Tunnel of Love

by Hilma Wolitzer

  Jocelyn called Linda from her car. She was on her way to her beach house in Malibu for the weekend. First, there was a stat-icky silence, broken by the sounds of rushing traffic, and then this bright, friendly voice said, “Hi, Linda? It’s Jocelyn. This is a pretty funny way for us to meet, isn’t it? But I feel as if I know you already!”

  Linda was taken aback. Her notion of a psychotherapist, gleaned mostly from television and the movies, was someone staid and forbidding who always made you talk first. She’d barely said hello back before Jocelyn went on, in that same cheery tone. “I hear the casts are finally off,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

  “Better, thanks,” Linda said. “A little better every day.” She wondered if she should ask how Jocelyn was. It seemed impolite—unnatural—to talk about herself without asking anything about the other person, about her health, or how her day had gone.

  “Well, good!” Jocelyn said. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. Now, when are you planning to go back to your own place?”

  “By the end of this week,” Linda said. “Phoebe and I are both going home,” she added, defiantly, and braced herself for an argument.

  But there was only a roar of static that made her hold the phone away from her ear. And then Jocelyn said, “Oops! Just a little dip in the road. So you and the baby are going home to resume your lives. I think that’s terrific.”

  “You do?” Linda said.

  “I certainly do. As I’ve told Cyn, the mother-child bond works best in its natural environment.”

  “Thank you,” Linda said, gratefully. “I think so, too.”

  “Are you able to take care of the baby yourself yet, Linda?” Jocelyn asked. “She seems like such a little handful.”

  Had Jocelyn ever actually seen Phoebe? “Not exactly,” Linda said. “I mean, my bad arm isn’t strong enough to lift her yet, but it will be soon. And she’ll be at day care every day until Robin, that’s my stepdaughter, comes home from school. She’s fifteen and very, very capable.”

  A horn honked noisily. “Oh, blow it out your nose!” Jocelyn yelled. “Sorry, Linda, but there seem to be all these maniacs out on the road today. Let’s see now, where were we … Oh, yes, Robin. She’s quite a handful herself, from what I hear.”

  “Well, yes,” Linda admitted, “but she’s just wonderful with the baby.”

  “That’s really great—I happen to believe that sibling attachments are extremely important.”

  “Oh, me, too,” Linda said, feeling more relieved and gratified by the minute. Maybe it wasn’t that difficult to understand what people got from phone sex.

  “You and Robin and the baby are a tightly knit little family, aren’t you?” Jocelyn said.

  “We are,” Linda agreed. “We’ve been through an awful lot together.”

  “I know. And it must have been very hard. Hard to make ends meet on your salary, hard dealing with the loss of your husband—the children’s father—and with all the added stresses of relocation and frustrated romance …”

  Didn’t Cynthia ever talk about herself during therapy? “It was hard,” Linda said. “It still is. But everybody has problems, don’t they?”

  “Hmm, yes, but you seem to have had more than your fair share.” She was so sympathetic, and so nice. There was another burst of static and then Jocelyn was saying, “… separation anxiety?”

  “Pardon?” Linda said.

  “I was just thinking out loud,” Jocelyn said. “This is such a vulnerable stage in your baby’s development, and she’s made other, recent ties that are pretty important to her, too, am I right?”

  “I guess,” Linda said.

  “And the way she’ll handle separation for the rest of her life is rooted in what she experiences now, in this formative period.”

  Linda tried playing therapist herself then, by keeping quiet, and it worked.

  “Death, lovers’ quarrels,” Jocelyn continued. “Why, even leaving home for the very first time …”

  “I don’t see how—” Linda began, but Jocelyn interrupted. “Linda,” she said, “trust me on this, will you? It’s my specialty. Grown men and women are often emotionally paralyzed, stuck in bad relationships, in bad jobs—you name it—all because of early-separation trauma.”

  “But you said that Phoebe and I should go home—”

  “I know I did, and I meant it. You belong together in your own little nest. I’m talking about your working hours, the hours Robin is in school. Is sending the baby back to some institutional day care in her best interests?”

