Forever Yours

This summer, they had agreed, is all we need. If we try, we can get back what we used to have — because basically it is still a good marriage.

During the days alone at the lakeshore cottage, Carol tried to veer away from the disloyal thought that perhaps they were being too surgical about it. Mel had insisted, his eyes grave, steady, that their only hope was to talk it out, to have a quiet summer. So Donny, at seven, went to a good camp over near Old Forge. They knew he was too young but, as Mel said, it would do the boy more good than a home life where the tension was something you could cut with a knife.

On Wednesdays Carol’s sister, Jeana, would drive up from Utica to the cottage on the lake and together they would go over to the camp where Donny was. He was round and brown and the sun had bleached his hair. When Carol hugged him he wiggled with a new manly impatience, and he smelled of fields and wool blankets.

Jeana would ask, usually on the drive back to the lake, “How is it going?”

And Carol would make her face bright. “It’s going to be all right, Jeana. Really it is.”

“It better be. You’re my two favorite people, hon.”

Like that man long, long ago — something about day by day in every way. Keep saying it is going to be all right, and maybe it will be.

Mel was taking Fridays off, and he would leave Utica at five every Thursday night and get to the cottage at about six-thirty. On Mondays he would leave at seven in the morning. By mutual agreement he brought no one up with him. Because this was a summer for mending a marriage.

When it was dark and she couldn’t see his face, it was easier to talk. The nights when they sat on the small screened porch overlooking the lake were the best nights. Then she could keep her voice calm. “I don’t want to be Victorian about it, darling. Mostly it’s a feeling of something very special having been lost. I’m not just trying to hurt you when I say that. There’s pride involved. I mean, as a woman I want to be enough for my husband. I don’t want him snuffling around for something he thinks I can’t provide.”

“Snuffling,” he said mildly. “Quite a choice of words. I went off the beam, Carol. We start with that. But it wasn’t a case of looking for something. I’ve explained all that. We were afraid of what a jury might do to our case if she got to the stand. I went over to Syracuse to sound her out on an out-of-court settlement. You see, I started out with the idea of being as charming as possible. It meant money for our client if I could sell her the idea. It was just one of those fatal coincidences that the ice storm hit just as I got to her house. Only a fool would have tried to drive back down that hill into Syracuse. This isn’t an excuse, either, but being isolated like that — no traffic moving, the wires going down and candlelight — without electricity her furnace wouldn’t work, and I built a big fireplace fire—”

“I don’t want to hear any more,” she said harshly.

“I just want to say that even though I’ve never thought of myself as exactly a tower of strength, Carol, I never thought I’d get into... a deal like that. You see, you always have been enough.”

“But it wasn’t only that, Mel. You know that.”

She heard his tired sigh in the darkness. “That’s the worst part, the part I want you to find the strength to forgive — that I let it go on. The damage had been done. I guess that’s the way I rationalized it. That’s why I kept going back, telling Helverson that I was getting closer and closer to talking her into a settlement. Then Grace saw us in a bar in Syracuse when I was supposed to be in Albany... It all sounds so... so trite.”

She spoke eagerly. “That’s just it. Trite. Small. Nasty. The sort of thing that happens to other people, not to us. We’ve been married nearly nine years, Mel. I used to hear gossip about other couples, and it would always give me a little selfish, warm feeling. I knew our marriage was good and we’d never get — into a mess. What would have happened if Grace hadn’t seen you?”

“That’s where the timing was really bad, because by then I had begun to take stock and see what I was doing to myself and to you. The woman wasn’t worth it. She’d begun to get on my nerves. It would have been the last time, in any case.”

“And you wouldn’t have mentioned it, would you?”

“No,” he said flatly.

“Maybe that’s the part I can’t forgive so easily, darling. Because, you see, even before Grace came to me, panting with her news. I knew something was wrong with you. You’d gone away from me. You were on the other side of some strange wall. I thought it was business worries, or some troublesome case. I didn’t want to pry. I thought you’d tell me in your own time.”

He reached out in the darkness and found her hand. “The important thing is to get over it — somehow. Rebuild trust and confidence.”

“And love.”

“Love is still there. You know that. Carol. A thing like this smashes your pride, but it doesn’t kill love.”

“I hope you’re right, darling.”

“Do you see how helpless I am? What a stupid thing to say: ‘Dear, it won’t happen again.’ I know it won’t, but it sounds so asinine to try to say it.”

