Stowe Away

by Blythe Rippon

  “I—thanks. Thanks for talking to me in the middle of the night.”

  “Thanks for calling in the middle of the night. I’m sorry I can’t do more. I would get on a plane for Stowe if I weren’t flying to Japan in the morning, and I’m really sorry I won’t have time at the end of summer either. I wish you weren’t going through this—I wish Eva weren’t going through this.”

  “Talking to you helps.” The admission felt clumsy; Sam had grown unaccustomed to the honesty she and Natalie had formerly shared. “You always make me feel better. Thank you for being a friend.”

  After a beat, they both continued together, singing the theme song of The Golden Girls.

  While they quoted some of their favorite lines from the show Sam laughed—a real, genuine laugh—for the first time in months.

  SUMMER 2008

  While Eva was at her physical therapy appointments in downtown Stowe, Sam turned Stowe Away into her improvised study carrel. She had just finished reading “Gene silencing in cancer by histone H3 lysine 27 trimethylation independent of promoter DNA methylation” when Pauly plopped down beside her. “Whatcha reading?”

  Happy for the distraction, she tried to distill the dense article to its most salient points. It always helped her to understand what she read if she explained it to someone else, and Pauly was an eager student. He asked questions about everything he didn’t understand, including some of the jargon that slipped into her descriptions. Regretting, not for the first time, that she was not teaching at a prestigious university, Sam explained some of the other articles in Nature Genetics. Pauly might not have understood the underlying chemistry, but he grasped some of the big picture points about cancer and its relation to genes.

  “Pauly, you’re not interrupting Sam, are you?” Maria asked gently from over his shoulder.

  Startled out of her teacher mode, Sam shook her head. “Nope. We were just learning together.”

  Pauly beamed at her, then turned his brilliant gaze to his sister. “Sam’s smart. She was teaching me about genes.”

  “Not the kind you’re wearing, I take it.” Maria winked at her brother, then dropped into a chair next to Sam. “I heard you were a scientist.”

  “Yeah.” Sam said sheepishly, as she always did when someone from her hometown asked her about school.

  “So if you weren’t here caring for your mom, would you be out somewhere curing cancer?”

  It was a conversation she’d had dozens of times since she’d been back. “That was the plan. I was in my first year of an M.D./Ph.D. program at Stanford.”

  “How come cancer? There’s lots of stuff to cure,” Pauly said. That was new—no one ever asked her follow-up questions, and certainly not thoughtful ones.

  “You know, I don’t know. I guess it’s just what I always thought I’d do.”

  “But now you’re here.” Maria’s eyes offered understanding and compassion.

  “Best laid plans…” Sam trailed off.

  “Hey Pauly,” Maria said, “Brendon wondered if you’d give him a hand in the kitchen for a minute.”

  “Sure thing!” Pauly stood up and started toward the swinging doors before he turned around and said politely, “Excuse me please, Sam.”

  Touched and amused by the formality, Sam responded, “Of course, Pauly. Come back and say ‘good-bye’ to me, though!”

  Silence fell on the table for a moment before Maria took a deep breath. “Pauly’s great help around the restaurant. And I love him so much. But it’s not easy when your plans change.”

  When Sam studied Maria, she recognized a sense of loss in her. “Your parents?” she asked.

  “Car crash. Senior year of high school. I was already eighteen, so I took Pauly and forgot about college. He had two years left in high school, and he loved it here, so I wasn’t going to uproot him. I used my inheritance to start the restaurant and all that goes with it. It wasn’t what I’d planned, but I don’t have any regrets. He’s happy, I’m happy, the restaurant is successful.”

  For the first time since her return, Sam was struck by her complete ignorance of the lives of the people in this town where she now lived. She had gone to school with this woman since kindergarten, yet she knew practically nothing about the Sanchez family. Eva was stable now, and Sam had a routine that more or less worked; she was tired of her own navel-gazing.

  “Being a caretaker changes your life, no doubt. But it’s also rewarding, and sometimes realigning your goals and ambitions ends up working out for the best,” Maria said.

