After the Fire (2 page)

She was not feeling gentle right now as she lay, remembering, with all this pounding in her head.

“My car's stalled. It's thirteen years old,” he explained. “I hope it's just a dead battery.”

“I hope so.”

An uncomfortable silence fell. Apparently it had the same uncomfortable effect upon him, because he broke it.

“I'm a fourth-year med student, finished next May. Are you a student?”

“I was graduated last May. Now I work.”

“Out in the world already. I've got three more years to put in, maybe four if I do a fellowship after the residency.”

“You sound sorry.”

“Not really. I love what I do. It's just that I'm in kind of a hurry to earn and be on my own. What do you do?”

“I was an art major. Now I'm an intern at the museum, conserving old or damaged art. And I paint and have a studio at home.”

“All kinds of ways of making a living; conserving damaged art—that's one I never thought of.”

“It's more than making a living. It takes a lot of skill.”

She should not have answered him that way. It had sounded arrogant, and she hadn't meant it to. So she softened her words with an explanation. “We get paintings and sculpture from all over the country, things that have been badly restored, or not restored at all. Right now I'm removing varnish from an 1870 oil portrait that's turned all yellow.”

“Sounds interesting.”

“Oh, it is. I love it, but I have a lot to learn yet. Repairing tears—it's nerve-wracking.”

“Sounds like surgery. What I'm hoping to do.”

It's a funny thing about conversations. If you don't return the ball but let it drop, people think you're unfriendly. So you must quickly think of something to say. Though why should she care if this stranger thought she was unfriendly? Nevertheless, she continued.

“This is a nice place, one of the best state universities in the country, they say.”

“It is, and I'm grateful to it. But if I could have gotten as good a loan from someplace out west or down south or anywhere new, I would have gone there instead.”

“I wanted to get away, too, but I have three older brothers who've done it, and I knew my parents hoped I'd be the one to stay home.”

Another silence fell. After a minute or two, he broke it again.

“This is a great car.”

“I suspect it's my reward for staying home.”

Yes, surely it had been a reward, her little red car, her shiny toy, a reward like the summer art course in Italy. Just in time, she stopped herself from saying so; you didn't mention European trips to a person on scholarship.

“They're making a real cultural center out of this old mill town, aren't they?” he remarked. “I hear the museum is really famous.”

“It is. Have you ever been in it?”

“No, I don't know anything about art.”

“It's marvelous. You should visit it sometime.”

“Maybe I will.”

The windshield wipers were barely coping with the
rain. As the car lurched roughly over potholes and labored dangerously through a gush of high water, it was a struggle to stay on the road. Conversation lapsed until they reached the turnoff to Linden, where she asked for directions to his house.

“It's on Smith Street. Middle of town. I'll show you.”

When he got out and stood thanking her, she had her first full sight of his markedly noticeable height, bright black hair, vivacious eyes, and firm, oval face. Anyone, man or woman, would look twice.

“I can't thank you enough,” he said earnestly.

“You talk as if I'd done something extraordinary.”

“Well, you just did.”

She drove back down the street of dingy shops, interspersed here and there with the wretched relic of a colonial Massachusetts town house. Here, shoes were repaired, newspapers bought, meat sold, and hair bar-bered; above them, behind fire escapes, tired curtains hung at dreary windows. The sight of these in the now-slackening rain was curiously sobering to her.

Gerald. He hadn't even told her his last name. And she remembered now how even in the privacy of her mind, she had been so hotly ashamed of her own absurd thought:
He is the kind of man I could love.
And that after just twenty minutes!

“You never know what tomorrow will bring,” Granny said always. She made good use of clichés. “You won't have to be told when you meet Mr. Right.”

Perhaps Granny really did know a thing or two. For, only two days after the rainstorm, while she was at work, she had become aware that heads were turned
toward the door behind her; looking about, she had seen Gerald peering into the room. His lips were forming words.

“May I come in?”

Flushed and disbelieving, she was unsure of an answer, but he had already stepped in.

