Families and Other Nonreturnable Gifts

by Claire Lazebnik

  “I haven’t had a tuner here in years,” Mom says. “Milton won’t play, no matter how much I beg him. He had such a good ear, too.…Anyway, the last time a tuner came out was probably over three years ago, but back then he said the piano was in pretty good shape.” She drifts closer. “Oh, look,” she says. She picks up some sheet music that was on top of the piano—it’s been left there for years, a remnant from the last time one of us played. “Dvořák,” she says softly.

  I know nothing about Dvořák. No, that’s not true. I know one thing about him: he’s my mother’s favorite composer. And whatever that particular piece of music is, it’s way beyond anything I was ever able to play.

  “Hopkins always played this so beautifully,” Mom says wistfully, gazing at the music. “I miss hearing her.”

  “Does she ever play now?” Paul asks.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think she has a piano in her apartment.…” She straightens up with sudden energy. “She should take this one! I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. It may be a little difficult to get it up her stairs, but there are people in New York who move pianos—they’ll figure it out. Once it’s there, maybe she’ll start playing again.”

  Jacob says tentatively, “Um, Eloise? Keats was saying she might want it.”

  “Really?” Mom looks at me, surprised.

  “Not really.” My face feels hot. I could kill Jacob. “I thought about it for like two seconds, but Hopkins should totally have it. It’s basically hers, anyway.”

  “Are you sure?” Mom says. “I want this to be fair to everyone.”

  “We don’t even have room for it in the apartment.”

  “All right then,” Mom says, and quickly plops a yellow Post-it on top. “But I want you to have something special, too, Keats. Something as big as the piano.” She scans the room a little desperately. “Oh—I’ve always loved that painting.” She points to the largest piece of art in the room, an abstract painting with lines scratched into dark layers of paint.

  “Really?” I say, wrinkling my nose. “Why?”

  She looks hurt. “Never mind. Just…keep looking.” She leaves the room.

  * * *

  I head next to the small, dark library off the downstairs hallway. It’s crowded with overflowing and haphazardly stacked shelves of books, two worn-out, old leather armchairs, and a matching pair of tall, arching reading lamps, but the only piece of furniture that would realistically make sense in our modern, already-furnished apartment is the small round table between the two chairs. It’s covered with books that have bookmarks sticking out or pages folded down to keep a place saved. Some are lying open and facedown like the reader will pick them up any minute, but a couple of those are dusty and have clearly been abandoned for a while.

  My mother is a voracious but inconstant reader. She keeps different books going in different rooms of the house and is always searching for the one she wants at any given moment. But when she’s really into a book—like past the three-quarters point—she won’t put it down until she’s done, no matter the hour or the chores or the kids waiting for her.

  The table’s nice, though. I pull a Post-it off my pad and stick it on top.

  “Good choice.” It’s Jacob from right behind me. It’s annoying how he’s always sneaking up on people like that.

  I don’t respond: I’m still annoyed with him about the piano thing. What gave him the right to speak for me? To embarrass me?

  “Your dad needs lamps,” he says, cheerfully oblivious to my resentment. He tilts his head to study the two steel and copper floor lamps. “You think anyone would mind if I tagged those for him?”

  “No. Go ahead.” I move away from him and study the bookshelves. They’re packed with decades’ worth of books stacked every which way. I wonder how Mom’s planning to deal with these: I wouldn’t mind picking out a few.

  Jacob says, “You play a mean ‘Heart and Soul,’ Keats.”

  “Yeah, I should enter competitions.”

  “Seriously, it was fun.”

  Again, I don’t respond.

  He tags the two lamps and then lingers for a moment, like he’s waiting for me to say something, but I just keep walking around the edge of the room, studying the books and vases and pictures on the shelves. He’s starting to say, “Hey, do you—” when my phone rings. I hold up a “wait a sec” finger and answer it. It’s Tom.

  “You done yet?”

