Philip Roth - Letting Go

“He’s a famous artist, Cynthia,” I said, and then, hesitating only a moment, I added, “but he doesn’t support you.”

“Yes, he does.”

“No,” I answered, “he doesn’t.”

“Well, he sends presents.”

He didn’t; however, I said, “That’s very nice, but sending presents to people isn’t the same as supporting them. Supporting them is much harder. Presents are like cakes with icing, and supporting is like all the other food you eat every day. Which is more necessary, Cynthia? Which is more important?”

After a moment, in a superior tone, she said, “I don’t even like cake.”

“I like cake,” Mark said.

I smiled, and Cynthia said to me, “He doesn’t understand.”

It was by no means a friendly remark but it was the result, I thought, of some conscious decision to give up the fight — it was only depressing in that it made perfectly clear that what her brother didn’t understand, she did. It left me feeling that the child had much too small a back for all her burdens; I pitied her her intelligence.

Yet as a kind of tribute to her years, I said, “He’s just a small boy.”

“I’m her brother,” Mark said.

Cynthia stood now and feigned a yawn. “I think I’m going to sleep,” she said, quite formally. “I’m very tired.”

“Good night then,” I said.

She turned to face Mark. “I think you had better go to sleep too.” With her hands on her hips, she was, in both posture and tone, as much like Martha as she could manage to be. “Come on, Markie.”

Instantly Markie made known his objection.

Taking a quick look my way, she folded her arms, then glared at her brother. “That kid’s going to drive me crazy,” she said, and with that, made her exit.

Markie lay himself down on the floor, facing the TV set, and within minutes was asleep. I got up and turned off the television and the floor lamp, and covered him where he slept with an afghan from the sofa. Sitting back in a chair, I watched the boy’s small back rise and fall; I could barely hear his breathing. I was sure that in her bed Cynthia’s eyes were wide open; whatever straightening out I had attempted had to do with only the surface of her family life. How could a seven-year-old child be expected to understand her mother’s troubles? How could I begin to understand the child’s? I felt now that it would have been wiser of me had I remained in bed, and let her cry over whatever it was hers to cry over. I did not begin to know all that had happened over the last seven years, and it almost seemed a mistaken sense of duty — and also a decided uneasiness about my presence, where Cynthia was concerned — that had led me to defend Martha against her daughter. Yet all that had been said in the hallway between Sissy and Cynthia had seemed to me totally unjust; Martha was not rotten for a moment, and she did not stink, and I believed that I had fallen in love with her.

Having had my scene with Martha’s daughter, however, I was sure that I was not falling in love with Martha’s predicament. Her life was complicated in ways that would not uncomplicate themselves by a mere lapse of time. There were these two small children to consider; loving her, must I not love them too? Was I up to it? Did I really want to?

I looked blankly into the lights of the Christmas tree for a long while. Did I want to? I wondered what Markie and Markie’s older sister could ever be to me? Was this what I wanted for my life?

When I awoke, Markie was asleep in my lap, where he must have crawled some time during the night. Martha was standing over the two of us, her coat slung over one shoulder.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“After one. One fifteen.”

“You better lift him off. I hope I didn’t give him anything.”

But she did not take the child immediately; she stood where she was, looking down. Then she bent so close that I could feel the cold on her skin, and lifted Markie from me.

When she came back into the living room, she was still carrying her coat. “Hadn’t you better be going back to bed?” she asked.

“Not for a little while.”

She spread her coat over me and sat down at my feet with her arms around my legs. I began to take the pins from her hair.

“It’s been so nice,” she said. “So comfortable and nice. And I’m so tired.”

“Just rest.”

After a while she asked if Sissy had gone.

“She’s gone.”

“Was there any kind of scene?”

“Cynthia got a little upset. But she’s all right.”

“And she never really liked Sissy. Do you know? They never really got along.”

“Well then, she’ll probably mourn my passing too.”

“Me too,” Martha said.

“I think I’ll go tomorrow, Martha. I don’t have a fever any more.”

“You’re still weak.”

“I can be weak at home, I suppose.”

“Who’ll make your meals?”

“I will.”

She said nothing then, nor did I.

“Martha,” I said, some minutes later, “I can’t stay here. It would get terribly complicated.”

“I know.”

“You seem so tired. Maybe you should go to sleep.”

“Theresa Haug became hysterical in the kitchen. I had her station and mine.”

“Who’s Theresa Haug?”

“The girl we drove to the El.”

“That seems a year ago.”

“Two nights,” Martha said. “Just two nights.”

I remembered the girl now, sobbing into her handkerchief in the back seat of my car. “It’s too bad,” I said.

“It’s awful,” Martha said.

“Who’s her boy friend?”

“He’s become shy; he’s married, he won’t have anything to do with it.”

She said that, and because it was dark, and because I was tired, and because we were becoming blue — and doubtless for other reasons as well — I was reminded of the several people it seemed I had disappointed in my life.

Martha shrugged her shoulders and said, “Gabe.”

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Nothing. I guess pleasure depresses me too. Do you know what we should do?”

“Go ahead, tell me.”

“Whatever we want. Simple as that.”

“And what’s that, Martha?”

“You should just keep staying here,” she said. “Isn’t that what you want?”

“Yes,” I said.

“It’s what I want … So can’t we do it?”

“I really don’t know,” I said.

“I think it’s about time,” she said. “I have rights in this world too, don’t I? The whole situation isn’t normal to begin with — being twenty-six and having these kids and working every night. That’s not normal, so how can I even pretend to have a normal love life? My life is cockeyed and different, and my daughter is just going to have to learn that. Is that asking way too much? I can’t keep going around and around with these two little psyches in my pocket. I had an alcoholic old man, and that’s the way it is — nobody can go around protecting you from everything. Oh Gabe, aren’t they on their own a little bit too? I’ll do my best, I promise, but can’t I have a lover like anybody else? Every goofy girl in the street has someone who can stay all night, but mine has to leave at three in the morning. Does that seem fair?” She turned on her knees then and took my face in her hands. “Gabe, just tell me, do I seem selfish and mean? There’s them, but then there’s still me, isn’t there?” she asked. “Is there?” She buried her head in my lap. “Please stay with me, Gabe. Stay and live with me.”

I closed my eyes a moment, hoping that what I ought to do and what I wanted to do would be one. When I opened them and looked down at Martha’s face, I believed they were.

In bed, where Martha came to be with me a while, she said, “It isn’t marriage, you know. You don’t have to think about that — nobody has to marry me. Do you understand? Nobody ever has to feel obliged to marry me. Please don’t worry about my babies, they’ll be all right. They’re nobody else’s worry but my own. Nobody has to take them off my hands, Gabe. I don’t need a husband, sweetheart — just a lover, Gabe, just someone to plain and simple love me.”