Love and Will (14 page)

He pours himself another drink and looks at the bathrobe lying—

It's still wearable, so why did—

Because the collar's so frayed and the cuffs also and the belt almost a string now and besides that—

When did his mother buy—

He remembers when his father was very sick and wore this robe and the spittle would—

He'd have to wipe it off the sleeves and the collar and the front—

“Dad,” he'd say then, “when you feel the drool”—

“I can't help it,” his father would say, “I can't help it, and it's not”—

“You can make an attempt to help if you'd only”—

“Stop pestering me, stop ordering”—

How many years did he live with them then, helping his mother take care of him, and people, especially his sisters, saying he was too old to live home again but that they—

For the last year of his life his father was either in this bathrobe or—

First thing every morning he'd lift his father off the bed, stand him up, put the bathrobe on him, walk him to—

His wife comes into the kitchen, is in her nightgown, and says as she—

“Excuse me, but why's the garbage”—

“I'll clean it up, don't worry”—

“And why's the old robe”—

“I threw it out today and wanted to keep it thrown out but”—

“Why'd you”—

“I just didn't”—

“It's actually too worn to wear and probably has”—

“You can't know how many, and it was really the reason I jumped all over”—

“Look, Smitty, that's all”—

“I wanted to explain, though, and I suppose I was lucky the guy who picks up the trash at six”—

“I'm not sure how lucky you”—

“Maybe I can bring it to”—

“It's beyond”—

“Ah, best thing is to get rid of it, right? but before I do, maybe I could”—

“Where are you going”—

“In my wallet, or, though this must sound infantile—maudlin's more like it—in”—

“Not ‘maudlin' or ‘infantile' as much as”—

“I want to remember the design and colors and”—

“Maybe it's a good idea then, but anyway, mind if”—

“Sure, I'll just stay here a few more minutes and make my decision, and clean up, of”—

“I wish you'd do that now, for it's beginning”—

“Goodnight, lovey”—

He pours—

The cat jumps off the refrigerator and immediately—

“Get off it, Lucy, get”—

Oh what the hell, he—

“Hey, Lucy, hey, baby—hey, stupid Lucy, you didn't eat”—

He picks up—

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean”—

Maybe he should just go to bed—

No, the bathrobe, and the garbage—he has to deal with them, and he rips a few paper towels off the—

He fastens the top of the garbage bag with the tab, puts the bag back in the service area, locks the door, thinks Why not the newspapers too? puts a pile of newspapers and magazines under the garbage bag, pokes the bag and it doesn't slide off, locks the door, downs his—

It was for winter anyway and—

That's not the reason, of course, since he could easily—

A few weeks after his father died, his mother—

He said “I don't want to hear of it, I”—

It hung in her—

A few months after that his mother said “I've had it cleaned and if you don't”—

He took it home—

He picks the cat up off the bathrobe and sits her on—

The bathrobe hung in their—

His wife said a number of times—

He covered it with a plastic bag from a dry cleaner just so—

Then one night when it was almost zero degree out and the wind off the river—

The robe kept him warm but always reminded—

Out, he has to throw it out, he has to get rid of the damn thing once and for—

His wife comes in and says “At least you cleaned”—

“I'm having trouble deciding”—

“Want me”—

“No, I'll”—

“Do or don't—really, what's the big deal of one or two more days, and this time I'm going to”—

“I'll be there”—

She—

He picks up—

The cat follows—

“Say, lady, don't you have”—

Oh, maybe one more time, and he takes off his—

He shakes out the robe, the cat runs under—

It still feels—

He starts crying, wipes his eyes—

He puts it—

What is it about some things, the memory of—

Maybe he should just rip it to pieces, at least rip the sleeves off his—

It was hanging on the outside of the closet door of his father's room the morning his mother yelled to—

He ran in, took his father's hand, bent over him while—

She was already—

He said “Wait, wait, maybe”—

He put his ear—

She said “I'm afraid I did”—

“And his”—

“Took it”—

“Maybe you should phone”—

She didn't—

“I'll do it, but maybe you should leave”—

When he came back into the room he held her and said “You have to know you did everything”—

“We did”—

“And that it was really much better we took care of him at”—

“Believe me, dear”—

Two or three days later, while they were sitting in mourning at home, he—

His aunt said “I was wondering what it”—

His mother said “Honestly, I didn't even”—

He put—

That was almost ten years—

He takes off the bathrobe, gets a hanger from the front closet and slips it into the shoulders of the robe, takes a winter coat off another hanger and puts it over—

As he's walking away from the closet he hears—

He picks up the coat and robe off the floor, gets a wooden—

Maybe he should just forget it, because he knows what he's going to do with it eventually, and he takes the robe out from under the coat—

No, he can't just now and that's all there is—

“Smitty”—

“Be there”—

He hangs the robe on a wire—

He brushes his teeth, goes to the bedroom and gets in—

He says “I'm so mad at myself for being unable”—

“Don't worry about”—

“But it”—

“Please, sweetheart”—

“I just wish the guy would”—

“You're referring to”—

“I'm not ‘referring'—I'm talking about him, yes, because”—

“Really, it's so natural to act like that, so why knock”—

“But what's this crazy hold”—

“Shh, sleep, I'd like to talk more but I swear”—

“Anyway, tomorrow I'm”—

“Good, she'll”—

“And if she wants to, maybe we'll go over for a drink and take her”—

“Fine, fine, but”—

“No, goddamnit—I mean, we will take her out, but now”—

“Where are”—

He leaves it on top of the newspaper pile outside the service door and says “Look, this in no way reflects—I mean, I'm not saying goodbye for all time by doing this and in this particular way, but—well, of course I'm not, because all I'm saying is that this damn thing of yours—oh hell,” and he goes inside and gets a pair—