  “Kiddie Kare is smaller than most places. And it’s practically right around the corner. These two really nice older women who’ve raised their own families—”

  “I’m sure,” Jocelyn said, “but they must be strangers to Bebe by now. What is she, eight months old already?”

  “Nine, almost nine and a half,” Linda said, staggered by the fact. A whole chunk of Phoebe’s babyhood had flown by in this house.

  “So she’d be right on target for stranger anxiety. And then there’s this other condition called marasmus—a failure to thrive—that we sometimes see among infants who don’t get adequate one-on-one attention. How many children are there in that day-care center of yours?”

  Linda took a deep breath. “Ten,” she said in a ragged whisper.

  “What did you say? I couldn’t hear you.”

  “Ten!” Linda shouted. “Ten!”

  “Look,” Jocelyn said, “all I’m suggesting is that your child be allowed to retain some object constancy in her life while she’s making this big change. That makes sense, Linda, doesn’t it? And it would be to your financial advantage until you get on your own two feet again—no pun intended!—wouldn’t it?”

  Linda didn’t feel like answering. She waited for the further intervention of static, for the blaring of those maniacs’ horns, but all she heard was the constant whoosh-whoosh of weekend traffic and Jocelyn’s patient, inquiring silence.

  25

  Home, Home

  NATHAN MUST HAVE BEEN staking out Linda’s apartment, watching it for signs of life. On Friday evening, only a few hours after she and the children came home, and soon after Robin helped her put Phoebe to bed for the night, the doorbell rang. Linda was in the bathroom, brushing her teeth—a tricky business since she’d gotten the braces—and she called, through a mouthful of toothpaste foam, “Robin! Can you get that? I’m in the bathroom!” But Robin’s stereo was booming away behind her closed bedroom door, and she didn’t hear a thing. Linda spat hastily into the sink and went down the hall to the front door. She opened the peephole, expecting to see Mitchell standing there. He had brought them all home earlier and was supposed to come back soon with more of Linda’s and the baby’s things. But it was Nathan’s framed face she saw, and she quickly shut the peephole and held her hand against her rapid heart. He pushed the bell again immediately, and he seemed to be kicking at the door. She was afraid he’d wake Phoebe with all that racket, so she undid the locks and opened it.

  It had been a long, mysterious, and thrilling day. All Linda could think of, from the moment she’d awakened at five that morning in Cynthia’s guest room, was “Home, home,” with a yearning she hadn’t experienced since she’d first landed in L.A. She had packed her belongings the night before, with Lupe and Maria’s assistance. There was nothing to do now but get ready for work and wait for the day’s events to be set into motion.

  Cynthia had an early taping scheduled, and she was going to a spa in Palm Springs for the weekend right from the studio. She came into the kitchen when Linda was finishing breakfast and said, “I’m running late and I hate mushy goodbyes. This isn’t really goodbye, anyway—we’ll be in very close touch.” She gave Linda a quick hug, and left.

  Linda didn’t have a chance to deliver the little speech of gratitude she’d rehearsed, and the words had to be stored in her overcrowded head for a later date. At the office, she made even more typing errors than usual, and she accidentally disconnected
Mr. Murphy in the middle of a long-distance call. He came out of his office screaming, but Mr. Albano calmed him down and made excuses for Linda. “This little girl just has too much on her plate,” he explained, and then he suggested she leave for the day, although it was only three o’clock. He kept stroking her back while he said it, and she had to squirm out of his reach while she was thanking him. But she was glad for the extra time to shop for a gift for the Thompsons, and to be able to pick Robin up at their house before supper.

