Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots

by Jessica Soffer

  “It isn’t so bad,” Dottie said, clearly relieved. “Just pretend I don’t live there. Pretend we never met. Pretend we were never anything.”

  Joseph closed his eyes and tried to imagine it, the life of pretending. Instead, he couldn’t help wondering what he’d have to do to make her, his Victoria, touch his shoulder. Reach out to her, hold her hand there until she stopped trying to budge. Sometimes, even now that things were better, great even, he felt it would be like suffocating a fish.

  Soon, Dottie was drinking whiskey sours. She had opened up. Her sass was entirely restored. Victoria was immune to it, Joseph noticed. She was the opposite of sass. Sass didn’t agree with her, which might have been why, after his sixth gin cocktail, Joseph put his finger on Dottie’s pinkie fingernail. It was painted a light tan color and was a perfect oval. It reminded him of something on a poster, the sheen and shape of it. And smooth, it was smooth. It didn’t move. It didn’t even flinch. But he did. His whole being flinched. After a moment, he took his finger back. Away.

  Lorca

  I’D FELT HOPEFUL. Then I’d felt like I’d had the wind knocked out of me. And then the wind knocked out of me again.

  I’d believed that I might actually be Victoria’s granddaughter. And she thought that too; she believed it too. I wasn’t being ridiculous. Not by myself, anyway. And I let her, even after my mother told me about her real parents, because I didn’t want to be disowned. Not so quickly. I wanted Victoria to be mine. I wanted to be Victoria’s. But then, of course, she wasn’t. I wasn’t either. And not only that, but she wanted nothing to do with me. I reminded her of something that wasn’t, I guess, of something that never was. I didn’t want to cause her pain. Her face, when Dottie told her about her baby, stillborn, had turned a color I’d never seen before. White with red on top. Not pink, but like a foot in the snow, nothing blending, nothing right.

  After that, she couldn’t look me in the eye. Please, I’d said in my head but I couldn’t put it into real words.

  That night, after I left Victoria’s, it started snowing. I tried to just stay in bed and keep my sheets warm, except there was an expectant feeling in my chest that refused to quit, and so I peeled the skin off my elbows. I burned my tongue with a match. I pulled out some hair. Usually, that little white stamp of scalp would fill up what was lost. But now after I did it, I still felt all wrong. I still felt responsible. It occurred to me that it had nothing to do with loss. My whole life, I’d been trying to fill an empty space, to feel full, complete—but I could only ever feel less empty. And even then, only for a moment—because, though the pain filled the emptiness, it was the emptiness too. It was where all good things got stuck.

  I took the surgical tweezers to my gums. Images of Blot broke in only briefly. Then I thought of how he was avoiding me and how I would be a disappointment to him too. He’d think I’d failed. Or worse, he’d think I’d made the whole thing up for attention, for his attention. And I had nothing to show for myself. There was nothing else to look forward to. I imagined going to the bookstore and telling him, and that once he knew I’d failed, if he didn’t vanish immediately or say something awful right off the bat, I wouldn’t be able to muster any enthusiasm, wouldn’t be able to say anything nice—and he would realize he was tired of me. Soon, just to have something to talk about, he’d point to my bloody gums, and he wouldn’t be kind about it. He must be fed up. And it made me so angry, just thinking of him like that. And the anger told me to go ahead, go hurt. Blot could never understand, I told myself. He wouldn’t understand me. So what was the point?

  That Sunday night, my mother came home late. She sat down on my bed, where I’d been pretending to sleep. Snow twinkled on her hair and eyebrows. She took off her gloves and balled them in her lap.

  “Tomorrow evening I talk with the dean at the boarding school,” she said out of nowhere. “I just have to give him the okay. He’s holding your spot. I’m going to do what they suggest, Lorca. What else can I do?”

  It didn’t surprise me that someone was holding a spot. He was doing a favor for my mother. Another favor for my mother.

  I pulled down my sleeves over my wrists. I tucked my feet into my pajama pants. I had a cut below my chin and I sat halfway up, just to get it out of the light. It wasn’t that I’d forgotten about boarding school; I hadn’t. Everything had felt very slow lately.

