The Art of Mending

by Elizabeth Berg

  “That’s a good idea. Can I steal it?”

  “Of course. For five bucks.”

  I put down the fabric. “Come upstairs with me.”

  “Laura! You don’t have to pay me! I was kidding!”

  “I know. I’m going to give you the Bisquick and kick you out. I have to work.”

  “Me too. I’m working from home.”

  “Yes. I can see that.”

  When we were in the kitchen, Maggie saw a book I’d just finished lying on the kitchen table. She picked it up, leafed through it, then checked the spine. “Lost Lake. Mark Slouka. Is he any good?”

  “It’s actually one of the best books I’ve read.”

  “Can I borrow it?”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay, I’ll see you later then. Come over when you’re finished working.” I closed the door after her, started for my studio, and turned around when I heard Maggie come back in. “Bisquick,” she said.

  I was halfway down the stairs when I heard Anthony. “Mom? Are you making breakfast? Will you?”

  Someday, I would miss this, I knew.

  It is a photo taken at Christmastime, a picture of our tree. I look at how beautifully decorated it is, and I remember how the tinsel was painstakingly hung by my mother, one long strand at a time, so that the tree shimmered. Some ornaments are store-bought but many are homemade. I see a Santa I made from a lightbulb, an angel I made from a doily, a snowman out of cotton balls. There is a pair of felt mittens attached to each other by red yarn that Steve made in kindergarten and sprinkled liberally with glitter, and there are the red and green paper chains he loved to make because he got to use the stapler. There is a gingerbread man he made from Play-Doh. You can’t see anything Caroline made because her things hang in the back. I told her to put them there because the tree was stationed in front of a window, and I said if she put them on the back, everyone would see her things first. Everyone outside. Years later, I told someone this, and we both laughed. It seemed funny then, just a little Father Knows Best type of sibling upsmanship. I see it differently now. Which is to say, I see it.

  16

  “SO HOW ARE YOU, MOM?” I SAID, AS WE PULLED AWAY from the airport.

  I hardly needed to ask. She looked awful: puffy bags under her eyes, her hair disheveled, her outfit appropriate for anyone else but alarming for my mother: a lightweight gray sweatsuit and sneakers.

  She leaned back in her seat and sighed. Looked out the window. “As well as can be expected, I suppose. Such a shock. And you know, Laura, I think I see him everywhere. I mean that literally.”

  I looked quickly over at her. “You mean you’re hallucinating?”

  “No, it’s . . . well, on the airporter, for example, I saw a man in the front of the bus, and it looked exactly like your father. Exactly. I stared at him the whole way. I thought about going up to him, but what would I have said? Oh, Stan, is it you? I see him walking down the sidewalk, in

  stores at the mall, even in the house—I come into a room and see him slip around the corner. Just . . . zip!” She laughed, a small sound.

  I nodded, said nothing.

  “Is that happening to you too?”

  “No, but I’ve heard about it happening to other people. To other widows.”

  “Oh? And what else have you heard?”

  “About widows?”

  “Yes.”

  I pulled up at a stop sign, reached over to touch her shoulder. “Whatever you’re feeling, it’s normal. That’s what I’ve heard.”

  “Well.”

  I started driving again, then said in as innocuous a way as I could, “You know, Mom, I was thinking I’d go back to Minnesota. I want to see Caroline again. And Steve, before he goes back home.”

  “What? Well, why didn’t—”

  “I mean see them alone. Just some brother-and-sister time, without anyone else. Some time to talk. You know? When we were there, we didn’t really get . . . well, you know, Dad died and . . .” It still felt strange to say it. I had an impulse to say, Sorry, Dad, as though this were some tasteless joke we were all playing on one another.

  My mother stared straight ahead, eyebrows raised just the slightest bit.

  “The truth is, Caroline’s having some trouble, and—”

  “Your sister is always having trouble. Always. It is the way she prefers to live.”

  I pulled up to a red light, looked over at her. “Yeah. Did you ever wonder about why?”

