Our Father (22 page)

But when she put on some fifties big band records, Alex dropped the basting spoon and Ronnie stopped mashing avocado and they began to dance together in the modern style, without touching their partner. Elizabeth stopped wiping the stove and Mary dropped the dinner forks and they tried to fox-trot. But they quarreled almost immediately over who would lead.

“It isn’t that I don’t want to,” Elizabeth expostulated, “I don’t know how!”

“Well, neither do I!”

“I always had a problem dancing,” Elizabeth recalled. “Boys always led and I never liked the way they did it. But I don’t know how to lead.”

Finally, “Let’s dance their way,” Mary suggested, and they did, all four of them dancing in a circle, alone yet together.

They did not stop until the record did, and began again when Mary put on another big band record. When that ended they were out of breath and returned to their chores. Then from the playroom, Mary cried out in pleasure, and put on Peggy Lee singing “Is That All There Is.” They all stopped what they were doing, and simply listened.

Is that all there is,

Is that all there is,

If that’s all there is, my friend,

Then let’s keep dancing,

Let’s break out the booze

And have a ball

If that’s all

There is.

When it was over, “Play it again,” they urged Mary. She put it on and returned to the kitchen, and the four sisters held each other around the waist and swayed with the music.

With the turkey roasting, the vegetables peeled, the table set, and the mess cleaned up as much as it could be, they decided to go for a walk. They put on heavy rough coats and wellies—there had been rain that morning and the ground was muddy—and headed for the woods. They spoke little, walking sometimes in single file, sometimes in pairs, sometimes in a row. Alex seemed to be in the lead and she headed straight for her cathedral, where they stood looking at the light seeping through the branches, the sun low in the western sky, wan and weak at this hour, lighting the cathedral with a soft hazy glow. When Alex stopped, they all did. She stood in silence, her arms akimbo, head high, looking straight ahead, like a priestess about to lead a ceremony.

“Today is a day for giving thanks,” she said, “to whatever for whatever. I think it’s important to take time to give thanks you know, to remember the good things in our lives that we forget about because they’re familiar, you know like liking the way your body smells or the color of your eyes or the sound of your own voice or the way your living room looks in the afternoon light. I don’t mean we should thank some big deal in the sky or anything, try to bribe some god by thanking him so he won’t hurt us tomorrow, I don’t mean we should burn innards or anything. But for ourselves. For what we have been given. For any beauty in our lives. You know?” she appealed to them. “Not in humility to something, but in gratitude.” She gazed at them uncertainly. “Well,” she shouted, “I like to do it.” She looked up and out into the forest.

Elizabeth watched her, a sarcastic look on her face. Thanks for the memories? I used to hang out here too in the summers, I remember that stump. Came here when I couldn’t bear things. Even then I didn’t cry. Past it. Stone, I was. Wanted to be stone entirely, wanted not to feel ever again. A form of death.

Still, she thought, I’m alive. Not all of me, but some. Is that something to be grateful for? Would I rather be dead? I guess not—I didn’t drive a car into a tree, didn’t fill those prescriptions for pills and I’m not choosing to die at this moment anyway. Not really choosing to be alive either: that would mean letting myself feel it all, go back into it. Spent my life getting out. Too hard.

And when you think about it, I haven’t done all that badly. Considering. Figure I’m a creature deformed, not from birth but from childhood handling. What can such a creature expect? I have a life that lets me use my mind the way I need to. That’s the most important thing. Lucky I was born into an age when I wasn’t married off at fourteen to spawn a brood of sniveling kids. And I live pretty well. I have my own apartment, my car, books and clothes and food I like. Which is more than about 90 percent of the human race presently living has. That’s sheer luck too: luck of the draw of birth: century, continent, nation, section, sex, color, socioeconomic sector.

She paused. I’m glad I had Clare, however I had him for however long. But is that all there is, all I’m going to have now he’s gone, now I’m utterly alone? I don’t even have a friend. Even Mary has friends. Of a sort. She raised her head and looked around at her. The sisters stood communing with themselves. A wave of feeling surprised her: maybe I have them, she thought wonderingly.