  I didn’t want to be sent away and yet, when I watched my mother now, I didn’t miss her, wasn’t waiting for her to face me, take me in. My whole life, I’d wandered the earth looking for her, roaming between the trees like a lost cat—even when she was right next to me. But something was different.

  Still, if I wanted to stay, I had no choice. This was my only option. I took a deep breath.

  “Will you be home for lunch?” I asked her, praying that there was still hope in the masgouf. That even if I couldn’t bring her family to her, perfect and proud, or my father, perfect and strong, there could still be magic in the masgouf. I could bring her magic. I could remind her how family felt when it was what you were looking for, even when it wasn’t your own.

  The good news was that she looked more surprised than disappointed. She shrugged. She said she guessed so.

  The next morning, the snow hadn’t let up. I raced around getting the ingredients on the recipe Victoria had given me. I started making the dough for the Iraqi pita, which Violet on YouTube said would need two hours to rise. I used whole-wheat flour, though I’d never seen my mother touch anything but all-purpose or cake; I wasn’t taking any chances. I’d do it right. I went to three different bodegas before I finally found mangoes for pickling. They were small and as hard as rocks, but I’d try leaving them in a paper bag with a dozen apples to hurry up the ripening. If that didn’t work, I’d read something about microwaving them until they were soft, but I was a little worried about ending up with mango mousse. I bought Meyer lemons, thinking the sweetness could be nice, but as soon as I got home, I thought of my mother, her mouth shrinking into a knot: You used Meyer lemons? Like she’d never understand why I did the things I did. I went back out, got snowed on again, bought real lemons on the corner, and then went home and pickled them with ginger, paprika, garlic, and salt. I hoped they’d taste like they’d been marinating for months but I was starting to have a bad feeling. Things weren’t exactly working out.

  I cut myself twice, accidentally, trying to use the mandoline to slice the onions “as thin as a breath.” I made a bed of them that looked like a lattice. I sprinkled thyme on top. The whole thing looked like the side of a house in Scotland where roses grew like weeds. I hoped my mother liked Scotland, but I’d never asked her. I minced garlic until my hand was shaking.

  When I’d cut things with Victoria, I realized then, I hadn’t thought about the cutting exactly. I’d been normal, relaxed, for a little while. Distraction can give you a new life. But it was different now. I felt like I was back to where I’d started. My hands were trembling, itching for the soft pet of the knife. Twice I went into the bathroom just to take a few deep breaths, avoid myself.

  It occurred to me that I’d never paid Victoria for the lessons I’d been to; I wondered if I should call her. I could drop off an envelope, but that didn’t seem appropriate. Would I ever ever ever see her again?

  I set and reset the table. I ironed the tablecloth and napkins. I made napkin rings out of old covers of Food & Wine. I pretty much taught myself origami by noon. I put white votives on beds of kosher salt in Mason jars and tied sprigs of rosemary to the outsides with cooking twine. I wrote our names—mine and my mother’s—on little cards that I’d cut into the shape of fish but that looked more like balloons than fish because I’d forgotten the fins. I redid them, though, until they couldn’t be anything other than fish.

  My mother was walking around the house, not grumpy but unsure of what to do with herself. She kept peering over my shoulder and then walking away like she didn’t really care. She was barefoot, and the floor didn’t creak beneath her. If she
’d asked, I would have told her that she couldn’t help. But she didn’t ask. She just kept shrugging and saying, “Interesting.” She wanted to see what I was capable of too.

  When she saw the votives, she picked them up, turned them around, and gave a smirk. “Thank you,” I said and she laughed. It was the best when she knew how tough she could be.

  Finally, she plopped down on the couch and stared at me.

  “Yes?” I said, not being unpolite.

  “What?” she said. “I’m not allowed to watch my daughter being lovely?”

  I looked up. “Me?” I said, choking on my own spit. This was too much.

