“Is Marie available?”
“If this is another goddamn telemarketer, I’ll report the number. I know my frigging rights.” She sounds older than fifty-three. She sounds mean.
I think back to my first call with Rory where she too thought I was cold-calling—do I really sound that robotic? “It’s not a telemarketer. Is this Marie?”
“Who the hell’s asking?”
I glance to confirm my office door is closed. “This is Brady Starling, and I believe … well, I think you might’ve known—”
“Yeah. I know who you are.”
I hold the phone from my ear. “Pardon?”
“Beth’s son, right?”
I pause. “You know who I am?”
She lets out a villain laugh that leads into a coughing fit. It ends with the distinct sound of someone hocking a loogie. “That’s what I said.”
I consider the implications of being the only one not in the loop. “Did you know her well?”
“Beth? Course. She drove the foster families batty. Always checking on my condition, reporting the littlest things to the county.” Marie makes her voice whinier to impersonate my mother. “‘Anna Marie had to take a cold shower today because there’s too many people in that house.’ Child services thought she was nuts.”
Well, that describes my mother … not at all. I once went a year and a half with a spring popping out of my mattress. My mom said it wasn’t rusty and my tetanus shot was up-to-date anyway, so I’d be fine if I just kept to the other side of the bed. It was a twin.
“What about Paul?” I ask.
“Yeah, sure, she was on his ass too, but Paul was adopted out of the system, so it was different. She still made sure we had each other, Paul and I. Always passing along our addresses and numbers. Setting it up so we’d be at the same park on the same day, that sort of thing.” Park? My mother never took me to a park.
“I’d like to meet you,” I say, though based on the call so far, I’m not sure that’s true.
She clicks her tongue. “Why?”
The question catches me off guard, though I guess it shouldn’t. If Marie wanted to meet me, she could’ve reached out at any time. “I’d like to learn more about my mother.”
“Ha! Classic. The kid who was raised by the frigging woman wants to learn about her.”
“I guess it does sound crazy, but it’s the case.”
“Well, if you’re serious, you better hop to it because I have lung cancer. I ain’t dying tomorrow, but I’m dying. And I’m not getting on a train or nothing either,” she adds. “You want to meet me, you come here.”
Cancer makes the situation more complicated. I’m not looking to be anyone’s hero here. I have enough shit on my plate. “Lung cancer?” I repeat. “That’s terrible. I’m sorry.”
She expels more phlegm, hopefully into a tissue of some sort. “Don’t be,” she barks. “I’m not. I knew what I was getting into smoking two packs a day, even without the damn warning labels. Beth said it all the time and, anyways, there’s no way you can smoke those things and think it’s good for you. I don’t care what no one says, that’s horseshit.”
I see no way around offering, so I ask if there’s anything I can do to help. “Nope,” she says to my relief. “Stopped treatment months ago. They took out a lung; I did the chemo thing; damn cells spread anyway. All chemo did was make me look and feel like shit. Now I’m just smoking in peace, waiting for my time.” I ask if she has any children. “No, no kids. Never married. Neither did Paul.”
I don’t know where to take the conversation, and she doesn’t reciprocate with questions. “Is next Monday too soon for me to come?” I have a firm policy of getting things I don’t want to do over with as soon as possible. When I fire someone, it happens at eight in the morning. Unfortunately, I have vendor reviews this week, so Monday is the earliest I can swing.
“I gotta work at noon, so you’d have to come in the morning.”
I’m genuinely curious where someone like Marie finds employment. “Okay. Where do you work?”
“I do customer service for the local telephone company.”
I clamp down on my tongue to keep from laughing. Her voice is downright terrifying and she leaves the clear impression that customer satisfaction isn’t a top priority.
“Okay. I’ll arrive at nine.”
“All right if Paul comes?”
It’s the only hint of interest from her end. “That’d be great,” I say. Maybe he’s the communicator in the family.
“Great. Clock’s ticking for me, but he’ll still be around for sure.”
She’s so nonchalant about her pending death. She sounds almost excited. “Let me leave you my number in case—”
“Now, there’s no need for that. I’ve got nowhere to go, so I’ll be here if you show, and if you don’t that’s fine too.”
