Nell

by Nancy Thayer

  “Look,” Andy said. “I don’t want this to be a problem. I’d forgotten about your animals. Now I remember how much they mean to you. You talked about them all summer.”

  “I can put them in a kennel,” Nell began.

  “No, that’s crazy,” Andy said. “I don’t want you to have to do that. I’m sorry, Nell, it’s always been a problem with me, this damn allergy of mine. I wish I could do something about it, but I can’t. It’s a real disability on my part. But look. Let’s have Thanksgiving at my house. You come here.”

  “The children—” Nell began.

  “Oh, bring Jeremy and Hannah, of course,” Andy said. “I’ve got plenty of room in the house. I’ll fix all three of you a feast you won’t forget!”

  He seemed quite pleased with the thought of having them come for Thanksgiving, and Nell pushed away a niggling little devil of discontent that stabbed at her innards, sniveling: This isn’t fair! What isn’t fair? she demanded of herself, that Andy doesn’t come here and die of an allergic reaction? Be sensible, Nell! Shut up, you damn demon! Then she had to push away not only that demon, but also the image of the card Clary had sent her for Halloween. It was a Hallmark Snoopy card. The question was: Why do ghouls like to hang around with demons? The answer was: Because demons are a ghoul’s best friend! Snoopy had been lying on his doghouse cracking up, but Clary and Nell had both agreed that there was some truth to his pun. Often, it seemed that those unwanted fiends of doubt and suspicion that raised their nasty heads to irritate them with petty questions were actually sources of real and necessary truth.

  Still, she took the children to Andy’s for Thanksgiving. The week before the trip, she was manic with excitement. It had been more than seven weeks since they had been together, and she was wild with desire just to see the man, to watch him walk and hear him speak. She spent hours deciding which clothes to wear, as if the perfect clothes might make him at long last declare his undying love. She bought jigsaw puzzles for Jeremy and Hannah to take along. She thought: We have been in love with each other for six months—almost seven months. That seemed to her an auspicious number.

  But two days before the trip, her Toyota broke down and had to be taken away to a garage for repairs. She cursed and fretted for a while, then decided just to take the children to Hyannis on the bus. On their day of departure, Nell woke up with a sinus headache and congestion in her ears, eyes, and nose. With the skin beneath her eyes all puffy and her eyelids swollen and sore, she had a fat and stupid look, she thought, and almost decided not to go. But then she summoned up her courage once again: If he really loves me, he’ll love me with swollen eyes, she told herself. She filled herself with as many decongestants as she could and was glad they were traveling on the bus, since she was too spacy from the pills to drive.

  The Wednesday afternoon bus from Boston to Hyannis was packed. Nell sat next to Hannah and sent Jeremy apologetic and inspirational smiles as he sat sending her exasperated glares; the man seated next to him in the bus was enormous and took up all of his seat and most of Jeremy’s. Furthermore, Nell could tell, even from across the aisle, the man smelled of garlic and sweat and something like old socks.

  The day was gray and gloomy, a real November day, and the ferry crossed over turbulent waters. Jeremy said the waves were “wicked good,” but Nell noticed that he stayed inside, looking at them from the safety of a window rather than leaning dangerously over a rail on the upper deck as he would have done before his accident. Hannah was frightened and kept wanting to sit on Nell’s lap to be reassured. Nell held her daughter and tried to be kind, but the rolling motion of the boat had combined with the decongestant to make her nauseated. Several times she felt bile rise to her throat. Great, she thought. I’m going to arrive to see my lover with swollen eyes, green skin, and bad breath.

  Andy met them at the ferry and drove them to his house. The children were hyper from the trip and chattered all the way. Andy listened. Nell kept stealing sideways glances at Andy; it had been so long since she had seen him that he seemed a little strange to her. His thick black hair was cut differently, she thought. But she still went weak all over with desire for him, and the evening with the children stretched before them interminably.

