7
Mrs. House could have taken her prospective daughter-in-law aside almost any time in the weeks before the wedding. She could still have spoken to Sonja at the church, in the hour before the ceremony, when the two of them were alone together in the women’s rest room. But Mrs. House adjusted Sonja’s veil in silence. She might have talked to Sonja moments after Sonja became Henry’s wife, when they all gathered in the basement of the church for the reception. Instead, Mrs. House waited until the wedding party and guests had driven in a caravan to Sturgeon Bay, to the Knights of Columbus Hall, where the wedding dance was to take place. She waited until everyone had eaten and drunk their fill, until they had all stepped and twirled around the hot second-story dance floor with such intensity that coats were tossed aside, ties loosened, buttons unbuttoned, until sweat glistened on the flushed cheeks of both women and men. Mrs. House waited until she herself was drunk. . . .
Sonja sat alone in a row of folding chairs near an open window, where she had gone with the vain hope of finding a little moving air. She watched Mrs. House approach, a tall, raw-boned woman in a navy-blue dress that Sonja was sure the woman would have worn had she attended a funeral that afternoon. Nor would Mrs. House’s expression likely have been more dour at a funeral, though what Dagny Singstad said was true: It would be a cold day in hell when you saw Lucille House smile, but it would be an even colder one when you saw her cry.
Holding a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other, Mrs. House loomed over her daughter-in-law. “Mind if I sit?”
Sonja moved closer to the edge of her own chair. “Please.” Mrs. House left an empty chair between them.
“Looks like we fastened that veil down good and tight.”
Sonja raised her hand and gently touched the netting to confirm that it was still in place.
“I have to ask you,” Mrs. House said. “Are there any old country names you have to give that child of yours?”
Sonja looked frantically for her husband. The cigar and cigarette smoke, the steam coming off the dancers, the early darkness from the approaching storm—it seemed to Sonja as though she had to squint through a fog to see across the room. Was that Henry’s back in the group by the makeshift bar? The white-shirted men circling there reminded Sonja of ships with their sails full, but she could not be certain her husband was among them.
Sonja knew she didn’t show, and Henry had assured her he’d told no one of her condition. Had Mrs. House guessed? Or was Sonja mistaken— perhaps the little gesture that Mrs. House made in the direction of Sonja’s stomach was not intended to accompany the question. Or maybe Mrs. House simply knew that someday Sonja and Henry would have children.
“My father’s name,” Sonja softly said, “is Hans. My mother is Ulrikka.”
“Hansy House. Jesus. The boy’d never live that down. And Ulrikka, you say? You wouldn’t saddle a child with that one, would you?”
Sonja shook her head.
Lucille House drew deeply on her cigarette and then exhaled, creating one more cloud for Sonja to try to see through. “It was Henry’s father’s wish,” Mrs. House said, “that one day a child would be named after him.”
“He was John?”
“That he was. John House. A boy could go through the world with worse.”
Sonja nodded.
“That’s that, then. If it’s a girl, you’re on your own. Though I’d be real surprised if your firstborn turns out to be a girl. Now, as long as I’ve got your ear,” Mrs. House continued, “do you mind if I give you some advice about living the married life with that son of mine?”
The language still harbored mysteries for Sonja. She knew, for instance, that the drink Mrs. House favored, and was likely drinking now, was a brandy old-fashioned. But wasn’t that the wrong order— shouldn’t it be old-fashioned brandy? And the way Mrs. House phrased her question—it sounded as though she had once been married to her own son!
“Make him get rid of that horse of his.”
“Buck?” Sonja asked.
“Hell yes, Buck. Tell Henry he can keep his fishing rods and his rifle, but he’s got to sell his horse.” Mrs. House shook her head at a memory that bobbed to the surface. “John took the boy’s gun from him one year. Damn near broke his heart . . . But it’s up to you: Henry’s heart or yours. A civilized husband or a wild horseman.”
Sonja should have been able to shrug off Mrs. House’s advice as nothing more than a drunk’s windy false wisdom, but after her mother-in-law’s prescience regarding Sonja’s pregnancy, Mrs. House’s words seemed to carry the force of prophecy.
Mrs. House finished her drink, cracking between her back teeth the ice that had slid into her mouth with the last of the liquor. She stood, and when she was looking down once again at Sonja, Mrs. House said, “But you won’t be saying anything to him, will you?”
Sonja shook her head.
“I didn’t think so,” Mrs. House said, and walked unsteadily away.
Mr. and Mrs. Henry House
spent their wedding night at the Crittendon Inn at the far northern tip of the county. The old hotel was situated high on a bluff overlooking the narrow strait between the peninsula and Washington Island, right where the battle between lake currents and prevailing winds made the waters so treacherous—and the site of so many shipwrecks—that the early sailors named the passage Porte des Morts.
