She smiled. “Although I never really believed in Santa. I wanted to, but I didn’t. You know that.”
He looked up, surprised. “You didn’t?”
“I told you that, a long time ago.”
No memory. “Oh, yeah,” he said.
She smiled, thinking of something. “What?” Griffin said.
“Isn’t it funny how Zoe has started playing dolls?”
“Well, for what it’s worth.”
“I don’t know how any daughter of mine can not love dolls. I was so crazy about them. Especially the ballerina doll. Although that…” She shook her head. “Ah, well.”
“What ballerina doll?”
Ellen waved her hand. “Oh, it was a doll I got for Christmas one year, and I was so excited. She had blue hair and I thought it was just extraordinary, so absolutely beautiful. I wanted to bring her to school and show off a little—I wasn’t exactly the most popular kid around. I used to sit on the steps at recess and read. All the other kids were playing four-square and hopscotch and braiding each other’s hair and I’d be sitting there with my nose in a book. I just couldn’t find a reason to go over there. I thought if I brought this doll, all the girls would just naturally gravitate toward me.” She looked at her watch, stood up. “I should go.”
“So what happened?”
“You don’t really want to hear about it.”
“I do.”
She looked at him, evidently judged his expression sincere, and sat back down. She said nothing until Griffin said, “So, what? They still ignored you?”
She shook her head, stared into a middle space that was years ago. “No, they didn’t ignore me. What happened was, I brought the doll to school in a paper bag—big surprise, you know. I put her in the cloak room, and I must have checked on her a hundred times. At recess, I took the bag outside, sat at my usual station and pulled the doll out. I remember I was so excited, breathing kind of fast, even, and my stomach hurt a little. But it was a good hurt, excitement. She had a crown on her head, and the rhinestones sparkled so hard in the sunlight. I just kept looking at her, waiting for others to notice. She had silvery nylons, and silver ribbons on her ballet slippers that crisscrossed so delicately over her ankles—I was worried about how I’d ever fix them if they got messed up. She had a blue tutu, with pearls and sequins all over the bodice, and she wore pearl earrings, too—little studs. Very tasteful.” She smiled at Griffin. “Can you imagine such a thing? I don’t know what the equivalent for a boy would be, but this doll just thrilled me. Sometimes now I wonder if she could possibly have been as wonderful as all that; I wonder if I just made her up.”
“You mean you don’t still have her?” Griffin asked. “That seems like the kind of thing you would have kept. You kept your baby doll, and she looked like hell.”
“No, I didn’t keep that ballerina doll. What happened is, the other girls saw it and came over and started making fun of it. They didn’t think she was beautiful; they thought she was ridiculous. ‘Blue hair!’ they kept saying. And then they took her from me for a little game of keep-away. By the time I got her back, I didn’t want her anymore.
“When I walked home from school that day, I threw her away, in some garbage can I passed. I remember it was in front of a white house with green shutters, and there was a cat on the windowsill. There was a banana peel and some coffee grounds on top of the garbage, and I put the doll facedown, right in it. The coffee got all over the crown, and I remember trying to knock a little off, but then I just left her there. And you know, I’ve never seen anything like her again. I asked my mother once where she’d gotten her and she couldn’t remember, just had no idea. So, she is…gone.” Her eyes filled and she laughed, defensively.
“I’m sorry,” Griffin said.
“Oh, it’s…It was a long time ago. But thanks for listening, Griffin.”
“You don’t have to thank me for listening to you, Ellen.”
“It feels like I do, though. Because before, you never would have…. This is very different, okay?”
Now he was irritated. “What do you mean?”
“Well, like…Do you remember when we had that parakeet, Huey?”
He stared at her. “Yeah?”
“Remember that time I worked with him almost all day, to teach him how to sit on my finger?”
“I guess so.”
