I raised a brow at her, wondering if I should take her pulse or have her breathe into a paper bag.
“Something told you? How very unspecific of you.”
Mary’s maniac grin was melting away. “You don’t want it.”
I sighed. “I don’t know anymore. Come in, anyway, as long as you’re here.”
Mary refused to budge, still holding that ring at the end of her outstretched arm. “Please, take it.”
I did then. I’d never worn it when Mom was alive, and then Dad gave it to Mary. So for the first time I slipped it on. Mom had put on weight in later years—who hadn’t?—and it had been resized. It fit on only my middle finger. I walked back into the house and headed toward my bedroom and my jewelry box. I heard Mary close my front door and follow.
Halfway down the hall I noticed Mary’s footsteps had stopped. I turned and saw her staring through the open door into the Room.
“You opened it,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Not cleaning it?”
“No. And don’t start.”
“I’m not going to.” I could hear her disappointment, though. What did she think was going to happen?
I nestled Mother’s ring into my jewelry box, next to my wedding ring. I slammed the lid shut over two ruined marriages.
When I came back down the hall, Mary wasn’t there, and I knew right where she’d gone. I followed her into that one room. Its walls were mint green, painted by Ron when he first built me the house and imagined two more babies.
Mary looked at the array of baby things, a sheen of dust covering the diaper boxes. She crouched and poked in some of the shopping bags. “Oh, Trish,” she said, pulling out a little lavender sleeper with flowers on the round collar. The kind of impractical detail utterly unsuited to normal use.
“I was going to take her home in that. Take pictures. There’s a boy one, too. It’s blue with sailboats.”
I put the back of my hand on my forehead. “I can’t do it, Mary. Getting rid of this is like throwing my baby away. I know, I know, it’s not true. Knowing and feeling aren’t the same.”
Mary chewed on her lip, inspecting the bags around me. “What if you didn’t ‘get rid of’ it. What if it was a gift? Somewhere specific, instead of just dumped in some big collection bin at Goodwill?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
I stroked the crib rail. I could smell the baby powder, feel their gummy mouths gnawing on my finger. It wasn’t just the lost baby; it was all my babies I’d preserved in here. I still had my sons, but my boys as innocent little babies were gone forever.
“What does it hurt to have this here?” I asked, my raspy voice giving away the answer even as I asked the question.
“We lost the ring,” Mary said, “for a time. And now we have it again. Did you feel like Mom was any more lost when we didn’t have it? Is she back in any sense now that we do?”
“I never said it was logical.”
“I’m not saying you should get rid of all of it. But this . . . it’s a morbid shrine.”
I wanted to yell at her to shut up and leave me alone. I wanted to bury my face in the ducky blanket and cry. I wanted to curl up in a sunny patch of carpet at our feet and stay there all day.
I did none of these things. Nor did I agree.
Mary moved first, walking with a defeated slump to the doorway. Surrendering, it seemed. Just as I had.
She stopped just at the door and bent to pick up a bag. “Trish?” She dug around inside the bag, then pulled out a sweater, tags still on. She also inspected the receipt, and I flinched before she even spoke. “You bought this a month ago. And put it in here.”
I braced myself for the onslaught of anger and ridicule. Yes, I bought something, didn’t use it, and threw it in my last hoarded room. Let the berating begin.
Mary crossed the room back to me and put her arm around me, her head on my shoulder. I was struck dumb with surprise at her tenderness.
Chapter 50
My fizzy, giddy feeling that drove me down the highway to Grand Ledge to present my sister with our mother’s ring had hissed flat by the time I was back on my own pathetic little doorstep.
I glanced down at the pristine welcome mat with its insipid daisies and grabbed it off the concrete porch. I walked a few steps to the communal Dumpster and winged it inside, listening to it thunk hard against the hollow interior.
I inspected my doorway before walking in. The door was closed tight as it should be. I opened my door carefully and froze. I listened for unusual sounds and performed a visual sweep.
I latched the door behind me. The only sound was my own pulse pounding in my ears.
I hung my purse on its proper hook and turned on my laptop on my kitchen table, preparing to once again apply for jobs I would not get. I waited for the computer to come to life and wondered what I’d thought would happen because I drove to Trish’s place. That I’d find her home miraculously clean? That the ring would cure her like an amulet?
My face burned as I mentally replayed the call I’d placed to Seth. I probably sounded like a desperate, giggly teenager to him. He no doubt deleted my message with a scowl of frustration. After all, we’d hardly spoken since I’d said that awful thing to him at my place about knowing how his wife felt. I couldn’t blame him, really.
Well. Trish had the ring. And she’d allowed me to place that call about the crib.
After searching the job sites, I searched my shelves for Pride and Prejudice. I had not alphabetized my books when I put them back on the shelf. This had been my one concession to acting like a real person.
My cell phone rang and I picked it up without looking, assuming it was Trish calling, perhaps even changing her mind.
“ ’Lo.”
“Mary.”
“Seth?” I sat up on my bed, sitting cross-legged. “Hi.”
