“No, I don’t. I’m on my own now.”
“I am, too,” said Alex. “It doesn’t matter. We don’t need them.” She meant this as a rallying cry for herself as much as her mother. There I am, she thought.
“Oh, honey. For fuck’s sake. Speak for yourself.”
Her mother hung up.
Alex waved at the bartender, who gave her a polite nod. “I’ll have another,” she said.
They always do, he thought for the thousandth time in his life. Get on a phone with your mother at a bar and it’s two drinks, minimum. He’d been there. He gave her a healthy pour of rye in an act of camaraderie.
Alex turned to the couple next to her and said, “Next round’s on me if you stop what you’re doing.”
They continued on, as if they hadn’t heard her at all.
* * *
Meanwhile, seriously, where the hell was Gary? It had been three days since her father’s heart attack.
The case of the missing brother. He was usually present, thoughtful, genuinely curious about her life. Nosy, even, she thought. She remembered catching him reading her diary in middle school. She had nothing interesting to report then, although she had a lot of feelings. She kept it hidden under an old bucket in the rear of her nana’s cottage, behind the pool, a place she thought no one would look. Who went that far back on the property? There was so much to consider before looking there: the long driveway curved into a loop in front of the main house, which Alex would eternally circle on her bike when she couldn’t stand to talk to her family anymore; and the house itself, a fortress of brick and wood, with its ever-changing wallpaper and paint jobs and carpets and couches. Her mother had a great design eye, Alex would give her that, her alterations of their universe precise and vibrant, but it made Alex unsteady, this constant redecorating, a thing she talked about years later in therapy, this seasick sensation she experienced as an adult when she returned home. It was the reason, she surmised, she had stopped visiting, for years and years, as soon as she realized that she was allowed to not return home, as soon she gave herself permission to do as she pleased. She would never have to see the inside of the house itself, the impenetrable veneer, a living room always under construction, a kitchen her mother barely touched except for the endless slicing of lemons for a pitcher of water she poured from all day long. Not lemonade—a glass of lemonade would have been nice—but lemon-soaked water, a glass of which she carried upstairs to the bedrooms, down a long, softly lit hallway, a master suite for her parents at one end, three unused guest rooms in a row, then her brother’s bedroom and hers facing each other, door to door, at the other end, where sometimes they slipped notes for one another under their doors (a time when people passed notes back and forth instead of texting), because thoughts and secrets and complaints had to be shared somehow in this vast silent house, which was why she was so shocked when Gary read her diary. I’m right here, dude. What did you want to know?
Past the pool he had walked, that outrageous swimming pool, of another era, of another region of the country, with its Art Deco design, as if it had been lifted from a hotel in Miami and dropped in Connecticut, to the small stone cottage in the back, underneath the sturdy, reliable red maples that kept the cottage cool, the windows facing the patio, so that the children could still have the attention of their nana while they swam, though Anya would rather sit inside, away from the heat, a thing to which she had never grown accustomed in this country. “You swim, I’ll knit,” she’d say, but she never got much done, so often did they clamor for her attention.
We were desperate for love, thought Alex. She had written that at the time: “I am desperate for love.”
In the diary behind the cottage where the cookies were baked, and all the old books lived, and the silverware she helped her nana shine, and small plastic containers full of recipes written on index cards, and a jewelry box full of glittering green and purple stones, gifts from her grandfather Mordechai back when he wasn’t drinking, all of which her nana insisted would be hers when she died, and they were, and when Alex took them to be appraised, the jeweler informed her the entire box of goods was worthless save for the diamond engagement ring, barely more than a chip, but at least it was real, and she put it aside for Sadie someday, a small offering, a memory of this woman who cared for her when her own mother wouldn’t. In that cottage. Behind which Gary greedily read her diary one day, and when she asked him why he did it, he said, “No one will tell me how girls are, how to be around them. All I know is I shouldn’t be like Dad.”
“Don’t go looking in the garage,” Alex told him. Ignore all the magazines.
