The Wally Lamb Fiction Collection: The Hour I First Believed, I Know This Much is True, We Are Water, and Wishin' and Hopin'

by Lamb, Wally

  Unpacking the groceries, I hold up the bottle of ginger ale I’ve bought her. “Picked this up, too. It’s supposed to be good for upset stomachs.” She nods. Says she had some on the plane yesterday and it helped. “Well, let me get your breakfast started. I think I’ll make myself some scrambled eggs. You want some? With some toast, maybe?”

  She shakes her head, says she’s still pretty squeamish. “My doctor says not to worry, though—that my body gives the fetus what it needs first. Pregnancy’s sort of amazing that way, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, it is. Nothing more amazing than the human body.” I take out a saucepan, scan the directions on the Cream of Wheat box. “You look rested, hon. Did you sleep okay last night?”

  She nods. “My head hit the pillow and I didn’t wake up until twenty minutes ago, not even to pee. That mattress is so comfortable, I probably could have stayed in bed all day.”

  “Pretty good accommodations here at Chez Viveca, eh?”

  “I’ll say. I didn’t really notice so much last night, but when I walked around this morning, I was like oh, my god. This place is beautiful.”

  “The best that money can buy. How do you like the artwork?”

  “It’s incredible. Before you got back, I was looking at those floral photographs over the fireplace. They’re signed Mapplethorpes. I can’t imagine what those must have cost. What kind of flowers are they? Orchids?”

  “The one on the left is. I’m not sure about the other one. Jack-in-the-pulpit maybe. Or jonquils. Your mom’s the expert in that department.”

  She nods. Says that, other than Mapplethorpe, she doesn’t recognize any of the artists’ names.

  “Me neither. That’s her specialty, I guess: painters and sculptors who were untrained, out there on the periphery. She collects them and promotes them like crazy. Drives up the value of their work.”

  “Like she did with Mama,” Ariane notes.

  “Exactly.”

  She gets off the stool and walks over to the table in the living room. Smiles at the sculpture sitting on top of it. Political satire in papier-mâché, I guess you’d call it. Three two-foot-high figures, their heads and bodies transposed. Bin Laden’s wearing a white late-Elvis jumpsuit. Kim Jong-il’s suited up in an NBA uniform. Ahmadinejad’s a cross-dresser in a Madonna getup, complete with conical bra. “This is funny,” she says.

  “Yeah, isn’t it? Especially in light of what Ahmadinejad said in his speech at Columbia. You hear about that?” She shakes her head. “Apparently, there’s no such thing as homosexuality in Iran. Maybe that’s why your mother and Viveca have decided not to honeymoon there.”

  The smile drops off her face, Annie’s late-in-life lesbianism having just entered the room with us, thanks to me. “Yeah, right,” she says.

  To rescue the mood, I tell her that one of the late night hosts—Jimmy Kimmel, I think it was—referred to Ahmadinejad as Scruffy McWindbreaker. It restores her smile. “Late night TV, Daddy?” she says. “That doesn’t sound like you. You were always such an early bird.”

  “Well, when you’re an old retired geezer who doesn’t have to get up and go to work anymore, you can be the master of your own schedule.”

  She tells me I’m not a geezer. Asks if it feels weird not to work.

  “It did at first. But I’ve kind of been getting my bearings since I’ve been up here. Going to bed when I want, running, reading. And thinking about things I never had much time to think about before.”

  “Like what?”

  “Family stuff for one thing—my paternal side. I know a lot about my Italian relatives, but almost nothing about the Ohs. Mainly because my father didn’t want to have anything to do with me.” She nods, but I wish I hadn’t put it that way. Does that furrowed brow mean she’s comparing my situation to the one her child will have? “So since I’ve been up here, I’ve been getting kind of curious about that. The only Chinese relative of mine I ever met was my grandfather. My father’s father.”

  “Didn’t he own a restaurant?”

