“Well . . . back when we were in middle school, and certainly when our mothers were,” I said, “many of us didn’t menstruate until we were twelve or older. Now puberty begins earlier. For some girls, it’s ten or eleven. And with it comes sexual maturation and all the normal feelings.”
“Maybe so, but they don’t have to act on them. If schools start giving out condoms, you’ll see them all over the playground for children six and seven to pick up. Girls will start having babies before they graduate eighth grade. This is only the start of the degradation of America, and I and my committee intend to stop you and your agenda for our county. I have nothing more to say to you.”
And Mrs. Butler hung up.
I sat down with tears in my eyes for her daughters. What a shame we couldn’t have a responsible dialogue, I was thinking. She had brought up a number of points that many parents worry about—risque-looking clothes designed for nine-year-olds and younger; child molestation by the clergy; movies depicting sexual violence toward women. But we can’t deal with problems if we pretend they’re not there, as well as normal sexual feelings that arise naturally in adolescent youngsters. I wished Nicole could have gone through the sex education course I’d had in my church as a teenager, where I learned that sex and love and respect and responsibility go together, and I wondered how we could incorporate more of that in the course we give in the spring. Was I in this battle now, heart and soul? Absolutely.
Both Emma Butler and I appeared on the local news from time to time, and I was shocked one evening to see a brief ad for TTT, showing Emma Butler with her husband and both daughters by her side. “The abstinence-only philosophy works for us and our family, and I’ve never had to worry about my daughters,” she announced. The younger daughter looked beatifically up at her mother, but Nicole stared stonily at the camera as the letters TTT took over the screen.
* * *
The middle of November, with both Christmas and the abstinence-only decision hanging over me, Patrick excitedly announced at dinner that IBM was entering a partnership with Spain to provide more grants to Latin American countries to start business courses in schools. He would be actively involved in helping set up the program, and IBM wanted to send him to Barcelona.
“Patrick,” I said, my body frozen. “You’d be there for . . . ?”
“Two years! All of us! We’d all go!”
“What?”
“Think what a fantastic opportunity this would be for you and the kids. I’ve always wanted to take you there!”
“Dad! Wow!” Tyler cried excitedly, not waiting for my reaction. Even Patricia Marie, who I thought would never want to leave her friends, looked interested.
I couldn’t believe it! “Barcelona! Oh, Patrick! They’d take care of the move and everything?”
“Down to the last dresser drawer. All we’d have to do is give them the key and walk out. The kids would be in English-speaking classes, of course.”
“It’s . . . it’s wonderful!” I gasped.
“We’re going to Spain, we’re going to Spain!” Tyler said, his voice riding up and down.
“I can even speak a little Spanish,” Patricia said, repeating something she’d learned in Scouts: “¿Cómo está usted?”
“No comprendo,” Patrick said, and we laughed. He was still looking at me.
“My head’s spinning,” I said, and I had to admit that almost every day since the sex ed debate began this fall, I felt I would take the first plane leaving for almost anywhere, as long as I never had to put up with Emma Butler and TTT again. “Of course I want to do it! I’d love to live in Spain, Patrick! Especially Barcelona. How did you manage that?”
“They’re simply expanding their program and offering more grants. Of course, they think that partnering with Spain on this one would also increase their business. Actually, I’d be based in Barcelona, but also working in Madrid. I’d be with the family a lot more, though.”
“Let’s do it, Mom!” Patricia Marie said. “I could e-mail all my friends in Spanish.”
I looked at Patricia Marie and Tyler, then at Patrick. “When do they want us to go?”
Now Patrick looked a little sheepish. “As soon as we can get there. They thought maybe . . . over Christmas vacation.”
“Over Christmas! Patrick? That’s less than six weeks away—are they out of their minds?”
“No, but I think it’s time we did something fantastic and out of our minds, don’t you? They said they’d even provide a housekeeper.”