  I promise him I’ll leave soon, and when I end the call, Jacob’s gone and Mom’s calling for us to come to the dining room.

  Dessert is a slice of prebought and replated angel food cake with a dab of whipped cream (squirted from a canister) and a few strawberries scattered on top. Mom didn’t even bother to hull the strawberries. It’s pleasantly sweet, and Milton (who came back down even though there’s no ice cream), Paul, and I gobble ours down and say yes when Mom asks if anyone wants seconds. Jacob eats most of his but declines more, and Mom doesn’t serve herself another slice but keeps carving out little bits of cake and eating them with her fingers.

  I get a text from Tom asking me if I’m coming home, so I push back from the table after my second helping and say I have to go.

  “I’ll walk out with you,” Jacob says, jumping to his feet.

  Paul follows us into the foyer at Mom’s side. I leave feeling unsettled by the way he’s waving good-bye to us like he’s the host.

  “I love my new daddy,” I say as soon as the door closes behind us. “He’s so big and strong—he could totally beat up Old Daddy.”

  “He seems like a nice guy,” Jacob says. “But I don’t think you have to worry about your mother’s marrying him.”

  “I was just joking.”

  “I know.”

  The lawn is so overgrown it’s more weeds than grass, and the trees that line the edge of the walkway haven’t been trimmed in years, so you have to shove branches aside just to get past them and onto the sidewalk.

  “I’m sure I’ll see you soon,” I say as we reach the point where we have to go in different directions.

  “Seems likely.” He leans forward and gives me a quick kiss on the cheek, then, as he shifts back, says offhandedly, “Hey, you want to go grab a drink somewhere? Or see a movie or something? It’s not that late.”

  I shake my head. “Can’t. Tom’s waiting for me.”

  “Oh, sorry. I thought maybe he was out of town or something since he didn’t come with you.”

  “Nah, he just hates my family.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, hate’s an exaggeration. They’re just not the easiest people in the world to spend time with.”

  “Easy’s overrated. They’re good people.”

  “Good’s overrated,” I say, and we go our separate ways.

  * * *

  “Glad I missed it,” says Tom when I recount the evening for him. “What did you decide about the piano?”

  “I’m not taking it.” We’re on the bed where he was watching some random ’80s cop movie when I got home. I immediately shoved off my shoes and joined him. Now I curl up closer and rest my head next to his on the propped-up pillow. “It seemed kind of silly once I thought about it since neither of us plays.”

  “Good,” Tom says. “I really didn’t want it.”

  “You should have just told me that when I asked.”

  When he shrugs, I can feel his shoulder rub up and down against mine. “I didn’t want to say no if it meant something to you.”

  “That’s sweet.”

  Tom tilts his head toward mine and bats his eyes. “I’m a sweet guy.” We watch the movie in silence for a minute, and then a commercial comes on and he says, “So your mom’s in love, huh?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.…I wish she hadn’t invited that guy—it was just weird. I couldn’t tell if it bothered Milton as much as it did me.”

  “Milton doesn’t notice anything except whether or not the Wi-Fi works.”

  “True enough.”

 
; He rubs his cheek against the top of my head. “How someone like you came from a family like yours is a mystery to me.”

  “I’m a mutant,” I agree.

  5.

  Hopkins plans a quick trip to Boston, but the night before she’s supposed to come, some Ohio congressman’s son gets drunk and falls down a hill and bashes his brain against a rock. Hopkins is called in to consult, so she puts her plans to come home on indefinite hold.

  I don’t learn this until a couple of days later, when Mom unloads to me on the phone, complaining that Hopkins demanded she not give away anything important without making it clear what fell into that category.

  “I’m terrified to get rid of anything of hers,” Mom says. “But the real estate agents I’ve interviewed all say I have to get rid of the clutter before they can show the house.” There’s the sound of something rattling, and even though I have no idea what it is, I picture her in the kitchen, moving around while she’s talking, pushing objects around without organizing them, moving papers from one stack to another, fiddling with the cabinet doors—in constant motion with no real purpose to it.

