Later, I go to bed and fall into a restless sleep. In my dream I am standing on a high ledge. I don’t question why, because it’s so freeing up here, like I have wings. I’m invincible and I realize that I haven’t felt this way in so long, maybe ever, but this, I am sure, is my natural state of being. It is how I am meant to feel: financial reports, tedious meetings, tension headaches, and family responsibility seem as far away as the tiny lights of the city below me.
Then I hear her crying and I fall back into reality with a thud. I reach toward Tina but her side of the bed is just smooth, cold sheets. I get up, put my feet against our thick, plush carpet, and walk into our double-sink, shiny chrome bathroom that sparkles brighter than day. This sort of bathroom ought to make her happy. Our life ought to make her happy, but obviously it doesn’t. My wife is curled up in a ball by the toilet, sobbing so hard that she doesn’t even hear me enter.
“Tina, honey, what’s wrong?” I kneel down and tentatively reach for her. Again, I’m reminded of my dream, where my movements were so confident, so opposite of how I really am. My hands shouldn’t hesitate to touch my wife, but they’re shy, timid, barely remembering the feel of her. When my fingers make contact, her skin is cold and clammy.
She jerks her head up, out of the cradle her arms had made against the toilet, and she spins toward me. “What are you doing in here?”
“I heard you crying. I wasn’t just going to ignore you.”
“Well, I wish you would!” She shrugs me away, stands, and goes to the sink to splash cold water on her face.
I stand too, so I’m behind her and speaking to our reflection in the mirror. “Tina, tell me why you were crying.”
She drops her gaze and appears to be studying the still-running water as it flows down the drain. “You’ll think it’s stupid,” she murmurs.
“I promise I won’t.”
“My dress doesn’t fit right, okay?”
For the first time I notice a dress, one of the possible evening gowns for the auto show gala, lying on the floor by her feet. “It’s too loose?”
“No, Ted, it’s too tight across the stomach!” She grabs her non-existent belly and tries unsuccessfully to jiggle it. “It makes me look fat, seriously fat, and okay: I know there are people with worse problems. But all the work I do, trying to keep fit, trying to be disciplined, what it’s all for, if I can’t fit into a stupid dress? What’s the point if my aging hormones are just going to fuck everything up?”
I pick up the dress and examine it. It’s black with horizontal white stripes, and I remember it now. She bought it years ago, before Miles and Mason were born, when it was just her and me and we went out all the time. The first time she wore that dress I gave her a wolf whistle and she’d laughed in pleasure. I’d pulled her to me and my hands roamed up and down her firm body, resting on her flat stomach, where the fabric was pulled taut. “You look amazing,” I’d told her. “I want to rip this dress right off you.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” she’d said. “Not many women could pull this dress off. Someday I won’t be able to pull it off. So I’m wearing it while I still can.”
Now, so many years later, the dress is just fabric lying limp in my hands. Meanwhile Tina stands next to me, defeated, wearing flannel pajama pants and a stretched out T-shirt.
“It’s just a dress,” I tell her. “You’re still beautiful.”
She doesn’t look at me, but at her reflection in the mirror instead. “No, I’m not. I’m getting old, Ted. And there’s nothing I can do about it.”
I nod because I don’t know what else to say. The fact that I think she’s beautiful isn’t enough for her, no matter how much I wish that it was. My heart starts beating a little faster, like I’m up on that building again, but no. I’m stuck in this bathroom, my feet planted firmly on the ground. How nice it would be, to be up high, looking down, with the option of letting go.
I’d be unafraid. I would just jump and let fate decide where I land.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Tina demands.
“It’s just a dress,” I repeat. “You’re still beautiful.”
Only this time, when I say it, I believe it a little less.
Chapter 32
It’s lunch hour. I find a park bench, sit down, and I tilt my head up, so I can let the daylight warm my face. I probably look like some yoga-meditation type of guy, one I would make fun of if I were in a different sort of mood. But I don’t care who sees me. And, thinking about the afternoon I have waiting for me back at the office, I discover that I don’t care about any of it.
