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  “Not for a while, but I had counted on sounding you out.”

  Just then, Rubin knocked at the back door. He was holding Serena’s hand. “We’ve just received word that Janet’s father is ill. I’ve got to get her to the station for the five o’clock train. We’re so rushed. Could you keep Serena?”

  “Of course, come in, sweetie … Claire, did you hear?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry. Poor Janet. Let us know if we can do anything. Does she need help packing?”

  “No, I’m helping her get organized. I think we’ll make it all right. I’ve no idea how serious her father is; the telegram didn’t say. Came from Cleo, her sister.”

  He turned and hurried down the porch. “Godspeed,” said Charles. Serena had already found her place in his arms. “Unca Sharrie, is Mama sick?”

  “No, dear, your mother is just fine. It’s her father. She has to go and be with him for a while. Now, if we can talk Claire into pulling out those toys she keeps around here, I’ll bet you and I can have a lot of fun tonight.” She hugged his neck, and he kissed her loudly on the cheek. Having the child with him was always a momentous occasion for Charles, and I knew he’d forfeit all work to be done in the study this evening to play with her.

  As the situation turned out, Serena spent a great deal of time at our house in the next few weeks. Janet’s father rallied for a while after his first spell, but within a matter of days took a turn for the worse.

  Rubin came one afternoon for Serena while she was napping upstairs. Certainly he must have known he would have to face me, sooner or later, alone. He’d apparently come to terms with this that day because he had always brought Serena in the morning when he knew Charles would still be at home, and had always waited till evening after Charles’s rig made its way down the drive to come and fetch her.

  We began with a game of cat and mouse.

  “Come in and sit down,” I told him. “I’ve made coffee and an extra large batch of chicken and dumplings so you and Serena can eat with us tonight. Or you can take a pot home if you’d rather. You look tired.”

  He lowered himself into a chair. “Yes, I am.”

  I poured two cups of coffee and touched my free hand to my forehead as I leaned over to pour.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, though I do have a headache. Don’t worry. It’ll go away.”

  “Let me take Serena and we’ll leave you alone. I’ve imposed on you so much these past few weeks.…”

  “Nonsense. Keep your seat. I took some medicine I keep for pain a few minutes ago. My only problem is I haven’t had any coffee or tea all day. I need to sit down with a cup and relax.”

  We sat across from each other in silence, stirring our coffee as though we were dolls and had been wound up to do so.

  “Any word from Janet?” I said, finally.

  “Not for a few days. It kind of worries me, not hearing. Oh well, I’m sure she’d let me know if anything happened … by the way, I guess it won’t be long before the campaign is launched. Charles says he’s been boning up on artesian wells and harbor improvements and …”

  “Yes. If he’s successful, it’s going to make a difference in our lives.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been married to a mayor before.”

  “One thing is sure … you two will be quite a prestigious couple and in demand all the time for social functions and civic affairs.”

  The medicine had begun to take effect. I felt light-headed, giddy. Probably if I had taken the medicine and gone to bed I would have been asleep by now; drinking the coffee, though, was having an odd counter-effect.

  “Yes. We might even move away from here, up to Broadway.”

  “Oh, no, Charles would never do that.”

  “Why not, Rubin? Because of your deep friendship with each other, huh?”

  “Please, Claire, you don’t understand. I’ve been through the tortures of hell since that day when we, when …” His voice trailed off. He rose from the table and went to stand against the counter, looking out the window.

  “When we what, Rubin? When we made love to each other? Why can’t you say it out loud? I’m not ashamed of it. Why should you be ashamed of so honest an emotion as love and desire for another human being? Don’t you see, it’s the only thing in life that really counts?”

  “No, Claire, it’s not that simple—oh, how I wish it were! So much has happened. So many lies have been spoken, so many secrets, so many things have gone wrong.” He was speaking softly, gazing out the window as though something out there had him mesmerized.

