Antonia Lively Breaks the Silence (4 page)

“Henry,” she said, biting her lip, his name in her mouth tasting metallic. She had not known about Henry's living situation, although she should have. She'd read the two or three articles about the fire at his house in the paper; she knew the police still hadn't ruled out arson. She sighed. “Henry,” she said again, feeling dim and woozy all of a sudden, her vision narrowing, the ceiling and walls caving in upon her.

She made a move to go. Though she could feel her legs, she could not feel her feet or the floor. She couldn't catch her breath fast enough before she needed another one and her fingers tingled and her thoughts broke apart. She was in Mead Hall, but she was also at her father's house, fingering the folded slip of paper with Wyatt's name on it. Memories both dead and alive swirled inside her, as if she were a snow globe, her thoughts the bits of confetti. “Catherine,” Henry said, and his voice was miles away, though his breath was in her face, “you're breathing too quickly. Slow down.” She tried, and couldn't. “I'll be right back,” he added, and rushed away.

Then Catherine slid to the floor and shut her eyes. She struggled against the fierce, ever-tightening pressure in her chest and unbuttoned the top of her sweat-soaked blouse. All at once, she felt cooler, as her wildly arrhythmic pulse began to slow, and she opened her eyes to find Henry kneeling beside her.

“Drink this,” he said, and handed her a glass of water. He ran a cold, wet paper towel over her face and neck, and the fright passed away as quickly as it had come, leaving a black, empty space behind, a space which Catherine filled by saying, “It's the heat. I'm probably just dehydrated. I'll be fine. Really,” though she knew it would take hours, even days before she was fine again. Something unwholesome and unwanted had been released in her that no amount of rationalizing could contain.

“I'm going to call an ambulance,” he said, but Catherine shook her head.

“I'll be fine. Really,” she repeated, rising, leaning all of her weight against the wall.

“Let me at least walk you to your car,” Henry said. “Here, take my arm.” And she did, if for no other reason than out of the fear of falling; she still felt weak-kneed. They walked unhurriedly down the hall, passing one closed office door after another. When they came to Wyatt's office door, Catherine stopped almost involuntarily. She remembered last night, the figure at the window, and wanted to ask Henry if it had been him. She thought about all the times she'd sat across from Wyatt in that office and waited for him to finish up something before they went to dinner or to a movie. Her pulse quickened at these memories, that today filled her with dread more than anything, reminding her that Wyatt was not behind his office door, that he was not waiting for her anywhere. More than this, that he had left her to go on wondering forever about who or what had taken him from her the morning he'd driven away.

“What's wrong, Catherine?” Henry asked, startling her out of her reverie.

Her eyes traveled from the door of Wyatt's office to the empty hall, then settled on Henry. “I was outside this building last night. Someone was standing at the window of Wyatt's office,” she said. “It startled me, because I had heard it was still empty.”

“That's strange,” he said. “No one's using it. Not officially. And all of these doors are locked. I'm the only one with a key besides the janitor. Are you positive you saw somebody?”

“Don't patronize me,” she said. “Of course I saw someone.” She wanted to add, I saw you!

“If someone's lurking about, I should contact campus security,” he said. “The last thing this department needs is another scandal.”

Catherine knew he meant Wyatt and the accident, and withered against his unthinking, unkind declaration. Without another word, she walked away from him, down the stairs and into the twilit heat. Then Henry was at her back, saying her name, but she headed for her car, not bothering to turn around. When she finally got to her car and eventually turned around, Henry wasn't there.

As she drove off, she pictured the cottage, which she had not thought to show Antonia, this cottage that she'd never wanted to have renovated. It had come with the property and had sat dilapidated and unusable, until one afternoon Wyatt suddenly announced that he wanted—no, needed, he'd said—his own space in which to write. He needed a place away, he said, where he could drift and listen. Catherine had given in begrudgingly, yet over time she had grown to love the cottage as much as Wyatt did, even if she still hated how easily she'd given in to the renovation. Tonight, however, as she rolled into her driveway, the headlights flashing across the cottage's shuttered windows, she detested the sight of it again, this reminder of a more promising time. She wanted it all back, Wyatt, their life together, every last argument and disappointment, every last word uttered in the dark of their bedroom. She wanted to fill both the house and cottage with him again, with his hard work and faith.

Twenty-five feet wide by fifty-five feet long, the cottage had been completely gutted and remodeled to Wyatt's taste. They'd had it painted the same oyster-blue as the house, and because it matched the house so well, most people mistook it for an extension, rather than what it was, a freestanding unit. Solidly built, it came with thick, double-insulated windows that kept out both noise and heat.

After climbing out of the car, Catherine went into the house, and in one long movement she stepped out of her flats and poured a glass of wine, then slumped down on the sofa. Shutting her eyes, she imagined the cottage as it once was, full of Wyatt, his incessant typing, and then as it might have been if only she'd gotten to Antonia sooner.

