Family Matters (34 page)

Back in the study, the cold winter light, reflected through the north windows off the blue snow, lit the room dimly. Emily turned on the desk lamp and sat back down. Frank picked up his story where he had broken off, tears polishing his face. He didn't bother to wipe them away. Perhaps he thought she would do it for him, but Emily sat stiff in her chair and made no move toward him. Let him weep, she thought, I've done my share.

“Then when Will died she came back to us, Emily. She wasn't sure we wanted her—can you imagine? It was the happiest day of my life, I think, when she moved into her own room again. And little Betsy down the hall. It was the only thing Violet could do, really—I doubt she could have cared for herself. Of course, Will left debts. I took care of everything, glad to do it. He was a charming fellow, I don't deny it—and funny! He even made Helen laugh, believe it or not. But improvident Foolhardy. And he drank. Now, I'm not saying he was an alcoholic, but I will say that a good deal of the money that should have gone into other things went for drink. I suppose it shortened his life, too. Of course, Violet went to pieces when he passed away. She adored that man. It was her way, to throw herself into things, to invest everything …”

Emily looked around Frank's study—the room where, she could see, he had gathered his things about him, as old people do. It was here he had retired to, to this fancy swivel chair behind the fancy desk. Like a big tycoon, Emily thought, instead of an aging and superannuated lawyer in an insignificant provincial city. More sham, more lies. It was pathetic—
he
was pathetic. If only she had seen it sooner—years back!—before he made her pathetic, too. If only she had seen then what a fake he was, stewed so deep in hypocrisy that it was his natural element. She'd had to come here with him to see it. She'd had to listen to his confession—made almost with pride!—of his affair with Marion Palmer, and his bizarre tale of poor Helen's baby. She'd had to listen to his callous, selfish ramblings, and to see how he was ashamed of her—of
her
! after fifty-five years!—and of his granddaughter. Even his wooing of her back in East Haddam three days ago (it seemed years) had had a purpose: to get her to Violet's bedside. Well, she had come, and what had she gotten out of it? The ramblings of an old man grieving for his daughter.
Rigoletto
, Act III. She might as well have been a robot or a tape recorder, or Marion Palmer, for all he cared who listened to him. If she left the room he'd talk to himself, he'd talk to the snapshots on the wall.

She didn't leave the room, though—except to check on Betsy, to go to the bathroom, once or twice to get herself a glass of sherry from Helen's showy cut-glass decanter in the dining room, and when she did she went right back. There was a fascination, to her, in the way Frank's paternal reminiscences left her out entirely, the way he rode right over her very existence as if it hadn't been she who'd given birth to Violet in Myra Bell's back bedroom, as if she had no feelings at all. Well, maybe she didn't. I'll stick this out, she thought grimly. You're never too old to learn. She'd sit there with him and let the cozy family stories flow. But she didn't have to listen. She didn't want to hear his memories—why should she? They had nothing to do with her.

He was an old man, it seemed to her now—no matter how straight he sat in his chair. To live in the past was a sign of old age: it was not for her. And to live for the future was just as bad, she mused. She ought to know. Thanks to him, she'd put her faith in the future for those long twenty years—a future that never came. She was beyond that kind of time travel now. She'd look no further back than yesterday, no further ahead than tomorrow; after the funeral she was going straight home. He's an old man, and his life is over, she thought (listening to Frank's voice but not his words). All her carefully nurtured defenses rushed in to prevent her thinking the same of herself. On the contrary: her life could go forward, day by day, with its old comfortableness not only intact but enhanced. She could go forward, really, in triumph; she had conquered this old man, whether he was aware of it or not, and she knew (another unpretty thought, but satisfying) she would outlive him. She could scuttle back to her old life with no harm done—almost as if that poor woman's death, instead of breaking her as she had feared, had propped her up. Yes, it is wrong, it is unnatural to outlive your child—but it proves you're strong.

“It was funny, that Violet wouldn't let Betsy wear lipstick when she was sixteen. It was okay by me, I liked it, but Violet put her foot down. Usually she was so easygoing, but there were times … She didn't want to lose her little girl, I suppose. Didn't really want Betsy to grow up.”

