When You Went Away

by Michael Baron

  “We might. Or I might just keep screwing up. I don’t want to take the chance. I went after this job, Gerry.” He chuckled sadly. “I’ll do a much better job as their rich uncle.”

  “They’re your children, Tate.”

  “I get it,” he said, his eyes darting up to meet mine again. “And every family is different. I’m gonna have to play this out my way.”

  I didn’t want to concede this point, but of course, I didn’t get a vote. Still, it rankled. Though I was less certain about most things now than I once was, I knew absolutely that I would never make the decision that Tate had made. He was giving up without a fight and leaving behind two kids who needed him far more than he realized.

  “Do they know yet?”

  “We spoke to them last night. I told them to pretend I was on a whole lot of business trips.”

  “They bought that?”

  “How the hell am I supposed to know? They didn’t start crying or latch onto my leg or something, if that’s what you mean.”

  I shook my head and neither of us said anything for a short while. Then I clapped him on the arm. “This stinks for me, too. I’m gonna miss you.”

  He patted my hand, and then reached for the beer he ordered. “Wanna come out for the month of August?” “Yeah, maybe.” I tried to get the waiter’s attention to order a drink for myself. “Does Highpoint make any good food?”

  “Hot n’ Flaky Biscuits. Home-baked goodness in just eight minutes.”

  “Great, send me a couple of dozen cases,” I said sarcastically. “You know, if you were going to abandon us, the least you could do is go someplace where I could get some decent freebies.”

  Dad,

  I’ve spent the last few days in a college town and I actually kinda like it. A lot of bookstores and coffee shops and posters for concerts by people even I’ve never heard of. Discussion groups about everything imaginable. Yesterday, I got a job at a music store, a real independent with CDs from local bands playing all the time and an owner who thinks he knows everything about every WORTHWHILE song that has ever been recorded. Last night this guy came in who must have been in his early forties. He talked to Syd (the owner) for about a half hour about all kinds of music. I was working the cash register so I couldn’t hear everything they said, but they were all over the place. I thought that you would like Syd. And then I realized that you could have easily been that guy that Syd was talking to. I remember how clueless most of my friends’ parents were about music, but it was always pretty cool that you knew so much.

  This town is okay. I don’t know if I’m going to stay here or what, but it would be kinda nice to be in one place for a while. There are some cheap places to crash and there’s lots of stuff to do. And when I walk around here, I kind of feel like there are a lot of other people trying to figure things out the same way I am. It’s not like Port Jeff where everyone in school is trying to show everyone else how together they are. Out here, it seems to be okay to be a mess, even a little preferable.

  Good thing, because I’m definitely still a mess. It’s like that stupid joke where a guy goes to a doctor and tells him that his head is hurting. The doctor steps on the guy’s foot and says, “Now you won’t think so much about your headache.”In my case, the pain in my head is Mom and the pain in my foot is Mick. (Gee, maybe Mick thought he was doing me a favor by dumping me.) They’re both throbbing pretty much all the time, but one hurts just a little bit more than the other depending on where I am in the day.

  At the same time, I’m getting these tiny indications that I might be doing a little bit better. Yesterday, I thought of something funny Mom once said to me and I smiled about it for something like twenty minutes. That’s gotta be some kind of progress, right?

  Syd’s letting me borrow his computer, so I can’t really take a lot of time here. Tell Aunt Codie that I’ll write her when I get a chance. And kiss the kid for me.

  Hearts,

  T

  Here’s what I learned so far about the thing that you and I are going through about your mother: it never feels better. What does feel better is the understanding that you can keep living your life even though you know it’s never going to feel better, and that there is still more joy to be found. I suppose in some way, you understood some of this intrinsically before Mick bolted on you.

  It’s so easy to for tragedy to defeat you. It’s seductive in the way that I heard freezing to death is. Being consumed by grief is in many ways much more comfortable than battling your way out of it – especially when you realize that no matter how hard you fight you can’t reverse the situation you’re grieving over. But it’s so important to engage in the battle anyway. It’s really the only way to stay alive.

  Admitting defeat is almost never advisable. Tate told me today that he’s moving to Seattle because he got a huge new job. But a big part of the reason why he went after the job in the first place was because he didn’t believe he could handle his kids as a solo parent. Rather than taking on a challenge that could very well beat him, he decided to throw in the towel. I have no idea what his future relationship is going to be with his children, but if this is where he is with them right now, it’s hard to believe that the relationship will be a good one. I hope that you never shrink from tough situations, no matter how hopeless they seem. I can’t tell you how often I have to convince myself of the same thing.

  It’s at least a small comfort to me that you’re a little bit settled in this unnamed (new remailer, I noticed) college town of yours. Thinking of you working in a record store where smart “old guys” like your father shop is decidedly better than imagining you hitchhiking on some highway in the middle of nowhere. And yes, the thought did come to mind that I should try to call every independent record shop in every college town in the South and ask for Syd. I might still do it, but I’m holding off for now. I know that you don’t want me to swoop down to drag you home. And I know that if you come home on your own we’re both going to be much better off.

