Blue Stars (41 page)

“And who put you in charge, Mom?” Jane gripped the plastic bed railing. “Of everyone’s bodies. How come you know what’s best? For everyone!”

If it weren’t all so horrible, Ellen would have had to laugh at the phrasing, and Jane’s hysterical generalizing:
Everyone’s bodies
. “Well, I hardly thought I needed your permission—”

“Not me, Mike! Did you even ask him what he would have wanted, about his leg?”

“That is fucking ridiculous,” Wesley said. “Stop it.”

Ellen could barely speak. “It was—he wasn’t able to understand what was going on…” Her voice petered out. Michael’s attentive silence, just to her left.

“Not then.
Now.
Do you even know what he thinks about it getting amputated? What he would have done? Did you ever even ask him?”

At this, the small crowded room went quiet. Jane’s desperate questions hung in the air and drifted downward like ash, legitimate, scorching.

All those eyes, waiting for her answer. No, she hadn’t asked Michael’s permission. She hadn’t asked his forgiveness. For that’s what Jane meant, right? She hadn’t had one real moment of connection with him since he arrived at Walter Reed unconscious. He used to practically bite her head off when she reminded him to take his midday antibiotic! What could he possibly say about going from missing a foot to being a full-blown AK?
Sure, no biggie?

That’s when Ellen did what she promised herself she would never do. She left.

The real failure, Ellen knew, lay in her leaving. Which Jane called her on, even as she was doing it.
Fine, go ahead and walk out, like you always do. Mom, come back and face reality!
Wesley ran to catch her in the hall and she brushed him off as kindly as she could:
I’m fine, I just can’t be here right now.
On the walk from Heaton to Mologne, Lacey called three times, no message. The heat of Ellen’s anger carried her back to her room, stayed while she packed, and made the phone calls to rearrange her travel.
Fine. Go ahead. Do what you want.

But it had dissipated by the time she was going through security at Reagan National and by the time she had boarded her plane all Ellen felt was emptiness, regret, tiredness. They would go on to have this baby no matter what she did or didn’t do. And there was no place for her.

*   *   *

Back in Madison, Maisie sniffed the cold water lapping against a muddy slush of a shore, and leaped back to Ellen, howling with excitement. Apparently Wisconsin’s snowfall this year had been a record low, especially compared to last year, and Ellen wondered if this lake had even frozen over once. It was certainly in full early-spring high tide now, the waterline farther up the small dirt and sand beach than she could remember seeing.

Picnic Point was a mile-long peninsula into Lake Mendota, a beckoning finger jutting out into the blob-shaped body of water that bordered the university on its north side. Originally private property before the U acquired it midcentury, the narrow spit was lined with trails and studded with marshes and swamps. It was a favorite with dogs and their owners as well as students desperate for a make-out session in the woods. More than once Maisie’s barking had flushed out undergraduates from the bushes and Ellen would apologize except that really, they never looked quite as embarrassed as they should.

“Well, go on. Get wet.”

But Maisie was torn. She kept nudging at the gray water and then wheeling back to Ellen.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, sweet girl.” She picked twigs out of the dog’s fur and took off a glove to rub her behind the ears. “No, we haven’t been here in so long. Yes, too long. Too long, right? How about a stick.” Pressing up from achy knees, she found a stick and flung it way out into the water. Maisie tensed, and then took the plunge. For a while they went through the dog’s favorite routine: fling, swim, fetch. The trickiest part was to get out of the way when Maisie, having dumped the stick triumphantly at Ellen’s feet, vigorously shook her fur with a spray of wet droplets.

On her last joyful charge, Maisie swam past the floating stick.

“Hey, you missed it, silly,” Ellen called, but the dog paddled on without turning back. A pair of ducks had drifted in toward shore and were now paddling away from the dog, who had spotted them. “Maisie, come,” Ellen said.
“Come.”
She called again and again, with increasing volume. Maisie went farther into the lake, farther than she’d ever gone, her chin held bravely above the water. Those damn ducks were drawing her out into the middle of the lake! By now she probably couldn’t even hear Ellen’s frantic cries. Ellen, who was ankle deep in the water, promising treats, shouting,
“Come back, come here! Maisie! What are you doing?”

