Family Happiness (27 page)

In front of her at the check-out counter were a young couple—a girl with curly red hair and a tall, sleepy-looking boy wearing a battered straw hat. The girl wore a big red coat, cowboy boots, and a wedding band. They were showing off.

“Kiss me, our Dan,” said the girl. She stood on tiptoes. Our Dan leaned down and kissed her.

“All right, Dan,” said the boy. “What is it we're making for dinner?”

“We, Dan?” said the girl. “I don't ever notice you rushing into the kitchen.”

“Why, Dan,” said the boy. “You said when we got married I wouldn't have to ever cook again.”

“You lie,” said the girl. “You misheard. Why, Dan, we're supposed to cook together.”

“All right,” the boy said. “What is it we're cooking?”

“Well,” said the girl, “I thought chocolate pudding.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes, Dan,” said the girl.

“But why are there bananas in our shopping basket?” the boy said.

“Those are to put
on
the chocolate pudding,” the girl said.

The checker, an impassive high-school girl, checked out their purchases: five bars of unsweetened chocolate, a bar of milk chocolate, a pound of sugar, four cakes of soap, and a bunch of bananas.

“Dan,” said the boy, “you'd love me if I was ugly, wouldn't you?”

“No,” said the girl. “I wouldn't.”

“Ugly people can love, too.”

“Yes,” said the girl. “They can love and be loved, but not by me.”

The checker packed their groceries in a bag and handed it to the boy. Dan and Dan exited, arm in arm.

Polly felt as if she had been pierced with knives, as if the boy and girl had been sent to rub her nose in the fact of young married love, full of silliness and improper meals, conducted by two people who shopped in the supermarket on Sunday and ate whatever they felt like eating.

Dan and Dan were standing in front of a bookstore sharing a bar of chocolate when Polly emerged. Even in her distress she had planned a balanced meal: spaghetti with butter and cheese, a cucumber salad, oranges and walnuts for dessert. Dan and Dan began to amble up the street. They knocked into each other as they walked, then separated, then knocked into each other again.

I'll just go up to them, Polly said to herself. I'll say: Dan and Dan, what is your secret for living? Have you ever felt so terrible that all the joy of life evaporated and even the most pleasurable things seemed to have no substance? Does death ever seem attractive to you? Have you ever gone through a long piece of time in which you cried every single day? Did you ever feel that there is no way out of your trouble? Do you ever feel that nothing straightforward, or easy, or uncorrupted will ever happen to you again? Do you ever feel that your life has been ruined?

Dan and Dan were now holding hands, and Polly could hear them laughing. They turned the corner and disappeared. Polly walked home as slowly as she could. When she got home she walked around the block three times slowly, and then, defeated by a brisk chill wind, she was forced to go in.

Thirteen

The house was quiet when Polly got back. She stood at the doorway listening for Henry. He could easily have packed up and left her, Polly thought. After all, what was less enchanting than an unhappy wife? Could it be pleasant to come home to someone who was upset, nervous, and devoid of cheer? Had she not let her side down? Why would Henry want to come home to her in her present state?

Henry harbored things—he always had. He brooded and reflected. In order to know what he was thinking, it was necessary to ask, and even then he did not always tell. In this way he was rather like Polly's father. Good manners can be a frightening thing, since one never knows what goes on underneath them. Henry could very well have been brooding and reflecting on the subject of Polly and harboring his feelings against her. It would not have surprised Polly to find Henry gone, and on her side of the bed a kindly note saying in the nicest possible way that he had left.

But of course he had not left. He had no place to go, and neither did Polly. They were both at home.

Henry had taken a shower, put on his old camel's-hair robe, and was taking a nap in the bedroom. Because he was a nearly perfect person he had folded down the Early American quilt, knowing that it was too fragile to be slept on. He had covered himself with the plaid car rug that was usually folded at the bottom of the chaise. The sight of him filled Polly with love and pain. When he was asleep he was just himself—not preoccupied, or tired, or angry. Sleep took all the tension from his face and left Polly looking at the handsome, winsome, manly boy she had married. How she loved him! How angry she was at herself for loving him so! That tender, sleeping man was not the fierce, Olympian, and remote person who often presented himself to Polly; the person it was often impossible to approach, who made it very clear that he wanted to be left alone.

