“Honey,” she said. “Hey, Miles, honey.” She paused, frozen, his hand in her most favorite bodily arrangement. “Are we?” she asked, and it felt to be its own sentence, unformed and syllabically lacking.
“I’m supposed to wear a condom.”
She fell back away from him, this odd unsexy vestige of their old pre-Ivy life returning—are you ovulating; is this a bad time; should we wait and see if.
“Listen,” she said. “The prospect seems unlikely.”
“Because of the chemo.”
“I’m going to interfere?”
“No,” he said, and he gestured childishly at her nether regions. “The chemicals could be transmitted, and I’m unclear on what happens if that happens.”
“I’m not worried about that.”
“But for the future,” he said quietly, and it did her in: that he was holding out hope that she’d long since abandoned; he still had visions of his continued vitality, of the progeny that would emerge therefrom.
She laid a hand across his forehead. “Thoughtful man.”
“Do we have any?”
Two, among folded bills and business cards in her wallet, from before she’d met him.
“Do we ever,” she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Wendy slapped at his wrist when he tried to mess with the radio dials.
“I refuse to tolerate your sad-sack prose poems when I’m rescuing you from your failed attempt at going on the lam,” she said. They were driving his grandfather’s Jeep, home to Chicago, through North Dakota.
“God, are you ever going to stop making fun of me for this?” He was grateful to her, though. She’d shown up when she said she would, and she’d brought him his Death Cab hoodie and stopped at Panda Express for lunch. It was kind of amazing, really, that he was able to do that—call someone to help him out of a jam, and have them buy him kung pao chicken and worry about whether he was warm enough. It was even more amazing that Wendy didn’t seem angry. He clasped his palms together and stretched his arms, seeing her wince as his elbow joints popped. He pulled his hands inside of his sleeves and leaned his head against the window.
“Oh, this isn’t going to be truly funny for about a decade,” Wendy said. “These things take time. We haven’t come close to peaking.”
“Wendy, I didn’t…”
“Why the fuck did you do this?” she asked conversationally. “Ten sentences or less.”
He fiddled with the buttons on the armrest, accidentally opened his window a crack, letting in a deafening whoosh of air. He quickly closed it. “I was scared,” he said. “I mean, first, initially, that—like, it was my fault that I—with your dad, that I— And then I just ended up in Portland, and at first I was just planning on dropping off David’s car, or maybe staying at Grace’s for a while, but then I sort of—fucked that up too. And I just figured it would be better for everyone if I wasn’t around anymore.”
“Oh, Jonah.” She sounded sadder than he’d ever heard her sound, Hanna-level emotion.
“Is Grace, like—okay?”
Wendy took a minute to answer, cleared her throat. “Okay as in alive? Or okay as in doing anything remotely normal or healthy?” She shook her head. “Did she— What impression did she give you of what she’s been up to out there? Of—law school?”
“I know she’s been lying.”
“I’m giving her one more week to call our parents, otherwise I’m ratting her out. Did you two hit it off?”
“Yeah, I think so. It was—like, kind of a weird time for her, but she— I like her.”
Wendy smiled. “It’s so funny to me that she’s a real person now; she was so little for so long. You know she’s closer to your age than she is to mine?”
“I owe her some money,” he said, remembering.
“Oh my God, the blind robbing the blind.”
“Are your parents mad at me?”
She took in a big breath and let it out. “They’re relieved beyond words,” she said, “which does not necessarily rule out residual anger. You missed almost two weeks of school.”
School, strangely, had been the furthest thing from his mind, but now he felt an immediate, legitimate fear. “Is it—is that going to be a—”
“If anyone asks, you had mono,” she said.
“Seriously?”
“I trusted that you were going to come back,” she said.
He’d trusted her to come get him, he realized. And he didn’t care if she was mad at him, at least not logistically, because if this family had taught him anything it was that people could get mad at each other and then make up again. And he’d fucked up so exquisitely—Liza and Ryan, Wyatt and Santa, dropping the ladder and stealing the car, Grace and Ben—but he hadn’t been surprised by how kind Wendy was when he called her.
“Liza just had her baby too,” Wendy added. “So I’m trying not to steal her thunder with news of our ancient mariner.”
“Oh.” He felt a strange pang of something. He’d never known a brand-new baby. He’d never known the parent of a brand-new baby. Before he’d met Violet, he used to try to imagine what it had been like the day he was born, if his mom had held him like normal moms did, if it had been hard for her to hand him over. Since meeting her, he’d had difficulty imagining her gently handling anything. “Is Liza okay?”
“Yeah, she’s great. The baby’s great. She’s huge. Like nine pounds.” Wendy’s voice seemed not particularly level. “Kathryn Elizabeth Sorenson. She’s calling her Kit.”
He felt a tsunami of guilt in his gut. “Is—is Ryan around?”
Wendy looked at him again curiously. “I’m not sure. Why do you ask?”
