Ordinary Life: Stories by Elizabeth Berg
Well, now I have read the part about your sleeping in the woods by yourself and I wish you hadn’t done that, Nan. It’s not safe. It’s one thing to take some time to go on a trip and another altogether to sleep alone in the woods when you have no idea where you are. You are not a strong woman, you know. Carrying in one grocery bag at a time. You are not a strong woman. And you don’t know how men can be when a woman is alone and vulnerable. It makes them get ideas. Even a good man might think to himself, Well, what the hell? That was stupid and I intend to talk to you more about it when you get home. Remind me.
You say you used to get up and watch Ruthie sleep in her crib when she was a little baby. Well, so did I, Nan. And you know what else? I watched her sleep all her life. When she was seven and she slept with all her stuffed animals all lined up, when she was eleven and slept with her Barbies, when she was fifteen and slept with her diary. The night before she left for college, I watched her sleep for a good fifteen minutes, I swear. Just stood there, the moon so bright it was like sunshine. And then I went outside into the backyard and onto the patio where the swing set I built for her used to be. I sat in a chair and leaned back and looked up into the sky and I thought about her whole life with us, and then damned if I didn’t start to cry. I thought about the first time I held her, scared shitless by how light she was, I thought a breeze would lift her right out of my arms. I thought about the time she was three and she got those patent leather shoes she loved so much all full of mud, and I realized I was not going to be able to protect her from everything after all. I thought of her sixth birthday party, how dressed up she got in her favorite pink dress, pink ribbons in her hair, I think you even painted her fingernails pink, and then all the other girls came in jeans. I thought of the time she was fourteen and I came into her room and she didn’t see me, and she was standing before her mirror using her hairbrush to be the microphone and lip-synching with Madonna. Her braces were gleaming and she was trying so hard to look sexy and I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I thought of the time I got up late at night to take a leak and I looked out the window and saw her sitting in some guy’s car, kissing him, and I wanted to go out and bust the guy’s head in. I didn’t tell you any of that, Nan. It didn’t seem necessary. The difference between you and me is that I don’t need someone to validate every thought I have, and I wish, frankly, that you were more like me that way. The weight of having to affirm everything for you is nearly unbearable sometimes. I have often wished for a mannequin Martin I could sit at the dinner table who would be programmed to say, “Oh, uh-huh,” in the properly engaged manner every ninety seconds. And I’d take a beer and a burger and extra-fat potato chips down to the basement to watch the Red Sox.
Now, I remember that day when I was leaving for work and you started in with something and yes, I did tell you to have an affair. But it wasn’t because I really meant it. It was because I was so tired of trying to please you when there was no pleasing you. “Martin, I need romance,” you said, as I was walking out the door to go to work, Nan. What was I to do? I had a meeting with thirty-five people in half an hour and I was running late. What was I to do? Call and say, Listen, I need to talk to my wife, she needs romance? Or say, How about you just fly all those people who came in to meet with me back to where they came from, my wife is too lonely? You were in your robe, Nan, the whole day before you. I was in my suit, headed out the door to go to the office. Quit, then! I can imagine you saying. I never wanted this lifestyle! Money means nothing to me! Well, you just think about that one, Nan. Think really hard about that one. If you really don’t mind not having a lot of money, yes, I will consider retiring. Don’t you think I have my own trials to consider at work? Do you really think you have to tell me about stuffy conference rooms? Yes, you come home and we’ll talk about my retiring. I would like to live in a house such as the one you have described to me, but I’d like a little input too, Nan. Such as I want a pool table and a flat-screen TV the size of North Carolina. And a vending machine, which I told you about once and you just started laughing. But I want a vending machine, I think it would be cool. And hold on to your hat, Nan: I want to smoke my cigars INSIDE. We can figure something out, as long as we’re going to be building a new house anyway—we can make the basement extremely well ventilated, whatever, but I want to smoke cigars in there and I want a refrigerator to hold beer and only beer. Want an opener built onto the side. I want leather furniture soft as butter and I do not want to see one, not one, not one “decorator” pillow or afghan anywhere. Nor any flowers. Nor any artwork beyond the dartboard I’ll put up.