Henry's nature was as dark and light as the two sides of the moon. When he was happy, he puttered around the house, letting his children climb all over him. In his happy mode he was a wonderful companion.

In sleep the frown was gone from his forehead. He looked young and hopeful and tired. His rich, brown hair was damp from the shower. In order not to get the pillow wet, he had folded a towel and put it under his head.

If a man does not want to talk to you much; if a man wants you around as a presence but not as a person; if you have to ask a man to kiss you hello or to take you into his arms; if he is abstracted and absorbed but still remembers to put a towel under his head to keep the pillow from getting wet, and remembers that the quilt is too fragile to be slept on and thus folds it up so neatly, what more of a demonstration of love is necessary?

Polly crept down the hall and began dinner. She set two places at the dining-room table. The twilight made everything look harsh, hopeless, and dingy. No incandescent light properly dispelled this gloom.

As Polly was making the salad, Henry came into the kitchen.

“I don't want to eat in the dining room,” he said. Polly jumped. She hadn't heard him come in. “Can't we just eat here?”

It had always been Polly's impression that Henry did not like to have his meals—except with the children—in the kitchen.

“I'm sorry,” Polly said. “I didn't think you liked to eat in here, so I set the table in there. I'll change it.”

“I'll change it, Polly. Don't get so upset.”

A hot flush filled Polly's chest. “I'm not upset,” she said. “I'm not upset.”

The air was full of tension.

“All right, all right,” said Henry. “Just calm down. I'll set the table in here. Don't be so hysterical.”

“I'm not hysterical!” Polly shrieked. The look in Henry's eyes was terrible—the first acknowledgment of how terrible he thought things were between them. Was this what he had come home to? Polly sat down at the end of the table, covered her face with her hands, and cried uncontrollably. She was not safe. She was not anything more than an ordinary woman whose failure was staring at her. There was no old Polly, and no new Polly. She had no place to stand. This was not a fight: this was a symbol, a declaration. This was the sort of thing you never let happen. This was the one false move that ruined everything.

“Oh, my God, Polly,” Henry said. He stood beside her. “What's wrong? What's wrong?” He stroked her shoulders. Polly sprang up.

“Leave me alone!” she cried, and when Henry flinched, she threw her arms around him and cried onto his robe. He smelled as sweet as cocoa butter.

“You've been unhappy for a long time,” Henry said quietly.

“You never want to eat in the kitchen,” Polly said.

Henry took her arms from around him. “Come on, Polly,” he said. “We have to talk.” Polly's heart froze. She was silent. They sat across from each other at the kitchen table.

“Talk to me,” said Henry. “I'm your husband.”

“I'm your wife and you don't talk to me,” said Polly. “Sometimes I think that you're thinking of leaving me because I'm suddenly not what you bargained for.” Light filled her head. Once she started, she could not stop. “You neglect me. You pay attention to the children because they don't require much. You decided I didn't require much and you never found out what I required. Your work is the only thing in this household that counts.”

“I think you want to leave me,” said Henry. “I've thought that for months.”

“I don't want to leave you,” said Polly, looking down at the placemat. “
I
don't require much. I want you to love me.”

“I do love you,” Henry said.

“I want you to show it.”

“I do show it,” Henry said.

“I want you to show it the way I want to see it.” She looked up at Henry and suddenly they both smiled.

“That's a very universal wish,” said Henry.

“It is not,” Polly said. “You never ask about my work. You never ask how my day went. It doesn't matter to you how it went. Your work is all over this house. Your mood is dictated by work and then your work-dictated mood comes home and dictates the mood around here. I know you work hard but I think it's a shield. It keeps me exactly where you want me—about a thousand miles away. You can be a fine father and a great lawyer and you look like a wonderful husband and you can make me feel as if I am running a four-star hotel. You don't pay any attention to me. How do you think it makes me feel that I have less effect on you than work?”