  “She is that type of personality. She just is. You can let it drive you crazy, or you can just let her be. Green light.” She reached in her purse and pulled out a Kleenex. Wiped at her nose. “Can we talk about something else?”

  “Sure. Of course. Oh, listen, you’ll love this. Hannah went out to buy some clothes the other day, for school? She came back with—”

  “I don’t see why you have to go back there when I just arrived! Why can’t you just stay here while I’m here and then we can go back together?”

  I hesitated, then said, “Mom, I’m sorry this is upsetting to you. It’s just something I have to do. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you now, when you just got here. I guess I wanted to get it out of the way. Let’s have a nice dinner tonight.” I smiled over at her. “Okay? I’m glad you’re here, Mom. Everyone’s glad.”

  She closed her eyes briefly, opened them. “Maybe I should go back home. I don’t know what to do.”

  I signaled for my exit off the freeway. “Almost there,” I said. I meant it to be reassuring, even gay. It was neither.

  JUST BEFORE I WAS READY TO PUT DINNER on the table, the phone rang. It was Aunt Fran. “Hey, how are you?” I asked her.

  “Oh, the same as always. Rich and famous. And you?”

  “Just getting dinner. We’re having your recipe for cucumber salad.”

  “Well, listen, can I talk to your mom quickly? She called and left a message earlier.”

  “Oh! Sure.” When? What message?

  I went to the foot of the stairs and called up to my mother. She had spent some time in the guest room after she arrived, then came down in a better mood to help me make dinner. Now she was up in Hannah’s room, going over her wardrobe with her.

  “Aunt Fran’s on the phone,” I yelled. She answered that she’d take it in the guest room.

  “Dinner’s just about ready,” I said.

  Nothing.

  “Mom?”

  “Go ahead and get started; I’ll be right down.”

  I went back into the kitchen, picked up the phone, heard my mother say breathlessly, “So I need you to—” and then, “Laura?” I hung up, flipped the turkey burgers for the last time, dumped the oven-baked French fries into a basket and salted them, sliced tomatoes, drained the water off the ears of corn, yelled up for Anthony and Hannah, and then went to the basement door to call Pete up out of his workroom. I once read an essay about a woman used to a large family making dinner for only herself, the oddity and awful stillness of it. I can imagine. There are random moments—tossing a salad, coming up the driveway to the house, ironing the seams flat on a quilt square, standing at the kitchen window and looking out at the delphiniums, hearing a burst of laughter from one of my children’s rooms—when I feel a wavelike rush of joy. This is my true religion: arbitrary moments of nearly painful happiness for a life I feel privileged to lead. Think of the way you sometimes see a tiny shaft of sunlight burst through a gap between rocks, the way it then expands to illuminate a much larger space—it’s like that. And it’s like quilting, a thread surfacing and then disappearing into the fabric of ordinary days. It’s not always visible, but it’s what holds everything together.

  “SO YOU’LL BE AT THE HOUSE in a little over two hours?” my mother asked.

  “Closer to three, probably.” I turned around to look at her in the backseat. She’d come along with Pete to drop me off at the airport. “You know that, right? Why are you asking?”

  “No reason. I guess I’m old enough that I’m still in awe of how quickly
you can get somewhere.”

  “I guess I’m old, then,” Pete said. “I’m amazed too.”

  “Wait until your children get old,” my mother said. “Then you’ll know what old is!”

  I straightened in my seat. “I’m not old!”

  “That’s not what you tell me,” Pete said.

  I gave him a look, then pointed at the United sign up ahead.

  “I see it,” he said. “Now let’s see if they’ll actually let me stop long enough to let you out.” He pulled up to the curb and I grabbed my suitcase, gave Pete a quick kiss, and then pecked my mother’s cheek as she came out of the backseat to get into the front. “Say hello to Steve for me,” she said.

  “I will.” And Caroline?

  No message for her, apparently, unless it was in the way my mother slammed the car door. She waved, and then she and Pete drove off. I watched them go, wanting to go back home with them. Instead, I wheeled my bag inside to check the flight information board. ON TIME, it said. This, I have learned, is like a serving suggestion: what you see wasn’t necessarily what you get. ON TIME usually means they haven’t announced the delay yet. I grieve for the airlines, and I hate them.

