After Melanie

by Gloria Goldreich

  She packed the newly laundered bed linens, the candy-striped comforter, curtains and chair pillow into oversized plastic bags. She would tell Nancy that they had to be washed on the gentle cycle and that only cold water should be used for the comforter. She rehearsed the words she might say to Nancy’s daughter. She would perhaps tell her that Melanie had chosen the pattern herself, but immediately dismissed the thought. It would be unkind to tell a child that she slept on the counterpane of a girl who had died.

  But Nancy was accompanied only by a tall, thin, bespectacled young man, her nephew who had rather grudgingly agreed to help. Her daughter, she explained, was at a birthday party.

  ‘How nice,’ Judith said, battling her envy of Nancy because her daughter was alive and invited to birthday parties.

  Nancy, like her nephew, was tall, thin and bespectacled. She wore very white sneakers, jeans and a loose white shirt. Her long silver hair framed her angular face and brushed her shoulders. Judith thought of her mother’s friend, Mrs Lefkowitz, whose hair had been blanched by sorrow for her fallen son. Perhaps Nancy’s hair had also been silvered by the shock of sudden grief. She dismissed the thought. It was more probable that Nancy was one of those rare women whose hair turned silver prematurely and she had been smart enough to refrain from dying it.

  ‘This is Jimmy, my sister’s son,’ Nancy said, looking up at her nephew and holding her hand out to Judith. ‘Isn’t it sweet of him to give up a Sunday to help me?’

  ‘Hey,’ Jimmy said, and the color rose to his cheeks. Clearly he did not want to be thought of as ‘sweet’.

  Strike one for Nancy, Judith thought and realized that she wanted to dislike the woman whom David had praised for her niceness and her ability to rise above adversity. A single mother, a widow, always uncomplaining, always competent, he had said, as though to justify his reasons for offering her Melanie’s furniture. He had not spoken of Nancy’s quiet, fragile beauty, which he had surely noticed. A surprising omission, Judith thought – but then perhaps not so surprising.

  They stood uneasily on the porch until David came out. He shook hands with Jimmy, smiled at Nancy. An awkward wordless greeting, but appropriate, Judith thought. The removal of the furniture was awkward and painful for all of them.

  ‘Coffee?’ she suggested, seeking to ease the tension. ‘I have some great pastries. Jimmy?’

  ‘Actually, we stopped at a Dunkin’ Donuts on the way up,’ Nancy said. ‘We only have the truck until three so we’d better get started.’

  ‘Sure. Of course.’

  Stupid of her to feel rebuffed. Even stupider to have gone out so early to buy Danish. This was not a social occasion. Nancy was not a friend.

  David led them upstairs and Judith sat on the porch and watched as they trekked in and out of the house. The furniture was light and Jimmy easily managed the desk with Nancy trailing behind him, carrying the chair. He and David together carried the bed out and then returned with the mattress balanced between them. Such a small bed, such a small mattress. Judith thought she saw a small indentation on the mattress as it was carried past her and imagined it to be the imprint of Melanie’s body. She felt a stab of pain and squeezed her eyes shut as though to blind herself against the memory of Melanie curled up in her bed, nestled in the circlet of soft light cast by the bed lamp. Biting her lip, she sat back and waited as the screen door opened and shut, and Jimmy and Nancy went up and down the stairs.

  ‘You all right?’

  David sat beside her, placed a cup of coffee in her hand.

  ‘Fine,’ she lied. ‘I’m fine. Are you helping them?’

  ‘They don’t really need me,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. They seem to be managing.’

  ‘Nancy is …’

  ‘Yes. I know. Very competent.’

  She marveled that he did not hear the bitterness in her voice.

  ‘Judith. Please. I understand.’

  He drew her close but she remained rigid in his uneasy embrace.

  Jimmy came out carrying the bureau and Nancy followed him, holding a drawer. In her outstretched arms, it resembled a small white coffin. Judith turned away and took a sip of coffee, strangely pleased when the scalding liquid burned her tongue, pain canceling out pain.