  “Uh-huh. A dim sum place in Boston. I used to eat there sometimes when I was in college.” There’s a question on Ari’s face and I’m pretty sure I know what it is. If I had a connection to my grandfather, why had I had none with his son? But I don’t want to go into all that with her: my mother’s withholding information until the end of her life, the contempt I’d felt for the father who had wanted nothing to do with me. So I shift the conversation a little because I don’t want my daughter to pick up on my pain, my vulnerability. “So yeah, I’ve been looking into the ancestry thing a little, poking around on those genealogy Web sites. It’s a new thing for me, this curiosity about my Chinese heritage. To tell you the truth, I never gave it much thought before now.” Which is not the truth. It’s a bald-faced, knee-jerk lie. “I’ve found a cousin I never knew I had. Ellen Wong. She lives out in Cincinnati. Her grandfather and mine were brothers, the only two who emigrated from the old country. She and I have been communicating, swapping information. So that’s been kind of cool.”

  Ari says she wishes she had gotten to know her grandparents.

  “Yeah, the only one who was still alive when you were born was my mother, but you were too young to remember her. You would have liked her, too. In fact, you resemble her a little. It struck me yesterday at the airport. Of the three of you, you’re my little paisana.”

  She smiles. “Your little meatball, you mean.”

  “Hey, your Cream of Wheat’s just about ready over here. You want me to put a little milk in it? Sprinkle some sugar on top?”

  “Okay.”

  “And the magic word is . . .”

  “Pleeease.” She says it like she’s six years old again, and I stand there at the stove, smiling, thinking about the breakfasts I used to make the kids on those Sunday mornings when Annie went off to church—pancakes with surprises inside. Coins I’d wrap in foil and stick in the batter, like my Nonna Valerio used to do when I was a kid.

  “So what do you want to do today, kiddo? Hang out around here? Go down to the beach and ride the waves like we used to?”

  She clutches her belly. “No waves, thank you. But a walk on the beach sounds nice. Can we go to Long Nook?”

  “Sure. Or over to the bayside beach if you’re still into shell collecting. That’s closer. But I like Long Nook better. I’ve been running there mornings. Between six and seven o’clock when I can get my lazy ass out of bed. I like it when I have the whole beach to myself. Looks different than it did when you were kids.”

  “Different how?” she asks.

  “There’s more ocean and less beach. Erosion, I guess. They’ve got ‘no climbing’ signs posted every hundred yards or so at the base of the dunes. And now, on top of that, there’s all these posted warnings about the great whites they’ve been spotting lately. Which is unusual, I guess.”

  “What’s that about, Daddy? Global warming?”

  “No, not directly. Tracy says it’s about the seals.”

  “She said she’s a marine biologist?”

  “Uh-huh. Apparently there’s been a population explosion among the seals, and the eating’s too good for the sharks to pass up. So they’re sticking around later than they usually do, cruising closer to the shore.”

  “Have you seen any?”

  “No, but I’ve seen a couple of seal carcasses along the beach, which I imagine is their doing. Pisses the gulls off when I run by them. Disturb them while they’re picking over the leftovers. Couple of days ago, this one gull started dive-bombing me, squawking like he was giving me hell.”

  She smiles. “So that’s why Tracy’s up here? Because of the sharks?”

  “Yup. She’s part of a team that’s hoping to track them. Embedding homing devices in them when they spot them so they can study their migration patterns once they start heading down to warmer waters.”

  “By the way, I like Tracy, Daddy. I hope she wasn’t too uncomfortable when I got sick at that restaurant we stopped at and just blurted it out ab
out being pregnant.”

  “No, no. She understood.”

  “Cooking smells make me nauseous lately—fried food, especially. It was so nice of her to help me out in the ladies’ room like that after we’d known each other for what? An hour? It was kind of weird that I told her I was pregnant before I even told you.”

  “Doesn’t matter. She just felt bad because it was her idea to stop and get something to eat.”

  “Tell me about her,” she says.

  “About Tracy? What do you want to know?”

  “Well . . . she said she teaches at U.R.I., right?”

  “Uh-huh. Associate professor in biology. Sharks are her specialty. She did her doctoral thesis on them.”

  “And how did you guys meet?”

