Her Mother's Daughter (58 page)

But the way she talks to him! And he takes it. Contempt, spat-out remarks, as few as possible. Does he not notice that either? He solicitous, ingratiating. It makes me crazy, I want to scream, I lie in bed and kick the blankets up to the ceiling, over and over, crying lightly in my throat so no one will hear. I want him to
be,
I want him to stand up and
be!
Maybe if he were more of a person, she'd be different…. I know her life is hard, but is it tragic? It's the waste that's tragic, it's spending your life in daydreams, the way I do….

Christ, why doesn't she get a job someplace out of the house! She'd earn more—well, she says she'd have to spend more, on gas and clothes and stuff—but at least she'd get out of the house, meet people, maybe make a friend or two. Although she never made a friend at Gertz. Or in South Ozone Park. Elvira, still her only real friend, comes for lunch once every three or four months; Mother goes there. Elmhurst. By train. Afraid to drive. Sitting hunched over, acting like an invalid, a person dying. Lying in her room with the shades drawn, a cloth over her eyes, sinus headache, she says. Day upon day. Then at night, working up there until bedtime to make up for the lost hours. Joy is in her room, me baby-sitting. No one speaks.

How I wish I could get away from this house.

Belle felt better now that Christmas was over—such a paltry Christmas for the girls. Something would have to happen, they had to get more money, but Ed's boss had high regard for him, and maybe he'd get a good raise one of these days. What worried her most was getting money for Anastasia to go to college. Something would have to happen. Ed was still working overtime almost every night, but he seemed to think that things were winding down somewhat, that the war would end, and they wouldn't make gyroscopes anymore, he wouldn't work overtime anymore. What will we do then? He has to get a raise.

She liked her mornings. Ed got up early, at 6:00, and made his own breakfast and coffee for both of them. He would waken her at 6:30, and she would put on a wrapper and shoes and stockings to go with him to the station where he caught the 6:54 train to Long Island City. When she came back, she would sit with a cup of coffee, then squeeze some orange juice for herself and the girls. She woke them at 7:30, but Anastasia never got up. They didn't eat breakfast anymore, just maybe a piece of coffee cake. Anastasia was always late, she never ate anything. But Belle insisted they drink orange juice at least.

After they'd left, she cleaned up the kitchen and went upstairs and made the beds. She didn't make the girls' beds, they were supposed to do that themselves, but of course they rarely did. She'd get after them when she was expecting a guest. Otherwise their rooms were a mess, clothes thrown everywhere, unmade beds. Anastasia needed a desk. The fold-out shelf in the high chest of drawers was not big enough for all her books and papers. Maybe next Christmas. But probably not. This past Christmas had been so puny for them. It couldn't be helped.

When the house was straightened, she went back downstairs and started a fresh pot of coffee and stretched herself in the silent house and looked out the windows at the front yards, the wide street. Even now, at the end of January, there were green things to see, pines and fir trees out back where their property line ended. And light. The houses on either side were rather close, but in front and in back, she had space to stretch her mind in. She loved her house. When the coffee was done, she poured a cup and carried it, with her cigarettes, out to the porch, her favorite room.

This house, this neighborhood, they were better even than the brownstone house she had seen so many years ago from a trolley window. She gazed out the front window. Such neat nice houses lining the street, and the O'Neills owned a plot next door to their house, so it remained open and empty, and green all spring and summer and fall. It was strange that all their many children never played there, and they didn't plant a garden there either. They just left it. Well, of course, Mrs. O'Neill had her hands full with so many children, and Mr…. well, he liked a good time, you could see that. She peered through the curtain at Mrs. Brand's car pulling out of the driveway. Going to the market. She gets out early. Belle herself preferred to go to the market in the late afternoon, when she needed a break from the hats. Yes, no one would ever sit on the front steps of the houses here the way that little girl in the pink dress sat on hers. Not even the children. And no one walks on the sidewalks either, except an occasional child after school let out. Even the maids who worked in the big houses up the block were picked up and driven home by car or cab. When she thought about the streets of her childhood!…

A dark figure carrying a heavy leather bag over his back appeared on the sidewalk, and Belle's heart warmed. The postman, always on time, nine o'clock, such a nice man. He slid the mail through a slot in the door, so she didn't even have to open it and get a chill. And there was a little vestibule so they could close the door to the living room, and keep out all the drafts from the front door. It was a very well made house. Belle stood up. She always looked forward to the mail.