“Well, I asked you to try it. I told you how wonderful it felt, how his feet were so scratchy and his weight was…well, it was kind of thrilling, this tiny little force on your finger! I asked you to try it, to just put your finger in there and let the bird sit on it. And you got all pissed off. You said, ‘Just let me do things by myself. I don’t need you to show me things all the time!’”
“I said that?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“Yes!”
“Well, Jesus, Ellen, hold a grudge, why don’t you? You’re angry over something that happened over ten years ago! Maybe I was just having a bad day or something!”
She shook her head, impatient. “No, it’s not that I’m still angry about that. Or maybe I am still mad, I don’t even know. The point is, you were always so unwilling to share in anything with me. Even Zoe. I love her; I know you love her, too, but where did we meet about her? Where was the we in us as parents?
“You just…you always kept so much of yourself to yourself. You never seemed particularly interested in me. You wanted me around, but you didn’t want to have to do any work to forge any kind of…You just seemed to want to keep things on a very superficial level. But when you listened to me, just now, it was like you were really there. Working. Do you know that?”
“What I know is that you just said everything in the past tense. As though there’s no chance that…” He took in a breath, looked at her. “Ellen. Don’t you think we could try again? Can’t we just start over, in a way, and—”
She stood. “No. It’s too late. Too much has happened.”
She went to the closet, took out her coat and slid it on. “I’m sorry.” She closed the door softly behind her.
He sat at the table until he heard her car drive away. Then he went upstairs, checked on the soundly sleeping Zoe, and prepared for bed. That parakeet had been green, with tiny streaks of yellow here and there. He’d liked classical and rock music equally, had chirped along happily with them. He’d liked potato chips, and he’d liked toast—unbuttered, preferably. Yes, he remembered that bird. Griffin had had his own relationship with him that was in no way inferior to the one Ellen had. It was just different. Did she ever think of that, that things experienced in ways different from hers were equally valuable? That the way that he chose to love her was, in fact, loving her, that the face of love depended on the person giving it? Couldn’t she see that the difficulty came not from Griffin withholding, but from her unwillingness to receive? But he would not confront her with this. Even as he tried to convince himself that it was true, he was aware of his own self-deception. He admitted, now, if only to himself, his catalogue of intentional slights, his moments of soft cruelty, his awareness of complicity in creating a relationship that could not work.
He lay on the bed, pulled the covers up over himself and closed his eyes, forced himself to move toward the undemanding island of sleep, the much more comfortable state of unawareness.
Chapter 19
Griffin dreamed he was in a bank, waiting in a long line. Soft music played in the background, an anemic version of “Penny Lane.” The carpet beneath his feet was thick, a lush blue-green color; the wall sconces glowed; the sounds of conversation were muted and friendly. The man in front of him suddenly brandished a gun and ordered the tellers to put their money on the counter before them. He was wearing all black, including a skullcap over a long, blond ponytail. Griffin realized it was Peter at the same time that the bank alarm began ringing. “Help me get the money!” he told Griffin, and Griffin did—walked slow-motion up to the tellers and collected neat stacks of bills to put into Pet
er’s paper bag. The alarm was deafeningly loud, but apparently useless; no one came to help. Peter ran to the door, turned, and threw his gun to Griffin. Then he was gone. Griffin stood still, openmouthed, the gun heavy in his hands. Everyone in the bank turned toward him and slowly raised their hands.
Griffin awakened, reached over to turn off the alarm. He always set the thing, but rarely needed it. Today, though, he felt dizzy with fatigue. He lay still for a moment, reconstructing the dream, details of which were already fading. Peter as robber, though; that detail was clear. Not too much work required there for interpretation. Although Ellen might tell him the dream wasn’t about Peter at all.
He put on his robe, went downstairs to make coffee and to turn up the heat. The sky was blue, the sun coming out strong, but there was frost etched delicately along the edges of all the windows. It would melt soon. He’d wake Zoe a couple of minutes early, bring her down to show her how pretty it looked.
