Eve was stunned. “Just what are you saying?”
“You’re turning your marriage to Tom into some holy perfect...” She waved her hand, grasping for words. In her drunken state, she was having a hard time. “...thing. Tom wasn’t any saint, you know. He was just human. You forget, I was there. You were having a few problems when he died. You just happen to forget that now. Well, don’t forget it. Move on.”
Annie’s eyes were blazing with indignation, matching the fury sparked in Eve.
“The day that I listen to a drunk tell me the value of my husband, or my marriage...”
“A shrine,” Annie blurted out, pointing her finger in the air. “That’s the word I was thinking of. You think of your marriage as a goddamn shrine. Well, it isn’t! It’s a boulder tied around your neck, pulling you under. And I’m gonna save you.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” She moved to her hands and knees, ready to crawl back out. She’d had it. “I don’t need you to save me.”
“There was someone else, Eve,” Annie blurted out.
Eve felt as if someone had just thrown ice down her back. “That’s it. I’m leaving.” She began crawling out fast, to escape, ignoring Annie’s cries that she stop. Stepping out from the bushes, she scrambled to her feet and stumbled across the lawn, stubbing her toe on some blunt metal thing in the grass. She let out a yelp and grabbed her toe as tears of rage and pain sprang to her eyes. From behind her she could hear Annie running up.
“I’m sorry, Eve,” she said, clutching her arm in a panic. “I didn’t mean it. Never mind what I said.”
Eve shrugged off Annie’s hands. “Go to bed, Annie.”
“Don’t go, Eve. Please. Not yet. I’m sorry. I don’t want to go back inside alone. Oh...hold on,” she groaned, covering her mouth. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Lord...” Eve instinctively turned to help. As Annie took deep breaths and spit, Eve stroked her back, crooning, “That’s okay, you’re okay now.” She was amazed at how thin Annie had become, startled that she hadn’t noticed before.
“I feel better,” Annie said with a groan, holding her stomach. The fight was gone, leaving her face pale and drawn.
“Well, you look like hell. Come on, let’s get you to bed.”
“I don’t want to go in there.” She balked and Eve worried if she was getting paranoid.
“Annie, you’re just drunk. We have to get you to bed.”
“No, you don’t understand. It’s like a tomb in there. That’s why I came out here. To get some fresh air. Please don’t leave me in there alone.” Her eyes were wide with fear and she clutched Eve’s arm again. “Please.”
“Okay, I won’t. Shhh, I won’t go. Come on, sweetie. We’ll go inside together. I’ll get you some water and aspirin. Don’t scrunch your nose, it’s your own recipe. You taught it to me. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
With their arms linked, she guided Annie back toward her home. As they walked, Annie leaned against Eve and said in a faraway voice, “I’m not that drunk, Eve. I’m just sad...so sad.”
Once inside, Annie stubbornly refused to sleep in her own bed so Eve settled her onto the big, upholstered sofa in the living room with a few pillows and blankets. She made her way quickly into the kitchen, carefully stepped around the litter of tools and drywall dust, and poured water in a tumbler, then found aspirin in the cabinet over the sink. She returned to find a brooding, seemingly more sober Annie staring into the darkness. She accepted the water and aspirin like a good patient, swallowing the pills down with noisy gulps. When she was through, she brought her knees up to her chest and tucked the sheet around her ankles.
“I shouldn’t have said that about Tom,” she said. “I’m sorry it came out like that.”
Eve felt an icy cold spread from where the wet earth seeped through her gown. The chill spread up her limbs and throughout her body, numbing her inside and out.
“I found this photograph of a woman,” Eve began in a low voice, “stuck in among Tom’s personal things. I wondered who she was, but forgot about it. Today, I saw the woman again at the mausoleum when I went with the children to visit Tom’s grave. I froze when I saw her. I knew I’d seen her somewhere before, and then driving home, it clicked where.”
“The redhead.”
Eve shuddered. “Yes. Was she the...” She felt the words choke her.
