I was inconsolable, chewing on the ends of my braids and crying into the cracks between the piano keys, when I should have been practicing the malaguena for Sister Loretto’s recital. My mother shushed me, and, once again, I felt the gloom take over. I pouted.
“Don’t pout,” my mother said. “Your face will freeze that way.”
“It wouldn’t freeze if I was in Florida.”
“Don’t talk back to your mother,” my father said. He snapped his Chicago Daily News open, hiding behind those pages as big as a tent, and took another sip of his martini.
We rarely missed a year at the cottage. We went back almost every winter until I was grown and out of college, and then we took our own kids down there. It was magic, day and night, winter after winter, and into March for St. Patrick’s Day and dad’s birthday. We jumped in the fierce winter waves and rolled in the sand until we were sugar cookies. We grew up on that beach, in the sun and under the moon, and the party went on and on. Until it stopped.
Now, that time is gone, but still, I hold on to it. It’s there when I smell musty logs and the sea, or when I hear a seagull. I go back there instantly from wherever I am. It will always be there, the cottage that held us together in one laughing bunch with the waves rolling onto the white beach—as long as there is memory, no matter what.
We drove out to the cottage many times. In the ’50s, we clattered over the wooden drawbridge, which made a frightening sound as the boards rose up under the weight of the wheels. We watched the eagles swoop out of the tall narrow pines on the causeway between the mainland and the island.
Burning pitch wafted from the fireplaces in the new neighborhoods—Key Royale, Sand Dollar Lane, Coquina Corners. The salty air was crisp in the winter, and even on cold sunny days, we went swimming and jumped in the high waves and walked on the beach.
My grandfather and I “stepped out” together to the Cortez fishing village, where he bought me a Chinese hat, and we watched the fishermen unload grouper and red snapper from their day’s catch. Grandma and I baked cakes and made donuts. I wrote long letters to Lucy that consisted of wavy lines. My grandmother sent them anyway. I ran around and pressed gardenias to the dog’s wet nose, thinking he would love the flowers, too, but he sneezed and ran off in circles. It was heaven.
My mother said, “I definitely left you down there too long.”
10
JUST GO ALREADY
One blurry day, well before my mother’s death, I had decided to move to Florida. That day had begun like any other abnormal day. I was going to interview a Buddhist priest for the newspaper. I hoped to get some tips about living the calm, unobstructed life as my marriage crumbled into a heap of dust. I didn’t think I’d have any luck, but I was going to try. I was planning to get the secret of life and the story written by 8:00 p.m.
The kids and I were still in our big old house with the divorce close at hand. Sometimes they spent the night at their father’s temporary digs, an apartment over a paint store in Lansing. This was before he moved in with The Mop. He was going through some strange creative phase, making furniture out of plywood and PVC pipe. Tick said his table wobbled and fell down. He was planning a spring wedding, and I told him the kids couldn’t go. The ink wouldn’t even be dry on the divorce papers.
I took a trip to the garbage cans, dumped the trash, and lugged the cans out to the back curb. At that moment, my next-door neighbor hobbled out of her front door. She shuffled, but at a fast pace that I knew would allow her to catch up to me. I was about to be ensnared in one of her question and answer sessions, but I would be forceful. I had many tasks on my to-do list.
“Hellllooooo, I didn’t know you and the mister had patched things up. I see him come and go, and I hear him playing that pi-anny so loud, right-cheer in the middle of the day,” said Mrs. Krantz. “Such a lucky thing for you, you poor dear thing, with those children and all.”
“Oh, OK, thanks, Mrs. Krantz,” I said, teeth set on edge. I shook the garbage cans fiercely and retreated.
I fumed. I could not even look him in the face. Now he’s sneaking in to play the pi-anny. In my house. Which he left.
I slammed the door behind me and mulled this one over in my usual spot at the kitchen sink, finishing the dregs of old coffee and looking out at the garden that didn’t grow. My neighbor was the local gossip to end all, and she pumped me at every opportunity for details of my disastrous decline into singlehood. The talk of the neighborhood, she called it, with the Ex carrying on with the other woman just down the street and all. I did not like being the Talk of the Neighborhood, but the good part was that it felt less and less like a disaster. I was glad he was gone.
