“He would ?” Hannah whispered. “But how old would your mother be? Seventy -something?”
“Seventy-one,” Ruth said. “And Eddie is only forty-eight.”
“That is odd,” Hannah whispered.
“Don’t you want to hear about my mother ?” Ruth repeated.
“Just a minute,” Hannah told her. She went away from the phone; then she was back. “I thought he said something, but it was just more snoring.”
“I can tell you another time, if you’re not interested,” Ruth said coldly. (It was almost her reading-aloud voice.)
“Of course I’m interested !” Hannah whispered. “I suppose you and Eddie talked about your dead brothers.”
“We talked about the photographs of my dead brothers,” Ruth told her.
“I should hope so!” Hannah answered.
“It was strange because there were some that he remembered that I didn’t. And there were others that I remembered, but he didn’t. We agreed that we must have invented these particular photographs. Then there were others that we both remembered, and we thought that these must be the real ones. I think we each had more invented photographs than we had real ones.”
“You and what’s ‘real’ and what’s ‘invented,’ ” Hannah remarked. “Your favorite subject . . .”
Ruth resented Hannah’s obvious lack of interest, but she went on.
“The photo of Thomas playing doctor to Timothy’s knee—that one is definitely real,” Ruth said. “And the one where Thomas is taller than my mother, and he’s holding a hockey puck in his teeth—we both remember that one, too.”
“I remember the one of your mother in bed, with your brothers’ feet,” Hannah said.
It was hardly surprising that Hannah would remember that one. Ruth had taken it to Exeter with her, and to Middlebury, too; presently, it was in the bedroom of her house in Vermont. (Eddie had not told Ruth that he’d masturbated to this particular picture of Marion, after he’d hidden the feet. When Ruth had raised the memory of those feet being covered with “what looked like little pieces of paper,” Eddie had told her that he didn’t remember anything covering the feet. “Then I must have invented that, too,” Ruth had said.)
“And I remember the one of your brothers at Exeter, under the good old ‘Come hither boys and be men’ bullshit,” Hannah said. “God, they were good-looking guys.”
Ruth had shown Hannah that photo of her brothers the first time Hannah had come home with her to Sagaponack. They’d been students at Middlebury at the time. The photo was always in her father’s bedroom, and Ruth had brought Hannah into his bedroom when her father was playing squash in his devious barn. Hannah had said the same thing then—that they were good-looking guys. That would be what Hannah would remember, Ruth thought.
“Eddie and I remembered the featured photograph in the kitchen— the one of both boys eating lobster,” Ruth went on. “Thomas is dismantling his lobster with the ease and dispassion of a scientist—there’s not the slightest strain on his face. Whereas it’s as if Timothy is fighting his lobster, and the lobster’s winning! I think that’s the picture I remember best. And all these years I wondered if I invented it or if it was real. Eddie said it was the one he remembered best, so it must be real.”
“Didn’t you ever ask your father about the photographs?” Hannah asked. “Surely he would remember them better than you or Eddie.”
“He was so angry at my mother for taking them with her that he refused to talk about them,” Ruth answered.
“You’re too hard on him,” Hannah told her. “I think he’s charming.”
“I’ve seen him be ‘charming’ a few too many times,” Ruth told Hannah. “Besides, all he ever is is charming—especially when he’s around you .” Uncharacteristically, Hannah let Ruth’s remark pass.
It was Hannah’s theory that many women who had known Marion (even if only by a photograph) must have been flattered by Ted Cole’s attentions to them—simply because of how beautiful Marion had been. Ruth’s response to Hannah’s theory was: “I’m sure that must have made my mother feel terrific .”
Now Ruth felt frankly tired of trying to explain the importance of her evening with Eddie to Hannah. Hannah just wasn’t getting it.
“But what did Eddie say about the sex ? Or did he say anything about it?” Hannah asked.
It’s absolutely all she’s interested in! Ruth thought. Ruth despaired of talking about sex, because that subject would soon lead Hannah back to her questions regarding when Ruth was going to “do it” with Allan.
“That photograph you remember so well,”
Ruth began. “My goodlooking brothers in the doorway of the Main Academy Building . . .”
“What about it?” Hannah asked.
“Eddie told me that my mother made love to him under that photograph,” Ruth reported. “It was the first time they did it. My mother left the photo for Eddie, but my father took it.”