6.
"You sure as h.e.l.l don"t want to get pregnant, Clara."
It was Lowry"s somber mode: calling her Clara. Clara. She"d grown to like best those times Lowry called her She"d grown to like best those times Lowry called her sweetheart, honey. sweetheart, honey. Even Even kid. kid.
There were to be three sun-drenched days in what Lowry called a resort town, that had formerly been a fishing village on the Atlantic Ocean; these days would remain in Clara"s memory for the remainder of her life. Then she found herself back in Tintern- Tintern, that had once seemed so exciting to her!-on the Eden River, alone; her brain dazzled by what had happened to her, and what had not happened.
Lowry was always at the center of her thoughts. Like the sun, you needn"t even glance up to see it, let alone feel it. You could even forget it, in a way. So Clara concentrated upon what surrounded her-working at Woolworth"s, going out in the evening with whoever was around, gazing dreamily out her second-floor windows, sleeping alone and touching herself gently, in love, as her lover had touched her, though not always gently. Clara. Beautiful Clara. Clara. Beautiful Clara.
Sometimes Lowry"s voice was so clear, she woke from a dream of overwhelming happiness. Clara: I don"t want to hurt you. Clara: I don"t want to hurt you.
She wasn"t sure what that meant. An apology ahead of time.
A warning?
[image]
" "Beautiful Clara." " It was so: she"d changed. Customers in the store regarded her closely, and smiled. Even the women lingered, friendlier than she remembered. And on the street. In that way that people smile at a good-looking girl or woman, with no thought for why, what logic.
Now it seemed to Clara that Tintern had grown mysteriously less beautiful. Stricken with the hot-humid air of August, that made you sweat inside your clothes though you"d just had a bath, and had talc.u.m-powdered your body with care. Clara walked on Main Street, and on River Street, and on Bridge Street, and sometimes on the gaunt old nightmare bridge, gripping the railing when vehicles pa.s.sed, and the structure shuddered. In her old life-she"d come to think of her life before Lowry had made love to her as old, bypa.s.sed-she"d have been scared as h.e.l.l, but now the sensation thrilled her. As if Lowry were close beside her. She knew herself radiant and buoyed by happiness. If men or boys approached her, she laughed and told them that she was engaged, her fiance was out of town.
That word: fiance. fiance. Speaking it, with a smile. Speaking it, with a smile.
Drifting into a dream open-eyed. Her mind was a thousand miles away, in that seaside town on the Atlantic Ocean.
Atlantic seaboard Pearl had murmured solemnly. Pearl had murmured solemnly.
"Then it"s decided. He has decided." So Clara had thought on the first day, and on the second day of lying in the sun with him and observing other people live out their lives-parents, children- who were staying at the sh.o.r.e as she and Lowry were doing, though probably for longer. "It must be all decided, he doesn"t even need to think about it." Lowry would lie for a while on his stomach, and if she leaned over to gaze at his face she saw how vulnerable it was, his skin that was a man"s skin, coa.r.s.e, pitlike scars at his hairline from some accident long ago, or fight. At the beach, Lowry soon became restless. He read, or tried to read: paperback books, newspapers, magazines. Sometimes turning the pages so swiftly, Clara supposed he wasn"t really reading. If she leaned against his arm, and began to read aloud, haltingly, as a child might, Lowry laughed and caressed the nape of her neck, "Go on, good. Don"t stop." But Clara invariably stumbled over a word, and shoved the book from her.
At other times, after making love, Clara sat beneath Lowry"s gaze and brushed her hair that fell now to nearly her hips, staring out at the ocean. That slow dreamy time Clara wanted to last forever but knew would not. Lowry became gigantic to her: a presence more than the sun, that could cut the sun off from her. He"d grown to fill her mind most of the day, and at night he was a presence she slept curled against and would have clung to if he"d allowed it. "He must not be thinking of it, even," she told herself, waiting to ask him what plans he had and whether he was keeping in mind that note she"d left for the dime-store manager about Thursday. Would that day come, and Clara would be back in the d.a.m.ned store? She could not believe it.
Yet a part of her mind must have accepted it, because she felt no great surprise, only a faint, wan disappointment, when she was back in Tintern on Thursday, just as Lowry had said.