But he is still coming back, I thought, as I pushed off the sink. When I’m at a town hall meeting, or running after a feature story, or visiting my parents, he is here, in my house.
I went to my comfortable, old butcher-block countertop and began slamming, chopping, and beating the components of a tuna casserole into a combination of ingredients that ended up more like tuna soup. I was spending far too much time in the slamming and beating stage of life. But I admired Mrs. Krantz for one thing: She was a pretty good reporter of everyone’s comings and goings. Come to think of it, I had seen his unmistakable markings, like a cockroach leaves his trail. The bathroom rug was moved to the front of my toilet, a comfortable arrangement he enjoyed for hours on end upon the throne. I thought Tick had picked up the habit. But it wasn’t Tick. It seemed the Ex continued the dumping even when he moved out, leaving a coffee cup and the daily newspaper ragged and defiled on the bathroom floor.
Later that same day—with the interview completed and a new lease on life—temporary though it was—I stared out the kitchen window, contemplating my two matching, lovely Japanese maples, when a very loud voice boomed from the front yard and through the house.
“ATSAPEPPER ATTABOY ATTAWAYTOGO.”
I walked across the kitchen and down the hall, annoyed at myself for tiptoeing through the rooms of my own house. I peeked out the front window.
There he stood, feet planted like a general, so that all the neighbors could see and hear what a good dad he was. He was playing catch with Tick. I should have been pleased that he tossed the ball around with our son, when a lot of dads didn’t bother, but I couldn’t stand the sight of him since he’d moved out, and had at last taken up with the quiet, venomous Babsy—the name stuck in my teeth like old meat. That simpering adoring hypocrite, the one who taught Sunday school, all the while she was screwing my then-husband. That was some feat, since he claimed he was only fixing her tire.
The Ex showed up nearly every afternoon, and his baseball talk and his bravado woke up the squirrels, scared the dogs and cats, and thoroughly pissed me off. Today, he wore a new pinstripe suit, gold-stripe tie loosened. He bent over and wound up for a pitch, making a show of it, with his wing tips dug in the grass next to the For-Sale sign that stuck like a dagger into my yard. I still hated seeing that realty sign and knowing I would have to give up my house with its lovely, large rooms, parquet floor and winding staircase, and the wallpaper it took me weeks to pick out—an enormous blue and red Victorian trellis design on cream. But, the house would eventually have to go, and so did I. As I looked out at the Ex, I knew that sooner would be better than later. His shouts of encouragement, all the fake cheers, hurling the fact before the neighbors’ ears, that dad was home, when, in fact, he was not, wore on me until I went to the back of the house and stayed in the kitchen, which, for all the irony, I realized that is exactly where he always preferred me to be.
I took the tuna casserole out of the oven carefully, set the bubbling concoction on the stovetop, and screamed.
I hadn’t spoken to the Ex since his lawyer, who had trouble fitting into the leather armchair at his grand conference table, sat the two of us down during the divorce proceedings and said to me, “Before things get too far out of hand,” it was up to me—as the “defendant” in the case—to rethink the topic of “maintenance”
(like I was a car), and that I was asking too much of his client. And further, that I wasn’t even entitled to any such support in the state of Indiana (or Texas, for that matter, the attorney added, somewhat unnecessarily). I should “be less negative about the whole thing anyway, and look for a real job,” he said. “Get out there and earn a good buck.”
I wanted to punch him in the face. The meeting ended when I got up and tipped the chair over, tangling my purse and tripping over myself.
“Why are you causing all this trouble?” the soon-to-be Ex said, half rising out of his chair. He put one hand out, then slapped it on the table. His face grew white and hard. For a second, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and I was unsure whether he was going to help me or kick me out the door, but such is the confusion of divorce proceedings. It’s all about getting out the door. And I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
We somehow settled the whole mess, but the Ex was still making himself at home in the front yard, every evening, just about dinnertime—and apparently, as my neighbor told me, at other times as well.
