The Age of Hope (7 page)

The girls, like the mothers, became immediate friends. After school, Angela came over and the two girls spent hours in Judith’s room, the door closed, plotting whatever it was that nine-year-olds plot. One day, Hope baked cookies with Conner and Penny, and she carried up a plate to the girls. She paused at the bedroom door and was about to knock when she heard Angela say, “On the bum.” Her voice was quite strident, almost shrill. Hope waited, thought she should enter, and then became frightened that the girls might be undressed, or that she would catch them in some sexual position. Again, Angela said the word “bum” and then there was the sound of a slap and a giggle, and then another slap. Hope set the plate down on the floor, knocked twice, and called out, “Girls, I’ve left you some cookies. They’re fresh and waiting right here by the door.” And she walked back downstairs.

Conner and Penny had finished most of the remaining cookies. Conner’s hands were full of chocolate and he was washing himself at the kitchen sink, spraying water everywhere. His hair stuck up. His pants were too short. Penny was swinging her bare legs at the table. She was humming to herself. Hope was mystified. She didn’t know how a child made the leap from this kitchen scene to the spanking incident she had just overheard.

That night she tucked in Judith, brushed back her bangs, and asked how her day had been.

“Okay.”

“Did you have fun with Angela?”

“Yeah. It was okay.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you like the cookies?”

“Yeah.”

“It would be good to include some other friends sometimes, don’t you think? Sherry or Carolyn.”

“They’re boring.”

“Sometimes it’s good to open up your world.” She moved her hands out as if the world were indeed the small space they were sharing.

“Well, you just see Mrs. Shroeder a lot. Don’t you?”

Hope laughed and said, “I guess that’s sort of true, isn’t it? I’m a hypocrite.” She paused and then said, “When you play with Angela, sweetie, you keep your clothes on, yes?”

Judith turned over and away from her mother.

Hope patted her shoulder. “I love you.”

“Me too.”

“Good night,” Hope whispered.

“Night.”

She decided to talk to Emily about the games the girls were playing. They had gone to the library and then dropped in at a local restaurant for lunch. Hope had Conner and Penny in tow, and so she had to talk
sotto voce.
Emily had taught her this term and she thought of it now as she leaned forward in confidence. “The other day I caught the girls playing a game, a sexual game.” She stopped. Waited.

Emily lifted her eyebrows and smiled. “Good,” she said. “They’re nine. Developmentally, they’re right on target.”

“So you’re not worried?”

“Not at all.”

“Do you talk to Angela about this?”

“Oh, Hope, of course. You should be talking to Judith. Haven’t you? People should talk openly about sex.”

“Well, a little, I guess.” She was embarrassed. “I will. Soon.” And she changed the subject.

The confusing thing about this was the irony in Emily’s life. Over the past year she and Hope had talked of everything, sex included, and it became clear that Emily did not have a good sex life with her husband. They rarely made love. Emily said that Paul wasn’t interested. He didn’t even want to talk about it. Hope, not given to hyperbole and not especially aware of what was “normal,” said that she and Roy had sex two or three times a week and she always had an orgasm. She didn’t try—it just happened. Emily had seemed surprised by this news, though she said that it was wonderful. “You’re lucky.” She paused, narrowed her eyes, and asked, “A vaginal orgasm?”

“I think so. Is that bad?”

“No. No. You’re lucky.” And this is how they left it.

And yet, now, when they were discussing their girls, Hope heard the criticism in Emily’s voice and she felt angry. And sad. She didn’t want to lose Emily’s friendship.

Hope continued to worry about the future of the planet. Roy sometimes mentioned what was happening in the world—the building of the Berlin Wall, the communists in Cuba, the buildup of nuclear warheads in the United States and the Soviet Union—and she became especially concerned for her children. She imagined that everyone she loved would die in a conflagration, or that Russia would invade North America and there would be a diminishment of the wealthy and suddenly everybody would be equal. She had grown used to her house, her status as a businessman’s wife, the new car she drove, the charge account Roy had arranged at the local restaurant. Having grown up poor, she had never dreamed that one day she could have so many luxuries, and now that she had them, she was anxious that they could be lost, like a sock that suddenly goes missing, never to be found again. Some nights she woke and visited her children’s bedrooms, and then climbed back into bed and told Roy her worries. He listened, told her that she was safe and there was nothing to fret about, and fell back asleep. In the morning she was exhausted by her lack of sleep and by her anxiety.