She can’t stay afloat much longer,
Ellen realized, as it hit her what a dire situation they were in. No one else was on the shore; there were no boats. She tried a step farther in, and another, wincing as the icy water surged over her boots and soaked her pants. Every time she glanced up Maisie’s head was smaller, a bobbing brown lump way out on the lake. Ellen began to panic. What if she goes under? I can’t just stand here!

Then she was shedding her coat, pulling off her boots and throwing them to shore. She did it all so fast, that first flailing into the water, that she gained several yards before it shocked her, hard. The mind-choking cold. Ellen tried to shout, but had no breath. As soon as the water enveloped most of her body she knew it had been a mistake. Gasping, she thrashed for air, for life. Her feet lifted off the muddy bottom and she thought it was over. The dog was forgotten. She fought for herself.

But when Ellen staggered back onto the beach, Maisie trotted up after her. Her noisy half swim must have drawn the dog’s attention. When Ellen could breathe again, she patted the dog blindly and said,
“We have to hurry.”
The mile back to the car was a blur of pain and cold. Ellen’s hands were so stiff she could barely turn on the ignition, and she had to use her forearms on the steering wheel. Maisie lay on the backseat, not even raising her head. Ellen thought about driving straight to the vet but in the end went back to their house. She managed to half drag, half carry Maisie inside and throw a towel on her. Her own warm shower made her cry out as her hands and feet burned bright red, but she stayed under the spray as long as she could.

“We’re okay. We’re okay,” she kept saying. To the dog, to herself. She opened the radiator full throttle and got into bed, with Maisie, both of them under the covers. But it took a long time to stop shaking. What had almost happened, and what she’d almost lost, and where she failed. So even when she found a stretch of uneasy sleep, Ellen felt cold deep inside, where the warmth and safety couldn’t reach.

*   *   *

That was her second day back. On the third, Ellen had sorted months of mail, paid a dozen bills, and sent thirty e-mails before her second cup of coffee. She filled boxes of unread magazines to donate to the local hospital (
The New Yorker, Gourmet, Vogue
) and to the department (
MLA, Victorian News,
various lit quarterlies). She ordered thank-you bouquets and fruit baskets for neighbors who had helped to take care of Maisie, kept an eye on Jane, and supervised things like tree maintenance and electric meter readings. She scrubbed the fridge and surveyed the pantry and made a list for the market. She made appointments to get her hair done, her teeth cleaned, and her eyes checked. She left messages for the house cleaner, the roofer, and the lawn care company.

And when it was 10:00 a.m., she rinsed out her coffee cup, gave Maisie two extra biscuits, and walked out the door in her Italian light wool trouser suit, brown leather pumps, favorite bag. On the drive to campus she remembered a host of to-dos related to the car—EPA testing, tune-up, city parking sticker—and added them mentally to her growing list.

At Helen C. White, she didn’t technically
avoid
the secretary or the mailbox area, she just came up the other set of elevators. Yes, she would at some point need to stop in and have some inevitable discussions—with Mark Carroll above all—about the status of her leave and what would happen in the fall. She would call Serena. But for now, she’d fly under the radar. For a moment Ellen wondered if she’d been blockaded out of her own office; she had to shove the door hard to get it to open and then step over months of mail, review copies, and schedules that apparently had been dumped right inside the threshold. But sorting through this was even easier than the papers at home; most of it went straight to recycling with barely a second glance.

“Professor Silverman?” It was Lynne, tapping gingerly. “I might be a little early, so if you want…”

“No, this is fine. Come in and—oh, let me clear off that chair. Sorry about the mess.”

“Please! I’m just so grateful you can find the time. You definitely didn’t have to do this. Switching advisers in the fall wasn’t actually that bad, and—”

“It must have been very disruptive, and I couldn’t be sorrier. But you’re doing some very good work here, Lynne.” She paused to let this sink in, gratified by the proud and nervous expression on the young woman’s face. “I’m so pleased to get a chance to read it in progress. Well, let’s get started. As you can see, I jotted comments throughout, on the margins, but I also typed up some global suggestions for each of the chapters. Here. Why don’t you take a moment to read, and then we can discuss.”

But the girl didn’t open the folder in her lap, the one holding the pages Ellen had printed out and carefully critiqued for most of yesterday morning.

“Professor Silverman, I was—”

“You can call me Ellen by now, Lynne.”