“No!” and he locks the door, puts the scissors away and goes into—

Two men are walking toward each other on a beach. One man's holding a girl of nine months and the other man's with a woman and four children between the ages of seven to twelve. The two men are eyeing each other. The man with the baby wonders who these people are and where they're staying on the point. He comes down to this beach every day and maybe two and three times a day and if he sees one person in a week on it it's a lot. No, wrongly worded, or something's wrong. Go back. Two men, beach, which is really a cove, cove which the man with the baby rents the same cottage on every summer, or to be more exact: the cove is part of the cottage's property and the cottage is about 200 feet into the woods. Something like that. Doesn't right now have to be that exact. The other man's staying with his mother and stepfather for two weeks and the woman is his wife and the children are their grandchildren and the stepfather, who's been married to this man's mother for more than forty years, has a house on the next cove, or rather, owns the entire next cove, which is about a half mile long, and the house, or compound, for it consists of three houses besides the enormous main house, all situated fairly close together, and two garages and several barns and sheds and a private studio, is about a mile from the stepfather's cove. To get to their cove they drove a car down their road to it, or that's what the man with the baby assumes, if these people are who he now thinks they are: the ones who walked along this cove two summers ago, stopped to look at the lopsided vandalized boathouse and when he later asked his wife who they could be, she told him. To get to his cove the man with the baby walked to it. Mosquitoes, what's left of the black flies, the sound of a large animal in the woods. Probably a porcupine—he and his wife have seen one around the cottage the last two days. Hotter and more humid than is usual around here during any part of the summer and it's just the end of June and not even ten a.m. Maine, some hundred-fifty miles from the Canadian border along the coast. The man with the woman and children and the man with the baby are now only about fifty feet apart. One of the children has a dog on a leash and the dog starts growling at the man with the baby. The man with the baby thinks these must be the people he heard from his porch yesterday, talking loud and laughing and shrieking. The man with the woman and children thinks could this be Magna's new husband? He heard from his stepfather she got married a year and a half ago and had a baby over the winter. It must be, who else could it be? He met her alone on this beach several years ago, had a long talk with her, found they had many university acquaintances in common, thought her very smart, personable and attractive. His stepfather learned of her baby from the caretaker of her cottage. She's been renting that cottage for ten years or so, with this man for five years. He's been spending a week to two at one of his stepfather's guesthouses with his grandchildren and before that with his children and before that just with his wife, every other year and occasionally two years in a row for the last thirty-seven years. He brought his wife here thirty-eight years ago when they were engaged. They stayed in the main house—there were no guesthouses then—and on different floors. He remembers his stepfather calling him aside and saying “Your mother and I separated you two for very good reasons and we don't want either of you transversing the other's room any time of the day.” Yesterday his wife said she was fed up looking after their grandchildren every summer for a week to two and especially every second year when they also have to deal with his aging mother and controlling stepfather. “I know I said this last summer, but this summer I mean it when I say it's the last time. I think I finally want those two weeks for ourselves, or if it has to be, then just for me.” The man with the baby says “Hiya” to the first two children who pass and “Looks like your dog's a good watchdog by the way he growled.”

“He's not our dog,” the girl walking with the boy who's holding the leash says, “—he's our grandparents',” and she points to the two adults behind her.

“Oh, they're so young I thought they were your parents.”

“No, our grandparents. Our parents are vacationing in France.”

By this time the two older children have passed him and he says “Hi” and one of them says “Hi” and the other waves. He says hello to the woman as she passes. She smiles, says “Good morning,” and continues walking. He says hello to the man who's about ten feet behind the woman, holding a long bleached branch he must have found on the beach and is using as a walking stick. The man says “Must seem like Times Square to you today.”

“Why,” the man with the baby says, stopping, “because it's so crowded or so hot?”

“Crowded for this particular beach and maybe because it's so hot. Didn't think of heat as such when I said it, nor have I been to New York in the summer to know how hot it gets, but it could be true too. How do you do?” He switches the stick to his left hand and puts out his free hand to shake. “Benton.” They shake. “And who's this tyke?”

“Stella. I'm Will Taub. You people staying around here?”

“Turner Haskell's my stepfather. We're here with our grandchildren for our biannual pilgrimage for a week. And you?”

“My wife and I are in the cottage that belongs to that decrepit boathouse there.”

“Is this Magna's baby?” the woman says, coming back. The children continue to the end of the cove. “Hello, I'm Nicole. How is Magna? We heard she had a baby, and it's so darling—aren't you, you little dear.” She puts her finger into the baby's hand which squeezes around it. “Ned, you remember Magna—she studied with Byron Parks.”

“Sure, now I do—once had a very nice conversation with her on this beach.”

“Boy, girl?” she asks Will.

“Stella,” Ned says.

“Right. And Magna's just fine—up in the cottage now.—Better watch it—she collects fingers.”

“She looks like Magna,” she says. “Features, complexion, hair—everything.”

“Whenever I hold her—of course the hair is another matter—people say she looks like Magna. And when she holds her”—no, all wrong, or mostly. Go back again. Two men, one holding a baby, other walking a dog. No, one's alone, other's with a dog. The woman and children are with his stepfather in the main house. The baby's with Magna. The men are walking toward each other on the cove that belongs to the cottage the man alone's renting. The dog barks at him from about thirty feet away, growls and bares its teeth when the men are ten feet apart. The man with the dog says “Whoa, Cunningham, whoa, boy, whoa,” and has to pull the leash back with both hands. The dog's a retriever. The man alone says “Good morning. Looks like you have a pretty good watchdog there, but tell him I'm unarmed.” “Oh, he's just a yipper—won't bite a flea. Cove must seem like Times Square to you today.”