Family Happiness (29 page)

“I see,” said Wendy. The tone in her voice was magisterial, but hurt.

Polly knew that some attempt would be made to make her feel awful on the subject of Beate, but she did not care. Beate and Paul especially rankled her. It made her furious that Beate was allowed to hurt her feelings. She would give Beate the fealty that was due a sister-in-law, but she was not inclined to like her. If in seventy or eighty years Beate softened up, perhaps, thought Polly, she would give her a second chance. As for the children, Wendy would temporarily maintain a hurt, chilly, hands-off posture. That was fine with Polly. But it made her angry that Beate's babies were more crucial than Polly's really important work, though Wendy was always hopeless when it came to Polly's job.

This policy statement accomplished, Polly bustled cheerfully around her household. Every day she felt stronger and clearer. With Henry near her she felt that life made sense. When she sat down to dinner she said a prayer of thanks that life had treated her so well.

It was only when she was alone that an alarm of panic rang through her. What was she going to do about Lincoln! He would eventually be home. What must be done was clear. Lincoln's presence in her life, she now saw, had compensated for Henry's neglect of her. It was as simple as that. Now that Henry had come back to her, now that they were together, Lincoln was a hindrance. She could not achieve her peaceful and loving domestic life with Lincoln scattered in her path like broken glass. It was too dangerous. In her heart Polly believed that the deed had already been done. She believed that she had given Lincoln up.

In the morning she walked the children to school. She saw women with fur coats over their arms walking toward the furrier's to put their coats in storage for the summer. In Polly's neighborhood, that was a sure sign of spring.

“Take my hand, Pete, please,” said Polly as they crossed the street.

“I don't want to,” said Pete. “I'm too old.”

Polly regarded her son. In not so very long he would be taller than she. Would he go around breaking hearts? Would he be handsome and steady like his father, or would he be quirky and boyish in the manner of Lincoln?

“You can stop holding my hand when you're sixteen,” said Polly. “And not before.” She took his hand and held it. He was such a nice little boy that he gave her hand a squeeze. Dee-Dee, however, had to be held. She had entered a dreamy stage in which she had to be shaken out of her reveries and dragged away from her books, and her only two subjects of conversation were imaginary animals and her imaginary friend, Flower Bernstein.

“Ma, is a griffin real or imaginary?”

“Imaginary.”

“Well, how do you know? Maybe a penguin is imaginary. Have you ever seen one?”

“In pictures.”

“They might be just artists' paintings,” Dee-Dee said, “or made-up photographs. Flower Bernstein's mother lets her keep a big red parrot in her bedroom.”

“Darling, we can't discuss this and cross the street at the same time,” Polly said. “When you cross the street, think of the street and the cars and the traffic, and when you're safely across, then you can think about griffins and penguins. Then you can go and live with your friend Flower and her parrot, but for now, please watch where you're going.”

“I don't like to stop thinking about a thing,” Dee-Dee said. “I like to concentrate.”

Polly sighed. The life of the higher mind had struck at least one of her children. She kissed them good-bye and watched them walk up the steps of their school. My life has been saved, she said to herself. If I can keep up this steady pace, if I can keep my eye on these appropriate sparrows, I will be safe again.

At the office Martha Nathan said, “I liked the unhappy you better.”

“Don't be so negative,” Polly said.

“I hate you when you're chirpy,” said Martha. “I liked your dark side.”

“Be a little kinder to me, will you?” Polly said. “My dark side was terrible. It was my dark night of the soul. You don't wish that on a person, do you?”

“It was more interesting,” said Martha, glumly. “Where's your friend Lincoln these days?”

“In Paris,” Polly said.

“Still?” said Martha. “I thought he was back.”

“He's coming back soon enough,” Polly said. “But I don't think I'm going to see him.”

“No? Why not?”

“Oh, Martha, you can't imagine what a lot of heartbreak this thing has been. I wasn't made for it. I was made for the bosom of my family. I can't go on like this.”

“Huh,” said Martha. “Lucky you.”

