Learning to See

by Elise Hooper

  We drove over a crest in the East Bay’s rolling hills to see the boys waiting by the mailbox in the distance. As we neared and started waving, they jumped up and down. John leapt into the air with the graceful athleticism that young children possess. Dan moved more awkwardly. His gangly arms and legs wheeled outward, flapping in unabashed delight. He wore glasses now and sunlight glinted off the lenses in blinding bursts. Despite the heaviness in my heart, I couldn’t help but laugh as I stopped the car. John yanked open my door. Both boys tumbled on top of us, wriggling and yelling. Excited chatter continued for the ride home and into dinner. From across the table, I tried to catch Maynard’s eye, but he avoided my gaze.

  “Pops, remember when you taught my class at school?” Dan asked during the middle of our meal.

  “Ha, I didn’t teach. No teacher would be fool enough to put me in charge. Why, if it was up to me, I’d have set everyone loose and taught ’em all how to shoot a rifle. You know, something useful.”

  John looked back and forth at Maynard and Dan, narrowing his eyes to determine if they were pulling his leg. “What do you mean? Pops went to school with you?”

  “One day, he just showed up. Boy, oh boy, were the kids impressed with his cowboy hat.”

  “Pretty sure no one else’s father at that prissy school wore a cowboy hat. Those old stiffs were a bunch of pencil pushers,” agreed Maynard, grinning, before forking some baked beans into his mouth and chewing noisily.

  “As I recall, many of those so-called pencil pushers bought a number of your paintings,” I pointed out.

  “I never said they didn’t have taste,” said Maynard through a mouth full of food. He swallowed and winked at the boys.

  “Pops did a bunch of sketches on the board of cowboys and Indians, and then all the kids begged him to draw their portraits. And he did.” Dan’s eyes were distant as he looked past us at a spot on the kitchen wall, smiling, before looking at Maynard again. “That was the best day of school ever. I think about it all the time.”

  Maynard’s smile weakened. He tugged the napkin tucked into his collar off and folded it into quarters, not looking at any of us as he did so. His chair made a scraping sound as he pushed back from the table, stood, and reached over to muss Dan’s hair. “That was a good day, son. The best.” He glanced at me with a stony expression and left the room. A moment later, the front door slammed. Both boys lowered their eyes to their plates and continued to eat without talking. Though food remained on my plate, I pushed it away and rose. “Who wants dessert? I made chocolate pudding.”

  They yelled with glee and scrambled to clear their plates. I spooned out two bowls of pudding, set them on the table in front of the boys, and went back to the counter, where I folded my arms across my chest and watched them eat. They spoke of going down to the wharf the following day to fish, excitement high and sweet in their voices. At that moment, all I wanted was to wrap my arms around their bodies and scoop them close to my breast to protect them from everything that was about to happen.

  I WENT TO bed alone, but something woke me in the middle of the night. Maynard had come home and now lay snoring beside me. I rose, wrapped my bare body in the worn kimono I’d bought in Chinatown years earlier, and crept downstairs. The kitchen door squeaked as I opened it to slip outside. On the steps, with my knees pulled into my chin, the sky was clear, except for low-lying clouds scuttling across the night sky like fish swimming in black water, obscuring stars as they moved. The sense of being alone felt luxurious. It gave me time to think.

  Overhead, the stars appeared to rearrange themselves with a speed that left my head reeling. All of the pieces of my life—my family, my home, my work—were spinning. Things were changing. My work with Paul felt important and useful, and I awaited word from him with an intensity that frightened me. I wanted this new job he spoke of. Most of all I needed him, yet at the same time, I dreaded the moment everything would shift. All these years I’d kept myself going using only my own momentum. From my own childhood, I’d learned it best not to rely on anyone. At forty years old, I was about to change all of that and it terrified me.

  THE NEXT MORNING while the boys were outside playing, I cornered Maynard as he finished shaving in the bathroom. “We need to talk,” I said.

