“The chickens are under Maxwell,” Emily instructed. “And ask if they’re taking orders for cheese bread. Where are you going for the corn?”
“Haff Acres, I thought,” Kenneth said.
“I’m not sure they haven’t closed down. If not them, then Red Brick Farm. Get half Silver Queen and half Butter and Sugar if they both look good. That way we can see which we like better.”
“What else do we need for tomorrow besides hamburger and buns?”
“We have regular relish but not the yellow hamburger relish you like. Get an onion for people who want onions on their hot dogs. And we need another gallon of milk. Better make it two at the rate we’re going.”
“It’s on the list,” Kenneth said. “How are we on beer?”
“There should be some in the garage unless you’ve drunk it all. So they didn’t say anything?”
“They said they weren’t making anything public yet.”
“We should be watching the news,” Emily said. “I’m surprised no one tried to interview you.”
“There was nobody there. I guess they’re trying to find this other guy, but I don’t think he saw any more than I did. Anything else?”
“Yes, get some new crackers. These have seen better days.” She dumped them in the sink with a clunk, stuffed the wax-paper sleeves back in the box and, out of habit, neatly closed the tabbed flaps. She noted with dismay that the trash needed to be taken out again—she could have sworn she’d just put a new bag in—and then she saw that someone (one of the children, obviously) had thrown half a sandwich in with the paper trash.
She pulled the sandwich out only to find a scattering of potato chips, a soggy pickle stuck to a used tissue. “Could you please remind the children that all food garbage goes in the disposal. It’s not like the old days when pickup was free.”
“I’ll tell them.”
“It’s probably the boys. Remind me, tomorrow’s garbage day. Oh, and if they have those Greek olives, the salty ones. That might be nice for before dinner.”
“That it?”
“I can’t think of anything else,” she said. “Use your best judgment. We’re shooting for no leftovers. Here, let me give you some money.”
“That’s all right.”
“No, really.”
She had her wallet on the mantel with the boat keys and old flashlights and the nut dish filled with matches and batteries and gum bands, all the other junk. She took out two new twenties and handed them to him. He thanked her and folded them away, and while she was happy to help, she wished he’d argued a little harder. Lisa was waiting for him outside, steering clear of her, which was just as well after how she’d treated her at Christmas. Emily watched him back their huge SUV out of the driveway (the money must have come from Lisa’s parents) and then head off, not bothering to wave.
No one was on the dock, and the empty bench tempted her. Sarah and Ella were out walking Rufus, Margaret was on the porch watching the boys play croquet. She hadn’t seen Arlene since they came back from the Institute; maybe she was taking a nap, or reading. The quiet pleased Emily, and having everyone there—even Lisa, because she was with Kenneth. She went back to cutting slices from a block of extra-sharp cheddar, nibbling as she arranged them daisylike around the plate. A glass of red wine would be nice, but all the bottles in the cheap lattice rack were probably vinegar by now.
It reminded her of how much she would have to throw away. The food. The dishes. It was easier to think of them as categories. If she stopped to think of the insulated plastic Snyder’s potato-chip mug they’d had since the sixties, she would balk, remembering one of the children drinking orange pop from it at some lawn party, or Henry pouring a beer so it foamed over. The cupboard was filled with glasses, orphans from the house in Pittsburgh or curiosities gleaned from the flea market. Jelly glasses with the Flintstones fading away to colored shapes. Beer cups from Pitt Stadium and Three Rivers. Maybe the children would feel something for them and take them, the way she hadn’t been able to resist their old salt and pepper shakers.
The silver. The heavy butter knife that said U.S.N. on the handle. It had traveled the world only to find a home here. The pink plastic spoon that turned purple in hot oatmeal. These things had delighted them once—still did, she thought. It seemed a waste to throw them away. It was foolish, she knew. She’d become too sentimental, an old lady and her plates.
