A Stranger on the Planet

by Adam Schwartz

  NOW I NOTICED FOUR OR FVE little black-rimmed holes in the comforter, and I imagined my mother lying on her side in the dark, the end of her cigarette glowing dimmer and brighter throughout the night. On my last visit home, I was sleeping in the other bedroom when the scent of a burning cigarette woke me up. I looked across the hall into Ruth’s room. Benny was sleeping in the bed too. The television was on, as always, but Ruth was staring up at the ceiling, holding a cigarette to her lips. I watched the tip of my mother’s cigarette brighten and exclaimed, “I don’t believe this!”

  “What? What?” she asked, as disoriented as if she had been in a deep sleep.

  “You’re smoking in bed! In the dark! That’s what.” Benny leapt up and began barking at me. “Benny, shut up,” I shouted. Warbling nervously, he stepped backward over Ruth and, safely ensconced behind her, resumed barking at me.

  “God almighty!” Ruth cried out in a highly irritated voice. “The television was on.”

  “You weren’t watching it,” I replied. “You were half asleep.”

  “I was wide awake,” she said. “I was thinking.”

  “Mom, don’t you know you were endangering our lives? Do you have any idea how dangerous this is?”

  Later that night I looked in on my mother again. She and Benny were snoring fitfully. The light from the television blanched her face white as a death mask.

  Now I heard her tired, heavy steps approaching, and I turned on the television.

  “I won’t disturb you,” she said. “I just need to get some things.”

  She removed a blue silk skirt and a black cashmere sweater from her closet and, standing before the full-length mirror, held the outfit in front of her. Her gaze was enigmatic and sad, as if she were seeing her entire life in the mirror.

  She noticed me watching her and asked how I liked the outfit.

  “Great, fine,” I said, and immediately hoped she hadn’t noticed how angry I sounded.

  She turned and faced me. “Is something wrong?”

  “No, nothing,” I said. “You’ll look great.”

  “Well, I’m sixty years old,” she said to the mirror.

  “You might have a lot of years left,” I said, “if you don’t set this bed on fire.” I pointed to the holes in the comforter. “You promised me you weren’t going to smoke in bed anymore.”

  “That’s from a long time ago,” she said, lighting a cigarette and returning the clothes to the closet. “Oh, I can’t decide.”

  “Is that your one cigarette for the day?”

  “Yes,” she replied, and brought out a white silk blouse and black skirt, held them in front of her, then regarded herself in profile. “Oh, I can’t decide!” she exclaimed.

  I told her I liked the other outfit.

  She retrieved the first one again and studied it closely, brushing the skirt with the back of her hand.

  “So I hear Mr. Conroy might be coming tonight,” I said, thinking that this was also the bed in which the two of them had spent thousands of afternoons.

  “Well, who knows?” she said. “If he comes, he comes—that’s my attitude.”

  In the weeks since her diagnosis, she had been surprisingly calm, as if she had faced down or dodged the thing she had been afraid of all her life. I recalled, with shame, how, years before, Sarah and I had hoped her death would be sudden. We had both agreed it would be a nightmare if we had to attend to her while she died a slow, painful death. We had imagined the overwrought deathbed scenes. “Just tell me I was a good mother!” I would exclaim, imitating a refrain my sister and I had heard throughout our childhood. “That’s all I want to hear!” I’d continue, dramatically crossing my hands over my heart and sending Sarah into a fit of laughter.

  “Well, I think that’s the right attitude to have,” I replied. She always referred very obliquely to her relationship with Jimmy Conroy, even though it had been common knowledge among her friends and colleagues for many years. I knew for sure that they were lovers when I was fifteen. I had heard them come in one evening and kiss for a long time, and when I heard Ruth sing out, “Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy, I love you too,” it was as if I had learned some fact about the world that I had already known in my heart. I knew because some mornings the scent of Mr. Conroy’s Vitalis blended richly in our car with my mother’s heavy perfume; I knew because when I was in elementary school, Mr. Conroy always inquired about my day with extra kindness.

