My Name Is Lucy Barton

49

Let me say this about Bloomingdale’s: At times I think of the artist, because he was proud of the shirt he had bought there, and how I remembered thinking that was shallow of him. But my daughters and I have gone there for years; we have our favorite place at the counter on the seventh floor. My daughters and I go first to the counter and have the frozen yogurt, and then we laugh about our stomachs, how much they ache, and then we walk through — so desultory are we — the shoe department, and the department for young women. Almost always I buy them what they want, and they are good and careful and never take advantage — they are wonderful girls. There were some years when they would not go with me, they were angry. I never went to Bloomingdale’s without them. Time has gone by, and we go back now when they’re in town. When I think of the artist, I think of him with fondness, and I hope that his life has gone well.

But Bloomingdale’s — in so many ways — it is home to us, to my girls and me.

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Bloomingdale’s is home to us because of this: Every apartment I’ve lived in since I left the home my children grew up in, I have always made sure to have an extra bedroom so they could come and stay, and neither of them ever does or ever did. Kathie Nicely may have done the same, I’ll never know. But I’ve known other women whose children did not visit them, and I’ve never blamed those children and I don’t blame my own, although it breaks my heart. “My stepmother,” I’ve heard my daughters say. “My father’s wife” would be sufficient. But they say “my stepmother,” or “my stepmom.” And I want to say, But she never washed your little faces when I was in the hospital, she never even brushed your hair, you poor little things looked like ragamuffins when you came to see me, and it broke my heart, that no one was caring for you! But I don’t say that, and I should not. For I am the one who left their father, even though at the time I really thought I was just leaving him. But that was foolish thinking, because I left my girls as well, and I left their home. My thoughts became my own, or shared with others who were not my husband. I was distractible, distracted.