The Done Thing

by Tracy Manaster

  My daughter grew up in St. Louis (if you’ve just finished college, you’re probably about her age). She still lives thereabouts. My mother moved up there too, or near enough. She’s in O’Fallon. She visited Stemble just a handful of times. Everyone back home knew how I landed myself here and even if she didn’t say much about it, them knowing wasn’t easy on her. I said get away from it since you’re lucky enough to be able to. Just up and pick a place. She felt guilty leaving me, but I told her she chose right.

  Because strange as it sounds, I don’t much like visitors. Forty-five minutes with a guard and glass between us, with strip down before and after. I see people much clearer in my mind. They stick around longer that way too. There’s no guard. No screen or searches. And I don’t feel closed in all over again when they get to leave and I have to stay put.

  The hardest visits are the lawyer ones. He’s got so old and fat, which shows how much time’s gone by. And it’s the kind of fat that makes his sorry old face easy to read. Things are not going well for me. He’s been with me since the start, and I think it’ll hit him hard when I go. It’s coming, Maisie Keller, and I hope it doesn’t put you off any when I mention it. I’ve been thinking that if there is an After it may be some place like St. Louis, an okay enough city full of everyone I’ve ever known, split down the middle into the good part and the bad. In life there are bridges that span the water. I hope that part stays the same.

  This is probably too much philosophy for a first time letter, but I can’t help it if my thoughts go all over. My thoughts are the only things that can move around in here, and boy do they ever. Just now I began to think about you and about my daughter, because maybe you passed her on the street today and none of us will ever know it. Nothing is ever random like that in here.

  You know that game little kids play, hot lava? Where they jump from place to place and the rules are you can’t ever touch the ground? My daughter loved it. She jumped and scrambled like she had no clue it would hurt to fall. Until I caught her one time halfway up a bookshelf, screaming her pretty head off. She’d forgot it was just a game and she’d forgot how she got to where she was. That’s how it gets sometimes inside my head. I make these crazy leaps trying not to touch what’s always beneath. So I do a bit of hot lava myself. Just to slow my mind down. With every new thought I touch something in my cell. If I tie my thoughts to something real, I’ll be able to retrace them. I’ll never get stuck somewhere and panic. (I touch my sleeve as I write this.) Most of the day I spend touching things. Things, but never walls. This would only get me pacing. Two appeals ago, I decided to stop pacing.

  I’m coming to the end of this sheet and if I start another I’ll feel obliged to finish it. I think (I hope) that we will be friends, even if I threw too much at you right away. Maybe that’s why so many people stop writing after a letter or so. I don’t know what they expect. Gratitude? For pages on end? All I have is my thoughts. If they’re not what you want to hear, I won’t apologize. What’s the point of just hearing what you want to? I hope you run with it and that you will write back. I’ll finish up these last few lines and wait for an officer to come and collect it. They’ll read it (well, maybe not the big words) and seal it and it will make its way to you in my daughter’s city and we will see what happens next.

  Yours,

  Clarence Lusk

  This is what I did, Clarence. Right there in the bakery: I took a last bite of zucchini bread and I took the ceramic plate in my hand. A pretty thing, fragile, a painted rooster in its center. I held it at arm’s length and released it to shatter on the concrete floor. Of the pair of us, Barbra was the sister prone to drama. I was very much borrowing her sort of gesture; sisters share. Because I needed the sound, Clarence. The crash of something breaking that wasn’t me. You were so pleasant in your letter. So forthright, so affable. Well. Barbra always said you could charm the stripes from bees.

  The counter staff scurried with their brooms and were very kind. I apologized. It felt good to be saying sorry—not quite a balm, but—a Band-Aid for the way I’d liked you when Barbra first introduced us, how I told Frank she was trading up after a series of duds. Rooster shards clattered in the dustpan, the sound of irrevocably broken things. One of the last times we talked, Barbra told me you broke one of her vases, the marbled one Frank and I brought back from our honeymoon. I wondered, after, if she’d been trying to get me to ask how. If she’d have told me you’d been fighting and that the vase broke in anger. If that had been my one chance to tell her: I’m on your side. Trust your gut. Grab Pammie, get out. Instead, I assumed you were simply clumsy, Clarence; I hadn’t yet learned to think more terrible things.

