They had stayed in a Best Western the previous night and now had a four-hundred-mile trip back to Rhome. Martin turned on the engine, then turned to Joan. “I didn’t expect to feel like this.” When she looked at her husband, his cheeks were wet, tears falling from his eyes. She leaned over and kissed him and said, “I know.”
Martin reversed out of the parking space, put the car into drive, and slowly headed toward the gates that led beyond the campus, into the busy streets of Philadelphia.
At the first red light, both Joan and Martin looked back, one last glimpse at where their eldest son would be living for the next year.
When the light turned, Martin accelerated and Eric said, “So this is what I want to tell you guys. I’m not going back to school.”
20
The computer camp PhDs had attested to Eric’s skills: an extraordinary anomaly; unlimited gifts; a certifiable genius with a rare talent; his computer program revolutionary. Traditional schooling, they said, would do nothing for him.
“I told you,” Eric said.
“Absolutely not,” Joan said. “No way are you dropping out of school at thirteen.”
Over her protests, Martin reached out to additional experts who reviewed the developmental program Eric had designed at camp.
“I don’t know many kids interested in overhauling an industry, most of them just want to design games or apps,” an MIT professor named Marecks said. Levinol, the chair of the graduate computer science program at Harvard, said, “It will make him a fortune. If he were my kid, and God I wish he was, I’d let him go his own way. Screw school. It’s not the place for him. Let him do what he’s doing. Won’t cost you a thing to have him working at home. Maybe a couple more computers, but that’s no big deal. There’s a tangible, realistic company to be built on this program, he’s found a niche no one else has yet. Its uses are potentially limitless.”
And just like that Eric’s formal schooling ended. Their original small house had become a fraternity for those ghostly boys; the new house was headquarters for a whole different crew—three, five, then ten boys, all eighteen years old, followed Eric from computer camp to Rhome, as if he were the Pied Piper. They had no place to stay, no money with which to find a place to stay; like Eric, their minds were filled up with ones and zeroes. They were cockroaches or termites, Joan thought, the way they spread themselves over the thousands of new square feet, using Eric’s room, Daniel’s, the study, the den, the library, chargers plugged into every outlet, the dining-room table stacked with dozens of computers. Cords slinking through every room had to be avoided.
Daniel was speechless when Martin told him what Eric was doing, what he was being allowed to do.
“I don’t know what to say,” he said, and hung up.
Joan did not know what to say either, and Martin was encouraging the Pied Piper’s people to stay, making trips to the supermarket to keep the fridge stocked, to keep them fed while they worked, but Joan refused to give up on reversing this course, she had not yet conceded defeat in this war she and Martin were having. They debated on long-distance phone calls when he was away on his surgical trips, Joan far out on their land, cell phone hard to her head. When Martin was home, they could not have such strident conversations anywhere in the house. Despite the frenetic activity, Eric’s immersion in his plans and his deadlines, he was alert to danger, to any discussion that might forcibly stop him in his tracks. When they returned from a dinner out, he could read on their faces what they had talked about. He knew Martin was his champion, and that Joan was not.
For a while, she wondered if she would champion Daniel, if he were the head of this enterprise taking shape. But what did the answer matter, he wasn’t.
An incontrovertible fact was the relentless work ethic Eric was demonstrating, never before given to anything other than building forts in the sandbox, or LEGO structures in his room, or playing on Martin’s office computer, and then the one they had given him. An asinine present for being declared gifted. They had been idiots caving into that early desire. That computer turning Eric’s head so completely, resulting in computer camp, giving rise to this program of his that seemed like the Second Coming. When Joan asked Eric to explain it, he said, “With this program, I’m going to solve the problems hotels have, Mom,” and let fly a complicated explication of logarithms and so many other things Joan did not understand at all, including his interest in hotel administration. What she did understand was that the computer, the computer camp, and Eric’s incomprehensible program were responsible for the dormitory they were now running, for the fear she knew she was right to feel, and that what she had planned for herself would be delayed.
