Crazy in Love (28 page)

“Can you save the house?” Clare pleaded.

“We’ll do our best.”

Neighbors, summoned by the smoke and sirens, ran into the yard with buckets and wet blankets. They spread the blankets across bushes. “Thank heavens there’s no wind,” Mrs. Tobin said. “But if it picks up, you girls will want to spray water on your own houses, to keep them from catching.”

Loretta stood near the edge of the crowd. Clare and I saw her at the same time. We left Mrs. Tobin in charge of Pem, then stalked over to Loretta.

“Where the hell were you?” I asked.

“I only left for five minutes, just to throw the laundry in Mrs. Macken’s machine.” She cowered, and I felt almost sorry for her. “Your grandmother already had her breakfast, and I left her in a nice sunny spot in the living room, watching you swim around that rock.”

“Loretta, I told you she forgets whether she had breakfast or not—that’s why I hired you, to watch her when I leave the house. Thanks to you, Pem set herself on fire.”

Loretta’s lower jaw gathered strength and jutted with full force. “Excuse me, lady, but don’t accuse me of that. This is the hardest job I’ve ever taken, and I’ve taken hard jobs. You want a maid, cook, babysitter, and nurse all rolled into one body. Last night your grandmother soiled her sheets for about the twentieth time since I came to this house, and I was just taking them across the way to wash them at your sister’s. Don’t go accusing me of anything.”

“She’s sorry. Aren’t you sorry, Georgie?” Clare asked.

But I was watching Honora’s kitchen turn into a charred skeleton. The sturdy frame was now spindly and black, like an evil charcoal forest. Although the fire was out, billows and tendrils of smoke continued to pour through holes that had once been walls. I thought of the mornings Clare, Honora, and I had sat in that kitchen, wondering whether the plane had landed safely in New York. I thought of the family meals we had cooked, of the cakes we had baked. I thought of Honora’s gallery of finger paintings, now ash.

“It’s just the kitchen, Georgie,” Clare said. “It’s not the whole house.” She squeezed my hand.

“Loretta,” I said, “you’re fired.”

“And good riddance!” Loretta said. Somewhat hysterically, I thought. I was aware that we were paying her more than the going rate. “You won’t find anyone to do what I did, not even if you pay dollars more an hour. And the person I feel sorriest for is your grandmother, the way you force her to eat at all hours, give her liquor when it’s terrible on her system. I might consider reporting you.”

“Let her go,” Clare demanded when I started to follow Loretta. “Why did you fire her? What are we going to do about Pem?”

“First of all, I’m going to take her to the doctor. Then she can stay in my house. Nick’s been wanting to move home anyway.”

“I think he meant you and him, not the whole entourage,” Clare said. “Come on—I’ll drive with you to Dr. Cooke’s.”

The firemen reported extensive smoke damage, but told us the house would stand. They wanted to stay, to make sure the fire was out. Dr. Cooke’s office stood high on a hill, overlooking Black Hall and the mouth of the Connecticut River. I refused to look toward Bennison Point. I didn’t want to see plumes of smoke.

Dr. Cooke treated and bandaged Pem’s arm. Then he gave her a complete physical and pronounced her in excellent health. “It’s a shame about your mother,” he told us.

“You never saw any sign of a heart problem?” Clare asked. Dr. Cooke had been Pem and Honora’s doctor for many years.

“It’s a mystery. She had a little high blood pressure once in a while. I never treated it because it always went away.”

“Really?” we asked. She had never told us about it.

“Why don’t I check yours, while you’re here?” he suggested, and although he was neither Clare’s doctor nor mine, we eagerly accepted his offer.

“Hmmm,” he said, loosening the cuff on my arm. “Yours is a tad elevated.”

“Oh no. . . .”

“Are you pregnant by any chance?”

I nodded.

“Because high blood pressure can sometimes occur during pregnancy. But I’d have it watched by your doctor.”

“I will,” I promised.

Clare and I were silent in the car on the way home.

