Authors: Ann Beattie
“McCallum used to miss his own sofa,” she said. “His son is hyperactive, and he jumped one too many times, and he wouldn’t replace it. He put the old sofa with the broken frame by the curb for the garbage pickup, and then there were just the uncomfortable ladder-back chairs.”
“It’s a lot to have to deal with,” he said. Which, to his mind, meant all of it: the hand you were dealt, fate, unpredictable meetings in anonymous buildings, even. The alcoholic who reformed too late. The sofa frame not built to withstand repeated impact.
He was so agitated that he did not expect the doctor to be walking toward them, up to the last second, when he looked up and understood that they, alone, were the focus of the man’s attention. He asked if Jenny Oughton was McCallum’s wife. Didn’t he realize why McCallum was a patient? You always heard that doctors and nurses did nothing but gossip—could this doctor have no idea of the particular circumstances surrounding McCallum’s admission? Or could he have thought McCallum’s wife was out on bail, cooling her heels until her husband got out of surgery?
Jenny Oughton said she was not; she was a friend. Marshall said the same thing, because, again, it did not seem the right time to qualify anything.
The doctor told them the surgery had gone well. McCallum was
in the recovery room, the internal bleeding stopped. He seemed to be searching their faces to see if he needed to elaborate. Then, in their muteness, he must have decided he could walk away. Marshall had risen, Jenny had not. Still, the doctor seemed more focussed on her, shaking Marshall’s hand as he looked through him.
The guy’s just tired
, Marshall thought. What havoc McCallum’s wife had caused. What misery and pain.
“Well,” Marshall sighed, sinking down onto the chair again as the doctor left. “Who would have thought we’d cross paths once when I walked in on a book discussion group, and the next time in the hospital? Did whatever you were discussing that night clarify anything about this?” He was mocking himself, repeating one of Gordon’s annoying assumptions: that books did not pertain to real life.
“That was probably in October, wasn’t it?” Jenny Oughton said. “As I recall, we were discussing
The Scarlet Letter
.”
He shook his head. Only fair that his inner-directed sarcasm had been mistaken for serious thought. This woman did not seem frivolous. She probably heard very few tossed-off comments during the course of any day.
“It was interesting that a lot of us who thought we remembered the book had forgotten the husband,” she said. “We remembered her punishment by the community, but not by Chillingworth. It must have been wonderful to be able to give characters names like that. No writer could get away with that now.”
She’d caught his interest. “What were you discussing about Chillingworth?” he said.
“That he returned to haunt her, and it turned out we’d all forgotten. I guess you grow up and you want to forget there can be real bogeymen. And the way Hawthorne presented him, he was so … well, chilling. Old and ugly. Absent. He’d wanted her youth and then deserted her, really. That’s not terribly different from what Susan McCallum was protesting, I suppose. In the book, your sympathy is all for the one who’s been abandoned: Hester Prynne. It’s not as easy to see what the transgression was with McCallum, obviously. And he isn’t old and ugly. He’s actually quite attractive. But she thought he’d withdrawn, and then when he reacted the way he did about her pregnancy, I suppose Susan thought everything was going to be worse. I’m not sanctioning stabbing him. I’m just saying that when you don’t
see the thing that’s stalking someone, often you forget to factor it in. But that thing can be as real as a person.”
Was she talking personally? Not only about
The Scarlet Letter
, not only about the McCallums?
“Forgive me,” she said, “I’m overstepping my bounds. This is conjecture. Not something I have any understanding of from both perspectives.”
“But I thought he’d been your patient,” Marshall said.
“He hadn’t been there to talk about his home situation,” Jenny Oughton said. “When something like this happens, you feel you’ve miscalculated, though. It does make you wonder whether you should let things evolve, let the client get around to what’s really the problem, or be more directive. I’ve really said too much. It’s not always easy to keep everything compartmentalized.”
