“Anyway,” Dad continued, “you’re too old to be trained as a boxer, son.”
“Dad, I’m just twenty!”
“That’s what I said, too old. Boxers start training at fourteen or fifteen. Or younger.”
“I could learn,” Todd said stubbornly. “I bet I could.”
It wasn’t a smart move to argue with Dad on any subject, especially sports. Why Todd persisted I don’t know. Dad said, “You don’t have the killer instinct, Todd. Even mediocre boxers have to have it. Football’s different—it’s guys on a team. Like brothers.” Dad’s voice took on a faint, unnerving jeer. “Basically, football is a game.”
I would wonder at this remark afterward. Didn’t Dad love football, hadn’t football been his life? Yet now he seemed to be disparaging it for being only a game.
Todd swallowed a large mouthful of beer. His face was flushed and sulky. Dad took notice of this, laughed, and squeezed Todd’s left biceps with approval. “You’re in great condition, son, I’m proud of you. Next fall, things are going to happen in your life, I predict.”
Todd mumbled. “Sure, Dad.”
“Boxing isn’t for boys from Yarrow Heights. I wouldn’t allow you to step into the ring. Know why?”
Todd shrugged. “Why?”
“Because I’m your dad, and I love you.”
I’m your dad, and I love you.
Dad turned to Samantha and me, who were looking wistfully on.
“Franky-girl, Sam-Sam: your daddy loves you, too. When you’re good girls, not naughty.”
We laughed as if we’d been tickled. Almost, I could feel Daddy’s strong fingers running up and down my ribs making me squeal with laughter.
For Daddy had not disciplined either of us in some time. You could almost forget there’d been such a time.
Fortune cookies! One by one we broke them open, and read aloud our fortunes with Dad as an audience.
Todd went first. In a high nasal voice meant to mock a Chinese accent, he read: “‘Someone who admires you is waiting to be discovered.’” He shrugged, pretending indifference. “That’s cool.”
Dad said, miming Chinese sagacity, “Time will tell!”
Samantha broke open her cookie and squinted at the tiny red print. “‘You bring joy and contentment to all.’” She ducked her head shyly.
Dad said, “That’s our Sam-Sam. Somebody’s got your number.”
My fortune was: “‘A calm mind restores calm.’” In a louder voice I reread: “‘A calm mind bestows calm.’ Not much of a fortune!”
Dad said severely, “But wise. Somebody’s got your number, Fran-ces-ca.”
What did this mean? Did Dad think of me as a troublemaker?
For a paranoid moment I wondered if Dad had planted that fortune in my cookie, to rebuke me. Maybe he sensed Freaky Green Eyes roiling in my heart. He knows he can’t control Freaky.
The way Dad was looking at me, as if I wasn’t his daughter but some impudent red-haired stranger he was sizing up . . .
But Freaky isn’t real, I wanted to tell my father. Freaky is just an idea.
Dad broke open his fortune cookie last, and read his fortune in a booming TV voice. “‘You will cross a wide water.’” He paused, pondering what this might mean. Then he smiled. “Of course! The Pacific Ocean. And the Atlantic. Round-the-world coverage with Reid Pierson and associates. Perfect.”
I saw a lone cookie remaining on the plate. Mom’s.
Our usual order from the House of Ming was for five people, so they’d sent over five fortune cookies.
Samantha naively pointed at the cookie, just discovering it.
“That’s Mom’s. We can save it for her.”
Dad snatched the cookie up. He was making an effort to smile.
“No, Sam-Sam. In your mother’s absence, an emissary will read it for her.”
Dad tore off the cellophane wrapper, broke the cookie in two, drew out the little fortune, and read, in his TV voice: “‘You will—cross a wide water.’” There was a pause. Todd and I exchanged a nervous glance, the first rapport we’d had in a long time. A strange expression came over our father’s face as if he’d been insulted, or maybe it was only a joke—an audience was watching him keenly to see how he would react. He laughed. “Well! A coincidence. Must be the fortune-teller has run out of original ideas, we’re into reruns. Your mother and I have the identical fortune, it seems. But we won’t have the identical future.” Dad broke the cookie into several pieces and ate it, slowly.