I thought of the job I’d be leaving behind—how lucky I’d been to get it. The big vote on the sex education course scheduled for the end of January. How could I walk out now? It would be like I couldn’t face it.
“Patrick, I—I can’t! I need to be here! I’ve worked so hard, given so much time to this.”
I could see the disappointment in his eyes, the children’s fallen faces.
“Aw, Mom!” said Patricia Marie.
“We never do anything fun,” Tyler said, and strangely, that made us all laugh because he says that five minutes after riding a roller coaster.
“I’ll tell you what,” I said, my brain on overdrive. “Let’s fly there right after Christmas and find a place to live, and you kids can stay there with your dad while I come back and finish out the school year.”
Patrick looked stunned. “Would that work?”
“If we get a good housekeeper who can run things when you aren’t there, Patrick. I think you guys can manage till I come in June.”
“Are you serious, Alice? Would you do that?”
“Why not? Let me be the one who travels back and forth. I can come in mid-February, I can come again over spring break, and I’ll ask for a leave of absence come summer because . . . we’re going to Barcelona!” I shouted out the last word, and the kids took up the chant.
Patrick was like a little boy himself. I was in the other room when he called work and told his boss we were going. All evening he seemed dazed—we all were—and kept grinning at me as we prepared for bed that night.
“That’s a solution I’d never thought of, and I’m not sure what I’m in for, taking on the kids by myself,” he said.
“They’re potty trained,” I joked. “They can dress themselves and comb their own hair. I’ll drop in now and then to see how you’re doing.”
“Come here,” said Patrick, pulling me over to his side of the bed. “I was worried you wouldn’t do this for me.”
“I’m doing it for us, Patrick,” I said. “I think it’s going to be great. I expect it to be great. I’m going to be a Spanish woman with a basket on my arm, doing the baking, and eating flan, and looking out over the sea.”
“And I’m going to be a very proud Spanish papa when I show you off to the locals,” he said, reaching over to turn out the light.
23
BARCELONA AND BACK
The years we spent in Barcelona were some of the best of our lives. I was truly away from home and family—my childhood home and family, I mean. Even when I was away at college, I was only a half hour from Dad. Now I was a world away.
The first six months, of course, I was still working, traveling back and forth at IBM’s expense. I was the one taking cabs to the airport—and even flying first-class. I was there over Christmas vacation to help choose the rental flat where we’d live and to approve the full-time housekeeper. I was there to meet Patrick’s associates, and best of all, I was there to announce the school board’s decision to reaffirm our sex ed course for the county. As a result, Emma Butler had appeared on local TV, declaring that she was enrolling her youngest daughter in a private school. She did not mention Nicole.
And the children will never forget the months alone with their dad in Spain.
“I was walking right where Columbus was when he got back from discovering America!” Tyler said over the phone.
“And Dad lets me walk to the panadería each morning to buy rolls for breakfast!” Patricia boasted.
Patrick bough
t a motor scooter and had taken each child on a sightseeing trip around the city. On the phone at night, they argued over who got to tell me about the spiral staircase and the building that looked all wavy and the huge Ferris wheel and roller coasters at Tibidabo.
I couldn’t wait till the semester was over, and the very next day I was on the plane to Barcelona, this time to stay out the remainder of the two years. The housekeeper greeted me with exclamations of either welcome or relief, but she was joyful, and so were Patrick and the children.
What happened was that we all grew closer—Patrick and Patricia and Tyler and I. Patrick loved his work, Patricia had a couple of Catalonian boys flirting with her, and Tyler blossomed into a lanky, self-confident kid who drew his own map of our new neighborhood, adding streets as he discovered them. Each day I could see his little world expanding there on paper. For my part, I recorded our adventures as a personal travelogue and enjoyed the family’s response when I read them aloud at night.
Patricia and I bought a traditional Spanish outfit for her—the embroidered skirt, fringed shawl, and lace mantilla to wear over her hair. I took her picture to enclose with our cards at Christmas, and we bought a toreador costume for Tyler. He consented to put it on but, in typical Tyler fashion, insisted on posing cross-legged, sitting in the grass beneath an actual cork tree, with a flower in his mouth, like Ferdinand, the peaceful bull—and what better message to send at Christmas time, anyway?