“Don't be snide with me,” Polly said.

“I'm not snide,” said Martha. “I'm jealous. It's very enviable to be able to make decisions and have everything fall into place.”

“Now, Martha, what's your problem? You sound rambunctious.”

“Spud's in California,” Martha said. “He's being interviewed for a junior professorship. Lots of money and prestige.”

“And?”

“California, as we know, is full of first-rate medical schools,” said Martha dismally. “I applied to two of them.”

“I get the picture,” Polly said. “If you get married I'll make you a wedding cake.”

“Yes?” said Martha. “That doesn't seem fit compensation for a lifetime of horror.”

“Try to shut up, Martha,” Polly said.

“I just want an interesting life,” said Martha.

“No, you don't,” Polly said. “I've just been having one and you wouldn't wish it on a dog.”

Each day brought Lincoln closer. Polly dreaded having to face him. She hated the idea of telling him that they could no longer see each other. Perhaps in some distant future they might be friends. Polly would be able to invite Lincoln for dinner. Then she and Lincoln might look across the dinner table with a secret look—the look of friends who have secretly been lovers. Life could be made to work, with the proper intention applied to things. To have a love affair when your husband is often away and, when home, is distracted is one thing. To conduct a love affair when you and your husband have rededicated yourselves to the success of your marriage is quite another.

After all, family life was the mortar that kept the bricks together; the pitch that made the basket watertight; the chinking that kept out the wind and the weather. It was life itself, without an inch to spare. A person immersed in the realities of family life did not stop to ponder the meaning of life: that person was
in
life, up to his or her neck and beyond. The family was the beginning, the future, and the past. It protected the weak and the strong. It brought the like-minded together and gave the unalike a common cause. It gave shelter and hope. What more, Polly wondered, could a sensible person possibly want?

Henry came home early from his office, got into his ratty house clothes, made himself a drink, and sat down on the floor with Pete and Dee-Dee. To amuse them he wore his battered fishing hat. At dinner they talked about Maine while Pete made threatening noises at his meal.

“Daddy,” said Dee-Dee at the table, “tell Pete to stop mashing up all his food like that. It's disgusting.”

“I have to mash it down and flatten it,” Pete said. “I have to beat it down.”

“It isn't going to bite you,” Henry said.

“In its natural state it would bite me,” Pete said.

“That's a lamb chop, silly,” said Dee-Dee. “Lambs don't bite.”

“They don't?” said Pete. “They kick, and when they grow up they bite. Think of it, Dee-Dee. That little chop was once part of a pretty woolly lamb.”

Dee-Dee had her mother's forthright gray eyes. Pete's were hazel, and had the complicated look of his father's. Dee-Dee looked at her brother straightforwardly. She knew exactly what he was going to say. She yawned and regarded him abstractly. “Your dinner was once so sweet and woolly,” said Pete, “so gentle and pretty.” He looked at his sister, who was completely unflapped. Tears sprang into his own eyes at the thought of such a sweet little animal, and he was unable to finish his meal.

“When are we going up to Priory, Mommy?” Dee-Dee said.

“We're all going up Memorial Day to open the house,” said Polly. “And then you and Pete and Nan and Papa are going up the second week in June for the whole summer. Then I will be up for the last two weeks in July and Daddy will join us for all of August.”

Henry had promised Polly that the whole month of August would be hers. He would not spend it on the telephone to New York, or in his summer study working. Lying next to Polly at night, he told her how afraid he had been that she was going to leave him, how much she meant to him, how much he loved her. As a result of this persistent wooing, Polly fell in love all over again. Her natural breath returned to her. She was being saved from the arms of another man. For every move Henry made forward, Polly retreated from the idea of Lincoln. By the time he came back she would have nothing left for him, except residual gratitude.

