The Center of Winter: A Novel

by Marya Hornbacher

  “Well, hon, you’re only wearing your slip.”

  I looked down. My arms were goose pimpled and purple, and my nipples stood out through the nylon. I laughed.

  “Well, what do you know,” I said.

  She raised an eyebrow. “You want a robe?”

  I stopped laughing. “No,” I said flatly. I took a drink of beer and ran my thumbnail over the textured surface of the table. She was looking at me.

  “You been in there yet?”

  “No.”

  We sat in silence.

  “I could go in for you. Get you a robe.”

  I shook my head. “S’all right.”

  She took her shirt off and passed it across to me, wadded up. I put it on the table and lay my face on it. It smelled good. Wood smoke, cologne, and beer. It smelled like her hair too, which smelled somehow smooth. Like water, or the earthy, clean smell of mud.

  I wrapped my arms around it and heaved a sigh.

  “You see that?” I gestured toward the hall. “Down there? The door?” I was facing the window, actually, but I would have sworn I could feel the door, and behind it a hole, a darkness pulling at the top of my head. “That’s it,” I said. “That’s where he shot himself.”

  She said nothing. That was fine. I lifted my head to drink, as clumsy as a patient in a hospital bed, almost missing my mouth. I wiped my lips with the back of my hand.

  “He shot himself,” I said again, to hear myself say it. It sounded like someone else talking. I liked the sound of the word shot.

  “That’s enough,” she said, and I felt her hand on my arm, briefly, as if she were pressing a stop button.

  “Smells like bleach in here, doesn’t it?” I said idly.

  “Not really.”

  I put my chin on the pillow of her shirt. “Yes it does. Don’t bullshit me.”

  “All right, it does. As you’re going past it, it does.”

  “Thank you.” I laid my head back down. It was a perfectly clear night, and the heavy midwinter moon hung high in the wide window-pane, almost full. “Smelled like gunpowder when he did it,” I said, suddenly remembering. “Is that possible?”

  “I suppose so.”

  I flared my nostrils, remembering the sulfur burn.

  “When I was growing up, we kept a box by the door,” I said. I lifted my head finally and sat up, pulling the flannel over my shoulders. “My mother kept a box there, of all her treasures, she said. Heirloom jewelry, pictures, things like that. I think she had a baby shoe of mine.”

  Donna sat splayed in her chair, her clear skin covered with a sheen of sweat. Tiny hairs at her temples curled. She took a swallow and nodded for me to go on.

  “I never knew what it was for. I’d wait until she was out and go dig through it. Try on all the jewelry, look at the pictures to see if I looked like anybody. I didn’t look much like her, God knows.” I laughed.

  “What’d she look like?”

  “She was gorgeous. Oh, she was just beautiful. One of those women you hate, you can’t help it. Little tiny thing. Little southern belle, round in all the right places.”

  Donna laughed. “Woulda killed her.”

  “You would too. She was terrible. But Lord, was she pretty. Scarlett O’Hara pretty, with the black Irish hair.”

  “Always wondered if you were Irish.”

  I nodded. “I got the red hair. She hated it. But what she hated worse were my eyes. Didn’t like my eyes.”

  “What’s wrong with ’em?”

  “Honey, I don’t know. They must’ve looked familiar. Quit looking at me, she’d always say. Can’t stand it when you look at me. Always looking at me like you hate me. Can’t you put a smile on your face. Hide your teeth.”

  “Hoo-ee.” Donna shook her head. “I tell you.”

  “So I’d look through her treasures. Pictures of her all dolled up, old pictures. I never did figure out which one was my father.”

  Donna sucked her teeth. “One of those. Ever meet him?”

  I shook my head. “Not that I remember. That’s what the box was for, it turned out. It was by the door so if he ever showed up again, we could get out of there and she’d still have some pretty memories, she said.”

  “He free with his fists?”

  “I guess so.”

  She smacked both hands on the table, pushed herself back, and looked at me. “I’m sleeping here tonight, you know.”

  “All right.”

