A Good Distance

by Sarah Willis

  “No, I’m in college.”

  “Why did you say that?”

  “Why did you say what you did?”

  I hang up.

  I call back the next week. Now that I’ve done it twice, it’s easier.

  My mother answers the phone. My hand shakes so badly, I hang up.

  The next time I get Betsy. “Is Peter there?” I ask in a high girlish voice.

  “Don’t hang up on me,” I say when he gets on the phone. “Will you just talk to me a little? God, was that really Betsy? Do you think she wants to talk to me? Betsy? Or Mother? What do you think? Would they?”

  “Mother’s pissed you sent that letter to me. She thought you were dead, then you write me a letter. She says she’ll never talk to you again for scaring her so badly. Betsy’s on her side.”

  “Who’s side are you on?”

  “Mine,” he says, and I laugh.

  “Will you call me now and then, just tell me what’s happening?”

  “Why should I?” he asks.

  “Because I’m begging you to,” then I hate that I said that. “Because you stabbed me with a pencil when I was seven and I had to have a tetanus shot. Because you nearly broke my arm. Because we lost the same father, Peter.”

  “Why don’t you just come home?”

  I can’t talk. My throat closes up. I want to be asked home, but he’s not the right person to do it.

  “Just call me, now and then.” I give him my number. “Please?” He’s such a good kid. I believe he will call me if I ask nicely.

  “We’ll see.”

  “Thanks,” I say, and he says goodbye.

  He does call me now and then. Half the time we end up fighting. I make sure I keep my phone number, no matter where I move.

  A little more than two years after starting work at the clinic, and just a few weeks after my twenty-first birthday, Hunter Phillips offers to walk me home. Halfway there, he says, “Let’s walk up to the Hill.” I’m so proud to be seen walking up to the Hill with this good-looking guy. McKendree Spring is playing and we sit under a tree, holding hands. I know he’s married, but I try not to think about it. The next night, with hardly a word spoken, we close up the clinic and make love on the waiting room floor. Afterward, I tell him all about my father dying, and Lannie, and that my mother tried to kill us both in a mad act of passion so I ran away. He holds me, tells me it’s not my fault, any of it, and I think I must have the story right now, because that’s what I want to hear.

  The next night we make love in my bedroom. Afterward, he tells me he still loves his wife, but he believes in free love. I’ve known him for years and he’s never been one to cheat on his wife. This must be a new breakthrough for him—this free love. Then again, he’s been married about seven years. “Does she?” I ask, and he just smiles. “Why now?” I ask. “Why me?”

  “You’re tough,” he says. “I like that.”

  I’ve never thought of myself as tough, but I like the idea of being tough, so I punch him lightly on the arm, then kiss him.

  We sneak around, but everyone knows it, including his wife. He’s the best-looking guy I’ve even seen, and he’s passionate; about me, the plight of endangered animals, the rain forest, pollution, and his wife. He loves her, he loves me, he loves the whole damn planet. We fight about me smoking pot, that I don’t get involved in politics, that he won’t leave his wife. There’s a whole six months we don’t talk to each other, then a whole year we sleep together on Wednesdays when his wife take French lessons. He quits the clinic because she makes him—because of me. I get his job. I see other men, I just don’t fall in love with any of them. Hunter is the only man to leave me, but he always comes back. I leave the rest of them first. Sometimes I’m sure I’m in love with Hunter, but mostly I think that just after we have sex, or when we haven’t been together for a long time.

  Hunter is Jazz’s father, but he doesn’t know it. I left him, and the clinic, in the summer of 1981. One night I told Hunter that he had to leave his wife, and he said love was not something he could cancel, like a stamp. I told him that was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. “Get out, and don’t ever come back,” I said. But he would have come back, and I would have let him in. A few days later I quit the clinic—as much as I loved it, I’d been there too long already. I hugged Paula goodbye and drove off.

  The drive home was a long one. I had an old green Plymouth that I bought a year before. I wonder if buying a car was like having a suitcase under my bed, an escape plan, like my mother’s story about sleeping above her suitcase, waiting to leave home.

