The white box floated in again. Ed? You there?
Who is this? Alice typed into the white box. She pressed “send”.
She followed another link, this one to an online bookstore that had a special display of the books featured on the TV program. She decided to pick a thin one to start with. The suggestions said it was good to put a title on the first flyer, even though you could change it if people wanted to.
Who is this? came the white box. Jesus, Ed, you have online women, too?
Alice frowned and bit her thumbnail.
Another line floated in: J/K. Come on, stud.
The lines of type stayed there, one after the other. Alice read the whole thing again. My God, she thought.
What’s J/K? she typed.
Just kidding, came the answer.
This is Ed’s wife, she typed. Who is this?
No answer came.
Who is this? she typed again, but the machine told her Kimoh was gone.
Of all the fucking things. Stud? What’s up stud? On a goddamn computer? “Online women, too?” She squeezed the beer can and felt it collapse. Ed was doing computer stuff? But who knew what that was all about, really. Maybe Ed just flirted on there, maybe he just—well, whatever. She’d ask him about it when he got home, she wasn’t going to get hysterical about it. She needed to get the flyer done if she were going to do it at all.
She signed off the Internet and started to type up a flyer but her hands shook. Jesus, Ed, she thought. For Christ’s sake. She managed to write up a flyer with her and Viv’s phone numbers—might as well keep Viv involved from the beginning—and sat back in the chair watching the paper being pulled slowly through the printer. She turned off the lights and felt her way upstairs in the dark with the warm papers under her arm.
When she got downstairs after putting the kids to bed, Ed was sitting in his chair, the plastic container of leftovers on his lap. She felt angry about the computer and about some old things—about how she always approached him first, he was never first to talk and most of the time even if he knew something was wrong he’d act like he didn’t.
“Hey, Babe,” he said.
“Hey,” she said, stepping past his chair and stretching out on the couch with a blanket pulled up to her chin.
He glanced at her and smiled. “This is really good,” he said.
Alice didn’t want to speak the way she knew she was going to, didn’t want to sound the way she knew she’d sound, and didn’t want him to be defensive right away. She should change things before she tried to talk to him so she wouldn’t seem the hysterical wife. But she was mad, even adding to the list of grievances that he was so late, which was unfair since he’d been working. So at the same time that she wanted to change something so they wouldn’t just argue, she wanted even more to get him blindside so she could prove him wrong once.
“Who is Kimoh?” she asked.
“Huh?” he grunted.
“I was on the computer today,” she said quickly in case he was stalling. “You got a message from Kimoh. K-i-m-o-h. Who is that?”
He rubbed his eyes. “Just someone from work,” he said.
Did that make it better or worse, Alice wondered. Stud. Online women, too. Someone from work? It probably wasn’t true. It could be, but he seemed like he was lying. She put a hand to her eyes.
Ed looked over. “What?”
“Nothing,” she murmured.
“You don’t believe me? What?”
Alice pressed her eyes. She should’ve talked to him differently, she should’ve tried to change things. Now she was the worst thing to be, a paranoid, defensive, snooping wife competing with a TV. Had there ever been another way? What about when they were twenty-three or twenty-four? A relationship is really like life or your health or, what, your teeth, just getting layered under yellow crap until you wake up one day and you’re old and yellow and fat and even if you can see how to change things who has the energy.
“What?” Ed said.
“Nothing. Forget it,” Alice said. “I’m going up.” She stood, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders.
“What? Alice, come on. What is it?” Ed asked. “Why don’t you believe me? She’s a friend of mine from work, that’s all.”
“I believe you,” she said. She couldn’t help that she was almost crying, though she would have done anything for him not to see.
“Aww, hey, A-bird, come on.” Ed stroked her hair. He put the plastic container on the floor.
Alice pulled away but he held her hand.
“I’m going up,” she said quietly.
“I’ll come,” Ed said, turning off the TV with the remote.
“No, it’s ok, just stay and watch the TV.”
“Oh, come on, Birdy. Let’s go up together.” He stood up and saw the papers she was holding. “What’s that?”
“Flyers. For a book club.” She didn’t want to sound tired.
“A book club? That’s a great idea.”
Ed put his arm around her but she walked in front of him so he was left with only her hand. She looked back at him.
“Really, I think that’s a great idea,” he said, nodding, raising his eyebrows.
She smiled. “Would you close up down here? And put your dinner away?”
“Yeah, ok,” he said. “But I’ll be right there, ok?”
Alice climbed the stairs slowly, holding the papers to her chest, and checked on the kids before going to her bedroom. She put the flyers on her bureau, clearing space among her bottles and creams. She sat on the edge of the bed and slowly untied her shoes; the second one dropped to the floor as Ed came in. She slid under the comforter and, turning on her side, stared at the iron radiator next to the old wardrobe they used for out of season clothes. The sheets were cool, the comforter warm and heavy. She closed her eyes. A minute later she felt Ed’s hand on her hip, gently pulling her on her back.
“Hi,” he whispered. His hand moved to a spot just below her breast.
She turned away. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her neck.
“Alice,” he murmured, pushing against her.
