Breathing Lessons (1989 Pulitzer Prize) Page 19

  "I wish you could have seen him the way I saw him," Maggie said. "After you left, I mean. He was a wreck! A shambles. His most cherished belonging was your tor-toiseshell soapbox." "My what?" "Don't you remember your soapbox, the one with the tortoiseshell lid?" "Well, yes." "He would open it sometimes and draw a breath of it," Maggie said. "I saw him! I promise! The day you left, that evening, I found Jesse in the bedroom with his nose buried deep in your soapbox and his eyes closed." "Well, what in the world?" Fiona said.

  "I believe he must have inherited some of my sense of smell," Maggie told her.

  "You're talking about that little plastic box. The one I used to keep my face soap in." "Then as soon as he saw me he hid it behind his back," Maggie said. "He was embarrassed I had caught him. He always liked to act so devil-may-care; you know how he acted. But a few days later, when your sister came for your things, I couldn't find your soapbox anywhere. She was packing up your cosmetic case, is how I happened to mink of it, so I said, 'Let's see, now, somewhere around . . .' but that soapbox seemed to have vanished. And I couldn't ask Jesse because he had walked out as soon as your sister walked in, so I started opening his bureau drawers and that's where I found it, in his treasure drawer among the things he never throws away-his old-time baseball cards and the clippings about his band. But I didn't give it to your sister. I just shut the drawer again. In fact, I believe he has kept that soapbox to this day, Fiona, and you can't tell me it's because he feels sorry for you. He wants to remember you. He goes by smell, just the way I do; smell is what brings a person most clearly to his mind." Fiona gazed down at her beer can. That eye shadow was oddly attractive, Maggie realized. Sort of peach-like. It gave her lids a peach's pink blush.

  "Does he still look the same?" Fiona asked finally.

  "The same?" "Does he still look like he used to?" "Why, yes." Fiona gave a sharp sigh.

  There was a moment of quiet, during which Leroy said, "Durn! Missed." A car passed, trailing threads of country music. I've had some bad times, lived through some sad times . . .

  "You know," Fiona said, "there's nights when I wake up and think, How could things have gotten so twisted? They started out perfectly simple. He was just this boy I was crazy about and followed anyplace his band played, and everything was so straightforward. When he didn't notice me at first, I sent him a telegram, did he ever mention that? Fiona Stuckey would like to go with you to Deep Creek Lake, that's what it said, because I knew he was planning to drive there with his friends. And so he took me along, and that's where it all began. Wasn't that straightforward? But then, I don't know, everything sort of folded over on itself and knotted up, and I'm not even sure how it happened. There's times I think, Shoot, maybe I ought to just fire off another telegram. Jesse, I'd say, / love you still, and it begins to seem I always will. He wouldn't even have to answer; it's just something I want him to know. Or I'll be down in Baltimore at my sister's and I'll think, Why not drop by and visit him? Just walk in on him? Just see what happens?" "Oh, you ought to," Maggie said.

  "But he'd say, 'What are you doing here?' Or some such thing. I mean it's bound and determined to go wrong. The whole cycle would just start over again." "Oh, Fiona, isn't it time somebody broke that cycle?" Maggie asked. "Suppose he did say that; not that I think he would. Couldn't you for once stand your ground and say, 'I'm here because I want to see you, Jesse'? Cut through all this to-and-fro, these hurt feelings and these misunderstandings. Say, 'I'm here because I've missed you. So there!' " "Well, maybe I should do that," Fiona said slowly.

  "Of course you should." "Maybe I should ride back down with you." "With us?" "Or maybe not." "You're talking about . . . this afternoon?" "No, maybe not; what am I saying? Oh, Lord. I knew I shouldn't drink in the daytime; it always makes my head so muzzy-" "But that's a wonderful idea!" Maggie said.

  "Well, if Leroy came with me, for instance; if we just made a little visit. I mean visiting you two, not Jesse. After all, you're Leroy's grandparents, right? What could be more natural? And then spent the night at my sister's place-" - "No, not at your sister's. Why there? We have plenty of room at our house." There was a crunch of gravel outside-the sound of a car rolling up. Maggie tensed, but Fiona didn't seem to hear. "And then tomorrow after lunch we could catch the Greyhound bus," she was saying, "or let's see, midaf-ternoon at the latest. The next day's a working day and Leroy has school, of course-" A car door clunked shut. A high, complaining voice called, "Leroy?" Fiona straightened. "Mom," she said, looking uneasy.

