Little Deaths(55)

“And there’s something else. She never said so, not directly, but I think she worried about what people would say if she let Frank have the kids. If she just walked away. She knew that every woman in Queens would judge her for it. Would hate her for it. Under it all she really cares what people think of her. I used to tell her she cared too much.”

Pete waited. He thought there had to be a reason she was telling him this.

“Just the same, I know she thought about it. The kids were all that was standing between her and the life she wanted. She’d never have given up the kids, but she sure as hell thought about it. She would get talking to a guy at work, a customer who’d pay her some attention—or she’d come back from those weekends away with Lou, and she’d talk about what it would be like to have a rich husband. Someone with gold lighters and cuff links, a big shiny car, someone who could fly you to California when he felt like it. She told me once—Cindy was sick with the stomach flu, Frank hadn’t sent a check that month, she was on a real downer—and she said her dream was just to wake up to a closet filled with new clothes and to sit down every night to a dinner served by someone else. She’d never have gotten back with Frank, not once she’d had a taste of what was out there.

“I think she wanted those things real bad. I hope she gets them one day. I hope she does.”

How strong was the pull of that other life, Pete wondered. How tempting?

She would have gotten a glimpse of it when the kids were asleep and Gina came over with a bottle. Or when she’d made enough in tips that week to leave them with a sitter and go to an afternoon movie, sit back in the dark and watch women just like her make men fall in love with them.

But then she’d have had to go home, park the kids in front of the TV, find something for dinner.

He thought about the photographs of the apartment that Devlin had given him. The dirty plates in the kitchen, the crayon marks on the walls. The kids’ clothes on the sofa, their toys on the floor, the attempt to keep the living room neat by piling things in corners: the kids’ drawings, their books, odd socks.

And then he thought of the photographs he’d seen of her own bedroom. The open closet where her clothes hung in an ironed, pastel-colored line. The drawers where her underwear and nightgowns were carefully folded. The gleaming surfaces, the vacuumed carpet. Everything tucked neatly away.





13


Ruth was lying on the couch, one-third-friendly with a bottle of Scotch. Gene Pitney was on the record player, set to repeat. She couldn’t bear silence anymore. She sang along softly as she filled her glass, raised her head and swallowed, filled it again.

She was drinking to get drunk. It was almost the end of October, and the kids’ birthdays were behind her. She had planned to pretend the seventeenth and the twenty-fourth were just regular days, and to fill them with bars and bourbon and men and not a single minute spent thinking about the dates. Then her mother had called and insisted they observe them together. That’s what she said: observe. Like these were religious holidays for worship or devotion.

Ruth had given in, but she never wanted to spend another week like that. Just the two of them and the ticking clock. Daily visits to church, overcooked meals that no one wanted to eat, and everything unsaid heavy as lead in the overheated room.

Never again.

The phone rang, and she held her full glass out in front of her and reached back over her head to answer it. Knocked the whole thing onto the floor and rolled off the couch, spilling her drink on her shirt.

Frank’s voice came faintly from the floor, “Ruth? You there, honey?”

He sounded so funny. Like he was a long way away. Ruth fumbled for the receiver. But as soon as she heard his voice clearly, heard the nervous edge to his tone, she knew why he was calling and she sobered up fast.

She’d thought about it, of course she had. Not so much that side of it—Frank was nothing special in the bedroom, but he was considerate and . . . well, she was comfortable with him and that counted for something—but more the rest of it. Eating dinner together every evening before Frank went off to his shift or out for a few beers with the boys. Saturday nights on the couch, smoking, watching TV. Or seats at the Trylon, and a hot dog apiece if it was after payday.

At one time, the thought of those routines, Frank’s habits—his way of folding his pants before piling his change in neat stacks on the bureau, his way of turning to her in the night and saying real low, “Hey there, baby”—all of that had pushed her back and back against a wall until she felt trapped.

Now, though, since the kids were gone, things were different. Everything had changed. Including her. Maybe a little routine, a little kindness, was what she needed.

So when Frank suggested dinner the following evening, she said yes. And when he pulled up outside the apartment afterward and turned to her, his face backlit by the amber glow of the streetlight, she felt the reciprocal glow of the wine and the brandy she’d had with dinner, and she touched his face lightly and invited him in. She even played along with the fantasy of the demure wife, the one he’d made it clear he wanted: she sat with her legs crossed, back straight, eyes wide rather than heavy-lidded, lips in a sweet smile rather than pouting, inviting.

She knew Frank: she was still his wife in every way that mattered. She would always be his wife and she didn’t need to invite him.

And so she looked into his eyes for half a second longer than was necessary, and he leaned toward her. And she felt the familiar texture of his mouth, smelled his cigarettes and the soap he used, felt the familiar strength of his arms around her, and felt something like relief as he picked her up and carried her to bed.