Why are we letting Alex tell us what to do, Mary wondered, gazing unseeingly at trees. Who the hell does she think she is, a druid priestess or something? What do I have to give thanks for? Don’s dead, I’m broke. My kids? I suppose I’m glad they’re healthy, well-off, educated, all those things you’re supposed to be happy about. I wish I liked them more. Aren’t they supposed to be a joy to you in your old age? Not that I’m old of course.

Course I’m no joy to Father either. But that’s different. That’s
his
fault. I always loved him.

Her eyes dampened.

She looked up at the tallest branches of the trees, at the evergreens beyond this grove, fragrant and green. But oh, I am glad I had Don, that experience, at least once in my life if that’s all I’m allowed, to feel that kind of love swelling the heart making it into a huge hot center warming the entire world, making it radiant. I loved the city because he was in it even when he was downtown and I wasn’t going to see him that day. I loved certain songs because he whistled them, and all men because he was a man, and hated any woman who might take him away from me. I loved watching him eat, loved thinking about the food that went into his mouth, nourishing him, enriching him, making him strong, and when he looked up at me watching and broke into a smile I wanted to throw myself down on the floor before him, worship, with my body I thee worship, oh Don, I did. I even loved myself, loved my pale green silk suit, my soft heavy body, my dark hair like a glowing halo he said, because he loved them. I loved life because it let that happen—let me know what it felt to love and miracle of miracles—let him love me back. How many have that?

The trees blurred.

But is that all there is?

Christ, Alex must be some kind of religious freak. And look at them—Elizabeth has her head bowed and Mary is gazing up at the treetops with tears in her eyes as if she were having an orgasmic experience with a god! She probably is, knowing her. Although she’s the kind of little seductress who never has an orgasm in her life. Maybe they were taken to church as little girls, are pious little goody-goodies at heart. Rosa always trying to get me to go with them, her and the kids, Enriqué hardly went. Momma went to St. Joseph’s a few times, stopped. All those Irish faces staring at her. Shee-it. I will be goddamned if I bow my head to any Big Daddy or even any Big Mommy for that matter. Everyone I ever loved betrayed me, starting with Momma. Never had even one decent lover: every one of them let me down. Even Julieta, and she was a sweetie, a real sweetie. She didn’t mean to. But Sarah, that was the worst blow. Liar, cheat, hypocrite. Tell me you’ll love me forever Ronnie and two weeks later she’s shacking up with somebody else. Women. As bad as men.

The only person I’m grateful to is myself. Whatever I am, I made myself, did it all myself, turned a little terrified
chicana
on the run awed by the Anglo world by Him into a self-possessed professional woman. Well almost. No Big Momma or Big Poppa helped me. Rosa of course. And Carrie Jenkins. But she said doing that was her own reward, she said helping me come alive mentally kept her alive emotionally, my flowering was her flowering, she said, kept her from entirely burning out as a teacher. Rosa too whenever I thank her, she says I helped her as much as she helped me. I couldn’t save Raoul though, or Tina. But maybe Tina will be all right someday, being a hooker isn’t the end of life. Unless she gets AIDS, or killed. Or can’t get off crack. Or gets pregnant.

Christ. It’s all unbearable.

Still, I’m okay. Is it selfish to feel that?

I guess I’m thankful for whatever it is about our genes that makes us feel that way. Act that way. Grateful there are Rosas and Carries in the world. I’ll try to be like them myself. Not sure I have the gift. Selfish. Seems to run in my family. Hallelujah, I’ve found common ground with my sisters! She smiled.

Alex closed her eyes, tried to feel the surround through her pores, smell it, hear it, merge with it. Her body trembled with images—Stevie at six, the skin of his cheeks fine as satin, how she loved to caress him. His brown eyes bigger then, trusting, adoring, Mommy, he called me then. Melly at eight, skinny long-legged, tearing out the door with her hockey stick, confident she would win. At ten, in her nightgown after her bath, glowing pink cheeks, her hair curled up and damp, hands over her ears. No Mommy, I don’t want to hear about that stuff, we heard about it in Scouts, I have a book about it, I’ll read it when I want to! Still a baby, not ready to hear about menstruation but the next year she was menstruating. Shocked she was, hated it. I no help.

