Distant Lover

by Gloria Mallette

  The word animal Tandi understood. Whatever else Rose was saying Tandi didn’t have a clue, but it was clear Rose didn’t like it one bit that Sporty had knocked the bowl of hot chicken noodle soup off the tray onto the floor. If Rose had not jumped back, all of it would have been all over her instead of the few strings of noodles and splatterings of broth that landed on the front of her white cotton blouse. Thank God she was fast on her feet or else she could have been burned.

  “Yo no necesito esto!”

  Tandi continued to swipe at Rose’s blouse while Rose, fumbling with her buttons, tried to button her polyester jacket. When she was done, the jacket was buttoned wrong—the right side at the bottom was longer than the left.

  “Let me help you,” Tandi said, trying to rebutton the jacket.

  Rose slapped at her hands. “No!”

  “I’m trying to help.”

  “Yo no soy un animal!” Rose said again. Grabbing up her tote bag, Rose stomped out of the back room. At Sporty’s bedroom door she stopped and pointed at him. “El es muy malo!” He is very bad!

  “I know, I know,” Tandi said, though she wasn’t sure what she was agreeing to. She tried to hold Rose still. “Rose, please stay. Don’t go. I’ll make it up to you.”

  “No!”

  Tandi glanced fleetingly into Sporty’s bedroom. He was still sitting on the side of the bed facing the door, but he wasn’t looking out into the hall. He was staring straight at the wall. Etched into his face was an extremely bitter glower. Oh, God. Rose had to stay. Tandi did not want to be alone with that look.

  “Rose, I promise, I won’t let him do that to you again. I promise.”

  Rose shrugged Tandi’s arm off of her. “No! Voy a casa!” I am going home! she said, stalking off.

  “See what you did!” Tandi shouted at Sporty as she started off after Rose. “Please, Rose, I need you.”

  “Malo, malo! Él es un hombre muy malo!” Bad, bad! He is a very bad man! Rose yanked open the front door.

  “Rose, if you stay, I’ll give you a raise.”

  Stopping outside the door, Rose turned back. “No! No trabajare para un tan mal hombre!” No! I will not work for such a bad man!

  “I don’t understand. Speak English.”

  “No!”

  “Oh, God, Rose. Please stay.”

  “No trabajare aquí.” I will not work here! she said, flipping her hand at Tandi as she turned and stalked off. “Voy a casa!” I am going home!

  Tandi watched helplessly as Rose bustled angrily down the street. Rose hadn’t lasted two hours. What in the world was she going to do? Who was going to clean up that mess? Who was going to tend to Sporty until the evening attendant came? Going back inside the house, Tandi slammed the door, shaking the two chrome picture frames on the wall on either side of the door. It was no surprise that Sporty had acted out—that was his raison d’être. His anger was all that was driving him. This time he was angry because while he struggled to feed himself with his left hand, soup spilled from his open mouth, which he could not as yet close all the way. Tandi had seen that. She had stood outside his room peeking in at him. She wanted to see for herself what he could or could not do for himself. She saw that he grew more agitated as he kept spilling the soup on the tray, on himself. Very little got into his mouth. The more Rose tried to help him, the angrier he became. When Sporty caught her watching, he knocked the bowl over and started ranting in that garbled way of his. He quieted down only when he got what he wanted—Rose bailing out.

  And now, Tandi had visions of putting her hands around Sporty’s neck and choking the meanness out of him. She was itching to get at him. She started back to his room, stopped halfway there, turned abruptly and went instead into the living room and snatched up the telephone.

  As soon as Glynn came on the line, she said, “Your father just dumped his soup all over Rose.”

  “Aw, man. How is she?”

  “Gone. She quit.”

  “Aw, damn.”

  “Glynn, you had better get someone over here, right now.”

  “Tandi, I can’t guarantee—”

  “I don’t wanna hear it, Glynn. I will leave this old man in this house by himself in a heartbeat.”

  “You wouldn’t do that.”

