by Joan Barfoot
She said it was a hard decision and no doubt it was, but Aggie is sometimes amazed at Frances’s confidence in her choices. But it is also her willingness to experience, and her confidence, that Aggie is so proud of.
Frances felt stupid, she said, for having gotten caught, especially at her age. Stupid! In Aggie’s day, girls were banished, they did not get off just being stupid.
“If only” is a foolish game, and regrets are obviously futile. But Aggie caught herself wondering at the time: if she’d known, would she have had June?
What if she hadn’t?
What a monstrous confession of failure that must be, to wonder what other life there might have been without her.
But of course she would have had her. Even after all these decades of disunity, it appears they still have continuing desires for transformations. Also it is always interesting, if puzzling, trying to track June’s emotions, which jerk about like wound-up toy soldiers, little stick figures making their abrupt and rigid turns.
If it is true that June would miss her, Aggie must admit that the reverse is also the case. Who else, when it comes down to it, is there to care about, if not care for?
Frances, of course, but she’s three hundred miles away, writing for a magazine, travelling here and there, and doesn’t often get home. Only June is actually on hand.
And surely if Aggie can say it was her own time and place that withheld possibilities, the same can be said for June? She may only have been too close to Aggie’s time, the twenty-one years between them not long enough. Although it also seems that in any time, June would close choices around her; that it would make no difference when she had been born: she would be determined to make her world small.
The kind of daughter Aggie had in mind would not be sneaking around making doctor’s appointments and buying plastic sheets. She certainly wouldn’t have been the sort of daughter to try to pray away her rage. The kind of daughter Aggie had in mind would have turned on her long ago, hands on sturdy hips, and said, “Oh, for God’s sake, Mother, pull yourself together.” She would have said, “Look, I’m grateful to you for raising me but I’m on my own now, and so are you.” She would have said, “Oh, go to hell with your complaints and your greed and your dying.”
Aggie has to laugh: such a strange wish for a mother to have, a daughter who could say, “Oh, go to hell.” Other dying mothers must wish to hear quite different words from sad-eyed daughters.
Her failures seem to have been the crucial domestic ones. It’s with those closest that there has been this distance. Not just June, but the teacher, too.
Not her fault with either of them. But maybe after all this time she could say not his either. And certainly not June’s, locked between them. How was he, after all, to know that Aggie had looked curiously at his shoulders and his lips, and that at night before they married, she pictured him coming to her bed? That she might have been capable of lust, that old-fashioned word, forbidden wantonness?
Just as she had no way to know that when he asked her to be his wife, his vision was not of companionable evenings in the kitchen and rosy children sleeping upstairs and poems shared and learned and embraces of some tenderness. What he must have had in mind was someone tractable and pretty, who could be taught to speak correctly and pour tea and smile at people graciously. He wanted a wife for the teacher, not necessarily for himself. He talked about rules of behavior, but in connection with appearances in public. He never told her the rules he thought should apply between the two of them.
It’s not such a tragedy, as tragedies go. To spend unhappily a decade of what has turned out to be quite a long life is nothing compared with starvation and war, or having a child grow up to be a murderer, a thief, a rapist. Her heart has never actually been broken, even if such a thing is possible.
The pictures he brought with him showed a chubby little boy. There was something else, maybe nothing to do with her, that caused him to dry and shrivel.
Although he loved June, there’s no denying that. There’s no telling, Aggie supposes, where love may pop out unexpectedly, like a random tulip from a misplaced bulb.
It seemed to her that something peculiar began to come over him as soon as they were married. That being married was something like a suit he put on, with a certain attention to cut and appearance, but without thought to how it fit. He knew how he wanted them to look together, but had no knack for being with her with no one watching.
They spent their wedding night at an inn along the road to their new home. She has been pleased to see, travelling back in later years, that it has been demolished for a road-widening project, and their room has made way for the gravelled eastbound shoulder. They lay for a few minutes in darkness and silence. She heard him sigh, once quietly, a second time with something like determination, and then he was fumbling about, doing things with his body and with hers, and instead of the warmth she might have expected there was, first, a quite sharp pain, and then a surprising sense of foolishness. In the darkness, he felt like a silly stranger awkwardly doing a peculiar thing. His breathing changed, and there seemed to be a frog in his throat, and drops of his sweat fell onto her body. She felt him tense and shudder, and that was that.
“There,” he said, as if he’d finished marking a set of examinations. And, “Are you all right then?”
Was that what the fuss was all about, what her mother had tried to tell her? “Is that it?” she asked, which of course was a mistake, but she said it without thinking.
He was, naturally enough, offended. “What did you expect?”
“I don’t know. It’s just, it doesn’t take very long, does it?”
“You’d hardly expect it to, would you?”
So much for a communion of silence. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about it.”
“I know.” He patted her hand. “You’re a good girl.” The idea seemed to please him. He turned away and a few minutes later his breathing was deepening into a snore.
