by Sharon Heath
“Oh, Gwennie. Don’t be so cruel to yourself.”
“It’s not cruel. It’s true.” She added shyly, “But never mind, I’ve had my Bach and Wagner, Baez and Seeger, all the jazz greats to mirror my joy. And Beethoven, of course. Nothing like a deaf musician to cheer a woman going deaf herself. But here’s the thing—another cliché, I fear—an absence in one area really can lead to a gain in another. One door closing and another opening, and all that. I think I’ve become a pretty astute observer of human nature over the years.”
“Well, that’s definitely part of wisdom—”
But she interrupted me. “For example, I’d like to know—really—why you paid me this particular visit.”
There was no point putting up a fuss. Callay had fallen asleep across my chest, and I rose carefully to place her inside the stroller without waking her, tucking her elephant-patterned blanket around her as the room felt suddenly rather chilly. I grabbed a frayed red throw from the back of Stanley’s favorite chair and offered it to Gwen, who shook her head. Instead, I wrapped it around myself like a shawl. Settling back onto the sofa with my knees tucked under me, I confided in her about Cesar. Perhaps because of a reluctance to out him, and perhaps because of our own awkwardness, Mother and I had had an unspoken agreement not to mention what we’d witnessed in Fidel’s back yard that day, passing off our incursion as only an idle curiosity about her neighbor’s back garden, based on the exoticism of the front, and ascribing Mother’s concussion to a trip over a fallen branch in the driveway. I’d told Adam and Sammie, of course, but then I told them pretty much everything.
Gwennie looked gobsmacked. “Oh my. It really does take time to catch up with social change, doesn’t it? I feel rather foolish saying it, but he always struck me as a very masculine sort of boy.”
“I know. The same for me. Sammie says it doesn’t matter. It’s how they ... how we feel on the inside.”
“Well, of course, that’s true.” She giggled. “Actually, on the inside I’m Twiggy.”
“Who’s Twiggy?”
Gwennie stared at me for a long while, then shook her head. “I really am old, aren’t I? She was an English model who tortured all us girls with how adorable and skinny she looked. Like a twig.” It took me a minute. Gwen sighed. “I guess you had to be there.” And then, “So how is Cesar doing?”
“Sounds like he’s doing just fine. He evidently tracked down his mother again.”
But Gwen was, as she’d said, an astute observer of human nature. Her expression softened. “And you? How are you with all this?”
It was as if pressure had been building in the magma chamber of a volcano. I blurted out, “I don’t give a damn what kind of makeup he wears, how sluttishly he dresses, or whether he ends up a he or a she. I don’t even care that he blames me for all of it. It’s Mother. She obsesses about him. All the time. And then has the nerve to say she never worried like this about me.” Realizing how emphatically I’d spoken, I slid a guilty glance toward the stroller, but nary a peep from that quarter. I prayed I hadn’t given her bad dreams.
“Oh dear.” Gwen sat up and leaned over to gather me toward her ample bosom. I let myself collapse into the warmth of her body, in between sobs taking in the richness of what smelled like a combination of peaches, perspiration, and fresh mint. She spoke so softly, I had to ask her to repeat herself. “She’s forgotten, you know. “
“Forgotten what?”
“That she used to call Stanley and me all the time. Wanting to know how you were settling in. Whether you were making friends at school.” She paused. “Whether you missed her.”
I sat up, wiping my snotty nose against my sleeve like a child. “Miss her? I didn’t. At least nothing like how I missed Grandfather.” I shrugged. “But Mother—I never thought much about it. I guess I was born missing her. Sort of like having blue eyes or dirty blond hair. It was just what was.”
Gwennie’s eyes filled. “Alcoholism’s really the devil, isn’t it?”
I spat out reactively, “She wasn’t much more available after she got sober. It was all about her Bill W’s.”
“Oh love, alcoholics don’t get sober so quickly. Not really. Not so as they can access their feelings very well. It takes time to be able to bear them without smoothing them out with booze, or some substitute for booze.”