  She stood up and came back with an armful of beers. She lined them up on the table, two by two. She passed her empties to me so I could peel the labels off. My side of the table looked like a down pillow had exploded. She went through the house turning off lights. Moonlight spilled into the room.

  She sat down, put her feet on the table, and said, “Arnold ever hit you?”

  “Oh, no.”

  We sat there in the pale dark. I could see her face clearly, faintly lit from below by her husband’s undershirt.

  “Couple times, he did,” I said.

  It felt strange to have said it. It had been so long since I’d even thought of it that it felt almost like a lie. “Once, not too long back. Then once, ages ago. Back before the kids.” I shook my head, trying to empty the details from my brain onto the table where I could examine them. “He was drunk. We were fighting about something. A man, a friend of his. We’d been out that night, I guess he thought the guy was getting a little too friendly with me,” I said.

  “Not your problem.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “They’re crazy.”

  “I know they are. Anyway, it happened so fast I don’t even remember what it felt like. I just remember staring at him, right after.”

  “It’s like that. You forget the pain.”

  I looked at her. “Dale hit you?”

  “Not anymore. Tries to, time to time. Doesn’t get too far, the sorry little shit.” I saw her teeth in a grin. I laughed. I could picture her snapping her nasty beanpole husband in half. Dale Knutson was a mean man. No other word for him. He was just flat mean.

  “So what’d you do?” she asked.

  I tried to remember. And suddenly I did. “I slept with him. The guy. I walked out of the apartment and went back to the club. I did. I’d completely forgotten it.” I stared at her in disbelief and we laughed.

  “Well, then. How’d that work out for you?”

  “Oh, God, it was terrible. I went right straight back to the bar and snuck him into the ladies’ room. And what for? He was drunker than Arnold, even. I remember,” I cackled, “wondering if there was one guy in town who could get it up. You know, you go all those years being good.”

  “Ain’t that the way.”

  “And then when you finally go and do something, nobody there to do it with.”

  She popped two more beers. “The damn truth,” she said, shaking her head and laughing. “Peter Anderson,” she said, raising her eyebrows, pointing her bottle at me and throwing her head back to take a swallow. She grinned.

  “No,” I breathed.

  “Yes, ma’am. Two years ago. And!” She held up her hand. “Dennis Knickerbocker.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Oh, but I am.” She chortled.

  “Dennis? Dennis Dennis?”

  “The very same.”

  I was floored. “He’s the ugliest thing I ever saw,” I blurted out.

  “Don’t I know it,” she said, shaking her head. “And you ain’t even seen his willie.”

  I screamed with laughter and hung on to the table to remain upright.

  “Poor little thing,” she said. “Guy’d been after me with this hangdog look so long I thought I’d give the poor sucker a break, you know? I mean, what have I got to lose? Get myself laid. And Dennis, well, he looks like he’d have a big one, don’t he?”

  “You know, he does.”

  “My point. Wrong. Negative. Nada.” She held her forefinger and thumb out. “Yea big, give or take. Rumply as a baby’s face.
And I swear to God they shrink, you look at ’em long enough.”

  “Honey, I think they do.”

  “Him I regret. He got himself all up in a bundle about it, crying and whatnot. Lord, but there’s nothing worse than a naked man blubbering on your tits.”

  “You don’t regret Peter, though?”

  “Nah. Least he knew what to do if his parts weren’t working. Got busy downstairs in a hurry, turned out just fine for me.”

  I nearly spat my beer out. I had never before in my life heard a woman refer to this, and now here sat Donna, acting like it was nothing.

  “What? You look like you never heard of such a thing. Uh-uh.” She smiled at me. “You’re not so prim.”

  I fanned myself with my hand. “I suppose not,” I said.

  She snorted. “Ha! You put on a good show, though, I’ll give you that.” She toasted me with her beer and drank the dregs.

  “Shit, Claire,” she said thoughtfully. She was drunk and it pleased me. We were both stupid now, not just me, but she was stupid and sane, so I would be all right. I wrapped her shirt around me and crossed my legs on the chair.

  “We’ve known each other all these years and never once sat down to talk,” she said. “Why in the hell not?”

