Cameron nodded silently. A smirk on his face. Cameron always quick to create conflict whenever there were more than two kids in a room. But maybe that was only-child syndrome?
I smiled again at Cameron, worried he could tell I disliked him. Worried I hadn’t said enough to let Paige know how wonderful I thought he was. But already the wind was growing colder, making it difficult to think and to speak, much less to soundlessly communicate anything meaningful.
“We should keep going,” Gene said, his face red and soggy in the cold.
I agreed. It was freezing. My toes were wooden! And yet I didn’t want to let them go, either. I wanted to know more about Winnie. To bask in the possibilities of her new life. But already Gene was turning the stroller away from me, the back wheel cutting through the snow, revealing a thick black smudge where once there had been white.
A FOREIGN PLACE
THANK GOD WE’D FINISHED eating. Gooey boeuf Bourguignon, which was typical of Paige’s French cooking, served on good china with Baccarat stemware. It was our official Winnie dinner—a month since the Edwardses’ trip. All of us in the dining room waiting for coffee, the kids relegated to the basement. Winnie nowhere in sight, sent to bed after the quickest of greetings because six thirty was the absolute latest she could stay up. “She has sleep issues,” Paige had explained, not elaborating.
Now Paige was telling the story of the trip itself, which I’d been dying to hear about, hoping they’d enjoyed it. Or at least gotten something meaningful out of it. But already I was cringing.
“Wait till you hear what happened in Gorky Park!” Paige was saying. Her face flushed with laughter and wine. Her silvery-white hair making her look queen-like at the head of her mahogany table. “On our way there, Winnie’s resting on Gene’s shoulder, and she suddenly starts shouting to this crowd of people in Russian, which we ignored, because, you know…”
“Because you don’t speak Russian,” I offered, embarrassed that Paige thought it was okay to make fun of her daughter’s distress, as if the fact that Winnie was speaking in Russian made it count less. Paige held her palms up in halfhearted agreement, then continued.
“So anyway, Winnie’s yelling in Russian, which sounds like gibberish to us, but the crowd behind Gene is getting sort of loud and coming closer, and after a few minutes, people are tapping Gene on the shoulder and pulling at Winnie!”
Yazmin came through the swinging door to the dining room, clearing plates, head bowed, some of us greeting her, Paige ignoring her.
“So now we’re getting scared,” Paige continued. “And Gene and I are like, ‘Where is the adoption agency guide?’”
Everyone around the long dining room table nodded, eager, I knew, that Paige not get derailed by a complaint about the adoption agency guide.
“She’s nowhere,” Paige continued, answering her own question. “And the crowd is getting loud and unruly, so we start jogging. And the crowd starts jogging with us! And Winnie’s still screaming toward them in Russian! Finally, after five terrifying minutes, the adoption agency guide sees the crowd and tells them something that makes them stop following us. Then she tells us the deal. Get this: Winnie was telling them we gave away her brother!”
A brief, pregnant pause. Was there a brother?
“She doesn’t have a brother!” Paige said, shaking her head, giggling a little. “I think she was thinking of someone from the orphanage.”
“Jesus!” said Lorraine.
“Doesn’t the adoption agency explain anything to these kids?” Nela asked, her face dubious, her attitude of disdain lowering its mantle upon us, the white folk who didn’t understand hardship. I always wanted to bang something down on Nela’s sleek, seal-like head at these moments, she who had been poor but otherwise fortunate. She who had gone to Harvard on scholarship and had a mother and father who were sane and loved her.
“Well, and here’s another weird thing,” Paige said, ignoring Nela’s question as if it hadn’t been asked. “Winnie starts saying that she has to go to the bathroom, and we’ve just gotten to the park and there’s not a Western bathroom in sight. I have nowhere to take her! But the guide tells me, are you ready for this, to, ‘just put Winnie down and let her go to the bathroom like she’s used to going’!”
We nodded. We waited for her to elaborate. I knew what the others didn’t. I’d traveled to Russia for a month in college as part of my foreign policy minor. I’d used the holes in the ground, shitting while squatting and wishing desperately for toilet paper. I imagined the scenario couldn’t be dissimilar to what Paige was hinting at, even though it was twenty years later. Even though they supposedly had capitalism now.
