The Obituary Writer
The Obituary Writer
ANN HOOD
This is dedicated to the ones I love
First of all, the ones in sorrow should be urged if possible to sit in a sunny room and where there is an open fire. If they feel unequal to going to the table, a very little food should be taken to them on a tray. A cup of tea or coffee or bouillon, a little thin toast, a poached egg, milk if they like it hot, or milk toast.
—
FROM
Etiquette
,
BY
E
MILY
P
OST, 1922
CLAIRE, 1960
I
f Claire had to look back and decide why she had the affair in the first place, she would point to the missing boy. This was in mid-June, during those first humid days when the air in Virginia hangs thick. School was coming to an end, and from her kitchen window Claire could see the bus stop at the corner and the neighborhood children, sweaty in skirts and blouses, khaki trousers and damp cotton shirts, pile out of it like a lazy litter of puppies. Their school bags dragged along the sidewalk; their catcher’s mitts drooped. Jump ropes trailed behind a small group of girls, as if even they were too hot.
Watching this scene, Claire smiled. Her hands in the yellow rubber gloves dipped into the soapy dishwater as if on automatic. Wash. Rinse. Set in the drainer to dry. Repeat. The kitchen smelled of the chocolate cake cooling on the sill in front of her. And faintly of her cigarette smoke, and the onions she’d fried and added to the meatloaf. Upstairs, Kathy napped, clutching her favorite stuffed animal, Mimi, a worn and frayed rabbit.
A stream of sweat trickled down Claire’s armpits. Was it too hot to eat outside? she wondered absently, still watching the children. It was hard for her to imagine that in a few years Kathy would be among them, clamoring onto the bus at eight-fifteen every morning, her braids neat, her socks perfectly rolled down, and then, like these kids, appearing again at three-thirty, sweaty and tired and hot.
That June was when Peter had said he was ready for another child, and Claire had stopped inserting her diaphragm before they made love. She wanted more children. The families around them in Honeysuckle Hills all had at least two, more likely three or four. Like divorce, only children were rare and raised eyebrows. Everyone suspected that the mother in a family with an only child had female trouble of some kind.
After all, it was 1960. The country had put war behind it. New houses were springing up around the city, in Arlington and Alexandria, clustered together in neighborhoods like Honeysuckle Hills, neighborhoods with bucolic names like Quail Ridge and Turtledove Estates. They had wide curving streets, manicured lawns, patios with special matching furniture. Men wore suits and fedoras and overcoats to work in D.C.; the women vacuumed the wall-to-wall carpeting that covered the floors. They polished furniture tops with lemon Pledge and baked casseroles with Campbell’s soup and canned vegetables. They went to the hairdresser every week and got their hair sprayed and flipped.
On long summer evenings, the families sat outside watching their children bike up and down the streets, or balance on scooters or roller skates. The girls chanted songs as the sound of their jump ropes slapping the pavement filled the air, beside the whir of lawn mowers and the distant noise of someone’s radio. On Saturday afternoons, adolescents gathered, clutching bath towels and shaking their still soft bodies trying to learn the Twist. They walked on a mat with plastic footprints, doing a clumsy cha-cha.
Even now, Claire could hear Brenda Lee crooning “I’m Sorry” from someone’s transistor radio. The dishes done, the children from the school bus dispersed, Claire removed the rubber gloves and touched the top of the cake to see if it was cooled enough to frost. Not quite. Soon enough, Kathy would wake from her nap, a little cranky, and insist on sitting on Claire’s lap, keeping Claire immobile and unable to get anything done. She glanced at the clock. If she was lucky, twenty minutes stretched before her with nothing to do. She thought briefly of the basket of laundry waiting to be folded, the summer linens that needed to be aired before she put them on the beds.
But instead of doing any of these things, Claire poured herself a tall glass of ice tea, adding ice cubes and saccharin and a sprig of mint she kept in a glass by the window. She grabbed the new issue of
Time
with its stark cover of an illustration of a woman and the headline:
THE SUBURBAN WIFE
. A yellow banner across the corner reported that one third of the nation lived in the suburbs. Settling onto the chaise lounge in the backyard, Claire glanced at the lead story.
“The wreath that rings every U.S. metropolis is a green garland of place names and people collectively called Suburbia. It weaves through the hills beyond the cities, marches across flatlands that once were farms and pastures, dips into gullies and woodlands . . .”
