Bitter Sweet (39 page)
Because she was so unhappy herself? Because over the years she’d forced her own husband’s emotional and physical withdrawal to the point where they lived nearly separate lives - hers in the house, his in the garage? Or was it, as Maggie had often suspected, jealousy? Was her own mother jealous of Maggie’s very happy marriage to Phillip? Of her career? Her life-style? The change she’d made in that lifestyle?
Of the money she’d received after Phillip’s death, and the independence that money had brought? Of this house?
Was Vera so small that she rued her daughter having anything better than herself Or was it nothing more complicated than her ceaseless compulsion to give orders and be obeyed?
Whatever the reason, the exchange in the kitchen cast a pall over the remainder of the night. They ate their meal wishing it were already over. They opened their gifts with animosities roiling beneath the veneer of politeness. They s aide good-bye with Vera and Maggie lifting their faces but never quite touching one another.
On Christmas Day, Maggie accepted an invitation to go to Brookie’s, but Katy said she’d rather not be with a bunch of strangers and went to
Roy
and Vera’s alone.
The following day, when Katy’s car was loaded, Maggie walked her up the hill.
‘Katy, I’m sorry it was such a crummy Christmas.’
‘Yeah... well...’
‘And I’m sorry we fought.’
‘I am, too, but Mother, please don’t see him again.’
‘I told you, I’m not seeing him.’
‘But I heard what Grandma said on Christmas Eve. And I have eyes. I can see how good-looking he is, and how you looked at each other, and how the two of you “enjoy being together. It could happen, Mother, and you know it.’
‘It won’t.’
During the dreary, anticlimactic days following Christmas, Maggie kept that promise firmly in mind. She turned her attention once more towards the house and the business, throwing herself into preparations for spring. She hung more wallpaper, attended two auctions, ordered an iron bed from Spiegel’s, shopped by mail for bedspreads and rugs.
The state health inspector came and inspected her bathrooms, dishwasher, food storage and laundry facilities. The fire inspector came and inspected the furnace, fireplaces, smoke alarms and fire exits. Her official bed-and-breakfast licence arrived and she had it framed, then hung it in the parlour above the secretary where her guests would register. She received spring catalogues from suppliers and placed orders for blankets, sheets and towels from the American Hotel Supply; made a trip to
Roy
, who had-made it a practice to have lunch with her at least twice a week.
While her mind and hands were occupied, she found it easy to exorcize thoughts of Eric Severson. Often, however, when she paused between tasks for a cup of tea she’d find herself standing motionless, staring out a window, seeing his face in the snow. At night, in those vulnerable minutes before sleep, he would appear again, and she would recall the surge of elation she’d felt upon seeing him at her door, the giddy sensation of stepping into his arms and feeling his hand spread wide upon her back.
Then, remembering Katy’s warning, she would curl up like a shrimp and force the images from her mind.
Mark Brodie invited her out to his restaurant for New Year’s Eve, but she went to a party at Brookie’s instead and met a dozen new people, played canasta, ate tacos, drank margaritas and stayed overnight and most of the next day.
During the second week of January, Mark invited her to an art gallery in
Green Bay
. Again she declined and also passed up the January chamber of commerce breakfast, daunted by the thought of encountering either Mark or Eric there.
Then one night in the third week of January, she was sitting at the kitchen table in her red Pepsi sweats designing a business brochure when someone knocked on her door.
She switched on the outside light, lifted the curtains aside and came face to face with Eric Severson.
She dropped the curtain and opened the door. No beaming smiles this time, no boundless joy. Only a reserved woman looking up into a man’s troubled face, waiting with her hand on the doorknob.
They took fifteen wordless, weighted seconds to look into each other’s eyes before he said, “Hi.’ Resignedly, as if his being here was the outcome of a lost battle with himself “Hi,’ she said, making no move to grant him entry.
Sombrely, he studied her, in oversized red-and-white sweats and stockinged feet, with her hair pulled into a scraggly tail off one side of her head, with ragtail sprigs spraying away from it like fireworks. He had stayed away purposely, giving himself time to sort through his feelings, giving her the same. Guilt, desire, dread and hope. He supposed she’d run the same gamut and he had expected her cool behaviour, the forced detachment so like his own.
‘May I come in?’
“No,’ she replied, still barring the way.
‘Why?’ he asked very quietly.
She wanted to let her shoulders droop, to huddle into a ball, to cry. Instead, she answered levelly, ‘Because you’re married.’
His chin dropped to his chest and his eyes closed. He stood motionless for an eternity while she waited for him to leave, to release her from this yoke of guilt she’d been wearing since her daughter’s and mother’s accusations. To take himself beyond temptation, beyond memory, if possible.
She waited. And waited.
Finally he pulled in a deep breath and raised his head. His eyes were troubled, his mouth downturned. His pose was so familiar- feet planted firmly, hands in the pockets of his bomber jacket, the collar turned up. ‘I need to talk to please. In the kitchen - you sit on your side of the table and I’ll sit on mine. Please, Maggie.’
She glanced at his truck, parked at the top of the hill in the break between the snowbanks, his name and telephone number listed on the door as clearly as a newspaper headline.
‘Do you realize I could tell you precisely how many days and hours it’s been since you were here last? You aren’t making it any easier on me.’
‘Four weeks, two days and ten hours. And who said it would be easy?’
She shuddered involuntarily, as if he had physically touched her, pulled in a shaky breath and rubbed her arms.
‘I find it difficult to deal with the fact that we’re talking about this ... this-‘ She flipped up her palms, then caught her arms again. ‘- I don’t even know what to call it as if it’s foregone. What are we doing, Eric?’
