The Road Taken, page 22
She sipped her whiskey sour. It was quite sweet.
“Very few people understand what it’s like to lose a child,” Grandma said. Peggy’s eyes immediately filled with tears and she felt a lump in her throat. “You can cry,” Grandma said. “Let me tell you a story.”
I don’t want to hear a story, Peggy thought, but she said nothing.
“I was your grandfather’s second wife, and he was my second husband,” Celia said. “But you knew that.”
“Yes.” Years ago, who cared anymore? She had known Grandma all her life, and her mother had known her almost all her life. Celia had brought the children up, all of them.
“I came into the marriage with a little boy of my own,” Celia said. Had Peggy known that? She couldn’t remember. Surely someone would have mentioned it, but she couldn’t recall. Maybe it had been a secret. Suddenly, to her surprise, her grandmother’s eyes were full of tears, too.
“His name was Alfred,” Grandma said. “He would be the same age as your Uncle Hugh. He died many, many years ago, of blood poisoning, after being scratched by a thorn in the garden. They didn’t have antibiotics in those days. You were cut, you might die. An accident. Like being hit by a car. When I was growing up there were no cars. So then you could be killed by a runaway horse and carriage, or a bolt of lightning. You could die of a disease. A lot of people died, a lot of children. It didn’t make it any easier.”
“I lost so many babies,” Peggy murmured. “But Marianne was the one I knew.”
“As I knew Alfred,” Celia said.
The two women sat there looking at each other. “I grieved like an animal,” Celia went on. “I made his room a shrine. Oh yes, I know what grief is. I understand what you’re going through.”
“But what will I do?” Peggy cried. “I can’t stand it, it’s too much.”
“You must have another baby,” Celia said.
Peggy turned her face away. “No,” she said. “No more. I can’t go through that again.”
“And what if something happens to Peter?”
“Grandma! How can you say that?” Peggy looked back at her, appalled. She wanted to run out of the room, but lately she was so tired she could hardly move.
“I say things as they are,” Celia said. “Sometimes people don’t like it, but too bad. My other children were a comfort to me, and so will yours be.”
Peggy shook her head. “My little girl just died and you’re telling me to replace her.”
“No. Nothing will ever replace the one you’ve lost.”
“I can’t. It’s too soon.”
“As soon as possible is my advice.”
I don’t even make love with my husband anymore, Peggy thought, so where is this baby going to come from? That woman is heartless.
Go home, Peggy thought. Leave us alone. But of course she couldn’t say it, so instead she said, “I’m really tired, I’m going to take a nap now,” and went upstairs to her room and locked the door behind her.
Celia stayed for a week. She had brought a huge jigsaw puzzle of Davy Crockett, which she persuaded Peter to put together with her; she chattered when Ed was silent; and of course, being Celia, who always tried to have her way, she mentioned having another baby to Peggy again several times, and whenever she did Peggy always felt such a pain in her heart it was as if hands were wringing it out like a plump sponge. She could picture the drops of blood leaving her heart, see it empty and pale, and wondered how she was still alive.
She supposed she was making Marianne’s room into a shrine the way Grandma had said she’d done with her own dead little boy, Alfred. Marianne’s crib had been replaced by her first grownup bed only a month before she died, and all her stuffed animals were on it, neatly piled up on the pillow, just as they had been that last day. Her dresses were hanging in the closet. Her tiny toothbrush was still in the bathroom, in the cup shaped like an elephant’s head. The sight of it made everyone miserable, but they were afraid to touch it, for Peggy’s sake, and for their own. The brightly painted step stool was there too, which Marianne had used to reach the sink.
If she tried, Peggy could pretend that Marianne was just out playing, that soon she would be back, accompanied by the vigilant Mrs. McCoo, or perhaps Ed, that it was time to bake her daughter’s favorite Toll House cookies. No one ever mentioned getting rid of Marianne’s things because it was much too early, and as for Peggy, she supposed they could stay there forever. She had no idea of the proper protocol; how could she?
