The Hunger Moon (25 page)

She shrugged. The image of Eleanor flickered briefly. But after all, the building was full of people she didn’t know, people who might have had a chest pain or cut a finger slicing tomatoes.

“You going to be okay?”

“Oh, sure,” she said. They stood facing each other in a moment of uncomfortable silence.

“So, you’re staying around,” she said.

He nodded. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Can I visit then? I’d like to take Charlie out in his stroller.”

“Call in the morning. It’s my day off. We can all do something together in the afternoon if you want.” She was not about to let Bryan take Charlie off by himself.

“That’s great.” He kissed her cheek stiffly, and left her standing there, watching him. Bryan didn’t seem the same away from Venice and out of his uniform of baggy shorts and T-shirts. Maybe it was the winter coat, but he looked more substantial than she remembered him, as if held by some stronger tie to earth.

A
S SHE RODE UP THE ELEVATOR
, Renata was trying to absorb the fact that she had apparently just agreed to let Bryan into their lives. Now that she was away from his engaging manner, that idea seemed absurd, crazy, dangerous. In an hour everything had changed; everything she had tried to do in the past few months to establish their independence had just collapsed.

When she stepped out on the seventh floor, she saw that Eleanor’s door was open; she would stop by and thank her for watching Charlie, and apologize for the inconvenience she had put her to. But, as she approached the apartment she saw Owen standing
in the living room, and beyond him the stooping white jackets of the medics. They were lifting something.

Eleanor
.

Just then, June appeared in the tableau. Time stopped as Renata tried to make sense of what she saw. Then she cried, “June!” which startled Charlie, and unfroze the scene in front of her.

June walked over, and half-leaned against Renata, her face buried for a second against her chest next to the baby. One part of Renata’s brain registered how pretty June was in her dancing clothes and skirt. Charlie reached out to grab June’s hair, but she had it pinned up in a chignon. He tugged at a strand experimentally, testing its resistance.

“Where’s Eleanor?” Renata said.

“They think it was a stroke, Renata. She’s dead because of me. Because I had to go to a stupid dance class this morning when I should have known she wasn’t up to carrying Charlie around. And then I forgot to leave him a bottle, so she probably tried to go out and get him something to eat, and it was all just too much for her.”

Renata was staring in a daze at the narrow, white-sheeted form passing her by on the gurney.
Eleanor, in her apartment, telling her to get herself a baby-sitter so she could have some time to herself. Eleanor, confused, sitting on the sidewalk this morning holding Charlie
. Eleanor, dead. Because she, Renata, had gone out last night to get herself drunk and laid, leaving others with the responsibility of her child.
“Thank goodness for this young man. He appeared like my guardian angel. I don’t feel at all well right now”

“Oh, June,” she finally managed to say, reaching one hand up to stroke the head of the sobbing girl. “June, it’s not your fault.”

B
UT IT WAS HER FAULT
, and even when Eleanor’s daughter Janice explained that according to the medical examiner, the massive stroke that had taken her quickly and painlessly could have been triggered by anything, at any time, June still knew that it was her fault. The stroke could have come at any time, but it hadn’t; it came the morning June woke Mrs. MacGregor out of a sound sleep and handed her a burden she couldn’t possibly deal with.

June didn’t know what to do with a grief and guilt so large. She told her mother about it. Her mother consoled her, and tried to reassure her that she had done nothing irresponsible. She suggested that if anyone had been irresponsible, the baby’s mother had been. June knew Renata bore some fault, but she also knew that she had had charge of the baby, and the direct consequence of that was Mrs. MacGregor’s death.

But even Mrs. MacGregor’s children wanted to spare her. They were each very nice—Helen, with her faint Texas drawl and frosted hair and motherly tones; Peter, with his sober, quiet manner, like a minister, balding with a neatly trimmed gray beard; and Janice, who looked the most like her mother, and who was so nice to explain to June what had happened medically. Janice even tried
to take some of the responsibility upon herself; she said she had noticed that her mother was getting mixed up at times, and kept meaning to call her doctor to discuss it, but hadn’t managed to get around to it. It was possible that a series of small strokes had recently been causing her mother to have spells of confusion, brought about by episodes of reduced oxygen to the brain. But this only made June add to her own store of guilt, remembering the banking incident, and how she had thought then of calling Janice. At the time, she had decided against it, feeling somehow complicit with Mrs. MacGregor, who didn’t want her children interfering. Now, of course, she saw it differently.

The funeral was Tuesday. June and Renata went together with Charlie, although there was an uncomfortable feeling growing between them, since neither could be around the other without thinking of the events that had led to Eleanor’s death. June was astonished at the number of mourners who showed up. The Mrs. MacGregor she had known had been so solitary. Yet here were more than a hundred people; Janice told her a lot of them were judges and lawyers and doctors whom either Mrs. MacGregor or her husband had worked with. June had known that Mrs. M. had been a judge, but that had been an abstract, distant fact to her until she saw the number of important-looking people climbing out of limousines, coming to pay their respects.

A
WEEK AFTER
M
RS
. M
AC
G
REGOR DIED
, June still couldn’t go to any of her classes. She wasn’t eating. She didn’t waste time consulting Miriam, because she already knew that her aura was poisoned. Maybe she no longer even had an aura, or if she did, it was a halo of pure black. She and Renata didn’t talk about Mrs. MacGregor at all. Renata came right home after her shift every night, and they talked about Charlie and how he had acted, and then June left.

