When You Went Away

by Michael Baron

  I know I’ll always love your mother and that I’ll never stop wanting to be with her as much as I did that Saturday night. I just wish I knew how to deal with the rest of it.

  I’m sure you’re having some of these same feelings right now. I hope you have someone to talk to, even if it’s Mick. I hope you find a way to seek some joy out of the rest of your life, and that you aren’t letting this destroy you. Trust me; I know how difficult that is. But it’s so essential.

  We are, after all, her legacy.

  I still felt strange about my dinner with Ally when I got to work on Monday. All day Sunday, it served as another thing that crept up on me and threw me off balance. I walked Reese in his stroller, serene in the warmth of a spring day as pleasant as the day before had been nasty, when the memory of Ally’s gossamer kiss sneaked into my thoughts, driving me first toward my overreaction to the gesture and then toward the pain of losing Maureen. This was at least one thing more than I could handle at this point.

  I stopped by Ally’s office on my way to mine. She smiled up at me from her desk and, for the briefest instant, I felt foolish about what I had been thinking.

  “Hey,” she said. “Did you have a good Sunday?”

  “Yeah, it was great. Reese and I walked about four miles.”

  “His legs must be very tired.” She smiled. “Saturday night was fun.”

  “It was. A lot of fun.” I sat down in the chair across from her desk. “But I think we can’t do it again. At least not now.”

  Ally’s expression shifted. “Wow. Why?”

  “This is going to sound stupid to you, but I don’t think I’m ready for this kind of thing.”

  “What kind of thing?”

  “Going out on a Saturday night. Hiring a babysitter. Stimulating dinner conversation.” I hesitated and looked away from her. “Kissing goodnight.”

  “Are you saying I shouldn’t have registered us at Tiffany’s yesterday?”

  “This does sound stupid to you, doesn’t it?”

  She leaned forward and touched me on the hand briefly. “It doesn’t. I get it.” She frowned just slightly. “It was a great dinner, though. I don’t know a lot of people I can talk to about both Javier Bardem and Maldon Sea Salt.”

  I leaned back in my chair. “Can we wind it back a little?Maybe just keep it in the office?Maybe lunch at the place around the corner every now and then?” “Yeah, of course. I definitely don’t want you to be uncomfortable. I’ve never experienced what you’re going through. You’re gonna have to play it out on your schedule.”

  I was so happy the conversation was going this way. “Thanks. I did have a great time Saturday night.”

  “That’s what all the guys say.”

  I cringed at the hint of an edge in her voice. “Are you angry with me?”

  “I’ll get over it. I was going to recommend this great Latin place for our next dinner, but I’ll just go there with someone else.” She smiled again, though I wasn’t entirely sure what she meant by that.

  I realized I felt more conflicted about this than I expected to be.When I decided to have this conversation with her, I was convinced that it was the only option. But I felt like I was losing something here, which was ridiculous because nothing happened between us.

  “Don’t go to the Latin place just yet, okay?” I said. She held me with a meaningful glance. “I’ll give you a little while.”

  • • •

  I still hadn’t heard a word from Tanya since our encounter in Pittsburgh. That Friday night, though, I received an article about a new Roy Orbison retrospective forwarded from an anonymous e-mail address. Orbison was one of the many musical figures about which Tanya and I disagreed. I thought he was a vocal genius, Tanya thought he sang like a strangled cat. The article was laudatory, almost reverential. Did this mean that Tanya was acknowledging the validity of my opinion? Or maybe she was saying instead, “I guess there are other people out there who are as dumb about this as you are.”

  Again, I found myself searching for second, third, and fourth levels of meaning in this scant bit of communication from my daughter.Was she sending this along to remind me how different we were? Was she sending it because it made her think of me and she knew I would want to read it? Was she simply doing it to show me that she was still alive? Orbison sang a great deal about grief and sadness. Had she passed this along to let me know that she was grieving? He died much too young. Was she trying to draw some connection between him – and the way he lived on in the memory of his fans – and her mother? The article quoted from his songs, “In Dreams” and “Only the Lonely.” Was there something in one of these lines that she meant for me to interpret?

  I was still perched in front of the computer looking for answers when Tate called.

  “I almost feel ridiculous for asking this,” he said, “but I need a favor.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Can you take Zak and Sara for a couple of hours tomorrow afternoon? I’m meeting this woman for lunch.”

  “Couldn’t you meet her for dinner on a night when you don’t have the kids?”

  “It’s complicated and she wanted lunch. Do you think you can handle this, or is it too much with the baby?”

  “No, it’s fine. Drop them off whenever.”

  Tate showed up a little before noon the next day, brought the kids inside, kissed them on the tops of their heads, and said, “I’ll see ya later.” I was a little miffed; not at his asking me to do a favor for him, but because he hadn’t prioritized his kids during what had to be a tough transition. Clearly, some woman caught his fancy. I knew that Tate was faithful to Gail throughout their marriage and maybe his sudden freedom appealed to him so much that he forgot his responsibilities.

