Bygones (12 page)

“And you're sure you're ready to hear it now?”

“Is it going to make me mad?”

“I don't know. That depends on how much you've grown up in six years.”

“It was partly my fault, is that what you're saying?”

“It always takes two, honey, but when a man retaliates by having an affair, he's usually the one who gets all the blame.”

“All right, what did I do?” Bess's voice grew defensive. “I went back to college to get my degree! Was that so wrong?”

“Not at all. But while you were doing it you totally forgot about your husband.”

“I did not! He wouldn't let me forget about him. I still had to cook and do laundry and keep the house in shape.”

“Those are superficialities. I'm talking about your personal relationship.”

“Mother, there wasn't time!”

“Now there, I think you've put your finger on it.” Stella let that sink in while she went to the kitchen to refresh her tea. When she returned to the living room, Bess was sitting with one elbow on the high sofa arm, her thumbnail between her teeth, staring out the window.

Stella resumed her seat and said, “Remember when you were first married how you used to ask Dad and me to take the kids occasionally so you and Michael could go off camping by yourselves? And the Christmas you bought him that shotgun that he wanted so badly, and hid it over at our place so he wouldn't find out? Remember all the trouble we went to, sneaking that thing into your house and hiding it on Christmas Eve? And then there was the April Fools' Day when you had that Fanny Farmer box delivered to his office and it was full of nuts and bolts.”

Bess stared at the snowy golf course, her Coke forgotten.

“Those are the kinds of things that should never stop,” her mother said.

“Was I the only one who stopped them?”

“I don't know. Were you?”

“I didn't think so then.”

“You got awfully caught up in school, and after it was finished, in opening your store. When you'd stop over to see us you were always alone, never with Michael anymore, always rushing between two places. I know for a fact that you stopped having Dad and me over for meals, and that sometimes the kids would come over and act a little forlorn and abandoned.”

Bess looked at her mother and remarked, “That's when Michael accused me of letting myself go.”

“As I recall, you did.”

“But I asked him for help around the house and he refused to give it. Isn't he partly to blame?”

“Maybe. But those kinds of things are a trade-off. Maybe he'd have helped you around the house if he hadn't fallen to the bottom of your priority list. How was your sex life?”

Bess looked out the window and answered, “Shitty.”

“You didn't have time for it, right?”

“I thought once I got through school and had my own business, everything would fall back into place. I could get a housekeeper, maybe, and I'd have more time to relax with him.”

“Only he didn't wait.”

Bess got up and passed the easel to stand near the window with one hand on her hip. She drank her Coke, then turned to Stella. “Last night he told me I looked great, and do you know how angry it made me?”

“Why?”

“Because!” Bess flung up one hand. “Because . . . hell, I don't know. Because he's just sloughed off another wife and he's probably lonely and I don't want him crawling back to me under those circumstances. I don't want him crawling back to me at all! And Randy was watching us from the other end of the table! And I was upset with myself because I took an hour and fifteen minutes getting ready for that damned supper just to show him I could knock his socks off and . . . and . . . then when I did . . .” Bess covered her eyes with one hand and shook her head vehemently. “Hell, Mom, I don't know. It just seems like all of a sudden I'm so damned lonely and I'm caught in this wedding situation and I'm . . . I'm asking myself questions.” She stared unseeingly outside and ended, more quietly, “I don't know.”

Stella set her mug on the coffee table and went to her daughter. From behind, she finger-combed Bess's hair back to her nape, then massaged her shoulders.

“You're going through a catharsis that's been six years coming, that's what it is. All that time you've hated him and blamed him, and all of a sudden you're starting to explore your own fault in the matter. That's not easy.”

“I don't love him anymore, Mother, I really don't.”

“All right, so you don't.”

“Then why does it hurt so much to see him?”

“Because he's making you take this second look at yourself. Here.” Stella produced a wrinkled Kleenex and handed it to Bess.

It smelled like turpentine when Bess blew her nose in it. “I'm sorry, Mom,” she said, drying her eyes.

“Don't be sorry. I'm a big girl. I can handle it.”

“But coming here like this, spoiling your day.”

“You haven't spoiled my day. Matter of fact, I think you've made it.” Walking Bess back to the sofa with one arm around her shoulders Stella asked, “Feel better now?”

“Yes. Sort of.”

