Stepping (29 page)

I was quite content. I felt myself in a sort of resting place, a holding pattern. I knew in a few years I’d get back out to the real world to study and work and teach, but I had had enough of that for a while. I was ready for babies and a farm. I accumulated loose milky flesh about my body, and a corresponding loose milky joy around my life. I relaxed. I expanded, my whole body expanded, as one does when lying in the warm sun on a summer’s holiday.

And Charlie loved Adam.

I had been preparing myself for the opposite. Adam would be an interference, I knew, he would be noisy and bothersome and demanding. Charlie was now forty-five; he had one family almost grown-up; he would be bored with babies, I thought. But a great fierce bond seemed to spring up between my son and my husband immediately, perhaps because Charlie held Adam the first few moments of his life, and looked into his dark satisfied eyes and felt the infinite perfection of the small body. I don’t know. How can it be explained? Charlie loved his son, and I loved Charlie even more because he did love his son, and there we were, all of us in love with each other. Charlie carried Adam everywhere in a backpack as he planted trees that spring or dug the soil in the garden or went for walks in the woods. He put him on the floor in his study while he worked. He brought him little toys. He took him with him when he drove off to town for errands. He held him on his lap while he ate. He was truly in love with his child. Of course it helped that Adam was still a baby, not old enough to whine or talk back or tear up important papers. Later, love would be tempered by righteous irritation. But that first year we were all in love, and it was a sloppy, gooey year, perhaps the happiest year of our lives.

Caroline and Cathy did not come up to see Adam as a baby. We called them from
the hospital the second day of Adam’s life to tell them about him, and they both said the same thing: “Oh.” No giveaway tone to the voice, no other words. We thought, Are they happy? Sad? Bored? Charlie wrote each girl a long letter telling her how much he loved her, why she was special to him, how he would always love her. I sent two silver bracelets with a silver heart-shaped charm saying “I love you,” on one side and “Adam Campbell, January 30, 1973,” on the other to Caroline and Cathy. As far as I know, the girls received them, that is the bracelets never came back in the mail; but the girls never mentioned them and never wore them. We called and wrote several times, asking the girls to come up and visit that spring; we now lived so close. Charlie offered to go down to pick them up by car, or to send them bus tickets, but there were always excuses. School, tests, parties, the possibility of jobs. I felt bad that they didn’t come up. I thought that if they could just
see
Adam, small innocent baby, they would like him, if not love him. And I missed the girls, missed their jokes and gossip and simply the sight of them, so tall and slim and pretty. They had become a part of my life, and their absence was noticeable. But I didn’t want to force their presence, and Charlie didn’t want to, either.

At the beginning of the summer Charlie received cool little letters from the girls saying that they would prefer not to come visit us that summer. They said they both had a lot of babysitting jobs, and their mother’s mother, their grandmother, was coming up to visit that summer, and they wanted to spend as much time as possible with her now that she was growing old, and they wanted to spend as much time as possible with their friends. They were sensible letters. I was sad they weren’t coming, but also relieved. I remembered the negative side of our Amsterdam stay, when the girls turned bitchy at the sight of housework. The farm and Adam both required a lot of work. I didn’t need the girls around, scowling at the sight of work.

It was the end of December and Adam was eleven months old before Caroline and Cathy ever saw him. They had finally condescended to come visit us at the end of the Christmas vacation; probably their decision was based on the fact that Charlie told them he was giving them a car. It had been my idea, the car; I thought such a grand expensive gift would prove to them that Charlie still loved them in spite of the fact that he had a new child. I also thought it would make it easier for them to come to see us. And, truly, I thought it simply would be very nice for them to have. It would be in Caroline’s name
because she was older and had a license, but Cathy would eventually be able to use it, too. Charlie and I spent hours looking through car lots at good used cars and finally settled on a very swanky red VW Beetle convertible. It was a cute car, squat and classy; lovable. I couldn’t wait for the girls to have it.

