Mary and O'Neil Page 0,19
will be a different kind of love. His son’s transformation cannot be stopped, or hastened, or adjusted; the man he will become is already present, like a form emerging from a slab of stone. All that remains is to watch it happen.
“Let’s celebrate,” Arthur says. He turns to Miriam, realizing suddenly that he has almost forgotten she is there; he has forgotten Sandra, too, walking beside his son with their arms wrapped around one another’s waists, like any couple.
At the edge of the field O’Neil stops. “Great,” he says. “Well, actually, I should go back for a while.” He tips his head over his shoulder toward the bleachers, where the two teams are still gathered. “It’s the last meet of the season. Sandra has a game to get ready for too.”
“That’s right.” Arthur gives her his best smile, though he is disappointed; he would like to have O’Neil to himself for a while. “Field hockey, right?”
She shrugs modestly. “It’s just JV.”
“JV nothing,” Arthur says. “I hear you girls really kick some ass.”
Sandra laughs at this, knowing, as she must, that she is hearing O’Neil’s words played back by his father. They agree to meet instead for dinner, after her game, and that Arthur and Miriam will spend the day shopping in town. The question of Sandra’s parents turns out to be no question at all; they are out of the country, she explains, sailing in the Caribbean.
“Did you notice the shirt?” Arthur asks later. They have returned to their room to change for lunch; they are planning to eat someplace nice, to make up for last night’s bad meal at the hotel. Miriam is sitting on the bed, wriggling out of her jeans and into a pair of warm wool slacks. Arthur, at the mirror, slides the knot of his necktie to his throat.
“What are you talking about?”
“Sandra’s.” He can’t say why he’s brought the subject up; he wonders if he’s being mean. “It’s not important, I guess. Under her coat? A pink oxford, frayed at the collar.” He shrugs, and resumes tying his tie. “I thought maybe it was one you gave me once.”
Miriam flops back on the mattress to pull her slacks on the rest of the way. “I’ve never given you a pink shirt in my life,” she says.
Miriam sleeping, dreaming of birds: a silly and disturbing dream, in which all the birds—ravens, parrots, sparrows, canaries—are wearing hats. Why are you wearing hats? she wants to ask. Do birds wear hats now? Was it always this way? She is in an empty room, she is at the hospital—not the one in Cooperstown, but a hospital from years ago—she is alone in a field of purple heather and can’t find her children; the birds are responsible, the birds have taken them away. Arthur is beside her now. See? he is saying. It is all so simple. The children are gone; they have flown away from you. She turns then but it is no longer Arthur beside her; her father is there now, wearing a white shirt and suspenders to hold up his gray trousers. She breathes him in, a smell like the color blue. Pure happiness fills her, as if she has stepped into a beam of light. Daddy, she says, Daddy, I thought you’d died. Oh, baby girl, he says, and touches her wet cheek; oh, baby girl, I’m sorry, I did.
She awakens then in the half-dark room, a room she doesn’t remember at all. Her mind is adrift, unfixed; she feels almost afloat. Across from her she sees a bureau with a porcelain washbasin and pitcher, and on the nightstand, a telephone, with instructions taped to the dial. The hotel, she remembers. She is at the hotel, in New Hampshire. It is Saturday. O’Neil has run his race—a sudden pleasure fills her, not only for his victory but the fact that she knew, in advance, that it would occur—and she and Arthur had lunch together after, and wine besides, and returned to their room for a nap. The clock on the table says that it is just past four; at six they will meet O’Neil and Sandra for dinner. Beside her Arthur softly snores.
What is wrong with me? she thinks. Why can’t I like this girl? She reviews, in order, O’Neil’s girlfriends of the past: sweet little Ellen, whom he used to buy Cokes for at school dances; the vaguely Asiatic, exotically named Ione, almost certainly his first kiss (she had caught them, or nearly, standing