She stood up and looked at him. He had no particular expression on his face. This filled Polly with terror—the terror that he had been harboring a list of grievances against her, and now he was going to burst forth with it. Worse than Daddy's Horizontal Flicker of Disapproval was Henry's impassivity. She had spent her life being governed by one look or another. She pressed on.

“You look as if you're listening to a client,” said Polly. “I'm not your client. I'm your wife and I'm supposed to be your sweetheart.”

She sat down again. The floodgate had been opened. She looked at Henry, who now seemed worried, tender, and alarmed.

“I'm tired,” she said. “I'm tired of feeling I have to be so good. I'm tired of working so hard to make sure every little thing is right. I'm sick of being the only person who behaves. I'm tired of thinking I have to work so hard to get anyone to love me. I'm tired of its being perfectly all right that Beate says things that hurt my feelings. For the first time in my life I made a mistake about the children—about spring break—and Mother comes after me as if I had done an ax murder. I stop being Little Mary Sunshine, I stop being so understanding about your work and your pressures, and you turn against me. I'm sick of having to be sensitive to everybody's quirks and needs, and I'm sick of soothing everyone's feelings. I behave and behave and behave and I don't get any credit for it. I want some praise. I want to be singled out. I'm tired of being considerate and asking everybody about their lives and their jobs when no one asks me one single thing.” She had started crying, but now she stopped.

“Nobody asked for such perfection,” said Henry.

“You did, too!” said Polly. “You like everything the way it is. You just don't know how hard I work to get it the way it is.” Now Henry was silent.

“Speak to me,” said Polly.

“What am I supposed to say?”

“What you feel.”

“You sound ready to give me up,” said Henry. “You sound as if you don't love me or anyone very much anymore.”

“That's not what I sound like,” said Polly. “Why do I have to be the unloving one? I'm right to be angry. For instance, you do neglect me. You expect me to understand it when you do.”

“I'm scared of you,” said Henry. “You know I love you. I do count on you. You're the best person that ever was. It's very hard to get to you, do you know that? I have a wall of work, and you have a wall of family. You make me afraid to ask what's troubling you. I'm afraid that even if you hated me, you would stay with me so as not to fail in front of your family. I wonder the same things you do. I wonder if you love me for myself or for the way I fit into things.”

“I do love you for yourself,” said Polly. “I'm so lonely. I'm so confused.” When she put her hands on the table, Henry covered them with his.

This conversation, which both had been dreading and which neither had ever thought would be necessary, had rather knocked them out. No dire things had been said. They both felt slightly better, but winded.

“I'm sorry to have failed you,” said Henry.

“Don't be so melodramatic,” said Polly. “You haven't failed me. You've neglected me.”

“I won't anymore.”

“You probably will,” said Polly. “But you're going to have to start apologizing for it.”

She looked at Henry expectantly. One talk of this sort was not like a bracing shower. It did not wash everything away. She looked again at him appraisingly, as if he were a recent acquaintance.

“Do you want to talk more?” Henry said.

Polly did not want to talk more. She had heard in her own voice an imploring tone, pained and angry, and she was afraid. She was not used to this form of talk and did not know what it would bring. She and Henry were not like Spud and Martha, bickering amiably, working everything out by scrapping. This confrontation, which even Polly knew most other people would have found mild, disturbed her. She wanted things to normal down a bit so she could get her courage up.

“I want my dinner,” she said. “Let's have a bottle of wine.”

“All right,” said Henry. “But let's eat in the kitchen and then have a horizontal evening.”

Had Pete and Dee-Dee been home, they would have tropped into the bedroom and lain about like land tortoises. These days Pete and Dee-Dee were both learning how to knit. They both used big wooden needles, and the wool that had once been white was now gray. The sight of her children absorbed in knitting their dirty little squares was so comical and endearing to Polly that she could almost not bear to be in the same room with them. On cold nights the family crawled under the covers and Henry, if he was home, read to them from
Wild Animals I Have Known
by Ernest Thompson Seton.