by Paula Bomer
“You have the rest of your life to paint, but your children are only young once.”
Nicky never held back with her opinions and perhaps that was the one thing the two had in common, the often uncomfortable frankness of opinion.
“I know, I realize that. It’s just that I’m happier when I’m painting. I think it makes me a better mother, when I’m happy with my work.”
“Why the third baby then? I stopped with one and I don’t even have a conflict with my ‘art’ or ‘career’ or anything.”
“Like I said, it was an accident.”
“So why didn’t you get an abortion and then get your tubes tied? I mean, Sonia, leaving your family?”
“Well that didn’t happen and here I am,” Sonia says. “I was in South Bend before this. I stopped by the house. I saw Larissa and Larry, Dan’s brother. Oh, and I stopped by the old house.”
“How long have you been gone?”
“I’ve sort of lost track of time.”
“It’s the first week of January.”
“I forget when I left. The end of November. Around there.”
“Holy shit.”
Steve and Nathan come in to say goodbye. Both of their faces are painted in shades of green and a terrible smell enters with them.
“You guys look like you’re in Apocalypse Now and what is that smell?” asks Sonia.
“Oh, we rub elk urine on ourselves to attract the animals. Anyway, great seeing you. Will you be here when I get back?”
Nicky says, “Stay for dinner, Sonia.”
“Um, that’s nice of you,” she tries to breathe through her mouth. “I might be here. Have a great time trying to kill things.”
“I’ll shoot a squirrel for you when we get back,” says Nathan.
“That sounds great, Nathan,” says Sonia. “See you later.” A lingering odor remains after they leave and Sonia continues her mouth breathing.
“My life in New York is really different than this,” Sonia says to her sister.
“I have no idea how you live in that hellhole,” says Nicky, shaking her head in disbelief. “The taxes, the immigrants, the noise and filth. It makes you hate humanity not to mention how completely out of touch with nature you are. I think I’d die.”
“I loved it at first, as you know,” says Sonia.
“So you finally realized you’re living in a den of horror,” says Nicky.
“No, I wouldn’t say that,” says Sonia, thinking again of Steve’s and little Nathan’s painted faces and the stink of elk urine and thinks of Apocalypse Now and ‘the horror,’ “but it does wear on you, city life. I have no problem with paying my taxes or immigrants—which by the way, Nicky, is sort of racist and fucked up of you—but the noise and filth are harder to ignore than when I was younger.”
“I’m not racist,” Nicky says, and Sonia waits for the self-deluding qualifier, and is not disappointed. “It’s just,” Nicky says, “the taking away of jobs that should go to Americans.”
“Listen to yourself. Our mother was basically an immigrant. Let’s just not go there right now. How is mom by the way? I have to call her and tell her I’m pregnant. I think she’ll be happy for me.”
“Just don’t tell her you left your family and still didn’t manage to visit her.”
Sonia had thought of this. “I know, it’s been ages since I visited them. With two little kids, traveling is really difficult.”
“And now with the third, it’s not going to get any easier. But anyway, she’s doing well. I’m sure she’d love to hear from you.”
Sonia wants to say something dismissive here, but weirdly, and somewhat out of character, bites her lip. She’s always been envious of the easy nature of Nicky’s relationship with her mother. Sonia’s always felt her mother preferred Nicky, and why not? She knows she was a more difficult daughter.
“So, what are you going to do now? You must be close to your due date. Are you going to have the baby alone?”
“I haven’t really thought about that.”
“Sounds like you haven’t done a lot of thinking at all,” Nicky says.
Is this why she came out here? To have her sister be the bitch she always was? To confirm something she always knew about family life? That no matter how well intentioned parents are, their kids can grow up to be complete assholes to each other for no real reason other than that they’re not the same? Often, in the years that she’s raised her sons, she’s thought, I’m going to raise them to love each other. And you know, it can happen. It just didn’t happen with her and Nicky.