Not even a little.
I usually eat lunch at my desk: an orange, a bottle of water, and a sandwich from the stand downstairs. But today the sun is that desired party guest who’s finally stopped pouting and come to socialize. Maybe summer will actually happen this year.
Summer has always been my favorite season. I love the smell of chlorine and burning charcoal, and that feeling that the day is stretched out in front of you, even if it isn’t. Even if you have a million meetings and a million problems to fix, summer can still feel like it’s full of lazy possibilities.
So I lose track of time as I sit here, thinking about Tina and Miles and Mason, and our house that I sort of hate and the fact that my own family doesn’t really know who I am. How could they? I don’t know who I am.
It’s time to get up, to walk back to work, and I stand and stretch my legs. But when I cross the street I go towards a construction site, not towards my office. They’re building a new arts center, and the plans are posted so anyone can come over and take a look. I could get lost in that, checking out the progress, trying to identify what has been built and imagining the rest.
Eventually my phone rings. Then a text, from my secretary. Where are you?
I don’t respond.
Later, I’m standing in line at a food truck to buy fresh squeezed lemonade, which was one of my favorite treats as a boy. This time when my cell phone rings I see that it’s Stan, my boss. I could avoid his call or I could do the brave thing and get this interaction over with. So I press answer.
“Hey,” I say casually, as if he could be anyone.
“Where are you?” His voice burns through my phone. “We talked about this, Ted. We agreed you had one more chance, and then you go MIA on me—”
That’s so like him, to ask a question but refuse to let me answer. So I interrupt. “I had an emergency. It’s extremely personal, and I can’t go into detail, but it’s best if I don’t come into work for a while. Sorry Stan, but I need to go on leave, indefinitely.”
There’s some shocked but controlled breathing on the other end of the line. “You understand that it will be unpaid leave?”
What a prick. For all he knows, my emergency is real. He could have a little more sympathy.
“I get it.” It’s almost my turn in the lemonade line. I need to get off the phone. “Just don’t give away my office. I’ll be in touch soon. Gotta go, Stan.”
I press end and hand the lemonade girl six dollars because I’m paying extra for some cherry juice. When she gives it to me, I take a deep, satisfying sip. It’s amazing how easy life can be if you’re open to the possibilities.
When I get home Tina seems normal, for her at least, and she actually asks me how my day was. I let out a beleaguered sigh. “You wouldn’t believe it,” I say.
“What?”
“My latest account has gone crazy. I need to go to L.A. tomorrow.”
Tina tilts her head quizzically, like she’s trying to figure out the answer to a riddle. “Why?”
I swat at the air in answer. “It’s not worth going into: big meeting, lots of jackasses laying blame. . .you know. . .same old, same old.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“I’ll be back Monday.”
She doesn’t ask why I have to stay for the weekend. She must not care. Maybe she’s relieved at the idea of my absence. I know I’m relieved that she’s not questio
ning it. If I told her the truth, that I’m flying home to Des Moines so I can investigate who is harassing my sister, she’d mock me, but only after she yelled about how I can’t just blow off work whenever I feel like it.
So I use our computer to buy a ticket to Des Moines, which would be super easy to trace. But Tina doesn’t believe I’m worth the effort.
Chapter 33
I remember every detail even though it happened over thirty years ago.
It was sleeting outside. Dad came home at 5:18 and I ran up to him the moment he walked through the door. “Mom’s not back yet.” This was unusual. She liked to pick Robin up from daycare and be home to greet Ian and me when we got off the bus. Dad’s skin went sort of pale, matching the beige trench coat he wore.
He called Mom’s work. No answer. He called Robin’s day care. “I’m going to pick up your sister,” he said. “You’re in charge, Ted.” I nodded and sat on the edge of the couch. After a moment Ian came out and asked what was going on. I didn’t want to worry him, so I said, “Let’s watch TV.” Ian turned on Power Rangers, which I hated, but I let him watch it anyway.
