Three Women at the Water's Edge (3 page)

Daisy had argued that if she had the baby now (while she was young and healthy), she could go back to work seriously, permanently, in only five years, when the child was in school, but if they put it off, it would interrupt whatever job or career she had for herself, so it would be more economical in the long run to have the baby now and get it over with. And, she argued, stressing this point, if they had a baby, Paul’s employers would feel that he was a more settled and respectable person, a family man, with real responsibi
lities; they would probably give him a raise, they would feel they could trust him. Being a father would make him look stable, solid. Besides, Daisy added, a baby would not cost all that much, would not change their lives all that much. She could probably even continue working part time. Daisy was secretly surprised at her ingenuity at coming up with so many reasons for protecting what was still only a gathering of molecules.

After Danny was born, she could not remember how Paul had not wanted him; if asked, she would have said in all honesty that Paul had wanted the baby, too, right from the start. And she had been right about Paul’s employers; they were pleased by his fatherhood, they did advance his position, they did give him a raise. In the first two years of Danny’s life, Daisy was so wrapped up with the child that Paul had time and energy to work even harder, and so he was given better positions, more raises, he was a golden boy. When Daisy found out she was pregnant with Jenny—an act she had committed without really consulting Paul, but she felt sure Paul wouldn’t want Danny to be an only child—they had bought a house.

The house was a large, aging Tudor full of drafts and gracious lines. Its best point was that it was “on the lake,” which Paul thought would impress people, and which Daisy thought would make her eternally happy. Going through the empty, echoing house together with the real estate agent, Daisy had looked past the weathered wooden windowsills out at the expansive sheen of blue lake. It seemed so large, so endless, more like an ocean; Lake Michigan was, after all, 80 miles across and 300 miles long. And the back of the land sloped gently down to a small sandy beach. It would be heaven, Daisy thought, for the children.

They could not really afford the house. It cost too much money. But it was so imposing, with its steep slate roof and weighty oak front door, so solid, that Paul felt it suited him, and after that no other houses seemed appealing. They borrowed a little money from Daisy’s parents, and used up all their savings toward a down payment, and took out a large mortgage. They didn’t have a penny left over for repairs or decorating; they scarcely had enough to eat. So Daisy spent six months working on the house: stripping old, peeling paint off the woodwork, painting, hanging wallpaper, sewing curtains and drapes, even hammering loose doorframes back to security, screwing brass doorknobs on tightly. She did not work as a secretary anymore, she brought no money in, but she did work like crazy in the house. Whenever she wasn’t cooking or taking care of Danny, she was working on the house. She didn’t nap, she didn’t read books or magazines, she didn’t sit and chat with friends. If they wanted to see her, they had to come to the house, and sit on the floor with a scarf on their heads to keep sawdust or paint out of their hair, and talk to her as she worked.

Daisy thought at the time, and it was probably true, that Paul did not appreciate the work she did. He would go off in the morning, and make money, and come back in the evening; and perhaps an entire double casement window, with its strips of wood separating the diamond-shaped panes, would have been perfectly, painstakingly painted. Because he never did any of the painting, he did not understand what an achievement that was. He usually said something appropriately complimentary, but he felt that of course Daisy was only doing her job as wife. He was doing his job, she was doing hers. When most of the work was done on the house, they threw a large party—Daisy wore her sexy red maternity dress—and invited all their friends and acquaintances from Paul’s company. The purpose of the party was not purely exhibitory. It really was a party, a fête, a celebration. Paul felt he had finally achieved stability, as represented by the house; stability, respectabi
lity, a kind of worthiness. It was symbolic, for him, the house; a goal, a milestone, a marker in his life. Of course, because it was that for him, a marker, he could pass it by once he had attained it, he could leave it behind. While for Daisy the house was not a symbol. For Daisy it was real, a home, a place to live in and keep and know; it was a shelter of large and graceful rooms which would be part of her and her children’s lives.

After Daisy gave birth to Jenny, and Paul got another raise, and they were able to breathe a little easier, they could have babysitters in, go to movies, have dinner parties more often, because now they could afford suitable food. So when the house was finally finished, more or less, Paul wanted Daisy to go back to work. But Daisy didn’t want to. She wanted to stay home and take care of her beautiful new house, she wanted to stay home and take care of her beautiful new children. The idea of leaving the house and dropping Danny and Jenny off with some strange person while she sat in a gray office and typed seemed totally unappealing. So she argued: the cost of transportation and child care would take up the greater part of her salary. Again she was ingenious; she added that if she went out to work she would have to buy new, appropriate clothes;
that
, alone, would use up the first few months’ gain. Since Danny’s birth, she had stopped buying good clothes, which among other things required a good figure, and had gone about quite happily in jeans and large soft old shirts that had once been Paul’s. Paul, on the other hand, because he had to appear well dressed, spent a great deal of money on clothes, and had become almost vain. In any case, he certainly loved clothes, loved adorning himself; and it was even possible that he liked looking better than Daisy. He agreed with Daisy, finally: she should stay home and take care of the children, at least for a while longer. And he realized that the elegant dinners she prepared for his colleagues took up a great deal of time and planning and work. So Daisy did stay home, and she kept the house clean and attractive, and planted graceful flower gardens. She looked stunning at their parties (if a bit plump), and sloppy the rest of the time, with little bits of gnawed food stuck on the back of her shirts where Jenny had spit past the diaper or towel, and brown crusts which could have been dirt or mucus on her jeans, just at child height. In spite of her happiness, she was often tired, and grew to treasure the hours between eight and ten in the evening as her private time to relax, alone, to watch TV, or to soak in a hot tub with a good novel. And before long, she was accidentally pregnant again, and pleased about it.