Everything suggested Violet to him. Over lunch, it was Violet's food preferences. The snow reminded him of Violet, as a child, on her sled—how red her fat little cheeks used to get! Emily's lavender sweater recalled the afghan Violet had crocheted the time she broke her ankle. Even his study, his desk, the mechanical bank—if all else failed, he had only to look around him for a chapter of his daughter's biography. These were the stories that had been going through his head all those long months by Violet's bedside; now they were his tribute to her, along with his tears.

An old tune from an operetta kept running through Emily's head. She had sung it—oh, years ago, and right here in Syracuse, too, at the Empire. It was one of her pagan, free-spirit, bohemian roles:

The old times are gone now,

The future's far away,

So live, love, for the present hour,

Hold fast, hold fast the day.…

She would have liked to sing it to Frank now, had her voice permitted. What would he do if she began, suddenly, to sing in the young, light soprano that had once moved him so? Fall on his knees before her? Repeat the insane proposal of marriage that he seemed to have forgotten all about? Abandon his grief, just for a moment, and clasp her to him in love and gratitude?

Gratitude. That was it, the missing ingredient that—of all the missing ingredients—most rankled. Where was her thanks for coming here to the house he'd shared with Helen? For risking her life—at her age!—to rush to his dying daughter's bedside? With humiliation she reflected that she had done it for him, that sitting on her sofa with him back in East Haddam she had rejoiced that the burden of anger had been lifted from her shoulders and the sweet dream had taken its place once again—light and lovely as a lace cape.… And what had he ever done for her? Nothing! It was Betsy, after all, who had sought her and found her. He hadn't bothered. He would have gone to his grave without ever seeing her again. He'd probably considered her an embarrassment, if he'd considered her at all, until it suited his purposes to track her down and, after twenty years, to scatter the old lies before her like birdseed.

And she had eaten from his hand—only to become an embarrassment again, too problematical an entity with which to confront his dried-up old lawyer pals. What if she took a cab over to Henderson's Funeral Home during calling hours and went around introducing herself: “Hello, I'm Emily Loftus, one of Frank's old mistresses—Violet's mother, actually.” She even knew one or two of them: what was his name, that fat man they'd kept running into despite all their precautions? Corelli? Cannoli? Corleone? Nasty man with a dirty mouth, who
knew
—you could see it in his bleary alcoholic eyes; they stripped her and put her naked into Frank's bed before the introductions were over. “This is Miss Loftus,” Frank had glibly lied, “an old school friend of my wife's.” Was he dead of drink or would he be there? “Hello, Mr. Cannoli—remember me? Helen Robinson's school friend? You weren't taken in, were you? You knew who I was. And, as a matter of fact, I was Violet's mother, too.…”

Frank paid no attention to Emily's stony glares. It was doubtful he saw them. He was chuckling over Violet's flirtation with theosophy. “She used to carry this book with her everywhere, Emily. By Madame Somebody—her picture was there, a fat woman like a buddha—like a hippo! Claimed to be in direct contact with God! Well, Violet used to go on about that stuff—trying to convert me, I suppose. And then, after theosophy, it was Yoga.…”

They had dinner in the dining room, the three of them. Marion Palmer had packed and gone back across town to her condominium, weeping, shortly after Violet was taken away. She would see them at the funeral home. She left in a hurry, and she and Emily had not said a word to each other beyond, “Hello, Marion,” and “How are you, Emily?” and then good-bye. Marion had been a shock; she had not aged gracefully. Emily wondered how far gone she had been when Frank had his fling with her. She took a grim satisfaction in imagining them in each other's arms. Betsy, she noticed, had given Marion a big hug and tried to get her to stay, but Emily was relieved when she went, lugging her cheap flowered suitcase out into the snow. Even now, half a century later, she was afraid she would fly at the woman, pull her hair out, claw the bright makeup off her face, and demand the return of her baby.

Betsy had fussed a bit over dinner: fried chicken supplied by Mrs. Manning from next door, hot rolls, wine, and a spice cake donated by the weepy nurse. Betsy got out the good china and cloth napkins and cut-glass goblets. Good for her, Emily thought fondly. She admired Betsy's strength of character; it was in the blood.