  “Listen, Rubin,” I said impatiently, “we could go away now, or any time you say. Damn the mayor’s race; damn anything and anybody that keeps us from being together. It seems I’ve spent my life living a travesty. I’ve never loved Charles, except perhaps in the way you love Janet—not with passion or urgency or any of the things that make life worth living. I loved his brother Damon that way, but I couldn’t have him and I married Charles instead, and I knew then it was wrong and unfair, but I’ve lived with him, tried to be a good wife, to help him in his career.…”

  “Claire …”

  “But damn it, Rubin, when is my turn going to come, and when is yours?” Tears welled up in my eyes. “We could leave it all; Janet and Charles would survive, people do survive what they have to, and we could go anywhere you say. And, Rubin, I could give you a child of your own, I know I could, and you just don’t know the happiness you would feel in that moment when you held him in your arms, your own child, not somebody else’s.

  “Rubin, I’ve waited so long for you to do what you did that day in the shed. I’ve spent years waiting for our time to come.… Rubin, I can give you happiness you’d never dreamed existed if you’ll only have the courage to do what you really want to do.”

  I bowed my head over the table and let the tears roll down my cheeks and make plip-plops on the table cover, even then marveling at the bold words that had rushed from my lips.

  Was Rubin unmoved? I couldn’t tell. He stood at the open window as though his feet were riveted to the floor. Finally he turned from the window and came back to the table to sit. I looked up at him. There was nothing I wished to hide.

  All the color was gone from his face. “Claire, let me tell you something that will explain … please, I feel I owe it to you. But you must promise me you won’t tell anyone else about it, not Charles, not anyone.”

  I nodded.

  He looked across at me imploring as a child who begs forgiveness for breaking a dish, then he began. “Janet and I,” he said, then paused.

  “Go on, go on,” I commanded.

  “We don’t—can’t—have never … lived as man and wife.”

  The meaning of his statement did not immediately filter through the cobwebs of my mind. I looked at him astonished, trying to interpret. “How can that be?”

  “We fust don’t.”

  “But you couldn’t lie next to each other night after night, year after year … how absurd. I don’t believe you.”

  “We don’t … lie next. My room is separate from hers.”

  “No, I’ve let you talk in circles to me before, but this is too much. How perfectly—is this your way of explaining, a lie? Please don’t. You are a man—how impossible—”

  “I am a servant of God!” he said, his voice raised. “More is expected. What could I do? I love her, and I’ve never given up hope that one day she’d get over that horrible event in her childhood that makes her repelled by me … by all men. Don’t you see how much wrong I’ve already done, betraying her trust when she has no defense against it? What I’ve done to her is far worse than it would be if she were, well … normal.

  “If I could ever lay my hands on that scoundrel who forced himself on a thirteen-year-old child—did you know my poor dear Janet had been raped, Claire? Violated against her will when she was too young even to understand what was happening to her?”

  “Rubin?” I
stretched a hand across to touch his face. His eyes were filled; he would cry in front of me, I knew, and I couldn’t stand it. He took my hand away and gently laid it on the table. “So you can see, I could never leave her. It would be a sin far worse than those I’ve already committed. I can hardly live with myself now. I’d sooner be dead than to commit any more wrongs against her … or anyone.”

  “Oh, Rubin, please, please—”

  “No, I must go. Claire, please forgive me as Christ has taught us all to forgive.” He rose from the table and went to the back door. “I’ll come for Serena later,” he said quietly, and walked out, closing the door behind him.

  I sat at the table long after, my clammy hands outstretched, unable to comprehend what had just taken place. At first, the only part of it that penetrated my mind was the fact of Rubin’s celibacy with his wife. I didn’t know whether I ought to be pleased or repulsed, and couldn’t get my thoughts together.

  Then little bits and pieces of memory returned like the trickle of water into a cup. Janet’s telling me of Rubin’s patience and understanding that evening we walked to our first oyster roast; and later, when she became so angry at my insinuation she might be expecting—gad, no wonder!—and still later, when she came over one night and asked if my doctor could help women who had “other” problems; Janet as a young girl being held down and raped.