She realized that except for Celia, none of them had mentioned Marianne’s name for a long time. It was too distressing. But that only made them all more conscious of her loss, so her loss itself became a presence. When Celia finally left to go back to the city Peggy and Ed were glad. She had brought too much energy with her, and it was the wrong kind. What the right kind would be they had no idea.
Although she still couldn’t bear to let him touch her, Peggy had no idea how she could have survived all this without Ed. Since she was a woman without a body, he had become her soul mate. When she told him secrets, he understood. The one secret he could not understand was why she refused to let him come within her circle of grief, to heal her and himself. But he only questioned her with his eyes. He knew her well enough not to ask for anything yet, only to give her what she asked for.
A few days after Grandma left, Rose arrived. It was as if they were a group of diplomats, taking turns. Rose went right into Marianne’s room and burst into tears. “Oh, sweet baby,” she murmured in a choking voice. Then she came out and embraced her daughter. “And you sweet baby, too,” Rose said. Her mother had not been so physically affectionate since Peggy was a little girl. Peggy hadn’t let her.
She remembered when she had thought her mother was a pest, a nag. Would Marianne have thought the same way about her when she became an adolescent? It would have been worth it, Peggy thought, even if she had hated me. She let Rose hug her and felt vaguely embarrassed, and hoped her mother didn’t sense her stiffen. The only person Peggy didn’t mind putting his arms around her was Peter.
“Ginger sends love,” Rose said. They sat in the living room, waiting for Ed to come home from work, for Mrs. McCoo to fetch Peter from school, for the shapes of all these people to push away the spectral shape of Marianne. “She’s really enjoying college. She’s made friends. I was so worried about her, but I think it’s going to be all right.”
“Who wouldn’t like Ginger?” Peggy said. She was drinking vodka. They always had vodka in the house now because Ed had recently replaced the gin in his famous martinis with vodka and she liked it better. But before he came home to fix them Peggy started on the vodka by herself, over ice. Nothing to make her drunk or mix badly with the Miltowns, but just a little to keep her heart from hurting.
“Peggy dear,” Rose said, “we need to talk about Joan.”
“No!”
“Joan loves you, Peggy. She’s devastated. I think if she could give her own life to bring Marianne back, she would.”
“Why doesn’t she?” Peggy murmured. Her mother pretended not to hear her.
“You can’t hate her forever. She’s your sister.”
“What has that to do with it?”
“When you were little girls, Joan worshipped you,” Rose said.
Peggy didn’t answer.
“She still does, Peggy. She thinks you have the answer to life. Joan doesn’t. She’s just a lost soul. More lost now that you won’t find it in your heart to let her try to be friends again.”
“My heart is busy,” Peggy said.
“It was an accident, darling. It could have happened to anyone.”
“I know,” Peggy said.
“Then why won’t you forgive her?”
Peggy thought or a moment, and took a sip of her vodka. “I can’t,” she said.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
“You need someone to be angry at.”
“That’s normal, isn’t it?”
“You could be angry at God.”
“God?” Peggy said ironically. “Do you think God cares?”
Rose’s look was faraway. “I thought that way when I was a little girl and lost my mother,” she said.
Deaths remind people of other deaths, Peggy thought. She sighed. Don’t tell me about your mother, she silently warned Rose. Don’t tell me about your grief and loss. I want mine. You keep yours. I don’t want to share. Rose looked down at her hands, knotted together in her lap, and subsided. Good, Peggy thought. At least Rose was soft; she was not like Grandma. For an instant Peggy wondered if Rose had loved or resented Celia when she was a motherless little girl learning to live with the replacement, and then she stopped thinking about it because thinking was still too much trouble.
Who would come to visit next? she asked herself, as if it were a game. Aunt Maude from Bristol? Uncle Hugh? Ginger in her wheelchair? Joan herself, evil incarnate? When Joan broke Marianne she broke a lot of other people too, Peggy thought.