We all ate our cookies, which were slightly stale and hadn’t much taste.
THREE
the quarrel: may 5
Something is going to happen.
The worst you can think, regarding your parents: something has already happened. What?
That night. I lie awake listening.
No. I am not listening. It’s thunder, pelting rain. Mixed with my dreams.
In another part of the house. Muffled, through the walls. A raised voice. Dad’s voice. Controlled, reasonable. Why can’t you, why won’t you, I’m warning you. The words are indistinct, but the rhythm of the voice is unmistakable.
The second voice, the weaker voice. High-pitched, a woman’s voice. I feel scorn for it. The deeper voice rolls over it, obliterates it. Like thunder rolling across the sky.
I’m awake, sitting up in bed. Kicking at the covers. It was nothing, only thunder. Now rain is pelting against my windows. Where I left a window partly open, rain is being blown inside, wetting papers strewn across my desk.
It was nothing. Only thunder.
In the bathroom mirror Freaky Green Eyes glares at me. I feel a crazy urge to claw at those eyes.
In the morning Samantha came shyly into my room. I looked up, surprised to see her. My room is off-limits, this time of morning. I’m half dressed, brushing at my flyaway hair. “Franky? I heard them again last night. I couldn’t sleep.”
Samantha looked at me anxiously. I could see her eyelids trembling. I wanted to hug her, quick. Hide my face against her hair, so she couldn’t see it.
At the same time, I couldn’t show her that I was scared. She’d asked me about Dad and Mom in the past, since that weekend Mom went to Santa Barbara, and always I said it was nothing much, probably nothing much, you know how Daddy is, Daddy has a temper but it dies down fast, Daddy will kiss and make up, Daddy loves us. The way Samantha was watching my face, I knew I had to be very careful. I took the occasion to brush her hair, which needed it. I said, “I don’t think so, Samantha. I didn’t hear anything. It must have been a dream.” I paused, thinking. “Maybe it was thunder. There was a storm last night.”
Morning mist pressed against the windows. You could see a few evergreens, and Lake Washington vague and shimmering, but nothing more. Samantha winced when my hairbrush hit a snarl. “Franky, I know what dreams are! This wasn’t a dream, and it wasn’t thunder. I heard Daddy shouting at Mom. He said—”
I pushed Samantha from me. Her hot, squirmy little body. I wanted to press my hands over my ears. I didn’t want this, not before school. Not on a busy morning when already I had too much to think about.
I heard myself say, “Ask Mom, then. Ask Mom about it. She’s causing this. Ask Mom!”
But Samantha couldn’t. And I couldn’t. And Mom wouldn’t have told us anyway. Smiling that smile of hers, brave, stubborn, breathless all that spring as if her pulse was fast, like she’d been running.
I guess I did blame Mom. She provoked Dad with her attitude, and Dad, being Reid Pierson, couldn’t help but react. On TV he was super cheerful, but around the house, well—he could be moody. That was just Dad’s personality.
It seemed to happen gradually. Or maybe I wasn’t old enough to notice. But around the time I was in eighth grade, the tension began to show. Mom was losing her enthusiasm for being Mrs. Reid Pierson in public. She’d never felt comfortable at the gigantic banquets and cocktail receptions, fund-raisers that were always honoring Reid Pierson and other celebrities in order to sell ti
ckets; she’d try to make a joke of how miserable she was amid swarms of strangers in tuxedos and long dresses eager to shake the hand of Reid Pierson and get his autograph, but looking through Krista Pierson as if she didn’t exist. Still, for about fourteen years she’d gone with Dad to such events, and she’d looked the part of Reid Pierson’s beautiful wife, Krista, who’d once been a TV news announcer herself for a Portland station. Now I overheard Mom say to Dad, “This party tonight! I don’t want to go, honey. I’m just not in the mood for packs of people. Please can I stay home?” and Dad said, “No, darling. You can’t. You’re my date, see?” Dad was treating this as a joke, or a game. It was like they were playing Ping-Pong in the family room.
Mom said, “Of course it’s wonderful that you’re being honored, and I know it’s for a good cause, but I’d so much rather stay home with the girls and work a little in my studio. Tomorrow—”
“Krista, do you even remember what tonight’s occasion is?”
