Surprise Me

by Deena Goldstone

  From across the meadow he watches Stefan open the trunk of the car, take out his three boxes of books and two suitcases, put them on the gravel, get into the car, back it up, and head down the driveway toward the main road. On the drive from Iowa to New Hampshire, Stefan made the case, relentlessly, that he needed the car more than Daniel did. Daniel is afraid to drive, Stefan reminded him, and, besides, where was there to go? The car would just sit there rusting out and being wasted, while he, Stefan, already had plans for it. Daniel, exhausted from all the years of arguing and opposing his son, agreed to let Stefan take the car. Which he is now doing. Down the driveway, almost to the end, and then the car stops abruptly and Stefan gets out and lopes across the meadow to Daniel.

  “This is for the best,” is his parting statement.

  Daniel shrugs. “I don’t see much alternative.”

  “Right, that’s what I mean. We wore out our welcome.”

  With each other? Daniel wants to ask but doesn’t. No need to start all that up again. He simply nods, raises a hand to rest across Stefan’s shoulder in parting. “Son—” But Stefan has already turned and is now sprinting through the wildflowers, desperate, it seems, to get in the car and be on his way.

  And then Daniel really is on his own, the next chapter of his life in front of him, inside the stone cottage. He stoops a bit as he opens the heavy wood door to see a small room with thick granite walls—the kind of walls that weep with moisture in the winter. A basic, unfinished wood floor. Through a door to his left he can see a serviceable bathroom. There’s a small fireplace in the rear wall, its stone blackened from use and never cleaned, a simple wrought-iron bed to its left, and an old stove, an older refrigerator, and an enameled sink along the right, open shelves with a few mismatched dishes above it. Two easy chairs, looking like garage-sale rejects, upholstered in a faded stripe, are positioned to face the fireplace; a braided rag rug in autumn colors spans the floor between the chairs and the hearth. A simple wooden table, maybe four feet long, and two straight-backed chairs are angled next to the stove. Four long, narrow windows, two on either side wall, reach almost to the floor and are curtainless.

  So this is where he has landed. Fifty-four years old. Homeless, disdained by his children, unemployable. Besieged by panic attacks. Without any skills. And feeling sorry for himself, he has to admit, which brings a grin at his own predicament, there in this barren room which is to be his home for the foreseeable future. Life does a number, doesn’t it? There’s nothing to do but grin at that. He’s living out an appropriate retribution for his acts of selfishness in his thirties—leaving Stephanie and his kids—and his self-centeredness in his forties—drinking too much, enjoying the literary acclaim too much, marrying Cheryl when he shouldn’t have.

  He puts his laptop down on the wooden table; somehow he hasn’t let go of it since stepping out of his car. Does that tell him something? That he’s pathetic? That he still clings to the illusion he’s a writer?

  He sits down at the table and surveys the room again. It will do. Maybe it’s all he deserves right now. Maybe he’d better unpack. He goes out to Alina’s driveway and begins carrying in his boxes and suitcases. His daughter is nowhere to be seen.

  It’s while he’s unpacking his books that he finds the crumpled eight pages that Isabelle gave him that day two years ago when it was so hot and she took off her graduation robe to reveal that gossamer sundress, almost like wearing nothing. And then she took the strap off her shoulder and then he…And he stops himself. He shouldn’t be going there.

  He smoothes the pages flat and reads her words again. About Melanie. And needing to be an outlaw. About sass and meeting life head-on. He’s missing Isabelle’s spirit in his life. That’s the deepest sadness of all.

  He opens his laptop and begins an e-mail to her that he knows he will never send. It contains too much longing. And besides, he hasn’t heard from her since she was having great sex with some guy who was saving the world. She had found Daniel’s disgraced third novel in a secondhand shop, and he had made her promise not to read it. By now she probably doesn’t even remember him. But still he writes.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Isabelle’s son has night terrors. When they happen, Avi bolts upright in bed, eyes open but still deeply asleep, and screams. On particularly bad nights, he darts through the house as if being chased by demons.

  “Three is a common age for night terrors to begin,” Deepti tells Isabelle calmly one mild September evening, “and there is no reason to be overly concerned.”