  I tipped well and left the café, crossing into Forest Park, which was all dormant flower beds and stripped elms. In the distance, the turnoff for the zoo, where Pamela once asked me what the animals had done to be put in cages. A pair of groundskeepers struggled with a fat spool of Christmas lights, and it still weeks from Thanksgiving. Our father bought Ma perfume one Christmas. Even before we knew it smelled good Barbra said she wanted to live inside that cut-glass bottle.

  But this was all drift and sentiment. What I had to do was think. I walked on, gloved, pumping my arms as Kath Claverie had instructed to maximize aerobic effect. You could charm stripes from bees, from zebras even, from highway lanes, from work-gang jumpsuits, but that wouldn’t change what you’d let slip: Marjorie Lusk was close by.

  In the past few decades we orthodontists had begun to use a new sort of arch wire. NASA perfected it first, a heat-activated nickel-titanium alloy they use for solar panels. This wire bends supple at room temperature. Once affixed to the teeth, it loses pliancy. The warmth of the mouth hardens it; it begins to exude pressure, its long, slow work of setting things to rights. As you, Clarence, had warmed to Maisie Keller. Sure and steady as mouth-warmth, and faster than I had expected, trusting her—right away, how lonely you must be—with something I could bring to bear against you. Your mother in O’Fallon. At most a river away.

  9.

  I’m lousy in front of crowds, but nevertheless had been the one to speak at Barbra’s funeral. Ma was a slack balloon of shakes and tranquilizers, unequal to the task. Frank was wonderful but not blood. I still had my speech in the top drawer of my desk, a set of paper-clipped three-by-fives, more scraps of paper I couldn’t bring myself to discard.

  “On the day she graduated college, my sister explained why she loved mathematics. She said, ‘It has to do with everything.’ I scoffed and she wrote something right on the back of her diploma and then read it aloud. I found that diploma last night and re-read her words: ‘If you have a process that is the accumulation of random outcomes infinitely summed, and if on average you don’t know if the numbers you are adding are positive or negative, and if the process goes on forever, every number that you establish as a boundary will eventually be crossed.’ She always knew things like that, right off the top of her head. You all know how smart she was. Of course I had no idea what she was talking about. Maybe some of her students today do. She often spoke of how bright you all are. And even if you don’t know, what you do know is Barbra’s willingness to answer questions. When I asked her, she explained. Barbra said: ‘It’s simple enough. All it means is that if you live long enough there’s no line that you won’t cross.’”

  Frank and I had packed for Arizona in a rush. My dress hadn’t traveled well. There was a run in my stockings, a sorry ladder to nowhere. I’d discovered it at the motel that morning. I’d had plenty of time to buy another pair. Even the Safeway stocked them. But I’d stood numb and indecisive before the display, working my way through the thick fan of samples, laying one hue and then another over my forearm. The color of my flesh was no longer familiar. Fifteen minutes passed before I chose. The wrong size, but I wouldn’t know that till too late. At the checkout, I added a box of animal crackers for Pamela. They’d be good to have on hand. She was our little girl now. I didn’t yet know what she ate, or at what intervals.

>   “I am appalled today at the line that’s been crossed and what that has caused us to lose. I am shocked because Barbra, who was bright and courageous and curious, is gone. She has no more lines to cross and I can’t bear it.”

  The air was close with the heat and scent of too many mourners. Memorials for the young were always well attended. “A novelty gig,” Barbra might have said, drawing a hand over her mouth as if she could scoop the words back inside. “That was meaner spirited than I meant it.”

  “You never mean it,” I would have replied.

  And Barbra would have justified. “It’s all math anyhow. Young or old, the same percentage of acquaintances show up. It’s just a larger sample size. More people above ground.”

  All Barbra’s students wore purple and black. I’d wondered if they’d phoned one another to coordinate, unsure what to wear for a funeral. The first for most of them. Or the second. Lawrence Ring’s burial took place the day before. Eleven solid rows of students. Some gawkers, no question. I should’ve made them prove they’d been Barbra’s, present calculus midterms corrected in the green ink my sister used because she thought red looked hostile.