And then Roy came home one day and flashed two tickets for a trip to Hawaii. They would leave in three days. He had arranged care for the children. Everything was set. Hope was surprised and upset, but she did not show it. She packed the suitcases and laid out a week of clean clothes for each child. She wrote a long note to Mrs. Tiessen, who was to take care of the children. She said, “Don’t force-feed peas to Penny. She detests them. And Conner is allowed to ride his bike to the end of the block, but no farther. Judith will want to have Angela over for a sleepover. She may, but one night only, and her door must stay open.” She erased the bit about the door. She taped the note to the fridge. She baked a tuna casserole and froze it. Emily called and Hope told her that she and Roy were going to Hawaii for a week and Emily said that was a very bourgeois thing to do. Hope didn’t quite know what this meant, but she assumed it was a criticism of sorts. She said, “I didn’t want to go, but Roy needs a holiday. He works so hard.”

She had forgotten what it felt like to be alone. At the hotel on Waikiki, during the day when Roy golfed, she lounged by the pool and read, and then she lay down in her room, on the large bed, and she heard the surf falling onto the beach below. The first few days she kept thinking that she heard a child calling, but it turned out to be a seagull or the honk of a vehicle. She and Roy ate dinner late, often in the hotel restaurant, which bordered the beach. He talked about his golf game and she talked about the book she had been reading or the conversations she ‘d had with the maids or the bellhop. She said that the humidity was good for her feet. She had had a pedicure that afternoon. She was wearing sandals with high heels and she lifted one of her feet slightly to let Roy have a peek. She took his hand and said, “This is wonderful. Thank you.” They shared a bottle of wine, though Hope drank most of it. She felt so free, so comfortable. She laughed at Roy, who was flirting harmlessly with the waitress. He was very handsome. That night she became pregnant with her fourth child, Melanie. She was slightly drunk, terribly content, hasty in making love, and careless.

Two months later, when her doctor told her that she was pregnant, Hope looked at him and said, “But I can’t,” and she began to cry. Doctor Krahn became flustered. He stood and sorted through his effects on his desk, and when she had wiped her tears, he asked if there was something wrong. Was she worried? She shook her head and waved him away. “I’m sorry. These days the tears just come out of nowhere.” That evening she waited until Roy had eaten and was drinking his coffee, and only then did she look at him and say, “I went to see Doctor Krahn today. It turns out that I’m pregnant again.” She had thought he might be distressed or upset, but then she often made that mistake, assumed they would share the same feelings. Roy raised his eyes and tilted his head. He got up from his chair and came around to her side of the table and kissed her cheek and hugged her. “That’s wonderful news.”

“How do you do that?” she asked.

“Do what, Hope?”

“How can you be so happy? Aren’t you worried?”

The children had finished eating and were watching television in the next room. They were free to talk. He laughed. “Look at all the space we have. The children will love having a baby brother or sister. The more the merrier.”

This was true. And yet, another little body terrified her.

“Sometimes it feels like so much. Have you noticed Judith’s teeth? The gaps? She’ll need her teeth straightened. Penny’s an outright mystery. I can’t make meaning of her. And Conner’s been wild and unruly. The other day he got into a fight at school. Mr. Rempel called. I tried to spank Conner when he got home and he just laughed at me. I should have used a wooden spoon. I told him that his father would take care of it. He looked at me and said that you would never spank him. You told him never to back down from a fight. Is that true, Roy?”

“Why are you telling this to me now? I should have known the day it happened. I can’t punish Conner now.”

“So he was right. You’re afraid of him.”

“Hope, come.” He took her chin and looked into her eyes. “Everything will be fine. What a delight, to have another child. Perhaps a boy.”

“Yes, and then we’ll have two boys who are boxers.”