“I took your advice about visiting the museum,” he said.

“We—we're working here,” she replied awkwardly, thinking that people would not like this intrusion.

With an olive pit, she had been polishing an ancient bronze Buddha. She remembered it well—the great, airy room, the northern light, her trembling hands on the treasure, and Gerald looking at her.

“I understand. I'll wait for you outside. I only wanted to see you again,” he said.

She remembered everything…. Quieted now, and purged of the evening's rage, she looked up at the shadowed ceiling and smiled.

B
ut anger, in the morning, surged back.
“He's too shrewd for Hy. He'll break her heart. He'll chase after women.”

So violently did she brush her hair, her scalp stung.
He'll break my heart? No, it's you who's doing that, Francine, you.

“Why do you call your mother by her first name?” Gerald had asked.

“Because Francine likes it,” she had explained.

Her real name was Frances; she was of French extraction some four generations or more ago, and even though she couldn't speak a word of the beautiful language, she loved to appear French. Probably she felt that Frenchness went along with her beauty.

Hy's indignation mounted. Every irritant, every grievance that naturally accumulates among people living together under the same roof, all the stifled and relatively
trivial offenses, rose up now to flood her mind. And she spoke aloud: “Because you were a runner-up in a statewide beauty contest, you expected your daughter to go as far as or farther than you. Oh, I understand clearly! I know I've been a disappointment to you. I'm too tall and angular, gawky and thin. I don't run with the Saturday night crowd as you did when you were my age. Nor have I ever been an athlete, or not enough of one to captain the women's swim team or play basketball in the intramural games, as you did. You're not really interested in my paintings. You'd never say so, but I know what you think. Yes, you love me. There's no doubt of that, and you've been a good mother, but you are disappointed in me all the same. You alone. Not Dad, nor my bosses at the museum, and certainly not Gerald….”

The house was quiet. Suddenly she wanted to flee from it before anyone should wake up. There was no way a person could possibly put on a normal face after last night. Dressing quickly, she went on stocking feet toward the stairs.

The walls there were lined with family photographs. Thousands of times she must have passed them, yet today, in spite of her haste, something compelled her to pause and look at these people again. Here was a nineteenth-century gentleman wearing a high starched collar; here was a 1920s girl wearing a bell-shaped hat. Who were they really, behind their composed and amiable semi-smiles? Are we at all alike, they and I? Here were her older brothers, George in white with his inevitable tennis racket; the other two at their respective weddings
with their lacy, proper brides. George, Paul, and Thomas they were, all handsome duplicates in male form of their mother. They were not like Hyacinth, not at all.

“You give them sensible names,” she had many times complained. “Then you name me
Hyacinth
. It's idiotic. Whatever were you thinking of?”

“They had to have those dull names,” Francine would explain with remarkable patience, one had to admit, “after two grandfathers and one uncle killed in the war. So when you arrived, I wanted something beautiful for the only daughter I would ever have. I wanted the name of a spring flower.”

For an otherwise intelligent woman, Francine could say absurd things. In some ways, she really was a trifle ridiculous. And such a judgment about one's own mother was, at the very least, discomforting, like having a sharp pebble in one's shoe. But when absurdity turned into cruelty like last night's, it was no pebble.

She started the car and drove till she reached the fork in the road, then stopped. Where to go? It was Saturday, and Gerald was taking today and tomorrow to study for a test on Monday. The conservation center at the museum was officially closed except to senior independent workers. The obvious choice then, the only choice, was Granny's house.

You could always open your heart to her. She was as soothing and strengthening as—as hot oatmeal on a cold Monday morning. Even her house, on an old street in the heart of the old, original town, had a comforting welcome with its wraparound porch, wooden lace, and flowers in season—tulips, hollyhocks, and asters—
against the backyard fence. In that house, Granny had been born and married. Most probably she would die there, too, but probably not for a long time. She was as strong as she looked, a woman at peace with herself. You could never imagine her striving for popularity or worrying over what “people might think”! It was known to all but never mentioned that Francine and Granny had little love for each other.

