The Age of Grief (2 page)

“Say, do you like the yellow slicker effect?” Florence gestures toward the raincoat she has left by the door. “I just bought it at the Army-Navy. It feels like a three-man pup tent, but I love it.”

Frannie nods and sips her coffee. There is a letter next to her elbow, and the return address is illegible, although in a woman’s hand. In a moment Frannie says, “It’s odd, you know. I haven’t had a really intimate woman friend since the day Philip and I got married, though I’d had three or four the day before. There’s a friend I’ve had since grammar school, who must know more about me than my mother does, and yet there are these incredibly trivial things about my life and my feelings that I don’t dare tell her, not to mention the more important things. It seems like once I let her in, even her, the door will be broken open forever, and Philip will be the loser.”

At once Florence has an image of herself standing in the doorway curious and unsure. That’s what Frannie means, she thinks. She is so embarrassed that she stays away a whole week, until Frannie comes over the following Saturday afternoon and asks her to go swimming with them, then stay for dinner. She and Philip husk the corn, then she and Frannie take either end
of the garlic bread and butter until they meet in the middle. Philip hands her the lettuce to dry, then Frannie turns the spareribs on the grill while Florence bastes them. They drink two six-packs of beer. They eat and drink in the gathering darkness of the side porch for a long time, until at last there are only voices. Sometimes Philip and Frannie speak at once, sometimes Florence and Frannie. Later, Florence falls asleep on the new living room couch, and in the morning, Philip wakes her with hot tea and buttered toast.

September comes, and Florence must work hard. The neonate nursery is jammed and there is a rash of school-related infections among the regular clinic patients. Late in the month she comes down with the virus herself. She spends many evenings on the Howards’ wide, deep couch, sipping white wine with her eyes closed and not saying much. Philip often works upstairs in his study while Frannie reads or sews. Florence leafs through magazines and surrenders herself to exhaustion. They have gotten beyond the stage of wild talking and into the stage of companionable silence. Philip and Frannie are not perfect. Philip can be garrulous and tends to repeat some of his jokes. Frannie breaks dates at the last minute because she never writes anything down. Florence doesn’t mind, even while feeling annoyed. She is glad that the honeymoon is over and the work of real friendship is about to begin.

In October there are even more newborns, and Florence has to give the hospital Frannie and Philip’s number so that she can be called when the other nurses succumb to the virus. October is the best month. It is crisp and dark outside, and the big, neat house folds them in with light and warmth.

In November she volunteers for the second shift through Christmas because it will be more money and she needs a
good excuse to get rid of the photographer, whom Frannie and Philip don’t think is good enough for her. She calls Frannie at work when she can. After Christmas Frannie tells her that she and Philip are separating.

Florence is very discreet. She tries not to encounter Philip in the neighborhood, and if she sees him before he sees her, she pretends to be occupied. When she absolutely can’t avoid him, she speaks cordially, but with a certain distance, as if the sun were in her eyes. She wishes she had a car, so that she might help Frannie with her moving, or that she lived in a big place across town, so that Frannie could stay with her for a while, at least.

Frannie is too happy to confide the details about the separation, and the apartment she finds is very small, very badly furnished. To Florence she says, “But I want a furnished place! It took me days to move my stuff into that empty house. I felt like I was being snapped up like a tasty morsel. This is perfect!” She hangs up her clothes. She speaks continually in the tones Florence remembers from the beginning of their friendship, as if she will abandon herself to merriment at any moment. Florence waits for her to speak about Philip, or rather, about her life with Philip (for she often says now, “Philip must have my comb,” or “Philip was in the market this afternoon”), but she never does, even during the intimate moments of sharing dinner preparations or cleaning the previous tenant’s leavings out of the closets and cupboards. Florence reminds herself that Frannie has a basic reserve, especially about Philip, and that if anyone is to know, it will certainly be herself. Meanwhile, Frannie’s conversation is more earnest than ever. She talks about everything except the recent past.