  Sam wanted to have this conversation, but she didn’t know how, and she completely fumbled for an appropriate reply. Hearing nothing in return, Maria stood.

  “It was nice to see you again, Samantha. I’m glad you come here to get work done. Please let me know if you ever need anything.”

  Blushing at her rudeness, Sam stood also, not really sure if she should shake hands with Maria, hug her, or just shove her hands into her pockets and rock back and forth awkwardly on her feet. Option three resulted in Sam knocking her thighs into the table and rattling it enough that her tea sloshed onto her notebook. She grabbed frantically at some napkins and Maria helped blot up the mess.

  “I’m sorry. I’m clumsy sometimes,” Sam said.

  “I never would have guessed.” Maria laughed softly and patted Sam’s shoulder, walking away. In the middle of adjusting her chair to sit back down, Maria called over her shoulder: “I’ll have Pauly box up a slice of frittata for Eva.”

  When Sam finished shoving her laptop, notebook, and journal into her messenger bag, she looked up and saw Pauly holding a to-go box out to her. “Will you come back tomorrow and teach me more science?” he asked.

  “I can’t tomorrow, buddy, but how about the next day?”

  “It’s a date,” the young man said, and they shook on it, Sam pleased that she’d managed an appropriate good-bye to one Sanchez that day.

  Four months into her recovery, Eva took tentative steps on her own, without the assistance of a cane or walker. On a sunny Saturday morning, with the windows of the house opened to the warm breeze and the promise of a beautiful day, Sam lingered at her mother’s elbow, ready to provide support should she falter. Sam’s hovering proved unnecessary: Eva’s diligent efforts at recumbent physical therapy had yielded muscle regeneration capable of carrying her from the living room recliner to the kitchen table with no assistance, and her eyes glowed as she eased into a stool. Sam beamed and even clapped a few times at her mother’s impressive accomplishment.

  “You deserve a reward, Mom,” Sam said. “Your culinary wish is my demand!”

  Concentrating very hard, Eva slurred through what looked like a smirk. “What can you make…won’t send us…ER?” Her speech was generally much improved, but when she was physically exhausted, her mouth sometimes struggled to wrap itself around the sounds good diction required, and she generally abandoned articles and prepositions.

  “I don’t know, you might just enjoy a trip to the ER. That Dr. Kruse is a real looker.” Sam laughed with her mother, then peered into the fridge. “How about scrambled eggs with…spinach, tomatoes, and cheese?”

  When Eva didn’t answer, Sam glanced back to the table. Her mother’s eyes were vacant, her mouth open a little.

  Sam’s shoulders slumped as she returned to the task at hand, removing the ingredients for breakfast from the fridge and grabbing a frying pan from the hooks over the stove. The sound of the metal pan against the range brought Eva back a little. “Sam? Hungry.”

  “I know, Mom. I’m making breakfast.”

  Eva processed this for a minute. “Can you…cook?”

  “I suppose we’ll find out,” Sam said, exhaling heavily. As she whisked eggs, she glanced over her shoulder to see Eva’s brows furrowed, her eyes darting around the room.

  “We’re…kitchen,” Eva slurred.

  Sam l
eft the butter to melt and crossed the kitchen, resting her hand on Eva’s shoulder and bending down to kiss her mother’s forehead. “Yeah, Mom, we’re in the kitchen. You walked here, all by yourself. I’m proud of you.”

  Eva placed her hand on top of Sam’s. They stayed that way, each lost in her own head, until the butter sizzled, and Sam slipped back to the stove.

  Scrambled eggs complete, Sam deposited two plates of more-than-edible breakfast on the table and turned away to retrieve utensils and toast. Her progress was stopped by Eva’s hand on her arm. “Proud of…you, Samantha.”

