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Authors: Anna Quindlen
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she can, but what can you say, children aren’t meant to take care of their parents, you’ve always insisted on that ever since you got saddled with your own. But you’re in luck! The housekeeper takes an apartment three blocks from the home where the wife lives! Sonya! You’re a saint, a godsend, a port in a storm!
Rebecca doesn’t know what Sonya is exactly. It’s a two-bedroom apartment. Is it possible that her father and Sonya sleep together? Is it possible they always have? Should she care? Her parents had separate bedrooms. Her father’s was small and hunter green, her mother’s enormous and aqua blue. “He snores,” Bebe said. “He should have had his adenoids removed as a child. It’s too late now.”
“I have to get over there to see your mother one of these days,” Oscar said, pointing at Rebecca’s cookies and then at his mouth. He winked, his pale eyes large and opaque. For his entire life her father had worn glasses, only the style changing with fashion: round wire rims when he was a boy, black plastic frames as a young married, then those enormous fishbowls that came with disco and leisure suits. When had he stopped wearing them? Rebecca wondered what he saw now, whether Sonya looked beautiful, his daughter ageless, the apartment spacious, elegant.
She passed him a cookie and he popped it whole into his mouth. “Were you born in a barn?” her mother would say to him when Rebecca was a child about his table manners. “Kings County Hospital, charity ward!” he would reply triumphantly.“I can’t understand why anyone would boast about that,” her mother would say, waving her hand.
“Sonya!” he called. “I have to get over to see Mrs. Winter one of these days!”
Rebecca was not sure, but she thought she heard a grunt from the kitchen.
In the hallway she looked at the painting above the big antique desk at which her father had once gone over the account ledgers when he brought work home. Rebecca hoped that no one in Sonya’s large tendentious Polish family knew the painting was a Mary Cassatt. A minor Mary Cassatt, but still worth something. Bebe’s father had given it to his daughter as a wedding gift. Not to her and his new son-in-law, but to her alone. A lawyer had said several years before that Oscar could sell it if he had his wife declared incompetent.
“The fellow doesn’t know your mother,” her father had said. “Incompetent! She’d murder me!”
“Papa, she doesn’t even know who we are anymore.”
“Doesn’t matter! She’d murder us both in our beds.”
“Is it insured?” Rebecca had once asked, looking at the painting.
“What do you think?” her father had replied. She thought that she had no idea.
She leaned closer. It was a watercolor, and it had been hung out of the light, protected with the proper glass. Thank God for small favors.
Sonya came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on an ancient dish towel. She was wearing pale blue pants and a matching tunic. When she first came to work for the Winters, she wore a dress version of the same thing: pale blue one week, mint green the next, yellow the week after that. The dresses had zippers up the front. The pants she wears now have elastic waistbands. Sonya wears a uniform that she can credibly say is not a uniform.
Together the two looked at the painting, of a young womangazing at her baby daughter, her face alight, the child’s hand reaching toward her. Sonya seemed uninterested. “Come again soon,” she said at the door. Her shoes are white, like those of a nurse. They always have been.
“You made my day!” her father called, and then there was a click as the television went on.
THE DOG ARRIVES, AND LEAVES AGAIN
While Rebecca was on the thruway driving—speeding, fleeing—from the northern reaches of New York City, stopping at a farm stand for corn, tomatoes, and some beans, a dog wandered into her yard and sniffed the foundation of the cottage. He made his way from the front door, which
Rebecca doesn’t know what Sonya is exactly. It’s a two-bedroom apartment. Is it possible that her father and Sonya sleep together? Is it possible they always have? Should she care? Her parents had separate bedrooms. Her father’s was small and hunter green, her mother’s enormous and aqua blue. “He snores,” Bebe said. “He should have had his adenoids removed as a child. It’s too late now.”
“I have to get over there to see your mother one of these days,” Oscar said, pointing at Rebecca’s cookies and then at his mouth. He winked, his pale eyes large and opaque. For his entire life her father had worn glasses, only the style changing with fashion: round wire rims when he was a boy, black plastic frames as a young married, then those enormous fishbowls that came with disco and leisure suits. When had he stopped wearing them? Rebecca wondered what he saw now, whether Sonya looked beautiful, his daughter ageless, the apartment spacious, elegant.
She passed him a cookie and he popped it whole into his mouth. “Were you born in a barn?” her mother would say to him when Rebecca was a child about his table manners. “Kings County Hospital, charity ward!” he would reply triumphantly.“I can’t understand why anyone would boast about that,” her mother would say, waving her hand.
“Sonya!” he called. “I have to get over to see Mrs. Winter one of these days!”
Rebecca was not sure, but she thought she heard a grunt from the kitchen.
In the hallway she looked at the painting above the big antique desk at which her father had once gone over the account ledgers when he brought work home. Rebecca hoped that no one in Sonya’s large tendentious Polish family knew the painting was a Mary Cassatt. A minor Mary Cassatt, but still worth something. Bebe’s father had given it to his daughter as a wedding gift. Not to her and his new son-in-law, but to her alone. A lawyer had said several years before that Oscar could sell it if he had his wife declared incompetent.
“The fellow doesn’t know your mother,” her father had said. “Incompetent! She’d murder me!”
“Papa, she doesn’t even know who we are anymore.”
“Doesn’t matter! She’d murder us both in our beds.”
“Is it insured?” Rebecca had once asked, looking at the painting.
“What do you think?” her father had replied. She thought that she had no idea.
She leaned closer. It was a watercolor, and it had been hung out of the light, protected with the proper glass. Thank God for small favors.
Sonya came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on an ancient dish towel. She was wearing pale blue pants and a matching tunic. When she first came to work for the Winters, she wore a dress version of the same thing: pale blue one week, mint green the next, yellow the week after that. The dresses had zippers up the front. The pants she wears now have elastic waistbands. Sonya wears a uniform that she can credibly say is not a uniform.
Together the two looked at the painting, of a young womangazing at her baby daughter, her face alight, the child’s hand reaching toward her. Sonya seemed uninterested. “Come again soon,” she said at the door. Her shoes are white, like those of a nurse. They always have been.
“You made my day!” her father called, and then there was a click as the television went on.
THE DOG ARRIVES, AND LEAVES AGAIN
While Rebecca was on the thruway driving—speeding, fleeing—from the northern reaches of New York City, stopping at a farm stand for corn, tomatoes, and some beans, a dog wandered into her yard and sniffed the foundation of the cottage. He made his way from the front door, which
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