She sits on the bench the next day from about ten o’clock — only an hour after her husband has left the house — until four o’clock. She stops at a store on the way to the bus stop and buys a pretty blouse. She has to stand on the bus all the way to her car. She’s tired when she gets home. Her husband is already there. He asks where she’s been.
“Shopping.”
“That’s why you look so tired,” he says.
Her husband never has much energy himself, but she has nothing to accuse him with. She will. The next day she plans to stand outside the building, to be there when work lets out, right on the side of the street with the building so she won’t miss him.
The next day she arrives early — three-thirty. He doesn’t get out until six. She looks through some stores and looks idly for his car, without much hope of seeing it. She goes to the drugstore again and has a cup of coffee and sits in the park when she gets tired of walking. At five o’clock she gets up and crosses the street and leans against the building. To pass the time she examines the chapped spots on the backs of her hands and twirls her wedding band. She reaches in her purse for her comb to comb her hair and feels for the parking ticket. It isn’t there. She searches thoroughly, even bending down to take things out of her purse. She can’t find it. Thinking that she might have dropped it she retraces her path, but it’s not on the ground. She hurries to the garage. There is a crowd of men — mostly men — waiting for their cars to be brought down. She tells the girl in the cashier’s booth that she’s lost her parking ticket. She talks a little too loudly — the girl leans back on her stool to get away from her voice, and several of the men stare at her. The girl calls the manager.
“Didn’t this happen to you yesterday?”
“I’m very sorry, but I have to have my car back.”
“What does your car look like today?”
She describes her car. It is a blue car. Blue. Yes, the roof is blue, too. A four-door blue car, and she can’t remember the make. A Chevrolet. Blue. About three hours ago.
“Four hours ago,” the manager says.
Tears spring into her eyes.
“Three,” she says.
He shrugs. What is he going to do? He calls an attendant over and tells him to get a blue Chevy. She stands in front of the men, looking up the ramp.
“Move back,” the manager hollers.
She backs into a group of men who quickly spread out to make room for her. She waits while six cars are brought. Seven. Eight. Then hers. She gets in without tipping the attendant and heads home, driving much too fast. She’s home before she realizes that yet another day is ruined, and that she’ll have to go the next day.
“Where were you?” her husband says.
She’s been crying. She never did find time to comb her hair. She’s empty-handed, so she hasn’t been shopping. What’s the point of it? She’ll never catch him.
“Where have you been?” she says.
IV
He calls this woman, who is not his mother, “Mother.” It is her mother. She has come to stay with them not because of poor health or lack of money, but because she is lonely. She makes no trouble, except for the one annoying thing she does, and doesn’t interfere with their life because she is always in her room. His wife thinks it’s abnormal that she shuts her door after breakfast and does not reappear until dinner. Their son loves his grandmother and spends a lot of time in her room, talking to her, drawing pictures for her, and eating her candy when he gets home from school until dinner. There is no good reason for disliking her, except that he does not believe she has come to live with them because she is lonely. If that were true, why would she stay in her room? But he can’t talk to his wife about it. It makes her think he wants her mother out of the house, and that upsets her. He suspects that it upsets her because her mother is necessary-she takes care of their son after school so his wife does not have to be home at three o’clock. In fact, he has called later in the afternoon several times and Mother has told him she isn’t there. He called yesterday at four o’clock and she wasn’t there, and that was the second time this week. He suspects that she is seeing her lover again. At any rate, he has started seeing his lover again. One of the things that nags at him is that his wife has seen his lover and knows she is rather plain and not very young, but he has never seen his wife’s lover. Perhaps the lover used to come to the house when he was gone, but no longer comes because her mother is there. Perhaps things have not worked out so well for his wife after all.
He has decided to go home early, to be there when his wife walks in, just to make her uneasy. He takes the afternoon off and buys things at a sporting-goods store he’ll need for his vacation. Then he stops in a gift shop and buys his wife a pretty little enamel box — a gift, to make her uneasy if she’s seen her lover today. The saleslady is all smiles, asks if she should wrap it. He tells her it will have just as much impact in the bag. She frowns a little, in sympathy for the woman whose pretty present will just be handed to her in a bag. She wraps the little box carefully in pink tissue paper. As an afterthought, he stops at the florist’s and picks out a bouquet of assorted flowers for his wife’s mother. Just in case it’s a conspiracy. He goes into a phone booth at the corner and calls his lover to say that he’ll take her to dinner Friday. Not until then? Impossible. She’s a little angry, but she won’t leave him. She has been his lover for years and years. He goes back to the florist’s and sends her a bouquet of assorted flowers. The florist looks at him strangely. The man could at least make a joke of it — instead, he takes it personally that he has come back, that he didn’t complete his business the first time. He decides to find another florist in the future.
As he thought, she isn’t home. He knocks on her mother’s door. She is surprised to see him and asks if he’s sick. No — just home early. He’s put the flowers in a vase for her, and she seems very pleased. She tells him where to put them. She doesn’t know where his wife is and acts surprised that she’s not in the house. His son? He must be with her. He goes downstairs and waits. He looks at the day’s mail and reads the paper. The house is quiet and very empty; the cars that pass are monotonous. He can understand why his wife wouldn’t want to spend much time in the house. It’s depressing in late afternoon. He doesn’t blame her for not being there, but he blames her for her lover. The bag with the enamel box is at his side.
She comes in at five o’clock. His son is with her. She’s surprised to see him. His son is happy to see him. His son has a balloon.
“Where did that come from?” he asks his son.
“A man in the park gave it to me.”
“You’re not sick?” his wife asks.
“Just home early,” he says. He gives her the bag. “For you.”
She loves the little box. He can’t tell if she’s excited because he might know, or just surprised to see him, happy with the present. She goes into the kitchen.
“Did you ever see the man in the park before?” he asks his son.
“No.”
“How come you got a free balloon?”
“The man had it.” His son shrugs.