In A Country Of Mothers

by A M Homes

  The night before Thanksgiving, bundled up in their winter coats — Adam’s over his Spiderman pajamas — the Roths set out on what seemed like a fantastical middle-of-the-night adventure. It was ten p.m.

  “Going to the parade?” the doorman asked in a thick Spanish accent.

  “Spiderman,” Adam said, throwing his arms into the air in an up-up-and-away gesture.

  Claire had been dreading this crowd scene all day: throngs of people out for a night of cheap thrills, free entertainment; people out to see the people; people out to see the people seeing the people. She figured they wouldn’t be able to get close enough to see a damn thing.

  The traffic was horrible, so they got out of the cab at Seventy-second Street and walked. The sidewalk was mobbed with people in bright parkas, knitted caps, patterned scarfs, the occasional fur coat, thick gloves, holding cups of steaming hot chocolate bought from street vendors.

  “I want some,” Jake whined.

  “No, it’ll give you cholera,” Claire said, and Sam laughed but didn’t disagree.

  “Colored what?”

  All of Seventy-eighth Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue had been sealed off. Mammoth portable lights cast an otherworldly glow, and long white tanker trucks filled with helium lined Central Park West. The floats — Spiderman, Ninja Turtles, Snoopy, and Betty Boop — lay unfurled on clean white dropcloths in the middle of Seventy-eighth Street, hooked to helium hoses, slowly swelling to life. Hundreds of small children rode high on their fathers’ shoulders. Preppy boys drunk on cheap beer and hormones climbed the wrought-iron fence that guarded the Museum of Natural History.

  “Let’s leave for the beach tonight,” Sam whispered to Claire an hour and a half later as the cab sped back downtown. Adam was asleep across his shoulder. “It’ll be easier. There’s no traffic. We’ll be there in less than two hours.” The cab pulled into the driveway at 2 Fifth Avenue. “I’ll get the car,” Sam said, fishing wrinkled singles out of his pocket for the driver. “Meet me downstairs in ten minutes.” Claire nodded and watched him disappear down the street with Adam over his shoulder like an old sweater; then she and Jake went upstairs and got the groceries she’d been collecting all week. As part of their reconciliation, Claire had agreed to invite Sam’s obnoxious sister from Ridgewood out to the house along with her husband and their two crazy children, one anorexic, the other hyperactive. In return Sam had granted her Naomi and Roger and their children; but she’d convinced him that they’d all be happier staying the night at the inn in Easthampton. She told everyone to bring something, and Sam’s sister offered to make a sweet-potato casserole, quickly adding, “And I’ll also do the stuffing.”

  With the children asleep in the backseat, Sam and Claire talked softly. In their silence, Claire thought about Jody. She wanted to tell Sam, but couldn’t.

  “Are we going the right way?” she asked. In the dark the road to Amagansett seemed unfamiliar.

  “Same way we always go,” Sam said, making the turn. “There’s the Easthampton pond,” he said, nodding toward an oily shape on the right.

  Simon’s Lane was deserted; no streetlights, no house lights, no porch lights. The moon had slipped behind a cloud. Claire had never seen a night so black.

  “Leave the headlights on so we can see the door,” she said.

  Sam carried Adam into the house; Claire followed with bags of food. She left the groceries in the front hall and went out again for Jake.

  “We’re here,” she said, jiggling his shoulder. “Go on inside and up to bed.”

  “I’ll stay,” Jake said, mumbling.

  Claire picked up the turkey and held it on her hip like a baby. With her free hand, she pulled at her son. “Come on, I’ll walk you up.”

  A few minutes later, Sam started out of the kitchen to turn off the headlights, but immediately turned around and grabbed Claire’s hand, frightening her. The clock on the stove said two-thirty-nine.

  “Come on,” he whispered, leading her toward the door. “Shhh.” He slowly opened the screen door and pointed Claire toward the backyard. In the farthest edges of the headlights’ beam stood a deer.

  “If I was a pilgrim,” he whispered in her ear, his lips touching the back of her neck, “tomorrow we’d be eating Bambi.”