Now your letter where you ask me some questions. Have I ever had an affair? No. Have I ever thought of it? Yes. Yes, yes, and yes, how could I not? Once Jocelyn, that assistant I had that you never liked, she showed me a lingerie catalogue and asked me to help her pick out something that her boyfriend would like. I had a boner the side of a Katz’s salami, it’s a good thing I was behind the desk. But Nan, I made you a promise. I meant it. Who knows if it’s a good idea or not, monogamy? But I made the promise and probably it is a good idea whose worth we might not fully understand until later. I can tell you this: I have watched you as you made dinner on summer nights, standing barefoot with your apron on, and I have seen the late afternoon sun light up your hair and I have noticed the care with which you prepare our food and I have loved you so fiercely it hurt, it truly made for a hurt in my chest. And I have thought at times like that if anyone tried to take you from me, I would kill them. And I have been glad that I have stayed faithful to you despite what have been many opportunities. You must know that this happens for men, especially for those who are traveling. I remember two prostitutes at the bar, when Dan Guthridge and I went over to Amsterdam. My God, they were beautiful. We bought them a few drinks, okay? I never told you because you wouldn’t have understood. You buy women like that drinks because you want to check out the cleavage, you like the way their dresses ride up when they cross their legs, and you’re thinking about the many, many favors they could do for you, yes you are, but I didn’t do anything, I came back to the room and there were the T-shirts in my suitcase that you had folded. And it was a bad time for us, Nan, we were not getting along so well, I was not spending my evenings having my ego built up as I had been in the bar. But I was glad anyway that I had not betrayed you. I sat on the bed and I thought about calling you but as I said we weren’t getting along so well, so I did not. I jerked off and went to sleep. So no, I have not had an affair. And I say to you again now that I will not.
All right. I did cancel my physical. I don’t need any colonoscopy and I know if I have a physical he will say did you ever have that colonoscopy and I will say no and then he’ll start telling me all about why I need a colonoscopy and did I quit smoking cigars yet. Then he’ll ask me about the Patriots like we’re sitting at the bar when meanwhile he has his finger up my butt. Listen, Nan, we part ways here, and I’m becoming more and more convinced that my way is right. You go and get physicals if you want, but I don’t want to anymore. Not every year. Every five years or so is enough. If I get diabetes or high blood pressure or some other damn thing, then you can say, See? I told you! and won’t that bring you some pleasure. But I canceled my physical and I don’t want to hear a word about it.
You have spent some time in your letters talking about men’s cruelty to women. I have to say that it works both ways. I know men are stronger, that in abuse cases it’s usually the man hurting the woman. But I just want to say that it works both ways. You know Charlie Stevens, right? You know what kind of verbal lashings that guy endures every day? Nothing he does is right. He ruined her. He gives her nothing; He’s a nobody who embarrasses her. He’s too fat, his hair is too thin. Blah, blah, blah, she never shuts up. And he feels it. That man hasn’t stood up straight and looked out from behind his own eyes for years. I don’t think he remembers anything about who he used to be.
What I want to say to you, Nan, and I think you’ll agree with this, what I want to s
I’ve missed you. Knowing you are not here, I’ve looked for you. And I’ve seen you: reading in the living room, drinking coffee at the breakfast table, folding back the bedclothes in your precise preparation for sleep. Did you know that sometimes I wake up at night and listen to the soft sounds of your breathing? What I feel about knowing you are there—there when snow falls, when spring comes, when thunderstorms seem to shake the foundation, when the roses beneath our bedroom window are in full bloom and when they die and when they come back again—could fill a book. Or at least a letter. This one, perhaps.
I want you to come home. I will be glad to see your familiar face, to take your familiar hand, to lie down with you on the bed we picked out together so many years ago. I want to let you talk to someone who wants to listen. I have some things to say, too, and then I hope we can just stay there in the quiet, feeling all that we have together.
Oh, Nan. In honor of every bit of it.
Love,
Martin
What Stays
When I was eight years old, my mother began to leave me and my two sisters alone a lot. She always meant it to be temporary, and she always prepared us for it a few days in advance so we wouldn’t be scared. Of course, we were scared anyway. The oldest of us, my sister Helen, felt that the best way to care for us was to ignore us. I don’t blame her in retrospect—it was too much to put on a twelve-year-old. But then, I would sit alone in the living room, fearing my mother was gone forever and longing for Helen to read to me, to dress and undress my dolls with me, to suggest that of course my mother would return.
She left us for missions that came along—she would attend funerals of people she deemed heroes by virtue of their obituaries. “She was only twenty-three,” she would say sadly, on her way out. Or, “He spent thirty years as a teacher to the blind. Imagine!” If she read about a strike, she would go to walk the picket line. Once she went to meet a woman with whom she’d had a prison correspondence, and that time she was gone for a week.
My father worked for the railroad as a switchman, and he came home tired and silent. My mother disappointed him, but he had given up trying to change her. She was always so friendly with him, acted like he was a welcome guest; but he saw her as another job, one he essentially couldn’t do. They passed by each other, my mother smiling, my father sighing. I don’t know when they loved each other. It must have been long before I was born, when my father saw my mother as a wild thing he wanted. He didn’t count on her not calming down, I suppose. He lived like a shadow in our house, like a suggestion of a person. He spoke so rarely that when he did, we would startle and stare at him.
