But Barbara balked at the prospect: “I can take care of myself. And Sabra, too. If I can survive on mountain hikes, I can cook on an electric stove.” But Barbara hadn’t learned much more about cooking than how to start a campfire and turn a stick of Knorr into pea soup. Helen blamed herself for not teaching her how to cook and told her, “Of course you can, but Sabra can’t, and it’s not your job to raise her.”
Barbara responded with the plea that was wearing tiresomely thin: “Going to sea is what we need now. Let’s take a good long journey.” “My God,” she’d responded, “where would we find the money for such an extravagance?” And when Barbara said, “My royalties,” Helen could only shake her head and walk away. Not that that deterred Barbara. In hopes of putting the matter to rest, Helen even begged Wilson to take her sailing for a month. But he refused: If this is some ploy to load me down with guilt and lure me away from Margaret, it won’t work.
In hopes of finding employment, she asked Dr. Lowry to arrange an interview with his friend Roger Nast, the principal of Hillhouse High School. She told Nast about her experience at Lexington High School and how much she’d enjoyed teaching English there. In fact, she’d continued her studies in English and published in the discipline. Were there any positions open for the coming school year?
No, he was sorry; not only had they filled all the posts, but the school system had an oversupply of applications. It wasn’t surprising, he said, that so many teachers were looking for work, what with the stock market bouncing around like a rubber ball. He, for one, didn’t go in for sinking hard-earned money in the stock market, and he supposed plenty of others would soon come around to his way of thinking. As for her application, the fact that she hadn’t taught for years meant he couldn’t very well put her ahead of others, even if a post opened.
Perhaps, she thought, she should get back to her writing. But, given her state of mind, she worried she lacked sufficient concentration to reel off sentence after sentence. Still, if it came to that, she’d have to force herself to do so, even if she had little understanding of the ins and outs of submission, which Wilson had always handled. She’d made some progress on the home education book, which she and Wilson were to co-author, though Wilson had hardly contributed. She wrote to him about it: Might those chapters on home education be turned into salable articles? Would he review and revise them? Would he approach some editors on her behalf?
He responded promptly. What else did the slacker have to do with his time? Certainly, he’d assist in any reasonable way, but first, she must settle down and revise the pieces and not get ahead of herself. And it was altogether premature and ill-advised for him to approach any editors without material in hand. It might not be prudent for him to promote her work since Alfred Knopf seemed disinclined to speak well of him in the publishing world. He could, however, supply her with the names of editors who might be interested. Ah, she thought, that was something. But whenever she sat down over a chapter, intending to shape it into a stand-alone essay, her thoughts drifted. She simply couldn’t apply herself.
✭
By the middle of August, three weeks after Wilson’s last cheque, she’d exhausted every avenue she could conjure for replacing Wilson’s income. Was there any way out of this predicament? She sent the girls outside, closed her bedroom blinds against the hot afternoon sun, and threw herself on the bed.
She could hardly believe the hardship he’d thrust upon them. Such callous disregard. He obstinately clung to that Whipple girl—to the point of endangering his family’s security. It was maddening.
How would she manage?
Perhaps there was someone else she could turn to. Maybe she’d overlooked some way to support herself and her girls. No, she could think of nothing, no one. Wilson claimed he’d sacrifice whatever he earned for her and the girls, but that had amounted to naught. What a miserable excuse for a husband. He was the weakest of men, given to the most base urges. How sickening it was to think of—Wilson in bed with that hussy. Every single night.
She pictured him in a cramped apartment in New York, with that girl by his side. He was only seventy miles away, living with that woman, embracing her each night, taking sordid delight in her young flesh. She couldn’t wash away the disgusting, torturing image of Wilson penetrating that girl.
She beat her hands on the bed frame. The flats of her arms throbbed with pain. She cried out: Don’t you see what you’ve become? Have you no shame? Look what you’re doing to me. To us.
This pain gripping her heart, this sickening desperation, was there no way to escape it? It assailed her day in, day out, unrelenting, sucking her into its swamp of hopelessness.
She rushed to the window, pulled up the blinds, and flung the window open. Looking down from the second story, she gripped the jamb. She could climb out, stand on the ledge, and throw herself down. Could she be sure of the result? No. It wasn’t far enough.
But she didn’t know where to find a gun. What other ways were there? Think, she must think.
She could swim out into the harbor, swim so far she couldn’t possibly return. She closed her eyes. It would be so easy—letting the liquid pull her down into its obliterating embrace. She’d only need to inhale its watery peace. Yes, yes, that’s what she’d do. Relief suffused her; the pain evaporated. The hot sun beat on her closed
