Broken for You (10 page)

"Au contraire!" Margaret lied. "I think it's delicious." After dinner, Wanda tried to explain to Margaret the principles of macrobiotic cooking while she did the dishes; Margaret was not allowed to help with this, either. Wanda spoke with such earnestness and conviction it was as if she were detailing the events of a religious conversion, "yin attracts yang: yang attracts yin. . . . Yin repels yin: yang repels yang. ..." Margaret found it all quite incomprehensible, and, in spite of Wanda's serious tone, somewhat ludicrous. Whenever Wanda said the words "yin" and "yang," Margaret pictured two tiny, red-faced Chinamen enacting a kind of Punch and Judy food fight, hurling seaweed and tofu pies into one another's faces. "Nothing is completely yin or completely yang. ..." The Chinamen were apoplectic with rage—but not in a dangerous kind of way; now they were Laurel and Hardy wearing chef's hats. "Large yin attracts small yin"—and now they were Laurel and Hardy naked, except for their chef's hats—"Large yang attracts small yang." Margaret giggled. Wanda looked at her and frowned.

Margaret pressed her lips together. "Why can't they just say 'masculine' and 'feminine' if that's what they mean?" she asked. Wanda shook her head. "Too many bad associations." "Well, it certainly is . . . interesting," Margaret said, trying to keep from laughing. Naked Laurel (and his yin) and naked Hardy (and his yang) were now dancing the cancan. They were still wearing their chef's hats. "What attracted you to this kind of cooking?"

"Balance." Wanda said simply. "I'm interested in balance."" Ahhh," Margaret said, nodding her head knowingly, as if she understood what Wanda meant. She didn't, not really. But it was obvious that the girl was having some kind of personal difficulty.
If she wants to tell me about it,
Margaret reasoned,
she will.

The phone rang. It was still sitting on the table next to Margaret.

"That'll be Stephen," she said, letting three more rings go by.

"Shall I get it?" Wanda offered, but Margaret shook her head.

She added steaming water to her teacup, squeezed a bit of lemon and a generous amount of honey into it, stirred it, took a breath, and picked up the receiver. "Hello, Stephen."

"What's going on, Margaret? Marita just called, and she's frantic with worry."

His voice still surprised her, the worn voice of a sixty-eight-year-old man who used to drink and smoke heavily. In her mind she still saw him as young. "How are you? What are you doing in Boston?"

"She says you've got someone living there. Is that true?"

"Yes, Stephen. I'm sorry Marita troubled you about it."

"What on earth enticed you to take in a boarder? Now, of all times, when you might be—"

"How are the children?"

"They're fine. Stop avoiding the question, Margaret."

"It's a large house, Stephen, as you remember. I thought it was time I shared it with someone again."

There was a pause on Stephen's end. Margaret could hear the sound of a pencil moving restlessly across paper. It both pained and comforted her to know that Stephen still made little sketches when he was on the phone. She wondered what he was drawing. A vase of flowers, perhaps. A tree outside his hotel window. His own hand. Something living, she hoped.

"Is this person—what's her name, anyway?"

"It's none of your concern, Stephen."

"It
is
my concern, dammit. Is she trustworthy?"

"What are you implying, Stephen? What is it you're really worried about?"

"I'm worried about you, Maggie."

"Bullshit," Margaret said, more loudly than she meant to. She picked up the teapot and began to refill her cup.

Stephen continued in a determinedly even tone. "Do you really think this is a good time to be doing this sort of thing?"

"Yes, Stephen, I do." Margaret felt her voice rebelling. "As a matter of fact, I think it's the perfect time to be doing this sort of thing. I think it's the very best possible time."

Margaret heard a noise. She looked down. Her hands were shaking violently, and the tabletop looked like a battleground. Shards of porcelain lay in a pool of steaming liquid. The receiver was on the floor, looking dead as a stone; its cord quivered for a few seconds and then was still. Rivulets of hot water were starting to run toward the table edge. Suddenly, Wanda was there. She pressed a handful of paper towels onto the table in front of Margaret and then took her firmly by both wrists. "Are you hurt?" she asked.

Margaret stared at her, stunned. She had completely forgotten that Wanda was in the room.

Stephen's voice came faintly from the floor. "Maggie? Are you all right?"

"You're okay," Wanda said. She picked up the receiver, wiped it dry, and handed it off. Then she was on her hands and knees again, underneath the table, at Margaret's feet.

"I'm fine, Stephen," Margaret said distractedly. She was watching Wanda mop up the spill and clear away the tea things. "I'm perfectly fine."

She's acting like a servant,
Margaret realized.
She has the kind of polite invisibility that misses nothing and sees everything.

"Have you heard anything from Dr. Leising?" Stephen asked.

She lied. "No, I haven't heard anything."

"You'll let me know when you get the test results, won't you? You'll let me know right away?"

"I will, Stephen
." I
don't want people to be invisible. I want to see them, and I want them to see me. Come out, come out, wherever you are.
"What are you drawing?"

Stephen chuckled. "Your gold-digging boarder." "Yes, and ... ?"

"Does she look like a morbidly obese, mustachioed version of the Queen of Hearts?"

Margaret laughed. "No. Nothing like it."
"Glad to hear it." Margaret noticed a halting quality in his voice.
Has that always been there?
A transcription of his speech would contain little dashes and blanks, as if words were missing. "I'm sorry I blew up like that," he went on. "Just please let me know if you need me."

"I will, Stephen. I have to go now. Good-bye."

Wanda was leaving the kitchen with an expert unobtrusive-ness. "Thank you so much for the meal," Margaret called out. "It was wonderful!"

