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Selected Stories
by Edna O'Brien
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Soon the kitchen is utterly silent. She can hear the lap of water through the open window and the clatter from the rigging of the few boats that bob back and forth in the breeze. She is waiting both for the sound of the car to start up or for their return. She combs her hair, walks around her bedroom, consults her bedside clock, and listens for them. After an hour she undresses and turns out her light in the belief that the dark house and the knowledge that she has gone to bed will bring them back. Lying there, praying - a thing she has not done for years - she hears them come in on tiptoe, and without any premeditation she rushes out to the passage and in one burst apologizes and says some madness possessed her. Idiotically she mentions sunstroke, and they look at each other with blanched and mortified faces.
In the morning they all rise earlier than usual and she can see that, like her, they did not sleep. They are quiet; they are utterly thoughtful and polite, but they are embarrassed. She asks a favor of them. She reminds them that for days they had planned to go sailing and she wonders if they could go today, as she would welcome the day to herself. They are relieved and, as she can see, quite glad, and without even touching their breakfast they get up and start to gather a few things — towels, bathing suits, suntan oil, and bottled water in case, as Mark says, they are marooned! She waves goodbye to them as they drive off. When they have gone she comes back into the house, makes another pot of tea, and sits by the table, moping. Later she makes her bed and then closes the door of their bedroom, not daring, or wanting, to venture in. The floor of their room is strewn with clothes — a pink chiffon dress, silver shoes, a sun hat and, most wrenching of all, a threadbare teddy bear belonging to Penny.
Eileen gathers up the large bottles that had contained seltzer water and walks to the little local supermarket with them to collect a refund. She is carrying a dictionary in order to make the transaction easier. In the little harbor a few children are bathing and paddling while their mothers sit on large, brightly colored towels, talking loudly and occasionally yelling at the children. It is not a beach proper, just a harbor with a few fishing boats and a pathetically small strip of sand. After she has exchanged the bottles she comes and sits next to the local mothers, not understanding a word of what they are saying. Everywhere there are children: children darting into the water, children coming out and begging to be dried, children with plastic bubbles like eggs strapped to their backs to enable them to swim, children wet and slippery as eels, teeth chattering. Two small boys in red seersucker bathing suits are arguing over a piece of string, and as she follows the line of the string with her eyes she sees a kite, high above, fluttering in the air. The fine thread sustaining the kite suggests to her that thin thread between mother and child and it is as if the full meaning of motherhood has been revealed to her at last. Although not a swimmer, she decides to go in the water. She thinks that it will calm her, that her agitation is only caused by the heat. She rushes home to fetch a bathing suit and towel, and on the way there convinces herself that Mark and Penny have come back.
"Yoo-hoo," she says as she enters the kitchen, and then goes towards their bedroom door and knocks cautiously. As there is no answer, she goes inside and starts to make their bed. She pulls the cover off in one rough gesture, pummels the mattress, and then very slowly and patiently makes the bed, even folding back the top sheet the way it is done in hotels. She then picks up the various garments from the floor and starts to hang them in the already crammed closet. She notices that Mark has brought two dark suits, a cream suit, sports jackets, and endless pairs of leather shoes. She wonders what kind of vacation he had envisioned and suddenly realizes that for them, too, the holiday must seem a fiasco. Her mood veers between shame and anger. They should have understood, should have apologized, should have been more sympathetic. She is alone, she has recently been jilted, she has dreamed of her lover on a swing with his wife, both of them moving through the air, charmed, assured creatures. Great copious tears run down her face onto her neck, and as they reach her breastbone she shivers. These tears blind her so that the red tiles of the floor appear to be curving, the roses on the bedspread float as if on a lake, and the beaded eyes of the teddy bear glint at her with malice. She will swim, or she will try to swim; she will dispel this frenzy.
Excerpted from The Love Object by Edna O'Brien. Copyright © 2015 by Edna O'Brien. Reprinted with permission of Little, Brown and Company.
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