The Stories of Richard Bausch (73 page)

Part of his daily portion of trouble was that he had been having difficulty in the nights: his dreams were pervaded with a nameless dread. When he drifted off, it was with the knowledge that he would be awake with the dawn, feeling nothing of his old appetite for the freshest hours of the day, finding himself sapped of energy, vaguely fearful, sick at heart, and more gloomy than the day before.

“Get busy doing something,” his wife had told him. “You were never the type to sit around and let things get the best of you.”

No. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to say the word aloud.

“I’m going to make an appointment for you.”

“I’m not going to any damn head doctors. There’s nothing wrong with me that I can’t take care of myself.”

He could not put his finger on exactly where or how this present misery had begun to take hold, but it had moved in him with the insidious incremental growth of a malignancy. The first inkling of it had come to him nearly a year ago, on his seventy-fourth birthday, when the thought occurred to him, almost casually, as though it concerned someone else, that he had gone beyond the age at which his father’s life ended. He had the thought, marked it with little more than mild interest—he might even have mentioned it to Cat—and then he experienced a sudden, fierce gust of desolation, a taste of this awful gloom. The recognition had come, and what followed it had felt like a leveling force inside him. But that feeling passed, and diere had been good days—wonderful days and good weeks—between then and now. He would not have believed that the thing could seep back, that it could blossom slowly in him, changing only for the worse. Tonight, it was nearly insupportable.

One of the tenets of the religion he had practiced most of his adult life was that if one kept up the habits of faith, then faith would be granted. He had hoped the same was true of just going through the days.

Susan came out and slammed the door shut behind her.

“Everything okay?” he managed.

She stirred, seemed to notice him, then looked out at the street. “I hate this time of day.”

He thought she would go on to say more, and when she didn’t, he searched for some response. But she had already left him, was striding over to Elaine. Perhaps she might be about to leave, and how badly he wanted not to be alone! When she lifted Elaine and put her back on the inner tube, he hurried over to them, eager to be hospitable. Elaine sat in the swing with her chubby legs straight out and demanded that she be pushed higher, faster. Susan obliged her. “Only for a little while,” she said.

“Mom should be here any minute,” William said.

“Where’d she go, anyway?”

“She was going to get some Chinese. Neither of us felt like doing anything in the kitchen. I had this—touching up to do.”

“I don’t want to get in the way of dinner,” she said.

“Don’t be absurd.”

“Mommy, push me higher.”

“I’m doing the best I can, Elaine.”

“You didn’t like the swings when you were Elaine’s age,” he said. “Do you remember?”

“I was a-f-r-a-i-d,” Susan said. “I don’t want her to be that way.” “Stop spelling,” Elaine said. “You be quiet and swing.”

William said, “Do you remember when I used to push you in this swing?”

She touched his arm. “Do you know how often you ask me that kind of question?”

“You don’t recall it, though.”

“Do you recall asking me this same question last week?”

“Well,” he said, “I guess I don’t. No.”

She frowned. “I’m teasing you.”

“Well?” he said.
“Do
you remember?”

“I don’t remember,” she told him. “You dwell on things too much.”

He said, “You sound like your mother.”

“It’s true. You’ve always been that way.”

This irritated him. “Since the beginning of Time,” he said.

“Men are such babies. Can’t you take a little teasing?” “Well, if I’m going to be asked to represent a whole sex every time I do any damn thing at all, I guess not.”

“Oh, and I suppose you never talk about women that way.”

“I always thought such talk was disrespectful.”

“Okay, I won’t tease, then. All right?”

They said nothing for a few moments.

“Was that Sam you were talking to on the phone?”

“At first.”

“Higher,” Elaine said.

“Hold on,” said Susan.

He walked back to the porch and sat down on the bottom step, watching the two of them in the softening shade of the tree. The sun was nearing the line of dark horizon to the west, and through the haze it looked as though its flames were dying out. It was enormous, bigger than it ever seemed in midday. His daughter, still standing under the filamentous shade of the willow tree, turned to look at him, apparently just noticing that he had walked away from her. He put both hands on his knees, trying to appear satisfied and comfortable. But his heart was sinking. She walked over to stand before him. “Did you and Mom have a fight or something?” she asked.

