Never Too Late

by Jo Barney

  “Well, yesterday morning I woke up as Brian was leaving for work, and I could hardly pull myself out of bed. I always make coffee before I read the paper and the kids wake up, and for some reason I looked at the Starbucks bag. Decaffeinated. I’d been in withdrawal for four days.”

  “Addicted.” Brody has forced us to stop, and I hunt in my pocket for the plastic poop bag.

  “Yes! I went across the street, borrowed a cup of coffee from my neighbor and in fifteen minutes, I was cured. That’s when I decided to return to Boo’s Soul. And ask again about Brian. No one else recognized him. No orange smell, just catfish.”

  “Are you depressed again?” The coffee must be wearing off. Both Brody and I saunter beside her, matching her slowing pace.

  “No. I’ve stayed on the Prozac. It seems to be working a little. Maybe more than a little. I’m considering telling Brian to go to hell, of leaving him.”

  All three of us come to a sudden stop.

  “Is that the Prozac speaking?”

  “No, it’s the newest withdrawal from our retirement account. A phone call yesterday informed me that the check was ready. $15,000. I confronted him and he said—”

  “‘It’s going to be okay.’ He said the same thing to me.”

  “Is he on cocaine or something? Damn, if I can get crazy over caffeine, I can only imagine how screwed up a person could get on crack.”

  “I can’t imagine Brian using drugs. Even the marijuana revelation was a surprise to me.” My son. My husband. Valium, barbiturates, who knows what else? I look at the woman at my side wiping the sweat off her forehead with a kerchief, and I know that wanting to leave her marriage isn’t because of the medication. She wants to escape a broken dream. I know about that. I just never had the courage to do it. My daughter-in-law does. “Don’t decide for a while,” I say. A painful surge fills my chest, tightens my throat––regret for my years of not knowing Kathleen and my grief for my son, in the midst of his own broken dream of some sort, the one that has led to mistakes, to his wife’s decision. I can’t bear to lose either of them. I touch her sleeve, say, “And if you do leave, I’ll still want to walk with you.”

  We continue on, not talking, waiting for Brody to smell the trees, waiting for whatever will come next to both of us.

  Finally, I can’t stand the silence. And I’m sure my daughter- in-law is not ready to deal with my confused anxiety about Art and a black-haired girl. A person has to choose the best times to dump on a sympathetic friend. This is not one of those times. I will move away from my morbid obsession and onto something more positive, for both of our sakes. “I have a date,” I announce as we stop for a red light to turn green. “With a man you met at Boo’s. Seth.”

  The sign says Walk, but we don’t step off the curb. “A date? With that handsome man with the green eyes?” And then she adds, “He called you?”

  “As incredible as that seems, he did. Tonight I meet him at the Hilton bar, dinner.” Kathleen stands, eyes wide, beside me. “He probably hasn’t gotten a room, though. Seems a little soon,” I add.

  Her “Damn!” scares Brody back onto the curb. “So what are you going to wear?”

  Other things on my mind, I’ve given little thought to that question. I have one short black dress, one pair of two-inch heels, and really fat knees. I noticed the knees lately when I convinced myself I should look in the full mirror on the back of the bathroom door. Are fat knees a common complaint of older women, even those like me who have managed to stay within ten pounds of their high school weight? I haven’t seen any diets or any exercise routines that worked on fat knees. Bad knees, of course, which may also be fat, but my knees are still working pretty well.

  “I’m pulled out a black dress I’ve had for years. It hits me right here, though.” I pull up my pant leg, draw a line across my left patella. “Not my best feature.”

  I avoid looking at Kathleen’s bony knees, very evident in the walking shorts she’s wearing. I’d give anything for knees like that. And boobs like that. And the barely etched skin at the edges of the eyes that are now grinning at me. “He’s not going to be looking at your knees, Edith. I’ve got a skirt that will solve that. And I’ve got some other tricks that will allow him to look into your soul.”

  “Is that good?

  “It is, when the window is mascaraed, brown eyes floating in a lake of subtle sunset. Can you see anything without your glasses?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. “If you need them, we’ll just enhance the eyelids even more. We can do this. Knees don’t count. Eyes do.”

