“It’s snowing, Ed.” He made the mundane little observation sound like a love poem and Edna laughed. “And it’s too cold for the truck. We’ll have to get a room.”
She meant to make love in.
She had on a bulky orange sweater that made her eyes look tawny and picked out gold highlights in her hair, which was the exact color and texture of her son’s.
It was an old story, the kind you could see on prime-time TV any night of the week, but when it was over, and Eve took her hands away from her eyes, which she’d covered without realizing it, there were tears on them.
“Her name was Edna,” Eve said. The old man shrieked as if he’d been stung, then leaped up from the table and mashed himself against the refrigerator as if he wanted to melt into it.
“She taught at the high school,” Eve went on quietly, “same school you went to. Adam is the name she gave you.”
“Who is this woman?” the old man screeched. “What is she?” She looked at him; he looked back in sick horror. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I really am, because I know how much you loved her. You should’ve listened to her... you all should have.”
She turned back to Adam. His eyes were riveted on her, the little light in them looked stronger, steadier, and his face seemed to be changing before her eyes, but that could be wishful thinking.
She went on. “He’d gotten a contract to build the addition on the high school, that’s how they met. She was smart, like you. She liked to see how things worked, how they went together, and she’d watch the construction in her spare time... and they tell in love. Wildly, totally, madly in love. I doubt I’ll ever love anyone that much.” She shot the old man an admiring look, then looked back at Adam, whose face was losing more of that smooth, slack blandness every minute.
Eve said, “They made love in his truck, on the floor of the library one night, in her classroom, and when they couldn’t find a place inside and it was too cold tor the truck, they went to a little tourist court outside town. I didn’t get the name of it, but it had a little pine tree on the sign, didn’t it, sir?”
He answered with a low, sick moan and Eve said, “He’d been married eight years when he met Edna. Gotten to where he thought work and misery and the sly drinking he did to numb himself out were all there were to life, and he accepted it, was faithful... until Edna. Then he wanted to play it straight, and when Edna told him she was pregnant, he went to the other one and asked for a divorce. Dumb, but that’s what he did. She said no, of course. Didn’t just say it, she raged and screamed and tried to kill him. Went for him with one of the knives I imagine she used on you later. He’d never seen such hate and rage, never imagined anything like it, did you, sir?”
He didn’t answer, and Eve said, “She tried for his face but he feinted and she got him in the arm. You’ve still got the scar, don’t you, sir.”
No answer.
“I guess she liked knives. Anyway, that hour in this room when he told her about Edna was like a year in hell. Like an endless supper with the devil... and he had a short spoon.” She smiled at the old man, trying to get a reaction from him. He didn’t look at her and she went back to the story. “He knew it was no good after that. Worse, he knew the woman he’d married and had a child with was dangerous and he had to get Edna away. He played it smart; for once in his life, he came out of his daze and played it smart. He pretended he was cowed and would stay and make it up to Barbara, and she bought it. She was mean, not smart, right, sir?”
No answer.
“I guess it is easy to confuse them,” Eve mused, “but lots of mean people are dumb. She was. Stupid as a sheet of plywood, he’d said about her. So he made his false peace and he and Edna made their plans on the sly. They waited until they couldn’t any longer, because Edna was starting to show and there would be talk at the school.
“He waited for a Sunday when his wife was at church. She went every Sunday, used to cook and bake for the teas afterward and church suppers. It sounds like kindness, but it wasn’t. She did it to show the other women up, because she hated them. Hate, conceit, possessiveness were all she could feel, weren’t they, sir?”
The old man pretended to study the bottle in his hand.
Eve said, “He was making good money in those days. Might’ve gotten rich if things had worked out differently. He had enough to take care of both families, and he left his wife a whopping check and a note telling her he’d send more every month, then went to get his Edna.
“They’d rented a house in a town about thirty miles from here. Pretty place surrounded by hills, but a little isolated, and he was terrified she’d find them and show up with one of those knives when he was at work. He warned Edna, but he needn’t have because Barbara Fuller was a coward—five-year-olds were her speed. She’d never face a grown woman, not even one she hated as much as she did Edna and, oh, how she hated her. Hate burned her up, kept her awake at night. But she kept her mouth shut because she couldn’t bear people pitying her, talking behind their hands about how she lost her husband to another woman, a godless bitch who taught biology.
“People must’ve wondered, but she kept quiet and he kept quiet, and no one knew for sure where he went after work. Besides, Barbara Fuller was imperious, not the kind you’d question.
“So everyone kept the secret, and for five months he was happy. The only good time he ever had in his life, I think.” She looked at the old man and said gently, “Some people never even get that much, you know.”
Nothing from him.
“Then Edna had the baby—you. It was hard labor, even for a first baby, and, when it was over, Edna kept saying something wasn’t right. But it was thirty-some years ago; doctors were male and males know as much about having babies as I know about pissing my name in the snow.” She smiled; neither of them smiled back, but she didn’t expect them to. “Anyway, Edna knew something was wrong, but they said she was hypochondriacal and hysterical like most women postpartum and they gave her tranquilizers.” Her forehead creased as she fought for the name, then got it. “Milltown.”
“Meprobamate,” Adam said, as if the drug’s generic name mattered.
“And they sent her home.” She looked at the old man. “You didn’t believe her either, did you?”
No answer.
“He didn’t,” Eve said. “He fed her the pills and looked after her and the baby and was wild with joy at his little family, sure that the postpartum whatevers would pass the way the doctor said and she’d be fine. Sad thing was, she believed it too. She’d been to college, had an M.A. in biology, understood the workings of her own body, but she believed them anyway, even though she knew they were wrong. She took the tranks and was calm, a little floaty, a little out of it. Then two days later, she got a feeling that no man can understand and probably no woman can describe adequately—the feeling that something’s about to bubble out of you. She thought that was normal and got her sanitary supplies and went into the bathroom. She had on a white terry cloth robe, didn’t she?”
Tears glittered in the old man’s eyes.
“Then she looked down,” Eve said, “and saw the toilet had filled to the rim with blood. But the tranks worked and she didn’t panic, didn’t even worry. She just flushed the toilet, and flushed it again when it filled back up, and flushed it again—”
“Stop it!” the old man shrieked.
“—and again,” Eve shot at him, almost hating him, “and again—”
“Stooooopp,” he screamed, and she wanted to, but she’d been gone twenty-six hours; every cop in the Northeast must be looking for her by now. Someone would find her—Dave would find her—if she gave him enough time, and she gathered herself and launched into the tale of the two kitchens. She drew it out, lingered on the descriptions of what Barbara had done to Edna’s boy. It was 8:00 by the time she finished and getting dark out. The old man looked like a scarecrow with all the stuffing pulled out of him and she thought it was over; the old man and his lie were done for and she was out of tales and time.