  The two women are sitting on the front porch of the Craftsman duplex, Isabelle in an ancient rocker found at the Berkeley Flea Market whose contours fit her lanky frame perfectly, and Deepti in a wicker chair. They’re sipping chai tea that Deepti made for them, sweet and aromatic. Fanny Hershfeld’s side of the house is quiet, with only the blue light from the television screen flickering in the living room darkness. Isabelle knows that in all likelihood her neighbor is fast asleep in her BarcaLounger and that the television will be droning on till the early-morning hours. Usually Fanny manages to rouse herself, turn off the TV, and hobble to bed before the sun rises, but not always. How much you know about someone living in such close proximity, Isabelle has discovered—things you would never know about friends, who feel much closer to your heart.

  “In the transition from REM sleep to the deeper non-REM sleep, the central nervous system of a child can become overly aroused, and it responds with a sudden reaction of fear.” Deepti is patient and careful in her explanation. It is easy to see the excellent physician she is preparing to be.

  “But he looks terrified,” Isabelle whispers into the soft night air, as if it were a shameful secret.

  “Yes, children do, but he’s fast asleep. He doesn’t know, Isabelle. It’s only you who sees the terror.”

  Isabelle nods, is quiet for a moment, then adds in a rush, “I was afraid it was something I’ve done. Something emotionally damaging.” Her greatest fear, spoken to Deepti, whom she trusts completely.

  “No, it’s a neurological phenomenon.”

  “Meaning it’s physical, not psychological?”

  “Yes, so simply hold him so he doesn’t hurt himself and wait. That’s all. There is no comfort you can give. Just wait.”

  Wait while her child is inconsolable? Wait and do nothing?

  “That’s torture in itself.”

  “It passes, Isabelle.”

  “Yes,” Isabelle agrees finally and sighs. “It does.”

  With her foot Isabelle pushes the ancient rocker lightly back and forth against the weathered stone porch and watches the flickering light coming through Fanny’s front window. There’s a pool of quiet between the two women, comfortable, familiar.

  “I wish…” Deepti starts, and then pauses.

  “What? I love any sentence from you that starts ‘I wish.’ So rare, Deepti.”

  Deepti blushes in the dim light, but Isabelle can’t see it. “I wish…” Deepti says slowly, trying to find exactly the right words, “I wish you didn’t have to deal with this problem by yourself.”

  “Yes,” Isabelle agrees. Just that one word, afraid if she doesn’t stop there, she will say too much.

  “That is the unfortunate part.”

  And I am furious about it, Isabelle wants to say. Where is Casey? Why is some child in Indonesia or Senegal more worthy of his attention than his own? And why do I feel like such a horrible, uncaring, selfish person whenever I even entertain these thoughts?

  “As long as Avi is all right,” is what she says instead.

  “Avi is fine,” Deepti reassures her again.

  What Isabelle doesn’t tell Deepti that evening, or anyone else, is that she is afraid to fall asleep, afraid her sleep will be shattered by Avi’s screams. Better to stay awake, be alert. Better to hold his tiny body and lull him calmly back to sleep with all her wits about her.

  So she’s become a night troller, surfing the Internet for clues, corresponding with other w
ide-awake mothers across the country whose children cry out in the night. Modifying the loneliness as she can.

  There’s something about the early-morning hours, about the tension of waiting for the screams to pierce her heavy quiet, about the harshness of her solitude, that feeds her need to feel connected to somebody. One night she finds herself writing to Daniel.

  Where is he now? Still in Colorado? Does he even have the same e-mail address? Will he even remember her? Will he answer?

  Daniel,

  I think it’s been over three years since we’ve been in touch. I have no idea if this will reach you or whether you’ll even want to respond.

  You must think I’ve dropped off the face of the earth, if you’ve thought about me at all.

  It’s been a pretty life-changing three years. I had a son in July of 1995. An amazing, wonderful, funny child named Avi. We live in Oakland and I work at a bookstore that reminds me of Seaman’s. Do you remember Seaman’s, near the Chandler campus?

