‘His family?’
‘Well, the girl he married has two children, you see.’
‘Oh. And what will he do?’
‘Go back to work for the garage, I guess. They love him there.’
‘I see. Listen, Sarah, tell me about yourself. How’re you feeling?’
‘Fine.’ Sarah’s smile seemed determined to prove there was nothing wrong, and Emily noticed that her teeth were white: she must have had them repaired and cleaned.
One important question had to be asked, in spite of the smile, and Emily asked it. ‘How did you hurt your head?’
‘Oh, that was just stupid,’ Sarah said. ‘All my own fault. One night I got up in the middle of the night because I couldn’t sleep, and I went downstairs to get a glass of milk. And on the way back I was almost to the top of the stairs when I slipped and fell all the way down. Wasn’t that stupid?’
And Emily felt her own mouth spread in what she guessed might pass for a smile of agreement on how stupid it was. ‘Were you badly hurt?’
‘No, no, it was nothing.’ Sarah vaguely indicated the head bandage with one hand. ‘This is nothing.’
It wasn’t nothing; they must have had to shave her head before the bandage went on – it was that closely wrapped – and Emily almost said Did they shave your head? but thought better of it. ‘Well,’ she said instead. ‘It’s good to see you looking so well.’
For a while they just sat smoking, smiling whenever they met each other’s eyes to show that everything was all right. Sarah didn’t know that Emily knew of the ‘acute alcoholism’ diagnosis; Emily wondered if there might be any tactful way to bring it up, and decided there wasn’t. It became clear as they sat there that Sarah would keep her troubles to herself from now on. There would be no more confidences now, no more telephone calls and no more requests for help.
‘Do you – think things’ll be all right when you go home?’ Emily said.
‘How do you mean?’
‘You think you still might want to come to New York?’
‘Oh, no.’ Sarah looked embarrassed. ‘That was just silly. I’m sorry I called you that night. I was just – you know – tired and upset. Those things pass. I needed a good rest, that’s all.’
‘Because I have been following the “Help Wanted” ads,’ Emily said, ‘and I have a friend who thinks you might find something at National Carbon. And there’s no reason why you couldn’t stay at my place for a while, until you get settled.’
Sarah was shaking her head. ‘No, Emmy. All that’s past now. Let’s just forget it, okay?’
‘Okay. Except that I – well, okay.’
‘Are you going to visit Pookie while you’re here?’
‘I thought I would, yes. Do you know how to get to her building?’ And Emily instantly realized what a foolish question that was. How could Sarah know the location of any other building when she was locked into this one? ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ll find it.’
‘Well,’ Sarah said, getting slowly to her feet. ‘I guess you’d better be on your way. Thanks so much for coming, dear; it was wonderful to see you. Give my love to Pookie.’
Out under the trees again, Emily walked a long way before realizing that she couldn’t remember whether the man at the door had said three buildings down and four to the right or four buildings down and three to the right, and there was no one else to ask. A sign at one intersection said E-4 to E-9, which was no help, and another sign beneath it said morgue. In the distance, twin smokestacks rose against the gray sky. It was probably only the power plant – she knew that – but she wondered if it might be a crematory.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ she said to an old man sitting on a bench. ‘Can you tell me where—’
‘Don’t mess with me, lady,’ he said, and then, placing his thumb against one nostril, he leaned forward and blew a bright stream of snot out of the other. ‘Don’t mess with me.’
She kept walking, trying not to think of the old man, until a taxicab slowed down at the curb and the driver stuck his head out and said ‘Taxi?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
And it really didn’t matter, she assured herself as the cab pulled away toward the train station. Old Pookie would only have lain silent with a look of terminal petulance on her face; she would have extended one hand to receive the cigarettes but wouldn’t have smiled, wouldn’t have talked, probably wouldn’t have given any sign that she knew who Emily was.
Back in the city, she waited well over three weeks before calling St. Charles to find out if Sarah was home. She did it from the office, late on a weekday morning, so that Tony wouldn’t be there.