But that night the lake was calm. The thunderstorm that had raced through earlier did nothing more than wash away the heat and haze that had been lingering for days. Moonlight entered the third-floor room where Sonja House lay on the four-poster bed next to a window, and her husband of only a few hours sat in a chair next to the bed. The night breeze cooled her body, naked and still sweaty from lovemaking, and she pulled the sheet up to her shoulders.
“Could I ask a favor?”
Henry laughed. “I guess you know I’m not about to say no. Not tonight! But be ready: Those that ask for favors have to be willing to grant them.”
“Would you sell Buck? Please—I’m not asking you to. But would you
if
I asked.”
“If this doesn’t sound like a trap . . . If I say yes, then you’ll go ahead and ask for real.”
“No, no. Please. I don’t mean it like that.”
“Then what? Are you trying to find out if I’d obey you?” He picked up his cigarettes from the window ledge, lit one, and blew smoke out toward the strait. “Or is this some kind of test to see which one I’d choose? Jesus!”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said this.”
“You’ve been around Buck. You know he’s gentle. He’s not going to cost us much in feed. We’ve got the barn and room for him to run. I don’t know what the hell this is about. Are you afraid of him?”
“It was just something your mother said, and I . . . Never mind.”
Henry slapped his bare thigh. “Mom! I should have known! She was against my having a horse in the first place. It was Dad’s and my idea all the way, and she never wanted to have a damn thing to do with Buck. She resented having to take care of him when I was in the Army. She tried to get me to sell him before I went in, but I told her I’d just as soon take Buck out and shoot him as see someone else own him.”
She didn’t know what to say but to repeat her apology. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“No,
Mom
shouldn’t have said anything. Was she drunk? I bet she was drunk.”
Sonja nodded.
“A lot of men around here have boats. Boats never much interested me. I’ve got a horse. It’s nothing to make a fuss about.”
She could tell he was trying now to rid his voice of anger, but he had not entirely succeeded. Beneath this new cheerful note she heard another, unyielding as stone. Sonja had grown up in the home of a fisherman—she knew more about men and boats than about men and horses—and early in life she learned the lesson the seaside teaches: Water can avoid being broken on rocks only by finding a way to flow around them.
The sheet was not enough to keep Sonja warm, and she reached for the blanket, but as she did, Henry stopped her hand. She hoped his intention was to cover her body with his, but instead he yanked the sheet from her and leaned back in his chair.
“I’m cold.”
“Well, you’re just going to have to stay cold until I get my eyes full. That’s the favor I want.”
“Very well,” Sonja said, rolling over and turning her back to her husband. She drew up her knees for warmth.
Henry laughed. “That view suits me too!”
He reached out and put his hand on her backside, and in spite of the intimacies of the previous hour—he had touched her in places and ways she had never touched herself—she flinched at his caress.
Their firstborn
child was named for neither her parents nor his. Henry and Sonja favored the first month of summer above all others, and though their daughter was born in the dead of 1947’s winter, she was christened June Marie House. If Henry’s mother had any opinions about her granddaughter’s name, she did not voice them. Two years later, Henry and Sonja had a son, whom they named John in honor of Henry’s father. If this pleased Henry’s mother, she did not say so. However, by this time she no longer consumed alcohol, and many people noticed what a poor memory she had for what she had said and done during her drinking years.
8
Harriet Weaver feared that if she didn’t draw a breath of cool air soon she would faint. She pushed herself up from the overstuffed chair and crossed the room. She was alone, so she didn’t have to ask anyone’s permission to open the window.
She lifted, she pressed, she thumped with the heels of her hands, but the window wouldn’t budge. Whoever had last painted the room had made no effort to keep paint from sealing the window shut. She returned to her chair, but instead of sitting back, she perched on the front edge and hung her head to the level of her waist.
October had been unusually warm, but last night temperatures had dropped into the twenties, so perhaps when John Feeney, Attorney at Law, came into his office that morning he had turned the heat as high as it would go. But hadn’t any other client complained? Hadn’t Mr. Feeney or his receptionist noticed the heat? For that matter, where were they? Over an hour ago, the secretary escorted Harriet in here, a room with a small wooden table and two places to sit, this chunk of mauvy brown velour currently soaking up her sweat and a straight-backed chair that could have come from the same kitchen as the table. A reproduction of a threemasted schooner hung on the wall, but that was the room’s only decoration. On the table was a six-week-old copy of
Life
that Harriet had already perused. The only window looked out on nothing but the blank brick wall of a building across the alley, so Harriet did not even have a view of Sturgeon Bay’s main street to help her pass the time.