  I had a lot of time to think and I came up with this: Hunter was my symptom, not my problem. I was my problem. Maybe I’d listened to too many drug counselors talking to addicts, but maybe it was just plain true. It was a very weepy ride, and I didn’t pick up any hitchhikers. Most of them were going the other way.

  I wasn’t sure if I was going back home, or leaving it again.

  I found out I was pregnant two weeks after I got back. Being a woman’s counselor, I knew the signs. I got the news from a doctor at the Cleveland Free Clinic. My diaphragm had failed.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Filling in my lost years for my mother, I don’t tell her everything. Plenty of mistakes can be made in ten years. It wasn’t all fun and games at the clinic, and saying I enjoyed a few quaaludes now and then doesn’t really say anything about the quaaludes I didn’t enjoy. There’s a way to say things that shade the truth, even from myself.

  “He was married?” my mother says. She has been listening very well, nodding at the right spots. She seems so much like her old self. Jesus, I almost put my mother into a nursing home when she didn’t need to be there at all.

  “Yes. Married. I never talked to him again.”

  She nods. “You’re good at that.”

  I hold perfectly still, knowing I deserved that. But is she really having a conversation with me? Is this possible, that we are really talking about all this?

  “Mother,” I say, carefully, as if the word itself might be a trap, “do you know what’s going on? Who I am?”

  She looks at me, very calmly. “I know who you are.”

  “Who?” I say. “Who do you think I am?”

  Her shoulder twitches. Her hands close, fist-like. She looks to the side, to see if there’s anyone listening. My stomach sinks. I have pushed her too far.

  “I know who you are,” she repeats.

  “Good,” I say, placing a hand on her thigh. I smile kindly. “Can I tell you another story?” I ask.

  She nods. “You’re always good at telling stories,” she says. “Go right ahead.”

  Maybe she does know who I am.

  “Once there was a woman whose real name was Mary. She had a big family, and a mother and father she loved very much, but her father left them. And then, when she was twenty-seven, she fell in love with a man named Michael and they had three lovely children. Sadly, Michael died while her children were still young. It was a hard time for everyone, but after a few years she began to date again. Unfortunately, the oldest daughter—lets call her Esca Echo—was so sad and bitter because her father died that she made it difficult for her mother to have a relationship with another man. But then something happened and the daughter left home and moved far away. She wrote a letter to her mother, but never sent it. Then one day, she came home.”

  Even though my salary at the Free Clinic wasn’t very much, I have saved money and I find an apartment in Cleveland Heights near Coventry, the small “Greenwich Village” of Cleveland, where there are Mid-Eastern restaurants and shops that sell rock posters. Sometimes I walk to the store to get milk or bread, and the flatness of this place makes me feel off balance. Buses look dirty and boxed in, and I keep wondering what happened to the trolleys. I miss the people I care about; I can’t afford long-distance phone calls, so I write a lot of long letters. I don’t write to Hunter.

  I decide I won’t contact my mother until I have a job. This plan is
only a way to put it off. I’m terrified. She’s moved out of the house we lived in and bought a bungalow covered in ivy, fifteen minutes from where I live. I looked her up in the phone book. Sometimes I drive by the house and my heart beats too fast. I get clammy and afraid. Really afraid. The simple thought of my mother makes me panic. I am living in a place in between what happened to us and facing her again. It is quieter where I am now, safer. If I don’t see my family, I can stay here, in the Eye of Regret, where the only one blaming me is me.

  After a month back in Cleveland, I call my brother Peter. He lives in Lakewood, on the other side of town. He’s a successful chemical engineer, although I never understand exactly what he does. We agree to meet at a park. He brings his wife, Emily, and their four-year-old son, Dylan.

