The Book Club Chronicles, Part Four - Macbeth

Chapter One

The Book Club Meets Again

“Henry said that if I want to understand men I should read The Iliad.”

Dead silence greets me. We have been tossing around what project to study next. Studying Romeo and Juliet was wonderful but we don’t want to repeat ourselves.

“Claire, what did Henry mean?” Annie inquires, looking baffled.

“Yes, Claire, I don’t get it,” Katherine chimes in.

“We were talking about something else, and it came up.” I don’t want to go into the details of that particular conversation.

We restarted our book club after the holidays, all of us eager to escape from the tyranny of the enforced good cheer and the lack of an orderly schedule. We are as ready as we ever will be for the deep winter months; January, where the snow falls and falls and falls and the temperature drops and drops and drops; February, which although the shortest month of the year, in Chicago seems the longest month, beginning and then continuing on implacably and is always, in our memories, grey. March, even though we have blizzards and plenty of cold weather seems close to spring, and we brush off the blizzards saying “It’s March. The snow won’t last long.” Perhaps it is the longer days that affect us, leading to optimism that the winter is almost over and we can look forward to warmer weather and safe sidewalks. The wimps leave us for the hard months, so those of us who stay think arrogant thoughts and stifle the impulses to flee with them to warmer climates. “Fair weather friends,” we sniff disdainfully.

Full of courage we venture out. Full of courage until the emails and the text messages drift in—“Broke my hip, surgery, pins, home but very tired”; “Vomited all night, now I have chills but no fever, feel awful”; “Horrible cold, sinus infections, trying to not go on antibiotics”; “Fell, broken wrist, won’t see you for a while”; “Stage 3 cancer, will have surgery and chemo, hope to see you in the spring.” And on it goes. Instead of news of marriages and new babies, and then the struggles to put the children through college, we have progressed to the new stage of hearing of fate, accidents. The litany of woes that escort us to the grave seem endless.

Cindy comes in the door with a rush of good will. The others follow her beaming with happiness at our convening again. The dance in the foyer proceeds as ladies struggle out of down coats and parkas, stuffing mittens, gloves and hats in capacious pockets. Boots are unzipped, wriggled off, then lined up neatly, or as neatly as possible, in small puddles of filthy water. Smiles appear beneath untamed hair.

Annie’s history and ours too resides in her round oak table. Toddlers pounded on it with metal toys, but could not make a dent. Spills could not mar its sturdy surface. Books, whether from her children’s homework or from all the book clubs that we have been part of were stacked in the middle. The history of her adult life is bound up in the table, and our history is entwined with it too. We first started meeting in the kitchen of her former house, back in the days of our young lives. The table has accompanied her everywhere. It moved with her through a painful divorce, a remarriage, the death of her second husband, the move to her mother's old apartment, and her remarriage to her first husband. Our lives have changed too—divorces, dread diseases, retirement, new beginnings, moving into apartments. The table is the emblem for many of us of the unchanging parts of our lives. It is built to last. Annie has never dared to suggest that she replace it with a newer table. A new table would disturb the karma and our book club would decompose, destroyed by the new.

“Annie, so good of you to host us again. Thanks so much. We had such a good time with Romeo and Juliet. How can we top that?”

I look around the table at the other ladies. We are all aging. Those who have lost weight appear ever more fragile —bony hands, bent backs which once were straight. The light has left some eyes; questions have to be repeated in a more insistent voice. For others the light still shines out of deteriorated bodies that are havens for intact intellects.

Katherine’s red curls show no signs of dimming. I wonder who her hair person is? She looks calmer these days. With her decision to forgo any further treatment for her cancer, she plays the very good odds that the cancer will not kill her and also the low odds of a recurrence. She tells Annie and me that at her age it does not make sense to undergo a year or more of misery to postpone a recurrence, that she is unwilling to sacrifice her good years now, for a different outcome in her greater old age. But, and it is a big but, she is haunted by the certainty that her breast cancer will recur. She lives her life as if very little time remains. Most of us do the same, the certainty of what lies in the future, if not its exact shape, compels us to wring all the pleasures out of each day. Living in the moment has changed its meaning, as we have realized that moments are all that remain to us.

Franny is distinctly better since she had her parathyroid surgery. She no longer bursts into tears at our table, or takes umbrage at trivial remarks. Could it be that she is trying to get a grip on whatever it was that made her so negative? Long ago, she was more fun to have at the table. I hear that Sam has moved his office back into the spare bedroom in their house, out of the space above the garage. I hope that is a good sign, but long term marriages only make sense to those who are in them. Or the people in them have a narrative that makes sense to them.

We are all aging. Maybe I am the only one who gets out of the shower and expects to see my face circling the drain. This fantasy only lasts a moment, especially when Henry joins me in the shower. Then all such thoughts vanish.

Annie looks at me. I know that I am bright-eyed. Katherine sees me staring and stares back, mouthing “What?” I spread my hands, and give her a quick grin. She rolls her brown eyes, tosses her suspiciously red curls and gives me her mischief look.

Cindy, Mary and Sally are all their usual selves, happy to be back together with the rest of us around Annie’s magic table. Of course, it isn’t really a magic table but that is the way we think of it.

“Do we have an idea of what we want to study next? Romeo and Juliet set a really high bar didn’t it? Any suggestions?”

Sally, unsure as yet that she is a firm part of the group, quietly suggests: “Macbeth?”