Homecoming (16 page)

So she raised her voice loud enough to be heard by everyone and inquired, “Are you all feeling any warmer?”

Aaron Sachs responded, “I know I am, but how are you, Mrs. Byrne?”

“Daisy,” said Daisy in her crisp fashion. “And I’m fine, thank you.”

“You’re my all-time heroine, Aunt Daisy,” Mark told her. “For the rest of my life … I don’t know … I can’t express it.”

“Two and three quarter minutes by my watch without taking a breath,” Andrew said. “Right up to the limit.”

“A heroine,” Aaron echoed. “A heroine with good lungs.”

Annette glanced at Gene, who cleared his throat and leaned down to stroke Roscoe’s head. When he looked up, he spoke almost shyly. “Yes. It seems that there are no better words than
thank you
, Daisy. Two syllables to weigh against a child’s life.” His voice broke. “Thank you. Thank you, Daisy.”

For another few minutes no one spoke. Then Lewis was heard.

“There were a couple of young fellows at the club who went in for swimming under ice. Kind of crazy—very crazy. But Daisy did it one day.
They showed her how. I was angry at her. She’ll dare anything, Daisy will.”

A little prickle of shame went down Annette’s back. What right had she had in the first place to sniff, even mentally, at Daisy’s “boarding school and country club” athletics? Just because she isn’t like me, she scolded, I felt myself superior, a more “serious” person. My God, if we all would just take a good, honest look at ourselves, we might not always like what we see.

“Hypothermia can put you in the hospital in a few minutes,” Aaron was saying. “That’s all you need.”

Andrew mused, “Funny. When I cleaned the trunk of my car, I was going to take the rope out. I had it there from the time I got stuck in a snow-bank. It was on a ski trip in Vermont,” he added irrelevantly, and added again, “Lucky thing I didn’t.”

“I never learned to swim underwater,” said Mark. “Never learned to resuscitate either. Now I mean to do it.”

“Red Cross,” Lewis advised. “Daisy and I took a course. Very enjoyable too.”

They were all speaking without looking at one
another. It was as if, Annette thought, they were addressing a public gathering, or perhaps simply talking to the air, or maybe just thinking out loud.

Cynthia was silent. She was watching Freddie, who, after many patient trials, had managed to build a tower of three blocks. And she tried to remember what she had read in one of her many books—long since given away—about the various stages of child development. What foolish worries we have! As if it matters whether a beautiful, healthy baby like this one is a bit smarter or a bit slower than the baby next door. His cheeks that had been red from the cold were now red from the heat. With a happy laugh he knocked the tower down. Then he began to build it again. She could not take her eyes away from him.

Yet she was aware that Andrew had craned his head in her direction. Whether he was looking at her or at Freddie, she was unable to tell, but it made no difference either way. He didn’t belong here.

I should see more of Ellen and Mark, she thought. Somehow, God only knows how, this sight of Freddie, my picking him up when he was
crying there on the grass, has changed me. I never thought I could bear to hold a baby again.

“It’s time for his supper,” Mark said, standing up.

Cynthia said quickly, “If you’ll tell me what he eats, I’ll give it to him.”

Mark smiled. “You want to, don’t you?”

“Yes. May I?”

She saw, when he nodded, that he understood her. “He gets junior food, and after that a bottle. Everything’s in our tote bag in the hall. Wait. I’ll give it to you.”

“No, I’ll find it. He’ll go with me. He likes me.”

“Jenny has the high chair,” Annette called.

On Cynthia’s lap in the snuggery Freddie was already having his bottle when Marian, in coat and boots, passed the door.

“Pretty sight,” she called.

“Come in for a second. I want to thank you for helping Gran today. And for all the rest too.”

“Wasn’t it a horrendous day? And yet, crazy as it sounds, maybe some good will have come out of it.”

“I have a feeling it will. Uncle Gene and my
father have got to do a lot of thinking after this. In fact, it seemed to me in there that they already have begun.”

“Death, or even the prospect of it, has a mighty powerful effect on people. I never realized how powerful until it hit me.”

“I think Gran said you’re a widow?”

“A sudden widow. We went to the city for a weekend vacation, had a wonderful dinner, saw a wonderful play, and went happily to bed in our hotel room. Toward morning I heard him get up, walk across the room, and fall.”

