“No idea,” said Jon. “He had pay coming, but Glen never got a call. I brought Chana home to live with me. Glen was on point to shoot him.”
“I thought she came to live with you because of Glen,” I said.
“Not really,” said Jon.
“Glen didn’t want the responsibility,” said Victor. “Or us on his doorstep.”
“True,” said Jon.
Jon reached for Chance to put him in his basket. I hung on tight and turned away to shield him from this new father.
“What?” asked Jon.
“I feel like I just woke up in an episode of The Sopranos,” I said.
“I’ve got to go,” said Victor. “I’ve got a hula Barbie cake in the oven for the party tomorrow.”
“What’s a hula Barbie cake?” I asked.
“Stick Barbie in the middle, the cake is her skirt,” he said.
I envisioned Victor with his warrior cuff tattoos, ponytail and sushi chef headband, decorating a Barbie doll with a hula skirt cake. I wondered what he would do about her nippleless jugs.
“You going to use chocolate chips for a coconut shell bra?” I asked.
“Kaia got a bathing suit top,” he said. “She thinks some of the mothers would think the chips look too much like nipples.”
“You better wean her off the Barbie thing. She’s a dangerous role model,” I said. “Girls are growing up hating their nipples.”
“Yeah. Well. I step on one more Barbie pump in the middle of the night, and we’ll have a Barbie bonfire,” he said.
He smiled. My mouth might have dropped open. He put his empty bottle in the kitchen and left. Jon looked innocent. He reached his arms out again for Chance and I handed him over. They gazed at each other.
“I have to say, Jon. Hearing all that.”
He looked up at me while he tucked Chance in his basket.
“What? You’re not going to date me because I painted some guy and had a bonfire? My fraternity did worse things”
“You were in a fraternity?”
“You weren’t in a sorority?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Let’s take a shower,” he said. “I need to wash off this night.”
We got in the outdoor shower and gave each other a thorough soaping over. He lingered on my breasts and I let him. I was in the shower with a frat boy/mafia guy. I’d ended up marrying what I’d been looking for all along, a bad boy my mother would approve of.
“How come I didn’t know you were in a fraternity?”
“I guess it never came up. Mike was in it too.”
“Does it matter that I wasn’t in a sorority?”
“If it mattered, I would know it.”
“Then I guess it doesn’t matter that you were in a fraternity.”
He was shaking his head and smiling while he watched his hands doing what they were doing.
“I feel so trampy saying this, but I think I’ll let you get to third base.”
“You can’t be a tramp with me, you’re my wife.”
He slid his soapy hand to third base, he knew his way around my bases. I was in full moan. No nerve damage after all. I slid my hand to his third base. Or in his case, took the bat in my hand. I know, I know. Really stupid. I started laughing into his mouth.
“What?” he asked.
I whispered in his ear, “You want to try for a home run?”
I thought he’d start laughing, he didn’t. He was all business, and he was not going to be distracted thinking about baseball. He moved my hand away and continued to go after me.
“Smack me in the head if it hurts,” he said.
There was no head smacking. When it was over he was holding me up against the shower wall like a sock monkey.
“What about you?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” he said.
We got in bed and he found both my hands, intertwined our fingers and then kissed each one.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Fine. Just tired.”
“We need to talk to Meggie about inappropriate touching, how to stay safe,” I said. “She didn’t know to tell us.”
“I can’t believe she didn’t know to tell us someone hit her,” he said. “That’s pretty clear.”
“She told her she’s a bad girl. She made it her problem. Our baby didn’t want us to know she’d been bad.”
He was quiet. His jaw was working.
“A predator waiter would be even worse,” I said. “It’s less clear than being hit.”
I wrapped my arms around him.
“I hate this part,” he said.
“I know. I’ll ask Jane the best approach.”
∞
The whole family slept late. Meli talking to her cousin, Wiki, awakened us as they walked up the driveway. Kaia sent Wiki along to help with Meggie. Jon let them in while I got dressed.
Meli was making coffee and starting breakfast for everyone while Jon laid out Meggie’s schedule: the birthday party, the no closer to the water than a rogue wave might come and grab her rule. Meaning halfway between the house and high tide, and he meant extreme high tide.
Jon took a call from the Health Department. He was going by to file a report on the way to work. Chance squawked good morning from the bedroom. Jon followed me in and closed the door behind us.
“I’ll take care of it,” he said. “You just rest today. Meli is going to take Chance to the party.”
“Don’t get too upset today. She’s just a teenager. Someone probably hit her.”
He kissed me like he was imprinting on me.
“You’re too nice,” he said. “I would really miss last night. I didn’t want to say it and pressure you. I’m glad it still works.”
“I was so worried. I thought I’d have to divorce you, or let you have affairs.”
“We’re not taking either of those roads. No matter what happens.”
“I want you to be happy too,” I said. “I like making you happy.”
“I will be.”
The door hit him in the butt.
“Papa?” Meggie had her put upon voice in full tune.
