Such Good People by Martha Whitmore Hickman

Author:Martha Whitmore Hickman [Hickman, Martha Whitmore]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literary fiction
Publisher: Untreed Reads
Published: 2018-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

It was Philip’s last night at home. Laura and Trace, Bart and Paula and Philip went out to dinner. They talked about the weeks ahead. Bart and Paula were excited about moving into their own place. They’d be all settled by the time Laura came back from visiting Rachel. They’d found an apartment—the second floor of a large frame house close to the school where Bart would be teaching junior high social studies—a position he’d acquired almost at the last minute, when the previous teacher needed an earlier-than-anticipated maternity leave. Paula would use their car for her job doing home interviews in the town’s social-service network. Philip talked about returning to college. He was going to be taking courses in urban planning and joked about being at a college surrounded by dairy farms—“Crowd behavior in a cattle barn,” he said. Laura spoke about her wish to return to art projects. She did have that assignment to complete for the Walter Stone Company and, later, might take a course at the college.

After dinner, they returned home and sat around the living room. The knowledge that this was their last night together seemed to settle over them all.

“I hope you guys write me,” Philip said. “I’m going to miss you.”

“We’ll come up,” Bart said. He sat on the sofa, his arm around Paula. “We’ll all come for the weekend.”

“Good,” Philip said. “But wait till I invite you.”

They laughed.

All during the evening, Trace had said little. Now Philip turned to him. “How about you, Dad? How are you going to be?”

He was sitting back in the blue corner chair, his face half in shadow. At first, he appeared not to have been listening. Then he said, “Oh, I’ll be fine. As soon as my classes get under way. Except—” He brought the tips of his fingers together unsteadily. They waited.

“Except what, Dad?” Philip said gently.

“Except”—his voice shook and he seemed to inhale sharply—“I wish things had been better between Annie and me.”

There was a murmur of assent and then they were silent in the face of his vulnerability. Laura, listening in the silence, closed her eyes, felt her compassion move toward him, hover, pull back, felt the memory of her daughter’s anger—and her own: Wait, it was a long time coming.

*

At college, they helped Philip carry in his things. In the cindery driveway, they stood in a circle—on the edge of leaving. “Remember, come and see me. I’ll write you.” He hugged them, each in turn, his eyes bright. He left first, going off toward the campus center. At the bend of the path, he turned to wave.

*

At the hotel by the airport, Laura and Trace got out. They would stay overnight before Trace went on to a meeting in Chicago and Laura went on to visit her mother. “We’ll see you back in Woodbridge.” Bart and Paula drove off.

In their room, Laura threw herself facedown on the bed, exhausted. Trace stretched out beside her. “How are you?” he asked.

“Tired.”

“We’ve been through a lot these last days, Philip leaving.

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