Family

by Caroline Leavitt

  But then, suddenly, the earth seemed to spit up its dangers. Nothing was as easy as that first day alone with her when he took her out of school. He’d be on the court and he’d lob a ball and it would strike her, just in the soft of her belly, but it would unnerve him so much, he’d tell her that daddy didn’t feel well, and he’d take her home to Leslie; then he’d get in the car and drive down to Point State Park and sit by the fountain. He’d try again, taking her to a movie, but the kids in front would act up, shooting rubber bands, and he couldn’t help it, he’d think, There goes her eye, and he’d make Robin get up and leave with him.

  He knew he was probably making her crazy, stopping and starting like that, but he never stopped asking her to go places, and although he usually didn’t carry through his plans, she always agreed to go with him; she seemed to look forward to it.

  He ran, his old trailer-court habit, to calm himself down. He bought himself new black sweats, expensive running shoes, and a stopwatch so he could time himself. It did calm him. He looked forward to the running, until one night he heard one of the neighborhood dogs barking, and he turned, and there, behind him, struggling to keep up was Robin. He was startled and angry, and then he saw the panic in her face, the sweat beaded on her brow as she panted to reach him, and he stopped. He waited for her to catch up.

  “Where are you going?” she gasped. She had a stitch in one side, she said she felt like throwing up, and he walked the rest of the way home with her, his legs achy, yearning to break free and run.

  EIGHT

  Leslie always felt discouraged when Nick left on business. She knew how Robin tried to keep him at home, and she knew that she herself was just too stubborn to attempt the same. She had never wanted to travel with him before, but now, sometimes, she thought how easy it would be to hire a sitter, pack a bag, and take off with him. She didn’t care if they went to some hick town; she didn’t care if it rained the whole time. She could take her sketch pad and do some designs in the hotel room; she could visit the local shops and see if they’d take some of her designs on commission. Nick, though, never asked her to go until he was already there, and then it was because of the loneliness in the night. He’d call her, the pull in his voice reminding her how she missed him, but she was never quite willing to join him then; she never quite felt that his asking her when he was already there was very fair.

  She took care of things, she managed. She always told herself that this time things were going to be different between Robin and her; this time they would really use the time to get close.

  She started out all right. She missed Nick. She wanted Robin’s company, so she was tolerant when Robin played her new James Taylor album over and over. After all, she was playing it in the living room, where Leslie was; she was sitting in a chair right next to her. Leslie took Robin shopping, and tried not to feel wounded when Robin chose cheaply made denim shirts and bell-bottom jeans, when she said she didn’t need to see the designs Leslie had sketched for her, because all she wanted to wear were the things Leslie had just bought for her.

  They cooked dinner together sometimes. They stayed up on weekends watching the late-night horror movie, sharing popcorn, hugging when the film got scary. But Leslie couldn’t seem to keep things working for very long. Whatever was good between them started souring with the first of Nick’s calls. As soon as Leslie heard his voice, her yearning for him flowered, her loneliness intensified. But he was so casual on the phone, and then he kept asking for Robin, and it did something to her. She wanted him to whisper something private to her, tell her how much he missed her, how he remembered their nights. Instead, he asked if Robin’s cold was any better, if she had stayed home from school, if she dressed warmly.

  “If you’re so worried, stay home,” Leslie said, her voice flat, and then his tone changed, too, he seemed less glad to talk to her, and the call seemed spoiled. She was restless with anger, blaming him a little, blaming herself, and then Robin took the phone, turning her back to Leslie, whispering so Leslie couldn’t hear, and Leslie’s anger found another target.

  She told herself it was crazy, that she couldn’t really be jealous of her own daughter; she wouldn’t let such a thing happen. But when Nick came home, she saw how he always had something for Robin—a tape, a book, a poster. He whispered to Leslie that he was the gift for her, but they never got to bed until after Robin was asleep, and by then Nick was too tired to do more than stroke her, whispering that he would make it up to her in the morning. He left her to lie awake and remember one clear, cool night when he had slept two houses away from her in his car because he hadn’t been able to tear himself away.

