Breathing Lessons (1989 Pulitzer Prize) Page 26

  The way Mrs. Stuckey's car was parked behind theirs, they had just enough room to maneuver around it. Or so Ira claimed. Maggie thought he was wrong. "You could manage if the mailbox wasn't there," she said, "but it is there, and you are going to hit it when you veer out." "Only if I were deaf, dumb, and blind," Ira said.

  In the back seat, Fiona gave a small sigh.

  "Look," Ira told Maggie. "You go stand beside the mailbox. Let me know when I come close. All I have to do is swing into the yard a few feet, take a sharp right back.onto the driveway-" "I'm not going to be responsible for that! You'll hit the mailbox and blame me." "Maybe we should just ask Mom to move the Maverick," Fiona suggested.

  Maggie said, "Oh, well," and Ira said, "No, I'm sure we can make it." Neither one of them wanted Mrs. Stuckey marching out all put-upon.

  "All right, then you get behind the wheel," Ira told Maggie, "and I'll direct you." "Then I'll be the one to hit the mailbox, and I'll still get blamed." ' 'Maggie. There's a good ten feet between the mailbox and the Maverick. So once you're past the Maverick you just nip back onto the driveway and you're free and clear. I'll tell you when." Maggie thought that over. She said, "Promise you~ won't yell if I hit the mailbox?" "You won't hit the mailbox." "Promise, Ira." "Lord above! Fine, I promise." "And you won't look up at the heavens, or make that hissing noise through your teeth-" "Maybe I should just go get Mom," Fiona said.

  "No, no, this is a cinch," Ira told her. "Any imbecile could handle it; believe me." Maggie didn't like the sound of that.

  Ira climbed out of the car and went to stand by the mailbox. Maggie slid over on the seat. She gripped the steering wheel with both hands and checked the rearview mirror. It was angled wrong, set for Ira's height instead of hers, and she reached up to adjust it. The top of Leroy's head flashed toward her, gleaming dully like the back of a watch case, followed by Ira's lean figure with his elbows cocked and his hands jammed into his rear pockets. The mailbox was a little Quonset hut beside him.

  The driver's seat had been set for Ira also, way too far back, but Maggie figured it wouldn't matter for such a short distance. She shifted into reverse. Ira called, "Okay, bring her hard to your left ..." How come he always referred to difficult tasks as feminine? This car was not a she until it had to perform some complicated maneuver. It was the same for stubborn screws and tight jar lids, and for bulky pieces of furniture as they were being moved.

  She swung onto the packed dirt yard and around the Maverick, proceeding perhaps a bit too fast but still in control. Then she reached with her foot for the brake. There wasn't one. Or there was, but it was positioned wrong, closer than she had expected considering that the seat was moved back. Her foot hit the shaft instead of the pedal and the car raced on unimpeded. Ira shouted, "What the-?" Maggie, with her gaze still fixed on the rearview mirror, saw the blur as she drove for cover. Whap the mailbox said when she hit it. Leroy said, "Golly," in an awed tone of voice.

  Maggie shifted into Park and poked her head out the window. Ira was hauling himself up from the dirt. He dusted off his hands. He said, "You just had to prove you were right about that mailbox, Maggie, didn't you." "You promised, Ira!" "Left taillight is smashed all to hell," he said, bending to examine it. He prodded something. There was a clinking sound. Maggie pulled her head in and faced forward.

  "He promised he wouldn't say a word," she told Fiona and Leroy. "Watch how he goes back on that." Fiona absently patted Leroy's bare knee.

  "Smashed to smithereens," Ira called.

  "You promised you wouldn't make a fuss!" He grunted; she saw that he was righting the mailbox. From here, it didn't even look dented. "I don't suppose we need to tell your mother about this," Maggie said to Fiona.

  "She already knows," Leroy said. "She's watching from the house." It was true there was a suspicious slant to one of the Venetian blind slats. Maggie said, "Oh, this day has seemed just so ... I don't know ..." and she slid down in her seat till she was more or less sitting on her shoulder blades.

  Then Ira appeared in the window. "Try your lights," he told her.

  "Hmm?" "Your lights. I want to see if she works or not." There he went with that "she" again. Maggie reached out wearily, not bothering to sit up straight, and pulled the knob.

  "Just as I thought," Ira called from the rear. "No left taillight." "I don't want to hear about it," Maggie told the ceiling.

  Ira reappeared at the window and motioned for her to -move over. "We'll be ticketed for this-what do you bet?" he said, opening the door and getting in.

