Anything Is Possible(14)

Now, as Patty drove into her driveway and saw the lights she’d left on, she realized that Lucy Barton’s book had understood her. That was it—the book had understood her. There remained that sweetness of a yellow-colored candy in her mouth. Lucy Barton had her own shame; oh boy did she have her own shame. And she had risen right straight out of it. “Huh,” said Patty, as she turned the car engine off. She sat in the car for a few moments before she finally got out and went inside.



On Monday morning Patty left a note with the homeroom teacher asking Lila Lane to come to her office, but she was surprised nevertheless when the girl showed up the next period. “Lila,” said Patty. “Come in.”

The girl walked into Patty’s office, and Patty said, “Have a seat.” The girl looked at her warily, but she spoke right away and said, “I bet you want me to apologize.”

“No,” Patty said. “Nope. I asked you to come here today because the last time you were here I called you a piece of filth.”

The girl looked confused.

Patty said, “When you were in here last week, I called you a piece of filth.”

“You did?” the girl asked. She sat down slowly.

“I did.”

“I don’t remember.” The girl was not belligerent.

“After you asked why I had no children and said I was a virgin and called me Fatty Patty, I called you a piece of filth.”

The girl watched her with suspicion.

“You are not a piece of filth.” Patty waited, and the girl waited, and then Patty said, “When I was growing up in Hanston, my father was a manager of a feed corn farm and we had plenty of money. We were comfortable, you’d call it. We had enough money. I have no business calling you—calling anyone—a piece of filth.”

The girl shrugged. “I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Well, I guess you were angry.”

“Of course I was angry. You were really rude to me. But that did not give me the right to say what I said.”

The girl seemed tired; she had circles under her eyes. “I wouldn’t worry about it,” she said. “I wouldn’t think about it anymore if I were you.”

“Listen,” Patty said. “You have very good scores and excellent grades. You could go to school if you wanted to. Do you want to?”

The girl looked vaguely surprised. She shrugged. “I dunno.”

“My husband,” Patty said, “thought he was filth.”

The girl looked at her. After a moment she said, “He did?”

“He did. Because of things that had happened to him.”

The girl looked at Patty with large, sad-looking eyes. She finally let out a long sigh. “Oh boy,” she said. “Well. I’m sorry I said that shit about you. That stuff about you.”

Patty said, “You’re sixteen.”

“Fifteen.”

“You’re fifteen. I’m the adult, and I’m the one who did something wrong.”

Patty was startled to see that tears had begun to slip down the girl’s face, and the girl wiped them with her hand. “I’m just tired,” Lila said. “I’m just so tired.”

Patty got up and closed the door to her office. “Sweetie,” she said. “Listen to me, honey. I can do something for you. I can get you into a school. There will be money somewhere. Your grades are excellent, like I said. I was surprised to see your grades, and your scores are really high. My grades weren’t as good as yours are, and I went to school because my parents could afford to send me. But I can get you into a school, and you can go.”

The girl put her head down on her arms on Patty’s desk. Her shoulders shook. In a few minutes she said, looking up, her face wet, “I’m sorry. But when someone’s nice to me— Oh God, it just kills me.”

“That’s okay,” Patty said.

“No, it’s not.” The girl wept again, steadily and with noise. “Oh God,” she said, wiping at her face.

Patty handed her a tissue. “It’s okay. I’m telling you. It is all going to be okay.”



The sun was bright, washing over the steps of the post office as Patty walked up them that afternoon. In the post office was Charlie Macauley. “Hi, Patty,” he said, and nodded.

“Charlie Macauley,” she said. “I’m seeing you everywhere these days. How are you?”

“Surviving.” He was headed for the door.

She checked her mailbox, pulled from it the mail, and was aware that he had left. But when she walked outside he was sitting on the steps, and to her surprise—only it was not that surprising—she sat down next to him. “Whoa,” she said, “I may not be able to get up again.” The step was cement, and she felt the chill of it through her pants, though the sun shone down.

Charlie shrugged. “So don’t. Let’s just sit.”

Later, for years to come, Patty would go over it in her mind, their sitting on the steps, how it seemed outside of time. Across the street was the hardware store, and beyond that was a blue house, the side of it lit with the afternoon sun. It was the tall white windmills that came to her mind. How their skinny long arms all turned, but never together, except for just once in a while two of them would be turning in unison, their arms poised at the same place in the sky.