  The first thing I notice is that Peter has a neatly trimmed mustache, and then I just stop walking. His face is slim, not a trace of baby fat. He’s handsome and fit, a man with a wife and son. He looks like someone who earns good money and owns a house, and even though I knew that, I didn’t believe a word of it till right now. The last time I saw him, he had just turned sixteen and had pinned me to the floor, making me swear I would stay home and watch my mother. I had promised him I’d stay home, and then I didn’t see him again for ten years.

  “So, you’re back,” he says, grinning, as if my coming back will provide him with some added amusement in his life. He comes up to me and gives me a hug. It’s a warm, strong hug that makes me feels guilty as hell, and I bet he knows it.

  His wife is tall and pleasant looking and I feel her studying me. Do I look like the sister my brother has described? How has he described me? Dylan’s adorable, with my mother’s curly brown hair and fat little boy cheeks, just like my brother used to have. There’s a playground a little way off, with children climbing wooden jungle gyms. I touch my stomach and think of teeter-totters and merry-go-rounds.

  “I’ll take Dylan to the playground,” Emily says. “So you two can talk.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Peter and I say at the same time. But she does, anyway.

  “Are you going to see Mother?” he asks.

  “Yeah. I am.” I stick my hands in the pockets of my jacket, take them out, stick them back in. I’m so nervous. I have a few Valium I’ve been saving for the right moment, but I figure that will be later, when I really do see my mother.

  “When?”

  “When I’m ready. Does she hate me?”

  “She might, Jenny. Jesus, you left for ten years.”

  “I know. I know. That’s why I’m back. I just want to get on my feet, first. I want to have a nice place to invite her to. I want to show her I did okay.”

  “Do you think she cares if you have a nice place? That’s not what she wants to hear. She wants to know why you left and never talked to her again. Hell, you should get down on your knees and beg her to—”

  The blame is beginning, just like when we fought on the phone. “Don’t start telling me what to do, Peter. I’m not getting down on my knees. This is my life. Don’t tell me what I should and should not—”

  “Yeah, your life. That’s all it’s about. Just do what you want, Jenny. Whatever the fuck you want to do. Why start now thinking about anyone else?”

  I’m glad now the wife and son are gone. Maybe she knew exactly what would happen. Some kids playing volleyball look our way. It’s a Saturday in early September and I’m not showing yet. There’s not a cloud in the sky. Everything could be just fine, if you were looking at us from far way.

  “Look, Peter, I don’t want to argue. Really. Maybe she never wants to see me again. I’m scared.”

  “Well, you don’t have a child. You don’t know. If Dylan did something like that . . .” He pauses, looks around. When he finds his kid, his whole face relaxes. “Well, I’d want to see him. I’d want to know what happened. I’d want to make it better.”

  I nod. What can I say to that? That she knows what happened? That some things you can’t make better, even with a kiss and a really big Band-Aid.

  “Thanks for coming to see me,” I say, touching his arm. “Your wife and son are just beautiful. You must be so happy.” I’m getting emotional. It’s the hormones. I’ve started having these thoughts that I’m actually excited to be pregnant. I could have had an abortion—I talked to hundreds of girls about their right to decide—but I didn’t. I imagine myself holding a baby in my arms like an award I won, my mother so proud of me. These are surely a pregnant woman’s fancy, because I’m not that dumb.

  “Thanks,” Peter says. “I am happy. I just wish you were around to see Dylan when he was a baby. We’re trying for another.”

  “Good luck,” I say. I take my hands out of my pockets, give him a hug. It’s not as good as the first one. “Don’t tell Mother I’m back, yet. You have to promise me. I’ll call her soon. I have an interview at the hospital for a job. Then I’ll call her. Please don’t tell.”

  He looks pissed again, but then nods. “It’s your life, Jenny. But remember, her dad did the same thing to her. It stinks. She misses you. I missed you. I think even Betsy missed you.”

  We both laugh. He’s taken it too far, now. I wrote Betsy twice and she never answered me.

  “She got married a year ago,” he says.

  “Yeah, you told me.” I turn away, shake my head a little. Turn back. The kids play volleyball, ignoring us. A woman walks a golden retriever. Peter’s wife looks this way. I wave. They don’t come any closer.