  She seems as eager as I am to move out of our funk, at least temporarily. She’ll come by in the afternoon and bring her supplies. I am to wash my blond hair and try to blow dry it upright, sexily boyish. I don’t have a blow dryer, so she’ll bring some product. I have product, I say, defending my stance as someone who knows a thing or two about new trends in beautification. When we say, “Later,” we are chuckling, our quiet gasps like small suns lighting the dark clouds gathering on each of our horizons .

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The Hilton restaurant is nice. Tablecloths, napkins, flowers, good silver. I turn a fork over and try to read the hallmark, but I’ll need my glasses for that, and they are in my purse, waiting for the menu-moment. Seth has a very comforting face. I’ve seen eyes like his on another person recently. I don’t want to remember whose.

  “I’m so glad you agreed to see me, Edith. You and I have a lot to talk about. We barely know each other, but for some reason, I feel close to you.” Because of those green irises, I choose to believe him.

  I try to bat my eyes at him, but I keep getting an image of Mildred at the Metrobar and her false eyelashes slipping towards her cheek. I’m not wearing eyelashes, but I do have a generous supply of mascara weighing heavy along my upper lids, in addition to a color called violet passion that Kathleen said was perfect with my brown eyes. I had looked at myself after I put my glasses on, and I agreed I did look pretty good. This might be my first and my last date, but my daily routine in front of a mirror has been totally reorganized. I have product for my face now. Who knows what’s next?

  He’s saying something. I focus at his mouth instead of his eyes. His smile reveals a slip of gold at the corner of his lip. “We have a friend in common, you know. Actually, my sister. You and she talked a while back? Social worker?”

  The other set of green eyes. “Of course. She’s been helpful during this whole Art thing. Did she tell you?”

  Seth shakes his head. “She doesn’t talk about her work much, but when I mentioned this determined woman out to find her dead husband Art, she nodded, said she’d talked with you.”

  I am not about to tell him anything more about my search. I’d like to forget it at least for a night. “And what do you do, Seth, besides buy drinks for women on quests?’

  By now the waitress has brought our wine and stands waiting to tell us about the specials. We order, and I don’t bother to look at the menu, just say “I’ll have the same,” and I wait for his answer. I hope what he says isn’t too shocking.

  It is, sort of. “I used to be an attorney with a good firm here in town. After thirty years, I figured I needed a break and I bought Boo’s Soul. I needed to get back to my roots, I guess, and it was smoked ribs and the neighborhood from then on. That’s about it.”

  From the courtroom to the barbeque pit. There’s got to be more. “No, it’s not,” I say. “You are or were married. You probably have grown kids now who don’t do barbeque so much anymore?” I take a sip of my white wine and hope I’ve not said anything rude. I need to know this information before his fascinating eyes overwhelm me, and I don’t give a shit about any of it.

  “Was married, for a while. She was younger than me, just out of college.” Seth shrugs. “It wasn’t a good fit. We both knew it and after a couple of years, we understood we had to end it. We did. She went on to remarry, have children. I did not.”

  A drift of sadness makes its way between his words.
I wonder what that is about, make another intrusive comment. “Was she pregnant when you got married?”

  He moves his glass toward his lips, said, “Yes. How did you know?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “And you were pregnant when you married?”

  I almost snort. “Of course. Why else would I have stayed with a man who didn’t love me? You escaped.” I don’t mean escape, really, maybe more like found a way out. “How?”

  Seth, the unfrownable person, frowns. “I’ve never talked about any of this.”

  I have overstepped. “You’re right. It’s not my business.”

  “No, it’s not, and I want you to know. Janelle had a miscarriage during the fifth month. It threw us into a terrible place. We were both gobsmacked by our loss. By the time we had stored the bassinet and the playpen and given away the onesies, we knew whatever we had felt for each other at the beginning was gone. We divorced, but we’ve remained friendly in a distanced way.”

  Over our pear salads, I wonder if I will ever be able to say I am friendly in any way with the memory of Art. That would take forgiveness and my supply of forgiveness is about used up, although I have managed to forgive Kathleen for all of her annoying take-over tactics. I admire them now. Arms across her chest, feet firmly planted in her own sense of self, she’ll do something about Brian’s wanderings. “And now you’re a happy person?” I ask.