He liked her much better, suddenly, and was sorry she was getting up to leave. He helped her on with her coat, wrote a quick note to McCallum, which they both signed, saying they’d waited for him to get out of surgery (as if they’d known it was going to happen), that each would visit soon. They walked together to the nurses’ station and asked the only nurse willing to make eye contact to give the note to McCallum when he returned.
In the elevator, the piped-in Muzak was playing a slowed-down version of “Age of Aquarius.” Everyone looked straight ahead, lost in thought as the elevator stopped at almost every floor, slowly proceeding to ground level.
“You’re sure your son is coming,” he said.
“As sure as I can be of anything,” she said. “It was nice to see you again.”
He shook her hand. She had pulled on purple suede gloves with linings so thick he couldn’t feel the hand inside. He felt slight frustration at not being able to register the handshake, at her retreat into the formality of her goodbye. Walking to the parking lot, he thought about partings: McCallum’s odd two-fingered wave; Cheryl Lanier’s attempt at a grown-up sign-off at the end of her letter (“Goodbye, and take care”) that had seemed, instead of exhibiting maturity, to signal her youth with its slightly portentous formal good wishes. And his mother? How had she left the room that night so long ago? Certainly she hadn’t waved, but how had she departed, since she couldn’t
have evaporated into air? One of the most upsetting things about having remembered that night was that the more he tried to remember, the more everything seemed to recede.
He put the key in the lock and opened the car door, slipped in quickly out of the cold, and pulled the door shut. Had something as automatic as that happened? Had she said what she meant to say and then said goodbye and left the room? He invented a hug, instead. That would make sense as what she had probably done. He invented her swooping toward him, hugging him as he sat in the chair, and then realized that yes, that was true. Probably true. Because the feeling that came back to him was his stiffness: she had put her arms around him, but he had not returned her hug. Of course: he had been punishing her for going away.
Martine, Chérie:
I am taken aback that you would think of taking the children to your parents’ house in Canada for the remainder of the summer, though I can see that you would feel disheartened and would lack for companionship. I did not realize, either, that you had been the recipient of unwanted affections from my friend E.B. but feel sure that you can insist that he withdraw. Surely, this should not be a factor in your leaving what is, as much as it is Alice’s and mine, your own home in order not to suffer unwanted advances. I can truly sympathize because for so long I have been a victim at the mercy of the doctors. If you have temporarily inherited a life you were not led to expect, so have I dangled like a puppet at the end of some doctor’s string. Alice appears quite exhausted after her series of shocks, and not discernibly better, to me, though apparently she is now able to discuss with the doctors her fears about—well, we know this, both of us—about a continued life with me, and about her unjustly suffered guilt at the baby’s death. Her melancholy had apparently silenced her for quite a while preceding the treatment, though now she seems more willing to communicate. I will get a firm commitment from the doctors about whether or not Alice will be able to travel to Maine in the foreseeable future, and will let you know at once. I know you would not want her to arrive to find the house empty of you, her close friend, and her two boys, as well. In my dreams I see vases of flowers, petals on the tabletops, and your exquisite fingers brushing them into your cupped hand. Yes, the summer grows long, and I must not delay longer. My apologies for leaving you without protection against … well: who would have thought he would harbor amorous intentions toward you? It comes as yet another of life’s endless surprises. Say the word and I will see that this situation concludes immediately
.
Across the miles
,
M
.
