A Sorrowful Woman by Gayle Godwin

A Sorrowful Wo spell by Gayle Godwin Once upon a time on that point was a wife and fuss one excessively many times adept winter even pop start she looked at them the husband durable, receptive, gentle the small fry a tender chromatic three. The sight of them made her so sad and sick she did non compulsion to see them ever over again. She t rargon the husband these thoughts. He was attuned to her he still much(prenominal) things. He utter he understood. What would she like him to do? If you could put the male child to bed and depict him the story around the monkey who ate too many bananas, I would be grateful. Of course, he said. Why, thats a pleasure. And he displace her off to bed. The close night it hap inditeed again. Putting the warm dishes extraneous in the cupboard, she turned and maxim the childs grey eyes approving her movements. In the next room was the man, his chin sunk in the open collar of his favo departure wool shirt. He was dozing after her g ood supper. The shirt was the grey of the childs bank gaze. She began yelping without tears, retching in between. The man woke in alarm and carried her in his ordnance store to bed. The male child followed them up the stairs, saying, Its all right, mom, but this made her scream. Mommy is sick, the acquire said, go and wait for me in your room. The husband undressed her, abandoning her only abundant enough to root beneath the eiderd proclaim for her flannel gown. She stood naked that for her bra, which hung by one strap down the side of her body she had non the impetus to shrug it of. She looked down at the right nipple, shriveled with chill, and thought, How absurd, a vertical bra. If only at that place were instant cessation, she said, hiccupping, and the husband bundled her into the gown and went out and came rearwards with a sleeping draught guaranteed swift.She was to drink a smaller glass of cognac followed by a big glass of dark liquidness and afterwards there w as just time to say Thank you and could you rush him a clean pair of pajamas out of the laundry, it came back to daylightlightlight. The next day was Sunday and the husband brought her breakfast in bed and let her sleep until it grew dark again. He took the child for a walk, and when they returned, red-cheeked and boisterous, the capture made supper. She perceive them laughing in the kitchen. He brought her up a tray of buttered toast, celery sticks and wispy bean soup. I am the luckiest cleaning woman, she said, crying real tears. Nonsense, he said. You necessity a rest from us, and went to prep are the sleeping draught, and the childs pajamas, select the story for the night. She got up on Monday and move about the post till noon. The son, delighted to stand her back, pretended he was a vicious tiger and followed her from room to room, grumble and scratching. Whenever she came close, he would growl and scratch at her. One of his sharp leadty claws ripped her flesh, ju st above the wrist, and together they paused to watch a thin red line materialize on the inside of her pale arm and blab over in little beads. Go away, she said. She got herself upstairs and locked the portal. She called the husbands office and said. Ive locked myself away from him. Im afraid. The husband told her in his aboundingest voice to lie down, take it easy and he was already on the phone to call one of the do bysitters they often employed. dead after, she comprehend the misfire let herself in, heard the girl coaxing the terrified child to roll in the hay and play. And now the sleeping draught was a nightly thing, she did not moderate to ask. He went down to the kitchen to mix it, he preparedness it nightly beside her bed.The little glass and the big one, amber and deep rich dark- brownish, the flannel gown and the eiderdown. After supper several nights later on, she hit the child. She had hit the hayn she was pass to do it when the father would see. Im sor ry she said, collapsing on the floor. The weeping child had run to hide. What has happened to me. Im not myself any more(prenominal)(prenominal). The man picked her tenderly from the floor and looked at her with much concern. Would it encourage if we got, you know, a girl in? We could fix the room downstairs. I exigency you to feel freer, he said, understanding these things. We have the money for a girl. I hope you to think about it. The man put out the script and found the perfect girl. She was young, dynamic and not pretty. Dont bother with the room. Ill fix it up myself. Laughing, she employed her thousand energies. She painted the room sporty, fed the child lunch, read edifying books, raced the boy to the mailbox, hung her own paints on the fresh-painted walls, made spinach souffle, cleaned a spot from the mothers coat, made them all laugh, danced in stocking feet to music in the white room after reading the child to sleep.She knitted dresses for herself and played de ceiver with the husband. She washed and set the mothers soft ash-blonde hair and gave her neck rubs, offered to. The girl brought the child in twice a day, once in the later afternoon when he would tell of his day, all of it tumbling out quick because there was not much time, and before he went to bed. Often now, the man took his wife to dinner. He made a courtship ceremony of it, inviting her forrader so she could get used to the idea. They dressed and were beautiful together again and went out into the frosty night.Over candlelight he would say, l think you are better, you know. Perhaps I am, she would murmur. You look. . . like a cloistered queen, he said once, his voice breaking curiously. One afternoon the girl brought the child into the bedroom. Weve been out playing in the park. He found roughthing he wants to give you, a surprise. The little boy approached her, smiling mysteriously. He placed his cupped hands in hers and left hand a live dry thing that spat brown juice in her palm and leapt away. She screamed and wrung her hands to be rid of the brown juice. Oh, it was only a grasshopper. said the girl. Nimbly she crept to the edge of a curtain, did a quick knee bend and reclaimed the creature, led the boy ably from the room. The girl upsets me, said the woman to her husband. He sat frowning on the side of the bed he had not entered for so long. Im sorry, but there it is. The husband stroked his creased brow and said he was sorry too. He really did not know what they would do without that treasure of a girl. Why dont you cling here with me in bed, the woman said. Next morning she fired the girl who cried and said, l loved the little boy, what will become of him now? and the mother turned away her face and the girl took down the watercolors from the walls, cover the records she had danced to and went away. I dont know what well do. Its all my fault. I know Im such a burden, I know that. Let me think. Ill think of something. (Still understan ding these things. ) I know you will. You forever do, she said. With great care he rearranged his life. He got up hours early, did the shopping, cooked the breakfast, took the boy to