Never Too Late

by Jo Barney

  “What? I haven’t seen you look this full of it since a mountain trip eons ago. Come in and tell me!”

  “I know it’s a bit early for champagne, but we’re celebrating!”

  I’m sure she’s not celebrating my own tentative steps onto a new path, so it has to be… “You just won the lottery?” Damn. Her envelope was even better than the one Bob has brought to me.

  “No! I’m getting married.” Lynne takes the wine from its paper sack and plunks it on the counter. “Mumm’s. Only the best for this momentous announcement. Where’s a towel?” She grabs the one hanging over the faucet and unwinds the metal wire holding the cork. “I’m never sure how to do this. We may have to lick it off the Formica, but maybe you have a couple of glasses in case I don’t mess up?”

  I do, and I find a clean towel to wipe them off. I can’t remember when I last took these crystal flutes out of the cupboard. “Married? I mean, congratulations, or is it best wishes to the bride? And who is the lucky…omigod, Wednesday/Saturday man?” At her nod, I understand that my dear friend is also coming to grips with a few of the realities life is handing her. I set the glasses down and wrap my arms around her, the bottle nestled between our breasts. “He’s a patient man, friend. He’s also a lucky man.”

  Then Lynne gets the cork out without too much overflow and pours the wine into our glasses. “Let’s sit,” she says. “I’ll tell you all about it.”

  If I need a distraction from my obsession about a phone call from Brian, I get it. Lynne didn’t experience any midnight absolutions to propel her into her decision. She tells me that she has a man who says he’ll wait forever, but his preference is a closet next to hers, the shared daily paper over the daily morning coffee, and a funny, adventuresome woman to keep him anticipating what’s next in his later years. “I know how all this ends,” he told her. “I just want to know that each day will be a good as we can make it. Even if it means watching Golden Girls instead of football sometimes, even if it means cooking dinner once in a while, even if it means listening to you snore every night instead of twice a week.”

  Lynne sighs. “I don’t snore,’ I told him. ‘Of course, you don’t,’ Wednesday/Saturday man assured me. ‘Only a little,’ I admitted. And somewhere in there,” Lynne says, “the deal was sealed. I am tired of being alone, and he’s a very nice man to spend the next ten years with.”

  “Ten years? Then?”

  “We’ll be lucky to live ten more years with a modicum of our selves still operating. After that, it’s up for grabs. Everything’s up for grabs.”

  “Then I’d better get busy.” I empty my glass and hold it out for more. “I suppose it’s too late for a facelift. Who’d believe an almost seventy-year-old lady with no wrinkles and blond hair. One or the other.”

  “Not too late for a lover,” Lynne says. “Not kidding, friend…and by the way, how’s Seth, that nice man from the restaurant?”

  I talk too much about the coming Monday date with Seth, my menu, my fascination with his green eyes, and my new makeover cosmetics. I’ve had enough champagne to spend a moment or two reflecting on what I might do if things go further.

  Suddenly, I can’t talk about him anymore. Brian has taken over.

  Lynne’s enthusiasm melts in the middle of her sermon about safe sex. “Something I said? You suddenly went dead.”

  “Brian…” Then I plunge in. “My son, the perfect son, doesn’t have the balls to tell his wife about a lost daughter with black hair, about Latisha’s mother, of his and Art’s involvement in a strange mess Brian created when he was still a kid.

  Lynne doesn’t flinch at these new details. She responds only to what she hears underneath my words. “We all were in messes when we were twenty. You were married for decades for the wrong reason, and I denied that the man I married was psychotic until someone else finally noticed and took him away. I believed that I had driven him crazy. But we came out of our messes pretty much okay, didn’t we? Grew up, sort of; got a grip and have things to look forward to, now that our lives have gotten simpler.”

  I want to talk about Brian, not me. “But it’s really hard when it’s one’s child who’s in bad trouble. When he was little, I used to get in the middle, tell off the terrible teacher, point a finger at a bully and say, ‘Stop it or I’ll get you,’ or whisper, ‘Your father didn’t mean it. He loves you,’ to a child crying into his pillow. But now…”

  “When they’re small, it’s a mother’s business to protect her whelps. Edith, your son is a fully grown man. Whose business is it to take care of things? Not yours. Your job is to teach grandkids to make mac and cheese and to reassure them that their parents love them too much to abandon them. You’re getting very good at grandmothering. Your other job no longer exists. You’ve been let go. You got your blue slip.”

