Creatures of Habit (14 page)

T
HE ONLY OTHER
story in town that could hope to compete with the ones the children made up about her (that she killed her husband, that she tortured children she caught stealing fruit, that once a year she killed and ate the brain of a monkey and bought a replacement) was the town's murder-suicide
story of 1967. Somehow, though, your story was more sympathetic if your husband killed you first and then killed himself. Everybody had heard it described in great detail: brains on the ceiling, lung on the door. No surprise that the murder-suicide house stayed empty for many years. Apparently nobody wanted the house even after it was gutted and rebuilt and repainted. Through all the years, it had been empty more than occupied. People said the house gave off bad vibrations that over time were unbearable.

People also knew Albert's story, how he used the sash from her silk bathrobe—a lovely pale ivory raw silk—and how he tied it off too short.

S
HE'D BEEN IN
the yard watering her peonies. It was early morning, a sunny June morning, and she had had the hose nozzle turned to the finest mist of spray so as not to harm the bright saucer-sized blooms. She was picking the ants from the petals; she had leaned close and breathed in the sweet heady fragrance.

Kick gasp kick.
The coroner guessed for five minutes.

Now she could hear him. Now she knew. But then she had been hearing a bird far off near the river. She had heard the children from the apartments across the way, calling “The mosquito truck is coming, the mosquito truck.”

“I guess he was what you'd call an amateur,” she'd said to the coroner.

“What?”

“You know, in the entertainment business,” she said, but really she was thinking in the self-hanging business, in the noose-tying business, in the leaving-a-wife-all-alone-to-fend-for-herself business.

“But wonder why he used this,” he asked and shook the silk belt from her robe, “instead of this?” He held out the coil of rope that he said was down by the chair Albert had kicked out from under himself.

“Maybe he didn't want burns on his neck,” she'd suggested, but what she'd decided to believe was that using her sash was his way of letting her know he was thinking of her at that very moment. He was thinking of the Christmas morning when they sat sipping coffee before the sun rose. He was sending a message to her:
I am thinking of you, Rommy. I cannot put it into words because I can't be sure that you would be the one to read them. I believe you already know all that there is to know and that you have kindly looked the other way. You made a sacrifice and now it is my turn. Because I love you. Because it is your turn to have a life
.

Someday, when she died, would they come in and fumigate
her
house? Would nobody would want to buy it? Would
they call it the suicide house and would it stay on the market until some unsuspecting soul from out of town fell in love with her trees and gardens?

O
NE DAY IN
early fall, she was surprised to see a band of kids on bikes circling closer and closer to her house. She knew they had their eyes on the ripened pomegranates that hung near the ground. She pretended not to notice them and carried on a loud and lively conversation with Mister Simmy. She told the story of Persephone and how the poor darling was left to live in Hades six months of the year just because she ate some pomegranate seeds. Simmy screeched and carried on as he always did when children were in the vicinity.

“What's that?” she asked the monkey. “Did I hear you say that we have company?” She walked to the end of her porch where several had parked their bikes and were crouched down in the dirt. They froze when they saw her there, a circle of dirty faces. She looked around, all the hands slipping into pockets and behind their backs. There were five of them gathered there. One boy was too old and smug looking to be playing with the little ones.

“I'm glad you stopped to pick pomegranates. I have trouble getting down that low,” she said.

The smallest girl began to cry and was comforted by one of the older ones, a girl about nine or ten years old, who stood up tall. The girl's dark hair was slicked back in a ponytail and she put her hands on her hips as she stared at Rommy, took a deep breath and stepped forward, dragging the little one along with her. “Are you going to report us to the police?”

“No,” Rommy said. “I just want to warn you that the juice stains from a pomegranate will never come out of your clothes so be careful.” Her hands were shaking and she clasped them behind her back. “Stain your skin, too.”

“Thank you,” the tall girl said. She stared directly into Rommy's eyes, then shook her head in embarrassment when the little one cried louder and harder about how she didn't want to live in Rommy's house in a rusty monkey cage. She didn't want to see the dead man in the freezer. She didn't want her tongue put through a meat grinder.