“Then let me tell you something. It was all right for you to be angry at first, right after the divorce. Your anger is what got you through. Then you got efficient, businesslike, and threw all your energies into showing him you could make it on your own. And you did make it. But now you're going into another stage where you're going to do more questioning, and I suspect you might have a few more days like this. When you do, come over and we'll talk you through it, just as we did today. Now sit down, tell me about the wedding plans, and about Lisa's young man, and about what I have to wear to this shindig and if you think I might meet any interesting men there.”

Bess laughed. “Mother, you're incorrigible. I thought you didn't want a ball and chain around your ankle.”

“I don't. But you can only stand so much of hearing women's cackly voices before you need to hear a male one, and I've been playing an awful lot of bridge this winter.”

Bess gave her mother an impulsive hug. “Mom, maybe I never told you this before, but you're my idol. I wish I could be more like you.”

Stella hugged her back and said, “You're a lot like me. I see more of me in you every day.”

“But you never get down.”

“The heck I don't. But when it happens I just go out and join another club.”

“Or look for a man.”

“Well . . . there's nothing wrong with that. And speaking of the critters, how are you and Keith getting along?”

“Oh . . . Keith.” Bess made a face and shrugged. “He got upset because I had to break a dinner date with him to go to the Padgetts' last night. You know how he is where the kids are concerned.”

“I'll tell you something,” Stella said, “since we're being honest with each other today. That man is not for you.”

“Have you and Lisa been comparing notes or what?”

“Maybe.”

Bess laughed. “Why, you two devils. If you think this wedding business is going to get me back together with Michael, you're wrong.”

“I didn't say a word.”

“No, but you're thinking it, and you can just forget it, Mother.”

Stella lifted one eybrow and asked, “How does he look? He still as handsome as ever?”

“Moth-er!” Bess looked exasperated.

“Just curious.”

“It'll never happen, Mother,” Bess vowed.

Stella put on a smug expression and said, “How do you know? Stranger things have.”

 

THAT SAME SUNDAY MORNING Michael Curran awakened, stretched and stacked his hands behind his head, loath to stir and rise. His stomach grumbled but he remained, staring at the ceiling, which took on a rosy glow from the bright sunlight bouncing off the carpeting. The bedroom was huge, square, with triple sliding glass doors facing the lake, and a marble fireplace. The room held nothing more than a television set and the pair of mattresses upon which Michael lay. They were pushed against the north wall to keep his pillows from falling off.

The ten o'clock sun, reflecting off the frozen lake, made a nebula of light patterns on the ceiling, broken by strands of shadow from the naked elm trees beyond the deck. The building was absolutely silent; it was designed to be. No children were allowed, and most of the wealthy tenants had gone south for the winter, so he rarely crossed paths with anyone, not even in the elevator.

It was lonely.

He thought about last night, about his encounter with Randy. He closed his eyes and saw his nineteen-year-old son, bearing so much resemblance to himself, and so much animosity. The impact of seeing him came back afresh, bringing a replay of last night's convoluted emotions: love, hope, disappointment and a feeling of failure that made his chest feel heavy.

He opened his eyes to the ceiling designs.

How it hurt, being disowned by one's own child. Perhaps, as Bess had accused, he'd been guilty of withdrawing from Randy's life emotionally as well as physically, but wasn't Randy at fault, too, for refusing to see him? On the other hand, if Bess could have felt the cataclysm he'd experienced when he'd seen Randy walk into that house last night, she would have been forced to reconsider her words.

That boy—that
man—
was his son. His son, whose last six vital growing years had been lost to Michael, largely against his choice. If Bess had encouraged, or if Randy had not been brainwashed, he, Michael, would have been seeing Randy all along. There were things the two of them could have done together, particularly hunting and enjoying the outdoors. Instead, Michael had been excluded from everything, even Randy's high-school graduation. He'd known, of course, that Randy was graduating. When no announcement came he'd called Bess and asked about it, but Bess had replied, “He doesn't want you here.”

He'd sent money, five hundred dollars. It was never acknowledged, either by written or spoken word, except for Lisa who, when Michael had asked, told him on the phone some weeks later, “He put it down on a thirteen-hundred-dollar set of drums.”

A set of drums.

Why hadn't Bess seen to it that the kid went to college? Or a trade school? Something besides that dead-end job in a warehouse. After the way Bess had fought to complete her own college education he'd have thought she'd have taken a strong stand on the issue with her own kids. Maybe she had, and maybe it simply hadn't worked.

Bess.