Marian sat down on the edge of a chair. Her face was without expression, and strangely, that seemed to move Cynthia more than tears might have done.

“He was tall, thin, and blond, part Scandinavian, and athletic. One of those people who you think are made to live long.”

“How awful for you.”

“Sometimes I was angry at him. So many hours, so many days wasted … And now gone. Forever. Never.” She threw out her hands, palms up. “And that’s it.” Then she rose, and, suddenly brisk and businesslike in her customary
way, she concluded, “I don’t know why I got started on this. I’m sorry. That’s a sweet boy. Lovely eyes. I’d better run. It’s already dark.”

Why I got started
. Cynthia smiled wryly. You wanted to teach me a lesson, that’s why. But it won’t work, Marian. No, because my situation is entirely different. Entirely.

When she carried Freddie back into the library, Ellen, awake now, took him from her, leaving her with empty hands. A bad feeling of utter detachment swept over her. And she stood uncertainly, hearing the fierce wind shake the windowpanes.

“I wouldn’t want to be out in a car tonight,” Annette remarked.

Andrew said promptly, “That reminds me. I’d better say good-bye to you all and start right now.”

“Absolutely not,” Annette protested, thinking: He wants to leave because Cynthia won’t even look at him. “That’s a ten-mile drive, and Jenny just heard on the radio that the roads are all ice. There’s plenty of room for you. This house is elastic. It stretches to fit.” And as he hesitated, she added with deliberate tactlessness, “You
know that. You’ve been here often enough. Just sit down, Andrew.”

There came a restless stir in the room, as if everyone had sat too long or, having said all they were capable of saying, were uncomfortably aware of what was still unsaid.

Brenda was folding the red blankets that were no longer in use. And Annette made an announcement.

“Brenda has been making up beds for all you people tonight. Can you imagine? When I went upstairs, I found her working. You shouldn’t have, Brenda.”

“Well, Jenny is busy enough in the kitchen, and this really is a mob. Don’t worry, your linen closet is still neat. I am the original fusspot—Aaron, don’t sit in that chair, what are you thinking of? Your suit is still wet.”

Aaron bounced up. “I know it, but what am I going to do? I didn’t bring another suit.”

“Oh, my, you’re soaked,” cried Annette. “Doesn’t anyone, can’t anyone—” And she looked around the room in appeal. “You’re the nearest to his size, Gene.”

Embarrassed, Aaron laughed. “Only a six-inch difference.”

Gene, fidgeting, fussed over Roscoe, which was something that, not being a dog person, he did not usually do. “I keep a few things here. I’ll find something,” he said, looking self-conscious.

“So that’s solved,” said Annette.

We’ll see what happens at dinner, she thought. I’m not sure of anything, but we have made some progress, at least.…

“Why don’t we go up and rest?” she said cheerfully. “If you want to, I mean. I think we all deserve a rest. As for me, I need a nap before dinner. It’s at seven.”

The lunch table had been transformed for dinner, thought Andrew, who noticed such things, much as a woman wearing a sweater and skirt, however becoming, is transformed by a ballgown. Candles in silver holders glowed on pale yellow china edged in the Greek key pattern. The cream-colored roses in the large bowl had been augmented by smaller clusters going down the center of the table. Once again Annette had “done herself proud.” She might as well, he thought somewhat
bitterly, have been adorning a wedding reception.… As indeed, she had once done.

With her customary attention to household details Annette surveyed the table and was satisfied. Very infrequently these days were festive meals served in this lovely room that had for so many years been used to bright lights and bright conversation. Life was quiet now in this house where she lived with Jenny and the dogs. And she thought again, Okay, there’s been progress since our near disaster today. But let’s see what happens next.

“We’ll serve ourselves from the sideboard and then sit wherever we want,” she said. “Gene, will you do the wine? And, Lewis, you’re a good carver, so please do the roast.”

“Ah, roast beef,” sighed Lewis. “The cholesterol special. But I love it. The first I’ve had in six months.”

“Aaron and Brenda, there’s pasta for you. Jenny makes a marvelous red sauce without meat. And we’ve lots of vegetables,” Annette assured them. At the same time she could scarcely keep from laughing because Aaron looked so ridiculous in the borrowed suit.

“If you want to laugh, go ahead,” Aaron said. “I had a glimpse of myself in the mirror on the way downstairs.”