A fragrance of sugar and cinnamon filled the hall when the front door was opened. Hy sniffed the air.

“Baking already? It's just past eight.”

“Apple pies,” Granny said, “for that shut-in couple down the street. I try to bring them something on weekends. Come on in. Or do you want the porch? It's warm enough.”

“The porch is fine.”

“Then wait till I get my sewing. I'm making a quilt for your brother's baby, squares and circles in pink, blue, and yellow, to be on the safe side.”

You never saw her with empty hands. Maybe it was some Puritan heritage that compelled her to keep moving, or maybe it was just nervous energy. And thinking so, while Granny settled herself with her work on her lap, it seemed to Hyacinth that she herself had more than a bit of that nervous energy.

“I never thought I'd live long enough to be making things for a great-grandchild. Do you like it? Honestly?”

Hy considered the subject. “Not quite so much pink. Pink ought to be no more than an accent, I think.”

Tilting her head from one angle to another, Granny considered. “You know what? You're right. You always
did have a good eye for color. You should think of making something for the new baby, too—an heirloom from Aunt Hyacinth. You haven't forgotten how to hook a rug, I hope.”

“It's been a long time, but I haven't forgotten.”

“No, of course not. You have golden hands, Hy. I tried to teach your mother, but she wasn't interested.”

No, you could never imagine Francine sitting still over any painstaking work, or spending hours in a kitchen, either. She liked being out of the house, working for charities and good causes, of which she was often the organizer; or else she was competing in a sport like tennis or golf, at which she was often the winner. Francine had to win things. She had to run things and lead people.

“Tell me about your work,” Granny said pleasantly. “Your father tells me you're in one of the country's best conservation departments.”

“That's true, but I'm only a beginner. It takes years of training before you can be entrusted with a painting worth a few million dollars.”

“You'll be making a name for yourself with your own paintings one day. That was a splendid study of your dad taking a nap.”

Hy was pleased. Indeed, it seemed to everyone who saw it that the picture was a very fine, very sensitive portrait.

But Granny was regarding her intently. After a few more casual remarks, she suddenly interrupted her.

“Why have you really come here so early this morning? There must be something serious on your mind.”

Having come to ease herself by pouring out her complaint, Hy now wished she had not come. It was such a shabby story after all, a mother and daughter at odds over the daughter's lover! But she sat up straight, told the story, and concluded, “I'm sorry. I shouldn't expect you to take sides. I should not involve you. I should have kept it to myself.”

“Not if it makes you feel better to speak out. I'm always here for you, Hy, you know that. I have only one piece of advice, though. Don't make an issue about what you overheard. There'd be nothing gained except more hard feelings. Pretend you never heard anything, and go about your business. Has he asked you to marry him?”

“Not yet, but he will.”

“And you'll say yes? You're sure you ought to?”

“Of course I'm sure. I love him.”

“Your mother's a pretty smart lady, you know.”

This observation, coming from this particular mother-in-law, astonished Hyacinth.

“She and I don't always have the same opinions about things, as you've probably noticed.” This was spoken with a wry smile. “Still, perhaps you should think about what she said. Of course I know nothing about your young man, but I do know that marriage is not a picnic, and you had better know what you're doing.”

For the first time ever, Hy was receiving no comfort here, where she had expected to find agreement and indignation on her behalf.

“You're annoyed with me, Hyacinth. You wanted me to say something else.”

“Well yes, I guess I did.”

“Cheer up. The sky hasn't fallen. Tomorrow will be a better day.”

The old-fashioned clichés, usually rather amusing and endearing, were at this moment neither.

“Take a pie home. I made three of them.”

“We're all dieting,” Hy said shortly.

“Such a fuss about a few pounds! And you as thin as a stick. Doesn't your mother feed you people anything but salad? Don't you ever do any cooking yourself? You should. I've taught you enough. Take the apple pie and a chicken casserole with it. I've more in the freezer.”