“No, she just made some smart remark to the effect that if you could stay over why couldn’t Blair stay over, too. I just don’t think she should hang around any more. It isn’t even her, finally. It’s a roomer. This is my home, you know? Did your family have roomers?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Well, mine didn’t either. On top of everything else, it leaves me feeling déclassée.”
“Martha, I’ll leave tomorrow.”
“You’ll leave when you’re well.”
“I owe you for the doctor.”
“Twelve bucks, that son of a bitch.” She leaned over and kissed me. “Happy birthday. Go to sleep.”
I was moved by her, almost to tears. “Martha, you’re a generous, competent, warm-blooded, splendid girl.”
“Now if I wasn’t déclassée I’d be perfect.”
“I hope you realize that this sickness is a tribute to you.”
“Oh yes,” she said, getting up and smoothing my blankets, “to me and our mutual loneliness—”
“That looks to be over.”
“We’ll see how wonderful everything is when your temperature goes down.”
“It’s never going down. I’m going to be fed bouillon by your daughter in her nightdress forever.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Come here, Martha dear, just one minute. Come on, dearie.”
“You’re going to die, you know. You’re going to keep this up and you’re going to die.”
However, I know I’m not going to die until I’m very old, and Martha trusted in my knowledge.
In the night the phone rang. I turned on the lamp beside the bed and looked out the window. It was four-thirty. There was not a sound in the apartment. Had I been dreaming? I dropped back into sleep, warm, protected, content.
But in the morning I knew who it was that I had been expecting to telephone. All the day before he had probably been ringing my apartment to wish me a happy birthday.
After Martha had brought me my breakfast, she plugged the phone in the bedroom, at my request. Then she started back into the kitchen, where Sissy, she told me, was crying for forgiveness. I could see she was on the verge of changing her mind about her boarder, and since I was myself preoccupied, we only touched hands, and then went about catching up on private business.
I asked the operator to give me the charges when the call was finished, and then waited to hear my father’s voice. We had not spoken with one another since Thanksgiving, and suddenly I had a premonition that he was sick, that in fact he was going to die.
Millie, our maid, answered.
“He’s gone away,” she told me.
“Where to, Millie? I didn’t know.”
“Grossinger’s,” she said, disapprovingly.
“He’s all right, isn’t he? He’s not sick, is he?”
“Oh, he’s all right.”
“What’s the matter, Millie?”
“Nothing.”
“Did Dr. Gruber go up with him?”
“Dr. Gruber, no.”
“Did she go with him, Millie?”
“I don’t know who went with him.”
“Okay, Millie. When will he be back? Christmas?”
“He told me not to expect them till after New Year’s.”
“I see … Okay, Millie. Look, you don’t have to stay around the apartment, you know. Get out, enjoy yourself. Go down to Macy’s, go look at all the windows. Fifth Avenue will be full of lights.”
“Hasn’t he sent you a card either?” she asked. “He used to go away, he used to send a picture post card. I suppose he has more important things on his mind.”
“I suppose so.”
After a moment she said, “It’s a damn shame.”
“All right, Millie, you just get out and enjoy yourself.”
“Happy birthday,” she said to me.
While I waited for the operator to ring back with the charges, the front door opened and I heard Sissy’s voice. “You can go to hell, Martha! You have no right!”
“I have every right and you watch your language.”
“You’re sexually immature—”
“Close the door, Sissy, you’re letting in a draft. Close it!”
“Who cares!” Sissy cried, and the door slammed after her.
The next thing, Cynthia was at the front door, sobbing.
“Come on, Cynthia, now stop it. You don’t want to go to school with red eyes, do you?”
“I don’t care. Where’s Sissy going?”
“She’s only moving, sweetheart. She’s going to go to a new apartment.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t want her to move. I don’t want her to move away.”
“She has to … Now, come on—”
“Why?”
“Because it’s too crowded here.”
“Well then he’s going too, isn’t he?”
“Cynthia, when you’re a grown woman and there’s another grown woman around, and she’s single — Cynthia, it’s just the way it is. I’m a grown woman, my baby.”
“But I’m a child, though,” Cynthia said, weeping.
“Ohhhh, come on,” said Martha, gently, “you hardly know Sissy. You have other friends. You have Stephanie, you have Barbie, you have Markie, you have me—”
“I don’t want her moving away.”
“Cyn, you have to get ready now. You have to go to school. Come on, blow your nose.”
The child blew. “Will I ever see Blair again? Now where’s he going?”
“Of course you’ll see Blair again. You’ll see him in Hildreth’s.”
“He’ll go away, I know it!” For the second time that morning, the door slammed in Martha’s face.
Then it opened again. “Cynthia, be careful, there’s ice—”
“I know it,” the child called back.
It was a while before Martha came in to see me. I took a pill and drank the last of my coffee, and decided it was time to dress and drive myself home and be sick there. But when I started to get out of bed, my limbs just couldn’t do the job.
Martha appeared, wearing her coat, and I pretended not to notice the shape her eyes were in.
“I have to go shopping,” she said. “Do you want anything?”
“You know, I feel much better. I think perhaps at noon I’ll drive home.”
“Slimmer said stay in bed. You can’t go out in this weather; it’s snowing. It’s awful.”
“I can’t stay here forever.”
“Who’s talking about forever? You just can’t go out now.”
“Sissy doesn’t have to move, Martha, because I’m staying here.”
“Sissy has to move because I’m staying here. Please, don’t mind that scene. You shouldn’t be feeling guilty about anything,” she said, kissing my forehead. “I mean even the things you should be, you shouldn’t be. It’s a privilege of the shut-in.”
“But it has to do with me. I know it does.”
“You only precipitated what had to be. I should be thankful to you.”
“What about the rent?”
“What about it?”
“You told me Sissy helped with it.”
She made a gesture with her hands that I can only characterize as hopeless. “I’ll be all right.”
“Martha, I feel responsible,” I said. “I know I’m making Cynthia unhappy too.”
“You’re not making me unhappy! You’re not making little Markie unhappy. He’s out in the hall right now, just dying to take your temperature. Majority rules around here. Cynthia is going to have to start to learn the facts of life. Don’t worry about her — she’s going through a whining stage, that’s all. It’s only a battle of wills, and I can’t think of any reason why I shouldn’t be the winner. I’m twenty years older than she is, I earn the money around here, and I do the major part of the worrying, and she’ll be fine, just fine.”