Usually there were only circulars and bills, but she read everything with interest. She bent to pick up a circular from Goodyear, one from the A&P: it was early this week, the food markets usually sent their circulars on Wednesday: and their bank statement. She handled this proudly. They had opened a checking account. They'd never had such a thing before. For years Belle had taken the bus into Jamaica and gone around to the electric company and the telephone company to pay them in cash. But now there were all sorts of bills. It made her feel very rich, somehow, to have a checking account. Poor people didn't have them, at least, none that she had ever known.

She decided to refill her coffee cup before she sat down with her cache. She then sat down and lighted a cigarette and picked up her reading glasses. She would save the bank statement for last. She opened the Goodyear circular and examined it carefully. Tires were on sale. It could be that Ed needed a new tire. She scrutinized the rest of the sheet, but there was nothing she needed. She would keep the circular, though, for Ed to see. He liked to look over the mail too, and maybe he needed a new tire. She put it on the seat of the couch across from her: they had no tables in this room either. Then she opened the A&P flyer.

Legs of lamb were on sale this week, only nineteen cents a pound. They hadn't had a leg of lamb in a long time. Her mouth began to water a little as she thought about it. She could buy just a half, that wouldn't be so expensive, and stretch it to get two meals out of it. She'd make gravy and heat the leftover meat in gravy. She loved that. Chopped meat was fifteen cents a pound, and so were chickens. Maybe she could make a meat loaf. One-two-three-four—she could surely get two meals from a meat loaf—five, if she bought a chicken. The other two meals—maybe they could just have a vegetable dinner one night, creamed spinach and poached eggs and home fried potatoes. Then…well, she'd see how her money held out. Anyway, the other circulars would arrive tomorrow and maybe something cheaper would be appealing. She laid the A&P flyer carefully on the couch seat.

Finally, she picked up the bank statement and slit it open with her hard fingernail. She glanced down the list: the mortgage; gas and electric; oil company; telephone company; Dr. Hartley, the dentist; Lord & Taylor. Lord & Taylor? Lord & Taylor, $25. A. mistake. She couldn't afford to shop at Lord & Taylor, she never went there. She shuffled through the checks clumsily, her hands shaking. There was the check. Check number 17, Lord & Taylor, 12/15/44. Signed: E.C. Stevens. E.C. Stevens. It couldn't be. E.C. Stevens. It was.

Belle laid the statement down on the footstool; some of the checks fluttered to the floor but she didn't notice. 12/15/44, Lord & Taylor, $25, E.C. Stevens. She puffed on her cigarette, but it had gone out. Her pack was empty. She stood up. She walked into the kitchen and threw away the crumpled pack and searched for a fresh one. She tore it open and pulled out a cigarette. It broke in her fingers, and tears sprang to her eyes. She pulled out another and lighted it. She inhaled deeply. Her face fell in deep creases as she smoked.

Then tiredly, she climbed the stairs to the bedroom and sat on her chair and picked up a fresh organdy cap and began to flute it, pressing down hard, one flute after another, all around the cap. She finished it and picked up another. She would flute ten and then cut out some fresh caps. She liked to alternate jobs, it was less tedious that way. But as she worked, her face set in deep sad lines and her mouth drooped. Ed would be working late tonight, he'd told her. Yes, that's what he'd said. She kept working. The girls came in, she hardly heard them. She heard herself respond to their greetings, but from a great distance. The money she earned from this batch she would make more this week, she'd work constantly, she'd make three hundred. She had forty dollars under the drawer. She'd make another thirty. Seventy dollars. That would be enough to get her started.

She made dinner in silence, the girls were, well, they were always concerned with their own affairs, they helped though, that was good: Anastasia washed the dishes, Joy dried. She could go upstairs and make some more caps. She saved a pork chop and some mashed potatoes and string beans on a pie plate and put it in the oven. She put the applesauce back in the refrigerator; he could have it if he wanted. Anastasia was going out to baby-sit. Joy had homework to do. She barely heard them. She went back upstairs.

