Other Women (16 page)

“I’ve been thinking about Amnesty International.”

She sat crosslegged in her down bathrobe on the beige Route

carpet.

“Bunch of masochists,” her father, wearing his red plaid wool robe, said from the corduroy armchair. “Spending their lives discussing how horrible torture is.”

“But it probably is,” said Caroline.

“But who’d want to make a career of researching it?”

“But that’s what you do, Dad-spend all your time rescuing people. his

“So do you.”

“I never said I wasn’t a masochist.”

He smiled. “Masochists, are we? Maybe so.

But I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do what I can to make this world less of a hellhole.”

He was rubbing the scar above his eyebrow.

Caroline nodded. “But isn’t that what Amnesty’s doing?”

“You’re probably right.”

Jason knelt on the rug by the tree, tearing open a present as though shucking corn. Holding up a pair of L. L. Bean boots, he said with suspicion, “Hey.”

“Got them at a sale,” said Caroline’s father.

“Good as new. It’s amazing what some people give away.”

Caroline inspected them. They were

Jason’s own outgrown boots. His initials were inside in Magic Marker.

“Try them on,” her father said.

Jason pulled them on, a perplexed expression on his face, and walked over to his grandfather.

“What sale?” asked Caroline.

“The Boat People Relief Fund rummage sale.” He leaned over and felt Jason’s foot. “They fit just Fne.”

“Too tight,” muttered Jason, glancing at Jackie questioningly.

“Yes sir, just fine,” said Caroline’s father, slapping Jason on the shoulder.

Jason screwed up his face and looked at Caroline. This was nothing new to her. She and Jackson had been married under a funeral tent erected by a client of her father’s who ran the Ready Funeral Parlor. The boys might as well become acquainted with their heritage. “Did you thank Grandpa, Jason?”

“Thank you, Grandpa,” he said in a bewildered voice. He came over and plopped down in Caroline’s lap. She put her arms around him, feeling the warm flannel of his Dr. Denton’s under her hands.

“You’re welcome, Jason. I hope you enjoy them.”

“By the way, how is poor Jackson?” asked her mother. She always preceded his name with that adjective.

“Fine, as far as I know. He and his wife had another baby this fall.” Resting her chin atop Jason’s head, she remembered wanting to rest her head in Hannah’s lap. She looked at her mother, self-WOMEN

contained on the sofa in her satin robe. Caroline couldn’t recall ever resting her head in her mother’s lap, or sitting in it as Jason was now in hers.

“Are you still living with that woman?” asked her mother.

“Diana. Yes.” She restrained an urge to add that they weren’t lovers anymore. No need to let a dead cat out of the bag. Whether her parents knew they’d been lovers was unclear. It had never been acationor had her divorce, David Michael, Clea, her depresWhat had been discussed during this visit was the fate of humanism in the twentieth century; interracial knife fights at South Boston High; the threat posed by killer bees and aerosol cans; relief efforts in

behalf of families involved in a West Virginia mining disaster; starvation in Chad, and floods in India. Personal disaster was insignificant by comparison.

Her mother looked so unhappy from the mention of Jackson and Diana that Caroline felt a need to cheer her up. “Mother, how many therapists does it take to change a light bulb?” She could use this as an opener for telling about Hannah. Surely they’d want to know about such an important development.

But maybe it would upset them to hear she’d been unhappy?

“One, but the bulb has to really want to change.”

She watched with pleasure as her parents’ faces softened into smiles.

“Speaking of which, I’ve gone into therapy myself.”

Too late she remembered they didn’t approve of therapy. They belonged to the Bootstrap School.

They’d think she was a wimp.

“Why?” asked her father, looking up.

“I’ve been depressed a lot,” she said in a low voice.

“Depressed?” said her mother. “Who isn’t depressed? How could you not be with all the dreadful things going on in the world? Did you read in the paper about Vietnamese troops amassing on the Cambodian border? That could be World War Three.”

Caroline sat in silence. How could she have forgotten the trips to the Salvation Army? She adjusted her poker-playing face. Then she noticed what she was doing. She glanced around the room at the doorways.

From which jamb had she hung in similar silence as a baby?