“The Medical Center? Or—no, United Charities?”
Coldly Dad said, “Check your calendar. Get your facts straight.”
“Honey, it doesn’t matter what it is. The same people are always there, saying the same kinds of things. The amplification is deafening, everyone drinks too much, it won’t break up until past eleven P.M. Please can’t I—”
Dad was sounding patient, but exasperated. I was backing away, not wanting to hear how this would end. My heart had begun to beat, hard, in worry for Mom. “It’s the Seattle Times ‘Outstanding Citizens of the Year’ awards. They only choose eight people. It will make the front page of the paper—it’s a very big deal. And it would look peculiar if Reid Pierson came by himself. If his wife, Krista, didn’t give a damn about this award.”
Mom protested, “Of course I care, Reid. I do care. I’m proud of you. But no one would miss me. That’s why I want to stay home tonight. I’d like to make an early dinner for Francesca and Samantha, just the three of us. It seems we never see enough of one another any longer, and suddenly they’ll be gone, like Todd. The house will be empty, I’ll be—”
“Lonely? With just your husband?”
“Honey, you’re always gone. And when you’re home, you’re going out every evening. It’s no kind of life, and it’s getting worse. And I—I’m not the person you married any longer. I’m not twenty-two years old.”
“No, you’re not. You’re pushing forty. You’d better be grateful you have a husband who wants you to appear in public with him, who’s still in love with you. Lots of people we know, that isn’t any longer the case with their marriages.”
Mom said, hurt, “Reid, what do you mean? Are you—threatening me?”
“No, darling. Why should I ‘threaten’ you? Have I ever threatened you, even with the truth?”
“What—is that supposed to mean?”
“You’re a smart woman, Krista. So you think. With your artsy new friends whose ‘values’ are so superior to mine. You should be able to figure out certain facts for yourself.”
There was a pause. Some movement. I heard a muffled sound I didn’t want to think was Mom crying.
By this time I was almost out of earshot of their voices. Making my escape. Still I heard Dad’s voice raised now, and angry. “Why the hell did you marry Reid Pierson, if you don’t want to be Reid Pierson’s fucking wife?”
Pressing my hands against my ears. Even Freaky wasn’t in a mood to hear.
Crossing over. That was what my mother was doing, too. Last winter, spring, summer. I guess I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to think where it might lead, how some of us might be hurt and left behind.
FOUR
the quarrel: may 29
The scarfs Mom began wearing. Beautiful bright-colored silky scarfs. And shawls. And long-sleeved shirts, pullovers. Sometimes the sleeves drooped to her wrists, hiding her wrists.
Hiding what? Bruises on her wrists, on her neck and upper arms? Angry red welts made by a man’s strong fingers?
I could not ask. The words gathered in my throat but stuck there. In Mom’s presence I began to be very quiet. And Mom was becoming ever more quiet with me.
Always it was late night, my sleepless time when I sent e-mail messages in my head. And sometimes, maybe a little desperate, I’d get out of bed and check my messages (mostly there were none: I checked my messages compulsively and answered them at once) and send one, as I did to Todd. How many times, I’d be ashamed to recount.
Hi, Todd—
Haven’t heard from you in a while & hope things are OK there.
Just wondered if you knew what might be/is happening between Dad & Mom these days. (I guess Dad would tell you if anyone.)
Franky
Another night—
Todd, hi!
Just me checking in. It’s kind of lonely here.
Dad’s away for four days in Atlanta. (Baseball?)
Wondering if you’re in touch with him?
Wondering if you knew what might be/is happening between Dad & Mom? If anything.
(kid sister) Franky
I know, it was pathetic. Signing my name like that. Lots of things I did, those months, were pretty pathetic.
Todd never replied to any of my e-mail messages. I guess I knew in my heart that he wouldn’t.
You’d have to have a big brother to understand.