  Sam turned and studied her mother’s eyes. She was at a loss as to whether Eva was simply parroting back a standard response or expressing a genuine sentiment. Not knowing hurt too much, and Sam broke the spell, spinning around to gather the pumpernickel, jam, and silverware. Eva ate slowly, each journey from plate to mouth taking an eternity. Every three or four bites, her progress stalled, and she slipped away. During these lapses, Sam had to remind her verbally or physically to continue. Clearly, the exertion necessary to move from the living room to the kitchen entirely under her own power had taxed her tremendously. Halfway through their meal, the silence began to feel oppressive to Sam. When in doubt, talk about the weather, Sam remembered. “It’s gonna be hot,” she said.

  “What…month?”

  “It’s July, Mom.” July. She’d been in Stowe for months now. She’d been escaping to Burlington more nights than not for the past few weeks. She’d been living every moment as if it were a year, and Eva couldn’t even tell what month it was.

  When they finished, Sam scooped up their plates and deposited them in the sink. She returned to Eva’s side, and, grasping her elbow, encouraged her back into a standing position. Wrapping her arm around Eva’s waist, Sam slowly guided her absent mother back to her default position in the worn plaid chair in the living room. She covered Eva with a quilt and caressed her cheek with the back of her fingertips. “It’s July fourteenth, Mom. My birthday.”

  Slowly, Eva raised her eyes to meet Sam’s, sorrow lining her face. “I don’t…present…for you.”

  “That’s okay, Mom. I don’t need anything.”

  Eva thought about this a moment. “Give you…hug.” Sam’s throat and chest constricted as she knelt down and melted into her mother’s arms.

  Much later that evening, long after Eva had gone to bed, the humidity broke and hard, driving rain pounded the roof. The temperature dropped twenty-five degrees, and the wind rattled the windows. Sam closed the door between the kitchen and the garage and drew her arms around herself to ward off the chill as she stepped into Eva’s poorly insulated studio. Tables of art projects lined the walls, and a shelving unit of gardening supplies hid behind layers of dust and cobwebs. Sam walked down the length of one of her mother’s crafts tables, studying the half-finished projects languishing there. Artist’s tools, including sanders, welders, hammers, chisels, files, brushes, rulers, and scales, stared back at her forlornly, almost accusing her for their disuse. Sam picked up a foot-high metal sculpture of an elderly man and woman sitting on a bench. Their hands both grasped the seat beneath them, and upon closer inspection, she noticed that their pinky fingers were entwined underneath the slats. How lonely must her mother have been these past few years, abandoned by both her husband and her daughter? Sam ached for the life her mother had wanted, and the one she would now muddle through.

  She moved along the worktables, running her hands over pieces in progress and tools, finally clasping her hands around a box containing drafting leads. Natalie had used a similar set the semester she was majoring in architecture, her short, strong fingers continually decorated with graphite that she sometimes absentmindedly smeared across her forehead when she concentrated. Sam had found it adorable and more than a little sexy, and had always longed for the courage to wipe it off Natalie’s perpetually-tanned skin.

  Natalie. Who had the freedom to pursue whatever dream she happened to have in that particular moment. Who had so many gifts to give and who squandered them with indecision.

  Eva used to have gifts to give, but it was all gone now. Like the one dream Sam had ever had. What a waste, for all of them.

  When she pulled herself away from her reverie, her hand clenched the leads, her skin white with the force of her grip. She moved to return the box, but launched it across the garage instead. Her vision blurred as she swept her arms across wooden tables, sending their contents across the room. She kicked boxes, threw down empty easels, and scattered half-baked pottery to the ground. The world moved in slow motion as she upended a table, sending brushes and trays of watercolors across the garage floor. Growling, she turned to a pile of balsawood, breaking it in half again and again, finally hurling the tiny pieces toward the door to the kitchen. With a grunt, she launched herself toward the sculpture of the couple on the park bench. Clasping the artwork in both hands, she raised it over her head, but then the iron claw that had gripped her heart since she’d stepped foot in her mother’s studio suddenly released. Time returned to its normal pace, even if her breath didn’t, and she lowered the beautiful, nearly finished piece. She barely managed to return the object to its home on the workbench before she stumbled backward, jolting as she collided with the fridge. She slid to the ground, a puddle of anger and sadness, and wept.

