Family Matters (37 page)

“Betsy dear, we brought you some hot soup.”

Betsy laughed weakly—with relief or with chagrin? she'd figure it out later—and took the pot. “Come in—please.”

“No, no,” they demurred together. They were quiet, hushed with sympathy.
Poor thing
, she saw in their sad eyes.
Such a tragedy, and in her condition
. And how much had they heard of the row on the porch?

“Go in and eat the soup,” Mrs. Brodsky said gently. “Think of the baby.”

“Oh, I do,” Betsy assured her. “All the time.”

“Good. Good. Life goes on. Anything you need, just ask.”

When they were gone, she looked quickly at herself in the mirror again. It hadn't been Judd at the door, but it could have been. Her hot cheeks were flaming, from the expectation as well as the blusher, and she rubbed at them until the makeup came off. What did a bit of makeup matter? She was nine months pregnant, more or less. There were blue circles under her eyes from lack of sleep. Her fingers and legs were swollen. Her heavy hair was held back in clumps with bobby pins because she was too tired to fuss with it. And the only clothes that fit her comfortably were a pair of maternity slacks, a huge, pocketed calico blouse with a dingy white collar, and the robe and nightgown she was wearing. She made a face of despair at her mirror image, then she smiled at it She felt unreasonably happy.

There were sympathy cards in the mail, and a postcard from Caroline DeVoto, back from Paris. She was in New York and hoped to see Betsy soon. Betsy was pleased; it was what she had needed badly all along: a friend. She sat down to her dinner. The sound of the Brodskys' television, which used to annoy her, was soothing, and so was the soup. It was hot and delicious, with rice and beans in it, and it reminded her of Violet.

With an effort, she stayed up for another hour, sipping sherry. She got out her Boswell and tried to take notes, but she couldn't keep her mind on Boswell's world. Complex though he made his life in certain areas, there was a simple inevitability about it that held her off, and she kept closing the book and roaming around her apartment. She felt restless, ready for anything.

Judd didn't come, though she continued to expect him—the ring at the door, and the snow glistening on his cloak, and his arms around her. Finally, she went to bed, strangely unperturbed, her confidence unshaken and her feelings still a bewilderment. She slept heavily, and woke only once in the night, thinking, “My mother is dead,” and cried herself back to sleep.

He didn't come the next day, either. The doorbell rang once: a deliveryman with a package for her. Inside was a huge and expensive teddy bear. Irrationally, she thought of Judd again, until she saw the card. It was a gift from her grandfather, a token of peace. She knew she should call him and thank him, but she put it off. The call could only lead to the reestablishment of all the old lies. She knew it was entirely possible for her grandfather, and her great-aunt, too, to proceed as if nothing had happened, nothing been said. She knew, in fact, that this was exactly how things would go. She marveled at the durability of their protective insulation—until she reflected that she'd worn it herself, all these years. It was the family armor.

Betsy smiled at the bear and herself. Judd, indeed. Teddy bears were not his line. What was? She tried to focus on him; she was unable to. Her mind wandered when she tried to pin him down. Alien though Boswell had become to her, the eighteenth-century gentleman chronicler, with his peruke and his brougham, was more immediate to her than Judd.

In the evening, Crawford Divine called up. “I wondered if I might just pop over for a drink. I have a piece or two of news.”

Betsy said she would be glad to see him. He had been at the funeral, and she was grateful. It would be nice to have company, even Crawford, so long as he didn't propose again. She didn't think he would, after being drowned in her floods of tears last time, but his chuckly voice made her apprehensive. The darnedest things amused Crawford.

She was setting out glasses and the sherry decanter when he rang the bell loud and long and then bounded up the stairs as if he couldn't wait. But when they were seated across from each other, sipping, and he had expressed his condolences, he was silent, looking appreciatively around the room as he had last time. Judd had met Crawford once and said he looked like Arthur Godfrey crossed with a toad—something in the wide mouth, the pouchy cheeks overlaid with freckles. He kept his eyes averted from her middle, blinking at the bookcases.

