After the Fire (21 page)

But there's no way I'll see him again. I'm sure he thinks I want to, and I'm sure most people would assume that I do, but I don't. I don't want any man, not any man, ever.

Hyacinth had set the Christmas table with the same care she would have given to a formal dinner for twelve. Four candles surrounded the centerpiece of pink and red carnations, the flowers a present from Arnie, accompanied incredibly by a magnificent Danish silver bowl to hold them—all given as casually as one might give a piece of pottery. The children's milk was served in wineglasses. From the china to the nuts and dates in their traditional dishes, the family's traditions had been kept.

Dressed for the occasion, they sat in their usual places. Jerry and Emma, she proud and pretty in the rose dress, sat at Hyacinth's left, and Francine at her right. Only the composition of the family had changed. A chair that would have been Jim's now stood against the wall. And the chair in which last year at this time Gerald had presided was occupied by Arnie who, though not a member of the family, was surely doing his best to warm the atmosphere.

Hyacinth was also doing her best to ward off a gloomy, chilling sense of flying time: In a handful of days, in a few hours, it would all be over. The cheer was false. For two weeks past or longer, it had deluded her. Deliberate in her joy, she had fooled herself with all the “normal” preparations, buying presents, baking and cooking, and opening the two bedroom doors that had been shut. It had begun to snow, and she had even bought new sleds, one of them for herself; they would drive out to Nod's Hill, take sandwiches and a Thermos of cocoa. They would—oh, these “normal” preparations! She could barely talk to them without being afraid to break down! So far she had not done so, and pray God that when the time came for them to leave, she would not do so.

Emma was making an announcement: “It doesn't snow in Florida. Mommy, don't you hear me? I said it doesn't snow in Florida.”

“Everybody knows that,” Jerry said.

“Who cares?”

Last summer Emma would either have cried or become indignant at that. Now she had learned to give a scornful retort. She was preparing for kindergarten, getting ready for the real world. If you don't see a child every day, if you have to wait weeks or months, you'll be seeing a new child each time. You'll have missed everything.

“How is Charlie?” asked Hyacinth.

Emma replied, “He doesn't weewee in the house anymore. Daddy taught him not to.”

Without intending to, Hy glanced at Francine. There
had been surprisingly little mention of Daddy since the children's arrival, she thought, but each time there had been a barely visible change in Francine's face. Anyone familiar with her usual animation would know that she was being too quiet. And I was hoping she would keep up the chatter. Instead, it's Arnie who fills and refills the silences that make children restless. He did so now.

“Tell about my new horse, Jerry.”

“Oh, yeah. It's a Tennessee Walker, so big—you should see. And you know what color? Pinto. That means spots. Brown spots on white. I can't ride him, he's too big. But Uncle Arnie's teaching me to ride the pony.”

“Nanny takes me to visit the stables sometimes,” Emma said. “And then I can get a ride. Daddy doesn't come. He likes his boat. He takes us on his boat. It has sails.”

“That's nice.” Hyacinth smiled. Boats and horses, she thought. I suppose they're only different in degree from the toys in their rooms upstairs now. We're both buying love. But never say anything against Gerald. Don't poison their minds. You will only hurt them. It's elementary. Francine knows that, too.

“When are you coming to Florida with us, Mommy?” Emma asked. “I miss you.”

“She cried,” Jerry said. “I didn't because I'm older, and besides, I told her we can come here to see you. Daddy said so.”

Now Emma wailed. “But why? Why do we have to come here to see Mommy?”

Of the three adults, none had an immediate answer
until Francine said, “You see, Granny is sick, and your mommy wants to stay near her for a while.”

“Granny can go to Florida, too.”

“No, Emma. She's too old.”

“Then you stay with her. I want Mommy to come to Florida.”

Why doesn't he just die, thought Hyacinth. Just die and let the rest of us live in peace. But no, he will live to be a hundred. So it's I who should die….

“I think you're getting a divorce,” Jerry said. “That's what it is.”