Could they have forgotten her? Every time she put her ear to the door she heard nothing from the other side. She wasn’t sure what prevented her from opening the door. It might have been the fear that she would try the knob, find it locked, and then know she was truly trapped.
Perhaps she was undergoing a procedure to which John Feeney subjected all clients who came to him seeking a way out of their marriage.
You say you want a divorce? Well, you sit in this room and sweat over what
that might mean.
Or was Harriet left alone so she could gather herself and think about how she might present her case? Then, when the time came, she could speak calmly and rationally to Mr. Feeney and not take up any of his time with her weeping.
Yet when Harriet tried to imagine talking to anyone about her wish to divorce Ned, she inevitably found herself trying to answer, in her mind, the questions her mother would put to her.
You say you still love the man, then why—
It’s his philandering, Mother. For years I could ignore it, but somewhere I lost that power, and I don’t believe I can regain it. Besides, the girls are grown now. Their parents’ divorce might upset them, but their lives will remain intact.
These affairs . . . they’re doubtless only matters of the flesh. Now, where
men are concerned—
Please. Don’t lecture me on who or what men are. On this subject, I’m afraid I have more knowledge and experience than you.
You know, don’t you, that you’d be walking away from fame, from greatness? From having your name in the art history books.
Only as a footnote, Mother. And that has always impressed you more than me.
Then you think you could be happy with an
ordinary
man?
Don’t say that with such scorn, Mother. But I don’t deceive myself; I know I couldn’t be happy with any other man but Ned.
Then why—
Because I once was necessary to him, and now I’m not. Now I’m habit.
At this point, Harriet could imagine her mother’s face puckering into an expression of derision and scorn, the look that some of Sargent’s imperious dowagers wore.
Daughter, whatever gave you the idea that you could
expect so much from life?
Not you, Mother. Certainly not you.
Just as she had on two other occasions in the past hour, Harriet took cigarettes and matches from her purse, and just as she had twice before, she put them back when she noticed again there was no ashtray in the room.
She picked up the copy of
Life
again: September 8, 1947. She began to page through the magazine, but now she was not seeking a story or article to help her pass the time; she was searching for anyplace there might be room for a divorced, middle-aged woman. She imagined herself as one of the paper dolls that Emma and Betsy used to play with, and on page after page, Harriet tried to insert an image of herself into scenes.
“Tourists swim at Phantom Ranch after a mule ride down into the Grand Canyon. . . . Coeds break cakes of ice on an engine to promote Toledo, Peoria, and Western Railroad’s refrigerator car service. . . . Dorothy Dolan of Racine, Wisconsin”—why, she lived not two hundred miles from Harriet!—“twirls her baton and marches in circles in New York’s Legionnaire’s Parade up Fifth Avenue. . . .” It was no use; these lives seemed as unlike Harriet’s as that of Hedy Lamarr, who lent her beauty to the makers of Royal Crown Cola.
Harriet flipped more pages, concentrating now on the advertisements, those depictions of ostensibly normal lives. Ah, but this was even worse! She couldn’t seem to find a woman who wasn’t at a man’s side—both of them wearing their Koroseal raincoats or their Stetson hats, sleeping contentedly under a General Electric automatic blanket, staying happily within their budget with Cheney fabrics, waking together to the on-the-dot alarm of a Telechron electric clock. . . .
She tossed the magazine back on the table, stood, and began to pace the perimeter of the room.
Could she die in this room? The notion was absurd, but she couldn’t help but think that she had been forgotten. Or was she sealed up here as part of a deliberate plan—one more whiny wife whose tired, trite complaints no one really wanted to hear.
These thoughts panicked her, though it was a completely different prospect that finally propelled her out the door. She didn’t want Ned to wonder, after she was dead,
What was she doing at a lawyer’s office?
She thought she had been fully prepared to say to Ned: You are a self-centered, skirt-chasing son of a bitch, and I want a divorce. But when she realized she didn’t want him to deduce, all on his own, why she was visiting John Feeney, she had to admit that her commitment to this enterprise was not as strong as it needed to be.
Harriet found herself once again in that abrupt little hall she had walked down earlier. To her right was the door the secretary had led her through on the way to the waiting room. To her left was a narrow stairway that led down to the street, and though the stairs were steep, Harriet still rushed her descent.
She worried that once she reached the bottom the glass door would be locked, and she would have accomplished nothing more than enlarging her prison, but the door pushed open easily. As soon as she was outside, she felt the sweat cooling on her forehead and at the back of her neck. The door sighed slowly shut, and Harriet knew it sealed a pact she had just made with herself. Never again would she climb the stairs to John Feeney’s, or any other lawyer’s, offices, at least not on her own initiative. The day might come when Ned would abandon her, but she would not be the one to make the first move to dissolve their marriage. It was strange; she was out in the open now, and she should have been able to breathe in great gulps of chilly air, but some force still seemed to press on her ribs and chest, preventing her from taking in any more oxygen than she might sip from a thimble.