  I should’ve insisted they pipe in better music.

  And scrapped the lilies. They always made Barbra sneeze.

  And I should’ve tasked someone with keeping an eye out for Marjorie Lusk. Posted a thick-necked second cousin with her picture by the door. Oh yes, I saw her, skulking back there.

  At least we’d had sense enough to bar reporters.

  “Barbra has left us in an impossible situation,” I continued. “We remember her, her passion and her energy, and so we miss her. That isn’t even the word for it. We long. We have all these little lines that make up our lives, and they’re approaching and they’ll keep on coming. We’ll have to cross them because that’s how time works, but we can’t because that means leaving Barbra behind. The only way to bring her with us is to remember. She’d want us to do that. To be brave like she’d be. To be honest. Always.”

  Marjorie Lusk leaned against the sanctuary door. I couldn’t imagine my words had bowled her over. It wasn’t a very good speech; my sister deserved better.

  Only when I was through speaking could I look at the front row. Frank and Ma in tears. Pamela between them, eyes dry, upper lip luminous with snot. She’d managed to lose a shoe. Her tights were worn at the heel. A few stitches had popped at the tip and a single toe peeked through. Clearly, these last few months Barbra’s mind hadn’t been entirely on her daughter.

  I would have to buy new socks. Probably shoes as well.

  I would get us through this if I thought in lists: offices to contact, appointments to reshuffle, attorneys to telephone. I needed to find the right kindergarten. I needed a pediatrician. A psychologist too, more likely than not.

  Frank said I could slow down. No one expected me to do everything at once. These things take time. He didn’t understand. I couldn’t afford to ever be slow again. Not since I looked up from the open mouth of Maisie Keller to see my receptionist dawdling toward me, a strange sick look on her face, on the verge of disproving the axiom that bad news travels swiftly.

  People lingered after the service. Strangers. They ate clammy cold cuts, limp crudités, gingersnaps, with coffee and punch. Ma never could hostess without pressing food on her guests.

  Purple and black, it turned out, were Folsom High’s colors.

  “It was the student council’s idea,” a rabbity senior explained. “We want to show our support.”

  “Like a pep rally?”

  Barbra would have laughed.

  “No, no.” He bowed each time he spoke the word. “No, no, no. We didn’t mean it like that.” He extended his hand. “I’m Terry Pelhs, from her fifth period calc.”

  I didn’t want to lift my hand from the top of Pammie’s head. She kept busy with her crackers, seeking out the lions she liked best. She crunched them headfirst and without enthusiasm. I had no idea if this brutality was standard or post-traumatic.

  “Thank you, for coming,” I said. “And please thank your friends for the colors.”

  “We did it yesterday for Dr. R. too.” Terry blushed. I knew teenagers. I straightened their teeth. This kid was yet-to-bloom, but smart. He knew enough details. They all did. At some point everyone here must have imagined the lovers entwined. Barbra knew pi to fifty-seven digits. She could convert to metric in her head. A college boyfriend tore up her midterm because she’d beat his grade by two percent and Barbra had the sense to dump him on the spot. How could she have been so stupid?

  One of Ma’s cousins drove her back to our hotel. Frank and I were last to leave. We walked with Pamela between us, like we would walk from now on, hand in hand in hand.

  Marjorie Lusk was waiting in the parking lot. Had been there a long time, from the looks of it. Sweat marred her blouse. Her face was glossy, overripe, and less wrinkled than Ma’s. Cuff bracelets hung loose on her wrists, reflecting afternoon sun. She held herself still, crackling with the presence of a larger, younger woman. She made no move to touch Pam.

  “Lida, Lida, I’ve been waiting. I know enough to guess you didn’t want me inside.”

  I stared beyond Marjorie at the adobe houses across the street. So wisely designed, those interior, protected courtyards. “No,” I said, “You aren’t welcome.”

  “I’m here to say it’s tragic. I’m just shocked.”

  “Just shocked? We’re leveled. We’re mourning.”

  “That isn’t what I meant.”

  “We’re angry.”

  That woman never blinked.