  Reese, Zak, Sara, and I ate lunch together and then walked down to the neighborhood playground. Sara spent an inordinate amount of time on a swing, but Zak stayed close by, seemingly much more fascinated with Reese than he was with anything else in the park. He held the baby in his lap while they sat in a play car and then played peek-a-boo with him for as long as Reese continued to smile over it. They shared a teething biscuit and Zak stood over Reese inquisitively while I changed his dirty diaper.

  “Is that a pain in the neck?” he asked.

  “Is what a pain in the neck?”

  “Doing stuff for him?”

  “No, of course not. I mean, I can think of lots of things more fun than this.” I pointed to the loose bowel movement. “But I love doing stuff for Reese.”

  “You do?”

  “Of course. He’s my kid. Your mom and dad love doing stuff for you.”

  “Yeah, I know that.”

  He ran off to join his sister and then the two of them went on the seesaw with Reese and me. Reese thought it was hilarious when our side of the seesaw landed on the ground with a thump. He was in an especially good mood this afternoon and seemed to find everything funny. I wondered if he was putting on a show for the other kids. It seemed important to him that everyone have a good time.

  On the way out of the park, I bought Zak and Sara ice pops from an ice cream truck.

  “Can Reese have one too?” Zak said.

  “He’s not really supposed to,” I said, though I’d given him tastes of everything from Krispy Kremes to dulce de leche. “Babies shouldn’t eat ice pops.”

  “I’m not a baby,” Sara said abruptly. “I don’t like being a baby.”

  None of us chose to comment on this, though Zak cringed a little.

  We got back to the house and I put Reese down for his nap while the two other kids watched television. Tate said to expect him by 2:30, but it was a quarter to three and he still hadn’t returned.

  While we waited, I taught Zak and Sara how to play Uno. Sara seemed to take great joy in making Zak skip turns or draw extra cards. It was then that I realized what seemed unusual about seeing the two of them together today. From the time Sara could walk, they were extremely competitive with one another and involved in regular, near c
onstant spats. But until this game of cards, they hadn’t provoked one another in the least today.

  Tate finally got back around four. He walked in, patted the kids, and then said to me, “Were they okay?”

  “They were great,” I said, glancing over at both of them. “They kicked my butt at Uno, but other than that, they were perfect house guests.”

  “Wanna play Uno with us, Dad?” Sara said. “Gerry says I’m a card shark.”

  “That’s ‘sharp,’ Baby,” Tate said. “And I think it’s time for us to go and give Gerry his house back.”

  I walked them to the door. “How was your lunch?” I said to Tate.

  “More delicious than you can imagine.”

  “Is this something I want to hear?”

  “I don’t want to make you jealous. Hey, I really appreciate that you did this thing with the kids.”

  “They were great. Bring ’em by anytime.”

  “Yeah, right. I owe you one.”

  Sara kissed me on the cheek and Zak gave me a long hug.

  “Thanks for being such a great playmate for Reese today,” I said to him.

  He smiled. “He’s a cool kid.”

  “You are too.”

  • • •

  That Tuesday, Reese had his half-year birthday. We celebrated by throwing caution to the wind and sharing some chocolate pudding I made. Reese was fascinated with the taste and, unlike most of the food he ate these days, barely a drop went onto his face or our clothes. I imagined that at some point I would have to address the considerable affection that my son had for sweets, but tonight was not that time.

  Before I put him to bed, I also gave him the last pouch of breast milk Maureen had expressed for him four months earlier. She had been so diligent about building up a big store of these. This last pouch had been sitting alone in the freezer for ten days awaiting this event.

  I wondered what Reese would think about this moment if he knew what was going on. Would he feel like he was losing his connection to his mother? Would he drink it with extra care, trying to remember the taste forever? Fortunately, he didn’t need to consider any of this. To him, this bottle was the same as all the others and I guess in a very real way that was a good thing.

  I thought about how I would memorialize Maureen for Reese. Of course, there would be pictures, including the handful I had of the two of them together. But I wanted the image he had of his mother to be richer, more three-dimensional. I decided to make a habit of sharing pieces of her when he got older – places we went together, songs she listened to, food she liked to eat, movies that made her cry, news events that outraged her. There was no way of constructing an accurate image of Maureen in his mind, but I would do my best to give him a feel for her, to help him draw impressions of her that he might have drawn himself if they were together.

  Reese drank the bottle hungrily – obviously, the carrots, peaches, and chocolate pudding hadn’t been enough – and belched loudly when he finished. I started so sing him a song and then decided to let him stay up a little longer. We watched a Yankee game (which, for once, they were winning easily) and I promised him we’d go to Yankee Stadium when he was one-and-a-half.

  • • •

  As the product development closing date came for the Christmas catalog, work intensified. This meant taking more of it home with me and sometimes spending hours in my library after Reese went to bed. It also meant that I needed to phone my colleagues at night on occasion. Doing this with Ally one night led to a productive ten minutes on the job at hand and then another half hour about other things. A few nights later, she called me apropos of nothing and we talked for a long time. A few nights after that, I completed the little bit of work I needed to do and then clicked on the Yankee game. I had been in executive staff meetings the entire day and hadn’t seen Ally at all. She came to my office sometime after lunch, but I didn’t even get the message until after six. While I was watching the game, I decided to give her a call.