  She did not look up as Jimmy hoisted the newly cleaned rug, mummified in brown paper, and she did not turn as Nancy, in sequential trips, had carried all the drawers into the truck. She rose then and gave her the oversized plastic bag that contained the newly laundered bed linens, the candy-striped comforter and the matching curtains. She offered no suggestions for laundering them.

  Nancy grasped the heavy bag and smiled her gratitude.

  ‘I think that’s everything,’ she said. ‘I really want to thank you for being so generous. My daughter will be delighted. Right, Jimmy?’

  ‘Yeah. I guess.’ Again he blushed, gangly and uncertain, his duty to his aunt done, clearly wishing himself away from this house where a sad-eyed couple sat on matching pine rocking chairs that remained immobile.

  ‘I’m glad you could use it all,’ David said, holding his hand out to Nancy.

  ‘Yes. Glad,’ Judith repeated after him, the words heavy on her tongue.

  She set her coffee cup down and watched them walk down the path to the truck. She stood suddenly.

  ‘Nancy!’ she called, surprised by the urgency in her voice.

  Nancy turned, her silver hair sweeping across her shoulders.

  ‘Her name. What’s your daughter’s name?’

  ‘Lauren,’ Nancy replied and smiled, her chiseled features newly relaxed, her face radiant. ‘Lauren Rose,’ she added, and the name floated toward Judith through the sweet spring air.

  Judith nodded, strangely comforted by the knowledge that a small girl named Lauren Rose would sleep in Melanie’s bed beneath Melanie’s candy-striped comforter.

  She waved and Nancy waved back. Together, seated side by side on the porch, she and David watched the truck drive away.

  ‘Lauren Rose. A pretty name,’ she said.

  ‘She’s a nice child,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve met her?’ she asked in surprise.

  ‘Yes. Nancy’s brought her to the office once or twice,’ he replied.

  He remained on the porch as she went upstairs. She entered the empty room, divested now of every remnant of Melanie’s presence. Nancy or Jimmy – most probably Nancy – had thought to sweep the floor. The broom and the dust pan rested in a corner. The window was open and a soft breeze brushed her cheeks. She looked out and saw that the tiniest of white buds lay furled amid the shining leaves of the apple tree. Melanie would have noticed that, would have summoned them to her window to peer out at the nascent blossoms. Tears seared Judith’s eyes and she turned and left the barren room, closing the door very softly behind her.

  SIX

  David, burdened with two major projects, asked if Nancy Cummings could be assigned to him. Considerable research was required, and he knew her to be familiar with the statistics. He did not deceive himself. There were other researchers who were equally and perhaps more familiar with his work, but he wanted Nancy. He admitted to himself that he needed Nancy.

  And, as it turned out, they worked well together. She, seated opposite him, dealt with the spreadsheets, making corrections, underlining inconsistencies, while he planned his approach, referring to her work, asking questions, relying without hesitation on her answers. He found her presence comforting, her consistent calm reassuring. The project was complicated but uninteresting. At the end of the day, when Amanda came in to announce that she was leaving, David realized that he had not yet completed his presentation. He sighed and turned to Nancy.

  ‘I need another hour, maybe two hours,’ he said. ‘Can you stay?’

  ‘If the babysitter can.’

  She reached for the phone and he heard her speak with the sitter (a promise of double her hourly fee, instructions on heating up the casserole in the fridge). She spoke softly to her daughter, her tone laced w
ith love. ‘I won’t be too late, darling. Edie will give you dinner.’

  A pause. He imagined the child’s protest. Annoyance. Anger. Or perhaps not. She might be more accepting than Melanie had been when she was disappointed or thwarted. Melanie had been a passionate child, accustomed to being the center of her parents’ universe, fierce in asserting what she believed to be her rights, her eyes flashing, her cheeks burning. Nancy’s daughter was, he supposed, more acquiescent. She had had to be.

  He did not turn from his computer screen as Nancy continued to speak soothingly to her daughter. ‘When I come home, I’ll help you. The math can’t be that hard. Don’t worry. It’s just a quiz, not a really big test, and you’re my smart, hardworking girl. Love you, baby.’