  I stopped at a kiosk before I headed for the gate. This is my deal: If I have to fly, I get a People magazine and a giant-size Snickers. I tell myself it’s so that if there’s one of those interminable stuck-on-the-tarmac delays and everyone is starving, I can say, “I have a candy bar. I’ll share.” But the truth is, the one time I was on a flight where there was a terrible delay, I ate the whole thing myself—one small secret bite at a time. I never tasted anything more delicious. I think my seatmate smelled the peanuts on my breath when I ate it; she snuck envious little glances at me while I looked out the window at the unchanging view on the runway. Half of me said, Would it kill you to give her some? The other half said, Did she not pass the same kiosk as I?

  17

  STEVE WAS GOING TO BE A FEW MINUTES LATE PICKING me up because, unbelievably, the flight arrived more than half an hour early. I was sitting on a bench outside the airport, watching two young lovers kiss hello, when he pulled up and honked, then yelled my name.

  “Sorry,” I said, getting in the car. “I was distracted.” I pointed to the rapturously kissing couple. “Are you and Tessa still like that?”

  He looked at them in the rearview mirror. “Nah.”

  “How long were you like that?”

  “I don’t know; couple of hours.”

  I put on my seatbelt and pushed my hair back from my forehead. “How are you, sweetie?”

  He shrugged. “I know what’s up, in case you’re wondering. There’s no way in hell we’ll be talking about what to do with the sideboard.”

  “Thanks for staying.”

  “I’m doing it for you, you know.”

  “And I’ll bet Tessa asked you to.”

  Nothing.

  “Didn’t she?”

  “Yeah, but I would have done it for you anyway.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I would! And anyway, what the hell, let Caroline get it out of her system. Whatever’s in her system. Maybe then she’ll stop her . . . stuff.”

  We rode in silence the rest of the way, but for the radio, the volume turned low. When we arrived, there was a car in the driveway. I wasn’t sure, but I thought it was Aunt Fran’s. Sure enough, when I stepped onto the porch and started to open the door, she opened it instead.

  Her hand flew to her chest. “Oh! You’re here!”

  I laughed. “I was going to say the same thing! What are you doing?”

  “I just came over to stock the fridge. You know how your mother is. God forbid you arrive and there’s not enough to eat. I just put some things in there . . . a few things, you know, milk . . . So! How was the flight? Early, huh?”

  “Yes,” I said, thinking, What is she so nervous about? And then I realized my mother must have told her why we’re here. Most sisters do talk, after all. That phone call last night. My mother must have told Aunt Fran about the Meeting.

  Steve, after greeting Aunt Fran, disappeared into the den to check his messages. When he was through returning calls, we’d go to meet Caroline for an early dinner, then come back here for our talk.

  “Call me if you need anything,” Aunt Fran said, on the way out.

  I closed the door after her and went to the kitchen to sit at the kitchen table and look out the window. The bird feeders were empty; it was my father who kept them filled. I saw that his vials of pills were still lined up. I picked up his antihypertensive, thought about how his were probably the last hands to touch it. Stan Meyer. Take as directed. My eyes filling, I put the pills back in place and went out into the yard. I was leaning over to admire the infrastructure of the tulips when I heard the screen door slam. Steve flopped down on one of the patio chairs, and I moved to sit next to him.

  “Hot out here,” he said. And then, “What do you think, Laura? Is this really necessary?”

  “Seems to be. For her.”

  “But what are we supposed to do?”

  “Just listen, for starters. Just let her say all she needs to say. And then . . . well, I don’t know. Tell her the truth, I guess. Tell her what you saw or didn’t see.”

  “I didn’t see anything. I told her that.”

  “Well, maybe if we hear more, we’ll remember something. She’s just looking for some sort of validation. That’s what she said.”

  He looked at his watch, leaned back, and closed his eyes. Then he raised his chin and opened a few buttons on his shirt.

  “Tanning?” I asked.

  “Might as well.”

  “It’s bad for you.”