  He bobbed his head in agreement, toweled off the remaining patches of shaving cream, and followed me into our room, where he dropped onto the bed, folded his hands behind his head, crossed his ankles, and gave me a taciturn stare. I dropped next to him and sighed.

  “Maynard, this is over. We both know it.”

  A quick flash of anguish appeared across his face, but he closed his eyes, shutting me out of his pain. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “So that’s it?” he asked, opening his eyes.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  His long fingers pulled at his mustache. “We had a good run.”

  “We did.”

  “I’ve been thinking. If everything hadn’t come crashing down around us, do you think we could have made it?”

  I thought back to our camping trips over the years, to Utah, to Lake Tahoe. Sleeping under the stars. Building sweat lodges and fishing. The freedom of all of us swimming in mountain lakes. Those were the golden times and while it tempted me to focus on them, the dark times remained all too close. “I don’t know. There are so many ways to change history and wonder, What if?”

  “I guess. It just feels like we’re marionettes, our strings being yanked by forces we can’t see. I hate it.” His voice lacked the bitterness it once had. Instead all I heard was resignation.

  “I don’t think that’s it at all. We’ve got to pull through this somehow. We’ve got to keep trying, help more people.”

  A fly buzzed nearby, bumping against the windowpane over and over again. Maynard watched it a moment, before saying, “You’re taking up with Paul?”

  My finger followed the neat stitches of white thread on the quilt. “Yes.”

  “Well, we’ve been dealt a tough hand, but you worked awful hard at keeping us together. Harder than you should have, I suppose. I’ve been a lousy husband.”

  I pivoted to lie down beside him, my arms behind my head too, my elbow grazing his. An overwhelming sense of exhaustion pushed down on me. “You were my first love.”

  From where I lay beside him, I heard him suck in his breath. “Do you regret it?”

  “No.” And I meant it. “With you, I grew up.”

  He was quiet a moment. “What about the boys?”

  “Paul and I’ll take them. Between the two of us, we’ll be earning enough. We’re going to move over near campus. They’ll be close and you can see them when you’re able.”

  “Paul’s a good man. I sure wish it didn’t have to end like this, but he’ll be steady.” We were silent until Maynard rolled to his side to cough and then rose and shuffled toward the door. He turned to me. “You tell the boys.” And then he left. His footsteps echoed in the hallway as he retreated downstairs.

  Maybe his parting words should have angered me, but I accepted them as my penance. Although I dreaded it, I would tell the boys and be forthright. My mother hid the dissolution of her marriage for too long. The uncertainty had confused my brother and me terribly. I would be direct and not hide a thing from Dan and John. Just thinking about breaking the news to them made me cringe. But this was my decision; I would take responsibility for it.

  Still on the bed, I stretched out my hand to rest upon the warm imprint where Maynard’s body had lain. He reminded me of our first house, the bungalow on Nob Hill. At first I’d poured so much enthusiasm into making it just right. Then frustrations began with when the paint started flaking, pipes clanked, the windows rattled in their frames, and the ceiling plaster cracked. We were too busy to maintain the house and eventually outgrew it and needed to move. Yet I still felt fondness for that tiny place, how it represented my new adult life. That was Maynard to me now. Was I supposed to cry? It saddened me to see the door close on that part of my life, but at the same time, r
elief trickled through me drip by drip.

  Chapter 29

  I longed for Paul’s return from Washington. Everything felt too unsettled with him gone.

  I was in my studio cropping some images when a knock at the door made me jump. When I opened it, there he stood in the cramped hallway littered with dusty packing boxes from the milliner’s studio next door.

  I threw my arms around his broad shoulders and tilted my head to kiss him, but he turned away, looking up and down the hallway before nudging me into my studio and closing the creaky door behind us. Once we were alone, his serious demeanor cracked into a smile. “I was able to return home a few days earlier than expected. Did you get a call from Stryker?”