Annie sighed heavily. She spoke slowly, as though each word had to be dragged from her mouth. “As your lawyer, I should have told you a long time ago. As your friend, I couldn’t. It’s better you know the truth now.” She placed her hand on Eve’s leg, patted it, then registering Eve’s rigid, silent stance, tucked her arms back around her own legs.
“I only found out myself,” she continued in a measured manner, “because there were bills I had to pay from the estate—a hotel in Washington D.C., a florist, that kind of thing. I did a little tracing. It didn’t take much. I found out about a woman, a doctor on staff.” She paused, glancing briefly at Eve. “It didn’t go on too long, if that means anything. It only just started about six months before he died.”
“My God,” Eve said, feeling a first sharp stab of Tom’s betrayal.
“She was at the funeral. Did you see her?”
“She was at the funeral?” Eve felt like a fool. “And she brought flowers to his grave.... Well, the bitch must have really loved him.” She felt as cold as she knew she sounded. “This is so much worse. I wish it was some sordid affair. You know, just sex. I wouldn’t care so much about that. But to think Tom might have loved someone else.”
“Just because this woman loved Tom doesn’t mean that he loved her. Eve, I’m telling you, Tom loved you. You.”
“I don’t know that I can believe that, or that I care right now. I feel nothing. Empty.”
“Me, too, honey. Totally.”
Annie stuck out her tongue and jabbed a finger toward her throat with such a comic expression that Eve just had to laugh.
“You’re so stupid,” she joked, feeling the sudden, giddy relief that came with dumb humor.
After a short laugh Annie replied, “Boy, am I.... There I was, awake in the middle of the night, sitting in the bushes, asking myself, What have I done with my life? What am I supposed to be doing? Remember how I used to say there’s no such thing as age? Well, there is. Age is real and life is short. It’s foolhardy to deny it. We grow up, our bodies grow frail, death is coming. There’s so much I want to do! There’s a whole world out there I haven’t seen, people I haven’t met and who haven’t known me. God, there are a million books I want to read. I don’t want to sleep, Eve. I want to be awake. This is my life—I want to live it.”
Eve listened with her eyes wide. She heard Annie’s words—this is my life—and felt the shackles she’d worn for a lifetime break free. What was she doing? She loved her children, but she also loved Paul. This was her life. She couldn’t let her children dictate how she lived it. That wasn’t healthy for her or for them. She was the parent and they were young adults. They didn’t need to know about their father’s indiscretions but they did need to understand their mother’s choices. She would help them to accept the new reality that, though she would always be their mother, she was also a single, independent woman.
“It’s time for me to go home.” Eve was suddenly tired beyond endurance. She needed to get Annie in bed, then be alone, to digest what she’d learned about Tom. She needed time to think things through.
“Don’t go.”
Irritation flared. She wanted to go home to her own bed, to her own pillow. “Come on, Annie. We’ve had all the secrets we can handle for one night. Besides, I can’t stay all night. Bronte’s at home.”
“Yes, you can. I’ve got lots of room and Bronte’s a big girl. We’ll have a sleepover. Girls’ night out.”
“Annie, what’s the matter? This isn’t like you.”
“What is me? I don’t know anymore.”
Eve stilled and narrowed her eyes. “Okay, Blake. What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing.” Then with a haunted expression she said, “Everything.” She paused. “If I tell you something, you have to swear that you won’t tell anyone.”
“All right. Sure, I promise.” The weight of her consent dragged her into the cushions. She settled down on the couch beside Annie, keenly aware of Annie’s utter seriousness. She expected her to say she was getting a divorce.
“I have cancer.”
Her breath exhaled in a whoosh. “What?” Instantly her fatigue cleared and she moved closer to hold Annie’s hand.
“I found out yesterday. It’s uterine cancer. That explains the bleeding.” She snorted. “Who’d have guessed? I thought cancer only happened to the other person.”
“I’m so sorry, Annie,” Eve replied, fumbling for words. “So shocked.” Of course Annie didn’t want to be alone tonight. In a flash, the drinking, the paranoia, the behavior, were all understood. But why was she alone? A fury flared up against John. “How could John fight with you tonight? Why isn’t he here with you?”
