Loving Frank (10 page)

CHAPTER
14

“
S
oon,” Mamah said when John asked her when they would be returning home. The boy was agitated often, bored without playmates now that Mattie’s children had begun school. Mamah borrowed textbooks from the Mapleton School and began giving him morning lessons.

The children had changed over the summer, almost by the day. Mamah was grateful for the time with only Martha and John. She had rediscovered the pleasant intimacy of bathing and feeding them, rituals she’d handed over to Louise long ago. Martha’s tiny feet, such perfect miniatures of Mamah’s own, were no longer baby feet. The skin on her soles had grown thick from playing barefoot outside.

John, who’d looked like Edwin from the start, now walked with a bowlegged gait that reminded Mamah of her father. He had begun to roughhouse, sometimes acting tough. At night, though, he was the same as he’d been since he could talk. He crawled into bed with her and Martha and tugged her sleeve. It was a signal between them; it meant “story.” And always the stories began in the same way.

“Once upon a time, there was a boy named John, a horse named Ruben, and a dog named Tootie.” The stories had started simply enough when he was three or four. Over time they had become more fantastical, peopled with ship captains, sultans and runaway horses, and they always ended with John saving the day in some way. One night in Boulder, when it was clear that Martha was beginning to understand the stories, Mamah had added, “and a little girl named Martha.”

“Noooo,” John had wailed. His sister’s presence in the imaginary world he shared with his mother was too much for him. After that, she took to telling a separate story for Martha.

Perhaps the children’s nerves were as frayed as hers, she thought. Edwin’s recent letters demanded to know what she would do about John returning to school, and when she planned to come home. She sat down twice to respond, but wrote nothing. She thought she had decided, but she wasn’t entirely certain. A tension had been building for weeks, and now her mind changed from moment to moment. It was as if she, too, were waiting to see what would happen.

A short note from Frank arrived on September 20.

I have found a man who is no worry to me who will take over the studio while I am gone, and finish up what is still on the table. The last few weeks have been a rush to assemble drawings to take to Wasmuth. Marion Mahony will stay on to complete drawings to send to me in Germany. I shall be at the Plaza Hotel in New York by the 23rd. Please send some word. I am prepared to wait for you.

Mattie swung slowly on the porch swing opposite Mamah. Her face was white as cream and deadly serious. “What are you thinking of?” she asked.

Mamah didn’t want to agitate her now.

“What?” Mattie persisted.

“Don’t you see?” Mamah plunged in. “How can I know if this is what I should do if I don’t go? If I don’t have time to live over there with him, even briefly? You have a happy marriage. I don’t. You played your cards right the first time. I didn’t. Does that mean I have to play this hand to the bitter end, full of regret? Knowing I might have had the happiest life imaginable with the one man I love more than any other I have ever known?”

Mattie looked exhausted. “You’ve made up your mind.”

“I have.”

A hot gust of wind blew dust around in the yard.

“When will you leave?”

“When I know you are safe.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“A couple of months. I’ll tell Edwin to come and get the children.”

Mattie mopped the sweat off her neck with a handkerchief. “You can leave the children here at the house until Edwin collects them. Alden’s mother will be here, as well as the nanny.”

“It should only be a couple of days.”

Her friend nodded.

“Thank you, Mattie. Thank you.”

ON THURSDAY MORNING,
September 23, Mattie began having pains. Alden, who had returned home a week earlier, held her hand. Mamah remembered a week of such pains before she bore Martha, but Alden’s mother, who came daily to look in on her, declared that there would be a baby that day.

“I cannot wait to be free of this bed,” Mattie groused when Alden left the room. “This is the last time I shall ever allow myself to get into this condition.”

Mamah sponged her friend and changed her nightgown. Mattie was difficult to move. Mamah was worried by the fact that she was swollen all over. Her skin had been mottled pink with white spots, like a slice of bologna, for the past few weeks. Just the pressure of a thumb on her arm left a bloodless white print.

In the past two weeks, Mamah had prepared for the moment by cutting gauze squares and assembling clean sheets, a douche bag, tubes, a thermometer, and a clean nightdress. She had been through it twice herself, attended a half-dozen other births, knew the routine. But she had also watched her sister Jessie bleed to death. When Mattie’s moans grew louder, the doctor appeared and Mamah retreated to the parlor with Alden to wait. Outside the window, maple leaves shimmered gold in the fall sunlight.

By nine that night, Mattie proved her mother-in-law correct. “You have yourself a girl,” the doctor said when he fetched Alden. Mamah stayed downstairs, relieved, while Alden raced up to see his wife. She rocked in her chair, remembering John’s birth, how miraculous she’d found such a commonplace moment. She and Edwin had giggled with joy over the boy’s miniature blue-veined hands, his tiny, tiny fingernails.

Martha’s birth had been different. With the baby wrapped in a blanket and lying on her belly, Mamah had waited until Edwin left the room before she brought the child up to her breast. This time she had not wanted to share the moment with him. She had counted the baby’s fingers and toes, moved her palm over the girl’s tiny head, savoring that pleasure alone. He could not have understood what she felt, she’d thought at the time. She didn’t.