  Me, I’m just sitting comfortably, curled up in my desk chair at work, sipping a mug of lukewarm coffee, and wondering if I should let myself have another muffin yet. I’ve already done most of the work I’m supposed to get done that day, even though it’s still morning. Part of what I like about my job is how easy it is. Actually, that’s most of what I like about my job.

  “Can’t you just box her stuff and stick it in the garage for now?” I ask.

  “The garage is already full. And I don’t want to create more boxes to sort through later—we have enough of those already. The agent I saw last week—the one I think I’ll use—said it looks like we never finished moving in. Oh, that reminds me! That’s why I wanted to call you. The agent has a son who was in your class at school. Cameron Evans. Do you remember him?”

  “Vaguely.” He had been a skinny kid with acne and blond hair who liked to talk a lot in class. “We had a couple of classes together, but we didn’t hang out or anything.”

  “He’s in business now with his father.” Her voice turns a little too casual. “I got his e-mail address—maybe you guys could go out for a cup of coffee and catch up?”

  I say icily, “I would think you were trying to fix me up, Mom, but of course that wouldn’t make sense, given the fact that you know I live with my long-term boyfriend and we’re very happy together.”

  “I’m not trying to fix you up. I just think it can be fun to reconnect with old friends. And you need to get out more, spend time with lots of different people, not just Tom. Even supposing he’s the right guy for you in the long run”—she makes it sound only slightly more likely than hell freezing over—“how can you ever be sure of that if you have nothing to compare him to?”

  “Still sounding like a setup,” I say. “And I already know Tom’s the right guy for me. I don’t need to have coffee with a bunch of randos to figure that out.”

  She sniffs. “I know you think you have everything figured out. I did, too, at your age. But now that I’m dating again, I’m discovering qualities I never even knew I might expect in male companionship—”

  “Yeah? Tell me about Paul Silvestri’s unexpected qualities.”

  “Paul is a very nice man.”

  “So nice is the quality you never even knew you might want?”

  “In a way, yes. Nice isn’t the first word that comes to mind when describing your father.”

  “Are you saying Dad’s mean?”

  “No, of course not. He’s just…not genial.”

  “Right.” I examine my fingernails, wondering if I should paint them that evening. I don’t always paint my fingernails, but sometimes when the mood strikes, I like to use a really freaky color on them. “Whereas Paul S. oozed geniality. I mean, if that’s what you’re going for, you’ve found it. A big, steaming pile of geniality.”

  “I’m not ‘going for’ anything,” she snaps. “I’m just trying to enjoy myself a little.”

  “Me, too. And what I enjoy is coming home to Tom at the end of the day and not sitting through some miserable blind date because my mother doesn’t trust my judgment.”

  “I am so sorry I suggested you might want to reconnect with an old school friend,” she says. “What an awful, meddling mother I am.”

  “Oh, come now,” I say. “You’re not that bad.”

  There’s a pause, and then she actually laughs. “Remind me again why I wanted to have kids.”

  “I’m sure you had your reasons.”

  “They escape me now.…Oh, Keats, do me a favor will you? Call Milton and just talk to him about the house. He won’t even acknowledge that I’m trying to sell it. Whenever I bring it up, he acts like he can’t hear me or changes the subject.”

  “I’m sure he hates the thought of moving.”

  “I’m sure he does, too. The biggest problem is that he won’t let a real estate agent into his room, but once it’s on the market—which I hope will be very soon—he won’t have a choice. I thought maybe if you talked to him—”

  “He’s getting weirder and weirder by the day. Mom, you have to start getting him out of the house.”

  “Easier said than done.”