After a while she said. “There are times every day when I forget it. I really do. Then something always brings it back. I get — pictures in my mind — of you and her. It’s like a madness. I can’t stop thinking then. I can’t turn my mind away from it. I hate you then.”

“We’re getting somewhere, talking it out this way. We are, Carol.”

“Or are we just stirring it with a stick?” she said, almost sullenly.

“I forget it too — usually while I’m working. Then I remember. And I feel so helpless, because the one thing you can’t do is wipe out the past. I hope we’re adults, Carol. We can live with the fact, and live in bitterness toward each other, or we can find each other again in the old way. In the good way.”

“I’m trying, Mel,” she had whispered. “I’m trying so desperately. But she’s still trying to get in touch with you, isn’t she?”

“Letters and phone calls. I tear up the letters unread, and hang up on the calls.”

“She frightens me.”

“Don’t let her frighten you. She has no weapon to use. None at all.”

During most of July, whenever they talked about it, they seemed to go back over the same ground, repeating the same thoughts yet using different words, different expressions each time.

When she was alone. Carol dealt with herself firmly. You have a good husband. He loves you. He is good with Donny. You’ve placed too much importance on physical faithfulness. The wish is the deed, hence every man is, in his own sense, an adulterer. If you keep punishing him, you’ll lose him. And the fact of losing him would make this minor loss seem petty indeed.

They had happy times some weekends. Too happy, it seemed. Gaiety had a thin edge of hysteria, and once, in the midst of laughter, her tears came and he could not comfort her.

It was the first Tuesday in August that Carol walked to the store, phoned Jeana and asked her to go over to the house and get the blue cream pitcher from the sideboard. Mel could have brought it up just as well, she knew, but she didn’t want to explain to him why she wanted it. It had been part of a set given to her great-grandmother on her wedding day. Only the small pitcher was left.

Carol knew that her reasoning was more emotional than logical, but the rented cottage was bare of any possession which could give her a sense of family, a feeling of continuity. And somehow she wanted to have something physical near her to make her think of the line of family, of the other marriages that had survived, though they must certainly have been rocked by similar crises.

Jeana brought the pitcher and. mercifully, asked no questions. Carol unwrapped it and set it on the mantel over the fireplace, stood back to look at it. And then, unbidden, the thought came: That woman had a fireplace. But somehow the idea was not quite as shattering as it once might have been.

Donny had passed the swimming lest and he was permitted to swim to the big float. She stood and watched him churn his way out, struggle up over the edge of the float, and then stand proudly and wave back at her. The way he stood, the way he carried himself were so much like Mel.

On the way back to the lake Jeana asked the usual question. Carol said quietly. “I think things are better, Jeana.”

“That’s better than the big brave smile I usually get, hon.”

“Was I that transparent?”

“You were being the brave little woman. It didn’t fit.”

Carol smiled. “Jeana, I’m taking advantage of you, but can I ask you to do me a big favor?”

“I’m just a beast of burden. Good old Jeana. What is it, kid?”

“Mel’s birthday is a week from Friday. August sixteenth. I don’t want to go into town yet, but I do want to give him something special.”

“And you want me to buy it.”

“Would you? You could bring it out next Wednesday. I want to get this out of my own money. Arrange it at the travel bureau. They must have some kind of gift certificate. If they don’t, they can write a letter. Presenting Mr. Mel Dennis with two round-trip air tickets to Bermuda.”

Jeana whistled softly. “You’re really going overboard, aren’t you?”

“Maybe it’s corny, but we honeymooned there. Have them fix it so we can take the trip whenever Mel can get away from the office.”

Jeana reached over and patted Carol’s knee. “Kid, I think things are going to be okay.”

“On his birthday we’ll both drive over to see Donny. Get something for Donny to give him too. Use your own judgment on that. A good pipe, maybe.”

The day before Mel’s birthday, Carol opened the envelope from the travel bureau half a dozen times. Finally she put it on the mantel, using the blue pitcher as a paperweight.

After she washed her lunch dishes, she walked the two miles into the village for the mail. Some of the sickness seemed to be leaving her. She felt trim and young and in love. It was something you could get over, if you were an adult.