  Avi’s father works for a nonprofit called Global Hope and he spends most of his time saving people’s lives. We’re not married but we’re a couple, sort of. It’s complicated. Actually, life these days is complicated.

  I think about you often, but I’m afraid that you will be disappointed in how my life has turned out.

  Isabelle

  She clicks the Send icon and closes her laptop, dispatching the bedroom into complete darkness. Now the whole house is dark and quiet. Peace…there should be peace now, but Isabelle doesn’t feel it. She gathers the quilt from her bed and drags it into Avi’s room.

  First a hand to cup the curve of his head, to feel the warmth of him, the steady draw of his breath in and out, then Isabelle lays the quilt on the floor and curls up beside his bed. It’s only here that she can sometimes fall asleep.

  —

  DANIEL RECEIVES ISABELLE’S E-MAIL first thing the next morning. He’s become an early riser now that he’s settled in the New Hampshire countryside. With no one to wake him and no morning responsibilities, he’s still out of bed by six. By seven o’clock he’s at Bev’s Bakery, where Bev makes cappuccinos for the Boston weekenders and strong, simple dark coffee for the locals. He takes his with a cinnamon bun and an Internet connection. By nine o’clock he’s back home at his kitchen table to begin his day’s work.

  He has become regular in his habits, and he’s writing, but he has no idea what. It started the day he arrived, when he found Isabelle’s eight pages about Melanie, and before he even unpacked, he sat down and began an e-mail to her. Of course he’s never sent it or any of the others he’s written since. But he’s found himself writing more, bits and pieces, then scraps of ideas that have nothing to do with Isabelle, nothing ever fully realized, but he continues on.

  At first he thought he was wasting his time, but that notion no longer bothers him. With no real hope of publication—where is his book agent? he has no idea; would his last publishing house even read a new manuscript he submitted? who knows?—Daniel is free to write whatever comes to him. And he finds the isolation of his cottage and the lack of demands coming from the rest of the world, particularly his daughter, as a sort of tonic—they spur him on to write. The act of doing it is what matters to him now, he has come to realize, not the finished product.

  There is something about this time in Winnock that is reminiscent of the first time he began to write, more than twenty years ago, when he had left his first marriage (and his children, he reminds himself) and lived alone on the top floor of a rooming house, in that shabby room with the peeling wallpaper and the bathroom down the hall, and worked sporadically hanging drywall. He had totally fucked up his life, he felt, and no one would have disagreed with him then. Or now.

  Out of that nadir came his first book, the one about his father, the one he had to write before he could move on. He sees now how freeing that feeling of hopelessness was. He could write because no one would ever have expected it of him and because he expected nothing to come of all the hours he spent in front of the typewriter.

  Two years now living in Winnock, he is a familiar figure at the bakery’s round window table, head down over his laptop screen, a thick white mug of Bev’s arabica coffee at his elbow. People refer to him as “the writer,” or “that writer fella,” but nobody is really interested in what he has written or might be writing now. People mind their own business in New Hampshire. Their state motto is “Live Free or Die.”

  When Daniel sees Isabelle’s e-mail in his in-box, he sits back in his wooden chair, surprised, and suddenly awash in rusty emotions. He contemplates the screen for several minutes. It really is from Isabelle, even though he’s never sent even one of the scores of e-mails he’s written to her over the past two years. Oh, Isabelle—she remembers him! She’s written!

  A large, handsome woman, chestnut hair mixed lightly with gray, cut chin length and pushed behind her ears, a white apron tied around her ample waist, coffeepot in hand, refills Daniel’s mug without being asked. Bev knows his likes and dislikes by now, at least when it comes to his morning routine, and she is in the habit of quietly pouring his coffee, nodding but not speaking, not intruding. For all she knows, he may be in the middle of creating.

  What little pride Bev allows herself rests with her ability to sleuth out her customers’ needs, to listen, to observe, to make the bakery a welcoming place. Her women friends would say she carries that kindness into the rest of her life, as well, but Bev isn’t so sure of that. She has a kind of New England reserve, she knows, a strong spine that has seen her through the chronic depressions and early death of her husband. She fears that sometimes what she calls her “Yankee backbone” gets in the way of her softer instincts.

