Equal Love

by Peter Ho Davies

  “I know it’s scary,” he says. “But try not to think of it as something we’re being forced to do. It’s our choice. We’re going to do the right thing.”

  “It may be a choice for you,” she says. “She’s not your mother.”

  He wants to tell her, And you’re my wife. Instead he sighs. “All I’m saying is, we can help. We will. You just have to talk to her, tell her she has to let us help now, not later, when everything’s gone. With what she has left she can make a down payment on a place, and we can stretch to cover her mortgage and ours, and then at least she won’t be losing money on rent.” He doesn’t mention the possibility of Laura’s mother’s finding a new job. She has skills, they tell her. Look at the great job she did with Laura’s wedding dress. What about bridal work? She’s been sending out résumés for months, but with less and less hope, until now, they know, in a gesture both defiant and despairing, she doesn’t even include a cover letter. She spends her days at home in a nubbly armchair, breaking the spines of cheap paperbacks, waiting for the phone to ring.

  “I’m sorry,” Laura says, blotting her eyes with the heel of her hand.

  “Anyway, you know me,” he tells her, “genetically predisposed toward filial obligation.”

  Sam is Indian. When Laura first brought him home to visit her mother, she warned her on the phone. “Indian?” her mother said. “Really?” “I think I’d know,” Laura replied, laughing. “Only,” her mother said, “you don’t mean he’s black? You can tell me. I’d prefer to know.” The first time he came for Thanksgiving, Joan asked Sam if he liked turkey and he told her, “Are you kidding? Especially the white meat.”

  “At least your parents have a house that they own,” Laura tells him now, “and enough money in the bank to take care of themselves. God, how can you stand to have married into this?”

  “It’s tough,” he says gently, signaling for their exit. “The sex helps.”

  …

  Laura’s Aunt Marilyn and her Uncle Phil are at the condo already when they arrive. Uncle Phil is watching the game, a gin and tonic in hand. He has fifty bucks on the Pack to upset Dallas, he tells them when they walk in. Dallas, Sam sees, setting a pie down on the counter, is already up by two touchdowns. Laura, a dish in each hand, lets her mother hug her, balancing her offerings carefully. When she lifts the foil off them, condensation drips onto the pastry of the apple pie. The tips of the meringue are a little flattened, but her mother tells her they look gorgeous.

  “How are you?” Laura asks, and Joan tells her briskly, “Fine, fine.”

  Pretty soon the whole family is there, including Laura’s sister, Suzy, the waitress, and her boyfriend, Derek, who beat her once (that they know of). These are the ways Sam thinks of his in-laws. Derek, whose hairline’s been receding, has recently shaved his head. Suzy keeps stroking his pale skull, and Derek even dips his head for Joan to feel it. “Oh,” she says, laughing. “Smooth as a baby’s behind.” But then her fingers stop and Derek stands up quickly. “That’s a scar from when I fell off a bike when I was six,” he says. He’d forgotten all about it until it appeared after shaving. There’s another, he shows them, just above his ear, where he got cut in a fight with his father. “It’s the old man’s ring.” Suzy stands on tiptoe and kisses the spot, then rubs the lipstick off.

  Laura’s cousin Nick—Marilyn and Phil’s eldest—and his wife, Candy, are the last to arrive. Nick’s the one who spent some time in juvy for breaking and entering. Now he’s a legal aide in the city. They have their son, Bobby, with them, three years old, blond, unbelievably cute. Nick has just moved the family to Brooklyn from Lolita. “Lower Little Italy,” Bobby explains to everyone loudly. “Low-li-ta. Get it? Lo-lee-ta. Lo-li-tah!” They have more space than in their old apartment, Nick explains, for a lot less. “Which is good,” he tells Laura, “because this little guy—clothes, food, T.O.Y.S.”—he glances from Bobby to Candy, who is trying to take his jacket—is E.X.P.E.N.sive.”

  No one mentions Sam’s job, although it’s the first time he’s seen the family since he took it in May, and he feels ridiculous for caring, for envying Nick and Candy the attention lavished on Bobby. He opens a beer for himself.