She heard him come in; it was near twelve. She had stopped working and put on her nightgown and robe and gone downstairs to sit in the porch. She had left only the front door light on. He came in, smiling as always, “Hello, Belle,” big hug, but she pulled away from him, she wouldn't let him touch her. She walked stonily into the kitchen and laid his dinner out for him. She asked him if he wanted applesauce. He did. He sat and ate; she went back to the porch and smoked. When he was finished eating, he came out to the porch and sat down across from her. “I'm leaving,” she said.

A Christmas present. He bought her a Christmas present. It was still going on, despite his promise. Never, in the nearly sixteen years they had been married had he given Belle a Christmas present, or a birthday present, or any other present, but he had bought one for her. And he had paid for it by check! When he knew she reviewed the checks!
WHAT WAS THE MATTER WITH HIM?

Never given her a present. Yes, once, on Valentine's Day, before they knew she was pregnant, maybe before she
was
pregnant, he had bought her a box of chocolates. Nothing more.

Same girl, or a new one? Had she moved to the new company with him? What was her name? Irene. Sweet face. Older now. Still single. Waiting for him? She could have him!

Oh, my house! Oh, my stupid futile dreams! Why do I bother? Me, sitting up there bloodying my fingers to make those damned hats, and he had the money to buy her a Christmas present! He didn't buy one for me! He could barely give the girls anything! What is the matter with him?

Out, out, out! She had to leave, to go away, to leave them all, all of them hanging on her, devouring her energy, her substance, giving nothing back, taking, taking, taking. Demanding. Away, they could take care of themselves, she had had enough, no more, she could leave and get a job and get herself a little apartment somewhere, make a new life. Enough.

“I'm leaving,” she said in the dark room, smoke drifting above her head.

“Why, Belle?” he asked, sounding genuinely puzzled.

Lying there, her bones aching through her flesh, listening to the silence, she waited. A bad fight, she could feel it, even though she couldn't hear much. Dad arguing with her. Softly, a few sentences. Her, silent. Divorce. They're talking about divorce.

Anastasia moved her body slightly. The hard wood of the stair landing sometimes squeaked and she didn't want them to hear her. Why not? Divorce, they're talking about. She should charge downstairs and scream at them, scream, “Get a divorce, get it! Get it! Anything to change the way things are now, anything would be better than this!” She thought about it. She would charge down and yell at them. The last time she had done something like that, Mother had been very angry, had hit her. She didn't care if she hit her. She would do it. Couldn't hear what they were saying. Murmuring. This was the third night. Well, the third night she had been aware something was going on. Who knew how long it had been going on? What was it about?

Mother's birthday last week, and I'd saved all my baby-sitting money since Christmas to buy her that wallet and she hardly looked at it. It was as if I'd given her nothing. She hates us. I used to think she loved Joy, but she doesn't, she doesn't love anybody, she hates us all.

I won't go down. What's the point? They should get divorced. I wish I could still pray, I'd pray for them to get a divorce. Maybe they will. We'll leave here. Dad will find a girlfriend, he'll be all right. We'll move to an apartment, we'll be poor but maybe she won't be so miserable all the time. I'll work. I'll go to college at night. I'll take care of her. Maybe she'd be a little happier. The tension will go away. We could move to Jamaica, I could get around there there are buses and trains oh god please let them get a divorce I can't stand any more….

“I had my bag all packed,” Belle said in a foggy distant voice. “I was all ready to go. I could have gone, I could have found a way to support myself, I was still presentable at forty. I could get a job and find a room somewhere. I had seventy dollars. I didn't have to struggle the way I was struggling, working, slaving, for what?”

She sipped her drink, puffed on her cigarette. She was not looking at me.

“But I couldn't leave you girls. Who would take care of you? Joy was still a child, she was only eleven, she still wasn't strong. I knew he wouldn't take care of you. He'd probably just have gone to her, wherever she lived, and abandon you. I had to stay.”