by Amity Gaige
He came up close to her ear. He drew one finger across the steam on the mirror, writing her name. She could feel the reddish burrs of his evening stubble, and she trembled. She trembled having him so close to it—her good side. She turned her head away. It was nothing. But if it was nothing, why did she turn her head away?
“Actually, I had an interesting day,” she said, forcing a laugh.
“You did? Tell me about it.”
“You sure you want to hear about it? I’d like to tell you.”
“Sure I do. Yeah, tell me.” She could see him through the letters in the steam, blue eyes open and waiting. She smiled back, relieved that she could tell him anything and that he was himself. “Wait,” he said. He wrote with his finger, Charlie loves above the Alice. Then he seemed to change his mind and drew a heart instead, until the mirror was rather jumbled, the letters dripping. Through these spaces, she saw his expression change, become distracted, afflicted, as if the problem of drawing a heart on a mirror had become merely the first clue of a larger, more complex problem. She recognized the expression, familiar to her now this past year: he was elsewhere. He was with her, but he was not.
“I had a pretty damned interesting day myself,” he muttered.
Sighing, he pulled back, and sat on the toilet seat.
“Alice, listen.” He took both of her hands in his.
“Uh-oh,” she said. “A two-hander, huh? What is it?”
“I know we were supposed to go to the lake Saturday, for the Valentine’s picnic, but I can’t. A client is getting released from the hospital and if I don’t go, nobody will be there with her. She can’t—come home by herself.”
“So it’s a work day? Can you take off for it during the week?”
“Not exactly. I’d go more in the capacity of a friend.” He bent his head. “I know what you must be thinking.”
“No, you don’t.” Alice pried her hands free. “You can’t possibly know what I’m thinking if I don’t know myself.”
“Dinner!” Marlene called, down the hall.
“Which client is it?”
“Opal.”
“Why didn’t you say her name? Why did you call her ‘a client’?”
Charlie stared up at her, blinking.
Alice shook her head. “It’s a Saturday, Charlie. One of your two days off. In fact, this whole week you got home late. Marlene asked me why. We hardly saw you.”
“One or two nights.”
“All week. Please don’t pretend I’m exaggerating. That’s the worst part.”
He looked down at the bath mat. “OK. I hear you. I don’t want to seem like I’m going back on my word. I won’t do it, then. You know,” he laughed, “I don’t even want to do some of the things I do. Since what happened, I have a hard time, I don’t know—judging.”
“Dinner, I said!”
Alice slumped back against the bathroom wall and looked at herself in the mirror.
“Oh, Charlie. I don’t know. I can’t make these decisions for you. I don’t even understand the situation. What if something terrible happened again?” She touched her hand to her temple.
“Do you have a headache, Alice baby?” he said, reaching up.
“Don’t,” she said, pushing his hand away, “—touch.”
Marlene’s voice boomed through the bathroom door. “I said dinner, godddammit!”
When they entered the room, like two kids in trouble, they saw that the table was set with candles.
“Voila.” Marlene pulled out the chairs for each of them. “I wanted our last dinner to be special. Inez Bussard’s famous Portuguese fish stew.”
Marlene lifted her chin, tightly, proudly, secretly wanting recognition for saying the name of her own beautiful, cowardly mother aloud. She wanted recognition for also having a mother. She sat down and smoothed her skirt, her dark hair hovering brushed and shiny on her shoulders. “Eat. Eat while it’s hot.”
Charlie and Alice looked down into their bowls.
“Smells delicious,” said Charlie.
“It simmered for four bloody hours,” said Marlene. “But it’s the least I can do. You two have been very kind to me. I’ve enjoyed my time with my grandchildren. I’ve taken twelve rolls of film. If I stayed any longer, they’d go blind.”
“Well, we’ve enjoyed it too. You’ve been—” Charlie gestured with his spoon, “a real lifesaver. Because of you, we both feel like normal human beings again. Isn’t that right, Alice? We’re indebted to you, Marlene.”
Marlene waved her hand, about to demure, when Alice looked up.
“I think you should stay.”
“What?” Charlie said.