“Actually I’ve done a lot of thinking,” Sonia says, aware that she’s lying, and that she’s really done more TV-watching and driving and learned how to push thoughts out of her head which turns out to be an amazingly wonderful, even practical, skill, “Just not about the practical things. It’s been nice, not thinking practically. You should try it sometime. Free your mind, you know. When you were in college, you had a little hippie phase. Smoked some weed. Did some free thinking. It might do you some good.”
“Well, I’m not in college anymore. I’m a grownup. You should try that sometime, acting like a grownup.”
“Oh, I tried that. I thought it sucked. I gave it up years ago for Lent.”
“Lent, huh? I thought you abandoned the church in high school? Are you going to church?”
“Yeah, yeah, I go to church. I go to church all the time.” Sonia deadpans. “I go to church all the time, almost everyday. I love church. In fact, that’s one the many things I’ve been thinking about, church. That and other things. I like thinking.”
“Is this about your art again?”
Sonia sighs. “I don’t know.”
“You’ve been thinking about church and you don’t know what else? Just ‘things’?”
“I’m in transition.”
“Haha, isn’t that a term in labor, when you’re about to push?” Nicky is now amused, Sonia sees. First she was baffled and judgmental, now she’s just amused.
“You’re right. I find that quite fitting.”
“Well listen, Sonia, while you sit here thinking about church and things that you don’t know what they are or whatever, I’m going for a run.” Nicky stands up and starts stretching her calves.
“Didn’t you shit yourself once doing that,” Sonia asks.
“I shit myself when I ran an ultramarathon once,” Nicky says defensively. “I’m just going on a ten-miler.”
“Just a ten-miler.”
“Yes, just a ten-miler.”
“How long is an ultramarathon?”
“It was 36 miles.”
“My God, well at least you only shat yourself as opposed to, I don’t know, dying or something.”
“You’re welcome to stay for dinner. I have spare room upstairs if you want to nap.”
“Thanks, Nicky. I’ll think about it,” Sonia says. “That’s very nice of you. I may head back to the hotel. That way I can avoid watching a squirrel get shot.”
“You know, I’m super proud of what a good little hunter Nathan is.”
“I’m sure you are, it just seems sort of unnecessary to kill a rodent for fun.”
“Oh, it’s fun for him but we also eat everything we kill,” Nicky says.
“You eat squirrel?”
“Sure. They’re like chicken, only with less meat, more bones.”
“I find that hard to believe. Can I use your bathroom?” Suddenly, Sonia has to pee in that pregnant way, right now or she’ll pee herself.
Sonia puts a hand in her crotch and jogs to the bathroom and manages to not wet herself. Aaah. As she sits there peeing, she sees one of her mother’s etchings. And she thinks, what’s so bad about being an amateur artist, if it makes you happy? And it probably did make her mother happy. And the etching—of a woman with a child—is actually quite lovely, thinks Sonia. Sonia doesn’t have any of her mother’s etchings. Not one. She bets that Nicky has many. After she wipes herself and flushes, she takes down the framed etchi
ng and turns it around, trying to dismantle the frame. She leans the etching on the sink and digs away at the back and manages to free the etching.
“Are you OK in there?” asks Nicky, and Sonia’s face goes hot.
“I’m fine,” she says and adds a cough to hide the noise she’s making.
“What’s that noise? What are you doing?”
“Nothing!” Sonia coughs loudly. “I just have a cough.”
Panicking now, Sonia puts the etching up her shirt, where it curves around her belly. She puts her hand on her belly and exits the bathroom, closing the door quickly behind her, and there is Nicky with her hands on her hips.
“What’s in your shirt?” She’s angry. She reaches for Sonia.
“Nothing! Nothing really,” Sonia lunges away from her sister and Nicky tries again to grab for her. “Well, I’ll just be going now, it was great seeing you,” Sonia says as she jogs for the front door.
Nicky opens the bathroom door and sees the frame on the floor, says “Hey, you can’t take that,” and she starts after Sonia. “Mom made that just for me, after Nathan was born! Get back here, Sonia!”