After dinner the family sprawled on Henry and Polly's bed. Polly sewed all the loose buttons on Henry's and the children's winter clothes before sending them out to the cleaner to be mothproofed and stored. She made lists of things to take to Maine, of spring-cleaning chores to be done. The leaves were just beginning to be out on the trees, but winter seemed very long ago to Polly. She loved getting ready for the summer. As she sorted and stacked the coats and suits and sweaters, she felt as if the past were being stored along with the winter clothes. She felt as if she, too, had shed some protective clothing.

At her feet Dee-Dee read a book about colonial children. Pete did fractions. When he concentrated, he stuck out the tip of his tongue and knitted his brow. Henry and Polly leafed through the journals stacked up on their night tables, which they never had time to read. Spring rain slipped down the windows and muffled the sound of traffic below. From time to time they could hear the whistle of the doorman hailing a taxi. The banjo clock in the hallway ticked comfortingly and rang a sweet, tenor chime on the hour.

Polly put her journal down. Henry and Pete had fallen asleep. Dee-Dee was dreaming over her book. She had dropped her shoes over the side of the bed and was wiggling her toes.

It had been a long, terrible time, and the world had gotten horribly out of kilter, but now Polly was safe again. Propped up by pillows, with her family around her, Polly thought of how much anxiety is produced by living a double life, by that frantic planning to see Lincoln, by carving out time to see him. The office had spared her a great deal of sneaking, but she had not been spared that blind, jagged longing to be with him. Her life had been thrown up into the air like a deck of cards and it was only luck, she felt, that had caused those cards to land in such a graceful pattern.

The mornings were normal, too. Polly no longer crawled out of sleep distressed, or pulled herself out of bad dreams. Contentment, something Polly had not seen for a long time, appeared on Henry's features. He did not dash off into the shower but let the children crawl over him once or twice. Henry was like a volcano: you saw his manifestations, not his deep workings. He seemed happy and ardent, and looked at Polly as if he was afraid that she would melt away in front of him. He was on his best behavior, and his every gesture announced his awareness and his dedication.

In the kitchen Pete stood on a chair and stirred the oatmeal. Dee-Dee fetched the paper. Henry made the toast and Polly made the coffee. As soon as Henry and the children were gone, Polly cleared away the dishes, made a list for Concita, finished her coffee, and went off to work. How different these mornings were from those dark, bleak winter days.

On the first warm spring morning, Polly walked to work. She walked with a steady pace. Yes, she said to herself, my life has been spared. I can go for entire days and never think about Lincoln at all. I have been angry, I have been low, I have actually sinned, but my life is not going to explode. I am the woman I used to be. Thinking about Lincoln in this frame of mind was difficult and uncomfortable. What if he did not want to give her up? If he threatened to expose her? This frightened Polly so much that she did not stop to remember that this was Lincoln Bennett, her kind and excellent friend, who not so long ago had made life bloom for her. She conjured up a Lincoln who was angry and hurt, who wanted revenge and could easily get it. He knew thousands of things he could only have known through Polly. No one, and by no one Polly meant Henry, would ever believe that she had had a love affair, but she imagined Lincoln ruining her life by making Henry believe it. How else could he have come to know the minute details of her family life, or the names of Henry's brother-in-law's cousins? She imagined the stunned, incredulous look that would cross Henry's face. His faith in her would be entirely dashed. He would lose all respect and regard. He would be justifiably horrified at her ability to deceive. For months her sense of wrongness had been kept at bay like a wolf in a distant pen. Now it sprang free and pounced on her. Need was no justification for anything. It was just the lazy, self-obsessed person's reason for doing wrong.

Her mission was clear. She would have to see Lincoln and tell him she could never see him again. She would have to do it, and as she walked down the street it seemed easy enough. She had found reviews of his show in all the French art journals. It had been a great success. He would be very much sought after when he came back. If he wanted it to, his life could change for the better. This could be a crucial time for Lincoln. Polly could help him by leaving him alone. Everything had changed. How, Polly wailed inwardly, did I let myself get so weak? Was I so bereft that I would attach myself to someone so very opposite, who hates all the things I cherish?

As she walked into the office, Martha pounced on her.

“You look nice and gloomy,” she said. “Just like in the old days.”