  The frown dissolves. “As happy as most folks, I guess.”

  I have nothing more to ask.

  “And how about you? Are you a happy person?”

  The waitress takes my salad plate away. I’m glad for the interruption to consider this question, to realize I have an answer. “I’m very happy at this moment. I have swells of joy these days. I also have dark periods in which I question if what I’ve done with my life is of any value. My son, my one accomplishment, is on some mysterious path, my husband has left me wandering along a trail of guilt that doesn’t seem to have an end.” I lift my glass, give myself a moment to gather my thoughts. “My grandchildren now can cook mac and cheese, my dog Brody speaks dog to me, my friend Lynne makes me laugh.” I realize I’m speaking my truths to a man I hardly know. “I’m getting to be okay.”

  I am also aware that Seth is holding my free hand. “Yes, you are,” he says. His fingers loosen. “Edith, this may be a deal breaker, but I’ve got to tell you something before this goes any further.”

  I feel my ribs squeeze, my breath can’t find my lungs. “Okay.” Better now than later. Isn’t this what I want? No secrets?

  Seth looks away, then back at me. “I know a little about Latisha and Art. I’ve suspected that he might be her father or something else, and I couldn’t tell you when we first talked; you seemed too vulnerable.” He revises that comment. “Not vulnerable, determined, I realized. Art introduced her to me, and I watched him talk with her over their barbeques, give her money, take her by the arm to his car, joke with her.”

  He continues, his words coming slowly. “I had to throw Latisha’s mother out of Boo’s a while back because she was so out of it that she was approaching every man with a proposition, loud, lewd.”

  “How did you know it was her mother?”

  “Once when Patsy, who came by the bar often, was so drunk she didn’t make sense, she told me that she’d had a child with a white man who had abandoned her when she told him she was pregnant. She’d given the baby the father’s last name, called her Latisha, and declared that somehow, she’d find both him and her and get them both back. I suppose the last name was changed when the girl was adopted.”

  “Latisha.” I tried it out “Latisha Finlay.”

  “You’ve met her?”

  Will Art never let go of me? Or I him? Even as I allow myself to start to believe I can move on, begin a new life, maybe even one including a new man, that old man sneaks in, curls a lip, blows a ha across the table and I hear it.

  My chanterelles in cream sauce look like vomit.

  My fingers press against the saliva gathering in my mouth. I say, “Thank you for the nice evening.” I manage to stand up, leave the table. Out on the sidewalk, still nauseous, I realize I’ve left my purse hanging over the chair back. I will not slink back in to retrieve it, but I have no car keys and no money for the light rail, and no money for the taxi driver holding a door open for me at the curb. I give him my son’s address. When we get to Kathleen and Brian’s house, the windows are dark. No one answers the door.

  I send the taxi to my house because I must have some cash somewhere. I find my extra key under the fake rock, enter, go to the den and find it. A twenty-dollar bill with a telephone number on it. As I give it to the driver, I realize there is some kind of story here: the tale of a piece of paper passing between eager hands, distributing small rewards in its travels, to people who will never meet except in moments like this one. The driver nods at me, pulls away. Bon voyage, I think, and I open my front door. The end of this story eludes me, but I‘m grateful that the crumpled twenty dollar bill and its ball-pointed message have passed on to its next owner.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “So how was it?” Kathleen calls early the next morning.

  “I left my purse at the restaurant.” Other than that bad news, I’m not sure how to answer. “He seems like a nice person,” I finally admit, “but not much of a chance that it will go anywhere and probably shouldn’t.” I don’t say any more, and Kathleen doesn’t probe.

  “Call the restaurant, they’ll have it. You never know about the rest. Give it a little time.” She has something else on her mind. “I have done something I’m not sure I should have, but I did. I am going to go through with it. I have an appointment with a divorce attorney.”

  I’m not like Kathleen. I probe. “What happened?”