Sometimes my mother would get interested in things she could do at home. She decided to raise dogs, and she supervised our mongrel bitch from mating through birth. After the puppies arrived, though, she seemed disappointed at the dog’s natural competence. She picked the nursing puppies up and examined their tiny mouths for a white stain to make sure they were getting something, and the babies squealed in distress. She neatened the warm little row of their bodies while the bitch regarded her with a baleful stare. She looked in at odd times of the day to be sure the puppies weren’t crushing one another when they slept, and they never were. Disheartened, she concentrated on the mother, giving her too-frequent meaty treats, which were listlessly accepted. Then she said there was clearly no point in trying to help nature, and left them all alone. When the puppies were five weeks old, my father brought them to the pound. When my mother found out, she wept.
She thought of baking as an occupation—she made wonderful things—and her idea was to walk the morning streets with warm caramel rolls. She made different varieties and gave them to us for breakfast. “What do you think?” she would say. “Better when they’re stickier, or drier? Do they need a cherry on top? Should I use nuts, or not?” When she found a recipe we agreed on, she began mapping out routes. “Fifty cents apiece,” she would say. “It could add up.” My father finally argued her out of doing it. “For God’s sake, Marion,” he said. “Please.”
This all happened in the fifties, when other mothers stayed home making dinner from cookbooks, wearing calm and sensible clothes with aprons over them. These mothers didn’t go anywhere, as far as I could see. They sent their children to school and they were there when their children returned. They gave out snacks, served on a plate, with a napkin beside it. They didn’t yell.
My mother would yell—loudly, passionately. Then she would apologize, drag all three of us up to her bedroom and line us up on the bed. “I don’t know why I did that,” she would say. She would cry and wring her hands and stare at us. Then she would put each of our faces between her hands and kiss us. “Forgive me,” she would say. “I love you.”
We kids kept one another company, raised ourselves, excused the obvious problems of our mother. We had no outside friends. That didn’t seem to matter too much, though. We made allies and enemies of one another in kaleidoscopic ways. We weren’t bored.
Then one day when we came home from school, we found my mother stonelike at the kitchen table. She wouldn’t talk, or even look at us, for a long time. When she finally did, she said, “Apparently it’s time for me to ‘take care of myself.’ I’m going to see a head doctor. Otherwise, your father will leave me. He told me last night, can you imagine? See a shrink or he will divorce me. You’d think I had something contagious. You’d think I was dangerous.” She laughed, a small, shaky sound. I saw her for the first time then as fragile. We were all there with her, and she addressed us as though she were heading a meeting: She had us sit down at the kitchen table and then she stood up and said, “Before I do anything, I want to say this: You are children. And right now you are as smart as God. As you get older, something will try to take you from yourself. You’ll start stuffing your brain with numbers, with facts you’ll need to memorize, and all of it will be something someone else has come up with. You will learn to ignore your own genius, let yourself wither on the vine out of deference to someone else’s opinion. It’s a damn shame.” She took a sip of coffee from the cup before her, and then held it out toward me. “You want some?” I shook my head no. “You see?” she said. “Smart as God.” She went over to lean against the kitchen sink. “I saw deep into your eyes, each of you, right after you were born. What a sight! I swear, you knew everything. You would be calm, looking out into the world as though it were new and familiar all at once. And then, before we were done looking at each other, they would take you away from me, begin doing strange, rough things to you. By the time I got you back, you would have clothes on, and you would be crying, and I would feel so sorry for you. I would rock you, and whisper to you, ‘It’s all right. I know you.’ And you would calm down, lean into me so naturally it felt as though we were both the same thing.” She looked at Helen. “Do you remember?”
Helen had stood transfixed before her, as we all had. Now she took her glasses off and wiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand. Then she stood straighter and said, “No. I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything. How could I? I was just a baby, Ma. You don’t remember from when you were a baby.”
I wanted to rush to my mother, hug her around the waist, and say that I did remember. For although I couldn’t remember anything that she said specifically, her words sounded true to me, reached out and connected deeply to a place somewhere between my heart and my stomach. I believed her. I could feel her rightness. And I ached for her brave admission, lying seemingly unaccepted before us all.
She put her cup in the sink and turned away from us for a minute. I was afraid she was crying, but she wasn’t. When she turned back, she said, “I love each of you, with all my heart. I never saw any reason not to have you, and I’d have more, but your father … Well, I want to tell you that I know I’m different. I suppose it’s just all too much for you. But here, listen: when yo
She began seeing a doctor on Tuesdays. She would put on a suit and some high heels that we used to play with. She came home with a spiral notebook full of her own observations—she apparently took notes as violently as the doctor did. And then, abruptly, she stopped going. She said that the doctor never laughed, that his stance was too tight, that the photos of his children in his office were all covered with dust, that he had more problems than she ever dreamed of.