The next afternoon, as she walked across campus to her car, her cell phone rang. Fishing it from her purse, she checked the screen. Gracie. Cold spiked in Polly’s chest. Their cell was only to be used for emergencies.
“Are you okay? Is Emma okay?” Polly demanded. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”
“Momma, take a breath,” Gracie returned. The annoyance in her tone reassured Polly. “We are at school. It’s recess. Momma… ” The quality of the sound dwindled. From the use of “we,” Polly guessed Gracie was conferring with her sister. In a couple of seconds she was back. “Momma, remember last night you said you and Marshall were like serious boyfriend-girlfriend? Do you think he wants to marry us?”
The fear that had gripped her when the cell phone rang returned. If the girls rejected Marshall, then he was out of their lives. It was as simple as that. Except this time it wasn’t. Polly was in love. Being in love, though as grand as the poets had promised, brought with it a terrifying helplessness.
“I remember, sugar,” she said carefully. She beeped the Volvo open and slid behind the wheel, her briefcase and purse on her lap. She put the key in the ignition and started the car so the air would run, but made no move to go.
“Well… ” There was another brief conference at the other end of the ether.
Realizing she was clutching her phone so tightly she was in danger of breaking it, Polly forced herself to relax.
“Momma?”
“I’m here. Tell me.”
“Me and Emma want to interview him.”
“Emma and I,” Polly corrected automatically.
When Gracie hung up, Polly called Marshall and invited him for dinner. “Come early, around five,” she told him. “The girls want to talk to you.”
After school, Emma and Gracie went into their room and closed the door. Polly could hear them murmuring and laughing; sounds that usually filled her with joy grated on her nerves.
They didn’t come out until Marshall rang the doorbell at four-forty-five. Gracie emerged as Polly let him in. “You’re early. We’re not ready yet,” she said and disappeared back into the bedroom.
Polly laughed nervously. “I have no idea what they’re planning, Marshall, only that it’s important to them. Can I offer you a strong drink?”
“Later, maybe,” he replied. “Later, definitely,” he amended. “I’m afraid it might not make a good impression on my inquisitors.”
He was not joking.
Sitting in the living room, he on the couch and she in the chair, they tried to make small talk. When that failed, they stared at one another and waited.
At five o’clock the bedroom door again opened and the girls came out. Both had on their best dresses. Both wore shoes. It should have been endearing, comical, even, but Polly saw the alarm she felt reflected in Marshall ’s eyes.
Gracie carried a yellow legal pad and a pencil. “Mr. Marchand,” she said politely. “Would you like a glass of water or to go to the bathroom or anything before we get started?”
“Mr. Marchand?” he said, with a half-smile and a cocked eyebrow.
“It’s formal,” Emma explained gravely. “You’ll be Marshall again after. Okay?”
“Okay. As long as I get to be Marshall again.”
Gracie sat on the coffee table facing him. Emma, just as serious but still Emma, bounded up onto the sofa next to him.
“Ready?” Gracie asked.
Marshall nodded. Polly imagined his palms were starting to sweat.
“First question: Why do you like Momma so much?” Gracie read from the legal pad.
It was a good question. Polly had to make an effort not to beam at her offspring.
Marshall thought for a while, his hands folded neatly on his crossed knees. Finally he said, “I think it’s because, even though the world can be a scary place, she makes me feel like it’s full of wonderful things and that we will find them and be happy. Not all the time, of course, but a lot more than we are ever sad.”
Gracie looked at Emma. Emma nodded, her blonde hair, as fine as it was when she was a baby, swinging over her pixie ears. Gracie drew a neat line through the question.
Marshall shot a glance at Polly. She shrugged. He was on his own.
“Do you like children?” Gracie read off the next question on their list.
“I don’t know any children but you guys. If all children are like you, then I like children. My guess is that children are like everybody else. I’ll like some and won’t like others.”
Again the exchange of nods and the line through the asked-and-answered question.
“This is the last one,” Gracie said encouragingly. “If we let you be Momma’s boyfriend, how would our lives be better?”
No wonder the list had taken them all afternoon, Polly thought. They must have been googling advice columnists and picking out the hard questions.
“Gosh,” Marshal said. Then, “Gosh, that’s a tough one.”
“Take your time,” Emma said kindly.
“How about that drink now?” he said to Polly. She laughed but didn’t move. She had no intention of missing a minute of this.
“Okay. Let me think. I have some money,” he said slowly. “But your mom makes enough to buy everything you need, so that wouldn’t make it better.” He seemed to be floundering. Polly worried that he would choke. “It’s easier to fold sheets with two people. There would be two cars, so it would be easier to get to all the places we want to go. I could take care of the lawn and fix things if they got broken. I could help build things-I’m a trained architect and builder, you know. I could kill cockroaches for you.”
“We don’t kill them. We put them out,” Gracie said repressively. Neither she nor Emma was looking impressed, and Polly felt oddly hollow.
Marshall looked at his hands for a minute or more. When he looked up, his face was as open as a child’s. “The only thing I could bring to make your lives better would be more love,” he said. “I have a lifetime’s worth saved up. That should count for something.”
Gracie looked to Emma. Emma nodded. Gracie drew a line through the question. “That will be all,” she said formally. “Thank you, Mr. Marchand, Momma.”
“Thank you,” Emma echoed, and, Gracie leading, they filed back into the bedroom and closed the door.
Simultaneously Polly and Marshall expelled their breath, then laughed.
“What happens now?” Marshall asked. “Do I go home and wait by the phone? Give the names and addresses of my former employers?”