  The voice said, "Who's that you got with you, Leroy?" And then, "Why, Mr. Moran." What Ira answered, Maggie had no idea. All that filtered through the Venetian blinds was a brief rumble.

  "My, my," Mrs. Stuckey said. "Isn't this . . ." something or other.

  "It's Mom," Fiona told Maggie.

  "Oh, how nice; we'll get to see her after all," Maggie said unhappily.

  "She is going to have a fit." "A fit?" "She would kill me if I was to go and visit you." Maggie didn't like the uncertain sound of that verb construction.

  The screen door opened and Mrs. Stuckey plodded in- a gray, scratchy-haired woman wearing a ruffled sundress. She was lugging two beige plastic shopping bags, and a cigarette drooped from her colorless, cracked lips. Oh, Maggie had never understood how such a woman could have given birth to Fiona-finespun Fiona. Mrs. Stuckey set the bags in the center of the shag rug. Even then, she didn't glance up. "One thing I despise," she said, removing her cigarette, "is these new-style plastic grocery bags with the handles that cut your fingers in half." "How are you, Mrs. Stuckey?" Maggie asked.

  "Also they fall over in the car trunk and spill their guts out," Mrs. Stuckey said. "I'm all right, I suppose." "We just stopped by for a second," Maggie said. "We had to go to a funeral in Deer Lick." "Hmm," Mrs. Stuckey said. She took a drag of her cigarette. She held it like a foreigner, pinched between her thumb and her index finger. If she had calculated outright, she could not have chosen a more unbecoming dress. It completely exposed her upper arms, which were splotched and doughy.

  Maggie waited for Fiona to mention the trip to Baltimore, but Fiona was fiddling with her largest turquoise ring. She slid it up past her first knuckle, twisted it, and slid it down again. So Maggie had to be the one. She said, "I've been trying to talk Fiona into coming home with us for a visit." "Fat chance of that," Mrs. Stuckey said.

  Maggie looked over at Fiona. Fiona went on fiddling with her ring.

  "Well, she's thinking she might do it," Maggie said finally.

  Mrs. Stuckey drew back from her cigarette to glare at the long tube of ash at its tip. Then she stubbed it out in the rowboat, perilously close to the yellow sponge. A strand of smoke wound toward Maggie.

  "Me and Leroy might go just for the weekend," Fiona said faintly.

  "For the what?" "For the weekend." Mrs. Stuckey stooped for the grocery bags and started wading out of the room, bending slightly at the knees so her arms looked too long for her body. At the door she said, "I'd sooner see you lying in your casket." "But, Mom!" Fiona was on her feet now, following her into the hallway. She said, "Mom, the weekend's half finished anyhow. We're talking about just one single night! One night at Leroy's grandparents' house." "And Jesse Moran would be nowhere about, I suppose," Mrs. Stuckey said at a distance. There was a crash-presumably the grocery bags being dumped on a counter.

  "Oh, Jesse might be around maybe, but-" "Yah, yah," Mrs. Stuckey said on an outward breath.

  "Besides, so what if he is? Don't you think Leroy should get to knew her daddy?" Mrs. Stuckey's answer to that was just a mutter, but Maggie heard it clearly. "Anyone whose daddy is Jesse Moran is better off staying strangers." Well! Maggie felt her face grow hot. She had half a mind to march out to the kitchen and give Mrs. Stuckey what for. "Listen," she would say. "You think there haven't been times I've cursed your daughter? She hurt my son to the bone. There were times I could have wrung her neck, but have you ever heard me speak a word against her?" In fact, she even stood up, with a sudden, viol
ent mo- tion that creaked the sofa springs, but then she paused. She smoothed down the front of her dress. The gesture served to smooth her thoughts as well, and instead of heading for the kitchen she collected her purse and went off to find a bathroom, clamping her lips very tightly. Please, God, don't let the bathroom lie on the other side of the kitchen. No, there it was-the one open door at the end of the hall. She caught the watery green of a shower curtain.

