I don’t know when the change occurred. She needed some special work done, and they shipped her to a hospital in the West where they specialize in that, and I didn’t see her for six weeks. I went on as before while she was gone, spending most of my evenings and all weekends at home, spending time with the kids. I took Vick and Les and Mark out to the course and taught them to play golf. I took my vacation while Edith was gone, and the kids and I went camping. Which would have been a disaster if it weren’t for them—I knew nothing about camping, but years of summer camp had given them a little knowledge. At least, Vick knew how to put up the tent, and Mark knew how to keep a fire going, and Les figured out how to make coffee for her fussy father. We got on fine, the five of us. We were very close during that year….
Vickie went back to college, and Edith returned, not to Westchester, but to a hospital in Manhattan, where the remaining work would be done. So now the children had difficulty seeing her. I went every working day, and sometimes drove the kids down on a weekend. And she was different now. She was much like the old Edith, always sweet and smiling, but there was something frightened in her now, something … corroded. So it felt. There was panic under the old manner. She never called me out again, never maligned me again. She was quiet when I went, she smiled, she’d say, often: “Whatever you want, Victor.”
It undermined me completely. It was so pitiful. So weak she was, having given up her anger, you felt there was nothing at all to her, that you’d have to lift a soft body with no backbone up in your arms and carry it, ever after.
I asked the doctors about it They said she’d been so distraught out West, especially when it was clear she’d never be able to walk again, never be able to use artificial legs, that they had increased her daily dose of tranquilizers. She had no energy to cry and protest, but she also had no energy for anything else.
It felt as if her soul had atrophied.
Eventually, she came home. She was still this new person, but I was hopeful that being home, back with the children and in her own place, she wouldn’t need so many tranquilizers, and would regain some energy, some force. The doctors had given her a present when they repaired her scarred face—they’d lifted it. She looked fifteen years younger than she was. In a dim light, she looked like a little girl. I guess they wanted to console her for the rest—the paralysis from the waist down, the stumps that had been legs.
I’d done what I could. I had my study completely remodeled, took out the bookcases, put in another big window so she’d have two large ones facing the garden. I put a wide sill below them, that she could use as a table or a desk, if she wanted to do something and look outdoors at the same time. I had the room painted in a light color, I bought bright new furniture, and turned it into a bedroom-sitting room for her. It was summer when she finally came home with her little-girl face, smiling, a bit teary, and I wheeled her to the window where the peonies and larkspur grew, and the roses she had planted years ago stood in beautiful formal rows in the next bed, blooming soft pink and salmon and creamy white. The room smelled like the garden—the windows were open—and the sun spilled through the window.
I had the swimming pool enclosed with glass, and a physical therapist came every day to exercise her. I bought a VW van and a ramp, so even if I weren’t there, the girls could roll her into it and drive her wherever she wanted to go.
I told her about all this, sitting opposite her in her new room, holding her hands. She let me hold them. They were soft and cool, her hands, as they’d always been. Nothing had happened to them, but they felt boneless, somehow, as if the accident had caused bone loss throughout her body. They were tender hands, yielding hands. They were, like all of her now, pliable.
I said: “You and the girls have to go shopping. You need some new clothes, you haven’t had a new dress in a year! That’s some kind of record for
you!
” I laughed. She didn’t. “And Leslie’s graduation is next week, and you have to show up for it looking gorgeous with your wonderful new face.” She smiled. “And you’ll need gowns for holding court in your new salon,” I said, indicating the room. “Beautiful gowns. All colors.” I kissed her cheek. “You’ll get them, won’t you?” She said, “Thank you, Victor.”
Thank you, Victor. She didn’t go shopping. She didn’t go to Leslie’s graduation. She didn’t do anything. She sat in her wheelchair with her hands folded in her lap. She sat there patiently when the nurse came, four times a day, to take care of her … little bags. And drank the tea and ate the toast Mrs. Ross brought her, but not much more. And took as many tranks as ever. She just sat there. She didn’t even spark up for the children as she had. She listened to them, she smiled sweetly, she said, “That’s nice, dear.” You had the sense she hadn’t listened to a word they said. She sat and she smiled.
