Joyce Carol Oates - We Were The Mulvaneys Read online

  At least, Corinne didn't embarrass her daughter Marianne. Sweet good-natured Marianne who was Button, who was Chickadee, who was-everybody's darling. Never judged her mother, or anyone, with that harsh adolescent scorn that so wounds the parents who adore them.

  Mananne's voice was low, hquidy-sweet and apologetic. She was calling from Trisha LaPorte's house, where she'd spent the night. The St. Valentine's prom at Mt. Ephraim High had been the previous night, and Marianne Mulvaney had been the only junior elected to the King and Queen's "court"; it was an honor, but Marianne had taken it in stride. She'd stayed over in town as she usually did for such occasions-dances, parties, football or basketball games; she had numerous girlfriends, and was welcome anywhere. Less frequently, Mananne's friends came out to High Point Farm to spend a night or a weekend. Corinne basked in her daughter's popularity as in the wannth of sunshine reflected in a minor. She'd been a gawky farm-girl lucky to have one or two friends in high school, self-conscious and homely; it was a continual amazement to her, her daughter had turned out as she had.

  Michael Sr. objected: you were damned good-looking, and you know it. And you got better-looking as you got older. How'd I fall in love with you, for God's sake?

  Well, that was a wonder. That was a puzzle Corinne never quite solved. Thought of it every day for the past twenty-three years.

  Marianne was apologizing-that was a habit Corinne should try to break in her: apologizing more than was necessary-for being a nuisance. "Trisha's father says he'll be happy to drive inc home, but you know how icy the roads are, and it's so far-I really don't want to trouble him." Corinne said, "Button, honey, I'll send one of your brothers." "Is it O.K.? I mean-" "No problem," Corinne said, in a country drawl, "-no problem." (This phrase had become part of Mulvaney family code, picked up from some TV program by one of the boys and now everyone said it.) Corinne asked Marianne to say hello and give her warm regards to Lillian LaPorte, Trisha's mother: a friendly acquaintance of Corinne's from years ago, both women longtime P.T.A. members, active in the League of Women Voters, the Mt. Ephraim General Hospital Women's Auxiliary. She was about to hang up when it occurred to her to ask, belatedly, "Oh, how was the prom, sweetie? Did you have a good time with- what's-his--name? And how was the dress-honey?"

  Marianne had already hung up.

  Later, Corinne would recall in bewilderment this conversation, so matter-of-fact and-well, familiar. So normal.

  Of course, Marianne had not lied. Concealing a truth, however ugly a truth, is not the same as lying. Marianne was incapable of deliberate deception. If now and then there'd been the slightest trace of what you might call subterfuge in her it was a sign she was protecting someone: usually, of course, as they were all growing up, her older brothers. Mikey-Junior who'd been quite a handful in his teens ("First `Mule' was our bundle ofjoy," Corinne used to joke, sighing, "now he's our boy-oh-boy!"), Patrick, poor sweet-shy short-tempered Pinch, who'd had a tendency since kindergarten to blurt out things he didn't mean, truly didn't mean, not just to his family, which was bad enough, but to his classmates-even to his teachers! Even, one memorably embarrassing time, when he'd been no more than ten, a cutting, shrewd remark ("How do you know, did God tell you?") put to a Sunday school teacher at the Kilburn Evangelical Church. (Corinne was a passionate "nondenominational Protestant" as she called herself, with a weakness for remote country churches; she dragged the children in her wake, and they seemed happy enough. Michael Sr. was never involved in these infatuations, of course: he described hiniself as a "permanently lapsed Catholic," which was religion enough to suit him.)

  Of the children, Marianne had always been the most natural Christian. In her flamboyant way that embarrassed her children, Corinne was fond of saying, "Jesus Christ came to dwell in my heart when I was a young girl, but He's been dwelling in Button's heart, I swear, since birth."

  At this, Marianne would blush and flutter her fingers in an unCOnSCiOUS imitation of her mother. She sighed, "Oh, Mom! The things you say."