  In the morning, Claire made hot chocolate. She filled Jake’s mug with steaming cocoa and let him have as many marshmallows as he wanted. She put the whole bag down on the table and watched as he took one after another, dipped them into his mug, then popped them into his mouth with a thick, smacking sound. When he got to eight she stopped counting and turned away.

  With Sam and the boys dispatched on a time-killing mission to Montauk, Claire vacuumed and scrubbed floors, toilets, behind the sofas, the very boards of the house, then started in on the carrots and asparagus, feeling all the while that she was doing someone else a favor. This wasn’t really her house; the dinner guests weren’t really her family. She prepared the turkey for a long, slow roast, put together a mashed potato, green pea, and pearl onion casserole, cooked a batch of cranberry sauce — with a little too much sugar, and then a little too much lemon as compensation. She peeled apples for the pies, and at noon, with the bird in the oven, her face and hands coated with unbleached flour, she hunched over the butcher block and tried to roll out a pie crust, relying on directions she vaguely remembered from seventh-grade home economics class. Then, as she was slipping the pies into the oven, there was a heavy pounding at the front door. Claire couldn’t find the key to the dead bolt. “Coming!” she yelled as she riffled through a tin can of keys on top of the mantel. Finally she quit, brushed her hair out of her face, and called out the side door, “I’m over here.”

  “Where?” Sam’s sister shouted. “I can’t see you.”

  Claire stepped out and walked barefoot down the gravelly driveway.

  Nora stood in the center of the front yard, her high heels sunk deep in the soft dirt. “There you are,” she said. “Well, we’re here. Bet you didn’t think we’d make it.”

  I hoped and prayed you wouldn’t, Claire thought. “Well, now that you’re here,” she said, “come on in.”

  Nora turned and screeched “Bring the cooler!” at her husband, Manny, who stood by the curb, wiping bird droppings off the hood of their black Cadillac. Nora started across the yard, and with each step her heels dug in like the world’s longest cleats. Eventually one shoe was pulled off completely, and she was forced to balance momentarily on one leg like a pelican as she bent over and plucked her Ferragamos out of the muck. “They’re ruined,” she said when she got to the driveway.

  Manny walked up with a medium-sized Coleman cooler in hand.

  “It’s the stuffing and the sweet potatoes,” Nora said, gesturing toward the cooler. “I put them on ice.”

  Claire looked at her blankly.

  “So they wouldn’t spoil,” Nora said.

  “Come inside, won’t you,” Claire said, turning toward the house.

  “Oh,” Nora said to her, “you’re not wearing any shoes. Is that how it’s done out here?”

  “Have you checked in at the inn yet?” Claire asked, as they came through the door.

  “No, we came here first,” Manny said, tapping the plastic cooler as if to indicate imminent spoilage.

  “Well, perhaps we should call and let them know you’re in the vicinity.” Claire stopped. “Where are the kids?”

  “In the car,” Manny said. “They don’t want to get out.”

  “It’s so hard for them to adjust,” Nora said. “They’re very shy.”

  Claire nodded, pretending to understand.

  “Sam and the boys should be back soon, I hope. Why don’t you make yourselves comfortable while I go check things in the kitchen. Can I get you something to drink?”

  “I brought some Diet Coke with me. It’s in the cooler. If I could just have a glass. Manny, get me one of my Cokes,” Nora said, and Manny got up from the sofa and went to the cooler. He handed Nora a
Coke, and Claire hurried to find her a glass. She took one out of the dishwasher, still warm, and handed it to Nora, who took a handkerchief out of her bag and wiped out the insides. “Dusty,” she explained.

  Claire excused herself, went back into the kitchen, opened a bottle of wine, poured herself a huge glass, basted the turkey, stirred the cranberry sauce, peeked at her pies through the oven window, and sat down at the kitchen table, hoping they wouldn’t notice her absence.

  “Why are Melanie and Jonathan sitting in the car watching television?” Sam asked when he came in.

  “You’re late,” Claire said. “They’ve been here for half an hour.”

  Claire’s perfect pies, fresh out of the oven, sat cooling on the kitchen counter. Sam bent down and inhaled the vapors. “How come you only made two?”

  Naomi and Roger arrived with their three boys, and soon the house was as raucous as five boys playing war could make it.