“All right then,” I agree. “See you—”
The phone disconnects.
I’m tempted to screw it, but that feels too much like the path I’ve always taken, the one that got me to a point where I need to panhandle for details about the woman who raised me. I need to see this through.
I duck out of my office and ask my new assistant, Darlene, to book a flight and hotel before I overthink it. I’ve been well behaved with Darlene. The one time I barked, she said, “I’m not a mind reader, Brady. Feedback is appreciated, but please don’t yell it at me.” So I don’t. There’s no power high losing your temper when someone calls you out on it in an even tone.
The challenge of this impromptu trip will be hiding it from Eve. It’s clear Marie isn’t going to fill a familial hole. There are too many unknowns, and Eve doesn’t need to meet someone with a death sentence right now. I’ll put her off until I’m back. She knows Bobby’s a flake; it shouldn’t be too difficult. I’ll need someone to stay overnight Sunday with her though. I’d call Paige, but she’d assume the right to ask a million questions. It’d be a work night for Meg, and an unreasonable commute. Rory, I think. Rory? I don’t know how someone I only recently met popped to mind, but it isn’t a bad idea. Eve respects her and I-I … well … I find her relaxing. Unique. Certainly trustworthy.
She answers on the first ring. There’s country music playing in the background. Maddy loved country. She said each song told a whole story, so it was like listening to a mini-audiobook. I hadn’t pictured Rory as a country-music lover. Until this moment, I didn’t realize I’d pictured her at all.
“This is Brady Starling,” I say too formally. “Eve’s father.”
“You mean the guy I had dinner with last week?” Rory asks.
“Yes.”
“And ran into at CVS?”
“Yes.”
“That was a joke, Brady. I was being facetious.” She accentuates facetious in a way that pokes fun at my seriousness and vocabulary and maybe even general approach to life.
“Right, right,” I let out a forced chuckle. “I was calling for a favor.”
“Sure.”
I smile. “You don’t know what the favor is yet.”
“I’m not one to turn down favors.” Is she flirting? I can’t tell. Do I want her to be? I don’t know.
“I’ve postponed most of my travel until Eve leaves in the fall, but a trip came up, only for a night, and I was hoping you’d stay at the house.”
“Sure.”
“I’ll pay you, of course.”
“When?” she asks, completely ignoring the compensation component.
“I’ll leave Sunday night and be back Monday in time for dinner.”
“Is cooking Monday’s dinner part of the deal?”
This woman is completely uninhibited. Her brain isn’t constrained by the same filter as mine. I wonder what it’s like to say whatever comes to mind without worrying about long-term implications, risk, legalities. At least the joke is obvious this time. “Yes,” I tease. “Everything from scratch, please.” She laughs. “No, of course not. You can even leave Monday morning. I just don�
�t want Eve alone overnight.”
“We have tutoring Monday afternoon either way, so I’ll be back then to make sure everything’s all right.”
“That’d be great. If you’re still there when I get home, maybe we can all grab a bite or something.”
Am I asking her on a date? With my daughter? I’ve officially lost it.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Madeline
As the one influencing both ends of the call I know Rory and Brady weren’t purposely flirting, but Rory questioned Brady’s intentions with dinner Monday and Brady hung up wearing a boyish grin I haven’t seen in a long time. I take it as a good sign they’re exploring the possibility of each other’s interest, especially given Rory’s commitment to Eve. Rory craves the opportunity to mother someone as much as Eve needs to be mothered. It wasn’t my plan, but Rory fell in love with Eve first, and I couldn’t be more thrilled for that.
Eve doesn’t stay away from my journal, but I’m certain she’ll trust her instinct the next time I send a warning flare. And she’s shrewder now. She washes her hands before picking it up and takes great care flipping the pages, cautious to prevent further damage to the binding. No matter how certain she is Brady won’t come home, she no longer reads in common areas of the house. Instead, she goes to her bedroom, draws the shades, and locks the door. It’s such a furtive process that it’s a bit anticlimactic when everything is secure and she starts to read. Looking on, you’d expect her to shoot up heroin.
