Chapter 39 [another try]
As she stared, her family's dining room held just one uncomfortable memory for Claire: from the night of her 21st birthday celebration, seven years earlier.
There they were in their intimacy and warmth: she, ma and da, all three of them enjoying slices of sponge cake cut out from beneath 21 now-smoking candles. (Claire's wish remained unrevealed.)
And she had felt just old enough to tease her father a bit.
Claire aimed at nothing weighty; no revolt nor rebellion. She was happy was all, with her slice of cake and two healthy parents she'd have forever. So she'd announced to the room, with some grandeur, "Tonight I greet you both for the first time as your equal, as an adult member of this wonderful family."
Claire had grinned with cleverness.
Her father stood up suddenly. Frost draped the room.
He marched down the table to Claire's side. He grabbed her emptied dessert plate from the table and held it aloft in the perpetual gloom of their rowhouse. Cake crumbs, like misjudgments, fell silently to the carpet.
"Yours?" he'd asked her harshly, bringing his distorted face in close; Jack Stiles' hot breath had basked her cheeks like an opened oven. Claire was confused and panicked. "Is this yours?" he shouted again, shaking the dessert plate high in the air above her. "By law? Is this yours?" His voice was odd, almost a shriek.
"Yes," Claire had guessed.
At which point he'd reared backwards, as if to smash the dessert plate across her skull. Claire's mother lunged from her chair to save the good china. "Don't!" he'd commanded them both.
He'd turned his furious face toward Claire's.
And she'd stared back, alarmed beyond thinking. "Father, what did I say?" Weeping now: panicked fountains of tears, her mouth a small delicate hopeless hole. She'd angered him and didn't know why. Irrational pain blinded her.
"You are twenty-one as of today," Mr. Stiles agreed. "Law and custom might call you an adult.
"But not in this house. Not in my house. While you live here," he threw out his other hand to make his point, "under this roof, my roof, you are still a child. My child." He glanced provocatively at his wife. "My child." Though Mr. Stiles had a smile hiding and ready, if Claire proved compliant. Censure needn't be cruel. Give her something.
That night, seven years earlier, Claire had instantly complied; mortified and repentant and glad and craving her father's respect. And seven years earlier, Jack Stiles saw he'd made his point. So he relaxed a fraction; adding a quiet postscript, since there was Jesus thank you nothing more really to say; he'd laid down his law. They now knew his law. "You will obey my house rules. I know that, Claire," he allowed. "And there will be no further discussion.
"From you," meaning his daughter.
"Or from you," meaning Mrs. Stiles.
He handed his wife the dessert plate he'd lofted, saying as he departed, "The pleasure of your birthday, Claire. I mean that."
He'd then pinched his trousers straight and headed for his overcoat; to spend an evening at the pub with his fellows.
Da. A daughter's doused birthday celebration was no great loss, she being female after all; the pub would loudly second that notion.
Her da left contented, knowing the future and its uncertainties were within normal conventional his neighborhood reason and his grasp. It was inscribed on the Queen's stick of state: A man's home was his castle. And all within it served him.
God's law: foremost.
Nature's law: just as good.
His law: home = castle = survival.
That had been her birthday, seven years before.
Tonight would be different, she vowed. Tensing yeah.
But tonight she wasn't alone. Tonight she had Amos on/by her side. Amos was a good man, a willing man, a strong man, a dependable man. He was a serious man. a real man not a placeholder
On her side tonight, too, yes, she WAS 28. She was headed for a burdensome spinsterhood in a cramped household.
Claire flexed her fists, felt her gloves tighten defiantly over her knuckles. Da knew this as well as anyone.
So? Tonight, da. Tonight I'm not 21. Tonight I am a true adult with a decision to share, not to debate.
Tonight calendar 1942 Claire would speak her piece.
She'd eaten nothing beforehand. Fights went better on an empty stomach, she'd decided. Sure, her da would eat; so maybe he'd be sedated, wouldn't that be grand?
And thank God for Amos. Soon-to-be-spouse, spirit, support, champion, mature, successful, from the conquering army, an officer, well-spoken, attached to her, desiring her, loving her. Right? Well, she wouldn't be talking to her parents all that intimately, no.
Or she could easily instantly become a child again: 21 and desperately compliant. This was never going to be easy. She knew that. Then that ridiculous scene in the library's garden with Amos: that wore her to a dull nub. But here she was, standing still in her family's tight dining room. She would soon say to her parents, as written out on some pages of loose script, "I am engaged to marry Major Amos Burke as soon as that is possible. With your consent or blessing ... or not, I regret to say." She'd rehearsed inserting a wide sigh here.
That's what she'd say.
She'd tried it a hundred times by now.
What had President Roosevelt called such an occasion? "A date which would live in infamy," the radio crackled. Bless you, Lord Jesus: a day like that. In her da's view, it would be total infamy. Infamy. Infamy. Infamy!
This is what would happen next. She would watch her pig-headed father summon from his attic of family injustice an inconsolable wrath.
Then he would of course cast Claire like some soiled abhorrent rag into the deepest pit of Protestant hell.
Claire had only to remember: it wasn't his life to live.
She'd stick to the schedule. Telling her parents was a tick box. When she was done in this forgettable dining room, she'd immediately move on to her next better thing: checking into a career women's hotel until the happy day.
Her happy day. Claire brought Amos to mind, his hands and lips on certain things. Claire ran the odds: a future together, woman and husband, satisfied man and satisfied wife. It tantalized her like placer gold. She lived with her parents inside grim, damp, insular Belfast. From there, a future as Mrs. Burke looked glorious!
Take me to another world. I am willing. I am ready. I am worthy.
A child, then a daughter, then an aging maid, Claire had made up her mind. You had to, as an adult, right?
Do something.
See what happens. Live with the consequences.