Bishop's Road (12 page)

Mrs. Miflin is so angry she could spit. It's all bad enough what with her mister dead in the freezer and that crowd all seeing the bones in the attic and knowing that she dug them up. It's all bad enough they've got company coming and going and she can't
sit at the table with that cast on, and the smell of paint is all through the house and she knows they aren't doing the laundry when they should. It's all bad enough but now she finds out from Eve that Ginny Mustard has been designing a nursery. Staying up late and drawing pictures of a baby's room. First she thought the silly thing might be pregnant but Eve corrected her. Ginny Mustard wants a nursery for Mrs. Miflin's baby. She screams out for Ginny Mustard to get up here as fast as her two legs can carry her. “What are you doing? You can't make a room for a dead baby. It's ungodly. Sinful.”

“Well, it's not any more sinful than digging up the poor little baby in the first place. Or her being kicked to death before she was even born. She needs a pretty room with pictures on the wall and a little warm rug on the floor. It's not nice in the attic. And she wants a rocking chair.”

“You are a raving lunatic, Ginny Mustard. That's what you are. You can't do things like that.”

“Why not?”

“Because the baby is dead!”

“Well I'm not dead and I never had a pretty room and a little warm rug. What about if I make one for me and the baby can stay there too. I got lots of money from my sister now and I can buy all the things. It's no skin off your nose.”

And Mrs. Miflin can't think of a good argument. Ginny Mustard is making her nervous. She has never spoken like this before. That's what comes of having money. It makes you rude to people. She lies back on her pillow. Asks Ginny Mustard to close the curtains and turn off the light. She thinks she might be getting one of her really sick headaches. When that doesn't sway the girl she gives up. This place is going to hell in a handbasket.

Hell it may be but everyone is coming over. Harvey is still digging a hole under the rhododendron. The dahlias from the yard next door are climbing through and over the fence. The scarlet
runner beans have made their way up the lilac and are leaning toward the kitchen window. Zucchini and carrots that someone planted down the street are growing among Eve's zinnias. There are tomato plants crawling out through the chicken wire of the compost bin. Flowering. And if there's a scarcity of earthworms elsewhere it's only because they heard there is a party going on at the old convent. Hedgehogs return from wherever they've been. Birds follow Judy and Maggie home from the playground and they have to shake them away before they go into the house. Eve sits in the middle of her small paradise and marvels at the glory of it all. Hell indeed.

Maggie brings her letters to the sitting room and Judy Checks to make sure they are all in order. Thinks that Judy may be right. Perhaps it's time to read them, perhaps it's okay to read them but not alone. Her hand is shaking as she passes the first one to Judy, indicates that she would like to hear her letter. But now Judy doubts the wisdom of her original idea. Says, “Are you sure, Maggs, cause you might not like what's in this. Who are they from anyway?”

“I don't know. They gave them to me the day I was leaving. But I want you to read them to me now. Please. I don't want to read them by myself.”

“Well okay then. But it might be real weird, you know.” Maggie settles herself on the carpet at Judy's feet. Stares at her friend's face as she begins to read. The letters are from her mother. Each a page long and those pages cold. But if the words are empty, the memories they rouse are not. Maggie cries. No sobs. No sound. No change of expression on her pretty face. Just six year's worth of tears and the front of her dress is soaking
before Judy opens the fifth envelope.

Mrs. Eldridge was amazed to find herself pregnant at the ripe old age of forty-five. She and Mr. Eldridge had decided long ago that she was barren and there was simply nothing to be done about it. After the first three years of their marriage, and before they gave up on the idea of ever having a family, Mrs. Eldridge cried most of the time. Especially when she ovulated or bled. Every twinge and the slightest discharge reminded her that she was not complete, for all that her internal organs seemed to be in working order.

There were times when Mr. Eldridge was sure he would have to leave her. The disappointment of having no children, he could handle, but the constant weeping and wringing of hands almost drove him mad. Every day they went to their work like normal people. They ate lunch with their colleagues. They chatted with friends. Attended all of the obligatory cocktail parties and company dinners. Sometimes they even went out for a drink on Friday evening and a movie just the two of them. But as soon as they were home, it started. Mrs. Eldridge would get that look in her eye and Mr. Eldridge would brace himself for the waterworks. She would cry and walk back and forth through the house, from the basement to the kitchen to the dining room, to the living room and the window to stare outside, up and down the hall a few times, upstairs to each bedroom and the bathrooms. Back to the basement to begin again. She would stop to eat when Mr. Eldridge put a meal in front of her. She would stop when he gently took her hand and led her to bed. The few times they made love, she sniffled her way through most of it.

