they arranged their furniture and who their friends were, what they fought about, what made them cry, where they went for fun and what they ate for breakfast and how they got to sleep at night and what they dreamed of. And having found out, I would leave; on to the next one. I wanted to marry a mad genius and then a lumberman and then somebody very rich and cold and then a poet who would dedicate his every word to me and who would have a nervous breakdown when I left him. Which I would do, of course. As soon as I had been absorbed into his world, as soon as it stopped feeling foreign; on to the next one. I didn’t guess back then that moving on would hurt so.
What would Guy have said if he’d known what I dreamed? His idea of change was to take in a movie on Saturday night. His greatest joy was attending motorcycle rallies. Hours and hours in someone’s hot cow pasture, with me trying to pick out the cloud of dust that was Guy from among a lot of other clouds. When I refused to go any more, he went alone. He was gone overnight, weekends. “That son of mine should stay at home more,” Gloria used to say, but I didn’t mind. It seemed to be part of the pattern that I had married into; the other women’s husbands didn’t stay home either. They were off bowling, or drag-racing, or playing billiards. On summer evenings we would pool all our children and go to Roy’s for hamburgers, which we ate at one of the outdoor tables—a double line of women and children, not a man among us. All the women laughing and scolding and mopping spilled drinks, filling every corner of their world. Then when Guy came home again his boots jarred the house and his bass voice took me by surprise, and when he plucked Darcy out from her dolls she squirmed and looked at me for reassurance, as if he were a stranger.
Which he had been, once upon a time. He was more astranger than any boy I’d met. It wasn’t his fault that we finally got to know each other.
I walked with Darcy to the post office and we dawdled every step of the way. I was hanging back, hunting up excuses never to arrive at all. And when we got there, sure enough, a slanted blade of paper was showing through the window. One of my own envelopes, pale blue. It gave me a shock to see it. “Now can we go to the park?” Darcy asked. “No, wait,” I told her. We were supposed to meet John there at noon. I didn’t want him to watch me reading this letter. I leaned against a counter and tore open the envelope. The letter itself was written in pencil, on several sheets of the pulpy gray paper I kept for Darcy to draw on. Every word was smudged over. Guy is left-handed; his hand rubs what he has just written as it travels across the paper. I could picture him at the kitchen table with his hair falling over his forehead, his shoulders hunched with the effort of writing.
Dear Mary
,
Now I have never understood you but this time is worse than usual
.
I treated you real good Mary always gave you ever little thing you wanted, a house of your own clothes a baby even when I thought we should wait some. I thought you was happy, now I hear it wasn’t so. Come home one night to find it wrote out on the icebox door, your going and won’t be back and sorry you hurt me
.
You didn’t hurt me worth a shit Mary I mean that. You could go clear on to California it wouldn’t hurt me worth a shit. I am too blasted mad
.
We have been married six years now that I could have been playing around in and buying up fast cars instead of cookpots and I could have had me a lot of other women
as well let me tell you but never did as I thought you loved me. I stood for a lot from you Mary. First off I near about
raised
you, you didn’t know beans when we were married and had my mama waiting on you hand and foot for years, secondly I let you correct my grammer and my table manners and change my whole way of doing things that you looked down on and drive off all my friends account of you thought none of
What would Guy have said if he’d known what I dreamed? His idea of change was to take in a movie on Saturday night. His greatest joy was attending motorcycle rallies. Hours and hours in someone’s hot cow pasture, with me trying to pick out the cloud of dust that was Guy from among a lot of other clouds. When I refused to go any more, he went alone. He was gone overnight, weekends. “That son of mine should stay at home more,” Gloria used to say, but I didn’t mind. It seemed to be part of the pattern that I had married into; the other women’s husbands didn’t stay home either. They were off bowling, or drag-racing, or playing billiards. On summer evenings we would pool all our children and go to Roy’s for hamburgers, which we ate at one of the outdoor tables—a double line of women and children, not a man among us. All the women laughing and scolding and mopping spilled drinks, filling every corner of their world. Then when Guy came home again his boots jarred the house and his bass voice took me by surprise, and when he plucked Darcy out from her dolls she squirmed and looked at me for reassurance, as if he were a stranger.
Which he had been, once upon a time. He was more astranger than any boy I’d met. It wasn’t his fault that we finally got to know each other.
I walked with Darcy to the post office and we dawdled every step of the way. I was hanging back, hunting up excuses never to arrive at all. And when we got there, sure enough, a slanted blade of paper was showing through the window. One of my own envelopes, pale blue. It gave me a shock to see it. “Now can we go to the park?” Darcy asked. “No, wait,” I told her. We were supposed to meet John there at noon. I didn’t want him to watch me reading this letter. I leaned against a counter and tore open the envelope. The letter itself was written in pencil, on several sheets of the pulpy gray paper I kept for Darcy to draw on. Every word was smudged over. Guy is left-handed; his hand rubs what he has just written as it travels across the paper. I could picture him at the kitchen table with his hair falling over his forehead, his shoulders hunched with the effort of writing.
Dear Mary
,
Now I have never understood you but this time is worse than usual
.
I treated you real good Mary always gave you ever little thing you wanted, a house of your own clothes a baby even when I thought we should wait some. I thought you was happy, now I hear it wasn’t so. Come home one night to find it wrote out on the icebox door, your going and won’t be back and sorry you hurt me
.
You didn’t hurt me worth a shit Mary I mean that. You could go clear on to California it wouldn’t hurt me worth a shit. I am too blasted mad
.
We have been married six years now that I could have been playing around in and buying up fast cars instead of cookpots and I could have had me a lot of other women
as well let me tell you but never did as I thought you loved me. I stood for a lot from you Mary. First off I near about
raised
you, you didn’t know beans when we were married and had my mama waiting on you hand and foot for years, secondly I let you correct my grammer and my table manners and change my whole way of doing things that you looked down on and drive off all my friends account of you thought none of
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