Charlie drove down to Hadley to pick the girls up; he drove the red VW, and at my suggestion stuck a big red bow on the hood. Later he told me that the girls were appropriately thrilled, in their own quiet standoffish way; they seemed to be more upset that it was only one car and they would have to share it than happy that the car was theirs at all. This made Charlie feel sad and mad, and their drive back to our farm was not as gay as I had predicted it would be.

I stayed home that day, taking care of Adam and fixing a huge party dinner and wandering through the house admiring my work. I had had only a year there, and during that year I had had a baby, but I had still accomplished a lot of redecorating. The house, except for some old peeling ceilings and a few shabby rooms here and there, looked lovely. I had put fresh evergreens from our farm all around the house, tied with red ribbon, and we had cut our tree from our own land and it still stood in the front parlor, with Caroline’s and Cathy’s presents under it. Adam was starting to walk, and was full of giggles. He was plump and happy; he had a six-toothed smile that I thought no one could resist.

He was taking a nap when the girls arrived late in the afternoon with Charlie. I had put him down late especially for that reason, thinking it would be good for us four to have some time alone, without the new person around. Charlie’s daughters came into the house and let me kiss them on their icy cheeks: they were taller, slimmer, and much lovelier than they had been in Amsterdam. They were young women. They were absolutely gorgeous. “How lovely you have become!” I kept saying to them, I couldn’t help saying to them. “Oh, aren’t you happy to be so beautiful!” I was really happy to see them. I almost cried out of sheer delight. These were my—my what? I had no word for it. Not daughters, not relatives, not friends, but
my
somethings, creatures that I had known for a long time and helped and influenced and cared for.

Caroline and Cathy turned eyes on me that were as cold as the December air. They held their bodies stiffly. They stared at me as if I were a stranger, as if they didn’t
know me, and didn’t like me, and didn’t plan to. They’ll warm up, I told myself, but they didn’t, not for a second of the two long days they were there.

I poured myself a stiff scotch and suggested we go in by the tree. It was too dark and cold to go out for a walk or a ride; too early to eat. I hoped that opening their other presents would brighten them up a bit. Charlie and I had both written the girls letters during that long year, and we had mentioned Adam only briefly. The girls had never answered any of the letters. I think I had regretted that the most, that Caroline, especially Caroline, who had written me such long intimate, openhearted young letters, had stopped writing to me completely. But when Christmas came around, a new problem presented itself: we did not know what the girls wanted as presents. We had written them to ask; they had not responded. We did not know their sizes, interests, desires. So their major present that year was the car. I bought them each an Indian cotton top, and two or three books, and crazy socks with each toe made and colored separately. Because I was into my earth mother stage, and because I thought handmade gifts would show love because they showed time instead of money given, I knitted them each long mufflers with matching caps.

We sat in the front parlor by a nice crackly fire that I had made, and looked at the sparkling lights of the Christmas tree, and Charlie and I drank scotch and the girls drank eggnog with rum, and they opened their presents, and looked at each one with an infinitely bored expression, and said, “Thanks, Dad. Thanks, Zelda. And thanks again for the car.” And that was it. Merry Christmas, everyone.

Things did not improve when Adam cooed out on awakening from his nap. I knew they certainly would not cry out, “Ooh, isn’t he sweet!” when they saw him, although he was sweet; most eleven-month-old babies are. But I was not prepared for the brief stony glares he received when I brought him down.

“This is Adam,” I said, not too brightly, not too gaily, as if I were bringing in the family dog or cat.

“Hi,” Cathy said, not quite looking at him, not quite smiling.

“He’s cute,” Caroline said flatly, and that was that. They didn’t try to talk to him or hold him, they didn’t ask questions about him.

We sat in the parlor for a while, one big happy family. Adam played on the floor
with the torn wrapping paper and bows. The girls desultorily thumbed through their new books. The house smelled of evergreens, and a big stew simmering in wine, and applewood in the fire. Adam giggled and blithered with glee as he shredded the wrapping paper. Caroline and Cathy had not, as usual, brought anyone presents, and they would not respond to questions except in monosyllables, and I thought my heart would break. How could they have turned this way, so suddenly, so completely? Only a year ago we had been happy together, friends in Amsterdam. I was miserable. And I was piqued. But Charlie was their father, and he sat through it all as if pleasantly content, and I thought that if he wasn’t going to say anything I should hold my peace, too.

