‘We had each other, Jack. It wasn’t the same thing.’ He indicated to go on the freeway.
‘Oh, Jack. Don’t you care?’
‘Actually, no, not at this very moment. I don’t care, okay? We’ve given him money, love, advice. He’s never starved or had to sleep rough. Up to him now.’
Silence.
‘Goddammit, Milly, do you know what that meal cost?’
Jack merged too early and a car flashed lights at him. ‘Goddammit,’ he said again, and they drove home.
Milly did not speak to her husband until dinner was ready. Billy ate in his bedroom. Since the other kids had left home, he often refused to come out of his room. His father assumed he masturbated a lot. His mother thought he missed his siblings. Or was ashamed of his parents.
‘Jack! Dinner’s ready.’
‘What is it?’
‘It is what it is.’
‘Hamburger. Thanks. My favourite.’ He barely ate, half expecting poison.
‘Where’s yours?’
‘I am not hungry,’ she said and left the room. Strangely, her limp was less at times like this. Ike followed her, his toenails clicking on the hardwood.
‘We’re getting another dog, by the way.’ Her voice trailed down the hall.
‘Are we?’
‘I need another dog,’ she said. ‘Another Lab.’
He looked at his hamburger, then sniffed it.
She’d get another dog (dogs needed dog company) and she’d leave Jack. It was obvious he was a terrible person. A heartless parent and a philanderer and mean with money and a dog-hater. She sat alone in the bedroom, arms round herself. She imagined leaving, but she couldn’t get past the practical difficulties. Where to go, and with what money? What would Harold say if she knocked on his door, bag in hand? His wife would certainly be concerned, and her own children horrified. In any case, there seemed to be no residue of love for Harold in her heart, so what would be the point? She had no idea where all that intensity had gone. Perhaps it had evaporated over Monterey Bay, in her husband’s arms, her physical fidelity still intact. She was either shallow, or she’d not been in love with Harold after all, merely lonely and susceptible to flattery. She’d been a fool, a lucky fool. Like that time with her neighbour Jeff, when she’d flirted with him and he’d assumed an attempted rape was the correct response. Terrifying at first, but after a short while she’d felt entirely unscathed by the event. Hadn’t most women fought off unwelcome advances? And hadn’t most wives had crushes? It all made her feel worldly.
But not worldly enough for independence. If she left this house, somehow, without money, would Billy come with her? Would the older children still respect her, want to visit her? Would she end up like her sister, Louise? Mentally unstable, impoverished, vulnerable? No real home, a transient? Or like her mother – coping with singleness by being manly, tough, aggressively competent? She couldn’t even remember if they had enough suitcases, or if over the years Jack had taken over the suitcase department. What had happened to those powder blue cases from her single life? She used to live without Jack. A long time ago she’d been a feisty secretary who escaped from the valley. She’d spent her own money and never had to account to anyone. How many times had she decided to leave him? And each time she had not, she felt her marriage settle more heavily around her shoulders. Somehow she’d become paralysed, both literally and metaphorically.
Slowly the day dimmed and she still sat, ignoring her hunger pangs and her shivers. She’d get up in a minute, turn on the heating and cook something for herself. She mentally listed all the possible solutions to her dilemmas. Leave Jack? Not possible. Mend her shattered femur bone and pelvis? Not possible. So, she did what she always did when feeling helpless. She thought of Jackie Kennedy, throwing herself through the barrage of nurses and orderlies to get to her philandering husband bleeding to death on the operating table.
‘Get out of my way! I want to be with him when he dies.’
She thought of darling Charlie. She thought of who he might have become, and of finding Jack alone in the dark hallway that funeral night, blubbering. The way she’d loved Jack for blubbering.
She thought of Grace Kelly, of her beautiful face going through the windscreen as her car tumbled down a hill last month. Life was precious and it was lucky to be alive at all.
Her day began to look better. She replayed that scene of Jackie in her bloodstained pink Chanel suit, forcing those doctors and nurses to allow her to hold her husband’s hand as he died.
Eventually Milly rose, switched on lights and the heating, and headed to the kitchen for some food. When she got there, instead of food, she decided to write a quick note to Donald. Better than a phone call, and in any case she didn’t want to be overheard by Jack and she needed to do something right this minute. She found some paper.
Darling Donald – It was great seeing you today, you looked GREAT.
Milly had a weakness for capital letters, and all her letters were extra large, loopy and long hand.
I am sending you this (began to write the word letter, then crossed out the let) cheque for your trip.
We are so proud of you. The world is your oyster.
(Underlined the word oyster three times.)
She found the chequebook, wrote a cheque for $100, inserted it in the envelope, already construing the justification she would give to Jack, come budget night. She sealed and stamped the envelope.
‘Milly!’
‘What is it, Jack?’ She had heard the television, and noticed he was watching the news, but it must be commercial time now because he’d turned off the volume. She could see his body stretched out on the sofa and his neck craning round to call to her, but he couldn’t see her. She was on the other side of the refrigerator, slipping the letter into her pocket.
‘What are you doing in there, honey?’ His brandy-warmed voice.
‘Just getting something to eat.’
‘I’d skip the hamburger. Think it’s gone bad.’
This made her smile. She’d forgotten the undercooked hamburger she’d slapped in front of him earlier. She had excavated it from under some old ice cream, hoping it tasted as old and disgusting as it looked, in its ancient freezer bag. Probably the cow had died more than a decade ago.
‘Do you, honey? Thanks for letting me know.’
‘So what are you making?’
‘Oh, some pasta, I think.’