I spoke to the doctor, and he cut her dosage of tranks back a bit. After he told her, I went in to see her, and there was fear in her eyes, panic. I put my hand on her shoulder, I crouched beside her, I said, “Don’t worry, darling, if you don’t feel well, he’ll increase it again. But try, at least.” The panic remained, it hovered around the edges of her eyes.
But that worked, at least, it helped a little. She began to come out of herself a bit. She would take some interest when Mrs. Ross came in to speak to her about the weekly menus. She ate a few more things. She responded to the children more fully, more often. She’d turn on the TV set during the day, and at least appear to be watching it. And one night, when I came in, as always, with the one drink she was permitted, and one for myself, before dinner, she initiated the conversation.
“Victor, you don’t suppose I could have another heart attack, do you?”
“Heart attack?”
“Yes, of course. It was because I had a heart attack that I ran into that underpass. Just a slight one, of course, but I lost consciousness and that was how …”
She had had no heart attack. But then, if you look at it differently, maybe she had.
“You won’t have another one, darling,” I said, sitting opposite her. “I promise.”
I understood that I was promising to keep my bargain, forever.
She nodded. “And perhaps,” she went on, “even though I’m …” she looked down at her body, “like
this
, we can have a happy family?”
“Of course we can.” I know my voice sounded hollow, but Edith did not seem to notice.
“Yes,” she sighed, lightly. Her voice had seemed to change with her face, it was girlish, light, as it had been when she was young. “So much violence, so much unhappiness, drinking, divorce, drugs…. Perhaps we’re lucky, after all.”
I nodded. I couldn’t speak.
Then she raised her head a little. “And if this had to happen to me … if that was the price of us realizing how lucky we are … well, perhaps it is worth something, after all.”
I just stared at her.
“To bring up the children in a peaceful and orderly and loving home, that was always my ambition. And
that
I have achieved,” she said looking at me with tears in her eyes, “regardless.”
I cried. I burst out crying. I put my head in her lap and bawled like a kid. I couldn’t stop.
Edith patted my head. When I finally stopped and had blown my nose to oblivion and back, she said, “But, Victor, you must speak to Mark about the noise he makes in the yard when they play Indians. It gives me a headache.”
I said I would.
“And, Victor.” She turned her head a little away from me, it was almost a coy gesture, although she didn’t intend it that way. “I know men can’t … I know,” she faced me then, “you need … sex. And I don’t want you to … suffer. So, even though I feel nothing there now, well, if I feel nothing, it can’t hurt me, can it? I want you to have what you want,” she finished, blushing. I swear she was blushing.
Victor broke off. His face was wet, with tears or sweat it was impossible to tell, and he looked like a man being strangled, his head was poked up, his neck stretched out as if he couldn’t breathe at low altitudes, and his muscles stood out, neck muscles, under-chin muscles, hard and tight. He stood up and strode into the kitchen. He returned with the Scotch bottle, two glasses, and a bowlful of ice. “I figure you might want one of these tonight.”
Indeed, it was night. They were sitting in the last light of dusk, without electricity to warm them, except from the fire. Dolores nodded, and he poured two drinks. She did not move. She was locked in the rocking chair, legless (her legs curled up on the seat), with a blanket over her lap. Victor gave her a drink, then turned on the small lamp beside her, and another beside the couch. He sat down again, sighing. His voice was different now, his usual voice, strong and in control.
That was four years ago. Things are much the same now. Edith never goes out, well, almost never. Mark uses the van, for fun, not for her. When the girls think she needs or could use some new clothes, they buy them and bring them home. She wears a straight size eight, just as she always did. She accepts whatever they—or I—bring her, accepts it with that same sweet smile she always uses. She asks for nothing. Nothing. The only way Mrs. Ross discovered she was tired of lamb chops was that she began to leave them on her plate. She never asked for something else, ordered something else. She did take up painting again, but even there, the kids and I keep an eye on her supplies. We have to be sure to replenish them. Otherwise she’ll paint in only a few colors and when we ask if she’s changing her style, she’ll say oh, no, she’d simply run out of cobalt blue, or whatever. Or she’ll sit there with her hands in her lap until we discover she’s out of watercolor paper.