  Sam tries to talk to Suzy and Derek for a few minutes, but they seem on the verge of a fight about what she’s wearing—a little black dress, as if for a cocktail party—and pretty soon Derek, scalp flushed, joins Uncle Phil on the couch, both of them leaning forward, concentrating on the game, which is not even close but demands all their attention to hear over the conversation behind them. Sam perches on the arm of the sofa and watches with them. He says something about Favre, and Uncle Phil looks around and smiles and tells him for the third year in a row, “I didn’t know you liked football.” Next Sam tries to chat with Nick and Candy, but Aunt Marilyn wants to show Candy the sweater she’s knitting for Bobby, and Nick volunteers to carve the turkey for Joan. (He says it’s a good-sized bird and she tells him it ought to be, she asked for the one that laid the golden eggs.) Which leaves Suzy and Laura, who demands, as soon as they’re alone, to know why Suzy didn’t bring anything. “Joan’s got it covered,” Suzy says. “There’s always too much food anyway.” But Laura tells her that’s not the point. She could at least have brought some wine. “Jesus,” Suzy says. “Who died and made you Mom?”

  Sam ends up with Bobby, which is fine by him, and the two of them, after some formalities, start to crawl around the dining table, Sam growling and Bobby laughing and running behind the chairs. Sam stops for a second to grab a paper cup off the counter and grip it in his teeth so it covers his mouth and nose like a muzzle. “Here,” he growls through his teeth, “comes the Schnuffulupulus,” and Bobby shrieks and ducks beneath the chairs, where Sam is careful not to catch him. Sam hasn’t seen the boy for six months, and he’s amazed at how much he’s changed. Nick comes over and joins in, but after a moment he reaches under the table and pulls Bobby out and pins him, bearing down and rubbing his whiskers on his son’s face while Sam looks on. “Surrender?” he cries. “Surrender?” Sam wonders what the boy smells like close up.

  Laura’s mother nudges her as they look on from the kitchenette.

  “What?”

  “See?” Joan says.

  “See what?”

  “Laura,” she says, with a show of impatience. “Somebody would make a great father. What are you two waiting for?”

  “Mother, do you mind?” Laura pulls over a stack of napkins and begins folding them into fans.

  Joan leans over the stove, lifts the lid on the mashed potatoes, stirs the gravy. It is a mild obsession with her that everything be ready at exactly the same time.

  “I mean”—Joan drops her voice—“is there a problem? You know they say you shouldn’t stay on the pill for too long. It’s not good for you.”

  “There’s no problem.” And if there were I wouldn’t tell you, Laura thinks. Mention of the pill makes her imagine her mother rooting through her bag.

  “Because I’d love to be a grandmother while I’m still young enough to enjoy my grandchildren. Look at Marilyn.”

  “Don’t hold your breath.”

  “I’m not holding my breath, Laura. I just think you two should think about it. You’re thirty-four. Kids are the best thing in the world. You guys changed my life, you know, gave it a whole new meaning.”

  Laura’s father left when she and Suzy were still in middle school. For the first day or two, after all the fighting, it was silent. Her mother would run the dishwasher half full just for the noise. He kept in touch, bought them occasional lavish gifts, never paid any support, and their mother, who hadn’t worked for ten years, went out and found what she could, mostly in those first few years as a seamstress. Laura knows how hard she worked to support them. She remembers taking her mother’s hand once to cross the street, how Joan winced, turning it over and seeing her thumb purple and pimpled with scabs where she had pricked herself.

  “Our lives have enough meaning right now. If anyone needs meaning,
you should talk to Suze.”

  Her mother looks at the gravy again, watching it run off the wooden spoon.

  “I didn’t mean that,” Laura says. Suzy has had two abortions, both of which Joan has paid for. Her mother just shakes her head.

  “All I’m trying to say is that I love Sam. You know I could use some good news right now.”

  “Mom, we’re not even sure we want a kid,” Laura says. “Or if we could afford one yet.” She pauses, fusses with the final napkin. “I mean timewise. With Sam’s new job and me looking. It’s just bad timing right now.”

  “Oh!” The pan is boiling over. Joan turns off the burner, its hiss fluttering and then still. She tastes the gravy gingerly, pursing her lips. “Scorched,” she says.

  Laura realizes that even though they’ve only just got here, she’s not going to be able to talk about money with her mother today. She feels a resignation very close to relief. She keeps watching her husband as Joan takes the napkins out to the table.