“He doesn’t know. I didn’t have time to tell him. Eve, you have to promise me you won’t tell him.”
“Of course I promise. But you have to, as soon as he gets home.”
Annie turned her head away, not making the promise. Not knowing when, or if, John would come home.
“I’m tired,” she said, leaning back against the cushions. Outside the window, dawn was just piercing the blackness. “Stay with me a little longer, Eve. It’s almost morning. I’ll be myself then.” She closed her eyes, holding Eve’s hand. “Just till morning.”
* * *
Eve stayed until after the sun came up and filled the room with gray morning light. She stayed until Annie had fallen into a deep, troubled sleep, whimpering softly like a child. Eve’s heart ached for her friend as she tucked the blankets over her shoulder, knowing that Annie tucked the hurts deeper inside. Smoothing back her hair, she kissed her forehead, thinking as she did how fragile Annie seemed while she slept. This was a side she rarely showed anyone. It occurred to Eve that it must be very hard to always be the strong one, the tough one with all the answers. Who did you go to to let your hair down? Perhaps that was why Annie liked to drink. Her poor, dear Annie.
And poor Doris... In her heart, Eve thought Doris had always known about R.J. on some level, just as she had known about Tom. Why was it so hard for some women to confront the possibility of their husband’s infidelity? Everyone wasn’t like Annie, ready to pick up and go. Some women would gnash their teeth and maybe cry to a mother, a sister, a friend, but then put up a false front and let the suspicion slide into oblivion. Was the truth too much of a threat? Or was it because they knew, deep in their hearts, that even if the suspicion were true, they wouldn’t leave?
Would she have left Tom?
With the question nagging in her mind, she closed Annie’s front door, locking it behind her. Stepping out into the morning air, she saw that clouds were gathering from the northwest, a sure sign of rain. The dry leaves clattered on the branch like clicking fingers. They could use a good, hard, cleansing rain. The earth was parched.
Eve drove home and parked the car, lucky to have found her spot left unoccupied. The wind was picking up and trees rattled their dry leaves. She slipped inside her apartment, locking the door behind her with a sigh of relief. Her cozy home was quiet and still, welcoming and safe. Bronte was sound asleep. She kissed her daughter’s forehead, relishing the sweet smell of her skin and hair. Then she tiptoed down the hall, slipping off her sweater and sliding back into the comfort of her own bed, just as thunder rolled in and rain splattered her windows.
Her body cried out for sleep but her mind was racing, as though charged by the bolts of light flashing outside. She punched her pillow, shifted several times on the mattress but it was no use. Her mind was not going to allow her rest until she analyzed the truth about Tom. Her consciousness was not permitting her to tuck it under a rock. Annie’s words had torched a fuse of memories as bright and dazzling as fireworks—vibrant red, vivid blue and whistling white memories all with long sparkling plumes and thunderous percussion. The memory of Tom was blazing across her mind and she was compelled to look up and wonder at it, even as she smelled the sulfur.
Tom. Every year he’d store up a hoard of fireworks like a miser, then bring them all out on the Fourth and blow them off in the backyard, laughing and running away like a naughty schoolboy when the police cruiser eased by. Tom Porter, her husband, her lover, her betrayer. He suddenly seemed so alive in her mind. Oh, Tom...
She rose and walked to the closet, her heart aching for him. Opening it, she pulled out his white terry cloth robe. She’d given away most of his clothes to charity, saving only his personal items for the children—gold cuff links and onyx tuxedo shirt buttons for Finney, his watch and gold pen for Bronte. Eve only wanted the robe for herself. She slipped her arms into the robe and wrapped it tight, hugging herself. If she closed her eyes and pressed her cheek and nose against the terry cloth, she could smell his scent and imagine that he was here with her, that his arms were around her. And she didn’t feel so alone.
