She said maybe we ought to get married, two lonely people like us, and we weren’t getting any younger, and she had the house which was clear and paid for.
I don’t know what got into me, Mama, but I guess I went into what you used to call one of my “whimsical moods”, and told her I never could marry a woman who boiled my eggs for only four minutes and didn’t serve marmalade and tomato juice. I can’t remember all my easy banter now, but I went on with it for quite some time, and I will never understand how it came about that she started to plan our wedding!
A lot of the rest of it is blanked out of my mind — practically all the rest of it, including all these weeks from that spring morning to this summer day. I seem to recall her leading me back to my room in her car while I followed in mine so that I would learn the right on-ramps and off-ramps and freeway switches. As she said, and I do remember this quite clearly, “After I quit my job and we are married, you will have to learn to negotiate this freeway alone.”
Mama, every morning when I arrive at work, my hands are so wet with nervous perspiration and shake so violently from freeway fear that when my finger does manage to hit the correct calculator key, it slips off — and every evening when I arrive at Carol’s house, I am aquiver with tense fatigue.
I am very tired.
I explained to Carol that I desired a life of simple culture, the kind of life you gave to me, Mama. I suppose I did suggest, a number of times, that she change her way of doing things to conform more to yours, that she attempt to cook the wonderful dishes you always prepared for me...
But, Mama, Carol did not seem to aspire to a life of simple culture. She wanted something shockingly different. I have explained, many a night during these last weeks, at the door of the back bedroom after she had broken down the chair I placed under the knob, how she should act and in what ways she should change. I explained simple culture to her, patiently, Mama, and considerately...
And then, last night at the back bedroom door, she interrupted my careful explanation with such a degradingly scandalous remark about you, my sainted Mama, one that I cannot and will not repeat, that I lost control and reacted automatically. I am not, ordinarily, a violent man, you know that, Mama, something simply snapped and that is the reason she is now in the back bedroom with the air conditioning turned high, and I need you, Mama, with the desperation of a lost and lonely son.
Now here is what I want you to do, Mama, as soon as you receive this letter, I want and hope that you will take a plane out here to me so that you can decide what we must do about Carol. I will be right here in Carol’s house, for this is my summer vacation from the office and it is very hot, but with the air conditioning turned high in the back bedroom, I am sure Carol will keep. I haven’t looked in there to see, of course. I am waiting for you.
As soon as I finish this letter, I shall take it out to the corner box and airmail it to you. When you arrive at the airport here, Mama, you can get a cab and direct the cab driver to the address on the corner of this envelope. Those cab drivers can find anything, and as you know, from what I have written you, freeway driving shatters me — but even so, Mama, I would gladly meet you at the airport except that I must stay here. Someone must be here constantly — you understand that — it is not that my loyalties are divided, they are not.
Mama, I am terribly lonely. All I want out of life is to return home with you — after, of course, you have decided what it is we are to do with Carol.
Mama, even if you did tell me not to write to you once I was gone after choosing to leave your room and board... those were your very words, Mama... still, I have started many letters to you. This one I am finishing and this one I must send.
Now, Mama, you know about taking the plane and getting the cab and coming out here to the return address on the envelope. I do hope you will come, Mama, because I will be waiting here with the air conditioning turned high in the back bedroom.
Your loving son,