  “Tell your wife I said goodbye. Love you.” And I walk off. God, I’m so fucking good at this part.

  I get a job at University Hospitals as a receptionist. It’s not the job I want, but they don’t seem to think my years as volunteer coordinator are equivalent to anything they do there. The only reason I get a job at all—being a high school dropout—is because I get two great recommendations from well-known doctors in San Francisco who volunteered at the Free Clinic there. I would have liked to work at the Cleveland Free Clinic, but I’m going to have a child and will need to make more money than they could afford. I have to think of my future, not my politics. And the truth is that it was never the politics that kept me at the Free Clinic; it was the people—the hundreds of volunteers, the staff, and the people who came in for help. It never felt like working, just hard play. Now it’s time to get a real job, with benefits, which is just what I get. I answer phones, fill out forms, and file. That’s pretty much it. Except I throw up every day at eleven, like clockwork.

  I don’t call my mother.

  One night in November, the trees black, bare skeletons outside my third-floor window, I feel the baby move. I’ve just smoked half of the second-to-last joint that I own.

  At first I don’t know what it is that I feel. It’s like a bump from inside, a nudge, and then nothing. As I hold up my top, staring at the round swelling of my stomach, something rises up under my skin, moves a little to the right, then disappears. Amazement mixes with pot paranoia, and I’m so terrified I can’t move. What have I done? I’m smoking pot and there is a tiny person inside me. I watch my stomach for another ten minutes, and it never moves again. Please move, I think. Please move. I’m suddenly afraid the pot has gotten into the baby’s bloodstream and made it stop breathing. I know better, but knowing the pot won’t do that doesn’t mean a thing to me because I’m high, paranoid, single, and pregnant, and the branches of the trees outside scrape against the windows like bones. I don’t normally get this wacked out on pot, but it’s good pot and I don’t smoke that much anymore. Please move again, I whisper to my stomach. The branches hiss.

  I place my palm against my belly. “I promise on your life I will never smoke pot again,” I say. I say it loud enough that the walls that hold out those dark, bare branches can hear me. And then I know what I’ve done wrong. It’s not the swearing on my baby’s life that’s wrong, it’s the wording; I have made the promise so specific that it leaves the door open for all sorts of other things. Palm still on my belly, I say, �
��I swear I will never do any drugs that are not prescribed to me by a doctor, and that I won’t talk a doctor into prescribing me anything just because I want it.” I know there are doctors who will do that, so I am closing that door, too. “I promise.”

  Something moves. A foot or a fist, just a quick jab; a small thing that will change me for the rest of my life.

  Just before Christmas I phone Peter. It’s been three months since I met him in the park. “I’m ready,” I say. “I just don’t know how. Help me.”

  “Come to my house for Christmas Eve. Bring a present for everyone.” He reminds me of his wife’s name, his son’s name, and Betsy’s husband’s name, as if I might not know them. I write Betsy and Jasper down on a piece of paper, underline Jasper three times.

  “Will you tell her I’m coming?” I ask.

  “Yeah, Jenny. I think it’s only fair to warn her.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Thanks. Really. Jesus, I’m scared.”

  “You better show up.”

  “Hey, Peter,” I say. “I’m glad you’re my brother. I could use someone who doesn’t pull punches.”

  “Well, to tell the truth, sometimes I wish we we’re kids again, so I could just beat you up.”

  I laugh. “I’m coming back, Peter. Ready or not. And thank you. I missed you. I can’t remember why, but I did.”

  “Dinner will be at six. Don’t be late.”

  “Can I bring something?”

  “Oh, I think you’ll be bringing quite enough as it is. No, really, there will be tons of food. Emily’s become quite a gourmet cook. Just come with a good attitude.”

  He doesn’t know I will be coming with something more than that.

  Peter answers the door. I have on a heavy winter coat and am carrying three paper bags with Christmas presents. He takes the bags and puts them down, steps behind me to help me take off my coat.