  She hung up, shrugged and turned back to her notes.

  ‘Was she upset?’ David asked.

  ‘Only because she has a math test tomorrow. I’ll try to help her when I get home – if I can. That stupid new math.’

  ‘If you want, if she wants, I could probably help her make sense of it. I used to tutor Melanie.’

  He fell silent, recalling the evenings he had sat beside Melanie at her little white desk, helping her to solve mysterious problems, watching her grip the pencil too tightly as she formed uneven columns of numbers, hearing her chirp of delight when at last she understood what was required.

  ‘That would be great if you’re sure you have the time,’ Nancy agreed, and suddenly the pace of their work accelerated.

  They were finished in less than an hour. Nancy returned to her cubicle to check her messages and get her coat. David called Judith to tell her he would be late coming home.

  ‘Still at the office,’ he said. ‘A complicated project.’

  He was glad that Nancy was not in the room as he spoke. He did not want her to hear him lie to his wife. He did not know why he had dissimulated, but then it was not really a lie, he told himself. He was, at the moment, still at the office, they had been working late and it was a complicated project.

  They stopped to pick up sandwiches and he insisted on buying a cupcake with pink icing for Lauren.

  ‘It earns forgiveness from small girls,’ he said, and she did not ask him how he knew that.

  Nancy’s apartment was in Chelsea, a swift taxi ride from their office. Lauren, elfin-faced, her braces gleaming, her auburn hair twisted into a loosening braid, bounded to the door to embrace her mother. How relieved he was to see that she did not resemble Melanie, yet how pleased he was to feel the warmth of her small hand in his own. Nancy introduced him as ‘the nice man I work with’ and reminded Lauren that the furniture in her room had been his gift.

  ‘Oh, I love it all,’ she said. ‘Everything looks so nice. Come and see.’

  He followed her into the room and stood in his daughter’s world. Melanie’s candy-striped curtains were on the windows, fluttering in the soft breeze. The matching comforter covered the small familiar bed, beside which he had knelt so often, to kiss her good morning, to kiss her goodnight, to feel her small hand upon his head. A pair of fuzzy green slippers lay on the red rug and unfamiliar books were arranged on the white shelves of the bookcase. The cubbies of the desk, once crammed with the minutiae of Melanie’s happily disordered life, were now neatly arranged. One contained a small notebook, another a pin cushion, another a magnet to which a chain of pastel-colored metal paperclips adhered. Clearly, Lauren was a child who craved order and created it for herself.

  She munched her cupcake as he and Nancy ate their sandwiches and then, as Nancy prepared tea, he sat beside Lauren at the small desk and slowly, patiently, explained the problems in her notebook. Unlike Melanie, Lauren held her pencil loosely and, unlike Melanie, she grasped the concept without difficulty. She smiled with relief. She did not chirp with delight.

  ‘I got it,’ she called to her mother. ‘I understand.’

  She beamed her gratitude at David and he smiled at her and joined Nancy in the living room where they sat side by side on the gray sofa and sipped their tea.

  They did not speak. They did not touch. Suddenly, without warning, David’s eyes overflowed. He wept, quietly, abundantly. Nancy watched him in silence and, when at last the tears ceased and he fumbled for his handkerchief, she took his empty cup and refilled it.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said softly. ‘It takes you by surprise. The grief. Those waves of sadness. I know.’

  ‘And you? Does it still surprise you?’ he asked.

  ‘Not as often. Not as intense. But it never goes away. All these years later, I still feel the shock. Probably because it was so sudden. Steven was alive, laughing, hugging me, and then, minutes later, the policeman was at the door, telling me he was dead. I felt as though I had been struck by lightning. Hit by a thunderbolt. I remember that I touched my cheek. It was still damp where he had kissed me.’

  ‘Yes, lightning,’ he repeated. ‘Exactly.’

  He wondered that he had not realized before that the young doctor’s words had been just that – a bolt of verbal lightning that seared his consciousness, scorched his heart.