Because none of our close friends were here, Patrick and I relied more on each other, asking each other questions in Catalan, exploring together on weekends, eating paella, shopping for sangria pitchers or chocolates or fans for gifts. Our time there seemed more like an extended vacation. Patricia wanted to attend a Catalan school her second year, and she was so warmly received that it seemed the perfect thing to do—she could catch up if she fell behind once we got home. And it was wonderful when Les and Stacy came for Christmas.
The kids were at a birthday party one evening for one of their new friends, after which they were going to spend the night with one of Patrick’s coworkers who said he’d pick them up with his own kids. So Patrick and I walked La Rambla hand in hand, stopping to watch the mime artists, the musicians, and the street vendors who thronged the place. We talked about his work, and Patrick mentioned that one of the men told him that Helene had received an offer from AMOCO and was working for that company now in Dallas.
“That’s nice,” I said blandly. Then we looked at each other and laughed.
“I’m glad things turned out the way they did,” he said finally.
“So am I.”
His hand tightened on mine. “Were you ever tempted, Alice? Truthfully?”
I told him about Phil.
“You never mentioned him before,” he said.
“I thought you’d feel I was digging him up to throw in your face.”
Patrick thought that over. “You had every right . . .”
“I know.”
Patrick pulled me toward him sideways. “I would have been jealous as anything,” he said as we staggered along, lockstep.
“Good!” I told him.
“Beaten his brains out. Smashed him to a pulp.”
“Even better,” I said, and laughed.
“Did he ever . . . ever kiss you?” Patrick asked tentatively.
“On the forehead,” I said.
“That’s far enough,” he said, and we stopped right there on La Rambla and kissed under a Catalonian sky.
* * *
There was also romance in the air for Pamela, we heard, because she e-mailed that she was seeing a lot of a suave New Yorker named Nick who owned a men’s clothing store. She sent us photos of him, and Liz e-mailed that she had met him, and Pamela and Nick seemed to have a lot in common. This might be the one! she’d written.
The real surprise was that Gwen and Charlie were expecting.
Who does an ob-gyn ask to deliver her own babies? I wondered in an e-mail to Liz.
Someone she sees every day at the office? Liz e-mailed back. You think?
But there was sad news too. We received word that Uncle Milt had died. It wasn’t entirely unexpected, because he had a number of health problems. And not wanting to interrupt our trip to Madrid that Patrick and I had planned, Dad didn’t tell us until after the funeral.
I called Carol as soon as I could.
“I’m so terribly sorry,” I said. “I just found out.”
“I know. It was my decision that we shouldn’t call you, because I was afraid you’d zip right back. I had a lot of support from your dad and Sylvia and Larry and all my friends, Alice, and I think I was prepared for it, anyway.”
But I wasn’t. I must have felt that Uncle Milt, being older than Dad, was sort of insulation between my own father and death. That Dad couldn’t possibly die before Uncle Milt. And now Dad was next in line.
Carol and I talked as long as we dared, bringing each other up-to-date. While her husband was managing hotels, she had an executive position in a nursing association and loved it.
“Take care,” I told her as we signed off. “Be good to yourself now.”
“And you take care of your dad when you get back,” she told me. “We don’t realize how much we’ll miss them till they’re gone, Alice.”
Dad, however, seemed to be doing all right, and we settled back into our Spanish routines in the months we had left. What we did not expect at all was the death of Patrick’s mother, from an embolism in her lung following a hip replacement. We’d arranged to come back to the States two weeks earlier than we’d planned when we first found out she needed surgery, claiming our house once again in Chevy Chase. But her death took us all by surprise, and we didn’t know what would happen to Patrick’s father, whose Parkinson’s disease was getting worse.