The days at the sh.o.r.e were a flashing, blurred interruption of the summer, and all that Clara retained of it, to hold in her hand, were two snapshots: Lowry and Clara snuggling together like teenaged lovers in an automatic photo stand, smiling into the camera"s blank eye. Clara had been sunburnt, her hair windblown and tangled, and Lowry hadn"t shaved for a day or more, grinning with mean-looking wires pushing from his jaws. The edges of both photographs were clouded. One of the snapshots was for Clara, and one was for Lowry, but Clara discovered both snapshots among her things.
And she had also this tanned sensuous body, and certain memories, and Lowry"s promise of returning again in two Sundays-it was the earliest he could make it, and he kissed her goodbye with genuine regret-and a vague suspicion that her awkwardness about taking care of herself taking care of herself in the way that Lowry wanted might have consequences. in the way that Lowry wanted might have consequences.
Still, Clara had no way of knowing yet.
And even if her period came late, that might not mean anything. For her period sometimes came late, and sometimes early. Clara was so stricken with self-consciousness, she could not bear to speak of such things to another person, let alone a man. When Lowry had said, "You sure as h.e.l.l don"t want to get pregnant, Clara," she"d heard the word clearly, but turned aside, blushing. She knew: Lowry did what a man did, sometimes: slid things onto himself, thin-rubber ugly things that she, Clara, did not acknowledge, could not bring herself to acknowledge except in repugnance, afterward. Pregnant Pregnant was not so uneasy a word, or an idea; you heard was not so uneasy a word, or an idea; you heard pregnant pregnant often, though not as often as often, though not as often as going to have a baby going to have a baby, which was somehow easier to utter. Clara had a vague idea-hadn"t Rosalie said so?- poor Rosalie, who"d gotten pregnant, so young!-that you couldn"t get pregnant so fast. Or maybe it was Sonya who said so. Based upon her sister who"d tried so d.a.m.n hard to get pregnant, and it had taken years. Sonya"s att.i.tude caught on with Clara, who could imagine her lumbering sardonic friend sneering at other people"s advice. (Sonya was involved with a married man, a gypsum mine worker twelve years older than she was.) Trouble was, Sonya seemed always angry these days, and Clara avoided her afraid she might hear something she didn"t want to hear. The serenity of Clara"s face might annoy Sonya, for with Sonya love made things jagged and troublesome and brought out blemishes on her face. Clara had softened. If her face looked empty it was because her mind was occupied, sorting out and arranging memories. In four days there had been less of them than she would have thought, because moments blended into one another and were almost the same moment. But she had certain images to love: Lowry doing this, Lowry looking at her in such a way. One day a man had said something over his shoulder to Clara, and Lowry had grabbed him and pulled him around, and the man had jerked away and told Lowry to let him alone, and Lowry had waited a second and then gone after him again, pushing him along with one hand and showing by the stiffness of his bare back that he was furious. When he came back to Clara she had been ashamed, not because he had been so angry on her account but because he had been angry just for something to do. That was one of her memories. And all the times when she had said aloud to him, "I love you," the words tortured out of her by a force that was like a devil squirming inside her, lashing out in his frenzy. Sunlight in at the window-they stayed in a boardinghouse that was clean but a little noisy-and certain water marks on the ceiling, and the eating stands and taverns, one after another, and Lowry squeezing her shoulders or swimming in loose circles around her: she had these things to think about.
As the days pa.s.sed she began to think more and more of Lowry"s baby. Her mind broke through to the surface of the day, shattered by the sunlight, and she was positive that she was pregnant-she knew it must be. But she waited. She fell into the habit of dreaming about Lowry and the baby together, as if the two of them were somehow one, and what had begun as a thought that frightened her turned into a daydream she looked forward to. If she had a baby it would be his and it would be something only he had given her, something he had left her with. After the first several times he had never again said to her, "Are you taking care of yourself, Clara?" because it embarra.s.sed her. Sometimes they would fall asleep and he must have known she was doing nothing, but forgetfulness came down upon them like the lazy heat of the beach and told them that all was well. Clara thought that all was well forever and that the future would stretch out before them the way the ocean and the beach did, stretching out of sight but always the same, monotonous and predictable. She supposed it would be that way with Lowry once he settled down. She supposed that in his mind everything had been decided-that he was going to keep her with him from now on-but, back in Tintern a while later, she had had to give up that idea and start working on this new one.