“I just—” He was so tired. It was so nice to be sitting in a moving car and not be responsible for its motion. To have eaten the pot stickers that she’d known to order without even asking him. Wendy had picked him up and they were sailing comfortably across the northern plains and he felt, for the first time in ages, like he could fucking relax. Why not put it all on the table? “I think it might be my fault that he bolted. I didn’t mean to say anything, but I—might have said something to fuck things up between them.”
To his surprise, Wendy laughed. “God, you really made the rounds, didn’t you? What did you do? Tell Ryan that Santa wasn’t real?”
So Violet had spread the word, apparently. He wondered if she thought he was at fault for her dad’s fall. He wasn’t home free yet, not if Violet still hated him.
“I’m kidding. You know that wasn’t your fault, right? Plus those kids could stand a few doses of reality. But seriously, what could you have possibly told Ryan that was such a big deal?”
Honesty was a good thing, right? And Wendy had always been honest with him. If he could get this off of his conscience, maybe they could all have a giant do-over.
“I didn’t— It’s not…”
Wendy’s eyes flashed. Gossipmongers, David had called his daughters once, kindly. “Okay, then let me guess. I’m going to throw out a couple of options and you can just make a subtly indicative facial expression when I say the right one.”
“You should be watching the road.”
“Says the car thief I just picked up from a jail.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Ryan’s transitioning.”
He rolled his eyes.
“Torrid affair?”
He flinched without meaning to.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“No, I wasn’t—”
“Liza cheated on him?”
“What makes you—”
“Because I’d be shocked if Ryan could muster the energy to get it up. Or leave the couch for long enough to find a willing candidate.”
“Wendy, God.”
“With who?”
“Wendy, please, I
—”
“God, what is it with the women in this family?”
“Huh?”
She shook her head. “I promise to stop making fun of you for calling me from jail if you promise to tell me the details of this Liza scandal.”
He fought a smile. “The details aren’t my business to share with other people.”
“Oh my God, you’re this principled gentleman all of a sudden?” Wendy cracked up. “It’s really pretty fucking astounding that you’re Violet’s kid, because she’s the least funny person I’ve ever met in my life, whereas you, you total goon, are actually kind of a trip sometimes.” He watched her smile fade a little as she stared ahead. “I will say I find it intriguing that you chose to call me,” she said a minute later.
He squirmed. “I figured you’d be the one with the most free time.”
She snorted. “I know I should take that as a dig, but having free time is actually pretty great. Not being tied down by kids who believe in Santa or boring husbands who make you want to sleep around?” Her voice was doing the wobbly thing again. “Definitely has its perks.”
“You didn’t want kids?”
“God, you say that like I’m some withered hag.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“It’s probably not in the cards for me anymore, though; you’re right.” She paused, almost seeming to forget she was talking to him. “But it’s not totally out of the question. I hail from fertile lineage. I probably have a few years left in me.”
“Sorry,” he said, embarrassed, thinking of her ovaries, thinking of her in her bedroom that night all those months ago, the ginger’s face between her legs.
“You really only called me because you think I have no life?”
“I knew you’d come,” he said simply. He knew that Wendy, despite having unceremoniously evicted him, cared about him, and could be relied on, if not always in the most conventional sense. She’d lied about him having mono so he wouldn’t get in trouble. She’d bought a plane ticket and showed up in Assfuck-Nowhere, Montana, and flirted with the policemen, which mortified him, and got the pot stickers, and kept glancing over to make sure he was wearing his seat belt.
“I will,” she said. “Anywhere, anytime. Though if you pull some shit like this again, I might make you publicly demean yourself before I rescue you. Flowery apologies and whatnot.” She paused. “I had a daughter, actually. Miles and I did. Did Violet tell you that?”
He felt a kind of sadness he didn’t recognize. “No.”
“She didn’t quite—make it.”
“I don’t— That sucks.”
“It does.”
“When was she—did she—”
“She’d be eleven. It happened a few years before my husband got sick, actually.”
“Seriously?”
“As a heart attack,” she said, unsmiling.
He wasn’t sure what to say. “What was her name?”
“Nobody ever asks me that,” she said. “Her name was Ivy.”
He became aware of the radio, Creedence Clearwater Revival again, not Wyatt’s song but the one about being stuck in Lodi. “I’m really sorry, Wendy.”
“Yeah. Thanks. You and me both.” She sighed. “You know, it’s funny; I— You know I was there when you were born, right? I was the first person to hold you, actually.”
“You were?”
She reached to turn off the radio. “Listen, Jonah, I’m sorry. For—kicking you out. I wasn’t— I was in over my head, and I blamed you, but it wasn’t your fault.”
His face heated up. “You did come pick me up from a jail.”
She smiled. “Yeah, but that’s not a fair— Like ha ha, threw you out on the streets but then I bailed you out of the clink so it was all worth it in the end.”
“Your parents’ house isn’t exactly, like, the hood.”
“It was a shitty thing to do. You’re fifteen; you need—”
“I just turned sixteen.”
“One way to make yourself seem more mature is to not remind people of your maturity.” She paused. “Jesus Christ, we missed your birthday. Oh, Jonah.”