This was so difficult for Patrick. It must be especially agonizing for an only child, I thought. I knew how hard it had been for Pamela dealing with her mom’s problems.
I don’t remember much about my own mother’s funeral, but helping plan Mrs. Long’s service with Patrick, watching him struggle with his grief, I had a vague sense of déjà vu.
It was the first funeral that Patricia and Tyler ever attended, and they were solemn throughout, their attention primarily on their dad. When the casket was lowered and Patrick wept, I saw Tyler swallowing and swallowing, and I squeezed his hand.
* * *
Just coming back to the States was, in itself, a shock I hadn’t expected, and the funeral came only a few days before Christmas. There were many more decisions to be made, more choices to be had. I just wanted time to stand still for a while and let me get my bearings. And driving to Baltimore to see Gwen and Charlie’s new baby boy was just what I needed.
Gwen had e-mailed me a few pictures of him at six weeks old, and he had his mom’s dimples. His huge brown eyes took over his whole face.
“He’s simply adorable, Gwen. I’d want to hold him twenty-four/seven,” I told her, cuddling the chubby little cherub in my arms.
“That’s my problem. I want to play with him forever. Liz and Moe came to visit last week, and their little girls could hardly keep their hands off him. How are you doing, other than the funeral?”
“We’re all going a little bit nuts,” I told her. “Patricia’s starting high school next fall, and she didn’t do nearly as well as she thought in Spain, so she’ll have to go to summer school to catch up. She’s pretty upset about that.”
“Wow. I should think so,” Gwen said. “She’ll catch up in a hurry, but try telling that to a teenager.”
“Meanwhile, Tyler will be starting middle school next year, and that’s a trial for every kid, no matter what. And everything’s changed in my department. I’m going to be supervising counselors who are used to doing things their own way now. I won’t even know some of the new ones at all.”
“Alice,” Gwen said, “trust me. It could be so much worse for both of us. I had a patient just last week who had her third miscarriage.
. . .”
I was instantly humbled. “You’re right, you’re right,” I said.
“I’m not trying to belittle your problems, but . . . well, I can think of a dozen women who would kill to have spent two years in Barcelona.”
I needed that, and I was determined to be more positive about things. Patrick was worried enough about his dad. He had asked for less travel in case he was needed at home, which meant that many of his coworkers got the work he loved to do while he was stuck with paperwork. And finally one night he said the words I’d been dreading to hear: “Al, do you think it would upset the family too much if Dad moved in with us?”
When I didn’t answer right away—because the truthful reply would have been, Yes, of course it would!—Patrick answered for me: “I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this. But he doesn’t want to live on an assisted-living floor of some retirement complex, and who knows how much time he has left?”
I sat down across from Patrick, and we just looked at each other for some time.
“If it were my dad, I know I’d bring him here,” I said, “but I won’t pretend it’s going to be easy.”
“I know.”
“And everyone’s going to have to cooperate and share the work.”
“I know that, too. You can count on my help most of all,” Patrick said.
So we converted our family room into a bedroom, installed a hospital bed for Dad Long, and had a nursing attendant come in during the day to take care of him until Patrick or I got home at night. But it was the simple fact of having his dad in our house that unnerved us all. Patrick relieved his own stress by jogging, and it seemed to suit Tyler’s tall frame as well. He began going along with his dad, and finally it was a weekly occurrence, sometimes even more often, and it was great to see them have their own thing together.
Patricia and I were having a harder time of it, and somehow having Dad Long living with us led to our worst battles. Most of the time, unlike many teenagers, Patricia wore her heart on her sleeve. We didn’t have to ask what she was thinking or feeling. She would stand behind me at the sink and give me a hug as readily as she would drop her schoolbooks on the floor and bellow, “I hate life!” She could be sunny one minute, grabbing her father and dancing around the living room to her favorite song, and five minutes later be fighting heatedly with Tyler over whose turn it was to empty the dishwasher. But it was Dad Long who upset her the most.
Now I'll Tell You Everything (Alice) Page 31