“I’d like to go,” I said, finding my voice at last.
“Why?” my father asked me. “Why would you want to go back to that city, where people live on top of each other, and you can’t even see the daylight?”
“Says the man who has spent the better part of his life in a mine,” retorted Peg.
Honestly, they were like a couple of children. It wouldn’t have surprised me if they started kicking each other under the table.
But now they were all looking at me, waiting for my answer. Why did I want to go to New York? How could I explain it? How could I explain what this proposal felt like, compared to the marriage proposal Jim Larsen had recently offered me? It was merely the difference between cough syrup and champagne.
“I would like to go to New York City again,” I announced, “because I wish to expand the prospects of my life.”
I delivered this line with a certain amount of authority, I felt, and it got everyone’s attention. (I must confess that I’d heard the phrase “I wish to expand the prospects of my life” on a radio soap opera recently, and it had stayed with me. But no matter. In this situation, it worked. Also it was true.)
“If you go,” said my mother, “we won’t be supporting you. We can’t keep giving you an allowance. Not at your age.”
“I don’t need an allowance. I’ll earn my own way.”
Even the word “allowance” embarrassed me. I never wanted to hear it again.
“You’ll have to find employment,” my father said.
Peg stared at her brother in astonishment. “It’s incredible, Douglas, how you never listen to me. Only moments ago—at this very table—I told you that I had a job for Vivian.”
“She’ll need proper employment,” said my father.
“She’ll have proper employment. She’ll be working for the United States Navy, just like her brother. The Navy’s given me enough of a budget to hire another person. She’ll be a government employee.”
Now it was I who wanted to kick Peg under the table. For my father, there was scarcely a worse combination of two words in the English language than “government employee.” It would have been better if Peg had said I’d be working as a “money thief.”
“You can’t keep going back and forth between here and New York City eternally, you know,” said my mother.
“I won’t,” I promised. And boy, did I mean it.
“I don’t want my daughter spending a lifetime working in the theater,” said my father.
Peg rolled her eyes. “Yes, that would be appalling.”
“I don’t like New York,” he said. “It’s a city full of second-place winners.”
“Yes, famously,” shot back Peg. “Nobody who has ever been successful at anything has ever lived in Manhattan.”
My father must not have cared that much about his argument, though, because he didn’t dig in.
In all honesty, I think my parents were willing to consider allowing me to leave because they were weary of me. In their eyes, I shouldn’t have been inhabiting their home anyway—and it was their home. I should have been out of the house a long time ago—ideally through the portal of college, followed by a finalizing shunt into matrimony. I didn’t come from a culture where children are welcome to remain in the family household after childhood. (My parents hadn’t even wanted me around that much during childhood, for that matter, if you consider the amount of time I’d spent at boarding school and summer camps.)
My father just had to razz Aunt Peg a little more before he could finally agree to it.
“I’m unconvinced that New York would be a good influence on Vivian,” he said. “I would hate to see a daughter of mine becoming a Democrat.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” said Peg, with a fat smile of satisfaction. “I’ve been into the matter. Turns out, they don’t allow registered Democrats into the Anarchist Party.”
That line actually made my mother laugh—to her credit.
“I’m going,” I pronounced. “I’m nearly twenty-two years old. There’s nothing here for me in Clinton. From this point forward, where I live should be my decision.”
“That’s laying it on a bit thick, Vivian,” said my mother. “You won’t be twenty-two until October, and you’ve never paid for a thing in your life. You don’t have the faintest notion of how anything in the world functions.”
Still, I could tell she was pleased by the tone of resolve in my voice. My mother, after all, was a woman who had spent her life on horseback, hurling herself at ditches and fences. Perhaps she was of the opinion that when faced with the challenges and obstacles of life, a woman should leap.
“If you take on this commitment,” said my father, “at the very least, we expect you to see it through. One cannot afford in life to do less than one promises.”
My heart quickened.
That last, limp lecture was his way of saying yes.
—
Peg and I left for New York City the following morning.
It took us forever to get there, as she insisted on driving her borrowed car at a patriotic, gas-preserving thirty-five miles an hour. I didn’t care how long it took, though. The sensation of being pulled back toward a place I loved—a place that I had not imagined would ever welcome me again—was such a delightful one that I didn’t mind stretching it out. For me, the ride was as thrilling as a Coney Island roller coaster. I was more keyed up than I’d felt in over a year. Keyed up, yes, but also nervous.
What would I find, back in New York?
Who would I find?
“You’ve made a hefty choice,” said Peg, as soon as we got on the road. “Good for you, kiddo.”
“Do you really need me back in the city, Peg?” It was a question I had not dared to pose in the presence of my parents.
She shrugged. “I can find a use for you.” But then she smiled. “No, Vivian—it’s quite true. I’ve bitten off more than I can chew with this Navy Yard commission. I might have come for you sooner, but I wanted to give you more time to cool your heels. In my experience, it’s always important to take a break between catastrophes. You took a bad knock in the city last year. I figured you’d need some time to recover.”
This reference to my catastrophe made my stomach flip.
“About that, Peg—” I started.
“It is no more to be mentioned.”
“I’m so sorry for what I did.”
“Of course you are. I’m sorry for many of the things I’ve done, too. Everyone is sorry. It’s good to be sorry—but don’t make a fetish of it. The one good thing about being Protestant is that we are not expected to cringe forever in contrition. Yours was a venial sin, Vivian, but not a mortal one.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“I’m not sure I do, either. It’s just something I read once. Here is what I do know, however: sins of the flesh will not get you punished in the afterlife. They will only get you punished in this life. As you’ve now learned.”
“I only wish I hadn’t caused so much trouble for everyone.”
“It’s easy to be wise after the event. But what’s the use of being twenty years old, if not to make gross errors?”
“Did you make gross errors when you were twenty?”
“Of course I did. Not nearly so bad as yours, but I had my days.”
She smiled to show she was teasing. Or maybe she wasn’t teasing. It didn’t matter. She was taking me back.
“Thank you for coming to get me, Peg.”
“Well, I missed you. I like you, kiddo, and once I like a person, I can only like them always. That’s a rule of my life.”
This was the most wonderful thing anyone had ever said to me. I marinated in it for a while. And then slowly the marinade turned sour, as I recalled that not everyone was as forgiving as Aunt Peg.