“Oh, Kai.”
“We buried the baby right before Christmas, and then broke up a few months later in the spring. She said to me, you can still marry me, Kai, you know, and I just gave her my weekly pay. I said, an addict can’t live with a normal person, Simi, and she said, I can live with you, Kai, you’re not normal because you make me better, you make me calm because you’re calm yourself. You bring me peace. I said, yes, but you don’t bring me peace. I’m not strung out, I said. We can’t be in the same room together while you shoot up, busted up with grief over our baby. She said she understood. What she didn’t understand was that what happened wasn’t just against her, it was against me, too. She thought she was the only one suffering. So…” He took another pained breath. “She moved back in with her stepmother. I continued to send her money. To see her. We stayed in touch. I wanted her to be okay.”
“I’m so sorry.” Poor Kai. Poor Simi. Much of Larissa’s sorrow was for the heroin-addled heroic mother who carried a baby to term because she thought it was going to save her. There was something visceral and paralyzing in the knots twisting shut Larissa’s own womb when she imagined addicted Simi from Hawaii, who loved Kai and wanted his baby even more than she wanted heroin. What Larissa felt for Kai at that moment was beyond primitive sadness. It was a burden of churning current, but heavy, like sand and cement in her gut.
“Was it a boy?” Why didn’t she want the answer to be yes?
“No, it was a girl. Simi named her Eve. Eve Passani.” Kai clicked his tongue together, tightened his grave and unhappy mouth. He was still looking down. “And not long after that, my dad died, just to, you know, complete the vortex of parental malfunction swirling around Maui at that time. Simi continued to be so depressed, on all kinds of meds, just totally unable to deal. She was taking anti-psychotics morning and night. The doctor would say, but Simi, if you keep taking Klonopin, you’ll never deal with it, and then when you go off the meds, two years from now, three years from now, it’ll be like it happened yesterday. And Simi said, who said I’m going off the meds? The doctor said, well, eventually you’ll have to go off. And she said, who said? The doctor looks at me, helplessly! I said, what the fuck are you looking at me for, man? Give me some of that, too. Who wants to deal with it?
“But you know, after months of this, I’d had enough. Simi wasn’t going to get better on my watch. I was fooling myself into thinking I could help her. When I got Dad’s bike, I left for good. Came here. Escape, man. Anything but stay and watch her destroy herself.”
“And Simi stayed with her stepmother?”
“Yes.”
Larissa didn’t speak.
Kai didn’t speak.
Larissa didn’t speak.
Kai didn’t speak.
“Did Simi die in April?” she whispered.
“She did.”
“Oh, Kai.”
“She was doomed, don’t you think? Doomed before I met her. I just didn’t know it. ‘Cause sometimes you don’t. You think you can play God, be the big man, help the poor, heal the afflicted. Like you’re Jesus or something. Well, it’s all bullshit. You can’t help anybody. She had become personal assistant to a moderately unknown rock star in Hawaii,” Kai said in a dull voice. “I think he supplied her with all kinds of shit. After a party one night she tried to drive home and crashed. And they tried to blame him! It’s his fault, her stepmother cried. He never should have given her the shit. But was it his fault? Was it mine for knocking her up? For giving her the money for the heroin? Who has the responsibility for their own life? You? Or everyone around you? Makes you feel pretty hopeless, though, all around. So.” He paused. “We buried her next to the baby. Same gravestone and everything. Simi and Eve.”
Larissa cried.
“No, no.” Kai got off the bed. He couldn’t even look at her. “I’m not the guy for that,” he said. “Seriously. You wanted me to tell you and I told you. But I can’t have this.” He waved in the general direction of her face. “It’s hard enough. I can’t deal with it.”
Larissa wiped her face. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Me too.” He looked at his watch. “Have you seen the time?” It was nearly eight. “You better go, you have an hour’s drive.” He put on his clothes in six seconds.
It took her a little longer to wash off, to get dressed. She wanted to touch him but she could tell he didn’t want to be even secretly glanced at.
