And some of them adored him—of course. He had “saved” their lives—he had “made their lives possible.”
Not just women who’d desperately needed to terminate pregnancies but nurses, nurse-practitioners, fellow doctors with whom Gus Voorhees had worked. He’d insisted—(Jenna was ashamed to think that they had ever had such a conversation)—that he loved her; he would always love her; if there were other women whom he found attractive fleetingly, if there were other women who seemed to find him attractive—“That’s only natural, Jenna. But let me say again—I love you.”
She did believe this. She wanted to believe it. But how badly she missed him!
Driving into town was painful now that her husband was no longer at the Huron County Women’s Center and there was no (evident) reason for Jenna and the children continuing to live here. When she encountered acquaintances in the grocery store, or staffers from the Center, she was struck by their seeming to assume that “Dr. Voorhees” would be returning to St. Croix, and that the move to Ohio wasn’t permanent.
Vaguely Jenna said, she hoped so. Gus tended to go where he was most needed . . .
“We miss Dr. Voorhees! He always makes us laugh.”
“Does he! Yes.”
She went away feeling both slightly deceptive and yet cheered. Of course—Gus would return to St. Croix, in a year or two. Surely, he would return to Michigan.
Or by then, he’d have convinced Jenna and the children to join him in Ohio, after all.
Jenna thought of the poet Percy Shelley who’d boasted strangely of himself—I always go on until I am stopped. And I never am stopped.
Except of course, Shelley was stopped, at a young age.
And Gus Voorhees would be stopped—one day.
BUT NOW, ALONE. And elated to be alone. She told herself.
For the first time since Gus had moved to Ohio in the stifling heat of August she was feeling good to be alone.
Don’t say that I am abandoning you and the children, Jenna! I am not, you know I am not.
Come with me? In a few months . . .
But she would not. She was determined, she would not.
For she felt bitterly how he loved his work, essentially. Not his wife, and not his children.
His ideal of Gus Voorhees whom others so admired and revered.
Oh, she was grateful that he was gone! His hands touching her hair, stroking her cheeks, her neck, her arms—his murmurous voice—his mouth grazing hers. She was sick with love for him, she could not bear the thought of him. Waking in the night in the sunken crater of a mattress feeling his weight against her, feeling his breath—she wanted to die, she could not bear such loneliness. What a poor substitute the children were, needy for her! But she was needy for the husband, the man. In a delirium craving what only her husband could give her, and no one else.
Yet telling herself a very different story: how grateful to be alone. If not to be alone for always, for this morning at least. Precious uninterrupted hours of work at the plain pine table in the small upstairs room she called her study with its slanted ceiling, meager view of dun-colored fields, a rattly old space heater turned high.
I lock my door upon myself—a poet had said.
I turn my key and there’s—happiness.
SHE HEARD THE PHONE ring downstairs. God damn.
She felt now a stab of guilt. Not freedom but something like a vise tightening around her chest.
She had no phone extension in this room. She did not want a phone extension in this room. Her work, so long executed in the interstices of her husband’s and her children’s schedules, called to her, like something that is dying of thirst. No, no!—don’t stop so soon.
She’d just begun to work. The room was drafty and damp, she’d had to plug in a space heater. She’d warmed her hands by gripping a coffee mug tight. It was not fair, she did not want to be interrupted.
She was typing on an electronic typewriter—an old, durable office model with almost silent keys. Laboriously she was assembling material to mail to a women’s organization in Detroit for which she’d become a sort of pro bono legal consultant. Though she hoped to be paid for her work, eventually.
If you give away your services you can’t expect to be paid for your services. Isn’t that logical, Jenna?—so Jenna’s mother-in-law Madelena had asked, not unreasonably.