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The Painted Table(77)

By:Suzanne Field


It wouldn’t be difficult to pick up after him—but would that be fair? She doesn’t like to think he regards her as his maid.

Her mother was employed as a maid when she and her father met, and again maid and caregiver during the war years in San Francisco. As in other things, she isn’t eager to follow suit. But throughout Saffee’s childhood there was little need for Joann to pick up after Nels. For all his lack of polish, he was as fastidious as she. Certainly no crumbs ever fell off his plate.

A magazine lying on a chair flickers in her memory. Young Saffee had carelessly left it there. “How can anyone sit in this chair if you don’t pick up after yourself?” her father had demanded, shaking his finger at her. The reprimand had stung and helped to foster a lasting conviction of how things “ought to be.”

But wait. Why would she want to perpetuate a mind-set now that had, in part, made childhood so unpleasant? The troubling thought plays over and over in her mind. She flinches as her own petty, disapproving words ring in her ears.

She thinks of Jack’s mother. From the first time Jack had taken Saffee home to meet his parents, she couldn’t help but notice how Harriet adored her less-than-orderly husband and attended to his needs without complaint. It seemed to give her joy to serve him. Of course, Saffee had heard no complaint from James either.

Roles and rules in Jack’s home were quite different from those in Saffee’s. So . . . Jack must presume . . . while Saffee presumes . . . oh dear. Her shoulders slump; she takes another cracker.

Okay, not so fast. The new bride juts out her chin. Jack lives here, but she does too. Why is she the one expected to change?

“Your mother ain’t happy unless she’s mad about somethin’.”

. . . Your life will be different . . .

Again, recollections bring a clarifying moment. Saffee considers that there are times in life when she will have to make things different, make things better. It will not just happen with a touch of some celestial wand. Change might involve struggle, might take time. Hadn’t she watched her mother take the trivial things of life way too seriously, leaving no energy to deal properly with matters that were truly important? What terrible thing had Jack done? Merely made a bit of a mess. While she—she had smattered an unredeemable half hour with rubbish much more difficult to clean up.

From her perch on the step, she has been staring into the backyard, not seeing it. Now the lawn mower, covered with grass clippings, comes into focus. While she was gone, Jack had cut the grass. That was nice. But he could have cleaned the grass off . . . Stop! It’s trivial.

Saffee hurries around the house to the garage and finds a broom. Returning to the backyard, she is arrested by its charm. Jack had not only mowed that morning but edged the perimeter. And she sees a mound of pruned, dead branches, tied and stacked against the house. The redbud trees proclaim a flurry of spring color—color that, in her bad mood, she hadn’t noticed. She admires the thriving, newly planted young chrysanthemums they had put in the ground together, even though she alone had done the prior ruin.

She leans on the broom beneath a brilliant blue sky, drinking in the heady scene. Their first yard. Even if it is rented, it is, for this time, their yard. Her whole life is filled with beautiful gifts—Jack being the best. How could she have been so easily seduced to criticize him?

She looks down at the broom.

“Did I tell you that she hit my legs with a broom handle?”

Saffee quickly brushes grass off the mower and pushes it around the house and into its place in the crowded garage. She’ll go in immediately to apologize.

Exiting the garage, she collides with Jack coming around the corner.

“Hey, hon, how about going to the baseball game tonight?” he says. “Bill’s got some extra tickets.” In one hand he holds the broom she had dropped in the backyard and in the other is her forgotten milk glass. The box of graham crackers is under one arm. She looks into his face and grins sheepishly.

“I’d absolutely love to,” she says, taking the broom. “Who’s playing?”

Maybe she will go to the concession stand. Maybe she will drink a Pepsi.





CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE



TENDRIL TANGLE





Early on an August Saturday, Saffee slips out of bed, being careful not to disturb Jack. He had grappled with actuarial formulas until 2:00 a.m., and she had worked until nearly eleven under lamplight in the garage, enjoying the cool evening silence. When she saw a celebration of fireflies blinking in the velvet dark, she rushed inside and pulled Jack away from his books out into the diamond-studded night.

They stood close, surrounded by the enchantment, until Jack said he must go back in.