  She went to a shop in the mall right near the office and looked at the usual hostess gifts—the salad-bowl sets and silver nut dishes—thinking they were too usual to repay such extraordinary kindness. Then she considered some exotic plants at the florist’s, and was reminded that her own homely house plants, her asparagus ferns and ficus, were still at Nathan’s apartment. He’d taken them there the day after the accident, so they wouldn’t die of neglect. She left the florist’s and went into the next shop, a place called Sun and Moon that specialized in celestial toys. Nothing there was very practical, but almost everything was beautiful, from a hand-painted chart of the planets to a glass gadget filled with silvery stuff that illustrated the moon’s pull on the tides. After much deliberation, Linda chose an illuminated globe of the heavens for the Thompsons. It was expensive, almost two hundred dollars, but when the salesclerk plugged it in and all the stars blinked on together, like street lamps, Linda was hooked. “It’ll look even better in the dark,” the clerk promised.

  Mitchell met her at the entrance to the store, and they went directly to Cynthia’s to get the baby. There was a minor scene there, with Lupe kissing Phoebe from head to toe, and weeping when she finally had to release her. Maria stood behind them in the doorway, alternately mopping her own eyes and fluttering her handkerchief in farewell. Linda said, “This isn’t really goodbye, she’ll be back Monday morning, remember? Phoebe, say bye-bye, Lupe, bye-bye, Maria, adios, muchachas, see you soon!” But by the time she got into the car with the baby, Linda was feeling pretty weepy herself.

  She recognized the Thompsons’ yellow bungalow even before Mitchell spotted the house number. She had driven there enough times in the past, to drop Robin off or pick her up, but she had always been in too much of a hurry to get out of the car. Now she walked up the path to the front door, with Mitchell right behind her, toting Phoebe and the gift-wrapped box. As Linda was about to ring the bell, the door flew open to reveal Robin standing there, next to her suitcase and a couple of loaded shopping bags. And before Linda could say a word, Robin grabbed the baby from Mitchell and said, “Okay, I’m ready, let’s go.”

  “Well, just give me a chance to say hello to everybody and thank them for having you,” Linda said, going around Robin into the hallway.

  Mitchell put Linda’s package down and picked up Robin’s luggage. “I’ll wait for you in the car,” he said. “Take your time.”

  “I thanked them already,” Robin told Linda, trying to block her way.

  But then a plump, pretty woman in a white uniform came into the hall and said, “Linda, hi, I’m Jewelle Thompson. Come on in and meet everybody.” She patted Phoebe’s head, saying, “You, too, buttercup,” and she led Robin and Linda into the living room. The rest of the family was already gathered there: Mr. Thompson, the girls, Mrs. Thompson’s mother and sister, and a very cute little boy, who Robin managed to jab with her elbow as she went by him. The house looked pretty small to hold this many people; having Robin here, too, must have really been an inconvenience.

  Phoebe didn’t seem to be suffering from stranger anxiety today. The women passed her around the room like a tray of hors d’oeuvres, and she laughed and crowed as she grabbed for their noses and earrings. They all made such a happy fuss over her you would think she was the gift Linda had brought for them. “Robin,” she said. “Mitchell left a big package out in the hall. Would you bring it in here, please?”

  Robin jumped up, glad to have an excuse to leave the room. She had been worried all day that Linda might try to come into the house and meet the Thompsons. It gave her the same queer feeling she used to get back in elementary school whenever her father showed up for some parent-teacher thing, with that pale, pitiful face of his. She would try to pretend she didn’t see him, and if he insisted on talking to her, that she’d never seen him before. On Destiny’s Children, there was this guy with two separate families—a bigamist—who was going to be found out any day now. Especially since his daughter from one family and his son from the other one had met out of town and were starting to fall in love. The father was always writing in this journal he kept—things like “Dear God, please don’t let my two separate worlds, my two perfect lives, collide.” Which was total bullshit, but Robin could still relate to it, especially right now. She was positive that Linda was going to do something embarrassing. She already had, just by showing up, and by having a spaz over a dumb lamp as soon as she got into the living room. Robin couldn’t wait to get out of here. But when she picked up the package in the hallway, with its fancy gold-foil paper and bouquet of curly ribbon, she realized it was a gift Linda had bought for the Thompsons, something that would probably be the greatest embarrassment of all. The box was big and heavy. Robin thought of that dorky sculpture Linda had gotten for what’s-her-name—Stephanie’s—birthday slumber party. If this was anything like that, Robin was out the door. She shook the package, but it only made a little hollow, rattling sound.

