In the days that followed, as the children gradually acclimated themselves to Taliesin and she began to feel more at ease with them, her work seemed to come easier to her, because she was a mother — their mother — and no use in denying it or avoiding it or whatever she’d been doing. When they were away from her, home in Oak Park with their nanny and their schoolfellows and the new wife Edwin had been so quick to acquire, she pictured them as incorporeal, ghost images on a photographic plate.172 They were distant and so was she. But now that they were here, she realized how much she enjoyed seeing them ambling about the rooms or draped over Frank’s furniture, handsome open-faced children who made her proud. Of course, the situation wasn’t ideal and never would be — they were forever bursting in on her, squabbling over one thing or another, pale children, indoor children who had no appreciation of the countryside and little capacity for entertaining themselves, but that wasn’t their fault, it was Edwin’s.
More than anything, she looked forward to seeing them at meals, where there were no distractions and she could tease out their thoughts. She was amazed at the change in them in just a year’s time. They seemed so mature, especially John, who was on the verge of young manhood, but Martha too, Martha who should have been Frank’s child, but wasn’t and anyone could see that in the set of her eyes — even Kitty, as grasping, jealous and vindictive as she was, should have been able to recognize that in an instant and allow Frank to have his divorce without hesitation. Very gradually, Mamah began to acquaint them with the ideas of Ellen Key — and Frank was a help here, when he was home, the two of them holding a sort of Socratic dialogue for the benefit of the children, never lecturing, but rather letting the subject of the conversation shift naturally from the events of the day to love and the soul and the right — the compulsion — of women everywhere to stand up and take charge of their lives.
She wasn’t going to remake the children in a single summer, she knew that, but her hope was to educate them in the way she was educating Carleton, with the ultimate aim of making the world a better and more equitable place. And, on another level, to ease her guilt, to offer a rationale for what had happened on that awful night in Colorado when she’d stolen away without a word because she had to save her own life before she could save theirs. At any rate, the children were there and Frank was there (when he wasn’t in Chicago) and the Carletons were in the kitchen and Billy Weston came up the hill each morning to see that every little detail fell in place, the peacocks gave out with their desolate cries, the cattle lowed and the horses nickered at the rail because they wanted an apple and they wanted to be mounted and spurred through the fields and out over the hills, and she was there too, as deeply and fully as she could ever remember being anywhere.
Then there came a morning, breakfast done with and the children quietly occupied in their rooms — reading, she supposed, or hoped, at any rate — when she settled down to work with a cup of coffee and realized she’d forgotten something, and what was it? She gazed out on the yard, trying to recollect, the dense moist air drifting in through the open casement windows along with the faintly acid scent of the lady ferns Frank had clustered against the yellow stone of the foundation. For contrast. And there was genius in that too, his vigilance for the telling detail, the flowerbeds of the courtyard alive with color — coreopsis, phlox, hollyhocks and tiger lilies, and she really did need to get out more and tend them — even as the outer walls denied it, the simplest chromatic scheme there, green against yellow and the yellow fading to gold. She saw Billy Weston down below at the base of the hill conferring with Brunker over the lawn mower, the sun shearing them so that their features were annulled, two irregular shining spheres cut loose from the dark shadow of their gestures, and beyond them the lake and the road and the distant smudge of grazing cattle. She took a sip of coffee. Glanced down at her notes.
And then she remembered: she’d meant to speak to the cook, to Gertrude, about baking something special that afternoon for Martha. Or rather Martha’s friend Edna, who was planning on riding her pony over so the two of them could put on their party dresses and have tea like little ladies out on the screened-in porch. Some finger cakes, maybe, something with coconut and crème — Gertrude was a marvel with coconut. And if John promised not to pester the girls, she supposed he could join the party at some point — and Billy Weston’s son, Ernest, who was a year older than John and more rough and tumble, more a country boy, but who at least gave John someone to tag along with. Or maybe that wasn’t such a good idea — the boys could have a separate party, yes, that would be better, perhaps down by the lake where they could work off some of their high spirits.
She got up from the chair — Billy had taken the mower himself now and was cutting a swath away from Brunker, who hadn’t moved save to shove his hands in his pockets — and crossed through the dining room to the kitchen. She rarely came into the kitchen anymore — there was no need to really, and when she did she felt almost as if she were intruding. Especially when both the Carletons were there. It was nothing they said or did particularly, but they seemed to tense when she entered the room, which was only natural, she supposed. Though Mrs. Swenson never seemed to mind. She wouldn’t have cared if Mamah had camped out under the sink — would have preferred it, for that matter, so she’d have someone to complain to all day long in her high ratcheting whine. But the Carletons were different and she respected that.
It wasn’t till she was there, her hand on the doorknob, that she sensed something wasn’t right. A noise alerted her, a sharp wet sound, as of meat pounded with a mallet, succeeded by a curse — a man’s voice, Carleton’s, rising up the scale. She pushed open the door. And entered a room that was like an oven, like a furnace, the windows drawn shut and smoke in the air, something burning in a pan on the stove. She saw Carleton then, his back to her, standing over what looked to be a pile of washing on the floor, but wasn’t washing at all. It was Gertrude. Her left eye was swollen shut and there was a bright finger of blood at the corner of her mouth. She crouched in the corner, shrinking away from him, her head bowed, her arms clutched to her chest.
“You stupid fucking cow!” Carleton shouted. “I’ve told you a thousand times if I’ve told you once: I want my meat cooked rare. Rare, do you hear me? ”
The door was ajar. The smoke erupted from the pan. Carleton didn’t seem to notice. Or care. He was secure. He’d pulled the windows shut on the scene, closed the room off so he could assault his wife and no one to interfere. Mamah stood there in the doorway, paralyzed.
Carleton’s shoulders jumped beneath the fabric of his shirt. He dropped his voice. “You stupid, stupid Bajan slut,” he whispered, and lashed out with the toe of his tarnished tan boot, once, twice, as if he were trying to kick through the wall, and Gertrude drew in two sharp breaths in succession and he kicked her again. “What does it take to get some respect around here? Huh? What do I have to do, kill you? Is that what you want? Is it, woman? Is it?”