  After she had used the toilet, she turned on the sink faucet and patted her cheeks with cool water. She bent closer to the mirror. Yes, definitely she had a flustered look. She would have to get hold of herself. She hadn't finished even that one beer, but she thought it might be affecting her. And it was essential just now to play her cards right.

  For instance, about Jesse. Although she had failed to mention it to Fiona, Jesse lived in an apartment uptown now, and therefore they couldn't merely assume that he would happen by while Fiona was visiting. He would have to be expressly invited. Maggie hoped he hadn't made other plans. Saturday: That could mean trouble. She checked her watch. Saturday night he might very well be singing with his band, or just going out with his friends. Sometimes he even dated-no one important, but still. . .

  She flushed the toilet, and under cover of the sound she slipped out of the bathroom and opened the door next to it. This room must be Leroy's. Dirty clothes and comic books lay everywhere. She closed the door again and tried the one opposite. Ah, a grownup's room. A decorous white candlewick bedspread, and a telephone on the nightstand.

  "After all you done to free yourself, you want to go back to that boy and get snaggled up messy as ever," Mrs. Stuckey said, clattering tin cans.

  "Who says I'm getting snaggled? I'm just paying a weekend visit." "He'll have you running circles around him just like you was before." "Mom, I'm twenty-five years old. I'm not that same little snippet I used to be." Maggie closed the door soundlessly behind her and went over to lift the receiver. Oh, dear, no push buttons. She winced each time the dial made its noisy, rasping return to home base. The voices in the kitchen continued, though. She relaxed and pressed the receiver to her ear.

  One ring. Two rings.

  It was a good thing Jesse was working today. For the last couple of weeks, the phone in his apartment had not been ringing properly. He could call other people all right, but he never knew when someone might be calling him. "Why don't you get it fixed? Or buy a new one; they're dirt cheap these days," Maggie had said, but he said, "Oh, I don't know, it's kind of a gas. Anytime I pass the phone I just pick it up at random. I say, 'Hello?' Twice I've actually found a person on the other end." Maggie had to smile now, remembering that. There was something so ... oh, so lucky about Jesse. He was so fortunate and funny and haphazard.

  "Chick's Cycle Shop," a boy said.

  "Could I speak to Jesse, please?" The receiver at the other end clattered unceremoniously against a hard surface. "Jess!" the boy called, moving off. There was a silence, overlaid by the hissing sound of long distance.

  Of course this was stealing, if you wanted to get picky about it-using someone else's phone to call out of state. Maybe she ought to leave a couple of quarters on the nightstand. Or would that be considered an insult? With Mrs. Stuckey, there was no right way to do a thing.

  Jesse said, "Hello." "Jesse?" "Ma?" His voice was Ira's voice, but years younger.

  "Jesse, I can't talk long," she whispered.

  "What? Speak up, I can barely hear you." "I can't," she said.

  "What?" She cupped the mouthpiece with her free hand. "I was wondering," she said. "Do you think you could come to supper tonight?" "Tonight? Well, I was sort of planning on-" "It's important," she said.

  "How come?" "Well, it just is," she said, playing for time.

  She had a decision to make, here. She could pretend it was on Daisy's account, for Daisy's going away. (That was safe enough. In spite of their childhood squabbles he was fond of Daisy, and had asked her only last week whether she would forget him after she left.) Or she could tell him the truth, in which case she might set in motion another of those ridiculous scenes.

  But hadn't she just been saying it was time to cut through all that?

  She took a deep breath. She said, "I'm having Fiona and Leroy to dinner." "You're what?" "Don't hang up! Don't say no! This is your only daughter!" she cried in a rush.

  And then glanced anxiously toward the door, fearing she'd been too loud.

  "Now, slow down, Ma," Jesse said.

