Tell Me One Thing

by Deena Goldstone

  “Do you want to put that on the table?” Bernadette says, hoping her voice doesn’t betray the irritation she feels. Lucia is so passive. Lucia drifts. Lucia could be here for a very long time. And then, immediately, Bernadette feels guilty.

  Lucia turns away from the window and begins to set the table. “That doctor basically told me I’m a terrible mother for taking Maggie away from her father.”

  “Oh, Lucia, I’m sure she didn’t say that. Children survive when their parents split up.”

  “Apparently mine isn’t.”

  Bernadette carries the heavy spaghetti pot to the sink and drains the pasta into a colander, the steam rising in a cloud to envelop her head. She has no idea what to say to that statement.

  “Richard agrees with her. Every text is about what a bad mother I’ve become.”

  Bernadette is exhausted by it all. By the spikes of emotion, the endless conversations about Maggie, whom she’s come to love, and Richard, who is driving her crazy because he won’t stop calling, and now, here they are with Bernadette having to reassure Lucia that she’s not a terrible mother. It’s all too much. Nearly six weeks of it all with no end in sight.

  And then Maggie and Max are in the kitchen, Maggie holding out a shining, golden jar of honey to place in Bernadette’s hands with an equally shining smile on her tiny face, and Bernadette’s heart melts. Anything, she’d do anything for this little girl.

  MAX IS UNUSUALLY QUIET AT DINNER. He is wrestling with his conscience, with his pledge not to tell. Maggie watches his every move, reminding him with her steady gaze what he has promised.

  Lucia is quiet also. There is so much she is trying to understand from her afternoon session with Dr. Greenstein.

  So it is left to Bernadette to fill up the dead air. She babbles on about the honey and what she’s going to make with it—chicken nuggets with a honey-mustard sauce, which she assures Maggie will be “nothing like those awful things you get at McDonald’s. And maybe we’ll have honey-cornbread muffins to go with them and then honey-glazed carrots on the side. How does that sound?”

  No one answers but Max. “Sounds like a lot of honey.”

  “Well, in that case, we could have a honey-baked ham and honey-whipped sweet potatoes and a honey-vanilla pound cake for dessert.” Bernadette rolls her eyes and clutches her chest. “Oh my God, honey overload,” and she falls back in her chair as if she’s been felled by honey and Maggie giggles.

  There. That’s what Bernadette was going for, and she and Max exchange a look. He’s grateful to her and she’s simply glad Maggie laughed. Lucia is lost in her own thoughts, Maggie pressed up against her, thigh to thigh, arm to arm.

  WITH THE TURNING OF AUGUST, the heat comes. Usually the beach communities are spared the truly hot weather, but at least once a summer there’s a period when the inland areas are in the hundreds and the beach communities get up into the nineties. Everyone complains. No one has air conditioning because, after all, they’re at the beach and it’s always cool there.

  The first few days are manageable, but this particular heat wave extends into its second week. The hot air just sits there like a lid, in a holding pattern over the basin that is the Southland, no morning or evening overcast to cool things down. No winds to bring in the clouds. Just the pressure cooker of dry, scalding heat that cracks the skin and parches the throat. It’s when people remember that the Los Angeles area was carved out of a desert and everyone is irritable.

  Bernadette tries to chalk up her impatience to the weather, but she knows better. Lucia hasn’t made the slightest move. Now that Maggie is seeing Dr. Greenstein, it seems to have paralyzed Lucia further, as if Lucia has to wait until the doctor “fixes” Maggie before they can move on.

  Bernadette doesn’t think that’s going to happen—either scenario. Dr. Greenstein isn’t going to effect a miracle cure, and even if she did, Bernadette can’t see Lucia marshaling the resources to get herself a job, an apartment, a school for Maggie who is supposed to be starting kindergarten at the beginning of September.

  What to do? What would be helpful? What would be kind? What would get them out of Max’s house? Bernadette lies awake for many hot August nights staring at the ceiling trying to answer those questions. Max lies next to her, awake as well. Bernadette assumes it’s the heat, but Max is wrestling with an even harder question—should he tell?