Wanda turned. She looked surprised. "You're welcome." She started to go, and then said, "The teapot, and the cup . . . I'm sorry. I saved the pieces. They're over there in a bowl by the sink."

"Why should you be sorry?" Margaret asked. "I'm the one who broke them."

"Still . . ." Wanda hesitated. "They were lovely things."

"It doesn't matter. It's not important, really."

"I'm sorry about dinner, too. No one ever taught me how to cook."

Margaret laughed. "We have that in common then. Sandwiches and canned soup are the extent of my expertise."

"Well, good night."

"Good night. See you in the morning light."

Margaret sat at the table, listening to the diminishing sound of footsteps as Wanda moved down the hallway and up the stairs. At the end of a day, Margaret noticed, Wanda often moved with a heavy, funereal cadence to her steps. As if she were very, very old. As if she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders.
Daniel's footsteps sounded like that,
Margaret thought,
when the doors began slamming. He knew so much more than he ever let on.
Margaret drew in a sudden, knifelike breath that was almost the beginning of a sob.

She got up and moved to the kitchen counter, where the pieces of the saucer, teacup, and teapot mingled in the bottom of an aluminum mixing bowl. She reached into the bowl and began to turn the pieces over.
This teapot,
she remembered,
and this teacup. . . They were gifts from the mother of one of Daniel's friends. . . . What was her name? Gay, that was it. Gay Paxton. We used to take the children to the park, when they were little. And then, later, we used to have lunch together sometimes. We used to be close. Close enough for her to have given me this.
It was for my birthday, I think.
Yes,
that was it. A birthday gift from Gay Paxton. And what was her
child's name? I don't even remember if it was a boy or a girl, isn't that terrible? Timmy! That was it. Or was it Tina? Tina Paxton? So many things fell away after Daniel died. So many relationships withered. Especially the ones with the mothers. That makes sense,
Margaret reasoned, nodding her head at a thick, rounded fragment from the teapot's midsection.
That makes perfect sense.

She sang in a quavering voice, "I'm a little teapot, short and stout. Here is my handle, here is my spout. When I get all steamed up then I shout..." Margaret stopped singing. She could hear the high, loud, clear notes of Daniel's voice pick up the last line: "TIP me over and POUR ME
OUTl"
She could hear his laughter. She could see his body, one thin arm angled down to his hip, the other up to his forehead.

Margaret dropped the shard of porcelain back into the bowl. It made a dull, tuneless ting as it hit the side and slid to the bottom.
Now I have relationships with things,
she thought.

She opened the cupboard under the sink and tilted the bowl. Its contents rattled out into the garbage can. She stared for a moment, and then thought,
That was stupid. They'll shred the plastic bag. They'll puncture it and I'll have to deal with this mess all over again.

"Not now," she said out loud. "In the morning." And she left the kitchen and went upstairs without turning off the light.

Seven

Margaret's Dream, Part One

The
dream has many variations, and several constants. For example, it always begins with a journey, but the form of conveyance might be anything: a B-52, a dirigible, a handcar on a railroad track. One time it was the Batmobile.

Of course, many times the dream takes place in an ordinary car, and in that case, it is always the same car: Stephen's MG.

In the beginning, there is a calm, weightless feeling—the kind of feeling one ought to have at the start of a journey, once the preparations are made and everything is in order. No encumberments. No impediments. The heavy burden of baggage is temporarily relieved; the tyranny of clocks is overthrown. The body feels lighter, emptier. The travelers are on their way, needing merely to drift, to be carried and upheld, like the bows on a kite string.

Ahead lies a stopping place, of course, and a cessation of movement. Arrival. Gravity will reassert its dominion, and the dreamer will step with her full, arrived weight onto Point B: the dot on the map toward which she is moving. That inexorable dot.

But at the beginning of the dream, there is divinity and peace and weightlessness. The journey begins. Her breathing alters, slows, deepens. A new quality of air fills her lungs and buoys her. All three of them. Yes: At the beginning, they're like a balloon bouquet.

This time, they're in a flying saucer—not the stuff of science fiction, but a porcelain saucer from Margaret and Stephen's wedding set. It's big enough to accommodate all of them, about the size of a large braided area rug. It is not equipped with seats, but it does have seat belts, and the passengers have buckled up for safety.

In the center, Daniel sits comfortably cross-legged, nestled in the saucer's circular indentation. It's as if he's in a small, shallow wading pool that's been drained of water. Margaret and Stephen kneel on either side of him, on the saucer's rim. Underneath them is the china pattern: a bold, complex collision of geometrical shapes in black and white and maroon, accented here and there with gold leaf. It rolls around the edge of the saucer like a carpet runner. All three of them wear togas fashioned from white cotton bedsheets.

Although there is no steering mechanism, it is understood that by some invisible means, some mental mastery—
hike a wizard, perhaps,
Margaret thinks,
or a sorcerer
—Stephen is the one who is directing their course.

In this version of the dream, Daniel is eight—the age he was when he was killed. Margaret and Stephen, however, are very old, maybe as old as a hundred. But they are not at all infirm; they are extremely fit and vital. A pair of ancient health gurus, like Jack LaLanne and his wife.

Daniel is drinking a bottle of Orange Crush and eating Bugles. Margaret and Stephen watch him with a smiling, indulgent benevolence while they sip beet juice from primitive earthenware bowls.

They are flying over a rural landscape that is infinitely and variously bountiful: There are fields of barley, milo, soybeans
, and wheat; rice pad
dies; fruit trees; a field of cauliflower—the heads are huge, the size of inflated beach balls, and colored, too, in the same bright shades of red, blue, yellow, and orange.