She Poured Out Her Heart (36 page)

Thank God! Maybe it was age, some kind of menopausal early warning system. She could relax and lead some chaste and useful life. Take up beekeeping, like Sherlock Holmes. She would have to explain it to Eric, and now, perhaps, to Jane as well. Sorry. Hormone depletion. One of those inevitable biochemical processes.

Because that did happen. Not that there weren't randy senior citizens out there. But everybody slowed down. So we'll go no more a roving by the light of the moon, etc. The body failed and fell.

Then what happened to all that leftover love?

She didn't want to believe it came to nothing. Amounted to nothing. Had no worth. But the more she went round and round, trying to come to some wisdom, the more scattered and inconclusive she felt. Yes, she would have said she loved Eric, and whether she ran hot or cold, dishonest or true, it was nothing you could simply wish away.

That was as close as she came to sorting things out. And then the call from Wisconsin came.

C
laudia had gone into town for her morning yoga class, then stopped at the grocery for the items on her list. And at the bank to deposit a check that Stan had recently received for an installation in Connecticut. This had been a difficult project involving a difficult client, and Claudia had labored to smooth and soothe and to keep Stan from swearing into the phone and threatening to enforce the legal terms of the contract by extralegal means. But now it was over and done with. The check was a relief and a validation, a testament to her patience and her skills. And to Stan's vision, of course, but she was the one who had steered it to its happy conclusion.

Stan simply lacked self-control. Not that he couldn't be entirely charming when he wanted to be. And not that he wasn't sorry—eventually—when he lost his temper and ranted and raved and insulted
the very people whose goodwill and cooperation, not to mention money, he needed. He was incapable of thinking strategically, of using the right people smarts in difficult situations. Claudia liked to say, “I've raised three children and one artist!”

Arriving home, she put the groceries away and went through her cookbooks for a recipe she wanted to prepare for dinner, baked chicken dressed with a lemon-cream sauce and allowed to cool to room temperature. It was September but there had been a spell of sunny warmth, and she thought the chicken would taste summery but with a hint of richness, like the coming autumn. Alongside the chicken they could have artichokes and a rice pilaf and a simple green salad with garlic croutons.

And then there would be another dinner after that and another after that and so on and on, not to mention the meals that came in between, and lately the thought of all that needed to be done made her tired. She loved it but it made her tired, and there were times she could have slept for a week, and leave people to feed themselves! That was not a nice impulse. But then, she was sixty-three and not as young as she used to be. You were allowed to slow down.

Of course you were supposed to eat low-fat and the chicken was hardly that, but the rest of the meal was virtuous enough. Besides, Stan sulked and was difficult if she reminded him about his cholesterol, his blood pressure, or anything else that spoke of moderation and prudent habits. He was old-school, and believed that artists expended themselves in a blaze of reckless glory, mortal limits be damned, like Icarus flying toward the sun, etc.

Claudia went back to the bedroom to take her shower. She pulled off the unfriendly elastic of her yoga gear and stepped into the steam and spray, used some of the eucalyptus shower gel that she favored, dried off, and wrapped herself in her white terry robe. Then, because the mild air from the open window was so sweet and welcoming, and because she felt, once more, so unexpectedly tired, she sat down in the little upholstered chair next to the bed and closed her eyes.

This was how Stan found her when he came in from the studio in search of his lunch. Dead of a heart attack, with her hair still clean and damp from the shower.

B
onnie picked up her brother Charlie, since he no longer drove. They hugged but they didn't talk much at first because their grief was a sodden and lumpy thing that did not give rise to graceful words, only stale and stupid ones of the sort they'd have to hear at the funeral service. I can't believe, so sudden, such a shock. But as they approached the state line and the road opened up, Charlie said, “Stan should have gone first. The old bastard deserved it. She didn't.”

“That's a lovely thought.”

Charlie didn't answer. Bonnie said, “Just get it out of your system now. I don't care, but it won't go over big at the house.”

“He'll find a new woman to cook and clean up after him and put up with his bullshit. I bet he's already interviewing them.”

Bonnie thought this was probably true, or mostly true, but there was no need to chime in. She said, “Haley's there now. Her and the kids. They got there day before yesterday. She's making a lot of the calls and setting things up.”

“How about what's-his-name?”

“Scott? He couldn't get away.” Bonnie waited to see if her brother would comment on this, but he was looking out the car window at the fading green of the roadside fields. She'd already had one long conversation with Haley. She expected there would be a few more. “I didn't know that Mom had heart disease. I guess she didn't either. We should probably get our risk factors and all that checked.” More silence. “Are you still drinking?”

“Do you want me to lie to you?”

“Only if you think I'd believe it.” She wouldn't. He had an alcoholic's grainy skin and even, from time to time, a perceptible case of the shakes.
He'd taken to wearing his hair slicked straight back with some kind of grease that showed comb tracks. It gave him an elderly, wasted look, like those photographs of farmers in the Great Depression.

“I'm keeping it under control.”

Bonnie figured that meant he was drinking at home, or mostly drinking at home. “Good.”

“Stan's going to cut me off, isn't he?”

“Cut you off, how?”

