Three Women at the Water's Edge (14 page)

It occurred to her then that this was the way it would be from now on. Forever. Except that there would soon be another baby to take care of. Then she might have three sick children on her hands at one time; she might as well plan on that happening at least once.

It was really funny. How had it worked out this way, that she was to have three children and no house, and Paul was to have a new young wife? The whole thing was enough to make her howl with fury and resentment at the man she had married, at her plight. When she had been growing up, when she had married, she had never once thought of herself as becoming a bitter woman, a woman burdened with despair. And even now she did not want to be that way. Yet so many things were weighing her down—all the immediate, concrete things, Danny and Jenny’s sickness, the loss of her house; and even worse, a great weight of nameless fear. Suddenly she felt lonely and rejected and unloved and unlovable and ugly. She wanted to hurt Paul and Monica, yet hated herself for that desire. She felt helplessly, heavily full of grief. She was afraid of the future, and too exhausted to do more than survive her present. And she could feel rage building up inside her just as surely as the whitecaps grew as they approached the shore of the lake. She wanted to collapse onto the bathroom floor in a fit of tears and raving.

But she could not, not yet. She had to see to the children, she had to watch over them. When she got to her mother’s house, she would let her guard down and really rant, really cry; she would hold herself in until then. She was not sure of the direction her life was going, but she knew she wanted to safeguard her little charges: her son, her daughter, and this new baby which now kicked and kicked inside her, as if reacting to the turbulence of her heart.

She smiled down at her stomach, and said, “Hello, Baby.” She took off her robe and nightgown and began to take a hot shower, caressing her stomach a long time, as if to get reacquainted with the new baby, to apologize for not thinking of it much in the past few days. She washed her hair, rubbed moisturizing lotion on her face, put on fresh clothes and perfume. She made plans for the day, the tiny fragile plans women with sick children make for themselves, like rewards they would give themselves for simply going on: she would call Karen, and she would call her two other close women friends. And tonight she would call her mother to tell her she was coming out to visit next week. And she would even call Dale; she hadn’t spoken with Dale for a long time. She would ask a babysitter to come over tomorrow so that she could sleep if the children were up again in the night, or so she could get out of the house for a while; surely by tomorrow Danny’s sickness would not be contagious. She would make chocolate chip cookies today, even though Danny and Jenny were probably too sick to eat them; she could put them in the cookie jar for next week—and eat most of the uncooked dough herself. Chocolate chip cookie dough was one of the best things in her life. She would pick up the family room and do laundry, but let the rest of the house go—let Paul clean it if it bothered him. At three o’clock she’d have a glass of seltzer. She would play with the children and take care of them, but while they were watching television—and they could watch a lot of television today, because they were sick—she would read a new romantic paperback. She would make it through this day and the next and the next until she could get to her mother, until she could reach a place where she could be a child again, and receive a child’s portion of consolation and care.

Daisy went back down the stairs and into the kitchen to begin making the cookies. She loved creaming the sweet brown sugar and the soft butter together, she loved the alcoholic aroma of vanilla, she loved the richness of the chocolate chips. She began to feel almost happy, exhilarated with fatigue. She went into the family room, sucking on a great spoon of dough, and stood there, swaying, watching her sweet sleeping children: listening to them breathe.

Daisy couldn’t help but laugh. She was thinking of the little bags of surprises she had given to her children that morning, so that in their eagerness to look at their loot they wouldn’t cry to see their mother leave. She had given them some candy, some Little Golden Books, and some cheap dime-store toys, including, for each of them, a yellow and red plastic harmonica. The children loved harmonicas and played them ceaselessly when they had them; Daisy usually threw them away as soon as one entered the house, because the noise was wildly unnerving even to the most doting of mothers. Jenny usually contented herself with walking around the house simply inhaling and exhaling over and over again at one certain note, making a sound exactly like that of a French police car siren. But Danny attempted to play real songs on his harmonica, and was inventive and tireless. Neither he nor Jenny seemed bothered by the fact that their music was dissonant, loud, and painful—just as children didn’t seem to be driven mad by other children’s shrieking, wailing, or sniveling—and they could stay in the same room together playing harmonica duets until Daisy’s head ached and she found herself tense with inexplicable rage. Well, she hoped that the children would like their presents, and that they would play their harmonica duets for their father when he returned home from work that evening, and when he awoke first thing in the morning. It was a trivial sort of treachery, giving the children harmonicas when she left, but it was the best she could do in the situation, and it gave her a real satisfaction; it made her laugh.