Her room was dark and when Griffin raised the shade, she moaned, “Dad!Don’t!”
He moved to stand beside her. Her eyes were closed tightly, the blankets pulled up to under her nose. She smelled of childsleep: a combination of hair and salty flesh and cotton. “It’s time to get up, Zoe. Come downstairs; I want to show you something.”
She opened her eyes. “What?”
Griffin pulled back her covers. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
Angrily, she pulled the blankets back up. “Don’t! It’s freezing! And anyway, I don’t want to see anything.”
He sat on the bed, put his hand to her shoulder. “Hey. What’s up? What are you so mad about?”
She closed her eyes again, lay still. It came to him that, given the circumstances, this was a stupid question to ask. She had a million things to be angry about.
“Zoe?”
“What?”
Griffin sighed. “Get dressed and come down for breakfast. You don’t want to be late for school.”
“I don’t care if I am.”
“I care. Now come on, get dressed.”
When Zoe appeared at the breakfast table, her spirits had not improved. She scowled into her bowl of cereal, ate a few bites, then pushed it all away. “What did you want to show me?”
“Nothing.”
Now she was interested. “What was it, though?”
“Nothing—really, Zoe. There was frost at the windows this morning. It was really pretty. I just wanted to show you.”
“You wanted to show me frost?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve seen frost before, Dad.”
“I know that. It was just very pretty.”
“I don’t think it’s pretty.”
“Well, you are entitled to your opinion. As am I.”
“I think it’s stupid.”
He stood up, cleared away her dishes, began rinsing them for the dishwasher. “Did you brush your teeth? Make your bed?”
Nothing.
He turned around. “Zoe?”
“I’ll do it! God, Dad, you treat me like a baby! You always have to ask me did I do this, did I do that!”
Griffin looked at the clock. “Well, here’s what I’ll ask you now, Zoe. Are you prepared to go to school late? Because unless you are out the door in five minutes, you will be. And you will not go out the door until your bed is made and your teeth are brushed.”
She stood, shoved her chair under the table. “In my house, there will be no beds, and no toothbrushes.”
“Fine.”
“You’re crabby and mean,” she muttered.
“What was that?”
Nothing.
“You’re the one who’s crabby,” he said.
She started upstairs, then called down, “Nobody cares about frost! It just melts, anyway!”
On the way to work, he passed a parking place directly across from the Cozy Corner. This was too rare to pass up—he’d stop in for some breakfast of his own. He hadn’t eaten anything at home owing to the extreme unpleasantness of his tablemate.
He found a booth in Louise’s section and ordered two over easy, hash browns, bacon. After Louise delivered it, she sat down across from Griffin. “How are you doing?”
He smiled, shrugged.
“Your wife’s not much better, either, huh?”
“Oh?”
“I’m not spilling any beans, but…”
He loaded up his hash browns with catsup, waited expectantly.
“How’s the kid doing?”
“She was crabby as hell this morning.”
“Yeah. It takes a toll.”
“I guess.” He took a swallow of coffee, asked casually, “So, Ellen’s been talking to you about things?”
“Yeah.” She stood up, put his bill on the table, facedown. “I hope things work out all right, Griffin.”
“Did she—”
“I gotta go.”
When he arrived, late, to work, Evelyn handed him a piece of paper saying, “Mrs. Griffin called. She said to give you this. It’s her new number.” Her face was carefully empty of expression.
He took the piece of paper from her, nodded, then asked, “Could you come into my office, please?”
“Yes, sir.” Now her forehead was wrinkled with concern. She followed him into the office, stood quietly while he closed the door.
“Sit down, please,” he told her, and she sat at the edge of one of the chairs before his desk. He sat opposite her. “Evelyn, Mrs. Griffin and I have…Well, we’re separated.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Just today?”
“Yes, when she called with the number. I’m so sorry.”
“Did she tell you anything else?”
She shook her head. “No, sir. No, she did not.”
“Just gave you the number and that was it, huh?”
