The Book Borrower (27 page)

Mary Grace had on snow boots that stuck straight out in front of her, visible under the table. The children had a red and white teapot between them. They had mugs of tea, but they looked not settled but restless. Disheveled—or, the house around them was disheveled and they had not needed to straighten anything, but had added their gear to the disarray. A green puffy jacket was about to slip from the sofa; one sleeve hung down. Newspapers were slipping off the sofa on which Peter leaned backwards, the afternoon sun coming in behind him. Ruben had not cleaned in weeks. She saw dust in the air and dust on the dark staircase and knobby dark wooden banisters. Dog hair on the rug. Granny rose, stretched, and came lurching to meet them, and Mary Grace slowly lifted her big tangled blond head and, midword—she'd been speaking as they came in—looked up without smiling and started to rise. She stood on the wrong side of the coffee table, hands at her sides. Ruben couldn't reach over the big wooden table. She dropped her briefcase, walked around the table, and took Mary Grace into her arms. They stood, as in the hospital, rocking, crying, hugging each other. Ruben felt as if she'd been waiting to put her arms around Mary Grace all these months, and hadn't known. And hadn't thought to wonder whether there was any-thing these girls needed from her. She should have visited Mary Grace and brought her home, as Peter, who knew about people, had.

She didn't know whether Peter had brought Mary Grace so that she and Toby Ruben could be together, or brought her for himself. Once they stopped hugging, the visit became a little awkward. Ruben was still in her coat. She hoped Peter had washed the teapot, which usually stood on a shelf unused. Teabag labels stuck out from under its lid.

—Hi, everybody said belatedly. Peter was pretending ease— she knew the look. Ruben said, Berry called this morning.

—I could have guessed, he said.

—Are you supposed to be with her today?

—According to who?

—Cooper's needy, said Mary Grace, as if she'd been in touch all along. Maybe she had.

Harry had gone into his study, across the hall on the other side of the staircase. He was already on the phone saying numbers. He didn't seem to need time between events. Or maybe he wanted an excuse to be out of the room. Ruben took off her coat and tried to decide what to do next. She could go upstairs and take a nap. Instead she went into the kitchen, fixed herself a cup of coffee, and carried it into the dining room, where she sat at her usual chair, but was really with Peter and Mary Grace, because the dining room and the living room were the ends of the same room. Sitting there, though, she didn't have to talk to them unless she wanted to, or unless she was invited to.

Mary Grace said, You're funny.

—How am I funny? Ruben said, glad to be included.

—Not you. Peter.

—How is Peter funny?

—Oh, he already knows. And Peter did seem to know, but he wasn't amused, he was angry. Anger appeared in the room from someplace. Ruben drank her coffee. A narrow window in the dining room wall had small colored circles in it, and elaborate dark woodwork. That window always pleased her.

She was perfectly visible there, drinking her coffee and looking at the little red circles on the window, which made her think of cherries she and Deborah might have eaten. Her side was toward Peter and Mary Grace, but when they began to speak, it was as if she weren't there.

—Why does that make you mad, what I said? said Mary Grace.

—It doesn't.

—He said furiously, said Mary Grace.

—Don't you think she'll find out? Mary Grace said.

—I don't think she'll look.

Ruben couldn't help it. She said, Am I she?

—No, Mama, said Peter. Cooper is she.

—What will she find out? That you used her car?

—We had a little trouble with her car.

Ruben got up and carried her coffee cup into the living room and sat down. What happened?

—We had a fender bender. Are those different glasses? Ruben drew in her breath sharply.

—No, said Mary Grace. This was a necessary and all right fender bender. It's an old car. Nobody was hurt. This is the fender bender to prove that not all accidents kill somebody. Somebody had to have one. So Squirrel has very kindly done it.

—How nice of him, said Ruben. They're my old glasses. I hate them. What happened, really?

They'd slipped in a parking lot and plowed into the back of someone's car.

—Did you leave a note?

They had not left a note.

—You have to leave a note, Ruben said. Hadn't she taught him that?

—But I don't have any money.

—Peter, did Berry say you could take the car to Massachusetts?

Now Peter really got angry. Look, can we talk about something else, please? This is entirely my business. I will deal with it. I wrote down the license number of the car we damaged, and I will find out from the authorities whose car it is, and make proper payment. So you can stop wondering about my ethics. And no, if you want to know, Cooper didn't know. But she wants me to use her car. Cars need to be driven.

—Not on ice, said Ruben. Who knows what she'll do when she finds out? She's crazy. Or evil.

—Would you kindly stop it? Peter said. You know nothing about her.

Ruben stood and left the room. Peter called, Am I scaring you away?

—I should have stayed over there drinking my coffee. I shouldn't have come over to your part of the room.

But Peter had shifted moods again He couldn't seem to bear himself sometimes; he had to make himself change. But I wouldn't have said that in your hearing if I didn't want you to hear it, he said charmingly. I need you to remind me of my responsibilities.

Ruben stood in the doorway with her cup. The coffee was cold by now, but she liked carrying it around. Well, I guess I knew I was visible, she said. We all knew I was there.

—You were visible, said Peter. And audible. You farted once.

—Squirrel! said Mary Grace.

—Peter, said Ruben, I'm your mother.

—Well, so you are. Maybe I need to have my mother know what Fm like.

—Did you really write down the license plate number? said Ruben.

—No, said Peter.

She sat down again. She said, I miss your mom so much.

Mary Grace bent her wide, pretty head and held it down for a long time. She said, Once my mom told me something about you I think I wasn't supposed to know.