  I laugh. “At the sushi counter, actually. I was up in P’town doing my grocery shopping. We exchanged a few pleasantries while we were looking over the seaweed salads and spicy tuna rolls. Then I got behind her in the checkout line and we started talking some more. I kept glancing down at the ID badge she was wearing, trying to remember where I’d heard her name before. Then when we were both out in the parking lot, it dawned on me. I’d been listening to her on the radio when I was driving up here a few weeks back. She was being interviewed about the sharks. Holding her own with this doofus deejay. Which I congratulated her for.”

  “And since then?” she asks. She’s fishing, I realize, but I’m going to make her work for it.

  “Since then what?”

  “Are you and she . . . ?”

  “Are we what?”

  “Dating?”

  “Dating? Yeah, I took her to a sock hop down in Hyannis. We went to the malt shop afterward. Shared an ice cream soda with two straws. That woman can wear a poodle skirt like nobody’s business.”

  “Come on, Daddy.”

  “Where we going?” She rolls her eyes the way she used to at her dad’s corny jokes. “We’re just friends, honey. We went out to dinner a couple of times. That’s all.” Three times, actually. And out for breakfast the morning after she came back here and spent the night. But I’m not about to go into that with Ariane. She’d probably pick up the phone and tell her sister, and then I’d really get the third degree. Marissa’s been hounding me about getting a girlfriend since before the ink was dry on her mother’s and my divorce decree.

  “Would you like to be more than just friends?”

  I shrug. Remind her that Tracy and I are both up here temporarily.

  “Daddy, you live in Connecticut and she’s in Rhode Island. That’s not exactly insurmountable. Is she already in a relationship?”

  “Nope. Divorced, no kids.”

  “She’s Asian, isn’t she?”

  “Half. Hawaiian on her mother’s side.”

  She gives me a mischievous smile. “She likes you, Daddy.”

  “Does she? What makes you say that?”

  “I could tell from the way she was looking at you on the ride back here, and at that place where we stopped to eat. Not to mention that she went with you to the airport in the first place.”

  “Well, Detective Oh, it just so happens that she had business in Boston yesterday anyway. Had to drop off some report at the New England Aquarium. So we carpooled. I gave her a ride there, and then we drove over to Logan to pick you up. Now what’s that Cheshire grin for?”

  “It’s the twenty-first century, Daddy. People don’t usually ‘drop off ’ reports in person these days. They e-mail them in an attachment.”

  “No kidding? Well, then, I guess she must have the hots for me. Can’t blame her. You know what a chick magnet I am.” I dish out our food and bring it to the table. “Come on, detective. Breakfast is served. Mangia.”

  We sit. I eat my eggs; Ariane takes a bite of banana. She asks me if I’ve heard from Andrew lately. “Couple of days ago,” I tell her. “Says he’s doing okay.” She tells me she wishes he was coming to the wedding. “Yeah, well, he’s still struggling with your mother’s . . . lifestyle change. I guess it’s just as well.”

  She nods. Puts her bare feet up on the empty chair between us.

  “You still like going barefoot, I see.” She nods, says the bottoms of her feet are so impervious by now, she could probably walk on hot coals. “Yeah, well, best not to test that theory,” I tell her. I reach over and grab her big toe. “This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home. Remember?”

  She smiles. “This little piggy had roast beef, this little piggy had none.”

  “Must be a vegan,” I say. But she’s teary again. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No, tell me.”

  “It’s just that . . . my baby won’t have a daddy to play that with.”

  “No, but he’ll have a granddaddy.” Neither of us mentions the obvious: that I’ll be doing my grandfathering long-distance. Still, I don’t want to push it—the idea of her moving back.

  Ten minutes later, I’ve finished my breakfast and she’s had all of six little bites of her Cream of Wheat. I’ve counted. Well, I can’t really blame her. Even with sugar on it, it’s like eating wallpaper paste. We get up, carry our dishes to the sink. When she says she’ll do them, I tell her no. She’s my guest.

  “Hey, Daddy?” she says. I look over my shoulder and see her over by the Mapplethorpes again. “You’ve met Viveca. Right?”

