Bound South

by Susan Rebecca White

  Charles wasn’t thinking, that’s the answer, and really, how can I blame him? We all make foolish choices. It was a foolish choice on my part to hire Faye in the first place. I should never have let Mother talk me into it. I knew it was a messy situation, I knew I should have stayed out of it, but Mother was so adamant and I was so busy with Charles and Caroline, who were then five and ten, that I acquiesced as I always seemed to do with my parents and said sure, I could use the extra help.

  Talk about foolish. Who hires the daughter-in-law of a woman who years ago had an affair with your father?

  Of course everything is more complicated than it first appears. Thinking back on my decision to hire Faye all those years ago, it seems to me that I must have been unduly influenced by the fact that Mother was so much better. It must have somehow affected my sense of possibility. Just imagine: after a lifetime of crippling mental illness, one of Mother’s doctors said that he had a new drug that might help alleviate her depression. The drug was Prozac, and after she was on it two months Mother’s moods stabilized and she became, for the most part, a normal, functioning adult. Mother’s change must have turned me into an optimist. I thought that if Mother could be fixed, any situation could be.

  The call from Mother about Faye came on an unusually peaceful summer afternoon. Charles was taking his nap while Caroline watched TV downstairs in the sunporch. I was in John Henry’s and my room, folding clothes. (That is one of the main memories I have of Caroline and Charles’s childhood: me folding laundry. That and having to drive them places constantly.)

  The phone rang, and when I picked it up, it was Mother, sounding so excited, so hyper, that for a moment, I worried that she might have skipped a dose of her medication or perhaps taken too much of it.

  “You will not believe who I bumped into at Sam’s Club,” she said.

  “Sam Walt—”

  She interrupted my joke. “Winnie Meadows. Can you believe that? Winnie Meadows.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Winnie Meadows. You remember her. The lady who came over to our house once when you were a little girl. She gave me a necklace. How could you forget?”

  Of course, of course, I remembered, it just had been so long since I heard her name that it took me a moment to place it. Winnie Meadows. Miss Winnie, the pretty woman who visited our house twice when I was little, once to see Daddy and once to see Mother. I remembered too the necklace she brought Mother, though I hadn’t seen Mother wear it since Daddy’s death. She wore it every day until then, despite the fact that Daddy despised it.

  “I didn’t realize you two were still in touch.”

  “Winnie and I haven’t been in touch, not at all. I haven’t seen her since that day at our house, thirty-some-odd years ago. Our meeting today was entirely providential. There I was at Sam’s Club, making my way down the aisle, when I practically collided into her, her shopping cart loaded with cleaning supplies and her cute-as-a-button granddaughter riding up top. I was only picking up a few things, some Co-Cola and toothpaste and toilet paper, and I had just started down the detergent aisle to get my Cascade, and there she was.”

  Mother could have survived a nuclear attack with all the bulk goods she kept in her condo. Besides the closets and pantry packed tight with nonperishables, I once discovered eight cases of canned peaches under her bed, at which point I wondered if Prozac had really cured her of her craziness at all.

  “Are you sure it was her? I mean, it’s been a long time.”

  “You think I wouldn’t recognize her? Her face certainly looks a little run over, but it was Winnie all right. Same dark eyes, same cheekbones. Even thinner than she was thirty years ago, if you can believe that.”

  “Did you talk? Did she know that Daddy died?”

  It was only after Daddy made a pass at one of my sorority sisters, Melissa Reynolds, during parents’ weekend sophomore year at Chapel Hill, that I put two and two together about Miss Winnie. Of course, I thought, sipping my third Bloody Mary at the Phi Delt pregame party while trying to avoid both Daddy and Melissa, that woman and Daddy slept together. That was why she kept showing up at the house. They had been having an affair.

  “Why would she know anything about your father? She had no contact with him.”

  “She could have read his obituary in the newspaper. They ran a big enough one.”

