In A Country Of Mothers Read online

  “Can I tell you a secret?” she asked him as they skated. “I didn’t want to come here today. I was dreading it.”

  “Why?”

  “Scared to meet you.”

  Sam smiled. “Am I as bad as you expected, or worse?”

  “I’m not sure. Do you have twelve toes, thorny toad bumps, hornrimmed glasses, and disfiguring leprosy?”

  “How’d you know?” Sam asked.

  “Wow,” Claire said when they finally came in for a landing, stopping only because the guards were clearing the rink so the ice could be resurfaced. “You two are fantastic together.”

  Jody blushed.

  Jake lifted his nose into the air. “Hot dogs,” he said. “I smell hot dogs.”

  “Not here,” Claire said. “Let’s get something better.”

  They took off their skates, put their regular shoes on, and went up the path toward Fifth Avenue. Over the hills and through the woods. Jody could barely walk. It was going to hurt later, really hurt. The effect of the virus was evident. Her vision was uneven, her heart was skipping awkwardly; but she’d rather drop dead than leave the Roths now.

  “Why’re the ducks all crowded into that one part?” Jake asked when they passed the pond. It was almost dark and would’ve been creepy if they weren’t all together.

  “The rest of the pond is frozen,” Claire said.

  “Why don’t they go somewhere else for the winter, like Aunt Shirley?” he asked.

  “Because it’s their home.”

  On Fifth Avenue the streetlights glowed orange, and Jody remembered the night shoot with Harry on this very corner. She remembered Carol Heberton going into the fountain fifteen times. A lifetime ago. Sam put his hand up for a cab. “I love this,” Claire said, wrapping her arm around Jody. “Isn’t it great?”

  It was. The ache that began at the base of Jody’s skull and went full-length through her heart and lungs to the bleeding blister on her little toe, was real. It was active, reeking of health and physicality, and she was thankful for it — for being reminded of family, and how inescapably full of life children were.

  They went to Serendipity, drank vats of hot chocolate. And when the waitress asked what Jody wanted to eat, she nodded in Claire’s direction and said, “I’ll have whatever she’s having.” When the chili arrived, she realized she didn’t even like chili; then she looked at Claire stirring the sour cream around, adding extra onions, and dug in. For chili, it was actually quite good. Past the point of thinking for herself, past the point of tension, she was filled with the intoxicating satisfaction that comes with being thoroughly spent. But her happiness, the height and buoyancy of it, frightened her. It was as though she’d been forcing herself to sit by the side of the pool, not daring to dip her toes in, and suddenly she was taking the steps to the high dive two at a time, running the length of the board, and hurling herself off the end.

  “Are you okay?” Claire asked.

  Jody nodded.

  “What are you thinking?”

  Jody shrugged. “Nothing.”

  “You’re smiling.”

  Jody shrugged again. She was stoned on relief. The worst part was over.

  “What did you do to your hair?” Claire said, reaching over and running her fingers through it.

  “Brushed it,” Jody said.

  “You’d look great in earrings. Are your ears pierced?”

  “Have been since I was twelve. Spencer Gifts, Montgomery Mall — shot straight through the lobe with one of those guns.”

  “I never noticed. I’ll have to remember that. We’ll get you some really nice earrings.”

  Jody shrugged and watched Adam dissecting onion rings while Jake and Sam wordlessly wolfed down enormous hamburgers.

  In the cab on the way home — warm, full, pressed against Adam and Claire — Jody nearly fell asleep.

  “Why don’t you come to the apartment?” Claire whispered. “You can sleep over if you want.”

  Jody shook her head. “I have to go home,” she said. “I’m so tired, you wouldn’t believe. I wonder where my key is.” She worked her hand into her pocket. “Hope I didn’t lose it.”

  “You really should give me a duplicate,” Claire said. “Just in case.”

  “Found it,” Jody said, producing the key.

  “Well, maybe you can come over tomorrow.”

  The cab pulled over to the curb and a horn blared behind them as the Roths slowly piled out and they all said their goodbyes. Sam tried to hand Jody a ten, but she waved the money away and pulled the door shut. “Perry and West Fourth,” she told the driver, and the cab pulled away. Jody took a deep breath. There was absolutely nothing left; everything had been spilled, drained, sucked dry. All she could think about was how great the Roths were, and how much she wanted a hot shower, warm blankets, and a big, fluffy pillow.

  32

  In the middle of a warm week in March, prematurely pressed into a heat wave that brought the flowers out early and left people damning both the summer to come and the winter that had never quite arrived, Claire found the house she wanted.

  At ten a.m., strapped into a minivan en route to a house the real estate agent couldn’t really describe, didn’t have a picture of, but just knew Claire would love, she saw what she’d been looking for. Marked with a yellow FOR SALE sign and set back across a long lawn was a small, plain farmhouse, white with green shutters and a porch that wrapped three-quarters of the way around.

  “Stop,” Claire said. “You’re passing it.”

  “Oh, you don’t want that,” the agent said. “Besides, it’s under contract. I’ll have to remind someone to take care of that sign.”