  Corrnne drew herself up to her full height. Mother of the household, keeper of High Point Farm. "Yes! The things I say are truth."

  Corinne Mulvaney's terrible vanity: her pride in such truth.

  She marveled at it: how even as a child of two or three, Marianne simply could not lie. It distinguished her from her brothers-oh, yes! But from other children, too, who, telling fibs, instinctively imitate their elders, feigning "innocence," "ignorance." But never Marianne.

  And she was so pretty! So radiant. No other word: radiant. The kitchen bulletin board, Corinne's province, was festooned with snapshots of Marianne: receiving a red ribbon for her juicy plum-sized strawberries a few years ago at the state fair in Albany, and, last year, two blue ribbons-again for strawberries, and for a sewing project; being inducted as an officer in the Chautauqua Christian Youth Conference; at the National 4-H Conference in Chicago where she'd won an award, in 1972. Most of the snapshots of Marianne were of her cheerleading, in her Mt. Ephraim cheerleader's jumper, maroon wool with a white cotton long-sleeved blouse. The previous night Michael had taken a half dozen Polaroids of Marianne in her new dress, which she'd sewed herself from a Butterick pattern-satin and chiffon, strawberries-and--cream, with a pleated bodice and a scalloped hem that fell to her slender ankles. But these lay on a windowsill, not yet selected and tacked up on the bulletin board.

  She, Corinne, had never learned to sew. Not really. Her niother had been impatient trying to teach her-she'd mistaken Corinne's eagerness for carelessness. Or was eagerness a kind of carelessness? All Connne was good for with a needle was mending, which she quite enjoyed. You weren't expected to be perfect mending torn Jeans or socks worn thin at the heel.

  How beautiful Marianne was! Alone with no one to observe, Corinne could stare and stare at these pictures of her daughter. At seventeen Marianne was still very young, and young-looking; with a lot, easily marred skin, no freckles like her mom; deep-set and intelligent Pebbly_blue eyes; dark curly hair that snapped and shone when bnsk1 - brushed-which Corinne was still allowed to do, now and then. It was Corinne's secret belief that her daughter was a far finer person than she was herself, a riddle put to her by God. I must r,ecome the mother deserving of such a daughter-is that it?

  Of course, Corinne loved her sons, too. As much-well, almost as much as she loved Marianne. Loving boys was just more of a challenge, somehow. Like keeping an even course in a canoe on a wild rushing river. Boys didn't let you rest!

  A long time ago when they were young marned lovers with only the one baby, Mikey_Junior they'd adored, Corinne and Michael made a pact. If they had more babies-which they dearly wanted-they must vow never to favor one over the others; never to love one of their children the most, or another the least. Michael said, reasonably, "We've got more than enough love for all of them, whoever they are. Right?"

  Corinne hugged and kissed him in silence, of course he was right.

  What a feverish, devoted, you might say obsessed young mother she'd been! Her blue eyes shone like neon. Her heart beat steady and determined. She knew she could love inexhaustibly because she was herself nourished by God's inexhaustible love.

  But Michael had more to say. In fact, Michael was argumentative, impassioned as Corinne rarely saw him. He'd come from a large Irish Catholic family of six boys and three girls in Pittsburgh; his father, a steelworker and a heavy drinker, had bullied his mother into submission young and slyly cultivated a game of pitting Michael and his brothers against one another. All the while Michael was growing up he'd had to compete with his brothers for their father's approval-his "love." At the age of eighteen he'd had enough. He quarreled with the old man, told him off, left home. So his father retaliated by cutting Michael out of his life permanently: he never spoke to him again, not even on the phone; nor did he allow anyone else in the family to see Michael, speak with him, answer any of his letters.

  "Of all of them, only two of my brothers kept in contact with me," Michael said bitterly. "My mother, my sisters-even
my sister Marian I was always so close with-acted as if I'd died."

  "Oh, Michael." He shrugged, screwed up his face in an expression of brave boyish indifference, but Corinne saw the deep indelible hurt. "You must miss them Her voice trailing off weakly, for it was so weak a remark.