  “Louise, forget about her connection with Ernie. What happened between the two of them—that’s ancient history. It doesn’t even matter. What’s important is, I saw her again. And listen, Louise, I think I willed our meeting into being. That or it was, I don’t know, divine intervention. I mean, ever since I’ve been better, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her, wondering how she’s doing, wishing I could tell her thank you for the kindness she showed me. And there she was! Just as real as day, looking over the boxes of dishwashing detergent.”

  “Mother, she had an affair with your husband. That’s not kind.”

  That was the first time I had ever spoken directly with Mother about one of Daddy’s affairs and it made my heart beat faster just to acknowledge that yes, it had happened. They had happened.

  “Louise, you know I forgave her for that. The day she came to me, I forgave her. And I’ll tell you why: during all that time when I was not myself, when I was suffering so terribly, she was the only person who treated me with compassion, who treated me like a human being.”

  I tried not to let it hurt my feelings that Mother didn’t include me as someone who treated her like a human being during those years. But then again, how could I have? I was a child. To me, Mother was beyond human, she was a discontented god whom I was forever trying to please. Besides which, Mother was being dramatic, a trait she was known for (and a trait which my daughter surely inherited). Miss Winnie could not have been the only person who showed her kindness; there must have been a nurse at one of Mother’s hospitals who treated her well.

  “Anyway, I called to tell you about the difficulties Winnie and her family are facing. Winnie’s husband, the preacher—he died last year. They’d been married for over thirty years and now he’s gone. Then just last month, her only son, who was living at her house along with the rest of his family, he just up and left, abandoning his wife and child, and mother, leaving nothing but a note saying they were better off without him. But of course his leaving means they no longer have his paycheck, small as it probably was, so obviously they’re not better off without him.”

  “Mother, how much money did you give her?” I asked. Mother was always giving away her money. Thank God Daddy established a trust fund for me or she would have given away all my money too.

  “I didn’t give her money, I gave her a job. I told her that you would hire her daughter-in-law, Faye, as your housekeeper.”

  “Are you crazy?” I asked, stepping into my own joke. Yes, she was crazy. Certified by a multitude of doctors.

  “I am compassionate,” she said, her voice icy. “I am showing compassion for a twenty-one-year-old woman with a four-year-old to support and no husband to help with the bills.”

  “Hire her yourself, then,” I said. “Surely your condo needs a maid as much as my house does.”

  Right after Daddy died, Mother sold the house I grew up in, declaring that owning a grand old home had always been Daddy’s vision and not hers and that, frankly, she was tired of all the maintenance the house on the Prado required.

  “Sofie already comes twice a week,” she said. “I can’t have somebody in my home more often than that.”

  “Then have Sofie come once a week and have Winnie’s daughter-in-law come the other day.”

  “Poor Sofie already lives paycheck to paycheck! I can’t cut back on her hours.”

  “Mother, I already have a housekeeper too, remember? Remember Sandy?”

  “Yes, but Rose Parker pays for her so it’s not as if you’ve exhausted your household budget. Please, darling, just hire Faye once a week, and if she’s good at what she does, give her number to Tiny a
nd the other girls you’re friends with and in no time at all she will have a full schedule.”

  “What if she’s no good?” I asked.

  There was a pause.

  “She’ll be good, Louise, believe me.”

  “Oh, Mother.”

  She began to tell me again about all the misfortune Winnie and her daughter-in-law were facing, misfortune that she somehow believed I could take away if only I allowed Faye to clean for me.

  That was the thing about Mother. Despite a life that usually pointed to the contrary, she had faith that there was hope in every human interaction. It was the dormant Catholic in her, though she became an Episcopalian when she married Daddy. Still, she retained her Catholic worldview, to the point of reminding me of that woman in Grey Gardens, the crazy one—well, they were both crazy—who left Wonder bread in her attic so that the raccoons who lived up there wouldn’t starve.

