Sloan Wilson - Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

She looked up and smiled. “It’s Sunday,” she said.

“Oh,” he replied ruefully, “I forgot.” He stood in the middle of the big kitchen, a little confused. Bright sunlight streamed through the window. “Where are the kids?” he asked.

“Outside. That old rock garden is a wonderful place for them to play.”

“I think I’ll go upstairs and catch another nap,” he said.

“Don’t you dare! I’ve been up since seven o’clock unpacking, and now we’re going to church! And before that we’re going to make a list of all the things we have to do.”

“There isn’t enough paper,” he said. “Not in the whole world.”

He went upstairs. The first thing he saw was his old mandolin in its battered black leather case, lying on top of his bureau where Betsy had put it after unpacking it. He stood looking at it a moment, then drew the instrument from its case. It was covered with dust, and the strings were rusty and slack. Slowly he tightened one of the strings, strumming it gently with his thumb. It snapped suddenly. Tom shrugged, put the mandolin back in its case, and glanced around the room. In one corner was a built-in bookcase with a wide empty shelf at its top. He reached up and put the mandolin there. Then he walked quickly to the bathroom. There was dust in the bottom of the bathtub. Impatiently he washed it out and let the tub fill while he shaved, bending almost double to see himself in the mirror.

“Hurry up!” Betsy called.

When he got downstairs, he found a plate of bacon and eggs waiting for him at one end of the big, marble-topped kitchen table. At the other end Betsy was seated, determinedly writing on a pad. “We’ve got to get more stuff out of the car and unpack the rest of the boxes the truck brought,” she said, “and we’ve got to get the girls enrolled in school.”

“I’ve got to call Sims and tell him about Edward,” Tom said. “He should know, in case he makes any trouble.”

“I’ve got to clear out Grandmother’s closets,” Betsy said. “Her clothes are still there. And if you want the television set in the living room, you better see about getting it hooked up.”

“The main thing for me to do,” he said, “is to get the information we’ll need to make some sort of decision on your housing project. I’ve got to get a copy of the zoning regulations, and we’ll probably have to find out the procedure for getting an exception to them. We ought to have at least three contractors look the place over and give us bids on rebuilding the carriage house and putting in roads. God, Betsy, there’s so much! I can’t go to church today. I’m going to stay here and write letters.”

“You’re going to church!” she said. “We’re going to church every Sunday. From now on.”

“You go,” he said.

“Why won’t you?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, feeling embarrassed. “You take the kids and go to church, and I’ll stay here and write letters.”

Betsy put her pencil down, picked up the plate from which he had just eaten his eggs, and put it in the sink. With her back turned to him she said, “Tommy, I’m asking you a favor. Go to church with me and the kids.”

“All right,” he said.

“Even if you’re bored,” she said, “try it. Maybe someday it would help you to stop worrying all the time.”

“I don’t worry all the time!”

“All right. But try it. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been miserable for a long time. I used to think it was that damn little house, and it was partly, but it was more. We can’t just go on being scared all the time, Tommy. Sometime it will have to stop.”

“If you want me to go to church, I’ll go,” he said. “I didn’t know you were miserable all the time.”

“You know what I mean!”

“Sure.”

“There seems to be something hanging over us, something that makes it hard to be happy.”

“I know,” he said.

“It isn’t your fault. It’s just something we both have to wrestle with.”

“I’m all right,” he said.

“I’m all right too. I just feel I’d like to go to church.”

“Okay,” he said. “Before we go, I’ll call Sims.”

“There isn’t time.”

Reluctantly Tom went upstairs and put on a blue suit. When he returned to the kitchen, Betsy was combing the children’s hair. The two girls wore fluffy white dresses and Pete was in gray flannel shorts and a brown jacket. “Why do we have to wear party clothes to go to church?” Barbara asked.

“We just do,” Betsy said. “Get in the car.”

After leaving the children at the Sunday school in the annex of the Episcopal church, Tom followed Betsy into the church itself. They sat in a back pew, and Betsy knelt gracefully to pray. Her face was drawn and serious. Tom glanced away from her, feeling somehow that he was invading her privacy. An unseen organ started to hum melodiously, and an acolyte appeared before the altar and lit fourteen candles with a long, silver-handled taper. All around Tom the pews were filled with elderly ladies, many of whom knelt. Tom glanced at Betsy and saw she was still on her knees, her eyes closed, her face rapt. How beautiful she is, he thought. He knelt uncomfortably beside her and shut his eyes.

An hour later, when Tom got home, he went right to the telephone and called Sims. When Sims heard about Edward, he swore, the oaths sounding strangely cultivated and precise as he spoke them.

“Do you think he can make any trouble for us?” Tom asked.

“It depends on what he calls ‘proof’—if he has anything in writing he might make things difficult. If he tried to contest the will, it could drag on for months.”

“If it were a long delay, it could break me,” Tom said. “I’ve got to turn this place over fast — the longer we hold it, the less money anybody’s going to have. Perhaps I could settle with him out of court.”

“Maybe that’s what he’s counting on,” Sims said. “I wouldn’t consider it. I know damn well your grandmother meant you to have everything — we talked about it countless times. I’d hang on and see what kind of case he’s got. Let him find out how hard it is to go to law before you talk to him.”

“Is there anything we can do while we’re waiting?”

“Not much,” Sims said. “Actually, I won’t be able to help you much from now on. The whole thing will be up to the Probate Judge — I’ve already sent him a copy of the will. He’ll be the one who will have to rule on any claims Edward puts in.”

“Who is he?”

“Bernstein — Saul Bernstein. He has an office on Main Street, I think — I hear he’s lived in South Bay all his life. It might pay you to drop in and see him.”

“Do you have any idea what kind of guy he is?”

“None,” Sims said. “Never met him.”

Tom thanked Sims and hung up. He decided to write Bernstein for an appointment. It was curious to think that so much depended on a man he had never met.

IT WAS nine o’clock Tuesday morning. Judge Saul Bernstein, a small stout man with a large mole on his left cheek, climbed the stairs to the third floor of the Whitelock building, the second biggest office building in the town of South Bay. Puffing a little, he walked into the bare, linoleum-floored room which was his office and smiled at his secretary, a thin girl bent intently over her typewriter. “Good morning, Sally,” he said. “How are you feeling today?”

Her hands stopped fluttering over the keys, and she looked up at him gratefully. “Fine, Judge,” she said. “My cold’s almost gone.”

He sat down behind his scarred pine desk in the corner of the room and looked at the morning mail, which his secretary had opened for him. The top letter asked for an appointment the following Saturday or any evening, if that would not be too inconvenient. “I’d like to talk to you about settling the estate of the late Mrs. Florence Rath,” the letter said. “I have also been told that you might be able to advise me on the possibility of subdividing her land into one-acre lots eventually. ” The letter referred to the will Sims had sent to Bernstein and concluded with advance gratitude for any help Bernstein could offer. It was signed, “Thomas R. Rath.”