On the surface of her mind was this worry, was she going to have a baby? Or could it be that her body was thrown off by Lowry? It was only on the surface of her mind, however. What she really felt came out when she said to Sonya one day, "It would be nice to have a baby," and then stopped to think what she had said. Sonya made a contemptuous noise that was like something ugly kicked out before you, for a joke. This did not bother Clara. She felt like a plant of some kind, like a flower on a stalk that only looked slender but was really tough, tough as steel, like the flowers in fields that could be blown down flat by the wind but yet rose again slowly, coming back to life. Her first thought was, "Lowry will be mad at me for not taking care of myself "; then she thought, "It"s his more than mine because he"s older," and remembered the many times he had been gentle with her, drawing her close with a casual gesture that meant more to her than anything else. They came together at moments like that. On the beach his dreaminess had been a dreaminess that drifted out for miles, while hers was a dreaminess of motion content to remain still for a lifetime; but still they had come together at certain moments.
Ginny"s children, especially the baby, drew out Clara"s love. On Sunday she went to a charity picnic with them, just to have something to do while waiting for Lowry to come (he had said not before eight), and she kept asking to hold the baby even when Ginny said she didn"t mind carrying it herself. Ginny was pregnant again. Her husband Bob had not found work yet and he and Ginny were living with her mother.
They walked slowly about together, a little group. Clara thought that everyone at the picnic looked different, special. The old women wore hats, round black straw hats with bunches of artificial flowers, usually violets. Many of the men wore suits, though they looked awkward and hot in them. Ginny wore a filmy long-sleeved dress that was already stained with the baby"s milk, an accident they had in the car, but her face was freshened by the music and the excitement of the picnic and she did not seem to mind the way Bob walked a few steps ahead of them. Clara returned looks she got with a slow, dreamy smile, not surprised that people should think her worth staring at but rewarding them for it. She saw Sonya and her boyfriend standing at the Volunteer Firemen"s Beer Tent, the biggest tent of all, but she did not go over to say h.e.l.lo. Ginny nudged Clara and said, "Don"t they have a nerve?" but Clara just shrugged her shoulders. She was in a warm, pleasant daze, trying to balance the secret she was now certain of about herself with the color and noise of the picnic, dazed by what she knew that no one else, not even Ginny, could know.
They stopped at the bingo tent and the two girls played a few games, while the baby whined and tugged at Clara"s skirt and the boy tried to swallow the dried-up corn kernels they pushed around on the dirty old bingo cards. A fat lady, the wife of the man who owned the drugstore, stood by them and chattered at the baby. She wore an ap.r.o.n with special pockets sewn in it to hold change. "Too bad you don"t have better luck, you two," she said to Clara and Ginny. On the last game Clara had no luck either, and sat toying with the kernels of corn and staring down at the card with a small fixed smile, her mind already fallen beyond the noisy tent of bingo players and the shaking of the numbered b.a.l.l.s and the recorded music to those days by the ocean with Lowry. But those days seemed already far away.... Then someone yelled "Bingo!" and, as always, she wasn"t ready just yet to hear it. Ginny said, "c.r.a.p," and pushed her card away. Clara swung herself around on the bench and let her legs fall hard. She thought, "Six or seven months and I won"t be able to do that." This thought, which came out of nowhere to her, was more real than all the memories she had been reliving.
They found Bob at the beer tent, which was naturally where he would be, and stood around talking with people. There was just a slight wind and it picked up dust-the land was dry in August- and Clara sometimes reached down to keep her skirt by her knees. She wore yellow high-heeled shoes and no stockings, which was a mistake because a blister had begun on one heel, and a pale blue dress that reminded her of Lowry"s eyes, though her own were about the same color. That morning, and every morning since Thursday, she had washed her face with cream in a blue jar she bought at the drugstore (it cost fifty-nine cents) and stood dreamily ma.s.saging her skin in small circles, looking beyond her own eyes in the mirror. After she finished with the cream she washed it off her face carefully and then leaned close to the mirror and plucked at her eyebrows, until they were shaped in thin rising lines and made her look a way she had never looked before-delicate and surprised. She had always had the look of a girl standing flat-footed, but now she looked like someone else-it might have been the girl in that dime photograph she was imitating. Herself, but a better self. Whenever men glanced at her and their eyes slowed, Clara turned her head a little to loosen her hair just to give them something more to look at; being with Lowry had done that for her. She thought that all men were like Lowry in some way, or trying to be like him. At the beer tent Bob joked around and jostled her and then, when Ginny had drifted a short distance away, talking to someone else, he had taken hold of her upper arm and squeezed it. Clara looked at him as if she did not know who he was, doing such a thing. She had listened for months to Ginny"s weeping over him, and she knew that Ginny was right, but now this hard, sullen young man confronted her with a look of trouble that was all his own and she could not really identify him. It crossed her mind that he too could have done what Lowry did to her, and the baby she might be going to have could be his baby, that it could be any man"s at all-and the idea was astonishing. Except for Lowry, everyone was common.