‘I think we both know what we’re doing, and we both know what it’s called, and I don’t know about you, but it scares the goddamned hell out of me, Maggie.’
She was quaking inside, and freezing outside. The temperature was three degrees, and they couldn’t stand in the open door forever. Stepping back, she surrendered to the awesome gravity he exerted over her. ‘Come in.’
Once given permission, he hesitated. ‘Are you sure, Maggie?’
‘Yes, come in,’ she repeated. “I guess we both need to talk.; He followed her inside, closed the door, unzipped his jacket, hung it on the back of a chair and sat down, still wearing the look of weary resignation with which he’d arrived. She began making coffee without asking if he wanted any - she knew he did - and a new pot of tea for herself.
“What were you doing?’ he asked, glancing over the rulers, vellum and cut-and-paste books strewn over the table.
‘Laying out an ad for the chamber of commerce booklet.’
He turned her work to face him, studying the neat lettering and bordering, the pen-and-ink sketch of Harding House as it looked from the lake. He felt empty and lost and very unsure of himself. ‘You didn’t come to the last breakfast.’ He forgot the paper in his hand and followed her with his eyes as she moved along the cabinets, running water, scooping coffee.
‘No. ‘
‘Does that mean you were avoiding me?’
‘Yes. ‘
So he was right. She’d been through the same hell as he.
She turned on the burner beneath the coffeepot and returned to the table to push aside her papers, steering well clear of him. She put muffins on a plate, found butter and a knife and brought them to him; got down a cup and saucer and refilled her sugar bowl and brought these, too, to the table. The coffee began to perk, and she turned the burner down. Finishing her busywork, she turned to find him still watching her, looking tormented.
Finally she resumed her seat, linked her fingers on the tabletop and met his gaze steadily.
‘So, how was your Christmas?’ she asked.
‘Horseshit. How was yours?’
‘Horseshit, too.’
‘You want to tell me about yours first?’
‘All right.’ She took a deep breath, fitted her thumbnails together and gave it to him straight. ‘My mother and my daughter both accused me of having an affair with you, and after a couple of pretty awful fights, they both left here very upset with me. I haven’t seen either of them since.’
‘Oh, Maggie, I’m sorry.’ On the tabletop he took her hands.
‘Don’t be.’ She withdrew them. ‘Believe it or not, the battles between us were less about you than about my growing away from them, becoming independent. Neither one of them likes it. As a matter of fact, I’m slowly coming to realize that my mother doesn’t like much of anything about me, particularly my being happy. She’s a very shallow person, and I’m learning to overcome my guilt for realizing this. And as for Katy - well, she’s not over her father’s death yet, and she’s going through a selfish stage.
She’ll outgrow it in time. So tell me about your Christmas.
How did
Nancy
like her ring?’
‘She loved it.’
“Then what went wrong?’
‘Everything. Nothing. Christ, I don’t know.’ He clasped his nape with one hand and tipped back his head to its limits, closing his eyes, sucking in a deep breath and blowing it out slowly. Abruptly he snapped from the pose, leaning his forearms on the table, and settled his eyes on hers. ‘It’s just that everything’s collapsing in my mind, the whole marriage, the relationship, the future. It’s all meaningless. I look at Barb and Mike and I think: that’s how it’s supposed to be. Only it isn’t, and I realize it’s never going to be.’
In silence he studied Maggie, the lines of worry still dragging at the corners of his eyes and lips. On the stove the coffee perked and the aroma filled the room but neither of them noticed. They sat on opposite sides of the table, their gazes locked, realizing their relationship was taking an irreversible turn and frightened by how it would shake their lives and those of others.
‘I just don’t have any feelings for her anymore,’ he admitted quietly.
So this is how it happens, Maggie thought, this is how a marriage breaks up and an affair begins. Discomfited, she rose and turned off the burners, poured water in her teapot and filled his coffee cup. When she was seated again, he stared into his cup a long time before raising his eyes.
‘I have to ask you something,’ he said.
“Ask.’
‘What was that at the door the night I brought Katy home?’
She felt a warmth in her chest at the memory that it was she who’d broken the taboo. ‘A mistake,’ she replied, “and I’m sorry. I... I had no right.’
With his eyes steady on hers, he remarked, ‘Isn’t it funny, it felt like you did.’
‘I was tired, and I’d been so worried about Katy, and then you brought her home to me all safe and sound, and I was grateful.’
‘Grateful? That’s all?’
“What do you want me to say?’
‘I want you to say what you started to say when I walked in here a few minutes ago, that what we’re talking about here is that we’re falling in love.’
The shock went through her like an electrical current, leaving her shaken and staring at him with her chest tight and her heart knocking. ‘Love?’
‘We’ve been through it together once before. We should be pretty good at recognizing it by now.’
‘I thought we were talking about.., about having an affair.”
‘An affair? Is that what you want?’
‘I don’t want anything, I mean, I...’ She suddenly covered her face with both hands, pressing her elbows to the tabletop. ‘Oh God, this is the most bizarre conversation.’
‘You’re scared, Maggie, is that it?’
She slid her hands down far enough to look at him, her nose and mouth still covered. Scared? She was terrified. She bobbed her head yes.
“I told you, I am, too.”
She clutched her teacup - anything to hang on to. ‘It’s so . so civilized! Sitting here discussing it as if no one else were involved. But others are, and I feel so guilty even though we’ve done nothing wrong.’
‘You want something to feel guilty about? I’ve got a few things in mind.’
‘Eric, be serious,’ she scolded because she was bursting with desire for him and this was the damnedest face-to-face confrontation to which she’d ever been subjected.