Some weeks pass. Florence is very curious. She brings
a new boyfriend to Frannie’s apartment. When he, in his comradely, once-married, matter-of-fact way, asks Frannie if she thinks she will go back to Philip, Florence sits very still and holds her breath. Frannie shakes her head without a thought. They do not pursue the subject. It is almost as if the question is dull to them, or as if they both know the ins and outs of it so well that they needn’t go on. Florence bites her lip at her own curiosity, and her admiration for Bryan, both his experience and his directness, increases. The next day she asks Frannie what she thinks of Bryan, and watches her closely to detect envy in her approval. There is none.

In Sears, they pass a display of ribbed, sleeveless undershirts and baggy shorts. “Philip just loves those,” says Frannie.

Such an elderly style seems so incongruous with Philip’s natural elegance that Florence guffaws. “No, really!” says Frannie. “The whole family wears that stuff, and Philip’s mother irons all their shorts!” After this exchange, Florence feels oddly more hostile toward Philip, which is why, when she sees him on the street a few days later, and he smiles and pauses for a chat, she walks right past him.

Florence spends many evenings with Frannie. She takes the bus and often arrives panting and slapping in a flurry of snow, as if on an adventure. She stays the night on the living room floor. “I wish you’d visit me!” she asserts. “I could sneak you in and out under cover of darkness.” Frannie never comes, though, and it is just as well. Nothing about Florence’s carefully arranged, thoughtfully acquired apartment is as hospitable as Frannie’s temporary rooms.

They make popcorn and crack beers, then turn out the lights and position their chairs before the bay window. Cars and semis rush past on the main thoroughfare nearby, and
they make plans to jog, to swim, to learn to cook Middle Eastern food. Florence talks about Bryan. Most of her remarks are open-ended, so that Frannie can simply fall into telling all about it if she wants to. She doesn’t, even when Florence says, “If you ever want to talk about what happened, you can trust me completely. You know that, don’t you?” Frannie always nods.

Florence can hardly help speculating, especially at home, alone in her own kitchen, staring out at Philip’s stained-glass windows. The thumps and sawings that occasionally sound from his house seem to her not the mysteries of the moment, but those of the past autumn, when she was so often inside, but never saw what was going on.

She picks at the burned kernels in the bottom of the popcorn bowl. “You know what one of the mothers said to me today? They’d done Lamaze, I guess, she and her husband, and she said that when the pains got bad, he climbed up onto the labor table and held her head in his arms. She looked me full in the face and asked, ‘How can my marriage not be perfect from now on? We were splendid together!’

“Philip and I lost a baby.” Frannie tips the beer can back and catches the last drops with her tongue. Florence runs one of the kernels around and around the buttery bowl. This is the moment. What Florence wishes to know is the story of their mundaneness: what was said over breakfast, and in what tone, what looks were exchanged, what noises Frannie could not help listening to when she was tending her own affairs, who would be the first to break a silence. “I was prediabetic without knowing it. She went full term, but when we got to the hospital they said she had died in labor, then knocked me out.” Frannie speaks calmly, expecting Florence’s expertise to fill in the details, which, regrettably, it does.

“They should have suspected.” She is professionally disapproving.

“The doctor was an ass. It was a long time ago. Almost eight years.”

Needless to say, it was tragic, devastating, but how so? Florence sips her beer and glances into Frannie’s face. No more on the subject is forthcoming.

Bryan joins them twice, but though he likes Frannie, his pleasure in her company isn’t as exquisite as Florence expects it to be. That he might sometimes be on the verge of criticizing Frannie annoys her, because she is beginning to have so much fun with him that it can no longer be called “fun.” It encompasses many things other than, and opposite to, amusement.

He tells lots of stories. His past begins to assume the proportions of an epic to Florence. She likes his self-confidence and his ready flow of conversation, his thick, curly hair, and his willingness to be teased. She listens to all his stories with interest, but when he talks about his ex-wife, she can’t keep her attention on what he is saying. Images of Frannie, Philip, their pale furniture and their pale floors invade her imagination. “Marriage is such a mystery to me,” she says idly.

“Well, it’s a mystery to me, too, even though I sometimes think I can remember every minute of my own.”

“And you’re going to describe them all, one by one?” She smiles.

“Only if you ask.”

“And besides, there’s so much else to cover.” She pokes him in the ribs.

