The Wintering (45 page)

“I had,” the hostess continued, passing the decanter, “the worst time deciding on a color for in here.” Thought-filled faces said she had made the right decision. Her eyes, having looked from face to face, paused at Amy. “You've hardly said anything all afternoon,” she said.

“I was just wondering how you ever knew what to choose when you have so many choices.” Amy nodded toward the curtains. “They are perfect.” The smile she put on she hoped was winning; she had a need to be liked. Freedom, she had considered, had presented her with an enormous number of indecisions; under that circumstance, freedom either had done her no good, or was not truly freedom. Having put on her coat, she was followed to the door by the hostess.

“A date with Billy Walter tonight?”

“I guess so.”

“Well,” said the hostess, looking older, “have a good time.”

Dear Jeff
:

I have finished the book. Thank you so much for wanting to send me a copy, for sending it. I never doubted that it would he what it is; but how lame to use words like great or marvellous. I only hope you can truly know how I feel about it, and I'm sure you do. And it is marvellous that the reviewers all think as I do; then, too, I knew they would. It has always been so touching to me to receive a book from you, one of yours or not, with the wrapping done by you. The first you sent, “Don Quixote,” was all badly wrapped in green tissue paper. Do you remember? And I worried then so over not having a present to give you in return, not realizing, though you told me, that I gave you something. That I did it unconsciously was best. Calculatedly, I'm afraid I never did give much; I wish I could change all that. Why must everything always seem too late; too late, I always think I've learned. I can only hope not to keep repeating mistakes, though how can I know I won't. Life does seem to go on and on and on, harder as you once told me, which I didn't believe at the time. Maybe my children will never believe anything I say
.

Writing the letter, with Jeff's newly read book beside her, Amy saw suddenly whether or not love could have been made through the title page was not the point, at all: joy was: exultation at the book's being done: after so much work, the book was simply an extension of himself. They could have tried love that way, if only to laugh. The result, probably failure, would have brought them up short against the condition people needed to be reminded of occasionally, fallibility; Amy suddenly wondered what she was to make of herself; that was what mattered.

My heart aches for those days, in the woods; it hurts: those lost days. Where has the time gone? I'm older. I don't fool myself any longer. There won't be anybody to fill your place in my heart, thoughts, to ever even understand me as you do, to console, love, feel for me as you do. If I'd let myself stop and wonder and worry about it, I would be afraid
(I
said I wouldn't be, and I'm not in the way once I would have been, of what the future is to hold in this way). Probably, I'll go through life looking for another you. Oh Jeff, the sun, the red roads, the house, the school, the woods, the trees, beer and talk. Have I written you all this before? It seems I might have, but I had to say it all again, to tell you that I love you. To think of you, I think of sun and laughter and a sort of lovely sadness. It's in every face, building, and in everything I see and do. I go to sleep thinking, Someday he will be so damned proud of me. Oh, thank you for that
.

She put down the pen, thinking she had to let her mother redecorate her room. How childish to have said she wanted everything to stay the same. The curtains were frayed, their linings stained brown from sun and in-blown rain. Edith had a swatch of material pinned to the old ones, of some satiny material, sleeker, and with a barely discernible silvery pinstripe. The flowery look of the room would be gone, and about time, Amy thought.

Of course, I shouldn't have run off the way I did, without saying anything to you. You were right that I was thinking about a young man, and that I was not sure what I was thinking but

