Bitter Sweet (26 page)
‘When we left Chicago I thought you’d want to give up your job with Orlane and stay here with me to start a family.’
‘I make a lot of money. I love my work.’
‘So do I.’
‘And you’re wasting a perfectly good college degree, Eric. What about your business degree, don’t you intend to use it again?’
‘I use it every day.
‘You’re being stubborn.’
‘What will change if we live in
Chicago
or
Minneapolis
? Tell me.’
‘We’d have a city - art galleries, orchestra halls, theatres, department stores, new -’
‘Department stores, ha! You spend five days out of seven in department stores as it is! How the hell can you want to spend any more time there!’
‘It’s not the department stores alone and you know it. It’s urbanity! Civilization! I want to live where things happen!’
He studied her a long time, his expression arctic and unapproachable. ‘All right,
Nancy
, I’ll make you a deal.’ He pushed back his cup, crossed his forearms on the table edge and fixed her with unrelenting eyes. ‘You have a baby and we’ll move to the city of your choice.’
She drew back as if he’d swung at her. Her face grew white, then red as she struggled with a compromise she was incapable of accepting. ‘You’re not being fair!’ Her anger flared and she rapped a fist on the table. ‘I don’t want a damn baby, and you know it!’
‘And I don’t want to leave
‘I’m your family!’ She pressed her chest.
‘No, you’re my wife. A family includes progeny.’
‘So we’re at the same old impasse.’
‘Apparently so, and it’s been on my mind so much since our last argument that I finally talked to Mike about it the other day.’
‘To Mike!’
‘Yes.’
‘Our personal problems are no business of Mike’s, and I resent your spilling them to him!’
‘It just came up. We were talking about babies. They’re going to have another one.’
Nancy
’s expression became one of distaste. ‘Oh, Christ, that’s obscene.’
‘Is it?’ he retorted sharply.
‘Don’t you think it is? Those two spawn as regularly as salmon! My God, they’re old enough to be grandparents!
Why in heaven’s name would they want another baby at their age?’
Eric threw his napkin onto the table and lurched to his feet. ‘
Nancy
, sometimes you really piss me off.’
‘And you run right to your brother and tell him so, don’t you? So, naturally the world’s best father has some choice opinions about a wife who’d choose not to have babies.’
‘Mike has never said one negative thing about you!’ He pointed a finger at her nose. ‘Not one!’
‘So what did he say when he found out the reason we don’t have a family?’
“He advised us to see a marriage counsellor.’
Nancy
stared at Eric as if she had not heard.
“Would you?’ he asked, watching her closely.
‘Sure,’ she replied sarcastically, sitting back in her chair with her hands joined at her midriff. ‘Tuesday nights are usually reasonably free when I’m in
St Louis
.’ Her tone changed, became exacting. ‘What’s going on here, Eric? All of a sudden this talk about marriage counsellors and malcontent. What’s wrong? What’s changed?’
He picked up his coffee cup, spoon and napkin and took them into the kitchen. She followed, standing behind him as he set the dishes in the sink and stood staring down at them, afraid to answer her question and start the tumult he knew he must start if he was ever to make his life happier.
‘Eric,’ she appealed softly, touching his back.
He drew a deep breath and, with his insides trembling, stated the thing that had been eating at him for months. ‘I need more out of this marriage than I’m getting,
Nancy
.’
‘Eric, please.., no, don’t... Eric, I love you.’ She coiled her arms around his trunk and rested her face on his back. He stood unyielding, facing the sink.
‘I love you, too,’ he told her quietly. ‘That’s why this hurts so much.’
They stood awhile, wondering what to say or do next, neither of them prepared for the heartbreak already setting in.
‘Let’s go to bed, Eric,’ she whispered.
He closed his eyes and felt a wave of emptiness that terrified him worse than anything thus far.
‘You just don’t understand, do you,
Nancy
?’
“Understand what? That part has always been good.
Please... come upstairs.’
Eric sighed and for the first time ever, turned her down.
Chapter 8
Nancy
left for work again on Monday. Their parting kiss was filled with uncertainty and he watched her drive away with a sense of desolation. When she was gone, he spent the days on winter work, tallying the number of feet of fishing line used during the season, the number of lures lost, searching through the hundreds of suppliers’ catalogues for the best replacement prices. He sent in preregistration fees for display booths at the
Minneapolis
,
Chicago
and Milwaukee Sportsmen’s Shows and ordered brochures to pass out there. He tallied up the number of Styrofoam coolers they’d sold out of the office and contracted to buy an entire truckload of them for the next year’s season.
In between times, he wondered what to do about his marriage.
He ate alone, slept alone, worked alone, and asked himself how many more years it would be this way. How many more years could he tolerate this solo existence?
He went uptown for a haircut before he actually needed one because the house was so quiet and there was always pleasant company at the barbershop.
He called Ma every day and went out to check her fuel oil barrel well before he knew it was empty, because he knew she’d ask him to stay for supper.
He changed the oil in the pickup and tried to fix the sticking passenger door but couldn’t. It reminded him of Maggie, of leaning across her lap the night he’d dropped her off at her Mom and dad’s. He thought of her often. How was she doing, how was her house progressing, had she found all those antiques she talked about? Rumour had it the outside paint job was done and her house looked like a showplace. Then one day he decided to drive by himself, just to take a look.
Just to take a look.