  “Stop,” Claire insisted, and the agent tapped the brakes, shifted into reverse, and backed up. Like a garbage truck, the car made an alarming beep-beeping warning sound.

  “I know this house very well,” she said. “I showed it a thousand times before they found a buyer. It’s too small. Four bedrooms, only one’s decent-sized. No place to put a live-in. Two and a half baths — most of my clients want three or three and a half minimum. It looks like the place where my grandmother grew up. And all that grass — no one wants so much grass with such a small house. Bushes, a few evergreens, some flower beds, yes — but lawn mowing, who needs it? And you can be sure whoever would live here wouldn’t have a gardener.”

  How about two strong boys and a husband, Claire thought, all of whom could stand to do a little work.

  “Could we go in?” Claire asked, releasing her seat belt, and lifting the door lock like an animal opening its own cage. The agent followed her onto the front porch, where Claire stood with her nose pressed to the

  “I don’t have the key,” the agent said flatly.

  “When was it built?” Claire asked.

  “Had to be the 1940s. No one would’ve done something like this in the fifties.”

  Claire pressed her nose against the windowpane. The living room had a fireplace, a long mantel, wooden floors. To the right was a staircase with a thick wooden banister.

  “Standard layout,” the agent said. “Kitchen’s a horrible aqua green, appliances and everything — it’s like being inside a Jacques Cousteau nightmare. Basement’s unfinished. One of the bathrooms needs a lot of work.”

  To Claire it gave off the timeless image of family and home. Four bedrooms was two more than they already had. She pulled out her camera and took a few shots. “What are they getting?” she asked.

  “Confidential,” the agent said, tapping her toe on the porch with every click of the shutter. “I’ll wait in the car,” she finally said.

  Claire walked around the house, full circle, snapping the whole way round. She wanted the whole picture, soup to nuts. Finished, she got back into the car, turned to the agent, and said, “Now show me what you wanted me to see.”

  Later, all Claire could remember about the other house, the one that was supposed to be just right for her, was a huge stained-glass window in the living room that filtered the
morning light so that it landed like a pool of blood on the floor, and the agent asking over and over again why she wasn’t taking any photos.

  “You’ll let me know,” Claire had said when they got back to the agent’s office, “if the deal falls through.” She shook the woman’s hand.

  Back in the city, Claire left the car in the garage and went across the street to the one-hour photo shop. She dropped off the film, tucked the claim slip into her pocket, and hurried off to her office. Waiting for Bea, she thought about the house so intently that she imagined she could hear guests coming up to the front door and calling, “Yoo-hoo! Anybody home?”

  The buzzer went off, and soon Bea was sitting across from her.

  “I don’t know what’s happening to me,” she said. “I should be depressed. I should be miserable, but I’m not.”

  “Are you taking any medication?”

  “No, it’s me. It’s only me. I’m happy.”

  What was there for Claire to say? How could she say, No you’re not. If someone says she’s happy, do you have her declared insane and committed, or count her as cured and send her away? This was such a rare occurrence that it was confusing.

  “It’s peculiar. I wake up alone in my bed feeling good. That never happened before. In the evening, I eat whatever I want, I watch the television shows I like. There’s something very satisfying about it.”

  Claire sat and listened. There were people who claimed to be happy as a defense against their sadness; they said they were happy again and again, as though saying it often enough would make it come true.

  “It sounds good,” she said when Bea paused and looked up at her. “Sounds like you’re really pleased.”

  “If I’d known I’d feel this good, I would’ve kicked him out years ago.”

  “Do you feel lonely?”

  “Not really. I think I may have been lonelier before.” Bea wasn’t lying.

  Claire smiled. “I’m happy for you,” she said.

  After Bea had gone, Claire raced out, picked up the photos, and spread them across her desk. For the next week or so, whenever something upset her she would take out the photos and, instantly dipping into the dream, picture herself and the family — including Jody — in the house together.

  About ten days later, the real estate agent left a message on her machine. “I have news. The contract on that farmhouse”—she said “farmhouse” as though the very word nauseated her—“fell through. Too complicated to explain, but it’s on the market again. And I’ll tell you a secret: they’re anxious to sell. They’re waiting to settle on another place. Another secret — and I really shouldn’t be telling you this. The bid they’d accepted was three even, but if they could get it soon, I think they’d go lower. Call me.”

  Claire went running to Sam’s office. “There’s something I should’ve told you,” she said, slipping her hand into her pockets, rubbing her fingers across the photos.

  “Do I want to hear it?” Sam asked.

  “I found it,” she said, laying the photos out over the papers on Sam’s desk. “It wasn’t available before, but something happened. If we move fast we can get it cheap.”

  Sam leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his head, and rocked. “I don’t know, Claire. We don’t know anything about buying houses. The boys are in the middle of a school year. We’d have to sell our place. Something like this takes a lot of planning.”

  “I have been planning. Sam, I want this. Just look at the pictures.”

  “You always want something,” he said, tilting forward to glance down at the photos.

  “No, I really want this. That’s why I haven’t mentioned it. It means too much to me.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” he said, picking up the old magnifying glass that had been his grandfather’s and going over the pictures carefully, as though this seventy-five-year-old chunk of scratched glass would reveal their significance.