  Ruth stood before the bureau, one hand on her hip, meditatively twisting out her cigarette. Then she came over and sat in a chair by the bed, looking at me. I braced myself, expecting the familiar questions about whether or not she was a bad mother and was that why I didn’t call her on her birthday or come to visit more often.

  “Sweetheart, did you happen to go through a box of old things in my closet?” she asked.

  “A box of old things?” I repeated, though I knew exactly what box she was referring to. It was labeled “Memories,” and inside it were old diaries, photographs, birth and death certificates, hundreds of letters, the nearly fifteen-year-old manuscript of “A Stranger on the Planet.” I’d found the box on my last visit home. I hadn’t been sure what I was looking for—I already knew so much about my mother’s life—but being alone in the apartment I had felt a strong impulse to trespass and ruminate. When I found the box, I’d read through everything in it, as if the contents of my mother’s life formed a novel I couldn’t put down. Her story was familiar enough to me, but each page offered a small surprise— her thrill at discovering a rare pink lady’s slipper in the woods, or the electric shiver she felt in college when some boy simply touched her wrist.

  “You know,” she said, “letters, photographs, personal things.”

  I had removed one page from an old journal. Could she have noticed it was missing?

  “No, Mom. I didn’t go through any box.”

  I knew she wouldn’t be angry if I confessed; in fact, she’d probably be happy to know I was interested enough in her to go through her personal belongings. But I wouldn’t know how to explain myself—either the violation or the interest.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t phone you on your birthday, Mom,” I said.

  “Did Sarah say something to you?”

  “Who?” I replied.

  Ruth required a couple of seconds to register the joke. Then she laughed timorously, kissed me on the forehead, and went out.

  About thirty minutes later, I went into the dining room. Sarah had put up multicolored balloons and banners. The two women were sitting at the kitchen table, where Sarah was doing Ruth’s makeup. Seamus was sitting at the table too, reading the newspaper. I hadn’t seen him in over five years. He had a neatly trimmed beard and kept his head covered with a stylish fedora. I gazed at the tableau of my family. My mother was staring straight ahead as Sarah, inches from her face, delicately combed her eyelashes. Ruth appeared serene, deeply calmed by Sarah’s hands. For a moment I felt myself transfixed by the mystery and beauty of Sarah’s ministrations.

  Then they all noticed me at the same time.

  “Reb Seamus,” I said. “Long time no see.”

  “Don’t call me that,” he replied and looked back down at the newspaper.

  Ruth appeared distraught.

  “All right, Mom,” I said. “I think it’s time to go get me at the airport.”

  IN THE CAR I SUGGESTED TO RUTH that we stop somewhere for a cup of coffee. She said that she was concerned one of the guests might see us.

  “You don’t want to go anywhere? You just want to drive for an hour?”

  “Why not? I like driving.”

  Ruth drove onto the highway, heading east, as if she were actually going to the airport. We were silent for many minutes; Ruth kept glancing at the side and rearview mirrors, as if we were being followed. Then she asked if Molly and I kept in contact. She hadn’t brought up Molly’s name in a long time. I told her no, that I had not seen or heard from Molly in years.

  “Well, maybe it’s better that way. Just
to move on with your life. God knows I would have been better off if I had done that with your father.”

  I didn’t tell her that for months after we split up, I would call Molly in the evening, telling her that I loved her, until, finally, Molly said it would be better for both us if I didn’t call her anymore. I didn’t tell my mother that I still occasionally walked down Huron Avenue, hoping I would run into Molly.

  “What about you and Rachel?”

  “What about us?”

  “Do you keep in touch with her?”

  “We’re still friends. We write and call occasionally.”

  “Do you think you’ll ever be more than friends again?”

  “Mom, I have to tell you something about Rachel.”

  “Yes?”

  “She’s a lesbian.”