“I already did,” Gary told her. “It’s like they’re staring right at me.”
“They’re looking at the camera,” she said softly. “It’s pretend. It’s OK that they’re pretending. But they’re not looking at you.”
“Tell me more,” he said.
Then they became friends. She chose to be kind to him. She could have been mad that he read her diary, but she understood. No one was telling them how to be in the world. The grown-ups were too busy keeping their secrets. The dad was bad, the mom was cold, and the nana kept them fed. And she would be her brother’s friend.
* * *
In Jackson Square, she wanted to call Sadie. She missed her, and she wished her daughter were there with her, not to help her deal with the complicated situation at hand, but specifically to be on this beautiful city block, as the sun lowered over the manicured park behind her, and the Mississippi beyond that, and she stood in front of St. Louis Cathedral, white and regal and reminding her of a faraway kingdom, despite the few remaining tarot readers and local art sellers folding up chairs and tables around her, concluding their business for the day. This was not the greatest place on earth, but it was still great. A fairy tale for her child. To have some time apart from her this summer was good, Alex knew that, but she liked to give Sadie things, show her the world, share experiences with her, be in joyful moments with her child whenever possible. They had made it through the divorce, they were on the other side of it now, so couldn’t they just enjoy the rest of their lives together?
The divorce could have been worse, she thought as she leaned against the cast-iron fence surrounding the park, although it was fun for no one, of course. There had been an uncovering of affairs, and Alex hadn’t even been looking for them. The one time she hadn’t wanted to know something. But Bobby had made it impossible to ignore. He kept using the wrong credit card. How could she not notice the hotel rooms rented on days he was in town, and the expensive restaurants and lingerie shops and everything else? Just for one month he did this. The wrong card in the cheating wallet. How could he be that foolish? He was a successful man, more successful than her.
She asked him at the time if he had wanted to be caught. “This is a dumb man’s mistake,” she said. “You could have just told me. Wouldn’t that have been easier?”
“Nothing is easy with you,” he said.
There was a giant row after that, about how hard Alex made things sometimes in multiple areas of their life, with Alex countering (correctly, good god!) that none of that mattered now because he had cheated, he was a cheater, he was wrong, he had wronged, and surely Sadie had heard all of this in their quiet home, spacious as it was, and maybe the neighbors heard it, too. No one wants their child to go through that. No one. Horrified by the noise they had made, the volatility in their voices, they agreed to be calm and reasonable after that. For Sadie’s sake.
The church doors opened, and a wedding party began to slowly make its way through the heat to the square. Nearby, a group of musicians wearing matching caps, white oxford shirts, and black bow ties leaned casually, readying themselves, finishing off cigarettes.
She called her daughter.
“Hello, Mom,” Sadie said, annoyed, Alex supposed, by life, and Alex couldn’t blame her.
“Sadie, this is what I wanted to tell you.”
“Hold on. I’m going to close the do
or.” There was a pause and a click. “I’m hiding from him. It’s really bad here right now.”
“I’m sorry, honey. I wish I could have you come here, but you don’t want to, trust me. It’s better there, I promise. All right. Here it is. You don’t have to lie for him. We’re a family. We’re a unit. But you’re a person, your own woman, or almost a woman, but you’re your own, is the point, and it’s up to you to decide what you want to say or don’t say. You do not have to be complicit in anything. Choose you.”
“OK, Mom.”
“I’m not perfect either. I just wanted to say that too. I make mistakes all the time.”
I could have tried harder, she thought, though at the time it seemed like all she did was try.
“I don’t want you to put yourself down to make things even about Dad,” Sadie said. “Dad can just be bad, it’s fine.”
My little girl is upset, Alex thought. Adults are the most disappointing people in the world.
“It’s just that we want to love them, these men,” said Alex. An intensely bittersweet sensation riveted her body. “We really do.”
“I don’t,” said her daughter.
“You might someday,” Alex said.
“Never.”
