The Middlesteins
Page 20
“Josh!” he said.
“What?” said Josh.
“You can’t do that.” He pointed at the plate. “That’s not appropriate,” he said. Thirteen years old, and no common sense. Had he had common sense at that age? Can that even be taught?
“I thought it would cheer people up,” said Josh. “Everyone’s so sad.”
“Aren’t you sad?” said Middlestein.
“I don’t know what I am,” said Josh.
“Well, you should be sad,” he said. “It’s a terrible thing that happened, your grandmother dying.”
“You think I don’t know that?” said Josh. 5-4-3-2-1, and he was in tears. Then he ran out of the living room, and upstairs, and everyone in the room stared at Middlestein, and if he wasn’t already the most horrible person in the room, this sealed the deal.
In the kitchen, Robin was confirming it with that mouth she had inherited from her mother: loud, big, bossy, and self-righteous. He walked to the swinging door and leaned against the wall next to it, listening to her yell.
“You don’t know anything,” she was saying to Rachelle.
“They were married for nearly forty years,” said Rachelle. “You don’t know what that’s like.”
“I see. So you’re superior to me because you’re married and I’m not.”
“That’s not what I’m saying, Robin.”
“She hated him. Don’t you understand that?”
They were arguing about the rights of the living versus the dead. It was true, his wife had hated him, not just after he had left her but before then, too. Yet he had hoped in this small way that eventually, after they had divorced and everything had settled down, he with his new girlfriend Beverly, her with that Chinese man she had been dating recently (who had just arrived, and was now standing in the corner of the living room with his purple-haired daughter, the both of them stunned and silent), after they all had rearranged themselves into new formations, that he and Edie would be able to come back together as friends.
He had told no one this wish before, and he wasn’t even sure if he deserved her friendship, but they had created these people, Benny and Robin, and they, in turn, had created lives for themselves, and he and Edie shared those two beautiful grandchildren (even if Josh was oversensitive and Emily a little mean), and he had imagined that one day they would watch them graduate from high school, and college, and dance together at one or both of their weddings, that they would be able to sit next to each other, share the same air, laugh about things that had happened a long time ago that only they knew about, secrets just for the two of them and no one else. He had left her because she was killing herself and killing him, too. And now he was saved: He had fallen in love with a woman named Beverly, and she had fallen in love with him, too. Now he was more alive than ever, and he had wanted Edie to have the same experience, but it had been too late for her. Too late for love. And now he was the only one who knew their past. He was the only one who knew that eventually, one day, Edie would have forgiven him. He had been there with her the day her father died and held her hand and stroked her hair and taken her into his family and life when she had no one left, when she felt she was an orphan. One day he would have reminded her of this. One day she would have been in his life again.
“He didn’t kill her,” said Rachelle.
“He might as well have,” said Robin.
Upstairs, loud music began to play, a song that was played at Josh and Emily’s b’nai mitzvah just a few days before. The mourners looked even more stricken, their skin colorless, their lips grim. Music was incorrect. Benny left the room casually, but as soon as he hit the stairs, he raced up them.
“I’m an orphan now!” screeched Robin, but her words blurred within the bass of the dance music.
She’s going to regret saying that, thought Middlestein. Someday she’ll want her father again.
But she does not regret it, at least not while he’s still alive. (At his funeral, however, she is devastated. She heaves tears, Daniel’s arms locked around her shoulders, the other family members distant from her, battling their own grief.) She barely speaks to him for the next decade, and then only briefly, at family functions. Sometimes they only lock eyes across the room, and then she’ll look away, her lips crumbling with hurt, but still he treasures those moments. She ignores him at Edie’s unveiling ceremony, and at Emily’s and Josh’s birthday parties and graduation ceremonies, and even at Benny and Rachelle’s twentieth-anniversary party. She doesn’t invite him to her wedding. He only hears about it a few months after the fact, and it is an accident that it is even revealed to him. At Benny’s house he sees a picture of Robin in her wedding dress standing with bridesmaid Emily. Beverly is there with him—by then she is his wife—and she looks so devastated on his behalf that he can’t help but sob for a moment, and he has to excuse himself to the restroom, and he stays in there too long, his hands clutched to the sink counter, leaning forward, missing Edie, missing his daughter, wondering if what he had done wrong was really that terrible, and wasn’t life full of layers and nuances, colored all kinds of shades of gray, and the way you felt about something when you were twenty or thirty or forty was not how you would feel about something when you were fifty or sixty or seventy—he was nearly seventy!—and if only he could explain to her that regret can come at any time in your life, when you least expect it, and then you are stuck with it forever. If he could do it all over, if he could have that one shot, he would have fought harder for his life with Edie, he would have fought harder for her life. No, that wasn’t true either, because there was a knock at the bathroom door: Beverly, checking up on him, gently holding his hand, his second chance, his late-in-life angel, her skin still smooth everywhere but around her eyes, her figure, her smile, her hold on him, on his heart, on his flesh. There she was. This was why he had traded one life for another.
But he was not there yet: He had only begun to regret; he had only begun to understand; he had only begun to mourn. Middlestein’s daughter was fighting with his daughter-in-law, his son was walking downstairs and then into the living room, shaking his head angrily, and his dead wife’s new boyfriend was now sobbing on his son’s living-room couch, his hands clutching his kneecaps, his daughter’s arms wrapped around his chest. The music upstairs stopped.
