Evan Connell - Mrs. Bridge

That summer the family was invited to the wedding of a relative named Maxwell who was a postal clerk In the nearby town of Olathe. Carolyn was the only one who wanted to attend the wedding, but because It was an obligation of sorts the entire family except Mr. Bridge drove to Olathe. When the bride came down the aisle they discovered the rea-son for the wedding.

After the ceremony they put In an appearance at the reception and then, In silence, drove home.

About three months later they received the traditional announcement concerning the birth of a child. It happened that Ruth, Carolyn, and Douglas were at home when this announcement arrived, and Mrs. Bridge, having exclaimed, In spite of her disgust, “Isn’t that nice!” felt It necessary to add, “First babies are so-often premature.”

At this time Ruth was eighteen years old, Carolyn was sixteen, and Douglas, nobody’s fool, a shrewd fourteen. A profound silence, a massive, annihilating silence, greeted her remark. Carolyn gazed out the window. Douglas became greatly interested In his fingernails. Ruth looked at Carolyn, then at Douglas, and she seemed to be considering. Finally she said, quietly, “Oh, Mother, don’t.”

None of them said anything further. The Maxwells were not mentioned again.

She was kneeling in the garden with a trowel in her hand when Harriet lifted the kitchen window to announce that some man who would not give his name was on the telephone asking for Ruth.

‘Til take it,” Mrs. Bridge said, getting to her feet. She entered the house and approached the telephone with a feeling of hostility, and taking up the receiver more firmly than usual she said, “Hello. Ruth is not in Kansas City at the mo-ment. Who’s calling, please?”

“Where’s she at?” a deep voice asked.

Mrs. Bridge signaled Harriet to stop running the vacuum cleaner.

“Ruth is visiting friends at Lake Lotawana. Who is calling, please?”

“What’s the number out there?” the man demanded,

Despite his rudeness and obvious coarseness, if he had been inquiring about Carolyn she would have given him the num-ber at the lake, but she had never liked or trusted the men who came after Ruth.

“I’m certain she would like to know who called.”

There was a pause. Mrs. Bridge thought he was going to hang up, but he finally answered, “Tell her Al called.” Then he added, “Al Luchek.” And faintly, from wherever he was, came the clink of glasses.

For some reason Ruth’s friends always had foreign names. Carolyn’s companions were named Bob or Janet or Trudy or Buzz, but there was a malignant sound to Al Luchek, and to the others the Louie Minillos and the Nick Gajadas. They sounded like gangsters from the north end. Mrs. Bridge had once or twice asked Ruth who they were, and how she met them, but Ruth replied evasively that she had simply met them at So-and-so’s house or at a New Year’s Eve party.

“But what do they do?” she asked, and Ruth would shrug.

“Tom Duncan was asking about you the other day/’ she would say, but Ruth would not be interested.

Now she said in cool and civil tones to the man on the telephone, “Thank you for calling, Mr. Luchek.”

Immediately the vacuum roared.

Mrs. Bridge was disturbed. Ruth was incomprehensible to her and with every year she became more so, more secretive and turbulent, more cunning and inaccessible, more foreign. Where had she come from? How could she be Carolyn’s sister? Mrs. Bridge was deeply worried and found it more and more difficult to call her by the pet names of childhood, and before long she was unable to call her by any name except Ruth, though it sounded formal and distant and tended to magnify their separation. Are you mine? she sometimes thought. Is my daughter mine?

It was to Carolyn, though she was younger, that Mrs. Bridge was in the habit of confiding her hopes for them all. The two were apt to sit on the edge of Carolyn’s bed until quite late at night, their arms half-entwined, talking and giggling, while across the room Ruth slept her strangely restless sleep mumbling and rolling and burying her face in her wild black hair.

Mrs. Bridge could never learn what Ruth did in the evenings, or where she went; she entered the house quietly, sometimes not long before dawn. Mrs. Bridge had always lain awake until both girls were home, and one evening during the Christmas holidays she was still downstairs reading when Carolyn returned, bringing Jay Duchesne, who was now considerably over six feet tall and was doing his best to grow a mustache. In certain lights the mustache was visible, and he was quite proud of it and stroked it constantly and feverishly, as if all it needed in order to flourish was a little affection. Mrs, Bridge liked Jay. She trusted him. There were moments when she thought she knew him better than she knew Douglas.

“What’s new, Mrs. B.?” he inquired, twirling his hat on one finger. And to Carolyn, “How’s for chow, kid?” So they went out to the kitchen to cook bacon and eggs while Mrs. Bridge remained in the front room with the book turned over in her lap and her eyes closed, dozing and dreaming happily, because it seemed to her that despite the difficulties of adolescence she had gotten her children through it in reasonably good condition. Later, when Duchesne roared out of the driveway he still drove as recklessly as ever and she was still not resigned to it she climbed the stairs, arm in arm, with Carolyn.

“Jay’s voice has certainly changed,” she smiled.

“He’s a man now, Mother,” Carolyn explained a bit impatiently.

Mrs. Bridge smiled again. She sat on the bed and watched as Carolyn pulled off the baggy sweater and skirt and seated herself at the dressing table with a box of bobby pins.

“Funny it’s so quiet/’ said Carolyn.

Mrs. Bridge looked out the window. “Why, it’s snowing again. Isn’t that nicel I just love snowy winter nights.”

Large wet flakes were floating down and clasping the outside of the window, and the street light shone on the evergreen tree in the back yard.

“There goes a rabbit!” she cried, but by the time Carolyn reached the window only the tracks were visible.

“Is Daddy asleep?” Carolyn asked.

“Yes, poor man. He didn’t get away from the office until after seven and insists he has to get up at five-thirty tomorrow morning.”

“That’s silly.”

“I know, but you can’t tell him anything. I’ve tried, goodness knows, but it never does any good.”

“Why does he do it?”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Bridge irritably, for the thought of it never failed to irritate fier, “he insists we’ll all starve to death if he doesn’t.”

“That’ll be the day!”

Both of them were silent for a while, watching the snow descend.

“I do hope Ruth gets home soon/’

“She can drop dead for all I care/’

“You know I don’t like you to use that expression/’

Carolyn split a bobby pin on her teeth and jammed it into her curly blond hair. “Well, what’s the matter with her then? Who does she think she is, anyway?” She leaned to one side and opened the cupboard that belonged to Ruth. “Look at that! Black lace bras. Mademoiselle from Kansas City/’

Presently the grandfather clock in the hall chimed twice, and Mrs. Bridge, after brushing Carolyn’s cheek with her lips, went downstairs and into the kitchen, where she made herself some cocoa and moodily watched the snow building up on the sill. After a while she went upstairs again, changed into her nightgown, and got into bed beside her husband. There she lay with her hands folded on the blanket while she waited for the faint noise of the front door opening and closing.