“Can you believe Honora had high blood pressure and didn’t tell anyone?” she asked after a few miles.

“No. It gets me so mad.”

“I’m going to drive you to the doctor myself,” she said.

“The doctor says it’s not uncommon during pregnancy.”

“Still.”

“I promise to take care of it. Will you drop me and Pem at my house? I’m a little tired. I want to take a nap.”

“That’s definitely common during pregnancy. The desire to sleep constantly.” She glanced at me. “It must have been awful, seeing Pem on fire like that.”

“It was.” I couldn’t get the image out of my mind, the gentle curls of flame creeping along her sleeve.

“Listen, you go to sleep, and I’ll take Pem. And I’ll take your tape recorder and do my part for the Swift Observatory.”

“Thanks, Clare,” I said. I’d been asking her for days, and that was the first time she’d agreed to do it.

Clare Swift Macken

“Georgie, this feels too anonymous, talking with no one here. We’re not used to that, are we? There’s always someone here. Remember how we always wanted to share a room, even though we could have had rooms of our own? Everyone thought we were crazy. Eugene and Casey would die if they had to share a room.

“So, Mom’s dead. Honora’s dead. That’s what I’m supposed to talk about. You told me you wanted to hear all my reactions to her death. Why don’t I feel anything? I’m too self-conscious doing this. Let’s just say I’m really sad.

“Let’s see. I’ll tell you this—you made her very proud. She loved the Swift Observatory. That’s why I’m doing this, recording this message. It’s for the greater glory of something Honora cared about, in memory of her. Some mornings we’d all be sitting at her kitchen table, the three of us, and you’d excuse yourself, to hurry home and wait for Nick to call. Honora always applauded that—she thought you were an exemplary wife. But sooner or later we’d get around to talking about your work. First the bay profile, later the Observatory. She’d say, ‘Sweetie, with all these degrees between us, why can’t we come up with something that interesting to do?’ She was afraid I was bored, which I never was. I think she was, though. After
Weather Woman
went off the air, and she became a real homebody, I think she wanted something more.

“She kept trying to convince me to show my work, or to go into biochemical research. She was endlessly passing me clippings about classmates of mine who had made it big. The big giveaway was always ‘Donald will find you more interesting if you pursue your career.’ Look where it got her and Dad!

“She was great when I found out about Donald, though. God, I wish I could see your face right now. Yes, Georgie, Donald had an affair. A big one, too, not some cute little kiss after lunch one day. Six years ago he had a six-month affair with someone from his office. They were in love. They wanted to open their own firm. Mom told me, ‘Give him the heave-ho, you don’t need a bastard like that.’ I was ready to do it too. I always wondered why you never noticed. I think it’s because you didn’t want to see my marriage breaking up. You’d see me crying and ask me what was wrong, and I’d say I had my period. That year I had my period forty-one times, and you never noticed. Mom and I talked all the time. After I kicked Donald out, he wanted to come home. I wasn’t going to let him. But Mom had a long talk with him and convinced me he meant business. He wanted me and the boys, and that was that. ‘Forgive but never forget’ is what Mom said. At first I thought that would be impossible, but I found out it wasn’t.

“I know how you must have felt seeing Pem burning today, because I saw Honora having her first heart attack. At least you could do something—roll Pem up in that rug and put out the fire. I couldn’t do anything. Just drive Honora to the hospital. I was so afraid she would die. I sat in the waiting room, saying my prayers, wishing someone was with me. I felt terrible in that waiting room. You were in New York, giving those interviews, and I was so furious with you. I thought Honora was dying of pride for you. Because her last act before the heart attack was to drive all over the state in search of fifty copies of your interview.

“Isn’t it strange, the way we’ve always thought we’d live to be a hundred because of Pem’s people? Name one who died younger than ninety. I hate myself, but I almost cried today when the doctor told us Pem was in good health. What’s going to happen to her? Her mind is already gone. She’s worse than a retarded child. At least nature makes a place for retarded children. But what about an old lady whose body has outlived her mind? No one wants her. I don’t, and I don’t think you do either. I love her, but I don’t want her anymore.

