by Joy Fielding
The lawn was kept green—so green it seemed to vibrate—by an underground sprinkler system, something that was more necessity than luxury in the Florida heat. Without constant care and nurturing, the grass simply turned to hay. Just like the rest of us, Renee thought, her hands brushing up against the small bushes that clustered in the middle of the front lawn. The bushes were neatly trimmed into the shapes of pelicans and small horses. “It’s called a topiary,” her mother had explained to her when she was a child, “and you’re not to touch the bushes or sit on them,” she warned. Of course, only minutes later, Renee had tried to mount one of the delicate horse’s backs and had received a sound spanking for her misdeeds.
Renee now patted the top of the green pelican’s head, then crossed in a diagonal to the front door. She thought of the bedroom she had shared with Kathryn, decorated in traditional Florida yellows and greens. Her parents favored large furniture and small objects of art, or so her mother had always referred to her ever-increasing collection of china dolls.
Renee reached the front door and brought her unsteady fingers to the bell. She wondered if her parents were home, what part of the house they were in, what room she would be bringing them from. She remembered that no matter where she had been as a child, her parents always seemed to be somewhere else, and she always managed to disturb them.
She pressed the front doorbell, heard the gentle musical chimes waft through the cool interior of the house. She heard a voice— “I’m coming”—the sound of high heels (her mother never wore less than three-inch heels, even around the house) clicking against the tile of the living-room floor as they approached the front door.
Renee slipped her sandals back on as the front door opened. “Renee.” There was no element of surprise in the woman’s voice. The name was pronounced plainly, as if she were a teacher checking her attendance sheet at school. And yet there was a slight flicker in the older woman’s eyes, an almost imperceptible widening that told Renee that her mother was not altogether indifferent to her visit.
“Are you going to invite me in?” Renee asked her mother, who had changed remarkably little over the years. She was still the beautiful woman Renee conjured up in childhood memories, with the high cheekbones and cool green eyes she had passed on to her older daughter, features that could have made her a successful model had she been taller and so inclined. Renee’s mother stepped aside and allowed her into the living room, which opened off the front door.
Helen Metcalfe wore a pale pink jersey over a pair of uncreased white linen pants. She was as trim as when Renee had last seen her, and her hair had been attractively shaped to complement her delicate face. Not someone guaranteed to strike fear into a person’s heart, Renee thought. And yet that’s exactly what she does to me. Renee stood in the middle of the predominantly yellow room, feeling as if she were standing in the middle of a cold bright sun, and wondered if her mother would ask her to sit down. Hesitantly, she handed her mother the small package. “For your collection,” Renee told her, extending the silver-wrapped parcel for her mother to take.
“This was unnecessary,” Helen Metcalfe said evenly, looking warily over her shoulder, her hands neatly unfolding the silver paper even as she spoke.
“Well, I remembered it’s your birthday this week, and I saw it in a store window on the way over. I hope you don’t already have one like it.”
Helen Metcalfe removed the delicate figurine from its tissue paper, turning it around in her fingers and examining it from all angles.
“It’s Pan,” Renee told her.
“It’s lovely.”
“Do you already have a Pan?”
“One can never have too many Pans,” her mother told her with a timid smile, walking across the room to the yellow-tinted upright piano in the far corner, and depositing the fragile figurine in the middle of the others, so that it could not be seen without effort. “Thank you. That was really very sweet of you.”
“You can take it back if you’d prefer something else. I have the bill.”
“It’s fine,” her mother said, but she took the bill from Renee’s trembling hand.
“How are you?” Renee asked awkwardly, wishing her mother would ask her to sit down, not because she wanted to stay longer than was absolutely necessary, but because she was afraid that her knees might give way.
“We’ve been fine,” her mother said, answering in the plural so as to include Renee’s father, who walked into the room from the back garden as she was speaking.
“Hello, Daddy,” Renee whispered.
Ian Metcalfe looked toward the front door. “I thought I heard someone come in.” He looked toward his wife. “To what do we owe the honor of this visit?”
“I wanted to see you,” Renee said simply. “It’s Mother’s birthday this week …”
“That’s never meant much to you before,” her father pointed out, still not looking at her, his body sinking into one of two yellow tub chairs, his eyes staring straight ahead at the closed curtains.
Renee felt her breathing stall. Her father was an imposing figure, even sitting down. She forced herself into the second tub chair, hoping to will his eyes toward hers, and realizing with a shudder that neither her mother nor her father had tried to embrace her. That’s all it would take to make me happy, to make us a family, she tried to tell them silently with her eyes. Just put your arms around me and tell me that you love me.
It’s so little. It’s too much.
“I don’t want to fight with you, Daddy,” Renee said patiently. “I thought we could have a nice visit.”
“Renee brought me a birthday present, a little figurine of Pan,” she heard her mother say, and felt an immediate rush of gratitude. She smiled at her mother, but her mother was looking only at her father.
