Every Body has a Story

by Beverly Gologorsky

  She glances at the highway. Why would Casey go down here? He’d have to climb the railing, and what would he do with his bike? Anyway, it’s getting too dark to make out anything but the headlights of cars.

  “Mom, the stretch ahead is empty. Let’s turn back.”

  “We’ll borrow Dory’s car and drive around. No need to uproot either of them.”

  “Sonny gave me driving lessons …”

  She doesn’t respond.

  50.

  “Just us two,” Dory notes, more to herself.

  “Another glass of wine? We’ll finish up the kitchen later,” Stu says.

  “Why not?” She follows him into the den with fresh glasses, the couch there worn to comfort. He carries in a newly opened bottle of French white. He’s been doing that lately, buying expensive wine whose names she can’t pronounce. Does he fear the cheaper stuff might somehow worsen her state?

  “What’s all this fancy wine about?”

  “The best for the best.” Barefoot in sweats and T-shirt, he looks ready for bed.

  “Don’t butter me, Stu. It makes me feel something’s wrong with me.”

  “Something is wrong,” he says quietly.

  “Well … yes … but treating me with kid gloves is insulting.”

  “How?” He sounds almost curious.

  “If you’d been diagnosed with something serious and suddenly I open doors for you, lay blankets across your lap, prop pillows behind you, how would that make you feel?”

  “Like a prince.”

  “Oh for shit’s sake, you know what I’m saying. It’s infantilizing. At work, visitors treat all old people like they’re demented.”

  “I want to make things easy for you.”

  She takes in his earnest expression. And for a moment looks past him into the darkness outside the window. “What does that even mean? You can’t alter the situation.”

  He slips an arm around her shoulders. “You don’t know how to accept help, do you?”

  It’s true. Self-sufficiency was her father’s credo. He would cite the grocery store sign: God helps those who help themselves. All others pay cash. Is it that her father didn’t trust anyone, or that he believed help wasn’t available? “If I could I would.”

  He squeezes her shoulder, then tops off his wine glass. “Yes, you would, I know it,” he says somberly.

  “The night you said ‘Dory, help me?’ I was awake. I heard you. I understood you meant you didn’t know what to do for me. I get that you love me. At times I get that better than you do.”

  “Baby, you astonish me … you’re right, I love you. I can’t imagine life without you, that’s exactly what I wanted to tell you. Thing is, I can’t communicate that way. It’s too soapy and … I don’t know … it’s weird but when I do say stuff like that it leaves me feeling empty, like I’ve given something away.” He gazes at her. “So what happens now? Am I supposed to ignore the situation?”

  “Just be yourself, the guy I love, inconsiderate soul that you are.” She takes him in the way she used to long ago, the eyes that tell no tales except she can read them; the face, a little thicker now but still handsome; the lines sharp, the generous lips. Her man.

  “Yup, that makes it easy. Drink up,” he says.

  “Your answer to everything.”

  “It does help.”

  “I hope Casey’s all right. I’ve been concerned about him. He’s too quiet for his age. Of course, still waters …”

  “I’m quiet. What about my still waters?”

  “You don’t have them.”

  “Is that bad? What does it mean anyway?”

  “Everything deep kept below the surface.”

  “Oh, definitely, that’s me, Dory. What’s the matter with you?”

  His words hit them both.

  “Good, Stu, it’s what I want, just be your inconsiderate self. It really is helpful, I swear.”

  He says nothing, but offers her his loopy smile.

  “Stu, would you be happier now if we had had a child?”

  “A strange question.”

  “I know.”

  “Would you?”

  “Not at the moment. But during our first ten years together, the thought arrived quite often.”

  “You didn’t talk much about it.”

  “Neither did you,” she says.

  “It just didn’t happen, so I accepted the fact.”

  “We could’ve adopted.”

  “Where are you going with this, Dory? I mean, talk about water under …”

  “I have no idea. Lately, thoughts arrive in my head and insist on being spoken. I’m beginning to feel like a puppet through which someone other than me is talking. Okay, that sounds crazy and I’m not. Please remember that.”

