Every time he said that.
For three months, we were together on Saturday nights.
* * *
William rapped on my door in the morning; he was wearing the khakis that were too short and I had the same reaction I’d had when I first saw him wearing them at the airport the day before, but I was tired from my night and I did not feel it as strongly.
Right away William told me—he was standing in the doorway to my room—that when he had gotten into bed the night before he’d had a sensation of holding Becka when she was probably a year old. “Her sweaty—remember how she used to sweat?—her sweaty little face and her head nestled into my neck. Whew, Lucy.” He looked at me, and I felt a rush of love for him, for the pain his face showed in remembering our little child.
“Oh Pillie,” I said. “I know what you mean. Sometimes I have memories that are sharp like that.”
He stared at me, and then I realized he wasn’t really seeing me.
“Did you sleep?” I asked him, and he broke into a smile then, his mustache moving, and he said, “I did. How crazy is that? I slept like a baby.”
He did not ask about my sleep and I did not tell him.
* * *
—
We pulled our little suitcases behind us down to the car rental place and we got into the car. The day was sunny and warm but not too warm. It seemed like empty parking lots went on forever. On the ride out of the airport we passed by two signs, one on top of the other: Sequel Care on top and Visiting Angel on the bottom—that was the bigger sign, with an angel spreading itself out in yellow and purple. “People are old up here,” William told me. “It’s the oldest, whitest state in the union.”
* * *
—
On the turnpike there were almost no cars in sight. Grass was coming up through the concrete next to the road. We passed a sign that said Speed Limit 75 MPH. As I gazed out of my window I saw the top of a tree whose leaves were orangey-red, and yellow leaves that were changing along the way, and one little bright red tree among all the trees lining the road. The grass by the side of the road was sort of bleached of color; it was very August-looking in the lack of rich green. Beyond it were tall trees.
* * *
—
And then I remembered:
Throughout my marriage to William, I had had the image—and this was true even when Catherine was alive, and more so after she died—so often I had the private image of William and me as Hansel and Gretel, two small kids lost in the woods looking for the breadcrumbs that could lead us home.
This may sound like it contradicts my saying that the only home I ever had was with William, but in my mind they are both true and oddly do not go against each other. I am not sure why this is true, but it is. I suppose because being with Hansel—even if we were lost in the woods—made me feel safe.
* * *
—
As we drove I became aware of a sensation that was familiar, and it had started the night before with the airport seeming so surreal, almost not like an airport at all. What I became aware of was this:
I was scared.
The trees were getting scrubbier, then there was a long stretch of thick pines. In a few more minutes I saw on the left a field of skinny birch trees. But otherwise the wide-open road was endless. There were no signs anywhere. And there were no other cars, except for one or two that passed us by.
* * *
—
I have mentioned earlier how easy it is for me to become frightened, and as we drove up this turnpike with barely another car in sight I thought: Oh I wish I had not come!
I am afraid of things that are not familiar. And New York has been where I have lived for many years, and that is familiar: my apartment, my friends, the doormen, the city buses that sigh at each stop, my daughters… All of that is familiar. And where I was was not familiar, and it frightened me.
It frightened me a great deal.
And I could not tell William, because I suddenly felt that I did not know him well enough to tell him that I was scared.
* * *
—
Mommy, I cried inside myself, Mommy, I am so frightened!
And the nice mother I have made up over the years answered: Yes, I know.
* * *
—
We drove and drove, and William was silent, staring through the windshield at this endless road ahead of us. He finally glanced over at me and said, “Okay if we stop for breakfast now?” I nodded. He pulled off at an exit. I was no longer watching things through the window.
* * *
—
In the parking lot, right up near to the front door of the place, we walked past a car that was filled with garbage. Every space of it—except for the driver’s seat—was filled with garbage. Trash. Nothing was growing, but there was to the ceiling of the car—the car was an old sedan—trash: newspapers and old wrappings of waxed paper and small cardboard cartons of the sort that food came in. The license plate had a big V on it and also said VETERAN.