At the car he kissed her. “Except for that last bit, this was a pretty good day, wasn’t it?”
It was all she could do not to weep in front of him.
“So what do you think?” Kai asked forlornly. “You want to say goodbye? I’m tainted goods, aren’t I, Larissa?”
“Not quite,” she replied, pressing her body against him in a long embrace. “Not quite ready to part with you just yet.”
“Huh. Funny, that’s exactly what Simi said last time I saw her before she died.”
4
Family Fun in the Poconos
Where were the bags from this all-day shopping trip? Where were the sandals, the dresses, the bathing suits? Something for Jared, maybe some red, white and blue boxers, a sundress for Emily? Makeup from Bloomingdale’s? Where were the things he sent her out to shop for? If she sent Jared to get milk and he came back without milk, what would she think? What will he think? Larissa was so filled to bursting with Kai that she returned home at nearly nine in the evening with no bags.
“Mom’s back!” Asher and Emily and Riot ran to her, the dog first. “What’d you get?” The house smelled of fish and of brownies.
“Nothing. Though not for lack of trying. How was your day?”
“Great! We went fishing,” said Asher. “You should see the size of the fish I caught, Mom.”
“It was a tadpole,” said Emily, pushing him out of the way.
“It was a bass, Mom.”
“Why don’t you just tell her you caught a dolphin if you’re going to make crap up?”
“Emily!”
“Sorry.”
Larissa put down her purse, took off her sandals. “Where’s your brother, your dad?”
“Brother is sleeping, finally, thank God,” replied Emily, rolling her eyes.
“Hey, look who’s finally home!” Jared came in from the den. In the background, she heard a ballgame. No wonder he didn’t come out to greet her right away. Game must be close. “How was your day?” He kissed her. “What’d you get?”
“Well, look, I took half of your advice. I pampered myself. I didn’t make it all the way back to Short Hills.” She shrugged. “I had the greatest day, though. I wanted to try something else, find something around here that was kind of fun. I drove around everywhere. I explored.”
“Oh yeah? Where’d you go?” He was absent-minded. Game must be tied.
“Guys, I have to take you to this place I found. I was on I-80, Jared, and I needed to use the bathroom, plus I was thirsty, so I stopped off at one of the Pocono resorts.”
“Which one?” He looked back toward the den. Tied game must be in late innings.
“Split Rock. Do you know it?”
He crinkled his nose. “Isn’t it cheesy?”
“No! The kids would love it. It’s got an indoor waterpark, and boating…”
“Indoor boating?”
Larissa pinched him. “It’s got bowling and Scrabble tournaments, and family sing-alongs. I brought home a brochure so you could see. It looked amazingly fun. It was filled with happy families. Maybe we can go for an afternoon?”
“Maybe,” said Jared, skeptically and noncommittally.
Emily and Asher began fighting over the brochure. Jared shook his head. “Kids, stop it. Or I’ll rip it in half. Go finish Scrabble. It’s almost time for bed. Go! Let me talk to Mom.” Still fighting over the brochure, they rollerballed into the den and Jared and Larissa were left alone. “You look tired. You okay?” He touched her face, her hair.
“I’m great. Yeah.”
“So what did y
ou do there at this Split Rock? Don’t tell me you went to a family sing-along.” He smiled.
“Well, of course not. I didn’t have my family with me. But I walked around, window-shopped. They have some nice stores. A book store. I had a beautiful long lunch. And then I went to their spa. It was quite something. They had a few openings for a facial, for a massage. I only had to wait an hour or so. I sat in the sauna, I think I fell asleep there. I went in the Jacuzzi. I had a great ninety-minute massage.”
“Mmm,” he said, rubbing her neck as she stood close to him. “With a female, right?”
“Of course.” Larissa smiled. “As always. Michelangelo sleeping? Did he go down okay without me?”
