A Week as Andrea Benstock

If winter comes can spring be far behind?

Winter had come, an early winter and a harsh one, and deep in the winter, early in January, her father had died. The following afternoon she had stood watching as his boxed body was lowered into an opening in the frozen earth. There was snow on the ground that afternoon, a couple of inches of it, and there was fresh snow falling. Everything looked terribly white and clean.

And now everything was turning green.

She took her time noting the garden’s progress, bending now and then to pull a weed. The soil was cold to the touch but soon it would be warmer. It seemed almost wrong to be pulling weeds. They were alive, they were green, and the season was still new enough so that anything green was welcome.

The phone rang at one point but she did not rush inside to answer it. Eventually it stopped ringing.

A few minutes later she went inside. She drank a cup of coffee and smoked a cigarette. Then she picked up the telephone and began to dial a number. She had almost finished when she was suddenly overcome. There was a pressure behind her eyes, as if there were tears welled up there demanding to be shed. Her eyes remained dry, however. She felt quite dizzy and her hands and feet were very cold.

She managed to replace the receiver, managed to find a chair and sit in it. She made herself breathe deeply and slowly until she felt all right again, although the coldness in her hands and feet persisted. She thought that a straight shot of liquor would probably do her a great deal of good, but of course she never considered actually having a drink. It was morning and she did not drink in the morning. A woman down the block did drink in the morning, as Andrea had discovered not long ago. The discovery had unnerved her, even shocked her. The whole idea of a suburban housewife having a little nip as soon as her husband left the house, affected her so that for some time afterward she felt a little funny about drinking at all, at any hour of the day.

She smoked another cigarette — which was probably a particularly dumb idea when one had cold hands and feet, but the hell with it — then went to the phone and made her call. When her mother answered she said, “Hello, Mom. How are you?”

“Oh, I’m all right. And you?”

“Oh, I’m fine. Robin’s at school and Mark’s at the office and I just thought I’d call.”

“I’m glad. I was just going to call you, as a matter of fact.”

“Did you call before? About fifteen minutes ago.”

“No. Why?”

“I was outside and the phone rang and I didn’t feel like running for it. I thought it might be you.”

“No, it wasn’t. You were outside? It’s a beautiful day today, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Maybe the winter’s finally over. Sometimes it seems to me as though winter and summer both get longer every year and spring and fall absolutely disappear. Your father would say I’m starting to sound like those cranks who blame the snow on the atomic bomb and the astronauts. Actually I’m sure it’s Nixon’s fault.” There was a pause. Then, softly and tentatively, “Andrea, today is—”

“Yes, I know, Mother.”

“I knew you would remember, of course.” Another pause. “Thirty-nine years, it would have made.”

“I know.”

“It was the funniest thing last night. I was in bed and just on the verge of falling asleep and of course I was thinking that today was our anniversary and I had an impossible time deciding if it was going to be thirty-nine years or forty years. I was doing all sorts of complicated arithmetic, trying to figure how many years we had been married when you were born, one bit of nonsense after the other. I suppose it was the pill I took before I went to bed.”

“I’m sure of it. I was just going to say that.”

“But isn’t that a funny thing to be confused about? Well, it would have been thirty-nine years today.”

“Mother—”

“I’m all right.”

“I was thinking maybe I would come over for a little while.”

“Well, what I was thinking. I want to go to the cemetery today.”

“Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“It’s something I want to do. How would it be a good or a bad idea? I certainly don’t want you to come if you don’t want to, but I—”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I’ll come.”

“Only if you want to.”

“Of course I want to. I want to wait until Lucinda gets here but she’s due any minute, and then I’ll come over, and we can go to the cemetery whenever you want.”

“Lucinda. Oh, your girl. I didn’t even think that it was Thursday, isn’t that funny? I was thinking of the date but not what day of the week.”

Thursday. So it was indeed Lucinda’s day, but it was not her day with Cass. That particular string of Thursdays had come to an end with her thirtieth birthday. A dividend of maturity — and when I became a woman I put away childish things.