Drowning Ruth (13 page)

“Well, no. He didn't see the point. You see, he worked at the
bank as an errand boy in the summers, and when he graduated from St. John's, they offered him this job right away.”

“I'm not saying he needs the education. Goodness knows, my Freddy came out of Yale as stupid as he went in, but it's the friends you make, the society. You can't expect him to get ahead unless he knows the right people.”

“Probably he'll go to college in a year or two,” Theresa said rashly. “I wouldn't be surprised.”

A significant look passed between Mrs. Kessler and Mrs. Jones, whose son would be a junior at the U. of C. that fall, and Theresa could see that she had somehow shown herself to a disadvantage.

Mrs. Jones opened a fresh subject. “I understand you're building a summer place.”

“Yes,” Theresa answered warily. What would they make of a too narrow house on a too steep slope on the wrong side of the wrong lake?

“Oh, I wish I could convince Herman to do that,” Mrs. Kes-sler said. “You can't get away from the smell of the river here in the summertime. It's simply unbearable. But he won't leave the city. You miss too many opportunities, he says, when you're away. That's all very well for him, but what opportunities would I miss? He doesn't give a thought to Charlotte. She doesn't see why we should have to stay in town—especially when all of her friends go. ‘If we must stay, we have to have a place on Lake Michigan,' I tell Herman. But he won't do that either. ‘This house was good enough for my father,' he says, ‘and it's good enough for me.' So here we are, completely dependent on the good graces of relatives and friends who have summer places.” She smiled at Theresa.

“We would love to have you stay with us as soon as the house is ready,” Theresa said. “We'll be joining the yacht club and the tennis club, and I know Avis and Maynard would be delighted to take Charlotte with them to the various functions.” In fact, Avis was dead set against joining any clubs she judged “hoity-toity,” and
Maynard had never managed to get the knack of tennis, but Theresa trusted that these minor hitches would solve themselves, once she got her family into a new setting, where their true personalities had room to flower. She was counting on this house also to rectify one major problem—the waywardness of her husband. Already she could see a change in Clement. He arrived home promptly every evening so that they could pore over the blueprints together. He described his plans to her with the same excitement he'd shown when they were first courting, and he was eager to hear how she'd receive them. And he knocked on her bedroom door frequently. Yes, he'd certainly come back to her, and she was convinced that this new project, for which he welcomed her ideas as well as her money, just as he'd done in the early days, would keep him close.

Later, when Theresa paused on the steps of the Kesslers' house and released Arthur's hand so that she could fold the check and slip it into her purse, she decided that the visit had been satisfactory overall. That the house was all right was a particular relief. She hadn't been sure before this. Clement had been sure, but then he was positive about every one of his schemes—his enthusiasm meant nothing. But Florence Kessler wouldn't approve just anything nor would Alice Jones.

Now Theresa felt free to imagine her family there—Arthur pushing a toy sailboat along the shore with a stick, his knees grass-stained, and his hair grown sweetly shaggy; Maynard, at the tiller of a real sailboat, squinting up at the bright white canvas, maybe even winning a regatta and then presenting her with the silver cup; Avis sitting with a nice boy, a friend of Maynard, perhaps, in the gazebo the final hour of Sunday evening, enjoying the agony of the thought that they wouldn't see each other again for at least a week.

And she and Clement? Too soon, too soon, she thought. She didn't dare count on it. But she kept the notion warm, like a seed beneath the frost line.

At four o'clock each day Theresa and Arthur took a nap together on the cool satin comforter that covered her bed. Before they fell asleep, each would lie listening to the quiet, steady breathing of the other, watching the afternoon shadows slowly stain the ceiling. Sometimes Arthur would rest his head on Theresa's stomach and wonder at the continuous gurgle that no one but he could hear.