  They managed some stolen kisses behind the kitchen door while the children watched television, and they cooked dinner together. But the TV was upstairs, and the children felt spooked in the large empty house and came downstairs to hang around the adults for comfort. Then Jeremy and Hannah didn’t like the dinner; Andy’s hot chili was too spicy for them. Nell found some cheese in the refrigerator and made cheese sandwiches, took them back upstairs to eat in front of the TV, and threatened them with death and worse if they didn’t give her some time alone with Andy. At last she got them settled down in the double bed in the guest bedroom, where they teased and tickled each other endlessly before falling asleep. Finally, Nell and Andy were alone and able to go into his bedroom, to renew their love in privacy and peace.

  Thanksgiving Day brought rain. Nell awakened to the giggling of the children in the next bedroom and the louder, more steady noise of rain battering against the windows and walls of the house. Oh Lord, she thought. What would the children do all day? They could work their jigsaw puzzles on the floor—there were plenty of bare floors in the house. They could read the books they had brought. They could watch TV—once Andy was awake. Unfortunately, the only TV in the house was in Andy’s bedroom. He had arranged his large house in a peculiar way that suited his bachelor way of life: the kitchen downstairs was furnished and used, but the front rooms were empty. The long, spacious master bedroom that spread across the back of the house, with windows looking out over the ocean, was furnished luxuriously. His bed and stereo and huge TV and VCR equipment were all in this room. The guest bedroom held simply a double bed and a chest of drawers.

  The only other furnished room in the house, besides the kitchen, was the upstairs study, which contained his desk and filing cabinets and a solitary reading chair set before a fireplace. Near it was a low table covered with technical journals and books. The room was crowded with bookcases and elaborate audio-visual equipment, including a word processor and other computers Nell didn’t understand. It was a serious working room, off-limits to children.

  Oh Lord, Nell thought. If it stopped raining, they could all go for a walk. The museums were closed, though, and so were all of the shops, though some might open on Friday. What a mistake, she thought, to bring the children here. Back in Arlington they would have friends to play with on a rainy day, or at least some toys. Nell suddenly realized that in the deep recesses of her mind she had been hoping that Andy might surprise the children with some kind of gift or toy to show his pleasure at seeing them again, to help them through a holiday in an adult world. But she scolded herself for these thoughts: He knows nothing about children, she thought. They are my children and I am responsible for their happiness.

  She slipped out of bed, trying not to awaken Andy, who had told her earlier that he never took his early morning walks when it rained. She quickly dressed and went into the children’s bedroom.

  “Let’s go for a walk by the ocean,” she said.

  “In the rain?” they asked, amazed.

  “Oh, yes,” she said, rationalizing it as she went along. “It’s so exciting to walk in the rain. So dramatic. It’ll make you think of wild things: mysteries and witches and crazed whales and winds that whirl children away to Never-Never Lands.”

  So she had cajoled them out of the house, hoping to use up some of their energy on the walk. But the sea was not dramatic; rather, it was at its dullest. It just lay there, its waves poking sullenly into shore in choppy little slate-colored slaps, while the rain streaked down on water and sand, making everything sodden and gray. Before long, Nell and the children were soaked and chilled to the bone. Nell had thought she was on the easy side of her cold, but as she walked on the soggy beach she felt her sinuses fill. There was no way to romanticize this day. It was the sort of
day best spent by the side of a fire with a good book; but children could never spend an entire day’s time that way.

  Still, they did their best. Nell got them back to Andy’s house, where they showered and changed. She took some aspirin and decongestant, then fixed the children breakfast. Afterward, she sent them upstairs to do their puzzles while she and Andy lingered over coffee. Andy built a fire in his upstairs study and brought in a chair from his bedroom. He let Nell have the big leather chair and he took the smaller one. For a while they sat talking while the children lay by the fire, reading. While Andy fixed Thanksgiving dinner, Nell found a deck of cards and played countless games of Go Fish and Old Maid and War with the children. She taught them solitaire. She told them they were wonderful, polite, intelligent children and she would kill them if they didn’t mind their manners at the Thanksgiving dinner that Andy was working so hard on.