  "Well, we're up here in Pennsylvania," she said more quietly, "because we happened to be going to a funeral. Max Gill died-I don't know if Daisy's had a chance to tell you. And considering that we were in the neighbor- hood . . . and Fiona told me in so many words that she wanted very much to see you." "Oh, Ma. Is this going to be like those other times?" "What other times?" "Is this like when you said she phoned and I believed you and phoned her back-" "She did phone then! I swear it!" "Somebody phoned, but you had no way of knowing who. An anonymous call. You didn't tell me that part, did you?" Maggie said, "The telephone rang, I picked it up. I said, 'Hello?' No answer. It was just a few months after she left; who else could it have been? I said, 'Fiona?' She hung up. If it wasn't Fiona, why did she hang up?" "Then all you tell me is: 'Jesse, Fiona called today,* and I break my neck getting to the phone and make a total fool of myself. I say, 'Fiona? What did you want?' and she says, 'To whom am I speaking, please?' I say, 'Goddamn it, Fiona, you know perfectly well this is Jesse,' and she says, 'Don't you use that language with me, Jesse Moran,' and I say, 'Now, look here. It wasn't me who called you, may I remind you,' and she says, 'But it was you, Jesse, because here you are on the line, aren't you,' and I say, 'But goddamn it-' " "Jesse," Maggie said. "Fiona says she sometimes thinks of sending you another telegram." "Telegram?" "Like the first one. You remember the first one." "Yes," Jesse said. "I remember." "You never told me about that. But at any rate," she hurried on, "the telegram would read, Jesse, I love you still, and it begins to seem I always will.'' A moment passed.

  Then he said, "You just don't quit, do you?" "You think I'd make such a thing up?" "If she really wanted to send it, then what stopped her?" he asked. "Why didn't I ever get it? Hmm?" "How could I make it up when I didn't even know about the first one, Jesse? Answer me that! And I'm quoting her exactly; for once I'm able to tell you exactly how she worded it. I remember because it was one of those unintentional rhymes. You know the way things can rhyme when you don't want them to. It's so ironic, because if you did want them to, you'd have to rack your brain for days and comb through special dictionaries. ..." She was babbling whatever came to mind, just to give Jesse time to assemble a response. Was there ever anyone so scared of losing face? Not counting Fiona, of course.

  Then she imagined she heard some change in the tone of his silence-a progression from flat disbelief to something less certain. She let her voice trail off. She waited.

  "If I did happen to come," he said finally, "what time would you be serving supper?" "You'll do it? You will? Oh, Jesse, I'm so glad! Let's say six-thirty," she told him. "Bye!" and she hung up before he could proceed to some further, more resistant stage.

  She stood beside the bed a moment. In the front yard, Ira called, "Whoa, there!" She picked up her purse and left the room.

  Fiona was kneeling in the hallway, rooting through the bottom of a closet. She pulled out a pair of galoshes and threw them aside. She reached in again and pulled out a canvas tote bag.

  "Well, I talked to Jesse," Maggie told her.

  Fiona froze. The tote bag was suspended in midair.

  "He's really pleased you're coming," Maggie said.

  "Did he say that?" Fiona asked.

  "He certainly did." "I mean in so many words?" Maggie swallowed. "No," she said, because if there was a cycle to be broken here, she herself had had some part in it; she knew that. She said, "He just told me he'd be there for supper. But anyone could hear how pleased he was." Fiona studied her doubtfully.

  "He said, Til be the
re!' " Maggie told her.

  Silence.

  " Til be there right after work, Ma! You can count on me!' " Maggie said. " 'Goddamn! I wouldn't miss it for the world!' " "Well," Fiona said finally.

  Then she unzipped the tote bag.

  "If I were traveling alone I'd make do with just a toothbrush," she told Maggie. "But once you've got a kid, you know how it is. Pajamas, comics, storybooks, coloring books for the car . . . and she has to have her baseball glove, her everlasting baseball glove. You never know when you might rustle up a game, she says." "No, that's true, you never do," Maggie said, and she laughed out loud for sheer happiness.

  Ira had a way, when he was truly astonished, of getting his face sort of locked in one position. Here Maggie had worried he'd be angry, but no, he just took a step backward and stared at her and then his face locked, blank and flat like something carved of hardwood.

  He said, "Fiona's what?" "She's coming for a visit," Maggie said. "Won't that be nice?" No reaction.

  "Fiona and Leroy, both," Maggie told him.

  Still no reaction.