Tunnel of Love

by Hilma Wolitzer

Tarzan and Jane

  A BELL RANG AND RANG and Robin fell out of the bus onto the grassy strip at the side of the road. She groped around in the dark and found a baby bottle, a bicycle pedal, and then a sneaker. Her own sneaker, by the feel and smell of it. She lay there in a half doze, not sure where she was, until the overhead light came on and her mother’s bare feet appeared at eye level in the shaggy green carpet. The feet were exactly like Robin’s own—small and chubby, and with the second toe longer than the first. “Is it time to get up already?” she asked, struggling to her knees. That had to be one lousy mattress; she didn’t feel the least bit rested. The baby, she saw, was still dead to the world, hogging the middle of the daybed.

  Her mother hiked up her nightgown and climbed onto the exercise bike. “No,” she said. “It’s only about one o’clock.”

  “You mean, in the morning?” Robin asked, rubbing her irritated eyes, her whole numb and tingling face. “Then I just went to sleep.”

  Her mother began pedaling the bike. “I know,” she said, “but we have to talk.”

  “About what?” Robin said. What was so important that it couldn’t wait a few hours, after all these years?

  “About Linda. About you. About the baby,” her mother said, pedaling faster with each pronouncement. The bicycle chain made a loud, clackety noise, but Phoebe didn’t stir. “The telephone rang before, Robin, didn’t you hear it? It was Linda.”

  “Oh, shit,” Robin said.

  “Yeah,” her mother agreed. “You’ve got quite a lively little imagination, haven’t you?”

  “You don’t understand,” Robin said. “I really had to do it.”

  Her mother jumped off the bike and the wheels kept spinning. “Well, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do,” she said. “God knows I can appreciate that.”

  “Is she coming here?” Robin asked.

  “Who—Linda? Of course she’s coming. What did you think?”

  Robin sank to the edge of the daybed, making the baby bounce a little, but she still didn’t wake up. “I think some people don’t care about their children,” Robin said into her chest, and in such a low voice she could hardly hear herself.

  After a moment, her mother said, “That was the worst thing I ever did.”

  “But why?” Robin said. It sounded more like the cry some zoo animal might make than an actual, human word.

  Her mother sighed. “It would be really hard to explain,” she said. “I’d need a lot of time.”

  Robin didn’t say anything, and her mother signaled her to wait as she went out of the room. She came back a few minutes later, carrying a wooden chair. She pushed it against the daybed so that its ladder back made a barrier for Phoebe, and she put Robin’s pillow on the floor alongside the chair. “Come with me,” she said. “I want to show you something.”

  Robin followed her into the hallway and to the door of the next room. Her mother opened the door and went in, but Robin stayed on the threshold. The filter noise was louder now and there was a strong, sweetish odor she didn’t recognize and didn’t like. The man on the bed was Tony’s shriveled old father. He had the same nose and ears, only bigger, and a few strands of that steely gray hair. Robin couldn’t tell if he was really tan, like Tony, or if it was the orange light that made him look that way. His mouth was open, and he didn’t seem to have any teeth. Something clear ran down an IV tube into one of his hands. Both the smell and the gurgling came from him. Robin saw another, regular bed on the other side of the room, with a blue robe across the foot of it, and she realized this was their bedroom. And that was Tony on the hospital bed. Her mother picked up the robe and put it on. Then she adjusted the clip on the IV tube, and said, “Let’s go downstairs.”

  In the kitchen she put a kettle of water on to boil and set two ceramic mugs on the breakfast bar. They were bright red with a pattern of green vines; one said “Me Tarzan” on its side, and the other, “You Jane.” She spooned instant coffee into the mugs. “Decaf,” she said. “I hope that’s okay. It’s all we drink around here.”

  Robin sat on one of the two stools near the bar. There were two of everything here. She never drank coffee at home—she didn’t like it—but when the steaming water hit the granules in her mug, the one marked “Me Tarzan,” the aroma was irresistible.

  Her mother sat next to her and picked up the other mug. “I guess you were my crime, Robin,” she said. She looked upward. “So that must be my punishment.” She took little sips of her coffee. “It’s weird, but we found out he was sick right after you and Linda were here last year.”