Was she being selfish, self-centered, as that fortune-teller had said when reading one line of Joan’s palm? Well, she had never denied that fault in herself, the selfishness writers required, the reason behind her desire never to marry, to never bear children. Now she was the chaperone for Eric and his cronies pursuing something she could not fathom.
She tried sticking to her schedule for Words, a simple read-through of her work, hewing to it as tightly as she could, images of being ensconced in her prior, original life so vibrant and bright, then dimming, the colors blending together into the color of dirt. But accomplishing anything was nearly impossible when she was forced into the role of den mother watching over this funky group, thinking of the lawsuits and liability if any of these kids on their property tripped and broke a leg, an arm, a back, drank themselves blind or into oblivion, popped pills, snorted drugs, smoked pot. She had found a coffee can filled with the butts of joints hidden in the lilac bushes, and then another, and another, and emptied orange pill containers, the labels pulled off, and emptied bottles of vodka, gin, and brandy in the outside trash cans, trying to figure out whether she and Martin were drinking more than they usually did—it was possible, she was distraught every night—or whether those bottles were being filched from the pantry by pale, soft hands. She had no problem picturing all of their bodies reduced to simmering, stinking liquids.
She stood once, twice, ten times, in the circular entry and admonished them all, at the top of her lungs, to absolutely no effect. Blank faces turned toward her, as if her words made no sense. The coffee cans filled up, the empty orange prescription bottles appeared, the bottles of alcohol disappeared, even when she hid them away in places she considered cunning. She couldn’t control what this new team of ghostly young people popped or drank or inhaled, but she could try to control what went into Eric’s mouth, that mouth that had given her so much trouble since it first left her womb. She saw how Eric did not eat, his eyes often glassy, manic energy wiring him up. He and his team were working eighteen, twenty hours a day, flopping on the floors from exhaustion, sweatshirts under their heads, waking early to do it all again, but it didn’t account for what she was seeing in him.
“He’s doing drugs, or smoking pot, or drinking, I’m sure of it,” Joan said to Martin. It was ten at night, the group was meeting in the living room, still empty of furniture, discussing the company shortly to be formed, and she and Martin were on the grass on top of the knoll. Joan looked toward the lit house, then down into the glen, to the lap pool black in the moonless night.
“I think it’s just adrenaline,” Martin said.
“Then you’re not seeing things clearly. I’m the one here all of the time, watching over them, watching Eric marching around like the king of a fiefdom. He’s a child, a boy, with so much, too much, riding on his thin shoulders, and I’m telling you he’s on drugs.”
“If he is, and I’m not agreeing that he is, he’ll outgrow it. He’s testing the boundaries. If I could have gotten away with it in the vice admiral’s house, I would have spread my wings too. What’s a little pot smoking when measured against his achievements so far? And, you’ve got to admit, nothing seems to be hindering him. He’s sure the newest version of the program will be ready to submit to the incubator contest by the deadline. If they win, we’re talking millions, Joan.”
“Martin, who cares about the money?”
“I do,” Martin said. “And Eric sure as hell does. He talks of nothing else but winning, about all the great things that will happen as a result. It’s what he wants, Joan.”
* * *
On a chilly October afternoon, there were two lawyers and an accountant in the living room who specialized in guiding start-up technology companies. Eric’s team on the floor at their feet, eleven pairs of legs crossed, twenty-two sets of eyes, half behind black-rimmed glasses, staring up at the men from Washington, DC, dressed in expensive suits. Eric was naming his company Solve=MC2. The lawyers were discussing its incorporation, the apportionment of stock options, how salaries would be set if they won the incubator funding. At the moment, everyone was working for free.