—What?

—That she'd broken something here, something you cared about—a cup, I think. And she lied to you. She couldn't bear for you to know that she'd broken it.

—Didn't I see her break it?

—I guess you were in the bathroom, or answering the phone, and she broke it. She just wrapped it in a newspaper and threw it out, hoping you wouldn't miss it for a long time, and then you'd think somebody else did it. It makes me cry to think of my mom that way. I can't believe she did that.

—It doesn't seem like her. Ruben couldn't remember such a cup. She wondered if it was true that she'd cared about it. She wished she could remember. So many years. It could have happened in any of three kitchens.

—Squirrel, I'm so bad, Mary Grace said, now turning from Ruben. It suddenly reminded her of Harry talking about Berry's laundry, and she wanted to ask Peter if he'd been bringing it home and washing it, a woman's underwear, handled tactfully by this young man who made so many mistakes. Mary Grace was not bad. She had run away from school. She was supposed to be in her dorm room writing a paper.

—Hey, Peter said. I ran away and never even went back. You'll go back.

—But I won't write that paper.

—So you'll flunk a course or two, Peter said. It turns out it doesn't mean your life is over if you fail a class in college. A closely kept secret. Peter looked older than he was. He had a beard. He always seemed to wear blue. He was tall and he liked clothes that had straight up and down lines, corduroys or twills or narrow pants. He looked angry and potentially destructive, sitting there, lounging against the sofa, sometimes tipping his head back as if to show off his straight black beard.

I need sweetness, said Mary Grace. Peter stood up and Ruben thought he was going to lean over and kiss Mary Grace, but instead he walked out of the room and into the kitchen, just beyond it. She turned and watched him coming back, and he was carrying the canister in which Ruben kept sugar. She started to rise with anger. She thought he was mocking the girl's sadness.

But Peter set the canister in front of Mary Grace, and she opened it, reached her hand in, brought it out with some sugar in her palm, and began to eat. Ruben folded her arms and put her head down on the coffee table and cried. The young people ignored her, and Harry, from whom work noises had been coming for a while from the room beyond the staircase, also ignored her. When she finished crying she heard Mary Grace say matter-of-factly. This is how we live at Dad's house, too, and Ruben was startled by
Dad's house
and also wondered whether Mary Grace meant they sat around crying, or they ate sugar, or both.

When Ruben looked up, Mary Grace was still scooping sugar out of the canister and licking it off her palm.

—You've gotten saliva into my sugar, said Ruben affectionately.

—I'm sorry.

Ruben moved closer to Mary Grace and put her arm around Deborah's baby. And your teeth, lovey, what about your teeth.'

 

Peter left to do Berry's laundry, and Ruben took a nap on the couch. Mary Grace watched television and then she took a nap, too. They waited and waited for Peter and finally had supper. Ruben liked being with Mary Grace and none of the other children. Then Peter came home and took Mary Grace to Jeremiah's. Ruben went back into the living room. When she'd napped, someone—Harry or Mary Grace—had put a blanket over her, and it seemed like a good idea to get under it again. Lying there, she heard Peter come in. He went into the kitchen and she could hear him opening a can. Soup prob-ably. After a while Ruben got herself up, wrapped the blanket around her, and went into the kitchen, where Peter was perched on a stool eating soup and crackers. She's pretty fucked up, he said.

—Berry?

—No, Mary Grace. My new love.

—Is she your love?

—She is my love. I think I want to marry her.

—But you just got the idea. Aren't you just being kind to her because of Deborah?

—No. And I didn't just get the idea. You think I'm stupid because I left college.

—That's not true.

—Or because I'm kinky.

—Are you kinky? she said.

—Sure, he said. I like old ladies. I want to fuck Cooper, even though I also want to be faithful to Mary Grace. And I like women's underwear. I do Cooper's laundry so I can look at it, handle it. Does that truly horrify you? Maybe you were a bad mother to raise me to be this way. He laughed in a childlike way that made her feel better. She went to bed.

 

Mary Grace did not go back to college in the next few days. On a night when Peter was out, Toby Ruben and Harry ate spaghetti and broccoli with garlic and hot pepper flakes at their old oak dining room table, which was older than the children and full of dents and gouges.

Harry said, When you said Deborah came into the store, did you mean her ghost?

—Is that possible? said Toby.

—I would assume not, Harry said. I thought you meant you imagined her.

—I wouldn't have been surprised then, Toby Ruben said.

—That's true.

They fed Granny the leftover broccoli. Ruben said, Does Granny like broccoli more than anything?

—Not more than running in the woods, said Harry, and Ruben remembered the two dogs running in the November woods, and how she'd thought they might be chasing a deer. Maybe they were pretending.

—What do you like best? Ruben said.

—Best of everything? Best in the world? Harry said. I have to think. I like fucking a lot.

—I like pretending Deborah's alive, but then I cry.

—I don't think you can ask yourself yet what you like best, Harry said.

—I like weather, Ruben said. It was true that being out in rough weather was still good, but now Deborah couldn't be with her. She said, I hate it so much that Deborah died.

—I know.

—Do I say that every hour?

—Just about.

She said, Why should I be able to walk in the cold when she can't? There we were together, and then one of us was gone. Why should it be Deborah and not me?

—I know, he said.

She said, But I love it when Peter laughs. I love it when Stevie feels he has to explain something. Do you know that Stevie thinks nobody understands life except him, and it's his responsibility to explain it?