‘… Oh, hi, Emmy… Oh, sure, I’ve been home for days… How’s who?’
‘I said how’s everything?’
‘Everything’s fine. Tony Junior’s here, with his wife and her children, so the place is something of a madhouse. She’s very nice and very pregnant. They’re staying here for a while, and we’re helping them find a house of their own.’
‘I see. Well, be sure to keep in touch, Sarah. Let me know if there’s anything I can – you know – anything I can do.’
And Sarah did keep in touch, though not by telephone. Some time later she sent Emily a letter. The envelope was addressed in the old pert, debutantish handwriting, but the letter itself was typed, with a good many corrections marked in ballpoint pen.
Dear Emmy:
I am writing you instead of calling because I want to try out the typewriter Peter gave me for my birthday. It is an Underwood portable, second-hand, and it has a few faults here and there, but it types! With a little cleaning and readjustment, I’ll be wearing it like a glove in no time.
It’s a boy! Eight pounds seven ounces. And he looks just like his grandfather, my husband. (This makes my husband very angry, because it makes him tend to feel like a grandfather, and he doesn’t care for the idea.) I have just finished building a bassinette. Never again! I began with a large clothes basket, some foam rubber, some padded plastic-coated fabric, some sheeting, some thumbtacks, and endless yards of blue ribbon. It was a brave beginning, and eventually a week later it reached fruition. Triumphant, but exhausted, I drove it down to Tony Junior’s house, but nobody was home. The darned thing rode around in my station wagon for two days before it finally came to roost.
I am up to my ears in blackberries this week. Our pasture contains a full quarter acre of huge berries just screaming to be picked. So far I have picked, washed, syruped and frozen 30 pints, and made 20 jars of jelly, and I still can’t keep ahead of them. Personally, I hate blackberries. I do this, remembering what the man said when asked why he wanted to climb Mt. Everest – ‘Because it’s there.’
I have not been to see Pookie for two very valid reasons. First, my driving is limited to strictly local stuff, at least until I gain a little more self-confidence and grow a little more hair. And second, because I almost never have the use of a car. Tony drives his T-bird to Magnum, Eric drives his T-bird to the motorcycle shop where he works, and Peter drives my station wagon to his summer job in Setauket.
Must say goodbye now and beat-feet back to the blackberry patch. Take care of yourself.
Love, Sarah
‘What do you make of it?’ Emily asked Howard when he’d read the letter.
‘What do you mean, “make of it”? Just a cheerful little letter, that’s all.’
‘But that’s the point, Howard – it’s too cheerful. Except for that one reference to growing her hair you’d think she was the happiest, most contented little housewife in the world.’
‘Maybe that’s the way she likes to see herself.’
‘Well, but the thing is I know better – and she knows I know better.’
‘Oh, come on,’ Howard said, getting up from his chair to move impatiently around the room. ‘What do you want from her? You want her opening her heart to you every five minutes? Telling you how many times he’s beaten her this month? When she does that, you say
you “don’t want her dragging down your life.” You’re a funny girl, Emily.’
And much later that night, as they lay drained of passion in her bed, she hesitantly touched his arm and said ‘Howard?’
‘Mm?’
‘If I ask you something, will you promise to tell me the truth?’
‘Mm.’
‘Do you really think I’m a funny girl?’
In the summer of 1967 they spent their vacations at Howard’s old place in East Hampton, where he hadn’t been since the final year of his marriage. She liked the brightness and the roominess and the sandy, grassy smell of the house – after the city it was like breathing pure oxygen – and she liked its weathered cedar shingles, which shone almost silver in the sun. The word ‘delightful’ kept occurring to her (‘We had a delightful time,’ she would say to anyone who asked, when they got back to New York). She liked the surf, and the way Howard would wade out into it and jump with each breaking wave; she liked the way his prick would shrivel up and turn purple and blue from wind and water, so that only her lips and tongue, tasting salt, could restore it to weight.
‘Howard?’ she said on their final morning, which was Sunday. ‘I was thinking I might call my sister. Maybe we could sort of make a detour and stop off to see her on our way home.’