Unlike Brady, Eve doesn’t read the entries in order. She leafs through the pages until a word catches her eye. Once she picks, she reads about my day over and over, considering every line, imagining where I sat while I wrote it, picturing what I wore that day. A woman’s read. Then she writes in her journal, either directly about what I wrote or about what she thinks I secretly meant. She writes beautifully, searching for both my truth and hers. The journal is more potent to Eve than any drug.
I work to keep her away from the darker entries, though I’m not always watching at the right moment. I did my legacy a disservice leaving such a paper trail behind. I wrote honestly, but not all-inclusively, so Eve gathers insight into my anguish and imaginings, without any resolution or context. After a year of regurgitating the blah-blah details of my day, I tired of documenting the mundane. I challenged myself to dig deeper, to ask hard questions: Where am I weak? What do I regret? How can I atone? She’s convinced the answer to my death lies between the lines. She’s wrong, but I can’t conceive a way to let her know it.
I watch as she flips through the pages, circling around an entry written while I was angry with her. Mega-angry. Questioning-where-I’d-gone-wrong-as-a-mother angry. Eve and her friends had been caught toilet-papering the home of a less popular girl in their class, Jenny. The reason for the attack was as heartless as Jenny having no friends. The poor thing was an easy target, and my daughter was complicit in taking advantage of that. It was the most trouble Eve ever landed in, a night she learned I take a hard stance on anything intentionally cruel. As punishment, I volunteered her services to public works for highway trash pickup the following four Saturdays. Eve had the audacity to fight back.
“That is soooooo unfair,” she yelled, jutting her chin out defiantly. “Kara’s mom grounded her Friday night. That’s it.”
“Have you met Kara’s mother?” I railed. “Scratch that—have you met Kara? She’s never been interested in anything she wasn’t the star of in her entire life. She’s a meanie. You can be friends with who you want, but don’t expect me to skip along with the consequences. And since you feel compelled to talk back, your stint on trash duty is now five weekends.”
“Mom, that doesn’t even make sense. Who gets punished by, like, picking up trash?”
“I’ll tell you who. Teenagers who live in this house and have the nerve to treat other people like garbage. How dare you hurt this poor girl’s feelings. What the heck were you thinking?” I paused for an answer, but Eve just shook her head. “Do you really believe you’re better than Jenny because you have a group of callous, bitchy friends by your side? You have every advantage in life, and this is how you behave? Honest to God, this sort of rebellion is my worst nightmare.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal,” Eve grumbled, staring at the kitchen tile.
“Not a big deal to whom, Eve? To you? It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal because you weren’t supposed to get caught. Is that it? Because I talked to Jenny’s mother and it was a tremendously big deal in their home. Jenny has been crying all day. She refuses to go to school tomorrow. She says she gets teased relentlessly by you girls.”
“Not by me.”
“Better not be you. I won’t let this slide as typical teenage stuff. You have a head and a heart—I expect you to make choices that account for both. The next time I hear of your involvement with anything like this I will take away your car, your allowance, and your cell phone. Permanently. Don’t experiment with people’s hearts. Do you hear me?”
Eve nodded in agreement and retreated to her room, but I was still palpably mad as I wrote in my journal that night. In high school, good looks protected me from being an overt target, but my reading obsession made me a sidebar spectacle. I remember opening my science book one day to a picture of a giant penis taped on the inside cover. Sprawled across the top were the words Have you ever seen one of these before? My head jerked up in surprise; everyone howled with laughter. Worse than the shock and embarrassment was my secret fascination. I hadn’t seen one, not up close. I blushed, upping the entertainment value. The idea that Eve, my Eve, had been involved in such terrorism horrified me. My journal that night used words like disgusted, embarrassed, and furious. I meant to describe what Eve had done, not her as a person, but I know she won’t interpret it that way.
I attempt to intervene. Flip the page. I’m now so high up that my messages often take more time than the situation affords. Flip the page, I say again. Flip the page. To my relief, she does, and I take in the cool rush of having impact. I’m not ready to give it up.