“So, all of a sudden you want to visit,” her father said. “You live ten minutes away but you’re usually too busy to drop by, too busy to pick up the phone.”
“I do call, but you’re always on your way out the door and I didn’t think you liked me to just drop by.”
“You dropped by now.”
“Well, I remembered that it’s Mother’s birthday this week, so I thought I’d take a chance. I wasn’t even sure you’d be here.”
“Normally, we wouldn’t be,” her mother agreed. Was she coming to her rescue again? “We’d be playing golf. But your father’s back has been acting up lately.”
“Helen, I’m sure our daughter isn’t interested in my health.”
“That’s not true, Daddy. Of course I’m interested. What’s the matter with your back?”
Her father waved away her concern. “You get old, you get pains in your back. So,” he continued, looking at his daughter with a critical eye, “I see you’re healthy. Eating well,” he added.
“I’ve put on a few pounds.” Renee tugged at her blouse self-consciously.
Her father laughed. “Did they teach you understatement at that fancy law school you went to?”
“You should go on a diet,” her mother warned with genuine concern. “Philip’s a very handsome man. I’m sure you want to hold on to him.”
“Philip likes the way I look,” Renee told them, trying to underline her words with a smile.
“I could never tolerate obesity in a woman,” Ian Metcalfe stated flatly, unmindful of his own increased girth. “Your mother is the same weight now as when we got married. Getting fat is just being lazy and lacking self-control. So,” he said again as Renee braced herself for what might follow, “you decided to pay us a visit. I guess we’re supposed to be glad to see you.”
“I hoped you would be.” How could they be? She was fat and lazy and lacking in self-control.
“And grateful too, I suppose.”
“No, not grateful …”
“We would be grateful to receive an occasional invitation to dinner at your beautiful apartment.”
“I have invited you. You’re always busy.” People stop extending invitations when they get repeatedly turned
down, she thought, wondering again how many firm get-togethers she had missed lately. “Actually, I was thinking of having a small dinner party next week. Kathryn is in town,” she said slowly, not sure this was the right path to follow, but stuck now, “and I thought it would be nice if we could all get together.” Could they tell she was lying?
“I didn’t know Kathy was in Florida,” her mother said. “She should have called …”
“Kathryn can call us if she wants to see us,” her father said, interrupting his wife and ignoring Renee’s invitation.
Renee tried to laugh but the result was more like a harsh cough. “The phone works both ways,” she reminded them.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just what I said.” Renee was suddenly on her feet despite her best efforts to remain calm. “Why does it always have to be me or Kathryn who calls? You’re perfectly capable of picking up a phone and dialing. Why don’t you ever call me? Why don’t you ever ask Philip and me over here for dinner? Why can’t you just call every now and then and ask how I’m feeling, ask me what’s new. You know where I am. You know where to reach me. You know Kathryn’s number in New York. You can afford the long-distance charges. How can you be surprised she didn’t phone you? Her husband died a few months ago, and you couldn’t even break away from your golf game long enough to offer your condolences!”
“Kathryn is a big girl now. She doesn’t need to come running to her father and mother whenever things don’t work out.”
“A husband’s death is a little more than things just not working out. Do you really think that because she’s grown up she doesn’t need you?”
“She knows where we are,” her father reiterated.
“She tried to kill herself!” Renee exclaimed in sheer frustration, waiting for them to respond. They said nothing, although Helen Metcalfe’s face was momentarily drained of color. “Where have you been all her life?” Where have you been all my life? she had to bite her tongue to keep from adding, knowing she had already gone too far.
“How long has she been in town?” her mother asked, her voice a thin sliver.
“Not long,” Renee lied again. Had her mother even heard what she had said? Had she heard Renee tell her Kathryn had tried to end her life? How long has she been in town? Renee repeated silently, wondrously. “Why don’t you phone her? She’s staying with me, and I know she’d like to hear from you.”
“It’s not our place to call,” Ian Metcalfe said, staring straight ahead, again refusing to look at his daughter.
“What are you talking about? What do you mean, it isn’t your place?”
“Kathryn is visiting you from out of town,” her mother said patiently, explaining her husband’s position as if she were conducting a class on etiquette. “It’s up to her to call.”
“I don’t believe what I’m hearing.” Renee kicked at the base of the small chair on which she had been sitting so that it spun around aimlessly. “Have you no feelings for her at all? Can’t you forget about your wounded pride for a few minutes and try to imagine what she’s been going through? She tried to kill herself and you’re worried about what Miss Manners might say if you were to call Kathryn first?!”