  "I really couldn't care less," she said.

  "Late as we're running now," he said (another reproach), "it'll be dark before we're halfway home, and the state police are going to nail us for driving without a taillight." "Stop off and get it fixed, then," Maggie said.

  "Oh, well, you know those highway service stations," Ira told her. He shifted gears, pulled forward a little, and then backed smoothly out of the driveway. It didn't seem to cause him any difficulty whatsoever. ' 'They charge an arm and a leg for something I could pick up almost free at Rudy's Auto Supply," he said. "I'm going to take my chances." "You could always explain that your wife was a blithering idiot." He didn't argue that.

  As they started down the road, Maggie glanced at the mailbox, which was standing at a slight tilt but otherwise seemed fine. She twisted in her seat till she was looking at Fiona and Leroy-their pale, staring faces unsettlingly alike. "You two all right?" she asked them.

  "Sure," Leroy answered for both of them. She was hugging her baseball glove to her chest.

  Ira said, "Bet you didn't expect us to have a wreck before we'd left your driveway, did you?" "Didn't expect you to go asking for a wreck, either," Fiona told him.

  Ira glanced over at Maggie with his eyebrows raised.

  By now the sun had dropped out of sight and the sky had lost its color. All the pastures were turning up their undersides in a sudden breeze. Leroy said, "How long is this trip going to take us anyhow?" "Just an hour or so," Fiona told her. "You remember how far it is to Baltimore." Maggie said, "Leroy remembers Baltimore?" "From visiting my sister." "Oh. Of course," Maggie said.

  She watched the scenery for a while. Something about the fading light gave the little houses a meek, defeated look. Finally she forced herself to ask, "How is your sister, Fiona?" "She's fine, considering," Fiona said. "You knew she lost her husband." "I didn't realize she was married, even." "Well, no, I guess you wouldn't," Fiona said. "She married her boyfriend? Avery? And he died not six weeks later in a construction accident." "Oh, poor Crystal," Maggie said. "What is happening here? Everyone's losing their husbands. Did I tell you we've just come from Max Gill's funeral?" "Yes, but I don't think I knew him," Fiona said.

  "You must have known him! He was married to my friend Serena that I went to school with. The Gills. I'm positive you met them." "Well, those people were old, though," Fiona said. "Or not old, maybe, but you know. Crystal and Avery, there were barely back from their honeymoon. When you've been married only six weeks everything is still perfect.'' And later it is not, was her implication. Which Maggie couldn't argue with. Still, it saddened her to realize they all took such a thing for granted.

  A stop sign loomed ahead and Ira slowed and then turned onto Route One. After the country roads they had been traveling, Route One seemed more impressive. Trucks were streaming toward them, a few with their headlights already on. Someone had set a hand-lettered signboard on the porch of a little cafe: SUPPER NOW BEING SERVED. Good farm food, no doubt-corn on the cob and biscuits. Maggie said, "I suppose we should stop for groceries on the way home. Leroy, are you starved?" Leroy nodded emphatically.

  "I haven't had a thing but chips and pretzels since morning," Maggie said.

  "That and a beer in broad daylight," Ira reminded her.

  Maggie pretended not to hear him. "Leroy," she said, "tell me what your favorite food is." Leroy said, "Oh, I don't know." "There must be something." Leroy poked a fist into the palm of her baseball glove.
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  "Hamburgers? Hot dogs?" Maggie asked. "Charcoaled steaks? Or how about crabs?" Leroy said, "Crabs in their shells, you mean? Ick!" Maggie felt suddenly at a loss.

  "She's partial to fried chicken," Fiona said. "She asks Mom to fix that all the time. Don't you, Leroy?" "Fried chicken! Perfect," Maggie said. "We'll pick up the makings on our way into town. Won't that be nice?" Leroy remained silent, and no wonder; Maggie knew how chirpy and artificial she sounded. An old person, trying too hard. But if only Leroy could see that Maggie was still young underneath, just peering out from behind an older face mask! Now all at once Ira cleared his throat. Maggie tensed. Ira said, "Um, Fiona, Leroy . . . you heard we're taking Daisy to college tomorrow." "Yes, Maggie told me," Fiona said. "I can't believe it: eentsy little Daisy." "I mean, we two are going to be driving her. We're starting early in the morning." "Not that early," Maggie said quickly.