  “What’s the matter with him?” Robin asked.

  “The big C,” her mother said. “Prostate first, and then everywhere, fast as a forest fire.”

  Robin had only a vague notion of what and where a prostate was—something bean-shaped down there in men, she thought, but her vision of a raging forest fire was vivid. “Will he get better?” she said. A little kid’s question.

  “No. He’s almost gone.” Her mother said it calmly, but her hand trembled and she had to put the mug down carefully on the bar. “He was in the hospital for weeks this last time—nightmare city—and I decided to take him home to die.”

  To her own amazement, Robin identified the intense ache she was feeling as envy. Why weren’t they talking about her?

  Her mother seemed to have read her mind. “This is really incredible,” she said. “I mean you, sitting here like this.”

  “Didn’t you ever, like … miss me?” Robin asked.

  “Of course I did. You were such a cute baby, actually an awful lot like …” She gestured toward the ceiling.

  “Phoebe,” Robin said.

  “But I was this wild kid, madly in love, and I wasn’t ready to deal with all that responsibility yet.”

  “So you just made believe I didn’t exist?” Robin said.

  “No. No, that’s not true. Do you remember my telling you last year that I called a couple of times when you were little? To see how you were doing, and maybe to speak to you? But your dad wouldn’t put you on. He hung right up on me.”

  “A couple of times,” Robin said sadly.

  Her mother said, “I had the idea I’d come and get you someday, when you were older, when I was older, and you’d fit in more with our lives.”

  “You never came,” Robin said.

  “Time just kept going by. And Tony wasn’t ever really keen on it. He gave up his family, too, you know.”

  “But you took his kid in!” Robin cried.

  “Oh, God, yes, Kevin.” She made a face. “Tony’s ex practically dropped him on our doorstep after she remarried. He was about thirteen then, and a holy terror. Stole things, set little fires, hotwired cars … You name it, Kevin did it. Believe me, he didn’t last very long around here.”

  They were silent for several moments after that. Robin supposed it was her turn to say something about herself, but she couldn’t think of anything to say. It was as though she’d had no significant history from the time she was abandoned until this reunion.

  “I don’t blame you if you hate me,” her mother said. “I had my second chance with you last year and I blew it, royally.” She ran one hand through her cropped hair, as if she was looking for the rest of it. “But when you showed up tonight … I don’t know, I thought maybe I was being given a third chance.”

  “That’s not what you said when you saw us,” Robin reminded her. “You said, ‘Just what I needed.’”

  Her mother smiled. “Well, that was my initial, gut reaction. I mean, you definitely caught me off guard. But later, after I got back into bed, and had a chance to think about it, I felt really happy you were here.”

  All the murderous and adoring thoughts Robin had ever harbored about her mother clashed in her head, but the word “happy” clanged and clanged there like a church bell. She knew she was much too tired to think straight. “When is Linda coming?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure. She’s driving here with a friend, and they were going to
sleep a little before they started out. She sounded wiped out—they’ve been looking for you for hours.”

  “What friend?” Robin said. If the Rich Bitch was heading this way, she and Feeb were heading out the back door. Anyway, they weren’t going back to L.A. with Linda until she came out of her coma and got real.

  “I didn’t ask,” her mother said, “but I think it was a he.” She stood and stretched, like a cat. “Let’s go back to sleep now, too, okay?” She put her hand lightly on Robin’s shoulder and they went up the stairs together.

  Phoebe woke Robin later that morning by trying to crawl across her chest. According to the digital clock, it was only six-thirty. Robin groaned. “Give me a break, punkhead, will you?” she said. But aside from being hungry and wet, the baby seemed completely refreshed and ready to begin the day. Robin could hear voices coming from downstairs. Was Linda here already? She changed Phoebe, using the last diaper, and carried her and the empty bottle down to the kitchen. Robin’s mother and another, older woman were sitting at the breakfast bar, drinking coffee. The other woman had brassy blond hair and a big, mannish body.

  “Robin,” her mother said, “this is my next-door neighbor and dearest friend, Brandy Moore. Brandy, this is my … Robin.”