Her father rose to his feet. “It’s always the same thing, isn’t it, Renee? We’re supposed to drop everything and think about what you and your sister might be going through. It doesn’t matter to you what your mother and I might be going through, what you might have put us through all these years. No, none of that counts. Only your feelings are important. You were always selfish children. I had hoped with marriage you’d outgrow it. I thought there was a chance for you when you married Philip …”
“You really must lose some weight, Renee,” her mother cautioned, and Renee thought for an instant that she was trapped in the middle of another one of her peculiar dreams. Surely they weren’t really talking about her weight after she had just informed them of Kathryn’s suicide attempt! “You managed to get a man like Philip Bower to marry you. You don’t want to lose him, do you? You’re not beautiful like Kathryn, but you used to have such a pretty smile.” Helen Metcalfe’s voice drifted off, faded away, as if she had said the unspeakable.
Renee stared at her mother in disbelief, not because she continued to ignore the news of what Kathryn had done, which was the way her mother had always dealt with unpleasantness of any sort, not even because of her old-fashioned, long-held belief that marriage was the one essential ingredient of a woman’s life, but because it was the first time in thirty-four years that her mother had ever told her to her face that she found anything about her pretty. It stunned her now to hear her mother say it. “You think I have a pretty smile?” Renee asked, forgetting the woman’s earlier insensitivity, wanting only to rush into her arms. She felt her body gravitate toward her.
“Pretty is as pretty does,” Helen Metcalfe said, and Renee’s body swayed to a halt.
“She said you used to have a pretty smile,” Ian Metcalfe continued for his wife. “Now, of course, nobody would notice. It’s not just your weight. It’s everything. Look at your clothes. Look at your hair. We’ll have to start calling you Hairless Joe again, the way we did when you were little and wouldn’t sit still long enough for your mother to brush your hair properly.”
Renee recalled the long-forgotten nickname, based, if she remembered correctly, on a comic-strip character who had so much hair falling into his face that he could barely see to walk. She had thought she remembered every aspect of her childhood. How could she have forgotten that?
“You expect the world to revolve around you,” her father continued. “You expect everybody to drop everything and jump to attention when you snap your fingers.”
“I expect a little common decency,” Renee said, as angry now as he was.
“Then have some,” her father shot back. “And don’t raise your voice to me again, young lady.”
“Please, Daddy, I don’t want to fight with you. That’s not why I came over.”
“Why did you?” her father demanded.
“I told you. It’s Mother’s birthday. I just wanted to see you.”
“Why?”
“You’re my parents. I love you!” Renee cried, and felt the room spin.
“You have a very strange way of showing it,” her father said, his anger turning to rage. Renee thought for a moment that he might actually strike her.
“Why do you get so angry when I mention love?” Renee asked, astounded.
“I’m not angry.”
“Yes, you are.”
“That’s always been your problem, Renee. You think you know everything.”
“I just told you that I love you, dammit.”
“You will not swear in this house,” her father warned.
“What is the matter with you?”
“We will not be talked to in that manner, Renee,” her father stated, his anger now a cold fury as he walked to the front door. “I’m afraid you’ll have to leave before you upset your mother further.”
“No!” Renee screamed, and watched them both jump. “No. I’m not leaving this house until you listen to me.” She walked toward them, noticing a look of fear creep into her mother’s eyes. “I have just told you that I love you. That is probably the first time the word ‘love’ has ever been spoken in this room, maybe even in this house, and you can ignore what you want to ignore, you can pretend that Kathryn didn’t try to kill herself, that I’m making all this up for my own cruel purposes, but I won’t let you ignore that I just stood in front of you and told you that I love you. And I am not leaving until I hear you say that you love me! Do you understand? I am not going anywhere until I hear you say it. I am thirty-four years old but I am still your child. And I have never heard you tell me that you love me.”
Her parents said nothing. Were they too stunned to speak or were the words so impossible to say?
“Don’t you think it’s time you told me you love me? Don’t you think I’ve waited long enough?”
<
br /> “Renee …” her mother began wearily, her voice cracking. “Where is this getting us?”
“I want to hear you say it. I want to hear you tell me you love me. What’s the matter? Can’t you say it? Don’t you love me? Not even a little bit?”
“Renee …” her mother pleaded, glancing toward her father. “This is so unnecessary.”
“It’s not unnecessary. It’s everything! Please, I’m begging you. I need to hear you say it.”
“But why? Why is it so important?”
“I don’t know why.”
“This is nonsense, Renee.”
“I’m not leaving until you say it.”
Again, there was silence. Renee studied the faces of her mother and father, watched their mouths open only to close, saw the confusion in their eyes, the tremor in their lips. Slowly, she approached her mother, stopping only when she was within inches of the older woman’s still lovely face. “Do you love me, Mommy?” she asked, hearing the voice of the little girl who was still locked inside her.
“You make it very difficult, Renee.”
“Does that mean that you love me?” Renee persisted stubbornly.
“You’re my daughter. A mother has to love her child.” She looked toward her husband.
“No, don’t look at him,” Renee admonished. “Look at me. Tell me that you love me.” Please.
Her mother’s response was a few silent tears. Renee waited for the woman to speak, understanding that it was not her mother who had failed but herself. She was unloved because she was unlovable. She was fat and lazy and lacking in self-control.