  I lay my head down on the table and wept. It was a curious thing to do, because I did not know for whom I was weeping.

  It was soon after that day that Rubin came to tell Charles and me the wire had been received about Janet’s father’s death. When I asked him if he’d be going to Virginia, he glanced at me quickly, then looked down before answering. “No, Janet will be coming home soon. Cleo will stay and help for a while.”

  After he was gone Charles remarked, “Rubin seems to be taking this pretty hard—did you notice how washed-out he looked?”

  “Isn’t it so,” I agreed, though I knew the state of Rubin’s appearance had nothing to do with the telegram he held in his hand. I felt so sorry for the man, yet at the same time so utterly frustrated that he would not accept the kind of help that only I could give him. My confused mental state after our day in the shed was nothing to compare with my dispirited feelings following our bizarre conversation at the kitchen table. I lost all appetite and had trouble keeping the simplest thoughts straight. I couldn’t remember where I’d left my sewing basket from time to time and lost my handbag while out shopping one day. I misplaced magazines and mail and once found I’d packed a sterling silver teaspoon between layers of clean bed linens.

  In early May I took fabric to Madame LaRoche. Charles’s announcement at the Marlowe home in June was to be a formal affair with a buffet dinner and reception, and, for the first time I could remember, he’d expressed the wish that I should have something new to wear. I picked candlelight silk with seed pearls and soft blue lace. When Madame took my measurements—she always took new ones no matter how little time had lapsed since the previous time she had made a frock for a customer—she said, “Ah, Mrs. Becker, what has happened to you? Your waist has decreased an inch and a half, and your hips have lost some of their roundness. It’s good I took new measurements today … you probably bought too much material.”

  A look in the cloudy full-length mirror confirmed her estimation. Even my cheeks had grown hollow. A horrible irony struck me then: after awaiting Charles’s announcement for months on end, and planning my own appearance at the gathering, I would look my worst instead of my best.

  Still, it was Charles himself who truly brought me to my senses. I could hear him pacing up and down in his study when I returned from Madame’s that day, and I knocked softly to show him I was home.

  “Claire, is that you? Come in here, will you? I want you to listen to something in my speech. It seems a bit awkward.”

  I walked in and sat down obediently in front of him. As he said nothing for a few moments, only stared at me, I finally asked him why he didn’t get on with it.

  “Claire, what in heaven’s name is the matter with you?” he asked. “I make my decision to run for mayor of Galveston, in no small measure because it’s what you want, and almost from the moment I tell you, you begin to change from an enthusiastic helpmate to a slow, lethargic mute. Have you changed your mind? Because if you have, I’ll be damned if I’ll go through with it. It’s going to be difficult enough, without worrying about you. Now, tell me the truth. Are you ill?”

  “No.”

  “Well, if not, what in God’s name is bothering you?”

  “Nothing. Of course I haven’t changed my mind. I want this almost more than anything in the world. It’s just—I haven’t had much appetite lately. The heat, I guess, and then so much time worrying over Serena this spring with Janet gone, one thing and another, and then I haven’t had much help with the garden and I’ve been working awfully hard.”

  “All right. But I want to see some pink in your cheeks this time next month or, I swear to you, I won’t go through with this business. I’ll call it off before it really begins.”

  “No, please. I’ll eat, I promise. You’ll be proud of me by the time the day comes. Now, read me that part of your speech.”

  His lecture had a rallying effect on me, and helped put matters into perspective again. Could I not have Rubin, I would be foolish to jeopardize what blessings had been given me. If I couldn’t force my heart into the mayoral campaign, I could at least throw my energies toward it, and I did. I overate at meals until I was sick at the sight of food. I took long afternoon naps when time permitted; I stayed away from the garden and away from Rubin (the latter of which was no difficult task to accomplish). I lunched with Faye and Isobel at the Imperial. I shopped for new hats. I restyled my hair into an upsweep with curls. I bought more fabric; had more outfits put into the making. By the night of the announcement I felt better twenty times over, and when Charles watched me model the candlelight silk he smiled contentedly and said, “Well, even if we go down in defeat, we’ll do it in style.”

