Philip Roth - Letting Go

Melinda was sleeping; the little baby, George, was sleeping too. And Walter was pretending to sleep. He was trying to trick her again. Her excuse for coming in was to make sure none of them had kicked off a blanket, but she wasn’t going to do anything for Walter if he was going to try to trick her. She stood over his bed.

“All right, Walter, why are you actin’ like you’re sleepin’?”

He did not answer.

“That’s just like you act like you can’t do it in the bowl. I’m goin’ to take your diaper away from you, then what you goin’ to do, huh?”

She shook him. “Don’t you pretend you’re sleepin’, Walter.” She shook him again.

The child’s eyes opened.

She gave him a good crack across the face.

He began to howl. “Well, that’s what you deserve,” she said, but he only howled louder. She knew he hated her. She would have cracked him again, just for good measure, but he was howling like an animal.

The door swung open. “What’s going on in here!” Harry shouted.

She could hear Vic and Gabe arguing in the other room. “He spit at me — so I hit him, to teach him—”

“He don’t spit at nobody!” Harry said. His face was red; he was shaking a finger at her.

“Well, he spits at me! So I gave him a good crack.”

“You don’t give nobody a good crack! I’ll give you a crack!”

“I got a right to come out in the living room. It’s my house too.”

“I’ll tell you whether to come out in the living room or not!”

“I’m not your slave—”

“You get back in your bedroom!”

“I got a right to see Mr. Wallace, if I want—”

But Mr. Wallace was in the doorway, with Vic. Melinda was sitting up in bed, and now George was crying too. And she was only twenty years old! What were any of these strangers to her? Christmas Eve without even a tree!

From the doorway Mr. Wallace was shouting — at her. “—you agreed, Theresa—” His face was red too. Vic had his hand on Mr. Wallace’s shoulder.

“Yes—”

“—extortion—”

“—back in your own room and stay— ”

“—money already! months ago—”

“—baby—”

“It’s my living room too!” she screamed, and raced into it.

On the sofa was a laundry basket, and there was a small baby in it. She heard the men shouting — heading back to where she stood.

Nobody would hit a woman with a child. Her child! She picked it up and held it in her arms. It was her child! She looked at its face.

“It’s my baby — I’m holdin’ my baby—” she screamed, as they came at her.

“Put that baby down!”

“Theresa—” Wallace said.

“It’s mine! I ain’t goin’ to sign nothin’!”

“It’s not yours!” Mr. Wallace was moving his arms. “It’s not yours!”

“—it’s not yours—” Harry was saying, but not to her.

Mr. Wallace was screaming, “I’ll kill you!”

“ Hey —”

Vic had grabbed Mr. Wallace’s shoulder. Mr. Wallace’s mouth was open, and his face was huge and red, almost as though it would pop. God, he wasn’t really handsome at all. “ That baby —” he roared, but Harry was lunging toward her. She broke for the bedroom.

But she couldn’t lock the door in time; he barged through. What was she doing?

“You nuts— crazy? ”

“Walter spit at me!”

“Put that baby down, God damn you. Put it down!”

“You ain’t goin’ to order—”

“I got five hundred bucks! I’m going to get two hundred more, you miserable little bitch! You give me that baby!”

“You can’t sell my baby!”

“Oh it’s not your damn—”

“I’m only twenty—”

He was coming at her. “You want to go out in the cold? You don’t want me to go in a business? You want to starve? ”

She thrust the baby at him. “I just want you to know, Harry,” she said, “that I just ain’t no—”

But he wasn’t listening. He was heading back to the living room with the baby in his arms. “You got to know, Harry,” she said, following after, mumbling, “I want to get dressed up and go out every once in a while, I want, every once in a while—”

A few minutes earlier there had been all that screaming in the living room; now no one was speaking. Vic was standing, and Mr. Wallace was on the floor. On his knees. His forehead was touching the rug, his arms were over his ears. He was not moving.

Harry said, “Hey, did you hit …?” She knew right off how scared he was.

“Uh-uh,” Vic said. “He just crumpled up. You all run out — and he fell down. Like that.”

No one spoke. Vic was scared; she was scared too.

“You didn’t hit him?”

“He just crumpled up.”

Harry walked around Mr. Wallace. His face was no longer red. “Hey, Mr. Wallace?”

A very thin sound rose from the figure on the floor.

“He said telephone,” Vic said. “He said something.”

“He wants to use the telephone,” she said.

“It ain’t connected.”

“Downstairs,” she said. She was shivering. She wished Mr. Wallace would get up off the floor.

Harry was still holding that baby. It was a good baby — it didn’t even cry. But she didn’t want an extra baby anyway.

“Better take him to the phone,” Harry said finally.

She said, “Me?”

“Who’s he going to call?” asked Vic.

“He’s gotta call somebody. Somebody gotta get him …”

Mr. Wallace was rising off the floor. He did not take his arms from his ears. He did not look up. He did not smile — she thought he might; that it might be a joke he had pulled to make them all quiet down.

Vic and Harry were whispering. She led Mr. Wallace down the stairs. When Mr. Phelps opened the door, she said, “Something’s happened to this man …” She couldn’t look at him, and neither could Mr. Phelps, who stepped aside.

At the phone she watched his fingers dialing. But he was not able to speak very well. He handed her the phone — but she didn’t want it either. Mr. and Mrs. Phelps were standing back, watching; when she turned to pass the phone on to them, neither of them stepped forward.

She had to speak into it. “Hello?” she said. “… That was Mr. Wallace. Somebody better come help him … He had some kind of attack.”

The man on the other end asked where she was calling from; in terror, she gave him the address. Had he dialed the police?

She whispered, “Are you the man who’s got a little baby?”

He said that he was.

“Come get it then!” she pleaded. “We don’t want it!” and hung up. She turned to the Phelpses. “Don’t tell Harry—”

But all of a sudden she felt gypped. While she had been holding that baby she should have made Harry promise her something. She should have made him promise to take her out some place nice to eat on Sundays. She should at least have made him promise that! But she had missed her chance. And she was only twenty. Tears came to her eyes again. She could not believe that her good times were all gone.

London, November 3

Dear Libby ,

Only just a moment ago I opened the envelope from you. I should tell you that I thought I had thrown it away, unopened, months ago. But today it is rainy, and I am about to leave for Italy, and my bags are packed — I am sitting in the hotel lobby, in fact, in the midst of my luggage, waiting before I take a taxi to the airport. Fishing around in my raincoat pocket for my tickets I discovered your letter. I suppose I would have come upon it earlier if it had not been such a fine, dry fall here. Coming upon it another day, I might have thrown it away a second time, despite the numerous forwarding addresses on its face, which give to it an air of earnestness something like your own. It may be that I choose to sit down and answer you now because I am all packed and ready to go. It may be that I have not changed too much, or at all. Nevertheless, I have tried to find enjoyment in traveling, and I think mostly about what I see.