  This morning Daniel is sitting back in his chair, a look of surprise, then pleasure, on his face, and he glances at Bev as she tops up his coffee. “One of my former students just e-mailed me.”

  “Good for you,” she says, pleased for him. He seems so solitary; a communication from someone, anyone, can only be positive.

  “Yes,” Daniel says quietly, “good for me.” And he leans forward and clicks on Isabelle’s name. Whatever she has to say, he is eager to read it.

  Daniel,

  I think it’s been over three years since we’ve been in touch. I have no idea if this will reach you or whether you’ll even want to respond.

  Daniel stops reading and looks up, out the window of the bakery to the empty sidewalk. Directly across the road is the Winnock Arts & Craft Gallery, and he can see a set of Alina’s wine goblets featured prominently in the window display.

  Could Isabelle seriously think he wouldn’t respond to her? He can’t think of anything he’d rather do. How could she doubt that? Human relationships are baffling and impossible, he concludes again, for at least the hundredth time in his life. Navigating them is a skill he has never been able to master. Not with his children or his ex-wives or his former students. All except for Isabelle. She was different, so how can she start her e-mail with that statement? He shakes his head and continues on.

  You must think I’ve dropped off the face of the earth, if you’ve thought about me at all.

  Bev gives him privacy, remains at her spot behind the bakery counter, watching as he reads the entire e-mail and begins typing a response. Daniel is endlessly fascinating to her—a writer, with a lifetime of interesting stories in his face. Over the past two years his early-morning visits have become the highlight of her day.

  —

  THAT SAME MORNING IN ISABELLE’S Oakland duplex is as hectic as every morning seems to be. She has overslept again. Her late-night vigils often translate into mornings conducted in overdrive, Isabelle behind the eight ball before the day has even begun.

  Her first task is to get Avi up and dressed, which usually includes coaxing—he doesn’t like to leave the warmth of his Power Rangers quilt—and a lengthy discussion about what he will wear. The child has clear preferences in almost every arena of his life. Some days everything must match—b
lue jeans, blue shirt, blue sneakers. Some days he decides he has to have shorts, even though all his shorts are in the hamper, casualties of finger painting or mud play or who knows what. Lugging the laundry to the Laundromat is Isabelle’s least favorite household chore, and it is only when the choice is a trip to Washworld or a nudists’ colony that Isabelle manages to get them some clean clothes.

  This morning there are no clean shorts—no surprise—and the discussion turns to what would be an acceptable alternative. Finally, in desperation because they’re going to be late, now very late, Isabelle takes scissors to a pair of Avi’s old jeans, and he is thrilled.

  “Awesome!” He is beside himself. “Wow, new shorts!” All day he will tell anyone who will listen, “My mommy made these shorts with scissors!” as if Isabelle is a wizard to have accomplished such a feat.

  Isabelle, exhausted already at 7:55 in the morning, feels only relief to have solved the problem. “Okay, into the car. Grandpa is waiting for you.” Even though Isabelle doesn’t have Casey on any sort of regular basis, she has Art and Louisa, Casey’s parents. And Art’s alternative school, A Circle of Friends, where Avi spends the day and thrives.

  “And Dylan,” Avi reminds her. His best friend in Miss Dorothy’s class, Dylan, makes everything okay, and Avi knows he is already at school waiting for him.

  “And Dylan,” Isabelle agrees as she shepherds her son into the Jeep, pulling on a sweater as she does, barefoot, her shoes stuffed into her purse, handing Avi a granola bar and an apple for breakfast as she buckles him into his car seat.

  “Mommy, put on your shoes.”

  “I will, pumpkin.”

  “Right now or your feet will catch a cold.”

  And she has to stop and show her conscientious son that she has in fact put on her shoes.

  As she maneuvers the Oakland streets from Telegraph Avenue to 51st Street to Broadway, and then a right turn onto 41st, where Art’s school is located, she wonders, as she has many mornings before, when her son started taking care of her. And how she has become such an incompetent person.