  See, I refuse to admit defeat. Even when it’s killing me.

  • • •

  Early the next week, as Ally and I watched the Yankees take another pounding, Codie called.

  “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” she said.

  “Ally’s cursing at the baseball game on the television right now and I was beating a pillow when the phone rang.”

  “This is something that you think is romantic?”

  “People tell me I’m cute when I’m angry.”

  “Put Ally on the phone. I want to tell her to get out while there’s still time.”

  “Love you too, Sis.”

  She chuckled. “Listen, if you’re not too strung out on that stupid sport of yours to pay attention, I could use some advice.”

  I stood up and walked toward the library where I couldn’t hear the TV. “Shoot.”

  “I need you to tell me if you think I’m losing my mind.”

  “I only occasionally think that.”

  “I haven’t told you what I might be losing my mind about yet.” She waited a beat before continuing. “I’m giving very serious thought to in-vitro fertilization.”

  I flopped down into a chair in the library. “That’s sensational news.”

  “You don’t think it’s insane?”

  “You’re not going to try to buy a Nobel Prize winner’s sperm or anything like that, are you?”

  “No, jeez, of course not.”

  “Then I really think it’s great.”

  “You do?”

  “Really great.World class great. Do it tomorrow.” “Too many meetings. Maybe the day after. You don’t think being a single parent is impossible?”

  “You’re asking me this?”

  “You don’t think it’ll seriously complicate my professional life and have a huge impact on every date I ever have, assuming I ever have another one?”

  “Yeah, I think it’ll do both. I also assume you’ve made peace with that.”

  “I have, but what if
the baby comes and I realize that I didn’t really make peace with it.”

  “You’ll deal with it.”

  She sighed. One huge difference between Codie and Maureen is that Maureen never sighed. “You don’t think I’ll just be the world’s worst mother?”

  “That was a shameless bid for a compliment.”

  “It wasn’t, actually.What the hell do I know about being a mother?”

  “You’ll be a sensational mother. I can tell these things. You’re going to be and extremely good one. I knew this about you since you were in your mid-twenties.”

  “You did?”

  “I could tell just by watching you with Tanya. You displayed more than aunt stuff.”

  “Wow, I had no idea.”

  “You’re a natural.”

  “Thanks. This is because of you, you know. I probably would have sat on the fence the rest of my life if I didn’t see you with Reese. You just make it look so possible and so worthwhile.”

  This touched me. I hardly considered my handling of Reese to be inspirational and I spent so much time these days beating myself up over what I did wrong with Tanya that I hardly thought about the kind of parent I was to my son. But if I helped Codie make this decision, I was glad. “So how do you go about doing this?”

  “I went to a seminar about it a few days ago. It’s really not that complicated, but if you take it seriously there are resources all over the place.”

  “And you just call the sperm bank and place an order?”

  “Yeah, it’s exactly like that,” she said sarcastically. “More to come. I have a lot of research left to do. I’m really glad you’re with me on this.”

  “With you all the way. Reese needs a cousin.”

  “Maybe you’ll be my Lamaze partner?”

  “I’d be thrilled. Of course, I’ll warn you now that I’m a tough taskmaster. Maureen nearly threw me out of the delivery room.”

  “I’ll bear up.”

  “I’m really glad you’re doing this.”

  “I’m really glad you’re really glad.”

  We talked a while longer and I found myself feeling better about this than I had about anything in a week. This was such a good decision for Codie, such an optimistic decision. I was proud of her for making it and glad she was moving her life in this direction.

  Like me and like Tanya, Codie had been felled by Maureen’s death. But she wanted to keep living and she wanted to make more of her life. I really needed to see this at this very moment.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Veered Away

  As shaky as I was about Tanya, Ally and Reese at least offered me balance. Ally listened to me and worried with me and commiserated or debated, depending on what was necessary. And at some point, she simply pulled me away, taking me into her world and offering relief.

  Reese was just Reese. Thank God.

  Ally and I now referred to Reese as the “cruise missile” because of his ability to dash with unusual speed while holding onto tables, chairs, or whatever kept him upright. He even stood unsupported a couple of times before realizing he wasn’t grasping anything and plopping to the ground.

  The cruising thing became a game for him, made more exciting if I chased him around the coffee table in the family room. He found this hilarious and a few times lost his balance because he excitedly threw his arms out away from his body while we raced. Not wanting him to feel bad, I tumbled after him, and the two of us laughed while we lay on our backs.

  “I wonder if Laurel and Hardy started this way,” Ally said while she watched us.We got up and did it again. When we flopped this time, Ally came over and flopped on top of me, which got a huge belly laugh from Reese. Of course, she did it again. And, for that matter, three more times before I suggested another manner of entertaining my son. Ally reached across my body and snatched Reese up, rolling him over and tickling him while he laughed uncontrollably.

  That afternoon, we’d bought him a little color-coded xylophone. I brought it over to him, showing him how to make a sound by striking the keys with a mallet. He smiled when I played a note, but didn’t do anything other than that. I put one of the mallets in his hand and helped him use it. This led to a volley of wild banging accompanied by his off-key wailing.