The cheese crumbled on her tongue, grainy and tart. She wanted a drink, something to keep her company while she worked on the hors d’oeuvres. There was Henry’s beer, but the thought of it bubbling inside her made her open the cupboard over the microwave. In the back, behind a box of chicken noodle soup, hid the fifth of Cutty Sark Henry kept for late nights and campfires.
She chose one of his tumblers, a Model A on the side. They’d been gas-station giveaways. As if to infuriate her sensible nature, Henry had driven miles out of their way to collect the whole set. Esso or Atlantic or Boron, she didn’t remember which. What she did remember was Henry dropping one on the hearth, the scotch splashing over his slippers, staining the suede.
“Easy come,” he said, but she could see he was upset.
She filled it to the running boards, rolled the scent under her nose. She went to the window over the sink and held it up to the light, long now and mote-struck, casting shadows under the chestnut, firing an amber glow in her hand. The glass could have been crystal. Scotch never went bad. It was magic that way. It only took a sip to convince her to bring the bottle home with her.
She returned to the cutting board, setting the glass down on the counter, then held on as a shiver rode up her back like a breaking wave. She decided she should drink scotch more often. And to be careful with that knife she was holding.
The dip was solidifying in the fridge in an old sherbet tub. She worked on the green and red peppers, the broccoli and carrots and celery, until her fingers were sore.
One of the girls should be doing this, she thought. In her day—
Yes, well. Her mother’s kitchen was gone, the hours of instruction and drudgery, her mother teaching her the value of work. She’d learned. She wished she could say the same of her children.
She took a good-sized drink and had to breathe out the fumes. The glass was suddenly empty in her hand.
“Well, well,” she said, a saying of her father’s.
She poured one up to the door handle. Her uncle Magnus had actually had a Model A. She must have ridden in it at some point, but she couldn’t picture herself in the backseat, holding a ribboned hat on, her hair streaming behind. The one on the glass was from 1921, nearly eighty years ago. Uncle Magnus died when she was thirteen or fourteen. The subtraction evaporated. She was obsolete, the product of another century, like her grandparents. Everything she had loved was gone, everything she knew was useless, all the songs and dances, the trendy recipes, like an old lady whose clothes had long gone out of style. But that’s what she was, that least desirable of things: an old lady. She’d never thought it possible.
The vegetables were done. All they needed were the crackers for the cheese. Around her the house was quiet. She thought she wanted music, but before she could take a step in the direction of the tape player (one of the boys might use it), she stopped to listen to the murmur of a powerboat far out on the lake, leaves rustling like static. The very air of the house had a frequency, vacant and electric at the same time, not a hum but a wire of concentrated nonsound threaded through her ears.
In the distance, a dog barked—not Rufus, but it reminded her that he needed his dinner. She stooped for his bowl and almost fell over.
“Easy now,” she said, as if she were a horse.
That was another thing she remembered: the man who sharpened scissors coming around in his horse-drawn cart, ringing a bell.
She spilled the awkward bag of kibble across the counter and onto the floor.
“Clumsy.” Her mother had called her that. Something to do with the gravy boat overturning, the tablecloth a lake, and then her father coming after her, upstairs in the dark where she was hiding, saying it wasn’t her fault, it could have happened to anyone. It was a holiday, but whether it was Christmas or Thanksgiving she couldn’t say.
She scooped up the food and topped off the bowl, set it on the floor and washed her hands. She didn’t see how he ate the stuff day after day.
The scotch was going down easy now, and she thought she’d better watch it. She added three ice cubes to the glass and covered them, the Model A fully submerged. She looked around the kitchen again as if she’d forgotten something but couldn’t find what it was.
Margaret looked up from her magazine when she came outside. The boys were on the dock.
“Do they want to go fishing?” Emily asked. “We have all of your father’s stuff in the garage.”
“They’re playing their Game Boys. They think they’re being sneaky.”
“I see. How much time do they have left?”
Margaret tilted her wrist. “Eleven minutes, twenty seconds.”
“Did you want a drink?”
“I really shouldn’t.”
“Why’s that?”
“Do you really want to know?” Margaret said, and it was not a challenge, not defiant, the way she could be.