She got away from him and caught up with Ginny, and was holding Ginny"s baby and wondering at its out-of-focus eyes when someone approached her. It was Revere. She smiled at him and made the baby"s hand wave at him, as if it were natural he should just step up out of a noisy crowd at the Tintern firemen"s picnic. Clara chattered about the baby: "His name is Jefferson and this is his mother here, Ginny, and that"s his father down there-where they"re all laughing and carrying on. Isn"t it a nice picnic?" Revere stood with one hand in his pocket, awkwardly.
"Clara, give him back. You go have fun," Ginny said. She sounded maternal and bossy, like her own mother, but it was really meant to be critical so that Revere could catch it: after all, he was here alone and he was married and hadn"t he just fired Caroline"s husband for drinking too much? She took the baby from Clara"s arms and left Clara just standing there, facing Revere.
"You seem to like children," he said.
"I love babies especially," she said. She thought of Lowry and of any baby that Lowry might father-it would be half hers and might look like him around the eyes, and she would let him name it-and a sensation of faintness rose suddenly in her. She and Revere began to walk together. She felt this dizziness, this uncertainty that was not at all unpleasant, and wondered if she should tell this man about it. He seemed to have nothing to say and so she went on, chattily, "I"d like to have seven or eight children, lots of kids, and a big house and everything. n.o.body is happy in a house without a baby, right? -I was just over visiting by the ocean, all that ways. I went with some friends and was swimming and out on the beach."
She turned to him with a dazed, dazzling smile, as if she were still a little blinded by the sun. But he did not smile with her. He looked uneasy. "A friend of mine is coming to visit me tonight," Clara went on. In her excitement she wanted to tug at Revere"s arm to make him understand how important this was. "I have lots of things to do and have to get back home-I just came to the picnic with a friend-"
"Would you like to talk about them?-your friends?"
She thought this was a strange question. She glanced at Revere and was a little slowed down by his eyes, which were fixed on her in a way she remembered Lowry"s had been. The faintness swelled out inside her. She wanted to turn and get back to Ginny, where it was safe, even if Ginny was angry, and get rid of the time somehow until eight o"clock when Lowry would come. She said, "My girlfriend Ginny-" but was cut off by some boys running past.
They strolled through the picnic grounds and stopped at the edge of the parking lot. The "parking lot" was just a field where cars could park for the picnic. From here the music sounded thin and sleazy. Revere said, "I think I"d like to talk to you. I don"t ask anything from you." Clara smiled nervously. She kept listening to that music and thought how far away it was, so quickly, and here she hadn"t been with this man for five minutes.
"Yes," Clara said, "but my girlfriend- I"m supposed to have supper with her folks."
"I can get you something to eat."
"Something to eat?" Clara said blankly. "But my friend is coming at eight."
"Is it a boyfriend?"
She said cautiously, "Just a friend," and turned to him as if to get them on their way back to the picnic. But her gaze swung around past his chest and did not dare reach up to his face. She was conscious of his standing there, of his watching her. She was conscious of his name. His name floated about him like perfume around a beautiful woman, touching people before he even came near, defining and fixing him in a way he himself could never know about. Lowry himself had known this man"s name....
They stepped through the weeds and went over to his car, which Clara recognized at once. She must have looked at it more closely than she knew. She said, "Someone told me your name is Revere," and he laughed and said, "I told you that myself." But she did not mean him.
"You look a little different than you did before," he said.
"Yes, I know it."
She got in his car. The seat was hot and burned the backs of her knees. "Maybe," she said weakly, "we could not drive far but just a little ways? Just a short drive?"
He drove out to the road, over the b.u.mpy field. Some kids were playing around the parked cars. A boy with a toy cane stood on the roof of a car and waved his cane at them, calling something. Clara closed her face against them.
"What did you want to talk about?" Clara said.
He seemed a little embarra.s.sed. She wondered if there wasn"t something resentful about him, about the way the corners of his mouth drooped in profile as if he were puzzled himself over what he was doing. "I should be back to have supper with them," Clara said, relaxing a little so that she could enjoy the drive, "they"re real good friends to me. I don"t have any family or anyone and they invite me over a lot.... I"m friends with a girl named Sonya too. But you probably don"t know her...."