Joan listened for a while and then took herself to the master bedroom, sat cross-legged on the bed, closed her eyes, and sent up pleas that Eric not win that prize. She wanted him to fail, for the house to empty out, his team to hitch themselves to someone else destined for greatness. She would handle his upset, his rejection, the depression sure to smack him down for a while. But he was young, he would rally, he would return to school, remember these months as a fugue state. He would do what teenagers did, finish middle school and high school, go to college, date, laugh, move at a more natural pace, find himself before he took on the world.
* * *
In late November, when Eric should have been studying for a science test or wishing the pretty girls on the Rhome High tennis team would notice him, his computer program was awarded the grand prize in the incubator contest, three million dollars to be transferred into the accounts of his new company, his team yelling and high-fiving one another, fielding calls immediately after from other early venture funding outfits interested in knowing what his program was about.
Joan watched them pile out the front door for whatever celebration was planned. She felt the dread she used to feel as a child in her parents’ house, the sick feeling she had watching them, that there was a story she was to understand, but could not. Martin was as delirious as the Solve=MC2 team, insisting on their own celebration, opening a bottle of wine. Joan refused the glass he offered her.
“How do you not see that this is the worst thing that could have happened to him?” And she walked away from her husband, bundled up in a coat, and marched out to the knoll, where she sat watching her angry breath disappear in the cold air.
* * *
Later, Joan sat on the old plaid couch in the library, trying to enjoy the room she had rarely entered since the end of summer, pretending she was not waiting up for her suddenly successful son, revisiting the fight she and Martin had about the news, when she walked away from his thrill, his delight in their son’s accomplishments.
It was past midnight when a glass shattered in the kitchen. She ran and found Eric, drunk and befuddled at the fridge, unsure which way to move, the bottle of vodka from the freezer clutched to his chest, his bare feet covered in shards that glittered in the glow from the outdoor lights Joan had left on.
She flicked on the kitchen light and broke the spell. She had hoped the team’s celebration would have been pizza and sodas. Their leader, after all, was only thirteen; no restaurant or bar would serve him. But age no longer mattered in this world of dizzying success, she saw that now, none of the regular limits of life would apply to him.
“Stay right where you are,” she said, and grabbed the vodka bottle from him, dumped it out into the sink, then handed him the broom and dustpan.
“Clean it up, then clean yourself up, and go to bed. In your bedroom.”
He threw down the broom and dustpan, leapt over the broken glass, ran for the front door, grabbed his coat and his shoes, and disappeared into the night.
In the bright kitchen, with the dark night reaching right through the huge windows, she debated getting the car and picking him up on the side of the road. But it was a small town, too late for anyplace still to be open, its crime rate was low, and she, exhausted and furious, let him go.
She shook Martin awake until he sat up. “Are we really going to allow this to continue?”
“What?”
“This insanity. Your son came home stinking drunk and was after more. He ran out the front door five minutes ago.”
“He’ll come back,” Martin said. “Everything he needs for the company is here. Listen, Joan, there’s no turning this train around. He’s got three million bucks now, and there’s going to be more. It’s going to get worse before they all find some balance. I’ve got a surgery at six, I’ve got to get to sleep.” He snapped off the bedside light she had turned on.
Joan swept the kitchen floor clean of the glass, then paced the house until six in the morning, knowing Martin was right. It was no longer relevant what she had wanted in September, last week, yesterday afternoon, for Eric, or for herself. She wore the permanent and indelible identity of Mother, and regardless how it had come about, she was incapable of pretending she didn’t see how things were going, how they would continue to go, how rapid the changes Eric had undergone, a few short months from obsessed teen to juvenile businessman, thinking he was mature, entitled to live as he wanted. She saw what would happen—the way he would argue with her in the future, whether he was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, ill prepared to live somewhere other than under their roof. His brain, despite its bundle of exceptional neurons, was still developing. He might be managing a company, coffers soon to be filled with all of those dollars, but his decision-making was that of a child, would continue to wring her out. There was no way to tell how long it would take until Eric actually fit the role he had assumed.