“She wouldn’t have wanted him here,” said Robin. “I can speak for her. I am totally correct in speaking for my mother.”
“He has every right to be here,” said Rachelle, and he could tell then that she was done discussing the matter. It was her home, after all. No one could argue with that. It was the woman’s home. It was her show.
Robin slammed the kitchen door open and burst into the room. The mourners turned their heads away. Don’t look at the poor girl. She’s lost her mother. Robin left through the front door, but moments later appeared in the backyard. Everyone could see her through the window, sitting on a deck chair near the pool. Benny appeared next to her. He pulled a joint out of his pocket and lit it. The two of them got up and turned their deck chairs facing away from the house, and passed the joint back and forth.
Middlestein was still leaning against the wall near the kitchen, unable to move. Rachelle pushed open the swinging door and poked her head into the dining room, holding her gaze on Middlestein.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“What do you have to be sorry about?” he said. “You didn’t do anything.”
“The yelling,” she said. She shrugged her tiny shoulders. She did not seem tough enough to take on his daughter, but he understood she would do anything to keep things under control in her universe. Other days she would not consider Robin and her tantrums and her ego. Rachelle might have been a princess, but Robin was the little sister. Today, though, Rachelle had restored order, at least in small part on Middlestein’s behalf. He would never forget that she did that.
She looked, bleary-eyed, at the tables of food before her. “What are we going to do with all this food?” she said.
Rachelle wandered past all the tables and then did a double take in front of the dessert tray that Josh had decorated to look like a smiley face. She turned back to Middlestein with a sour look on her face, cheeks pinched, forehead wrinkled.
“Wasn’t me,” said Middlestein.
She began to push all the cookies together in a big pile in the middle of the plate, and then she knocked some off, then finally she picked up the plate, weaving her way through the crowd, out the front door, until there she was, standing near the pool, handing cookies to her husband and her sister-in-law. She took one for herself and picked at it with her fingertips, one tiny bit at a time. She paused and licked her lips. In another minute Robin’s boyfriend, Danny, showed up by her side. He dragged up a seat for himself and Rachelle. Together, they all hid.
What was left for Middlestein in this house? Everyone he cared about had run away from him and all the other mourners. He should leave. He had paid his respects. Whatever was left for him to feel was for him to experience alone. And he wanted to take his suit off. He wanted to burn this suit. He pushed his way through the crowd, nodding at anyone willing to give him eye contact. He paused at the front door and considered following his children to the backyard to say good-bye. He decided against it. Out front, outside, it was sunny, and he felt warm and tight in his skin. He couldn’t breathe. Middlestein unbuttoned his pants and hunched over. He heard a small choking sound and lifted his head up. By the oak tree, near the mailbox, there was his granddaughter, Emily, crying. He pulled himself up and walked toward her. Sometimes she got this calm look on her face, and that’s when she looked like Benny. When she was dressed up, she looked like her mother. When she was angry, she was Robin, she was Edie. When she was clever and funny, she was like them, too. When does she look like me? There she was, alone by a tree, weeping for her grandmother. He wanted to weep, too. He went to his granddaughter and he hugged her and held her against him, and just like that, they were close. Until the day he died, they were close. Wasn’t that strange? No one would have put the two of them together like that. No one would have figured they had much in common except being family. But they were close to the end.
Acknowledgments
Irving Cutler’s thorough and fascinating book, The Jews of Chicago: From Shtetl to Suburb, was tremendously helpful during my research. I am grateful to Dr. Benjamin Lerner, who was always so thoughtful and generous in his explanations of vascular surgery, as well as the health issues of overweight Americans. Lisa Ng gave me a spirited education on Chinese cooking; if not for her, I would never have known about the magical powers of cumin and cinnamon.
Kate Christensen is the best first reader a girl could have. Deep talks with Wendy McClure were invaluable to the development of this book. Rosie Schaap, Stefan Block, and Maura Johnston have all provided love, support, and couches on which to crash. My agent, Doug Stewart, has probably achieved saint status by now. And my editor, Helen Atsma, is a powerhouse, as well as a very nice woman. Finally, I would like to extend a big thank-you to WORD Brooklyn, my favorite bookstore in the world.
About the Author
Jami Attenberg is the author of Instant Love, The Kept Man, and The Melting Season. She has written for the New York Times, Salon, and numerous other publications. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is originally from Buffalo Grove, Illinois. Visit her online at jamiattenberg.com.
Also by Jami Attenberg
The Melting Season
The Kept Man
Instant Love
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Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Edie, 62 Pounds
The Meanest Act
Edie, 202 Pounds
The Willow Tree
Edie, 160 Pounds
Middlestein in Exile
Edie, 210 Pounds
Exodus
Edie, 241 Pounds
The Golden Unicorn
Male Pattern
Edie, 332 Pounds
The Walking Wounded
Middlestein in Love
Seating Chart
Sprawl
Middlestein in Mourning
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Jami Attenberg
Newsletter
Copyright
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Jami Attenberg
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First e-book edition: October 2012
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ISBN 978-1-4555-0719-1