He was waiting for an answer. We should have told them right away. I guess we—I—thought something might happen, some magic, some miracle, and all this pain would go away. No, actually I knew it would have to be done and was only putting it off until the paperwork was finished, and then there'd be no more excuse.

“You're probably right,” Arnie said, coming to the rescue. He spoke calmly, as if a divorce were really nothing much, nothing to get excited about.

Well, in many places, it isn't. Perhaps not even for children these days, it isn't. But not for my children. My children are soft.

“A lot of kids in my class,” Jerry said importantly, “a lot of them have parents who are divorced. But they all live with their mothers. The dad comes to visit.”

Arnie agreed. “As long as you can see them both and everybody's happy, there's nothing to worry about.”

Emma's eyes were wide, and her mouth about to tremble with a sob. “Are you happy, Mommy? Don't you want to live in our house?”

Our house.
How do you answer that? Then mercifully, inspiration came. “We can have two houses and can take turns and be very happy.”

How am I able to do this? In another minute, I'll crack.

As if Francine had guessed how close Hyacinth was to that cracking, she stood and brightly gave an order. “Kids, we can talk about this later. The cake is out of the refrigerator, it's got chocolate whipped cream on top, and we need to eat it right away. So each of you take his plate and help me clear the table. Your mother's done all the cooking, so now it's our turn.”

From her seat facing the window, Hyacinth saw by the streetlamp's glow that it had begun to sleet. “Sleet,” she said, and ran not so much to pull the curtains closed as to control and hide the start of tears. By his silence, she understood that Arnie was making it easier for her to hide them. Somehow, when you looked at him or heard his speech, you would probably not expect him to have such delicacy of feeling. And yet this was not by any means the first time he had revealed it.

The dessert was superb, a specialty out of Granny's recipe book. It brought the silence of appetite and satisfaction to the table. Only Francine, who was a self-styled “chocolate” freak, hardly touched it. When several portions had been had and the cake was demolished, she spoke.

“Hyacinth, it's been a long day, and it's late. Why don't you go up with Jerry and Emma? You have lots to talk over, while I clean up. No, don't protest.”

What she meant was: Talk to them about the divorce.
I can't do it, since I really don't know anything about it, do I? And besides, it's not my place to do it. You're their mother.

Francine was even angry at the dishes, which had been part of Hyacinth's “trousseau.” Jim had urged them on her after Hyacinth had said that they were outrageously expensive. “But you love roses,” he had told her. Fran-cine recalled the time distinctly, a dark afternoon, a freezing snow like tonight's. But who could have foreseen this night? Even she, with all her doubts, could not have imagined it.

“Let me help you,” Arnie said. “I know all about dishes. I'm a bachelor.”

Gerald, too, had liked to make himself useful, at least at the start, when it was essential to ingratiate himself. But Arnie was different. She liked him.

“If you really want to help,” Francine replied, “you can tell me, please, what's going on with your partner. Hyacinth is keeping some secret. The situation is shaky, as you saw just now at the table, and I am sick with worry over it.”

Arnie gave a long, whistling sigh. “If I could tell you, I would. I'm very fond of Hy and don't like this crazy separation from her children. It's wrong. Wrong. But I can't get anything out of Gerald, and frankly, I've stopped trying. It makes for a delicate situation, you understand.”

“I do understand. Partners don't break up because one of them is having a marital problem.”

“Exactly. Gerald's a great doctor, and”—here Arnie
gave a sheepish grin—“and he has a great social life, too. Who was that guy who had all the women? Don Juan?”

“So that's what he does with his free time.”

“You mustn't think he neglects the kids. Got to be fair and square. He's crazy about them. They have a nice nanny, takes good care of them. He likes to show the kids off. Proud of them.”

“Yes, because they happen to be beautiful, both of them. That's why.”

“Gerald would like to talk to Hy sometime, but she hangs up the phone.”

“She can't talk to him, Arnie. It would be unbearable. He has destroyed her faith and trust—or almost, because she does trust you.”

“I hope so. I would do anything to help her.”