She, however, lay feeling the drops of his perspiration drying on her body, confused and a little offended herself. Heat was one thing, but warmth might have been nice. And of course she was good — how could she have been otherwise? — but what did he think that meant? That she was just another mattress lying there?
But no doubt she had it all wrong. Probably also she was overtired and tense, and that always made her cranky. She only needed a good night’s sleep. And perhaps a child. Had her mother not promised her happiness in a child? But how did something so significant result from a small, quick, and inexplicable event in the darkness? Surely there ought to be more, something flashing in the night.
She could feel dampness seeping out onto the sheets. Would this be blood, or what? It was unfair to be annoyed that he slept so easily. Naturally he would be worn out after such a long day and then all that up and down, not easy for a man who wasn’t strong. Compared with him, she hadn’t been expected to do much today, really, except be in certain places at certain times.
When she woke in the morning he was already out of bed and dressed. In the light, he was a familiar figure once more, although the circumstances were awkwardly intimate and she was at somewhat of a disadvantage, still lying there in bed. Maybe next time, she thought, they could leave a light on, so that it wouldn’t feel like a stranger.
“I’ll go down and get the horse hitched,” he said. It seemed tactful of him to let her get up in private. “You should hurry, we have a long way to go today.”
They planned to be in their new home by nightfall. Here was the first day of being married, and the sun was shining and who knew what would happen? Here was her new life. Last night was dim, although she was a little sore down there.
There was evidence on the sheet: a little blood, and something else as well, dried and stiff. Embarrassing, that someone cleaning up after them would know. But he was in a hurry, waiting, and she had to wash and dress
and get a move on, although there was a kind of gumminess about her body that she wanted to clean away. The best she could do was pull the top sheet and a blanket over the marks. Whoever cleaned the room would trace them to her, but she would be long gone by then.
At breakfast when he spoke, he didn’t seem exactly to be looking at her — more at her shoulder, or her chin, or off to one side. Also, his face had taken on an unusual redness. Did last night have some significance for him that she had missed, an exposure that in daylight embarrassed him? In that case, he wouldn’t be wanting lights left on.
“Are you ready?” he asked, standing. “Be sure and wear a hat, we’ll be out in the sun all day. I’ll get the cases loaded.”
It was a scorcher, heavy with humidity, not even a breeze, and the sun beating down. The horse could not be hurried on a day like this. Having to just sit, nowhere to move, felt odd and inactive.
His knuckles, as he held the reins, seemed particularly tight, and he didn’t speak. But maybe he was only worried about the horse, not that it was spirited at the best of times. She, more accustomed to animals, might have been better to do the driving.
“Is something the matter?” she asked finally, timidly, after nothing had been said for really an uncomfortable length of time.
“No, of course not.” He glanced sideways at her. “Only we have to get so far today.”
There were birds, occasionally dogs barking, and the sounds of the horse’s hooves on the dry dirt road. She grew more restless. If words used precisely meant precise understanding, what did silence signify? Precise disinterest? Nothing to say? But they had years together.
What had they talked about before, in the kitchen and on their walks? Poems, and what they saw. For the moment, she couldn’t think of a single poem she had learned, and probably none of them would have been appropriate to the moment anyway. That only left what there was to be seen, which wasn’t much and certainly nothing extraordinary. Still, she began to point things out: a farmer up on the roof of his barn, making repairs; horses that whinnied at theirs and approached the fence by the road; a cluster of cattle lying under the shade of the single maple tree in a field. “I always think,” she said, “that they’d surely be cooler under the sun than all jammed together like that.”
“You know,” she said a while later, getting concerned, “we really ought to stop and water the horse and let him rest.” Did he think an animal was a machine that could just keep going? Really, he didn’t know much; about some things, anyway.
When they stopped, she jumped down. She was hot, but also bored. While he watered the horse, she stretched her arms and paced a few steps. That became a little hop and a skip, a bouncing up the road a little, just to get some feeling back.
“Aggie!” What a strange, sharp tone, and how red his face was when she turned, almost as flushed as the night he arrived on their doorstep in the storm — almost steaming. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”
She turned back, walking now. “Just getting some exercise. I’m not used to sitting.” Closer, he looked actually angry. Whatever could he be angry about?
“Get back in this buggy.” And heavens, didn’t he sound like a teacher reprimanding an unruly pupil, though? “You’re a married woman, not a child, you know. What do you think that looked like, a grown woman skipping up the road?”
“Who was looking?”
“I was, if that counts. But anyone could have, coming along.”
“What’s the matter with you?” Really, she was getting annoyed. “What difference does it make?”
“It makes a great deal of difference if people see the wife of a teacher romping in the street.”
“Well, I’m hardly likely to romp in the street, am I?” Maybe it was because he was speaking to her as if she were a child that made her want to behave like one. She felt like sulking, or sticking out her tongue at him. And this was the first day of their marriage?