Since the separation she seemed defeated to Emily, and while it was easier to talk to her, it was unnerving. She’d always had more spirit than Kenneth. Emily had never worried about her making her way in the world, and now it seemed she’d been wrong.
“Yes, I want to know.”
“Do you?”
“We were going to talk before,” Emily remembered.
“We are talking,” Margaret contradicted her. She looked to the boys. “What I wanted to tell you before is that the divorce is going through next week.”
“Next week.” Even though she’d been preparing for this moment for years, Emily thought she needed more time. It wasn’t as if anything had changed. Jeff had not been strong enough to say no to marrying her and then had not been strong enough to put up with her. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t sound surprised.”
“Should I be?”
“No,” Margaret said, as if she didn’t mean to argue. “If you want to say I told you so, you can.”
“I would never.”
“Even if you did.”
“Even if I did.”
“There’s one problem though.”
“What’s that?”
“You remember the accident where I smashed up my knee?”
“Yes,” Emily said, not following her.
“When I was recovering from that, I went through rehab.”
“I remember,” Emily said. “You had that physical therapist you liked.”
“Not that. I’m talking about the other kind of rehab, for drinking. Nobody knows about this. I don’t want to go into a lot of details, but I felt—and Jeff felt—that I was having a problem, so I went to this rehab clinic in Pontiac. Remember when I had the surgery on my knee?”
“Yes,” Emily said. It must have been the scotch, because she could hardly catch up to this news, make any sense of it. Margaret in a hospital? Her first thought was what Henry’s reaction would be.
“I did have the surgery, but I also went through rehab right after that.”
Emily held a hand up for her to slow down, to stop assaulting her. She shook her head to clear it.
“What has this got to do with the divorce?”
“It has to do with the settlement.”
“But that has nothing to do with anything.”
“Neither does Jeff screwing around on me. My lawyer calls it a draw. She says if I’d told her about it, it wouldn’t have been a problem, we still could have won.”
“Won what? What do you win in a divorce?”
“Nothing, apparently, while he gets to run off with his little girlfriend.”
“I’m sorry.” Though Emily had suspected, she’d never heard of a girlfriend.
“You know what he said about her? He said she was fun. Is that great? He said I depressed him. He said when he looked at me, he felt tired. You want to know the worst thing? He said he only stayed with me because he felt sorry for me. Not for the kids. He said he was worried about what would happen to me after he left, like I’m some kind of mental patient.”
Emily wanted to ask if she’d discussed this with her therapist, if she was still seeing her. She knew they hadn’t been getting along. Margaret was shaking her head, looking up at the porch ceiling.
“We’re going to lose the house. I don’t make enough to cover the mortgage, so we’re going to have to move. Do you know how that makes me feel? It’s bad enough they’re losing their father—and they love him, they don’t care about Stacey or any of that crap, they still love him. So I’m the villain again because I don’t make any money. This year I’ll make twenty-three thousand dollars. That’s a joke. You can’t live in Silver Hills on that, it can’t be done, so we’re going to have to move. I know Sarah’s never going to forgive me.”
“She will.”
“No, she won’t. And Justin barely says anything as it is. I know he misses his father but he’s keeping it all inside the way I used to.”
No, Emily thought, you always let everyone know how you feel, then silence any criticism. But Margaret rarely opened up to her like this, so she knew things were bad. Drinking, and her half-crocked on scotch.
“I figure with the settlement I can keep up the mortgage for another two years, but Sarah’s only going to be sixteen then, right in the middle of high school, and I hate doing that to her. It’s probably better to do it now, before she starts.”
“Do you need my help?” Emily asked. “Because I can help, you know.”
“It’s not that. I just wanted to tell you what’s happening. I wasn’t sure how you’d take it.”
Emily knew that at the middle of this—nearly stated, barely veiled—lay their years of misunderstanding, each charging the other with being coldhearted, too rigid to give in and accept the other’s true nature. She could choose to protest her innocence again, but that would lead to yet another battle. At heart Margaret had to know all of this was not her fault; that, like any mother, she had wanted the best for her, but, uncharitable thought, Emily wondered why, at this late date, Margaret worried about her reaction. She’d never stood in judgment of her, despite what Margaret thought.
