Winter Birds (35 page)

And then Teri and Rachel look at each other. Teri steps away from Steve’s side and slowly moves toward Rachel as if drawn by an irresistible force. I watch them come together, two wounded souls bound by more than friendship. I watch Rachel take Teri into her arms as she would comfort a child. Teri sobs against her, saying over and over, “Thank you, thank you, oh, thank you.” Imagine, a mother who has just buried her daughter thanking someone.

The men, to their credit, allow them time. They do not try to pry them apart or stanch their weeping. They do not talk loudly to cover the embarrassment of raw emotion. They seem to know this time is as necessary to the women as eating.

At last they move apart, and Rachel and Patrick follow the others outside. I watch them through the screen door. “I’m praying for you, brother.” This is spoken by Potts to Steve at the bottom of the steps. It is a curious sight to see two grown men reach out their hands to shake, then simultaneously dismiss the formality and fall into an embrace. They speak no words, but their tears are as genuine as those of the women moments earlier. Two men whose children are beyond their reach, they occupy the same territory. Like the old man in Shakespeare’s play, my eyes smell onions. Perhaps I too shall weep anon.

They walk toward the driveway, Potts’ hand thrown across Steve’s shoulder. At Potts’ car, I see them stop and face each other. Potts is talking, with wide eloquent gestures, Steve listening. Almost identical in size, they are hard to tell apart in the dusk.

Chapter 27

Home Art Gone and Taken Thy Wages

The orchard oriole spends most of its time in Mexico and Central America but migrates into North America for a few weeks each year to mate and nest. The male is easy to spot, for he puts on a flashy territorial display in early spring, singing so passionately that he rises several feet off his branch
.

I look up from the Milestones page of the
Time
magazine in my lap. It is late April, after supper and before dessert, and Patrick is reading aloud a poem in the kitchen. It is one of several poems that the professor of his literature class has assigned for discussion tonight, a poem that contains the line “Wearing white for Eastertide.” It is a poem in which the poet, A. E. Housman, demonstrates his disregard for the rule concerning the misplaced modifier. “It only leaves me fifty more,” he writes, speaking of years. It would have been as easy for Mr. Housman to write it correctly: “It leaves me only fifty more.” But he didn’t.

The misplaced modifier, however, is not what Patrick wants to talk about. He wants to take issue with what he calls “the message” of the poem. It is with amazement that I hear Rachel’s reply. “But he has a point,” she says. Patrick excitedly counters with “And that’s exactly how the world gets its philosophy into the church! It says something that sounds harmless on the surface! And then the average Christian swallows it hook, line, and sinker, not even stopping to think about the long-range implications!” Patrick is fond of the exclamation point, both in his speech and in his writing. He is also fond of nailing down what he considers to be dangerous long-range implications.

“But he does have a point,” Rachel says again. Though she is not disagreeing with him outright, I cannot remember a time when she gave such credit to an opposing view. After another flurry of vehemence from Patrick, she says it yet again but this time frames it in a series of questions: “But don’t you think he has a point? Don’t you love springtime the older you get? I know I do. That’s not wrong, is it? Read it again.”

She stops him during this reading and asks what the word
Eastertide
means. “It’s such a pretty word,” she says. Though the explanation could be summarized in a few words as the weeks following Easter Sunday, Patrick chooses, as always, the circuitous route. “As the crow flies” is not a familiar concept to him. He loves the winding roads and scenic lookouts of verbal expression.

He resumes reading the poem, and at the end Rachel says, “Well, fifty years do go by fast. We sure know that, don’t we?”

It is easy to tell that Patrick is frustrated and wants to press his point further, but he declares himself out of time. “I want to run by Dr. Germaine’s office to mention something to him,” he says. I hear the stacking of books and rustling of papers. I pity Dr. Germaine. Instead of a few quiet moments in his office before class, he must listen to Patrick mention something. With Patrick, words like
mention
lose their original meaning.