“Not that I know of.”

“Ha.”

“We never fight anymore.”

“Maybe you should.”

“I can’t think why.” He smiled at her.

“You bicker all the time instead of fighting.”

He said, “What’s the difference, I wonder?” A moment later he said, “Are the two of you talking about me?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“What’s there to talk about?” he said.

“Dad.”

“We’ve been married almost forty years,” he said. “What’s there to talk about?”

“Are you saying you’re bored?”

“Jesus,” he said. “Are w
e
going to have a fight?”

“I’m just asking.”

“Is your mother bored?” he said.

“You don’t think she’d tell me a thing like that, do you?”

“I was just asking.”

“To tell you the truth, she doesn’t talk about you at all.”

“Well,” he said, “I wouldn’t. You know, there’s not much to say.”

“Do you still love each other?” his daughter asked suddenly. “Sam and I lasted five years and I can’t imagine why. It’s kind of hard to believe in married love, you know.”

“Can’t judge the rest of the world by what happens to you,” he said. “Married love takes a little more work, maybe.”

“Why do I feel like you’re talking about me and not Sam.”

“I’m not,” he said. “I didn’t have anybody specific in mind.”

As they watched, the young woman from across the street drove up. She got out of the car and made her way over to them, having obviously come from her job at the college: she wore a bright flower-print dress and high heels. She was carrying a package.

“Cat’s not here?” she said, pausing. She had addressed Susan.

“She’ll be back soon,” William said.

The young woman hesitated, then came forward. “Could you give her this for me? It’s a scarf and earrings.”

“Why don’t you give it to her?” William said, smiling at her. “Sit here and wait with us.”

“No, I’ve really—I’ve got to go.”

Susan took the package from her.

“There’s a—I put a card with it.”

“Very good,” Susan said. “It’ll make her happy.”

“We’re moving,” the young woman said. “He got a job back home. I get to go home.”

“I’m sure she’ll want to see you before you go.”

“Oh, of course. We won’t be leaving until December.”

“Thank you,” William said as the young woman went back along the walk.

They watched her cross to her house and go in, and then Susan said, “You know the trouble with us?”

“What,” he said.

“We’d never inspire that kind of gratitude in anyone.”

“I’m too old to start trying,” he said.

She shrugged. “Anyway, you haven’t answered my question.”

“Which question is that?”

“Whether or not you and Mom are still in love.”

He looked at her. “It’s an aggressive, impolite, prying question, and the answer to it is none of your business.”

“Then I guess you’ve answered it.”

“Goodness gracious,” he said with what he hoped was an ironic smile. “I don’t think so.”

Somewhere beyond the roof of the porch, birds were calling and answering one another, and over the hill someone’s lawn mower sent up its incessant drone of combustion. The air smelled of grass, and of the paint he’d been using. A jet rumbled across the rim of the sky, and for a time everything else was mute. As the roar passed, his granddaughter’s voice came faintly to him from the yard, talking in admonitory tones to an imaginary friend.

“That kid’s imagination,” Susan said. “Something else.”

They were quiet. William noticed that the bottom edge of the sun had dipped below the burnished haze at the horizon.

“I thought you said she’d be here any minute.”

“She just went to get some carry-out,” William said. “But you know how she can be.”

“We really don’t talk about you, Dad.”

“Okay,” he said.

“We talk about my divorce, and about men who don’t pay their child support, and we talk about how I’m sort of sick of living alone all the damn time—you know?” She seemed about to cry. It came to him that he was in no state of mind for listening to these troubles, and he was ashamed of himself for the thought.

He said, “She’ll be home soon.”

His daughter looked away from him. “You know the tiling about Mom?”

“What,” he said, aware that he had faltered.

“She knows how to blot out negative thoughts.”

“Yes,” he said.

“She thinks about other people more than she thinks about herself.” He did not believe this required a response.

