Three Women at the Water's Edge Read online

  That was when they had another fight. Paul wanted Daisy to have an abortion. Already they were facing the costs of preschool for Danny, and the doctor bills were incredible, and the mortgage consumed Paul’s salary, and they could not afford another child. He wanted Daisy to have an abortion. Daisy wanted the baby. She screamed that it was her baby, her body, she would not kill her child, she would not have her body violated. And because the baby was in her body, she won: Paul could not, after all, drag her off by her hair to an abortionist. But he told her he hated her; he told her he would hate the new child. She told him that she didn’t care: already she loved the new baby more than she loved Paul.

  They had stared at each other then, amazed to have shouted out such things, things they had not as yet even whispered to themselves.

  Paul had left the room and the house; of course he could, he did not have to remain to take care of the children. Daisy had fixed herself a drink, and cried, and called a friend, and with the help of the drink and the friend had cheered up; decided that all married couples have such fights when faced with such decisions. It was like giving birth; you had to go through a period of pain and tribulation in order to have a new life. She fixed a good dinner for them that night, and tried to be pleasant to Paul when he returned. She thought that nothing had really changed. But she was wrong. Everything had.

  So now here she was, alone in bed in the afternoon, full of fear. She was not a stupid or shallow woman. She had simply made two mistakes that she knew of: doing what she wanted to do, and misjudging another person. Most people make those mistakes more than once in the course of their lives. She knew that it was not Paul she loved, not any longer; it was being married she loved. The thought of not having a daddy in the home filled her with a primitive desperation. What could she do, what could she do! Her children needed a father. She felt she was doing all she reasonably could: she had said to Paul, often, during the fights that sprang up between them if they were alone together for any length of time, that he could have his lover, he could go places with another woman, he could sleep with her all he wanted, and she wouldn’t make a fuss—as long as he remained Daisy’s husband, and their children’s father. Other women, she had said, would have wanted him to give up the girl, but she was not asking that of him. She was being as generous and open-minded as she could. Think of your employers, she had said, what would they think if you left your wife and three babies to go off with a young woman like Monica? Think about that. What can I do? she had even asked, what can I do to make you happy within our marriage, what else can I do? Tell me and I’ll try.

  She had seen Monica, several times. The girl was a reporter for a local paper with a liberal, almost socialistic bent. Her family was wealthy; Monica wore horn-rimmed glasses and chewed gum and was interested in social welfare. Paul, who was just learning that a wealthy liberal is usually more classy than a wealthy conservative, thought Monica very classy indeed. And it was true: She was thin while Daisy was fat, and chic and breezy while Daisy was slack and slow, and quick to impressive righteous indignation while Daisy was quick to yawn or laugh. There could be no doubt that she was better in bed than Daisy was; Daisy didn’t care much about that anymore. Monica’s conversation was surely better, too. And it was even probably true that she loved Paul much more than Daisy did. One of the times Daisy had seen Monica, Daisy had been coming out of a jeweler’s; she had just bought a silver comb and brush for a friend’s new baby. She had left her own children with a babysitter that afternoon, but still had them on her mind. She wanted to stop by a department store and buy Danny some new socks and Jenny some more rubber pants, and she would surprise her children with a new toy: a turtle they had been wanting, that chimed when you pulled its string. Well, she had come out of the jeweler’s, feeling happy, with the new baby present in its white-and-silver wrapping filling her hands, and the thought of the children’s faces when they saw the turtle, and there, right across the street, she saw Paul and Monica come out of a restaurant.

  Monica was wearing sexy high boots—Daisy felt she would have tripped and fallen and probably killed herself wearing such boots—and a long floppy brown sweater that on Daisy would have sloped and clung. Her hips looked smaller than Daisy’s nonpregnant waist. Daisy stood absolutely still on the pavement, staring at the girl; Paul didn’t interest her, she knew what he looked like. It was this girl who fascinated Daisy. And she saw the girl smile at something Paul said to her, and reach up in an impetuous rush to kiss Paul’s mouth, right there in public. She looked like such a happy girl, so happy to be there with that man, so obviously in love, it made people watching smile to see. Even Daisy smiled. She recognized the sweet rush of adoration that had to be expressed by touching; but in her case, she realized, she now always reached down, not up—down to the short squirmy bodies of her son and daughter.

  Paul and Monica walked off, arm in arm, oblivious of Daisy’s stunned observation, and Daisy watched them go, thinking how happy the two people were, and how she would not want Paul to not have that. Who would want to take such a thing away from anyone, it was so rare. She thought that if she could generously, honestly want that for Paul, why couldn’t he also want happiness for her?

  But the trouble was, Daisy thought, that Paul didn’t care what Daisy wanted anymore; he had gone past that. He had come to regard Daisy as the enemy; he wanted to escape her, or to obliterate her.

