November Road. Lou Berney
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cranberry sauce, they would have made a point not to notice.
Which made it worse somehow. Charlotte wished that her in-laws were less gracious, less lovely. Better a pair of cruel snippers, icy snubbers, implacable adversaries she could never hope to appease. The searchingly earnest way Dooley’s father studied Charlotte, the way his mother would reach out, unprompted, to pat Charlotte’s hand—their pity, at times, was agonizing.
In the living room, the mood was hushed and grim. The television report showed a horse-drawn caisson bearing the president’s casket from the White House to the Capitol. A reporter broke in to confirm that Lee Harvey Oswald, who had been shot earlier that morning, was dead.
Charlotte saw that Joan and Rosemary had snuck back inside to watch the TV.
“Rosemary,” she said. “Joan.”
Rosemary prepared to deliver arguments for the defense. “But, Mommy—”
“But nothing,” Charlotte said. “I told you to go play outside with your cousins.”
The girls had already been exposed to far too many hours of disturbing television news for which they were far too young. They understood that a bad man had killed the president of the United States. They didn’t need to know all the gruesome details.
“But they’re playing fort,” Rosemary said.
“So?” Charlotte said.
“They said we can’t play fort with them because we’re just girls.”
Before Charlotte could answer, Dooley’s brother, Bill, handed Charlotte his empty beer bottle. “I sure could use another one of these, Charlie,” he said.
During grace, her eyes closed and head bowed, Charlotte’s thoughts returned to that eleven-year-old girl knifing her way fearlessly across the river seventeen years ago. The following winter Charlotte’s father—just turned thirty-two, the very picture of ruddy health—had suffered a heart attack and died. His death devastated her. For the first time, Charlotte learned that life’s currents were more treacherous than she’d thought, that she was not as strong a swimmer.
After that … what happened? Charlotte’s mother, a distant and timid woman, grew even more so. She discouraged Charlotte from taking risks, from standing out, from expecting too much. Before too long Charlotte proved quite adept at discouraging herself. She’d enrolled at the University of Oklahoma instead of at one of the smaller colleges closer to home (though her mother discouraged it), but the moment Charlotte stepped foot on campus, she was overwhelmed. She’d just turned seventeen, she’d never been away from Woodrow before, she knew not a soul. In October, only six weeks into the semester, she packed her things and fled back home.
She found a job at the bakery, which is where one afternoon she struck up a conversation with a handsome customer. Dooley was three years older than Charlotte, so she hadn’t known him well in school. But he was friendly, fun, and he didn’t take himself as seriously as the other boys in town. He asked her out, and soon after that they started going together. Soon after that she married him and they moved into a house three blocks from the one she’d grown up in. Soon after that she was pregnant with Joan. Soon after that she was pregnant with Rosemary. Soon after that was right now.
“Mommy,” Rosemary whispered. “It’s your turn.”
“My turn?” Charlotte said.
Her turn. If only life were like that, Charlotte thought, a game where every round you were allowed to spin the wheel again, to pluck a fresh card from the pile. Though who was to say that a new spin or a fresh card would improve your position on the board?
There’s always a bumpier road than the one you’re driving on, Charlotte’s mother had always cautioned her. Be content with what you have, in other words, because the alternative is probably even worse. Her mother shared this philosophy when, for example, Charlotte complained that the math teacher in eighth grade refused to let any of the girls in class ask questions. When her boss at the bakery followed Charlotte into the back room and pressed her up against the wall. When Charlotte began to worry that Dooley, her fiancé at the time, was drinking too much.
“It’s your turn to say what you’re thankful for, Mommy,” Rosemary said.
“Well, let me see,” Charlotte said. “I’m thankful for my two beautiful daughters. I’m thankful for the family that could be with us today. I’m thankful for this wonderful Sunday dinner.”
Dooley carved the roast. The knife in his hand was steady. Each slice of the meat flopped onto the platter perfect and glistening. Whenever his parents came over for dinner, Dooley limited himself to a single beer or glass of wine. Even though his parents knew, everyone knew, that five minutes after the last guest was gone, Dooley would be out the door, too. Claiming that he had to pick up cigarettes or mail a letter or put gas in the car, back in a jiffy.
Early afternoon, the light from the dining-room window stern and wintry and uncompromising. Interesting light. Rosemary reached for the salt, and Dooley’s father reached for the rolls, and Dooley passed the gravy boat across to his mother. The arms overlapped and interlocked, creating frames within the frame, each a perfect miniature still life. An eye, a pearl in a necklace, the stripe of a tie. Charlotte wished that she had her camera handy. She’d get down low, shoot up from the surface of the table.
“The world is going to hell,” Dooley’s brother was saying. “Pardon my language, ladies, but it’s the truth. Kennedy, Oswald, Ruby, civil rights. Women thinking that they can do anything a man can do.”
“But shouldn’t they be allowed to try at least?” Charlotte said. “What’s the harm?”
Bill didn’t hear her and charged ahead, lifting his fork higher and higher with each point he made.
“It’s a battle for civilization, just like in the movies,” Bill said. “Fort Apache. That’s what a place like Woodrow is like. We’re the only ones left to fight off the Indians. We’ve got to circle the wagons, protect what this country stands for before it gets turned upside down by people who are all turned inside out. The Negro, for example. What most people don’t realize, the Negro prefers a separation of the races just as much as you or I do!”
Dooley and his father nodded along. Charlotte was curious to know when exactly the Negro had confided this preference to Bill, but she lacked the energy—or was it the courage?—to ask him. Bill was the second-most successful lawyer in Logan County and had never lost a case. Dooley’s father was the most successful lawyer in Logan County. If Charlotte dared dip a toe in a discussion about politics, the men would genially and implacably expose the various flaws in her logic, the way one might pick every last bone from a fish.
Charlotte’s sister-in-law touched her arm and gushed about a new pattern—a free-line overblouse on a pleated stem—that she’d discovered.
“It’s a terrible tragedy, what happened,” Dooley’s father said, “but the silver lining is that Johnson is an improvement on Kennedy. Johnson isn’t nearly so liberal. He’s from the South and understands the importance of moderation.”
“I can’t decide between a thin plaid wool or a whisper-check cotton,” Charlotte’s sister-in-law told her. “What’s your vote?”
Charlotte glanced over and noticed that Joan was watching her. Seeing what? Charlotte wondered. Learning what?
After dinner the men retired to the living room, the children went outside to play, and Charlotte started on the dishes. Dooley’s mother followed her into the kitchen. Charlotte tried to shoo her away from the dirty plates, but Martha ignored her and began to scrape.
“How have you been, dear?” Which meant, Charlotte knew, How has he been?
“Just fine,” Charlotte said.
“Those girls are little angels.”
“Well. Accounts vary.”
Martha placed a plate on top of the stack.