Even So Read online

  Even So

  Even So

  Lauren B. Davis

  Copyright © Lauren B. Davis, 2021

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purpose of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

  All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Excerpt from A NEW PATH TO THE WATERFALL, copyright © 1989 by the Estate of Raymond Carver. Used by permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited.

  Publisher: Scott Fraser | Acquiring editor: Rachel Spence | Editor: Shannon Whibbs

  Cover designer: Sophie Paas-Lang

  Cover image: istock.com/andipantz

  Printer: Marquis Book Printing Inc.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Title: Even so / Lauren B. Davis.

  Names: Davis, Lauren B., 1955- author.

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200359444 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200359452 | ISBN 9781459747647 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459747654 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459747661 (EPUB)

  Classification: LCC PS8557.A8384 E94 2021 | DDC C813/.6—dc23

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and Ontario Creates, and the Government of Canada.

  Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites or their content unless they are owned by the publisher.

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  To Sister Rita Woehlcke, who knows so many things, including why.

  And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did.

  And what did you want?

  To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.

  — Raymond Carver, “Late Fragment”

  Contents

  Angela

  Sister Eileen

  Angela

  Sister Eileen

  Angela

  Sister Eileen

  Angela

  Sister Eileen

  Angela

  Angela

  Sister Eileen

  Angela

  Angela

  Angela

  Sister Eileen

  Angela

  Sister Eileen

  Angela

  Sister Eileen

  Angela

  Sister Eileen

  Angela

  Sister Eileen

  Sister Eileen

  Angela

  Intermission

  Angela

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Angela

  Angela sat on the side of the bed, lacing up her running shoes, and watched her husband standing at one of the two sinks in their ensuite. Philip was shirtless, a towel wrapped around his waist. It was early spring, predawn, and the overhead light cast unflattering shadows. The bathroom was so very white and cool. Philip leaned in toward the mirror as he shaved. His belly, a hairy fold of flesh, rested on the top of the sink. His legs were ham-pink, and a purple varicose vein wriggled like a worm at the back of his right knee. Angela watched him in the silver-framed mirror. He squooshed his face up, lips pursed. There was a considerable amount of loose skin and so he used his left hand to pull it taut. Scrape, scrape, scrape. Rinse the razor. Tap, tap, tap on the sink. Repeat. Wipe face with towel, wipe the sink with the same towel, and deposit towel in hamper. No towel was ever used twice. He turned back to view himself in the mirror. He posed to the side, and slapped his gut three times, as though in congratulations, and grinned at his big, meaty reflection. He noticed Angela staring. He unwrapped the towel at his waist and waggled his dangling bits in her direction, raising his eyebrows.

  “I’ve got ten minutes.” He waggled again, the grin and the heavy eyebrows working in tandem.

  While it was true Philip’s bits were impressive, the last thing Angela wanted was to have sex with him. In fact, the extent of her distaste for the man to whom she was married came as a bit of a shock. She could just about manage sex after a bottle of burgundy on a Saturday night had put a little Vaseline on the lens, but, in the full-on glare of morning’s bathroom light? No. No, she very much did not want to have sex with Philip. It had been, what, three months since there’d been one of those Saturday nights? She tried not to let her aversion show and walked to the closet to grab her jacket so he wouldn’t see her face. Oh, she thought, let me just get out of this now. Don’t make a fuss, Philip. The image of his belly slapping against her ass popped into her head and she winced.

  No wife should be thinking this about her husband. But there it was. The little toad hopped in, with no promise of turning into a prince. When had this happened? Slowly, she supposed, over time. They hadn’t always been so distant, so much at odds. When Connor was little there had been parties, and dancing, BBQs in the back yard. Business-related events, mostly, but she’d liked some of the wives, even if all they really talked about were kids. That was okay. She’d only wanted to talk about Connor, anyway. The perfection of him. The joy of him. And with the parties had been champagne, and martinis, and yes, there had been sex, quite a bit of it, to be truthful.

  Had her desire for Philip fallen away because of the way his body had changed over the years, or was it more than that?

  It was puzzling, she thought, the way someone so persnickety about household perfection — no dust, no clutter, nothing out of place — could care so little about his own body, and equally baffling that he thought his wife would find it attractive. Philip had never boasted a six-pack. He’d always been slightly on the heavy side, but at least it had been firm flesh back when they’d met. And he’d smelled of some woodsy cologne she liked. What was it about men, wanting their women to be sylph-like and flawless while they went the way of all flesh? For her part she was still slim, not five pounds over what she had been twenty years ago when they married. Her auburn hair shone from expensive conditioners and was kept in the softly curling bob Philip said made her look like Audrey Hepburn. Her hazel eyes were framed by perfectly arched brows and thick lashes. Not a single line hovered over her full lips. All this was expected of her, while just look at Philip there, in all his self-satisfied glory.

  Those waggling eyebrows. That grin. Those dangling bits, now slightly tumescent.

