Philip Roth - Letting Go

On the last Saturday of July I received a letter from my father telling me that he and Fay Silberman had set a date for their wedding. It was not to be until Christmas, but Mrs. Silberman was going off in September to visit her children in California, and both the affianced had agreed that she should give some definite word to her sons and daughters-in-law out on the west coast, for they would have to begin to make plans about what to do with their children when they came East in December for the wedding. I read the letter several times that morning, and carried it in my trouser pocket when Martha and I went down to the lake. That evening, when I slipped my trousers on over my bathing suit, I took the letter out and read it again. This time I could not manage to be merely resigned; resignation became gloom.

“Will it be large and fancy?” Martha asked.

“I suppose just the family. Her children and me. He doesn’t really say.”

“Well, Christmas is a long way off.”

“Still, it sounds definite.” I looked back to the letter for some reason my father might have given to explain having decided now for Christmas — a reason, that is, other than Mrs. Silberman’s wanting to give her family plenty of time to ready baby-sitters. But there were no reasons, only more news. “He’s going to spend August out at her summer place, he says.”

“You think that’s what he’s after — summer vacations?”

“I think he’s marrying her because, one, she’s pressing him, and two, he’s lonely and doesn’t know what else he can do. But I know he’s been putting it off. They’ve been engaged since last Thanksgiving. He’s not sure himself.”

“Where’s her summer place?”

I turned to the letter again. For all my readings of it, it was amazing how few of the words written in that large open hand I could manage to keep in mind. “East Hampton. He says I’m invited too. To get to know her.”

Martha was putting on her shorts over her white suit. It was not until she had zipped up the side and fastened the button that she turned back to me. “Why don’t you go?”

I answered as casually as she had asked. “Because I’m here.”

“I thought you might want to get away for a while, that’s all.”

Earlier in the afternoon, Martha’s lightheartedness had amused both Bill Lake and Frank Tozier, who, having stopped to visit for a few minutes, had wound up camped on our blanket for several hours, eating out of our basket. Now what could be seen of the lightheartedness was only the residue — the irritating part of the frivolity, the unconvincing part of the offhandedness. What with still trying to comprehend my father’s decision, I myself had no reserves of patience and sense, and I said, “Now what’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” She put a towel over her shoulders and sat down and looked out across the lake where a last water-skier was flying over the surface. “I just thought that if you wanted to see your father, you should certainly feel that you can.”

“Well, I feel that I can, if I want to.”

“What about Theresa’s baby?”

“What about it?”

“Don’t you have to wait for it to come?”

“I don’t understand what that has to do with anything, Martha. Did I seem to you to express a desire to go East and have a talk with my father? I didn’t mean to. What would I say? What is there to say? Last November he bought her a nice big ring and now they’ve set the date, and now he’s going out to the seashore with her. He’s entitled to his pleasures, if those are what he thinks they are.”

She took her watch from her pocket and when she put it on her wrist, I saw her look at the time.

“Would you like to leave?” I asked.

“… No. It’s lovely now.”

“Martha, are you asking me why I don’t go East, why I don’t do something about him?”

“No.”

“Because there’s nothing to do.”

“All I meant to say,” she said, smiling, “is that if you want to see your father, or, I don’t know, visit anybody, I don’t want you to think that you’re tied down here. That’s all. If something were to come up—”

“You want me to go somewhere?”

“That isn’t what I said.”

“Then what’s depressing you?”

“Your father’s setting the date, I suppose. I suppose I’m only sharing your feelings.”

“Yes,” I said, “and what more?”

“Nothing.” She smiled again, then shrugged. “1 just felt like calling the kids. I don’t any more.”

“Don’t be silly. We’ll go home, you can call them.” The idea gave me my first real lift in hours.

“It’s not Sunday.”

“What’s the difference? It’s getting chilly here anyway.”

“I think I’d rather stay.”

“All right. We’ll stay.” I put the letter back into my pocket; tonight or tomorrow I would have to write some sort of answer — send my congratulations, my approval, my blessings. The hell with it.

A few seconds passed before I realized that I had spoken those last few words out loud. Martha leaned her head back on the rocks so that her loose hair was spread around her. I saw her mouth move and barely restrained myself from reaching out and placing my hand across it. I did not care to be told again that I had her permission to go East if I so desired.

She said, “Is East Hampton on Long Island?”

“Yes.”

“Near Springs?”

“Springs is out there too, I think.” Springs was the name of the town to which she placed her phone calls twice a month. “I don’t know exactly where. Do you have any idea how far out it is?”

“I’m not sure.”

“I think I have a New York map in the car.”

“It’s not important,” she said.

“Martha, if you want to call tonight, why don’t you?”

She answered sharply. “Because I don’t want to!”

“It was simply a suggestion,” I said.

She rose then, picked up the comb that was on the blanket, and started off down along the rocks. She was pulling the comb absent-mindedly through her hair as she disappeared around the edge of the cove. A little time passed, and then she was back.

She dropped the comb onto my toes. “I’m not going to give in to myself. Okay?”

“At the risk of your getting angry again, I don’t think you should think of it as giving in to yourself.”

“Don’t you?” she asked dubiously.

“Forget it.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, kneeling beside me, “I’m just suddenly having a bad day.” She took my hand.

“I shouldn’t have brought out that letter half a dozen times either. I depressed everybody.”

“You have a right to your troubles.”

“They’re not even new troubles — they’re old ones. Whatever could have been done had to have been done a long time ago. And I don’t even know what that was. The hell with it.”

“You said that already.”

“What is it, Martha? I thought you were happy today. You told all those jokes, you were even nice and loud, sweetheart—”

“I was. Happy, I mean. I am happy. I just thought before that today was Sunday, and then I realized it’s only Saturday.”

“There’s no law that says you can only dial New York on Sundays.”

“There is,” she said. “I made it.”

If that was the way she wanted it, that’s the way it would have to be. But I could not escape feeling that if she did call her children, we might have a more pleasant evening in store for us. Though that was to reason directly in the face of past experience — whenever Martha put the phone back down on the hook, it took us some time before we could look each other in the eye. “Well,” I said, feeling nagged at and naggy, “Sunday’s tomorrow anyway.”