  “I know, but—”

  She cuts me off. “I have a lot on my plate right now, Keats: the house, the move, the divorce.…Just let me take one thing at a time.” Her voice worries me: there’s a breathy, pressurized tone to it today. I know that sound and I don’t like it. It almost always precedes a crash. “Be helpful, not judgmental, okay?”

  “I’ll try,” I say. “But I’m a Sedlak.” Maybe I’m wrong about her voice. I hope I am.

  “Should I put Milton on the phone so you can talk to him about all this?”

  “Nah, I’ll IM him. He likes that better.”

  We hang up and I do a tiny bit more work—sending out some memos, calling in an order for a going-away party later that week, stuff like that—and then I figure I can take another break, so I IM Milton. How’s it going?

  The answer comes back within seconds. One thing about my brother: you can always reach him online. Fine.

  —Mom driving u crazy?

  —Only when she’s awake.

  —I’m a little worried about her right now. LMK if she crashes.

  —K

  —she seems serious about this house-selling stuff.

  —Why would she joke about it?

  —u know what I mean. u going to miss ur room?

  —No, cuz I’m not leaving.

  —Then u better hope the buyers always wanted a son of their own.

  —Mom won’t really sell. Dad won’t let her.

  —Dad doesn’t even live there anymore.

  —It’s still his house. He may want to come back.

  I shake my head even though he can’t see me. I start to write something back about that and then give up and instead write, Moving cd be great. U cd end up in a better location, somewhere u cn walk to restaurants and stuff.

  There’s no immediate response, and while I’m waiting and studying my fingernails again—purple would be cool, I think, but not a bright purple, a grayish one—my phone rings.

  It’s Tom. “Hey there, baby girl.”

  “Someone’s in a good mood.”

  “That’s because I just made a dinner reservation for tomorrow night.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s a surprise. But it’s going to be the best birthday of your life.”

  “You sure you’re not overselling this?”

  “I’m sure. Oh, and I’m going to be late coming home tonight—Dad wants me to have dinner with him and some potential client.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll miss you. Wish I didn’t have to go. I’ll call you later.”

  When I look at the computer again, Milton still hasn’t responded. I write a tentative U there?

  Nothing. Maybe he’s gone to the bathroom. Or downstai
rs for a bite to eat. Or maybe he’s just letting me know he’s done with the conversation.

  * * *

  “Got time to hang out?” Cathy sticks her head into my cubicle.

  Cathy’s a graduate student in education at UMass who’s been doing some TAing at WCC. She and I have become friendly over the last year or so—there aren’t that many people in the office or even at the college who are in their twenties, so whenever she’s around, she stops to chat for a few minutes.

  Her timing today is perfect: since Tom’s having dinner with his dad, I ask her if she wants to grab a bite to eat with me.

  “So long as it’s cheap. I’ve been living on ramen noodles, and even so, I only have about five bucks to my name until I get my next paycheck.” Cathy’s tall and freckled and has broad shoulders and big hands. She has red hair, but it’s lighter and straighter than mine. She looks like a farm girl, but she spends her free time reading and writing poetry.

  I suggest a neighborhood dive that Tom and I eat at a lot. “It’s really cheap, and happy hour goes till seven. They have drinks for two bucks and a plate of grilled cheese sandwiches for three.”

  She thinks that sounds perfect, so we meet there at six and drink cheap wine at a high table near the bar while we compare notes about our families.

  Cathy’s from a small town in Missouri. She came to the East Coast for college, then stayed for graduate school. She won’t ever go back to the Midwest except to visit, she says. Her siblings are all still living in the same town they were born in: her younger sister is already married and has one kid and another on the way. They talk like hicks, according to her, but she’s worked hard to get rid of her accent and claims you can only hear it when she gets drunk.

  She tries to be sympathetic when I complain about my family but doesn’t quite get why it’s so hard for me to be around them.

  “It’s not just that they’re nuts,” I say. “I could live with that. It’s that they’re all much more brilliant than I am and I can’t keep up. I never could.”