  “Try me.” Slamming down the receiver, Tandi angrily thrust her hand on her hip and began to pace. She went out into the hallway and stood looking down the hall at the bedroom door. “You old fart.” She wanted to burst into Sporty’s bedroom and tell him in no uncertain terms what she thought about him. However, one stroke on her watch was one stroke too many. She stayed where she was, listening. She was expecting to hear Sporty spouting some unintelligible nonsense but he was eerily quiet and that irritated her even more. She wanted him to bitch, to raise holy hell. She wanted him to be his usual mean, old cantankerous self, bitching just for the hell of hearing himself make a fuss, so she’d have an excuse to rush screaming out of his house just as Rose had. The question was, why wasn’t he bitching?

  Curious, Tandi began tiptoeing down the hall.

  Riiing!

  She rushed back into the living room and snatched up the receiver. “Yes!”

  “The agency said it’s impossible to—”

  “I don’t wanna hear the word impossible, Glynn. I can’t do this alone. If you can’t get someone over here, I suggest you get over here yourself.”

  “I can’t.”

  “But you will.”

  “Tandi, be reasonable. I have to work this afternoon. I took off this morning. Someone will be there tomorrow morning. Elise Gary will be there at six this evening. Can’t you just—”

  “No, I can’t!” Tandi’s fist was balled up tight. “Listen to me, Glynn. If I am left alone with that man, I will either ignore him and forget he’s even in that room, or I will kill him the first time he looks at me crooked.”

  “Oh, man. Tandi, please—”

  “Glynn! I am going to kick your ass . . . no. I am going to kick my own ass for letting you talk be into staying here.”

  “Tandi, I—”

  Slam!

  She couldn’t stand to hear another word out of Glynn’s mouth. She was so angry, she wanted to scream. How had it all gone so wrong so fast? Maybe leaving Jared hadn’t been such a good idea after all; nothing had been right since. At least with Jared, there had been some order in her life. Maybe, in hindsight, there was more she could have done to reignite the passion of her failing marriage. Now it was too late. She had destroyed everything. The tears that filled her eyes were not for the dissipation of her marriage alone, but for the demise of who she used to be—a woman with a map of the roads her life was supposed to travel. All of those roads had success along the way in the early years of her marriage, in her career, and in her role as mother. Somewhere along the way, she went off track. None of those roads were supposed to lead back to Sporty’s house where she found herself not liking the person she had become—angry and bitter just like Sporty. Maybe like him she had begun to wallow in self-pity. If she didn’t stop, she could kiss the person she longed to recognize in her mirror good-bye.

  “I cannot let this setback break me,” she said to herself, squaring her shoulders. She had work to do. The sooner Sporty was mobile or at least capable of doing for himself, the sooner she could get on with her own life.

  She collected the plastic garbage container and a long length of damp paper towels from the kitchen and headed for Sporty’s bedroom. At his door she was met with an amazing sight: Sporty had gotten himself into his wheelchair. He was slumped awkwardly over the arm of the wheelchair and was trying to clean up the noodles and greasy broth off the floor with a handful of bunched-up tissues. The tissues were soaked and wadded up in his left hand. His right arm dangled lamely at his side a few inches from the floor. His left foot was on the floor while his right foot was still on the foot rest. Tandi was amazed that Sporty would even try to clean up his own mess. It was the last thing she expected.

  “I’ll ge
t that,” she said, entering the room, though not looking at him. She set the open garbage container down on the floor.

  Sporty let the wet tissues drop to the floor.

  Tandi looked at the messy tissues. If this had been another time, Sporty would have tossed the tissues into the container—always going for a three-point shot. Tandi picked up the tissues and tossed them in herself. Then, squatting, she began to quickly sop up the mess.

  “You can sit up,” she said. “I’ll finish it.”

  Sporty said nothing at first. Several seconds later, he grunted.

  Without looking at him directly, Tandi saw Sporty hadn’t moved. She continued to wipe only inches from his foot.

  He grunted again.

  Now she did look. Sporty’s head was cocked to his left shoulder, his face was strained, veins popped at his temples and on his neck. His and Tandi’s eyes met. What she saw, fleetingly, in his eyes was sadness. He couldn’t sit up. He was paralyzed on the right side of his body and had no muscle strength to pull himself upright. His eyes closed, but Tandi continued to look at him and was stunned to see a tear bead up between his lids. What she felt at that moment surprised even her—pity.