Her hands ached with emptiness of them, her hands remembered wanting to hold them keep them safe forever. So vulnerable. But not hers any longer. Stevie still that translucent skin but dark hard little hairs beginning to poke through it, standing in the doorway laughing at her as she rapped out a series of commands about his behavior at the party; Melly, curled on the chintz-skirted window seat in her bedroom, her face downcast and thoughtful, upset about the plight of a school chum. Wouldn’t tell me what happened to the girl. Could have been anything—pregnancy, rape, her father beat her, her mother an alcoholic, who knows? Wouldn’t say, tried to work things out herself. Of course I never tell
her
anything serious either. Like my mother. Generations of silence.

I can’t bear letting them go.

Love for them mixed with terror, knowing the vulnerability of flesh and spirit, seared her heart.

But they have left me. Are lost to me.

Then David stepped in and smiled at her and reached out his arms and she stepped into them and rested her head on his chest. Samuel and Lilian stood behind him, hovering, ready to protect him from any danger. All this she had, this richness, this connection, but it could be snatched away tomorrow. She could lose it. …

Then Mother smiled from across the room, looking like a woman never touched by mystery or wonder, like some sweet little middle-aged woman who was a secretary all her life, who had a happy marriage, a good daughter, grandchildren, a woman who has fulfilled all she set out to become. Yet she is full of mystery and she stands silent. I hate that. I hate her for that.

Terror. That’s what Thanksgiving’s really about, she decided, superstition. So you can thank fate: I’m grateful, I’m grateful! Look, I’m
saying
I’m grateful so don’t take it away, take them away. Let me go on having them. Yet every minute someone died and left someone and if they live they’re always changing. Melly gazing at her with those distant eyes (
who are you?
); Stevie treating her as if she was irrelevant. When once upon a time, she had been the sun that lighted their mornings, they stretched their little arms out to her from their cribs like tree branches to sunlight, their bodies reached to her like tides to the moon. Her love and care had been everything to them, kept them alive. When did that change?

And she too, changing. Her head on David’s chest, his arms around her no longer made her feel safe, why was that? She no longer felt endangered, she felt strong. And David seemed different too, why was that? Always so steady, a stalwart bolster, with Sam and Lilian behind him. But they were old now, Sam a bit feeble since his stroke, Lilian worn out taking care of him those years. Can’t protect David so much anymore. Need him now. And he didn’t need support so much, he was stronger too, like her. But also weaker. Just a man, a human being, not a pillar. Sweet David.

And while the sunrise went on being glorious, sunset a moment when the world stood still, trees leafing, unleafing, gardens blooming and drying up, people being born and dying, the suffering went on and on. Eternally endures, only that endures. Two kinds of pain: that caused by nature and that caused by man. The first eternal. But not the second. So there was something worth doing. The only thing worth doing: ease the pain that could be eased: but how? A stupid woman like me.

Alex opened her eyes. The others were looking at her. No one spoke or moved for a moment, then they all turned and started back to the house. Without a word, without any sudden motion, they fell into a row and someone—could it really have been Ronnie?—put her arm around Alex, who embraced her and put her arm around Elizabeth, who embraced her and put her arm around Mary, who burst into song:

Four little maids from school are we,

Pert as a schoolgirl well can be,

Filled to the brim with girlish glee

Four little maids from school. …

The others did not know the lyrics, but chimed in on the refrain, “Four little maids from school,” as Mary sang on. Laughing they went back to the house where they were greeted by the wonderful aroma of roasting turkey (“So much better than the taste,” Elizabeth pointed out). Dinner preparations began in earnest, even the non-cooks pressed into service (“Mary, anyone can peel potatoes,” Alex insisted, and Ronnie ordered Elizabeth to stir, stir, stir, that’s all, stirring will reduce it). They were hungry and started to eat the guacamole in the kitchen as they worked, but when Mary heard the turkey had another hour to go, she insisted they abandon the kitchen and have a civilized cocktail hour in the sitting room.

Alex put the food on a low heat or in a warming oven, Ronnie built a fire, Mary carried the guacamole and corn chips into the sitting room, Elizabeth poured the wine. They all had wine this evening. They sat around the fire, glowing with pleasure in themselves.