Dedicating his life to his family. That’s not peculiar. That’s right.”
“Submerging your own ego that extent is unusual,” Susan said.
“Meaning what?”
Shepard’s voice had lost its strangled quality and had gotten tinny. He spoke too loudly for the room.
“Don’t yell at Suze, Harv,” I said.
“I’m not yelling, but I mean, Christ, Spenser, she’s telling me that dedication and self-sacrifice is a sign of being sick.”
“No she’s not, Harv. She’s asking you to think why you can’t do anything in your own interest. Why you have to perceive it in terms of self-sacrifice.”
“I, I don’t perceive… I mean I can do things I want to… for myself.”
“Like what?” I said.
“Well, shit, I… Well, I want money too, and good things for the family… and… aw, bullshit. Whose side are you on in this?”
Pam Shepard put her face in her hands. “Oh God,” she said. “Oh God, Jesus goddamned Christ,” she said.
Chapter 28
The Shepards went home after a while, uneasy, uncertain, but in the same car with the promise that Susan and I would join them for dinner that night. The rain stopped and the sun came out. Susan and I went down to Sea Street beach and swam and lay on the beach. I listened to the Sox play the Indians on a little red Panasonic portable that Susan had given me for my birthday. Susan read Erikson and the wind blew very gently off Nantucket Sound. I wondered when Powers would show up. Nothing much to do about that. When he showed he’d show. There was no way to prepare for it.
The Sox lost to Cleveland and a disc jockey came on and started to play “Fly Robin Fly.”
I shut off the radio.
“You think they’ll make it?” I said.
Susan shrugged. “He’s not encouraging, is he?”
“No, but he loves her.”
“I know.” She paused. “Think we’ll make it?”
“Yeah. We already have.”
“Have we?”
“Yeah.”
“That means that the status remains quo?”
“Nope.”
“What does it mean?”
“Means I’m going to propose marriage.”
Susan closed her book. She looked at me without saying anything. And she smiled. “Are you really?” she said.
“Yeah.”
“Was that it?”
“I guess it was, would you care to marry me?”
She was quiet. The water on the sound was quiet. Easy swells looking green and deep rolled in quietly toward us and broke gently onto the beach.
Susan said, “I don’t know.”
“I was under a different impression,” I said.
“So was I.”
“I was under the impression that you wanted to marry me and were angry that I had not yet asked.”
“That was the impression I was under too,” Susan said. “Songs unheard are sweeter far,” I said.
“No, it’s not that, availability makes you no less lovable. It’s… I don’t know. Isn’t that amazing. I think I wanted the assurance of your asking more than I wanted the consummated fact.”
“Consummation would hardly be a new treat for us,” I said.
“You know what I mean,” she said.
“Yeah, I do. How are you going to go about deciding whether you want to marry me or not?”
“I don’t know. One way would be to have you threaten to leave. I wouldn’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t lose me,” I said.
“No, I don’t think I will. That’s one of the lovely qualities about you. I have the freedom, in a way, to vacillate.
