“Well, not here. When we get home maybe.”
“I want to take some pictures of you nursing her.”
“All right.”
“You look beautiful,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said, and lowered her eyes again, and studied the baby’s face as she drank.
She did not later allow him to taste her milk.
She did not later allow him to take pictures of her nursing their daughter.
As she pulled into the driveway of the Rutledge house, she put all of this out of her mind again. Anger was a luxury she could no longer afford. She was thirty-seven years old, she would be thirty-eight next month. Her husband was a successful photographer now, and she was an underpaid pathologist at an understaffed rehabilitation center. So be it, she thought. Fuck it, she thought.
She parked her car in the garage, noted that there was still a light burning in the barn, slung her shoulder bag, keys in her hand, and went to the mailbox. The usual — junk mail and bills. Carrying the mail to the kitchen entrance, she twisted the burglar alarm key (the one marked with red tape) in the system plate to the left of the door, unlocked the kitchen door itself, dumped the mail and her bag on the counter just inside the door, and then went to the wet-sink to mix herself a Scotch and water. Jamie had taped a note to the refrigerator door. There was a movie in Westport he wanted to see, could she be ready to go out for dinner by seven? She looked up at the clock. It was already six-fifteen. Sighing, she sat at the kitchen table, sipping her Scotch and listening to the rush of the river below her. In this house, it always sounded as if it were raining outside. She finished her drink, phoned over to the barn to remind Jamie of the time, and then ran a tub of very hot water.
She was still in the tub when the telephone rang. She yelled “Jamie!” thinking he might be back in the house by now, and then muttered “Shit,” and got out of the water and ran naked and dripping to the phone in the upstairs hallway.
“I have a collect call for anyone from Melissa Croft,” the operator said, “will you accept charges?”
“Yes,” Connie said, “sure.”
“Mom?” Lissie said. “Hi.”
“Just a second, Liss, let me get a towel,” Connie said.
In the third floor corridor of Lorimer Dorm, Lissie and Jenny were standing at the wall telephone. “What is it?” Jenny whispered.
“She’s getting a towel,” Lissie said, her hand covering the mouthpiece.
“Hi, honey,” Connie said. “I was in the tub.”
“Where’s Dad?”
“Over at the barn.”
“I’ve been trying to reach you all afternoon.”
“I was at the center. Is something wrong?”
“No, no,” Lissie said.
“Ask her,” Jenny whispered.
“We’re looking forward to seeing you on Wednesday,” Connie said. “Do you know what time your train’ll be in?”
“I thought you were coming up to get me,” Lissie said.
“No, I teach on Wednesdays, you know that.”
“Well, how about Dad?”
“Wednesday is his day in the city.”
“Then how...?”
“I thought you’d take a taxi. You have your key, haven’t you?”
“Yeah, but I’ll be carrying a lot of crap home.”
“Jesus, don’t argue with her!” Jenny whispered.
“I’m sorry, honey,” Connie said, “but I don’t see any other way.”
“Yeah, well, okay,” Lissie said. “I guess.”
“Is everything all right up there?”
“Yeah, fine.”
“Discipline all over and done with?”
“Yeah. Jenny and I went out to lunch. To celebrate.”
“Good, darling.”
There was a long silence. As often when she spoke to her mother on the telephone, the conversation seemed to drift off into nothingness after they’d exchanged a few pleasantries. She much preferred talking to her father, and she wondered now whether he wasn’t the one she should ask about the Colorado trip. But Jenny was rolling her eyes and flapping her hands, silently urging her to get on with it. She took a deep breath.
“Mom,” she said, “Jenny and I had an idea about what we might like to do on our break.”
“Yes, honey, what’s that?” Connie asked. She sounded distracted. Lissie guessed she was toweling herself with her free hand.
“We thought we might go to Colorado,” Lissie said. “To do some skiing.”
“Where?” Connie said.
“Aspen,” Lissie said. “Colorado.”
There was another silence on the line.
“Mom?” Lissie said.
“Yes,” Connie said, “I heard you. But Lissie... Colorado’s a long way off. And you haven’t been on skis since you were thirteen. I’m really not sure I’d want you to...”
“Jenny already has permission,” Lissie said, and hesitated. “We thought we might drive out.”
Sighing, Connie said, “You’ve only been driving since December, Liss. Colorado’s...”
“But I had Driver’s Ed,” Lissie said, and again hesitated. “We thought you might let us use the Ford.”
“What do you mean? The station wagon?”
“Well, yeah.”
“My car?”
“Yeah.”
“To drive to Colorado?”
“Well... yeah.”
“What am I supposed to drive while you’re gone?”
“You could use Dad’s car. You could share...”
“Lissie, you can’t be serious,” Connie said.
“I don’t see what’s so wrong with...”
“How could I possibly get to work without... how long did you plan on being away?”
“Well... we’d be leaving next Thursday.”
“The day after you get home?”
“And we’d be back on Easter Sunday. Or maybe the day before. The day before, actually.”
“That’s your entire vacation.”
“Not really.”
“Yes, really. I thought you were looking forward to spending...”
“It’s just that we’ve made all these plans, Mom.”
“What plans have you made?”
“Figuring it all out, I mean.”
“Whose idea was it to use my car?”
“It’s just that Jenny’s mother doesn’t have a car, they live in the city, you know. So I thought since we’ve got two cars...”
“Yes, because we need two cars. The answer is no.”
“Well, gee, Mom...”
“It’s no. I’m sorry.”
“Let me talk to Dad, may I please?”
“Dad’s working. And when he gets back here — which should be any minute now — we’re going to dinner and a movie.”
“Can you ask him to call me when you get home?”
“We won’t be home till after midnight.”
“Tomorrow, then? First thing in the morning?”
“Lissie, we’re talking about my car here. What ever your father may say, the answer is no.”
“Will you ask Dad to call me?”
“Yes.”
“Mom?”
“I said yes.”
“I’m a very good driver, and anyway we’ve got insurance on the car, haven’t we?”
“Lissie, let’s end this conversation,” Connie said. “The answer is no, and that’s that.”
“I think you’re being unreasonable,” Lissie said.
“Do you? Well, when you have a seventeen-year-old daughter who wants to drive to Colorado on her school vacation, you give her your car, okay? Meanwhile, mine stays right here,” Connie said, and hung up.