Frances and Bernard - By Carlene Bauer Page 0,45

she’d spent her own paycheck. You know all of this. Now they make me fear for her happiness. I fear that her pleasures will make her unhappy because she won’t have work that will keep her from boredom, because her inability to see the emptiness of beauty will lead her to choose poorly when she chooses a husband. My father indulged her—he was the younger of two, the second to a studious favored older brother, and I think he let my sister do as she liked because, even as he favored me for my studiousness, he knew that he was doing to her what had been done to him. Whenever I complained about some unpunished scam of hers, my father always said her sins were harmless ones, and asked me to try not to be so upset with her—and this was from a man who never made demands of anybody. Still, Ann thinks I’m my father’s favorite, and I keep silent when she goes down that road. I know that I am. I’m his favorite because I’m the priest, studious and abstemious, that his brother never became. He loves Ann with ferocity, though. Through spoiling and flirting and tossing her rotters off of the porch. He loves me like a son and Ann like a daughter. And I have taken care of both of them like a mother. I don’t mean to sound bitter there. I’m not.

I don’t know why exactly I went on like this. You know all this. Ann’s been on my mind. I have just invited her to come visit me—can you believe she has never come to visit me in New York? I think she’s jealous that she isn’t here too. Or maybe she has stayed away from some sort of spite. We don’t say this to each other, but we have a silent pact: I took care of my father for years, and now Ann must stay behind and do it. For at least a little while. Anyway, I’ve invited her to come visit, and I think I worry about us having a good enough time. Although I know this isn’t about me having a good time. I want her to have a good time.

Claire, these thoughts are exactly the ones that will keep me from having a family. When I think of what family is I can see only boredom, chronic misunderstanding, loss, bickering, abuse, burdens that are borne out of duty but never bear love as their fruit. I’m sorry—you know I don’t mean that I don’t understand why you and Bill might want to have one. You know I am talking purely of my own jaundiced stance.

Well, I should go now. Look at all I’ve written. I should get to bed. Thank you again for my visit.

Love,

Frances

September 13, 1959

Dear Claire—

I am sending you a book that we are publishing that for once I am not disgusted by. Have you heard of this woman? This is her second novel; I’d never heard of her. It’s about a group of older women living out their last days in a London boarding house during the war. This novel is short, about two hundred pages, and there is authority in the writer’s conviction that she knows her characters well enough, and can draw them well enough, that she doesn’t need to go on that long to get what she needs out of them. But perhaps this spoke to me purely because of having lived at the henhouse.

Ann came to visit. I think she enjoyed herself. She met me at the office for lunch one day, and I introduced her to everyone. “You two are sisters?” said Old Man Sullivan. Peter, whom I think I’ve told you about, said the same thing. By which they meant: Why aren’t you that pretty, Frances? “Frances is such a good cook,” Ann responded both times. I think she was trying to advertise that I had a dowry too. I heard one young editor whistle appreciatively when we left the office he shares with a few other boys. Then at lunch we found her a dress at Bonwit Teller. I pitched in a few dollars. But the differences between us give me a kind of heart attack whenever they present themselves. Sample anecdotes: We are walking along Central Park West, on our way to the park. My sister sees an actor from a television show. “Oh, it’s X,” she says, clutching my arm. “Oh,” I say, and keep walking. “No, no,