I wish I didn’t hate her, but I don’t know how to stop.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Hugh sometimes thought his life experience was very limited, although from the outside it might have seemed bizarre. But it was only the ball gowns that were bizarre, the wigs and boa and size-twelve evening slippers, the makeup. He was in other ways a simple man; he looked at his family and saw the messages of the world. Ginger being paralyzed had made him want to stay home where he felt needed; Peggy losing Marianne made him want to spread his wings. How ephemeral our existence was, he realized. One moment a person was here, warm and breathing, and the next moment vanished. You are not getting any younger, dearie, he told himself, and he knew he was right.
And Teddy was not getting any younger either.
Ginger had accompanied Hugh and Teddy to lunch in a Village café, and she had been so accepting and curious that Teddy had loved her immediately, as Hugh had known he would. She was the daughter Teddy had never had. After that the three of them went to lunch nearly every week, if Ginger had time between her classes. They were an odd-looking trio: the vivid girl in her wheelchair, the beautifully groomed and effeminate middle-aged man in his elegant suit, with just a touch of powder on his face, and the burly, reddish-haired teddy bear with a lusty laugh like a hug. But the places they frequented had plenty of unusual-looking people, and no one ever stared. In fact, they were so jolly together that they became a kind of welcome fixture.
The death of little Marianne and Peggy’s lasting grief could not entirely freeze their joy in the moments they spent together. If anything, Ginger and Teddy joined Hugh in his realization that happiness should not be deferred. Ginger invited Teddy to come to the family for dinner, Hugh seconded the motion, and Teddy, shyly and nervously, agreed.
“Who will you say I am?” he asked.
“My life’s companion,” Hugh said.
Ginger applauded and Teddy blushed.
So Hugh slipped Teddy into the life of his family like a letter under the door. At dinner Ben and Teddy talked about the construction and repair of buildings, something Teddy knew about well and Ben was interested in, having been in charge of the problems with his town house for many years, and Hugh thought with pride how masculine this discussion was. Rose was sweet, as was her nature. Ginger, of course, was Ginger. And poor Joan, so tightly held together she seemed pathetic and about to fly apart, let it all flow by her, the drama of someone else’s life that could never touch or compete with her own.
Hugh and Ginger were the only ones who hadn’t yet been to Larchmont to visit Peggy. Now that Teddy had been accepted into the family with no hysteria or repugnance, Hugh decided to take him with them. On a crisp fall Saturday, when most people were either at football games or watching them on television, the three of them borrowed Ben’s car and went to pay a condolence call that was also an introduction. We’ll shock her out of her stupor, Hugh thought, but he didn’t really mean it.
Ed opened the door. Hugh was stunned at how much older he looked. His blond hair was streaked with gray, and even his face was gray, and seemed elongated somehow, pulled down by the weight of his sorrow. So it was possible to turn gray overnight; Hugh had wondered about that. He’d heard of the phenomenon, but never seen it. And Ed was so young!
Behind Ed was little Peter, a stalwart boy turned clingy. Peter had seen Ginger only once since she had come home confined to her wheelchair, and although what had happened to her had been explained to him, he peered at her as if trying to decide if her condition was really permanent. The two of them were at eye level. She knew, of course, what he was thinking. Ginger knew what everyone thought about her; her radar was much too strong.
“Hey, big Petey-boy,” Ginger said. “Remember your Aunt Ginger?”
He nodded.
“I’ve got a great machine here. Want a ride? I can do wheelies.”
Peter ran behind Ed and hid.
“I lied, anyway,” Ginger said to the rest of them, feigning cheer. She headed into the living room at full speed.
“This is my friend Teddy Benedict,” Hugh said.
“Ed Glover. How do you do?” The two men shook hands. “I’ll see if Peggy is up,” Ed said. “She’s taking a nap. Please come in, make yourselves comfortable. There’s beer in the refrigerator and I have the game on if anyone is interested.”