  She hated herself for it, but sometimes when Nick called from a nearby gas station saying he’d be home in two seconds from his business trip, she wouldn’t tell Robin. She’d send her out for milk just so she could be alone with him for a while. Sometimes, too, when she was on the phone with Nick, she lied and told him Robin was out, when really she was just upstairs in the shower. Once, she was caught in her lie. She turned to see Robin in the hall. “I’m here,” Robin said angrily, taking the phone from Leslie. “I was outside.”

  Leslie made some excuse, and later that evening she took Robin to a movie, whatever one Robin wanted to see, but she couldn’t meet her daughter’s eyes, and she was grateful for the dark theater.

  Leslie sometimes felt as if she were on a roller coaster. The anger would suddenly drop from her and she’d feel how much she loved her girl, how much she wanted to be close. But Robin was used to her mother turning on and off to her—used to her being preoccupied with Nick when he was home, and seeming to need Robin only when Nick was away. Robin had learned to fend for herself from years of practice, and although she did love Leslie, she still couldn’t quite trust her.

  Leslie’s attempts to get close always turned clumsy. She watched Robin peering anxiously at herself in the mirror when she thought no one was watching. She saw how her daughter sometimes seemed too eager to please when they had company. And sometimes, too, it made her ache to see how silent Robin became after a phone call from her father; she’d feel twinges of guilt that she had ever thought to keep Robin away from Nick. She’s just a lonely little girl, she thought. But when Leslie went to put her arms about her, Robin, suspicious, stiffened, and then before she knew it, Leslie started to criticize her for wearing a stained blouse, for not combing her hair, until Robin jerked away.

  Even when Robin did let her get close, something went wrong. Robin would come home crying about something, wanting comfort, and Leslie would sit with her, talking in a low voice, feeling so suddenly close to her daughter that she took on her sorrow and ended up being the one who needed comforting. It made Robin furious. “It’s my problem!” she cried.

  “Can’t I even feel for you?” Leslie asked, stung.

  “You’re not doing that, you’re taking over,” Robin said.

  But Leslie didn’t see it as taking over. Not then, and not when she rearranged things in Robin’s room to make the space seem larger, not when she kept pulling up the blinds Robin pulled down. Robin, who was used to coming and going as she pleased when Nick was home, who was even encouraged to stay over at friends’ homes, was now expected to stay put in the house. Every time she found reasons to go out, Leslie found reasons for her to stay. Robin couldn’t go to the library, because Leslie had to dash out and someone had to stay to let a client in. Robin couldn’t visit a friend until she had helped Leslie with the dishes. And then it would be too late for Robin to go anywhere, they’d both be tense from trying to have their own way, and in the end, both of them would be as alone in the house that evening as if they had no family at all.

  When Robin was twelve, she decided to adopt another family altogether. She was in seventh grade, and her best friend was a girl named Mandy Hartford. Mandy was an only child, too, and she had absolutely everything she wanted. She told Robin it was because no one had ever really expected her to exist at all; her parents said she was a miracle baby. Her
mother, Evie, had suffered three miscarriages before Mandy was finally born, and when she got pregnant with Mandy, she had taken to her bed as if she were Sophia Loren. The doctor said that was hardly necessary, but Evie was taking no chances. She wouldn’t move, not even to go to the bathroom. She made her husband carry her; she hired a girl from the neighborhood. She was in bed for eight months, but she remained cheerful because she believed emotions could affect the unborn. She ate meals from a hot plate by her bed. She closed her eyes for fifteen minutes a day and willed herself a healthy baby.

  Mandy confided to Robin that her mother wouldn’t sleep with Mandy’s father, Jake, during her entire pregnancy; she made him camp out in the spare room on a lumpy couch that kept throwing his back out. Robin, shocked that Mandy knew such a thing, stared. Sometimes, Mandy whispered, her father even cried. But when Mandy was born, they threw a big party and Evie pranced around on what she called her sea legs and there wasn’t ever enough anyone could do for Mandy.