Really, she thought as she flipped the pages of the magazine, who needed to read a description of her own life? Her own happy life, she added as she took in bits of information. The Negro songstress Eartha Kitt got married. So had Mussolini’s daughter. Judy Holliday and Jimmy Stewart both had new movies opening. President Eisenhower was off to Japan—he always seemed to be off somewhere, Claire thought—and the Prince of Cambodia needed to lose twenty-two pounds.
She closed the magazine and set it on the grass beside her chair. The smell of roses was heavy, almost hypnotic. Claire heard bees. Across the Parkers’ yard next door, she could see a gaggle of boys walking down the street, the tops of their summer buzzed haircuts shining in the late afternoon sun. She recognized them all, and took comfort in the familiarity of her surroundings. A white car passed the boys, then disappeared around the corner. Closer now, the kids’ voices grew louder, their excited tone one that only children can have. They were talking, from what Claire could glean, about going to the moon.
That white car appeared again, slower this time. Probably someone lost in the maze of streets that made up Honeysuckle Hills. People used to the grids of city streets, the logic of numbers and letters, got confused when they had to navigate Mulberry, Maple, and Marigold Streets.
Kathy’s sharp wake-up cries cut through the air, halting Claire’s private time. Forgetting the tea and the magazine, Claire made her way back inside, up the stairs to Kathy’s room.
“Bad Mommy,” Kathy pouted.
Claire patted her daughter’s bottom to be sure she hadn’t wet the bed. Dry. A small victory.
“Come here, Kitty Kat,” Claire murmured, lifting the rigid girl. Kathy always woke up on the wrong side of the bed.
After a snack of graham crackers and milk and playing paper dolls, Kathy finally grew less crabby.
Claire let her help set the table, to carry the napkins and the silverware out to the patio. She taught her how to fold the napkins into triangles, and to place the forks on the left, the spoons and knives on the right.
“Four letters in left. Four letters in fork,” Claire explained. “Five letters in right. Five letters in knife and spoon. That’s how you remember.”
Kathy nodded, even though she hadn’t yet learned to recite her ABC’s and still watched
Romper Room
and
Captain Kangaroo
every morning as Claire cleaned the house. Kathy liked to sing along with Miss Bonnie:
Bend and stretch, reach for the stars. Here comes Jupiter, there goes Mars.
Still, Claire didn’t think it hurt to spell words and explain complicated things to her now. Maybe it would help her understand eventually.
“Now it’s time to make Daddy’s martini,” Claire said.
Kathy padded back inside right behind her, climbing her little stool so that she could reach the counter. Claire carefully measured the gin and then the vermouth, letting Kathy pour the jiggers into the shaker.
“Shake, not stir,” Kathy said proudly.
Claire laughed. Her daughter might not know her ABC’s, but she knew the secret to a good martini.
“That’s right, Kat,” Claire said.
By the time the martini was chilled and the cheese was sprayed onto Ritz crackers and the potatoes mashed and the canned green beans warmed, Peter’s car pulled into the garage. Everything right on schedule.
Looking back on that evening, Claire tried to find the beginnings of a rupture, the way they say the San Andreas fault is already cracked and over time shifts more and more until the earth finally cracks open. But she could never find even a hairline fracture. She remembers feeling satisfaction over the dull predictability of her days. If she did not feel a thrill at the sound of Peter’s key in the front door each evening, she did feel a confidence, a
rightness
, to the way the hours presented themselves.
Peter walked in, handsome, a bit slumped from his day having the admiral rant at him and everyone around him. They both took pride in the fact that Peter was the only civilian who worked for Admiral Rickover at the Pentagon, an honor that made up for the admiral’s erratic behavior and famous temper. Peter kissed Claire and Kathy absently on their cheeks, loosened his tie, and took his place on the turquoise couch he hated, waiting for Claire to appear with that martini, now perfectly chilled. She always wet the glass and placed it in the freezer so that it was frosty and cold too. For herself, she poured a glass of Dubonnet, adding ice and a twist of lemon. On a warm night like tonight, Kathy got Kool-Aid, poured from a fat round pitcher with a face grinning from it.
“I thought we’d eat outside,” Claire said after settling onto the pink chair across from him.
“Mmm,” Peter said, already distracted by something in the newspaper he’d opened on the coffee table.
“Eisenhower’s off to Japan,” Claire said, because a woman always needed to keep up with current events.
Peter gave her a half-nod.