  As she approached the living room, she heard Linda say, “I wish there was some way I could really repay you for all you’ve done for Robin.”

  “Don’t mention it, Linda,” Mrs. Thompson said. “It’s been our pleasure.”

  “A real experience,” Mr. Thompson added.

  “I wish she could stay here forever,” Carmel said passionately.

  In the thoughtful silence that followed, Linda turned to Aunt Ez and said, “Have you always lived in Los Angeles?”

  Robin burst into the room and thrust the box at Linda, saying, “Here!”

  “Thank you, dear,” Linda said. She held the gift out to Mrs. Thompson. “This is just a small token,” she began, feeling suddenly discomfited. It was just a small token; almost any gift would be, under the circumstances. But as she looked around the neat, shabby room, the globe seemed like a cruel and exorbitant joke. She might at least have gotten something useful for all that money, like a microwave oven or a clock radio.

  During a chorus of protests from the elder Thompsons—“You shouldn’t have. Really. It wasn’t necessary”—the boy, Garvey, ripped off the wrappings and opened the cardboard box. Robin held her breath as he reached in and pulled out this big, black ball. For one horrified moment she thought it was a bowling ball, but then she saw that there was an electric cord dangling from it. God, was it a bowling-ball lamp?

  “Well, well,” Mr. Thompson said, taking the globe from Garvey and spinning it on its axis. “Shut the blinds, son,” he said.

  Linda had noticed that the big trees right outside the living-room windows already filtered out most of the daylight. That’s why the lamp with the painted glass shade was on. When it was turned off, and the Venetian blinds were drawn shut, it was practically dark in there. The baby had been chattering away, but she grew quiet in the shadowy room, along with everyone else. Garvey had to pull out the lamp plug, so his father could plug in the globe. “Is everybody ready?” he asked, his voice wonderfully deep and theatrical. And then the galaxies lit up all at once, just as they had in the store. But now they glittered more brilliantly, the way they did in the real heavens, or the way Linda remembered they did on those velvety summer nights in Newark, when she and Wright used to walk hand-in-hand beneath them. When had she last looked up at the sky, except to assess the thickness of the smog, or to see if it was going to rain?

  The baby clapped and pointed and exclaimed in her own musical language. “Stars,” Lucy said, carrying her close enough to touch the glowing globe. “See the stars?”

  “How did you ever kno
w?” Jewelle Thompson asked Linda. “Astronomy is one of Lee’s real interests.”

  “Back in Virginia, anyway, where they still have stars,” Lee said.

  “They have them in Jersey, too,” Linda told him, with an unexpected swell of homesickness.

  “I never saw any there,” Robin said.

  “Honey, you probably never looked,” Lee Thompson said.

  When it was time to leave, when Jewelle began asking them to stay for supper, and her sister went into the kitchen to begin preparing it, Linda didn’t want to go. She couldn’t exactly define the way she felt in this energetic household, except that it was the opposite of lonely. But she believed that her family should have their first meal together, after such a long separation, in their own home. Jocelyn would probably agree.

  Robin, who had been in such a hurry to leave when Linda first got there, started dawdling now, suddenly remembering a pair of sneakers she’d left under her cot, and that her favorite jeans were still in the bathroom hamper.

  Carmel wasn’t helping matters. She clung to Robin, saying, “I’m not letting you go, and that’s final.”

  Lee said, “Watch out, little sister, or you’re going with her,” and Carmel said, “Can I? Please?”

  Everybody clustered together near the front door to say goodbye. “You be good, child, hear?” Mrs. Pickett said, trying to smooth Robin’s rumpled T-shirt.

  “Come back soon, all of you,” Jewelle said, as her sister held Robin in a long, silent embrace. The girl had never let Linda hold her like that.

  Then Lucy grabbed a hank of Robin’s hair. “Call me the minute you get home, or else,” she threatened.