“I’m glad you called. I’m sorry I didn’t call back earlier; I was with a patient.”
“Oh, your sabbatical is over.”
“I think it’s good for me to be back. It’s been busy, and a little strange, but after a while I was so sick of looking at my walls.”
“I know.”
“Great news about your mother’s ring. That’s wonderful.”
“Yes, it is.”
“You sound subdued, compared to earlier.”
“I’m a little tired is all.”
“Like I said, I’m sorry I didn’t call back right away. I was otherwise occupied.”
“So you said.” I sank into disappointment over our mundane small talk. All he’d done was return a call, which was, after all, the polite thing to do.
“After my patient, I was on the road.”
“Mmmm.” I picked up Pride and Prejudice and opened to the first page, expecting he’d be hanging up in a minute or two and I’d have yet more silence to fill. It is a truth universally acknowledged . . .
The doorbell? I sighed with irritation. “Hang on, Seth.”
I carried the phone into the living room. I stuck Jane Austen under my arm and with my free hand pulled open my door, just a bit, for the delivery person, or Girl Scout with cookies . . .
He was there, on my porch, his phone to his head. “Should I call back? Sounds like you have company.”
“What are you doing here?”
He reached over and took the phone from my hand, punching a button.
“You can hang up now, I think.” He handed the phone back.
I stood there with my phone and my book and gaped at him, thinking he couldn’t be real, Seth didn’t just drive here in the middle of the week right from work.
He was wearing black pants and a crisp white dress shirt open at the collar, with his sleeves rolled up. No tie. His shoes were shiny and stylish.
“You could invite me in,” Seth prompted
. “Unless you’d rather not . . .”
“No! I mean, yes. OK. I guess. I’m not really prepared. . . .” I stood back to let him come in.
Seth pulled the door closed behind him. “Yes, I can see the place is a real mess.”
My face burned at his teasing. I turned away from him watching me and walked into my living room. I sat on the sofa I never used and realized as I settled in how the cushions were much more springy and fresh than the big chair I always sit in. It’s possible no one had sat here since I tested it out in the store.
Seth did not wait for me to give him permission to sit. He selected the chair I always use, leaned back, and crossed one ankle over his knee.
“Why are you here?” I blurted. “Why didn’t you call from home?”
“I was afraid you’d tell me not to come if I asked.”
“What gives you that idea?”
“You were pretty upset with my, as you put it, interrogation.”
I looked down at my lap. This would be my penance, it seemed, to forever replay my worst outbursts, my clumsiest moments. “I already said I was sorry. It just slipped out.”
“At first I was . . . hurt. But when I thought back on our conversation, I realized that I had been, in fact, slipping back to that old script. That illusion that I could use my training and knowledge to fix everything for the people I care about, when sometimes the people I care about needed empathy. That I should just shut the hell up and listen.”
I continued looking down at my lap and my hands, folded loosely. I noted his phrase, “people I care about.”
“You had just endured a terrible violation of your privacy and personal space, and a loss of an object that meant a great deal to your family. And I chose that moment to grill you about why you didn’t hang pictures.”
“And I let fly with the worst insult I could have deployed.”
“Did you calculate that? Did you go out of your way to be vicious?”
“ ’Course not.”
“I know you didn’t. I wanted to talk to you earlier, but you seemed . . . remote. You only answered my calls with text messages.”
I tipped my head back on my couch. “It was all so much. The fight with Trish, my nephews, the break-in. It was . . . overload.”
“But you sounded different today, in your message.”
“So you decided to drive here? Based on that?”
“That’s the size of it.”
“Well. Thank you, then. I guess.”
Seth leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands. He massaged his hands, working his fingers like he was preparing to play a piano concerto.
“There was a reason I was particularly sensitive about my job.”
I could see his jaw working, like he was chewing something. “OK.”
“I wasn’t just on a sabbatical. It wasn’t that simple. I . . . lost a patient. I lost a patient, Mary.”
“Oh, I’m . . . I’m sorry.” Part of me wanted to reach out to pat his arm or his hand, but he seemed stiff. Untouchable.
“I’d been getting so tired of hearing about problems. They call it compassion fatigue. I was so wrung out every night, but then I still had to field calls from my ex-wife about Aurora, or care for Aurora if I had her for the weekend, and I felt like I’d gone cold all over, in every way. I was telling myself that I still was doing a good job for my patients, that I was putting one foot in front of the other. . . . Then I lost Chris. A gay teen with suicidal ideation. Until it wasn’t ideation anymore.”
“Oh, no.”
“It’s happened before. In my field it does happen sometimes. But I couldn’t help but wonder if he somehow knew. If he detected that I’d unplugged from him . . .”
“You can’t do that to yourself.”
“You’ll be amused to know I’m seeing my own shrink.”
“Not amused. It’s good.”
“It was you. And your sister that got me back to work.”
“Us?”
He sat up, relaxed his pose, turned in the chair to face me.