The leaves were all down, lying in battered windrows along the edge of Cottage Row as his pickup climbed the hill. The evergreens appeared shaggy and black against a late afternoon sun. It had turned cold, the sky taking on a haze almost like sun dogs, warning it would be colder tomorrow. Most of the houses along the Row were deserted now, their wealthy owners gone back to the southern cities where they wintered. As he approached Maggie’s place he noted a
That night, at home, he turned on the television and sat before it for nearly an hour before realizing he hadn’t heard a word. He’d been sitting motionless, staring at the shifting figures on the screen, thinking of Maggie.
The second time he drove past her place he was armed with a registration form from the chamber of commerce and a copy of their summer tourist booklet. Her car was parked in the same place as before as he pulled up beside the cedars, killed the engine and stared at the booklet on the seat. For sixty seconds he stared, then started the engine and tore up the hill without glancing at her house.
The next time he drove by, a green panel truck was parked at the top of her walk, its rear doors open and an aluminium ladder hanging from its side. if the truck hadn’t been there he might have driven right by again, but it would be okay with a workman in the house.
It was late afternoon again, chilly with a cutting wind that snapped at the papers he carried as he slammed his truck door. Rolling them into a cylinder, he passed the panel truck and peered inside - conduit, coils of wire and tools - good, he was right. He loped down the broad steps toward the house and knocked on the back door.
Whistling softly through his teeth, he waited, eyeing the back verandah. A cluster of Indian corn and orange ribbon hanging on the wail; an oval brass plaque announcing, HARDING HOUSE; white lace curtains covering the window of an antique door; a new spooled railing painted yellow and blue; a new floor painted grey; a braided rug; and a crock in the corner holding a clump of cattails and Indian tobacco. Rumour had it Maggie wasn’t afraid to spend money to dress up the place, and if the outside was any indication, she’d been busy at it. Even the tiny verandah had charm.
Eric knocked again, harder, and a male voice shouted, ‘Yeah, come on in!’
He stepped into the kitchen and found it empty, bright and transformed. His glance took in white cabinets with mullioned glass panes, rose-coloured countertops, gleaming hardwood floors, a long, narrow drop-leaf table with a scarred top, a long lace runner, and a knobby basket of pinecones with a fat pink bow on its handle.
From another room a voice called, ‘Hullo, you lookin’ for the missus?’
Eric followed the sound and found an electrician who looked like Charles Bronson hanging a chandelier in the ceiling of the empty dining room.
‘Hi,’ Eric greeted, pausing in the doorway.
‘Hi.’ The man glanced back over his shoulder, his arms upraised. ‘If you’re looking for the missus, she’s upstairs working. You can go on up.’
‘Thanks.’ Eric headed across the dining room to the entry hall. By daylight it was impressive: newly refinished floors still smelling of polyurethane and freshly plastered walls giving the impression of wide white space anchored by unbroken stretches of lusous wood. A massive banister dropped from above and from somewhere up there, a radio was playing.
He started up, paused at the top and glanced down the hall with all its doors open. He moved toward the music. In the second doorway on the left, he stopped.
Maggie knelt on the floor, painting the wide baseboard moulding on the opposite side of the room. She and the tunebox and the paint can were the only three things in it.
No other distractions. Just Maggie, on all fours, looking refreshingly artless. He smiled at the soles of her bare feet, the paint smears on her sacky bhejeans and the tail of her sloppy shirt trailing on the lip of the paint can.
‘Hi, Maggie,” he said.
She started and yelped as if’he’d sounded his boat horn at her ear.
‘Oh my God,’ she breathed, sinking back on her heels, pressing a hand to her heart. ‘You scared the daylights out of me. ‘
‘I didn’t mean to. The guy downstairs said I should come right up.’ He gestured with a roll of papers toward the hall behind him.
What was he doing here? Maggie knelt before him with her heart st!! erratic as he stood in the doorway dressed in loafers, jeans and a puffy black-leather bomber jacket with the collar turned up against his pale hair, just as he’d turned it up years ago. A little too fetching and a lot too welcome.
‘I can come back some other dine if-’
‘Oh, no, that’s fine.., that’s.., the radio was on so loud...’ Still on her knees, she stretched toward it and lowered the volume. ‘I was just thinking of you, that’s all, and all of a sudden you said my name and I ... you were .. . ‘ You’re babbling, Maggie. Be careful.
‘And here I am,’ he finished for her.
She got control of herself and smiled. ‘Welcome to Harding House.’ She spread her arms wide and looked down at her apparel. ‘As you can see, I’m dressed for guests.’
To Eric, she looked utterly engaging, dappled with white paint, her hair tied away from her face with a dirty shoestring. He couldn’t stop smiling at her.
‘As you can see...’ He held out his hands, too. ‘I’m not a guest. I just brought you some information about joining the chamber of commerce.’
‘Oh... great!’ She laid her paintbrush across the can and with a rag from her back pocket scrubbed her knuckles as she got to her feet. ‘You want a tour while you’re here? I have lights now.’
He stepped further into the room and gave it an appreciative glance. ‘I’d love a tour.’
‘At least, I think I have lights. Just a minute.’ She hurried out into the hall and called downstairs, ‘Can I turn on the lights, Mr Deitz?’
“Just a minute and I’ll have this hooked up!’ he called back.
She turned to Eric. ‘We’ll have lights in a minute. Well, this is a guest room...’ She gave another flourish.