  “The battery on my Watchman died,” Nora’s son Jonathan whined when he and his sister finally came inside.

  By the time dinner was ready, Claire was drunk. All afternoon she’d been excusing herself to “check on things,” each time pouring a fast glass of wine. She sat at the head of the table, a little woozy, picking at her food, letting their compliments wash over her like waves.

  “Where did you buy this pie?” Nora asked.

  “I didn’t buy it,” Claire said, her speech a little slurry. “I baked it.”

  “You really made it? The crust is so good, it must have been frozen.”

  “Nope,” Claire said, standing to clear some plates. “Ho-made.”

  Sam and Jake laughed. There was a big sign at the Snowflake ice cream stand that said, HO-MADE CHILI.

  “What’s so funny?” Nora said.

  “You,” Claire mumbled under her breath, walking away.

  On the single step into the kitchen, she tripped, and the plates went flying, hurling a melange of Thanksgiving foods across the room in a multicolored splatter.

  “Shit,” Claire said. “Sorry,” she called loudly in a singsong voice. “Would anybody like some broken glass with their coffee?”

  Sam came into the kitchen, surveyed the damage, and, smiling, softly suggested that she go upstairs and lie down.

  “Maybe I should,” Claire said, fixing her hair. “You take care of it.”

  Sam nodded, and without a word to the guests Claire toddled off up the steps.

  A few minutes later, Naomi came up and stretched out beside her on the huge bed. “Nora told Sam how sorry she is. ‘I never knew Claire was an alcoholic,’” she said, imitating Sam’s sister, “‘but I should have. Non-Jews always are.’”

  Claire laughed. The more she thought about it, the more she laughed; then she jumped up, ran into the bathroom, and vomited.

  “You’ll feel better now,” Naomi said from the bedroom. “You never could hold your liquor.”

  Claire came back, pressing a damp washcloth against her face and lips. “I feel terrible.”

  “And you look like hell,” Naomi said. “But dinner was great, no lie. Your pie was four-star.”

  Claire lay down on the bed. “‘Is it frozen?’” she said. “‘It tastes so good, it must be.’”

  “I’ll go and help Sam clean up. Sure you’re okay?”

  “Fine,” Claire said. “Listen, come for breakfast. Just us. I’ll make French toast and we can go for a nice long walk.”

  “Okay. Sleep well,” Naomi said.

  Claire sat up. “Oh, make sure she doesn’t forget her cooler.”

  “Or her fucking children,” Naomi said, pulling the bedroom door closed behind her.

  Claire arranged the pillows, propping herself up, and called Jody. “Hi,” she said softly when Jody answered.

  “Who’s it for?” a sharp voice in the background asked.

  “It’s for me, Aunt Sylvia,” Jody said.

  “Is it someone you know?”

  “If you could just close the door,” Jody said to the aunt. “Sorry,” she said to Claire. “My whole family’s here, and the only one who bothered to stick her head into my room is my eighty-seven-year-old aunt. Before they showed up, my mother came down the hall and closed my door, like I’m a messy closet or something.”

  “I wish you were here,” Claire said. “You’d like it. It’s beautiful, and the kids can run around outside, ride bikes, do all the things they can’t in the city.”

  It was the first time she’d mentioned her children. She’d known she was going to do it; there was no point in pretending to keep them separate anymore. Soon enough, she’d introduce them in real life.

  Jody didn’t say anything for a minute. “Shouldn’t you be doing something, wrapping leftovers, giving the kids Alka Seltzers?”

  “I’d rather talk to you,” Claire said, adjusting the pillow behind her head, worried she might throw up again. “You have to come back to New York.”

  “I can’t.”

  “We won’t go into it now, but you have to. I’m going to find you a doctor. We’ll get the subletter out of your apartment and find someone to get your groceries and all that. You need to be here.”

  “Don’t talk to me about it,” Jody said. “Talk to my mother.”

  “I will.”

  If Jody had been there, Claire wouldn’t have gotten drunk. The two of them would have hidden out in the kitchen and said nasty things about everyone. She visualized Jody resting on the sun porch, wrapped in a thick wool blanket, or sprawled on the sofa in front of a fire while Claire read to her, Jake, and Adam from Winnie-the-Pooh. Claire saw herself making Jody huge, steaming bowls of homemade soup. “Is it frozen?” Nora’s voice echoed in her head. Claire would take Jody back into her life and heal her once and for all.