Or not, thought Alex. You might love girls instead. Or you might not feel like a girl in your body. Or you might not want to like anyone at all, ever. There were so many options, but could Alex wait a little longer until they had this talk?
No one said anything for a while. A horn player at the church emitted a few practice notes.
“I’m going to go yell at Dad now,” said Sadie.
Alex did not argue with her. Let someone be righteous and full of purpose in this family, she thought. Let her life have meaning. Let her be correct.
The wedding party finally started to move. The bride was young, and happy, and smiling, and her thick, hazel-colored hair nestled at the nape of her neck, and her makeup was light and dewy, her lips painted a soft mauve. Her freckles showed through the makeup. Two diamond earrings sparkled in the sun. Alex didn’t feel resentment or envy toward this bride in particular, but there was a dark, negative sensation raging through her; it almost bowed her, and she sunk a bit against the fence. Surely I cannot feel this way forever, she thought. Rice in the air, and cheers. Then an older woman in the back of the crowd collapsed quietly into a young man beside her. The sun was hot, too hot for her, Alex thought. Someone fanned the woman with a wedding program, and then she was helped inside. The wedding paused for a moment, but no one told the band, who had already started to play.
17
Carver, still trying to wheel his sick self around the hospital floor, missing his daughter.
He hadn’t raised Raquel, but he had known her, especially as an adult, and he admired her. He wouldn’t have wished himself on her in his younger years. He was hard to take. A selfish man. Unreliable. Not a drinker, though he did tipple, but more like a dreamer, caught up in his own world, constructing things in his mind. Schemes, but nothing illegal. He restored wooden bateaux, pretty ones for collectors who pranced around at boat shows, rich people who liked to see his skiffs on their docks. But he wanted to build them from scratch, too, that’s what he saw when he closed his eyes: the plans, the materials, the tools in his hands. In his mind he had an armada of boats waiting to be built. It took money, space, time, and room for thinking in his head. Not a lot left for a kid. And he liked to live away from the city, with other people like him, who preferred the sound of lapping water over the white noise of traffic.
Raquel’s mother had recognized all that in him, that he was a good enough person who would be a terrible father, and separated from him before Raquel was born, though she found him handsome, with his jaunty red bandanna and lightning-struck skin. She was a smart woman, a teacher, too. “I can see the writing on the wall,” she’d said.
So Raquel and her mother lived in Gentilly, near the racetrack, while he lived on houseboats on various bayous and lakes, depending on where the work took him, and every few months (and then, later, years) he saw his Raquel. She inherited his vitiligo, but it suited her better than him. Auburn curls, freckles, unusual skin, and amber eyes. She looked like a sunset in human form, is what Carver always thought. With some clouds floating through. He told her that as an adult, that first time they had tried to be in each other’s lives again, when he passed through Baltimore for a visit, and she had cried, and he apologized. “Was that a strange thing to say?” he asked. “No. It was beautiful,” she said. “I just could have used hearing something like that when I was younger, is all.”
After that she refused to see him for a year. Old anger bubbling up to the top. “My feelings caught me off guard,” she told him. “But I’m going to honor them.” He let her cool off. He waited, he wrote her a letter, he called every so often. And when they saw one another the next time, it was better, it was easier, and when they hugged goodbye, he felt a genuine warmth from her. Then he had a little more hope that they could know each other. That was all he wanted. To know her.
Anyway, she was in Baltimore now, and he’d had his stroke, and he was useless in this hospital, unable to speak or help himself, or to let anyone know that all he wanted was to see his daughter again. He’d been wheeling himself around this floor like a madman all day. If he could just speak. If he could just stand. If he could just be heard. Then maybe they’d know, maybe she’d know.
He summoned everything he had within him, and he began to rise.
18
The old man in the wheelchair had fallen. He had risen from his chair, and he had collapsed to the ground. A mighty gesture. He rose. He tried.
The nurse talked to him calmly. “Mr. Carver, can you hear me?”