  “Dory, you are the least crazy person in the universe.”

  She decides not to share her recent unbidden conversations with relative strangers, in which she reveals her illness without being asked and without caring about their responses. It seems to be a way to hear the diagnosis out loud, maybe to own it.

  “Has this been happening at work, too?” he asks, unusually concerned. Another surprise. For months, he’s been indifferent. Now his fear is changing him, but he won’t say so and neither will she.

  “Yes, there, too. Work …” she begins, sounding so wistful she finds it unnerving. “I’m not going to be able to be a caretaker much longer. Losing my balance, hearing, whatever, it puts my charges in jeopardy.” She makes a mental note. Must alert Mr. Todd about leaving. His mind is as sharp as a steak knife. He needs to be given details. “Maybe something good can come of it, though. I’m asking the board if Lena can take my place. I’ll teach her everything. I hope they’ll agree. You realize leaving the job will be the end of two salaries.”

  “Dory, you are not to worry about money.”

  “I’m not.” Some earthly things she’s already letting go of. “I’ll clean up the dinner stuff.”

  “No, you go to bed. I’ll do it.”

  “See you’re at it again.”

  “So fuck me,” he says jovially.

  “Maybe I will. I’ll be in bed,” she gives him her glass and passes her hand seductively across his lap.

  Dory leaving work, that’s big. He wasn’t expecting it so soon. But he can sense her downward spiral. How carefully she steps out of her clothing, the new pill bottles in the bathroom. Her twists and turns in bed. Her fitfulness reaches into his sleep and wakes him. If Lena gets the job, she’ll be out of here shortly. That will be for the best. How could he have considered for even a second telling Dory about Lena and him? What was he thinking? He wasn’t. It was the wine and the guilt, plain and simple. Thank the gods, who have rarely been good to him, that he sobered up. Most nights, though, sober is the last thing he wants to be, because, sober, his thoughts are all about losing Dory. Whatever in him has shifted, and something has, it’s left him with a growing need for closeness, weird considering how recently that felt like suffocation. Even after they make love now he wants to stay inside her, suck her life into his. It’s ghoulish and scary.

  He pours the rest of the wine into the glass. Well, he’s done something nice for her. He called a travel agency, and Jane or someone was eager to be of help. What the hell was her name, can’t remember now. What did he do with the brochures? Doesn’t matter. Jane or someone was ever so happy to plan ten days in Italy, starting with Rome. Only the dates remain open. At the plant the human resource assholes are making him wait for approval. They act like they’re doing him a favor, when he hasn’t taken vacation in more than two years. Not that anyone ever notified him of that.

  He can hear the TV in the bedroom, the volume louder now than in the past, which he doesn’t believe Dory realizes. Whatever she’s watching, he’ll watch, too. Then again, he’s pretty sure they’re not going to be interested in what’s on.

  51.

  “Zack, this isn’t our car, and if anything happens …” Her eyes flit to the speedometer, passing
seventy.

  “Lena, I know how to drive.”

  “You’re going too fast. It’s dark out. I can’t see a thing, Casey or his bike. Zack, do you hear what I’m saying?” He stares ahead. It’s pissing her off.

  “Mom, chill. Dory will call us if Casey gets home, which he might.”

  “I’m scared,” she says suddenly. “Casey isn’t you, Rosie, he’s a homebody unless he’s in trouble. Why doesn’t anyone share my fear?”

  “Because you never let in any light,” Rosie shoots back.

  “What does that mean?”

  “You go straight for the worst outcome. Why?” Her daughter sounds almost curious.

  “I don’t know.” But of course she does. Growing up in a home where there’s not one extra dollar, where a cold without health care becomes pneumonia, a faucet leak becomes a flood, a late-night phone call is never a wrong number, and an absent child spells disaster. But she won’t say any of it. They’ve tried, she and Zack both, to keep the bleakness of their pasts away from the children. Zack’s been better at it than she has, hopeful against all odds. She glances at him, his eyes on the road, mouth clamped shut.