There was mail. A letter from her aunt in Cleveland. A letter for Mr. Melvin Dennis. A squarish envelope. A birthday card, she thought, taking it out of the box. As she walked out of the post office, she saw the Syracuse date stamp. She stopped in the doorway, her mouth suddenly dry. A woman bumped into her and mumbled an apology. Carol moved slowly out into the sunshine. The handwriting was rounded, feminine. It tilted backward. She could detect in that writing a sensuality and a fearful determination.

She had never seen that woman’s handwriting, yet she knew at once that it was from her. A birthday card sent, with sublime insolence, to the lake where that poor little wife of Mel’s would be certain to see it and take note.

As she walked back toward the cottage, sick at heart, it seemed a vast betrayal that Mel should have told her his birthday. It was another evidence of treachery. There was no return address. The envelope was a pale gray-blue. The address was written in green ink.

Back at the house she went straight to the mantel and took a perverse satisfaction in placing the card on top of her gift to him, weighing them both down with the little blue pitcher. She paced through the small cottage restlessly. It had been such a desperate struggle and now, in an instant, she was back where she had been in March. She had to start all over again, and she doubted that she had the strength.

At a later time than usual, she began preparations for dinner. She worked with casual, unthinking efficiency, and she felt dead inside. It was easy to say that Mel could not help it if she sent him a card. But the card was physical and tangible. As tangible as and much more immediate than the blue pitcher.

She thought of steaming open the envelope and resealing it. It would be more satisfying, however, if she did not know in advance what tender little birthday sentiment was enclosed. Her gift to him now seemed silly, pointless, a gesture with no meaning. He could jolly well use the tickets and take that woman to Bermuda.

A little after six-thirty she heard Mel’s car pull up behind the cottage, heard the slam of the car door, heard his whistle.

As he came into the kitchen, the screen flapping shut behind him. Carol knew she could not give him both envelopes at once. She ran to the mantel and. in her haste to grab the larger envelope and get it out of sight, the blue pitcher slipped, fell to the hearth and shattered. She stared down at the pieces and could not speak or cry out.

Mel came to her and said, “Hi, darling. Break something? Say, that was the antique pitcher, wasn’t it? Didn’t know you had it up here. That’s a shame.”

He turned her, his hands on her shoulders. His eyes were warm. “How are you, honey?”

“Dandy,” she said, barely moving her lips.

She saw the warmth fade from his eyes in a way that had become too familiar since March. He dropped his hands from her shoulders and started to turn away.

“This came for you,” she said, holding out the gray-blue envelope.

He took it casually, pried it open, while her breath caught in her throat. The envelope contained a letter. He glanced at it, then handed it to her, saying. “Your department, I guess.”

For a moment she could not read the message. Her eyes didn’t seem to focus properly. “Dear Mr. Dennis: I have arranged to have the new porch furniture delivered to the cottage on Wednesday of next week. If it isn’t convenient for you or Mrs. Dennis to be there that day, please leave the keys with—”

She had forgot completely that the owner of the cottage lived in Syracuse. She turned blindly toward the bedroom. From far away Mel’s voice said, “Is something wrong?”

Carol went into the bedroom and shut the door. She lay across the bed, and the room slowly darkened as daylight faded.

Mel tapped on the door. “You all right?”

“I’m all right,” she said. After that he left her alone. It was easy to say, “I was mistaken. It wasn’t from her, so everything is all right.” But there was the more important truth that even such a little misunderstanding could destroy all the hard-won confidence, the new emotional security. She knew that she would have to face the fact that all rebuilding was being done on a tragically slender base. Perhaps in time security would become rooted more solidly. There was nothing else to hope for.

She turned on the lights, repaired her make-up and went out into the living room. Mel was standing at the mantel. He turned and gave her a surprisingly young grin and backed away from the mantel.

“Take a look, baby.”

There on the mantel was the little blue cream pitcher, miraculously whole again. She stared at it, then looked over at the table, at the newspaper spread under the lamp, at the tube of glass cement.

“You fixed it!”

“Hey, don’t go too close. If you stand right here and squinch your eyes a little, it looks just as good as new.”

She stood beside him and found his hand and held it tightly. If you stood back, and if you squinched your eyes a little, you’d never know that it had been shattered, never know that it had been fragments spread at your feet.

Carol gave him the other envelope. “This came for you too, darling.” As she hurried toward the kitchen she heard him tear open the envelope. She stood in the dark kitchen for a moment, her eyes brimming, waiting for his exclamation, waiting for him to come to her.