Were women always stronger than men? Mary was stronger, even when she slept. Her sleeping was proof that she was stronger. In Jeremy’s insomnia there was something fretful and nervous; he felt the presence of thoughts he would rather not look at, nameless fears and dreads. Yet Mary, who could name exactly what she feared and whose worries came complete to the last detail — Was Abbie’s tonsillectomy really necessary, when anesthesia could backfire and kill you? Should Edward have had a tetanus shot for that cat bite? — lay peacefully on her back with her palms up, her fingers only loosely curled, open to everything. She didn’t even believe in God. (Jeremy said he didn’t either — how could he, knowing how carelessly objects are tossed off and forgotten by their creators? — but he was haunted by a fear of hell and Mary was not.) Mary was more vulnerable than any man, the deepest pieces of herself were in those children and every day they scattered in sixty different directions and faced a thousand untold perils; yet she sailed through the night without so much as a prayer. There was no way he could ever hope to match her.
He sank back through time until he encountered the faded, powdery face of his mother — a woman who had prayed all day every day, every breath a prayer. (“I don’t have to say my prayers at bedtime, Jeremy, I’ve been saying them since I got up this morning. I said them all last night in my sleep. It’s you I pray for.”) He saw her pouring tea at his tenth birthday party, which he and she had celebrated all alone in the parlor. “Just us would be more fun,” she said, and of course she was right, because his classmates disliked him and if they spoke to him at all they called him Germy. “We don’t need those other children,” she said. She smiled at him over the teapot, with the corners of her mouth trembling slightly the way they always did, making her look uncertain of the smile, uncertain of what she said, uncertain that there was anything less than God Himself that she might have confidence in. The smile grew pale and then transparent. The teapot vanished. He saw her from even longer ago than the birthday party, some distant point in time when hats were covered with starched cloth roses and her limp, watery dress was the height of elegance — the dress that looked exactly like her, its tracery of flowers so faint you could almost wonder if she had put it on inside out. She was taking him to the dentist. She stood in front of a receptionist whose hair seemed to be coated with black shoe polish. “I don’t care what you thought,” the receptionist said, “the appointment was for an hour ago and you’ve missed it. You kept the doctor waiting. He had to go on to another patient.”
“Well, perhaps there was a misunderstanding. Because I couldn’t have made it for an hour ago, you see, Jeremy would still have been in school then. Perhaps we—”
“Are you questioning my word?”
“Please, oh please—”
In front of all those people — a waiting room full of watching people on needlepoint chairs. The receptionist bent her head to the letter she was writing, putting an end to the conversation. Her fountain pen dug angrily into the page and sparks of black ink flew out. “Come, Jeremy,” his mother said finally. Then she gave a little trembling sigh and took his hand to turn him around, to lead him out of the room. On the sidewalk she said, “Don’t feel bad, darling, we’ll get you another appointment.” She patted his cheek, where a muscle was jumping. “We mustn’t waste our lives feeling cross with such people.” But it wasn’t the receptionist he was angry at; it was his mother. Why had she waited there so foolishly, the center of attention, twisting her ridiculous little taffeta evening bag around and around in her hands? Why had she pleaded that way? He imagined the receptionist leaping up suddenly, overturning her chair behind her and stabbing his mother with that sputtery fountain pen. “Take that, you worm! Die!” His mother would only cower lower, and keep that tentative smile on her face. She would crumble into the floor, ground down to powder by the receptionist’s heels, not even raising her arms to protect herself. He felt flooded suddenly with grief and horror and a deep, anguished love. “Jeremy, darling,” his mother said, “shall we go home and have a cup of cocoa?” And he said, “All right, Mama,” but it hurt to speak, even; he had clenched his teeth so hard that his jaw muscles ached.
That was long ago. It was all in the past. He was through with that.
He turned his pillow to the cooler side, lowering his head again very gently so that he would not wake Mary. He began reconstructing his favorite night game. In this game he possessed a sauntering, slap-happy courage that no one else suspected. He was given to acting on impulse. Driving down a city street one day on an errand (never mind that he didn’t know how to drive, and had no car; he would work that out later), he was suddenly taken with the urge to leave town. He would speed along for block after block, at first just toying with the idea and then giving himself over to it as the buoyant feeling of freedom swelled in his chest. All the traffic lights were green and all roads led directly out of Baltimore, without so much as another car to slow him down. The sky was dull and sunless, the best weather for his eyes. He could travel for hours without squinting or straining. He would stop when he got tired. Maybe never. If he ever settled down again it would be in a small, bare, whitewashed cubicle, possibly in a desert. He would change his name — a one-syllable first name, a one-syllable last name. Something crisp. His art would change as well. That would happen automatically. If he changed his name his work would be totally different. He would be childless, wifeless, friendless — all alone, like that silent golden period between his mother’s death and Mary’s arrival. Only this time, of course, he would know enough to appreciate it. Back then, he hadn’t. He had felt then that his life was running out too quickly, and that he should have something more to show for it. Was that what caused all major events in the world? He had felt compelled to take desperate steps before it was too late, but now it seemed that life would stretch on forever and grow more tangled and noisy every day. There had been no need for such a plunge.
He had waited for love like a man awaiting salvation. The secret, the hidden key. Was it love that failed Jeremy, or was it Jeremy who failed love? Was there anything to hope for after love?
The baby started crying, working up to it with sharp little noises that broke into Jeremy’s thoughts. Mary rose from the bed and stumbled over to the crib, maybe still asleep, already murmuring words of comfort. “There now, Rachel. There now, Rachel.” She picked the baby up and Jeremy felt the jolt of the mattress as she returned to bed. “It’s that tooth, I believe,” she said. She spoke without looking at him, taking it for granted that he would be lying awake. She propped her pillow on the headboard, sat back against it and undid the buttons of her nightgown. When Jeremy looked over he found the baby’s shadow blended into Mary’s, and all that emerged clearly was one moonlit breast. “Where is Edward’s old teething ring?” Mary asked him. “I’ll have to find it in the morning.”
The baby gulped softly. Jeremy laid a hand over his eyes.
“The drugstore has something you can rub on their gums but I don’t believe it really works,” Mary said.
Once, one of the few times she had ever referred to her life before she met him, she told him that when Darcy was born she had worried about feeding her. “I thought I wouldn’t have enough milk,” she said. Then she laughed; nursing came as naturally as breathing now, and he had often seen her walking around the house or even cooking with a baby glued to her breast. He tried to imagine her worrying over Darcy. He constructed a scene in which she might worry again — in which she would come to him, on the edge of tears, asking him what he thought was wrong. “Never mind, you’re just tired,” he would tell her. “You must leave things up to me for a while.” He would arrange cushions around her, bring her tea, shepherd the older children to the other end of the house. “Quiet now, leave your mother alone. She needs her rest.” He would form around her a nest of love and safety, and later when he tiptoed in to check on her she would ask him, “What would I do without you?” He had been picturing that for years now. He had ordered a book before Abbie was born, a book for prospective fathers; he had read and memorized all the forms of support that he might offer her. Lighten her load, the book told him. Try to help out as much as you can, shoulder all the burdens that distract her, be prepared for unreasonable tears. None of that advice had come in handy. Mary made her own nest. She sat beside him now relaxed and warm, and the baby gave soft mmm’s of satisfaction on the tail of every swallow.