  “Sorry I missed you today,” I said when she answered. “I was stuck with the suits in the conference room.”

  “Aren’t you technically a ‘suit’ yourself?”

  “Bite your tongue.”

  “I apologize. Anyway, I didn’t have any real reason to come see you. I was just stopping by to say hi.”

  “I would have enjoyed that so much more than the clever banter I had with the finance people. I really think those guys have a different genetic structure than we do.”

  “I’m guessing they think that people who develop cuddly animal bathmats are pretty weird too.”

  “You might have a point.”

  It was a little more than a month after Opening Day. The Yankees were off to a very slow start, winning just 11 of their first 26 games. Also, the injury bug continued to strike, placing two more players on the disabled list, and relegating another couple to day-to-day status. Now, in the top of the fourth, they were down 4-1, again suffering from early pitching problems. At that moment, while I half-watched the game, their second baseman let an easy ground ball slip through his legs and another run scored. I heard Ally exclaim, “Dammit,” while I thought the exact same thing.

  “Are you okay?” I said.

  “Yeah, sorry. I really am listening to you. It’s just that this guy on the Yanks just made a stupid error.” “You’re watching the Yankee game?”

  “I’m always watching the Yankee game. I’ve been a huge fan since I was a little kid.”

  “How has this not come up in conversation?”

  “You’re not a Mets fan, are you?” she said with some apprehension in her voice.

  “No, Yankees, of course. Always have been. I’m watching the game right now. He positioned himself totally wrong for that grounder.”

  “He’s been doing it all season. They have a real problem at second.”

  “Item number four, I think, on a huge list of problems.” “I’m worried about them.”

  “It’s early.”

  “Yeah, but I’m worried.”

  This was a revelation. For most of my adult life, I didn’t have anyone to talk with like this. Maureen and Tanya were ambivalent about baseball and, because we were from Long Island, most of my other friends paid more attention to the Mets. The New York metro area overflowed with Yankee fans, but I had virtually none in my personal acquaintance.

  But now I had Ally.

  The Yankees ultimately got out of the inning without making any additional errors or giving up any more runs. The broadcast went to commercial.

  “Have you seen the new Food and Wine and that great tour through Chilean vineyards?” Ally said.

  “I don’t get Food and Wine.”

  “You don’t? I love it. I’ll get you a subscription for your birthday. When is your birthday?”

  “It was last month.”

  “You had a birthday last month and you didn’t tell me?”

  “It was skip-able.”

  “Birthdays are never skip-able. I’m going online right now to order you a subscription. When it arrives, we’ll pretend it’s your birthday.”

  “I don’t know very much about Chilean wine, either.”

  “You need me way more than you realize. They’re still coming into their own, but some vineyards are producing great stuff. Casa Lapostolle makes one of the best wines in the world.” I heard the phone rustling around on her end. “I’m at my computer.”

  “You’re not worried about missing a couple of Yankee strikeouts?”

  “Nah, there’ll be plenty more where those come from.”

  “Probably next inning.”

  “So what did you make the kid for dinner tonight? Have you started him on Mexican food yet? I hear babies love salsa verde.”

  “I gave him some guacamole the other night and he seemed to like the way it looked in his hair. I stuck with an old standby tonight: pureed peaches.”

  “Beech-Nut or Gerber?”

  “You’re kidding, right? I make my own.”

  “
That sounds like way more work than necessary. Are you afraid the commercial brands will poison him or something?”

  “It’s not exactly tough to blanch some peaches and throw them in a food processor.”

  “Sounds tough to me.”

  “We need to get you over here for some cooking lessons.” I said this casually, even though I clutched a little as the words came out of my mouth.

  “Ready when you are. As long as you don’t mind the risk of collateral damage.”

  “Game’s back on, by the way.”

  “I’ll be done with this in a couple of minutes. I need your address.”

  “You’re really getting me a subscription to Food and Wine?”

  “You said you didn’t have one. I need your address.”

  I told her and then told her that the Yankees had quickly put a runner on first.

  “How’d the team meeting go today?” I said.

  “Not the same without you. And some of the kids really act up when the teacher isn’t there. But I think we did okay. Morris came up with a fabulous idea, but I’ll let him tell you tomorrow. That is, if you’re visible tomorrow.”

  “Can’t say for sure. I’m telling you, three-quarters of the time I’m with these finance guys, I feel totally unnecessary.”

  “Come back to us. We promise to make you feel needed.”

  “Thanks. First and second with nobody out. You really shouldn’t miss this.”

  “I’m doing the credit card thing now. I’ll be back in the living room in a second.”

  We didn’t talk while Ally gave the website her credit card information and I watched the next Yankee batter ground into a double play, which left a runner at third with two outs. I moaned and then explained what happened.

  “I’m telling you, I’m worried,” she said.

  “They’ll work through this. They have to.”

  The inning ended a batter later with a pop-up to short. We talked each other through another half inning before deciding to call it a night.

  “Mine is in September, by the way,” she said.