  “Yes.” I released my arms from Paul’s neck and sat down on the windowsill, still trying to gather my thoughts about my conversation with the man. Three days earlier, I’d been about to walk out the door to the grocery store when the telephone’s shrill ring made me freeze, my hand on the doorknob. I lifted the receiver and said, “Lange.”

  After a slight pause, a man’s voice cut into the static of the line and he introduced himself as Mr. Stryker, from the U.S. government’s resettlement agency. “Dr. Taylor came in for a meeting yesterday and introduced me to the mighty fine photography you’re doing in California. I’m calling to offer you a job as a paid photographer on my staff.”

  Though I’d been hoping to receive this offer, my legs started shaking. I wrapped the phone cord around my index finger while questions raced through my mind.

  “Miss Lange, are you there?”

  “Yes, yes, I’m here. I—”

  Without waiting for me to go on, Mr. Stryker cut back in to explain the terms of my employment. “The rest of the photographers are here in Washington, but I’d like you to remain in the West. I’ve looked over a couple of your reports. The work is splendid and represents what I’m anxious to have more of. I’ll have a Mr. Hewes call you with the particulars, but in broad strokes, this is the job. What do you say?”

  It felt like I hadn’t breathed the entire time he spoke. I inhaled. “Yes.”

  “Good, good. I want you to continue visiting migrant camps. Look for the significant details. See what’s happening out there. What does it look like, feel like? What exactly is the human condition? Can you do that?”

  I nodded. “Yes, that’s what I’ve been doing.”

  “Swell,” he replied. Voices buzzed in the background, speaking to him, distracting him. “All right then, Hewes will be in touch. I’ll have a letter your way soon, outlining your first assignment.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He said something more, something about welcoming me, but I could hear that our conversation no longer held his interest. We said goodbye. I placed the phone back on its cradle and stared at it, my hands empty at my sides. After twenty years of setting the direction of my own work, I would now be answering to someone else.

  Even several days after the call, a pit of lead weighed in my stomach. “Yes,” I repeated to Paul. “I spoke with Stryker and he offered me the job.”

  “Good, he was very impressed with you. Some of the other photographers came in to look at your work while I was there. Everyone was interested.” He looked at me eagerly as he told me this. I nodded. Concern grew on his face. “You told him yes, didn’t you?”

  “I did.”

  Relief eased his tense expression into a grin, yet a deep crease between his eyes hinted at trouble. “I think we’ll be heading back out to Marysville for the first assignment. We won’t be working on the same project, but we can travel together, me doing what I need to for the Social Security Board, while you work for the RA.”

  I asked him a few questions about how his own meetings had gone in Washington, and as he answered, he began to pace around the room, his arms crossed in front of his chest. Each time he circled the room, I grew increasingly tense.

  “Paul, please stop moving for a minute.” When he froze, I said, “I’ve spoken to Maynard. He agreed to a divorce.”

  Paul blinked a few times, before taking a wrinkled handkerchief out of his pocket and rubbing it at his temples. His face looked gray as he pulled off his glasses and proceeded to polish the lenses. Outside, the tinny drone of a lemonade seller’s music played in an endless loop. “I spoke with Katherine last night.” He dropped to my stool, his face slack with exhaustion. “Do you have anything to drink?”

  Paul never drank before five o’clock. I pulled out a half-full bottle of gin and two small glasses from a nearby cabinet, listening as he described how his wife had fallen completely apart upon the news. I poured him a glass and then poured myself one. Its sharp piney smell almost took off the hairs in my nostrils, but I closed my eyes and tossed it back.

  He slugged back a shot too and said, “I’ve just come from checking her into the hospital.”

  My brain struggled to make sense of this. “The hospital?”

  “It seemed like the safest thing for her. She spent the whole night raving. The doctors said she might be in for a couple of weeks.” He paused. “She always claimed to never believe in a conventional marriage, yet it seems appearances meant more to her than I expected. She grew up in a very traditional family. I’m afraid she wasn’t really as open-minded as she believed herself to be. Her reaction stunned me.”

  I certainly understood how hard it could be to let go of the past and nodded sadly. “Were the children there?”

