No Defense by Rangeley Wallace Page A

learned
during my years working there.
    The Bledsoes, having spent their entire
married lives running the Steak House, admitted they were
ambivalent about retiring, and I suspected they would have resisted
leaving at all if they hadn’t been booked on a six-month
round-the-world cruise. Although they expressed confidence in my
abilities, it was clear that neither Mimi nor Howard believed the
restaurant could survive for more than five days without them: they
had never been off the premises longer than that.
    Eddie didn’t take any time off after the
move. I’d hoped we could spend some time together, alone, but once
the U-Haul was unpacked, he was either in his studio-the large open
space on the third floor of the four-bedroom Tudor house I’d grown
up in-or at the college.
    All the years my parents, my sister, Jane,
and I had lived in the house, what was now Eddie’s studio had been
used for Daddy’s hunting equipment and his extensive gun
collection. In place of the familiar gun racks, trophies, and
cases, there was now a desk, where Eddie worked at his typewriter,
a utility table, where he drafted cartoons, and floor-to-ceiling
shelves across one long wall, where he put his work-related library
and piles of papers.
    Eddie nailed a six-by-six-foot bulletin
board to the other long wall and stuck a strip of red duct tape
straight down the middle. On the left side he tacked his recent and
upcoming City Paper cartoons. On the right was the work he
was considering for his show, the proposed contents of which
changed regularly. There were cartoons about David Frost’s
interview of Richard Nixon, Billy Carter’s endorsement of Billy
Beer, Daniel Schorr’s suspension from CBS, the federal antitrust
suit against AT&T, and the many other events of the last ten
years that had caught Eddie’s attention and lit his
imagination.
    Eddie had always been happiest when he was
busy and productive, and he seemed almost content in Tallagumsa,
where for the first time in years he had the time, space, and
opportunity to accomplish his goals. He turned out some wonderful
political cartoons for the City Paper and took over the
journalism course at the college without missing a beat. Barbara
Cox told me that he had quickly become something of a hero with the
kids at the college, in part because he spent so much of his time
working individually with them, and in part because he had the kind
of real-life experience often lacking in teachers. His show had
been set for Wednesday, July 12, in the college social hall, and
Barbara was working hard to include on the invitation list people
who could help Eddie get syndicated.
    Despite his seeming contentment, however,
Eddie was true to his word and never missed a Friday night with a
Miss Reese’s pie, an unspoken but pointed reminder of the
provisional nature of our stay in Tallagumsa.
    One Saturday a few weeks after we’d moved in,
I was in the den, a bright, cheerful room painted yellow and
decorated in floral fabrics. I was unpacking books, dusting each
one as it came out of the box, and arranging them in the built-in
bookshelves. It was quiet. Jessie was with her grandparents at the
lake, where she spent many weekend days, and Eddie was walking Will
and Hank in their double stroller.
    I had just dusted hardback copies of Ragtime, All the President’s Men , and Final Payments , sliding them into place on the shelf, when I heard
Eddie return and put the boys in their cribs. He stayed in the
nursery for fifteen minutes, then came into the den.
    “The boys asleep?” I asked.
    “Yep,” he said. “Even Will.” He lit a
cigarette and watched me. His look was mildly contemptuous.
    “What?” I asked.
    “Isn’t it a little strange for you being the
wife and mother in the house you grew up in? Sleeping in your
parents’ bedroom? Cooking in your mother’s kitchen?”
    I shook my head.
    “Don’t you feel any of the ghosts here?” he
asked.
    “You sound like Adrienne, Eddie,”