“I guess I’m not a women’s libber.”
“I’m not asking you to be one. I’m asking you to try to see yourself.”
“The person I see isn’t good.”
“Marion, listen to me.” The dumpling leaned forward. “Do you want to know a thing I really am getting tired of hearing? That particular refrain of yours.”
“But it’s true.”
“Really? You’ve raised four great kids. You’ve given your husband as much as any man could deserve. You did everything you could for your father. You even took care of your sister when she was dying.”
“That wasn’t me, though. It was me playing a role. The real me…” She shook her head.
“Tell me about the real you,” Sophie said. “Besides being a ‘bad’ person, how would you describe her? What is she like?”
“She’s thin,” Marion said emphatically.
“She’s thin.”
“She feels everything intensely. She’s a sinner, and she’s honest with God about that. She hopes He understands that sinning is inseparable from feeling alive, but she doesn’t care if He forgives her, because she’s not really capable of regret. She’s probably an actress—she wants attention. She’s fairly crazy, but not in a way that hurts anyone. She was never suicidal.”
The dumpling seemed unimpressed.
“Your sister was an actress,” she remarked. “You’ve also described her as nutty and thin.”
“Oh, thanks for that.”
Sophie gestured suggestively, not retracting her remark.
“Shirley was spoiled and bitter,” Marion said. “She wasn’t a real actress.”
“Okay.”
“The person I’m describing is the opposite of bitter.”
“Okay. Let’s say that’s the real you. What do you think is stopping you from being that person?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m fifty years old. Being divorced would be a disaster. Even if I found a way to make it work, I’d still be responsible for my kids, especially Perry. There’s no escaping the consequences of the life I’ve made.”
“Not to nitpick,” Sophie said, smiling pleasantly, “but if the real you is incapable of regret, why does she care about the consequences?”
“You asked me for my fantasy.”
“No, I asked you for the opposite. It’s interesting that you interpreted me to mean a fantasy.”
The dumpling’s endurance was extraordinary. Marion could talk to her forever, going around and around, and never get anywhere. It was nothing but a waste of money.
“I wonder if it has to be an either-or,” Sophie said. “Maybe there’s a way to feel truer to yourself and still be a good mother. What if you started with the local theater? Tried getting involved and seeing where it leads.”
This was the kind of suggestion—moderate, sensible, incremental—that Marion might have made to one of her kids, but waddling around on a stage with other middle-aged suburbanites held no appeal. She needed to be the intense, skinny woman smoking a cigarette at the back of the theater, watching the actors fail and finally losing her patience, striding up to the stage to show them how to do a scene. A fantasy? Maybe, but maybe not. Once upon a time, on a Murphy bed in Los Angeles, her acting had mesmerized Bradley Grant.
“What are you thinking?” Sophie asked.
“I’m thinking I’m going to let you go home.”
“Yes, in a few minutes. I feel we’re—”
“No.” Marion stood up. “Russ and I have to go to the open house for clergy. Doesn’t that sound fun?”
She went to the door and took her gabardine coat off its hook.
“I guarantee you,” she said, “it won’t be fun for Russ unless one of the wives is good-looking. Otherwise it’s just another occasion for his insecurity, and I’m no help with that. I’m the fat little humiliation he’s married to. His only consolation is how good I am at playing nice, remembering the name of every wife, making sure they all get greeted by a Hildebrandt. Later on, he’ll tell me how bad it felt to be the oldest junior minister at the party, how frustrated he is, and I’ll tell him he deserves his own church. I’ll tell him how much better his sermons are than Dwight’s, how much harder he works than Dwight, how much I admire him. That’s another role I’m insanely good at. Except then, if the party was hard enough for him, he’ll complain that his sermons are only good because I write them for him. Ha!”