later.
It happened that way sometimes–wife and husband taking leave of life
within a short time of each other, as if unable to tolerate the
separation.
Although Ellen had not been close to her parents, and although Gina’s
excessive strictness and religiosity had created a great deal of
tension and bitterness between mother and daughter, Ellen had been
devastated by the news of their deaths. She was filled with a cold,
empty, unfinished feeling. She blamed herself for what had happened to
them. Running away as she had done, leaving nothing more than a terse,
unpleasant note for her mother, not even saying goodbye to her
father-with those actions she might have precipitated her father’s
stroke.
Perhaps she was too hard on herself, but she wasn’t able to shrug off
the yoke of guilt.
Thereafter, her religion was not able to provide her with sufficient
comfort, and she augmented the mercy of Jesus with the mercy of the
bottle. She drank too much–more this year than last, not so much this
year as next year. Only her family was aware of her habit. The
churchwomen with whom she worked in charitable causes four days each
week would be shocked to discover that the quiet, earnest, industrious,
devout Ellen Harper was a different person at night, in her own home,
after sunset, behind closed doors, the saint became a lush.
She despised herself for her sinfully excessive fondness for vodka.
But without booze she couldn’t sleep, it blocked out the nightmares,
and it gave her a few hours of blessed relief from the worries and
fears that had been eating her alive for twenty-five years.
She put the bottle of vodka and the quart of orange juice on the
kitchen table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. Now, when her drink
ran low, she wouldn’t have to get up to freshen it, she would only have
to bestir herself when her ice had melted.
For a while she sat in silence, drinking, but then, as she stared at
the chair opposite her own, she had a memory-flash of Amy sitting there
this morning, looking up, saying, “I’ve had some morning sickness, I
missed my period, I’m really pregnant, I know I am . . .” Ellen
remembered, far too vividly, how she had struck the girl, how she had
shaken her senseless, how she had cursed her.
If she closed her eyes she could see herself pulling Amy onto the
floor, pushing the girl’s head down to the tiles, screaming like a
madwoman, praying at the top of her voice . . .
She shuddered.
My God, she thought miserably, suddenly pierced by a painfully sharp
insight, I’m like my mother! I’m exactly like Gina. I’ve cowed my
husband just as she cowed hers. I’ve been so strict with my children
and so preoccupied with my religion that I’ve built a wall between
myself and my family–a wall exactly like the one that my mother
constructed.
Ellen felt dizzy, but not merely from the vodka. The patterns of
history, the familiar circles drawn by repetitive events, startled and
dazed her.
She covered her face with her hands, shamed by the new light in which
she suddenly saw herself. Her hands were cold.
The kitchen clock sounded like a ticking bomb.
Just like Gina.
Ellen grabbed her drink and took a long swallow of it. The glass
chattered against her teeth.
Just like Gina.
She shook her head violently, as if she were determined to cast off
that unwelcome thought. She wasn’t as stern and distant and forbidding
as her own mother had been. She wasn’t. And even if she was, she
couldn’t deal with that insight now. With Amy’s pregnancy, Ellen
already had too much to worry about.
She could deal with only one thing at a time. Amy’s problem had to
come first.
If some horrible thing was growing in the girl’s womb, it had to be
gotten rid of as quickly as possible. Maybe then, after the abortion,
Ellen would be able to consider her life and decide what she thought of
the woman she had allowed herself to become, maybe then she would have
the time to reflect on what she had done to her family. But not now.