One night when June was baby-sitting, she had been horrified to hear noises coming from Mrs. MacGregor’s apartment next door. She pressed her ear to the wall and was positive she heard
thumps and bumps, and the sound of something being moved. She felt suctioned to the wall like a limpet, until she heard a voice, which broke the spell of fear. Of course, someone needed to move Mrs. M.’s stuff out. June looked out the peephole in the door. Janice and Peter were hauling boxes into the hall. June didn’t go out to say hello. She couldn’t face them again. They were carting out Mrs. M.’s boxes, all labeled and sealed, that she had kept stored in the spare bedroom. It was funny how easy Mrs. M. had made the job for them by leaving her boxes closed like that.

Tuesday and Friday afternoons were the hardest. Instead of hurrying to catch the train after her classes to make it to Mrs. Mac Gregor’s, June spent her time lying on her unmade futon with the shades in her apartment drawn. Sometimes she played music and sometimes she didn’t. Mostly she stared at the ceiling. For the first time in years, she didn’t think of food. She couldn’t even feel her stomach anymore. As she floated through the afternoons, it was as if her body were not there.

At four, she had to drag herself out and go to Renata’s. When she got a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she didn’t even recognize herself: dark, hollow eyes; sharp cheekbones. A month ago, she really wanted to have cheekbones like that. Now she didn’t care.

Owen greeted her these days in hospital tones, asking her with quiet concern how she was doing. She couldn’t bear to talk to him. But no matter how clipped her response, he was always waiting to greet her the next time she passed, like one of those inflatable clowns that bounce back upright and smiling every time you punch them.

J
UNE WAS LATE AGAIN
, and she was wearing the same dirty T-shirt and jeans she had on yesterday. Renata didn’t care whether June could be cheerful for her sake, but she worried about the atmosphere that June was creating for Charlie. Of course they both felt horrible about Eleanor; of course they both felt guilty. But Renata would not allow herself to be depressed for Charlie’s sake, and, damn it, she wouldn’t hire depressed baby-sitters for him.

The whole question of keeping June on was up in the air, anyway. Bryan had found a job tending bar at a downtown hotel during the lunch shift, and he was pressing her to let him take care of Charlie when she worked at night. The idea was tempting, although she didn’t know if she was ready to give Bryan so large a share of Charlie so soon. She had to admit that he was developing a knack for handling the baby. At first she had held her breath at the different style he had of picking him up, tickling him, jabbering in his face. Everything Bryan did seemed so loud and rough compared to the way Renata handled Charlie. But there was no denying that in Bryan’s hands Charlie squealed, laughed, and generally acted totally delighted. Charlie might need a little of that kind of play.

She relaxed some then and quit scrutinizing Bryan’s every move. She let him come by early a few mornings and take Charlie out in the stroller. The first time they had gone out without her, Renata realized she had never once been home by herself since Charlie was born. When they left, the apartment at first seemed unnaturally lifeless. Gradually, she remembered what it was like to have time on her hands. Sometimes she caught up on chores, and sometimes she just sat there, mesmerized by the calm. Yesterday, on impulse, she had painted her fingernails and toenails red. Charlie loved it, kept pouncing on her hands, trying to capture the shiny red ends.

June noticed right away, of course—she was always attuned to the nuances of Renata’s dress, seemed to study her, almost. “What’s the occasion?” she asked.

“No occasion. I had some time yesterday when Bryan came by and took Charlie out.”

June didn’t say any more. Renata was grateful that she was being tactful about Bryan’s sudden appearance. After that horrible Saturday, Renata had told her that Charlie’s father was now on the scene, but she hadn’t gone into details, and June was too absorbed in herself to press for an explanation. She hated to disappoint June about the job, though. June seemed low enough without taking anything more away from her. But if she didn’t have to pay a baby-sitter, Renata could save seven hundred dollars a month. It was substantial—enough to start a college fund for Charlie, or buy plane tickets to visit Marcia, or put toward a house someday. Renata did have to think of herself and Charlie first. If Bryan insisted on being in their lives, why not let him share the child care and help her reduce expenses? The idea had the advantage of keeping them on separate schedules, so Bryan could be with Charlie without being with Renata.

Not that it had been so bad seeing Bryan. Confusing, yes. When she let her guard down, as she sometimes did now that she was used to seeing him again, she caught herself almost reaching out to touch his arm when they were talking, or to brush the hair
out of his eyes when they said good-bye. Watching Charlie grow attached to his father’s face and voice and manner of handling him, Renata grew more and more tender toward Bryan, as if she were doomed to want him if Charlie did. But if they fell back into a relationship, then they were saying something about the future. She would be, anyway, because if Charlie grew up thinking of them as a pair, then any split between Renata and Bryan would be as devastating for him as a divorce. On the other hand, if Charlie grew up knowing that Renata was his mother, and Bryan was his father, two people who loved him but did not live together, he would never miss having them under the same roof.

It was a mess. But meanwhile, it didn’t feel right to see Bill while she was trying to come to some understanding with Bryan. The Saturday everything had happened, she had called in sick to work. Bill left a couple of messages on her machine, which she didn’t return. The following week, though, she couldn’t avoid him. She explained about Eleanor’s death.