Free Families and Survivors by Alice Adams Page B

has been a startling child. She refused to be breast-fed (which did not help Louisa’s own feelings about her breasts); she would not go to sleep without music playing in her room. By the time she was one, she had begun to talk, and she wanted to be read to all the time; she demanded new Little Golden Books on every trip to the market. She memorized her favorites,
Crispin’s Crispian
(“Crispin was a dog who belonged to himself …”) and
The Sailor Dog
(“Born in the teeth of a gale, Scupper was a sailor …”). But at two she still did not walk. Michael, who had great faith in tests, had her tested with every available battery of psychological-neurological-muscular tests, all of which revealed nothing, except that she was unusually bright. She was a remarkably fast crawler. She had a great many inexplicable and alarming chest infections. She was very blond. (Louisa’s hair by now had darkened to a blacky brown.)
    On the Easter Sunday in April which is a month before Maude is to be three, she is as tall as a five-year-old, and she almost knows how to read.
    “I don’t want to wear the blue,” she screams at Louisa, reddening dangerously. “I won’t go!”
    They are invited to an Easter-egg hunt at the Chapins’ house, which is next door. After Maude was born, and despite a lot of discussion about the inadvisability of living next door to close friends, Louisa and Michael moved next to Andrew and Sally; it was as though they could not bear to be alone, once isolated with a baby (or so Louisa later thinks of that move).
    “I want to wear the pink!” Maude screams.
    The pink dress is almost outgrown; it makes Maude look too tall. Weedish, neglected.
    Nearly sick with indecision (these small crises are more than she can stand), Louisa yields, but she says, “Are you sure you don’t want to wear the blue? It’s new.”
    And then (startlingly) Maude changes her mind. “The blue! I don’t want to wear the pink—it’s babyish!”
    (An uncomforting victory.)
    Louisa herself is wearing pale green. It is a new dress, a present from her mother, from Caroline in Virginia, and perhaps for that reason (she has never really trusted Caroline) Louisa is unsure of the color—of how she looks.
    As they say goodbye to each other, Louisa and Michael avoid each other’s eyes, and they no longer kiss—ever. Michael says, “Honey, have a good time!” to both of them, and Louisa grasps her daughter’s hand.
    A familiar but never quite named panic fills her chest, and she holds Maude’s hand hard. (Does Maude feel it, too, her mother’s terror, wherever she goes?)
    The two houses are separated by a rough seven-foot redwood fence which was erected by Louisa and Michael’slandlady, Mrs. Cornwallis, who is a small and violent woman, probably insane. (They put up a political poster, cut and rearranged to spell “Nix—on—Ike,” and she telephoned: “You get that thing down! Get it down! I won’t have my house defaced.” Well, it was her house, wasn’t it? Michael says this; and sick, though separately so, they take it down.) Their house—Mrs. Cornwallis’s house—is redwood, like the fence; it is a cube, new and raw, and the lawn is also new, not doing well. The rent takes exactly half their income from Michael’s instructor job.
    The Chapins’ house is their own, the down payment a present from generous parents. It is five years old, an old house for that neighborhood, in California. It is white, and a small vined porch gives it a friendly look.
    As Louisa and Maude go down the front path to the driveway, down the driveway to the sidewalk, festive smells and sounds drift over the high fence: smoke, and the swish of a garden hose, ice in glasses, flowers and new-mown grass. Spring earth—it is Easter Sunday.
    There are two cars in the Chapins’ driveway: their new Ford station wagon (blue) and an old (1946) Chrysler convertible, with real wood. In perfect condition. It is the Magowans’ car—dazzling and