Stranger On Lesbos (27 page)

She shook her head. I’ll have to tell Bill, she thought. He'll be pleased. He has me right where he wants me, everything his own way.

But she made no move to stand up, because she knew that thought and feeling would come back when she moved, and that the pain would be bad.

CHAPTER 21

She never knew when Bob told Bill about that conversation. Perhaps he called the office from a pay phone, or perhaps
anger boiled up in her
from Mari's house, with her parents listening interestedly. He telephoned home to say that he and Mari were going out; he wouldn't be in until late. Ashamed to face her, maybe.

Bill brought the subject up at dinner that evening, looking at her thoughtfully across the kitchen table. "Bob say anything to you about wanting to get married this summer?"

She pushed the food around her plate. "Yes."

"It's a good idea, don't you think?"

"I guess so."

"Mari's a nice kid."

"Sure she is."

Never fight a daughter-in-law, never say a word that can get back to her. She has all the weapons. She had heard them talking in the washrooms, the middle-aged women with grown children.

"Her folks are okay too. Her father's a circuit court judge. Nice people."

"I know."

Bill laid down the piece of bread he was buttering. His face was an odd mixture of expressions: exasperated and pleading. "I'm not so happy about this idea of changing schools."

"It's all right."

"Well, we're not getting any younger." He cut his chop. "Kid old enough to be married, and everything."

She couldn't help it, she was going to be sick. She pushed back her chair, its legs scraping along the linoleum. Bill jumped up. "Don't you feel good?"

"I'm all right."

He put his arms around her shoulders. The friendly touch dissolved all her antagonism. She wanted to cry. She turned her face away.

Bill said slowly, searching for words, "Looks like we haven't been getting along so well lately. Maybe that's my fault. Let's both try and do better, shall we?"

She moved away from him, out of the circle of his arms. "I'm going to bed."

"You want me to come up with you?"

She shook her head.

He stood looking after her, puzzled and a little sad. She shut the kitchen door behind her and went upstairs without looking back.

But in the bedroom
their bedroom
she felt restless and unable to sleep. She sat on the side of the bed, turning over a jumble of thoughts and feelings which refused to take on form. Bob, with that adult male look on his face. Bill, puzzled and hurt. Bake in a dozen familiar poses
incoherent with drink, curled up in sleep, swinging down Michigan Avenue with an armful of books, the wind from the Lake ruffling her dark hair and blowing back her open coat.

I ought to feel terrible about all this, she thought. But she felt remote, as though it were happening to someone else.

She sat on the bed with her head bowed, unable to bring any order out of the chaos in her mind, until she heard Bill's step on the stairs. Then she threw off her clothes in a hurry and tumbled in between the sheets, shutting her eyes just as the bedroom door opened. He stood looking down at her. I'll scream if he touches me, she thought wildly. But he turned away from the bed without speaking, and went into the bathroom.

She lay awake for a long time after he came to bed, aware of all the night noises
cars going by, the clock ticking on the bedside stand, a breeze rattling the leafy branches of the tree just outside the window. She was aware, too, of Bill lying rigidly awake beside her. If she moved, he would speak to her. She wasn't ready to talk, not yet. She supposed they would have to discuss the situation
why in God's name can't anybody ever do anything without a lot of words?
but please, not tonight.

She controlled her breathing, and after a long time he went to sleep.

She woke late, to an empty bed and the indefinable feeling of Sunday morning. Bob had eaten and gone
he was taking Mari to church. His room was empty, the sheets and blankets in a tangle on the floor. She put on a housecoat and went downstairs. Bill was at the dinette table, still dressed in pajamas, drinking coffee. He filled a cup for her. She sat down, feeling a sharp nostalgia for the old days when Sunday morning had been their best time together.

"You mad at me?"

"No."

Her tone wasn't encouraging, but he tried again. "Look, I guess I haven't been a very good husband. If I'm to blame for all this, I'm sorry."

"It's all right."

"Anyway, it looks like a good time to make a new start. The boy's going to leave home. Going to get married. It's funny how much more important that seems than going to college, isn't it?" He shook his head wonderingly. "I
guess
that leaves us sort of depending on each other from here on in."

"Or free."

He stared at her. The slow color rose in his face. "Do you mean you want a divorce?"

If he had asked six months earlier, the question would have been a rainbow-colored miracle. Now she hesitated. The question of her leaving Bill and going to live with Bake had been dropped, tacitly, somewhere along the way. Bake brought it up sometimes when she had had too much to drink, because it was a good solid grievance
she liked to point out that she had been willing to pay the lawyer, even. Frances felt that Bake would be surprised and not too happy if she announced at this point that she was moving in. There was Jane, for one thing. Twice lately, when she. had telephoned Bake's apartment, Jane had answered.