‘There’s a girl who sits for us sometimes,’ Mary Alice said hesitantly. ‘She’s very young, but responsible, and she doesn’t charge much. You could have her over some afternoons to take care of the kids while you . . .’
Sara shook her head, discarding the suggestion impatiently. ‘They’d still be around. They’d still be – oh, calling to me, somehow. I don’t know how to explain it. Sometimes I feel I’m just looking for excuses not to paint, but . . . there’s just something about being both a mother and an artist. I don’t know if I can manage it, not even with all the good examples of other women, or all the babysitters in the world.
‘Art has never been a part-time thing for me. Art was all I cared about in school, and up until I met Bruce. Then the part of me that was an artist got submerged. For the past five years I’ve been a full-time mother. Now I’m trying to learn how to be a part-time artist and a part-time mother, and I don’t think I can. I know that’s very all-or-nothing of me, but it’s how I feel.’
The two women sat quietly in the bright, sunlit room. The high-pitched voices of their children, playing outside, floated up to them.
‘Maybe it’s just too early,’ Mary Alice ventured at last. ‘In the fall, Michael will be in school. You could put Melanie in a nursery, at least during the mornings. Then you could count on having a certain amount of time to yourself every day.’
‘Maybe,’ Sara said. She did not sound hopeful. ‘But even when the children aren’t around, the pull is there. I think about them, worry about them, have to plan for them. And my art makes as many demands as a child – I can’t divide myself between them. I don’t think it can ever be the same – I’ll never have all my energy and thoughts and commitment to give to my art. There are always the children pulling at me.’ She sighed and rubbed her face. ‘Sometimes . . . I wish I had it to do all over again. And I think that, much as I love them, I would never have chosen to have children. I would never have married.’
Silence fell again and Sara wondered if she had shocked Mary Alice. She was rousing herself to say something else about her love for her children, to find the words that would modify the wish she had just made, when the clamour of children filled the house, the sound of the kitchen door opening and slamming, the clatter of many feet on hardwood floors, and voices raised, calling.
Sara and Mary Alice both leaped to their feet as the children rushed in.
Melanie and Chrissie were crying; the boys were excited and talking all at once.
‘It was the same bird!’ Michael cried, tugging at Sara’s arm as she knelt to comfort Melanie. ‘It came and tried to kill us again – it tried to peck her eyes out, but we ran!’
Melanie seemed unhurt; gradually, bathed in her mother’s attention, her sobs subsided.
The children all agreed with Michael’s story: there had been a white bird which had suddenly swooped down on Melanie, pecking at her head.
‘Why does that bird want to hurt us?’ Michael asked.
‘Oh, Michael, I don’t think it does. Maybe you were near its nest; maybe it was attracted by Melanie’s hair.’ Helpless to explain and trying not to feel frightened herself, Sara hugged her daughter.
‘Me go home,’ Melanie muttered into Sara’s blouse.
Sara looked up. ‘Michael, do you want to go home now, or do you want to keep on playing here?’
‘You kids can all go and play in Barry’s room,’ Mary Alice said.
The other children ran off. Sara stood up, still holding Melanie and staggering slightly under her weight. ‘I’ll take this one home,’ she said. ‘You can send Michael by himself when he’s ready, unless . . . unless he wants me to come and get him.’
Mary Alice nodded, her face concerned and puzzled. ‘What’s this about the bird?’
Sara didn’t want to talk about it. As lightly as she could she said, ‘Oh, a bird got trapped in the house yesterday and scared the kids. I don’t know what happened outside just now, but naturally Michael and Melanie are a little spooked about birds.’ She set Melanie down. ‘Come on, sweetie, I’m not going to carry you all the way home.’
Keeping her head down as if she feared another attack, Melanie left the house with her mother and walked the half-mile home staying close by her side.
At home, Sara settled Melanie in her room with her dolls, and then, feeling depressed, went back to her own bedroom and stretched out on the bed. She closed her eyes and tried to comfort herself with thoughts of the children at school, a babysitter, a silent house, and time to work. It was wrong to blame the children, she thought. She could be painting now – it was her own fault if she didn’t.
Thinking about what she would paint next, she visualized a pale, blonde woman. Her skin was unnaturally white, suggesting sickness or the pallor of death. Her lips were as red as blood, and her long hair was like silvery corn silk.
The White Goddess, thought Sara.
The woman drew a veil over her face. Then, slowly, began to draw it back. Sara felt a quickening of dread. Although she had just seen her face, she was afraid that another, different face would now be revealed. And then the veil was removed, and she saw the grey face with dead-white, staring eyes.
Sara woke with a start. She felt as if she had dozed off for less than a minute, but she saw from the bedside clock that she had been asleep for nearly an hour. She sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed her eyes. Her mouth was dry. She heard voices, one of them Michael’s, coming from outside.
She stood up and walked to the window and pulled back the heavy curtains, curious to see who Michael was talking to.
Michael was standing on the edge of the lawn near the driveway with a strange woman. Although there was something faintly familiar about her, Sara could not identify her as any of the neighbours. She was a brassy blonde, heavily made-up – even at this distance her lips seemed garishly red against an unnaturally pale face. Something about the way they stood together and spoke so intently made Sara want to intrude.
But by the time she got outside, Michael was alone.
‘Hi,’ he said, walking toward her.
‘Where’d she go?’ Sara asked, looking around.
‘Who?’
‘That woman you were just talking to – who was she?’
‘Who?’
‘You know who,’ Sara began, then stopped abruptly, confused. She had just realised why the woman seemed familiar to her; she’d seen her first in a dream. Perhaps she had dreamed the whole incident?
She shook her head, bent to kiss Michael, and went with him into the house.
In the middle of the night Sara started up in bed, wide awake and frightened. The children? She couldn’t pinpoint her anxiety, but her automatic reaction was to check on their safety. In the hall, on the way to their rooms, she heard the sound of a muffled giggle coming from the family room. There she saw Michael and Melanie standing before the window, curtains opened wide, gazing into the garden.
Sara walked slowly toward the window, vaguely dreading what she would see.
There was a white pig on the lawn, almost shining in the moonlight. It stood very still, looking up at them.
Sara put her hand on Melanie’s shoulders and the little girl leaped away, letting out a small scream.
‘Melanie!’ Sara said sharply.
Both children stood still and quiet, looking at her. There was a wariness in their gaze that Sara did not like. They looked as if they were expecting punishment. What had they done? Sara wondered.