Amy Bloom - Where the God of Love Hangs Out

The man put “AA for the Older Alcoholic” in front of Clare and said, “You’re not alone.”

Clare said, “That is so not true.”

She kept the orange-and-gray pamphlet on her kitchen table for a few weeks, in case anyone dropped in, because it made her laugh, the whole idea. Her favorite part (she had several, especially the stoic recitation of ruined marriages, dead children, estranged children, alcoholic children, multiple car accidents — pedestrian and vehicular — forced resignations, outright firings, embezzlements, failed suicides, diabetic comas), her absolute favorite in the category of the telling detail, was an old woman carrying a fifth of vodka hidden in a skein of yarn. Clare finally put the pamphlet away so it wouldn’t worry Nelson when he came for Friday night dinner. Margaret Slater dropped him off at six and picked him up at eight-thirty, which gave her time for bingo and Nelson and Clare time to eat and play checkers or cribbage or Risk.

Nelson Slater didn’t know that William’s Sulka pajamas were still under Clare’s pillow, that the bedroom still smelled like his cologne (and that Clare had bought two large bottles of it and sprayed the room with it, every Sunday), that his wing tips and his homely black sneakers were in the bottom of the bedroom closet. He knew that William’s canes were still in the umbrella stand next to the front door and that the refrigerator was filled with William’s favorite foods (chicken-liver pâté, cornichons, pickled beets, orange marmalade, and Zingerman’s bacon bread) and there were always two or three large Tupperware containers of William’s favorite dinners, which Clare made on Friday, when Nelson came over, and then divided in halves or quarters for the rest of the week. Nelson didn’t mind. He had known and loved Clare most of his young life, and he understood old-people craziness. His great-aunt believed that every event in the Bible actually happened and left behind physical evidence you could buy, like the splinter from Noah’s Ark she kept by her bed. His Cousin Chick sat on the back porch, shooting the heads off squirrels and chipmunks and reciting poetry. Nelson had known William Langford since he was five, and Nelson had gotten used to him. Mr. Langford was a big man with a big laugh and a big frown. He gave Nelson credit for who he was and what he did around the house and he paid Nelson, which Clare never remembered to do. (A man has to make a living, Mr. Langford had said one time, and Nelson did like that.) Nelson liked the Friday night dinners, and unless Clare started doing something really weird, like setting three places at the table, he’d keep coming over.

“Roast pork with apples and onions and a red wine sauce. And braised red cabbage. And Austrian apple cake. How’s that?”

Nelson shrugged. Clare was always a good cook, but almost no one knew it. When he was six years old and eating gingerbread in the Wexler kitchen one afternoon, Mr. Wexler came home early. He reached for a piece of the warm gingerbread and Nelson told him that Clare had just baked it and Wexler looked at him in surprise. “Mrs. Wexler doesn’t really cook,” he said, and Nelson had gone on eating and thought, She does for me, Mister.

Clare put the pork and apples on Nelson’s plate and poured them both apple cider. When Nelson lifted the fork to his mouth and chewed and then sighed and smiled, happy to be loved and fed, Clare had to leave the kitchen for a minute.

After a year, everything was much the same. Clare fed Nelson on Friday nights, she taught half-time, she wept in the shower, and at the end of every day, she put on one of William’s button-down shirts and a pair of his socks and settled down with a big book of William’s or an English mystery. When the phone rang, Clare jumped.

“Clare, how are you?”

“Good, Lauren. How are you? How’s Adam?”

Her daughter-in-law would not be deflected. She tried to get her husband to call his mother every Sunday night but when he didn’t (and Clare could just hear him, her sweet boy, passive as granite: “She’s okay, Lauren. What do you want me to do about it?”), Lauren, who was properly brought up, made the call.

“We’d love for you to visit us, Clare.”

I bet, Clare thought. “Oh, not until the semester ends, I can’t. But you all could come out here. Anytime.”

“It really wouldn’t be suitable.”

Clare said nothing.

“I mean, it just wouldn’t,” Lauren said, polite and stubborn.

Clare felt sorry for her. Clare wouldn’t want herself for a mother-in-law, under the best of circumstances.

“I’d love to have you visit,” Clare said. This wasn’t exactly true but she would certainly rather have them in her house than be someplace that had no William in it. “The boys’ room is all set, with the bunk beds and your room, of course, for you and Adam. There’s plenty of room and I hear Cirque du Soleil will be here in a few weeks.” Clare and Margaret will take Nelson, before he’s too old to be seen in public with two old ladies.

Lauren’s voice dropped. Clare knew she was walking from the living room, where she was watching TV and folding laundry, into a part of the house where Adam couldn’t hear her.

“It doesn’t matter how much room there is. Your house is like a mausoleum. How am I supposed to explain that to the boys, Clare? Am I supposed to say Grandma loved Grandpa William so much she keeps every single thing he ever owned or read or ate all around her?”

“I don’t mind if that’s what you want to tell them.”

In fact, I’ll tell them myself, Little Miss Let’s-Call-a-Spade-a-Gardening-Implement, Clare thought, and she could hear William saying, “Darling, you are as clear and bright as vinegar but not everyone wants their pipes cleaned.”

“I don’t want to tell them that. I want — really, we all want — for you just to begin to, oh, you know, just to get on with your life a little bit.”

Clare said, and she thought she never sounded more like Isabel, master of the even, elegant tone, “I completely understand, Lauren, and it is very good of you to call.”

Lauren put the boys on and they said exactly what they should: Hi, Grandma, thanks for the Legos. (Clare put Post-its next to the kitchen calendar, and at the beginning of every month, she sent an educational toy to each grandchild, so no one could accuse her of neglecting them.) Lauren walked back into the living room and forced Adam to take the phone. Clare said to him, before he could speak, “I’m all right, Adam. Not to worry,” and he said, “I know, Mom,” and Clare asked about his work and Lauren’s classes and she asked about Jason’s karate and the baby’s teeth, and when she could do nothing more, she said, “Oh, I’ll let you go now, honey,” and she sat on the floor, with the phone still in her hand.

One Sunday, Danny called and said, “Have you heard about Dad?” And Clare’s heart clutched, just as people describe, and when she didn’t say anything, Danny cleared his throat and said, “I thought you might have heard. Dad’s getting married.” Clare was so relieved she was practically giddy. “Oh, wonderful,” she said. “That nice, tall woman who golfs?” Danny laughed. Almost everything you could say about his future stepmother pointed directly to the ways she was not his mother — particularly nice, tall, and golfs. Clare got off the phone and sent Charles and his bride — she didn’t remember her name, so she sent it to Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wexler, which had a nice old-fashioned ring to it — a big pretty Tiffany vase of the kind she’d wanted when she married Charles.

The only calls Clare made were to Isabel. She called in the early evening, before Isabel turned in. (There was nothing she didn’t know about Isabel’s habits. They’d shared a beach house three summers in a row and she’d slept in their guest room in Boston a dozen times. She knew Isabel’s taste in linens, in kitchens, in moisturizer and makeup and movies. There was not a single place on earth that you could put Clare that she couldn’t point out to you what would suit Isabel and what would not.) She dialed her number, William’s old number, and when Isabel answered, she hung up, of course.