  “Can’t,” she said, keeping her voice cheerful. “Got to get this run in. I’m at the Pantry this morning.”

  Philip rewrapped the towel, his grin disappearing. “Again?”

  “Yes, again.”

  “I don’t get it, Angela.”

  “I know you don’t.” She zipped up her windbreaker. “You’ve made that clear.”

  “Like emptying the sea with a slotted spoon,” Philip said as he applied deodorant.

  Angela had begun volunteering at the Our Daily Bread Food Pantry a little over six months ago. One of those frequent fundraising letters had come in the mail, asking for donations. She had written a cheque, of course, but then had begun thinking. She had time on her hands, too much time, in fact. Connor, off at the Lawrenceville boarding school, was home
infrequently, and at his age was hardly interested in hanging out with his mother, more was the pity. She had no job outside the home, which was mostly managed by Irina, the twice-a-week cleaning lady, anyway. She had few friends, since she was uninterested in things such as golf or bridge or shopping-and-lunch. She had joined a book club, briefly, but the women (no men) seemed more interested in gossip and wine than Balzac or Morrison. Her greenhouse and beloved orchids were important, a sort of meditation on the solace of beauty, but they didn’t contribute much to the world at large.

  Ever since Connor had moved to the Lawrenceville boarding school, the restlessness Angela had felt creeping up on her for so long had become impossible to ignore. Running helped, but she couldn’t run all day every day, could she? When she felt that tinge of possibility looking down at the cheque she’d written for the Pantry, she felt perhaps this was what she was being called to do. She telephoned them. Spoke to the nun, Sister Eileen, who ran the place and asked if she could pop in with a cheque and for a chat about volunteering.

  This is the way it had started. She went once a week, more or less, and the place now mattered to her. Perhaps not as much as her orchids, but still. It was a bone of contention between her and Philip. He didn’t like her heading into what he called The Wilds of Trenton. For some as yet unexplored reason, that made her want to be part of it even more.

  She looked at Philip again, stepping into his pants now, heaving them up over that belly.

  “See you tonight. You going to be late?” She shoved her hands in her pockets and jogged down the stairs.

  “Home by eight. Hey,” he called after her.

  “Yeah?”

  “Langs’ for dinner tomorrow night, remember? Can you pick up some gift? She cooks.”

  “I’ll find something.”

  “Love you,” he called again.

  “Love you, too.”

  Her hand was on the doorknob. Love him? Did she? She had once, she thought.

  An odd memory flashed through her mind of the two of them, dressed in white linen, playing croquet at a fundraiser for the Princeton Hospital. They drank Pimm’s with mint and cucumber. She wore a fetching wide-brimmed straw hat with silk flowers on it and a slip dress with a drop waist, all very 1930s. He hit his ball into hers with a hard clack and then prepared, as the rules gave him permission to do, to smash hers into the deep wilds. But he didn’t. He looked sideways at her, smiled, and tapped it ever so lightly. Then he stood and touched the rim of his boater, bowing gently. She had loved him in that moment, looking, as he did, like some English lord, so sturdy, a country man, but elegant in his whites, and so gallant. She had loved him then, she was sure.

  Love. Did she even have the faintest notion of what that word meant? She shook her head and set out into the brightening spring day. It was too early for all this.

  HER FEET WERE LIGHT on the pavement as she ran. She could see her breath in light puffs as she passed the fancy mansions. How beautiful these houses were. Solid and immoveable. Testament to prosperity, security … what she’d always wanted.

  She stretched her shoulders as she waited at the traffic light, jogging in place.

  Almost no one was out at this hour. A man walking an ancient golden retriever. A few cars. The houses were waking up. Lights coming on. When she and Philip first moved here, she’d been thrilled to be living in one of these houses. And now? It was what she had wanted, right? But that “wanted.” Oh, dear. Past tense.

  Something was changing. Something had changed in Angela over the twenty years she and Philip had been together. Angela understood he was all the things she had been raised to want: steady, well-off, honest, faithful, and kind — at least to his family, although outside his immediate circle he stood solidly in the no-welfare-for-deadbeats camp. Angela thought she would be safe with him.

  She was a twenty-five-year-old administrative assistant at a stock brokerage firm in New York when they met. Philip was a thirty-two-year-old analyst on the way up. They had lunches with wine. That first lunch at the Gramercy Tavern Angela ordered a Chardonnay. She knew it wasn’t the usual quick business lunch. The beamed ceiling, the well-heeled diners, the tablecloths and hovering waiters, lots of glasses and cutlery at each place. She wanted him to see her as a bit of a thrill. She’d seen a woman pick him up at the end of the day now and then. Nice enough, Angela was sure, but the woman wore loafers and Bermuda shorts. If Philip’s girlfriend was sensible shoes, Angela would be red-soled high-heeled Louboutins. Not that she could have afforded shoes like that, but a girl could dream.