  “You know what I love about you?” she said. I didn’t, but she wasn’t waiting for an answer. She reached above her head in a lion stretch and yawned. She rubbed her eyes and crossed her lady feet.

  I was waiting.

  “You’re a fighter,” she said. “My little fighter.”

  I’d always wanted to believe I was strong. More, I thought. Tell me more.

  “So determined to make me happy,” she said.

  I looked right at her, wondering if maybe she was joking. She was examining her toes: point and flex and point and so on. A few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have been disappointed. Something collapsed inside of me now like a flower tricked by the light.

  “That’s what I fight for?” I asked. “Is that what you mean?”

  She closed her eyes. She made her hands into fists.

  “Impossible,” she said. “I can’t say a single nice thing.”

  She went into Lou’s room and closed the door.

  “Thank you,” I whispered, relieved. For a moment, with the door closed, it was just that: a closed door. It wasn’t as if she’d reinvented this room by going into another. It wasn’t as if she’d abandoned me again, like always, with yet another chunk of the universe to make sense of in her wake.

  I was a fighter, I thought. But not in the way she meant.

  I butterflied four English cucumbers before I even touched the fish, just to get the hang of it, like I had with Victoria. Smooth, smooth. It had to be smooth. I was nervous, not at all confident in myself, though I’d read about it, practiced, and watched a video clip that made the whole thing look like a cinch. I got out the fish.

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  “Lorca!” my mother shouted, and the knife skidded straight into my hand. She came out of nowhere. The door had been closed. She’d been quiet in Lou’s room. I dropped the knife. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It hurt. It hurt.

  “Ouch,” I said. The blood sprang like a sudden rose bloom in my palm. If I held it open, it made the most perfect circle you’ve ever seen.

  “Lorca!” she screamed. “Don’t do that.”

  “What?” I said. I hadn’t done it. She had. She’d scared me, appearing out of nowhere like she did. The blood was coming faster now, and I leaned against the counter. My ears rang like tin bells.

  “I didn’t,” I said, but my voice was weak. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

  She came over to me.

  “You did,” she said. “I just saw you. I can’t believe you.”

  She opened the drawer, took out a dishtowel, and passed it to me. I wrapped it around my hand as tightly as I could. The red burst through instantly. I watched her, waited for something motherly, neighborly even. I hadn’t done it on purpose. I hadn’t.

  “Yuck,” she said. “But I’ve seen worse.”

  She tossed the knife into the sink. Blood and skin stuck to the tip like wings. She took another knife from the block and finished butterflying the fish in one perfect stroke.

  “You’ll be fine in a minute,” she said. And then, her hands gliding as if she were playing the violin: “Like this. You do it in a single clean move or you don’t do it at all. Don’t butcher the thing.”

  “What if I won’t be fine?” I asked her, meaning it. “What if I won’t be fine?” Ever. Again.

  “Don’t be dramatic,” she said. “You’re not dying. It’s a little nothing.”

  Maybe the most amazing part about my mother was how tidy her thoughts were, so much like a perfect recipe that would suffer from even the slightest excess of salt. Years ago, she had decided not to indulge me, and she hadn’t. Not for a second. To give in, she’d decided, would ruin everything. Except that it wouldn’t have been indulging, I realized. And the masgouf, of course, was hopeless. The recipe was something she created for herself in order to survive. A place where happiness lived and died, and against which everything else paled in comparison, which was why even she, with her most discerning taste buds in the world, could never replicate it. And much less could I. I hated myself for even trying.

  When she was done filleting, she poured herself a vodka, removed a seed from one of my lemon rounds, and dropped it into her glass.

  “Thanks,” she said. And then, like we were making plans for later, “Now do you understand why I have to send you away?”

  “I’m not fine and won’t be,” I said to her. “And sending me away won’t fix that.”

  “You have two legs,” she said. “Two arms, two eyes, two ears. Everything works. What’s the issue?”

  “What if I’m just not okay?” I asked her. “I’m not.”

  “Then it’s your problem,” she said, pointing to my head. “You get in your own way.”