“It’s not a big deal.”
“It’s a huge deal. God, I didn’t even— I’m sorry. I’m— Happy birthday, Jonah.”
“Thanks. You were the first person to hold me?”
“Technically, yeah. Like you were caught by a nurse, but she handed you over to me.”
“I never knew you were there.”
“I guess that was the idea.”
“Was I an ugly baby?”
She laughed. “I mean—at the time, I thought—but no. You were beautiful. You were just this tiny little gem that was suddenly a person in the world, out of nowhere. Like fucking magic.”
“Thanks for—holding me.”
“It was my pleasure,” she said. Then: “Look, my dad’s been really worried about you.”
His heartbeat sped up. “He’s not mad?”
“I mean, if I had taken his car and driven to Montana, I’d be toast. But my dad likes you a whole lot. You’re like the belated younger brother I never got to appropriately resent.”
He fought a smile.
“Probably shouldn’t tell him specifically that I picked you up from a Montana jail.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t understand why or how you sometimes manage to sound like an adult, but I appreciate it.”
“Ditto.” He felt, weirdly, like he might cry. Everyone’s life was just as fucked-up as his was. Wendy, with her mean jokes and her wine and her questionable roster of d-bag hookups, had lost things too. Was possibly not as confident as she appeared.
“Jonah? There is nothing on this earth that would be made better by your not being around. Please set fire to that thought immediately. Run it over with a stolen car.”
Nobody was who they appeared to be; everybody was struggling; money didn’t make a difference; blah blah blah; he could spin all of this for some extra-credit what-I-contemplated-when-I-got-mono essay, but for right now he was focused on Wendy, his strongest link to the only family he had: Wendy, who had shown up; Wendy, who had held him before he’d even consciously been a person; Wendy, who had found him again in the first place, and taken him to that fancy restaurant patio to meet Violet almost a year ago.
“Violet is someone who resists interruption,” she’d said, across from him at the table before Violet had shown up and then left again. “But she needs you in her life, whether she’s aware of it or not.” At the time he’d felt like collateral damage and he still felt sort of like that, but that was also probably how Grace felt, sometimes, like someone who wasn’t quite old enough to be taken seriously but who people also turned to in times of crisis, someone with whom they shared things that were confusing or twisted or hard to process.
“You can’t run away from this family,” Wendy said now. “Take it from someone who knows.”
He felt the heat blasting from the vents of the Jeep and he gave a lot of grateful thought to the fact that he was finally in a comfortable enough place to fall asleep, not driving a stolen car and not sleeping in said stolen car in a copse of trees in twelve-degree weather; not in an unfamiliar bed that smelled like someone else; not in the series of try-hard cots in the Interim Room at Lathrop House but instead in the soft bucket seat of a Jeep that smelled like someone he knew; homeward bound, God what a queer thing to say but he hardly had the wherewithal to correct himself, so heavy were his eyelids, his head full of newfound knowledge, his belly full of egg rolls, and he didn’t even notice falling asleep; he just drifted off, Wendy to his left, because he knew, somehow, that she’d get them home.
2011
On the plane home from Portland, having successfully deposited Gracie in her freshman dorm at Reed, Marilyn—who hated to fly—accepted her husband’s proffered B
enadryl, allowed herself to cry for a few moments and then dropped her head onto David’s shoulder and fell asleep for the entirety of the flight. She dreamed of Grace, wide-eyed and vulnerable, tromping around the unfamiliar campus; she dreamed of Grace as a baby, strapped to her chest in a Björn, that specific wonderful weight of sleeping infant head on her breastbone.
When they arrived home, stopping on the way to pick up Loomis from the kennel, they both peered through the front door with hesitation. Loomis broke free of her grip on his collar and shoved ahead of them.
“After you,” she said, and David went first, dropping the bags in the hallway.
“Huh,” he said. Certainly that echo was normal—it wasn’t as though Grace’s presence had dramatically altered the acoustics of their house; it wasn’t as though she was remotely large enough to absorb ambient noise—but it startled her still.
“Well.” She’d cringed every time someone had made an empty nester remark lately, but standing in the foyer she heard the words clanging around in her head. It wasn’t even as though Grace had been a particularly enjoyable presence in the last few months—in the last few years, honestly. She was moody and temperamental and teenaged; she walked too hard on the stairs and spoke in affected hyperbole and made faces that suggested she thought her mother was a subpar life-form. But without her—without anyone—the air felt different; she heard Loomis crashing around upstairs, where he’d gone, she realized, straight up to Grace’s room. She drew in her breath and it made a little sound.
“You okay?” David asked.
The dog skittered down the stairs, his nails clicking frantically against the hardwood, and presented himself at her feet, pushing his head between her knees.
“Where’s your sister, buddy?” David asked Loomis, reaching to scratch behind his ears. She felt herself start to cry again and David looked up at her, squeezed her hip.
She stepped into his embrace, the dog pressed between them. “We knew this was coming. Why am I acting like it’s a surprise that everyone’s gone?”
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