I went inside and thought about that one, sniffing around the dark crannies and back cupboards of my mind. “Sort of like numbing yourself out in case you’re tempted to pinch and whirl?”
A faint smile turned up the corners of Gwennie’s lips. “Something like that.”
“What a boob I am. I feel like a three-year old.”
“No matter. I feel like I’m ninety-nine.”
We burst into giggles.
I loved how she gave herself over to her laughter. It spilled messily out of her, punctuated by a doggish snort or two.
“May I ask you something? Would you mind terribly if I called you ‘Aunt Gwen?’”
Her voice was matter-of-fact, but her eyes gave her away. They looked all melty, the way Grandfather’s did when I’d reach out to hold his hand while we sat watching our tree. “Not at all. I’d quite like that,” she replied.
The walk back home felt about twice as long as it took to get to the Fiskes’. By the time I yanked the stroller over the threshold, Callay was screaming and my back ached from having to push the stroller most of way while holding my daughter to my shoulder, a stench stronger than horse shit just inches from my nose. I hurried with her upstairs to change her diaper, calling out, “Adam! We’re home!” only to be greeted by Mother, staring at me solemnly from the top of the stairs. A pit forming in my belly, I cried, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just—”
“Where’s Adam?”
“He went to play golf with Tom and Amir.”
“Golf?” He never played golf. Said it reminded him too much of his father and his cronies from the Senate.
Mother stretched forward to take the baby from me when I reached the landing, but I merely plowed on toward Callay’s bedroom with Mother hurrying to keep up with me. “Evidently a couple of wealthy physics alumni offered to take them out to Brookside, and Stanley told them it would be impolitic of them to say no. ”
I set the baby down on her changing table, girding myself for the mess and muttering, “They’d better not be associated with the oil lobby, or I’ll kill them.”
Mother made a face. “Forget that, this little girl’s poo just might kill us.”
I couldn’t help but grin. But then I forced myself to focus on the task at hand. The little Monkey had ceased crying, as if relieved that she herself was about to be spared the smell. Mother took the rolled up diaper and soiled wipes from me and left the room. We both knew that no diaper pail could sufficiently contain this intensity of Eau d’Excrément de Callay.
When Mother returned to the room, I’d already snuggled under Gwennie’s childhood quilt, and my little Monkey was sucking at my nipple like there was no tomorrow. Mother sat hesitantly at the foot of the bed as if I might kick her off if she settled her whole bum onto it.
“Where’re Makeda and the girls?”
“At a birthday party for a boy named Hector.” Mother’s face flushed as if she’d just realized that was the name of the boy who’d first gotten me pregnant. She hurried to add defensively, “Life goes on even in the midst of disasters.”
Looking down at Callay, I replied, “It certainly does.”
But Mother clearly mistook my meaning. “I never meant to hurt you. When Adam called me, I—”
“Adam called you?”
“Well, yes, he said that you were very upset, so I—”
I really was going to kill him when he got home. “Listen, Mother, I’m exhausted. Now’s not a good time. I really think Callay and I need a nap after she finishes feeding. It’s been a long day.”
Mother’s eyes widened. “Of course. Forgive me.” She stooped to plant a quick kiss on the b
aby’s forehead, accidentally brushing her lips across the tip of my nose. I said nothing.
Contrary to what I’d said to Mother, once the baby finished her feed, I was wide awake. I thought of texting Adam to see when he’d be home, but instead tiptoed downstairs and curled up opposite the fireplace. It was too warm to light a fire, but it was soothing to just sit there, admiring the artistry of its Spanish tile work. Buster arose from the outer hearth and leapt onto my lap. His motor thrummed loudly, as it always did, and I stroked his sleek black coat in a kind of ecstasy. Jillily had been a great purrer, too, and her tuxedo markings had been similar to Buster’s but for the white dot beneath her nose. But there was a delicacy to her that contrasted sharply with the powerful muscles under Buster’s fur. There was no way this animal on my lap was anything but male. What was it, I wondered, that made us humans vulnerable to disconnecting from our birth gender? It was a question, of course, that had no answer. Each species—and each era—seemed to have its own ways of dealing with the void.