  Aunt Marilyn comes up beside her and nudges her in the ribs. “They’re cute, aren’t they?” Laura nods. “How’s she doing? Your mother?” Marilyn asks, and Laura tells her, “Fine.” Then, “We’re going to look out for her, okay?”

  Sam has finally realized that Bobby wants to be caught and has him in a hug.

  “You know she’d do the same for you if the situation were reversed,” Marilyn says, and Laura nods slowly. “Of course, you do anything for your own kids.”

  “You know how the Schnuffulupulus got his name?” Sam asks Bobby, and the little boy shakes his head seriously.

  “You’re a good daughter,” Marilyn says after a second. “A credit to your mom.” And Laura wonders whom she’s praising.

  “Because” Sam says, pouncing, “he loves to snuffle up to you.” He presses his head to the little boy’s belly, nuzzles him, then plays dead while Bobby clambers over him.

  Laura nods to where Bobby and Sam are wrestling on the floor.

  “I should go and rescue my husband from your grandson,” she says.

  Bobby is sitting on Sam’s chest, asking where he’s from. “Where I’m from?” Sam says thoughtfully. “Well, let’s see.” He starts to draw a map in the air before him. “If this is your house”—he points to an invisible spot under Bobby’s nose—“and this is where we are right now, then I must live right here.” And he pokes the little boy in his belly, tickles him until, wailing with laughter, Bobby squirms free. But only into the arms of Laura, who grabs an ankle—“How about here?”—and proceeds to tickle his foot.

  “No, really,” Bobby says, finally breaking away from them both. He’s panting, and the fine pale hair at his neck and temples is dark and stuck to his head. Sam finally tells him that they’re from New Haven. Bobby wants to know if he can visit and Laura grins, says, “Sure.”

  “And when it’s time for you to go to college, you can come and live with us if you like,” Sam tells him. And as he says it, just for a second he can see it. Him and Laura, years from now, welcoming Bobby on their porch. He’ll come by for Laura’s home cooking, Sam’s beer.

  Bobby squeals in delight and runs to tell his mom that Sam says he can come live with them.

  “Oh really?” she says, and Laura calls quickly, “When he goes to college.”

  “Oh, when you’re a Yale man,” Candy says, and laughs, and Sam sees her relief, sees it’s a joke. The idea of her son at Yale is flattering but ludicrous to her, and for a second Sam feels his heart contract. He felt it when he saw Nick wrestling with his son. It occurs to him, This kid won’t even like me in a couple of years.

  He turns to Laura and shrugs. “Neat kid.”

  “You want?” she asks him quietly.

  “You?” he says. They look at each other for a long moment, and then behind them Laura’s mother calls, “All right, everyone.”

  Suzy sits and watches as her mother and Laura carry food to the table. “This is great,” she says, “just one day in the year to have someone wait on me. God, I hate that job. You want to trade, Mom?”

  Laura leans over and tells her, “Not funny, Suze.”

  “Screw you, Laur,” Suzy whispers back, grinning, as Joan carries the bird to the table.

  “Ta-da!”

  “Look at that,” Marilyn says. “This is great, sis. Next year you’ll have to come to us. All of you.”

  “I don’t see why,” Joan says, smiling stiffly. “We’ve been having Thanksgiving here for years.”

  “Just for a change,” Marilyn says quickly. “To give you a break.”

  “I don’t want a break,” Joan tells her. “And I don’t need to be told to quit when I’m ahead.”

  There’s silence for a moment—Laura sees the wrinkles around her mother’s mouth harden into two deep lines running vertically from the corners of her mouth to her chin—and then Uncle Phil says, “That’s one big bird,” and Bobby cries, “Big Bird!” and Phil says, “Uh-huh,” and puts a piece in his mouth. “Deelicious.”

