Middle Age Read Online Free Page A
Author: Joyce Carol Oates
oldest streets, hilly and very narrow, and it dead-ended with three charming woodframe houses, one of which was Marina Troy’s.
Somehow it had happened (when, exactly?) she’d become thirty-eight years old.
Young enough to be his daughter, Adam Berendt used to joke.
Don’t be ridiculous! You’re, what?—fifty? Fifty-two?
Marina, to be perfectly frank, I’ve lost count.
She removed her sweat-soaked nylon nightgown and wadded it into a ball to toss onto the floor. She’d have liked to peel off her sticky itchy skin and do the same. In the silence following the church bells came the echo Thwaite! Thwaite . The sound of death, those hateful people, negligent parents, youngish, scared, reading off prepared statements to TV re-porters, uncertain whether they should smile, or not smile, but one should always smile on TV, yes?—if only fleetingly, sadly? In truth, Marina didn’t detest these people. It was Thwaite that had insinuated itself into her head. Thwaite snarled like her long crimped dark-red hair, which by day she wore plaited and twined about her head (“like Elizabeth I”) but by night it snagged and snarled, snaky tendrils trailing across her mouth.
Thwaite a mass of such snarls no hairbrush could be dragged through.
Thwaite that was the fairy-tale riddle: what is my name, my name is a secret, my name is your death, can you guess my name? Thwaite the helpless tenderness she’d long felt for Adam Berendt, who had been neither her
J C O
husband nor her lover. Thwaite powerful as no other emotion Marina had ever felt for another person.
And the anger. God damn how could you. Without saying good-bye. Did you know, did you wish to know, why didn’t you let me tell you, how I felt about you. And now!
A boating accident. So many, each Fourth of July. Across the United States. Boating and traffic accidents. And accidents with fireworks and firecrackers, especially illegally purchased firecrackers, Marina found herself listening in a trance to—what?—a stranger’s voice, a radio voice this time, before switching it off and pounding at the little plastic radio (on her kitchen windowsill) with her fist. Oh, what did she care for the accidents of strangers? Even their “senseless” deaths.
Now Adam was gone, it was going to be difficult for her to care about much.
The official diagnosis was that Adam Berendt had died of cardiac arrest . His skull had been badly fractured, as well. He’d died, evidently, within minutes of being lifted out of the river; in the speeding ambulance.
At approximately 6: .. of July Fourth. Marina hoped that he’d died unconscious, unknowing. But she hadn’t dared ask. Thwaite, death . Nothing to be done. A tragedy. If an accident can be a tragedy. You heard yourself utter that word tragedy as others did. It was a way of speaking, a way of attempting to assuage pain. You would not say of a good man’s death that he’d died accidentally, and therefore stupidly. Tragedy was the word for there was no other. Never kissed me. As I’d wanted him to . Never her breasts, her belly, between her thighs. That not-touching and not-kissing was her secret. She would ponder it in the night for a long time. She would ponder it in the bookstore, knowing that Adam Berendt would never drop by, not again. If the telephone rang it would not be him, and if someone knocked at her door it would not be him. Through the barbiturate haze that slowed her heartbeat almost to stopping she would ponder these simple facts.
The Thwaite family had expressed a public wish to meet with Adam Berendt’s family. His “survivors.” To thank them for Adam’s sacrifice.
Anyone other than Adam’s immediate family, a wife or a blood relative, wouldn’t qualify.
Hypocrite sons of bitches. I was as close to Adam as anyone who knew him .
But she wouldn’t hate them. She wouldn’t become obsessed with an illusory enemy. Mr. and Mrs. Harold Thwaite of
Somehow it had happened (when, exactly?) she’d become thirty-eight years old.
Young enough to be his daughter, Adam Berendt used to joke.
Don’t be ridiculous! You’re, what?—fifty? Fifty-two?
Marina, to be perfectly frank, I’ve lost count.
She removed her sweat-soaked nylon nightgown and wadded it into a ball to toss onto the floor. She’d have liked to peel off her sticky itchy skin and do the same. In the silence following the church bells came the echo Thwaite! Thwaite . The sound of death, those hateful people, negligent parents, youngish, scared, reading off prepared statements to TV re-porters, uncertain whether they should smile, or not smile, but one should always smile on TV, yes?—if only fleetingly, sadly? In truth, Marina didn’t detest these people. It was Thwaite that had insinuated itself into her head. Thwaite snarled like her long crimped dark-red hair, which by day she wore plaited and twined about her head (“like Elizabeth I”) but by night it snagged and snarled, snaky tendrils trailing across her mouth.
Thwaite a mass of such snarls no hairbrush could be dragged through.
Thwaite that was the fairy-tale riddle: what is my name, my name is a secret, my name is your death, can you guess my name? Thwaite the helpless tenderness she’d long felt for Adam Berendt, who had been neither her
J C O
husband nor her lover. Thwaite powerful as no other emotion Marina had ever felt for another person.
And the anger. God damn how could you. Without saying good-bye. Did you know, did you wish to know, why didn’t you let me tell you, how I felt about you. And now!
A boating accident. So many, each Fourth of July. Across the United States. Boating and traffic accidents. And accidents with fireworks and firecrackers, especially illegally purchased firecrackers, Marina found herself listening in a trance to—what?—a stranger’s voice, a radio voice this time, before switching it off and pounding at the little plastic radio (on her kitchen windowsill) with her fist. Oh, what did she care for the accidents of strangers? Even their “senseless” deaths.
Now Adam was gone, it was going to be difficult for her to care about much.
The official diagnosis was that Adam Berendt had died of cardiac arrest . His skull had been badly fractured, as well. He’d died, evidently, within minutes of being lifted out of the river; in the speeding ambulance.
At approximately 6: .. of July Fourth. Marina hoped that he’d died unconscious, unknowing. But she hadn’t dared ask. Thwaite, death . Nothing to be done. A tragedy. If an accident can be a tragedy. You heard yourself utter that word tragedy as others did. It was a way of speaking, a way of attempting to assuage pain. You would not say of a good man’s death that he’d died accidentally, and therefore stupidly. Tragedy was the word for there was no other. Never kissed me. As I’d wanted him to . Never her breasts, her belly, between her thighs. That not-touching and not-kissing was her secret. She would ponder it in the night for a long time. She would ponder it in the bookstore, knowing that Adam Berendt would never drop by, not again. If the telephone rang it would not be him, and if someone knocked at her door it would not be him. Through the barbiturate haze that slowed her heartbeat almost to stopping she would ponder these simple facts.
The Thwaite family had expressed a public wish to meet with Adam Berendt’s family. His “survivors.” To thank them for Adam’s sacrifice.
Anyone other than Adam’s immediate family, a wife or a blood relative, wouldn’t qualify.
Hypocrite sons of bitches. I was as close to Adam as anyone who knew him .
But she wouldn’t hate them. She wouldn’t become obsessed with an illusory enemy. Mr. and Mrs. Harold Thwaite of
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