Three Women at the Water's Edge Read Free Page B

went out the front door.
    It had been seven forty-five in the morning; Daisy had just gotten out of bed and was moving around slowly in her shapeless warm old robe. Her hair was mussed, of course, she had been sleeping; she had not washed her face yet or brushed her teeth, because she had been awakened by Jenny, who had soiled her diaper and needed changing. Daisy had slowly gone down the stairs, holding Jenny in her arms for the pleasure of it, smooching Jenny’s soft sleep-warmed skin. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and awkwardly bent to put Jenny down; it was just beginning to be difficult for her to bend gracefully at the waist. Straightening up, she saw Paul standing there, by the front door, hand on the doorknob, looking at her with realistic eyes. He looked wonderful: clean, fresh, shaven, well dressed, young, firm, proud. His expensive aftershave spangled the air between them. She was aware, too, of what she looked like: something the children were comfortable with, a warm, loving sloven of a woman, as lazy and plump as pillows.
    And he had said he was taking her out to dinner, and she had smiled, her body startled awake with hope, and he had looked at her, and left, and by the time he had gone out the door the vision of herself in her red maternity dress had vanished and she could tell by the way the door closed so firmly in Paul’s retreating hand that the end of the day was something she should fear.
    What could she do about it? She really did not know. Even if she got out of bed and got a sitter and went to a beauty shop and had her hair done and her face made up and her nails manicured, that still would not change things. It was possible that nothing could change things; it had all been going on too long. Paul had loved her six years ago when they were married, she was sure of that. And she had loved him.
    They had met in Chicago, where she was finishing her B.A. degree and wondering what on earth to do next with her life, and he was finishing his M.A. degree in business administration. It had been at a huge drunken party where they both had other dates that they first saw each other, and although they spoke to each other only briefly, the meeting had been so intense that the next day Paul had called her, and taken her out for pizza that night, and they had slept with each other immediately, knowing each other only twenty-four hours: it had been like that. Chemistry. Now when Daisy looked back at it all, she sometimes thought that it had all been evolutionary, that Danny and Jenny and this new evolving child were the cause of her passion for Paul, and his passion for her, rather than the effect. They had wanted to be born, these children, or nature had wanted them born, and so Daisy and Paul had come together, each of them a tiny helpless stick of steel jumping together at a magnet’s pull. How else could it be explained? They did not know each other very well, and had different values, but in the face of their sexual passion, that hardly mattered. And Paul had been impressed with Daisy because she was tall and had what he considered a “classy” look, and he had been even more impressed because her father was a physician, a wealthy, important burgher of a physician. Paul’s own family was poor and insignificant. Daisy had simply thought that what had happened was the way of the world, was fate. She had wondered what to do with her life, having no strong desires or goals of her own, and here was Paul, coming along almost predictably; she had known she would get married sometime.
    The party they had met at had been in the spring. By August they had married and rented an apartment; Paul had finished his master’s degree and had been given a very good executive job at a large manufacturing company in Milwaukee. Daisy’s parents gave them a large check, because Paul and Daisy had wanted money instead of a large, expensive wedding. They had not really had a honeymoon at all, but hadn’t minded. They