It was two-thirty in the afternoon, and Daisy was almost at the end of her four-hour flight from Chicago to Vancouver. She had truly enjoyed the flight. As the plane lifted off the ground with its almost unimaginable speed and ease, she had suddenly felt set free—released, relieved. Danny and Jenny were both over their illnesses, and Daisy was exhausted from the constant pressure and worry. Now she was wearing fresh, clean clothes and she was sitting alone with an entire coach-class airplane seat to herself. It was real luxury—no sweet but wriggling child could climb up on her now to accidentally kick her in her big belly with a careless knee or to spill a drink or wipe sticky hands on her pretty dress. For the first time in four years she was completely alone, with only her own needs to tend to—and she was traveling toward her mother, who would give her the help and advice she so desperately needed. It was lovely. There were reliable babysitters in the house with the children now, and they would be there every day, and Daisy’s friends Karen and Jane had promised to drop in every day to check on things. Paul would be with the children at night. Daisy had an entire week of freedom to look forward to. She would rest, relax, and tell her mother about the mess her life was in, and get a good full helping of love and support to carry back with her to face the frightening future.

The future. Daisy had been too totally involved with the real struggle of getting through each day to think of the future, but as the plane ascended into the sky and gently leveled off, she tried to gather together her thoughts to plan. She settled back in her seat and folded her hands on her belly and thought how the very plane that was carrying her seemed both a metaphor and a sign. Rising so gracefully from the pull of earth, it seemed to say: Look, I am weighted, too, and tied to the world, I am burdened with life, and yet for a while I can set myself free. And though that escape took power, perhaps it was the power of imagination that was the most important of all. So Daisy wanted to use her powers of imagination, she wanted to summon up her courage and intelligence to think of the future, to plan.

There would be Danny and Jenny, and there would be the new baby. That was always first. And Paul would be gone; she would be alone. It was hard to go much further than that; it was so different from anything she had ever planned on. At some point Daisy knew she would have to break down and cry for herself, to mourn and wail over all that she had lost—and sometimes it seemed that she had lost the meaning of her life. If Paul did not want her and his children, who would? She had been too busy caring for the children to grieve for what she had lost, but that grief was there, building up inside her, as real and heavy a weight as the baby she carried. Perhaps, Daisy hoped, when she was with her mother she would be able to let go, let down, collapse and cry. She hadn’t yet told her mother about the coming divorce; she wanted to tell her face-to-face. She wanted to fall into her mother’s comforting arms and cry; she wanted her mother to take away the pain. In fact she did not want to face the pain until her mother was there to help her. When she had married Paul, she had thought she was a grown-up, that she would not need her mother again. But for the past few weeks she had been dreaming of her mother, of her mother’s tender warmth and ample soothing love, and it was the kindest thing in Daisy’s life that the plane was carrying her toward that.

So—the future. It might also mean moving out of their home, the graceful welcoming house that Daisy had painted and oiled and polished and made her own. Now it was early November. She had persuaded Paul to let them stay in the house through Christmas at least; she had tried to persuade him to let them stay in the house until the end of March when the new baby would be born. But Paul had pressed her; he needed the money, and the real-estate agents were pressing him, wanting to show their house to clients who were eager to find a large house on the lake. Also, Paul had said, and actually he had been right, it would be much easier for Daisy to go ahead and move before the baby came. Afterward she would be so tired. If she moved out in January, that would give her two months to get herself and the children settled in a new home before the baby disrupted their lives. Daisy had acquiesced, more out of a sense of unreality than of accord. And Paul, relieved by what he took to be her reasonable
ness, offered to show the house in the evenings while he was living there—two or three people were almost ready to buy the house simply from seeing it from the street—so that Daisy wouldn’t be bothered. He had even asked Mrs. Wentworth to look for a pleasant little home in a good neighborhood for Daisy and the children; he was trying to be helpful, he said.

“You’re in the wrong profession, Paul,” Daisy had said to him once over the phone. “You should be a used-car dealer. You’d make a killing.”

“What?” Paul had asked, an edge of fear in his voice.

“Never mind,” Daisy had said. “Never mind.” She had known that nastiness would do no good, but the temptation was always so strong; she wanted to scratch at Paul, to cause him little wounds, because the one he was dealing her went so deep.

Of course she knew being nasty would not help. The only thing that would really change matters was money. Daisy sat in the plane, unable to think much further than that: that she needed comfort from her mother, and she wanted money from her mother, too. Oh, how Daisy hoped her mother would offer her some money, enough money so that Daisy could keep her house. She hoped her mother would just
give
her the money with the easy generosity with which she had once given Daisy bikes and party dresses and dolls. Yet she was not sure just how much available money her mother had, or what rights she as a grown child had to ask for such a large sum. Was she being too demanding, too greedy? How could she bring up the question if her mother did not immediately make the offer? And what would she do if her mother had really changed? Daisy had been taken aback a few days earlier when her mother had said on the phone, “Oh, I’m glad you’re not planning to bring the children. I was afraid you would want to.” What kind of grandmother was she who did not want to see her grandchildren? It was obvious from her letters that she had changed, and Daisy tried to prepare herself. Still, her mother was her
mother
, Daisy thought stubbornly. Her mother would have to help.