  “Bet you can’t sing as well as this,” Ally said to me.

  “Maybe not, but I can sing more quietly.”

  Reese put down the mallet and I picked it up, seeing what I could make of this toy instrument. I started to pick out the notes to the Beatles’ “Here, There and Everywhere,” which required some imagination since the xylophone didn’t actually have all of the notes. Reese found this mildly amusing, but Ally was more interested.

  “That’s pretty,” she said.

  “I never played it on a ten-dollar xylophone before.”

  “Will you play some songs for me sometime?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Maybe after we get this guy to bed.”

  “I think I would like that.”

  I stopped playing and Reese took the mallet from me and put it in his mouth. I picked him up and raised him over my head, twisting him back and forth. He giggled, but as I looked up at him, he drooled down on my face.

  “Can’t let my guard down for a second,” I said as I wiped my cheek.

  As was often the case on Friday nights, we decided that “Reese needed ice cream” and drove off to the local Ben & Jerry’s. He didn’t get more than a lick of our cones (though he would have eaten much more if given the opportunity), but he seemed happy and we were more than satisfied. Then it was back to the house for a few crawling races before it was time for the baby to go to bed. As had become our ritual, Ally sat in the rocking chair with him and read from a book. After this, Ally usually left the room while I sang him a couple of songs and put him in his crib. On this night, though, he snuggled into Ally’s chest while she read and he was asleep before she finished. She looked up at me, bemused, and then leaned down to kiss him on the top of the head.

  “I guess we wore him out tonight,” she said with a dreamy smile. She lay him down in his crib and then walked over to me and put her arms around me. “That was nice.”

  There was no question that Ally was smitten with Reese and he with her. She was a willing audience for every trick or gesture he performed. And there were mornings during the week when she was late getting into the shower because she couldn’t pull herself away from him. Recently Reese had trouble sleeping through the night again and Ally not only accepted bringing him into bed with us – the only way he would go back down – but she even seemed to welcome it. At the same time, Reese was more openly affectionate with her than anyone other than me.He loved playing with her face and gumming her chin, and he was tolerant and amused by just about anything she did with him, whether it was rubbing noses or her flipping him around on the couch.

  His falling asleep on her warmed her in a way that I hadn’t seen before. She was even more tender than she usually was the rest of the night. She just cuddled with me on the couch with some music playing softly in the background and she didn’t even seem particularly interested in speaking. And when we finally went to bed, she made love to me with more softness and affection than ever before. She fell asleep shortly thereafter, and I swore I saw an entirely new level of contentment on her face. I kissed her on the cheek and lay my head next to hers. I was glad that she felt this way and glad that I could play the part in this that I did. In that one moment, everything made sense to me.

  True to form, Reese woke up around 2:30 and spent the rest of the night with us. I knew that in some way it was a cheat to bring him to bed with me, putting off the string of sleepless nights required to get him to stay on his own. But at the same time, I wasn’t entirely averse to having him here. He always settled down quickly and his body next to mine was reassuring in a way. I knew at some point this wouldn’t be nearly as cute as it was now – not to mention that in the future he might want to go to bed with me as opposed to joining me in the middle of the night a
nd that simply wouldn’t be acceptable – but I had time to address that issue.

  Some time later, I had the most incredibly vivid dream. In it, Reese sat on the floor of the family room when he caught my eye. He gathered himself up to a standing position and, with a huge grin on his face, toddled over in my direction. I called to him while he took halting steps that grew more confident as he got closer. But then as he neared, he veered away from me and threw himself into Ally’s arms instead. As she gathered him up, he buried his face in her neck and said, “Mama.”

  The dream actually woke me up, as though I envisioned myself falling off a cliff instead. I sat up in bed and found both Reese and Ally fast asleep, his little arm resting on her back, both of them content in their slumber.

  I tried to get to sleep again, but it was absolutely no use. I lay in bed for maybe forty-five minutes playing the dream over in my head.What did this mean?Did I believe that Reese was walking away from me because of his affection for Ally?Did I think that Reese thought Ally was his mother? Did I think that Ally thought she was his mother?

  Though it was barely 5:30, I slipped out of bed. In so many ways, this dream provided me with the most disturbing thoughts I had since Maureen died.While I struggled with the fears of what a new romance would do to the memory of my love for my wife, I think I always understood at the most meaningful level that I would never forget that love and that it would never vacate my heart. But that Ally could replace Maureen in Reese’s mind before I could ever teach him who Maureen was and what she meant to our world, – that another woman could seem much more real to him as a mother – this was an idea that I didn’t even consider. It didn’t matter whether Ally was trying to insinuate herself into Reese’s life this way or not. My guess was that, as sensitive as she was, she was trying very hard to avoid precisely this. But the fact was, given the way in which they’d connected and the situation the three of us were in, Reese could very easily come to see Ally as his only real mother figure, relegating Maureen to some kind of myth, a fanciful figure like Santa Claus, or a guardian angel.