  Dropping the paper towels into the garbage container, she got up off the floor. She knew what had to be done and so did Sporty. Neither said anything when she took hold of his shoulders and pulled him upright in his chair.

  “Daddy, do you need anything?”

  Sporty held his head high. His eyes remained closed, his face remained unchanged. He had shut down.

  It was just as well. Tandi knew Sporty hated that she had seen how helpless he was. He had shut down because he did not want her to also see the helplessness in his eyes or hear it in his voice. Respecting Sporty’s withdrawal, Tandi picked up the garbage container, and leaving the room, pulled the door up behind her. Outside his room, un-beckoned tears fell. Tandi stomped her foot.

  I won’t shed a single tear for him. I won’t feel sorry for him.

  That helpless old man was the same man who, months ago, said she was some bastard’s child. He was the same man who made her life miserable from the time she could first remember being pushed away from climbing up onto his lap. No, she would not cry for him. No.

  The tears came anyway.

  39

  Dropping his cue stick, MJ scampered up the basement stairs to the kitchen. He picked up the ringing telephone on the fourth ring. “Hi, Mommy!”

  “Hey, son. How’s my boy? Did you miss me?”

  MJ quickly realized that the person on the other end wasn’t Tandi. “Daina! Hi. I thought you were my mother.”

  “Well, aren’t I? I’m your godmother. That doesn’t count?”

  “Yeah. Did you bring me a souvenir from Africa?”

  “Kid, I better get a big hug and a kiss for what I brought you. It weighs more than I do and cost dearly to bring back.”

  Excited, MJ jumped. “It’s big? What did you bring me?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “When am I gonna get it?”

  “Whenever I get over there.”

  “Come tonight. I can stay up late on Friday nights.”

  “Lucky you,” Daina said. “Where’s your mother?”

  “At Granddad’s house.”

  “This late? Is he sick?”

  “Uh-huh. He had a stroke.”

  “My God. How bad is it?”

  “He can’t walk.”

  “Geez. What time is your mother coming home?”

  “She don’t live here no more.”

  “What? What do you mean, ‘She don’t live here no more?’”

  “She don’t,” MJ said, lowering his voice. He glanced over at the open basement door.

  “Is this just until your granddad gets better?”

  “No. She’s getting us an apartment, and me and her are gonna live by ourselves. Daina, can me and my dad come and get my souvenir?”

  “Michael Jared, wait a minute. I’m not getting this. Tandi doesn’t live with you and Jared anymore?”

  “No. They separated.”

  “What?”

  “Mommy don’t like my dad no more.”

  “Geez. I go away and my friends lose their ever-loving minds. Michael Jared, what’s your—”

  “Everybody calls me MJ now.”

  “Is that so? MJ, huh? Well, MJ, what else don’t I know? Are you still a kid or have you graduated college and gotten married since I’ve been gone?”

  “How I’m gonna go to college and get married when I’m only eleven years old?”

  “Hey, seems to me anything can happen,” Daina said. “Michael Jared, what’s the telephone number at your Granddad’s house?”

  “If you’re gonna call Mommy, she’s not back yet.”

  “Back from where?”

  “She went to visit a friend. She said she’d call me when she got back. She hasn’t called yet.”

  “Where’s your father?”

  “He’s down in the basement. He’s teaching me to play pool. We got a new pool table. It’s real cool.”

  “Tell your father that Herb and I . . . no, that I’ll be over there in forty-five minutes. We have to talk.”

  “Are you gonna bring my souvenir?”

  “Maybe. If there’s a big kiss in it for me.”

  “A real big kiss.”

  “Hang up the phone, little man. I’m on my way.”

  Smiling broadly, MJ hurried back down to the basement. “Dad, Daina’s coming over, and she got me a big souvenir.”