When she found the letter some time later, Amy wondered what that qualifying
but
had been about. What had she been going to say? Fluctuating, she had been going to pose some alternative. The letter being broken off seemed appropriate to the reason it had been; life could stop as short; it could seem unfinished. She had left the letter on her dresser and wondered who had moved it. The cleaning lady might have, while dusting. If it had been moved by Aunt Dea would she have read it? Her mother would not have moved it, as she had been too distraught to have been cleaning up. Time had passed; the letter still had relevance, but Amy felt herself not the person who had begun it. The bottom of her wastebasket was scattered by the pieces. Once, she had written Jeff that she was sick, and he had replied, that if he could, he would be the sickness. She thought of her father, his look, and knew she could not have been so generous. When we are so vulnerable, must we die looking horrible? To look at her father's skeletal face, she could only think how glad she was to be living. All the time she had been going forward, seeking life, he had been retreating, his done. Could they not have at some point, passing, touched? When he lay in his hospital bed, and she looked at his face, she tried to remember in their life together what words they had said. Children think their parents' lives center entirely on them. What thoughts, what feelings had her father had about which she had known nothing? He had once passionately loved her mother; Amy tried to imagine the night she had been conceived. She could see only the man she had always known, elderly-seeming always to her. Her thumb touched to her middle finger, she formed a circle with which she enclosed her father's wrist. She remembered his carrying her at a gallop on his shoulders. Now, he could not lift his head. He had difficulty speaking. Open, his eyes stared. But did he understand? Did he know her? Amy asked, bending over him. Did he know her, at all?

She felt that she was drowning in his breathing, which was hampered by phlegm. Below his wandering mouth was a dark hole, from which he sent out sighing and melancholy and caught sounds, some like the sound a straw makes sucking, emptily, at the bottom of a glass.

She had been writing the letter when Edith rushed in, wildly, to say he had been taken to the hospital, having collapsed at a meeting. Edith eventually stood at his bedside, her face knotted like writhing hands, insisting he would get well, he would! But Amy grasped the situation and said that no, he was dying. Having found the letter again, and wondering who had moved it, Amy thought of a myriad of helpful things Dea had done: none of them large. More importantly, they were the little things that bridged one day to another; the coffeepot was always clean, her stockings washed, her room straightened. Everyone is glad for a little break in routine. In his own way, Joe performed similar small thoughtfulnesses. As if to accumulate miles, he travelled the hospital's corridors, finding out of the way machines which produced sodas, mints, crackers, small toys; once, he brought to the room miniature Scotties, one black and one white, which were magnets; finally, Edith smiled. The food accumulated like an animal's hoard. He kept bringing things. Amy felt about Aunt Dea and Uncle Joe the emotions she had felt at their house with Quill; these emotions endured. People needed places to go back to, people to resee; it gave life a design, she thought; that was necessary for her. Staring at her father's familiar face, from which unbelievably life was going, she knew she had to rely on something, and chose love.

Frequently irritable, he struck out at anything that came too near, even a shadow's flicker. He often knocked the tube from his throat. Demanding, he rejected afterward what he wanted. Private nurses were continually quitting. That he flailed against muteness Amy found admirable. The final nurse was motherly and scolding and more strong-willed than he. She threatened to tie down his hands if he did not behave. In recognition of tenderness, he looked at her, suddenly, without vacancy in his eyes, and was quiet. Days began and ended. Amy wrote Jeff a short note saying where she was, thanking him for the book. He wrote back sympathetically, and that he looked forward to the long letter she promised.

Guided into the hall, she wondered what the sense was in whispering. What possibly could the doctor tell them, she wondered, that her father did not know. Having motioned her and Edith into the corridor, the doctor said it was only a matter of hours. Her throat worked against her and Edith thought, if only she had known something to offer besides ceramic ashtrays. She went back into his room. Facing the window, she saw a cold early spring rain beginning. In the corridor, Amy had sensed the three of them there had been, unwittingly, a little impatient at the idea of someone else's death. Why die? they had wanted to ask, parting from each other a little shamefacedly, as if someone might ask it. The doctor, turning away, plunged a thick thumb to the elevator button. Amy went back into the room where Edith had opened the window and drank a soda left by Joe, which was flat. “Couldn't I get you a fresh Coke?” Edith said hopefully.

“This is all right,” Amy said, while opening a package of mints from among Joe's accumulated pile. He was not good with money. Billy Walter came forward to help with practical things. He had come by the hospital every day after work. Though feeling timid, Edith asked Amy if she were going to marry him.