“Can we go now?” the girl asked. “My sister is a little bit upset.” It was clear that she was comfortable in her skin, bright and dependable, the kind of girl Rommy had been. “I told her that none of those stories are true but, you know,” the girl shrugged, “she's just a kid.”

“Here's a story that's true,” the older boy said and popped up the front tire of his bike. “Old women who live all alone
sometimes get robbed at night. Sometimes they get
raped,
” he stretched the word out in such a frightening way that the little girl buried her head in the stomach of the older girl and the other two little ones ran toward the complex, leaving their bikes behind.

“Really?” Rommy shook her head. “That's shocking and sad. I feel sorry for whoever is so lost to the world that he'd do such a thing.”

“We find condoms out behind your house all the time,” the boy said. She recognized him. She had seen him spit a wad of chewing tobacco into Mister Simmy's cage and then run off behind the apartments. She had seen him tease Simmy with a banana, yanking it away at the last minute. He stepped closer, an apple in one hand, as he eyed Simmy's cage. “People go out in your backyard late at night and do things you can't even imagine.”

“Oh, I
can
imagine,” she said. “There is so much activity of a sexual nature in my yard you just wouldn't believe it. Some plants, like those pomegranates, have to mate in order to bear fruit. That kiwi vine, too. Just like in human life, you need a male and a female in order to produce. And then there are those lilies whose loud colors scream out that they want to be fertilized right that second.” She breathed out and unclasped her hands. “And the modest little yucca who
closes up once the process has taken place.” The children were watching her, waiting. “Sometimes all you need is a good breeze,” she whispered. The leaves were turning and soon they would cover the ground. This year she would get out and rake just as she and Albert had always done. She wished she could hire some of the children to help her. She would teach them all about her yard. They would love that, love gathering apples and pears for preserves to spoon onto piping-hot biscuits. She could have all kinds of goodies ready just as the school bus stopped at the corner.

“May we?” the girl asked again. “May we go now?”

“Of course,” Rommy said and they were gone; the boy raced off on his bike and the two girls crossed the cluttered yard of the apartment complex. They stopped and sat down on one of the concrete stoops that looked just like all the others.

She walked around to her side yard and began picking the pomegranates that were ready. They were best when they began to split open all by themselves, the thick skin cracking so that you could reach in and pull it apart, two perfect halves of shiny red seeds protected by the thin white skin that held them in place. She had seen many people in town try to match her fruits; they had even come with shovels to dig up the little offshoots that sprang up in the neighboring
yard. Most didn't know what she had just taught the children, that the bushes had to have a mate. She filled the bag until it was almost too heavy for her to lift, balanced some pears and apples on top, and she made her way across the street to the stoop where the two girls had been sitting. She could hear a television going inside. She could smell something frying, bacon maybe. There wasn't a bell so she knocked on the screen door and then stepped back and put the bag down on the stoop.

“Yes?” A woman was at the door. She looked too young to be a mother, too young to be smoking but there she was with a cigarette in the corner of her mouth and a baby on her hip wearing just a diaper. “Can I help you?”

“I'm your neighbor.” Rommy pointed over at her house and watched as the two girls came and stood behind their mother. “I brought your girls some fruit from my yard.”

“Well that's nice of you,” the woman said and pushed open the door. She didn't invite Rommy in; instead she motioned for the girls to go out on the stoop. There was a man in the next room, stripped down to an undershirt and shorts while he painted the walls a pale yellow. He was barefooted. His young muscled arm rolled fresh paint over the dingy walls. “You'll have to pardon me not asking you in,” she said. “We're painting and it's a mess.”

“Of course.” Rommy waited for the mother to go back inside and then she turned to the girls. “Here's some fruit,” she said. “You are welcome to come and pick more any time you like.”