“Are you some sort of mind-reader? Well, to tell the truth—”

Now Aaron laughed. “You don’t have to say so, everyone can see it.”

The trousers, at least six inches too long, were fastened up with safety pins. At the waist another large blanket pin, borrowed from Freddie’s tote bag, kept the trousers from falling down.

“Of course, as long as I sit no one can see it, so that saves my dignity.”

“Tell me, how is the pasta?”

“Perfect, thank you.”

“You went to so much trouble for us,” Brenda said.

“It was no trouble at all. It was a pleasure.”

Mark, observing from the other end of the table, had a sudden surge of pride in his mother. She was a gracious woman. He had never given any thought to her public persona, to how she might look to other people—not counting his father-in-law, and well he knew what that man’s prejudice had been! There she sat, quiet and confident
in her fine dark dress and her narrow necklace of sculptured gold. And he felt a great tenderness for her.

Tenderness overflowed in him. Here were Ellen, his darling, and Lucy sitting high on Annette’s two-volume
Oxford English Dictionary
, and Freddie safely asleep upstairs in the portable crib; it went without saying that these had always been far more precious to him than was his own life. Tonight, though, it seemed as if his capacity to feel a unity with other human beings had expanded, too, so that, in varying degrees, he felt able to say that he “loved”—however you wanted to define
love
—every soul in the room.

Annette, reading his expression, was moved by it. And again she thought she felt a kind of loosening in the atmosphere: people—twelve of them, a nice tidy number around the table—were beginning to converse a bit. She became suddenly aware that she had been sitting with strained, tight muscles, and must relax.

They all looked so
civilized
. And these were the same people, the same group, that had been so
savage
in the front hall this morning. Maybe they
had been having some serious reflections during that little nap time.…

Her eyes roved from her two sons—was it purely an accident that had brought them to be sitting next to each other?—to Lucy in her pink dress, to the bronze lights in Ellen’s hair, to Aaron Sachs’s neat beard, and her eyes were satisfied.

When they reached Cynthia—ah, that was another matter! Perfect in gray silk and appropriate pearls, she sat like a statue, cool, remote, and without expression. And in Annette’s heart there was a painful contest between compassion and impatience. Cynthia’s father and mother, apparently, had taken steps toward Andrew. And yet, who was a mere grandmother to judge?

“Did you know that I fell into the water?” Lucy’s voice rang out, addressing nobody in particular. “I don’t remember how I got out, but I did.”

“It was Aunt Daisy who rescued you,” Ellen said. “You should thank her properly.”

Lucy scrambled down, knocking the dictionaries to the floor, ran toward Daisy, gave her a
tight hug, and proclaimed, “I’m going to tell everybody in my class what you did.”

A handful, thought Daisy, returning the hug. Enough spunk for two her age. Must keep Ellen hopping. Very, very sweet, all the same. Silly of me, but in a way now, I feel possessive about her.

“With every minute it becomes more incredible,” Gene was saying. “What Daisy did! How can I ever express or thank … all of you … If I live to be a hundred … Excuse me.” And with some embarrassment he wiped his eyes.

Awkwardly, Lewis patted his brother’s arm. “That’s all right. You already did, and we all know. We know.”

Aaron, who sat across from the two men, was surprising himself with his own reflections. Funny, I never imagined that men like these would show tears. All that stiff-upper-lip business. Of course, I don’t ever get this close. It’s another world. Same city, but another world. And yet, here we sit with the same feelings—that little girl, that little mother today—we sit here feeding ourselves, all hungry, same stomachs, same bones, as I should know. The few times I ever saw the older one, I had no particular opinion
one way or the other. He was a gentleman, that was all. Cool. Both brothers the same, I see. The only difference is, the first one’s daughter didn’t marry my son. It looks as if they’re getting together. I hope so for Annette’s sake. Their sakes too. This business in a family is wrong. Wrong.

“For the rest of my life,” Gene was saying, “I’ll have nightmares about what could have happened.”

“Well, it didn’t,” Lewis said. “And as for nightmares, we’ve both had our share of them, I guess.”

As his words carried, talk ceased. Annette, who had been talking to Brenda, pricked up her ears. Daisy, who had begun to say something cordial to Andrew—for although she had been so furious with him, he had been so kind to her today, as she had already told Cynthia—now stopped.