The Age of Grief - Jane Smiley [49]
I crawled over to the half-open door and slithered through, so as not to awaken Leah. I expected to be alone, but I found Dana in her robe at the table. She was eating cold pizza. Her hair was standing up on one side, and she hadn’t managed to get all the makeup off from the night before, so there were smudges around her eyes and her lips were orange. I said, “What time is it? You look terrible.” She gave me a stricken look and said, “I can’t believe it’s over. It was so beautiful. I could sing it every night forever.”
“Well, you’ll sing other things.” I must have sounded irritable, when I meant to sound encouraging.
“I don’t want to sing other things.” She sounded petulant, when she must have meant to sound tragic. I have found that there is something in the marriage bond that deflates every communication, skews it toward the ironic middle, where man and wife are at their best, good-humored and matter-of-fact. But maybe there are others who can accommodate a greater range of exhilaration and despair. Tears came into her eyes and then began running down her cheeks. I sighed, probably sounding long-suffering, and sat down beside her and put my arms around her. Sitting down, it was awkward. I cast around for something to say. What I hit on was this: “Mrs. Hilton needs to go to a gum specialist. I scaled her yesterday for an hour, and she is exposing bone around the second and third molars.”
“Have I worked on her?”
“Curly red hair, about thirty?”
“Eight-year-old X-rays of impacted wisdom teeth?”
“Won’t have them out till they hurt.”
“I had her. I didn’t think her gums were that bad. She could go to Jerry.”
“No dental insurance. Practically no money, I gather.”
Dana sighed. “Lots of kids, I bet.”
“Five. Sometimes she brings the eighteen-month-old and the three-year-old.”
“Yeah.” Now the tears really began to roll down her cheeks, and she closed her eyes tight to stop them. I had only meant to bring up a mouth, not a life. I held her tightly and repeated my prayer, and it was answered, because although she heaved a number of times, and held her breath as if about to say something, she never did.
Not long after, Lizzie and Stephanie appeared on the scene, the markers came out, the demands for paper, cereal, bananas, and milk went up, and the television went on. Lizzie and Stephanie go head to head on the drawings. Lately, Lizzie’s have a lot of writing on them. Wherever the sky would ordinarily be are Lizzie’s remarks, in blue, about what the figures are doing. Stephanie can’t write yet, but she pays attention. Her skies are full of yellow stars. Dana went into the kitchen and sang her song about the weeping of the Hebrews while dishing up red bowls of Cheerios and bananas. Easter was coming up, and it occurred to me that the choir might go on to something less passionate, but I couldn’t imagine what it would be. They would certainly go on to fewer rehearsals every week—maybe only one.
Leah was still asleep. I remembered that I was still in my opera clothes, as formal as we get where I live, which was khaki pants, light blue shirt, sweater vest. Dana came through the dining room, and when I went up to the shower, she was already there, stepping out of her underpants with a sigh. Her breasts are wrinkled and flat from six years of nursing, but the rest of her is muscular and supple. I said, “May I join you?” Her eyes lifted to my face. It seems to me that they are very beautiful: pale, perfect blue, without a fleck of brown or green. Constant blue. Simultaneously deep-set and protuberant, with heavy, wrinkled lids. Her mother has the same eyes, only even older and therefore more beautiful. I don’t know what I expected her to say. She always says yes. Now she said, “Sure.” She smiled. She got out another towel. I turned on the water, got in first, and moved to the back of the tub. I reached out my hand and helped her in. We got wet, and soaped each other. She was businesslike about