It used to be, when I was little, that Todd was my friend. Then he got obsessed with high school sports, which took up all his spare time. There were months—years, I guess—when I hardly saw Todd; he was in and out of the house, always in a hurry, only taking time to sit down for a meal if Dad was home. Depending upon how Todd was getting along with Dad, that’s how Todd would get along with Mom, Samantha, and me. Then he left home, began college at Washington State in Pullman, joined the biggest jock fraternity (where, he said, “Reid Pierson is a household word”), and rarely came home for weekends. And when he did, he didn’t have time for me.
Mom wasn’t Todd’s actual—biological—mother. Maybe that explains Todd’s estrangement. His mother (Dad’s first wife) had died a long time ago, and no one ever spoke of her. So Todd might have thought of Mom, Samantha, and me as partial relatives, not whole.
In the family, only Dad was real to Todd.
At first Mom complained, smiling, that she never saw her “big, handsome son” any longer. Todd never confided in her as he used to do, and he wouldn’t allow her to come into his room, or tousle his hair and tease him. Saying good-bye, Todd only just let himself be hugged and kissed, standing stiff as a soldier at attention. This past year, Mom had stopped joking. If she spoke of Todd at all, she sounded hurt, and baffled.
Through May, Mom was smiling. The Freaky thought came to me to ask, Is that smile stapled onto your face, Mom? Does it hurt? I wanted to ask if she smiled like that while she was sleeping. If someone shone a flashlight into her face, waking her, would she be smiling like that? I wanted to ask, but I didn’t.
I began to resent Mom, that she was acting so strange. I resented worrying about her, I guess. Your mother is supposed to worry about you, not the other way around!
There was a new stiffness between us. On my part, anyway. I wasn’t her little Francesca any longer; she couldn’t expect me to snuggle up to her and behave like Samantha. I knew she was sensing a change in my attitude, but she didn’t say anything for a while. (That was like Mom, too. Not to speak of something that’s bothering her, like possibly it will go away.) But one day she broke down and asked if something was wrong. “You seem so . . . withdrawn, honey. You haven’t spoken five words to me since you’ve gotten into this car.”
We were driving home to Yarrow Heights, same as usual. Mom had swung by Forrester to pick me up after swim practice. She’d been doing other errands, too; the rear of the station wagon was crammed with art supplies.
My father hated the smell of acrylic paints and modeling clay. On my mother’s fingers and beneath her short-filed nails, what looked liked dried mud.
For
God’s sake, Krista. You look like a field worker.
I was slouched in the passenger seat. Sliding a Laurie Anderson CD into the tape deck, the one that begins with eerie whale music.
“Okay, Mom. ‘Five words to me.’”
Mom laughed, sounding a little startled.
We listened to Laurie Anderson’s breathy voice. Strange undersea sounds. It suited the atmosphere of Seattle in May: mist, threat-of-rain, rain.
I’ve seen whales in the ocean. Not many, but a few. Killer whales, so-called. In the Juan de Fuca Strait (between northern Washington and British Columbia) and in the ocean, a forty-minute drive to the west. It’s awesome! When you see the whales surface, leap, frolic in the glassy-green water, your heart lifts. You stare and stare at the water waiting for whales to reappear.
Mom murmured something approving about the music. It was Mom’s kind of music, too. Then she turned the volume down so We Could Talk.
“How was swim practice?”
“Okay.”
“Were you diving?”
“No. Not today.”
(I had been diving, actually. I mean, I’d tried. My knees were weak. I had trouble concentrating. “Not a diving day” is what we call it, diplomatically.)
Mom drove. I wasn’t looking in her direction. Yet I could see that her smile was beginning to slide on one side, as if the staples there had loosened. Her eyes (bloodshot, but I wasn’t going to look) seemed to pucker as she stared into the rearview mirror, driving a little more jerkily than usual. As if this familiar way home to our house on Vinland Circle wasn’t so familiar to her; there might be surprises. Mom said hesitantly, “I wonder if you’re distracted by something, Francesca. At school, or . . .” But here Mom paused. Not wanting to say at home.
I said, annoyed, “Mom, I really don’t like ‘Francesca.’ It’s so pretentious. Like, are we Italian or something? Samantha is bad enough—it’s such a cliché. But Francesca.” I sighed. I turned the CD volume up, to hear Laurie Anderson singing about somebody she loved slipping away.
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