“Holes?” I finally ventured.
“Cesspools, Nicole,” Paige said, turning toward me. “Shit-covered cesspools with little tread marks for your feet. And no walls between them! I set Winnie down and she does her business and starts to pull up her pants without wiping herself. Like an animal!”
We were startled. We were amazed. Had Paige just invoked feces at her dining room table? Just compared her new daughter to an animal? The men covered their eyes with their hands, rocked their heads back and forth in disbelief or possibly disgust while Lorraine laughed loudly. Nela merely raised her thick eyebrows in my direction, which I met, but only momentarily. I didn’t want to get drawn into Nela’s disapproval. I wanted to hear the rest of the story, to hear the parts that made Paige’s behavior laudable, or at least not embarrassing. At the head of the table, Paige looked flushed, happy, eager to be the teller of strange and funny tales, which were not, it seemed, about Winnie exactly but about the barbarism of the Russian people.
“It’s hard,” Paige said when the room had quieted down, her smile fading, causing her deep lines and wrinkles to come into sharper relief. “The things you don’t know.”
Some of us leaned forward in our chairs, curious to hear this bit of honesty. I was eager. I was hungry for it, certain it was possible for Paige to be sincere with us now that she’d been in a support group.
Paige took a breath. Then, as if steeling herself for something necessary but difficult, she said, “Winnie doesn’t really sleep. I mean, she needs to sleep, but she’s exhausted from all the stimulation of our lives.”
We nodded and waited for her to go on. This was the Paige I believed we all liked best. The honest Paige, the vulnerable and occasionally introspective Paige, right here, side by side with the Paige who told insensitive stories about people she deemed less civilized.
“Well,” Paige continued, taking note of all the eyes around the table on her, “in the middle of the night, Winnie wakes up screaming. Really screaming. I used to go to her to try to calm her down, but that just makes it worse.”
“It does,” Gene chimed in quickly, defending Paige against some unspoken accusation.
“We’ve had to make some hard choices,” Paige said, and we all nodded, all knew exactly what she meant. Lucas had slept on our floor for eight months during one particularly bad spell when he was six. Eight months with a blanket and a pillow and a red plastic mat! I’d hated him for it. But what could I do? I’d tried to lock him in his room once, holding the handle so he couldn’t get out, and the screams were still too horrible to fully conjure and admit to. Had I really been that mother? I had. Which meant I was in no position to judge Paige.
“We’ve installed baby gates in her room,” Paige was saying at the other end of her table. “We’re trying to help her learn boundaries. She needs to stay in her room. Not come to our bed.”
Everyone nodding as if the gates explained everything. I nodded, too, even though the gates merely raised more questions for me. Couldn’t Winnie climb over the gates? Of course she could climb over them. Which meant they were just a symbol, and Winnie could go to Paige and Gene for comfort when she needed them? Or maybe they weren’t gates as we thought of them? The story didn’t make sense, but then again, Paige’s stories seldom did. They often started in the middle and lacked cohesion and relevant facts
.
Meanwhile, all around me, people were murmuring their support for Paige. Lorraine laughing, shaking the ice in her empty highball glass as she reminded us that her two-year-old, Jesse, had slept in a bouncy seat for the first four months of his life.
“Remember, you were outraged!” Lorraine said, laughing, turning to me.
“Not outraged,” I corrected, smiling at the memory of the incident. “I was just surprised. You said Jesse slept through the night after four months. You never mentioned the bouncy seat. Then I go into his nursery and the crib’s not even put together!”
Lorraine laughing, her mouth open, her perfectly square, white teeth making me wonder whether they were real. Everyone talking at once about their children’s strange sleep habits. Drew reminding Nela that they’d had to run the garbage disposal to get the twins to calm down. Lorraine admitting that she had hired a sleep consultant to teach Gabe how to transition to a “big boy” bed. Which was insane. What parent hired a sleep consultant? But I was glad, too. That I didn’t have to hear more about Winnie and what she did or didn’t get from Paige. Didn’t have to wonder about the strange gate situation. Certain that it was probably something I could live with. Winnie, too. Soon Winnie’s fears would die down and she wouldn’t need to scream in the night or try to leave her room. I believed in this. That things worked out. That the things you ignored couldn’t harm you.