  My mother looked out the window. “Why?” she asked quizzically.

  “Because that’s the way God made her.”

  “Didn’t you sexually satisfy her?”

  “Probably not, considering she’s a lesbian.”

  “Well, that doesn’t change anything. I still love her like a daughter. Would you tell her I said that?”

  “Yes,” I said, even though I knew I wouldn’t.

  “I don’t judge anyone. I’ve made my share of mistakes.”

  “I don’t think Rachel would view her being lesbian as a mistake.”

  “Oh, gee, Seth, give me a little credit. You know that’s not what I meant. I’m a very open-minded person.”

  “I know you are, Mom.”

  We were on the turnpike, but she was driving very slowly in the right lane.

  “Mom, why are you driving so slowly?” I asked.

  “I’m just thinking.”

  She drove another minute in silence, past the exit for Secaucus, where the industrial odors—something like burning tires—were always strongest. My mother once told me that Secaucus used to be a place where pigs were slaughtered and that we were probably catching a whiff of the old pig industry. I knew that couldn’t be true, but a part of me still believed it every time we drove this stretch of the turnpike.

  “Did you know I had an abortion once?” Ruth said.

  “You did? When?”

  “Years ago. Do you remember that time when you were ten and Jimmy Conroy came to the house in the middle of the night to bring all you children to Rhoda and Barry’s house?”

  “Yes . . . that was because of an abortion?”

  “I began to hemorrhage in my bed a couple of hours after the abortion and I phoned Jimmy. He called an ambulance, then brought you and your sister and brother to Rhoda’s house.”

  “Oh, Mom, I’m so sorry.”

  “Well, the most difficult part was just trying to find someone. Abortions were illegal then. So I went to Uncle Barry’s brother, Leslie. He was my internist, and I thought he might know someone I could go to. But he just started yelling at me, saying didn’t I know that I was asking him to be an accessory to a crime? Then he said he was going to call Barry and let him know what I was doing.”

  “What an asshole!”

  “What an asshole is right. He began dialing Barry’s number right in front of me, so I pulled the telephone cord out of the wall.”

  “Good for you, Mom.”

  “Alice helped me find someone,” she said, referring to her friend and colleague of three decades. “A cousin of hers. A black doctor in Patterson. I met him in his office and had to give him six hundred dollars up front. He said he didn’t do the abortions in his office. I would have to go to his house the next night.”

  My mother always told the same two or three stories, cloying and overdramatic ones like “Was Anybody Praying?” Why had she told me this story, and on this night? Was it her way of letting me know that she was open-minded? Or perhaps she had always wanted to tell me, and my revelation about Rachel had provided her with an opening. Perhaps she wanted me to know that she still had secrets and mysteries, that I didn’t know everything about her.

  “Mom, I can’t imagine how difficult that was for you,” I said.

  “The most difficult part was the week after, during Yom Kippur. I sat in the synagogue wondering if God was going to punish me for ending a life.”

  “You did what you needed to do, Mom, to keep us together.”

  “Seth, look,” she said. “I want you to understand something about Jimmy and me. We knew each other for three years before we acted on our feelings.”

  “Mom, that’s all right,” I said uncertainly.

  “I always wondered if you thought I was—well, you know, wanton or irresponsible, because of my relationship with him.”

  “Wanton? Of course not! Why would I think something like that?”

  “You can be very disapproving sometimes.”

  “Only about cigarettes, not about sex.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a joke, Mom.”

  “Oh.”

  “Mom, I’m glad that Mr. Conroy’s been in your life. I really am.” I thought of the night when I was fifteen and had heard her sing out, “Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy, I love you too.” I wanted to tell her that I had been secretly thrilled to hear her words that night, to know she had a life other than the one I saw every day, to know that someone loved her.

  “Well, it hasn’t been ideal.”

  “Was that why you married Eddie? Because of Mr. Conroy.”