  “Angry,” I repeated.

  Marjorie Lusk bowed her head. And then: “You don’t know what it is to be a mother. I’m grieving, but the things you’d think were unforgivable . . .”

  “Look at me and say that.”

  She had Pamela’s eyes. That strange blue. Her son’s. “You don’t know what it is to be a mother.”

  “Or you a sister.”

  Frank broke in. “Marjorie, you said yourself you shouldn’t be here.”

  “Frank’s right. Please leave.”

  “Just know I came with condolences. I wish Barbra were still alive.”

  “For your own sake. For your son’s.”

  “For all ours. For Pammie. Let’s not do this.”

  “Pamela will be fine,” said Frank, and he sounded like he believed it.

  Pam looked up. Good girl. She hadn’t let go of our hands.

  “We’ll make sure of it,” I said.

  “I’m surprised you brought her here. You don’t know what it is to be a mother,” Marjorie repeated. That bitch who bore Clarence.

  Ma thought it best Pam come. The only opinion she’d had about any of the arrangements. Some of her haze had thinned in giving it, and I’d had my mother again, steady, collected, sure of what was to be done. I held Marjorie’s eyes. I echoed Ma. “Pamela needs to understand what happened. We want her to have a proper goodbye.”

  “A proper goodbye?” Marjorie’s face was hopeful, alive with it. So quick-shifting. It’s true that people go mad with grief. “Perhaps we could arrange for her to visit . . .”

  “I don’t think so,” Frank said.

  “We’ve explained what happened,” I added. “Or, we did our best to.”

  Marjorie crumpled. It was as though a string had been holding her posture perfect. It was as though that string had been cut. “She’s a child. What kind of woman are you?”

  “There’s no lie in the world that can fix this.”

  “He’s grieving too, Lida.”

  “I doubt he’d be permitted to see her anyhow,” Frank offered.

  Don’t pander to her. Clarence’s mother.

  Bitter crone.

  No lie in the world can fix this.

  An animal look came to Marjorie’s eyes. “Pammie, chubchick, I’m your Grandmom Lusk.”

  “I know.” She sounded less scornful than I wanted her to.

  “I know you know now. I
want you to concentrate on remembering.”

  Pamela’s head bobbed up and down.

  Marjorie’s eyes were on mine once more. Cornered animals, the both of us, and the parking lot open and meadow-wide. “You’re going to tell her everything, then?”

  I nodded.

  “Tell your truth then. Keep telling it. And sooner or later you’ll bump into the mess her mother made and the fact my son’s a feeling father no matter what’s been done. There’s no truth that will leave that out. I’m going to kiss her now.”

  Marjorie’s lips came to rest on Pamela’s forehead.

  She turned away without another word. A smear of lipstick marked Pammie’s freckled brow. On either side of our niece, Frank and I drew closer, pressing tight against her as if she were some shattered bone we were meant to splint.

  10.

  There were two O’Fallons in spitting distance, the one in Missouri and the one in Illinois. Home again, I re-read your letter. No hint as to east of the Mississippi or west. You’d been so careful, Clarence. I noticed—I appreciated; full credit to you—that you didn’t give Maisie Pamela’s name. It was 1982 when you went away. The last computer you’d have seen would have been a fat-mouthed floppy eater. I went to my desk. You had no proper sense of how easy things came out here.

  Click. m a r j o r i e l u s k was your mother and I didn’t waste the capital letters. I waited. Nothing. I clicked again, hoping for the Illinois O’Fallon. Not because of the state line, exactly. Just squiggles on a map. But this particular squiggle was the Mississippi River. We’d wronged each other terribly, Marjorie and I, and any strategist knows it’s best to keep deep water between home fires and enemies. Nothing onscreen. I clicked again; no change. I pressed my hands to either side of the monitor as if that could force results. Marjorie with her over-rouged lips and your blue eyes. When she’d bent to kiss Pam those eyes had looked like bits of sky, falling.

  Still nothing. Black words in the white query box. I highlighted them and their colors reversed. Backspace. A single keystroke winked them out. The words flashed their brief onscreen after-ghost, white on white: m a r j o r i e l u s k.