“Doesn’t it seem that he’s always off somewhere?” Claire said. “I read somewhere that he’s traveled almost one hundred thousand miles in his presidency.” Of course she knew exactly where she’d read it. Just a couple of hours ago in the new
Time
magazine.
“Well,” Peter said. “He is the president.”
Claire handed Peter a cracker, admiring the squiggle of cheese on top. Ever since she had first bought cheese in a spray can, she’d gotten better at making even lines or perfect bull’s-eyes. One afternoon, her neighbor Dot had all the neighborhood women over for Grasshoppers and a lesson in how to use the damn spray can of cheese. That had done it, even though the Grasshoppers made her half drunk and Peter came home to find her asleep on the sofa, no dinner made and a tray full of dozens of crackers and cheese.
She watched as he popped the whole thing in his mouth without even looking at it.
“Did you know, darling,” Claire said, “that one third of the nation is living in the suburbs now?”
At this, he looked up at her, impressed or surprised, she wasn’t sure which.
“Is that so?” he said.
Claire nodded.
In the weeks to come, she would hear him repeat this statistic like he knew something about it. Like he had discovered the fact himself. By that time, she had already begun to dislike him, so this boasting made her hate him even more.
It was after dinner that Joe Daniels appeared in their yard, looking worried and hot.
Claire and Peter were still sitting at the patio table, sipping B & B. Claire had already put Kathy to bed, and the evening was winding down in that gentle way June evenings do. Peter’s stockinged foot ran lightly up Claire’s bare calf, a sign that he would want to make love tonight, despite the heat. She thought fleetingly of the fans still up in the attic. The heat had come on suddenly and she’d been unprepared. She wondered if she might convince Peter to get them down. Or at least to put one in their bedroom. The thought of him sweaty on top of her was not appealing.
His foot moved up and down, up and down. His cigarette was almost finished. If she could move this along, they might be done by ten, in time for
Hawaiian Eye
. With that in mind, Claire inched her chair closer to her husband’s and put her hand on his thigh.
“Hello!” Joe Daniels called into the yard.
Claire jerked her hand back and got quickly to her feet, her face hot as if they’d been caught actually doing something.
Peter got to his feet, one hand already extended to shake Joe’s. But Joe didn’t seem to notice. Instead of looking at either of them, his eyes swept the backyard.
“Joe,” Claire said. “Would you like to join us for a B & B?”
“No, no,” he said. “I’m looking for my boy. For Dougie,” he added.
Claire detected panic rising in his voice.
“He didn’t come home for dinner,” Joe said, “and Gladys is practically hysterical. She’s called just about everybody and no one’s seen him.”
“I saw him,” Claire said. “This afternoon.”
She pointed to the chair where she’d sat and read the
Time
magazine, which still lay in the grass where she’d left it. Claire made a mental note to bring it inside or it would get soggy and Peter would complain that she was careless.
“He was with a bunch of boys talking about space, about going to the moon,” Claire told Joe.
For a moment, Joe looked relieved. But then his face grew worried again.
“When was that?” he asked.
“Around four,” Claire said.
“Are you sure?”
“It was right before Kathy woke up from her nap,” Claire said. “I came out for a breather.” She pointed to the magazine and the abandoned glass of ice tea.
“All right,” Joe Daniels said, nodding. “All right. But then, where could he be now?”
Claire had no answer for that.
“You know how boys are,” Peter said. He touched the other man’s arm. “He’s probably catching frogs or fireflies or some such.”
Joe nodded again. “It’s just so late, that’s all. Almost nine-thirty.”
“Is it that late already?” Claire said, thinking not about Dougie Daniels but about how she would certainly miss
Hawaiian Eye
tonight.
“And it’s a school night,” Joe said.
“I hate to bring this up,” Peter said quietly, “but have you called the police?”
Joe gulped air as if he were a drowning man.
“I guess that’s the next step,” he said.
“I’m sure Dougie is fine,” Claire said brightly. “Boys will be boys.”
“It’s just so late,” Joe said again.
The whole time that Peter and Claire made sweaty love later that night, the teenage girl next door played the same song over and over. It started with a train whistle, then a vaguely familiar voice sang about giving ninety-nine kisses and ninety-nine hugs. As soon as the song ended, the girl played it again. She must have just gotten the 45, Claire thought, not liking the song or her husband’s sweat dripping on her. Finally, his thrusts quickened and she heard that welcome long low grunt.