“I think Mother should stay,” said Alice. “Just another week. Saturday, Charlie—Your client—Mother can go with me to the lake instead. I don’t want to go alone.”
Charlie smiled expansively, shaking his head. “But I’m not doing anything Saturday, Alice. I changed my mind. I said I’m going with you to the lake.”
“Don’t. Please. I mean it. It’s too shabby in comparison, the lake. Besides, we would only worry.” She turned to her mother. “Would you like to stay another week? It would be nice to have your company. I’m asking you.”
Alice bent down to her soup. They both watched her as she sipped from her spoon.
“Well,” said Marlene. “Of course. Of course I will. If you both agree.”
“I don’t know what to say,” said Charlie, trying to smile. “It’s up to Alice. I guess I don’t really have any reason why not. Sure. Why not? Stay then.”
“All right, then,” said Marlene. “I’ll call Denise after dinner.”
Alice finished her soup. She stood, dabbed her mouth with a napkin. She leaned down toward Charlie, and then paused, as if she did not know quite where to place her kiss. She placed it—somewhat generically, he thought—on the top of his head.
“I’m so sleepy today,” she said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I want to fall asleep for days or weeks or years like in a fairytale. I’ll feed the girls and then go to bed.”
“Don’t wake them now,” said Marlene. “It’s too early. I’ll do it later.”
“All right.” Alice went to her mother and hugged her shoulders, as if she had chosen, publicly, a favorite. “Good night.”
She disappeared down the hall to the bathroom. They could hear the faucet. A toothbrush tapped against the sink.
Marlene turned back to the table. She wanted to be sure what happened had actually happened. She wanted some form of corroboration. She was radiant with daughter-love. She’d been asked to stay! But Charlie was bent over his soup, shoveling it into his mouth distractedly.
“So,” Marlene said. “Alone at last.”
Charlie looked up and smiled.
“Fantastic soup,” he said. “Is there cinnamon in here, too?”
“Saffron.”
Marlene pushed the breadbasket at him. He took another two rolls. As he ate, she studied him. She settled back in her chair. She would stay another week. She suddenly felt very confident and very much like talking.
“So,” she said, placing her spoon beside her bowl. “Charlie. Tell me. Are you still thinking of a private practice? One of these days? I’m just curious. I know it was a plan of yours. To have a practice. Regular hours. More money—”
Charlie looked up, over Marlene’s head, and ripped at his roll with his teeth.
“I really don’t know,” he said.
“You don’t know what?”
“I don’t know how—vital that sort of situation feels to me right now.”
“What do you mean? I thought this job was a kind of training. Temporary.” Marlene bit her cheek. “Besides, it’s very vital. There are many people—I have many friends who go to social workers like yourself for family counseling. I think it’s quite vital. I think you could be quite helpful—instrumental—to regular people. Once or twice I myself have considered going to a counselor.”
“You should,” said Charlie.
&nb
sp; Marlene winced, gripping her spoon.
“There are several thousand of them in this state alone,” Charlie said.
“Good ones? Skilled ones like you would be, or mediocre ones?”
“All kinds. Red ones, blue ones. In a box. With a fox.”
Marlene did not laugh. “I think it’s silly to dismiss such work.”
“I don’t dismiss it. I may well want a practice one day. It’s just that I like what I’m doing now. Nobody wants to do what I do. What I do is out in the middle of it. It’s vital.”
“It’s trench work.”
“Listen, Marlene,” said Charlie. “You may not know it, but you are talking right at the root of the problem. An attitude like yours is the same one that forces the mentally ill into unsafe places. So they don’t upset us.” The faucet was turned off in the bathroom, and Charlie lowered his voice. “It’s all right to be a little bit crazy, to see counselors, but once you cross the line, forget it. We disown you. We don’t recognize you. You’re not on the human continuum.”
“That’s not how I feel.”
“That’s not how you feel consciously. Unconsciously maybe we hope that they’ll all just off themselves and solve the problem. If they would only kill themselves already. Then the rest of us could all have a good old-fashioned cry without being scared of seeing ourselves in Them. Right? And if all the weirdos die off, then one sunny day we will have succeeded in creating a completely comprehensive, unchallenged mainstream.”