“You and I,” his daughter said, turning toward him, “we’re selfish types.”

He nodded, keeping his own eyes averted.

“We’re greedy.”

In the yard, Elaine sang brightly about dreams—a song she had learned from one of her cartoon movies, as she called them.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if Mom ran off and left us,” Susan said. “At least I wouldn’t blame her.”

“Well,” William said.

They waited a while longer, and Elaine wandered over to sit on her mother’s lap. “Mommy, I’m thirsty. I want to go inside.”

“What if she did leave us?” Susan said. He turned to her.

“I wonder what we’d do,” she said.

“I guess we’d deserve it.” He reached over and touched Elaine’s hair.

“No, really,” she said. “Think about it. Think about the way we depend on her.”

“I’ve never said I could take a step without her,” said William.

“There you are.”

“She doesn’t mind your confiding in her, Susan. She doesn’t mind anyone’s confidence. Christ, that girl across the street—” He halted.

“Well,” she said, holding up the package. “She gets the pretty scarf and earrings for her efforts.”

“That’s true,” he said. For an instant, he thought he could feel the weight of what he and this young woman, his only child, had separately revealed to Cat; it was almost palpable in the air between them.

The light was fading fast.

“Granddaddy?” Elaine had reached up and taken hold of his chin.

“What?”

“I said I want to go inside.”

Susan said, “We heard you, Elaine.”

“I want to go in now.”

“Be quiet.”

“We can go in, sweetie,” William said.

“I’m getting worried,” said Susan.

He stood. “Let’s go in the house. She’ll pull in any minute with fifty dollars’ worth of food.” But he was beginning to be a little concerned, too.

Inside, Susan turned on a lamp in the living room, and the windows, which
had shown the gray light of dusk, were abruptly dark, as if she had called the night into being with a gesture. They sat on the couch and watched Elaine play with one of the many dolls Cat kept for her here.

“You don’t suppose she had car trouble,” Susan said.

“Wouldn’t she call?”

“Maybe she can’t get to a phone.”

“She was just going to China Garden.”

“Did she say anything else? Is there anything else she needed?”

He considered a moment. “I can’t recall anything.”

In fact, her departure had been a result of his hauling out the ladder and paint cans. He had thought to follow her advice and get himself busy, moving in the fog of his strange apathy, and when he had climbed up the ladder, she came out on the porch. “Good God, Bill,” she said.

“I’m putting myself to work,” he told her.

“I don’t feel like cooking,” she said, almost angrily.

“No,” he said. “Right.”

She stared at him.

“It’s a few cracks. This won’t take long.”

“I’m getting very tired, William.”

“This won’t take long.”

“Don’t fall.”

He said, “No.”

“If I go out to get us something to eat, will you eat?”

“I’ll eat something.”

“Is this going to be to enjoy, or merely to survive?”

“Cat.”

“I’ll go to China Garden okay?”

“You sure you feel like Chinese?”

“Just do me a favor and don’t fall,” she said.

And he had watched, from his shaky height, as she drove away.

Now he turned
to his daughter, who sat leaning forward on the sofa as though she were about to rise. “Is that the car?”

They moved to the front door and looked out. The driveway was dark.

“Maybe we should call the police and see if there’s been any accidents,” Susan said.

“It’s only been a little over an hour,” said William. “Maybe it’s taking longer to prepare the food.”

She stopped. “Let’s go there.”

“Susan.”

“No, really. It’s only ten minutes away. We’ll see her there and then we can relax.”

“Let’s wait a few more minutes.”

She moved past him and into the living room, where Elaine sat staring at her own reflection in the blank television screen.

“It’s time to put the dolls away,” Susan said to her.

“I’m still playing with them.”

“Is there something,” William began. “Do you want to talk?”

“I came to visit. There wasn’t anything.”

“Well,” William said, “you had all that difficulty on the phone.”

“Fun and games,” she said.

He was quiet.

“Why don’t you put the ladder away,” she said. “And the paint. If she pulls up and sees it’s still there, it might scare her.” “Why would it scare her?”