Anne Tyler - The Amateur Marriage

“Oh, yes. My, yes,” she said, and she clutched her coat collar more tightly around her throat. In fact, coming from just next door she must have barely had time to feel the cold. But people seemed to expect this kind of small talk, Michael had found. “How’s your mama?” she asked him. “How’s Pauline? How’s that darlin’ Lindy?”

“They’re all fine. What do you hear from Joey?”

“He’s coming home on leave tomorrow afternoon.”

“That’s wonderful!”

“Yes, so I’ll need some tinned milk, because I want to fix him some ice cream.”

“Tinned milk,” Michael said, and he turned back to the shelves. “One can, or two?”

“Better make it two. You must think I’m crazy, doing this in January.”

“No, ma’am,” Michael said. “I know how Joey loves ice cream.” He set the cans on the counter. “Anything else?”

“Well, let’s see. A box of gelatin, and I might as well get some vanilla extract just to play it safe… Did Pauline try that ginger tea I was telling her about?”

“I’m not sure,” Michael said.

“A quarter-teaspoon of powdered ginger in half a cup of hot water, I told her. Sip it real slow before breakfast. I did that every morning back when I was expecting Joey and it worked just like a charm.”

“I’ll make her some tomorrow,” Michael said.

“Poor thing. Skinny as she is, she can’t afford to stop eating.”

“No, it’s been hard on her,” Michael agreed.

Although later, when Mrs. Serge had left, he added to himself, “And she’s not the only one it’s been hard on.”

Well, he knew he shouldn’t complain. How would he behave, if he couldn’t keep a morsel of food down? Plus pregnancy in general, all those female troubles.

He wasn’t certain, though, how much of Pauline’s moodiness was due to pregnancy and how much just, well, things going wrong between the two of them. Oh, women were so mystifying! And he was so inexperienced! “What did I say? What did I do? What was it?” he always seemed to be asking. Did other men have this problem? Was there anyone he could discuss this with? If he somehow had the right words — the right touch, the proper instincts — would his wife be a happier person?

She’d been a constitutionally happy person when they met, he believed. Pauline with her soft dimples and her liquid, chuckly laugh! She had slipped her hand into his so trustfully the first time they went on a date — her slim fingers, impossibly smooth, nestling into the cup of his palm when he had assumed it would be weeks before he could hope they would get so familiar. He had felt himself expanding with the sense of responsibility. He had wished for something dangerous — a bully, a runaway car — so that he could protect her.

But then he’d made some mistakes. He was willing to admit that. The time he asked her to meet him at the Kowalskis’ party, for instance, instead of calling for her and escorting her, just to spare his mother’s feelings. That was wrong, wrong, wrong, and Pauline had been perfectly right not to show up. He’d realized that almost at once — had had a sudden, disturbing view of himself as a mama’s boy, a coward, and run all the way to her house and rung her doorbell and begged Mr. Barclay to fetch her so that he could apologize and persuade her to come back with him. But then later that same evening, when his mother had crumpled up in a faint — well, what was he to do? He couldn’t just ignore her! So Pauline had disappeared, vanished into the night, and he’d had to go to her house all over again and bother Mr. Barclay again (now in bathrobe and pajamas) only to be turned away. “Sorry, son, afraid she’s not accepting visitors at the moment.” Not at that moment and not the next day, when Mrs. Barclay had stepped in to offer one excuse after the other. Pauline was still asleep; then she was indisposed; then, “I guess it’s best to stop calling, dear,” or something of the sort, some statement to that effect. With all the many times since that he’d stood on the Barclays’ front porch, these scenes tended to blur together in his mind.

But he knew that on his deathbed, the last, best memory he would cling to would be the sight of Pauline in her red coat, flying down Aliceanna Street to see him off to war. Wasn’t that worth all the rest? Every other edgy, imperfect, exasperating moment of their marriage?

Mrs. Piazy came in wanting Spam and a box of elbow macaroni. “I’m serving this new recipe for supper,” she told Michael. “I cut it out of a magazine. How’s Pauline feeling today?”

“Still not so good,” he said.

“Has she tried saltine crackers? That’s what I used to do. She should eat six or eight as soon as she wakes up, and more any time she feels queasy.”

“I’ll tell her, Mrs. Piazy. Thanks.”

“And stop that worrying, Michael. You can’t fool me! I see that long face! I know how you fret about her! But take my word, she’ll be fine. Just fine.”

“Well, thank you, Mrs. Piazy.”

“You two are so precious together,” she said.

And she gave a fond, indulgent smile as she dug in her bag for her change purse.

At noon he went looking for Eustace, who had finished all his deliveries and was hidden away in the dimness of the stockroom. “Eustace?” he called. “You there?”

“I’m here.”

“Guess I’ll be going to lunch now.”

“Okay, then,” Eustace said, and he struggled up from behind a pickle barrel, a half-eaten sandwich of homemade bread clutched in one gnarled hand.

Michael said, “Oh. You want me to wait till you finish that?”

“No, sir. You just go on now.”

What Michael had meant to say was that he preferred for Eustace not to eat in front of customers — something he himself wouldn’t do. But he wasn’t sure how to put it. The fact was, he felt uncomfortable bossing around an employee. Before the war they’d never had an employee. But first with his enlisting, and then his mother’s health, and Pauline so tied up with the baby…

He continued through the stockroom and climbed the stairs at the rear, relying on the handrail instead of his cane for support. Not that he needed much support anymore. His limp had become just a hitch in his step, a side-to-side motion as he swung the one leg forward, and he was sheepishly aware that he used the cane primarily to fend off strangers’ questions about why he wasn’t in uniform.

Pauline said that was silly of him. “What do you care what people think?” she would ask. “You and I know the truth of the matter.”

In many ways, Pauline was a much stronger person than he was.

His mother was already seated at the kitchen table while Pauline stood at the stove, the baby astride her waist, and stirred a saucepan of soup. “Hi, there,” Michael said, and his mother said, “Hello, dear,” but Pauline was silent. He pretended not to notice. He said, “Lindy-Lou!” and reached for the baby, and Pauline let go of her so carelessly and abruptly that Michael almost dropped her. He sank into a chair with her, holding her compact little body close against his rib cage. “Daddy’s here,” he told her. “Say, ‘Daddy! Welcome home! I’ve been pining for you all morning!’”

Lindy studied his lips intently. She was a solemn, focused sort of baby, with Michael’s black hair and straight features. Her eyes were a shade of slate that would probably turn brown like his as she grew older, and already she had his thin hands and long, thin fingers. Was it only her resemblance to him that made him feel so connected to her? He had always just assumed that he would have children, the way he’d assumed he would have a wife and maybe someday an automobile, but he had never imagined that a child could tug on his heart so.