Emily, Alone by Stewart O'Nan

Author:Stewart O'Nan
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2011-02-02T10:00:00+00:00

INGRATITUDE

Every year the same maddening pas de deux occurred, with only the most minor variations. The week after Christmas, Emily wrote her thank-you notes and posted them, expecting—if not directly then at least shortly—an equal number in return.

The habit, ingrained in her by her mother, was more than a genteel nicety, reflecting, as it did, the bonds of love and respect upon which all relationships depended. As a child Emily had spent whole afternoons drafting hers, writing to the Brandy Camp and Elbon and Dagus Mines branches of the Waites and Bentons, bending low over her desk with the tip of her tongue clamped between her teeth, taking pains to reproduce her award-winning penmanship. Those were the war years, and her family didn’t have a lot, so any present was special. Thank you so much for the bracelet. It is beautiful. I will wear it with my blue dress. Just hearing how pleased her Aunt June had been to receive her card was a gift in itself.

As a mother, Emily had enforced and supervised the process, providing reminders, addresses and stamps. When they opened their presents, it was Kenneth’s job to log what each of them had received, from whom, and before they bagged the wrapping paper and carried their booty upstairs, she let them know what was expected of them.

Henry, being a partner in the larger entity of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Maxwell, already represented by Emily, was not charged with this task, just as he was not asked to buy Christmas presents for anyone except her. His responsibilities were technical (making fires, putting up and taking down the tree, train and lights) and financial (paying for everything), while hers were domestic and social, including—though this was self-imposed, a leftover from her mother’s day—not adding to his.

Kenneth, ever dutiful, finished his thank-yous before Margaret started hers, though his were slapdash, as if he’d rushed through them just to be done. Due to larger curriculum changes, in the early seventies the Pittsburgh schools dropped writing, and his cursive never improved. A fiveyear-old’s scrawls could be charming, but not a fifth-grader’s, and as he grew older, Emily vetted his efforts like a teacher correcting homework, more often than not sending him back to his desk so that it became a struggle, and unpleasant, to the extent that the mere mention of thank-you notes met with a groan—a mistake, since it awakened her sense of outrage, which only escalated the situation. Occasionally he was confined to his room until she deemed his work suitable.

Margaret simply didn’t care. Thank-you notes belonged to the same category of useless formalities her square parents followed blindly, like sitting down to meals at prescribed times or going to church on Sunday. People should give gifts because it made them happy. There should be no obligation involved, no guilt. Writing a thank-you note for a gift you didn’t like was hypocritical. Her ditzy hippie logic exhausted Emily, and though she and Henry were united on this front, they

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