I found myself speculating what it would be like for the dog we chose for our experiment to dematerialize and—please God—come back again. Would such a remarkable experience fill its void for the rest of its days?
Buster butted his nose against my cheek. I stroked him more vigorously. He stretched out a paw and plied his nails against my chest, careful to retract them before pulling them back. I knew he loved me. I knew that animals feel love, even for us confused humans who struggle so fruitlessly to be at peace inside our own skins.
I noticed a tiny spider making its way across the nubby fabric of one of the cream colored throw cushions at my elbow. Its skinny legs worked hard to make it over each little hill. I prayed Buster wouldn’t notice it and lap it up with one quick flick of his tongue. There it was again. Life eating life. To survive, yes, but also out of boredom. Life playing with life as a kind of practice. Cruelty. I had it in myself, as well.
I lifted the cat and put him down on the sofa, where he instantly commenced an elaborate grooming ritual, beginning with his apron of soft, white fur. I strode over to the landline that reposed beside a rather somber picture of a young Grandfather on a small side table, his walrus mustache still dark and imposing. My mother picked up after the first ring. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I was terrible to you. I wanted to make you feel bad. It hurt my feelings when you said you didn’t worry about me.”
She paused, and I was afraid she’d hung up.
But when she finally spoke it was clear she was fighting tears. “I did worry about you. That was a lie.”
“So why say it? “
“I wanted you to think that I have confidence in you.”
I picked at the dry skin on my lower lip. “Are you telling me that everything you said was untrue?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t believe her. “What else did you worry about?”
“That your experience with your father would warp your relationship with men. That being with a sick grandfather all the time would give you a grim view of life. That you were lonely, but I couldn’t find anyone to play with you. That the boy at the pond had done something worse than you could find the words for. That you would never be socialized. That you got too many colds. That your pelvic pain meant you’d never be able to have children. That you would be victimized. That I’d scarred you. That you’d hate me for the rest of your life.”
Hate her? How could she not know? I’d been haunted from the beginning of memory by her tantalizing presence behind her locked bedroom door, behind her wine glass and her eternally uneaten plates of food, by the absence of her graceful, velvet hands—which I’d so longed to feel enclosing my own. I’d idolized to the point of pain her perfectly proportioned body fitting perfectly into her impeccable Chanel suits. Her pearls and her Infra Rouge lipstick and her No. 5 perfume. Her cherished Austin roses in their invisible beds. Her multi-syllabic words; her half-smiles, hinting at something too delicious to be spoken; the quick flash of fire in her eyes when Father spoke rudely about her own father. When he used all those nasty names for me. I’d adored her the way one adores a brilliant sunset. The way we wished upon the first star in the night sky. She’d been my beautiful, unattainable queen.
They say we become our mothers as we age. Following in her footsteps, I merely replied, “Well, I don’t. Hate you.”
“Really?” she asked, her voice tremulous.
When Adam finally came home, I wanted to berate him for being so late. Instead, I turned off the breast pump and removed the flanges from my nipples, scooping up all the fussy pieces to take downstairs to wash and store. Adam gave my shoulder a squeeze before I left the bedroom.
When I came back up, he was standing naked by the window, absent-mindedly scratching his chest. All anger fled me as I stood at the doorway, rendered speechless by his still taut muscles, the angular flare of his hipbones from his waist, the cleave along his spine that I loved to trace with my hands, his slightly corkscrewed left leg with its calf larger than the right for the harder work it had to do. Despite his limp, he’d stayed as fit as he’d been the first night we’d spent together at Shutters. He’d surprised me back then, insisting we detour to Santa Monica Beach on our way home from Ethiopia, grabbing me tightly to him as we bobbed and screamed in the wild waves. The beauty of him now took me by surprise all over again.