  “At first. But then when I saw how Katherine . . .” He shook his head. “I called my sister and she took them back to her house for the night. How did Dan and John react to the news?”

  “I haven’t said anything yet. I will.”

  He nodded. “It’s almost done.”

  It was. My empty stomach roiled from the gin and for a moment I feared I might vomit. I placed my glass down on the floor and moved to sit on Paul’s lap, bury my head in his neck. His shirt smelled musky and needed changing. He pulled me back and looked into my face, concentrating as if something were written in the whites of my eyes.

  What?” I said.

  “When I talked to Stryker, I didn’t come right out with the fact that you and I are marrying,” he confessed. “The government won’t hire two people from the same family, much less a married couple, so I thought I’d keep it quiet. It will come out in time.” Behind his glasses, dark circles ringed his eyes. Deep creases were carved into his forehead. Normally so solid and poised, he appeared leached of confidence.

  “Of course.” I pressed my lips to his. Although he hesitated at first, he pushed back and opened his mouth against my own.

  What he didn’t tell me that afternoon was that rumors were already circulating about our affair. Berkeley was a small community and news traveled fast from kitchen to kitchen, sidewalk to sidewalk, shop counter to shop counter. It seemed no one could picture him engaging in anything scandalous, although apparently, it was not such a leap for everyone to paint me as a husband stealer. When Berkeley’s rumor mill sprang into action, it was my reputation that suffered. At the grocery store, women I knew turned and backed out of the aisle if they saw me coming. The secretary at the economics department at Berkeley never relayed any of my telephone messages to Paul. I told myself none of it mattered and steeled myself to disapproval. I was used to being on the outside.

  ALTHOUGH MAYNARD ACCEPTED my request for a divorce without argument, Imogen didn’t surrender anywhere as easily. I drove over to her house, and we sat on her front steps, cups of weak black tea balanced on our knees.

  “You can’t do this. You can’t leave Maynard.”

  “You didn’t want me to marry him. Now you won’t let me leave him?”

  She threw the tea from her cup into the rhododendron bush and jumped up from the step to stand over me. She blinked back tears of frustration. “I never thought you’d give up on him. What’s he going to do now? For crying out loud, he’s sick.”

  “He’s a survivor.” Paul’s words came out as my own and I hoped they w
ere true.

  She glowered at me and placed her empty teacup on the step next to mine before dropping down beside me and resting her chin in her palm. “I’m so sorry, but I hope you won’t regret this business with Paul Taylor.”

  Though there were many things I felt uncertain about, Paul was not one of them. I reached out to smooth back her hair, which had grayed almost overnight, it seemed. “You know all the times you’ve criticized my photography for being too commercial?”

  “I’ve done no such thing.”

  I shook my head, unwilling to get drawn into arguing with her. “Well, anyway, when I’m photographing people in the fields and working with Paul, I know I’m doing the right thing. Every day I head out to work, I feel nervous and excited . . . and even a little scared. This work means something, it’s making a difference.”

  She turned to look at me, sliding her toe back and forth across the paving stone of her front walk. We scowled at each other for a few beats and then she shrugged with resignation.

  “It will all come at a terrible cost.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you?”

  I let out an exasperated groan. “What do you want me to say?”

  “Fine.” She threw her hands in the air. “Have you told the boys?”

  I bit my lip and shook my head, dropping my gaze to adjust the silver Navajo bangle on my wrist.

  Her voice lowered. “That’s the real kicker, isn’t it?”

  I said nothing so she slid closer and wrapped one of her slender, bird-like arms around my shoulders. We sat in silence. I looked at the chipping white paint on her front gate and remembered the girl who had stood there twenty years earlier, only a couple of dollars in her pocket, fresh off the train from the other side of the country and thinking she knew it all. But it wasn’t regret that filled me. Through being humbled, I actually felt stronger. The world had expanded and shown me how much I had to learn, and it was this prospect that thrilled me. While I regretted hurting people close to me, I was working toward a larger purpose.