CHAPTER SEVEN
MILLY
Milly made a check out to The Island Club and signed Lloyd’s signature, leaving the amount blank, as she had no idea, nor did she care, how much the membership fees would be. She’d planned to stride into the office at the club, hand over her check, and head straight home, membership card in her purse. But as she pulled into the parking lot, she saw Sylvia in her flashy pink car.
Milly tapped on the window. “I’m sorry,” she said when Sylvia jumped, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Milly, hello darling,” Sylvia said, putting on a pair of large white sunglasses and stepping out of the car. “What brings you to the club?”
“I’ve decided to join,” Milly said. “We. We’ve decided to join.”
“Oh!” Sylvia clasped her hands together.
“Assuming the offer is still on the table.”
“Of course. We’re going to have such fun!” Milly couldn’t help but notice that Sylvia’s enthusiasm seemed forced. Maybe she didn’t want them after all. But then she linked her arm through Milly’s and walked toward the entrance. “I’ll take you in and get you all signed up.”
The cost was $7.00 a day, for a total of $2,555 annually. Milly had never made any large purchase without first consulting Lloyd. She hesitated for a moment too long as she wrote out the final amount and handedover the check, but if Sylvia noticed, she didn’t say so. When she left she was trembling slightly at the realization of what she’d just done, and while it had seemed like a good plan to commit them to this new town, she worried what Lloyd would say when he found out.
Milly decided to make steak for dinner. That afternoon, after Jack insisted upon wearing a shirt that was far too small for him and showed off his belly button, and then refused to put on shoes or socks, she gave in and let him climb into his stroller barefoot, then she walked to Marine Avenue to buy the best round steak they had. He needed his father, Milly thought, and it was becoming increasingly clear that Jack was suffering and acting out without Lloyd’s nightly presence. She couldn’t do this alone—raise children, manage a household, join clubs, make friends. Lloyd was supposed to be the support she needed with the children and the strict one when they wouldn’t listen to her. She needed him to be here to help her.
Milly’s parents had hated each other. They’d bickered constantly. She’d feel arguments building and building until they became all-out screaming matches. There were slammed doors, threats of leaving that left Milly shaking. Insults were hurled like daggers, cruelties spoken between two people who were supposed to love each other, all stemming from things that seemed frivolous—the way bread was sliced or the way one looked at the other during a dinner party. She couldn’t fathom why her parents had ever married, why they’d had a child and brought her into their mess. She had often wondered what it would be like to be part of another family, to have a sibling who could share some of the burden of all the fighting, someone to talk to.
She vowed that when she was old enough, she would do things differently. She would fix all of this longing and wondering by having children of her own as soon as possible, and she’d be a loving, doting mother and wife. She’d do everything that she was taught in the Marriage Education and Marital Arts course she took in college. She’d keep her home-economics textbooks and refer to them often.She would succeed at motherhood and housewifery the way she’d succeeded in her domestic-arts courses.
Seventeenmagazine was her Bible back then, but she’d also read the magazines that women read when they’d already made it—Woman’s Day,Better Homes & Gardens,McCall’s, andGood Housekeeping. She knew exactly what to expect and what to aspire to.
Milly was only one year into college when she met Lloyd, and he was a senior. With all that marital-arts research and education under her belt, she knew all the right things to do and say. She was taught that one of her jobs when they were going steady was to show him how life with her by his side would be preferable and easier than his bachelorhood. And she succeeded for a short time. But when her mother died unexpectedly halfway through that first year of college, she fell apart and she didn’t expect to see Lloyd again. There were plenty of other girls he could charm, girls who were fun and carefree and unburdened by grief.
But he surprised her. Lloyd stuck by her side. He attended the funeral with Milly—a very grown-up thing to do for a college boy, she had thought. He met her father, who later told Milly he approved of her beau. He wiped away her tears and listened to her memories and her regrets, and he gradually brought her back to the world again. He was a distraction and a blessing and she was forever grateful to him for that.This is what I want, she remembered thinking back then,a man who is patient and kind, who loves me enough to stand by my side through good times and bad.