  An hour later, she stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She’d smeared on some eye liner and mascara, hoping that the makeup and the dark lighting in the club in Burlington would mask that she’d been crying. It was her ... she choked on even thinking the “F” word, and forced herself to say it out loud, to the haunted image staring at her in the mirror: “it’s my fucking birthday. And if I want to get laid on my birthday, I damn well deserve it.”

  She was sober, but her outburst had left her shaky, squinty, and cognitively slow; taking curves much faster than she should have, she wondered if scientists should develop other methods, besides breathalyzers, to test whether people were in the right condition to drive.

  A few hours later, Sam staggered up her mother’s driveway, coughing and squinting through bloodshot eyes. Her trip to Burlington had offered nothing but frustration, as the only other gay women in the club chose each other, and she chose another beer. Her clothes reeked of smoke, and when she raised her hand to rub her eyes, she realized her fingers stank of cigarettes too.

  “Gross,” she said aloud to the dark night. Heavy rainclouds obscured the moon, and her clothes clung to her in soaked patches. She coughed again, the pounding rain obscuring the doorknob as she groped at the handle, struggling to fit her key into the lock. “Happy birthday, Sam,” she said to herself, since no one, not even her father, had said it to her. She tripped through the door and, closing it behind her, leaned against it blinking while she adjusted to the light coming from a lamp by the couch. Her body jerked forward: the couch had been vacant when she left, but it definitely wasn’t now.

  Sam tried to stand up straight and banged her head against the door in the process. Maria, with a book resting against her chest, was curled up on the sectional, sleeping.

  “What the hell is she doing here?”

  Sam might have said it out loud or just thought it. Maybe she was imagining things, so she rubbed her eyes ferociously. But no, Maria Sanchez was slumbering away in Sam’s living room, oblivious to her return. The lamplight illuminated her peaceful face, the book rising and falling with her breathing. Aphrodite, snuggled in the crook between Maria’s tucked knees and her stomach, stretched a bit and glared at Sam. Annoyed, Sam threw a blanket over Maria, carefully folding it around Aphrodite’s little form, and proceeded to her mother’s bedroom.

  Eva slept quietly, the stuffed elephant Sam had bought her at the hospital tucked under her arm. The quilt on top of her bed was cockeyed, but it more or less covered her.

  Sam crept to her own bedroom. For a brief moment she considered slamming the door, but pragmatism won out,
and she gently closed it instead. The smoke had ruined her contacts for future use, and she threw them out. Rainwater dripped from her hair, and when she ran her fingers through it, she released the stench of more stale smoke. She thought briefly that she should probably shower before she passed out, but the beer had made her sleepy; she barely had the energy to make it across the bedroom. Sighing, she dropped heavily onto the bed, not even bothering with the sheets or comforter. Sleep took her instantly.

  Someone was singing “Folsom Prison Blues” and the shower was running. Groaning, Sam pulled on pajama pants and a T-shirt and nearly ran into the doorjamb on her way into the kitchen. She located her phone and found an e-mail from Natalie wishing her a happy birthday, updating her on the latest events in Japan, and asking after Eva’s progress. So, someone remembered her birthday after all. Sam put the phone down; she would write back later, when she could compose complete sentences.

  Thankful that she’d prepped the coffeemaker before leaving for Burlington the previous night, she toggled the on switch and leaned over to put her forehead on the cool tile of the countertop. As she studied the irregular patterns in the wood grain of the floor, Maria crooned from the bathroom. Maria had a nice voice, and when she sang the guitar riff, Sam swayed a little to the beat.

  The coffee machine beeped at her; she must have drifted off, despite her uncomfortable position. She filled a mug, paused, and filled another. Leaving the second mug on the counter, she wrapped her hands around the warm porcelain and stared at the dark liquid inside. It looked like sludge, which was pretty much how she felt. She headed for her bedroom after glancing briefly into Eva’s room and noting with relief that her mother still slept.

  The bathroom door opened, and Maria emerged, toweling her hair and wearing only jeans and a lacy, see-through red bra. When she saw Sam, she jumped about three feet in the air and gasped. “Dios mío!”

  “Um, boo?” Sam offered weakly.