“No, of course not—”
“I’m not that sort of person. I don’t intend to become that sort. You say I have to do something? Well, I have moved my family. Don’t you think that takes a great deal of…inner strength? I mean in this situation? I can’t even let myself assess how dangerous the whole thing really is. If I did, I wouldn’t be able to move at all.”
“Of course it’s dangerous. But I go out. I live outside in it; I walk around in it. Nothing happens to me.”
“Oh, Edna told me how you got that scab on your face. Besides, you are a man. You are a young man. I am a middle-aged woman.”
“But that’s all there is now, Mrs. Richards. You’ve got to walk around in it because there isn’t anything else.”
“It will be different if I wait. I know that because I am middle-aged. You don’t because you’re still very young.”
“Your friend Mrs. Brown—”
“Mrs. Brown is not me. I am not Mrs. Brown. Oh, are you just trying not to understand?”
He gathered breath for protest but failed articulation.
“I have a family. It’s very important to me. Mrs. Brown is all alone, now. She doesn’t have the same sort of responsibilities. But you don’t understand about that; perhaps in your head, you do. But not inside, not really.”
“Then why don’t you and Mr. Richards take your family out of all this mess?”
Her hands, moving slowly down her dress, turned up once, then fell. “One can retreat, yes. I suppose that’s what I’m doing by moving. But you can’t just give up entirely, run away, surrender. I like the Labry Apartments.” Her hands pulled together to crush the lap of her dress. “I like it here. We’ve lived here since I was pregnant with Bobby. We had to wait almost a year to get in. Before that, we had a tiny house out in Helmsford; but it wasn’t as nice as this, believe me. They don’t let just anyone in here. With Arthur’s position, it’s much better for him. I’ve entertained many of his business associates here. I especially liked some of the younger, brighter men. And their wives. They were very pleasant. Do you know how hard it is to make a home?”
His bare heel had begun to sting, just from the weight of standing. He rocked a little.
“That’s something that a woman does from inside herself. You do it in the face of all sorts of opposition. Husbands are very appreciative when it works out well. But they’re not that anxious to help. It’s understandable. They don’t know how. The children never appreciate it. But it’s terribly necessary. You must make it your own world. And everyone must be able to feel it. I want a home, here, that looks like my home, feels like my home, is a place where my family can be safe, where my friends—psychologists, engineers, ordinary people…poets—can feel comfortable. Do you see?”
He nodded.
He rocked.
“That man Calkins, the one who runs the Times, do you think he has a home? They’re always writing articles about the people who’re staying with him, visiting with him, those people he’s decided are important. Do you think I’d want a place like that? Oh, no. This is a real home, a place where real things happen, to real people. You feel that way, I know you do. You’ve become practically part of the family. You are sensitive, a poet; you understand that to tear it all apart, and set it up again, even on the nineteenth floor: that’s taking a desperate chance, you see? But I’m doing it. To you, moving like this is just a gesture. But you don’t understand how important a gesture can be. I cannot have a home where I hear the neighbors shrieking. I cannot. Because when the neighbors are shrieking, I cannot maintain the peace of mind necessary for me to make a home. Not when that is going on. Why do you think we moved into the Labry? Do you know how I thought of this moving? As a space, a gap, a crack in which some terrible thing might get in and destroy it, us, my home. You have to take it apart, then put it back together. I really felt as though some dirt, or filth, or horrible rot might get in while it was being reassembled and start a terrible decay. But here—” once more she waved her hand— “I couldn’t live here anymore.”
“But if everything outside has changed—”
“Then I have to be—” she let go her skirt— “stronger inside. Yes?”
“Yeah.” He was uncomfortable with the answer forced. “I guess so.”
“You guess?” She breathed deeply, looking around the floor, as if for missed fragments. “Well, I know. I know about eating, sleeping, how it must be done if people are going to be comfortable. I have to have a place where I can cook the foods I want; a place that looks the way I want it to look: a place that can be a real home.” Then she said: “You do understand.” She picked up another ceramic lion from the nest tables. “I know you do.”
He realized it was its twin that had shattered. “Yeah, Mrs. Richards but—”
“Mom?” June said over the sound of the opening door. She glanced hesitantly between them. “I thought you were going to come right back up. Is that my shell box?” She walked to the cluster of remaining furniture. “I didn’t even know we still had it in the house.”
“Gee,” Bobby said from the doorway. “We’ve almost got everything upstairs. You want me to take the television?”
“I don’t know why,” June said. “You can’t get any picture on it anymore; just colored confetti. You better let Kidd take the TV. You help me carry the rug.”
“Oh, all right.”
June dragged the carpet roll by one end. Bobby caught the other.
“Are you sure the two of you can manage that?” Mrs. Richards asked.
“We got it,” June said.
It came up like a sagging fifteen-foot sausage between them. They maneuvered across the room—Mrs. Richards slid the nest tables back, Kidd pushed aside the television—June going forward and Bobby going backward.
“Hey, don’t back me into the damn door,” Bobby said.
“Bobby!” his mother said.
June grunted, getting the rug in a firmer grip.
“I’m sorry.” Bobby hugged the rug under his arm, reached behind him for the door knob. “Darn door…Okay?”
“You got it all right?” June asked; she looked very intense.
“Uh-huh.” Bobby nodded, backing out into the hall.
June followed him: The edge of the rug hissed by the jamb. “Just a second.” She shoved the door with her foot; and was through.
“All right, but don’t push me so fast,” Bobby repeated out in the echoing corridor.
The door swung to.
“Mrs. Richards, I’ll take the television…if you want?”
She was stepping here and there, searching.
“Yes. Oh. Certainly, the television. Though June’s right; you can’t see anything on it. It’s terrible the way you get to depend on all these outside things: Fifty great empty spots during the evening when you wish a radio or something were there to fill them up. But the static would just be awful. Wait. I could take the rest of these things off the tables, and you could carry them up. Once we get the front room rug down, I’m going to try putting that end table beside the door to the balcony. That’s what I really like up there, the balcony. When we came here, we applied for an apartment with a balcony, but we couldn’t get it then. I’m going to split these up and put them on either side of—”