“People like us have no right to be unhappy,” her father said.

“We have food, shelter, clothing, good health, relative safety.”

“So do you.”

“I never said I wasn’t a masochist.”

He smiled. “Masochists, are we? Maybe so.

But I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do what I can to make this world less of a hellhole.”

He was rubbing the scar above his eyebrow.

Caroline nodded. “But isn’t that what Amnesty’s doing?”

“You’re probably right.”

Jason knelt on the rug by the tree, tearing open a present as though shucking corn. Holding up a pair of L. L. Bean boots, he said

with suspicion, “Hey.”

“Got them at a sale,” said Caroline’s father.

“Good as new. It’s amazing what some people give away.”

Caroline inspected them. They were Jason’s own outgrown boots. His initials were inside in Magic Marker.

“Try them on,” her father said.

Jason pulled them on, a perplexed expression on his face, and walked over to his grandfather.

“What sale?” asked Caroline.

“The Boat People Relief Fund rummage sale.” He leaned over and felt Jason’s foot. “They fit just 6ne.”

“Too tight,” muttered Jason, glancing at Jackie questioningly.

“Yes sir, just fine,” said Caroline’s father, slapping Jason on the shoulder.

Jason screwed up his face and looked at Caroline. This was nothing new to her. She and Jackson had been married under a funeral tent erected by a client of her father’s who ran the Ready Funeral Parlor. The boys might as well become acquainted with their heritage. “Did you thank Grandpa, Jason?”

“Thank you, Grandpa,” he said in a bewildered voice. He came over and plopped down in Caroline’s lap. She put her arms around him, feeling the warm flannel of his Dr. Denton’s under her hands.

“You’re welcome, Jason. I hope you enjoy them.”

“By the way, how is poor Jackson?” asked her mother. She always preceded his name with that adjective.

“Fine, as far as I know. He and his wife had another baby this fall.” Resting her chin atop Jason’s head, she remembered wanting to rest her head in Hannah’s lap. She looked at her mother, self-WOMEN

contained on the sofa in her satin robe. Caroline couldn’t recall ever resting her head in her mother’s lap, or sitting in it as Jason was now in hers.

“Are you still living with that woman?” asked her mother.

“Diana. Yes.” She restrained an urge to add that they weren’t lovers anymore. No need to let a dead cat out of the bag. Whether her parents knew they’d been lovers was unclear. It had never been acationor had her divorce, David

Michael, Clea, her depresWhat had been discussed during this visit was the fate of humanism in the twentieth century; interracial knife fights at South Boston High; the threat posed by killer bees and aerosol cans; relief efforts in behalf of families involved in a West Virginia mining disaster; starvation in Chad, and floods in India. Personal disaster was insignificant by comparison.

Her mother lookcd so unhappy from the mention of Jackson and Diana that Caroline felt a need to cheer her up. “Mother, how many therapists does it take to change a light bulb?” She could use this as an opener for telling about Hannah. Surely they’d want to know about such an important development.

But maybe it would upset them to hear she’d been unhappy?

“One, but the bulb has to really want to change.”

She watched with pleasure as her parents’ faces softened into smiles.

“Speaking of which, I’ve gone into therapy myself.”

Too late she remembered they didn’t approve of therapy. They belonged to the Bootstrap School.

They’d think she was a wimp.

“Why?” asked her father, looking up.

“I’ve been depressed a lot,” she said in a low voice.

“Depressed?” said her mother. “Who isn’t depressed? How could you not be with all the dreadful things going on in the world? Did you read in the paper about Vietnamese troops amassing on the Cambodian border? That could be World War Three.”

Caroline sat in silence. How could she have forgotten the trips to the Salvation Army? She adjusted her poker-playing face. Then she noticed what she was doing. She glanced around the room at the doorways.

From which jamb had she hung in similar silence as a baby?

“People like us have no right to be unhappy,” her father said.

“We have food, shelter, clothing, good health, relative safety.”

Caroline knew her parents were right. One individual’s despair wasn’t important in the light of Vietnamese troops poised to invade Cambodia. If she were Cambodian, she might be starving, homeless, raped, murdered right now.