Until this afternoon, she'd never thought about renting the cottage to anyone, even after Wyatt's death, when she could have used the money most. It had been his space, hallowed and holy.

After she took a couple of sips of wine, she got up and flipped on the radio, the room filling instantly with the voice of an actor reading a story. With Wyatt, she'd often enjoyed “Selected Shorts,” curling up beside him on the sofa, drinks in hand. She came to this evening's story in the middle and, tucking her legs under her, let it carry her away. After it was done, it was hard not to think about Wyatt's novel, how wonderful she still found it despite Henry's ludicrous, malicious review. Still rattled from today's brief meeting with him, she nonetheless allowed herself to imagine Henry in the cottage. It was, she knew, a perverse indulgence. What would it be like to see him coming and going every day? What would it be like to have him so close? Even the momentary idea of it nauseated her, and she abandoned the idea.

Still, she couldn't abandon the memories that seeing him again had revived: that he'd been awarded the Pulitzer Prize at thirty, that he was the one man in the world most able to launch or cripple a literary career, that he'd once written a novel that had never gotten published (and that he'd let her once read; one of the only people in the world, he'd told her). His collected essays still sold out at the bookstore, and his reviews, from what she remembered—she'd stopped reading them ages ago—were well written and graceful, his impassioned critiques almost never wrong. Almost.

Later, as she went around the house readying it for sleep, she recalled a different Henry, a man who'd promised her a long, fruitful life of publishing. She found it difficult to reconcile the younger Henry, the one who'd supported her dreams, with the other Henry, the one who'd damned her husband into obscurity. Yet she knew she had to set these uneasy feelings about him aside to focus on more practical, urgent matters: her overdue mortgage, the dying car, the money pit of a house—the ongoing financial strain that Wyatt's death had left behind.

Rather than fortifying the house, paying off his troublesome credit-card debt, and securing their bright, golden future, Wyatt had talked Catherine into spending tens of thousands of dollars on the cottage instead. As she propped herself up in bed to read, she thought about the empty space and how it would remain that way. No, the thought of Henry Swallow as a tenant was something she simply couldn't abide. Still, she did feel the tiniest bit sorry for him. How could she not, when it was partly her own fault that he'd wound up in Winslow?

“Wyatt,” she asked, “what am I supposed to do?”

But Wyatt didn't answer.

He rarely if ever did.

A Look Never Hurts

_____

The next morning, Catherine awoke on Wyatt's side of the bed and lingered there, as she sometimes still did. Mornings were the toughest on her, and always had been, with Wyatt flying out of bed to get to his writing and her hurrying away to work, still half asleep, still half dreaming of a time when he would hit it big, and they'd have a more leisurely life. For nine years, she kept those dreams to herself, and for nine years she watched him toil—all for nought, she thought as the sun forced its way into the room, the heat already dampening her skin, darkening her mood. She'd slept poorly again, though, in the end, it was her encounter with Henry that had kept her from sleep. Try as she might, she couldn't shake him from her thoughts any more than she could shake the part she'd played in his unfortunate relocation to the town. Yes, this is partly my fault, she thought as she smoothed out the sheets.

Over coffee, she perused the real-estate ads, wanting to prove Henry wrong. Contrary to his complaints that nothing was available for rent, there were a dozen places to be had. Like always, she knew the houses couldn't possibly meet his standards, that he was being far too fussy. For as long as she'd known him, this had always been the case. Yet how could she hold this against him? The man has good taste, she thought, recalling the first time she'd stepped into his office at NYU—the sumptuous space of dark-wood paneling, the Oriental rug, the leather recliner, the real Tiffany lamp. She, too, knew beauty, which was why she'd begged Wyatt to put down part of his advance money on the 1920s Craftsman bungalow she now lived in alone.

Currently, the house was in need of both a new roof and new paint, but she thought it was still the most attractive house on the block, with its brick columns and whitewashed steps. The patchy yard could have used some landscaping, and some of the aged leaded-glass windows could have used repairing, but she had no money for such extravagances. Besides the house's upkeep, she also had to deal with the gas, electric, and water bills; the phone; property and school taxes; health insurance; and the car, the transmission of which she knew could go at any time. Though she loved the house, the history it contained, she had no idea how she could go on living in it, especially on what she made at the bookstore.

Another Friday morning and Catherine pinned on her name tag and slid behind the register while Jane was in the storeroom. The sunlight fell through the display windows, touching the green carpet, umber-colored walls, and the backs of the few people rummaging the books. Almost every college town in America had a version of Page Turners, which was one of two bookstores in Winslow and catered to locals and students alike, though the students also had their own store on campus. Such a magical space, Catherine thought, and it was, with its handcrafted mahogany bookshelves and an atmosphere that invited hours of browsing and lounging in the large, comfy chairs. Catherine had pushed Harold, the owner, into the revamp and was more than glad she had. Not only was the store a reflection of her good taste, she believed the renovation would help business, which it had, at least for a while.