  I closed my eyes. Words bounced off her like rubber balls. They kept hitting me in the gut. She stood so tall, like an emperor, and her words were so deliberate that I wondered if she’d known all along what I was going to say. If she’d been planning this discussion for years.

  “I’ve lost my appetite,” she said. “Let’s rain-check.”

  “Right,” I said.

  I was too dizzy to fight her on it and I wouldn’t have anyway. My body was heavy, like wet cardboard.

  She went into Lou’s room. She closed the door, like she’d always done in one way or another. Or another. And me, I stood there, the towel getting thicker and redder around my hand, like a small carcass, my pulse swinging like a pendulum against my palm.

  Later, in my room, I took out the photo of my mother. I hadn’t ever looked at it. It had been in my hat, at Victoria’s, and here again. It said something, I thought, that it hadn’t been priority number one. And yet here I was, holding the photo close to my face.

  She was a cold war, my mother. It occurred to me that I didn’t know that kind of self-sufficient feeling that she had and the slipperiness that grew around her because of it. She daunted. I was daunted. She asked to be challenged. I asked to be forgiven. Her chest dashed forward with pride. Mine sidestepped. Sorry. She would never have sat here like this, I thought, feeling sorry for herself.

  But then I looked more closely. I rotated the photo again and again. I squinted and moved to find a patch of light. What I’d thought were her fingers fanned in front of her mouth was actually two fingers and a cigarette, lit and long and drooping with ash. Her bottom lip curled down. She was maybe eleven years old.

  I choked on my own breath.

  At first, they looked like smudges, maybe, plays of the lens, shadows of clouds, even dust perhaps, the marks up and down the inside of my mother’s left arm. The photo was old, I told myself. Not everyone was like me.

  But she was.

  Seven perfect burns marked my mother’s little-girl skin. They were round like buttons, dark and furious like tornadoes under the skin. Four on her upper arm, three on her lower, at equal distances apart. At first I wondered if someone had done that to her, but that would have been a source of pride for my mother, something she’d wear like a badge of honor—a testament to all she’d been through. I would have heard about it, I thought, if the story had gone that way.

  But it hadn’t. It was clear from how she held her arm with the cigarette that she was hiding something, hiding the inside of it, as she had it folded into herself like a broken wing across her chest. And the other arm, the giveaway, was in motion. You coul
d see from the cocked intention of her wrist. She was about to move it, turn it around, hide. About to. She hadn’t been fast enough. She hadn’t meant to be caught. Someone like me could identify something like that easily.

  My mother was like me. There’d never been an inkling of it as far as I could remember. But it made terrible, perfect sense. And for once, instead of worrying about her, I was filled with rage. All the things she could have said, all the ways she could have comforted me, had bored an enormous hole in my life, just waiting to be filled. It was a parent’s job, I thought, to give. Again and again and again until a child had grown-up hands and muscles. A grown-up heart. Even Victoria, I thought, who’d planned to give her child up, tried to give something, tried to give her child a better life. Even my mother’s real mother knew how to give. Now I hoped for a second that my mother would find me here, seeing her like that in the photo—and for once she did what I wanted.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered.

  Then: “Lorca, what the hell are you doing?” she shouted. She grabbed the photo out of my hands. She had spit on her lips. A vein in the center of her forehead quivered like a branch in a storm.

  “Where did you find this?” She was shaking it at me.

  I just looked at her. I looked at her. And I looked at her. And I looked at her while she said nothing. There was everything to say.

  I imagined the blood coming out of my mother like it came out of the polar bears, the horses. I imagined what she was like weakened. If her chest would ever deflate. I didn’t want to hurt her.

  And yet, I went over to my bed. I knew what I was doing. I felt like I was watching myself in a dream having nothing and everything to do with myself. I took a lighter out of my pillowcase. I knew just where it was, between the zipper and the seam. It was clear purple and full of fluid; like a plastic liver, I thought. I sat down. I lit it. I held it up in front of me and saw my mother next to it. When it flickered, it cast her out. In one swift maneuver, I stuck it to the inside of my arm. It licked me like a dog.