  “He’s refusing to tell me what has been going on. The $15,000 was the last straw. Every time I look at him I wonder who he’s been with, spending money on, maybe loving so much he doesn’t care what I suspect. When I married him, I thought of him as a strong, ethical man with so much potential to do whatever he chose. Well, he’s making choices now that makes me believe he might be crazy. I don’t want to be married to a crazy person.”

  I can relate to that. But I can’t to think of my son as crazy. A little stressed by something right now, a lot stressed, maybe. Stressed enough to make a couple of bad decisions. Really bad. I tighten my bathrobe belt and sit down. “I don’t want to divorce you, Kathleen,” I say.

  “Mom, that won’t happen. We’ll still go on walks together, talk about the mysteries of Art and Brian over drinks, watch the kids grow up. Just not together as we’d planned. Maybe not on Christmas Day.”

  I should be relieved about Christmas Day. Instead, I find the words I need. It’s time to give my blessing to my daughter-in-law. “Whatever you choose to do, I will support you.” I lean back, look out the window. “I never had a choice, you know.”

  It is Kathleen’s turn to be silent. Then she says, “I know. Thank you.”

  We have to move on, or we’ll both be in tears. “So, how are the kids? Happy that spring break will be coming soon?”

  Kathleen seems eager to change the subject too. “The kids—Winston is excited about soccer about to start. We have bought his shin guards and shoes, and he’s signed up on his team from last year, the Bulls, only the team has girls on it now, and the girls want to call it the Bullettes. They’re negotiating right now with the coach at school.” Her voice changes as stress seeps into her words. “Meg, she…she doesn’t want to go to school. Ever since winter break, she’s been claiming she’s sick, clings to me when I drop her off. She’s even called from school begging for me to come pick her up.”

  “Teacher?”

  “One of the best, a sensible, good-humored woman with a knack of keeping seven-year-olds in their seats and eager to learn what’s next. Mrs. Williams doesn’t know what’s happening with Meg. Nothing negative in class; she has friends, she’s capable and seems okay once we get h
er in the room.” Kathleen takes a sip of whatever she’s drinking, the glass clicking against the mouthpiece. “Getting her in there is the problem. She cries every morning, kids staring at her, as I yank her down the hallway to her classroom. When we get to the door, she grabs my leg, starts howling that she won’t go in. Sometimes I can’t get her through the door. Edith, she’s missed all or part of five days in the last two weeks. I want to talk to the school counselor, but she’s only there one day a week.”

  “The girl knows. Meg knows.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She knows that her home is changing. She’s frightened.”

  “I don’t understand. I haven’t said a word to the kids. And God, she’s only seven; she can’t possibly know what I’m planning, or what Brian is doing.”

  “Her father knew. He was six. I had to drag him into his classroom, leave him wailing and clutching at me. ‘Don’t go, Mama,’ he’d scream as I shut the door. After a week of this, the teacher instructed me to leave and not to check back in or look through the window, just leave. He finally calmed down. But not before I assured him that no matter what he was worried about, I would never, never leave him. I’d always be there when he came home from school. Miss Fitzgibbons told me to say that every morning. School phobia, she called it. She’d seen it before. Something must be happening at home, she said. He’s afraid to leave the house.”

  “And?”

  I get up, tuck the phone under my chin, pour a cup of coffee. “Something was happening at home. One night, after a string of arguments over a couple of weeks, Art yelled at me, said terrible things. I yelled terrible things back at him. Art walked out. I ended up with bruises on my arms, crying on the front steps.” I take a sip; an almost-lost memory slides through me. “I thought Brian had slept through it all. Apparently he hadn’t, and it took an aging, spinster school teacher to figure it out.”

  I hear Kathleen breathe. “Her grandfather has died. Meg has heard our raised voices behind a bedroom door more than once. I’ve been distracted, not really there, even when my body is. Meg’s afraid of being abandoned, isn’t she?” A light chuckle of relief inserts itself between her words. “Thank God for aging spinster school teachers. And for you, Mom.” I can imagine Kathleen squaring her shoulders. “I can do this, and so can Meg. I’ll call her teacher this evening, tell her what you’ve said, what we both should do help a little girl to not be frightened anymore.”