“I think it’s sad,” she said. “And I do want to help.”
“Thank you,” Margaret said. “I know you must be disappointed.”
“Why?”
“Having a divorcée for a daughter.”
“I’m not disappointed,” Emily said. “I feel bad for you and the children, that’s all. I think you’re doing the right thing.”
Something beeped—the alarm on Margaret’s watch, insistent. Margaret pinched it off. “You do?”
“I don’t know all the details—and I don’t need to—but yes. I trust you know what you’re doing.”
“Wait, let me get that on tape.”
“I’m serious. I may disagree with how you do things sometimes, but I try to respect your judgment.”
“Like you respected Ken going back to school.”
“That was a different case. I’m sure this is something you’ve thought through.”
“But I haven’t. How can I know what it’s going to be like? I can barely keep track of what’s going on day to day.”
“But,” Emily said, searching, “I know you’d only do this if you thought it was absolutely necessary. I think that’s the difference between you and Kenneth. I’m not saying he’s irresponsible. The situations are different. He had any number of options, including the option of doing nothing at all, which might have been the way to go, in my opinion. You didn’t have those choices, or felt you didn’t have them. And I think you made the right choice from the few you had. There, did you get that on tape?”
“There wasn’t a choice,” Margaret said. “At least it wasn’t mine. Everything’s turning out exactly how Jeff wants it. That’s what makes me so mad.”
Emily couldn’t help her with this and merely nodded along with the litany of betrayals. She had seen how Margaret badgered him in front of others, and how patient he’d been with her. Perhaps she’d misread him, his patience in reality boredom or distance, some anesthetizing cocktail of the two. When he played with the children or palled around with Henry, he was wild and loud, but in Margaret’s presence he turned docile, invisible, waiting, it seemed, to escape. Emily had marked this difference in him years ago. Apparently Margaret, blind to her own abrasiveness and need for control, had missed it. At this point, there was no reason for Emily to enlighten her. It was enough to listen.
“Thank you,” Margaret said again, and they stood up to hug each other.
“I’d better put out the vegetables and dip if we’re going to eat by six.”
“I’ve got to talk to those boys.”
“I think you’re brave to be doing this,” Emily said. “If there’s anything you need …”
“Thanks,” Margaret said.
In the kitchen, a fly perched on the block of cheese she’d forgotten to put away. Rehab, Emily thought. An alcoholic. She set her empty glass down and wrapped the cheese in plastic and stuck it in the fridge. Rufus’s food sat untouched, and she wondered where the girls were. The scotch bottle stood on the chopping block. She was sober from their talk, the beginnings of a headache seeped behind one eye. She put the bottle back in the cupboard and tossed her ice cubes in the sink. The fly had moved to the tap, walking on it like a diving board. She waved a hand and it circled away.
Divorced, with two kids still in school. Justin was ten.
What a mess.
It was not a judgment, just a statement of fact. A sadness. And probably, somehow, partly her fault. She was not blind. Margaret shared the worst aspects of her personality, the same impatience and inexplicable rage she had inherited from her mother. From the very beginning Margaret had baffled Henry, and he had withdrawn. Emily had fought her on a daily basis, giving Margaret the weapons and training she would later use on Jeff. It was no surprise to Emily that he had grown tired of bearing that kind of anger. Thank God Henry had been stronger.
The dip was cold and stuck like icing to the lid of the tub. Emily used a spatula to dish it into a bowl, then placed the bowl at the center of the platter. The red peppers and broccoli and cauliflower made the tray look unintentionally Christmasy.
She took it outside and balanced it on the wrought-iron table between the two aluminum rockers. Margaret was out on the dock, talking to the boys. Emily looked around to make sure there were enough tables for drinks. She wanted everything to be ready so they could eat at a decent hour.
“Napkins,” she said to herself, and went back in.