Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty Read Online Free
Author: Ramona Ausubel
because it would have been devastating (to think of telling the children made his throat cinch) but because it seemed impossible—the place was not real estate but body part, heart part, something beyond ownership.
“Someday,” Edgar said. How long before the magic of a quiet winter island in an uninsulated house wore off? The first snow? What absurd indulgence, he suddenly realized, to build a beautiful house that was only habitable half the year. If they walked away from the money, sold their Cambridge colonial and all their things and retreated to the island, this house would make them immensely happy from May to October and then spend six months trying to kill them. Love, Edgar thought, good old love.
“Someday,” Fern repeated. The same seagulls the children had fed from the ferry happily in June now seemed predatory. The children closed their cracker boxes tight. “Shoo!” they said, flinging theirarms.
1965
E DGAR ’ S FATHER , Hugh Keating, had always stood in his office in front of big windows high above the fog-sketched city of Chicago, knowing that in every building were rods of steel with his name etched on the side, the skeleton tattooed with the name of its maker. From that vantage point, from that height, he told the story—to board members, visiting businessmen, friends—of his family’s humble immigrant beginnings, of the new metal city rising out of the ashes of the old wooden one. He thought again: thank goodness for poverty. It’s much easier to be rich when your people were once poor. Sleep too comes easier, the mind peaceful with all that balance: a pile of gold and the counterweight of past hunger. This comfort was earned.
The missus, Mary, had made an intricate study of how to belong. There were such things as lower-class flowers (geraniums, chrysanthemums, poinsettias) and upper-class flowers (rhododendrons, tiger lilies, amaryllis, columbine, clematis and roses, though never red ones). She learned that the slower one drove, the higher his class. Cocktail wise, sweet was always low. Scotch and water (not even soda) was the highest. When they went to parties,she ordered two and then slipped into the ladies’ room to sweeten them with packets of sugar she kept in her handbag. She made sure her husband’s shirts did not gap at the neck—a sure sign of misbelonging. She practiced, with index cards, renaming everything in her home: formalwear, footwear, leisurewear, stormwear, beachwear, neckwear, tableware, flatware, stemware, barware, glassware. Edgar’s mother’s nightmares did not involve being chased or drowned but of someone catching her trying to eat an artichoke with fork and knife, of wearing floor-length to an afternoon affair, of everyone knowing that class for this family was not bred-in but a choice, or worse, a purchase.
—
Mary bore a boy, as hoped, and she gave her husband, seated in a wooden chair at the side of her hospital bed, a short list of names: Edgar, John, Henry. “What about Hugh?” he asked, liking the idea of a tribute to himself.
“Hugh was never King of England.”
“Neither is our son.” The boy squalled like a brief, violent summer storm, then fell asleep.
“There can’t be anything bad about having the name of a monarch,” she said.
“I seem to recall an Alfred,” Hugh said, joking,
“Edgar then,” she told him. “I don’t need your help if you don’t want to give it.”
The idea was to have four children. Either two boys and two girls, or three boys and one girl. A big family was one of the socially acceptable indulgences and it justified a bigger house, more cars, a stable full of horses. Giving anything for one’s children, even if that something was a Thoroughbred chestnut mare that cost as much as a small yacht, was an act of generosity and selflessness. Mary andHugh both silently looked forward to the purchases they would be able to make in the name of good parenting. Neither of them cared whether the children would
“Someday,” Edgar said. How long before the magic of a quiet winter island in an uninsulated house wore off? The first snow? What absurd indulgence, he suddenly realized, to build a beautiful house that was only habitable half the year. If they walked away from the money, sold their Cambridge colonial and all their things and retreated to the island, this house would make them immensely happy from May to October and then spend six months trying to kill them. Love, Edgar thought, good old love.
“Someday,” Fern repeated. The same seagulls the children had fed from the ferry happily in June now seemed predatory. The children closed their cracker boxes tight. “Shoo!” they said, flinging theirarms.
1965
E DGAR ’ S FATHER , Hugh Keating, had always stood in his office in front of big windows high above the fog-sketched city of Chicago, knowing that in every building were rods of steel with his name etched on the side, the skeleton tattooed with the name of its maker. From that vantage point, from that height, he told the story—to board members, visiting businessmen, friends—of his family’s humble immigrant beginnings, of the new metal city rising out of the ashes of the old wooden one. He thought again: thank goodness for poverty. It’s much easier to be rich when your people were once poor. Sleep too comes easier, the mind peaceful with all that balance: a pile of gold and the counterweight of past hunger. This comfort was earned.
The missus, Mary, had made an intricate study of how to belong. There were such things as lower-class flowers (geraniums, chrysanthemums, poinsettias) and upper-class flowers (rhododendrons, tiger lilies, amaryllis, columbine, clematis and roses, though never red ones). She learned that the slower one drove, the higher his class. Cocktail wise, sweet was always low. Scotch and water (not even soda) was the highest. When they went to parties,she ordered two and then slipped into the ladies’ room to sweeten them with packets of sugar she kept in her handbag. She made sure her husband’s shirts did not gap at the neck—a sure sign of misbelonging. She practiced, with index cards, renaming everything in her home: formalwear, footwear, leisurewear, stormwear, beachwear, neckwear, tableware, flatware, stemware, barware, glassware. Edgar’s mother’s nightmares did not involve being chased or drowned but of someone catching her trying to eat an artichoke with fork and knife, of wearing floor-length to an afternoon affair, of everyone knowing that class for this family was not bred-in but a choice, or worse, a purchase.
—
Mary bore a boy, as hoped, and she gave her husband, seated in a wooden chair at the side of her hospital bed, a short list of names: Edgar, John, Henry. “What about Hugh?” he asked, liking the idea of a tribute to himself.
“Hugh was never King of England.”
“Neither is our son.” The boy squalled like a brief, violent summer storm, then fell asleep.
“There can’t be anything bad about having the name of a monarch,” she said.
“I seem to recall an Alfred,” Hugh said, joking,
“Edgar then,” she told him. “I don’t need your help if you don’t want to give it.”
The idea was to have four children. Either two boys and two girls, or three boys and one girl. A big family was one of the socially acceptable indulgences and it justified a bigger house, more cars, a stable full of horses. Giving anything for one’s children, even if that something was a Thoroughbred chestnut mare that cost as much as a small yacht, was an act of generosity and selflessness. Mary andHugh both silently looked forward to the purchases they would be able to make in the name of good parenting. Neither of them cared whether the children would
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