"I can't go back to that house, ever. I won't. No one can make me, and he's gone. I'm by myself. No surprises there." I didn't realize that I was speaking aloud, until someone behind me said, "Pardon me?" I turned in embarrassed surprise. "Oh, nothing," I replied, and hurried away.
It was a clear day, not a cloud in the sky, pleasantly warm, a small breeze nipping at the budding trees and flowers, at the dresses of little girls and their mothers, out to take the air. I felt a wave of longing for the simpler life I once shared with the man who was no longer here. There were no more tears, only a dry, pitiless anguish raking away at the coals of my heart, stripping it, breaking it anew each time. I walked to the park, and sat on a bench staring out at the river.
I wasn't old, barely forty, but we had been married for nineteen years, when he had left, suddenly without any warning. I woke up, yesterday it seems like, and he was there but absent. No one could wake him. My tears were like so much water off a duck's back. How would I live now, a mother of four, the youngest barely five years old, and still unable to understand that her daddy had gone for good? I had a job, and if things got bad I had a loving family to help me through, but what's a family without him? He had been my whole life so far. Every act was a celebration of our life together. Now, the party was over, the band had gone.
Someone sat beside me. I looked around vacantly. It was an old woman, hands shaking slightly, white head inclined toward the birds she was throwing breadcrumbs to. Could I ever be as content as she seemed? Would I ever not feel this slow, piercing pain squeezing me dry of laughter, of love, of hope? I watched her feed the birds, and knew I needed help. My plan for getting back into life was to go back to work and pull the tattered shreds of my existence close about my ears, hiding from everyone but myself the truth about how I felt. My kids still needed a mother, my parents still needed a daughter, and my siblings still needed a sister. So what if the one person I needed more than all of them was gone? I will survive.
I thought about those feelings I had had when we had first met. He was a very large man, and immensely tall, and as he helped my girlfriend change the tire on her car, I had wondered how to get him to ask me out. I knew I wasn't much to look at, well anyway that's what I thought, but I was educated. I was the only one of all my family to get past high school. Now here I was, a sophomore in college, and ignorant of the ways of the world.
He looked a lot older than me, but I wasn't a very good judge of age. He drove a station wagon, and he was neatly dressed. His clothes were worn, but clean and pressed. He looked like many of the neighbors I had left behind, honest men working hard to make their families comfortable. We must be meant for each other, I remember thinking. His name was Adam Maxwell, and he made me feel things I had never in all my life felt for another human being. I just came right out and said, "I'd like you to ask me out."
I remember he didn't bat an eye, just smiled a funny, secret smile, and asked me to go to the movies with him on Saturday night. We had a wonderful time, too, because he was such a perfect gentleman, although I could tell he was longing to be otherwise. I remember feeling tickled to discover that I could make a hulking great giant of a man tremble like a baby for want of me. I admit I teased a little, half hoping he would forget himself and give us both what I was asking for. But I also knew I could trust him, because for some reason, he really liked me. Me, Leah Rebecca Ellington. Not my beautiful and diminutive younger sister Elizabeth or my sexy older sister Naomi. He liked me, he wanted to be with me, he bought gifts for me.
He married me, after a long year of courting me on my father's front porch; in the back seat of his station wagon, where we did nothing more harmful than kiss each other senseless; at football games; at the movies; in church. There was nowhere that Adam felt was too sacred for him to tell me he loved me, and wanted to make love to me, and wanted me to have his babies. I felt treasured and loved more deeply than I had ever thought I could feel.
He taught me to love myself, too. I was not too scrawny for him, my hair was just the right shade of red, my eyes were a beautiful green, my skin was a warm honey. I never doubted that he meant every word he said, every compliment he ever paid me. I celebrated life with him. Each of our four babies was born to grand feasts and family reunions; our wedding anniversaries were happy affairs that we celebrated over an entire week; birthdays were always a reason to play and sing and make ourselves merry. Because we worked so hard to be happy, we even enjoyed all the hard times we weathered, like the time he was let go from his job, and I was a new mother with a very sick infant in hospital. Or the fifteen months which followed when we ate a lot of bread and drank a lot of water, and never told our families our troubles, because they had troubles enough of their own.
I was smiling and unaware of it. It must have caught the old lady's attention, for she suddenly piped up,
"It's a lovely day, isn't it?"
I smiled back, not wanting to talk, yet needing to. "Yes, beautiful." I felt awkward, not knowing what else to say. She must have sensed my confusion.
"Don't mind me, dear. You seemed a bit lonely, earlier on. I guess you must be feeling better." She smiled encouragingly, and I realized she was offering herself as a patient listener to whatever burden I cared to offload on her.
"Thank you, I do feel better," I heard myself say, and knew, in surprise, that I did.
"It always helps to think things through," she continued. "When I was your age, I used to come here often to think things through. I wasn't very popular with women, and I wasn't very comfortable with men. But a clear day and the sight of the river take my mind in other directions when I'm depressed."