That was when they had another fight. Paul wanted Daisy to have an abortion. Already they were facing the costs of preschool for Danny, and the doctor bills were incredible, and the mortgage consumed Paul’s salary, and they could not afford another child. He wanted Daisy to have an abortion. Daisy wanted the baby. She screamed that it was her baby, her body, she would not kill her child, she would not have her body violated. And because the baby was in her body, she won: Paul could not, after all, drag her off by her hair to an abortionist. But he told her he hated her; he told her he would hate the new child. She told him that she didn’t care: already she loved the new baby more than she loved Paul.

They had stared at each other then, amazed to have shouted out such things, things they had not as yet even whispered to themselves.

Paul had left the room and the house; of course he could, he did not have to remain to take care of the children. Daisy had fixed herself a drink, and cried, and called a friend, and with the help of the drink and the friend had cheered up; decided that all married couples have such fights when faced with such decisions. It was like giving birth; you had to go through a period of pain and tribulation in order to have a new life. She fixed a good dinner for them that night, and tried to be pleasant to Paul when he returned. She thought that nothing had really changed. But she was wrong. Everything had.

So now here she was, alone in bed in the afternoon, full of fear. She was not a stupid or shallow woman. She had simply made two mistakes that she knew of: doing what she wanted to do, and misjudging another person. Most people make those mistakes more than once in the course of their lives. She knew that it was not Paul she loved, not any longer; it was
being married
she loved. The thought of not having a
daddy
in the home filled her with a primitive desperation. What could she do, what could she do! Her children needed a father. She felt she was doing all she reasonably could: she had said to Paul, often, during the fights that sprang up between them if they were alone together for any length of time, that he could have his lover, he could go places with another woman, he could sleep with her all he wanted, and she wouldn’t make a fuss—as long as he remained Daisy’s husband, and their children’s father. Other women, she had said, would have wanted him to give up the girl, but she was not asking that of him. She was being as generous and open-minded as she could.
Think of your employers,
she had said,
what would they think if you left your wife and three babies to go off with a young woman like Monica? Think about that
. What can I do? she had even asked, what can I do to make you happy within our marriage, what else can I do? Tell me and I’ll try.

She had seen Monica, several times. The girl was a reporter for a local paper with a liberal, almost socialistic bent. Her family was wealthy; Monica wore horn-rimmed glasses and chewed gum and was interested in social welfare. Paul, who was just learning that a wealthy liberal is usually more classy than a wealthy conservative, thought Monica very classy indeed. And it was true: She was thin while Daisy was fat, and chic and breezy while Daisy was slack and slow, and quick to impressive righteous indignation while Daisy was quick to yawn or laugh. There could be no doubt that she was better in bed than Daisy was; Daisy didn’t care much about that anymore. Monica’s conversation was surely better, too. And it was even probably true that she loved Paul much more than Daisy did. One of the times Daisy had seen Monica, Daisy had been coming out of a jeweler’s; she had just bought a silver comb and brush for a friend’s new baby. She had left her own children with a babysitter that afternoon, but still had them on her mind. She wanted to stop by a department store and buy Danny some new socks and Jenny some more rubber pants, and she would surprise her children with a new toy: a turtle they had been wanting, that chimed when you pulled its string. Well, she had come out of the jeweler’s, feeling happy, with the new baby present in its white-and-silver wrapping filling her hands, and the thought of the children’s faces when they saw the turtle, and there, right across the street, she saw Paul and Monica come out of a restaurant.

Monica was wearing sexy high boots—Daisy felt she would have tripped and fallen and probably killed herself wearing such boots—and a long floppy brown sweater that on Daisy would have sloped and clung. Her hips looked smaller than Daisy’s nonpregnant waist. Daisy stood absolutely still on the pavement, staring at the girl; Paul didn’t interest her, she knew what he looked like. It was this girl who fascinated Daisy. And she saw the girl smile at something Paul said to her, and reach up in an impetuous rush to kiss Paul’s mouth, right there in public. She looked like such a happy girl, so happy to be there with that man, so obviously in love, it made people watching smile to see. Even Daisy smiled. She recognized the sweet rush of adoration that had to be expressed by touching; but in her case, she realized, she now always reached down, not up—down to the short squirmy bodies of her son and daughter.

Paul and Monica walked off, arm in arm, oblivious of Daisy’s stunned observation, and Daisy watched them go, thinking how happy the two people were, and how she would not want Paul to not have that. Who would want to take such a thing away from anyone, it was so rare. She thought that if she could generously, honestly want that for Paul, why couldn’t he also want happiness for her?