  "Well, eight or nine o'clock, Maggie." "What's your point?" Fiona asked Ira. "You don't think we ought to be visiting?" Maggie said, "Good heavens, no! He didn't mean that at all." "Well, it sounded to me like he did," Fiona said.

  Ira said, "I just wanted to be sure you knew what you were getting into. That it would have to be such a short stay, I mean." "That's no problem, Ira," Maggie told him. "If she wants she can go on over to her sister's in the morning." "Well, fine then, but it's getting dark and we're not even halfway home. I would think-" "Maybe we better just stop right here and go back where we came from," Fiona said.

  "Oh, no, Fiona!" Maggie cried. "We had this all settled!" "I can't remember now why I said we'd come in the first place," Fiona said. "Lord! What must I have been thinking of?" Maggie unbuckled her seat belt and twisted around so she was facing Fiona. "Fiona, please," she said. "It's only for a little while, and it's been so long since we've seen Leroy. I've got all these things I want to show her. I want her to meet Daisy and I was planning to take her by the Larkin sisters'; they won't believe how she's grown." "Who're the Larkin sisters?" Leroy asked.

  "These two old ladies; they used to set out their rocking horse for you to ride on." Fiona said, "I don't remember that." "We'd pass by their porch and it would be empty, and then when we turned around to come home the horse would be sitting there waiting." "I don't remember a thing about it," Fiona said.

  Leroy said, "Me neither." "Well of course you wouldn't," Fiona told her. "You were just a baby. You didn't live there hardly any time at all." This struck Maggie as unfair. She said, "Well, goodness, she was nearly a year old when you left, Fiona." "She was not! She was barely seven months." "That's not right; she had to have been, oh, eight months at least. If you left in September-" "Seven months, eight months, what's the difference?" Ira asked. "Why make a federal case of it?" He found Leroy's face in the mirror and said, "I bet you don't remember how your grandma tried to teach you to say 'Daddy,' either." "I did?" Maggie asked.

  "It was going to be a surprise for his birthday," Ira told Leroy. "She would clap her hands-and you were supposed to say 'Daddy' on cue. But when she clapped her hands all you'd do was laugh. You thought it was some kind of game." Maggie tried to picture that. Why did her memories never coincide with Ira's? Instead they seemed to dovetail-one moment his to recall and the next hers, as if they had agreed to split their joint life between them. (Illogically, she always worried about whether she had behaved right during those moments she had forgotten.) "So did it work, or not?" Leroy was asking Ira.

  "Work?" "Did I learn to say 'Daddy'?" "Well, no, actually," Ira said. "You were way too little to be talking yet." "Oh." Leroy seemed to be digesting that. Then she sat for- ward so she was practically nose to nose with Maggie. Her eyes had darker blue specks in them, as if even they were freckled. "I am going to get to see him, aren't I?" she said. "He's not giving a concert or anything, is he?" "Who?" Maggie asked, although of course she knew.

  "My ... Jesse." "Well, certainly you are. You'll see him at supper after he gets off work. He loves fried chicken, just like you. It must be genetic." "The thing of it is-" Ira began.

  Maggie said, "What do you like for dessert, Leroy?" "The thing of it is," Ira said, "this is Saturday night. What if Jesse has other plans and he can't make supper?" "But he can make supper, Ira; I already told you that." "Or if he has to leave right after. I mean what are we doing here, Maggie? We don't have any toys anymore or any sports equipment and our TV is on the blink. We don't have anything to keep a child occupied. And would you please face forward and fasten your seat belt? You're making me nervous." "I'm just trying to figure out what to buy for dessert," Maggie said. But she turned around and reached for her seat belt. "Your daddy's favorite dessert is mint chocolate chip ice cream," she told Leroy.

  "Oh, mine too," Leroy said.

  Fiona said, "What are you talking about? You hate mint chocolate chip." "I love it," Leroy told her.

  "You absolutely do not!" "Yes, I do, Ma. It was only when I was little I didn't like it." "Well, you must have been little just last week, then, missy." Maggie said hastily, "What other flavors do you like, Leroy?" "Well, fudge ripple, for instance," Leroy said.

  "Oh, what a coincidence! Jesse is crazy about fudge ripple." Fiona rolled her eyes. Leroy said, "Really? I think fudge rippie is just excellent." "I have seen you go without any dessert whatsoever if the only choice was mint chocolate chip ice cream," Fiona told Leroy.

  "You don't know every little thing about me!" Leroy cried.

