A Map of the World - Jane Hamilton [136]
We were going to leave Prairie Center. We’d be gone as soon as I could settle the lease for the unit.
“With Dan there is so much anger. He’s still furious with me because I let the girls come down here that day. And of course that makes me secretly fume, because when did he ever have to arrange for child care? He gets himself out of bed and goes to work every day, never even has to think about making time for himself, or planning around the family. There’s no point in bringing all that up. Who cares about it anymore? But you see, he’s not reasonable. He’s mad because I got my tubes tied! I got the ligation after Lizzy was born—I mean, we had both decided two was enough. Well, anyway, it was one of those, what do you call them—What? I’m going senile. You know, one of those—cathartic experiences. I have one more cathartic experience it’ll probably do me in. We screamed and cried. The next morning he stayed around for a while, though, and we, all of us, talked about Lizzy. I sat down at breakfast and said, ‘Remember how Lizzy called the neighbor’s dog, Mutt-we?’ Audrey looked terror stricken. And then when Dan started to laugh and say how funny that was, I could see her breathing this tremendous sigh of relief.”
She was looking out at the pond now, at the girls instead of at me. “After he left for work I said to myself, Howard means nothing to me. It was a fluke. A dream. I thought of calling my old friend Father Albert and confessing. I’m not sure exactly what I would have confessed, but he always tells me at least one thing that changes my life. He’d probably tell me too, that it was time I turned my thoughts homeward, to draw close to Dan and Audrey. I was pretty sure that you would have woken up and felt as strange as I did—”
“Right,” I said.
“But as the day wore on I kept thinking about you. Damn you,” she whispered, laughing out at the water. “So, all right, all right, a week, two weeks have passed. I see you everywhere I go. I see you out the kitchen window. I see you in my closet, I see you in the glass of the coffee table. I dream that I’m riding up and down elevators trying to find you. I love you, you know that?” She turned back to look at my profile. “It doesn’t matter in our day-to-day life, I know. Maybe it’s the displacement of the love I have for Lizzy. Maybe I’m giving that to you. It doesn’t matter, because there’s nothing to be done. It’s just one of those things I want to shout from the rooftops.”
I continued to watch the girls’ every move.
“So, I love you, Howard,” she said again. “You are a good person—you are everything that’s good.”
I rolled my eyes and snarled. I was about to say that that was the sort of crap sixteen-year-olds drool into each other’s ears. I made the mistake of looking at her. Her face was pink, bright. I think it was the hope in her expression, in her half-smile, that momentarily chastened me. “No, I’m not.” I shook my head. And then I thought of something that might be true. “When I was a kid,” I said, “I used to think that bravery involved action. It took courage, I figured, to move forward, to pursue a dream, to get ahead in the world. Just to get where you were supposed to. I thought having desire took courage. Now I realize that none of that requires bravery. The only thing you really need bravery for is standing still. For standing by.”
I put my hand on her cheek. She closed her eyes and gasped a little, leaning into my fingers. She was making her cheek as if to hold my hand. I didn’t feel as if I had the strength to stand up. To walk back to the house. To wait and wait for Alice to get out. To wait and wait through the years in some strange town with my daughters and my wife.
Chapter Sixteen
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THE TRANSACTION WITH MRS. Reesman was not complete until the middle of September. The land had to be surveyed and assessed