William Saroyan - The Laughing Matter

“All right,” the woman said.

The children were under the olive tree, making plans for the first game. He got into the car and began to drive back.

After she had washed her face the vomiting came again, and with it the fiercest loathing of her trouble that she had ever known. At the same time she was terrified of what needed to be done, which she herself now wanted done.

When she had first begun to suspect, she had sat in hot tubs of water by the hour, frantic with anxiety and hope, but nothing had happened. She had then gone to the garage and opened an old can of paint, and she had held her head over the paint, breathing in the fumes, but again nothing had happened. She had then gone to a doctor in San Mateo, calling herself Mrs. Morgan. He had phoned two days later, asking her to come in again. By this time, though, she was sure. The doctor’s telephone call several days later only confirmed what she knew.

“I’m afraid. I don’t want it,” she told the doctor. “We can’t afford it. Isn’t there something I can take?”

The doctor laughed and said, “Mrs. Morgan, the way you feel now is perfectly natural. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“I’m not well enough to have another,” she said. “I’m terribly afraid. Please let me have something.”

“You think about it,” the doctor said. “Talk it over with Mr. Morgan. Come on in with him and we’ll go over the whole thing together. I’m sure I can convince both of you not to do anything that might be even more difficult than birth itself.”

She had believed a pill would do it, and in desperation she had gone back a week later, almost begging the doctor to prescribe such a pill.

“A new life wants to get born,” he said. “There are a number of things I could prescribe, but they might not work. Are you sure you want to try them? I’m not sure you should. Wouldn’t you rather we talked it over with Mr. Morgan?”

“He’s away,” she said. “He won’t be back for two weeks. I’d rather he knew nothing about it.” She stopped suddenly, her face flushed, and she said, “We’re in debt.”

The man understood instantly.

“My dear,” he said. He wrote a prescription and handed it to her. “I hope it works.”

And it hadn’t.

When Evan was finally home from Nebraska he was famished for her. She told him she was in her time. He roared with laughter at his need and said, “How long do I have to wait?”

“Until Friday,” she said.

Friday they had arrived in Clovis and had gone to Dade’s house. She had struggled all day, trying to decide what to do. Finally, she had decided to tell him.

She had told him.

And then, after he had gone mad, as she had known he would, in the midst of his hatred and contempt, in the midst of her own loneliness, terror, shame, and regret, she had needed him more than ever.

She had talked and talked, hoping desperately to reach a truth he could accept, even if reluctantly, but she was glad he had refused to recognize any such truth.

She remained frightened, although she was grateful that he had decided what was to be done.

She had argued because from the time she had seen the bouquet of red roses her son had found in Dade’s house she had felt that she was dying. She neither wanted to die, nor to kill. She did not want the daily ordeal of love and survival to end, she did not want the lore and fun of herself and her husband to end. But when she had seen her son holding the bouquet and looking at it, as he looked at everything, his face grave with thought, his eyes piercing and sorrowful at once, she had seen herself and all of them dead. She had wept because she had known she would tell him. She could not be near him with this thing untold. All the other things could remain untold, but not this. And she knew her telling would kill or madden him, or both, and that, whatever he finally did, whatever he finally decided must be done, she would surely perish. She was a stupid girl. She had always been a little sick, a little weak, a little mad, too, but with Evan these things had been put aside from her. He had carried her away from them, not even knowing that he had done so.

She went now to the silver bowl on the mantel over the fireplace and brought out the bouquet of four dried roses. She was staring at them when he came back into the house.

“They won’t be ready to come home for a long time,” he said. “How about a walk in the vineyard?”

She turned to him, unable to stop herself from trying again.

“Evan?”

“Yes, Swan.”

“I don’t want to be butchered. I know it will kill me.”

“Why do you keep thinking something is going to kill you?”

“I thought you would,” she said. “I almost hoped you would.”

“I’m a father,” he said. “I have two kids. I have to think about them. I have to think about them every minute. I have to think about their mother every minute. I cannot be angry for myself. I must be patient for my children. I could not kill you, Swan. I could not kill the mother of my children. Were you Swan alone, and I Evan alone, and Swan had betrayed Evan, Evan would not have been betrayed, for no woman can betray a man, no man can betray a woman, only children can be betrayed.” He stopped, then took her by the shoulders to look into her eyes. “I will not betray mine, Swan. I have been mad. I am mad no longer. If you are frightened, Swan, I am frightened with you, but my purpose is to banish your fear, and my own. I will not impose my will, but I will seek to help you to impose your own upon yourself. Come for a walk in the vineyard. Thank God for a day in which Rex and Eva Nazarenus have lived as if living were not a sick and fearful treachery, an unpredictable and constant menace and danger. Laughter has been restored to them by this summer Sunday. They believe again in their father, and in their mother. If they cannot believe in these two, they can believe in nothing. Or they can believe in themselves alone, as lonely, vengeful, mistrusting things. Come for the walk in the vineyard, Swan. I am your husband and their father. You are my wife and their mother. If there were something better for us to be, I would urge you to be yours, and I mine. There is nothing better. Nothing better even now , Swan. Nothing better even with the ordeal still ahead for each of us, for these children must have you, Swan, and they must have me.”

He walked swiftly out of the house. She placed the bouquet back into the silver bowl, turned, and hurried after him. He was already in the vineyard when she reached the fig tree. She ran after him, thinking, If I ran, and tripped and fell, perhaps then it would end. She ran and prayed to fall, then fell, and cried out. He stopped, turned, but did not go to her. She got up, knowing the fall had done no good.

“We went to church,” Eva said to Fanny. “What did you do?”

“We went, too,” Fanny said.

They were playing the same game, hiding behind a pile of uprooted Emperor vine stumps. Each stump, if you looked at it carefully, resembled a small body with many arms.

“I sang,” Eva said. “Then I laughed, and Red got angry at me. He got angry because they never laugh in church. I didn’t know. My mother laughed, too. Red got angry at her, too.”

“Which church did you go to?”

“The white one.”

“That’s the Presbyterian,” Fanny said. “We go to the Methodist. We’re Methodists.”

“We’re Presbyterians,” Eva said. “Why are we Presbyterians? Why are you Methodists?”

“How should I know?” Fanny said. “We’ll be out here all night because Fay’s It, and she can never find anybody. What did the man say?”