  When Claire got to the office on Monday, she started making a list of things Jody would need: mittens, scarves, a bright apartment with comfortable furniture, cable TV, flowers, a personal trainer/masseur, a nutritionist. She read it over, then threw it in the trash and began again, this time by listing doctors she knew, ones she’d heard about or read about in magazines. Then she wrote out everything she knew about Jody’s medical history and made a note to ask Mrs. Goodman for more information. In Claire’s mind, both she and Mrs. Goodman bore the responsibility for what Claire perceived as a series of grievous errors that had resulted in Jody’s current condition. As Claire saw it, Jody was sick because she’d been given away, delivered to a grief-stricken couple who’d sucked on the infant as though she were a Life Saver or a pacifier. It seemed possible that these twenty-four years of never knowing who she really was could have caused a sophisticated and subtle taxing of the human system, culminating with Jody’s outbreak of disease.

  Between patients, first thing in the morning, late in the evening, Claire worked the phones.

  “It’s not psychosomatic, it’s not AIDS, and there’s nothing we can do for it,” said the immunologist who’d seen Jody at Georgetown.

  “So, what is it?” Claire asked. “What are you calling it?”

  “A virus.”

  “Is it genetic?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “How do you treat it?”

  “We don’t.”

  She called Jody at least once a day. “A nightmare come true,” Jody concluded. “It’s permanent. I’m not getting better. I’ll still be living here when I’m forty.”

  “I’m bringing you back,” Claire promised. “Soon.”

  Marilyn Esterhaus. That was the name a friend had left on Claire’s machine. Marilyn Esterhaus at New York Hospital.

  Claire left five messages before Esterhaus finally got back to her. The phone rang just as a patient was leaving. The machine clicked on; Claire turned the volume up. “This is Marilyn Esterhaus. Sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you, I’ve been—”

  Claire grabbed the phone—“Hello, I’m here”—pulled out the note pad, and point by point began relating Jody’s history.

  “Was a spinal tap done
?” Esterhaus asked.

  “No.”

  “Brain scan?”

  “No.”

  “Still running fevers?”

  “All day, up and down.”

  Esterhaus paused. “What I can tell you is this. For a year I’ve been working with people who have similar symptoms. On several occasions we’ve isolated what we thought was the virus, but nothing has panned out. I’m not one hundred percent convinced this is entirely a viral episode. It could be triggered by several other things — a deep systemic response to a naturally occurring chemical, even an allergy. And of course your patient might not even have my disease. It could just as easily be something else. I’d need to see her.”

  “I’ve found you a doctor,” Claire said. “She’s very real and very smart. I’m going to talk to your mother tonight.”

  “Good luck,” Jody said.

  It’s imperative that Jody come back to New York. If you don’t let her return I’m going to come to your house and take her. Don’t make me fight you. Think of what’s best for her. This is what Jody wants, and she’s old enough to know. She’s not your property; she’s not even your child, if you want to get picky about it. Claire played it all back and forth in her head. She didn’t know what to say to Mrs. Goodman, whether to ask, demand, or suggest. She couldn’t imagine what would make Mrs. Goodman want to load Jody into the car and drive her to New York City in the middle of December.

  “I think it would be good for Jody to come back to New York,” Claire told Mrs. Goodman that night. She’d decided to start small and work her way up. Her own voice, pathetic and plaintive in the night, echoed back over the telephone wires and struck like a slap in the face.

  “I don’t see how,” Mrs. Goodman said. “She can’t even take care of herself. I can’t go running up to New York City every five minutes.”

  “She needs to have her life back.”

  “It’s very expensive there, as I’m sure you know, and she’s not working. When she gets better, she can go back if she chooses to — I certainly won’t stop her.”

  “I’ve found a doctor here who’s doing research on Jody’s illness,” Claire said firmly. “I realize it’s difficult financially, but a person has to feel like she has some control over her life. It’s very important for Jody to be here, and I’m willing to do whatever’s necessary to make that possible.”