Boy-o-boy, how she'd changed. When she'd walked into that room last night the craziest thing had happened! He'd actually felt a little charge. Yeah, it was crazy, all right, because Bess had a sharp edge to her now, a veneer of hardness he found abrasive. But she was his children's mother, and a transformed lady, and in spite of the way she carefully distanced herself from him, they shared a past that would forever intrude upon their lingering dissatisfactions with one another. He'd bet any money she felt it, too, at times.

Sitting next to each other at the dinner table, looking over at Lisa and Randy, how could either of them deny the gravity of memory?

As he lay in his unfurnished condominium with the Sunday sun shifting through the room, recollections of their beginnings played back through his mind—when Bess was in high school, and he, already a sophomore in college, had gone back for homecoming and had discovered her all grown up, an underclassman he didn't even remember. The first time he'd kissed her they were walking back to his car after a University of Minnesota football game in the fall of '66. The first time they'd made love was toward the end of her senior year on a Sunday afternoon when a gang of them had gone to Taylors Falls with picnic food, Frisbees and plenty of blankets. They'd been married a year later, with him fresh out of college and her with three more years to go. They'd spent their wedding night in the bridal suite at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Minneapolis.

Her mom and dad had given them the room as a surprise, and a bunch of her girlfriends had bought her a lacy white nightgown with a thin thing that went over it. He recalled how, when she came out of the bathroom wearing it, he was waiting in his blue pajama bottoms, both of them as hesitant as if it were their first time. He'd thought he'd never forget the details of that night but over time they'd become blurred. What he did remember, clearly, was waking the next morning. It was June and sunny and on the dresser sat a basket of fruit from the hotel management, along with two fluted glasses from the night before, each half-full of bubbleless champagne. He'd opened his eyes to find Bess next to him, with her nightgown back on. He'd lain there wondering when she'd gotten up and put it on, and if she expected him to wear his pajamas all night, too, and if, in spite of their premarital sex, she'd turn out to be a prude. Then she'd awakened and smiled, indulged in a quivering, all-over stretch, lain on her side facing him with her hands joined near her knees, and he'd gotten a hard-on just looking at her.

When the stretch ended she'd said simply, “Hi.”

“Hi,” he'd answered.

They'd lain a long time, looking at each other, absorbing the novelty and wonder of sanctioned morning bliss. He remembered her cheeks had grown flushed and supposed his had done the same.

In time she'd said, “Just imagine, nobody can ever send you home at one A.M. again. We get to wake up together for the rest of our lives.”

“It's wild, isn't it?”

“Yeah,” she'd whispered, “pretty wild.”

“You put your nightgown back on.”

“I can't sleep without something on. I wake up and my arms are stuck to my sides. What about you?” The sheet covered him to his ribs.

“I don't have that problem,” he'd answered, “but I've got another one.”

She had put her hand on his hip—he remembered so vividly what had followed, for in all of his life to that point nothing had been as incredible as that morning. Sex before marriage had been frequent for them but it had carried restraints, nevertheless. That sunny June morning when she had reached out for him those restraints had dissolved. They
felt
married, they
belonged
to each other and there was a difference. The vows they'd spoken gave them license and they reveled in it.

He had seen her half-naked, nearly naked, had gotten her naked from the waist down a lot of times. They'd made love in the sunlight wrapped in a blanket, in the moonlight wrapped in shadows and in cars beneath streetlamps with their socks still on. Even on their wedding night they'd left only the bathroom light on to shed a dim glow from around a corner. But that morning, the day after their wedding, the east sun had been streaming in a broad, high window, and she'd taken off his sheet and he'd taken off her nightgown and they'd indulged their eyes for the first time. In that regard they'd been virgins, and nothing he'd experienced before or since had been any sweeter.

Their breakfast had been delivered on a rolling cart with white linen and a red rose. Over the meal they had studied each other's eyes and reaffirmed that they'd done the right thing, and that their joy was so intense it eclipsed any other they'd ever felt.

About that day he recalled most vividly the overriding sense of consecration they'd both felt. They had met in an era when more and more young couples were declaring,
Marriage is dead,
and were choosing to set up housekeeping together instead. They'd discussed doing the same thing but had decided no, they loved each other and wanted to commit for life.

After breakfast they'd made love again, then had bathed and dressed and walked to St. Olaf's for Mass.

June 8, 1968, their wedding day.

And now it was January 1990, and he was rolling off his mattresses in an empty condo, dressed in gray sweatpants, aroused once again from his memories.

Forget it, Curran. Horn in. She doesn't want you, you don't really want her and your own kid treats you like a leper. That ought to tell you something.