  Of course he promised Maggie he’d keep her secret, but she’s a child in trouble. Doesn’t his responsibility to help her supersede his promise? Shouldn’t Lucia know how Maggie longs for Richard? But if he divulged her secret, what would that do to her sense of trust, rent as it has been by her parents’ separation?

  Max has waited, pinning his hopes on Dr. Greenstein, but it doesn’t seem like she’s been able to work her magic with this child.

  Max gets up out of bed, repositions the box fan he found in the garage and hauled up to their bedroom. It helps a little to move it closer to the window, but not much. There’s scant cool air to draw into the room.

  He stands at the bedroom window and looks out over the yard to the darkened garage apartment. What goes on in there that keeps the two of them intertwined and motionless? He has no idea. He must have sighed, because he hears Bernadette say, “It’s the heat, isn’t it?”

  And he goes back to her, to the bed, and lies on top of the sheet, spread-eagle; any body part touching any other body part is too much heat.

  “Yes,” he says, but Bernadette hears something in his voice.

  “Something else, too?”

  “Hmm,” he murmurs.

  “Max, we’ve got to find a way to get Lucia moving. I promised you ‘a way station’ and it’s turning out to be ‘a way-too-long station.’ ”

  He grins in the dark room. She can’t see it, but can feel his body relax beside her.

  “It’s Maggie.…” he says.

  “Of course.”

  “She misses Richard.”

  “I would guess.”

  There’s a silence. Max struggles with himself and then says, “I know.”

  And Bernadette understands immediately. She props herself up on one elbow and looks at him in the dark. “She talked to you?”

  “Yes, but with a promise I wouldn’t tell. She’s desperate for him.… What should we do?”

  “Jesus … I don’t know.” Then, “I’m so sorry I dragged you into this.…”

  He takes her hand. “Shhhh.”

  “Things were so perfect before, just us … perfection.”

  Another grin in the dark. “I know,” and he pulls her to him, the heat be damned.

  Later, in the early morning hours when the outside air finally cools down, Bernadette, three-quarters asleep and languid with satisfaction, reaches for a sheet to pull over her. Max is still awake beside her.

  “Bernadette …?”

  “Mmmmm …”

  “You mustn’t tell Lucia. I promised Maggie. Now you promise me.”

  There’s a long silence. Bernadette isn’t sure she agrees with him, but finally, she promises as well. “All right.”

  They reach for each other, find the right intermingling of legs and backs, stomachs and arms, and fall asleep.

  IN THE LIGHT OF THE MORNING, Bernadette isn’t at all sure she should have agreed to keep her tongue, but Max puts a premium on loyalty and discretion and so she has to honor her late-night promise. She can’t tell Lucia about Maggie’s words. But that’s all she promised.

  It seems like a beach day, hot already at ten a.m. She rounds up Lucia and Maggie, packs sandwiches for them all, and the three of them head to the ocean. Max is already at his office on campus. For years he’s been trying to finish a book on the naval battles of the Civil War. Bernadette knows he’ll spend all day there and come home frazzled and defeated by the writing process. That’s why she’s planned a special dinner and some peace and quiet.

  Even this early in the day Santa Monica beach is crowded with people trying to take the edge off the heat, but Maggie is a
ble to find a spot near the water, where she digs and builds. Lucia and Bernadette sit on their beach blanket, close enough to keep an eye on her but far enough away to have a conversation. Bernadette wears her large straw gardening hat. Her fair and freckled skin doesn’t do well in the sun.

  “I’m losing her,” Lucia says, her eyes on her daughter.

  Bernadette simply nods, an acknowledgment. Lately she has stopped trying to give Lucia either advice or reassurance. She feels certain now that neither makes any difference.

  “She’s disappearing in front of my eyes.”

  A little boy, around Maggie’s age, maybe a little younger, comes over and squats next to her, watching as she digs and pats the remaining sand into shape, forming the wide basin she’s creating. He talks to her. They can see that but not hear what he says. Maggie says not a word but hands him the second shovel and the two of them set to work, side by side.