At five-thirty Arthur went out to sit on the stone front steps to wait for Clement to come home. He couldn't be dissuaded from this duty, even in the worst weather. When it rained or hailed, he stood close to the house, under the overhang that protected the front door. When it was sunny or snowy, he amused himself while he waited by jumping from step to step. Sometimes he ranged over the entire yard, using the steps only as a base. Always, though, he kept the street strictly in sight, for he worried that, if he did not, his father might not come safely home, and he knew his father ought to come home, even though he sometimes wished he wouldn't.

On the advice of Pastor Jensen, Carl had arranged for Hilda Grossman, a second cousin once removed on his father's side, to come from Tomahawk to do the housework and keep an eye on Ruth while Amanda was at St. Michael's. Hilda had made clear that she was not entirely pleased with the arrangement.

“I'll say it straight out, Carl,” she'd said, dropping her carpetbag so that it fell at her feet with a thump. “I know there was something funny going on in this house. You might think we're ignorant up in Tomahawk, but we hear things. Another one mightn't have come, but you're in a fix and family's family, so here I am.” She crossed her arms over the hills of her bosom and waited for him to answer.

“What do you mean, something funny?”

“I don't know, but I do know that a decent woman doesn't hide
on an island for months, not speaking to another soul, and I also know that a decent woman drowns in broad daylight, when everyone can see what's what, not in secret in the middle of the night. That's what I know.”

Carl narrowed his eyes, as if trying to sharpen his vision. “I don't understand. What are you driving at?”

“I'm not saying anything more. Gossip is wicked. That's how I was taught. I just wanted to make my position clear.”

But she'd only made things more murky for Carl. What had happened while he'd been away? He should have pressed Amanda when he'd had the chance; asking her now was out of the question. That night, in his room, Carl searched the photograph of Mathilda that stood on his nightstand. He picked it up by the frame and shook it, trying … what? … to make her speak, to change her expression? She smiled on, looking as if she meant to live forever.

For the first week or two after Amanda went away, Ruth was restless. She wandered from room to room, stopping to stare out of every low-silled window. She picked up objects as she went, light, little things—her blanket, her bear, a spoon, a stocking from Amanda's drawer—and she dropped them absently along her way, so that by the end of the day the house was strewn with litter. And she cried, although really the sound was more of a whimper, a weak keening that seemed to hover at the base of her throat, spilling out at the least provocation and often with no provocation at all and was unstanchable once begun.

Once or twice Hilda patted her lap and held out her arms to the little girl. “Come to Hilda, now,” she said, smiling reassuringly at Carl. But Ruth turned away, would not even come close. Hilda, embarrassed, seemed to close her heart against Ruth then. “There's no pleasing some people,” she said, standing abruptly and brushing her lap away.

Carl held Ruth and rocked her, but never for long. She slipped
from his arms and out of his lap like quicksilver, and he was unable to arrest her drift until she fell asleep in some corner, exhausted.

And then one day at breakfast she held out her glass in both hands.

“What do you say?” he prompted, lifting the milk pitcher.

When she said nothing, only thrust her glass forward again, he realized that he hadn't heard her speak a word in days.

“Ruthie, what do you say?” he repeated, more sternly this time.

Still she said nothing.

“I'd like some milk, please,” he said.

Ruth gave the table one smart rap with the bottom of her glass.

“That's enough, Ruthie.” He set the pitcher back on the table and reached to take the glass out of her hands. It was impossible to say, really, what happened next. Did she drop it deliberately or only release her hold before his grip was firm? In any case, the glass hit the floor with a crash.

Hilda came down to breakfast as he was sweeping up.

“Ruth doesn't get anything today unless she asks for it properly, Hilda,” he said, dumping the shards into the wastebasket. “She knows how to talk.”

“I understand,” Hilda answered, pouring coffee into her cup as if the kitchen were her own. She seemed almost pleased, Carl thought, at the chance to punish Ruth, and it made him think better of his words.

“I don't mean you should starve her.”

Hilda looked at him thoughtfully and took a sip of her coffee. “You let females walk all over you, Carl, you know that? Even this little thing here. You don't do her no favors, letting her have her way.”