He smiled at me, scooped her up and nuzzled her ear. Everyone had breakfast and scattered to work and play.
∞
Jimmy arrived and set up a portable massage table. I told him about Meggie and Chana while he removed needles.
“I like how Jon works,” he said.
“Painting him?”
“Sounds like Burning Man. Is there pie?”
“Yes. How do you know about Burning Man?”
“We worked it a few years. Keith handled the people who didn’t have a high tolerance for ambiguity. I handled the people who got caught in sand storms and were too stoned to close their mouth.”
“It sounds fun.”
“It’s like dropping acid at a Fellini movie.”
“I haven’t tried that.”
“You lived a Fellini movie,” he said.
“I said some crazy stuff, didn’t I? The whole bullfrog thing and carbon based eyeballs.”
“It wasn’t crazy. It was entertaining.”
“What do patients usually talk about?”
“Their pain.”
We were eating pie when Meli and Wiki brought the kids out dressed in party clothes. Everyone left and quiet descended.
TWELVE
We spent a week developing a new pattern. Meli and Wiki showed up first thing and took over the kids. Jon was gone for a few days to visit the restaurants on the other islands. When he was home, he worked, then came home and took me in the water. I went on long walks and got stronger. Every other night he went back for the dinner shift. The other nights we read and enjoyed the kids. Jimmy came in the mornings and stuck needles in me and probed my finger. Meggie got in bed with us every morning. She talked and we listened. We managed to slip in the conversation about what kind of touching is okay. Who to tell. That we love her. I think we did a good job.
The handprint disa
ppeared, and with full days to practice she was turning trike pro. Jon was in touch with the Health Department but things moved slowly. Sandy had been fired and the school counseling office had been notified. Her mother died the year before and she’d come over from Oahu to live with her father. I hoped he didn’t hit her when she got fired.
Family life hit a normal rhythm except that we didn’t make love. Jon made overtures to take care of me, but it was clear he didn’t want me to reciprocate. After a few nights I said I was tired, or pretended to be asleep.
∞
Jane called for her weekly update.
“How’s it with Jon?” she asked.
“We talked. He felt separate when I was missing, not now. I remembered the whole story, I thought about them the whole time. I don’t think I was as separate as I thought.”
“No,” she said.
“I’m ready for the surgery. It depends on the surgeon’s schedule now. Jon wants me to travel with Ed and Nancy when they go home.”
“You’ll have help the first time you go out there.”
“I don’t need help traveling.”
“It might feel different this time,” she said. “So it’s working with Jon?”
“It’s working, I guess. It’s like we appreciate each other more. We both seem more present, if that makes any sense.”
“It makes perfect sense,” she said. “What’s the guess?”
“The guess?”
She didn’t bother to respond.
“He doesn’t want to make love with me,” I said.
“Ah.”
“He must be so turned off by me,” I said. “He’s trying to be nice, take care of me. But when I try to do it for him he says he’s okay. He has never turned me down. Sex was our glue. It feels like a part of our conversation has ended.”
“Have you asked him about it?”
“He says he’s fine. That we’ll never get a divorce or have affairs to solve our problems.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“I can’t imagine having an affair. I wouldn’t blame him if he did. Maybe he already is.”
“Did he have an affair in his first marriage?”
“They both did. He says they shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place.”
“What do you think about not getting a divorce, no matter what?” she asked.
“We can’t live like this. When he won’t let me touch him, it feels so lonesome.”
She was quiet.
“The whole thing seems so stupid. Celeste and her stepmother bullshit seem so minor compared to where we are now. I don’t know why I was so upset. A lot of cultures welcome more love for their children.”
“Even in other cultures, people don’t just decide to be extended family,“ she said. “Has that been resolved?”
“The working part has.”
We talked for a while longer. She gave me a pep talk about what a good foundation Jon and I had. Everybody struggles with something, every day. Give it time. I was reviewing our conversation in my mind when Mom called.
“How are you, Sweetie?” she asked. “We get Jon’s updates. I know he doesn’t want you tired out with phone calls, but I just wanted to hear your voice.”
“I’m better every day. Ed and Nancy are on their way here today. I may go back with them.”
“I can’t wait to see you. Has your hair grown out?”
“It’s hair, Mom. It’s growing.”
“I know. Aunt Judith says you can stay with them if it doesn’t work out at Eric’s.”
“Why wouldn’t it work out at Eric’s?”
“She just offered.”
“I’d rather sleep in the park.”
“You can be so tough, Hannah.
“How’s Arthur? Locked and loaded with Viagra?”
“Oh, Hannah. It really isn’t funny.”
“It kinda is, Mom. You didn’t get laid for twenty years and now you can’t turn off the spigot. I think that’s called be careful what you wish for.”
“There were a few men.”
“Really? When I was still home? Or after?”
“Both.”
“I don’t remember any men.”
“They were mostly married.”
“Oh god. Of course they were. Did you sleep with the fathers of any of my friends?”