  Bernadette is thinking how little we really need to talk. Wouldn’t it be much more restful if we communicated primarily with touch and gestures? She smiles at herself, remembering the touch and gestures of last night with Max. Not a word was spoken. None were needed.

  “I can’t send her to kindergarten like this. No one would understand her.”

  Bernadette is worried about the same thing. How can Maggie go to school mute?

  “If she’s not talking, she’ll have to stay home with me.”

  That’s the last thing Maggie needs—to spend more time alone with Lucia. Bernadette almost says it, but instead takes a deep breath and spreads herself flat on the blanket. She puts her straw hat over her face and pretends to sleep.

  Lucia sits with her arms around her shins, her head on her knees, her eyes on her child, watching, watching. Motionless.

  They arrive back at Max’s house at the end of the afternoon, Maggie’s and Lucia’s olive skins even more tanned, all three of them sandy and tired out from the sun. Bernadette parks her Volvo halfway up the driveway and Maggie sprints into the backyard to check on the bees. She knows she mustn’t get too close without her pith helmet and veil.

  Lucia is so exhausted she doesn’t know how she’ll manage the stairs to their apartment. These days everything is an effort. If she could make a decision about which direction to go in, she’s not sure she’d have the energy to get there.

  Bernadette sees it in her face and puts an arm around Lucia’s shoulder, drawing her close. “This heat. We’re all worn out by it.”

  Bernadette leads Lucia down the driveway. She wants to be with her when Lucia steps onto the grass.

  “Maggie,” Lucia calls out, “we need to get out of these wet bathing—” and she stops midsentence because there in the backyard, standing at the foot of the stairs, is Richard with Maggie in his arms, his eyes closed in what looks like rapture.

  Lucia is stunned, caught completely off guard, and then she knows. She looks at Bernadette, who meets her gaze without flinching. If Lucia asks her, Bernadette will tell the truth—I called him, I gave him the address—but Lucia doesn’t.

  She looks back at her daughter in her husband’s arms. Richard is swaying as he holds her, and Maggie’s face is buried in his neck. No one speaks or moves. It’s as if time has stopped and held its breath. Then Lucia shrugs as if what she sees was inevitable.

  She walks slowly but deliberately across the lawn to her husband and child and the three of them take the stairs to the garage apartment, Maggie still in her father’s arms.

  Very soon, the Weiss family comes back down the stairs, Maggie walking now, her backpack on her shoulders, Raymond, the stuffed dachshund, in her arms. Richard carries the two duffel bags. Without a glance at the house, where Bernadette’s face can be seen in the kitchen window, they walk down the driveway to the street, get into Richard’s car, and drive back to Riverside.

  AS THE SUN GOES DOWN, Bernadette sets the patio table with a batik tablecloth in shades of deep blue. She puts out two fat, red candles and lights them. She opens a bottle of wine and cuts shockingly pink and orange zinnias from the garden and installs them in a small white pitcher in the center of the table. She does not look up at the empty apartment, but she wrestles with her conscience.

  Yes, she wanted her home back—the one she and Max were beginning to build together. The quiet, the privacy, their intimacy. She readily admits that to herself. But there was more—Lucia wasn’t capable of solving the dilemma she created for herself, so, ultimately, weren’t Bernadette’s actions an effort to save Maggie? Weren’t they? Right now she honestly doesn’t know. What she does know is that she can’t wait for Max to get home and she won’t let anything else, anything, get in the way of what they have.

  YEARS LATER, WHEN SOMEONE brings up the summer Maggie spent in Ocean Park, she remembers it as the season of the bees when she fell a little bit in love with Max. Lucia remembers it as a time of shame. And Richard refuses to remember it at all.

  Sweet Peas

  THE DAY AFTER HER HUSBAND’S FUNERAL, Trudy gave away every piece of clothing he owned. She had heard stories of widows who visited the hanging shirts and stacks of sweaters for many months, even years, after their husbands’ deaths, unable to perform the simple task of grabbing and folding and packing away that was required.