  Of course she'd understood that relations were cool between Michael and his family-not one Mulvaney had come to their wedding! But she'd never heard the full story. She'd never heard so sad a story.

  Michael said quietly, "No more, and no less, than the old bastard misses me."

  RINGING THE

  COWBELL

  There was Patrick, shrewd-suspicious Pinch, falling for one of Mom's tricks!

  Ringing the cowbell on the back veranda, the gourd-shaped coppery "antique"-as Mom called it-to summon him back to the house and inveigle him into volunteering-"volunteering"-to drive into town to fetch Marianne home.

  Like a fool, Patrick had come running. The sound of the cowbell at High Point Farm was understood to be code for Who's in the mood for an outing? a nice surprise? Years ago when the family had been younger, Dad or Mom frequently rang the cowbell on summer evenings to announce an impromptu trip for all within earshot-to the Dairy Queen on Route 119, to Wolfs Head Lake for a swim and picnic supper. When the drive-in on Route 119 had still been operating, the clanging cowbell might even mean a movie-a double feature. In any case, it was supposed to signal an outing! a nice surprise! Not an errand.

  Patrick should have known better. Eighteen years old, no longer a kid dependent upon his parents' whims and moods, he, not one of his parents, was likely to be the one driving somewhere on a Sunday afternoon. In mid-February, it wouldn't be to any Dairy Queen or to Wolf s Head Lake. But the sound of the cowbell in the distance, as he was walking along the frozen creek, one of the dogs, Silky, trotting and sniffing at his side, had quickened his pulse with the promise of childhood adventure.

  Of the family, Patrick was the one to wander off by himself. He was content to be alone. At least, with only an animal companion or two. He'd done his barn chores for the day, cleaning out the horses' stalls, grooming, feeding, watering-seven pails of water a day per horse, minimum! Then he'd gone hiking along Alder Creek for miles up into the hills above High Point Farm. He might have been entranced by the snow-swept windswept distances but in fact his mind was tormented with ideas. Ideas buzzing and blazing like miniature comets. In one of his science magazines he'd read an essay, "Why Are the Laws of Nature Mathematical?" that had upset him. How could the laws of nature be mathematical?-only mathematical? He'd read, too, about certain recent evolutionary discoveries and new theories of the origin of Horno sapiens in northern Africa-what had these to do with mathematics? He said aloud, aggrieved, "I don't get it."

  Innocently vain at eighteen, Patrick Mulvaney thought of himself as an experimental scientist, a biologist. He'd been awarded quite a prestigious scholarship from Cornell University to study "life sciences" there. His dad, who hadn't gone to college, boasted that Cornell was "one of the great American universities"-embarrassing to Patrick, though surely true. Patrick intended to push on for a Ph.D. and devote himself to original research in molecular biology. His grades in science at the high school were always high A's; his grades in solid geometry and calculus were high A's too, but Patrick sensed his limits, knew he hadn't natural aptitude for higher math. It filled him with dismay and panic to think that the laws of nature might be mathematical in essence and not a matter of indefatigable observation, data, experimentation. It was unfair! Unjust! Yet-was it correct? Science is a continuous text ceaselessly being u'ritten, revised, redacted, expanded and edited, while mathematics is pure and ahistorical. Much of today's science will be refuted, but not mathematics. Was this So? How could it be so? What could mathematics say of life? the simplest unicellular life? What could mathematics say of the mysterious evolutionary branchings of life through the millions of years of earth's existence? Patrick murmured aloud, "They don't know everything."

  A fine powdery snow was blown against his face, from the ground. Above, the sky was clear-a hard wintry blue like ceramic.

  Patrick hiked on, and began to smile. Recalling the "exquisitely beautiful watercolors"-Mom's words-he'd slyly tacked up on the kitchen bulletin board, aged fourteen. Mysterious prints of what appeared to be brilliantly adorned suns, moons, comets-whatever? After keeping the family guessing for a few days Patrick revealed what the prints were: magnified slides of the dogs' saliva.