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Nice idea.’
‘But I mean are you sure you don’t mind? It’s really ’way out of our way, and we’ll probably just stumble into some dreadful, squalid scene.’
‘Christ’s sake, Emily, of course I don’t mind. I’ve always wanted to meet your sister.’
And so she made the call. A man answered, but it wasn’t Tony. ‘She’s resting now,’ he said. ‘Can I take a message?’
‘Well, no, I just – who’s this? Is this Tony Junior?’
‘No, it’s Peter.’
‘Oh, Peter. Well, I just – this is Emily. Emily Grimes.’
‘Aunt Emmy!’ he said. ‘I thought that sounded like your voice…’
It was arranged that they would stop by between two and three o’clock that afternoon. ‘You’d better brace yourself, Howard,’ she said when they’d found their way into St. Charles at last. ‘This’ll be perfectly awful.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ he told her.
She had hoped Peter might answer the door – then there would be an embrace and a courteous handshake (‘How do you do, sir?’) before they moved laughing into the living room – but instead it was Tony. He opened the door only a few inches and stood ready to slam it, like a man intent on protecting the sanctity of his home. When he saw who it was he blinked and stepped back, opening it wider, and Emily wondered how she could possibly greet him, after calling him a bastard and a son of a bitch and threatening his life. ‘Hello, Tony,’ she said. ‘This is Howard Dunninger; Tony Wilson.’
He moved his mouth a little to mumble that he was pleased to meet Howard, and ushered them through the vestibule.
Sarah sat curled up on the sofa, the way old Edna Wilson used to sit, smiling vaguely. Emily looked into that smile for at least a second before realizing what was wrong with it: the lower half of Sarah’s face was collapsed.
‘Oh, Emmy,’ she wailed, trying ineffectually to hide her mouth with one hand, ‘I forgot to put my teef in.’
‘That’s all right,’ Emily said. ‘Sit still.’ But it was clear that Sarah had been sitting still all day; she might not have been able to get up if she’d wanted to.
‘Come sit beside me, Emmy,’ she said when the introductions were over. ‘It’s so wonderful to see you.’ And she took both of Emily’s hands in a surprisingly strong grip. Emily found it awkward to sit there, reaching sideways to allow her hands to be squeezed and fondled in her sister’s lap; the only thing to do was move in closer, until their thighs touched, and when she did that she came into the zone of a heavy, fruity smell of alcohol.
‘… My very own baby sister,’ Sarah was saying while Emily tried not to look at her dark, grinning gums. ‘Do all you people realize this is my very own baby sister?’
Tony sat stolidly in a chair across from the sofa, wearing paint-stained dungarees and looking like an exhausted laborer. Beside him, Howard Dunninger smiled uneasily. The only self-assured member of the group was Peter, who had turned into a striking young man. He was dressed in spattered work clothes too – he and his father had been painting the house before their guests arrived – and Emily liked his looks. He wasn’t tall and he wasn’t quite handsome, but he moved around in a graceful way and there was something humorous and wise about his face.
‘Have you finished at the seminary yet, Peter?’ she asked him.
‘One more year to go,’ he said. ‘It starts next week.’
‘How was your summer?’
‘Oh, okay, thanks. I was in Africa for a while.’
‘In Africa? Really?’
And he held the floor for a few minutes, mercifully saving everyone else from conversational effort, while he described Africa as a sleeping giant ‘just beginning to stretch.’ When he said that he raised and spread both shapely arms, fists clenched, in a sleepy stretching motion, and it occurred to Emily that there must be any number of young girls who thought Peter Wilson was a dreamboat.
‘Oh, Emmy,’ Sarah said. ‘My brilliant little baby sister – I love you.’
‘Well,’ Emily said. ‘That’s nice.’ And she realized at once, if only because Tony was looking at her narrowly, that it had been the wrong thing to say. ‘I mean,’ she amended, ‘you know; I love you too.’