“ALDEN SAYS ’MARY.’
Do you think it’s too plain?” Mattie lay nursing her day-old baby.

“Let him have his way. We’ll give her her real name.” Mamah smiled. “You two look beautiful lying there. She looks just like you.” She felt a pang and busied herself folding little clothes so she wouldn’t cry.

Mattie looked up. “Have you told Edwin you’re leaving?”

“I’m sending a telegram today.”

Mattie’s brown eyes moved over Mamah’s face. “So it’s Monday you’ll leave.”

“Monday.” Mamah took a deep breath. “I’ll bring the children over here Sunday. We’ll stay in the guest room that night, if it’s all right with you.”

“Yes.”

“I expect Edwin will be here in a couple of days. Are you sure your nanny and Alden’s mother can manage?”

“Yes. The children are no problem.”

“Forgive me for bringing my troubles into your home, especially now. I never intended to make you complicit in this.”

Mattie’s gaze was on the baby as she shifted her to her other breast. “There’s not a word I can say to you that you have not already thought of, Mamah.” She gently teased the baby’s mouth with her nipple, trying to get her to take it. “There are ways to hold the thing up in the light and see a hundred facets, and knowing you, you’ve found a hundred and one.” She looked up. “Go. See if you’re supposed to live with this man. And if he’s as enthralling in a nightshirt in two months as you think he is now, then come back and set it right. Do right by Edwin and the children. Allow a decent amount of time, and do a divorce properly.”

Mamah leaned down and kissed the infant’s forehead, then put her cheek to Mattie’s. “Bless you,” she whispered.

On Sunday morning, Mamah followed Mapleton down the hill and over to Water Street. At the Union Depot, she went to the Western Union counter.

“Your husband is coming,” the clerk said. Mamah realized the man was addressing her. “On Wednesday,” he said, cheerfully handing her Edwin’s telegram.

A streak of rage shot through her. It was probably impossible not to read the telegrams that came into the office. Still, the content of people’s private correspondence was supposed to be inviolate.

“I need to send another.” She took a form on the counter and filled it out. “Frank Lloyd Wright, Plaza Hotel, New York. ‘Leave tomorrow. M.B.B.’”

The man picked up the message form and read it. He took a pencil from behind his ear and scratched his head. Then he turned to her, his face puzzled.

She fixed him with a cool gaze. “Is there a question?”

“No, ma’am,” he said. He turned back to the telegraph machine.

Her ears burned as she waited to see that the message was sent. The man began tapping out her words in irretrievable dots and dashes.

When he was finished, Mamah walked across the lobby to the railroad agent’s window and bought a ticket.

BACK IN MATTIE’S SPARE BEDROOM,
she composed a letter to Edwin, then slid it into the desk drawer.

“Papa is coming this week,” she told the children as she prepared them for bed.

Martha held up her arms to have the nightgown pulled down over her. “I want to go home,” she whined.

“He will be so amazed to see how big you are, Martha. You, too, Johnny.” Mamah spoke slowly. “Now, listen carefully. I’m going to leave tomorrow to go on a trip to Europe. You will stay here with the Browns until Papa arrives in a couple of days. I’m going on a small vacation.”

John burst into tears. “I thought we were on one.”

Mamah’s heart sank. “One just for me,” she said, struggling to stay calm. “Louise and Papa and Aunt Lizzie will take good care of you while I’m gone. And Grandma is visiting there now. Oh, she’s going to be so glad to see you again.”

John clung to her, whimpering. She rubbed his back, held him. “This has been hard for you. I know that, sweetheart, being away from Papa and Oak Park for so long. But you’ll be back in school with your friends in only a couple of days. And I won’t be gone long.”

Mamah lay down on the bed and pulled their small curled bodies toward her, listening as John’s weeping gave way to a soft snore.

At dawn, numb from lack of sleep, she rose to pack her bags. She stumbled around in the dim morning light, trying to make no sound, discarding some things into the wardrobe while stuffing others hurriedly into the jumbled confusion inside her bag. She reached into the desk, removed the sealed letter, and put it next to Martha’s shoes on the bedside table where it would be found. Looking back to be certain the children were still asleep, Mamah slipped out the door.

CHAPTER
15

“
W
hat are you doing?” Frank asked when he opened his eyes.

Mamah lay just apart from the warm length of his body. She had tried not to wake him as she propped her head up with one hand and wrote in her diary with the other. “Did you know that you laugh in your sleep?” she asked.

His voice was groggy. “Consider it a bonus.”

Sometime during the night, they had untangled their limbs and finally gone to sleep. When she’d awakened and turned to Frank, she had found him as he lay now—in fact, as he had lain every night of the voyage—flat on his back without a pillow, his head tilted slightly back, his right hand resting on his chest as if he had pledged himself to slumber.