“I don’t see it that way.”
“Of course you don’t. Because you don’t really understand what I do,” he said. “Compassion for strangers takes a certain amount of imagination. Maybe you don’t have the imagination.”
Marlene’s mouth fell open. Just then, Alice walked out of the bathroom, crossed the room and fell onto the bed.
“You guys keep on talking,” she said drowsily. “It won’t bother me at all.”
The two at the table said nothing.
After a little while, inert on the bed, Alice began to snore lightly.
“The word I meant was understanding,” said Charlie. “I meant that you just don’t know enough about mental illness. I’d be happy to explain—”
“No,” said Marlene. “I wish I hadn’t brought it up. I’ve overstepped my bounds. I see that.”
“I mean, you haven’t wondered what it would be like to be desperate.” And there in the candlelight, her face rose up. Opal’s shaking red bottled-up face. What was inside that mind? God, he could hardly stand it, sitting there in this stupid filmy candlelight, eating saffron. It was so idle, it was cruel.
“Well.” Marlene stood, her bowl in her hands. “I think I understand. Thank you for explaining it to me.”
Charlie looked up at her helplessly. “We separate, too much, caring for those we know and despising everyone else. Some of the most evil people in the world love their families.”
“And what about caring for everyone else except your family?”
“I love my family,” Charlie said, at almost a whisper. “I can’t believe you’d suggest—”
“More than anything? More than everything put together?”
“Everything already is put together.” Charlie looked over at Alice sleeping. “Besides, she wouldn’t love me if I were different. If I were different, if I didn’t care, she wouldn’t love me.”
“Oh, Charlie. You’re so young.” Marlene snatched the bowl from in front of him. “You’re so young. And let me tell you, this is an old world.”
Turning, she took the dirty dishes into the kitchen.
The lake was known in local lore for being home to a rarely glimpsed magnificent fish, but it was difficult to imagine how any sort of fish would exist in such a lake, least of all a magnificent one. Algae throttled the banks. Yellow swans paddled between floating car tires; a small gang of children was throwing bread at them. The Valentine’s Day party organizer was teaching a second group of children and adults how to make paper boats, and another was leading a game of Red Rover. Above them, on the hill, Alice could see her mother, Evelyn lodged between her knees. The child was squinting out into the sun from under her pompom hat. Alice walked farther on.
“Awful,” she said. “Do you see that, Frances? That is called littering.”
The child blinked down at the offending beer can. Her hair was lit lemon yellow in the sunlight. She grabbed her mother’s necklace and played with it thoughtfully.
“People. People are so fucking thoughtless, sometimes. I have half a mind to—”
To what? The child looked up at her mother’s lips, her blue eyes like those of a student respectfully attempting to concentrate. Fucking? Alice bit her lip. She would have to let it go, she thought. You couldn’t crash around angry all the time. Children would drink your poison right up. It was unimaginable to Alice that she might become a bitter woman. Was she not herself the cowed result of such parentage?
But they had planned this for weeks, she thought. It had been his idea. Besides, it was embarrassing, to show up at a Valentine’s Day party with one’s mother when everyone else was in the traditional homo- and heterosexual pairings. Worst of all was that she was not so much angry, but disappointed. He would have made this fun. He would have made her laugh. He would have done something subversive with his paper boat. He would have fomented a game of chase. Out on the lake, several planks of dirty ice were in slow transit across the surface.
“Sorry baby,” Alice whispered, kissing the child. “Mommy didn’t mean to swear.”
“Aaaaaliiiice,” called her mother in the distance.
She turned. Her mother and Evelyn were still up on the hill, on the fringes of the picnic, smaller now. Her mother’s voice echoed: “Don’t go too far, Alice!”
Alice waved and turned back to the lake. Two kids on dirt bikes came rattling around the corner. Frances laughed, watching them come and go.
“You like to see people enjoying themselves, don’t you?”