She had parked blocks away so no one would recognize her car and wonder why it was in front of the building with John Feeney’s name stenciled in gilt on the door. She walked slowly down the street, and soon her breathing eased to the point where she believed she could smoke a cigarette without collapsing a lung. But before she could reach into her purse, there was her mother’s voice again.
Ladies do not chew gum or smoke in
public.
She was approaching the Shamrock Bar, its green neon sign burning through the gloom. Now,
there
was a solution. . . . She could enter the Shamrock, order a whiskey and water, and light up a cigarette. Would that satisfy her mother? But of course Harriet’s mother not only had an extensive set of rules for behavior; they were ranked according to the degree to which they branded a woman unladylike. Smoking on the street was high on the list, but it was still below entering a tavern without escort. And now that Harriet thought about it, divorcing one’s husband might have been at the very top of her mother’s list.
Harriet’s Studebaker was parked under a streetlamp, and its light enabled her to see, from almost a block away, someone leaning against the car. It didn’t take her long to realize who it was, and once she did, she didn’t quicken her stride but instead slowed and glanced about frantically for a doorway to duck into.
And then Harriet had to laugh out loud. Only the Shamrock Bar offered sanctuary—now, this was surely a circumstance for which not even her mother had formulated a prohibition: Could a woman enter a tavern without escort in order to avoid the husband she had intended to divorce only an hour earlier?
Ned watched her approach, and she knew she was being appraised. She could still turn men’s heads—she didn’t have to walk through the Shamrock for confirmation of that—but she was no longer certain her husband’s was one of them. Should she walk past him? No, she had made her decision when she ran from the lawyer’s offices. She had no choice now.
Harriet took Ned’s cigarette from him and inhaled deeply before asking, “What are you doing in town?”
“I ordered some brushes from Snow’s, and Sid called to say they were in.”
“Snow’s is on the other side of town.”
Ned shrugged. “I was going to stop for a drink, then I saw your car and thought I’d wait a few minutes to see if you wanted to join me.”
“Have you been waiting long?”
“I’m on my third cigarette,” he said, taking the butt from her for the final drag.
“Well, here I am. Is the drink offer still good?”
In spite of Harriet’s layers of coat, dress, and slip, Ned’s fingertips still unerringly found the hollow where her spine dipped, and with the slightest pressure there he guided her back the way she came.
Inside the Shamrock, they sat at the bar, smoked, and drank brandy and soda, Ned’s drink of choice when the weather turned cool. Ned needed consolation and encouragement, in that order. He had been working outside all day, trying to capture in watercolor the drab tones of an untended meadow backed by a stand of hardwoods. But the sun refused to cooperate; colors brightened and shadowed at will, and Ned ended up ripping apart sheet after sheet in frustration.
Harriet knew exactly what the script required of her. Don’t despair, she told Ned; tomorrow the light will be as constant as a lover. Don’t worry; a talent as great as yours can stop the sun in the heavens. Don’t give up; the world is waiting for your work. When they left the bar, Harriet was certain that Ned would return to the meadow the next day, determined and confident of his powers.
For years, for decades, the artist serves an apprenticeship, practicing lines, lines, lines—spoken, written, or drawn—so that he may one day deliver them without a trace of artifice to an audience. Harriet had rehearsed her role so well that not even she could discern a difference between performance and belief.
Why had Ned
never asked her what she was doing in town that day?
Over the years, Harriet concocted her own explanation, which she brought out from time to time. It was a fantasy, she knew, tiny but durable; it was like the pretty pebble a child picks up, its beauty and utility available only to its owner. Harriet told herself that Ned didn’t ask because he knew. John Feeney and Ned were friends, or acquaintances at least, and Mr. Feeney called Ned when Harriet arrived at the office. “Don’t talk to her,” Ned had said. “Put her in the waiting room and let her cool her heels. She’ll come to her senses.” In Harriet’s construction, Ned acted from love and knowledge of his wife’s character. He knew she’d bolt from the building, and he would be waiting for her. Occasionally, Harriet would indulge herself further: If she had not run out when she did, Ned would have come in and saved their marriage.
The problem was, in order to preserve this fantasy, Harriet could never say, in the midst of a quarrel, “Do you know why I was in Sturgeon Bay that day? Do you? I was there to file for divorce!” She couldn’t bear to think of Ned answering yes or no. Thus do our own fantasies cripple us.