But when he turned around, he said, “We have to talk.” I tested his tone, replaying it in my mind. Not angry, but resolute. I tensed. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“For being so late?”
“Huh? No. For asking you to not go to the march.”
I frowned. This was not what I’d been expecting. “But you were right. I shouldn’t have gone. Look what happened.”
He shook his head. “Yes, it was bad. Very bad. The fucking worst. But I should have realized it was your call.” He walked over to the bed and sat, patting the duvet beside him. I joined him, and he took my hand, gazing searchingly into my eyes. “I’ve been driving around for a couple of hours, trying to sort this out. I was trying to control you. Wanting you to save me from my own fear. Which—really—is what that loser was doing when he drove into the crowd.”
I rolled that one around in my head. It had a certain clarity to it. Something like what you’d expect from a quantum physicist who’d actually made the effort to push his feelings aside for a moment to make room for thought.
I loosened my hand from his and stroked his chest and shoulders, feeling teary. “This is why I love you.”
He laughed. “Because I own my shit?”
“Well,” I said, letting my hand drift down to his member. “That and a few other things.”
“No. Wait. I think you have a part in this, too.” I pulled back my hand, aware that my heart was beating a bit faster. “I know it’s a cliché for new dads, but I’m feeling a little taken for granted.”
“What do you mean?” I asked defensively. You may have noticed that one of us was exhibiting more of a gift for self-reflection than the other.
“Well, take today. You went out without any acknowledgment that we’d planned on hanging out together. Taking Monkey with you as if she belonged to you. I have something to do with her being here, too, you know. I knew you were upset, but you could have turned to me.”
I flushed. “Don’t pretend you’re the victim here. You were just fine. Went golfing, for God’s sake. I hope you aren’t going to turn into your father.”
Adam stood up, his neck muscles working. “Wow. That was a low blow. I wouldn’t have expected it of you.”
I felt mortified, but when you’re digging yourself a grave, why not just jump in? “I wouldn’t have expected you to rat out on me to my mother. To beg her to apologize to me.”
He licked his lip and looked a bit red in the face himself. “Maybe I shouldn’t have called her, but at least I was trying to help. Your comment about my dad, though ... and I didn’t beg her to do anything. Just told her you were hurt.”
We stared
at each other. Adam broke eye contact and strode over to the dresser, his foot dragging a bit more than usual. He yanked open the bottom door to retrieve his plaid pajama bottoms, pulling them up as if he didn’t want to be naked in front of me. I wanted to jump out of my own skin and had to stifle the impulse to pinch my upper arm.
I knew I should apologize, but I couldn’t seem to force the words out of my mouth. Instead, I said, “Did you enjoy yourself golfing? Whom did you go with?”
“That simply won’t do, Fleur.” His tone reminded me that he’d once been my tutor. And in more than philosophy and physics. How revolutionary it had been at the time to hear him urge me, Use your words, Fleur.
As if in response, I said, “I’m embarrassed.” I saw he was waiting for more. “I shouldn’t have said that. It was a low blow. I was angry that you’d tried to tell me what to do the way my father would have done.” Still, Adam said nothing. “But you’re not him.” It was a relief to recognize it. I really had been a bit possessed. “If anything, I’ve been acting like him myself, judging Cesar for being a freak. As if he’s any more of a freak than I am.” Adam frowned. “Oh, okay. We’re all freaks.”
Adam snorted. Thank God. It was as if a demon had squeezed all the love out of us for a while. Well, to be fair: out of me, anyway. As he took me in his arms and I felt the void recede, I murmured into his shoulder, “I guess that was why Father liked to hate me so much. It relieved him of feeling his own freakishness.”
“His own humanness,” Adam murmured back.
“That, too,” I replied.
Chapter Ten