  I rolled my bottle between my hands. “I don’t know.” I shrugged. It had never occurred to me. “No one ever talked to me.”

  “Ha! That’s a good one, sweetheart.” She put her hands behind her head, laughing. “Oh, that’s rich. No one ever talked to you? Miss High-and-Mighty? Little Miss—” She waved her hand. “Did it ever occur to you to talk to them?”

  She looked at me with her mouth cocked in a smile. “Guess not,” she said.

  “What do they think?” I said, and immediately wanted to grab the words up and stuff them back into my mouth.

  “Of you? Shit, what do you think they think? Think you’re a snob, is what. Too good for them. Too good for this town and everything in it.”

  I felt as if I’d fallen onto my back, hard. “What did they think of Arnold?”

  Donna looked at me. “Now, that’s a tough one.”

  “Well, too bad,” I suddenly snapped. “You’re the one started talking. Don’t stop now. What did they think?”

  “They thought he was crazy.” I could see that it hurt her to say it, and I was glad.

  “Well, he wasn’t crazy,” I spat out, furious. “He wasn’t.”

  “Dammit, Claire, I know that!” she shouted.

  “And I suppose they think it’s my fault he’s dead,” I shouted back.

  “No!” She leaned forward over the table. “No, they don’t! For Chrissakes, Claire, they’re not stupid! They’re not cruel!”

  She sat back and opened two more bottles of beer. She handed one to me and we drank, staring past each other.

  “Loved him to death, Claire. They did. They really did. Long before you ever got here. Long as they could. He was a good man, and everyone knew it.” She took a deep breath and a swallow. From the corner of my eye, I saw her watching me. I was looking at the moon, which had sunk a few inches in the windowpane. The room was flooded with pale light. The corners were buried in snowdrifts of dark.

  “And everyone knew it was hard for you. Nobody thought you were doing any less than you could do. Everyone knew.”

  I felt their eyes on me for all these years, watching my family, my husband, my babies. “No one knew,” I said.

  “No,” she replied. “That’s true too. No one really knew.”

  I woke to find Kate sitting in her father’s chair, legs stuck out in front of her, watching me sleep.

  “Hey, Little Bit,” I said, screwing up my eyes and holding a hand over them. From the kitchen I smelled biscuits frying in fat, a yeast-and-salt smell that made my tongue swell in my mouth. I was starving.

  “I heard you last night.”

  “Heard me what?”

  “Sleeping.”

  “Oh yeah? Did I snore?”

  “No. You yelled.”

  “Huh. Must’ve been a bad dream.” I lifted myself up on one arm and looked around the room. Belatedly, the day hit me in the face. I fell back and put my hands over my eyes, my mouth open. Oh, I thought. Oh, hell and damn.

  “Donna’s making breakfast,” Kate said. “She slept over.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “What do you mean?” I sat up, trying to be fine. “I feel fine. How do you feel?”

  “Fine.”

  She sat there in her clothes from the day before. Blue pants and a green turtleneck with blue whales swimming across the chest, blowing white streams of spray. Her hair was stuck to one side of her face. I tried to remember when she’d last bathed.

  “I’m not going to school today,” she announced.

  “All right.”

  “Donna said.”

  “Well, then. What Donna says goes.”

  “I haven’t been to school since last year,” she said.

  “I know,” I said, though I didn’t. I realized it was January. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone to school. I supposed it was before her Christmas break. Before Christmas Day. I didn’t care if she ever went to school again. Why would a six-year-old have to go to school?

  “Breakfast!” Donna yelled from the kitchen. “Katie, is your mother up?”

  “Yes,” Kate yelled, still looking at me, as if by staring she would keep me upright on the couch.

  “Morning, sunshine! Kate, come wash your hands.”

  Kate slid off the La-Z-Boy and galloped into the kitchen. She returned, holding her wet hands out as if they were covered with something filthy. “We’re having fatback biscuits,” she said happily, shifting from foot to foot.

  “Yum.”

  “We’re supposed to sit at the table, though.”

  “Okay.” I followed her and sat down.