  “Yeah. I like things that are bad for me.”

  We sat in silence for a while, and then I said, “Do you miss Dad?”

  “Aw, man.” He sighed, shook his head. “I don’t even have his death on my screen yet. You know? I haven’t really realized he’s gone. When I think about him dying I feel bad, but I haven’t really missed him yet. But I will. I know I will.”

  I heard the phone ring inside, and ran in to answer it. When I came out, I told Steve, “Caroline. She wants to come over now. Forget about dinner. Or get dinner later. Whatever. I told her all right.” I didn’t tell Steve she was coming from her therapist’s office. That made me nervous; it felt as though both of them would be showing up.

  He stood. “Good. Let’s get it over with.”

  We went inside and sat in the living room, both of us with our arms crossed, I noticed. Both of us silent. Finally, I laughed out loud. “We’re so grim!”

  “Well, this is grim.”

  “I suppose. But you know, I heard this couple on the plane arguing about whether or not world peace will ever be possible. He said no; she said yes. Finally he said, ‘Do you really want world peace?’ She said, ‘Of course!’ He said, ‘Can you learn to get along with your mother?’ And she said nothing. Maybe the guy’s right. Maybe we all need to clean up our own backyards. Maybe it’s as important for us to talk about this as it is for Caroline.”

  “I don’t think anything is as anything as it is to Caroline.”

  “Whoa. What?”

  “You know what I mean. She’s such a fucking drama queen!”

  “Well, maybe we’ll find out why.” I smoothed away a nonexistent wrinkle in my pants.

  Steve looked at his watch again. “You want to watch TV till she gets here?”

  “Sure.” Together we went to the family room, where we debated over whether we should order a set of frying pans, the likes of which would apparently never be offered for this incredibly low price again. And then we heard the door opening and I reached for the remote, clicked off the TV.

  Caroline walked in and leaned against the doorjamb, pushed her sunglasses up high on her head, crossed her arms. “Hi. Thanks for coming.” She was wearing black pants and a beautiful turquoise top. I wanted to compliment her on it, but now wasn’t the time, I supposed. Still, I secretly studied t
he intricate pattern of the trim running along the bottom of her blouse.

  “Want something to drink?” I asked her. “Or eat?”

  “No, thanks. Could we sit in the living room?”

  We walked past her single file, Caroline bringing up the rear. I felt as though Steve and I were children being sent to the principal’s office. I was overly aware of the back of my neck, sure my defensiveness showed there. I thought about a friend of mine whose parents never once said they loved her and never praised her, thinking it would go to her head. “Who do you think you are?” they liked to say. One day when she was in her forties, she was over there for something, sitting at the kitchen table, and her father came up behind her, put his hand on her shoulder, and said, “We love you.” And it made her feel like vomiting. She said it was just like that, she could feel something rising in her throat, and she thought she might throw up. She had sat immobile, wanting him to just go away. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see his fingers, yellowed by nicotine, the nails too long. She wouldn’t look at him; she had remained absolutely still until he took his hand away and shuffled out of the kitchen. She said she had wanted to scream after him It’s too late! but of course she did not. She’d just sat there until he was out of the room, and then she went home. He’d never mentioned it again, nor did she. She wept the day he died, but she said she cried only for the waste in his life, for the shame there was in that.

  Imagine a different scenario: She puts her own hand on top of her father’s. How hard would that have been? How hard would it have been? Here’s who knows: only the woman herself. And maybe her father. Maybe him.

  “ALL RIGHT, I JUST WANT TO SAY SOMETHING,” Steve told Caroline. He had been patiently listening to a litany of complaints, delivered in an odd, nearly detached way by our sister. But now he said, “We didn’t have a family like some others. Our father didn’t bounce us on his knee. Our mother didn’t sit us at the kitchen table after school and give us homemade cookies. Neither one of them had heart-to-hearts with us. We didn’t call good night to each other at bedtime, like the Waltons. But what we had, we had, you know? There were things you could depend on. I mean, remember that summer we went to camp? I got a letter from Mom or Dad every day. Every single day!”