And then, as if on cue, Winnie appeared at the arched entrance to the dining room in pink footie pajamas, a teddy bear at her chest. She looked nothing like the girl in the stroller, haggard and a little bit ugly. Nothing like the girl presented to us in the red-and-green plaid dress at the beginning of the evening, nervous and more than a little uncertain. Now she was playful. Charming. A little bit devilish. Her lazy eye covered by a lock of silky black hair that she twirled in front of her face. Her other hand waving at us.
Gene was smiling right back at her, waving wholeheartedly like he already adored her. Which was lovely and charming and made Gene so much better than just another preppy golfer from that club of theirs that didn’t admit Jews.
“Come,” Gene said, reaching his arms out toward Winnie as she skipped into the dining room and climbed into Gene’s lap, snuggling close but still peering out at us, smiling. She had, despite her Slavic features, a kind of American smile, confident and flirtatious.
Paige said, “Winnie’s a daddy’s girl, aren’t you, Winnie?”
Winnie said something unintelligible, which for some reason spurred a round of questions that had no doubt been bottled up all night. Did Winnie speak any words of English? How did Paige and Gene communicate with her, and what did she say back to them?
Gene started to speak, half answers about speech delays and vision tests. The preschool they planned to send her to for children with special needs. Gene leaning over slightly, his lap suddenly smaller, causing Winnie to uncurl herself and begin walking around the table, peering at people, saying, “Hi” in a strange, high-pitched voice, the effort apparent, as if she were pushing the word through a wind tunnel in her throat.
When she got to me, I placed my thick cloth napkin over my eyes and said, “Peekaboo.” Quickly. Before I lost her attention. Winnie laughed, motioned for me to do it again. Which I did. Five, then six times. The same laugh every time. And then she took the napkin and put it over her own head.
“Winifred Leigh Edwards, don’t put someone’s napkin on your hair!” Paige called down the long table. Her voice ugly and shrill.
“She doesn’t realize,” Paige continued in my direction, as if I was expecting something more of her new daughter. Clearly she was. Which was ludicrous but not unusual for Paige. She thought all the kids should conform to some idea of childhood behavior she’d gotten from a Christmas catalog. Smiling in their best finery. Daintily nibbling on canapés. I didn’t begrudge Paige her fantasy—it was why her house looked so good whenever she had us over—but I wasn’t going to spend my energy getting Winnie to conform to her dream. It was just too much trouble and not possible, anyway.
I waved Paige off with a smile and turned to Winnie, who had started to speak and was trying to tell me something. The consonants tumbling out on top of one another in a way that was familiar to me. It was the sound Lucas had made when he was learning to talk. He’d been delayed. His tongue not always cooperating. But I’d always been able to understand him. I leaned in closer to Winnie, sorry I didn’t know her particular squeaks and rattles well enough to interpret for her.
“Hug?” I said instead, opening my arms wide to show her what I meant, hoping the offer would cover up the fact that I couldn’t help her. That she couldn’t make herself understood.
I expected a hesitation. A pause as she considered it. But Winnie flung herself toward me, forcing me to reach forward and clasp her tight lest she topple the both of us.
“She’ll hug anyone,” Paige called from the other end of the room. “It’s part of the orphanage thing.”
This seemed odd. And mean. Even if it was true. But then, hadn’t Paige told me that Winnie didn’t like to hug strangers? Out on that snowy walk? All of this quickly flitting through my mind as I felt Winnie’s warm arms clasped around my back. Who cared if she loved too much or too little or without forethought? She had that inimitable thing that couldn’t be taught and that everyone wanted. Charm. I hugged her back, a thick, syrupy feeling creeping up from my chest and into my throat. There it was. I loved her already.
DARKNESS
THE SNOW FELL OUTSIDE our windows like white rain, seemingly delicate but relentless in its toll. Nearly a foot piling up in the backyard, until it was too dark to even see it. I gathered the boys in the kitchen to play a game, eager to pry them off of the TV set. Josh running to the basement to get checkers just before the wrought-iron chandelier started to flicker, the candle-shaped bulbs dimming to a faint glow before going out completely; the house was pitched into darkness.
Josh started to scream. A high-pitched wail from the basement. “Get me! Get me!”