Sonia is almost at the car now but Nicky’s closing in on her fast. She gets the front door open and Nicky starts grabbing at her and Sonia throws some girly smacks at her.
“Jesus, Sonia, you’re hitting me.”
Sonia gets in and slams the door shut and presses the lock. Through the closed window, she screams, “Bye!” And backs down the drive. She’s pretty sure she didn’t tell Nicky which hotel she was staying at. And anyway, she just won’t open her door. As she drives off, she reaches in and pulls out the etching, somewhat rumpled. She lays it on the passenger seat next to her, stealing glances at it. It is lovely, really lovely.
LATER, AT THE ST. Julien, Sonia sits at the bar in the elegant, grand lobby. A pianist plays classical music. Conversations take place at the carefully placed tables in the center of the room. She orders a steak and decides to not order wine. If she feared at first in Indiana that such a request could lead to her arrest, here she has no idea what to think. The bartender looks like a normal person—dark hair cut short, a good strong build, the classic white shirt and black pants of the waitstaff, but who knows, maybe he rubs urine on himself and eats squirrels. Sonia knows nothing. The steak is brought and she begins devouring it in a not so classy way.
“You look like you’re enjoying that steak,” a man says, sitting two seats away from her, a neat scotch in front of him. He’s sort of red-faced, maybe ten years older than her.
Sonia pats her stomach, “Gotta feed the baby.”
“Is it your first?”
“My third,” Sonia says.
“What brings you to Boulder?” he asks. She likes the way he looks at her. Maybe he has a fetish for very pregnant women. They’re out there, Sonia thinks. It takes all kinds.
“My sister lives here.” Sonia says, with a little bit too much steak in her mouth. She swallows before continuing, “Are you from here?”
“I’m from Denver. I’m here on business.” He swallows his drink and the bartender refills it without him asking. “Real estate. I come here regularly.”
“Well maybe you can explain to me why everyone seems so sporty and healthy and yet they’re also like hippies, racist hippies, who don’t want to pay taxes and …” Sonia turns to him, “Do you eat rodents?”
He laughs, “You sound like you’re from New York.”
“I am from New York,” Sonia says. She shoves the last juicy bit of steak in her mouth and pushes her plate away. “That was a good guess.”
“It wasn’t so difficult, actually,” he says. “Lots of New Yorkers come here.” Sonia looks him in the eye, into his big brown puppy-dog eyes that seem a little glazed. He’s drunk, but good at it. A pro.
“Do you have kids?”
“Two kids from my marriage. I’m divorced now. They’re in college.”
“Do you remember your wife being pregnant?” Sonia asks, thinking she can get some interesting information from him because he’s drunk. He seems like a friendly drunk, but you never know, they can get nasty. But if that happens, she’ll just go to her room.
“I do, of course. I remember the first one was a little overwhelming, for her and for me,” he says.
“No shit. Did you guys have sex?” she asks.
He laughs. “Not at the very end.” He drinks. “By the way, that’s a very bold question.”
“I’m researching pregnancy and families and what husbands think,” she says.
“Are you a journalist?”
“No, I’m a sociologist,” she says. Her lies are feeling really good. She should lie more often. She thinks about the lie she told on her way to Boston, about Dick being dead and the pity fuck she got out of that. “You say your first wife. Why’d you divorce? Did the stress of having children cause the divorce?”
“If you’re doing research, how come you’re not writing any of this down?” he asks.
“I have a photographic memory,” she says. Sonia feels like getting a piece of chocolate cake and she orders one from the bartender.
“If you have a photographic memory, that means you remember what you see and we’re just talking,” he says. For a drunk guy, his brain works well. That must be because of the pro-quality vibe he gives off as a drunk person.
“Oh yes, I do have that, too,” Sonia says, giving herself a fake little “silly me” knock on her forehead, “but I also remember everything people tell me. It’s very useful in my line of work.”