“Can I,” Amy had asked, “think about it while Daddy is like this?” the latter an afterthought in her own ears.

She never would have tied down his hands! said the nurse, coming out of his room and crying. She could not think when a case had moved her more. Did they know the last thing he had said, clearly? “All he had ever wanted in life was to be a good man.”

Edith, full of pain, felt her thoughts confirmed by the look on Amy's face. “You never know,” Edith whispered. By not changing her expression, Amy agreed. She determined, as she came down the hospital steps, late that afternoon, with her mother and Billy Walter, that her life must come to something. An old blind Negro stood there and, at the moment of their passing, put his hand up to the rain, then stuck wet fingers into his mouth. Billy Walter had bought newspapers in the lobby. Edith gratefully accepted one and stuck it as shelter over her head. Amy declined.

Passing the dancing school on their way home, Billy Walter sped up. He and Edith, almost desperately, continued their conversation, staring in other directions. But, “Look!” Amy cried. Neither looked, and Billy Walter hurriedly repeated something he had been saying, something practical about their lives, capturing Edith's attention. Look, Amy repeated, to herself. At the window, couples were silhouetted. From the street, the three in the car caught a whiff of music. Amy saw, as they passed, wind instruments lifted triumphantly to blare, and gaiety and glitter emanated from the building. Outside, in an impatient line, people stood waiting to get in; in the grey day, expressions on their faces were happier. Having concluded his advice, Billy Walter was silent. Edith said, “Billy Walter, whatever would we do without you?”

At the same instant, Amy announced, “The dancing school's a success.”

Putting down her pen and resting, Dea said that she did not know just how soon after the funeral they could announce the engagement. “Why announce it?” Amy said. “Everyone knows.”

Edith called from upstairs frantically, “It's customary!” knowing Amy could be serious.

“If you're tired, I can finish writing these thank-you notes,” Dea said. “You look pale.”

“I've been indoors too much,” Amy said.

Dea remembered telling Edith, once, it was Amy's salvation that she was pretty since she always had her nose in a book and seemed to know nothing but what came out of them. That Amy had made so many of their present decisions had been a surprise. Dea said hesitantly, “Indoors because of writing your book?” and offered a compliment: “I never thought you had any stickablity, Amy. But your momma says you spend too much time writing, that you aren't even looking after buying a trousseau.”

“I can buy a trousseau any time,” Amy said.

Dea, hoping Amy was going to make that boy a nice wife, said, “What's the book about?” at the same time picking up her pen. She could continue writing thank-you notes for flowers, as her notes were similar and mechanical.

“It's kind of a history of a city,” Amy said evasively. “About a man struggling to succeed in the world and how differently people see him. In a way, he's sort of like Daddy—”

“My brother!” Dea said, slapping down her pen. “Listen here, Amy, I want to know what you're going to say about my family! Now, don't you say something you shouldn't. I'm sure you know your granddaddy had the same little weakness as your daddy.” Amy, she knew, would not, and she hoped could not, write the raw things Mr. Almoner wrote. Dea preferred to believe his influence forgotten. Having been told he was not well enough to leave home often, wondering if Amy knew that, and deciding it best to let sleeping dogs lie, Dea kept quiet. This book business, anyway, she considered something to help Amy pass time. After she was married, she would have other things. Amy could never publish anything. Long ago, she and Edith had decided that. Imagine! she thought. She watched indulgently and full of love the way Amy sat thoughtfully composing each note, as if to every individual one needed to say something different.

“Write something happy in your book,” Dea said, watching Amy frown. “You're too serious. You ought to be writing about your life, anyway. It's old folks supposed to be concerned with the past.”

But already what Dea had said was past, Amy thought, looking up, to stare at her aunt's well-meaning face, and past it at spirea bushes in bloom and beginning to shed; below them, the ground seemed covered with sleet. As quickly as Dea had spoken, as quickly as the blooms fell, life could be taken, all was past. She bent her elbows sharply to the table, licked shut another envelope and added it to her pile.