“Mom sent me checks. But it was Stan's money.” Charlie gave her an irritated glance. “I didn't ask her to, she just did. She felt bad because of my accident.”

Bonnie hadn't known. A muddled anger rose in her. “Just how bad did she feel? I mean, how much money are we talking?”

“It wasn't a regular thing. A few hundred here and there. Nothing Stan would ever miss.”

Bonnie let a mile go by before she spoke. “Unless you think that Stan's going to keep giving you money for sentimental reasons, then, no, I wouldn't count on any more checks.”

“There's probably some money that was hers. That would go to us, not Stan, right? I'm pissing you off.”

“During your time in rehab, did anybody ever introduce the concept of enabling?”

“I shouldn't have brought up the money thing. My bad.”

“Mom always liked you best.”

Bonnie had meant it sarcastically, or rather, as bitterness taking sarcastic form, but Charlie surprised her by saying, “Yes, she did, but she always liked boys—men—better. She was just built that way. She was always, not flirting, not exactly, but always so tuned into them. What they were doing, what they were saying, what they wanted. You know how she was with Stan. The sun shone out of his ass, as far as she was concerned. Yeah, my ass too, I guess. Funniest thing. Pretty sure nobody else ever will.”

Charlie's voice wobbled. Bonnie didn't speak. She kept her eyes on the
road in case he started crying, but when she did look, he had sagged against the car door, his mouth hanging open in unlovely sleep.

She didn't want to feel any sorrier for her miserable brother than she already did. She wished he had not told her about the money. She wished he had not said any of it. Now she had to wrestle with this new, bruising knowledge (or rather, confirmation of what she already knew or guessed), on top of her already complicated feelings about Claudia. That mix of exasperation, guilt, loss, a child's need, all the difficult love that had never managed to thrive in her. The last time she'd spoken to Claudia, more than two weeks ago, Claudia had told Bonnie that Stan's work was going to be featured in yet another advertisement-heavy publication devoted to expensively gracious living. Claudia was disappointed that Bonnie had not expressed more excitement about this. Bonnie hated that their last conversation had been about Stan.

She woke Charlie up as they approached the house. There were times when the homestead and its collection of oversized structures looked grand or austere or at least whimsical. At other times, like today, it brought to mind an abandoned junkyard. Maybe she was seeing it through some dense refraction of unhappiness. Maybe with Claudia gone, some part of it would now always seem diminished.

Charlie sat up and began to tug at his clothes and try to set himself to rights and look around. It wasn't yet high season for fall color, only a few tarnished softwoods and yellow maples. The house came into view. A lone Toyota sedan with the look of a rental was parked out front. Bonnie pulled in next to it and she and Charlie got out and stretched and tried to work out their kinks. Neither of them noticed the boy and the girl until they started up the path to the front door.

They were perched in the circular cutouts of the long, barrel-shaped entryway. These were not designed for sitting and the children had to maintain their balance by bracing themselves with their feet. When Bonnie and Charlie approached, they let their feet skid away from the wall and stood, as if they had been caught at something.

“Hi, you must be Leah. And Benjamin. I'm your Aunt Bonnie! I bet you don't remember me. I haven't seen you since you were, what, five?”

“And I'm your Crazy Uncle Charlie. The one you've heard so much about.”

The children only stared at them. They were both freckled and taffy-haired, dressed in jeans and sneakers and T-shirts. Bonnie said, “How old are you now? Let me guess. You must be nine.”

“Yes ma'am,” the boy said. “Her too.” The girl didn't speak, only scratched a spot on her bare ankle.

“Your grandma was always talking about you. How smart you are. All the books you've read.”

The children did not acknowledge this, perhaps because it did not involve a direct question. They studied the ground at their feet with interest.

“Well,” Bonnie said again. They did not seem like the sort of children who could be successfully chatted up. “It's nice to see you again. Is your mother inside?”

“Yes ma'am.”

“We're going to go look for her. We'll see you kids a little later.”

“Yes ma'am.”

When they were inside, Charlie said, “I forgot, they've grown up in a cult, haven't they.”

“Quiet.” The great room was empty. Firewood was piled in a tidy stack in a brick recess, but the fireplace itself had been swept clean for summer. On the dining room table, a number of florists' arrangements were lined up, sympathy cards tucked among them. Some of them were autumn-themed, with orange lilies, chrysanthemums, sunflowers. Others were more unconventional, with bird of paradise and protea. There was one fruit basket encased in green-tinted cellophane.

“Stan? Haley?” Bonnie passed into the kitchen, also empty. This was Claudia's domain, with its ceramic pots of herbs on the windowsills and pretty dishtowels and the display cabinet with the ornate porcelain hot
chocolate pot set in its ring of cups. It made the idea of her death into something impossibly sad.

“Bonnie!” Haley came in from the bedroom wing then, and they hugged, and both of them cried and patted each other's backs, separated, shared a box of Kleenex, sniffed some more. “I didn't hear you drive up. Where's Charlie?”

“I think he's in the bathroom,” Bonnie said, thinking that he had probably already found his way to the bar cabinet. “We said hello to the kids. They're huge! I mean, they've grown so much, they used to be little peanuts.”