  When I was growing up, Mother was similarly tenderhearted toward animals. She never killed the spiders that built webs on our front porch (she would stand for what seemed like hours marveling at a single web), and consequently our house was infested every spring. She fed stray cats, who would then leave presents of dead mice and voles for us on the front steps. That would drive Daddy absolutely crazy; after all, he was the one who had to dispose of their carcasses, too upsetting were they for Mother to handle. What most infuriated Daddy was when she would reach her hand through our neighbor’s fence to pet their German shepherd, who was often left outside alone on a chain. Even after she was bit, she continued to do it.

  (“He must have thought I was an intruder,” she said, while Daddy bandaged her mauled hand. “Poor thing.”)

  Again and again Mother defended her actions by claiming it was the Catholic in her that made her do it. Daddy said that she acted the way she did not out of any Catholic reverence for life but out of a childish foolishness. Of course, my father thought that religion, for the most part, was childish foolishness, so I’m not sure why he needed to make the distinction between the two. Though he attended church, he was skeptical of all faiths that involved more commitment than a monthly check and the recitation of the Apostles’ Creed. He used to joke that if the meek inherited the earth it would only take ten minutes for the strong to get it back.

  Mother talked on and on about Winnie and her daughter-in-law’s troubles while I folded the last few pieces of clothing left in the basket.

  “It’s not as if this girl has had every advantage in the world like you. She’s only twenty-one, poor as a church mouse, and hardworking. I just don’t see what harm it’s going to do you to hire her.”

  “It’s odd, that’s all,” I said, wishing my voice didn’t sound so prim. “Admit that it’s a little odd.”

  “I don’t see why. Winnie will stay at home and look after her granddaughter, so you won’t have to worry about Faye canceling on you because of childcare problems.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about,” I said.

  “Louise, I will pay for this woman to come clean your house. What more can I offer?”

  There it was, dangling in front of me, mine for the taking, a service that would help me out tremendously—I had two children to care for, after all, and Sandy did only come once a week—despite the inherent strangeness of the situation.

  Quickly, I rationalized: This was a young woman, who had absolutely nothing to do with Daddy, who needed work. Her mother-in-law, who just happened to have crossed my family’s path many years before, happened to have crossed our path once again. And it was fortunate she did: the girl needed help and I needed help. (I had so much laundry to fold!)

  In retrospect, I should have waited a day or two to make my decision. I should have hung up the phone and thought it over. But despite the fact that Mother often drove me up the wall, there was a part of me that was as desperate to please her as I had been when I was a little girl. There was a part of me that worried that if I refused her generosity, she might never be generous with me again. She might once again recede into herself.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll hire her. I mean, I’ll let you hire her for me. Okay?”

  “Oh I am so glad, Louise! This is going to mean so much to Winnie’s family, it really is. And it will help you out too. I know it will!”

  FAYE NEVER WAS that good a housecleaner. Certainly not compared to Sandy. And her daughter, much as I adored her, was trouble from the beginning. But I tried with Missy, I really did. I tried to reach out to her, to show her that it was possible to have a worldview uncorrupted by fundamentalism. During that talk I had with her after she stole my bird, I told her that I would give her five thousand dollars if she graduated from high school. You see, it seemed to me that she took the bird because she was attracted to nice things, and I decided to use that attraction to try and encourage her to work for a better life for herself.

  But let’s face it. The formula is pretty much already set: if your mother had you when she was very young, you’ll get pregnant when you are young too. Add those inane virginity pledges into the mix and you’re pretty much guaranteed a spate of teen moms. That’s the horrible irony about those pledges, isn’t it? The kids feel so bad about breaking their promises when they are about to have sex that they don’t use any protection, because at least then they didn’t plan to sin. Lord help us all.

  I spoke with Caroline about the situation this morning. Not about our family’s distant connection to Winnie—I’ve never gone into that with her—but about Missy’s pregnancy.

  “I offered to pay for an abortion,” I said.

  “She’s going to have one?” asked Caroline, sounding surprised.

  “She’s not. It’s a shame, but she’s not.”

  Caroline was silent.

  “Don’t tell me, you think she should have the baby?” I asked.