“Yes, I would take a look,” Teddy said. He went into the family room, where the TV was, as Ed, followed by Peter, disappeared up the stairs.
“My man,” Hugh said to Teddy, and flounced. “I love that he likes football.”
“You love everything about me,” Teddy said sweetly. He had changed a lot, Hugh thought, since he had been accepted into the family.
“Isn’t this a beautiful neighborhood?” Hugh said. “Teddy, what you and I should do is buy a little house in the suburbs and live the natural life. We could both commute with the husbands.”
“Well, that’s butch,” Teddy said.
“But it’s not so crazy,” Hugh said. “I know two gay couples who have bought houses outside the city, in a quiet place, not a family suburb but something really isolated and lovely. They go up on weekends, and during the week they live in their separate apartments like we do.”
“No, I’m a city person,” Teddy said. “And so are you.”
“Well, then,” Hugh said tentatively, bringing up the subject again, not that it ever did any good, but he had been thinking about it a lot lately. “Maybe finally after all this time we should look for an apartment.”
“You should,” Ginger said.
“Ginger dear, you have no idea what the world is like,” Teddy said.
“Oh, yes, I do. Who would know that you lived together? The people you care about know already, and it would be easy to keep the people at your office in the dark. People don’t know what they don’t want to know.”
“She’s right,” Hugh said. “We could live in the Village. In an apartment house with all different kinds of people in it.Families, gay people, straight people, old people, young people. We’d just be part of the microcosm.”
“And if you have an elevator I’ll visit you,” Ginger said.
“Of course we’ll have an elevator,” Hugh said. “I can’t go up stairs in heels.”
Teddy chuckled. We are making progress, Hugh thought. Some months ago Teddy would have responded that was exactly why he couldn’t live with me. Now at least he knows when it’s a joke.
They all looked up to see Peggy coming into the room. Hugh was startled at how drawn she looked. Peggy had always been so voluptuous and creamy, and now she looked ill. Her eyes had a foggy look, as if clouds were blowing across them, or something the rest of them could not see. “Hi,” she said. “Hi, Ginger.”
“Hi,” Ginger said. She wheeled over and put her arm around Peggy’s waist for a moment and rested her head on her sister’s hip.
“This is my friend Teddy Benedict,” Hugh said.
“Hello.”
“I was so sorry to hear about your daughter,” Teddy said. “Hugh told me.”
“Thank you.”
Hugh waited for her to suggest they move into the living room so they could talk, but she didn’t. Peggy was so obviously damaged that he, who was never at a loss for words, didn’t know what to say. They all sat there in the family room pretending to be interested in the game, except for Teddy, who really was, and then Ed came in with a pitcher of martinis. He handed a martini to Peggy, and her eyes when she looked up at him were clear for the first time.
“Where’s Peter?” she asked.
“Up in his room.”
“How are Mom and Dad?” she asked, turning to Hugh.
“Fine.”
“Mom came by recently,” she said.
“I know.”
Peggy sipped her drink. “Doesn’t anyone want anything?”
“I’ll have a beer,” Teddy said. “I’ll get it.”
“I’ll have a lovely martini then,” Hugh said. “I’m not driving.”
They sat there playing cocktail hour in the suburbs, drinking and smoking, but intimidated into muteness by Peggy’s powerful and awkward grief. Hugh told himself that they were family and therefore Peggy didn’t have to try. The game went on in the background; Ed and Teddy were too polite to watch but unable to offer a different diversion. Hugh had always found the sounds of football reassuring because it was something Teddy liked, and boring because he didn’t, but now he found it all bizarre. Rose and Celia had reported to him how badly Peggy was still doing, but he had not been prepared for her silence. They had said they’d had talks. He wondered if he should not have brought Teddy, since Teddy was a stranger to her, but then he realized it didn’t matter; she hardly realized Teddy was there.