Finally I served dinner, and after dinner the girls glued themselves to the television set while Charlie and I did the dishes and Adam chewed on Arrowroot cookies and played in his playpen in the kitchen. “Hi, pie,” I said to him now and then, or “How’s it going, love?” But I didn’t say as much to him as I usually did; each word sounded too loud, too nauseatingly sweet, because Caroline and Cathy could hear.

The next day Charlie took them for a long walk around the farm, to show them how he had fixed up and cleaned up the horse barn, to show them the trees he had planted, and the berry bushes, and the spot—now laden with snow—where we planted our garden in summer. I asked each girl if she’d like to go riding with me on good ol’ Liza and Gabe, but they both said shortly, no. So I served them a warm lunch, and then they got into their new red Beetle and drove unsmilingly away.

“Teenagers go through stages like that,” Charlie said to me as we watched them drive away. “I’m sure they act like that with their mother. They’re trying to break off, to find their own lifestyle, to establish their own independence, and they have to cut all ties. They’re in that stage of life where they hate all people over thirty, all people who might have any claim on their lives. It’s too bad, I know. It’s an ugly stage. I hate it. I’d like to give them hell about it; I find them thoroughly unpleasant. I’m really pissed at the way they acted about the car. But they don’t need criticism from me right now. It wouldn’t help. In addition to their regular problems they’ve got you and Adam to contend with. But don’t take it personally. Talk to anyone who’s a parent of a teenager; they’ll tell you. It’s a rotten stage. All anyone can do is just sit back and try to keep loving them in spite of it all. They’ll come out of it, you’ll see. I’m not worried about it. I’m just glad for once
in my life that I don’t have to live with them.”

We went through the spring and summer without seeing the girls or hearing from them, although Charlie drove down twice to take them out to dinner and returned to say that they were still pretty much, pretty bitchily the same. In a fit of hopefulness I sent Caroline a box of homemade cookies, but received no reply. Caroline and Cathy came up again for a day during their 1974 Christmas vacation, but again it was as unpleasant and uncomfortable as the one before. It didn’t help much that I was almost four months pregnant with my new child and beginning to show it, or that Adam was now almost two and walking and talking and trying to make contact with the girls. “Who you?” he would say, or, “See my train?” or, “You have a pretty on your neck.” They replied to him as shortly as possible. For a while, when they were first there, he simply stood next to them, trying to figure out what kind of strange people these were who didn’t smile or try to cuddle him. After a while he got bored with them and wandered away. It was not a successful visit, and I felt myself churning inside with longing to scream things at both sour-faced girls. But Charlie kept still, and so did I.

Then it was June, and my second baby was on her way.

The baby was due the first week in June. Charlie was due at a weeklong conference the second week in June. The house was basically in good shape, but I wasn’t eager to be alone out in the country with an energetic two-year-old and a new baby and a sore bum. And the grass needed mowing and the garden needed weeding and new seeds needed planting. The baby chicks Charlie had been incubating were due to hatch. Mrs. Justin, our favorite babysitter, had her own farm and family to run. Because we were on a farm, we were a good twenty-minute drive from our university friends, and the best of those friends were out of town on summer vacation. I would be isolated on the farm for seven days with Adam and a new baby. I needed help. It seemed logical that Caroline and Cathy help, especially since we would pay them. Charlie told them he would pay them each two hundred dollars for the one week’s work. At first I thought he was giving them far too much, but then I decided that it would be worth it if only they would smile.

It had been almost six months since we had seen the girls. I thought of the past, all the years I had known them and loved them. It was true that they needed money; perhaps, I thought, they also needed to be included in Charlie’s new family group, to feel that they
were wanted and could be helpful. Perhaps it would make them feel happier and more comfortable with us if they realized they could give as well as receive. After all, I told myself, they were
Caroline
and
Cathy
, girls I had known and laughed with for years. And they were seventeen and twenty now, big girls; surely they were maturing. I told Charlie to go ahead and see if he could arrange the setup with the girls.