nursery school. We will manage, he said, until youre better, however long that is. He did his work, imperturbable the boy from the school, came home and made the supper, washed the dishes, got the child to bed. He managed everything. One evening, just as she was on the verge of swallowing her draught, there was a light knock on her door. The little boy came in wearing his pajamas. popping has fallen asleep on my bed and I cant get in. Theres not room. Very sedately she left her bed and went to the childs room. Things were much changed. Books were rearranged, toys. Hed done some upstart drawings. She came as a visitor to her sons room, wakened the father and helped him to bed. Ah, he shouldnt have bothered you, said the man, leaning on his wife. Ive told him not to. He dropped into his own bed a nd fell asleep with a moan. Meticulously she undressed him. She folded and hung his clothes. She cover his body with the bedclothes. She clicked off the light that shone in his face. The next day she moved her things into the girls white room. She put her hairbrush on the dresser she put a whole step pad and pen beside the bed. She stocked the little room with cigarettes, books, bread and cheese. She didnt accept much. At first off the husband was dismayed. nevertheless he was receptive to her needs.He understood these things. Perhaps the best thing is for you to follow it through. he said. I want to be big enough to contain whatever you must do. The woman now spent her winter afternoons in the big bedroom. She made a fire in the hearth and put on slacks and an old sweater she had loved at school, and sat in the big chairwoman and stared out the window at snow-ridden branches, or went away into long novels about other people moving through other winters. All day long she stay ed in the white room. She was a young queen, a gross(a) in a tower she was the previous inhabitant, the girl with all the energies.She tested these personalities on like costumes, then discarded them. The room had a new view of streets shed never seen that way before. The sun hit the room in late afternoon and she took to brushing her hair in the sun. One day she decided to write a poem. Perhaps a sonnet. She took up her pen and pad and began working from words that had lately lain in her mind. She had choices for the sonnet, ABAB or ABBA for a start. She pondered these possibilities until she tottered into a larger choice she did not have to write a sonnet.Her poem could be six, eight, ten, thirteen lines, it could be any number of lines, and it did not even have to rhyme. She put down the pen on give-up the ghost of the pad. In the evenings, very briefly she saw the two of them. They knocked on her door, a big knock and a little, and she would call Come in, and the husband woul d drop a face though he looked a bit tired, yet somehow this fatigue suited him. He would put her sleeping draught on the bedside table and say, The boy and I have done all right today, and the child would kiss her. One night she tasted for the first time the power of his baby spit. I dont think I can see him anymore, she whispered woefully to the man. And the husband turned away but recovered admirably and said, Of course, I see. So the husband came alone. I have explained to the boy, he said. And we are doing fine. We are managing. He squeezed his wifes pale arm and put the two glasses on her table. After he had gone, she sat looking at the arm. Im afraid its come to that, she said. Just push the notes under the door Ill read them. And dont forget to admit the draught away. The man sat for a long time with his vanguard in his hands. Then he rose and went away from her.She heard him in the kitchen where he mixed the draught in batches now to last a week at a time, stori ng it in a corner of the cupboard. She heard him come back, leave the big glass and the little one outside on the door. Outside her window the snow was melting from the branches, there were more people on the streets. She brushed her hair a lot and rarely read anymore. She sat in her window and brushed her hair for hours, and saw a boy fall off his new bicycle again and again, a dog chasing a squirrel, an old woman peek knavishly over her shoulder and then extract a parcel from a garbage can.In the evening she read the notes they slipped under her door. The child could not write, so he drew and sometimes painted his. The notes were painstaking at first the man and boy offering the final strength of their day to her. But sometimes, when they seemed to have had a bad day there were only travel rapidly scrawls. One night, when the husbands note had been extremely short, loving but short, and there had been vigor from the boy, she stole out of her room as she often did to get more sup plies, but crept upstairs instead and stood outside their doors, listening to the regular ventilation system of the man and boy asleep.She hurried back to her room and drank the draught. She woke earlier now. It was spring, there were birds. She listened for sounds of the man and the boy eating breakfast she listened for the roar of the motor when they control away. One beautiful noon, she went out to look at her kitchen in the daylight. Things were changed. He had bought some new dish towels. Had the old ones worn out? The canisters seemed nigher to the sink. She inspected the cupboard and saw new things among the old. She got out flour, baking powder, salt, milk (he ought a different brand of butter), and baked a loaf of bread and left it cooling on the table. The force of the two joyful notes slipped under her door that evening pressed her into the corner of the little room she had hardly station to breathe. As soon as possible, she drank the draught. Now the days were too sh ort. She was always busy. She woke with the first bird. Worked till the sun set. No time for hair brushing. Her fingers raced the hours. Finally, in the nick of time, it was finished one late afternoon. Her veins pumped and her forehead sparkled.She went to the cupboard, took what was hers, unopen herself into the little white room and brushed her hair for awhile. The man and boy came home and found five loaves of warm bread, a roast stuffed turkey, a glazed ham, three pies of different fillings, eight molds of the boys favorite custard, two weeks tot of fresh-laundered sheets and shirts and towels, two hand-knitted sweaters (both of the same grey color), a sheath of marvelous watercolor beasts accompanied by mad and fanciful stories nobody could ever make up again, and a tablet full of love sonnets addressed to the man.The house smelled redolently of renewal and spring. The man ran to the little room, could not contain himself to knock, flung back the door. Look, Mommy is sleepin g, said the boy. Shes tired from doing all our things again. He dawdled in a watercourse of the last sun for that day and watched his father roll tenderly back her eyelids, lay his ear softly to her breast, test the delicate bones of her wrist. The father put down his face into her fresh-washed hair. Can we eat the turkey for supper? the boy asked.