“You and your sister were working so hard. And I’m not just talking about hauling boxes. You could have let Jack go live with your dad, or Ron, and stayed away. She could have done the minimum required, rented another storage unit, or tried to con the social worker. I watched that, saw you both were doing so much with few resources, and here I was, ready to throw away my career and everything I’d worked for, everything good and right I’ve ever done for all my other patients because of one setback. So I went back.”
“How is it? Is it OK?”
“Yeah. It’s been OK. Hard, but as I said, I’m seeing my own shrink.”
“How’s . . . how are things going with Aurora?”
“She’s making some good language progress. Thanks for asking.”
More trucks went by. Home alone, I’d never noticed how noisy the stupid trucks were.
“So . . . why did you drive here? You could have told me that on the phone.”
“Yes. I could have. But I missed you, Mary.”
This startled me into sitting absurdly upright, on the edge of the couch. “What?”
“I missed you. I wanted to see you.”
He smiled at me. Not his joking smirk, but a soft, genuine smile. He was turned to the side in the chair, one arm thrown over the back of it. He looked as relaxed as I’d seen him, maybe since college. Maybe never.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. Simple, isn’t it? Sometimes things really are simple, even for shrinks. I missed you, and now I’m here, so I’m not missing you right now.”
“I . . . don’t know what to say.”
“There’s nothing you have to say.”
“I’m not sure why you could miss me. Weird old Mary, who can’t stand normal human contact.”
Seth smiled. “I don’t see ‘weird old Mary.’ I see my friend, who was kind to me during a tough time, when everyone else was too preoccupied or immature. I see my friend, whom I took for granted all those years ago, too fixated on my high school sweetheart to see the nice girl right in front of me. I see someone who put aside her own discomfort and pain to help her sister keep her children.”
“Fourteen years too late.”
“I think the only ‘too late’ is never. I think you were right on time.”
I felt a flush creep up my face as he continued to stare at me. But what else was there for him to look at? My Georgia O’Keeffe print of a flower that looked like a vulva?
“Can I ask you a question?” he said.
I stiffened. Of course there would be questions. He’d ask about Trish’s hoarding, or whether I alphabetized my spices. Whether I could track dirt in without having a conniption.
Seth said, “Could I see you sometime? For dinner or something?”
“Huh?”
“I’d like to see you again. Like I said, I miss you. The cure for missing someone is seeing them. Since I’ll start missing your company as soon as I get home, it would be nice to know I had plans to see you again.”
I shifted on my cushy, unused sofa. “Well. I don’t know. Let’s see if I can fit you in between ‘nothing’ and ‘watching grass grow.’ ”
Seth chuckled, his grin now wide and amused, his blue eyes crinkled up. “When you find a clear space in your calendar, let me know.”
I was inert with shock. Had this just happened? Further: I’d just cracked a joke that actually worked?
Seth’s smile faded, and the light left his eyes. He rose to standing. “I should go. I’ve imposed too long. And I have to get back; I’ve got some reading to do tonight for a patient tomorrow.”
He turned away and was heading for my door. In moments he’d be back on the road, back to his life, and there would be no more sound here but the trucks outside.
I le
aped off the couch like I’d been stung and caught up to him in my entryway. He was already turning around, having heard my rushed approach.
I flung myself at him with my eyes closed, not unlike myself as a young girl when I’d jumped off the high-dive. I’d landed flat on the water then; it was like being hit by a heavy wooden board.
This time I wrapped my arms around his waist and buried my face in his chest, and I let him embrace me.
“Saturday,” I said into his chest, my nose full of the clean-laundry smell of his white dress shirt. “I’d love to see you Saturday.”
Chapter 51
I was just fine watching the diaper boxes and shopping bags go into the truck.
But when Ron and Mary walked by carting the crib—the crib in which Jack used to frantically bounce while holding the rail, the same rail that still bore baby Andy’s teeth marks—I had to run back into the house. I sat at the kitchen table and stared at Mother’s ring, which I was wearing on my right hand, with some yarn wound around the base of it to keep it snug on my finger.
I heard Mary approach, and she rubbed my shoulder. “Breathe deep, Trish. Keep your larger goal in mind.”
“Have you been watching those stupid shows again?”
“Reading,” she answered. “I got some books.”
I shrugged her hand off. “Just . . . don’t make a fuss, OK? This is hard enough, don’t . . . draw attention.”
“OK.”
The front door opened, and we both turned. Ron stood in the doorway, the spring sun pouring in around him in a bright rectangle on the floor, broken up by his long shadow.
“You ready, T?”
I sighed, and by way of answer stood up and grabbed my purse.
We squeezed all three of us into the front of Ron’s truck, with me in the middle. I had to squeeze my hands together to keep myself from resting my hand on Ron’s thigh like I always used to.
My breathing was shallow, and three times during the drive my vision became speckled with dots of light until I reminded myself to breathe deep and slow, from the abdomen.
I’d kept two special sleepers. Mary had helped me wrap them in tissue paper and put them in a box marked KEEPSAKES. I could look at them anytime and always remember how we’d anticipated our baby, how we’d loved it even when it was just a bump and a flutter.
Keepsake Page 32