  The dinner went nicely enough, even though the children made faces at the oyster dressing and only toyed with the yams. They sat up politely, didn’t spill their milk, ate carefully, chewed with their mouths closed, and did not interrupt Nell and Andy’s conversation. In turn, Nell tried to get the children to talk about their own interests, and the meal passed pleasantly enough.

  But when the meal was over, it was only five in the evening. They had eaten early; Andy thought they could have a late snack before bed. Nell sent the children upstairs to watch television while she and Andy cleaned up the kitchen. Night was falling. It was dark outside and still raining. She and Andy had so much to talk about; all the little details of the events of the past weeks. Nell was happy in the kitchen with Andy, cozy with a tummy full of delicious food and wine, content to be involved with the man she loved in the intimate task of cleaning up after Thanksgiving dinner. The first holiday we have all spent together, she was thinking, when suddenly the staccato sound of slamming doors came from upstairs.

  “What on earth is that?” Andy asked.

  They both listened. After a minute, Nell was able to decipher the unmistakable sounds of children chasing each other—their footsteps resounded through the large house like jackhammer jolts, and the slamming of doors and wild screeches indicated that they were playing.

  “Tag,” Nell said. “Or some kind of game. You know, it’s hard for kids shut up inside all day like this. I don’t think they can hurt anything, running through the empty rooms. Do you mind?”

  “No,” Andy said. “No, it’s all right. I can understand. They need to work off their energy.”

  But Nell could tell, as the doors continued to slam and the children’s voices mounted in pitch, that Andy’s shoulders and neck and jaw were growing increasingly taut with tension. She loved him so; she loved her children so. She didn’t know what to do. If she had had her own way about how she was to spend her time, she would have gone to bed with Andy right then, because she was hungry for him after all their weeks apart. But how could she ignore her children? And she didn’t want her children to irritate him; yet she didn’t want him to be oblivious to her children’s needs. She sipped some more wine, hoping it would tamp down her mounting tension. She went upstairs to halt the children in the middle of their wild game.

  “But we’re playing spook house, Mom!” Hannah said. “It’s so perfect here, so spooky.”

  “Yeah, Mom, come on,” Jeremy said. “Let us play just a little more. We’ll be quieter.”

  Nell relented. And the children tried to be quieter. They took off their shoes when they ran—but that meant sliding in their socks across the wooden floors to crash into the walls with thumps and squeals of hysterical giggles. They hid from each other in silence, so that for a few moments Andy and Nell were able to sit in Andy’s study in front of the fire, talking, only to be sent nearly straight up out of their chairs when one child found the other with bloodcurdling screams of glee and terror. It was like trying to relax in a madhouse. Finally Nell stopped the game altogether and marshaled the children into Andy’s bedroom to watch TV.

  That night, when the children were at last asleep again and she and Andy were lying in each other’s arms after making love, Nell said, “I know it’s hard with the children here, but I hope you understand. They’re without friends or toys. They’re trying their best.”

  “I understand,” Andy said. “They’re good kids. I know that. I hope I’m not acting too irritable,” he went on. “I hope I’m not acting like some surly old grouch.”

  “Oh no,” Nell said, touched, delighted by his concern. “No, Andy,” she said. “You’re being wonderful.” Perhaps, she thought, in her old railroad train way of rushing into optimistic inferences, perhaps this means he cares what my children think of him. She reached up to run her hands through his hair. How I love him, she thought. How I wish we could all live together. She was just about to say: If we were in a house where they had their own rooms and toys, it would be different.

  But Andy continued to speak. “It’s just that I have never been able to deal with children very well,” he said. “I wasn’t very good with my own daughter during the few years I lived with her. And to tell you the truth, I just can’t find children interesting. I’m lucky I’ve been able to arrange my life so that I don’t have to live with any. It wouldn’t be good for the children or for me.”

