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Authors: Michael Collins
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flash.
*
When Joanne came back inside, she announced, ‘I can give a month’s notice if you like.’
Norman rallied. ‘I just checked. There’s no law against practicing literary criticism without a license.’
Joanne didn’t take the bait. She said, ‘Whatever you think of me, I have a job, and I intend to go on doing it. I just want you to know I have more feeling than you give me credit for.’ She pointed in the direction of Norman’s office. ‘That board is not my life!’
Norman acknowledged it. ‘It was a mistake. I’m sorry.’
Joanne’s eyes were glossy. Clearly, she had other things on her mind. ‘Last week, I looked up the college where Peter’s working. Somehow, you suspect the life others are leading is better than yours. I thought Peter had found happiness. The college out in Oklahoma where he works, it’s like that Columbine High School where those awful killings happened... He would never have dreamt of settling for it in a million years.’
She kept talking, something about Peter having been hired to teach Composition to students, farmers’ daughters aspiring to be nurses’ aids, medical transcriptionists and bank tellers.
Her voice was suddenly faint with a rising misgiving. She was emerging from a great shock of self-awareness. She looked at Norman. ‘Looking Peter up doesn’t constitute a betrayal, does it?’ She had misgivings about having revealed it by the time she had it said.
Norman paved it over. ‘So what were you saying about Peter?’ There was within his saying it a pandering sense that all might yet be navigated.
Joanne said as much. ‘You want to hear it, really?’
She didn’t await his answer.
‘When I first met Peter, he talked a lot about New England. There were liberal colleges tucked away in Vermont. He was trying for one of those jobs. I think what he was doing at the time was coming to terms with his lack of real talent. He talked a lot about chickens and white fences. I was the alternative to his life as a famous poet, or Peter thought that greatness might be snuck up upon, that in not seeking it, in our retreat, he might find it there in the quiet of a life simply lived. We hoped for it, both of us, without ever saying it.’
Joanne looked at Norman. Her eyes were set beyond a beseech that Norman should hear this, or that it mattered what he thought. It had to be simply announced.
She raised her voice. ‘Fast forward five years. We dressed in a shabby bohemian way, as if we were decided on being that way. We were pretty much broke. And then I got a call about my father being sick. Nobody had bothered to tell me before.’
Joanne’s eyes widened again with emotion.
Norman looked down because he felt it was the decent thing.
The heart of the matter lay in a sisterly rivalry between Joanne and her sister Sheryl, a complicated and entangled story that involved Sheryl and her husband Dave, and a marriage a week out of high school, whereafter Sheryl had got busy pumping out four children in quick succession, while Dave had been hired, fired, hired and fired again, so he ended up signing with the National Guard, which apparently had increased in Sheryl an emerging patriotism that got her talking a lot about Communism and American values.
It was a hell of a lot of detail. Norman listened as best he could. He suppressed the urge to yawn. He could see there was reproach in how Joanne described it all, the venial quality of a small life and small details, and yet it mattered greatly to her. That much he was willing to acknowledge. It was complicated, as were most family relationships. Some of it didn’t make sense, what Joanne really had against Sheryl.
Then Joanne got to the heart of the matter. Her father had come down sick and nobody had called her. He was sick a long time, suffering from dementia.
Joanne hugged herself against the settling memory of it. ‘Sheryl was so cold on the phone when she called. It was right on the eve of Thanksgiving.
*
When Joanne came back inside, she announced, ‘I can give a month’s notice if you like.’
Norman rallied. ‘I just checked. There’s no law against practicing literary criticism without a license.’
Joanne didn’t take the bait. She said, ‘Whatever you think of me, I have a job, and I intend to go on doing it. I just want you to know I have more feeling than you give me credit for.’ She pointed in the direction of Norman’s office. ‘That board is not my life!’
Norman acknowledged it. ‘It was a mistake. I’m sorry.’
Joanne’s eyes were glossy. Clearly, she had other things on her mind. ‘Last week, I looked up the college where Peter’s working. Somehow, you suspect the life others are leading is better than yours. I thought Peter had found happiness. The college out in Oklahoma where he works, it’s like that Columbine High School where those awful killings happened... He would never have dreamt of settling for it in a million years.’
She kept talking, something about Peter having been hired to teach Composition to students, farmers’ daughters aspiring to be nurses’ aids, medical transcriptionists and bank tellers.
Her voice was suddenly faint with a rising misgiving. She was emerging from a great shock of self-awareness. She looked at Norman. ‘Looking Peter up doesn’t constitute a betrayal, does it?’ She had misgivings about having revealed it by the time she had it said.
Norman paved it over. ‘So what were you saying about Peter?’ There was within his saying it a pandering sense that all might yet be navigated.
Joanne said as much. ‘You want to hear it, really?’
She didn’t await his answer.
‘When I first met Peter, he talked a lot about New England. There were liberal colleges tucked away in Vermont. He was trying for one of those jobs. I think what he was doing at the time was coming to terms with his lack of real talent. He talked a lot about chickens and white fences. I was the alternative to his life as a famous poet, or Peter thought that greatness might be snuck up upon, that in not seeking it, in our retreat, he might find it there in the quiet of a life simply lived. We hoped for it, both of us, without ever saying it.’
Joanne looked at Norman. Her eyes were set beyond a beseech that Norman should hear this, or that it mattered what he thought. It had to be simply announced.
She raised her voice. ‘Fast forward five years. We dressed in a shabby bohemian way, as if we were decided on being that way. We were pretty much broke. And then I got a call about my father being sick. Nobody had bothered to tell me before.’
Joanne’s eyes widened again with emotion.
Norman looked down because he felt it was the decent thing.
The heart of the matter lay in a sisterly rivalry between Joanne and her sister Sheryl, a complicated and entangled story that involved Sheryl and her husband Dave, and a marriage a week out of high school, whereafter Sheryl had got busy pumping out four children in quick succession, while Dave had been hired, fired, hired and fired again, so he ended up signing with the National Guard, which apparently had increased in Sheryl an emerging patriotism that got her talking a lot about Communism and American values.
It was a hell of a lot of detail. Norman listened as best he could. He suppressed the urge to yawn. He could see there was reproach in how Joanne described it all, the venial quality of a small life and small details, and yet it mattered greatly to her. That much he was willing to acknowledge. It was complicated, as were most family relationships. Some of it didn’t make sense, what Joanne really had against Sheryl.
Then Joanne got to the heart of the matter. Her father had come down sick and nobody had called her. He was sick a long time, suffering from dementia.
Joanne hugged herself against the settling memory of it. ‘Sheryl was so cold on the phone when she called. It was right on the eve of Thanksgiving.
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