But Betsy wasn't eating much. Emily knew she suffered from terrible indigestion as well as from grief. Her hair, none too clean, was screwed back in a knot, and her face looked puffy. The baby was due soon. I should stay to see her through, Emily thought fleetingly, knowing she wouldn't. It could be a couple of weeks yet, and she'd be stuck in this ugly house or in some cold motel.…

I've got to get back to my own life, she apologized in silence to Betsy, watching anxiously as Betsy picked at her chicken.

“Try to eat, Betsy,” she said.

“Oh, I'm eating,” Betsy said cheerfully enough. “I just can't eat a lot at once.”

“Your mother didn't eat enough to keep a bird alive the last few weeks, did she, Betsy?” asked Frank morosely.

He ate plenty, Emily noticed. All his talking had put new heart into him, she thought. He'd collapsed in tears when Violet died. Of the three of them plus nurse plus Marion looming in the background, he was the first to cry out, he was the one who threw his arms around Violet's still body, cradling it and sobbing until Betsy led him away. He had gone blindly, shrunken and stooped, like an aged, aged man.

But he had perked up during these two days. The sound of his own voice was a tonic—and her own flattering, deferent silence, Emily thought wryly. Well, let him have what he wanted this one last time, let him be, she thought, and congratulated herself on her charity. The idea came to her again that he had been broken somehow, or at least weakened, by Violet's death, and he hadn't long to live. She lingered briefly on the thought before she pushed it away with distaste.

She and Betsy talked of Betsy's plans. She would bring the baby to Connecticut in the summer for a nice long visit? Betsy promised. And everything was prepared? Diapers? Receiving blankets? Warm sleepers? One of those zip-up thermal things? What a time of year to have a baby!

Frank took no part in the discussion. He sucked a chicken bone, above it all, and Emily wondered at the distance between him and his granddaughter; it had become more pronounced as Frank recovered his spirits. It was obvious that his disapproval of her pregnancy had worn away some of the fondness and trust between the two.

Betsy was not openly hostile to her grandfather. She was courteous with him, and respectful of his grief, but she seemed to have things on her mind. Sometimes during his dinner-table ramblings, she glanced at him with vexation, as if his words were at war with her thoughts. But she said nothing.

Frank had little to say to her; he did most of his talking to Emily. The sessions at the funeral home, with his pregnant granddaughter at his side, were clearly difficult for him. No doubt he considered himself to be bearing them stoically—even heroically. Emily imagined him with his friends, neighbors, former business associates, introducing Betsy, not batting an eye but managing at the same time to convey subtle disapprobation and his consciousness that unwed motherhood was not a proper state for the granddaughter of Frank Robinson.

Emily observed all this almost with glee. His own past come back to haunt him, she thought. It's in the blood, old man! She giggled aloud and turned it into a cough. Poor Frank … but she caught herself, thinking: Enough! Why should I let him be? Why should he be spared again? Damn the man! She came to a decision: She wouldn't let him get away with this one. Before she left, she would reconcile Frank with Betsy. She'd make him face up to it, make him give his errant granddaughter what he never gave his mistress: generous, uncritical, free, and courageous love when she needed it. She would do it for Betsy—leave her mark on them both, for Betsy's good. And for Frank's, too.

Emily poured herself another glass of wine and smiled at Frank and Betsy. “It's good to have you here, Emily,” said Betsy warmly, and Frank looked up from his plate with an absentminded nod of agreement.

After dinner she sat on the living room sofa. No more holing up alone with him, no more biography, no more pampering. She'd given him her presence—an ear—shared her strength with him. He looked fine, she thought, watching him poke at the fire—except that he looked so old. He'd get over his daughter's dying. Oh, he'd weep some more at the funeral, he'd be blue for a while, but he'd bounce back. That was death, after all: the shock of the blow, then the comforting memories, then the dull ache, and somewhere toward the end of it all life resumed—business as usual. Frank was no different from anyone else—except that he was old. He'd become old suddenly or else she hadn't seen it before—old, old and failing. All the more reason to reconcile him to the baby.