She turned around and patted the glass that covered the quilt. “Don’t feel too bad about it being burned. It was on its way to oblivion anyhow, like most of what we owned. The only thing was that this was the quilt I had on my bed when Hugh got back from the war. The night he just appeared. He’d been in Baltimore recovering and I hadn’t even gone down to visit him. I didn’t know what our relationship was, or what it was supposed to be. But when he appeared I knew something. We didn’t even get under the covers and that was the night that sealed all of our fates because that’s when Keith was conceived.”
“Is that why he wants it? The quilt?”
“Naturally. Evidence. Talisman. Keith’s theory is that if I hadn’t gotten myself pregnant, then Hugh and I would never have married. And according to Keith this gives me a tripartite role: part son, part father, part husband. Proving, I suppose, that all gall is divided into three parts.”
A laugh exploded out of me like a sneeze. “That’s wonderful,” I said.
“I’ve used it a hundred times, the line, that is. Is that what you meant?”
“Ann,” I said. I could think of nothing else to say; my mind was dull gray light.
She allowed the silence to continue. Then: “What brings you to New York, David?”
“You.”
What did I expect? For her to hold her hand out to me? To confess that she’d hoped for my arrival? She nodded, as if my declaration concerned only me. Ann’s opaque gestures had always, in my eyes, been a sign of her elegance and artfulness. Yet now with my life breaking beneath the weight of my vast load of unexpressed feeling, I wanted her to be less herself and more what I needed. I looked at her and felt myself sinking—and it was like waiting for a cat to rescue you from drowning.
“How could I bring you to New York?” she said, finally.
“I wanted to see you, talk to you.”
“Ah. But that’s not me: that’s you.”
“I don’t try and fool myself. I wasn’t sitting on the plane thinking you were going to find it easy, seeing me. I’ve been here since one trying to get the courage to call you.”
“That’s because you’re not in love with me and so you still can remind yourself there’s a difference between you and me. If you were in love with me, if you felt something you’d just assume I did, too.”
I bowed my head. I thought I was just lowering my eyes to collect my thoughts but when my head tilted down it stayed there.
“Have you come to quiz me about the others?” Ann asked.
There was no place to be polite and so I said, “Partly.”
“And what else, then?”
“To be with you. I miss you all the time and hearing from you makes me miss you more.” Finally, I could look up again. Ann’s features had softened. She touched her glasses as if to remove them and reveal herself to me, but her hand dropped into her lap and she sighed.
“I’m being mean to you. I feel it,” she said. “Covering for myself. This way if anyone finds out you were here and asks any questions I can recall all the mean and teasing things I said and I’ll get their approval. The last thing I’d want to say is I was glad to see you.”
“But is that it? How do you feel?”
“Let’s see. You already know where Sammy is. You should see him, David. What a solid oak. He’s literally the most responsible person I know. I suppose that story about him tearing up the check makes him out to be a hothead…but that’s not Sammy at all. Sammy always negotiates from a position of strength—quiet strength. He’s so obviously blessed; very few people feel as at home on earth as he does. Compared to him, the rest of us are like freaky little wayfarers, hangers-on. Sometimes I think the world was made for Sammy and maybe five thousand others to exercise their intelligence in.”
“What’s Beaumont, New York, like?” I asked. I don’t know why I chose to ask that—probably nervousness. I leaned forward, my folded hands dangling between my knees.
“A prep-school town. Dirty river, red brick factory, slanting houses, townies, orchards. And Keith. You know where Keith is, too. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, or half- know. In Bellows Falls. He’s got a job in a furniture factory and he’s learning a lot and mashing his fingertips as well. He makes chairs, rocking chairs. Strange, from Keith. He never had much interest in building things. I think he started trying to build something when he was a little boy, but Hugh—old helpful Hugh—tore the hammer out of his hands, to show him an easier way, of course, and I suppose it was a symbolic castration since that’s my last memory of Keith building anything.”
But he was building a stereo receiver the night I looked in from the porch, the night I saw you all…the night I set the fire. I looked away, uncertain if Ann remembered this or not, wondering if she was teasing me deliberately.
“Electronic things, once in a while,” she went on. “But no birdhouses or rabbit traps, or anything that took saws and hammers. But now he’s quite adept. He’s built most of his own furniture, too. He lives in a rotten but really beautiful old farmhouse. Keith’s idea was to make it the new family headquarters but so far none of us have taken him up on it. He’s got a few chickens running around out back complaining about anything and everything and also, wonder of wonders, a full-time lady, a girl from town. Sort of an Ingrid Ochester type, you know, Hugh’s girl. Passive, compliant, a little sad, but satisfied with herself and stubborn as a wart. I shouldn’t say that. It sounds as if I resent her and I don’t, not Keith’s girl, I mean. She’s very good for Keith and if she’s a little drab then so is he, as I’ve always known. He’s very lucky to have someone who cares about him.
“And Jade is well, in school, studying ethology, as of the last time, that is. She’s given to changes of mind, threatens constantly to drop out of school and, receiving no objections from me or Hugh, decides each time to stay on.”
“What school?”
“And” continued Ann, raising a finger to silence me, “Hugh. Hugh is still off rattling around the USA, leading a life of utterly passé bohemianism. It’s in its last stages, however. Come September they go to live in Utah with this fellow named Whitney St. Martin—or who calls himself that, at least. I’m sure it’s a made-up name. He probably has a long and very tacky police record, Whitney. It’s an experimental community, set in a hundred or so barren acres. Hugh will be the doctor. The place is called Autonomy House. Did I already say that? Autonomy House. It’s for professional people only, drug-free, no alcohol. Teachers, lawyers, doctors, architects, writers, I suppose writers. I think Hugh mentioned there would be writers. Maybe he was including poor Ingrid in that category, though I should think doctor’s mistress would be profession enough.
“They’ll all live in those Buckminster Fuller-type domes and live the life of professionals in an ideal community. According to Hugh, it’s not a think tank but…a do-tank. Do-tank! It makes me want to commit serious acts of terrorism. Not only the goopiness of it, but Hugh’s actually paying for this. That’s Whitney St. Martin for you. Each of the carefully chosen and screened professionals is assessed thirty-five thousand dollars for the privilege of living in this white-collar utopia. Supposedly, Hugh will be able to charge people who use his services, but only nominally. And there’s a lot of expense besides the thirty-five thousand, which is only an entrance fee. The economics are terribly complicated and I promised myself not to learn much more about it since the little I already know turns my intestines into Belgian lace.