“Yes, sir. Well, she did ask me how I was.”
“Uh huh. And how are you, Evelyn?”
“I’m just fine, sir, thank you.”
“Evelyn?”
“Yes, sir?”
“I would really appreciate it if you wouldn’t call me ‘sir.’”
“Yes, sir. Oh—sorry. It’s just a habit. The one before you, Mr. Crenshaw, he insisted upon it.”
“Who, Arthur?’
“Yes, sir. Yes.”
“Well. He was an ass. I just really don’t like being called ‘sir,’ okay?”
“Okay.”
“So.” He turned and looked out the window. More snow, the lazy, drifting variety, melting almost as soon as it landed; the weather was warming to an unseasonable high today. “Mrs. Griffin and I have separated.”
“Yes. As you said.”
He looked at her. “Evelyn, I have to tell you, I’m pretty fucked up.”
She flushed, looked down into her lap.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Just slipped out.”
“It’s all right.”
“I’m sorry, though.”
“It’s fine. I imagine this must be very difficult. I’ve noticed you haven’t been yourself for a while. And I would like to say how truly sorry I am. I like you both very much.”
“You like Ellen?”
“Yes, I do.”
“No kidding.”
She laughed, a soft sound. “Is that so surprising?”
“No, it’s just…Not many people know her, really. She’s kind of shy.”
“She is. But over the years, we’ve…We talk a little sometimes—recipes, books. She didn’t say much today. She did ask how you are, though. How you seem to be doing. I said you seemed just fine.” Her fingers flew up to the bow at her neck. “I hope that was all right!”
“It was perfectly fine. I’m glad that’s what you said. Even though it’s not true.”
“Well, you do look a little tired….”
“A few details slipping.”
“Nothing that hasn’t been taken care of, Mr. Griffin.”
“
Ah, you’re a good woman, Evelyn. Tell me, were you ever married?”
She all but pointed to herself. “Me? Oh, no. No.”
“Why not?” His phone rang. He ignored it. They both did.
“I lost him.”
“Lost who?”
“The man I loved. He was killed in an automobile accident, on the way to pick me up. We were going to have a picnic by the river. I’d packed deviled ham, and I was so nervous he wouldn’t like it. And I’d made my first apple pie—it came out just right. But of course he never saw it.” She shook her head sadly. “My goodness, so many years ago—we were just nineteen.”
Griffin had a sudden image of Evelyn at nineteen: a short-sleeved white blouse and a belted full skirt, nylons and black flats, swaying to Fats Domino on the radio as she did her weekly ironing. She would have been plain, but invested with the stubborn beauty of youth. Bangs might have curled high on her forehead. She might have worn scarves tied around her neck, charm bracelets on her wrists, and, with the discovery of love, perhaps a new red lipstick.
“Were you engaged?” Griffin asked. The boy: earnest and hard-working. Polite. Shy, but less so than Evelyn. Focused on a three-bedroom rambler, a dependable station wagon.
“Oh, no. Didn’t have time for that. We had only a few dates before he…But I knew that if he’d lived, we would have stayed together. We fit. He was the one for me. When he died, that was that.”
“You mean, there were no more men after him?”
“No.”
“But you were nineteen!”
She shrugged. “He was the one.”
“Oh, Evelyn. There’s always more than one.”
Gently, she said, “No, Mr. Griffin. For some of us, there really is only one.”
She was remarkably self-assured saying this. Still, he asked, “But…don’t you regret not at least trying to find someone else? So that you could have had a husband to share your life with, maybe some children?”
Her face grew serious. “I suppose we all think about other roads, Mr. Griffin. But…I don’t know, maybe I can’t really explain this so that you can understand. But the love I had for that young man was enough, somehow. I knew right after he died that I would never feel that way again. I knew it. And I never did. So I wasn’t surprised by that; I was never bitter. It was just…my life, what was given to me. I accepted it. I cherished it.”