“I’m coming!” I shouted, disturbed by how upset he was. Josh normally so calm and easygoing, The darkness obviously frightening him. Trying to reassure him that I was on my way, even though I needed a flashlight, or a candle. Fumbling with the childproof lock on the drawer where we kept them. Hating the damn lock. Josh screaming louder.
Lucas saying, “I know a thing or two about electricity,” then standing up on a kitchen chair to tighten a lightbulb in the wrought-iron fixture. The bulb cracking. Lucas crying.
“Everyone stop it!” I screamed. Hating my nasty tone but unable to stop myself. Determined to control the situation. To make the children listen. Jay clomping down the stairs with flashlights, asking, “Why is everyone screaming?” As if it weren’t already obvious! His judgment of my parenting apparent and undeserved. Which made me furious!
“Go get Josh!” I snapped at him. Jay making a face at me. Jay silently descending the basement steps while I took a flashlight and helped Lucas with his hand, which thankfully wasn’t cut too badly. Taking a deep breath and giving him a hug, even as he began to squirm away from me. Lucas hopping toward the basement steps, then banging into Jay. Josh screaming, “You left me!” over and over again even as I rubbed his back and tried to soothe him. Jay sulking, refusing to look at me. The entire scene a misery. How did we get here, and so quickly?
And then, my cell phone ringing.
I lunged for it, happy for the distraction. Hopeful it was Drew or Lorraine or even Paige telling us that they, too, had lost electricity. Hopeful the evening could turn from a washout into some sort of party.
“Hey,” I said, even though I didn’t recognize the number. Which was risky and something I normally avoided. I heard deep breathing. Then my name, slurred and barely audible.
“Hello!” I said, hoping the volume and forced cheer of my voice would make the caller go away. Pretty certain I knew who it was even though I wanted to believe it was a telemarketer.
“Nicole?” T
he voice louder this time, but still slurry, followed by more heavy breathing.
“Yes?” I said. Still aloof. Still pretending I didn’t know it was my older sister, Penelope, a name we both detested for its pretentious aspirations.
“This is so fucked up!” Penny slurred.
I held up my finger to Jay and the boys, mouthed, “One minute,” and took a flashlight with me to the paneled study, away from where the boys could hear me.
More heavy breathing from Penny as I walked the darkened hallways.
“Where are you?” I asked, trying to flip on the lights in the study and then, remembering about the power failure, flopping down on the sofa and staring out into the darkness, a dull throb beginning behind my eyes and nasal cavity.
“Bob broke up with me!” Penny wailed, burping, then hiccupping.
“Where are you?” I asked, pinching the bridge of my nose, hoping Penny was home, even though home was a dilapidated house in Ohio thirty minutes from where we’d grown up together. Every inch of the small rented kitchen covered with coffee mugs and used glasses. The mess supposedly a reflection of her and Bob’s shared creativity. Penny a former pianist and sometimes piano teacher. Bob an artist, or was it an illustrator? Bob always distracted the few times I’d met him, his mood slightly hostile.
“It’s thirty-five hundred dollars.”
“What is?”
More sobbing. Then, “Forget it. It’s not worth it.”
“What’s not worth it?” I asked, jumping up to turn on the lights and then remembering about the blackout again and feeling like an idiot.
“I’m done,” Penny slurred between sobs.
“Please!” I commanded.
On the other end of the phone, the line went dead.
I felt my breath catch and my heart begin to pound. Guilty and worried that I’d caused Penny to hang up on me. Praying we’d been disconnected.
I quickly dialed Penny’s cell phone, even though clearly that wasn’t the number she’d called me from. Alarmed when I heard the busy signal. How did cell phones ring busy? I called again. Busy. I called repetitively, ten, twelve, twenty times, finally reaching the voice mail only to hear it was full. I wondered if I should call a suicide hotline, if Penny really meant to do herself in. I stood up, pacing, thinking, worrying, wishing there were some damn electricity! Knowing somewhere in my mind that Penny wasn’t going to do herself in. Probably. She’d been this upset before, when Bob had left her or she’d lost a job. And in those times, she had managed to pull herself up to normal, or at least her version of it. My mother paying for one disastrous stint in rehab in which Penny went directly from her program to the supermarket to load up on wine coolers.
Good Neighbors Page 3