Bitter Sweet (38 page)
‘Goodness, did you get any sleep at all?’ she asked to cover her self-consciousness.
‘Enough.’
‘Well, sit down. I’ll heat up the coffee. Have you had breakfast?’
“I don’t keep doughnuts around the place, but I have waffles ‘
‘Waffles sound wonderful.’
Katy’s glance darted between the two of them and Maggie turned towards the stove to hide her pink cheeks.
‘Bacon?’
‘Bacon would be good, if you’re sure it’s not too much trouble.’
‘it’s no trouble at all.’ No trouble at all when you’re falling in love with a man. He unzipped his snowmobile suit and pulled up to her table while she busied herself at the cupboard, afraid to turn around, afraid Katy would detect more than she already had.
‘How are you this morning?’ he asked Katy.
‘Fine. I slept like the dead.’
Maggie recognized a new wariness in her daughter’s voice. Obviously, Katy was trying to puzzle out the underlying vibrations in the room.
By the time she turned around, she had managed to compose herself but, bending before Eric to set a cup of coffee on the table, her heart seized up again. His face was still ruddy from the cold, his hair plastered down from the helmet. He flattened one shoulder back against the chair and smiled up at her, leaving Maggie with the startling impression that, had Katy not been there, he would have wrapped an arm around her thighs and held her beside him for a moment. She left the coffee and retreated to the stove.
She felt wifely, cooking for him. Unforgivable, but true.
Sometimes she had fantasized about it.
He put away two waffles, four strips of bacon and four cups of coffee while she sat across from him in her rose coloured robe and tried not to study his mouth whenever he spoke.
‘So you used to date my mother,’ Katy remarked while he ate.
‘Yup.’
‘Prom, too,’ Katy prodded.
‘Uh-huh. With Brookie and Arnie.’
‘I’ve heard about Brookie, but who’s Arnie?’
‘Arnie and I were friends in high school. We were part group that all hung around together.’
‘The ones who set fire to a barn one time?’
Eric’s surprised gaze swerved to Maggie. ‘You told her about that?’
Maggie gaped at her daughter. “When did I tell you about that?’
‘One time when I was little.’
Maggie confessed to Eric, ‘I don’t remember telling her about that.’
‘It was an accident,’ Eric explained. ‘Somebody must’ve dropped a cigarette butt, but don’t get the idea that we were intentionally destructive. We weren’t. We did a lot of things that were just innocent fun. Did she ever tell you about how we used to get all the girls out in some abandoned house and scare the devil out of them?’
‘And get cats drunk,’ Maggie reminded him.
‘Maggie, I never got a cat drunk. That was Arnie.’
‘And who shot the chimney off Old Man Boelz’s chicken coop?’ she inquired, holding a grin in check.
‘Well . . . that was just...’ He gestured dismissingly with his fork.
‘And rolled about fifty cream cans down the hill by the creamery at
in the morning and woke darn near the entire town of
Ephraim
.’
Eric laughed and choked on his coffee. When he had stopped coughing, he said, ‘Now, damn it, Maggie, nobody’s supposed to know about that.’
They had forgotten Katy was there, and by the time they remembered, she’d glanced back and forth between them a dozen times, listening to their good-humoured interchange with growing interest. When he’d finished eating, he bundled up again and stood on the rug smiling at Maggie.
‘You’re a good cook. Thank you for the breakfast.’
‘You’re welcome. Thank you for bringing Katy’s things.’
He gripped the doorknob and said, ‘Have a nice Christmas.’
‘You, too.’
Finally he remembered to add, ‘You, too, Katy.’
‘Thanks.’
When he was gone, Katy came at Maggie head first. “Motherrrr! What’s going on between you two!’
‘Nothing,’ Maggie declared, turning away, carrying Eric’s plate to the sink.
‘Nothing? When you rush into the bathroom and comb your hair and put lipstick on? Come on.’
Maggie felt the beginning of a telltale blush and kept her back turned.
‘We’ve become friends again, and he’s helped me get my zoning permit for the inn, that’s all.’
‘So what was all that about the doughnuts?’
Maggie shrugged and rinsed off a plate. ‘He likes doughnuts. I’ve known that for years.’
Suddenly Katy was beside Maggie, taking her by an arm and studying her face minutely.
‘Mother, you’ve got a thing for him, haven’t you?’
‘He’s married, Katy.’ Maggie resumed rinsing the dishes.
‘I know he’s married. Oh God, Mom, you wouldn’t fall for a married man, would you? It’s so tacky. I mean, you’re a widow and you know how.., well.., you know what I mean. ‘
Maggie looked up sharply, her mouth pinched. ‘And you know what they say about widows, is that what you were about to say?’
‘Well, they do.’
Maggie felt a spark of temper. ‘What do they say, Katy?’
‘Jeez, Mom, you don’t have to get so mad.’
‘Well, I think I have a right! How dare you accuse me ‘
‘I didn’t accuse you.’
‘It sounded that way to me.’
Katy, too, grew suddenly irate. ‘I have a right to my feelings, too, and after all, Dad’s only been dead a little over a year.’
Maggie rolled her eyes and grumbled as if to a third party, ‘Oh, I don’t believe this.’
‘Mother, I saw how you looked at that man, and you were blushing!’
Drying her hands on a towd, Maggie faced her daughter angrily. ‘You know, for a young woman who plans to work in the field of psychology you’ve got a lot to learn about human relations and the manipulation of feelings. I loved your dad, don’t you ever accuse me of not loving him!
But he’s dead and I’m alive, and if I should choose to fall in love with another man, or even to have an affair with one, I certainly wouldn’t feel obliged to ask for your approval first! Now I’m going upstairs to take a bath and get dressed, and while I do I’d appreciate it if you’d clean up the kitchen.