  Claire dug deep into the zippered compartment of her purse, pulled out two of her most favorite pictures, and handed them to Sam.

  “It’s nice,” he said, staring at them for a second, then tossing them on the desk with the others and looking away.

  “See, the living room’s in here, and there’s a fireplace with a really nice mantel.”

  Sam was still staring out the window.

  “Take a ride with me,” Claire said. “I have a break until later this afternoon,” she lied.

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now,” Claire said. “We can talk in the car.”

  “I have things to do. I’m in the middle of something,” he said, scooping up the photos and handing them back to Claire. “Maybe tomorrow, or on the weekend.”

  “Sam, this house is the beginning of a new life.” She was more intent than she’d been in years. “It’s less than an hour away.”

  “Where is it? What town? What state?”

  “Connecticut — just outside of Greenwich, for God’s sake. I think it’s called Glenville,” Claire said, pulling her hair repetitively, an old nervous tic.

  “Fine. Okay. You want to get it over with?” he said, springing up from the desk and yanking his coat off the pole by the door. “Let’s go.”

  “I have to make a couple calls,” Claire said, taking her appointment book out of her bag.

  Sam slipped his coat on. “Can’t you make them from the car?”

  Claire shook her head.

  He picked up a stack of books and went out the door. “I’ll run these down the hall. Be right back.”

  From Sam’s desk, Claire called her two-thirty and left a message on his machine. She called the analyst across the hall and asked him to put up a note just in case. Then she dialed again. “Hi, cookie,” she said when Jody answered.

  “Sorry, wrong number,” Jody said.

  “I have an emergency this afternoon. I need to cancel our appointment.”

  “It’s because you’re tired of me,” Jody said. “I’ve become boring. Fine, go ahead, get someone else. Get a good anorexic for all I care. Try inviting her out to lunch.”

  “Couldn’t be helped,” Claire said. “I’ll call you tonight when I get home.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “Jody, you have to stop this. Perk up, sweetie. I can’t stand this depression thing anymore.”

  “Are you telling me to snap out of it? You, a shrink?”

  “Spring’s right around the corner. It’s time to get on with your life.”

  “I don’t have one, remember? And where’d you get that line — Hallmark?”

  “Got to go,” Claire said. “I’ll call you later.”

  In the car, Claire talked nonstop. “My whole life I’ve always wanted to live in Connecticut. As a child, it was my fantasy. I thought all the best movie stars lived there, Katharine Hepburn and I don’t know who else. Connecticut,” she said, “Connecticut. Successful, refined, rich.”

  “Waspish,” Sam said. “I hate to impose reality onto this conversation, but what about the apartment? Is anyone even interested in it? And what about the kids — their friends, for instance?”

  “They’ll finish the year in the city and start in Connecticut in the fall.” Claire drew out “Connecticut” until it had about a hundred syllables.

  “Isn’t it too late to get them into a school?”

  “Public school, Sam. Everyone in the suburbs goes to public school. We’ll save a fortune.”

  “I thought kids in Connecticut,” he said, “went to prep school.”

  “Only the unmanageable ones.”

  “So we have a few years to go,” Sam said. “Okay, how do I get to work? Or am I supposed to quit work and just stay home and mow the lawn all day? I noticed from the photos that there’s quite a bit of grass to deal with.”

  “We have a car, and there’s a train, and we’ll get one of those ride-’em mowers.”

  “Honey, right now my office is an eight-minute walk from our apartment, six if I’m in a hurry. I’d have to get up in th
e middle of the night in order to get in on time, and I’d be coming home very late.”

  “It’s fifty-three useful minutes by train. You can relax, read, work, sleep, whatever. Thousands of people do it every day.”

  “Goys. I’m a Jew. Do I have to remind you? Jews get sick if they read when they’re in motion. It’s genetic — something about escaping Egypt, the bumpy ride. By the way, are Jews even allowed in Connecticut?”

  “We’ll get a big hairy dog, and every night you can walk it around the neighborhood. It’ll get rid of your love handles.”

  “And my love life. So, how many million bucks is it all going to cost? That’s the bottom line, isn’t it?”

  “Less than a larger apartment.”

  “How much?”

  “They’re asking three-thirty, but the agent says they’ll take less. I figured we’d offer two-ninety.”

  “And how much can we get for the apartment?”

  “Three, maybe three-fifteen. But if we come down a little, we’ll probably find a buyer right away.”

  “And how much do we have in the bank?”

  “Sam, we’re not paying cash.”

  “If you want me to take the idea seriously, we have to talk seriously.”

  “You’re intimidating me.” Claire pulled onto the shoulder next to the driveway. Suddenly she didn’t want Sam to see the house. She felt like he wanted to take it away from her.

  “This is it?” Sam asked.

  Claire started crying.

  “So pull in already.”

  She put the car in park.

  “Honey, go into the driveway and let’s look around. We came all the way out here. It’s fine if you’ve changed your mind, but we might as well have a look, don’t you think?”