For years she didn't buy groceries, prepare meals or wash
a dish. She went to work and earned her keep and suffered. Weekends were especially difficult. It never occurred to them to see a doctor, to try to adopt, to hire a surrogate. One day, shortly after Mrs. Eldridge turned thirty-eight, she called Mr. Eldridge at his office and said, “I don't think we're ever going to have a baby.” She stopped crying and they bought a few bonsai trees and a Great Dane. For the next seven years they lived happily enough. They bought more bonsai trees and another Great Dane. In the evenings they would walk the dogs and chat about their days. They invested wisely and dreamed of early retirement and trips to exotic places. They bought books about Cuba and the Galapagos, Egypt and South America. They began to tell people that they never wanted children anyway. There were so many other things to do with one's life.

Mrs. Eldridge was a good four months pregnant before she noticed anything amiss. Her skirts were tight. Her bras were not as comfortable as they had been and they were the expensive ones too. For years she hadn't noticed her cycle at all. When she couldn't remember her last period, she went to see her doctor. She told Mr. Eldridge the news and he smiled which made her very angry indeed.

“Do you think?” she said, “that I'm going to be dragging a youngster to kindergarten when I'm fifty? That's what I'll be, you know, fifty years old. I could be a grandmother by now for God's sake. There's no way I want a baby at this stage of the game. I'll have an abortion, there's no more to it than that.”

Mr. Eldridge was not happy with her decision but there was little he could do about it. Her mind was made up. The doctor had other ideas. “You're too far along for an abortion. It's against the law to have one now. You'll have to have the baby.” And so she did. Gained the appropriate amount of weight and not an ounce more. Bought baby clothes and furnished a nursery. Worked right up to the last minute of her pregnancy and was back
at it as soon as she delivered. She told Mr. Eldridge that since he was the only one interested in having a child around, he could look after it himself.

He named the baby Margaret for his favorite sister who had died. He doted on her but only when Mrs. Eldridge wasn't looking - which was quite often when she was given a promotion at work and usually came home late after that. He and the old dogs would walk with the baby every evening. He held her in his arms until she was big enough to sit in a carrier on his back. When she learned to toddle they went ever so slowly, at her pace, he holding her little hand and bending over as far as he could to hear her every word. He fired babysitters as fast as he hired them, rushing home from the office more than once if he sensed the slightest anxiety in her voice during his daily phone calls. He took her to school, joined the PTA, volunteered to haul kids to field trips, signed her report cards and helped her with her homework. He was a dear dad.

Life was grand until Margaret was fifteen and her father developed heart trouble. Surgery was scheduled and during his recovery the world came to an end. Margaret sat by his bed and held his hand until her mother shooed her away. The time for having fun, just Mr. and Mrs. Eldridge, had come and gone and the only one who had gained anything from it was Margaret. Jealousy reared its head and Margaret's mother devoted her days to destruction. She picked and picked and nagged and bitched until Margaret could take no more. Retaliation came in the form of drugs and boys - the ones who like to play with lonely girls.

In a one-hour session, Mrs. Eldridge convinced a psychiatrist that the only recourse was to have Margaret committed to a private mental institution, the kind where bad kids go to straighten out when there's nothing else to be done. They came for her in the middle of the night and dragged her, kicking and screaming for her father, into the dark. Strapped down and terrified, drugged
and finally oblivious to life, she sat still for the next six years. Until the insurance ran out. Until the final diagnosis that this young woman was never going anywhere again, but harmless, could be boarded out and her room assigned to someone else.

None of this is in the letters that Judy reads to Maggie. A page a month to Margaret from Mother described her father's ill health, the stroke he suffered after Margaret ran away so abruptly, their latest dinner party, trips to visit relatives. A twenty dollar bill in each envelopes/or
a little something.
That was it.

And Maggie remembers everything now. His good face and the smell of his aftershave. His bedtime songs and piggyback rides. The fun they had when mother wasn't home. And she puts her head back and howls. Frightens Judy who runs to fetch someone. Ruth. It should be Ruth. And Ruth comes to see what the fuss is. Looks at Maggie in a hollow heap on the sofa and knows enough to do little. Sits close by and touches her hair for awhile. Sends Judy to bring tissue, hands them over two by two until the box is empty. Coaxes Maggie to the kitchen. Makes tea.