The child once again studied her mother’s face. Alice sought comfort in its blank receptivity. She swore to herself that she would not base all her life’s philosophies on first-hand experience alone, which would only offer her daughters a postage stamp–sized view of the world. She swore that she would not have a Gloucester-sized mind. She would let small grievances go. Besides, Valentine’s Day always put her in a foul mood. In fact, didn’t everyone sort of hate it?
“Aaaaaliiiiiice.”
“I’m right here, Mother!” she cried, over her shoulder. And then, for spite, she moved further away, down the lakeside path. Turning a bend, she found herself in a small copse of straight, bare birch trees, lit brilliant white by the sun. The birches reached heavenward, delicate monuments.
“Look,” she whispered to the child. “That’s beauty, darling. That’s what you should look for. Wherever you go.”
“Alice!”
She turned on her heel. “Chrissakes. What is it, Mother?”
“Oh my God!”
“Mother?” Alice lurched forward. “What’s wrong?”
“Come quick! My God come here Alice!”
Alarmed, Alice stumbled back across the frozen ground. She came out of the copse and turned the bend, emerging now into the sunlight. Her mother, on the hill, was standing with her hands covering her mouth.
Beside her stood Evelyn.
“Look! Look she’s—”
It was amazing. The child, in her bundled stoutness, upright! One tiny hand fluttered atop the picnic basket, then, moth-like, flew free. She stood intently, faced fixed at the distance, a young woman studying the sea. She lifted a tiny sneaker.
Alice began to run. In her arms, Franny’s head bobbled.
“My God,” said Alice, laughing. “Oh my God!”
Up the hill they went, past the bread-throwing children and the boat-making children, toward the bundled figure, the upright wobbling standing infant, who had just now placed one sneaker forward on the grass. When the child could make out her m
other’s face, she smiled gummily. The knee of her standing leg collapsed, and a wave of awareness crossed her features. She grasped for something solid in the sky, but instead fell back heavily on the blanket.
“Why Evelyn Shade,” said Alice, falling to her knees. “Look what you did.”
“Did you see that?” cried Marlene. “Did you see her stand all by herself? Unprecedented. I didn’t do a thing. She just—got up. What a moment! What a fucking Kodak moment.” Marlene dove into her purse. “Where’s my camera? Where’s my goddamned camera?”
Alice was not listening. She was stroking the child’s cheek, crying. She pressed her thumbs to her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” said Marlene, one hand in her purse. “What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”
Alice spoke to the child, who was now tugging on a handful of brittle grass.
“We’ll have to tell Daddy,” she whispered. “We’ll have to describe it to Daddy. Won’t we?”
“So.” Charlie folded his hands around his Styrofoam cup. “Here we are.”
The donut shop was a cube of sunlight. Charlie looked around, then cracked his neck. A group of day laborers entered the donut shop. They looked up at the menu board with dirty, serious faces.
“Isn’t the smell of baking nice?” he said. “I like the smell in here.”
Opal continued to stare down at her lap.
“On Sundays, in Mattoon, my mother would let us go down to what we called the Sip and Dip. Me and my brother Mark would get a whole dozen donuts. Then we’d eat them all in bed together.” Charlie rubbed his nose. “I guess that sounds a little weird, to eat donuts in a bed together with your mom and dad.”
Opal smiled a little.
“Isn’t that weird?” said Charlie, heartened. “To eat donuts in bed?”
Opal’s fingers writhed in her lap. She wasn’t really smiling about that. She wasn’t hardly listening, and when she did she didn’t think it was all that queer. She thought it was nice. But she wasn’t thinking about donuts or families or the smell of donuts. Her hands were clutching one another, secret enemies. For what she was thinking now was I have been doing this for six years Six years now Six It doesn’t get It doesn’t get better. Bread and butter bread and butter. The sunlight was coming in from all angles. The sunlight had her in its kiln. She squinted. Kiss and kill. Show and kill. Why so bright? What in god’s name did the sun have to be so bright about? Light Brite. Here, Mrs. Miller, this is my Light Brite. Well why don’t you plug it in Opal and show the class now wouldn’t we like that class?