  Nell was immediately suffocated with despair. An invisible weight sank right down on her chest and throat and she was speechless, fighting for breath. He was not trying to tell her anything through innuendo, she realized; he was only stating facts. He was a man who was blunt about everything. He was not saying that he specifically could not deal with Hannah and Jeremy. He was talking about children in general. And his life in general.

  And he had no specific thoughts on the subject of living with Nell and her children. Such thoughts had not even entered his mind. Obviously, his plan for his life was to remain solitary.

  I don’t want to plead with him, Nell thought. I don’t want to demean myself. I don’t want to say: Andy, what are the rules of our relationship? Do we have any future? I want him to initiate the discussion; I don’t want to have to drag it out of him.

  But she also did not want to lie there all night long dwelling on the fact that he had not thought about a future with her, that he was content to let things go on as they were, seeing each other occasionally, nothing more.

  She didn’t know what to do.

  “I love you,” he said to her before falling asleep.

  “I love you,” she replied. But she was not content. She lay awake late into the night, her stomach twisted into a knot, her thoughts twisted, too.

  She had been trying to hide the truth from herself, but Andy had set it before her with what he said about children and with what he continued not to say about the future. She could ignore it no longer. She had hoped for a long time to marry him. Clearly, he did not entertain similar thoughts. She was ready to change everything in her life to be with him, for she needed and wanted him more than she had ever needed and wanted anything in her life. But for him, their relationship was not so serious. He did not miss her terribly when they were apart; he did not include her in his thoughts of the future. When he told her he loved her, he really didn’t mean much by it at all. They meant two completely different things by their love. Nell did not think she could live with the difference.

  She did not think she could go on like this, loving him so strongly yet never really with him, always coming and going, touching only to be left, warming up only to be hit by the cold, arriving only to leave. She had found the one place in her life where she wanted to stay, and she knew she would rather turn her back on it and never see Andy again than to live her life in a teasing, tortuous routine where the joy of joining was always overshadowed by the knowledge of the sure and imminent pain of separation.

  Nell looked at her watch at one point in the night: It was almost three-thirty. She was exhausted, and at last, some time after that, she managed to fall asleep.

  But in the early morning she was awakened by And
y. He was shoving her sideways. She scooted closer to the side of the bed, thinking he needed more room, and almost fell out of bed. But the bed was king-size; he couldn’t have needed more room. She was mystified. She lay on her side, quiet, and heard the sound of Andy breathing in a deep sleep. Perhaps he had had a nightmare, she thought. After a long while, she managed to fall asleep again.

  But around dawn, Andy shoved her again. She awakened because he had reached out to put his hand on her shoulder and rock her back and forth roughly. She was stunned. She turned over on her side to face him, but he was once more asleep. She lay on her pillow, looking at what she could see of his face in the dim light, and began to cry. What more do I need to know? she thought. How much clearer can a message be? Andy does not want me in his life, she thought. In the deepest recesses of his mind and soul, he does not want me, and so when he sleeps, he tries to push me away from him, out of his life. What other conclusion could she reach? Why else would he shove her away so?

  She could see from the streetlight’s gleam on the window that it was still raining. Rain streaked down the window. Nell raised her arm and looked at her watch. It was five-thirty. If she hurried, she could wake the children and get them up and dressed and packed in time to make the six-thirty ferry. They could be home by one, in time for them to have friends over. Tonight she could take them to a movie. They had done well in school, worked hard, made good grades, practiced their piano and violin faithfully. Nell felt they deserved a little fun on their school holiday. She could tell by looking out the window at the overcast sky that today would be like yesterday: chilly, gloomy, wet. If they stayed, Nell would spend the day trying to keep her children entertained, trying to keep them from irritating Andy, remembering his words of the night before and her decision. There was no reason to stay. She had to forge ahead with her life.