She hung on to that notion of Roy being afraid of his son. It might be true. He indulged the child, seemed to think that the sun rose and set on his head. If this continued the boy would become a rebel and ne ‘er-do-well. In the kitchen later, cleaning the dishes, she began to cry quietly. The dread hovering about her shoulders was forceful and strong.

What also worried her was her own body, and the fact that she was larger now than when she had first married Roy, and that with each subsequent child her stomach had stretched. Now she didn’t look quite as good in her bathing suit. She didn’t want to talk to Roy about this, because it would be like throwing a problem down in front of him that he might not even have been aware of. So she left it alone and sometimes studied herself in the mirror, and she discovered that if she focused on her legs, which were long and holding their great shape, she could imagine that she was still young, and that Roy wouldn’t have to look elsewhere.

She called her mother, as she did at eight o’clock every evening, not because she wanted to but because it was her duty. You see, she could have told Roy, the children so consume me that I can’t even talk to my mother or have her in for dinner or simply be there as a daughter. Not that her mother had any expectations. She was retired now and often dropped in to help with the children, though when Hope saw her crossing the backyard and approaching the house, the weight of another body to talk to and feed and care for overwhelmed her.

On the phone now, she said, “I’m pregnant, Mom.”

“Oh, Hope. That’s wonderful. Isn’t it? Are you happy?”

“I’ve been too worried, Mom.”

“About what, Hope?”

“Everything. About my plants, that they will die. I worry about the kids. I hoard cans of food for the apocalypse. I worry that Roy will be unhappy with me. I worry that I worry too much.”

“Oh, Hope. I’m sorry. Do you have someone to talk to?”

“You mean friends? I talk to Emily.”

“I mean a doctor, someone who won’t let you make excuses. Someone who’s objective.”

“I can’t talk to Doctor Krahn about this.”

“There are pills that can help. But first you should talk to someone. How are the children?”

“Judith wants to visit you Friday night, as usual. Conner is going to a birthday party Saturday. Penny is her usual silent self, slipping through the world. She waxed the kitchen floor yesterday. Just like that. I worry that she senses the craziness in the house.”

“She’s such a sweetie. They all are. Talk to Doctor Krahn, okay? Promise?”

“I will.”

But she didn’t. She had little faith in Doctor Krahn, who had helped her birth all her children, who would be there for the birth of this child, but who wasn’t terribly smart when it came to conversation. He seemed frightened, or perhaps a bit thick. Why would she talk to him?

Emily, when she learned of the pregnancy, thought Hope was mad and was digging herself in.

“What do you mean, ‘digging myself in’?” It was one thing to feel sorry for oneself and admit to the vast responsibilities in life, and it was another to have a best friend criticize and imply failure. “I like children. I’m a good mother. It’s just sometimes I get tired.”

“Well, sure you do. Four sets of diapers, all those nights getting up, four times you toilet train, four times you send them off to grade one, four times you teach them to ride a bike. By the time they’ve all left home, you’ll be four times worn out.”

Emily’s voice was shrill. Hope looked at her and wondered if she was jealous. She’d had only one child and she’d implied that she would never want another, but what if that wasn’t true? What if Paul was incapable, or Emily was incapable? That might make her more strident.

She often saw herself as beneath Emily. Emily was smarter, she spoke French, she owned Great Books and had just read Rachel Carson’s
Silent Spring,
from which she read long passages out loud to Hope, and then paused and raised her head as if to say,
See?
Emily had an opinion on everything, and she was constantly talking about “running away” as if Eden were a curse from which she needed to escape. Roy, only once, wondered out loud if it was healthy to spend time with a woman who so hated the town she lived in. “Sometimes,” he said, “negative thoughts land in our lap and they sit there and we don’t know how to chase them away. Emily’s like that. She drops those thoughts in your lap, Hope. She’s full of dissatisfaction.”

Emily said now that she was taking a psychology course at the university once a week, Thursday evenings, and she was reading a book by Betty Friedan. It was very important. Hope thought that she had said, “Betty Friesen,” the woman who lived on Third Street, a woman their age, and she asked Emily if it was true that Betty Friesen had written a book. “I never imagined that she was a writer.”