He might have been waiting for her to get through with this kind of talk. Clara shrugged her shoulders in miniature at his silence, not for him to see. She thought of Lowry probably on his way driving to her, and of how they would make love that evening. She thought of the ways she might use to explain to Lowry what was wrong with her-unless it was just a mistake. She would have liked to talk to Revere about Lowry but did not know how to begin. Anyway, you should not confide in adults, especially men; it was better never to say anything secret to anyone.
They drove up the highway and kept going, not fast. Clara looked out the window and enjoyed it, though she"d had quite a bit of driving with Lowry the week before. Moving around and getting somewhere so long as you were more or less already on your way back always struck her as nice; it was nothing like riding on the crop seasons. She said, "I loved the ocean. I loved driving there and seeing everything. You can see more of the mountains on your way out.... Do you travel around much?"
"Mostly to Chicago."
"Chicago?" Clara said. "In this car?"
"By train."
"Oh," she said, pleased. She liked that expression, "by train." Anyone else would have said "on the train." She imagined him speeding through the countryside in those straight, relentless lines railroad tracks made, cutting through backcountry and eating up distance like nothing. She looked over at him as if he had performed a magic feat. "Mr. Revere, what was it you wanted to say?"
He brought the car to a stop as if he were far enough now from what had bothered him back there. They were at the top of a hill and could look down to some scrubby land where there was a narrow angular lake-"Mirror Lake"-dotted with trees and the stumps of trees on its north side. Young people swam here and had picnics, but today there were only a few couples; everyone was at the charity picnic. Clara could hear someone"s car radio blaring, all the way up the hill. The memory of those days with Lowry came back to her like a stab in her breast. Clara felt how far she was from them already, just the way Mr. Revere must feel far from those young people who were swimming and carrying on around Mirror Lake.
Revere rubbed his face. He might have been, like Clara, trying to wake up out of a dream. "There are some things I can"t understand," he said slowly. His words were a little harsh. Clara noticed that they cut at the air more than the words of other people did; there was something impatient about them. "I don"t think I can explain them. But-when I was your age I stayed with an uncle of mine who lived on a ranch in Dakota. I spent the summer there. He drove my cousins and me into town and it was hardly a town at all-much smaller than Tintern-just a muddy street with some stores. Back from the road there was a shack and a big family lived there. Nine children. There was a girl my age. She had long hair that was almost white and dressed just in rags and she was-like you.... She was Swedish."
"I ain"t Swedish," Clara said suspiciously. "I"m American."
"She was happy," Revere said.
Clara wondered at that. She did not understand what this man was talking about. What he was saying had something to do with another girl, someone who was grown up now and old, lost, forgotten, someone Clara had never even seen. "That was nice," Clara said uncertainly. "I mean-her being happy."
"My first wife was from a family in the valley here," Revere said. "She was my own age. Then she died and I married Marguerite-"
"Yes," Clara said, "somebody said that was your wife"s name." He took no notice that someone had been talking about him. He said, "We have three boys but she"s never really been well since before the first one was born. She"s a fine person ... her father was a fine man. It"s all in her, behind her ... her family.... But her heart is heavy."
"Why?"
He looked off to one side, as if Clara had asked a foolish question. "Most people are that way, Clara," he said.
Clara did not know what to say. Should she make a joke, or smile, or what? What made her uneasy was the knowledge that she would not be able to tell anyone about this conversation, especially not Lowry. She said, gropingly, "Your boys are real nice, anyway the two I saw- There ain"t something wrong with the youngest one, is there?"
"No."
"But-then-"
"There"s nothing wrong."
"Is your wife sick bad?"
"I don"t know."
"Does the doctor come out a lot?"
"Yes."
Clara thought about that. "It"s nice he can come out a lot," she said. "A doctor looked at me once. He gave me some shots in the arm that stung a little.... My pa, though, was real scared. Grownup men get scared sometimes too. But he wasn"t scared of anything else," she said quickly. Revere was still looking out the window. Outside, some blackbirds were fighting over something on the ground. "Tell me," Clara said suddenly, "are there books in your house?"
"Some."
"Are they-up on the walls?"
"On shelves? Yes."
"Oh," Clara said, pleased, "that"s nice."
Revere smiled at her. "Do you like to read, Clara?"