  Robin began spending more and more time at Mandy’s, calling Leslie when Mandy’s mother had already cooked extra dinner especially for her, when it was too late for Leslie to object. Robin adored Mandy. They made prank calls on Mandy’s white Princess phone. They had secret pacts where they swore eternal friendship. Robin saw how it was at Mandy’s home, and she began to think that Mandy had the kind of life she should have had herself, the kind of parents.

  Evie treated Robin as if she were another daughter. She gave her the run of the house, let her do whatever she pleased, and when she saw Robin was upset about something, she didn’t push. She sat beside Robin and quietly took her hand, saying nothing, but just being there, and it always made Robin feel a lot better. She didn’t turn on and off the way Leslie did; if she was in a bad mood, she still smiled at Robin, still gave her impulsive hugs the same way she did with Mandy.

  Jake made her doubt Nick in new and disturbing ways. He was always home nights. Once she had even heard him canceling a business trip for no other reason than he wanted to be home with his family. Robin went home that evening brooding about it. She approached Nick and asked him if he would stay home from his next trip, just one time, just for her. He ruffled her hair. “Why, I can’t do that, baby,” he said.

  “Well, could you take me with you, then?” she said. She thought that would be more fun anyway, because the stories of the places he visited always mesmerized her.

  “Come on, you have school,” he said, and she turned from him.

  Jake took Mandy and Robin everywhere. He spoiled Robin the same way he did Mandy, bringing them both chocolates and comics. When Robin talked, he didn’t move; he concentrated on her as if there were nothing else worth his attention. And he took them both shopping. He picked up bright silk shirts and held them up against Mandy, and when Mandy found the one she wanted, he told her to buy it in two colors. When he saw Robin wistfully fingering the shirts, he sent her and Mandy downstairs, telling them he had some personal business to take care of, and when he came down, he handed Robin a brown bag.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  “Beats me,” Jake said. “Why don’t you just open it?”

  She did, and a red silk shirt spilled out into her hands.

  She took it home, delighted, but Leslie was not pleased. “That’s some expensive present,” she said, looking at the tag. “I could make you this for half what it cost.” She folded the blouse up. “I just don’t feel comfortable about this. You take it back, say thank you, and that’s that.”

  Robin hated her. “Look, I’ll make you one just like it,” Leslie said.

  “I don’t want one you made,” Robin said.

  Leslie sighed. “Fine, have nothing then.”

  Robin took the blouse back and Jake was very solemn, but he told her that he had no intention of taking the shirt back; instead, he’d keep it in the spare room for her, so that anytime she felt like wearing it, she could.

  Robin began collecting more and more things that she kept at Mandy’s. Sweaters, skirts, even a hamster that was named and kept in a cage. When she wore the clothing home, she felt daring and special, and she lied to Leslie, telling her it was something Mandy had loaned her. Her mother knew how spoiled Mandy was—something they were beginning to argue about. Mandy would beg for this and that, and then wear it once before she decided it was no good. Evie couldn’t bear to throw anything away. She was sure Mandy would change her mind, so she kept all the clothing in mothproof plastic bags in the basement.

  The first time Robin had been at the house, Evie had taken her on a clothing tour, showing her the furs Mandy had discarded, a tweed jacket from just a week ago. “Throw that junk out, would you?” Mandy said, but Evie said she would like hell, and she kept trying to get Mandy to try the things on again.

  Robin began to think of Mandy’s home as her real life, and her life with Leslie as some movie bound to end. She kept her world at Mandy’s like a secret. Sometimes she told herself that Evie and Jake were her real parents—she had been born when they had thought Evie had miscarried; an evil nurse had sold her. Or maybe Jake had had an affair and she was the product, given away at birth. She studied Jake; she watched Evie; she stood in front of a mirror trying to squint her features into theirs.

  She felt more a part of Mandy’s family than her own. As soon as she stepped into the house, she felt herself change. She’d go into the closet and pull out one of the shirts Jake had bought her; she’d go and see to her hamster; and she’d dip her fingers into the cookie jar as if they belonged there. She could take a shower without asking anyone. She could flop onto any bed in the house and read. She could use Mandy’s phone and shut the door for privacy. When Jake came home, she ran to the front along with Mandy, and fished in his pockets the same way Mandy did.