  The looks on their faces.

  How Patrick had laughed, laughed. All of them, even Mike, staring at him in disbelief and revulsion. As if he'd betrayed them, or some sacred trust. As if he'd betrayed the dogs! Patnck demanded to know why the dogs' saliva, teeming with microbes (not so very different from their own) had seemed "exquisitely beautiful" to them one day, but not the next. Never mind, Patrick, Mom had said huffily, just take those things down at once, please.

  Now Patrick laughed aloud, remembering. The memory had quite vanquished his anxiety of a few minutes before. "They don't know anything!"-he heard his bemused voice, aloud.

  He meant not just the Mulvaneys, but most of mankind.

  Hearing the cowbell, a summons from his mom, Patrick cut his hike short and trotted the mile or so back to the house, Silky pant- ing excitedly beside him, but the trick was on him this time-"I'm sorry to bother you, Pj., but Button needs a ride home from the LaPortes. Can you drive in?" Mom was apologetic, smiling, in that shamelessly exploitive way of hers none of her children could resist, Corinne Mulvaney playing at and perhaps even imagining herself as flustered, helpless-so contrary to her true nature, which was all efficiency. She was in the midst of refinishing a piece of furniture and couldn't stop, she hoped he'd understand, she was sorry to be intruding on his tinle to himself after he'd done his chores and did them so well and-anyway-it was a favor for Button, wasn't it? "Take the Buick, hon. Dad's out with the pickup. Here, catch-" fishing the keys to the station wagon out of a deep pocket of her stained coveralls and tossing them with inappropriate gaiety to Patnck, who glared at her with all that he could muster of adolescent irony. "Gee thanks, Mom," he said, shoving his glasses against the bridge of his nose, "-a Sunday drive to Mt. Ephraim and back. Just what I need."

  Fourteen miles, round-trip. No, closer to fifteen since the LaPortes lived on the far side of town. It was a trip he took five days a week, back and forth, usually on the school bus.

  So he'd driven into Mt. Ephraim, and picked up his sister, and yes he'd possibly noticed that something was wrong, Marianne's smile less convincing than usual, an evasiveness in her eyes, and certainly she wasn't her usual chattery-brimrning self, a purely and profoundly and to Patrick's superior mind often exasperatingly girl-self- but frankly he'd been relieved not to hear about the prom and the party and her "date" and her familiar litany of girlfriends Trisha, Suzi, Bonnie, Merissa-how "fantastic" the decorations in the gym, how "terrific" the local band, what a "wonderful, unforgettable" time everyone had had. And how "honored" she'd been, in the Valentine Queen's court. Patrick, a senior, hadn't the slightest interest, not even an anthropological interest, in the frantic febrile continually shifting social lives of any of his classmates. Corinne was disappointed in him perhaps, he'd scarcely known the Valentine's Day prom was the previous night until the commotion and fuss over Marianne and her new dress, Dad taking Polaroids as usual, and the "date" showing up-Austin Weidman in a dark suit that made him look like a funeral director, poor adenoidal Austin who was in fact a fellow senior, a shy frowning nervous-handed boy inteffigent enough to have been a friend of Patrick Mulvaney's through the years but was not. Patrick simply wasn't impressed with Austin and smiled coolly at him, looked through him. Why?Just Patrick's way.

  Marianne had once complained to Mom, why was Patrick so unfriendly? so rude? to her friends? to her friends who admired him in fact? and Corinne had said soothingly, in Patrick's earshot, Oh, that's just Patrick's way. Which had quite boosted his ego.

  So he hadn't
paid much attention to his kid sister as he considered her, a year younger, a year behind him in school but light-years distant from him, he was sure, in matters of significance. He may have asked her how the dance-"or whatever it was"-had been and Marianne might have replied murmuring something vague but in no way alarming; adding, with an apologetic little laugh, touching her forehead in a gesture very like Corinne's, "-I guess I'm tired."