Andrea Barrett - The Air We Breathe

He couldn’t stop his daily round of meetings — indeed he was busier than ever — but for the rest of the week he avoided anything to do with Leo or Dr. Petrie. When he had to pass the east end of the lake, he turned his face from the benches. At Tamarack State, where he still had duties, he timed his visits for hours when he knew Dr. Petrie was making rounds and we were on our porches. To Dr. Richards, who seemed puzzled but relieved, he explained that Irene’s letter, while not completely satisfactory, had along with a lack of sufficient resources reluctantly convinced him not to pursue his investigation further. The night after he told that lie, he had such savage stomach pains that Mrs. Martin had to call in his private physician.

He was an invalid, he reminded himself then. Nowhere near as strong as he pretended, and useless to everyone if he didn’t take better care of his health. He had responsibilities to the other members of his committee and he had to balance the work that only he could do with the rest his cure demanded. Mrs. Martin, ever thoughtful, put him on a special diet and guarded his rest hours fiercely, answering the telephone herself and taking messages for him. On Saturday, when he was feeling a little better, he decided in return to help her with one small task.

In preparation for their outing, she had one of the new kitchen helpers — since May there’d been five — bring him a pot of tea. From the first sip, he could tell it had been made from water that wasn’t quite boiling. The girl who brought it had a long braid of brown hair that swung sullenly against her back and an expression that seemed to dare him to complain. The one before her had had grubby hands, another had flirted outrageously with several boarders, although not with him; they came, stayed for a couple of weeks, bungled their tasks, and then left. Around him were other signs that Naomi might have had more to do with the household’s smooth functioning than he’d suspected. A stain on the carpet, an unrepaired tear in the dining room curtain. Also a disconcerting influx of mail: letters from booksellers, complaining that payments he knew he’d left to be mailed had never arrived; from clothing stores in Philadelphia wondering why they hadn’t received his usual order for shirts and vests. In Naomi’s continued absence, nothing seemed to work. He tried not to think about her, and thought about her all the time.

To the list of things for which he blamed Leo, he added this: Leo had driven Naomi away. He blamed Eudora for failing to stop her, Mrs. Martin for overburdening her here at the house, Irene for whatever clumsiness she’d committed the night of the fire, when Naomi came looking for consolation. Dr. Richards had shown him Irene’s letter, from which he remembered this: She was upset about something when she came to see me, and still upset when she ran out . The line made him want to weep. How was it that Irene, old enough to be Naomi’s mother, supposedly so resourceful and sympathetic, had failed to comfort her?

How had he? Sometimes, as when he looked up now to see Tyler in the doorway, so eager to drive him that he was bouncing gently on his built-up shoe, he also blamed himself. Long before Naomi left he could, he saw, have freed her and hired his own permanent car and driver. Except that he had wanted her next to him. Except that he had wanted to be able to study her features in a place where, with her eyes fixed on the road before her, she wouldn’t be able to turn away. Except that, worst of all, he had enjoyed making her do what he wanted. During their last weeks together, when he’d ordered her to take him somewhere and she’d curled her lip and looked down at her shoes for a second before looking back up and saying, “Of course”—that feeling moving through his veins had been pleasure.

He set down the unsatisfactory cup of tea and rose just as Mrs. Martin entered the parlor. “Ready?” he asked her.

“Ready,” she said, patting her bag. “I have my notes, I know what I want to say — really this is so kind of you.”

Miles nodded to Tyler, who clopped ahead to the limousine. Mrs. Martin, who hadn’t ridden in it before, settled into the back seat as if she belonged there, running her hand slowly over the smooth leather upholstery. All week long she’d been talking about this meeting, which she’d organized herself. Gathering together other directors of cure cottages, along with the women who worked in the hotel kitchens and the hospital dining rooms, she planned a brisk half-hour speech, complete with diagrams, of how they might most effectively conserve food and cooking fuel. Before she started, though, Miles was to give a brief talk on the sacrifices being made by the drafted soldiers, and how every scrap saved here would directly help our men.

As they drove the short distance to the hotel, she prattled, Tyler responded attentively, and Miles, listening to their eagerness and goodwill, their obvious delight in finding a purpose, felt his own spirits plummet. How worthy both of them were, and how tiresome! Mrs. Martin with her meticulous lists and the mat of carefully plaited hair clamped to the back of her head like a trivet; Tyler with his sweaty hands and his way of brushing off the seat with a handkerchief before Miles sat down. They agreed with him on every point and anticipated most of his requests. He didn’t care for either of them.

Except for the days he’d shared with Edward and Lawrence in Doylestown and their blissful summer digging fossils in Canada, he sometimes felt that he’d spent most of his life with people he didn’t really like. The ones who drew him magnetically always moved just beyond his reach, living lives that seemed much more interesting and joyful than his own. They danced past, talked gaily together, burst into laughter, and then disappeared. Meanwhile he dutifully worked with the earnest ones. This, perhaps, he’d shared with Dr. Petrie; which made the betrayal worse.

“Shall I wait?” Tyler said as he parked in front of the hotel. The moon was full, illuminating the leaves swaying on the basswoods, the soft shadows of the shrubs and the darker ones of the buildings on the street. Lights were on here and there, linked by scallops of bunting strung across the façades, and porches glowed on the cure cottages marching up the hill. In some he could see figures lying on their chairs, where he’d once been. Where he should be.

“Come in and listen,” Mrs. Martin urged Tyler. “I promise it will be interesting.”

He could engage a private detective, Miles reflected as he helped Mrs. Martin from the limousine. Not for any further investigation of Leo — Dr. Petrie had closed that route — but as a way of trying to find Naomi. Several detectives, even, in different cities; one young woman with modest resources couldn’t be that difficult to find. But even if he found her — what then? She didn’t care for him, she never had. Let her mother find her, let her mother sort out what had happened. Already, he knew, Mrs. Martin had circulated inquiries through the web of her professional acquaintances, cure cottages here connected to boardinghouses in the Catskills, home economics instructors on Long Island in touch with hospital administrators in Vermont and far beyond.

He straightened his narrow shoulders. His job tonight was to inspire the audience so that they would all adopt, enthusiastically, Mrs. Martin’s recommendations. More tasks loomed tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Work in the village, work for the league, work related to Tamarack State; fortunate that he knew how to husband his energies. At home in Doylestown— home, he thought, seeing the pale, well-ordered rooms of his house, the ranks of machinery in his plant, each piece tended by his well-trained employees — other work awaited him, which only he could do. Would do, as soon as he was cured. Everyone, he thought, must do his duty.