“Um. Ellen, I wanted to say that I know what you’ve been going through must have been so hard—I mean, that it is so hard … And I don’t know the details or whatever, so I hope this isn’t intruding or anything. But I’m really, really sorry about your … son. Not son, that is—or, maybe, your…” Lynne glanced around in panic, boxed into a corner.

“‘Son’ is fine, Lynne,” Ellen said quickly. “And thank you,” she added. The torrent of emotion that rose up caught her off guard. The girl’s uneasy speech, her obvious relief at it being over, the way she’d overcome the what-to-say obstacle that people twice her age mostly fumbled … Someone had raised her right, Ellen thought, discreetly pressing the inner corners of her eyes.

“Do you want to read that,” Ellen said gently, and Lynne opened the folder eagerly, ready to talk dissertation.

*   *   *

The quiet of her house unsettled her. Five months in Mologne’s dorm-like hotel, where people went up and down the hall outside her room all hours, and car doors slammed in the parking lot, and walls were thin, letting in muffled sounds of music and anguish, on both sides, had her skittish and uneasy in the wide oasis of calm at night in her century-old two-story home on Chamberlain Street. Also, what were all the things she used to do
,
here? Her third night back, Ellen wandered from room to room, switching on a light and then switching it off again. She stood on the threshold of Jane’s room for a long time, silently observing the usual mess, a tangle of clothes and bedsheets and books and bags, as well as the few newer items shoved together in a corner: a worn blue cloth-covered bouncy seat, a pack of toddler-size diapers, some kind of pillow labeled
MY BREAST FRIEND
. She thought about cleaning up, organizing, making better choices for this baby’s arrival, but stepped back and closed the door on the room.

Ellen couldn’t relax. She puttered around the dark house, at first enjoyably, then with an edge. A hot bath, her favorite white cotton nightgown, and a small glass of bourbon: no help.

“Don’t even suggest TV,” she told Maisie, who followed her everywhere. “Quite enough of that.”

Eventually she ended up back in the kitchen staring at the UPS box that had arrived that morning. Inside was a stack of books and a letter from Lacey. When she unfolded it, a brochure fell out. Ellen only skimmed the first part where her friend wrote the expected things in a handwriting that was tightly looped and even.
I didn’t know she was coming she just showed up. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get in your business and I wish I never kept talking to her when she called me. She misses you, but you know a girl like that can’t say it straight. I’m sorry. I miss you a lot. I’ll do whatever you want, like to check in on them here or stay totally out of it.

More interesting was the brochure: “For Those Who Have Served.” On the front, a blurry photo of two women in uniform pressing
PLAY
on a recording machine, with the white curves of the Capitol out the window behind them. Skipping down, Lacey’s letter said,
After you brought those books on tape he went through them so fast. I tried to find more around here but you know what a junk pile it can be. Shelby the reporter got this guy to call me and he works at the Library of Congress do you know about that place? I didn’t have to but I drove over there and it is amazing. So this guy signed Ed up for a program where they just gave us all this stuff, a player where he can do a kind of digital bookmark and make it go faster or slower (slower being good for Ed, obviously), and speakers that are in a pillow, it’s wild. He gets all these books, I mean like dozens at a time I think he likes the history ones best and Lolo and he found out you can get Spanish too. It’s called the NLS. He never does the crazy laugh thing when he’s listening to them and it gets him calm. He’s thinking about the books, later, I can tell. Anyway it’s the first goddamn freebie here that actually makes sense for us and I had to tell you because you started it and also because the Congress library is really something I wish you and I would have gone there together.

Ellen did know the Library of Congress. She had been there several times. On her first visit, in the late 1970s, she’d been a newly minted assistant professor at her first job at a small school in upper Michigan. She traveled to D.C. for a spring conference, and took the tour with four other people and a chatty senior citizen docent: in the Great Hall they marveled at the Bible of Mainz, and the Gutenberg Bible, facing each other under bulletproof glass. When their group came to the Main Reading Room, Ellen slipped away from the tour to wander that golden-domed space, a heaven to her. On a whim she filled out a slip of paper to request a book and waited at a curved oak desk until it was brought to her, under the marble statues of female muses. Then it was there in her hands, in a pebbled dark-green binding:
Solitude and Safety: Representations of Female Space in Wharton’s Early Stories
, by Ellen Silverman, PhD.