"Yes! But I have trouble, sometimes." She paused, twining her hair around her finger. "I"m kind of slow, I guess. I have to say the word to myself when I read, and it takes so long, it makes me tired. If I have kids, I want for them to read. I would give them lots of books so they could read all the time." Clara thought of Lowry skimming his paperback books and magazines at the sh.o.r.e, and giving her the dictionary; of course, Lowry would want his children to be educated. If you want a life. Different from your parents. If you want a life. Different from your parents. "If I"d gone to school and learned things right, I"d be-I"d be different than I am now." "If I"d gone to school and learned things right, I"d be-I"d be different than I am now."
"But Clara, why do you want to be different?"
She felt her cheeks coloring. She laughed. This man was saying he liked her the way she was. "I guess I don"t want to be different."
Revere gazed at her solemnly. If Curt Revere was a playing card, Clara thought, he was one of the kings. Heavy-jawed, inclined to brooding. Not fast and s.e.xy-treacherous like the jacks. You were supposed to think that the king of spades was stronger than the jack of spades, but that wasn"t so. Having so much, knowing so much wore out your soul, for you knew that you could lose it.
"Ginny and her folks are gonna be ... wondering. Where I am."
But Revere didn"t seem to hear. With his first and second fingers he was squeezing his lips, thinking. She could feel the resentment in the air about him, and something else, too-that steady brooding weight of his stare that meant that Clara had been selected out of the visible landscape-and maybe the invisible landscape, too- just for him. He saw in her face a face that Clara herself could not see, and she felt a moment"s confused power, brief as a flash of heat lightning. And Lowry was on the road returning to her, and in a few hours they would be together again: it wouldn"t even be dark yet.
In Clara"s purse were loose snapshots. Two were of her and Lowry taken at the sh.o.r.e, another was of Clara alone, taken more recently in an automatic photo booth in the drugstore. She was tempted to show Revere all three, but she took out only the one of herself. "This is me, I had it taken last week. My girlfriend and me ..." She faltered, not knowing what she meant to say. Revere took the snapshot and examined it. The way he frowned made Clara uneasy, she hadn"t meant anything special by offering the picture. In it, Clara had wetted her lips and was posed all eyes all eyes and her hair sliding into her face like a and her hair sliding into her face like a Screen Romance Screen Romance starlet and her shoulders raised to accentuate her b.r.e.a.s.t.s in a snug cotton-knit sweater-Clara and her girlfriend had laughed themselves silly with their poses, almost wetting their pants. And now: Here was Curt Revere taking it seriously. He said, "This doesn"t look like you exactly, Clara. But I would know you anywhere. Clara." She put out her hand for the picture, but he was still looking at it. "It"s very strange," he said. "I don"t ask anything of you...." Clara held her breath for some reason thinking he would mutilate the snapshot. Instead, he placed it in his shirt pocket. starlet and her shoulders raised to accentuate her b.r.e.a.s.t.s in a snug cotton-knit sweater-Clara and her girlfriend had laughed themselves silly with their poses, almost wetting their pants. And now: Here was Curt Revere taking it seriously. He said, "This doesn"t look like you exactly, Clara. But I would know you anywhere. Clara." She put out her hand for the picture, but he was still looking at it. "It"s very strange," he said. "I don"t ask anything of you...." Clara held her breath for some reason thinking he would mutilate the snapshot. Instead, he placed it in his shirt pocket.
"I didn"t mean...." Clara began weakly.
"Can"t I have it, Clara?"
He wasn"t begging exactly. A wounded sound in his voice, you don"t expect to hear in a man like Curt Revere.
"Oh, sure! Sure."
Revere said slowly, not looking at her, "My first, young wife died. In childbirth. It wasn"t supposed to happen, she had the "very best prenatal care."... The baby died, too. So long ago, she was young enough to be-she could have been-my daughter now. It"s very strange for me to think that."
Clara nodded, embarra.s.sed. When older people talked of their age, how could you respond? It was so shameful, somehow.
She wanted to put out her hand. Wanted to touch this man"s face that was so heavy with thinking. It frightened her to think that somewhere-when she shut her eyes, she imagined the place precisely: the pickers" camp in Florida where she"d last seen him-her father Carleton Walpole might be brooding over her. Swigging his cider jug in that way he"d perfected where he spilled only a few drops ...
"You have a lovely smile, Clara."
Smile? Had she been smiling?
Inanely Clara said, "I guess ... I don"t see myself."
"Is your mother alive, Clara?"
"Oh, yes."
"Where is she, dear?"
"This place in Florida, I guess. Where they had a little farm." Clara paused, confused. "I mean, orange grove. Outside Savannah."
"Savannah?" Revere frowned, considering. "And what about your father, Clara?"