He shuffled to the bathroom, switched on the light, flattened one palm on the vanity top, examined his face and harvested some sand from his eyes. He swigged a mouthful of cinnamon-flavored Plax, swished it around for the recommended thirty seconds and brushed his teeth with a full one inch of red Close-Up. Bess had always harangued him about using too much toothpaste.
You don't need that much,
she'd told him,
half that much is enough.
Now, damn it, he used as much as he wanted and nobody nagged. He brushed for one whole minute, rinsed, then bared his teeth to the mirror and thought, Look at these, Bess, pretty damned nice for a forty-three-year-old, eh?

His flawless teeth were of curiously little consolation this morning in his big, empty, silent condo.

He wiped his mouth, threw down the towel and went to the kitchen. It was tiled in white, had white Formica cabinets trimmed with blond oak and was connected to a family room with sliding glass doors at its far end, facing a small park with a gazebo. His entire pantry stock, on an oversized island in the middle of the kitchen, looked like a city block from 30,000 feet. Instant coffee, a box of Grape-Nuts, a loaf of Taystee bread, a jar of peanut butter, another of grape jelly, a half-stick of margarine smeared on its gold foil wrapper, a handful of paper sugar packets and a plastic spoon and knife he'd kept from Hardee's.

He stood awhile, staring at the collection.

Two times I've let women clean me out. When am I going to learn?

A quick-flash came along: the four of them—himself, Bess, Randy and Lisa—during those fun years when the kids were old enough to sit at the table and swing their feet without their toes touching the floor. Lisa, fresh from church, with her hair in pigtails and her elbows on the table, picking apart a piece of toast and eating it in tiny increments (all the while with her feet swinging wildly): “I saw Randy pick his nose in church this morning and wipe it on the bottom of the pew.
Yuuuuukkkk!”

“I dint neither! She's lying!”

“You did, too! I saw you, Randy, you're
so gross!”

“Mom, she lies all the time.” (This with a whine that verified his guilt.)

“I'm
never
sitting in that pew again!”

Bess and Michael exchanging glances with their lips pursed to keep from hooting before Bess remarked, “Randy picks his nose in church, his dad does it when he's sitting at stop lights.”

“I do not!” Michael had yelped.

“You do, too!”

Then the whole family breaking into laughter before Bess delivered an admonition about hygiene and handkerchiefs.

Sunday breakfasts were a lot different then.

In his White Bear Lake condominium, Michael poured some Grape-Nuts into a white plastic deli-food container, covered them with milk from the otherwise empty refrigerator, tore open a sugar packet, took his plastic spoon and returned to his mattresses, where he propped his pillows against the wall, turned on the TV and sat down to eat alone.

He wasn't up to either evangelists or cartoons, however, and found his mind returning to the perplexing stringball of family relationships he was trying to unknot. For perhaps the ten thousandth time in his life he wished he had sisters and brothers. What would it be like to pick up the phone and say, “Hi, you got any coffee over there?” and sit down with someone who'd shared your past, and your parents, and some warm memories, and maybe a few scoldings, and the chicken pox, and the same first-grade teacher, and teenage clothing, and double dates and memories of Mom's cooking? Someone who knew all you'd put into your lifetime's struggles, and who cared about your happiness and how you felt today.

How he felt today was lonely. So damned lonely, and hurting some, and wondering where to go next in his life. How to be a father to Randy, and how to make it through this wedding, and what tack to take with Bess, and what to make of these nostalgic thoughts he'd been having about her. Even being a grandfather—he'd like to talk about that.

Alas, there was no brother, no sister, and he felt as cheated and isolated as ever.

He got up, showered, shaved and dressed, then tried working awhile at his desk in one of the other two bedrooms, but the silence and emptiness were so depressing he had to get out.

He decided to go shopping for some furniture. He sure as hell needed it, and at least in the stores there'd be people moving around.

He went to Dayton's Home Store on highway 36, thinking he'd simply pick a living-roomful and have it delivered, but discovered to his dismay that just about everything would have to be ordered and would take from six weeks to six months to arrive. Furthermore, he had no carpet samples, no wallpaper samples and no idea what he really wanted.

He went next to Levitz, where he walked the aisles between assembled rooms and tried to visualize pieces in his condo but found he had no concept of what would look good. Color, in particular, threw him, and size, of course, became a factor. He realized that all the places he'd ever lived in had been decorated primarily by women and that he had no eye for it whatsoever.