It wasn’t that weird, really. Sort of like giving a child her favorite toy at bedtime, or a dog his master’s shoe. Eve didn’t allow herself to play this charade often. There were other oddities she confessed to no one, like the way she never sat in his seat at the table, or slept on his side of the bed. Small signs that her grieving was not yet over. But on nights like tonight, when the memories were close, she needed to suspend belief, to fool herself any way she could, in order to find a little comfort.
She returned to bed still wrapped in Tom’s robe and lay quietly, staring up at the ceiling. In the shadows she saw a younger Tom and Eve, when their love was fresh and strong, when they’d vowed that they’d be different from a history of lovers who allowed their love to grow old and tired with their bodies.
Her memory of the night he proposed marriage was as fresh in her mind as though it had happened yesterday. They were lying in his bed, more a thin foam mattress on a wood platform, in his dingy, cramped apartment in Old Town. Tom had put her head on his shoulder after they’d made love. He was so thin then that his collarbone protruded hard against her cheek. If she closed her eyes she could still feel his long, tapered fingers as they stroked her moist hair from her face.
“I can’t promise you anything more than I have right now,” he’d said. “But I offer you my love and my future, if that is enough.”
Knowing that he was just beginning medical school, that he didn’t have two dimes to rub together, she still said yes. It was enough, more than enough, had always been enough. The money that came later, the bigger houses, the better, faster cars, the designer clothes—all those things were meaningless.
Hot tears flowed down her cheeks. Why hadn’t she stopped to remember that when he was alive? Remembered the thin young man with bony shoulders who loved the stars, who shared lengthy, intense debates over whether there was a God or an afterlife, who had so many dreams.
When did the dreams vanish? When did the quiet talk before sleep cease? The minutiae of every day, the demands of others on their time, the petty irritations bred by familiarity—these were the enemies. Oh, how she’d be nettled by the way he scratched behind his ears every morning when he rose from bed, or how every night he left his underwear on the floor, or how he answered “uh-huh” when he wasn’t really listening. He must have found her habits irritating, too, because he often rolled his eyes or walked away from her. Why didn’t we try to find a common ground of interest again, she agonized?
Now she was left only to regret having lost the opportunity to find that young man again in the middle-
aged one, the dreamer she’d fallen in love with. Did Tom miss the young, impassioned Eve he fell in love with? Is that why he searched for those qualities in someone else? Why, Tom? Why?
The past seemed more real to her than the present. What was that line from Faulkner? The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.
Well, Faulkner was wrong. The past was dead and burned to ashes. She had to accept that reality or condemn herself to the fate of an Indian princess who threw herself on her husband’s funeral pyre. Just as she had to accept that Tom wasn’t perfect and neither was their marriage perfect. Annie was right. As long as she held them up as a shrine she would never be free to move on. But seeing Tom’s imperfections made him more human. She couldn’t say now how she might have handled the truth when he was alive, although she wanted to think that if he had returned home from San Diego, they would have somehow worked things out. She wanted to believe that if she’d stayed with him it would have been because she loved him, not because it was easier. She would never know for sure. But she did know, lying here alone in her bed, that she was a different person now. She was stronger, more independent.
She lay while the storm moved on, till the rays of sun slipped through the curtains and pierced the gloomy, cold darkness, chasing off the tears like a ghost at first light. She hugged the robe close, smelled his scent still lingering in the fiber. She knew on some level that he was close. She felt it very strongly. He was here with her, and he was at peace. And he loved her. She felt that, too.
“I forgive you, Tom,” she said aloud, meaning it, believing she was heard. “And I loved you. I truly loved you.”
Sixteen
Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relation as an individual to the world within and about her.
—Kate Chopin, The Awakening
Doris woke early, despite the scant amount of sleep. R.J. hadn’t noticed that she’d slipped away from their bed last night, nor that she’d returned an hour later, her feet damp and cold. He’d slept right through it, snoring up a cacophony of sound along with the rolling thunder. While he was in the shower, she lay still, listening to the sound of the old pipes and his vigorous movements as he joyfully prepared for another day on the job. No holiday for him. The dinner had gone well and he was charged. She could still see the sparkle in his eye as he told her he was leaving for a business trip this morning, something that had suddenly come up.
The Book Club Page 29