  We hadn’t mentioned Eddie’s name since just after they had divorced, treating him like a nightmare that had come and gone.

  “Oh, who knows? Mainly it was my own stupidity, but I suppose that was one reason. Rhoda and Barry gave me such grief about Jimmy. I thought if I got married, they’d finally approve of me.”

  “Well, it couldn’t have been easy to find a husband with three young children.”

  “I suppose.”

  Ruth turned off the highway and negotiated a maze of arteries and ramps to reverse our direction. The landscape was complexly ugly, a netherworld of refineries, power stations, swamps, bridges, and low, toxic hills over which seagulls slowly circled. I had spent my entire life bracing myself against the tide of florid emotions that always seemed about to burst forth from my mother, but now I felt myself engulfed. I looked out the window so that she couldn’t see the tears that had welled up in my eyes. I thought of my fifteen-year-old manuscript in a box in the back of her closet. She knew my stories and I knew hers, but we kept them stored away, in our hearts and in closets.

  She reached across the seat for my hand. “God forgive me for saying this, but I think of you as the child of my heart. Of all my children, you’re the one that’s most like me.”

  CARS WERE LINED UP ALL ALONG OUR STREET. Ruth looked in the rearview mirror and said she was embarrassed to go in because her eyes were red from crying. I told her she looked fine, not to worry about it. Getting out of the car, we shut the doors loudly. All the lights went off inside the apartment.

  We were showered with shouts and light and confetti. There were perhaps twenty people, old friends and colleagues of my mother’s. Her eyes brimmed with fresh tears, as if the surprise were real.

  “Oh, wow!” she cried. “Oh, wow! We just came back from the airport.” I tried to stand behind her, but she put her arm around my waist and pressed her forehead against my shoulder.

  “How do you like this son of mine?”

  Rhoda and Barry came over to greet us. Both were fit and tanned, having just returned from their annual golf vacation in Hawaii.

  “How’s the birthday girl?” Barry said, regarding Ruth over the top of his spectacles.

  “Say, you didn’t really just come from the airport,” Rhoda said to me.

  I looked at Ruth, whose face had become alarmed and anxious.

  “Certainly I did,” I replied.

  “I’m sure I saw you and Sarah pass by the house with the dog this afternoon.”

  I put my hand on Rhoda’s forehead. “Rhoda, have you been feeling all right?”

  Sarah draped an arm a
round me in a show of sisterly love, then, without anyone noticing, pinched me painfully.

  “Sarah,” Rhoda said to her, “please don’t let the dog go to the bathroom on my statuary.”

  “Sorry, Aunt Rhoda,” Sarah said.

  Sarah excused herself to attend to things in the kitchen.

  I wanted to hide out in the kitchen with Sarah, but on my way across the room I found myself belly to breast with Deborah, Seamus’s wife. She was just under five feet tall and had a round, peachy-complexioned face. I didn’t realize how long I had been staring down at her shiny blonde hair, wondering whether she was Orthodox enough to wear a wig, until she said, “It’s real, Seth. Do you want to pull it just to be sure?”

  “So, you know who I am.”

  “Don’t be a clown. Of course I know who you are.”

  “Look, can I ask you a question?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Did Seamus actually sit shivah for me when he heard I was marrying out of the faith?”

  “Oy, Seth, you have to get over this. Really. Both of you are acting like children. You think this is a matter of principle, but it’s just whacking off.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. All this righteous anger is just self-indulgent, no different from whacking off. It just leaves you lonelier.”

  “You know, Deborah, I think Seamus is very lucky to have found you.”

  “I know he is.”

  I located Sarah in the kitchen. She was rinsing glasses in the sink.

  “What happened between you and Mom in the car?” she asked me.

  “Nothing. Why?”

  “She looked very drained when you came in.”

  “She always looks that way.” I gulped a Dixie cup of champagne.

  “Don’t you think you ought to go a little easy on that?”

  I looked into my empty cup, as if it contained an answer to her question.