“What's your news, Crawford?” Betsy asked, and then, fearing she sounded abrupt, as if it was gossip she wanted and not his company, she appended, “How's everything going this semester?”

“All right. Feels good to be out of it, I suppose,” he said, gazing at a lamp and then at her.

“Yes,” she said, though she suspected it wouldn't be true much longer, and she would begin to miss the bustle of classes and meetings. The forgotten fear that her job was in jeopardy came back to her. She was being fired. That was the source of Crawford's nameless glee: revenge.

“You look like a rabbit at bay,” said Crawford. “Are you all right? Or has everything got you down?”

“I'm okay. I'm still worried about my status at school.” He looked puzzled. “My job,” she said. “That I might not have one to go back to in the fall. After the fuss last semester.”

“Who put that flea in your ear? You mean you actually feared that you'd get canned for having a baby?”

“Crawford, it was you who said—”

“Bosh!” He dismissed the whole thing.

“And John Alderman is after all my best courses—”

“My dear,” Crawford said with the air of a man about to say something quotable, “John Alderman could go after your courses with the Third Armored Division and he wouldn't get them.” He guffawed and even slapped his plump knee. “Sweet Jesus, were you honestly worried about that? Don't you know you're a catch?” He had a funny, wheezy laugh, usually repressed in favor of amused archness. “In fact,” he went on when it subsided, “one of my bits of news is that your students miss you—and vocally. Hordes of them have come down like a wolf on the fold to communicate to me their outrage. They don't want John, you see—they want you.” He lit a cigarette and threw the match on the floor, then picked it up with a shamefaced smile, and sat holding it. “Actually, one of the reasons I called was that Rachel Grace telephoned me. She couldn't get in touch with you and was worried—afraid you'd—” He grimaced. “Who knows? What are the suicidal fancies of the young? Afraid you'd overdosed on some bizarre chemical? Put your head in the oven a la Sylvia P.? Jumped into the river with a pocket full of rocks like you-know-who? That sort of thing. But I see you're well?” He ended on a note of inquiry, stroking his little moustache.

“Yes, I'm well. Suicide is one alternative I never think of.”

“Hmm,” he said, stroking. “An interesting case. Have you seen anyone about this?” His eyes twinkled benignly, impersonally, as if he had never laid his heart at her feet. It occurred to Betsy that he might not remember having done so.

Betsy propped her hands on her belly, which felt tender and bruised. It seemed to have dropped, it was a heavy load of fruit in a sling, pulling her down. Perfectly natural, the doctor had said last time, the baby is getting into position. How clever of it, like a racing-car driver at the starting gate.…

“I suppose you've heard about the Blakes?” Crawford asked.

“I haven't heard about anything. I haven't seen a soul in weeks.”

“Well, they're splitting up. Roger and Karen.”

“Oh,
no
!” It was all wrong—the warm and welcoming house, the parties, the kids, all for nothing. “That's terrible, Crawford. It's crazy!” She remembered kissing Roger and put her hand to her lips.

“Apparently, it's been coming on for years,” Crawford shrugged.

“Oh, but it's such a damned shame!” Betsy felt close to tears; there was a dreary predictability to the breakup that depressed her utterly.

“Roger says he's had it up to here,” said Crawford. “Wherever that is. Of course, that's just what Roger
would
say—always ready with the inexpressive clichè. I'd like to hear Karen on the subject, personally. But she's gone to her parents in Detroit. With the kids, I understand.”

“Oh God.”

“He does indeed move in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.” Crawford paused and checked out the bookcases again. “Now for the rest of my news.” He halted, smirking. The pause was meant to tantalize; clearly, this was something bigger than the Blakes' separation or distraught and devoted students.

“Tell me, Crawford,” she said, with apprehension.

“Well—” He took another cigarette. “I—” He lit it, puffing through smiles. “—am getting married,” he finished, shaking out the match and beaming at her.

“Crawford!” She felt huge relief. His words were a happy, counterpoint to his other news, Part of her relief was a form of deliverance, that a man she'd rejected had been taken in hand by another woman. “That's wonderful!” She spoke from her soul.