“Well, not okay. He went down. I read him four books. He didn’t like any of my choices. I sang him ‘Rocky Raccoon’ five times. He told me you lie down with him for twenty-two hundred hours. I said that can’t be right.”
“No, that’s about right.” Wanly Larissa stared at Jared.
“But you still didn’t get a bathing suit? What are you going to do?”
“I guess I’ll wear the terrible one I bought yesterday. Besides,” she added, walking into the kitchen, “I’m gaining weight. Everything I tried on looked terrible on me. Terrible. I became so depressed.”
Emily and Asher were fighting over a word in the other room. Asher was accusing his sister of cheating; she was telling him to not be such a sore loser. The ballgame was on, the windows were open. Dusk was settling, and the sky was deep violet, like Lillypond.
“Michelangelo caught a big fish.”
“Oh, yeah? What kind? And I thought you were going to go mushroom picking today.”
“Dunno. Big kind. We ate him for dinner. Kids loved it. And we did pick mushrooms. We had a whole full day. We did both.”
Larissa sank down.
“Are you hungry?” Jared asked. “I saved you some fish. You don’t mind it cold, do you? It’s cooked.”
“No, I’d love some food. I’d eat the fish raw at this point. I’m starved.”
Jared put a thick piece of fillet in front of her, some cold potatoes; she inhaled it, not looking up. He got her a drink of water, a glass of wine. She gulped gratefully.
“You’re not gaining weight,” he said, coming around the butcher block island to inspect her. “What are you talking about? Just last night I was noticing how slim you were.” He put his hands on her hips. “I meant to tell you.”
“I look like a fat hog in those fluorescent fitting-room mirrors,” said Larissa.
“Can’t believe you didn’t buy anything.”
“You mustn’t be so surprised. I often go to the mall and don’t buy anything. We’d go broke if I bought something every time I went shopping. You should feel blessed.”
“I do feel blessed.” He patted her behind, kissed the back of her head. “I’m going to check on the game. It’s 4-4 in the eighth. I’ll be right back.”
He didn’t come back. Larissa finished eating alone, staring at the wood-grain island top. Her soul, full just an hour ago, was already being drained of life. She couldn’t stop thinking either of him, or of Simi and her dead baby. Simi’s story felt like a separate sorrow that happened to a whole separate human being. But that was his baby that died! He hooked up with a troubled stranger and almost got a baby out of it. A child. He wouldn’t be a kite on a bike now, he’d be a father of a little girl. Larissa mustn’t think this way. Had Simi and Eve survived and got dry and clean, Kai wouldn’t be in Summit on his Ducati. Simi had to be doomed so Larissa could fall. Incongruously this girl’s fate, her baby’s fate were tied up with Larissa’s. Had Simi escaped injury on Kai’s old motorcycle, maybe Kai would not have felt so responsible for her, so personally liable for her untenable recovery. He was going to marry her because it was the right thing to do. What a fat lot of conscience for a twenty-year-old.
Larissa trudged upstairs to her rustic boudoir and had a shower. When Jared came upstairs, she pretended she had fallen asleep on top of the still-made bed, and he covered her quietly and went back downstairs.
The week creaked by. Larissa busied herself with cooking, with cleaning, with doing the family’s laundry. They swam, fished, rowed their little boat. They went for walks and blueberry picking, they played hide-and-seek in the abundant woods and built a water park for the twenty frogs the kids caught and named them all. She baked. For this she needed supplies. Cake flour, baking soda, cardamom, Arborio rice, raisins, brown sugar. This allowed her to drive to the country store in nearby Nanticoke across the Susquehanna River, and to call him from her cell phone. Unfortunately Emily wanted to come with her, and there was no good reason to say no. Larissa managed to get away for a minute, “to use the facilities,” to call him.
“Hey. It’s me.”
“Hey, you.”
Briefly, painfully they talked about the impossibility of taking another day like the one they had.
“Every day now feels like seven years,” she said.
“I can come to Sugar Notch,” he said. “Just thirty minutes away from you up river. I can come Monday afternoon.”