In the library, she kneeled down at one of the new cabinets, opened the door, extricated her manuscript from its hiding place at the very back, and went out into the new garage. Large enough to hold four cars, though they had only the two. They had made it a well-lit and organized space, shelves with plastic containers marked for clarity—Daniel’s school projects; Eric’s school projects; Halloween costumes; Stuffed animals; Toys; Puzzles; LEGOs.
On the bottom shelf were six large brown boxes, all labeled Joan Ashby in black marker. The boxes held copies of her story collections and all the foreign editions that used to be in their old bedroom closet, the hundred or more composition notebooks she filled up from the time she was seven. Those boxes were proof of how miraculous her life had once been, before the life she had never wanted to experience came to pass.
When Martin was courting her, he told Joan that myopia was the most widespread human eye disease in the world, and she had been surprised to learn that a narrowed vision of the world was an actual medical condition. In the cold garage, with the early morning light sneaking in under the electric door, Eric still not home, she understood that the man she had married, who treated actual myopia, was suffering from a figurative version. One of the country’s premier doctors in his particular healing arts, this top-notch neuro-ocular surgeon flown everywhere to perform what only he could do, was refusing to see beneath their son’s complicated surface, refusing to recognize their son’s race toward the ledge of a cliff.
She ripped open the sixth Joan Ashby box. She pulled out hundreds of rubber-banded pictures of people caught in the act of living their lives, all those thrown-away photographs purchased by a stranger, by Joan, for a dollar a bundle at a junk shop in New York. Then she pulled out several dozen folders in various colors, red, yellow, blue, green, purple, each one protecting a story she had written long ago, finished but never published, or never finished for one reason or another. All of her Rare Baby stories were there too, each one in an orange folder, titles across the front, fifty orange folders in all.
She carefully put Words of New Beginnings at the bottom, then placed all the folders on top of it, the pictures on top of the folders.
On a hook were rolls of tape, and she took one down, found the end, listened to the tape cry as she pulled it free, then sealed that last box back up
.
Joan yanked her hair out of its braid, rubbed her head hard until her black curls were flying through the air, rubbed harder and harder, trying to sink her nails into her skull, to reach the tough dura mater just beneath the skull, hoping to find some other viable solution, some other way to handle all of the next years, a way that would not, did not, involve her.
She felt wetness on her scalp, beneath all of that hair. She had drawn blood. She knew her Latin: Dura mater: tough mother. There was no protective covering in the brain that meant tough father. That sacrifice parents made, she guessed this was it, and she, the sacrificing, sacrificial lamb.
THE SEVEN-YEAR CYCLE
Saat barshiye ghatnakaram
21
In mid-December, Joan won a small battle with Eric. The house would be cleared of his Solve=MC2 staff, the computers put away, the electrical cords rolled up, the rooms restored to their intended uses, while Daniel was home for the holiday week.
Daniel had refused Joan’s entreaties during the semester to return for a weekend, saying, “I don’t want to get in the way of what Eric’s doing.” Meant to sound selfless, his words blistered with jealousy, the sibling rivalry that until now had flared only once, when Eric was deemed gifted, skipped from second to third grade. Joan had been an outsider in her own family, but an only child who had not experienced sibling rivalry. As a young writer, she had gained fame and success quickly, had risen to the top immediately, and it was only lately, in these months of upheaval, that she felt a tinge of envy when reading laudatory reviews about the novels or story collections of others. But she had her published collections to gird her up, Words of New Beginnings at the bottom of a box. She had a life to remember, a way to view herself as other than what she had become. Daniel did not. He was still nearly transparent, striving to figure himself out, unformed as he was supposed to be at this age, a phase Eric was avoiding entirely, his genius coloring in all the blank spaces. Eric lacked many of the skills and talents people required to get along, to get through life, but his genius was all that he needed. That’s what was being proven within the walls of their new house.
The Resurrection of Joan Ashby Page 21