  The magnitude of the situation had left my awareness over the past few months, not only because of what had occurred between Rubin and me, but also because over the many months since Charles decided to run, the mayor’s campaign had been reduced to a speech on paper and endless nights of his pacing the floor with it.

  That night of the announcing, though, it all became real again. Handsome rigs, one after another, were pulled up along the front of the Marlowe property and down the block when we arrived.

  “I thought only a few were to be here tonight,” I told Charles.

  “Oh, about fifty, I guess, counting wives.”

  “I don’t know how you can be so calm.”

  “There’s nothing to be worried about tonight—this is a gathering of friends. I feel prepared, and I’m determined to enjoy this before they throw me to the lions a few weeks from now.”

  “Charles, you do want it too, don’t you? You’re not doing this just for me?”

  “No, I’ll admit the idea has grown on me a bit. But I’m still not kidding myself. We have only a small chance of beating Fuller. Did you know he’s decided to run again?”

  “No, I hadn’t heard, but I’m not surprised.”

  “Not that it really matters. If it wasn’t him, it would be someone else of the almighty men’s choice—some other puppet to do their bidding.”

  Just as we approached the wide porch a male voice came from behind. “If this isn’t a winning couple, I’ve never seen one.”

  We looked around to see Lucien Carter, immaculate as ever. Isobel was at his side, a stunning figure in a deep green taffeta gown with sparkling emeralds encircling her throat and plunging down her soft breast. We bid them a cheery hello and walked in together.

  I never expected the sight which greeted us when we got up to the entrance of the Marlowes’. The buffet itself was set up in the large dining room so that people could walk around the table and fill their plates, then proceed into
the ballroom. There, at one end, were small round tables and chairs set with candles and silverware. Further back, to the rear of the room, chairs were set up classroom style with an aisle down the center. At the tail end was a podium that rivaled one I’d seen before in a daguerreotype of some presidential inauguration long ago. It was a massive platform, hung with blue bunting with a slender speaker’s stand in the center and five chairs behind.

  “What’cha think?” Pete inquired.

  “I don’t know what to say. It’s so grand. Forgive me, I’m quite overwhelmed at all of this suddenly. I had no idea it would be anything like this.”

  “Your husband is a very important man, young lady. The trappings for his platform speech had to be in keepin’ with the occasion.”

  Many passed before us in a reception line soon after we arrived. Of these, one man in particular remains in my memory. Porter Jackson, prosperous nursery owner, suggested we have a telephone installed for the campaign. “We’ve just gotten one at the store,” he said proudly, “and you’ve no idea what a fabulous contraption it is.” Galveston had been the site of the first telephone installation in Texas several years back, but there were relatively few phones on the island as yet. I smiled and said, “Why, certainly—what a wonderful idea,” but thought to myself a telephone was a bunch of tomfoolery.

  I was a little surprised at the appearance of some of the guests, having had no idea their wealth was sufficient enough for them to pledge dollars to Charles’s campaign, but then Charles has always said not all wealthy people put on show.

  After we’d greeted everyone, Pete announced from the podium in his folksy manner, “Ladies and gents, we’re gonna eat by and by, but before I git your stomachs full and git you all comfortable and sleepy, I want to progress on to the business at hand. So if everybody will have a seat up here in front, we’ll start.”

  The chairs behind the podium were for Lucien and Isobel, Faye and Pete and me. As we made our way to the front, I felt my first misgivings about the whole thing. I hadn’t realized what an awesome task we had before us. All these people were here because they expected something great from Charles. They expected him to save their city for them, or else they would have never gone out on a limb in his behalf. I felt so small, inadequate. I looked at Charles as he took my hand and lifted me up to the platform. He looked confident; distinguished. I wondered whether I would ever learn to appreciate him fully.