At the door Patrick says, “Oh, is it okay if Potts comes for supper tomorrow night? I found out it’s his birthday.” I hear nothing from Rachel. Perhaps she speaks softly or nods. “I can bring something home, though,” Patrick adds. “I
don’t
want you cooking all day.” He speaks as if Rachel must be kept in line. “Oh, here, I forgot about this. I got twenty bucks for that old printer I sold. You can use it for groceries.”

He leaves, shutting the door hard, and Rachel sets about clearing the kitchen table. I hear a whistled tune and look at the television to see Opie and Andy walking down a dirt road, carrying fishing poles.

“DIED. BETTY TALMADGE, 81, prominent Washington socialite and entrepreneur who made headlines in the late 1970s when she testified before the Senate Ethics Committee against her estranged husband, Georgia Senator Herman Talmadge.” The Milestones page does not spare shameful personal details. The entry for Betty Talmadge relates that she learned via television that her husband planned to divorce her. It also relates that she later blew the whistle on her husband in a courtroom, stating that he kept large stashes of unreported donations in the form of hundred dollar bills in a hall closet.

The detail that convinces me that Betty Talmadge was telling the truth is this: She often went to the coat pocket repository herself, she said under oath, and helped herself to some of the bills when she overspent the fifty-dollar-a-week allowance her husband gave her. This does not strike me as the kind of information one would invent. It smacks of hard reality.

I think of my father’s tight clutch on the family purse strings during my years in Methuselah. I recall but once when my mother borrowed from the cache of money Daddy kept at home in an old can.
Borrowed
was her word, but it was not the word he used when he discovered that the money was missing. Apparently Daddy counted the money regularly and kept a running total, something my mother didn’t know until she borrowed from it. I was a teenager when this happened, and I heard the discussion through my bedroom wall that night.
Discussion
was also her word, when she asked me the next day if I had heard it. I pretended that I had not.

I think of Eliot’s politely confiscatory behavior concerning my money during our thirteen years of marriage. Though I had managed my own finances quite capably during my years as a single teacher, he was of the opinion that no woman really wanted such a responsibility, nor was she adequately equipped to handle it. It is remarkable to me, looking back, that such an outwardly timid, unmanly man, a literary scholar by vocation, was in so many ways fanatically sexist in private. And yet, I must admit, I gave him license to be, for I readily yielded at every turn. I gave over my assets to his husbandly supervision.

Like Herman Talmadge and like my father, Eliot doled out to me a weekly household allowance. I took care to operate within it. That the allowance should be used up before the week ended was a dreadful thought. I knew of no hoard of cash at home from which I could borrow. Therefore, to avoid any show of disapproval were I to ask for more, it was with great caution and deliberation that I made my purchases.

Imagine a leap from total independence to strict accountability for one’s expenditures. Yet would anyone believe me if I said that this arrangement did not vex me? I was a married woman now. I had a husband and a home. Weak-willed and nearsighted, I suffered from romantic notions that blinded me to the freedoms I had lost. For thirteen years I believed myself reasonably happy. Even in the absence of children, I clung to the tiny raft of my marriage as the current of life swept me along.

“I want to buy a present for Anita,” I said to Eliot one day. It might have been a day not unlike this day. It was in early May, near the end of the spring semester.

Anita McDonald was the only teacher at South Wesleyan whom I counted as a true friend. All the others were merely colleagues, acquaintances of Eliot’s who felt obligated to make room for me in their circle. Anita was a single woman, twelve years older than I, whose level of education, like mine, qualified her to teach only freshmen. She had labored in the trenches of Basic Grammar and Composition for twenty-six years but was at last retiring. She was planning to move from Kentucky to Ohio, where her older brother Ernest had a farm. And on this farm old Ernest McDonald had a carriage house he was renovating for his sister’s retirement home.

I had typed an article for Eliot that afternoon and had laid it beside his plate at supper. He saw it when he sat down, and it was at that moment, as he reached for it, that I spoke. “I want to buy a present for Anita.”