And yet, when marriage and family came along, she realized it wasn’t as easy as all those magazines had promised. It was hard to be that perfect woman they pictured in the articles, happily feeding their children, mopping their floors in full makeup and dressed to the nines. It was hard to decorate and maintain a house and learn how to cook delicious meals and look gorgeous and glamorous while caring for an infant. She was exhausted; she missed her mother, yearned for her advice, and felt betrayed by the images of the life she’d dreamed of for so long.
Becoming a wife and then a mother didn’t give Milly the feeling of success and security that she thought it would. Instead, it made her feel trapped and resentful that Lloyd got to go out into the world each day and interact with people, adult people, while she had to stay home and clean and wash and feed and console. She loved her children dearly, and at night when they were sleeping sweetly in their beds, she felt guilty for having those thoughts, but the repetitiveness of it all felt suffocating.
There’d been a brief period of time when things started to feel somewhat manageable, when Debbie was walking and talking and able to play by herself for a few minutes at a time. But almost as fast as that phase came along, Milly was pregnant again, and this time it was twice as tiresome. Lloyd was out late three or four nights a week with work, clawing his way up the ladder at the network, missing bath times and feedings and bedtimes, and Milly did it all, slowly losing herself along the way.
“Good afternoon, ma’am,” the produce man at Hershey’s Market said as he polished apples and lined them up beautifully. She had half an hour to spare before Debbie’s school bus would arrive, and Jack had already fallen asleep in his stroller after tiring himself out with his tantrum. “Anything I can help you find?”
“I’m cooking steak for dinner, for my husband.”
“Meat department’s all the way in the back,” he said, but Milly already knew where to go.
To be a successful wife is a career in itself, she recalled her Family Relations professor telling the girls in class.It requires, among other things, the qualities of a diplomat, businesswoman, cook, nurse, schoolteacher, politician, and glamour girl.Milly took a bottle of Worcestershire sauce off the shelf and placed it in her basket.Think about what you can do differently to prevent your husband from straying, drinking too much, or from being abusive.If she’d been happier, more content, more competent at being his wife and the mother of his children, perhaps he’d be inclined to be around them, she thought.When a husband leaves his home, he may be seeking refuge from an unpleasant environment.More advice from herMarital Arts class rang in her ears.Could it be that your husband feels that he is not understood or appreciated in his own home?
She’d make his favorite, she decided—barbecued steak with potatoes. And then she’d be honest and tell him about the club membership. He’d be surprised, shocked that she’d done such a thing without his permission, but he’d see the benefits of it, surely. Maybe they’d even try to play a little tennis. Or, at the very least, they could swim on the weekends.
Back home, Jack and Debbie sat in front of the television glued toBuffalo Bill Jr.while Milly prepared dinner. She opened up her wooden recipe box and flipped through the note cards until she found the one she was looking for. Despite its name, it didn’t involve a barbecue at all but was named for its smoky-flavored sauce. She chopped and sautéed the onion and green pepper; added the ketchup, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, and brown sugar; and brought it to a simmer. The scalloped potatoes were browning in the oven, the cheese sauce bubbling at the edges of the dish, and she was waiting to drop the round steak into the pan when she heard the car pull up, followed by the usual chorus of her children singing “Daddy” from the living room.
A wave of relief flooded over her, and yet as she untied the apron from her waist, she wondered what excuse he’d give her for not coming home the last few nights.Never mind all that, she told herself,he’s home now. She reapplied her Cardinal Red lipstick in the reflection of the kitchen window, kicked her wool slippers into the hallway closet, and slipped into her pumps. She took two crystal glasses out of the cupboard and poured two gin and tonics, then, once she’d heard the excitement die down from the living room, she went back to the steak.
“Milly bird,” Lloyd said, placing his hand on her waist and kissing her cheek. “What happened to the hallway? There’s a hole in the wall.”
She paused as it sank in that she’d hurled her shoes down the hallway more than a week ago, and he hadn’t been home long enough, or cared enough, to notice. “Oh, one of Jack’s toys,” she said, trying to pushher resentment down into the pit of her stomach with a hard swallow. “That darn scooter—the handle went right through the wall,” she said, handing him a highball. She tried to force a smile but she just couldn’t do it, she couldn’t help herself. “Where have you been?” she asked quietly, one hand on her hip.
“Work, dinners—I told you,” he said, hanging his hat on a hook behind the door.
“You told me that on Monday, Lloyd. It’s Friday.”