At six, with the tuna casserole still quaking from my screams, I opened the front door, and called, “Dinner’s ready, Tick. Come and eat.”
But the words froze in little shapeless forms and shattered when the Ex swung the mitt over his shoulder, grabbed his baseball buddy by the shoulder and said, “Naw, we’re going for cookies and cream at Sloop’s. Right, Pup?”
Tick shifted from one foot to the other and didn’t look at me. He was almost as tall as his father, and he was growing up alarmingly fast, I realized suddenly, with a wiry strength that set him off as a fine athlete. He loved to play ball, and I was loathe to take the moment away from him. Still, he had to eat, and not ice cream. I stood my ground.
“Gotta go, Dad,” Tick said, after taking a quick check of both parents who hadn’t moved a hair in a full minute. “See ya.” Tick bounded across the lawn and grinned at me as he flew toward the kitchen.
I glared at the pin-stripe body. It wasn’t the first time he’d pulled this one, but I swore it would be the last.
The plan to move to Florida began to form. The idea hung around like an ever-shifting cloud, until the land of liquid sunshine seemed more appealing than ever.
After the papers were signed and the divorce was final, I had the foresight to tell my lawyer I needed to relocate.
“Do you have a job down there?” my attorney asked, in one $75, fifteen-minute phone call. “You should have some good reason to go down there.”
He made down there sound like hell. I pointed out that up here was hell.
“How about, I’m going to go insane if I stay up here much longer and I may kill my Ex who lives in the same neighborhood with that phony witch and comes and goes with or without the kids anytime he pleases. I’m not free up here. I’m not divorced up here.”
“Those are not very good reasons,” he said. “Let’s be serious. You are divorced.”
Getting serious with my lawyer meant paying him more money. He talked of settling and not causing hassles, and he cautioned me about the hurdles of court costs and decision-making. I would be better off to agree to the Ex’s demands and be done with it, he said. Of course, he always managed to point this out in billable increments—phone calls and meetings at $300 an hour. He told me during one perturbing $650 session that he was “worth it.” As for leaving town, he said, I had to petition the court and notify the Ex that my intention was to move the kids more than fifty miles away (and to earn a “good buck”), however temporary or permanent the move might be.
“Go ahead. Do it,” I said.
“That will be approximately $750, with court costs,” he said.
“All right. I don’t have much choice.”
“You’ll need to wait about six weeks for the paper work and the response, and if he objects there will be further recourse.”
“ALL RIGHT.”
The papers were prepared and delivered expediently. An answer never came from the Ex, not in a month, six weeks, or ever. When it was finally time to go some harrowing months later, I packed with a fury and looked forward to a new start in Florida. For all of us.
11
LEAVING THE DAMN KNOT BEHIND
Soon after Dad’s decision to go to Florida, the dollhouse went up for sale, and we promptly had an offer. Every day was a step closer to getting out of there. We’d pretty much cleaned out the place—with Dad’s blessing and moderate kibitzing.
Finally, the day of departure arrived, and I hired a limousine to take us to the airport. Dad climbed into the back and promptly banged his cane up and down. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,” he said. He hated to be late for a flight, but we were four hours from takeoff. It was only a one-hour ride to the airport.
Tick was in the front seat with the driver, Tony, and Little Sunshine lounged in the middle seat, taking up enough room for four adults. They said their goodbyes and began waving. Jack, Julia, and Lucy stood in the driveway with their arms crossed and lips clamped. Julia was crying.
“Why does it have to be like this?” I said. I stood next to the car, the last to leave, hoping for a last-minute happy farewell.
I got no answer, except for a shifting of feet and a lot of sighing. I had an awful feeling—that damn knot—in the pit of my stomach. I wanted to leave it in the driveway of the condo, because I was sick of carrying it around with me.