  “She should if that’s what she thinks is right. It’s her body, her choice.”

  “It won’t be her body for long,” I said. “When you have a child, your body is no longer your own.”

  “I know, Mom,” she said. “Believe me, you’ve made the difficulty of child rearing abundantly clear.”

  Well. That stung a little. I’ve just always tried to be honest with Caroline. I haven’t wanted to set her up with false expectations like I had. It never occurred to me that she might be offended to know that child rearing was not a walk in the park.

  She’ll understand once she has one of her own.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Body and Soul

  (Caroline, Spring 2006)

  I feel such affection now, thinking back on Frederick. Which is a minor miracle given what a mess we were, from the drama of our exile to the drama of our life in San Francisco.

  I’m proud of him now. So much prouder from a distance than I would have been had he succeeded near me. Ultimately, that was what blew us up. His relative success compared to mine. He had a BA in theater from Yale and consequently arrived out here with tons of connections to the San Francisco (and Berkeley) theater scene. Of course he was the one people recognized as the actor. Of course he was the one getting parts (albeit parts that paid little or no money). He would come home late from rehearsal, smelling of cigarettes and alcohol, and I would promise myself that I would throw my arms around him the minute he walked through the door, that I would make his homecoming a good thing. But after a lonely night brooding and drinking, more often than not when he walked through the door I picked, picked, picked until we fought, fought, fought. Once I saw that I had thoroughly exhausted him, had thoroughly beaten him down, I was ready to make up.

  We had a few very bad months but then he got smart and applied for acting programs on the East Coast. He got into the best one, the MFA program at Tisch, and soon after he heard the congratulatory message left on our answering machine by the head of the program, he moved to New York.

  (I was the first to hear the message and considered—briefly—erasing it before he came home.)

  The day he sent in
his deposit to Tisch, I smashed every wine glass on the floor—except for the two expensive ones Mom had given me. But things got so much better for me after Frederick moved away. I felt less embarrassed about the little productions I auditioned for, and because of my newfound confidence, I started getting callbacks and then parts. I enrolled at SF State and asked two friends of mine from my class to move into my apartment and take over Frederick’s half of the lease. A year later I got a place of my own in the Mission. (When I called my father to ask if he could help me a little with the rent, he agreed so readily that I understood, maybe for the first time, unconditional love.) I started dating, realized I could have orgasms, that there had been something not quite clicking when Frederick and I had sex, that the buildup had always been more exciting than the actual event.

  My first few years in San Francisco were all about discarding the things about me that bespoke my rich-girl background. It was a thrilling time because I thought I was becoming my true self. I thought that people in San Francisco had found their Eden, had discovered the key to authenticity. (Eat organic and boycott the Gap!)

  I sold most of my cashmere sweaters (Mom’s favorite gift to give) to Crossroads Trading Company, cut off all my hair (I did it myself one night after listening to too much Ani DiFranco and drinking too much beer). I discovered secondhand stores for work pants and T-shirts. I ate vegetarian (though I loved cheese too much to go vegan); I rode my bike all through the city, slapping my hand aggressively on the hoods of cars that blocked the crossing lane when they stopped for traffic lights.

  “Asshole!” I would yell.

  I felt, during that time, so buoyed by how far I had moved from my parents’ world. I believed myself to be safe—saved—from the traps I saw adults, especially southern women, get stuck in. One night I went to a dyke bar with a friend and ended up meeting a woman there, Miriam, whom I dated briefly. On our first date, after dinner at Greens (her treat, at the time I had no money), we made out in the parking lot and then went back to her place in Oakland. She lived in the rear apartment on the third story of a converted Victorian and we had to walk up the rickety fire escape—all three flights—to get inside. It was thrilling making my way up those unfamiliar steps. At the top we could see the San Francisco skyline twinkling on the other side of the bay and there I was, in this place I’d never been before, not sure where to hold on, not sure where I was, and yet pulsing with the excitement of uncharted territory.