A Widow for One Year

From the downstairs of the house, a woman’s voice called up to them. “Hello! Hello?”

“Mommy!” Ruth cried.

“Marion?” Ted called.

“It’s Alice,” Eddie told them.

Eddie stopped the nanny when she was halfway up the stairs. “There’s a situation you should know about, Alice,” he told the college girl, handing her the pages. “Better read this.”

Oh, the authority of the written word.

A Motherless Child

A four-year-old has a limited understanding of time. From Ruth’s point of view, it was self-evident only that her mother and the photographs of her dead brothers were missing. It would soon occur to the child to ask when her mother and the photographs were coming back.

There was a quality to Marion’s absence that, even to a four-year-old, suggested permanence. Even the late-afternoon light, which is long-lasting on the seacoast, seemed to linger longer than usual on that Friday afternoon; it appeared that night would never come. And the presence of the picture hooks—not to mention those darker rectangles that stood out against the faded wallpaper—contributed to the feeling that the photographs were gone forever.

If Marion had left the walls completely bare, it would have been better. The picture hooks were like a map of a beloved but destroyed city. After all, the photographs of Thomas and Timothy were the principal stories in Ruth’s life—up to and including her initial experience with The Mouse Crawling Between the Walls . Nor could Ruth be comforted by the single and most unsatisfying answer to her many questions.

“When is Mommy coming back?” would summon no better than the “I don’t know” refrain, which Ruth had heard repeated by her father and Eddie and, more recently, by the shocked nanny. Alice, following her brief reading experience, could not recover her formerly confident personality. She repeated the pathetic “I don’t know” refrain in a barely audible whisper.

And the four-year-old went on asking questions. “Where are the pictures now ? Did any of the glass got broken? When is Mommy coming back?”

Given Ruth’s limited understanding of time, which answers could have comforted her? Maybe “tomorrow” would have worked, but only until tomorrow came and went; Marion would still be missing. As for “next week” or “next month,” to a four-year-old you might as well say “next year.” As for the truth, it couldn’t have comforted Ruth—nor could she have comprehended it. Ruth’s mommy wasn’t coming back— not for thirty-seven years.

“I suppose Marion thinks she isn’t coming back,” Ted said to Eddie, when they were at last alone together.

“She says she isn’t,” Eddie told him. They were in Ted’s workroom, where Ted had already fixed himself a drink. Ted had also called Dr. Leonardis and canceled their squash game. (“I can’t play today, Dave— my wife’s left me.”) Eddie felt compelled to tell Ted that Marion had been sure Ted would get a ride home from Southampton with Dr. Leonardis. When Ted replied that he’d gone to the bookstore, Eddie would suffer his first and only religious experience.

For seven, almost eight years—lasting through college but not enduring through graduate school—Eddie O’Hare would be unimpressively yet sincerely religious, because he believed that God or some heavenly power had to have kept Ted from seeing the Chevy, which was parked diagonally across from the bookstore the entire time that Eddie and Ruth had been negotiating for the photograph in Penny Pierce’s frame shop. (If that wasn’t a miracle, what was?)

“So where is she?” Ted asked him, shaking the ice cubes in his drink.

“I don’t know,” Eddie told him.

“Don’t lie to me!” Ted shouted. Not even pausing to put down his drink, Ted slapped Eddie in the face with his free hand. Eddie did as he’d been told. He made a fist—hesitating, because he’d never hit anyone before. Then he punched Ted Cole in the nose.

“Jesus!” Ted cried. He walked in circles, spilling his drink. He held the cold glass against his nose. “Christ, I hit you with my open hand— with the flat of my hand—and you make a fist and punch me in the nose. Jesus!”

“Marion said it would make you stop,” Eddie told him.

“ ‘Marion said,’ ” Ted repeated. “Christ, what else did she say?”

“I’m trying to tell you,” Eddie said. “She said you don’t have to remember anything I say, because her lawyer will tell you everything again.”

“If she thinks she’s got a rat’s ass of a chance to get custody of Ruth, she’s got another think coming !” Ted shouted.

“She doesn’t expect to get custody of Ruth,” Eddie explained. “She has no intention of trying.”

“She told you that?”

“She told me everything I’m telling you,” Eddie replied.

“What kind of mother doesn’t even try to get custody of her child?” Ted shouted.

“She didn’t tell me that,” Eddie admitted.

“Jesus . . .” Ted began.