Dad got home with Robin and he made grilled cheese sandwiches, but he didn’t eat one. Instead, he called some of Mom’s friends, asking if they’d heard from her. None had.
Ian figured out that something wasn’t right. “Why isn’t mom back yet?” He kept asking this, over and over, even though Dad couldn’t give him a good answer.
“Shut up!” I finally told him. It was the seventh time he’d blurted out the same question. “Dad doesn’t know why Mom isn’t back yet. Nobody does.”
Robin gnawed on her sandwich. “More milk?” she asked. Dad didn’t hear her, so I got up and refilled her Elmo cup.
We were in the dining room and Dad was in the kitchen, staring out the window, when the phone rang. And I knew, with that shrill sound, that life as I knew it was over.
Dad came in from the kitchen, slowly enough that the phone rang two more times.
“Hello.” His hands were trembling and he closed his eyes when he spoke again. “Yes.” His voice was like a dying animal. “Yes, I understand.” Then he hung up.
“I have to go out,” he said.
“What! Why? Where’s Mom?” Ian demanded.
“I’ll be back soon,” Dad answered, as if Ian had said nothing at all. “You’re in charge, Ted.”
I let Ian play video games while Robin and I crept into Mom and Dad’s bedroom and lay against their pillows, Mom’s sandalwood scent wafting around us. I read Robin Sleeping Beauty, and even if she was too young to understand the story, Robin liked the picture of the beautiful Lilac Fairy. Across from us, Mom’s Mats Gustafson print hung on the wall, over her dresser. I was never completely sure if the lady in that print was walking towards something or if she was walking away.
But that night, as I waited for Dad to come home and tell us the horrific news that would scald my ears, I became sure.
She was definitely walking away.
****
The house is asleep but I’m awake, my muscles and my mind far more alert than I’d like them to be at this late hour. Lying in bed is an exercise in futility, so I get up and sit for a while out on the deck, staring at the stars. But I grow cold and a little bored. I’m not in the mood for television, so I wander the house until I arrive at our guestroom, where my mother’s favorite painting hangs. I study it like I’ve never seen it before. The frame is worn and scratched, but the lady inside is beautiful as always, a walking shadow of light. I run my hands along the edges, softly, so not to damage anything.
Then this really weird thing happens.
A piece of notebook paper falls to my feet, as if it had been lodged between the back of the frame and the wall. I reach down and pick it up; it’s the kind of paper I had in high school, torn from a spiral notebook, with frayed edges and thin light blue lines. I swear it’s from my old Trapper Keeper, because Miles and Mason haven’t yet graduated to narrow-ruled paper.
Get yourself together, don’t be afraid, and jump.
The letters that flow along the page were obviously written by a gentle hand. It’s definitely not my own messy scrawl, and it’s neither neat nor blocky enough to be Tina’s. No. I’ve seen this writing before, plenty of times. . . The fourteen birthday cards I have, saved in a shoebox, with their yearly messages about how much I’ve grown, how proud she is, and how much she loves me: they’re all the same.
I’d know my mother’s handwriting anywhere.
Chapter 34
The next afternoon my brother Ian picks me up at the Des Moines airport. “I wish we’d known you were coming sooner,” he says. “Eddie and I are remodeling the downstairs so the water in the second bathroom is turned off.”
Ian is a contractor and he and his husband Eddie are constantly remodeling their house. “That’s okay,” I reply. “I don’t mind.”
“You’ll mind when the toilet doesn’t work at three AM. Besides, it’s just a mess down there.” Ian grips the steering wheel, his smile not meeting his eyes. “You really don’t want to stay with us.”
I rub the back of my neck and think. “Dad is out of town?”
“Yeah, he and Catherine are in South America. I think they’re trying to hit every continent before he turns eighty.”
“Oh.” I look out the window, at the flat landscape and the expansiveness of everything. Compared to Philadelphia, Des Moines is so spread out and undeveloped. “Well, I guess I could stay at a hotel.”
“Why? Monty has plenty of room, and they’ve already invited everyone over for beer and foosball. Just stay with him.”