  And he did not love the children, either, they both knew that. Well, he had never been around them much, had seldom held them, and it’s hard to love something one doesn’t know. Daisy had wanted Paul to be there at Danny’s birth, she had begged him to take part in the natural childbirth classes and in the delivery. But Paul had thrown up in the delivery room; it was not the sight of Daisy’s pain that nauseated him, but the shock of blood and excrement oozing from between her long slim legs. When Jenny was born, Daisy asked one of her best woman friends to come hold her hand and count and coach her, while Paul went to the friend’s husband’s house to drink; Danny stayed with a sitter. So, Daisy thought, she wouldn’t miss him, then, when the new child was born.

  But DAMN HIM! How could he leave his family, how could he leave a child he hadn’t even seen? Was he mad? Was he insane? Hard-hearted? He had had some tenderness in him once. Didn’t his overwhelming love for Monica leave anything for his own family?

  Daisy twisted again, and the afghan fell off onto the floor. She shivered, and wiped her tears on the pillowcase. It was almost three o’clock, she ought to get up, she ought to do something. She wished she could call her mother and ask her what to do, but recently her mother had changed so dramatically that Daisy was not sure of her response, and she couldn’t face a new weird mother on top of everything else. So Daisy could only sigh and get up. She smoothed the bed, picked up the afghan, gathered together the sheets of her mother’s letter, and laid them on the bedside table. She heard her friend’s car in the driveway, and looked out the window at her son running up the walk to the door, and was filled with a wonderful love. She could not believe it—that little boy, so full of grace, was something she had made in her body. She smiled with anticipation at how she would hug him when he came in the door, at how she would see him smile.

  —

  “Let’s not talk about anything serious,” Paul had said that night as he helped Daisy get into her chair at the restaurant. “Let’s just enjoy our meal, and have our talk over coffee.”

  Daisy blithely agreed, although, looking back at it, she saw that she should have guessed by those very words what was coming. But it’s hard not to have hope at even the most difficult times. And then, would anything have been gained if she had let herself worry throughout the meal? It was such an excellent meal. She hadn’t been to such a fine restaurant in months, why should she have spoiled the occasion? It would not have changed a thing.

  So she ate crusty French onion soup, and duck, sweet with cherries and wine, and a sharp salad full of oily smooth avocados and a creamy mocha dessert.


  “Why not have a decaffeinated coffee?” Paul asked Daisy, and she agreed.

  Paul seemed to have been pacing himself: as the coffee was set on the table, he began to talk. He put his elbows on the table, and clasped his coffee cup in both hands, and did not attempt to be subtle.

  “I’ve had a good offer from a firm based in Los Angeles,” he said. “It’s a good position, with a chance for advancement. I could make a lot of money.”

  Daisy thought: No. I don’t want to move. I don’t want to leave my house, the lake.

  “I want to take the job,” Paul said, without waiting for Daisy to speak. “I want to take the job, and I want to marry Monica. I’ve talked to a lawyer. There’s a new divorce law in Wisconsin. All I have to do is claim irretrievable breakdown of our marriage, and the divorce is granted. There’s not a thing you can do about it. I’m going to get a divorce. If you’ll be decent about it, I’ll be as generous as I can with money, and I’ll be nice to the children. But if you fight me over this, if you get nasty, I’ll be nasty right back. I’ll be a bastard about money, and I’ll be a bastard to the children. I won’t come to see them, I won’t remember their birthdays, I’ll hit them.”

  Daisy stared at her husband. Her entire body curled backward from him, sick with distaste. “My God,” she said.

  “I’m desperate,” Paul said.

  “You are contemptible,” Daisy said.

  “So are you,” Paul replied.

  “My father was right about you,” Daisy said then, in a whisper of amazement, talking more to herself than to Paul.

  “What do you mean?” Paul said. “What did your father say?” It was one of his most vulnerable points; he idolized Daisy’s father, and wanted to be liked by him.

  Daisy smiled, confident of her father’s protection. “I don’t dare tell you,” she said. “You might accuse me of not being decent to you, you might walk in the house and hit Danny.”

  To her surprise, tears came into Paul’s eyes and his voice went mushy. “Daisy, please,” he said. “I told you I’m desperate. I’m trying to play the heavy, anything, to make you let me go. I don’t want to hit the children.”

  “Why can’t you stay married to me, remain a father to your children, and have your sweetie on the side?” Daisy asked. Something had happened; the worst moment was over; she began to sip her coffee.

  “Because I don’t love you. I can’t bear to look at you. You used to be beautiful; now you’re not. You don’t interest me. There’s just nothing there for me. I don’t enjoy life with you. I am not interested in anything you’re interested in. When I was sitting at that parent-teacher meeting for Danny’s preschool, I thought I’d get sick or start tearing my hair, and you were so happy, making suggestions, really caring. The life you want is just not the life I want. I want to live with Monica; I want to eat elegant meals every night without children whining and interrupting, I want to be free to go out on the spur of the moment or to lie in bed screwing all Sunday morning, or to sleep all night long without some kid wailing. I want to be selfish.”

