Distortions by Ann Beattie Page B

house for a week. He said that after caring for me he, also, had to recuperate. I have no hold on him. Even our marriage is common-law—if four years and four months make it common-law. He said he was going to his brother’s. But how do I know where he’s calling from? And why has he written no letters? In his absence, I talk to the dog. I pretend that I am Jon, that I am logical and reassuring. I tell the dog that Jon needed this rest and will soon be back. The dog grows anxious, sniffs Jon’s clothes closet, and hangs close to the security of the kneehole. It
has
been a long time.
    *
    Celebrated my birthday in solitude. Took the phone off the hook so I wouldn’t have to “put Jon on” when my parents called. Does the dog know that today is a special day? No day is special without beef bones, but I have forgotten to buy them to create a celebration. I go to the kneehole and stroke his neck in sorrow.
    It occurs to me that this is a story of a woman whose man went away. Billie Holiday could have done a lot with it.
    *
    I put on a blue dress and go out to a job interview. I order a half cord of wood; there will be money when the man delivers it on Saturday. I splurge on canned horsemeat for the dog. “You’ll never leave, will you?” I say as the dog eats, stabbing his mouth into the bowl of food. I think, giddily, that a dog is better than a hog. Hogs are only raised for slaughter; dogs are raised to love. Although I know this is true, I would be hesitant to voice this observation. The doctor (glasses sliding down nose, lower lip pressed to the upper) would say, “Might not
some
people love hogs?”
    I dream that Jon has come back, that we do an exotic dance in the living room. Is it, perhaps, the tango? As he leads he tilts me back, and suddenly I can’t feel the weight of his arms any more. My body is very heavy and my neck stretches farther and farther back until my body seems to stretch out of the room, passing painlessly through the floor into blackness.
    Once when the electricity went off, Jon went to the kitchen to get candles, and I crawled under the bed, loving the darkness and wanting to stay in it. The dog came and curled beside me, at the side of the bed. Jon came back quickly, his hand cupped in front of the white candle. “Maria?” he said. “Maria?” When he left the room again, I slid forward a little to peek and saw him walking down the hallway. He walked so quickly that the candle blew out. He stopped to relight it and called my name louder—so loudly that he frightened me. I stayed there, shivering, thinking him as terrible as the Gestapo, praying that the lights wouldn’t come on so he wouldn’t find me. Even hiding and not answering was better than that. I put my hands together and blew into them, because I wanted to scream. When the lights came back on and he found me, he pulled me out by my hands, and the scream my hands had blocked came out.
    *
    After the hot grape jelly is poured equally into a dozen glasses, the fun begins. Melted wax is dropped in to seal them. As the white wax drips, I think, If there were anything down in there but jelly it would be smothered. I had laid in no cheesecloth, so Ipulled a pair of lacy white underpants over a big yellow bowl, poured the jelly mixture through that.
    In the morning Jon is back. He walks through the house to see if anything is amiss. Our clothes are still in the closets; all unnecessary lights have been turned off. He goes into the kitchen and then is annoyed because I have not gone grocery shopping. He has some toast with the grape jelly. He spoons more jelly from the glass to his mouth when the bread is gone.
    “Talk to me, Maria. Don’t shut me out,” he says, licking the jelly from his upper lip. He is like a child, but one who orders me to do and feel things.
    “Feel this arm,” he says. It is tight from his chopping wood at his brother’s camp.
    I met his brother once. Jon and his brother are twins, but very dissimilar. His