Though his eyes clouded, the prim smile did not vanish. He glanced at me, then down at the paper he was holding. “Fidelity and Cuckoldry in
Cymbeline
” was its title, one with which he was not satisfied. He turned to the first page, where the title appeared again. His smile faded. Without looking at me, he said, “The English Department will give Miss McDonald a parting gift.” This was true. A week earlier each faculty member in the department had received a memo asking that a two-dollar contribution be given to the dean’s secretary for the purpose of “a retirement remembrance” for Anita. “I have already given our share,” he added, “and crossed our names off the list.” I did not ask whether he had given two dollars or four.

He leafed through the pages of the paper as I put the food on his plate. I cannot remember what was on the menu that night, but it would be easy to guess. Eliot cared nothing for variety. He had five or six preferences, and I rotated among those. So let us imagine that it was a pork chop that night, with a heaping mound of rice and gravy, perhaps a serving of the large green peas he favored and three rolls with butter. “I want to give her something extra,” I said. “Something special. A gift from only me.”

He frowned as if he had discovered a typographical error, though I knew he had not. I had proofread the paper three times. The paper was eventually placed in one journal or another, with a different title. I can recall neither journal nor title, nor do I care to. I remember little of the play
Cymbeline
, one of Shakespeare’s more obscure comedies, except that, as in
Othello
, a husband was too willing to believe his wife unfaithful.

Eliot sighed. It was a quiet, longsuffering sigh. “Have you money for such a gift, Sophia?” He offered a patient smile.

“I have a few dollars left,” I said. “I was hoping to buy strawberries with them.” This was a calculated answer, for Eliot loved strawberries.

I filled my own plate and began eating. Eliot set the paper aside and for several minutes gave his attention to his food. He ate quickly, his eyes frequently darting to the paper as if eager to pick it up again.

“Ten,” I said at length. I fixed my own eyes pointedly on the typed paper beside his plate. Perhaps I hoped to remind him that my time was surely worth something. Perhaps I only imagined his slight intake of breath, as of surprise. Ten? Ten dollars? So large an amount?

Besides strawberries, banana pudding was another of Eliot’s favorites. As he finished his supper, I rose and took a bowl of banana pudding from the refrigerator and set it on the table. I served a liberal portion into a smaller bowl, took away his plate, and placed the dish of pudding in front of him.

He picked up his spoon and ate it. Then he left the table, taking the paper with him. I was at the sink a few minutes later when he returned to the kitchen and then left again. On the table I saw two five-dollar bills. And though so much of that day is erased from my memory, I clearly recall this: As I tucked the money into my apron pocket, I was grateful for his generosity.

The sounds in the kitchen stop, and Rachel appears in my apartment carrying the tray. On it are two saucers, which she sets on the round table. On each saucer is a wedge of something white. She picks up my supper dishes, stacks them on the tray, and takes them back to the kitchen. From my recliner I look at the two saucers on opposite sides of the round table. Has Rachel brought me two servings of dessert, or am I to think that she plans to eat her dessert with me?

On the television Barney Fife is trying to set Andy Taylor up with one of the single women in the town of Mayberry. He is inviting groups of them over to Andy’s house in hopes that he will be smitten.

Rachel returns, carrying a saucepan by its handle. She stirs whatever is inside and then slowly spoons something thick and red onto the top of each white wedge. She leaves again and returns with forks and napkins. She sits down at the round table. “May I join you for dessert?” she says. I do not point out the humor of such a question after having made full provision for an affirmative answer. Instead, I nod and make my way to the table.

It is cheesecake with cherry sauce. She did not make the cheesecake, she tells me. One of the cashiers at the Main Office brought it to work today, then told Patrick to take what was left. She did make the cherry sauce, she tells me, but “It’s just a can of cherries with some cornstarch and sugar. It’s nothing special.”

Nothing special tastes very good on top of the cashier’s leftover cheesecake. To cover the silence that follows, we both look at the television screen. Barney tells Andy that he needs a wife, that Opie needs a mother. Andy looks exasperated.

“I used to wish he’d get married,” Rachel says. “And Barney, too. I used to want him and Thelma Lou to get married on the show.”

I say nothing. I never considered that Andy Taylor’s domestic life needed to be fixed. With Aunt Bee to cook and keep house, he and Opie were well taken care of. Helen Crump was nice enough, but I liked her as a single schoolteacher.