  “So what will you do if Monica gets pregnant?” Daisy said. “She’s young. Accidents happen. Will you leave her then, too?”

  “I’m going to get a vasectomy,” Paul said. “And Monica’s getting her tubes tied. There is no way we will have children in our lives. Although she’s perfectly willing to be agreeable to Danny and Jenny and the new baby whenever they come to visit,” he added.

  Daisy stared at him over the rim of her cup. How completely Paul had planned his new life. Monica was even willing to be agreeable to the children! An urge moved through Daisy: covertly she looked about the table, searching for something hot and peppery, or oily and sharp with onions, to throw in Paul’s face. But the table had been cleared, had even been brushed clean of crumbs. There was only the expanse of white linen, and the water glasses, and Paul’s cup, and her own coffee, which tasted too good to be thrown away. It occurred to Daisy that there was not very much left she could do about the situation. It occurred to her that Paul had become the sort of person she did not like, would not even have wanted to know. And perhaps she had gotten what she wanted from him, the lovely children, the good house. She did not need to keep him around, as he was, as a father; his genes might be okay, because he was tall and good-looking, but perhaps it would be best if his influence ended right there.

  “Well,” Paul said impatiently. “Well?”

  Yet she did not want to admit this. She did not want to give in too easily. She was afraid, of vague things she could not even name. She felt that now she still somehow had the upper hand, and she was not willing to relinquish it, not when she was so unsure of the rules of the game, of the game itself. She hesitated. She stared at Paul, seeing a handsome man just past thirty, who had a neatly trimmed mustache riding a voluptuous mouth, and eyes as hard as—as what? His heart?

  “You bastard,” she said calmly. “You bastard.”

  To her awe and consternation, Paul burst into tears, right there in the restaurant. “Oh Jesus, Daisy, come on,” he said. “Why are you doing this? You don’t love me anymore. You haven’t loved me for a long time. You haven’t wanted me to touch you for years. You’ve detested me because I’ve scrambled to make money, because I haven’t gotten rich in the offhanded, altruistic, quiet way your father has. Yet you’ve been quick enough to want all the things that take money: the house, Montessori for the children. Somewhere along the way you stopped seeing me; the only time I please you is when I’m doing something with or for the children. How in the world can you want me to live with you? Can’t you be generous? Can’t you be kind? You have so much—you love the children, and they love you. Won’t you let me go off somewhere so I can be loved, too?”

  At the end of this speech, Paul did an incredible thing: he blew his nose in the restaurant’s white linen napkin. It made Daisy laugh, and she sat there, aware that she could say something snide and cutting now. But Paul’s head was bent as he blew his nose and wiped his tears on the napkin, and across his white forehead a speckling of red appeared: the same nervous rash that broke out on Danny and Jenny’s foreheads when they were sad and upset. So because for a moment he was vulnerable, and reminded her of a child, and reminded her that he could feel enough pain to cry in public and that she was, as she was with her children, the only person in the world who could stop the tears and end the pain, because of all that, the child’s rash on the grown man’s forehead, Daisy said, “Okay, Paul.” She reached across the table and stroked his forehead lightly with her long fingers. Her pain would come later, she knew, when no one was there to stroke her. “Okay, Paul,” she repeated. “Okay. It’s all right. Okay.”

  —

  Later that night, much later, Daisy lay alone in bed again, propped up on pillows, drinking hot chocolate, feeling stunned and yet somehow queenly. With a gesture of her hand, she could dispense favors. “And to you, I grant complete freedom.” She was enormous in her majesty. The chocolate filled her with sweetness. Paul was sleeping in the guest room, so Daisy had the entire double bed to herself, and she sat right in the middle of it with the blue satin comforter spread out over her knees and the rest of the bed like a realm. The house was very quiet; it was after twelve. At the restaurant, Paul had quickly calmed down and begun to discuss the concrete details of their divorce: how soon he could get it, whom he would use as a lawyer, whom she would use as a lawyer, that he would move out of the house and to Monica’s as soon as possible.

  Daisy had said very little and nodded her head to everything Paul said. I may never see this man naked again, she was thinking inanely, I may never again see this man’s penis. I know the shape of his chest, where his birthmarks are, I know about the peculiar toenail on the little toe of his left foot. All these are things I will never see again. Not that I’ve seen all that much of them recently, his body is not one I’ve held very much in the past few years. Take your weird toenail and go, Paul, who cares, who cares.

  “Daisy,” Paul said, “a
re you listening?”

  She was beginning to be overcome by a great weariness. “I’m listening, Paul,” she said. “I’m hearing every word you’re saying.” But by the time they were ready to leave she was thinking: Who is this stranger, why is he telling me all these things, what does it matter to me?