  That wasn’t her way. Brian was dead. She was under no illusion that there was any other reality. She understood her task was to find a way to live without him. The first thing to do was to get rid of the clothes.

  She suspected her grown son was appalled. He was. He knew his mother so little that he attributed her behavior to hard-heartedness when it was really the exact opposite. She ached for Brian in a way that bowed her spine and hollowed her out, and she knew she would feel this way for as long into the future as she could see. The clothes were a reproach—Remember when you used to be happy? they said to her. Well, that’s over now.

  So Trudy filled their bedroom with large cardboard boxes bought especially for the job. Never in the past thirty years had she needed packing boxes of any kind. She and Brian had bought this small house when they were newly married and had stayed put. The town of Sierra Villa in the Southern California foothills felt like home the first time they saw it: a tiny business center with all the shops grouped within easy walking distance, one elementary school, one high school, a town library, where Trudy worked. It reminded them both of their Midwestern roots.

  Trudy and Brian were people who were not easily dislodged. Neither saw any reason to change what was good enough decades ago—this two-bedroom house with green shutters on Lima Street or their commitment to love, honor, and cherish each other. Until Brian died, nothing had changed.

  Now the boxes stood waiting, freshly creased and open-mouthed. There was no way Trudy was going to throw Brian’s monochromatic sweaters, button-down shirts, and threadbare jeans into black garage bags as if they were junk to be picked up with the rest of the trash.

  No. She folded and smoothed and lined up the creases in his suit pants, which he rarely wore, and rolled his black socks into tight balls, and evened out the shoelaces on his running shoes, which he laced up every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday rain or shine. And she packed each box tightly and secured the top with clear cellophane packing tape, also newly bought. She couldn’t deny the satisfaction of zipping the tape across the top of each box, a tiny piece of the work completed even though the task was one that bit into her heart.

  “Mother …?” Her son, Carter, is standing in the doorway.

  “What?!” she answers too sharply. He had startled her. With each garment her hands touch, another memory ambushes her, but she doesn’t explain this and her son doesn’t hide his sigh of exasperation.

  He’s so short, Trudy thinks again as she does at least once on every visit. Why did he have to take after my mother’s side of the family? Trudy’s maternal grandfather was barely five feet tall. Her maternal grandmother was not much bigger. She remembers them from her childhood as gnome people. Holding hands in their wedding picture her mother
kept on the mantel, they looked like the illustrations in her fairy-tale books.

  Brian had been tall. Tall and lanky. Angular. The sort of person who never seemed to be able to fold his body comfortably into conventional chairs. Definitely not the sort of person to have a fatal heart attack. Too many people expressed that same opinion to Trudy after the fact. But there it was—an undetected defect in his aorta biding its time, bulging and pressing and finally rupturing.

  Carter shows Trudy his packed duffel bag. “I’ve got to go.”

  But Trudy doesn’t answer. He’s not sure she’s heard him, because she’s turned her back and is taking in the mounds of clothes, a lifetime of clothes, spread across the bedspread, the dresser, the chair where Brian sat every morning to lace up his shoes.

  For his entire life, Carter has found talking to his mother difficult. He often wondered why his parents ever had a child. They seemed like such a self-contained unit, the two of them. Always, always he had felt like an interloper in someone else’s world. Oh, it’s not that they neglected him. Not at all. There were the requisite birthday parties when he was young, and carpooling to school and tennis practice, attendance at his matches when he was in high school, and visits to various potential colleges when the time was right.

  It was just that when his parents were together, they were present with each other in a way that never worked itself into his relationship with either one of them.

  It was hard to explain. With his first girlfriend, Sabrina, he had tried. “It’s like they’re going through the motions with me … but when they’re together it’s like the house and everything in it, including me, could go up in flame and they would just say, ‘Is it getting warm in here?’ ”

  They were naked at the time, and she ran her hand up the inside of his thigh, teasingly. “Oh, Carter’s feeling neglected.”

  He shook his head—that wasn’t it, but it was as close as he could come to explaining. No one was surprised when he chose a college as far from sunny California as he could get. It was in New Hampshire, with its brutal winters, that he began to feel less invisible.