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That evening Judd journeyed home to East Orange by trolley instead of the train, not because it was cheaper, but because he felt he needed the extra hour to find his role and rehearse his lines. He recalled his freshman year in high school when he first looked up the word: “adultery,” from the Latin adulterare, to defile. The generality of the definition had called up a host of fantasies, and Ruth was doing the same: calling out his vices, torturing him with affection, exhausting him with liquor and schemes and secrecy and shocking sexual practices until he felt dirtied and defiled. She’d seduced and dominated him, he thought, held his yearning heart in her hands, fondly and expertly played his frailties and hankerings as if he were her pet, her toy.
And yet he found it impossible to stop desiring her, and if there was any infidelity, he thought, it was in his grim and loveless marriage to Isabel, a wedding of unequals that was now not just defiled but dead. All he could offer his wife in the future were the leftover scraps of an old friendship. And all she could offer him was his daughter. But that was enough. Jane was the gl
ue.
Walking up Wayne Avenue to his house, he was still inventing a night in which he told Isabel all about his affair and of his plans to end it, acknowledging that he would have to endure his wife’s wretched tears and full-throated screaming, Mrs. K’s interference and scorn, little Jane’s worries and pain.
But when he got to number 37, he found the front sidewalk and driveway had not been shoveled, just shuffled through by overboots during the week, and he went back to the garage with his heavy luggage, his shoes crunching in the snow, his ears and nose smarting in the near-zero cold as he hauled down the snow shovel from its nail on a wall. And then he saw all three females skeptically watching him through the kitchen window, without gratitude or even welcome, as if whatever slavish job he carried out was a job long overdue. Judd demonstrated his insolence by hanging the wide shovel back on its nail and trudging through snow to the kitchen and the scandal of his Scotch whisky.
There were, finally, some pleasantries after that, some journalism at dinner about the past week’s doings, Jane’s joyless acceptance of the gift of a jeweled barrette, and Isabel’s quiet accommodation of his imaginary lust that night. It all seemed unreal, like the alliances of hotel guests sharing a restaurant table or some radio voice in the club room. Waking in the middle of the night, Judd saw his luggage on the floor, the hinged jaws opened, his blue canvas laundry bag now gone to the basement but his toiletries still there and much of his clothing still neatly folded, as if this were just another stay-over and he’d soon be ready to journey onward.
In the morning, Judd took Jane to Sunday school but let Isabel and Mrs. Kallenbach go to the church service without him, as shame caused him to lie that his mother wanted him sooner than noon.
Mrs. Margaret Gray was surprised by his earliness and not yet fully dressed, but she gave him fresh coffee and a slice of hot apple pie that she’d made from a jar of preserves. And then, as always, she just watched him eat. She said she didn’t know if she’d be putting up fruits and vegetables next summer. It was so hard on her hands and arms. She wondered if he was getting enough sleep. Was he losing weight? Bud seemed kind of mopey to her; he seemed to have something on his mind. She didn’t see the point of his visiting if he wasn’t going to chat. Oh no, she didn’t have errands for him or anything else that needed doing. “You go have a nice afternoon with that little girl of yours,” Margaret Gray said. “She’s been missing her daddy, I’ll bet.”
As a state senator, Jimmy Walker got legislation passed that allowed attendance at movies, plays, and public sporting events on Sunday afternoons. So Judd could take his daughter to the Orpheum theater and a matinee showing of The Lost World. He asked her as he bought the nickel tickets, “Have you heard of the famous English sleuth Sherlock Holmes?”
Jane nodded uncertainly.
“Well, this movie we’re going to see is based on an original novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.” She seemed mystified.
“Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes.”
“Oh.” Jane seemed downcast. “Is this a mystery?”
“No, it’s science fiction.”
“I hate science.”
“Don’t say ‘hate.’” Judd guided his daughter inside the theater and found she disliked the seats he chose, so they moved. Seeking to get her to smile, he asked, “Where does the general keep his armies?”
She sighed.
“Have I told you that one?”
Improbably bored, Jane asked, “Up his sleevies?”
She’s been poisoned, he thought, and ran out of things to say to her. But for more than half an hour he just watched her watch the movie, loving how flashes of on-screen light flared in her widened eyes and how the raging dinosaurs scared Jane enough that she once clutched his hand and cowered into him so that half her face hid in his overcoat sleeve. But the scene ended too soon and she sat up again and she coolly extricated her hand from his, just as Isabel would have.
Ruth finished the Sunday-night dishes thinking of Judd, and she was thinking of Judd as she wiped the kitchen stove’s white enamel, the humming Frigidaire, the soft suede of the kitchen’s maple countertops, then tossed the damp dish towel down the laundry chute. She felt addicted to Judd and desperate for him, and when she heard Albert whistling in his basement workshop she hated the noise so much she held her hands to her ears as she hurried to the foyer. She failed in the effort to calm herself as she called in Swedish, “Moder?”
Josephine Brown was upstairs helping Lora with her multiplication tables. She walked out to the hallway and quizzically looked down.
“How about a luncheon here tomorrow?”
“You mean with a guest?”
Ruth was queasy with urgency, but she fashioned a smile. “Winter’s gotten so dreary.”
With solemnity, her mother said, “But, May, it’s wash day!”
Ruth felt herself getting faint and held on to the staircase banister. She was lovesick and afraid she’d either scream or whine. She shook as she said, “We can finish that in the morning. There’s not much. I’ll cook.”
Josephine fell into Swedish. “Vilken?” Who?
“My friend, Mr. Gray? The Bien Jolie salesman? The baby’s met him.”
Lorraine heard her mother and called out, “Yes. He’s nice.”