Dear, Dear Martine
,
I have just this moment received your latest communication telling me that Amelia has volunteered to stay with the children while you visit your father after his tonsillectomy. I do realize that such surgery is very difficult when one is beyond childhood, and I am truly sorry for his discomfort. Naturally, if you feel you should be at his side, Amelia would be a most suitable person to watch over the children for a few days, which is what I imagine you are proposing. I must say that I am slightly vexed that she did not call me here at the Waldorf to say that all this might be going on, though I suppose that when one is long absent from one’s routines, one’s regular life, I mean, others tend to make plans of their own. I am sure I speak for Alice in saying that you must, absolutely, do what conscience dictates. I write only to say that I trust you have not abandoned hope entirely of our arrival. I cling to the thought of that moment as much as you must, Martine. I hope that you do not feel you have to escape the home in order to escape E.B. He has been a friend for so long that I hesitate to speak to him about this matter, unless you feel you cannot, or do not wish to, handle it. You seem quite clear that his affections are not reciprocated, and I cannot believe he would be insistent upon this. At any rate, I believe that even without Alice—there being only the slightest possibility she could travel for a weekend following her last treatment—I should like to come and check on things next weekend and see whether a discussion between the two of us might clarify some things. If you feel that you must go to your father before then, however, of course I would understand. Some say that visits are most appreciated when one has recovered a bit—but I leave that decision entirely in your hands. I will, of course, be happy to arrange a plane ticket
.
Warmly
,
M
.
Dear Martine
,
You must promise not to write me again in haste, as it causes me great pain. My opinion is still the same vis-à-vis punishment dealt from above. I simply do not believe this is true, and therefore the question of whether any penance can alleviate one’s unhappiness becomes quite beside the point. Further, I feel that many different factors are responsible for Alice’s collapse, including her early years, and her general approach to life, by which I mean the nervous disposition she was born with—not something thrust upon her. Science still knows so little about the causes of alcoholism, though some feel it may be a disease, the proclivity toward it passed on through the genes. At least, this has been the point of view currently considered most thought provoking by a group of doctors at Alice’s hospital, I am informed. Please do not take on any burden greater than what you have already accepted. As to the other matter you mentioned, I am happy that you have felt free to share with me your innermost thoughts, but I hasten to add the obvious: that nightmares are not reflections of reality, but much changed versions of it (if versions is the correct word at all). What can you think it would do to me to hear that you hear the voice of a child crying repeatedly, that it startles you from sleep, that you check the boys’ bedroom again and again? I understand you must have been quite depressed to say that you assumed even that cry would not register with me. This all registers with me, Martine, and every day I hope against hope that we can all regain a normal life. We cannot do anything for those who have died untimely deaths, except to give their memories the respect due them, seeing that scientific forces—call it even “fate,” if you will—move, as “God” is said to do, in mysterious ways. But we must not see suffering as the product of some punitive agenda. You cannot think that I find it bearable that you suffer under such delusions
.
Most fondly
,
M
.
Dearest Martine
,
I write you instead of responding to Amelia, because I can only assume you are aware of her letter (which I enclose). I am happy she arranged for time off to go to Maine and be with you, though I am slightly taken aback that this happened just as I was considering arriving myself. I assume that now the two of you are together, you will not find my visit so necessary. I am pleased, also, that she can be there when you fly from Boston to visit your father. I do hope he is improving daily and send him my very sincere best wishes for a speedy recovery
.
Can you imagine that from my perspective, Amelia’s letter would appear quite intemperate? I understand, of course, women’s sympathy for one another, but what value will her presence be if she encourages you in skepticism toward me and tells you your nightmares are quite logical? I am arguing only for the necessity of trying to triumph over circumstance. Of course I understand that I have made mistakes, and if you see clearly what I should do
now
to affect the outcome of situations that have arisen from those mistakes, I would welcome the information. I do not mean to be unkind, as I hope Amelia realizes I like her very much, and she has been quite kind to me in New York, but whatever you write me I would like to be an expression of your ideas rather than the result of conferring with anyone else. Speaking of which, I registered the information that the two of you had spoken to Dr. St. Vance. I think highly of his abilities, and if this mitigates your distress in any way, it was a good thing for Amelia to have encouraged you
.
I am being as philosophical as possible about the good that may come of Amelia’s knowledge concerning my intimate affairs. I assume that since she is so much a woman of intelligence and good taste that both you and Alice adore her, her discretion can be counted on
.