“Wish us luck?” I said, opening my arms for a hug. But none was forthcoming, and I didn’t wait around for further rejection. I scooted in beside Dad.
“Bye,” I said.
I looked back, but they didn’t even wait until we turned the corner. They were gone. The knot was gone, too.
I opened a split of champagne for me and Dad, which was a bad idea. It gave me a headache, and Dad was incontinent. I hadn’t thought of that. He was wearing diapers, but he still found ways to leak around them and get “damp pants,” as he called them. He didn’t complain, so I hoped he would be comfortable. We had a long day ahead.
Tick and Tony the Driver seemed far away from where I sat. Tick was enthralled with the workings of the limousine. Tony regaled Tick with stories about his adventures with Chicago’s rock bands.
“I picked up the Rotten Turnips early that summer and drove them around Chicago to their gigs, and they trashed my limo.” I closed my ear to the details, but Tick was glued to the drama.
“I’ll bet we’re a real relief after all that,” said Tick.
“Oh, yous guys are golden. Golden, I tell ya,” said Tony. “I’d rather have a hunnert of yous from here to the Yukon and back, than take those jackrabbits and all dem speakers and pear-fer-nalia around the corner.”
I drank a second split, hoping it would drown the headache. Dad held on tight to the door handle and stared ahead. He’d been anxious to get on the road, and now that he was actually going, it made him even more anxious to be driven, flown, or shipped anywhere. He hadn’t said a word since leaving the dollhouse. His last home, and the last place he saw his wife. What must he be thinking? He’d had the first stroke almost eight years earlier, and since then, the decline was obvious. Before the stroke, he was a man firmly in control. After, he was skittish about losing control. He didn’t trust the world to go on by itself. Something would come crashing down, as he knew it would. The stroke happened in seconds, without warning, and he was changed forever. My mother lamented that sort of death in my Dad until the day she died.
I dozed off and on until we arrived at the airport. My daughter played with the knobs on the television, but gave up because it didn’t seem to work. She started teasing her grandfather. She wasn’t getting anywhere with that either, so she took a different tack.
“Sunshine, what’s wrong?” she said.
“Oh, nothing,” Dad said. “Really.”
“You know, it’s a miracle that your brain works.” I opened one eye and was about to correct her for being a smart aleck, but I was slow. I saw the look of concern on
her face.
“You had such a horrible stroke,” she said. “But don’t you worry about a thing. You just keep on being your little sunshine self.”
Still holding tightly to the door handle, he leaned forward and chuckled, and with that, the anxiety of leaving was broken. He looked at Little Sunshine. “I’ll try. I have good days.”
“That awful stroke,” she said. “What does it feel like?”
“Like you’re not there at all. Floating somewhere,” he said. “Then the doctor comes and he doesn’t help much. They don’t know a lot about the brain.”
“But what does it really feel like? Does it hurt?”
“Well, yes, but I don’t remember too well. You get a headache, and it’s messy. I threw up all the time. It’s not nice.”
“I throw up, too.”
“Well, don’t do it now!” He tapped his cane up and down, and Little Sunshine laughed.
“Oh, I’ll give you warning,” she said.
I grimaced. I knew it wouldn’t be much.
“When you were in the hospital, did you get ice cream?” she said.
“Why?”
“My friend Ally told me that people in the hospital get ice cream all the time.”
“What kind?”
“I don’t know. But you have to get something good out of all that bad stuff that happens to you.”
“Yes, you do,” he said. “I have you.”
“Oh, Sunshine,” she said.
I sat up and looked at the two of them. She wiggled in between us, and Dad relaxed. We were almost to the airport, and it looked like we were off to a fine start.
My dad enjoyed the bustle at the airport and the skycaps fussing over him, tipping their hats and moving him around gingerly and expertly. It always appeared to me that they liked their job, with the jokes and camaraderie that went on and on, and Dad acted like he was one of the guys. They produced the wheelchair crisply, tagged the luggage, and whisked it away, even before I realized the tickets were in the big blue bag on the cart.
The Last Cadillac Page 7