  40

  Daina had said, “I don’t believe this,” no more times than Jared had said it to himself over the past five months. Time, however, made a believer out of him. He was now used to Tandi not living there. She still came to the house three times a week when he wasn’t home to cook dinner for MJ and wash and iron his clothes. As for his own clothes, Jared had long since discovered the Chinese laundry and the cleaners near his job. What he couldn’t take care of as easily was his mind. Tandi was forever on his mind. Every time he looked at the chaise longue in the bedroom where she liked to sit and read or watch television, he thought about her. It was her chair. To this day he had never sat on it. It was an antique that she paid fifteen hundred dollars for. Most likely she’d be taking the chaise with her when she moved into her own place. The bedroom still held so many of Tandi’s personal items. Some of her clothes and shoes were still in the closet. There were perfumes on the dresser, and stray pieces of jewelry lay there just as she had left them, like she would return at any minute. He left her things as they were simply because he felt they were in the place they were supposed to be and saw no reason to move them.

  In the distance, far up on the top floor, came a rapid tapping on the murumbu drum Daina had brought for MJ. The pot-shaped drum was bigger than he was, yet MJ managed to drag it up the stairs to his room himself and had been beating on it ever since, leaving Jared and Daina to talk.

  “Jared, how in the world did you let that she-wolf manipulate you like that?”

  “I didn’t let her do anything. If I did anything at all, I let myself get drunk.”

  “That was stupid.”

  Like he needed to be told that. With no defense to argue, Jared held his tongue. Daina was going to speak her mind anyway.

  “Okay, I’m not gonna get hysterical here. It happened, it’s done. The question is, Jared, what are you going to do to get your wife back?”

  “Daina, Tandi won’t talk to me. In fact, I haven’t seen her for more than a hot minute in two months. MJ tells me that as soon as Tandi can get away from her father, she’s getting her own place. It’s her decision. There’s nothing I can do.”

  Tilting her head slightly, Daina peered at Jared. “Do I know you?”

  Hell, he didn’t know if he knew himself anymore, but still he didn’t like the way Daina was looking at him. He had expected that she would be disgusted with him for sleeping with Evonne and even for taking his marriage for granted, but he didn’t
expect her to look at him like he had drowned a bag of kittens. Besides Tandi, Daina was the only other person who knew him better than he knew himself.

  He and Daina had known each other since junior high and had tried to date once in their sophomore year in high school. However, they learned pretty quickly they were better off being friends than boyfriend and girlfriend. They couldn’t get the hang of kissing and holding hands after having told each other for years about their romantic encounters—good and bad—with other people. They knew each other too well. There was no mystery, there was no excitement. But they did know what each liked in a partner. When Daina met Tandi, she called him right away.

  “Have I got the girl for you.”

  And she did. He and Tandi hit it off right away. They were magic together. On their wedding day, Daina told the two of them, “Make me proud.” The fact that he had let Daina down only added to his guilt.

  “Okay, Daina, enough with the look. Say what’s on your mind,” he said, wanting to get the scolding over with.

  “Right now, I’m thinking about your parents, especially your mother.”

  “And what does my mother have to do with this?”

  “If she were alive, she’d be ashamed of you.”

  “Well, damn! Thanks a lot.”

  “Jared, wake up, man!” Daina said, rapidly popping her fingers. “You’re like a fat old frog sitting on a lily pad waiting for a fly to happen by. Did Evonne’s caustic juices fry your brain?”

  “Don’t mess with my head, Daina. I’ve been having a hard enough time as it is.”

  “I bet you have,” she agreed, “but let me see if I understand this. Tandi leaves you, you sleep with Evonne, Tandi says don’t talk to her, you do as she says then you hide here in the house like a schoolboy who got caught with one hand in the cookie jar and the other in his pants, and do nothing to get her back. Is that what’s been going on around here?”

  “I’m not hiding.”

  “Then what are you doing? Jared, this isn’t you. The Jared I know never waited to be chosen for anything. My Jared stepped up and demanded a spot on the track team even though he had failed the qualifying meet and went on to become the school’s track star. My Jared demanded to be heard by the principal when the school cut back on funds for musical instruments. That Jared organized the students and raised money for new instruments and you couldn’t play a lick on anything. Jared, do you remember that fighter? The guy you used to act like?”