“That sounds really strange, to remember everything people tell you. In fact it sounds like something out of a Borges story,” he says.
“Well, Borges probably was inspired by meeting someone like me,” Sonia says, faltering a bit. “His story had to come from someone, right?”
“I’m not so sure. But anyway, you asked about my marriage?” Sonia watches as the bartender refills his glass again. “Let’s see, we were married for fifteen years. I don’t think the stress of having children—which of course it is stressful—ruined our marriage. I don’t think any one thing ruined our marriage. Frankly, the children kept us together more than anything else. What is more important in life than one’s children?” he says and takes a drink with a sort of expertise. Clearly the man has lots of practice with drinking. “The children were our connection to each other, their future and health our greatest concern. As they got older and more independent, we had less of a connection, maybe. I don’t know.” Sonia now thinks that despite the drinking, he’s a lot older than she thought at first, that he’s well-preserved. “My wife started to feel a little lost as they got older. They had been the focus of her life and now they were at school all day, playing sports all afternoon, wanting to go to camp in the summers. She had a hard time adjusting. But that wasn’t it, that wasn’t the reason for our divorce. Or for our affairs.”
“You both had affairs?” Sonia asks “Couldn’t the children have pushed you to do that? I’ve found in my work, in researching for this study, that having children affects the sex life in a marriage.”
“Sure, when the children are very little,” he says, and he seems amused by Sonia and Sonia decides to like that rather than be annoyed. “But they don’t stay little for long. And our sex life resumed pretty much. My memory isn’t perfect. But your children are little so you don’t know. You don’t understand how things change. I do remember my wife, when she was taking care of the kids when they were little—it was as if she couldn’t see into the future. The present was so strong, her daily life so all-encompassing. And then—boom—it was over. And by that I mean ten years later, or something like that. I don’t remember how old they were, but one day I came back from work and she was sitting in her armchair, the same one she nursed the children in, held them in her lap when they were toddlers, and she was crying, just sitting there crying. I asked her what was wrong and she said, ‘They’re gone. They’re gone and I’ll never have them back. It’s over. It’s all
over.” I tried to convince her that wasn’t the case—they were still living in our house, they were alive for God’s sake, but in the next few days after that day, I realized she was right. We never would have a four-year-old again. A kindergartner. We’d never watch our own flesh and blood take his first steps. But that’s not why we cheated on each other. Or maybe it sort of is.” He finishes his drink. “Are you memorizing all of this?”
He smiles at her and Sonia thinks he’s very attractive and normally she’s not into older guys. Her fantasies tend to revolve around professional athletes in their twenties, which she knows isn’t very creative of her. Maybe she’s not creative after all, although she did have that cop fantasy. That was something new, and here she is finding this guy who is most likely in his fifties attractive. Then again, she is pregnant and she basically wants to have sex all the time, to the extent of not being as picky as she would be otherwise. “Yes, I am memorizing all of it.” She points to her head. “It’s all in here. I’ll transcribe it later. You know, write it down word for word on my computer.”
“You’re a terrible liar,” he says.
“I’m an excellent liar,” Sonia says. “You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve convinced people of. So did you get divorced because of the affairs?”
“I think I started having affairs because once I realized how fleeting it all is, how everything goes away and you can’t have it back, I wanted to take advantage of everything I could. And that included having sex with women I wanted to have sex with, if they wanted to have sex with me. I assume my wife felt the same way, but I can’t be certain. I would have forgiven her, taken her back or whatever, but that didn’t happen.”
“Why not?” Sonia asks, feeling panicky.
“There was just not enough love left. Love is something you have to nurture. Sort of like a plant. Or like anything. You have to nurture your talents, your business. Your marriage, in particular the love part of the marriage. And we didn’t do that.”
“Well how can you if you’re screwing someone else?”
“You can.” The bartender pours him another drink and Sonia feels like she’s getting a contact high just sitting near the man, smelling his scotch. “I’ve seen it done. But we didn’t.”