Many, many years ago, when she'd first started working at Page Turners, Catherine had suggested that they do what other bookstores in the country did and hold literary events. “Look around you, Catherine,” Harold had said, laughing. “You aren't in Manhattan anymore. Hell, you aren't even in Manhattan, Kansas.”

Every couple of years, she'd bring it up again at one of the staff meetings, and every year without fail Harold vetoed it. His aversion to change astounded her, especially since he knew that she lived with a writer and that this writer, her husband, was acquainted with some very influential people. It would not have been impossible that he could have talked some of them into coming to Winslow to give a reading.

Now here we are, nine years later, she thought as Jane returned from the storeroom, took one look at her, and said, “What are you doing here?”

“Um, I work here,” Catherine said, confused.

“Oh, Lord, it figures,” she said. “Harold forgot to call you, didn't he?”

“Call me about what?” she asked, although she had a sense of what was coming, not just because of the look on Jane's face but also because it stood to reason: it wouldn't be the car's transmission that finally did her in but Harold and his financial hysteria. Harold who liked to show up unexpectedly from time to time just to complain about their performances, shaking the monthly sales reports in their faces. Sometimes he stopped in to get the small handgun—a Raven P-25—from under the register because, as he said, “I have to do some target practice just in case I go bankrupt and have to fend for myself in the wilderness.”

“He shaved everybody's hours back,” Jane was saying. “You know how he gets in the summer. The big drama queen.”

“Yes,” Catherine said, reminding herself to breathe.

“I'm sure it's only temporary. You know what an alarmist he can be. So if worst comes to worst, I'll give you one of my shifts. You can have my Fridays,” she said, smiling.

Jane didn't need the job. She'd inherited some money from her grandmother and lived in a big prairie house, drove new cars, and took fancy vacations to places like Paris and Tokyo. Yet in all the years Catherine had known her, she'd never taken a personal day, unless she was truly sick, her devotion to the store as fierce as her devotion to her friends. It's not about the money, she once told Catherine, it's about the books, and the people who buy them. For her, the job's real currency was time, the hours she spent in the store readjusting the shelves, ordering books, speaking to the customers. This job, she said, was an extension of herself, and gave meaning to her day. It gave Catherine's day meaning as well, though the job was indispensable to her. She couldn't possibly go on without it.

“I couldn't take your Fridays, but thank you anyway,” she said.

She'd been working every day except Sunday for the last year and a half, earning roughly five hundred dollars a week after taxes. She was also receiving Wyatt's Social Security checks and was grateful for this extra money, although it wasn't much. It was embarrassing for her to think she'd come in this morning all prepared to ask Harold for a raise. During this time of economic hardship, with the country going through a terrible recession, Catherine understood Harold's position. Still, she couldn't help feeling that he was punishing her for talking him into the revamp. According to Jane, though, this wasn't it at all.

“Does it make cents?” she asked. “That's his big catchphrase right now. ‘Does it make cents?' I think his therapist is probably having a field day with that one.”

Though it made perfect sense to her that Harold might want out of the book business—“I should turn this place into a bar. Liquor's quicker,” he liked to say—she knew deep down he cherished Page Turners as much they all did but perhaps not as much as Catherine herself. She'd taken the job to give Wyatt some quiet; he often complained about the least little noise she made. That was Wyatt. He found distraction in everything—from the birds out his window to the dogs in the street. Finally, it was his typing and tantrums—his creative constipation, she secretly called it—that drove Catherine from the house. What kept her away was something else, however, a sense of desperation whenever she passed his study door.

Even as another customer wandered in and Jane went to help him, Catherine felt herself deflating, wondering how she would make ends meet. Was she doomed to live out the rest of her days working part-time in a poorly managed bookstore in upstate New York? How had she let herself come to this? She suspected that things might have been different had she just finished her PhD. Yet that was almost a decade ago, and there was just no way she could return to the university now.

She thought about Henry, who'd built his career on tearing apart the novels of others. Though Wyatt had assured her otherwise, she knew that he'd never quite recovered from Henry's ridicule. Yet more than Henry's ridicule, Catherine wondered again if it was his having to work under Henry and interact with him every day that had really done her husband in. While there was nothing she could do to bring Wyatt back, she understood now, as she wandered into the storeroom and shut the door, that to get through she'd simply have to swallow her own indignity. Did she care where the money came from as long as it came? Did it matter if Henry were in the cottage for a couple of months, just until she could find someone else?