She sits at the big sill gazing out into the garden, and paints pictures of dumpling-happy babies and little children doing cute little mischievous things, like dumping water on the dog, or spraying water on each other with a garden hose. Or trying on Momma’s or Poppa’s clothes. That sort of thing. She doesn’t mind repeating herself. She does a couple every week, and every week Bob Minelli stops in and visits with her and picks up her latest productions. He has a—well he calls it an art gallery in town. He frames pictures, sells gifts and the work of some local painters. Edith’s pictures sell like hot cakes, people love them. And why not? They have the same dreams. Anyway, all the money she earns goes into a special account, and when there’s enough in it, she gives it to a local art museum. It’s a paltry affair, an old house with some bequests in it, but thanks to Edith, it’s improving. They’re planning, although it’s a secret from her, to rename the museum after her on her next birthday: she’s given them thousands and thousands of dollars. In fact, she does them well, those paintings. She does them well because she believes in them, those dumpling children and their happy harmless mischief….
Sometimes an old friend will stop in to see her. But she doesn’t encourage it. We never entertain in the evenings, never go out together—almost never. It’s just us, the family. Smaller now, because the girls are gone. And over the years—something else happened. After she came
to
—came back—to whatever degree she has. Oh, it was my fault too, I’m sure. But she helped.
I’d gotten so close to the kids in that year she’d been away, as close as she’d been, maybe even closer because I wasn’t always shushing them, telling them their father was tired, or busy, or not to be disturbed. And I loved that, it was terrific, it was like a gift, late in life, of something you’d been missing without knowing it…. But once she was home—well, I stopped spending so much time with them. I went out to play golf with my old golf buddies, not with the kids. I didn’t take them to the beach or the movies or anyplace, as I had, because that would have meant leaving her home alone. I pulled away.
And Edith—oh, it took awhile before I realized what was happening, but by the time I did, the damage had been done—Edith almost never spoke of them to me without complaining. They were noisy, or they were getting grease on their clothes that Mrs. Ross couldn’t get out, or they were leaving the TV blaring so loud she couldn’t hear herself think. And I had to do something about that. I had to scold them. And whenever anything went wrong with them—when Jonathan came home with a poor report card, for instance—she’d say: “Well, I hate to think what your father is going to say about that.” So that even though I didn’t say much, the experience had already been lived through, he’d already felt my disapproval, my anger….
So I lost them again. At some point, I saw, and I tried to repair the damage. I asked them if they wanted to go to the movies; if Edith didn’t want to come, she could stay home alone. I asked them if they wanted to go to the beach. But they were older then, they had their own friends. And they’d, well, they’d lost their trust in me. I’d betrayed them twice. Once when they were born, and again after Edith came back.
“And I felt,” he put his head in his hand again, he stared at the floor and his mouth was grim, “I felt that she had done that intentionally.” He raised his head. “And that makes me think that maybe all of it’s intentional. Because the kids are growing up, Mark’s in a local prep school but he’ll be starting college next year. He’ll be gone too. And Jonathan will be home only for a few more years. In fact, Edith’s already talking about sending him away to prep school, says he gets on her nerves. Which he well might, he gets on mine too, he’s so jagged and nervous and—hysterical, really. A lot like me at his age, if truth be told.
“And then there will be just two of us. No friends. No family to speak of. My sister and brother live in Ohio. Kitty’s in and out of the dry-up farm…. So, just the two of us. Sitting there together. The kids at a distance from both of us now, for they are. The two of us, sitting and looking at each other, Edith smiling sweetly, as she used to do….”
He stopped, breathed out deeply, stared at the floor. His voice changed again, it was quiet, reminiscent. “One day I was walking towards the restaurant where I usually have lunch, and I was alone, and I bumped into Alison. She looked different, but splendid. I asked her to have lunch with me, on the spur of the moment. I had no intention of it going any further: but what harm could a lunch do?