They looked up at her in complete surprise. “I'd just appreciate your letting me know when you come for a visit.” She didn't give them time to say or ask her anything. Instead she turned and made her way back across the yard to her own porch where Mister Simmy was waiting for her. He would be ready to have his dinner and get settled in for the night. He would jump with joy to see her.

I
WAS GOING
to get my tubes tied but I decided to go to the movies instead. The secretary at the OB-GYN office kept calling and leaving messages on my answering machine. “Are you okay? Did you forget us?” She sounded anxious; she had lots of loose ends to tie up. Mine were not going to be some of them. I was okay when they called it tubal ligation—the tying of the tubes. I do a lot of macramé and crocheting and so the notion of tying something didn't bother me in the slightest. It was when I began thinking the word
sterilization
that I got cold feet. It sounded so final.

So, I went to see a movie called
Mrs. Brown
instead, and though I'm not usually one who is into the British royalty
(other than the kind of cheap gossip you might get on the front of the tabloids), this movie really appealed to me. I highly recommend it. My favorite part was watching these Victorian women swimming in full garb, bustles and petticoats and thick stockings.

Now that's the way to keep the cellulite under wraps, literally, not to mention the benefits of sun protection. I ate popcorn and Milk Duds and thought about designing swimsuits for those who don't want to show anything at all— merwomen: timeless, mystical, camouflaged—but the wearers would look elegant nonetheless with their loose white gowns and pale translucent skin. I am far better at teaching high school biology than I am at sewing even though about once a year I buy bolts of fabric and all kinds of patterns that I spread over the living-room floor. Will is tired of my ideas because he knows that as soon as I have cut out the fragile pattern pieces and pinned them in place I'll lose interest or it will be time for my students to turn in their leaf collections, and I'll have to pay hundreds of dollars to a woman I know who does sew, only to wind up with an array of weird clothes that I will never wear. Will has asked that I try not to get any ideas other than those related to my own field. He forgets that I had the idea of the water bra long before there was a water bra.
And
that new device that allows camping
women to pee standing up. We could be millionaires if I had ever had an investor, but by the time I get to this part in the conversation, he is long gone.

Every New Year's Will asks me to promise that I will not buy any fabric or crafty, project-related things. His request always follows mine—that he stop playing a game he calls the death pool, where you guess who is going to die during the next year. He has been listing the Queen Mother and Bob Hope for the past six years; I don't even remember who else he said last year because I blocked it out. I don't believe in joking about the dead. Every time he gets on this track I have to knock on wood. Our other annual tradition takes place in summer while the kids are at camp—one night swept clean of all responsibilities and duties. We begin planning it as soon as we hug and kiss Janie and Ben good-bye and watch them get herded off with all the other ten and nine year olds, respectively. We can't imagine that they will both make it the whole two weeks. We anticipate poison ivy and bee stings, broken limbs, near-drowning episodes. We worry about practical jokes and cruelty within the cabin; we fear black widow spiders lurking in the latrines, ticks raining from the pine trees, snakes coiled under rowboats. It was potential danger that brought us together in the first place— two acquaintances who chose to share a cab rather than use
public transportation after a late-night party held by mutual friends in D.C.

N
OW WE ARE
in the backyard of a house that is one-tenth paid for—the coals are dying, the dog is gnawing a T-bone. This is our favorite night of the year. We turn off the phone, we drink a little bit too much, and we write out our grievances of the past year, read and then burn them. There were those awful years when everything was very serious and personal—what we refer to as the Dark Ages. Those were the years when our grievances were about each other; they were long and typed and angry and pathetic. The Dark Ages. If you can survive them it will make a marriage much stronger. You just have to get to the other side of the cave and re-enter the world of light and warmth. Sometimes you have to sacrifice a person or two who listened and knew too much, but creatures of advanced intelligence should understand this. If your Dark Ages become the Ice Age, you're having a long weary journey and the meltdown hits you like a blowtorch the minute your children leave home. Sometimes the break is too severe to ever mend. Then all that's left are your sad hieroglyphics in an abandoned cave, an explanation of what went wrong.