  Donna came in, her black hair still wet from a shower. She set a plate down in front of me and smiled. I studied my plate, feeling naked, as if I was waking up with a lover for the first time. Kate mashed her biscuits with a fork and stabbed the egg yolks.

  “I’m going over to Davey’s to play,” she said.

  “Did you ask Donna?”

  Kate sighed at me. “Mom,” she said, annoyed. “Donna said I was supposed to. She says you need your rest.”

  I looked at Donna.

  “Eat your breakfast before it gets cold,” she said, and drank her coffee.

  “You’re taking her home with you?”

  Donna nodded. “Think you could use a day to yourself.”

  “What for?”

  “I’ll have her back by supper.”

  Kate glanced back and forth between us. “Is it okay?” she asked, anxious. “I can go?”

  “Of course,” Donna said.

  “Oh, phew,” Kate yelled. Donna and I winced. Kate shoveled down her food and dashed off to her room. Donna stood up to get the coffeepot and poured us another cup.

  “We’re what, four blocks away, you need us,” Donna said, sitting down.

  I nodded into my coffee.

  “Kid needs to burn off some energy,” Donna said. “Last thing you need to deal with’s a pent-up kid.”

  “I guess that’s right.”

  Kate appeared, fully suited up. “Okay,” she said, as if we’d been waiting only for her. “We can go.”

  I had to use the bathroom.

  If I got up, I would have to walk down the hall. If I walked down the hall, I would see the door to the bedroom. I might open the door. I might fall in.

  Surely I had gone to the bathroom since I’d been home? Maybe I was drunk and it was dark and I didn’t see.

  I had to pee so bad my teeth hurt. It was another sunny day, and I wanted to kill it. It was making me have to pee worse.

  I got up, shut my eyes, and felt my way through the house to the bathroom door. I sat on the john, peeing like a racehorse, my face in my hands, and began to cry.


  The humiliation of crying on the toilet with my underwear around my knees was too much. I stopped, got up, splashed water on my face, shut my eyes, and opened the door. I felt my way back to the living room, got my coffee cup, and went into the kitchen. Donna had left it spotless, the pans set neatly in the rack to dry.

  I put the pans away and poured myself more coffee. I looked up at the clock and my heart dropped. It was only seven.

  If I went into the bedroom right now, I thought, I could get ready and be at work with time to spare. But that would entail going into the bedroom.

  I stood there paralyzed, a statue of myself with a cup of coffee. Woman in kitchen in slip. Smelly hungover woman with coffee. I picked up the phone and dialed Donna.

  “Hello?”

  “Should I go to work?” I asked.

  “Claire, no. It’s a holiday.”

  I held the phone so tightly against my head my ear hurt. “What holiday?”

  “Honey, it’s the first. What are you doing? Hang on. Davey,” she called, “go get Kate for a second.” I heard a baby wailing, a stampede of small feet, and the high whisper of Kate’s voice. My heart began to beat harder.

  “Hi, Mom!”

  “Hi, sweetheart!” I leaned my forehead against the wall, my eyes closed, her face filling my vision. “Are you having a good time?”

  “Yeah. We’re, um—” She whispered and Davey whispered back. “We’re gonna build a snow fort and play explorers,” she said.

  “That’s wonderful. That’s so great.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I love that,” I said, overcome.

  “Yeah. Mom? I have to go.”

  I opened my eyes. “Of course you do, honey. Have fun, okay? I’ll see you tonight.”

  “Claire, it’s me.” Donna’s voice.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi. What are you doing?”

  “Calling you.”

  “Right. Well, don’t go to work.”

  “Right. It’s the first? Like, New Year’s?”

  “Yeah. January first, 1970. Hard to believe, huh?”

  “Sheesh. What are you up to?”

  “Not much. Have you showered yet?”

  “No.”

  “Whyn’t you do that.”

  “Can’t you come over?”

  “No can do. Houseful of kids, the baby’s teething, and Dale’s hiding in the basement. I laid some clean clothes out for you. Why don’t you take a shower and get dressed. You’ll feel better.”