Endless Love (47 page)
August 12, 1973, was the sixth anniversary of the fire; every year on that day the Butterfields gathered at one or another of their homes. This year, they were expected at Keith’s house in Bellows Falls—just ninety miles away. Up until the twelfth, Jade was decided not to go. She’d yet to stop concealing from Ann, Sammy, and Keith that she and I were together again—though I was certain that Ann somehow knew—and the anniversary of the fire seemed like the worst possible occasion to tell that particular truth. Yet on the other hand she didn’t want to spend a whole day with what was left of her family in such a false position.
“I hate going to Keith’s house,” she said. “I hate that he lives so close. I hate the jobs he works to keep the place going. I hate all the photographs and little scraps of family memories. He must think we’re the Romanovs. And I hate the place as much as he does. He makes you go on a tour each time so he can point out all the little things wrong with his house. The bricks crumbling around the fireplace, the wet spots in the wall, the rotting floorboards. I mean the guy is living in a house built in 1825 and we’re supposed to be upset that it’s not in perfect shape.”
On the morning of the twelfth I woke to the clock radio and Jade was throwing a change of clothes into her black nylon travel bag. “I’ll probably be back tonight but you never can tell with my family,” she said. It made me late for work but I went with her to the bus station. We were both nervous. Our first separation since spring. The bus was headed toward Boston but it was completely empty. The driver was tall and silver-haired. He looked like an airline pilot and I wondered if some deep character flaw forced him to drive a bus instead. Jade stopped on the bottom step of the bus and hugged my head to her breasts. “I don’t know what I’ll do if they start talking about you,” she said. “It makes me want to murder. I’ll tell them right away that we’re together and they can make anything they want to out of it.”
Gertrude was empty when I got home from work. Colleen had taken Oliver to Fishkill, ostensibly so Oliver could be a carpenter for Colleen’s mother, who was converting an old garage house into a guest apartment. Anemone Grommers was in Greece. Nina Sternberg was in Los Angeles. The others were simply out somewhere. I fed the dogs. In a few days, the puppies would be old enough to leave their mothers and we’d be taking the kennels down. I sat out in the back yard for a while and watched the pups gnaw on each other. I thought of how close they had brought Jade and me to starting our own family. It seemed truly lunatic to be influenced like that but I embraced our susceptibility.
I didn’t realize it first off, but every thought I had was a part of a well-constructed unconscious argument in favor of my calling home. A couple of days after moving to Stoughton I’d sent Rose and Arthur short notes, telling them I was all right. I’d given both letters to Miriam Kay to mail for me, as she was on her way to visit her sister in Toronto and I didn’t want a revealing postmark to give me away. Being outside the law bloats your self-importance and I sat for some time in the kitchen with my hand on the telephone, wondering if my call home would somehow be traced: like the hero of sentimental gangster story, I risked detection—death!—in order to get through to Mama. But finally the laws of civilization worked their way on me. Just as nature endows us with desire so that even the misogynist will reproduce, we bless ourselves with a sense of guilt so that even the heedless will sometimes do the correct, difficult thing. I dialed the Ellis Avenue number and Rose picked up on the fifth ring. She must have been taking a late afternoon nap; there was nowhere in the apartment that far from a phone. Her voice was small, meek, like a little girl who’s been warned not to answer the phone.
“It’s me,” I said.
She was silent and the silence continued. The beginning of a word. And then she slammed the phone down and broke the connection.
I held on, shaking a little but not surprised. I pictured her with her small hands over her face. Then picking up the receiver to see if I was still there. Slamming it down again. Hoping I’d call back. It was like her to be more insulted than worried by the mystery of my whereabouts and hearing my voice—sounding so normal and untroubled—drew on that part of her that felt spurned by me, enraged that I missed the subtle points of her affection. What she offered me was loyalty and the chance to be a better person, and I, instead, took her reserve for coldness and fell for my father’s sloppy love, choosing the overheated embrace over the guiding hand.
I picked up the phone and dialed her again. This time Arthur answered—I was surprised into silence when I heard his voice.
“Hello?” he said, two or three times.
“It’s me,” I said.