She sighed and relaxed and closed her eyes. “Ed—” she started to protest.
“Oh, Alice,” he said. He took her hand and moved it gently down.
“Ed, listen,” she whispered. “Ed.” She turned to face him but couldn’t see his face, it was so dark. She felt his belly against her.
“Oh, Alice, please….” He sighed, gently pressing with his hands on her shoulders.
Oh Christ, she thought. How did it get like this? She wondered if he wondered, too. She kissed down his belly and as she did what he wanted all feeling left her and she wasn’t sad about any of it, kind of, everything just was and there was no point in getting sad about a sunset or a disease you might get or different times in life when you might have done different things. It all just was.
Chapter Eight
Arthur South’s Funeral
Spring, 1909
At the foot of Beacon Hill, in gray King’s Chapel, Isabel South stared at the dark wood and muted brass of the box that held her father. Her mother sat next to her in the square pew, her brothers across; behind her she could hear the shiftings and settlings, the occasional coughs of the full church. The minister’s reedy voice marched through a prayer. What is that man saying about Daddy, she thought. What, other than that he is dead. Please God, let me cry. She bowed her head but, feeling no tears, pressed her sadness into anger and looked up at the arched ceiling with eyes sharp as diamonds.
She avoided looking at her brothers and they would not look at her. They sat as if frozen into their black suits, their heads turned to their right, toward the minister. They have become distasteful men, Isabel thought, with the greed and thin vanity of their souls writ in spiteful wrinkles, fleshy cheeks, and pudgy, moistened lips. Theodore had more hair, Charles more paunch; they shared a look of pompous grief unburdened by introspection.
Charles coughed. He withdrew from an in
ner pocket a white handkerchief and held it to his lips. He glanced at Isabel and, his expression unchanged, looked away.
You see how wicked they are and how they accept their own wickedness, dear God, she prayed, holding her back firm against an urge to double over. Yes dear Lord I too am wicked but I struggle against it, I do not accept it. Hear them in their wickedness, I pray you hear them. But it seemed to her in that minute as her father’s spirit was prayed forth from the world that she did accept her own wickedness, that she was soft and weak in the eyes of the Lord. She shuddered and bent over, sobbing. I do not accept, she told herself over and over again.
“For God’s sake, you always make spectacle,” her mother, tiny and veiled in black, whispered.
“As for Man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth,” the thin minister with paper skin said; in the raised pulpit he stood as if in company with the white columns that held up the ceiling. “For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.” He finished speaking and the congregation rose for a hymn. Isabel was slow to her feet.
No, Mother, I am in pain, she wanted to say. But it was her brothers’ fault that her mother hated her. Mother had been sympathetic—if not sympathetic at least not as judgmental as the men in the family. But recently that had changed, her mother had apparently decided that her brothers were right: to fix Isabel, force of will was necessary.
The pallbearers took up the coffin and carried it down the aisle. Isabel walked behind it with her family, eyes down to avoid the gauntlet of long faces, of flat disapproving eyes, of women turning their faces away on pretext of dabbing at their eyes with bunched handkerchiefs.
To hell with all of you, Isabel thought. I struggle. She sobbed and her mother looked at her with granite eyes. Mother, when did you wrinkle and dry out, when did you start looking at your own child that way? Dear Lord punish those who would turn mother against child, who turn against their own flesh and blood. But you are the one who has turned, she told herself. You alone. Dear Lord forgive Your wicked sinner and strike those who ask not Your forgiveness, who fight on with the arrogance and pride of the godless—He that hath a pure heart and hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity shall ascend the hill of the Lord. The marble busts and the words carved on the plaques that lined the back wall of the church stared as if even her ancestors and their contemporaries hated her. Let their contempt be visited upon them a thousandfold, Lord.
The heavy doors were pulled open. Isabel and her mother stepped into bright, cool day. Charles coughed; Theodore spoke into his mother’s ear.
Isabel’s anger spread to the noise and bustle of the wide street. Carriages rumbled past, an occasional motorcar; men held their hats against a brisk breeze. She stood at the gate to the old graveyard, staring at the crooked slate of the headstones. She looked up Tremont Street at the advertisements of crowded Scollay Square and wished to be lost in the narrow side streets, to be a fat rat in a muddy hole.
“Isabel,” Theodore said. He was holding the door to the carriage open. He motioned with his head for her to enter.
Isabel climbed in and sat next to her mother, opposite Charles. The walls of the carriage were of black and maroon silk. The door closed and she put her head to the window for air.
“Try not to pant like a dog,” Charles said. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want to make a spectacle of yourself.”
“Charles,” their mother said.
The carriage swayed on cobblestones, brushing Isabel and her mother together.
“I know how pleased we all are that you chose to attend Father’s funeral,” Charles continued, affecting to look out the window casually. “And that you chose to attend in a dress, of all things. We are most appreciative of that.”
“Charles, please,” Theodore said.
Isabel clenched her fists.
“Well, I will say one thing,” Charles said, abandoning the pretense of casualness and turning his red face to his sister. “Father may not have been able to change his will at the last—you saw to that—”
“Charles, please,” Theodore said. “This is not the time nor the place for this.”
