The light snapped on in the back hall. She heard his cough and the squeak of the closet door and the familiar flapping sound of his briefcase on the upper shelf. Suddenly overwhelmed by the need for reassurance, she turned swiftly from the window and hurried toward him with an intent, wistful expression, knowing what she wanted without knowing how to ask for it.
He heard the rustle of her dress and her quick footsteps on the carpet. He was hanging up his coat as she approached^ and he said, without irritation, but a trifle wearily because this was not the first time it had happened, “I see you forgot to have the car lubricated.”
28. Soft Gift
She reflected that her difficulties with Ruth and Douglas might be inevitable; after all, years had passed since she was their age.
Each of her own birthdays she celebrated without joy, with a certain resignation and doubt; it came and went as it was supposed to, and a few months later she would find herself depressed and unaccountably perplexed by how old she was. Thirty, thirty-five, forty, all had come to visit her like ad-monitory relatives, and all had slipped away without a trace, without a sound, and now, once again, she was waiting.
Someone was at the front door; the chimes were jingling sweetly. It was the postman with a package. It was from Memphis. She cut the masking tape, lifted the cardboard flaps, and underneath the excelsior she found a pewter tray in the shape of a clover. She took hold of the stem to lift it out, but the tray, instead of remaining rigid like all the other trays she had ever seen, began to droop. The alloy was much too soft to support its own weight, so that in a few seconds the tray was dangling almost straight down from the handle. Mrs. Bridge was not surprised. She pressed it back into shape, returned it to the box, carried the box to the attic, and that afternoon wrote her annual thank-you note to second-cousin Lulubelle Watts. In years past Mrs. Bridge had received from Lulu such birthday gifts as a bile green kitchen alarm clock, a long-haired pillow, a framed photograph of the Great Smokies, and a pair of heavy bronze balls which apparently should have had an instruction booklet. In thinking over these gifts she often tried to decide whether Lulubelle disliked her and was deliberately insulting her, or whether it was simply that Lulu had the world’s worst taste. She also thought of picking out something just as grotesque to send in return, but minding the Golden Rule she always shipped to Memphis on Lulu’s birthday some very nice gift in the nature of a leather-covered engagement calendar, guest towels, a cake knife, or a bisque figurine.
29. Nothing Spectacular
At his wife’s suggestion Mr. Bridge had walked around to the vacant lot to examine the eccentric and mystifying memorial Douglas had built and which he had not yet abandoned; Mr. Bridge tried to topple it and then simply attempted to shake it. The tower did not move. Satisfied that it would not collapse while Douglas or his friends were clambering about, and that they had sense enough not to impale themselves on the outcroppings, he returned to his evening newspaper and thought no more about it.
Mrs. Bridge, however, was uneasy. She sensed that people In the neighborhood were aware of the tower. Even so, she did not become actively alarmed until a man at a cocktail party, upon being Introduced to her, mentioned that he had driven over to see the tower.
“Oh, horrors!” she exclaimed as a means of registering her attitude. “Is It famous all over the city?* 1 And though she was joking she was dead serious.
“A curious form of protest,” the man replied, tucking his pipe with tobacco; then, after a sharp glance directly Into her eyes, he added, “You are aware of the boy’s motivation, are you not?”
To which she smiled politely, being somewhat confused, and made a mental note that the man had been drinking.
The next morning as soon as Douglas left for school she telephoned the fire department. Everyone called the fire department when there was a problem that deified clas-sification. Shortly before noon a small red truck parked In front of the house and two firemen she had never spoken to a fireman before and found the experience rather strange two of them entered the house as though it were the most natural thing in the world, and listened to what she told them about the tower. Then they went out to have a look. Mildly amused at first, presently they were startled. However they had been called upon by housewives for many unnatural labors, and so they unhooked their tools of de-struction and set to work. It took them until almost dark to turn it into a mound of rubble, but at last an area of several square yards was covered with splintered wood, broken glass, wire, great gritty chunks of lumpy concrete, and whatever else had gone into the creation of it, and the air was filled with dust as though there had been a peculiar explosion. The firemen said they* would make a report of the tower and Its de-struction and that the lot would be cleaned up within a day or two.
Douglas, having come home a few minutes before the firemen left, stood watching them in grieved silence. Mrs. Bridge, seeing him from an upstairs window, went out to stand behind him with her hands resting on his shoulders, and occasionally rumpled his hair.
“It was just getting too big/’ she confided to him gently. “People were beginning to wonder.”
30. The Search for Love
It seemed to Mrs. Bridge that she had done the necessary thing, and therefore the right thing, in regard to the monstrous tower. Again and again she thought about it, and the reason she thought about it so intensively was that she perceived a change in Douglas’s attitude toward her. He was more withdrawn.
As time went on she felt an increasing need for reassurance. Her husband had never been a demonstrative man, not even when they were first married; consequently she did not expect too much from him. Yet there were moments when she was overwhelmed by a terrifying, inarticulate need. One evening as she and he were finishing supper together, alone, the children having gone out, she inquired rather sharply if he loved her. She was surprised by her own bluntness and by the almost shrewish tone of her voice, because that was not the way she actually felt. She saw him gazing at her in astonishment; his expression said very clearly: Why on earth do you think I’m here if I don’t love you? Why aren’t I somewhere else? What in the world has got into you?
Mrs. Bridge smiled across the floral centerpiece and it occurred to her that these flowers she had so carefully arranged on the table were what separated her from her husband and said, a little wretchedly, “I know it’s silly, but it’s been such a long time since you told me.”
Mr. Bridge grunted and finished his coffee. She knew it was not that he was annoyed, only that he was incapable of the kind of declaration she needed. It was so little, and yet so much. While they sat across from each other, neither knowing quite what to do next, she became embarrassed; and in her embarrassment she moved her feet and she inadverently stepped on the buzzer, concealed beneath the carpet, that connected with the kitchen, with the result that Harriet soon appeared in the doorway to see what it was that Mrs. Bridge desired.
31. Treachery