And while you’re doing so, you might give some thought to whether or not you owe me an apology!’
Maggie marched out of the room leaving Katy, gaping, behind her.
Her outburst put a strain on the rest of the holiday. Katy offered no apology, and thereafter the two women moved about the house with stiff formality. When Maggie went outside later in the day to shovel the sidewalk, Katy made no offer to help. When Katy rode off in a tow truck to retrieve her car, she didn’t say good-bye. At suppertime they spoke only when necessary, and afterward Katy put her nose in a book and kept it there until bedtime. The following day she announced that she had changed her airline reservations and would be returning to
Chicago
the day after Christmas and from there flying to
Seattle
.
By the time Christmas Eve arrived, Maggie felt the stress culminating in an ache that spread from her shoulders up her neck. Compounding it was the fact that Vera had grudgingly agreed to come to the house for the first time.
She and Roy arrived at 5:oo P.M. on Christmas Eve, and Vera entered complaining, bearing a moulded jello on a covered cake dish.
‘I hope this isn’t mined. I used my tallest mould, and I told your father to take it easy around the corners, but when we were starting up the hill the cover sfid to one side and it probably ruined the whipped cream. I hope you have room in your refrigerator.’ She sailed straight to it, opened the door and reared back. ‘Judas priest, what a mess! How in the world do you find anything in here?
Roy
, come here and hold this while I try to make room.’
Roy
followed her orders.
Vexed by Vera’s autocratic attitude,
Roy
’s blind submissiveness, and the whole wrong mood of the holiday, Maggie stepped forward and ordered, ‘Katy, take thejello from Grandma and put it outon the porch. Daddy, you can put the gifts in the parlour. There’s a fire in there, and Katy can bring you a glass of wine while I show Mother the house. ‘
The tour started offbadly from the beginning. Vera had wanted them to gather at her house for Christmas Eve, and since they hadn’t she made it abundandy clear she was here under duress. She ghnced around the kitchen and remarked caustically, ‘Good lord, what do you want to look at that beat-up old table of your dad’s for? That thing should have been burned years ago.’
And in the new bathroom: ‘Why would you ever put in one of those old clawfoot tubs? You’ll be sorry when you have to get on your hands and knees to clean under it.’
And in the Belvedere Room, after boldly asking what the furniture had cost, she declared, ‘You paid too much for it.’
In the parlour, only recently furnished, she made a few positive comments, but they were embarrassingly paltry.
By the time Maggie left her mother with the others, she felt like there was TNT running through her veins. Vera found her minutes later, in the kitchen, slicing ham with enough vengeance to sever the breadboard. Vera came close, her wine glass in hand.
‘Margaret, I hate to bring up unpleasantness on Christmas Eve, but I am your mother, and if I don’t talk to you about it, who will?’
Maggie glanced up, bristling, thinking, You love to bring up unpleasantness anytime, Mother.
‘Talk about what?’
‘Whatever’s going on between you and Eric Severson.
People are talking about it, Margaret.’
‘Nothing’s going on between me and Eric Severson.’
‘You aren’t living in a big city anymore, and you’re a widow now. You have to be careful about your reputation.’
Maggie began slicing again. Rabidly. This was the second time she’d been warned about widows’ reputations by people who were supposed to love her.
“I said nothing is going on between us.’
‘You call flirting on
Maggie became so angry she didn’t trust herself to speak.
‘You’re forgetting, dear,’ Vera went on, ‘that you were at my house the night he picked you up to go to the county board meeting. I saw how you dressed and how you acted when he came to the door. I tried to warn you then, but...’
‘But you waited until Christmas Eve, didn’t you, Mother?’ Maggie stopped slicing to glare at her mother.
‘You have no reason to be cross with me. I’m merely trying to warn you that people are talking.’
The knife started whacking again. ‘Well, let them talk!’
‘They say his truck has been spotted in front of your house, and that the two of you were seen early in the morning having breakfast in
Maggie threw down the knife and flung her hands up in exasperation. ‘Oh, for Christ sake! He offered me the use of his truck to get the furniture!’
“I don’t care for that kind of language, Margaret!’
‘And he rescued Katy. You know that!’
Vera sniffed and raised one eyebrow. ‘FranHy, I’d rather not hear the details. Just remember, you’re not a teenager anymore, and people have long memories. They haven’t forgotten that the two of you used to date in high school.’
‘So what!’
Vera pressed closer. ‘He has a wife, Margaret.’
‘I know that.’
‘One who’s gone all week long.’
‘I know that, too.’
After a moment’s hesitation, Vera straightened and said, ‘Why, you don’t care, do you?’
‘Not about shabby gossip, I don’t.’ Maggie started shipping ham slices onto a plate. ‘He’s a friend, nothing more. And if people are going to make something of it they must not have enough in their lives to keep them busy.’ She shot a flat-eyed challenge at Vera: that means you, Mother!
Vera’s shoulders slumped. ‘Oh, Margaret, I’m so disappointed in you.’
Standing before her mother, holding the platter of Christmas ham, Maggie felt a grave disappointment of her own. The fight suddenly left her and tears sprang into her eyes. ‘Yes, I know, Mother,’ she replied resignedly, ‘I don’t seem to be able to do anything to please you. I never have.’
Only when she’d finally drawn tears did Vera step forward and place a hand on Maggie’s shoulder.
‘Margaret, you know I’m only concerned about your happiness.’
When had Vera ever been concerned about anyone’s happiness? What drove the woman? She actually seemed unable to tolerate the happiness of other. But why?