Stranger, Father, Beloved (12 page)

She picked up
Fall the Tower
and wondered whether she could bring herself to go to the meeting. The book had had to be specially ordered and picked up at a tiny local bookstore, because an independent press had published it. Nancy felt suspicious when she went to buy it, as people are when they purchase something that isn't of their own taste.

She hadn't finished it and couldn't bear the thought of the two-hour discussion with Miranda. She wouldn't go; she resigned herself to it. The day would be empty otherwise, but she would fill it somehow.

She finished washing the dishes in the sink and then went up to her bedroom and put two of Michael's shirts in the laundry. She thought about her parents and what they'd used to do on Saturdays when she was younger. Saturday had been treated in a similar manner to the other days of the week. The children's chores were expected to be completed before lunch. Nancy had had to share a bedroom with two of her sisters, both older, so she had never had any privacy. The house had one bathroom, its lock eternally broken. Sitting on
the toilet was an anxiety-ridden experience, both eyes on the knob so that in case it turned, she could jump and slam it shut before anyone walked in. There were usually voices in the hallways of their small house, and one of her brothers and sisters was always caught up in some drama, which would be announced to whoever would listen in the kitchen.

She had looked up to her brother Dale, with his glittering blue eyes, who was the most charming and handsome one in their family. Dale was softer and kinder than the rest of them, and when he had moved to Richmond upon turning eighteen, she had thrown a fit. It had taken her years to get over his leaving, as she had taken it as a personal slight. The house seemed smaller without him there, and her family members irritated her more than ever. Suddenly all their loud voices and rude manners seemed horrific, and she became withdrawn and moody until high school, when she was finally allowed to stay out later.

Now she had space and silence, endless amounts inside and outside. The house had a voluminous sequence of rooms, many of which were uncomfortable and stiff, and the temperature was forever a degree or two too cold. The woods beyond the yard had a haunted quality, an unidentifiable angst or shiftiness. One tree sat in the far-right section of the yard, and its isolated position made it seem like a statue of sorts, watching over the solemnity, a guardian of absence.

There were days when she wanted to weep with gratitude for her good fortune and days when she missed the busy atmosphere of her childhood home. She would have given anything to have the vacuum filled with messy and straightforward people who came and went with ease. Their current house was decorated like a museum, cold and unsettling, and she longed for one room that was completely hers
that she could break in to her liking, one that would be soft and comfortable, with bright, cheery colors.

Michael's upbringing had been quite different from her own, so he was used to all the empty rooms and cool beauty. Brought up in a large home in Connecticut where his mother still lived, it had been just Michael and his sister, each with his and her own areas of the house, and a maid who came in and put all in order twice a week.

Nancy's guilty pleasure had been reading V. C. Andrews books. With all their grandeur, they told tales of huge lonely mansions and high-society, pampered individuals, each with a crippling private loneliness no one but the reader could understand. When she had first met Michael, he had reminded her of some of the characters from the books. She liked to place him in the settings of the novels she had read. When she had finally seen his parents' home, she had to admit that some part of her was disappointed. Yes, it was grand and beautifully furnished and quite large, but their home was no mansion and was diminished in her mind by the gothic halls of V. C. Andrews.

Michael had used to tease her about those kinds of books when they were first married. She had read a passage aloud to him in bed one night, and they had both had a good laugh. But secretly, as she read it, the words had seemed powerful to her and commanded her attention. She vaguely remembered the passage—it involved one of her favorite characters, Anne, a stepchild of the family, who was praised for her beauty. She was descending the staircase into one of the long halls at night and looked through the huge windowpane at the moonlight. She was alone and in the process of contemplating the events of the last night. Her virginity had been coaxed from her, and she began to know that the man who had taken it would no longer want her. She remembered a specific line that Michael had repeated
and laughed over: “She was no longer the keeper of the treasure in the eyes of men.” It had struck her as sad, and as overly sentimental as it was, she had loved it.

How different her life would have been if she had married her former boyfriend, Tim. She would still be living in West Virginia and would be around many of her high school friends and their husbands. She would know the business of everyone in town and would have a smaller house and a mortgage to pay off and would be working, most likely as a teacher for the elementary school or in a day-care center. Tim would have made a good husband, although she would have become bored with him. She would have been queen bee, the beloved rather than the lover. But she would have always wondered what would have happened if she hadn't left and gone to live near the university. She had gone looking for something better. If she had stayed with Tim, she would have always wondered if she could have done better.

She heard a knocking at the door, and then she heard it open. She came down the stairs and saw John standing in the doorway.

“I'm so sorry. I didn't think anyone was home, so I used my key.”

“It's no problem, I'm glad you're here.” The statement seemed too intimate or revealing, and she instantly regretted it. “Would you like something to eat or drink?”

They made their way into the kitchen, and she heated a cup of coffee in the microwave.

The silence was awkward, and she was eager to get out of doors. She felt ambivalent toward John—he was easy to be around and required little formality, but she secretly felt he must find her to be a poor match for Michael, and she distrusted his presence. People from
her own background could surely see through the ruse of her being in such a privileged position.

“I'm not up to much. I can come outside and see what you're working on.”

The two stepped out, and the air was clean and warm around them. John began his work, clearing out rocks from the square of dirt that would be the site of the gazebo. It was particularly quiet in the yard, and their chitchat hung in the air without reverberation. She found she was able to relax around John. She was used to the constant tension that clung to Michael that always kept her on edge, and in its absence she felt her mind and body relax.

She sat in a chair and watched John work. He had nice lean muscles, similar to Michael's physique. Leaning forward, he dug awkwardly, putting his full weight on his shovel to force it to pierce the soil.

