Philip Roth - Letting Go

“I only just moved in. ”

“That’ll make packing easier. Just roll up all your brassieres, scatter those cigarette butts to the wind, and move the hell out.”

“You going to throw me out on a morals charge? Because I don’t happen to be compulsively neat?”

“I don’t want my kids lifting up the phone when your clients start to call—” Yet even as she spoke the whole business tired her. Everything tired her — even thinking about what she would have to do now. Take another ad, answer phone calls, arrange appointments, show the place to dozens of girls and ladies … Just the knowledge that after Sissy left she would have to scrub the place again from top to bottom weakened her resolve. Why hadn’t she rented to some eager little physics major in the first place? What insanity it had been to think that this jerk was going to be sweet, fun, laughs! All she wanted now, really, was for Sissy to crawl back into her grubby room and close the door and ruin her life however she wanted. She said nothing, but there must have been some sagging in her posture that inspired Sissy to be nasty.

“Just because you have sex problems, Martha, don’t call somebody who doesn’t a nymphomaniac, all right? If you’re frigid, or whatever the hell is bugging you, I don’t say I’m not going to live in your house because of it. You, you’re a regular sexual Senator McCarthy, honest to God you are.”

“I’m trying to fix a traditional Thanksgiving Day turkey. Why don’t you go play records.”

“Actually, I think what it is that bugs you is that like Blair’s a dinge.”

“As far as I’m concerned, friend, you can go down for the whole Nigerian Army and the Belgian Congo Marines. Just leave me alone, all right?”

Sissy picked up her mirror and tweezers and left the room. And Martha Reganhart was sure that never before had she been so compromised and shat upon; never had she been so soft and expedient and unprincipled. Worst of all, never could it have bothered her less. If she had had the energy to be disgusted with herself, the object of her disgust would have been her inability to care any more. For nearly four years now she had been pretending to be two parents, and not half a set. Even the strict observance of national holidays had been a conscious noble decision, something she felt the divorced owed their offspring. Three and a half years ago she had made a whole potful of conscious noble decisions: if Cynthia had long legs, she would have ballet lessons; if she had a good head, she would go to the very best schools; Markie was going to learn to be as crazy over the White Sox as any Chicago kid with a full-time father … and so on and so on. Today, however, the whole fatuous lie, all that she had not done, screamed at her from every wall, door, and closet. With that granite turkey to roast and cranberries to boil and silverware to polish, she felt as though she had run her course. If she had been allowed one more hour of sleep she could doubtless have faced the next four years with an upper lip as stiff as ever. Now, everything foretold her doom — even the popped seam in her slacks, through which anyone who cared to look could see that Martha Reganhart was wearing no underwear.

But what was she supposed to have done? The dilemma she had had to face at seven A.M., before brushing her teeth or drinking her coffee, was whether or not she would be less of a slob, or more of a hundred-percent-American mother, with no pants under her slacks, or dirty ones — for it turned out there were none clean. She had made her choice in a stupor, and was now suffering dismal emotions as a result. Feeling bedraggled made her feel unworthy, and over her sink she closed her eyes to the near and distant future. She thought it might give ber some little solace if she could squeeze her hands around the neck of whoever it was who had raised her rent. But it wasn’t a person — it was an agency. There wasn’t even anybody to shout at really — they only worked here, lady — when you called up to complain.

Shortly thereafter, her daughter came racing through the front door, impervious to the scab on her right knee that was leaking blood down her shin.

“Mommy! Daddy’s picture!”

“Daddy’s what? Cynthia, look at your knee— ”

“Daddy’s picture. A painting! ”

“Cynthia, what happened to your knee?”

“Nothing. I slipped. Look!” Cynthia had the paper folded to the art column. She jerked it back and forth in front of Martha’s face, but did not relinquish it.

“Calm down,” Martha said. “I can’t see it if you keep moving it, can I? Go wash your knee. Please — do you want to get an infection and turn blue?”

“Daddy’s picture—”

“Go wash your knee!”

Cynthia threw the paper to the floor and, crestfallen, went hobbling off to the bathroom; if the knee was going to use her, she would use the knee. “Christ!” she howled, limping down the hallway. “Christ and Jesus!”

With Cynthia gone, it was easier to take a look; she had not wanted a child around to witness whatever shock there might be. She picked up the paper from the floor and sat down with it at the kitchen table. Her heart slowly resumed its normal beat, though it was true, as Cynthia said, that a painting of her father’s was actually printed in the Times. She recognized it immediately; only the title had been changed. What had once been “Ripe Wife” was now labeled “Mexico.” The bastard. She allowed herself the pleasure of a few spiteful moments. Juvenilia. A steal from de Staël. Punk. Derivative. Corny. Literal. Indulgent. She repeated to herself all the words she would like to repeat to him, but all the incantation served to do was to bring back so vividly all that had been: all the awful quarrels, all the breakfasts he had thrown against the kitchen wall, all the times he had walked out, all the times he had come back, the times he had smacked her, the times he had wept, saying he was really a good and decent man … All of it lived at the unanesthetized edge of her memory. Mexico! Couldn’t he have changed it to Yugoslavia? Bowl of Fruit? Anything but rotten Mexico!

Her eye ran up and down the column; she was unable to read it in any orderly way. It was captioned, Tenth St. Show Uninspired; Reganhart Exception.

… except for Richard Reganhart. A resident of Arizona and Mexico, Reganhart, in his four paintings, reveals a talent …

… manages a rigidity of space, a kind of compulsion to order, that makes one think of a fretful housekeeper …

… especially “Mexico.” The dull gold rectangles are played off against a lust and violence of savage purples, blacks, and scarlets that continually break in through the rigid …

… will alone emerge of the seven young people

Crap! Fretful housekeeper, crap! House breaker! Weakling! Selfish! Destroyer of her life! She hated him — she would never forgive him. Some day when it suited her purpose, she would get that son of a bitch. It was nearly three years since he had sent a penny to support their children. Three very long years.

She read the article over again from beginning to end.

When Cynthia came out of the bathroom, a bandage over half her leg, the child asked, “Remember when we were in Mexico?”

“Yes,” Martha said.

“Can I remember it?”

“I think you were too small.”

“I think I can remember it,” Cynthia said. “Wasn’t it very warm there?”

“Cyn, you know it’s warm there. You learned that in school.”

Cynthia reached out and Martha handed her back the paper. “See Daddy’s name?” Cynthia asked.

“Uh-huh. I didn’t mean to take it away from you, sweetie. I only wanted you to wash your knee—”