too. The sweet solace of marriage. Always waiting: for school to start, for their real lives to start, for confidence in her marriage to start. A year later she was waiting again, but this waiting was different.
A P E R S O N O F I N T E R E S T 61
It was almost the last day of the month when, hearing the fl ag on their mailbox hinge down, she went out and found in place of the bills she had posted an envelope from Gaither’s mother. It wasn’t the outsize envelope of a card, those envelopes that for all their opacity exude inconsequence. This was a stationery envelope, rectangular and of heavy cream stock, and it seemed to contain more than one thickness of paper. Standing in the heat, on the baking sidewalk, she felt a thrill of cold sweat prickling over her skin. It was eleven o’clock in the morning. Gaither wouldn’t be home until six. Back inside, she propped the letter on the entranceway table and felt it like a beam of light cast on her movements the rest of the day.
When he got home that evening, Gaither didn’t slice the envelope open with a disproportionate show of interest and then read the contents aloud while Aileen filled their plates. He sat sideways on his chair, his long legs crossed at the ankles, and read the letter in silence.
Their cold tuna salad, their wedged tomatoes and hard-boiled eggs, all sat ready for him. When he was finished, he slid the letter half under his plate and began on his food.
“What does she say?” Aileen fi nally asked.
“She’d very much like us to visit for Labor Day weekend,” Gaither said, as if the fact of an invitation, extended to them both, weren’t completely unprecedented.
“That’s just six days away,” Aileen said stupidly. She was aware of the need to frame an objection that was calm, logical, but she felt herself flailing around in her mental closet, knocking things off the shelves.
“It is, but we can get there in five without having to rush.
We could leave tomorrow. We haven’t got any obligations until September nineteenth.”
“Leave tomorrow and just drive across the country? What about your work?”
“I think I could use a breather from my work. And you could use one, too. Before the baby comes.”
At this the rising heat of their conversation, the longest conversation she felt they’d had in weeks, was snatched away, as if the sealed hothouse in which they’d thus far kept their marriage, urging it to sprout rootlets, to unfurl even one wrinkled leaf, had been swiftly un-62 S U S A N C H O I
zippered. She felt the wash of cold sweat again, under her dress. “We just visited Nora,” she pointed out, stalling.
“Aileen,” he said, laying his fork carefully on his plate. “My parents have wronged you. We both know it. And perhaps you think I’ve wronged you, too, for not breaking with them. But what you have to understand is that I’d be giving you less of myself if I just cut them out of our lives. They’re not disappointed in you, they’re disappointed in me. They have a wrong idea about me I’ve been trying to change, for all of our sakes. It’s the slow road to travel, but it’s the right one. I have to ask you to accept this.”
“Lewis,” she began.
“No, I have to ask you to bear with me here. Please let me fi nish, Aileen. Many months ago I wrote my mother and father to tell them we were going to be blessed with a baby. Maybe you thought that I hadn’t, because I hadn’t yet mentioned it to you. Of course I told them.
It’s the most important event of my life, apart from marrying you. I knew I had to extend to my parents the opportunity to reconcile with us, before the baby is born. They’re old, Aileen. And they’re set in their ways. They have a lot of fears, about the modern world, about change—”
“Lewis,” she broke in again. “I don’t give a goddamn about your parents. I don’t mean to waste an ounce of my energy in relations with them.”
“You don’t only marry a man,” he said
A P E R S O N O F I N T E R E S T 61
It was almost the last day of the month when, hearing the fl ag on their mailbox hinge down, she went out and found in place of the bills she had posted an envelope from Gaither’s mother. It wasn’t the outsize envelope of a card, those envelopes that for all their opacity exude inconsequence. This was a stationery envelope, rectangular and of heavy cream stock, and it seemed to contain more than one thickness of paper. Standing in the heat, on the baking sidewalk, she felt a thrill of cold sweat prickling over her skin. It was eleven o’clock in the morning. Gaither wouldn’t be home until six. Back inside, she propped the letter on the entranceway table and felt it like a beam of light cast on her movements the rest of the day.
When he got home that evening, Gaither didn’t slice the envelope open with a disproportionate show of interest and then read the contents aloud while Aileen filled their plates. He sat sideways on his chair, his long legs crossed at the ankles, and read the letter in silence.
Their cold tuna salad, their wedged tomatoes and hard-boiled eggs, all sat ready for him. When he was finished, he slid the letter half under his plate and began on his food.
“What does she say?” Aileen fi nally asked.
“She’d very much like us to visit for Labor Day weekend,” Gaither said, as if the fact of an invitation, extended to them both, weren’t completely unprecedented.
“That’s just six days away,” Aileen said stupidly. She was aware of the need to frame an objection that was calm, logical, but she felt herself flailing around in her mental closet, knocking things off the shelves.
“It is, but we can get there in five without having to rush.
We could leave tomorrow. We haven’t got any obligations until September nineteenth.”
“Leave tomorrow and just drive across the country? What about your work?”
“I think I could use a breather from my work. And you could use one, too. Before the baby comes.”
At this the rising heat of their conversation, the longest conversation she felt they’d had in weeks, was snatched away, as if the sealed hothouse in which they’d thus far kept their marriage, urging it to sprout rootlets, to unfurl even one wrinkled leaf, had been swiftly un-62 S U S A N C H O I
zippered. She felt the wash of cold sweat again, under her dress. “We just visited Nora,” she pointed out, stalling.
“Aileen,” he said, laying his fork carefully on his plate. “My parents have wronged you. We both know it. And perhaps you think I’ve wronged you, too, for not breaking with them. But what you have to understand is that I’d be giving you less of myself if I just cut them out of our lives. They’re not disappointed in you, they’re disappointed in me. They have a wrong idea about me I’ve been trying to change, for all of our sakes. It’s the slow road to travel, but it’s the right one. I have to ask you to accept this.”
“Lewis,” she began.
“No, I have to ask you to bear with me here. Please let me fi nish, Aileen. Many months ago I wrote my mother and father to tell them we were going to be blessed with a baby. Maybe you thought that I hadn’t, because I hadn’t yet mentioned it to you. Of course I told them.
It’s the most important event of my life, apart from marrying you. I knew I had to extend to my parents the opportunity to reconcile with us, before the baby is born. They’re old, Aileen. And they’re set in their ways. They have a lot of fears, about the modern world, about change—”
“Lewis,” she broke in again. “I don’t give a goddamn about your parents. I don’t mean to waste an ounce of my energy in relations with them.”
“You don’t only marry a man,” he said
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