“David. Oh God. I can’t…Where
are
you? No. That’s OK. You don’t have…”
“I’m all right. I’m better than all right. I’m fine.”
“Are you near?”
“No. Not really. Is everyone looking for me?”
“We didn’t know where to look. Your grandfather wanted to hire private detectives…We put ads in some of the newspapers, you know, the underground ones.”
“I mean are the police and all that stuff looking for me?”
“It can be worked out. Are you coming home?”
“What’s happened? How come you’re at Mom’s house?”
“I moved out of my apartment. Apartment! Hole, I should say.”
“Where’s Barbara?” I asked, and as I did I knew.
“Dead,” said Arthur, after a silence. “Just a few days after you left. Three in the morning. In her sleep.”
I started to stand but my legs warned me not to. The extension was picked up. Rose in the bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed, near the air conditioner: I heard its hoarse, worn note.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“I’m all right. I just wanted to tell you.”
“You’re all right? Well, I’m very glad. But did it occur to you that
we
weren’t all right? No. That would be asking too much.”
“Rose,” Arthur cautioned.
“You’d better get back here and I mean quick,” Rose said. “Maybe it’s not too late. Maybe there’s still time.”
“Time for what?” I said.
“To clean up the mess you’ve made. To be some help around here. To be a son, for once. Where are you, anyhow? You’re with that little…” she left the epithet to my imagination.
“I’m happy for once,” I said. “It’s like before. I’m alive again.”
“If you care so much about life then I think you’d better get home,” Rose said. “If you follow my meaning.”
“Please, Rose,” said Arthur. “David? You don’t have to come home. But maybe you can tell us where you are? It’s terrible not knowing. We won’t call, we won’t bother you. You’re old enough to make your own decisions and we respect that—”
“Shit,” said Rose.
“—but it hurts not to know where you are, to know no matter how important it is we can’t get ahold of you.”
“He doesn’t think about that,” said Rose. “It’s enough that he knows where
we
are and if he wants something he’ll call and we’ll come running.”
“This is costing a lot of money,” I said, “and I’m sort of broke.”
“Not too broke to leave town and quit your job,” said Rose.
“OK,” I said. “I’ll tell you. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe, for obvious reasons. I’m in Stoughton, Vermont.” I gave them the phone number.
“Are you OK, then?” Arthur said.
“You’re only making it harder on yourself, not coming home and working this whole thing out,” Rose said. Her voice had softened; she hadn’t expected me to compromise.
We said our goodbyes in another few moments. I promised to call again but no one tried to pin me down as to when. Afterwards, I went out back and played with Cora and Queenie, who were their old selves again now that the pups didn’t need them very much. One of Queenie’s pups had a cold, with little deposits in the corners of his tiny blue eyes. I wiped them clean and held the pup to me, unaccountably worried over its health. I knew the pups were fine but even the minor imperfection made me tremble. “Poor Chetwin,” I said, over and over. The pup nibbled at my thumb with his needle teeth and finally it was starting to hurt and I gave him back to his mother, who rolled him onto his fat back with a long sweep of her tongue.
The phone was ringing. I ran for it. Which is not something I do. It was only an hour and a few minutes after I’d called home, but when I heard Rose’s voice on the other end, I wasn’t surprised.
“David,” she said, “your father’s had a heart attack.”
I waited until eight in the evening and then called Jade at Keith’s, though I didn’t want to. Keith answered. He knew it was me but he didn’t show any particular reaction. “Just a minute,” he said with a sigh, as if the phone had been ringing for Jade all day. I told her about Arthur and she said she’d call me right back. A few minutes later she called and said the next bus to Stoughton left at ten forty-five the next morning. I’d already made a reservation on the 9 a.m. flight to Chicago, which left from Albany. She gave me some names to call, hoping I could borrow a car and drive to Keith’s and pick her up. But I couldn’t focus on that. I said I wanted to go to sleep early and set out for Albany by six in the morning—it was only an hour’s drive but I’d be hitching. We said goodbye. I said I’d be back in less than a week. Jade said if it looked like I’d have to stay longer, then she’d come to Chicago and be with me. We said goodbye; she couldn’t say she loved me above a whisper because her family was near.