It seemed to her one of the most intimate of acts—to sleep with another person. Before they met in New York to embark on the trip, she and Frank had never slept together through the night. She had awakened before he did the first morning on the ship and could not take her eyes off him as his eyelids flickered and his chest moved up and down with each shallow breath. Pale light had chiseled his forehead, nose, and chin into such a still, foreign mask, she had felt a sense of panic.
Do I truly know this man?
It was when a smile flitted across Frank’s lips that his face had become familiar again. Just moments ago, he’d actually laughed.

How different we are,
Mamah thought. This morning she had found her body at the edge of the bed, turned away from him and curled into a ball of blankets and pillows. She had slipped out of bed, put on a fresh gown, brushed her hair, and retrieved her diary before climbing under the covers again.

He was watching her now. “What are you doing?” he asked again.

She smiled. “Oh, I was just thinking about that wonderful puppet theater you designed last year.” The minute the words were out of her mouth, she regretted saying them. The little theater had been made for his youngest son. She put her hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

“I’ve been trying to remember the words you wrote on it. Something about the moment right before you wake up.”

He lifted his head. “‘To fare on—fusing the self that wakes’…”

“…‘and the self that dreams.’ That’s it. I love that.” She penciled the words, then lay her head down again. The ship rose and fell on the swells, causing their bodies to roll gently back and forth. Under the blankets, with the pink sky glowing through the porthole, Mamah felt safe. She didn’t want to stand up, or dress, or hear bells or footfalls, or say good morning to the strollers on the deck.

The two of them had stayed huddled this way every morning of the voyage, unwilling to break the peaceful spell that sleep brought. Around nine o’clock, though, Frank’s stomach would grow queasy, and they would repair to the dining room to eat at an out-of-the-way table.

Frank had proceeded delicately with her from the moment they’d embraced in New York. At the beginning, none of it had seemed quite real to Mamah. Now, after six days together, the sense of unreality had settled into a solicitous, sometimes awkward dance between them. Before they departed, she had viewed their trip together as a sort of test. How else could two people truly know each other unless they lived together? But she was discovering that there were some things she didn’t want to reveal. She found herself sneaking a bit of color onto her cheeks and lips while he was out of the cabin.

Her beauty rituals were easy to conceal, compared to the mood shifts that washed over her out of the blue. The thought of John, so confused at her leaving, seized her with remorse time and again. It happened while she and Frank were waltzing to Schubert one evening; she felt the wind go out of her, and she put her face into his chest. When she confessed what she was feeling, Frank rose to the moment, comforting her with assuring words. But by the middle of the voyage, he was gently making his claim.

“Look,” he said one day, glancing up from his book, “Louise will care for the children. And Edwin knows the truth.”

“I know, I know. It’s just that sometimes I think we should have—”

“Never mind the shoulds.” He put his hand on hers. “Don’t squander this time, Mame. How long have we talked about having time alone? Five years? Relax. Please. Be with me.”

When they went back to their cabin, she kept her eyes closed during their lovemaking. In those moments, forgetfulness freed her mind, and she felt his joy in truly having her to himself.

Later, they dressed warmly and draped blankets over their shoulders and heads to walk around the deck. Their breath puffed white in front of them while black clouds belched out of the three tall smokestacks overhead. The ship’s engine roared, and waves crashing against the bow made conversation difficult.

“I’m not even cold,” he shouted.

“What is it?”

“Not cold. Are you?”

“No,” she lied.

He saw her rattling inside the blankets. “Open your pores, Mamah!” He laughed.

“I take my freedom warm,” she shouted, grabbing his hand and pulling him back inside.

At dinner hour, when they had to talk to other people at their table, she was relieved to have an elegant Frenchman on her left. Frank had the misfortune of being between Mamah and a garrulous woman from Kansas City.

“So you’ve left the brood at home,” she heard the woman say. “George and I took a tour when our girls were nine and ten.”

“You don’t say,” Frank muttered, slicing his steak.

“Oh, it was the best thing we could have done. Isn’t that right, George?” The woman slapped her husband’s knee. “How many children do you lovebirds have?”

“Nine,” Frank replied.

“Nine!” The woman reared back in her seat. “My goodness. Your wife certainly has kept her figure.”

Mamah turned, red-faced, toward Monsieur—Bonnier, was it?—who was critiquing American movies.

“Madame Wright,” he was saying, “why do your newspapers scold about smoking and negligees in your films?” He addressed the whole table then. “For a country that claims to be open and free, you Americans are such Puritans.”

“You make a point,” Frank said, lifting his glass. “A toast to each of our countries’ better parts. To cowboy movies,” he said, looking around at his companions, “and French lingerie.”

Everyone leaned back and laughed.

“Oh, you’re a naughty man,” said the woman from Kansas City, giggling. “I can tell a naughty one when I see one.” She slapped her husband’s knee again. “Isn’t that right, George?”

When the orchestra played later in the evening, Frank swept Mamah around the floor in a joyful, careless waltz.

Let go of what people think,
he had said to her when they’d first set out from New York. Now, near the end of the crossing, she felt she was beginning to.

That night Mamah dreamed she was flying. She saw herself moving like a bird, arms outstretched, across the sky. A small hinged door in her chest opened up, and dark colored shapes fell through the opening to the snow-covered fields below.