Depression was a luxury of the American middle class, just as David Michael always used to insist. She should be grateful to have the leisure in which to feel so awful. Guilt over her ingratitude wrapped around her like Dracula’s cape.

“One more thing,” her mother called to the boys as they departed to the playroom to hook up their video game and try out the cartridges Diana had given them.

“We got carried away and invited more people for dinner than we have food for. So could I ask you three please to eat small portions and skip dessert?”

They all nodded.

“Who’s coming?” asked Caroline, recalling past holiday dinners, jammed with her parents’ clients.

Her father had been known to scour the streets on Christmas Day searching for people with nowhere to go. Once he brought home a hitchhiker named Bradley, who entertained them by swallowing a spoon, a skill he developed in jail. He’d swallow a spoon, they’d rush him to the emergency room, and he’d escape when no one was looking. How he retrieved the spoon wasn’t exA regular named Lionel, a tall sad man with a tic, had no family to eat holiday dinners with because he murdered them all by putting laxative in their food over many months.

A woman named Bertha used to sit on the couch and open and close a pair of scissors

all afternoon.

“You don’t know most of them,” her mother replied.

“What’s happened to the old gang?”

“Bertha’s coming.”

“Does she still play with those scissors?”

“No, she took up knitting.”

“That’s a nice thing you’ve done all these years, Mother. Now that I’m an adult, I realize how much work it is.”

Her mother’s shoulders sagged under the brown satin robe. “Well, poor people. Life isn’t easy for anyone, but it’s easier for us than for most.”

WOMEN

Every chair in the house was crammed around the mahogany dining table. Caroline had a son on either side, and her parents presided at either end. Bertha had knitted throughout the meal, on what looked like either a narrow blanket or a wide scarf in shades of red and brown. Occasionally she put down a needle to stuff a hasty bite into her mouth, never taking her eyes off her handiwork. A tattered man who lived somewhere in the Park Street Under MTA station sat next to Bertha and tried unsuccessfully to strike up conversations about people he’d seen electrocuted on the third rail. A woman from her mother’s office wore her hair on top of her head in a large bun, which she’d encircled with holly like a Roman emperor with his wreath of laurel. The barmaid from underneath her father’s office kept flicking her crystal goblet with a long mauve nail, to hear the tinkling noise like a tiny jingle bell. Caroline found herself staring at the polished nails, thinking the fingertips had been severed, like those of the drill press operator who’d come into Peter Bent Brigham during her ER rotation at nursing school.

Bradley, the spoon swallower, had been replaced by Sidney, who had the illusion he was a magician. He kept laying his linen napkin across the turkey and mumbling spells. Jackie and Jason watched with wide eyes, worried it would vanish while they were still hungry. But each time Sidney whipped off the napkin, the turkey was still there. He’d retreat into himself in a funk, rehearsing spells, trying to see where he’d gone wrong. A mother in a baby blue argyle pullover and plastic Pop-It beads was trying to prevent her son from thrusting his drumstick obscenely in and out of the turkey’s neck cavity.

Caroline glanced at Jackie and Jason in their sports jackets and ties, their hair parted and slicked down. She’d never seen them so quiet. For one thing, the other little boy had demolished their video game. When he couldn’t get his lever to function as he wanted, he simply tore it out of the box. Caroline recalled that feeling of baffleon holidays, never knowing who’d be there, knowing only that they had nowhere else to go and that her family could afford to include them because her family was so fortunate.

She wondered what Hannah was doing right then. Was her house also full of the homeless? Was Hannah correct that her parents caused

her pain? She wasn’t feeling so great, but that certainly wasn’t their fault. And she could see for herself how the sad people at this table gazed at her parents with admiration. Her parents had served on the school board and the city council. They’d been heart fund volunteers. They’d raised money for the community ambulance. They were good people.

Her mother was right: there wasn’t enough food. The boys had copied Caroline’s example and taken only a thin slice of turkey, a small spoonful of mashed potatoes, and a few peas. The rolls were gone before reaching their side of the table, and the pies went just as quickly. The abstinence required no effort on Caroline’s part. She wasn’t hungry.