“I'm quite thrilled,” he said, dropping the burnt match on the floor this time and leaving it there, oblivious to earthly concerns. He looked dreamily toward the window. “Her name is Deanna, she's a little younger than I am, and after we're married she's going back to school for her Master's, possibly in library science.” He cleared his throat. “At the moment, she's working as a cocktail waitress, which is how I met her. Down at the Holiday Inn.” He looked fixedly at the window as if he could see her there, carrying drinks on a tray. “She's divorced, and she has a small son to support.” He let his gaze wander slowly back to Betsy. “She's also a published poet,” he said with solemn joy. “She's working on a very innovative sonnet sequence. Her son's name's Darius, age four. My children are enchanted with him, and with Deanna. She's very beautiful. She'll make me a good wife.”

He had finished, and showed it by picking up his glass and settling back, sighing. Betsy said, “It's wonderful, Crawford—wonderful. I hope you'll be happy. You deserve to be.” She searched for something else. “She sounds great.”

Crawford smoked peacefully. He looked as if he might stay there a long time, musing happily on his future wife. “The wedding will be soon—in March—and we'll be going to Greece on the spring break. Deanna has always wanted to visit Greece.” It was a noble virtue, wanting to visit Greece. “Deanna also paints and has an uncommon flair for seascapes. She's eager to do some work there.”

“I hope I'll get to meet her soon. She sounds remarkable.”

“That's just what she is,” Crawford said approvingly. “A remarkable woman.”

He stayed for three glasses of sherry and then, suddenly agitated, left to pick Deanna up at work, checking his watch several times at the door. “I have a feeling this will create as much sensation, in its way, as your event,” he said. “Don't think I'm too bemused to be aware that there's something shocking—something downright spicy—about someone like me marrying a cocktail waitress. But no matter what anyone says, I'm very happy, Betsy.” She saw that he was; his eyes were glazed with happiness. He rushed out, with another look at his watch.

Betsy drank another glass of wine. She refused to think about the Blakes—the Blakes wouldn't bear thinking about. She cradled her belly and hummed tunelessly, looking around the room. She would have to buy a new coffee table, something with harmless blunt corners, and she meditated on this peacefully, blankly.

She sat drinking wine and waiting, and she realized that she was no longer waiting for Judd's ring at the door but for a good, hard pain. It was the baby's birth she longed for. Everything was ready—a sheet on the crib, the diaper service on the alert, books on their shelves with her grandfather's stuffed bear, and the driver at the wheel, ready to take off. She went to bed and slept fitfully, hoping all night for the start of the race—for nothing else but that.

Her grandfather called the next morning, asking facetiously if she was feeling better.

“I feel fine,” she said. “Thanks for the bear.”

He chuckled. “Reminded me of you—ferocious.” Oh God, she thought: big joke. He went right on. “You know, I just might take you up on your suggestion and go south for a month.”

It was, in fact, all settled. He had rented a condominium' on the east coast of Florida and he was leaving in two days.

“I was lucky to get it. I had to have Ed pull a few strings for me. Oh—” He hesitated. “I thought Marion might as well go down there with me. She could use a vacation. She had that bronchial thing last winter, it'll do her good to get away. If you really think you can get along without us.”

“It'll do us all good,” Betsy commented.

“Well—I have to agree,” her grandfather said unexpectedly. “It might be best for you and me to get away from each other. I know you're mad as hell at me, Betsy—I'm still not sure why, but maybe you've had too much family lately.”

It was as close as he'd get to any kind of concession, but for Frank the words were remarkable, and Betsy felt a rush of love for him.

The delivery of the bear was followed by an elaborate English pram, which he carted over himself and set up for her, showing off all its tricks and conveniences, and wheeling it back and forth in her tiny hall, where the Blakes' battered old carriage sat.

“Now you can get rid of that thing,” he remarked, giving it a delicate kick: only the best for his great-grandchild.

Emily called her, too, with inquiries about her condition. “I want to be
in on
this, Betsy,” she said. “I want this baby to be
my
great-grandchild, too!” It was the only reference she made, even obliquely, to Frank.