Lucy by the Sea (Amgash, #4)(9)

* * *



—

Who knows why people are different? We are born with a certain nature, I think. And then the world takes its swings at us.





ii


After a few weeks, William said to me one night, “Lucy, I’m going to take over the cooking. Please do not take any offense. It’s just something I’d like to do.”

“No offense taken,” I assured him. I have never been interested in food.



* * *



—

In my marriage to David he did most of the cooking, always making sure there was something for me to eat on the nights he was at the Philharmonic. Remembering now David’s poking his nose into the refrigerator and bringing out a covered dish, saying, “Here, Lucy, here is your dinner for tonight”—recalling this, as I sat watching William in the kitchen, made a shiver go through my soul. At times I would have to turn away for a few seconds and squeeze my eyes shut tightly.



* * *



—

Each night William made something different. He made pasta sauce and he made pork chops, he made meatloaf and he cooked salmon. But he also made a mess in the kitchen and it was my job to clean up, which I did. He wanted a lot of praise for every meal he made—I noticed that—and so I praised him to the skies. It felt to me like I praised him to the skies, but he always asked, even after I had praised him, “So you liked it, it was good?”

“It was more than good,” I would say. “It was wonderful.” And then I’d get up to clean the kitchen.



* * *



—

I understand that this may be hard to believe, but it is true:

When I was a child there was no salt or pepper shaker on our table. We were very poor, as I have said, and I realize that many people who are poor still have salt and pepper shakers in their house. But we did not. Many nights for supper we had molasses on a piece of white bread. I mention this because it was not until I was in college that I understood that food could taste good. There were a group of us who sat at the same table in the dining hall for dinner, and one night I noticed that the fellow who sat across from me—his name was John—I noticed that John picked up the salt and pepper shakers and shook both of them over the piece of meat on his plate. And so I did the same.

And I could not believe it!

I could not believe the difference that salt and pepper made.

(But I still have never been interested in food.)





iii


One day a man came up on the porch with packages; they were for me and they were from L.L.Bean. William was out walking, and when I opened the packages I saw that there was a winter coat in just my size, it was blue and fit me perfectly, and also two sweaters for me. And a pair of sneakers that were my size as well! “William!” I called out to him as he came up the driveway. “Look what you ordered for me!”

“Wash your hands,” he said. Because I had opened the packages. So I did. I washed my hands.

William put the packages back out on the porch. Then he came inside and washed his hands too.



* * *





Each morning William took a walk before I got up; he was an early riser, and he got in his first five thousand steps. Even when it was overcast, as it often was, the light would wake me from the skylight, and I mentioned that to him each morning. When he got back I would have the cereal bowls set out; we had Cheerios, and we sat at the table and had our breakfast, and I—in a strange way—liked this; it was maybe my favorite part of each day. It had always been my favorite time of the day with my husband David. But I liked it now because William was—sort of, mostly—familiar to me, and there was always a small, but for me very real, sense of hope that maybe today would bring something different, that the pandemic would pass and we could go home. After we finished breakfast we would move into the living room, where we looked out at the water. It was very cold outside, and the sun did not shine much at all; the ocean stayed gray. After finishing my coffee, I would put on my new winter coat and I would take my walk.



* * *



—

The only place we could walk to was back down the road that led to the point. I walked without seeing people, though I sensed a person sometimes at a window watching me. The road was very narrow. The trees were bare, and I thought again how in New York there were already flowering trees, and tulips in front of the buildings. It seemed strange to me that the world of New York would remain so beautiful as all those people were dying.



* * *



—

One day as I walked I remembered this: Near where one of my New York friends lives—in the Village—was an old woman that my friend and I sometimes saw when it was very warm outside. The old woman lived in a sixth-floor walkup, and she would bring a folding chair out to the sidewalk and sit on it there; she said her apartment was too hot to be in. We had chatted with her a few times; she often was holding a blue paper cup of coffee that the man at the deli would give to her. Where was she now? She could not come sit on the sidewalk in New York! And how did she get her groceries? Was she still alive?



* * *



—

I thought then that William had been right to bring me up here, where I could walk freely even if I didn’t see many people. The question of why some people are luckier than others—I have no answer for this.