‘Isn’t she marvelous?’ Sarah asked the company. ‘Isn’t my little sister marvelous? What do you think, Howie? Is it all right to call you Howie?’
‘Sure,’ Howard said kindly. ‘I think she’s marvelous.’
It had been over a year now since Sarah’s head was shaved, but her hair still had a cropped, untidy look, and it was lusterless. The rest of her, beneath that half-collapsed face, was all sag and bloat: she looked a great deal older than her age. Soon the others began to talk among themselves, leaving the sisters alone on the sofa, and Emily used the opportunity to say ‘I didn’t know you’d lost your teeth, Sarah. When did that happen?’
‘Oh, I don’t know; couple of years ago,’ Sarah said in the same embarrassed, pointedly offhand way she’d dismissed her head wound as ‘nothing’ in Central Islip, and Emily realized too late that it hadn’t been a very tactful question. To atone for it she squeezed the pale hands that were squeezing her own and said ‘You’re looking very well.’
‘Peter!’ Sarah called sharply, and Emily thought she might say ‘Shape up,’ but instead she said ‘Tell the story about the old Negro priest you met in Africa.’
‘Never mind that now, Mom,’ he said.
‘Oh, please. Come on, Peter.’
‘Mom, I’d really rather not, okay? It isn’t a “story” anyway.’
‘Of course it is,’ she insisted. ‘When Peter was in Africa he met this wonderful old Negro priest, and he—’
‘Mom, will you cut it out?’ he said, smiling to show he wasn’t really annoyed with her, and only then did she leave him alone. Still smiling, he puckered his lips very slightly as if to blow her a kiss. Then he turned to Howard and said ‘What kind of legal work do you do, sir?’
A little later the kitchen door slammed and a hulking, squint-eyed youth came in, wearing a studded leather jacket and motorcycle boots, looking as if he meant harm to them all; it took Emily a moment to realize that this was Sarah’s third son, Eric. He dipped his head politely at Emily and shook hands with Howard; then he drew his father and brother aside for a long mumbled conference that seemed to be about the workings of an automobile, and when their business was concluded he slouched outdoors again.
It was a bright September afternoon. Trees stirred in the wind beyond the windows, and mottled shadows moved on the dusty floor. No one could think of anything to talk about.
‘Anthony?’ Sarah said quietly, as if reminding her husband of some private dut
y.
‘Mm,’ he replied, and went out to the kitchen. When he came back he carried what looked like a glass of orange juice, but there was nothing festive in his way of bringing it to her: the glass hung from his fingers, close to one thigh of his jeans, and he seemed to sneak it into her waiting hand. She took the first few swallows slowly and solemnly enough to make clear that it contained vodka or gin.
‘Anyone like some – coffee or something?’ Tony Wilson asked his guests.
‘No, thanks,’ Emily said. ‘Actually, we’d better be going; it’s a long drive.’
‘Oh, you can’t go,’ Sarah told her. ‘You only just got here. I won’t let you go.’ Then, as her drink began to take effect, she brightened with a new idea. ‘Peter,’ she said. ‘Will you do me a favor? One little favor?’
‘What’s that?’
She paused for dramatic effect. ‘Get the guitar.’
He looked mortified. ‘Oh, no, Mom,’ he said, and one of his hands, hanging from his knee as he sat, made a little negative gesture to show it was out of the question.
‘Please, Peter.’
‘No.’
But Sarah wouldn’t take no for an answer. ‘All you have to do,’ she explained, ‘is go out to your car and get it, and bring it back in here, and play “Where Have All the Flowers Gone.”’
In the end it was Tony who broke the deadlock. ‘He doesn’t want to, dear,’ he told his wife.
Then Emily got to her feet, smiling, to prove she’d meant it when she’d said that she and Howard had better be going.
Sarah, looking bewildered on the sofa, did not get up to wish them goodbye.
There were no more letters from Sarah, and no telephone calls. At Christmastime the Wilsons’ card was signed hastily by Tony, rather than in Sarah’s jubilant hand, and this was briefly disturbing.