  Fiona said, "Geeze, Leroy," and slumped down low in her seat with her arms tightly folded.

  They were in Maryland now, and Maggie imagined that the country here looked different-more luxurious. The hillsides, emptied of livestock, had turned a deep, perfect green, and in the faded light the long white fences gave off a moony glimmer. Ira was whistling "Sleepytime Gal." Maggie couldn't think why, for a second. Did it signify he was tired, or what? But then she realized he must still have his mind on Leroy's baby days. That was the song they used to sing her to sleep with-he and Maggie, harmonizing. Maggie leaned her head against the back of the seat and silently followed the lyrics as he whistled.

  When you're a stay-at-home, play-at-home, eight-o 'clock Sleepytime gal. . .

  All at once she looked down at her wrist and saw that she wore two watches. One was her regular watch, a little Timex, and the other was a big old chunky man's watch with a wide leather band. In fact, it belonged to her father, but it had been lost or broken years ago. The face was a rectangle, pinkish, and the numerals were a pale blue that would glow in the dark. She cupped her hand over her wrist and bent close, making a little cave of darkness so she could see the numbers light up. Her fin- gers smelled of bubble gum. Beside her, Serena said, "Just another five minutes, that's all I ask. If nothing happens by then, I promise we can go." Maggie raised her head and stared through the leaves at the two stone lions across the street. Between them lay a white sidewalk, curving across an immaculate lawn and arriving finally at a stately brick colonial house, and within the house lived the man who was Serena's father. The front door was the kind without a window, without even those tiny glass panes that are placed too high to be useful. Maggie wondered how Serena could stare so intently at something so blank and ungiving. They were crouched uncomfortably among the twisted branches of a rhododendron bush. Maggie said, "That's what you told me half an hour ago. No one's going to come." Serena laid a hand on her arm, hushing her. The door was swinging open. Mr. Barrett stepped out and then turned back to say something. His wife appeared, tugging at her gloves. She wore a slim brown dress with long sleeves, and Mr. Barren's suit was almost the same shade of brown. Neither Maggie nor Serena had even seen him in anything but a suit, not even on weekends. He was like a dollhouse doll, Maggie thought-one of those jointed plastic figures with the clothes painted on, nonremovable, and a clean-cut, anonymous face. He shut the door and took his wife's elbow and they moved down the sidewalk, their heels gritty-sounding. When they passed between the stone lions they seemed to be looking directly at Maggie and Serena; Maggie could see the n
eedles of silver in Mr. Barrett's crew cut. But his expression told her nothing, and neither did his wife's. They turned sharply to their left and headed toward a long blue Cadillac parked at the curb. Serena let her breath out. Maggie felt a sense of frustration that was almost suffocating. How sealed off these people were! You could study them all day and still not know them. (Or any other married couple either, maybe.) There were moments-the first time they had made love, say, or say a conversation they'd once had when one of them woke up frightened in the middle of the night-that nobody else in the world had any inkling of.

  Maggie turned to Serena and said, "Oh, Serena, I'm so sorry for your loss." Serena wore her red funeral dress and she was blotting her tears on the fringe of her black shawl. "Dear heart, I am so sorry," Maggie said, and when she woke up, she was crying too. She thought she was home in bed and Ira was asleep beside her, his breath as steady as tires hissing past on a pavement and his warm bare arm supporting her head, but that was the back of the car seat she felt. She sat up and brushed at her eyes with her fingertips.

  The light had slipped yet another notch downward into dusk and they had reached that long, tangled commercial stretch just, above Baltimore. Blazing signs streaked by, HI-Q PLUMBING SUPPLIES and CECIL'S GRILL and EAT EAT EAT. Ira was just a gray profile, and when Maggie turned to see Leroy and Fiona she found all the color washed out of them except for what flashed across their faces from the neon. "I must have been asleep," she told them, and they nodded. She asked Ira, "How much further?" "Oh, another fifteen minutes or so. We're already inside the Beltway." "Don't forget we need to stop at a grocery store." She was cross with herself for missing out on part of the conversation. (Or hadn't there been any? That would be worse.) Her head felt cottony and nothing seemed completely real. They passed a house with a lighted, glassed-in porch on which drum sets were displayed, smaller drums stacked on top of larger, some gold-spangled like a woman's Iam evening gown and all of them glittering with chrome, and she wondered if she were dreaming again. She turned to follow the house with her eyes. The drums grew smaller but stayed eerily bright, like fish in an aquarium.