“You don’t want to hear it?”

“Every word, every word.”

“The past is always with you.”

“God forbid.” But she doesn’t mean it. She will remember, for example, every moment of this talk—the fall of light through the hackberry bushes fixes his words and his tones permanently; his words and tones do the same for the light.

At the hospital, she surprises herself by recalling things she did not know she had noticed—the color of his socks, the titles of the books piled on his dashboard, what he almost ordered for dinner but decided against. When she relates these details to Frannie, Frannie’s smile reminds her that she is like the one- and two-day mothers who tell her exactly how the breast was taken, whether the sucking reflex seemed sufficiently developed, how five minutes on each side didn’t seem like enough. Like the mothers, Florence smiles, self-deprecating, but can’t stop.

“Another thing about him,” she tells Frannie on the phone, “is that he acts as much as he talks. Don’t you think that’s very rare? We never sit around, saying what shall we do. When he picks me up, he always has some plan. And he thinks about what I might like to do, and he’s always right. I must say that this care is rather thrilling. It’s almost unmasculine!”

“I’m envious,” replies Frannie, and Florence, marveling at her good luck, demurs. “He does have something of a temper, though.” When Florence hangs up the phone, she realizes that Frannie didn’t sound envious. Florence smiles. She loves Frannie completely.

That evening Bryan says, “Doesn’t your friend Frannie work over at the U?”

“Off-campus programs. How come?”

“Someone mentioned her at lunch today.”

“What did they say?” Her voice rises, oddly protective and angry. Bryan glances at her and smiles. “Nothing, dear. Just mentioned her name.”

Florence remains disturbed and later decides it is because she wants Frannie, Frannie’s delight, conversation, thoughtfulness, all to herself. That her name can come up among strangers implies a life that fans away into the unknown. She wonders about Frannie’s activities in the intervals of her absence. She feels none of this jealousy with Bryan.

Florence rolls away from Bryan and grabs the phone at the end of the first ring. Bryan heaves and groans but does not awaken. Florence thinks it will be the hospital, but it is Frannie, who says, “My Lord, it’s only ten thirty!”

“I got up at five this morning. How are you?”

“Can you get up at six tomorrow? A friend offered me her strawberry patch. We can pick some, then have a picnic breakfast. “

“Lovely. Let’s just have fruit and bread and juice.”

“I’ll pick you up at six fifteen.”

“Mmmmm.”

The morning could not be fresher. Frannie’s new car is pearled with dew and smells, inside, of French bread. The strawberry patch is professionally laid out in neat rows, and among shiny dark leaves, the heartlike berries weigh into pale straw. The earth is springy and smells of damp. Two maples at the corner of the garden cast black, sharp-edged shadows; everything else sparkles with such sunlight that Florence’s vision vibrates. Ripe berries plop into their hands at a touch. Frannie, it turns out, has brought champagne. “And not only jam,” she is saying, “but a really delicious liqueur my friend has the recipe for. And look over there!
Those two apricot trees bloomed this spring, and that peach. The one next to it is a Chinese chestnut. She lives here alone and hates to see it go to waste. In the fall, she says she has the best apples in the county.” Frannie shades her eyes and looks across the field toward the house. “I was hoping she’d come out. Anyway, last year there were seven bushels on one tree alone.”

“Frannie, I’ve known you all these months, and I’ve never realized what an earth mother you are. I feel like I’ve missed something.”

“Converts are the most ardent, you know. But don’t you love the romance of the harvest?” She sucks a berry off the stem.

“The romance of putting up two dozen quarts of tomatoes and a dozen quarts of beans in one evening when the temperature and the humidity are both ninety-five?”

“The romance of opening a jar of strawberry jam in the middle of December!”

“I’d call that the romance of consumption.”

“Call it what you like. Mmmmm!” She bites into another strawberry and glances toward the still house again.

They sit under one of the maples with their shoes off, tearing hunks of bread. Champagne sizzles in their bowl of berries, and the butter is still cool, dewy. Florence is excited. She thinks she will penetrate the marriage mystery at last, then is ashamed of her unseemly curiosity. Still … She says, “Bryan and I saw Philip yesterday.” A lie.