  ‘So, yes. I still start crying, sometimes bawling if I’m alone and no one can hear. I never know what will trigger it. A sunset. A scrap of music. A couple passing me, walking hand in hand. Or nothing at all. And then the tears come. Sometimes I’m glad of them. It would be sad if everything was gone, all the love, all the memories, and the only thing that remained of Steven was a hole in my heart. It helps to cry, to feel the loss, to weep my way through it.’

  She did not look at him as she spoke.

  He sat back against the soft gray cushions, grateful for her words, her gentle reassurance, grateful that his sorrow was understood and shared, relieved that he had wept.

  He rose to leave and she walked him to the door.

  ‘You have a very lovely daughter,’ he said.

  She nodded. ‘You were so good with her. So helpful. So at ease.’

  He had been at ease with Lauren, he knew, perhaps because their brief tutoring session had been so familiar to him. He had recognized the circlet of lamplight on her workbook, the touch of her small fingers against his own as she reached for a pencil, the gentle sway of the drapes against the window. All visual and tactile recreations of precious hours he had almost forgotten.

  ‘Daddy, the drapes are dancing,’ Melanie had said one night as he knelt beside her bed. Her words, whispered in that childish lisp, had delighted him, and he had delighted in remembering them as Lauren’s gaze had rested briefly on the window where those same drapes had swayed in a slight breeze. He had thought that he might repeat Melanie’s whimsical words to her but he had remained silent. He would not speak of the daughter he had lost to a child who had never known her father.

  ‘You’re sure she understands that stupid math?’ Nancy asked.

  ‘If she doesn’t, I’ll come again,’ he promised.

  He smiled, said goodnight and stepped out into the soft darkness of a starless night.

  Judith was asleep when he arrived home and he wondered if he should wake her and tell her that the knot of his grief was loosening, that he had wept, spoken his daughter’s name and sat beside Nancy’s daughter at the desk that had been Melanie’s. Instead, he straightened her blanket and placed his hand briefly and lightly upon her head.

  He was gone before Judith wakened the next morning, but he left her a note on the kitchen table telling her that it was possible that he might not be home for dinner. He anticipated a conference call that might extend into the evening. He would call. ‘Have a good day,’ he scrawled, and it was only when he reached the station that he remembered that he should have added ‘Love’.

  Judith read the note, crumpled it, then straightened it and saw that the word ‘good’ had been scrawled over an erasure of ‘great’. Of course he would not wish her a great day. That word had vanished from their lives. She noted too the omission of the word ‘Love’. She shrugged and moved with a new purposefulness. She had something to do that day,
somewhere to go. The thought pleased her.

  She stood before her closet, uncertain about what to wear for her first official stint at the thrift shop. Certainly not the casual suits that had been her university wardrobe and definitely not the worn sweatpants and tracksuits, the indifferent uniform of her home-bound mourning. She settled at last on a pair of khaki slacks and a loose white shirt, adding a tie-dyed silk scarf that Melanie had crafted in an after-school program and proudly presented to her on her birthday. It had been Melanie’s last gift to her. She draped it around her neck, touched it lightly and hurried downstairs. She had a lot to do, she reminded herself sternly.

  Seated in the breakfast nook, sipping coffee and nibbling at a slice of dry toast, she made lists. There were measurements to be taken in the room soon to be David’s office, which she forbade herself to think of as ‘Melanie’s room’. Evelyn would be pleased to hear that.

  Judith anticipated the therapist’s cool approval, her standard utterance. Progress. What was she supposed to be progressing toward? Judith wondered, as she concentrated on the pad in front of her.

  The floor of the room would have to be scraped, the windows double-glazed and fitted with new shutters. Referrals, Estimates, she wrote.

  Propelled by a burst of energy, she rummaged in a drawer for a tape measure.

  Two hours later, with the measurements of the room neatly recorded in a small notebook, messages left with neighbors who had recently completed renovations, and an actual appointment scheduled with a carpenter, she drove to the synagogue thrift shop.

  She was relieved to find Libby behind the cash register and Lois, her car trouble obviously resolved, going through a rack of men’s business suits with a middle-aged African American man. He wore ill-fitting jeans and a very worn plaid flannel shirt.