A headache is creeping in. That’s so like Monty, to hold an unasked for, unwanted get-together in my honor. Now, if I don’t stay with him, I really am the family prick. “What about Jack?” I ask. I prefer my younger cousin to my older one.
Ian shakes his head ruefully. “I don’t know; apparently the bathroom at his condo is haunted. I think it’s just an excuse for him to shack up with Isobel.”
“Isobel is his new girlfriend?” I ask and Ian nods. “And let me guess, her place is really small?”
Those dimples in Ian’s rosy cheeks appear. Maybe if I’d gotten dimples like Ian’s, people would like me more and I’d be a better person. “Yup,” Ian answers. “It’s small with thin walls, and Jack and Isobel are still in their honeymoon stage. I’m telling you, Ted. Stay with Monty.”
I know when a cause is lost so I let him drive me there. By the time we arrive it’s practically dinner hour. We go downstairs, to a cavernous rec room that’s like the common area in a family hotel. But this is Des Moines so I bet Monty only paid around $500,000 for it. Location, location, location.
Soon Jack and Isobel show up, and Ian drives home to retrieve Eddie and their children, and then everyone is too consumed with beer, pizza, and foosball to be super-annoying. I only have to explain why I’m here a half dozen times. Nobody buys that I simply had a few days off and was feeling nostalgic for the place where I grew up. I mean, why not wait until Dad is in town? Why not bring my family along? It must show that I’m on the brink of a midlife crisis, because everyone is treating me with kid gloves.
“So you have a haunted bathroom?” I ask Jack, and there’s an eruption of laughter.
Jack glares at Lucy, who is both his sister-in-law and his good friend. “Thanks again for blabbing about that,” he says to her.
“I can’t help it if he overheard!” Lucy cries, gesturing toward Monty, who laughs, slings his arm over her shoulders, and plants a kiss on top of her curly head of hair.
“She can’t keep secrets from me,” Monty boasts.
“And you can’t keep secrets from anyone else,” Jack retorts. “Seriously, you have the biggest mouth of anyone I know.”
They’ve been playing a half-hearted game of foosball but now Monty removes his arm from around Lucy’s shoulder so he can use both hands to rotate the knobs. “Yes!” he cries when he sinks a goal. Then he gives Ian a hig
h five.
When Jack, Monty, Ian and I are together, we always have competitions and we’re always looking for new ways to divide into teams. This time it’s the shorter siblings versus the taller ones.
Jack stands at his full, impressive height, which is a couple inches higher than me, and frowns. “Sorry I lost,” he says to me. “But yeah, my bathroom is haunted. You’d understand if you stayed there a night or two.”
I think about last night and that piece of paper I found. I swear that my mother wrote me that message. But how could that be? Maybe Tina wrote it and hid it behind my mom’s picture, but Tina is neither perceptive nor solicitous enough to think up a stunt like that.
“How can you tell it’s haunted?” I ask. “I mean, did you ever think that you’re just going crazy?”
He grins. “All the time. But then Isobel witnessed it: this white, pasty stuff that formed in quick clumps, the puddles on the floor when no water was running, and the sound of footsteps when no one was there. And one night the lights just started flickering for no reason.”
I gesture toward the other side of the room, where Isobel is sitting with Eddie and all the kids, watching a Disney movie and eating pizza. “Well, it’s working out for you, though.”
“Yeah, it is.” Jack bounces on his toes a couple of times before he walks to Isobel, sits down, and gives her a sideways squeeze, his blond head tilting toward her as she sinks into him. It’s about time that Jack is lucky in love.
At family gatherings it’s easy to forget that we’re adults because we all automatically slip into the roles we played while growing up. It doesn’t matter how much time goes by; Monty will always be the leader, Ian the jokester, Jack the nice guy, and I’m the asshole.
“Okay, so it’s you and me, Ted,” Ian says, stepping closer to the foosball table. “You have a chance to redeem the taller siblings, but I doubt you’ll succeed.” He flexes his fingers, crouches a little, and grabs the knobs on the side of the table.
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