“I wish I could, God knows, but until she tells me, or somebody does, what's at the bottom of this affair, there's nothing I can do. I think of her all alone in this house when we leave.” A cry, against Francine's strong will, came out of her throat, out of her heart and soul. “So tender, so trusting! Filled with goodwill as she has been all her life! Even as a child, she was kind, not like most other kids, the selfish little beasts. She was always so—so decent, do you know?”

Arnie nodded. “Sure I know. Nice guys finish last. It's always been that way and always will.”

A stand of poplars in the neighbor's yard drew dark blue shadows in parallel streaks across the unmarred snow. For a long time Hyacinth, oblivious to the cold, stood alone at the open door and stared at the slender tracks
with their shadows all mathematically correct. It would be an interesting study in watercolors, she reflected.

They had gone. The house was empty without them; no more wet towels on the bathroom floor, no toys to stumble over in the hall, and no board game on the kitchen table. The house was absolutely still.

They had cried. Even the little boy, so brave in his maleness and his three years' advantage in age over his sister, had finally given way. He thought maybe it was his fault; had she been angry at him for being so messy? Or had Dad been angry because he teased Emma? But he hardly ever did that anymore!

“I will talk to you both on the telephone every day,” she had promised. Oh, she had promised and explained, somehow explained, told them all the right things about how they were loved; she had made foolish excuses about Granny's illness, had talked and talked them into comfort, and at last, into sleep.

So now they were gone. Perhaps I should kidnap them, she thought. I can sell this house; it's in my name. I can use the little money that Dad left me, and Francine will surely help me, too, and my brothers will if I should need them. Then I'll take my children and leave the country for the farthest place on the earth: Australia, Siberia, anywhere to hide and stay.

But this is nonsense. It would be terrifying for them, and it wouldn't work anyway. Gerald would know how to get them back, and he would be so furious that he would tell the whole story.

Arson. A man died.

* * *

As suddenly as the mercury had fallen, it rose, and a January thaw began to soften the hard, pristine snow. On first impulse, Hyacinth had begun the snow scene, but when after several tries it had failed to “come right,” she had thrown down the brush. Her heart was not in it.

Her “heart” was not really in anything. Her heart was the organ that pumped blood and sometimes fibrillated in a state of panic. It was quite clear that she would have to “do something.” This was the first advice that anyone with half a brain would give her if she were to ask. Fran-cine, controlling her own panic—ah, poor Francine, the trouble I made for her—insisted that she “do something.” Moira, in her tiptoe, tentative voice, had done the same. And even Arnie, over the telephone, was trying to be tactful when he inquired, as he always did, what she was “doing.”

For the present she was working on the dress that she had promised to that woman at the R. J. Miller store. Last week the head of the children's department had asked her whether she would make half a dozen more for some special customers, and she had agreed. Why not? By now the repetition of the pattern was automatic, a mindless process.

One day Will Miller came. He had cornered her on the telephone, asking whether he might drop in. There had been no way she could possibly refuse him. She had been his guest at dinner, and having accepted that, did she not owe him something in return? It was unavoidably a question of good manners.

In theory, she supposed she ought to welcome pleasant company, but in practice, in her circumstances, he
was a complication to be got rid of after this one time. In an odd way, however, the small preparations that she made for lunch were energizing. The table had to be nicely set, and the house put in perfect order; this was a matter of pride. She bought daffodils, a salmon steak, and ingredients for salad. She pressed the linen luncheon mats that had not been used since the last PTA luncheon. And she checked the house for any visible object that Emma and Jerry might have left behind; there was no reason why this stranger should know anything about her private life or her private agony.

When he appeared at the door, he did not behave like a stranger. “Notice anything different about me?” he demanded.

“The horn-rimmed glasses are gone.”

“Right. From now on it's contacts only. I wore the horn-rims, you see, because everybody advised me to look older. Now that I'm past thirty, I need to look younger. Oh, this is a nice house! It looks like you. I rather imagined it would be like this, with outdoor colors, soft greens, all these books—you're making another dress!”

Next to a chair in the living room where they stood, she had left an open basket with her sewing. Had she done so on purpose so that he would see it? She was not sure; there had been some thread of a thought when she had put the cover on the basket, and then removed it.