  He takes the ramp onto the expressway and joins a caravan of trucks rumbling through the Bronx night. The shadow of a semi dwarfs them before moving past. Then it hits her. “You’re driving to our old house?”

  “Lena, I’m almost certain Casey is near that house.” Zack speaks cautiously.

  “So he’s sitting outside a dark house on a dark road, waiting for us? Are you both having the same delusion?”

  “I think he’s camped out, maybe on the back deck,” Zack says quietly.

  You think, she wants to shout, but Rosie’s presence inhibits her. “When did you and dad decide on this plan?”

  “You were gabbing with Dory when Dad and I went ahead to the garage. It made sense that Casey would go to the house.”

  Nothing makes sense to her. She stares past her anger at the darkening sky, no longer sure what she’s looking for.

  The car turns onto the familiar road with its bus stop. The glow from the single street lamp dimming as they move past it. Salmon-colored light escapes from partially shuttered blinds in the occupied houses.

  As they exit the car, she looks around quickly. No Casey, no bike. “There’s no sign of him,” she says. Her disappointment though is greater than she’ll admit. Somewhere in the last half hour she’d begun to believe Zack knew what he was doing.

  She can just make out the defaced façade. Otherwise the house looks remarkably the same. She’s worked so hard to put the place out of her mind. Being here feels almost unlawful.

  Stepping closer, she thinks she sees … no, she’s being drawn into their delusion. “Oh my god!”

  “What is it?” Zack asks.

  “The door’s ajar,” she whispers. “It’s been broken into. Someone’s inside, maybe a homeless person.” But she knows. Of course it’s Casey. She knows that instantly. He’s jimmied the door open, trespassed, maybe even defaced the walls inside. Casey, who Arthur warned her would not get a break the second time around.

  In silence they enter into the darkness of the vestibule. It takes just a few seconds to make out Casey hunched against the living room wall, beside him the bike, down flat like a sick animal.

  “Casey, where’s your flashlight?” Rosie asks.

  He produces it from a bag attached to the bike handle. Rosie uses it to open a circle of amber light. It catches Casey’s alarmed face.

  Lena drops down beside him, folds his hand between hers. “Honey, are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” his voice a purr in the dark.

  “Did you fall off the bike? Is it broken? Is that why it’s lying beside you?”

  “Mom, stop. Give him a chance to say something.”

  “I’m not hurt,” he says quietly.

  “When did you come here?” Zack asks.

  “This morning. It was light. I could see everything inside. No one saw me.”

  “How do you know?” Rosie asks, sounding intrigued.

  “Was the door unlocked when you got here?” She sends up a quick prayer, make him say yes.

  He looks at her, blinking unnaturally, “No.”

  “How did you get in?” Zack asks.

  Who cares, she thinks, it’s how to get him out without anyone seeing them that matters now. “Probably a homeless person came in last week to sleep, left the door open … who’s to say?” she implores.

  “Mom, he just said the door was locked. Are you losing it?”

  “Don’t you see,” she hisses. “This is breaking and entering. It isn’t our property. He could go to jail. We have to get out of here now, close the door, leave. No headlights until the car is free of the road.” She takes a deep breath and stands up, ready to pull Casey upright.

  “Mom, you’re scaring him, that’s number one …”

  “I intend to.”

  “And, two, he didn’t deface anything. He just sat here. Big deal.”

  “Zack, help me out.”

  “Rosie’s not all wrong. We could always say the door was open and then it’s just a squatter thing.”

  “A squatter thing!”

  Casey, who hasn’t said a word, looks up at her. In his flashlight-yellow face she sees her little boy, the toddler who took in each of her words as gospel and made her feel all-knowing; her son who’s sat here for hours, alone and miserable. Was that the only way he knew to reach her? Oh, lord. And waits for the grief to find her. “What is it, honey? I’m here. I’m listening.”

  “Mom. I’m not leaving.” His voice is soft, low, pleading.