  Later, as the wine moves around the table, Nick starts up on the market. How they should all get in on it. How there’s easy money to be made. “It’s our middle-class duty, all right,” Phil says, laughing, but Suzy says she’s not middle-class. She’s a waitress, she says, looking around the table. Derek’s a mechanic. He nods. How’s that middle-class? “While your Uncle Phil is digesting that foot in his mouth . . .” Marilyn starts, and Laura tries to help by adding that being middle-class isn’t just about income. It’s about background. Education. How you were brought up. She looks to her mother for help. She looks to Sam, but he doesn’t want to get into it. His parents had a grocery and then a small restaurant when he was growing up. His father owned it and served in it for years. Nick says it all depends on how you define your terms. He sounds impatient with the discussion, but when Laura tries to drop it, he keeps after her to say what she means by middle-class. “You know what I mean,” she tells him, and he says, “You don’t even know what you mean.” And finally Sam steps in.

  “I suppose for us, me and Laura, it means knowing for the first time we could go to pretty much any restaurant in town.” He smiles sheepishly, his face already flushed from one beer. “Not that we do, of course. And it means that too, I guess. It means having more than enough and not quite enough at the same time. Counting our lucky stars,” he says, “and counting our pennies.”

  Candy gives a little laugh, but Nick is looking at him as if he’s a stranger. As if he’s never heard his voice, and that gives Sam a moment of pleasure. He recognizes it as the same kick he gets when a class is going well, when he remembers how much he cares about his subject even if his undergrads don’t. But when he looks around to share it with Laura, he sees she’s looking stricken too. She excuses herself to fetch the pies. For a moment there is just the tick of flatware on china. Then Marilyn tells him politely, “That’s really interesting,” and something in her tone pushes Sam on.

  “It is,” he says. “It’s all about choosing, really. Being middle-class. Not just choosing something, but choosing something instead of something else. A new car or a nicer house. A sofa or a vacation. Which is the terrible thing, of course. They’re all different. Like apples and oranges. So how do you choose if they’re not the same?”

  Too late he realizes he’s lecturing, shrugs in embarrassment, runs out of steam. They watch Laura lay her pies on the table one by one, with infinite care. It sounds like a rhetorical question, but it isn’t. Sam doesn’t expect an answer, doesn’t have one. He poses questions like this at school, and his students never know if they should attempt a reply or if the answer is so self-evident they can’t see it. And sometimes in those pauses Sam himself wonders if he even wants an answer, if he doesn’t just prefer the question, poised, immaculate.

  There’s the same stillness over the table now, all of them staring at their plates for a clue, until Joan says, “Money. That’s how.” She puts a hand over Sam’s, squeezes. “They’re not equal, those things. They can’t be. But mo
ney makes them seem so.” She nods her head once, decisively, smiles blindly around the table.

  “So who’s for pie?” Laura raises her knife and points at each in turn. “Apple cinnamon, lemon meringue, pumpkin.” And Uncle Phil says he can’t choose; he’ll take a sliver of each.

  …

  Before they leave, Joan carves slice after slice of cold turkey breast, wraps them in foil. She gives the package to Laura, who begins to decline. “Full,” she says, patting her stomach.

  “For Sam,” Joan tells her. “He loves my turkey.”

  “Mom,” Laura tries. But then she knows they’ll help her mother, just knows it. And Joan will let them. They’ll do everything in their power, whatever it takes, and suddenly there’s nothing else to say, nothing to discuss—Laura isn’t even sure if they’re being selfless or selfish. “Thanks,” she says.

  “Happy Thanksgiving, darling.”

  When Sam sees the foil parcel, he smiles glumly. “See?” he says, pulling out of the drive. “Love is a sandwich.”

  “Yeah?” she says. “Maybe.” Something is coming back to her. Childhood mornings when she was just a toddler, before Suzy was born, squeezing into the bed between her parents. “Making sandwiches,” they used to call it.

  “Jesus,” she says softly. She stares out at the skyline floating past in the distance, like the fingers of a reaching hand. Her heart is racing and she finds herself crying again. Sam, never taking his eyes off the road, slows down, cups the clenched fist in her lap in his own hand, steers them carefully over the GW Bridge.

  …

  At home, in bed, they read silently before sleep. It has rained on the way back, pattering through the leaves, and now water drips off the gutters above them, the windowsill, the tree outside, the drips coming in odd, uneven rhythms like a host of slightly un-synchronized clocks. Sam sets his book down and presses against Laura. Her forearm is exposed and he runs his face along it, smelling her skin. “What are you doing?” she asks, annoyed, and he explains innocently, “Schnuffling.” He plucks with his lips at the down on her arm. “Grazing.”