But Monday afternoon Maggie, Ezra, and Dylan were going to be here, staying for the week.
“You can’t get away? Not even for an hour?” For the first time he said to her, “I wish you could get on my bike right now.”
“Me, too, Kai.”
“I’m not being metaphorical, Larissa. I mean, really. Get on my bike, we speed away from here.”
“Speed away from here to where?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know the way out. No one knows where they’re going. As long as I’m with you, I wouldn’t care.”
Larissa lived on those words, flew on them, as her house filled with guests, and what should have been, and always had been a pleasure—them together, relaxing under the stars, under the sun—instead became torture, as she tried to make herself more present, yet failed at everything, even dinner conversation.
5
The Cagesweepers
“Man is not free. Freedom is an illusion. Who is free?” This is what happened when the evening ran long, when the children were happy and entertained in the other room watching a Jim Carrey comedy and Riot was asleep under their feet. This is what happened when Ezra had too much of Domaine de la Romanee-Conti.
“You’re being ridiculous,” said Jared, loosened up on Romanee himself. “Right, Lar?”
“Right, darling.” She was barely paying attention.
Ezra turned to Larissa. “Larissa, can you not pick up the kids from school? Can you not cook dinner? Well, maybe Maggie over here can not cook dinner, but all the other wives, like you, can they?”
“Ezra, you’re being a pedant,” said Jared. “I’m talking about big things, not stupid bullshit.”
Ezra shook his head. “Picking up kids from school is not stupid bullshit, Jared.” He shook his head, swirled the wine around in his mouth. “No one is free. Not you. Not Larissa. Not me.”
Maggie was pensive. “Ezra, that’s not what Jared means. He’s saying at any time we can change our life, if we put our minds to it.”
Ezra laughed. “You think so?”
“I know so,” said Jared. “Larissa and I were trapped in a life that was wrong for us. It started out pretty good, and then soured real quick. So what did we do? We didn’t sit and whine about it. We changed our life. So the answer to your question is yes. We really think so. Right, Lar?”
“Absolutely.” She couldn’t connect the threads of the words.
Ezra snorted. “That’s not freedom,” he said. “You’ve just switched cages.”
Jared laughed, unbaited. “Well, give me the cage of Lillypond and Bellevue Avenue any day of the week.”
“I’m not saying life is not good in the cage,” said Ezra with an agreeable nod. “Life is very good. The cage is clean. The straw is fresh. You can even see the outside if you come real close to the bars. And every once in a while you can go out for a walk. Are you free to just kee
p on walking?”
Larissa was silent. That she heard.
“Exactly! Not in any meaningful way are you free to keep on walking. Loosening the bonds is not possible. This is your life. Accept it.”
Jared and Larissa and Maggie exchanged an inebriated, exasperated glance.
“You can do many fun things in your cage,” continued Ezra. “You can watch T V, you can paint, like Maggie here, you can read, keeping your mind fresh, thinking up ideas.” He swallowed the rest of his wine. “Honestly, I think it’s impossible to lead a life too examined. I don’t think a spiritual death is leading an unexamined life. I think a spiritual death, and many other kinds, is leading a too examined life. That’s when people go nuts.”
“And you’re the proof, man,” said Jared.
“Ezra, are you really saying there is no way out?” asked a skeptical Larissa.
“I am saying,” Ezra replied, “that there is no way out. Pass the wine, Jared.”
“It’s all gone, dude. The good stuff is gone. Down your gullet. I have beer.”
“Chasing down a two-hundred-dollar bottle of Romanee-Conti with Bud? There’s poetry in that. I’ll take a cold one.” Ezra turned back to Larissa and Maggie. “In all ways, girls, in your small yet delightful ways, you are free to make your corner of the world liveable. That’s about all you can do. Here’s my final statement on the meaning of life: Drink with grace from the cup you’ve been given. Both of you, by the way, excel at that. We picked ourselves some fine women, Jared.”
A Song in the Daylight (2009) Page 23