  “This isn’t our house, Casey, not anymore.” Her tone is equally soft. Oh, Jesus, can a young boy have a breakdown? Is that what’s happening? She’s always thought of him as so grounded, even if he does spend hours on that machine. She takes another deep breath. “Honey, give me your hand, please, let’s go. Let’s call it a night. Please. You haven’t eaten. You need light, nourishment, a shower. We can talk about this later. Please give me your hand.” She leans over, tries to dislodge his hand from his lap, but he resists.

  “Mom,” Casey says softly. “We all have to move back here. It’s our only chance to be the way we were before.”

  The depth of sadness in his voice cracks her heart. “Why do you say that, Casey?”

  “We’re not the only family that’s lost a home. I saw hundreds of others online and hardly any of them stay together. It’s our only chance.”

  Her legs threaten to fold beneath her. She slides down the wall next to him and now he allows her to take his hand.

  “Mom, this is our house. They stole it from us,” Rosie says evenly. “We paid that mortgage for years, we fixed it up, we lived here. Casey’s right. We need to take back what’s ours. It’s the only way to go on together.”

  Her head is a swirl of thoughts and she can’t seem to grab onto any of them. In Zack’s half-shadowed face, confusion. He wants to agree with the children, but not oppose her. His confusion, she’s surprised to note, touches her.

  “Dory’s sick. How long do you think we can stay there? How long, mom?” Rosie shines the flashlight in her face.

  She can’t see her daughter’s expression but knows it’s as fierce as her voice. “Not long,” she murmurs, sensing defeat and sensing as well that if they don’t move back in, her children will blame her forever. And, maybe they’ll be right. “Okay,” she says, “we’ll try it. But if they throw us out again, we agree right now to move back to Dory’s until I can find a cheap rental. That means both of you, understood?”

  “Got it,” her daughter says. “Tomorrow we can begin to pack up clothes and whatever. Come on, Casey, we’ll put the bike in the car.”

  “Be quiet about it,” she warns, knowing that it doesn’t matter any more, knowing as well that the move back will be an act of futility.

  It’s after midnight when they pull into the garage. Casey and Rosie go downstairs. She and Zack tiptoe to the bedr
oom. “We shouldn’t do it,” she whispers, as soon as the door closes.

  “What? Go back on our word?” He shakes his head in disbelief and begins undressing. Then adds, “You’ve said over and over that we need to keep the family together. That’s where Casey heard it, not online, and he decided the only place to make that happen was the house. Now we have a chance to do that and you won’t take it.” His tone, more than despairing, shames her.

  “Okay,” she says softly, “we’ll do it,” and waits for a word from him. But he climbs into bed and turns away from her.

  With sleep a distant promise, she tiptoes out of the room. A nightlight in the kitchen casts lengthy shadows. To her surprise, Dory sits at the table with an empty water glass and a bottle of pills. Her lips are pursed as if she’d sucked on a lemon, which looks almost comic.

  “What’s wrong?” She asks.

  “Just swallowed pills for the nausea. Thought I took them before bed but obviously I hadn’t. I heard you all come in.”

  “Casey broke into our old house and didn’t want to leave.”

  “So that’s where he was.”

  “He said if we didn’t move back in the family would split apart, that we had to do it. He sounded desperate. He sat there all day, alone. What a horror. And he did it to send me a message. Am I so hard to reach? Don’t answer that. So we all now go squat for a brief time before the sheriff or whoever kicks us out again. What a waste.” Her eyes flit to the wall calendar, still in December of the previous year, as if everything had stopped there. “Zack promised to be more responsible. How responsible is it to bring a family into a squat only to be evicted again, how fucking responsible is that?”

  “Maybe Stu can talk to him.”

  “It’s too late. He’s a dreamer who expects miracles.”

  The refrigerator motor clicks on with a gentle hum in the otherwise silent house. Outside, too, a stillness, so unlike where they grew up: the police sirens, fire engines, car mufflers, and thin walls through which babies cried, parents fought, women screamed, men accused. She’ll have to return to all of that, because where else to find a cheap rental? “In the projects,” she says, “all the nights of noise. Do you remember?”