“I won’t have you,” he continued, “making a display of yourself.”
Whatever happened to the timid young man who walked in her tracks because he was unsure of where the trapdoors were? Apparently they had moved from her territory to his.
“Why are you angry? I didn’t do anything.”
“I’m not angry. I’m just telling you.”
Probably he expected her to say, “I’m sorry, you’re right, I’d forgotten, I won’t do it again.” Something like that. She’d never said such words in her life, and didn’t much feel like it now. However, there didn’t seem to be anything else to say, so she sat back rigid against the seat, arms crossed against her chest. And on they went, except that she no longer troubled to point things out.
“Things may be difficult sometimes, dear,” her mother had suggested. “Especially at the start, it may take a while to sort things out and get used to the way each other does things. It’s hard work sometimes.” That had sounded at the time like a warning, but now seemed encouraging: as if this small unpleasantness was something simple and trivial, a mere sorting out of customs. That would be all right, then. Just now, though, she didn’t feel like talking.
There were subtle changes in the countryside: fewer stone fences and more split rail ones, weaving toward the road and back, all interlaced and, to her eye, a little flimsy. Here, the big problems must have been bush instead of rock. Still the same hard work, though. Some of the farmhouses were made of wood instead of stone. They too seemed less solid, less safe and warm.
The men in the fields looked the same, though: burly and hot. Sometimes they waved, strange passersby catching their attention. She waved back, ignoring his frown.
“It must be about time for lunch,” he said, glancing upward, as if, she thought scornfully, he could tell time from the sun. “Where is it?”
“Where’s what?”
“Lunch.”
“What are you talking about?” Did he think she carried sandwiches in her suitcase? She was sitting right here beside him, where did he think she would have come by food?
“Didn’t you ask at the inn for them to fix us something? What did you think we were going to do for food all day?”
“I don’t know. I guess I thought we’d stop somewhere.”
“But you knew we don’t have time to spare; it’ll be nearly dark by the time we get there anyway. Do I have to think of everything?”
“If you did think of it, you should have mentioned it. Or told them yourself. I didn’t even know they’d make us a lunch.”
“But that’s what they do. We ate there this morning, what did you think?”
Oh, this was ridiculous. Hot and snappish and stupid. Who was the child here now? Who was petulant and sour? “We’ll just have to go hungry then,” he went on, and frowned.
What did he care? He never had much of an appetite.
There would be thousands of meals in the future, and she quite understood they would be her job. But not yet. “I guess we will, you’re right,” she agreed. At home they would be sitting down right about now to eat. There would be slabs of meat, a heap of mashed potatoes, and carrots or peas in bowls. And one of her mother’s pies, waiting to be cut.
She was the one who was hungry, so why was he the one who was angry? A teacher of many parts, it seemed, busy unveiling his various characters.
Poor Aggie, poor teacher, poor horse, she thought. This was no way for married life to start, whatever her mother had said. Certainly her own feelings were not those of a new bride, adoring her new husband. A real bride would want to reach out and maybe just touch his arm. She would be talking with excitement about their future, as they travelled to the new home in which they expected to spend the rest of their lives.
The sun was so hot, it might be boiling her brains. It did almost feel as if her hair beneath the hat was sizzling. Glancing at him, she saw his jaw working. When he stopped again to let the horse drink and graz
e and rest, he sighed. She didn’t bother getting out this time, just closed her eyes. She understood from his sigh that she was supposed to make the next sound, which was supposed to be an apology. Well, it would be a cold day in hell before she said she was sorry for anything.
Where had she learned that expression? And was it swearing? She didn’t care. She wasn’t exactly angry; maybe what her mother would call “in a rage”. Whatever it was called for either strong words and violence, or silence and the best stillness she could manage.
The motion of the buggy as they started off again was gentle and, with her eyes closed, soothing. After a while she wasn’t even very hungry any more. With her eyes closed, she wasn’t really there at all.
She fell asleep with a little smile. It was an awful thing, she knew, but she was smiling because she knew that when he noticed, it would make him furious.
EIGHT
What a mean piece of mischief, that epitaph Aggie sprang on her at breakfast. What an insult, for one thing; for another, what a wound.
IN THE WRONG PLACE
AT THE WRONG TIME
WITH THE WRONG PEOPLE
“That should catch people’s attention, don’t you think?” Aggie laughed.
“If that’s what you want, I’m sure it will.”
It’s certainly clear enough, even as a joke, which of course it must be; even Aggie wouldn’t really want that carved in granite. Just blatantly saying, “You’re not the daughter I wanted, you’re not what I had in mind at all.” Not that she hasn’t always picked away at the various ways in which June fails to measure up: her standards, her body, her clothes, her views. Her very staying here caring for Aggie is, in her mother’s eyes, a sign of failure. But to put it into words, as tersely as this joke epitaph, that’s really cruel.