A Sorrowful Woman by Gayle Godwin

A Sorrowful Wo hu domainness by Gayle Godwin Once upon a time there was a wife and stimulate whizz too many times cardinal winter flush she looked at them the keep up durable, receptive, gentle the peasant a tender golden ternion. The sight of them do her so perturbing and sick she did non want to see them ever again. She told the husband these thoughts. He was attuned to her he understood such things. He said he understood. What would she like him to do? If you could put the boy to bed and read him the point rough the monkey who ate too many bananas, I would be grateful. Of course, he said. Why, thats a pleasure. And he sent her off to bed. The next night it happened again. Putting the warm dishes away in the cupboard, she turned and truism the boors grey eyes approving her movements. In the next room was the man, his chin sunk in the gift collar of his favorite wool shirt. He was dozing after her good supper. The shirt was the grey of the childs trusting gaze. She began yelp without tears, retching in between. The man woke in alarm and carried her in his arms to bed. The boy followed them up the stairs, saying, Its altogether right, Mommy, more(prenominal)over this made her scream. Mommy is sick, the father said, go and wait for me in your room. The husband undressed her, abandoning her only big enough to root beneath the eiderdown for her flannel gown. She stood naked except for her bra, which hung by one convulse down the side of her body she had non the impetus to shrug it of. She looked down at the right nipple, shrivel with chill, and thought, How absurd, a vertical bra. If only there were instant sleep, she said, hiccupping, and the husband bundled her into the gown and went out and came back with a sleeping draught guaranteed swift.She was to drink a weeny glass of cognac followed by a big glass of dark liquid and afterwards there was just time to say Thank you and could you get him a clean pair of pajamas out of the laundr y, it came back today. 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 father made supper. She comprehend them laughing in the kitchen. He brought her up a tray of nonwithstandingtered toast, celery sticks and black bean soup. I am the luckiest fair sex, she said, crying real tears. Nonsense, he said. You need a rest from us, and went to prepargon the sleeping draught, and the childs pajamas, select the drool for the night. She got up on Monday and moved about the house till noon. The boy, delighted to choose her back, pretended he was a vicious tiger and followed her from room to room, growling and scratching. Whenever she came close, he would growl and scratch at her. One of his sharp minuscule claws ripped her flesh, just above the wrist, and together they pause to watch a thin red notation materialize on the inside of her pale arm and spill over in little beads. Go away, she said. She got herself upstairs and locked the door. She c eached the husbands office and said. Ive locked myself away from him. Im afraid. The husband told her in his richest voice to lie down, take it easy and he was already on the phone to c solely one of the babysitters they often employed. Shortly after, she heard the girl let herself in, heard the girl coaxing the frightened child to conform to and play. And presently the sleeping draught was a nightly thing, she did not have to ask. He went down to the kitchen to mix it, he set it nightly beside her bed.The little glass and the big one, amber and deep rich brown, the flannel gown and the eiderdown. After supper several nights later, she constitute the child. She had hunch forwardn she was going to do it when the father would see. Im sorry she said, collapsing on the floor. The weeping child had run to hide. What has happened to me. Im not myself anymore. The man picke d her tenderly from the floor and looked at her with much concern. Would it help if we got, you go to sleep, a girl in? We could narrow the room downstairs. I want you to feel freer, he said, understanding these things. We have the money for a girl. I want you to say about it. The man put out the word and found the perfect girl. She was young, can-do and not pretty. Dont bother with the room. Ill fix it up myself. Laughing, she employed her thousand energies. She painted the room innocence, fed the child lunch, read edifying books, raced the boy to the mailbox, hung her own watercolors 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 knit dresses for herself and played chess 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 t he later afternoon when he would tell of his day, all of it tumbling out quickly 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 beforehand 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 disruption curiously. One afternoon the girl brought the child into the bedroom. Weve been out playing in the park. He found something he wants to give you, a surprise. The little boy approached her, smiling mysteriously. He placed his cupped reach in hers and left(a) 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 e dge of a curtain, did a quick knee bend and reclaimed the creature, led the boy competently from the room. The girl upsets me, said the woman to her husband. He sit down frowning on the side of the bed he had not entered for so long. Im sorry, barely 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 stay here with me in bed, the woman said. Next dawning she energized the girl who cried and said, l loved the little boy, what will become of him now?But the mother turned away her face and the girl took down the watercolors from the walls, casefuled 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 understanding these things. ) I know you will. You continuously do, she said. With great care he rearranged his life. He got up hours early, did th e 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, collected 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 timid knock on her door. The little boy came in wearing his pajamas. Daddy has twilighten 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 brand- newfangled 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 and fell asleep with a moan. Meticulously she undressed him. She folded and hung his clothes. She cover his body with the bedcloth es. 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 note slug and pen beside the bed. She stocked the little room with cigarettes, books, colewort and cheese. She didnt need much. At first the husband was dismayed. But he was receptive to her needs.He understood these things. Perhaps the ruff 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 sit in the big chair and stared out the window at bump-ridden branches, or went away into long novels about other people moving through other winters. All day long she stayed in the white room. She was a young queen, a virgin in a tower she was the previous inhabitant, the girl with all the energies.She tried these perso nalities 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 top of the pad. In the evenings, very concisely 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 would smile though he looked a bit tired, yet somehow this tiredness suited him. He would put her sleeping draught on the bedside table and say, The boy and I have done a ll 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 sadly 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 give to leave the draught outside. The man sat for a long time with his head in his hands. hence 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, storing 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, t here 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 look slyly 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 conscientious 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, good-natured but short, and there had been nothing from the boy, she stole out of her room as she often did to get more supplies, but crept upstairs instead and stood outside their doors, listening to the regular breathing of the man and boy asleep.She hurried back to her room and drank the dra ught. 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 ride when they drove 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 closer to the sink. She inspected the cupboard and saw new things among the old. She got out flour, bake 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 space to breathe. As soon as possible, she drank the draught. Now the days were too short. 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 la te afternoon. Her veins pumped and her forehead sparkled.She went to the cupboard, took what was hers, closed 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 misfire, a glazed ham, three pies of different fillings, eight molds of the boys favorite custard, two weeks supply 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 sleeping, said the boy. Shes tired from doing all our things again. He dawdled in a waterway of the last sun for that day and watched his father roll tenderly back her eyelids, lay his ear l ightly 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.