Charles nodded. “Yes, she saw to that, let us not pretend otherwise amongst ourselves. He might not have had time to remove you from his will, but I am head of this family now, do you understand that? Do you?”
“Perfectly,” Isabel said. She wanted to lean as far out the window as she could.
“And you will not have one extra penny—not one—and you will not—”
“That is enough,” Theodore said.
Charles turned to his brother. “I will say when it is enough.”
“Theodore is right,” their mother said. “Please.”
I would not take a penny from any of you, Isabel thought. She breathed deeply. Why not pant out the window like a dog, she wondered. Why bother trying to be a certain way, they only hate you more for it. The smell of the jail came to her, urine and unwashed men. She closed her eyes, hoping Charles had not noticed her shudder, worried that her mother, so close, would smell the jail, too, as if Isabel carried it on her skin. She thought of poor Norma, tiny and frail to begin with, huddled in a corner of the cell, crying, no family to help her—though perhaps that was a blessing.
Isabel stared at Theodore. He had shown some sympathy when he’d bailed her out but now, around the family, he wouldn’t look at her. Well, damn him too, then.
“My God, Isabel, what’s happened to you?” he had asked her in the jail, taking in her filthy suit and crooked tie. “We’ll have to get you changed.”
The hurt in his voice had been worse than scorn. Knowing that who you are causes someone you love pain is worse than knowing they hate you.
Isabel turned to her mother. “Do you hate me, Mother?”
“Isabel,” her brothers spat in unison.
She looked at them. “I am asking Mother—”
“My God,” Charles said, his face swelling red. “Have you lost your mind entirely? Be silent at once. At once.”
“I will not,” Isabel said. She did not turn her eyes from her brothers but addressed her mother. “Do I cause you pain, or do you hate me? Are you—”
“Enough,” Theodore pleaded. “Isabel, please, enough.”
“Isabel, if you insist on acting like this I will take my cane to you as if you really were a man,” Charles said through tensed jaw, leaning forward in his seat.
Mrs. South pulled the curtain across the window. The carriage rocked. She turned her sloping face to her daughter and blinked slowly. Her long fingers worried a folded square of handkerchief in her lap. She looked away.
“You are inhuman,” Charles muttered, his knuckles white on the shaft of his cane.
Isabel felt her bones evaporate and like cold, uncooked fish she folded down on herself. No one touched her. With difficulty she resumed a straight-backed position: hatred for vertebrae, rage for eyes, spite for the skin that held her together. She held the curtain open a crack and looked out. Around the grass of the Common people sat on benches or strolled.
“You see,” she’d said to Norma as they’d walked along Commonwealth Avenue a week before. “We’re supposed to be in Paris right now. This is supposed to look like Paris.”
“Really?” Norma had asked. “Well, does it?”
Isabel had laughed. “I’m not sure,” she’d said. “When I visited there I never once thought I was in Boston.”
Norma had been wearing a gray topcoat, black suit, white shirt, and a bowler hat that was too big for her. The suit had been her brother’s before his final growth spurt had come.
Isabel’s suit had been brown and bulky, too big through the underarms, too broad in the waist. She had gotten it in a second-hand shop in Cambridge. She envied Norma’s figure, which could pass for that of a slight young man. Her own could only be subdued with bandages into that of a pudgy, middle-aged gentleman.
“Shall we go to Hank’s?” Norma asked.
> Isabel nodded, suppressing an urge to put her arm through Norma’s. Men walked arm in arm, didn’t they? But happiness would be conspicuous in this town, she thought.
“Hank’s,” she murmured. “Yes, let’s.”
They entered the public gardens and stopped to consider the statue of General Washington on his horse.
“Are you warm enough?” Isabel asked.
“Yes,” Norma said, smiling. “Do you suppose that awful man with the greased hair will be at Hank’s again?”
Isabel smiled. “I don’t know,” she said. “Shall we get you some—what do you suppose he uses, bear grease? For your hair, my dear?”
They crossed a footbridge and stopped to look into the green water of the pond. The trees had just begun to flower. A middle-aged couple, blonde and florid, red and puffed out in neck and eye, came toward them.
“Stand like a man,” Isabel said in her deepest voice.
Norma giggled. They tipped their hats to the lady.
“Good day,” the gentleman said.
“Do you think he was staring at us?” Norma asked as she and Isabel left the footbridge and followed the winding path toward the Common.
“No,” Isabel said. “Shhh.” She felt her heart quicken and paused to breathe: they were so close to Daddy’s house now. If they walked up Beacon Street instead of through the Common they would pass directly in front. It was a thrilling idea—terrifying and—no, no, they would walk through the Common and from that distance even if Daddy were looking out the window he wouldn’t recognize her. She pulled her hat low over her eyes.
“Don’t clench,” Norma said, taking her arm. “Don’t clench, Iz.”
“What?” Isabel asked. Dear God, she thought, forgive me. Bless and forgive.
“Your whole body clenches when you stop to pray,” Norma said.
“Take your arm away,” Isabel snapped.
THE GHOST DETECTIVE: Boston Page 7