“I don’t know. I dream of Honora every night, and I keep wishing she’d give me a message about Pem. She refuses. Last night she came out of the sea, draped in seaweed. She looked beautiful. She glowed with bioluminescence. The kelp was brown and shining, luxurious. The other seaweed, I can’t remember its name, was green like lettuce. ‘We need to have a chat, my dear dearie,’ she said. ‘Things have changed, or haven’t you noticed?’ When I woke up I wondered whether she was trying to tell me something about Pem, but it wasn’t clear.

“She was a good mother.
Is
a good mother—just because she died, she doesn’t stop being our mother. But I’ll tell you, Georgie: I’m not sure she’d approve of what we’re trying to do with Pem. Taking care of Pem was Honora’s job, and I’m not sure she’d want us to do it as well as she did.”

NICK AND I MOVED PEM
into our house, and he told me not to let her alone for a minute. All her clothes and many of ours reeked of smoke. Every day I hung more on the line to flutter in the wind, but nothing made the smell go away.

“Let’s go home,” she kept saying, so often I thought I would strike her.

“We
are
home,” I would answer, my teeth clenched. “Honora’s house caught on fire, remember?” I never reminded her of how it had started.

The Avery Foundation continued to send me correspondence generated by my interviews. The piece in
Vanguard
had appeared, accompanied by Mark’s photo of me. In the end, the editor had chosen one of the traffic scenes, with a bus barreling at me from one direction and a taxi from the other. There I stood, cool as a model in a wind tunnel, loving the moment.

One weekend John and Helen were passing Black Hall on their way to Watch Hill, and we invited them for lunch. It was a brilliant day. The Averys and I sat on the porch, watching the waves, while Nick was inside, taking a call from a client. I felt nervous; I hadn’t yet told them about my new plans for the Swift Observatory.

“Great spot,” John said. “No wonder Nick’s willing to do that crazy commute.” His gaze kept sliding to the living room door; we could hear Nick speaking to the client. Perfect timing, I thought—for once, with John here, I was glad for Nick to get a business call at home.

“Have you been able to work, Georgie?” Helen asked. “Or is it still too soon?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, I do have a new idea,” I said, clearing my throat. “I know you want me to travel, to expand my focus. I’m afraid what I have in mind is the opposite—I’m turning inward in a way. I’m interviewing my family.”

Helen gasped. “But that’s courageous!” she said.

“Do you think so?” I asked.

“Of course. It’s much more difficult to put your family under scrutiny. It’s a challenge to be objective, and you need to be.”

“That’s true,” I said, thinking of Clare’s recording. I didn’t know how to approach her; her revelation about Donald made me shy away from her. With a subject more distant, like Mona or Caroline, I would have probed. With Clare I felt frozen.

“You must know I’ve wanted you to go farther afield,” John said. “I voted in favor of increasing your grant to promote travel. Still, this idea interests me.”

“We trust your instincts, Georgie,” Helen said. “Take your ideas where you find them.”

John was so obviously leaning toward the door, trying to listen to Nick, I laughed. John tilted his head. “That’s my client on the phone to Nick. My client, and he’s calling Nick Symonds.”

“You’ve got to pass the baton sometime,” Helen said.

“Let’s not hear a lecture about growing old gracefully,” John snapped, so harshly I felt startled. I had never thought of it from John’s angle, with young men like Nick moving in on their work, their clients. Helen sat very straight, her mouth set in a thin line.

Nick stepped onto the porch. “Claude wants to know if this is the Black Hall branch of Hubbard, Starr. He’d like to speak to you, John.”

John nodded and went inside to take the call. Helen relaxed. “I’ve got to learn when to keep my mouth shut,” she said. “I guarantee he’ll give me the silent treatment until we get to Watch Hill.” But I was thinking of Nick, of how he had saved the lunch by asking John to come to the phone.