  Ah, Viveca. I figured we’d be getting around to her sooner or later. “I have.” I put the last of the dishes in the drying rack. Start scouring egg off the frying pan. “You have, too, actually. Remember that Whitney Biennial show that your mother had a piece in when you guys were kids? We all went down to New York City for the opening, stayed overnight in a hotel?”

  “I think so. Was that the trip when we went to the NBA store and that guy yelled at Andrew for trying to shoot three-pointers?”

  “Don’t remind me. One of his wild shots from downtown almost wiped out a whole display of team mugs. I saw that ball go flying and thought I was going to be buying about a thousand bucks’ worth of broken ceramic. Ah, yes. Those fun Oh family outings.”

  She’s wandering the living room, going from one piece of art to another. “That was a really big deal that Mama’s work got selected for that show. Wasn’t it?” she asks.

  “It was. But yeah, that opening was when we all met Viveca. She came up, introduced herself. Told your mother she was interested in representing her. And the rest is history. The big commissions, that article in Newsweek that put her on the map as an up-and-comer.”

  She comes back to the kitchen. Leans against the counter next to me. “You don’t like Viveca, do you?” She’s watching my face in profile, studying my reaction to her question.

  “Hey, she’s letting me stay here, right? So I guess she can’t be all bad.”

  “No, seriously, Daddy,” she says.

  “Well, let’s just say she’s not really my cup of tea. But don’t let my feelings color yours. I think you’ll like her when you get to know her. Your sister does.” Okay, she says. She’ll keep an open mind. “Good. Hey, let’s go sit down for a minute, okay?” We move back into the living room, face each other on opposing love seats. “Now about this baby you’re having. What are you hoping for? Boy? Girl? One of each?”

  Her eyes widen. “Oh god, I’m not sure I could handle twins. But don’t multiple births run in families?”

  “Sometimes. But I wouldn’t go out and buy doubles of everything just yet. You’d run more of a risk of that if you’d had in vitro. Have you had an ultrasound?”

  “Next month,” she says. “My doctor says they only do it earlier if it’s a higher-risk pregnancy. Women over thirty-five.”

  “Well, you’ll know soon enough, but I think you can relax. Odds are you’re having one, not two.”

  She asks how her mother and I felt when we found out we were having twins. I tell her it was a surprise, but that we were excited about it. Why mention how upset Annie was at first? “In fact—”

  “Oh, jeeze!�
�� she says. “Excuse me, Daddy.” She gets up and rushes to the bathroom off the kitchen. To drown out the sound of her retching in there, I reach over and put the radio on. They’re playing some old song I half-remember. It’s a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack. . . . There’s a flush. She opens the door looking pale and miserable, poor kid. But she flashes me that brave smile.

  “You okay?” She nods. Sits back down. When I ask her if she lost her breakfast, she says just a little of it. “Well, that’s good. Are you still up for the beach, or do you want to take a rain check?”

  “No, let’s go. If I have to vomit again, I can do it there just as well as here. Puking at the beach will be a new experience.”

  “Well, I know one thing, kiddo,” I tell her. “This baby’s going to be one lucky kid to have such a damned good mother.”

  “You think so?”

  “Oh, I know so. Name one thing you’re not good at.”

  “Dieting,” she says. “Delegating responsibility at work. Remembering to water my plants. Oh, and keeping boyfriends. I wasn’t too good at that.”

  It breaks my heart to hear her say that. I want to tell her that she surrendered too soon to this artificial insemination thing—that a lot of people are in their thirties before they find someone, settle down, and have a family. That if what she wanted was a traditional marriage, the right guy might very well have come along. But I hold my tongue. This is an argument I might have used if she’d talked to me about her plans before she got inseminated, which she didn’t choose to do. So now it’s a fait accompli—this baby whose father is some nameless, faceless Brazilian guy who sat in a room with a skin magazine, did his thing, and sold them the spunk they injected into her. It’s a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack. Can’t argue with that.

  “You know,” I tell her, “if you want, you could always come back home to have the baby. Stay with me at the house and—”