Stranger On Lesbos (26 page)

Frances said abruptly, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure you do. I guess that's what ails this family, all this hush-hush. Just like nobody knew about your friends. Or like it was a plague or something. This isn't the Middle Ages, they write books about people like that, for Christ's sake. Mari showed me one, by some psychologist."

"Have you been discussing my personal affairs with Mari?"

"It's her business too, as much as anybody's. She says she can't marry me if you go on with this."

"With what?"

"Mom, for God's sake!"

"I'm sorry if you don't approve of my friends," Frances said icily, "or if your fiancée doesn't."

Bob leaned forward. "Look, you know damn well what I mean. If you want to run around with a bunch of female queers, that's all right with me
as long as you keep it private. It's no worse than sleeping around with other men, I guess, and plenty of married women do that. But when it comes to
my mother
being out all night with a bunch of lushes, and getting into drunken brawls and being tossed into jail
well, that makes it different. I know all about it, don't worry. Everybody knows, I guess, the neighbors and the people in Dad's office and all. Dad's been in hell."

"I'm sorry."

"Look, I wouldn't bring it up if it just involved me. It isn't so easy for a guy to talk to his mother about something like this." His voice was heavy with resentment. "Mari's scared her folks will find out."

Frances was unable to speak.

"Be reasonable," Bob said urgently. "In your day people married on impulse, that's why they had so many problems later. We know marriage isn't between just two people, it involves others too. Man is a social being." Frances recognized this as a quote from the heavy green textbook used in the high-school course on Marriage and Family Relationships. "As long as you're going around with a lot of queers, Mari's folks will figure I'm a bad marriage risk. See?"

"You're too young. You're both too young."

"We want to make our adjustments early. Besides, we'd like at least four kids. This being an only child is for the birds."

Something was the matter with her mouth. Her lips were stiff and numb; it was difficult to form words. "What do you want me to do?"

"Settle down and act decent. Look," Bob said, "you don't belong with those people. You've got a good husband, you've brought up a kid. Maybe this is some kind of a neurosis you've got. Okay, go and see a psychiatrist if you think it would do any good. Only for God's sake don't spoil my whole life!"

I suppose it does look like that from the outside, Frances thought. The tenderness and companionship
all overlooked She said, "What about my life?"

Bob said brutally, "You've had your life."

She tried to smile. Feels like novocaine, she thought, just before it starts to wear off. "You won't think so, twenty years from now."

"Mother, you know what I mean." He looked at her pleadingly, without embarrassment. "Look, if you'll do this one thing I swear I’ll never ask you for anything else."

So it was true. All the mushy movies and corny poetry, the stories in the women's magazines
they were right after all. You laid down your life for your children. When it came to a showdown, your common sense disappeared and some idiotic instinct took over and made you do things you knew were senseless. For the first time she understood all the smug mothers, the martyred mothers who "worked their fingers to the bone for the children" and were uninterested in life except as it concerned their offspring. With Bob's eyes (so like Bill's eyes as they had been during courtship) fixed on her, she had no defense against his need. Neither her envy of his girl nor her knowledge that he would fall in love with someone else in a few months if Mari rejected him was any protection against his naked need.

He said, muffled, "It's awful to be ashamed of your parents."

A thin child in faded gingham came to stand beside him. fixing her with big solemn eyes. Little Frankie Kirby, ashamed to go to school because her father was drunk again! She blinked hard to dispel the ghost.

"All right," she said flatly, "if it means that much to you."

"You won't see those
people any more?"

"No."

"Or hang around the kind of places
"

"No."

"Gosh, Mom, you're swell. Mari'll be as grateful as anything."

Like hell she will, Frances thought. The young are never grateful, they take everything for granted. "It's all right."

"Those things generally don't last long anyway."

"Is that in the book, too?"

"Huh?"

"Never mind."

She sat there, unmoving, after he slammed happily out of the house. On his way to Mari's, she supposed, to make plans for the wedding. Her face felt wooden. She thought that she might break into small brittle pieces if she tried to move.

Two years, she thought, automatically reaching back. Almost two and a half
this is May, that was November. (A small scarlet leaf against infinite blue, falling slowly.) He's right, that isn't very long. And I suppose we've already had the best of it. Hasn't been so good, lately.

She tried to recall the quarrels of the past few weeks, the sodden hours wasted in bars, the irritability she and Bake had developed toward each other. It was all unreal. It made no difference in the way she felt. She was in the apartment for the first time, sitting in front of the fireplace.

I love you. I think I've loved you for quite a while.

And later
much later, after the terror and the compulsion and the first scared, reluctant surrender and the incredible fulfillment
she had waked up, not knowing for just a moment where she was and what had happened. Then there was the sinking down into perfect happiness, with Bake's arm across her body and the darkness like a soft warm blanket tucked in around the two of them.