“Only once. I think. I was drinking then.”
“How well I know. Are you going to tell me which one?”
“No.”
“Okay. Who else?”
“Well, David.”
“Well David who?”
“Uncle David.”
“You slept with your sister’s husband?”
“Oh, Hannah. They weren’t married then.”
“After they were divorced?”
“Before and after.”
“But not while they were married?”
“Of course not. What a thing to say.”
“You’re the one who was sleeping with married men. Why stop at David?”
“Oh, Hannah. I wouldn’t do that to my sister.”
“Still. That’s a little funky, don’t you think?”
“She never knew. Anyway, she said he was gay.”
“And you were sleeping with him?”
“He isn’t. He said she wasn’t interested in sex.”
“Well, I can see how that could cause some confusion in a marriage. Why didn’t he marry you?”
“He didn’t like my drinking.”
“He didn’t mind it that much.”
“Oh, Hannah,” she said. “Anyway, he has children now. He still looks really good.”
“You’re in touch with him?”
“We have lunch a couple of times a year.”
“Does Arthur know?”
“He knows I had a fling with him.”
“Flings is more accurate. But not about the lunches?”
“It’s not like that once-a-year movie. Nothing happens. We’re friends. We used to be family.”
“It’s Same Time, Next Year. I think we can skip the family reunion riff. So why the secrecy? Does his wife know?”
“No. Anyway, it just started out that way and now it seems awkward to bring it up.”
“It sounds kind of fishy, and not very AA.”
“What’s AA got to do with it? We just have lunch. Jon and Celeste sound fishy to me.”
“They don’t have lunch together,” I said.
“How do you know?”
“I just do. It’s not easy for me having her in the background.”
“Well, you weren’t the other woman.”
“Were you the other woman?”
“I never wrecked a home, if that’s what you mean. I need to run. I’m meeting Arthur for lunch”
“Did you ever meet the other woman?”
“We’re going to that little place on Cedros with the great soup and sandwich combo.”
“Mom.”
“No, Hannah. I never met her.”
We said good-bye so she could hide out in a soup and sandwich combo. I felt like sleeping for three days. I was dying to talk to Eric. See if he’d known all along that she was sleeping with the married men in town. With Uncle David and his all-American boy smile and tan face. In retrospect, he was Adonis-like. Mom. So they had competed. I’d just been shooting my mouth off when I said that to Judith. She probably married David to punish them both. She’d never seen Chance rain on his own sunny day.
I called Eric but it went to voicemail. I told him to call me stat. Conversations with my mother were like eating a candy bar in the check out line. Anticipation of something good followed by disappointment over the lousy quality. Usually with a certain amount of cranky sugar rush thrown in. I collapsed into a too-much-information coma.
∞
Jon was sound asleep next to me a few hours later. Poor guy, he looked exhausted. I watched him sleep until he came to. I related the conversation with my mother. He was lying on his back, laughing so har
d tears filled his ears. He barked when I got to the part about it not being very AA.
“There must be something in AA that covers sneaking around behind your husband’s back with an old lover,” he said. “Even if he was family.”
“I don’t want to hear any hillbilly comments,” I said. “She said you and Celeste probably have lunch.”
“She would,” he said. “I’m not that big an asshole.”
He looked at me like the big brat he could be. Uh oh.
“Maybe the kids can invite David and his family to their wedding.”
“You’re a trouble maker,” I said.
“And Jackie’s not? What a thing to lay on you now. You almost dying stole her limelight.”
“She’s just being Jackie.”
“My point. I like the invitation idea. Did he know Adam when he was growing up?”
“When he was a baby. I haven’t talked to Eric yet. For all I know they still swap Christmas cards.”
“I’m going to talk to Chana,” he said.
“Don’t you dare. Think about Arthur. He’ll be so hurt. This thing could blow up.”
“Okay. We’ll see what Eric and Anna know first.”
“Oh brother. I’m sorry I told you.”
“Ed called,” he said. “They’re in. We’ll see them tomorrow.”
Jon answered a call from work and his voice made the whole bed vibrate. I longed to be back together with him. He hung up and looked over at me.
“I love your voice,” I said.
He smiled. I slid my hand down his belly. He stopped it and smiled back.
“You need to get in the water,” he said.
“I can skip it,” I said.
“You shouldn’t. You need to keep at it.”
“It was just a thought,” I said.
“It was a nice one,” he said. “Let’s go.”
We had a swim and then a family dinner around the kitchen table. Meggie was branching out into chicken and carrots drowning in soy sauce. We got them to bed and reconvened on the lanai. I called Eric.
“Hey, what’s up?” he asked. “I was just going to call.”
“I’ll be coming over in a few weeks to have the surgery.”
“Mom told Anna you might stay with Asp. She drinking again?”
“Arthur must have finally boinked her brains loose. When did Anna talk to Mom?”
Mary Ellen Courtney - Hannah Spring 02 - Spring Moon Page 22