The no-smoking, fasten-seat-belt lights flashed on and Daisy looked out the window. The plane was descending through clouds, and Daisy could see little but mist and flat, gray land. This was beautiful Vancouver? Maybe her mother
had
gone mad. She took up her purse and combed her hair again and put on fresh lipstick. A few nights of good sleep had restored her face to its normal prettiness, and excitement made her eyes shine. The plane landed with a customary bump, and Daisy relaxed in her seat as it rushed to a stop, then headed in toward the gate. She let almost all the other travelers fill the aisle and leave before getting up herself; she wanted to do it all slowly, to savor every moment. She loved her mother, she had always loved and adored her mother, and a gentle joy was spreading through her now that the actual moment of being with her again was so close. She left the plane and impatiently went through the routine of claiming her luggage and going through customs. Finally she was able to pass through the glass doors and out to the waiting area. She looked about, smiling with anticipation.

But she could not find her mother. There was a crowd of people milling about, some waving, some grabbing other people out of the line of arriving passengers, but her mother was not in the crowd. Daisy glanced at her watch; the plane had been a few minutes late: her mother should be here, she had said that she would be. Daisy set her heavy suitcases on the floor and just stood there helplessly. It was not like her mother not to be on time. A few feet away a slender older woman, chic and stunning and vaguely familiar, smiled at Daisy. Daisy returned the smile politely, looked away, then looked back, stunned.

“Hello, darling,” her mother said, and reached out to embrace her. She was wearing a long loose skirt of blue cotton and a long, lighter-blue cotton top; when she reached out for Daisy the full sleeves of the shirt fell as gracefully as angel’s wings to her side. Margaret’s hair was dark brown, and it fell smoothly about her face and neck; she was wearing violet eye shadow; silver earrings dangled from her pierced ears. She was beautiful. This woman was beautiful—and the mother Daisy had known had never been more than clean.

The mother Daisy had known. She had been, Daisy remembered, overweight; that was her most salient feature. Margaret had not been
obese
, which implied unacceptable amounts of flesh, but she had been acceptably fat. She had been large and round. She had had a big bowl of a tummy, and heavy thighs which never saw the sun, and sagging watermelon breasts, and chubby calves and arms. All that fat had been packaged into plain and shapeless but nevertheless costly and respectable dresses with cloth flowers at a white collar, or a brooch or bow at the neck. Margaret’s hair had been very short and curly: every week she had had it done at the hairdresser’s. And for as long as Daisy could remember, that short, curly, rather old-fashioned hair had been gray. Margaret had never worn makeup other than a plain pink lipstick which protected her lips from chapping. She had never worn jewelry except for her wedding ring and the respectable brooches. Her ears had certainly never been pierced as this woman’s were! Daisy’s mother had looked as a
mother
should look: dumpy, expensively dowdy, sexless. She had appeared completely ungiven to any questions of self-vanity—and therefore totally available for assisting the vanity of others.

But now she had completely changed. Now Margaret was slim, chic, well-dressed, lovely—it was as if a magician had waved a wand and transformed Margaret entirely. But if Daisy knew anything at all for sure, it was that magicians of that sort simply did not exist: Margaret had had to change herself, and that meant a vanity and self-discipline and strength of will that Daisy had not known her mother had. Daisy knew better than anything just what kind of effort it took to lose five pounds: and her mother had lost at least thirty. It was fascinating. It was really amazing. Daisy was intrigued. And her mother was a pleasure to look at.

“Mother,” Daisy said, “I’m amazed. I’m overwhelmed. I can’t believe my eyes. You look fabulous.”

“Oh, thank you, dear,” Margaret said. “You look wonderful, too—although you have gained a little weight.”

“Mother,” Daisy said. “For heaven’s sake. I’m five months pregnant!”

“Well, that’s obvious,” Margaret said. “But you’ve also put on weight. You’re much heavier than you were with Danny.”

“Mother,” Daisy said, “I think I have to sit down.”

“Of course, darling,” Margaret said. “Let’s go on out to the car. It takes about an hour to drive into Vancouver and we can have a lovely talk on the way. There’s so much I want to tell you.”

“There’s so much I want to tell
you
,” Daisy said, but now her heart wasn’t in it. As she picked up a suitcase and followed her mother out of the airport, she thought ruefully that this was not at all what she had planned on. She had planned on falling apart in the plump comforting arms of her mother; but her mother’s arms were no longer plump—and Margaret did not seem comforting at all. In fact Daisy had felt as though Margaret had actually been appraising her, as if Daisy were a book Margaret might or might not consider reading. How her mother had changed! As Margaret walked along, a few feet in front of Daisy, carrying Daisy’s largest suitcase with an easy grace, a good-looking man who was waiting for a porter to unload his luggage from a taxi studied Margaret and smiled at her in obvious admiration. And Margaret smiled back, easily, and went confidently on out to the parking lot, while Daisy followed, feeling as waddly and anonymous as a duck.