  All Robin could think of was the dog named Brandy that bit her so long ago. If this Brandy had bared her teeth and growled, she would not have been completely surprised. But she only smiled and said, “Hi, there, how’re you doing?”

  Robin went to the refrigerator and took out the carton of milk. “Fine,” she said, although the question hadn’t really required an answer.

  Her mother rinsed Phoebe’s bottle and filled it from the carton. “Brandy is my lifesaver,” she explained as she handed the bottle to Robin. “She comes every morning and every evening to help me with Tony, to turn him and sponge him down.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Robin said. Phoebe grabbed the bottle from her and plugged it in, curling her toes around it.

  “The hospital sends a visiting nurse three times a week. But she comes in the middle of the day, for only a couple of hours. I’d be lost without Brandy.”

  Brandy blushed. “Please,” she said. “I don’t do a thing. But this girl here is an absolute saint.”

  “I’m no saint,” Robin’s mother said.

  In the harsh morning light, Robin saw tiny lines around her eyes, and a few strands of gray in her dark hair. And you’re no girl, either, she thought, but all she said was, “Feeb’s going to need diapers and some real food.”

  “What does she eat?” her mother asked.

  “Baby food, of course,” Robin said. But how would you know?

  “I’m kind of low on that stuff right now,” her mother said. “How about a mashed banana? Or a scrambled egg?”

  She ended up feeding Phoebe bits of egg and toast while Robin ate her own breakfast. The baby was distracted by the circles of sunlight on the bar, and the way Brandy’s armload of bracelets crashed together every time she took a sip of coffee. “Hey, you,” Robin’s mother said. “Open up. Yummy yummy, sliding down the tummy.” Robin looked up sharply and stopped breathing.

  Later, after Brandy went home and Phoebe was napping, Robin asked her mother what happened to the Corvette she remembered seeing in the driveway.

  “I sold it after Tony stopped driving. It was his toy, anyway, and we needed the cash. Tony is—was—in insurance. He was tops in his company, he could sell flood coverage to an Arab. But he was on straight commission, so our income did a nosedive after he got sick.”

  “Did you work, too?” Robin asked, still trying to fill in the blanks of her mother’s secret life.

  “On and off, at a travel agency. And I got my real-estate license a couple of years ago, just in time for the bust. I’ll have to do something when this is over. Right now, we’re living on interest, and chipping away at the capital.”

  While her mother was in the shower, Robin went upstairs and into the room where Tony lay. She couldn’t stop staring at him, couldn’t stop searching the living corpse on the bed for traces of her terrible enemy of that summer’s day. He opened his eyes and looked back at her. She gasped, whispered “Hi,” and fled.

  Downstairs again, Robin asked her mother why Tony was still so tan if he was in the hospital for such a long time. “That’s not a tan,” her mother said. “It’s jaundice. His liver.” Prostate, liver, a whole stew of rotten beans.

  At about eleven o’clock, the door chimes rang. Robin hid out in the kitchen with Phoebe, while her mother let Linda and Nathan in. She could hear their murmuring voices, and then Linda burst into the kitchen, with her eyes shining. “Robin honey, Phoebe, I’m here!” she exclaimed. Like she was the one who’d been missing all along.

  Robin endured an embrace, with Phoebe in the middle, before Linda gathered the baby up and danced around the kitchen with her. Nathan stuck his head in the doorway. “Hey, Christopher Columbus,” he said to Robin, “que pasa?”

  “Shut up,” she said.

  Robin’s mother came in and Linda said, “I can’t thank you enough, Miriam.”

  “Forget it, Linda,” Robin’s mother said. “I should really be thanking you.”

  They were so polite to each other Robin wanted to puke. And then, to top it all off, her mother invited everyone to stay for lunch.

  “That would be lovely,” Linda said. “Are you sure it’s no trouble?” Then she handed the baby to Nathan and proceeded to help Robin’s mother make the salad and the sandwiches. Robin had to set the table. She did it as noisily as she could, so she wouldn’t have to listen to the stupid conversation about which was the fastest route back to L.A.

