When She Was Good by Philip Roth Read Free Book Online

is not a pleasant thing to look at, and burns me up every time I see it—but fortunately, there was no real physical harm.”
    “Oh, wonderful.”
    “Lucy, I am plenty angry, believe me. And he knows it. Word has gotten around to him, all right. He has stayed away three whole days already. Four including now. And from all I understand he is carrying his tail between his legs and is one very ashamed person—”
    “But what,” said Lucy, “will be the upshot of all this, Daddy Will? What
now?
”
    Well, the truth was, he had not quite made up his mind yet on that score. Of course, Berta had made up hers, and told him so every night when they got into their bed. With the lights out he would turn one way, then the other, till his wife, who he had thought was asleep beside him, said, “It does not require squirming, Willard, or thrashing around. He goes, and if she wants to, she goes with him. I believe she is now thirty-nine years old.” “Age isn’t the question, Berta, and you know it.” “Not to you it isn’t. You baby her. You watch over her like she was solid gold.” “I am not babying anybody. I am trying to use my head. It is
complicated
, Berta.” “It is simple, Willard.” “Well, it certainly is not, and never was, not by any stretch of imagination. Not with a teen-age high school girl involved, it wasn’t. Not when it was a matter of uprooting a whole family—” “But Lucy doesn’t live here any longer.” “And just suppose they had gone? Then what? You tell me.” “I don’t know, Willard, what would happen to them then or what will now either. But we two will live a human life for the last years we are on this earth. Without tragedy popping up every other minute.” “Well, there are others to consider, Berta.” “I wonder when it will be my chance to be one of those others. When I am in the grave, I suppose, if I last that long. The solution, Willard, is simple.” “Well, it’s not, and it doesn’t get that way, either, just by your telling me so fifty times a night. People are just more fragile than you give them credit for sometimes!” “Well, that is their lookout.” “I am talking about our own daughter, Berta!” “She is thirty-nine years old, Willard. I believe her husband is over forty, or is supposed to be. They are their own lookout, not mine, and not yours.” “Well,” he said after a minute, “suppose everybodythought like that. That would sure be some fine world to live in, all right. Everybody saying the other person is not their lookout, even your own child.” She did not answer. “Suppose Abraham Lincoln thought that way, Berta.” No answer. “Or Jesus Christ. There would never even have
been
a Jesus Christ, if everybody thought that way.” “You are not Abraham Lincoln. You are the assistant postmaster in Liberty Center. As for Jesus Christ—” “I didn’t say I was comparing myself. I am only making a point to you.” “I married Willard Carroll, as I remember it, I did not marry Jesus Christ.” “Oh, I know that, Berta—” “Let me tell you, if I had known beforehand that I was agreeing to be Mrs. Jesus Christ—”
    So to Lucy’s question as to what the upshot would be—“The upshot?” Willard repeated.
    To gather his thoughts, he looked away from Lucy’s demanding eyes and out the window. And guess who just then came strolling up the front walk? With his hair wet and combed, and his shoes shined, wearing his big man’s mustache!
    “Well,” said Berta, “Mr. Upshot himself.”
    The doorbell rang. Once.
    Willard turned to Myra. “Did you tell him to come? Myra, did you know he was coming?”
    “No. No. I swear it.”
    Whitey rang once again.
    “… It’s Sunday,” explained Myra when no one moved to open the door.
    “And?” demanded Willard.
    “Maybe he has something to tell us. Something to say. It’s Sunday. He’s all alone.”
    “Mother,” cried Lucy, “he hit you. With a belt!”
    Now Whitey began to rap on the