He smiled at her. “I'm not used to being watched.”

“Oh, I'm sorry, I'm making you nervous. How stupid of me. Let me help.”

“No, no, I didn't mean it that way. I meant that I must seem like I don't know what I'm doing. Please stay and relax—it's nice to have the company.”

“Normally I would be going to book club now, but I skipped out on it today.”

“Why's that? Bad book?”

“In my opinion, yes. Although I'm sure everyone else is raving about it.” She paused.

John spoke up. “My wife never joined a book club, but she did read. She read a lot of mysteries and sometimes horror books. She would read them at night while I slept. She was a night owl. Always thinking. I was a morning person. I mean, I am a morning person.”

Nancy tried to picture his wife and imagined a slimmer, wiry version of herself, only tougher and more blunt. The more she thought of the woman, the less her persona resembled Nancy in her mind, although they would always have one thing in common—their roots. This woman, unlike Nancy, had probably been mean and a little intimidating, but they both had come from the same background—as much as she read, his wife probably had the trash in her. She probably had the local county accent, so similar to the way people talked from her own hometown. Yep, a trailer girl was what John's wife was; there was no getting around that. A spasm of hatred passed through Nancy as she stood out on the lawn, and then it retreated.

She found it harder and harder to stand outside with John as the minutes passed. She became very conscious of how unattractive she had become and how unappealing she was to men. She'd used to feel reasonably attractive, but then the photos would come in from weddings and birthdays and she would gasp when she saw herself. She was lost in her own body, solid and round, and she was stunned that she had not noticed. Enough of the photos had shown the same image to convince her that she no longer had traces of loveliness, so it pained her to be around men, especially one on one.

She had talked with John at the party. She could hardly remember the conversation, only that she had felt wild from too many drinks and her old self, the part of her that could charm, had made an appearance. Without alcohol it vanished, and as hard as she tried to find it, it was too stubbornly slippery to stay put for long.

As she sipped her water, she thought about the groundwater problem on the Peninsula—she wondered what John thought of it.

“I never know whether to listen to people when they say that the groundwater's polluted. What do you think? Do you drink it when you're at home?”

“I don't have to worry about that. I live on the mainland.” He thought for a minute. “But if I did live here, I would probably drink it—I don't like to listen to rumors. Who ever knows if they're really true.”

“I buy bottled water, but it's such an effort to always remember to use it and so much easier to just take water from the faucet. Still, there are so many cases of cancer on the Peninsula—it does make you wonder. People seem to get cancer here pretty young, and there's a lot of breast cancer. They think it has to do with drinking the tap water your whole life. If it's true, it's a very sad thing.”

“I agree with you. How did the water get polluted in the first place? What do they say?”

“I don't know. I never quite got it. Something about minerals . . .” John kept working, and Nancy glanced around the yard and then at the house. It irritated her that her husband was not there.

“I should go back in and occupy myself somehow,” she said. The shame was overwhelming, all from just standing alone with a man in her yard. She felt this shame around Michael's Yale friends, whom she knew pitied her, but she had thought she would be safe with someone like John. Apparently there was no one who was safe for her to be around.

She went inside to shower, then dressed up in her cream pants suit and drove to Orin. She parked, went into an expensive boutique, Gina Hurley, and moved around the small store with attempted confidence. The two women who worked there took notice of her and brought her the only dresses and tops they had in her size. They didn't say so, but it was clear that the selection for the unthin was limited. She tried on the five items, all of which looked horrible. She
bought two of them, just because not to buy them would somehow be more humiliating than to leave with nothing.

Then she went to a movie by herself in the late afternoon, got the popcorn, soda, candy combo that was advertised, and enjoyed herself immensely. Two high schoolers were kissing in the back row, and an elderly man sat unmoving across the aisle from her. The film was a romantic comedy, whose every turn was predictable, and Nancy felt a joy she hadn't experienced in years as she slouched in the purple velvet chair and sipped her Coke. After it was over, she paid for another movie and went in, but twenty minutes into it, the moment had lost its thrill, and she walked out into the warm dusky air to look for her car.

When she returned home, John was still out working where she had left him. She remembered that he did not have a family of his own to return to, but still, the image was pathetic. The two kids who usually helped him had another job they were working on, so John was stuck doing all of the work himself.

Giving in to the fact that she was stuck with him, she leaned her head out the door and called, “John, have you had dinner?”

“I brought along some chips with me and have been snacking on those,” he called back, his voice echoing across the empty yard.

“Come on in, and I'll heat you up something,” she called and let the door slam before he could reply.

John walked into the kitchen and went to wash his hands in the bathroom. It was clear that he felt awkward, and, before he could say something about it, Nancy asked, “Do you like spaghetti with meat sauce?”

“Yes, I love it, but—”

“It's no problem. I can reheat leftovers, no big deal. Have a seat and have a glass of wine with me.” As soon as she said it, she ­realized
what a relief it was to have someone to talk and share wine with. When they were first married, Michael had taught her a lot about wine, and they had gone on several wine-tasting trips. It had been so long since the two of them had sat out in the evening, sipped wine, and talked about the day.

“I've been meaning to try this bottle. Someone gave it to us at our party, and we haven't opened it yet. It's supposed to have a gorgeous taste.” She brought out two glasses, poured a generous amount in each, and set John's down in front of him.

“Where's Michael?” he asked.

“I don't know, probably at work. He works on Saturdays from time to time.” Nancy did little to disguise the bitterness in her voice.

John didn't reply. He drank some of the wine. “Mmm, this
is
good. I don't know much about wine, but I do know what tastes good.”