December 25, 2014
Christmas fell on a Thursday this year. We were about to leave for church when Eve said she thought it was stupid we only went on holidays.
“I feel more spiritual when I go for a long run than I ever have at church,” she declared. “And what does it say about us that we pretend we go on days we know our neighbors will be there? We’re not religious; we’re, like, hypocrites.”
I love when she takes a stance and articulates herself like that. Brady and I looked at each other—she had a point. So we made a pact to replace church days with mandatory family runs. It was a liberating moment.
Then tonight, Brady surprised me with the most beautiful diamond earrings. His note read, “May these earrings put some sparkle in your life, like you do in mine.” Each one is probably a carat and a half. I didn’t dare ask if Paula had anything to do with it because I feared my pride would be compromised if she picked them out and I still kept them.
Eve rubs her ears. She’s been wearing the earrings. Brady said they look ridiculous on a girl her age, but Eve argued everyone assumes they’re fake. The reality is no one sees them. With camp over, Eve’s entire circle is Brady, Rory, Paige, Dr. Jahns, and a weekly call from my sister. She’s wholly alone, and the only person who realizes it is me—the person who caused it. For all my good decisions and noble sacrifices it took only one moment, one bad call, to end it all.
Eve puts the forbidden journal away and heads to the kitchen that she already cleaned. She thinks back to the last time she changed her sheets. Yesterday. Brady is bringing takeout tonight, so there’s no reason to cook. She’s already done an hour of yoga and showered. She decides to paint her nails, but even using the full manicure set, feverishly setting about buffing and cuticle clipping, the whole process takes thirty minutes. A devilish thought sets in. She opens the fridge with the side of her palm, careful not to smudge the fresh paint, and scouts out an open bottle of wine. Brad
y now drinks a glass with dinner, postponing the strength of bourbon until they’ve said good night. A bottle lasts him three days; there’s no way he’ll notice a missing glass and Eve knows it. She looks at the microwave clock. It’s three in the afternoon. One glass, she reasons, no biggie.
But I know better. Every alcoholic starts somewhere. There’s always a first; one moment where the line of what’s acceptable is crossed, motivated by trauma or boredom or both. For my mother I picture it happening after one of our vacations on the Jersey shore. We rented the same house for a week each June, when the prices were lower because the water was still freezing. Our cottage was a revolving door of visitors who’d come up to celebrate and relax, then pass out on the couch overnight. Each day had a theme and it started at lunch—Mai Tai Mondays, Tequila Tuesdays, Wildcard Wednesdays … it was the late seventies.
Eventually the week would end and we’d drive home. Dad went back to work. Meg and I walked to the YMCA for summer camp. Mom unpacked everything and did laundry. At some point I imagine it struck her that there was no reason her vacation had to end. So she rummaged through the Walmart bag of leftover booze and mixed a screwdriver. Just one. Just to suck the monotony from her chores. That night no one noticed. So Mom adjusted the line of normalcy—one midday drink was okay. Then that line was tested, resulting in a new line. Then a new, new line. Within a year she was having a full-time affair with Carlo Rossi, all fueled by that first transgression.
I refuse for this to be Eve’s moment. I know better than to lecture. My best bet is to offer an alternative. Read, I suggest. Read. Eve gave up reading for pleasure the day she got a cell phone. Something needed to be cut to account for the hundreds of texts and endless phone conversations that comprised her budding social life. I was devastated books took the hit. Read.
Eve stares at the bottle so long the refrigerator door beeps. The last thing I need is to turn into a closet drunk like Kara, she thinks, slamming it shut with such force that everything rattles. I don’t know whether Eve came to that conclusion on her own or made out my faint protests until she marches toward the living room bookshelf. She ditched The Celestine Prophecy after only thirty pages because her grief was too raw for anything offering answers. It likely still is. Lesson learned. I zip through titles, looking for a book that will swallow her so completely Brady will have to physically take it when he wants her attention. If I succeed, this will be the beginning. I’ll create a lifetime reader, something I failed to accomplish when I was alive.
I Liked My Life Page 21