  She wasn’t interested in Philip, at least not at first. Angela dated musicians and actors and guys with Celtic armband tattoos. Philip wore Brooks Brothers and his pants were ever so slightly too short. She could make him want her. A game like that took some of the boredom out of her menial job.

  So, she ordered wine and he grinned and said, “I’ll have one, too.” She saw it in his eyes, how he looked at her and what he thought. She was the little wild one. She was going to add spice to the bland old business stew. She saw how it puffed him up, how he liked the idea that a man like him — with prospects, with cash, with a BMW, with a loft in Tribeca — deserved a girl like her. It was one of the perks of Wall Street. She was one of the perks. Angela played with the buttons on her blouse and licked her lips.

  It was all just supposed to be fun.

  She liked it. Liked the power. It turned her on. Women had little enough power, after all. Men made more money, got the promotions and the respect. She had taken her power where she could. She was so young, then. She knew so little.

  She’d been running for a couple of miles now, and she felt the sweat on her back, under her windbreaker. She rounded the corner and slowed to a walk as she neared home. That house. Was it hers or Philip’s? The cars? That security she had longed for?

  Maybe Philip did hold all the power. Maybe all she really did was fit in around his life. Maybe she’d taken the only option available to her. Was that true? Was she a victim of the patriarchy? She chuckled as she opened the door. What she was, was a woman in her midforties, indistinguishable from the other Princeton matrons, although never had she fallen to the level of loafers and Bermuda shorts. Connor, her son, her love, had given her purpose. Maybe nothing else mattered. Maybe she could martyr herself on the pillar of motherhood. Maybe. But Connor wasn’t here anymore, was he? Not really.

  DINNER THE NEXT NIGHT was with Philip’s business associates, Ellen and Bill Lang. A French provincial house in the horsey part of New Jersey, outside of Princeton. Grey stone. Gilt-framed mirrors. A candlelit dining table, Moroccan chicken tagine and an excellent white wine, with smooth jazz wafting in the background. The orchid Angela had brought, in a silver pot, decorated the centre of the table, and the pomegranate oil, which was the second part of her offering, was now in a small glass pitcher, being passed around to add a certain piquancy to the tagine. When it came around to Philip, he winked at her, letting her know she had done well.

  The conversation had turned, as it often did, to how high taxes were in New Jersey. A woman, Paula Camini, said she didn’t see how it could keep on going that way, with them forced to support so many people who didn’t even pay taxes. She smoothed her seemingly effortless upswept brown hair. Her short fingernails were painted plum.

  “It’s the schools,” said Angela. “They’re so good around here. Compared to places like Newark and Camden and Trenton. At least we get that in return.”

  “Do your children go to public schools?” asked Bill Lang, a tall, trim man with dark hair Angela suspected he touched up, and a waistline that spoke of many hours in the gym.

  Philip answered, “We just have the one son. And no, he doesn’t go to public schools. Lawrenceville.”

  “Oh,” said Ellen, dabbing at her red lipstick with her napkin. Angela was sure she was trying to raise her eyebrows but found herself unable to. “Our niece goes there. I wonder if they know each other. Her name is Cynthia.”

  “I’l
l ask Connor,” said Angela. She paused, unsure of exactly why she didn’t want to let this go. “Taxes or not, though, we’re all doing pretty well. We can afford them, and others really struggle.”

  “There’d be fewer problems if more of those people had jobs,” said Philip.

  Ellen Lang, silver glasses glinting in the candlelight, chuckled softly. “Oh, come now, Philip. It’s more complicated than that, surely.”

  “I’ll say it is,” said Angela.

  Philip snorted. “Our Lady of the Needy. Salvation of Trenton.”

  She felt herself bristle, just as she felt the room go ever-so-slightly tense at the tone of derision in Philip’s voice. She was glad she wasn’t seated next to her husband, as she might have been tempted to accidently spill her wine in his lap.

  “You mean the work I do at the food pantry in Trenton. At least I do something.”

  Paula gazed at her wide-eyed while Anthony, her husband, the sort of just-beyond-middle-aged man who looked as though he’d walked out of a magazine ad for expensive Scotch, pressed his lips between his teeth to try and camouflage his sneer.

  “Trenton?” Paula tilted her head as though speaking to a child. Her dangling earrings danced. “How interesting. I don’t think I’d have the courage.”

  “You wouldn’t, honey,” said Anthony. “You don’t even like to talk to the lawn guys.”

  The men at the table chuckled.

  “Tony! That’s not true. Not at all.”

  “Well, I can’t say I see the point,” said Philip. “I mean, what sort of a difference is it going to make? Some people just have the right ambition, the strength of character to get out of these shitholes, and others don’t. Most don’t. Then I’m expected to pay for health care for people who eat crap all day and take drugs and drink themselves to death? Pay welfare for them when they won’t work? That’s the problem, right there. There’s no work ethic.”