How should I answer this strange old soul, who wanted to comfort me, or to be nosy, or both? I could find nothing to say, so I just smiled at her. Presently, I rose to leave.
"Goodbye dear," she said. "You should smile more."
"Goodbye. And thank you," I replied. I wasn't sure what exactly I was thanking her for, but she had pointed out to me that I was feeling better. At home that night, I cast my mind over our short conversation, and suddenly realized that what had lifted my mood was the memories I had been stirring up. As long as I kept the memories alive in my heart, in my mind, Adam would always be with me. A sudden rush of tears overwhelmed me, and I was thankful that I could cry again.
II
"Adam, it's time," I said in a rush, breathing deeply to relieve the pain. My husband looked at me and jumped off the kitchen stool.
"Okay, now. Lee, remember to breathe. I'll get the bags." He had scurried away before I could tell him he was going the wrong way. We laughed about the huge black-and-blue mark he wore for a few days after his first son, Todd Aaron Maxwell, came shrieking into the world. That boy was the loudest baby I have ever heard, except at night, when for some reason, he never cried. I would know he was awake because he would squirm, kick, and fret. Our bed was small enough that if a feather touched it I would be awake.
Todd always made me laugh. No matter how horrible the thing he had just done, I usually had to fight to keep from laughing aloud in front of him. It was his way of standing there, caught red-handed, with a puzzled look on his face, as if to say, "Now how did I get caught?" Or his guilt-ridden face, coupled with the most innocent of tones. Or that lower lip drooping lower and lower as he clearly envisioned in his little head the severe punishment he was about to receive. He was always a thinker, was Todd, and as the family grew, he became increasingly introverted, until by the time Chloe was born, he was practically a twelve-year-old recluse.
I was aware that my child had always withheld a part of himself from all of us, and I could not understand why. I realized as I prepared dinner, that I have always been a little bit hurt by that. Why would he shut out his own mother? What was he hiding? He was only seventeen, when he first decided he was going away to college, although the local college was highly rated nationally. I knew he wanted to get away. That was how I had felt, too, only I had a real reason. Nobody really cared whether I went or stayed. Nobody missed me when I was away. I was so tired of being ignored, taken for granted, teased and even insulted by my sisters, while my parents did nothing, that I chose to go as far away from home as I could.
I remember brandishing my independent status before my sisters' envious eyes, and I remember taunting them that their beauty got them babies before they were married, for boys who cared nothing for them. I remember laughing in their faces as I told them about Adam. I remember how their jaws dropped in shock when I brought my handsome lover home for the first time. How could I, the invisible child, the tall, skinny one, with no hips, no breasts, no backside, have managed to get hold of such a hunk? I remember how they each tried to steal him away from me, and how each time he would find me where I was hiding and show me in his kisses, and tell me with his eyes and his voice that I was the only girl he wanted to kiss, to hug, to nibble on, to be with, for the rest of his life.
My breath caught in my throat. The rest of his life. My beloved was gone, for the rest of my life. My children were all gathered round me when I opened my eyes next.
"What happened?" I asked.
"You passed out, Mom," said my second child, David. His face was concerned and a little frightened. I hastened to reassure them all that I was fine, just a little tired. Nevertheless, I was banned from the kitchen for the rest of the evening. Ruth, my youngest, came to sit on my knee, and she looked into my face with sad eyes. She studied each feature, as though she were committing them to memory. Finally, she laid her head on my breast and fell asleep.
I realized with a pang of guilt that I had completely ignored this poor child for almost a week. Adam's funeral had been a week ago. He had been gone for almost a month.... I had not exchanged loving words with my baby for so long, I felt like I was out of practice. I sat next to her at dinner, giving my place to Todd. No one sat in Adam's seat. Afterwards, as the other children cleaned up, I gave her a bubble bath, brushed her short red hair, read her a story, repeated her favorite poem with her, said prayers with her and tucked her in with a goodnight kiss.
"Mommy, what happened to Daddy?" Ruth asked as I reached the door. I knew she wanted to hear that he died in his sleep, that he felt no pain. I said the words mechanically, my heart falling like a stone as each word came out. She sat up in bed, stared at me, big tears in her green eyes, and wondered, "Why?" I went to sit beside her on the bed, and together we cried our eyes dry, and then she fell asleep. I laid her gently back on the pillows, and silently left the room.
The house was quiet now, and the only one who still seemed to be about was Todd. Chloe was reading in her room, David was lying on his bed staring at the ceiling. Only Todd remained in the kitchen, putting things away, and clearly waiting for me.
"Mom, I got accepted by the college I want to go to." Todd stopped abruptly, as though unsure of my response. I knew he wanted to leave, and I guess I couldn't blame him. But didn't he see that I needed him now more than ever? If he left, there wouldn't be a man in the house! I struggled with my fear and anger, and finally said,
