it would do to the others, it would destroy Moira completely.

  Rachel stroked the girl’s back soothingly, speaking to her while looking toward the other children, still sitting motionless, waiting. She might have thought it, but this was no time to say things about leaving this damn place forever. She spoke haltingly, with measured phrases, maintaining the calm in her voice with great difficulty.

  “Yes. But just for a little while. I need some time alone. I’m going for a little drive first to think things through. Then I’m coming back to straighten all this out and see where it’s all going. You finish your lunch and get at the Christmas tree. I shouldn’t be gone too long. Besides, it’s still Christmas, and I haven’t got all my presents yet.”