And there was a nod, Barbra saw it as she passed, and his eyes were open, the sclera of which were butter yellow, and he was scared. The nurse hoisted him up easily—he couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds—and back into his chair. Another nurse approached. They tidied him. Barbra heard them mention something about tracking down his next of kin. A message had been left.
* * *
You moved as far away as you could, Alex, she thought, as soon as you could. And your brother did, too. You think I didn’t notice what you were doing? You think a mother doesn’t notice when her kids disappear?
* * *
Alex went away to law school in Chicago and married that handsome man—too pretty, too thin—and Barbra didn’t see her again for years. She just stopped coming home one year during the holidays and never returned. Gary lived everywhere in the world he could find work, and then he moved to Los Angeles and married Twyla, a waste, thought Barbra, of a good man. He never took a dime from his parents the whole time, not even for his wedding. Barbra had to force him to take a check when the baby was born, insisting it wasn’t for him, that he couldn’t make that kind of choice on his child’s behalf, and he relented. But otherwise he survived on his own—more than survived, he flourished. She was proud of him, though she knew his principles were born of resentment toward Victor. But then he got to make the choices he liked, one of which was to live a life separate from them. Both of her children were away, out there somewhere in America. But she was fine with that, mostly. They were alive and functioning and productive. And safe. She had done her job.
Then, finally, they had children, and resurfaced, wanting, she supposed, to show their kids what a normal life looked like, create a conventional structure, a grandmother, a grandfather, birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, cards in the mail, accompanied by a check, signed with a heart. For a long time she was a grandmother from afar, and that was all right with her, because she still didn’t like children after all these years. She had nothing left to do with her time but furnish her home, but that was all right, too. She liked her rooms. Everything remained pristine now. No messy hands, no sprawling legs. Not one dent or nick. The rooms breathed freely in the air and the light. That was what she pictured in her head at night before she went to
bed. Moving pieces from place to place. A giant jigsaw puzzle. And everything fit exactly as she liked.
Victor was frequently away, home for dinner rarely, more often sending texts that he’d stay late at work. He used his home office on occasion, storing private papers, which she had taken to photographing with a digital camera. The more he drew away from her, the more she felt she might need protection from him; when he was around, she knew what he was up to and could keep an eye on him. But he had grown sneakier and more elusive (if that were possible) once the children had left.
Every so often he smacked her. The arguments were stupid, trivial, about nothing, about money, which they had plenty of. Nothing was ever worth violence, but she grew used to it, and in a way, it was how she knew he was still paying attention to her. Because most of the time, he wasn’t around.
She tested the waters once, to see how truly disconnected he was from his home: she threw away the boxes of pornography that sat in the garage. It was a task that took all day. The cleaning woman could have helped; she had been in the garage before, so it would have been no surprise to her to see them. But this was a task for Barbra only. Under the kitchen sink she found some industrial-size trash bags and marched out to the garage. There was dust on the magazines; he probably hadn’t touched them in months, and in fact the most recent issue she could find was five years old. He had stopped caring about them. She filled up the trash bags and made two trips to the town dump. Pigeons pecked nearby. She rubbed her neck. She’d pulled something. It really hurts, she thought. She began to cry. She was fifty-nine years old that day, and mostly she was alone.
Now and then she’d meet Victor in the city. Never did they stay in his SoHo apartment. Always it was the Waldorf. He liked the lighting, he said. It suited them both. The final time they stayed there—a year before it all fell apart—he had treated her gently, soft words, soft hands, with commiseration about their age (now that she thought about it, it seemed to be more about her age than his). “You’re still beautiful,” he reassured her. “You held up all right, Barbie.” And she was surprised that it mattered to her, those words, but it did. It was not about him loving her. They’d had so many ebbs and flows. They were in this life together; what they needed from each other was clearly defined. In these moments she felt they were connected by so much: distance, space, money, silence, support. And every so often the acknowledgment of each other’s humanity. His hand on her breast. This flesh exists, and thus you do, too.
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