I packed a small suitcase. Most of my clothes were new, and nothing, for some reason, quite fitted me. Then I searched for and found my old return ticket to Chicago. I had about thirty dollars besides that. I called home before I went to bed to tell when I’d be arriving at O’Hare. My mother’s friend Millicent Bell picked up the phone; she was taking care of the calls while Rose was at the hospital with Arthur.
It took a long time for me to fall asleep. I kept wondering if Jade was going to do something foolish. Specifically, I wondered if she would leave Keith’s and try to hitchhike back home, to see me before I left. I kept myself awake waiting for her and when I dozed off I felt her lips on me, kissing me awake. But that didn’t happen.
Rose met me at the airport, wearing dark blue high heels, dark nylons, and makeup, as if it were autumn. She hugged me briefly, with her face slightly averted.
“We have to hurry,” she said. “My car’s parked illegally and I don’t feel like getting a citation.” Her heels clicked across the hard gray floor, so loudly that a few people looked searchingly, curious about the noise.
I had to strain to keep up with her.
“How is he? “I asked.
“He’s waiting for you. He’s at Jackson Park Hospital. A terrible place. But…” she glanced at me: but that’s where his lover died.
“How is he?”
“He’s not a youngster. He’s been working double duty to help support that woman’s children.
And
you. Not just for the past few months, but for
years.
That woman played him for a sucker and this is the result. Not to mention…”
We pushed through the glass doors. The heat pounced on us, thick with gasoline and dust. Horns blaring. They were repaving part of the airport road and the smell of tar was violently present. The sun pulsated behind a bank of low clouds. The parking lot was a long walk away but Rose had left her car right across from the terminal exit, in a space reserved for buses. A cop, looking incongruously military on his little blue and white Vespa, pulled up and began writing out a ticket.
“Officer! Officer!” called Rose, running toward her car. “Help!”
The cop looked up, his face impassive. He had blond eyebrows and freckles.
Rose waved her hands over her head. “That’s my car,” she called. “Please don’t give me a citation.” She darted recklessly out into the traffic and was by his side.
“It’s too late,” the cop said, turning his ticket booklet toward Rose. “See? I’ve already got your plates down. Once I do that it’s out of my hands.”
“But you don’t understand,” cried Rose. “My son’s just gotten in from the East Coast. His father’s suffered a massive heart attack. We’re on the way to the hospital right now.” She opened up her purse and extracted a ring with at least twenty keys on it. She held one up for the cop to inspect. “Here. I was just about to start my car.”
“I’m sorry,” the cop said. “But you’re parked illegally. I’ve already started writing your ticket.” He glanced at the tip of his ballpoint pen and began to write.
“But didn’t you hear me!” said Rose. “This boy’s father is in the hospital.” She whirled around to look at me. I stood a few feet behind her, holding my suitcase and sweating. I thought of the cop looking at me and suddenly recognizing my face—did they have photo files of parole violators? But the cop didn’t look at me; he hurried through writing the ticket and handed it to Rose with a brief, formal nod. Rose stared at the ticket and then turned it over. “Five dollars,” she said. “I could have had valet parking for that.”
I opened the back door and threw my suitcase in. It bounced off the seat and landed on the floor. Rose was still studying her parking ticket. She seemed to be checking the license plate number he’d written down against the number on her plate, hoping an error might invalidate the whole thing. A car pulled up next to Rose and the driver shouted through the window, asking her if she was leaving her space.
“You better not park here,” she said to the man. “The police are giving out citations like there’s no tomorrow.” The man waved at Rose and drove off. Rose watched him go and then returned her attention to the parking ticket.
“Maybe we better set out,” I said.
Rose folded the ticket into thirds and slipped it into her purse. There were beads of perspiration on her forehead, exquisite little drops as delicate as lace. I walked around to the passenger side and got in; a moment later, Rose was at the wheel. The seat was pushed back too far and she could only reach the accelerator and the brake with the tips of her toes.
“Of all the times to call,” she said, as she turned the ignition, “you
had
to pick the twelfth. Did you think we wouldn’t know it was the day of the fire? I struggle all my life for a decent existence and you change it all with one match.” She swung the car into traffic.