Her talking like that made him angry, but maybe she was right, about Ruth anyway. What did he know about raising a little girl? He worried about her, losing two mamas, no wonder she wasn't
acting right, but what could he do about it? Hilda knew best, he thought, he hoped, as he hurried out to the barn.

At noon Hilda made a cheese sandwich and held it out to Ruth on a plate. When the little girl reached for it, Hilda lifted it high. “What do we say?”

Ruth began to whimper.

“Crocodile tears won't get you nowhere with me, young lady.” Hilda took a bite out of the sandwich and chewed it deliberately as Ruth began to shriek.

Hilda set the sandwich down and rummaged through a drawer. When she turned to face Ruth again, she was holding a wooden spoon. “I'll give you something to cry about.” She grabbed Ruth by the arm and landed three or four good smacks on Ruth's bottom.

“That'll learn you.” She picked Ruth up around the waist, carried her upstairs, deposited her in her room and shut the door.

Hilda made supper for them every night, usually boiled potatoes and some piece of meat, cooked until it had relinquished the very last of its juices.

“She isn't even properly trained,” she complained, spreading mustard onto her potato with her knife.

“What do you mean? Trained in what?” Carl usually kept his head down as they ate, so as not to have to watch her chew, but he looked up now, puzzled.

“You know. Trained.”

When Carl, still uncomprehending, shook his head, Hilda blushed and lowered her eyes. “You know. She wets herself.”

It was such a relief to see Hilda looking that way, disconcerted, unformidable, that Carl laughed. And amazingly Hilda laughed too.

“It's nothing to laugh at,” she protested, but she was still smiling. For a few brief moments they looked at each other, struck by the difference, but neither knew how to go on.

“Well, what do we do about it?” Carl asked finally.

“I guess I know how to train a child.”

Hilda's training method consisted of not allowing Ruth to change her panties when she wet them. And, of course, that meant she wasn't allowed to sit down anywhere in the house.

“You have to learn to live with your mistakes,” Hilda said.

Ruth took to hiding her wet underthings and wearing nothing under her skirt for the rest of the day.

“I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Carl,” Hilda said, meeting him at the back door the day she discovered Ruth's trick, “but a normal child, a decent child, doesn't run around naked. You can see she wasn't brung up right. It's no wonder the sister's in the nuthouse. And it makes you wonder about the mother, too. I'm sorry to say it, but it does.”

She did not seem sorry to say it. She seemed pleased, triumphant. Carl was outraged. “You have no right to say such things about my wife or my wife's family. If that's the way you feel, you can go back to Tomahawk. I'll give you the money for your ticket.”

Hilda seemed surprised by his anger. “And leave you alone with a child like this? I think I know my duty better than that.”

She turned, then, abruptly, and went into the kitchen and busied herself among the pans. Carl put his jacket back on and took himself back out to the barn, although he had already decided he was through for the day, and began to soap Frenchie's bridle.

How dare she, he thought, say such things about Mathilda, about her family? She was only a jealous spinster, trying to cause trouble for another woman, a happy woman, a woman who'd had a husband who loved her. He rubbed the bridle hard, until the rag he was using slipped and the friction of his fingers against the leather burned his skin. Why couldn't a woman just drown? People drowned all the time, that's what Amanda had said. Amanda, who couldn't tie her own shoes now. But that had nothing to do
with it, he assured himself. Of course people drowned. It didn't mean there was something wrong, something to be wondered about.

The doubt gnawed at him, though. Doubt about what, exactly, he couldn't say. If only he could speak to Mathilda, just for a few minutes. If only he could see her, then, he thought, he would know; he would be reassured. But his memory of her had continued to soften around the edges. Sometimes he was disturbed to realize that he was remembering not her but the way she'd posed for a photograph he'd studied the day before. And so … and so … perhaps Hilda, while not knowing anything for certain—how could she know anything for certain?—sensed something that he was too dull to perceive.