Of course, it mattered, it mattered deeply, but Catherine knew this might be the only way. As she picked up the phone to call him, shaking as she dialed, she imagined the thrill in her fingers as they folded his rent checks. Yet the second she heard his voice, she faltered and hung up. I can't do this, she thought, the receiver still pressed to her ear. Do it, she thought, but this was her younger self whispering at her. Do it, she thought again. Ask an unreasonable price. Take him for everything you can. You deserve it.

So she rang Henry again and hung up again, picturing him at the large desk, hunched over a book, as always, so many years older than the man she remembered. Later, she thought. I'll call him later and went out to help a customer because it was Friday, she was already there, and she didn't know what else to do with herself.

C
ATHERINE WANTED TO
tell Jane about her plan, but if she told Jane she'd also have to tell Louise, who would instantly scold her. “You can't be serious, Catherine. The things I hear, well, and after what he did . . . He's just not suitable,” she'd say. Catherine knew she'd come home one day to find an envelope on the floor among her other mail, Louise's generous check inside it. Nope, no choice, she thought as the sun vanished behind a cloud, taking the last of her resolve with it. Just call him, she thought, and get it over with. Maybe he'll say no and that will be that.

While Jane was with a customer, Catherine went back into the storeroom and shut the door. After she picked up the phone, she dialed Henry, and when she heard his voice this time, she finally understood there was no turning back.

They said their hellos, then fell silent.

“Look,” she finally said, “this is going to sound strange, but I was wondering if you want to come have a look at the cottage.”

“You mean the same cottage you were so keen to show Antonia but not me,” he said, as the cottage rose up in her mind, empty of Wyatt but not his cherrywood desk on which he wrote his beautiful stories. In that moment, she filled the cottage with him again, the hum of his typewriter, the squeal of his red chair. How could she possibly do this to him? How could she possibly not do this for herself?

“Do you want to have a look at the cottage or not?” she asked, repeating herself, trying desperately not to sound desperate.

“I guess it couldn't hurt,” he said.

“A look never hurts,” she said. “Let's say nine thirty tonight.”

“Nine thirty it is,” he said. “Though I have to ask: are you sure about this, Catherine?”

“No, I'm not, but being sure is a luxury, isn't it,” she said, hanging up before she said something else she'd regret.

C
ATHERINE FINISHED UP
her last Friday shift, though during it her mind was elsewhere. It was in the house, straightening up, at the door, waiting for Henry. Every time she was about to tell Jane about what she'd done, the bell on the door jangled, and another customer wandered in.

At five o'clock, she said good-bye to Jane and drove home. Once there, she spent the rest of the afternoon in the pool, drifting in listless circles and reading a memoir titled
The Hunger Maiden,
all about the struggles and heroics of a young nurse during the Second World War. According to the nurse's account, she'd had sex with dozens and dozens of Nazi doctors in exchange for handguns and grenades. After smuggling the weapons past the guards and into the camps—she often got herself reassigned—she then distributed them to the Jewish prisoners, who launched a revolt. The book had been translated from the German into English and had come out in May. Even though it was still selling exceptionally well, as most Holocaust memoirs did, it had recently been debunked as a fraud, the author unmasked as a middle-aged Texas man.

Unsurprisingly, Henry had given it a deplorable review, not only calling it a filthy display of sensationalism but also calling for the publisher to pull it from the shelves, which they eventually did. Though Catherine sympathized with Henry and understood that the Texas man had violated a serious trust between writer and reader, she had bought it to find out what all the fuss was about. Rather than sensational, she found the memoir both gripping and heartrending, and couldn't put it down. She liked reading a good, moving story, even if it meant having to quiet that part of her that raged against the story's improper origins.

After dinner, Catherine poured a glass of wine, and took it out to the deck where she returned to the memoir. The night was full of distractions, though, and she found it hard to concentrate. There were fireflies and a warm wind that shook the branches of the sycamore, scraping them against the cottage. A pack of dogs trotted through the nearby alley, chasing what she couldn't see. There was music and shouting from the house next door, where a trio of blond girls was hosting their first party of the summer. She stayed on the deck for some time, taking in the smells and sounds, but when the laughter and shouts became too much, she went back into the house.

This June night, feeling more restless than usual, Catherine wanted nothing more than to sit in a bar somewhere in Manhattan, to drink and to laugh, to smoke and to forget. At times like these, she wanted to flee the house and the town and never look back. Though she liked her life in Winslow—the relatively empty summers, the simpler way of life, the friendly faces—she would have given anything for an invitation to a dinner party in the city, to feel again that sense of countless variety and endless possibility. Even now, especially now, she hated Wyatt for stranding them in Winslow, this beautiful yet luckless place. Drowsy, Catherine stretched out on the sofa and shut her eyes, imagining Antonia in the house down the block. Henry had said she'd come to work on a novel, but of all the places in the world, why here? Had she really come for love, as Catherine had, or to escape it? Was she only in the town for the summer or for good?