  Every Friday, Robin went over for dinner. Evie really couldn’t cook. Robin was used to Leslie’s garden snap beans and fresh fish, to lightly braised meats and salads, and here was Evie making a big presentation out of corned-beef hash and canned peas. Robin would always grab a peanut butter sandwich before she came over, wolfing it down as she sped to her friend’s, so that by the time dinner rolled around, she wasn’t all that hungry anyway. Both she and Mandy picked at the food. Mandy was always on some new crazy diet, though she was thin enough, and Robin followed her lead.

  Still, Robin loved the dinners. Jake told jokes and teased. He kept asking when Robin would be old enough to run off and marry him. “I’m old enough right now,” Robin said. Everyone laughed, everyone interrupted everyone else. She and Mandy did the dishes, but it was kind of fun. They blasted rock on the radio; they made up lists about what ten boys they would like to go out with, what five boys they would like to kiss. Robin thought, Jake, Jake, but she didn’t dare say it.

  “You’re gone an awful lot,” Leslie said. She didn’t like Mandy much. She had overheard her call Evie an old goat because Evie had brought home a sweater that Mandy claimed was burgundy and not magenta as she had wanted. Leslie insisted that Mandy come over sometimes, but when she did, the two girls stayed in Robin’s room, and when Nick was home, Robin seemed angry.

  Missing Nick made Leslie want to flood her time with work. She told her clients she was available to their friends. She took out small ads in the local papers, and gradually business increased.

  Sometimes, when Nick was away and Robin was at Mandy’s, Leslie was sure she was starting to go mad. She tried to talk clients into coming over in the evenings. “I just got a cancellation,” she said breathlessly over the phone. “There won’t be another opening like this for a month.” She tried to sound like she was giving out favors, but she felt the silence on the phone. Clients rarely came. They had husbands who were taking them out someplace nice for dinner. They had kids who had to be squired to the school play or to Brownies. They had their own night classes over at Pitt.

  Leslie couldn’t stay alone in the house on nights like that. So she walked. She put her hair in one long, sloppy braid; she put on Nick’s bla
ck leather jacket that always smelled of him when she lifted the collar up against her nose. She slowly made her way up and down the streets of Shadyside. She sometimes walked up the series of steep hills that led to Squirrel Hill itself. She walked slowly to make the time last, to stretch it out like gum.

  She liked Wednesday nights the best. The shops were always open along Walnut Street until ten, and she liked to wander in and out of them, gliding like a ghost, touching skirts and sweaters, the very feel of the cloth a comfort to her. It made her feel good to see expensive clothing so cheaply made, to know a seam wouldn’t hold for more than a month, to see how faddy a design really was. It gave her own work extra value to her, made her feel special. She walked past the coffee shops and looked in at the couples. She felt the easy lure of company. She imagined people happy.

  Sometimes, too, she imagined she was close to Robin. She imagined Robin coming to talk to her about her problems, to tell her that she didn’t really hate her at all, it was just adolescence. She thought about Nick telling her he was going to settle down to a desk job in Pittsburgh because nothing was more important to him than she was. Nothing, nothing.

  By the time she had circled back to the house, she was restless and angry. She started packing a small overnight bag, jamming in a clean sweater, a fresh pair of socks. Then she called Mandy’s mother and said she had to go out of town and would it be all right for Robin to spend the night there? “No prob,” said Evie, and when Leslie hung up the phone, she felt light, dazzled with sudden new hope.

  It didn’t take long to get to Harrisburg, where Nick was. When she got to his hotel, though, the man at the desk wouldn’t let her up to Nick’s room. He said Mr. Austen was out, and he didn’t care that she had a driver’s license with the same last name. He said Mr. Austen was out. “I can’t let you up unless he’s up there himself. If you want to wait in the bar, you’re welcome to.”