  Just as they were sitting down to eat, Brandy showed up to join them. Linda and Nathan didn’t seem to know about Tony, and nobody wised them up; nobody even mentioned him during lunch. It was so freaky; him up there dying, and the rest of them down here eating ham-and-cheese sandwiches and saying things like “This is really delicious,” “It’s so warm for September,” “More coffee, anybody?” They talked all around Robin’s adventure, too, which made her feel both relieved and neglected.

  Linda had brought the diaper bag along, filled with baby supplies. Robin took her upstairs to the room where she’d slept, so she could change Feeb’s diaper and clothes. Linda stopped in the doorway, listening hard. “Do you hear something?” she asked.

  “Fish,” Robin said. “They’ve got this huge tropical fish tank in the other room.”

  While Linda was putting a clean outfit on Phoebe, she said, “Robin, that was a crazy thing you did. But I understand why you did it.”

  “You were crazy, too,” Robin said.

  “I was,” Linda admitted.

  “So what’s going to happen?”

  “You mean with Cynthia? I’m going to call that lawyer her husband suggested. Don’t worry, we’ll work it out. And if we can’t, I guess I’ll have to shoot her.”

  Robin laughed. Then she picked Phoebe up and kissed her cheek, her neck, and her fingers before handing her to Linda.

  “Speaking of husbands,” Linda said, “where’s Miriam’s? I didn’t want to ask before, just in case, well, you know.”

  “Playing golf,” Robin said smoothly. “With some of his insurance buddies.” Tony was her mother’s business, not Linda’s.

  They went downstairs to the kitchen, and Nathan said, “We really have to get going, girls. It’s a long ride.”

  “That’s a heck of a lot of driving for one day, isn’t it?” Brandy said over the rush of water. She was at the sink, with rubber gloves on, washing the dishes.

  “I’m used to it,” Nathan said. “I once did a stint of long-distance hauling.”

  “I could always spell you when you’re tired,” Linda told him. She turned to Robin. “Have you got your stuff together, honey?” she asked. “I think it’s time to say goodbye.”

  Brandy shut the water and peeled off the rubber gloves. Robin was standing next to the breakfast bar, where the Tarzan and Jane mugs
had been set out to dry, side by side. Her mother was leaning against the refrigerator, hugging herself. Robin felt as if she’d been running. She took a powerfully deep breath, the way you do before you jump into a pool. Without looking at anyone, she said, “I think I’m going to hang out here for a while.”

  34

  Tony vs. Death

  October 10

  Dearest Robin,

  Can you believe it’s still Indian summer here? Phoebe and I went out yesterday with only our shorts and T-shirts on! (But we’re not complaining!) How is the weather there? We all miss you very much. I hope school is good in Glendale. Do you have to take a bus? Have you made some new friends yet? I know you must be very busy, but I really hope you can find the time to drop us a line and let us know how you’re doing. Or you could call collect. Phoebe says hi. I mean she actually says it. Nathan says it’s really ha, that she’s only laughing at us for trying to teach her to talk. Well, that’s all for now. Please give my best regards to your Mom and Tony.

  Lots of love, Linda

  P.S. Guess what? I don’t need my cane anymore!

  P.P.S. Write!

  One of the good things about Glendale was that Robin didn’t have to go to school, at least not while Tony was still alive. The subject didn’t even come up. She and her mother were together all the time, in the kitchen or the sickroom, or out at the supermarket and the mall when the visiting nurse was there to take care of Tony. Her mother bought Robin new clothes and a few things for herself as well; sometimes they tried on the same outfits in the store’s dressing room.

  Her mother let Robin drive the Taurus home from the mall one day, after Robin said that she had her license but not much experience. “What have we got to lose?” her mother said, handing her the car keys. “You only live once, right?”

  And Robin saw Linda lying still and bloody across the seat of the 88. She shook her head free of the image and said, “Right.” Her mother was so cool she didn’t even ask to see the license.

  Brandy was in the backseat of the car, and as they drove away she kept yelling things like “Watch out for that truck!” and “Oh, my God!” Horns blared all around them, and Robin said, “She’s going to make me have an accident.”