  I am now drunk enough to move in next to my best friend and kiss her cheek. “Pink slip. Thank you, and…I’m very, very glad for you and the next ten years.”

  “Thank you. Will you be my matron of honor? In three weeks at my place. Dinner at your friend Seth’s new restaurant.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Of course, Brody says in his silent way, you have a headache. And no walk for me last night. Thank Dog we have a backyard or you’d be stepping in it. And speaking of that, why were you sick in the toilet this morning? I only do that when I eat roadkill.

  I should remember that champagne does a number on my body. But who can say no when a friend is so happy and wants to share her news? I wash down a couple of aspirins and try to focus on the Sunday paper, but I can’t. Lynne has swerved in a way I hadn’t seen coming, into marriage, commitment, a shared life. “For the next ten years…” she said. Then there’s my next ten years. I haven’t seen them coming either. She suggests that they will be filled with grandkids and whatever else walks into them. And whoever. After my night time visit with Art, the relief I felt when I woke up, I’m pretty sure my husband is gone for good, except for the parts of him I find in our photograph albums and in the face of our son. But how do I move on, swerve into the next ten years? Not happening at this moment, I realize, as the phone rings, and I nearly knock the instrument off the table grabbing for it, hoping it is Brian calling.

  It isn’t. It is Seth confirming our Monday morning date and directions to my house. His voice is warm, a smile of a voice, and the disappointment I felt when I heard it melts. As soon as I hang up, I begin looking through my cookbooks for brunch recipes. I’m intimidated, of course, by Seth’s expertise with down-home food. And I’m not going to do the strata—I am taking a little swerve here—so I search for more exotic dishes. An hour later, I’ve bookmarked: chakchouka, a Middle Eastern ragout; bao, a Chinese steamed bun; bubble and squeak, a cabbage/potato hash from England; and an omelet torte so complicated the recipe is described as the signature dish of a striving new restaurant. I like bubble and squeak because its name will make us laugh, but I don’t have an iron skillet nor do I have any leftover roast beef. The ragout feels like dinner; the steamed buns scare me.

  I’m left making a shopping list for the torte, which I see includes puff pastry. Shit. Too late. I’ve decided and that’s it. Despite my past struggles with puff pastry, I’m going to make this torte even though I’ll probably end up swearing. My mouth waters just reading the recipe. Only one small hitch—I tore the recipe out of the Oregonian. No mention of its source. Maybe Seth? His chef? But he doesn’t serve breakfast. And puff pastry is not down-home, unless one is French. I grab my bags and go to Fred Meyer.

  It feels good to worry about something I can do something about.

  A couple of hours later, I am home, and I have to make two trips to my car to bring in the groceries. After I’ve unloaded the bags on the table and can sit down for a breather, I consider pouring myself a glass of wine, early, hair of the dog, when the flashing red light on the phone interrupts that thought. It’s heart-stopping, the fear that descends on me at that moment. I have to close my eyes against it. I exhale, kn
ow that I have managed for a few hours to be wholly myself. I planned a meal, and perhaps even more, was contented being led by the idea of a green-eyed man as I walked the aisles of a grocery store. But here I am, back where I was when I started this day. Lynne advised me that I am not a mother any more. My child is an adult, she said. His problems are not my problems. Despite my disowning them, they are squirming, inside me, making my stomach ache, causing my body to slump as I lean against the counter for support. I reach for the receiver.

  A tinny voice informs me I have a dentist appointment on Tuesday. Let the office know if I want to cancel—a robo call from Dr. Seltzer.

  I hang up. I don’t know what to do next, but the bags of groceries demand that I deal with them before the frozen pastry goes bad. I pack the cheese, eggs, potatoes, onion into the fridge and the box of puff pastry in the freezer. I fold and lay the sacks in the drawer. The counter is clear; the dog is asleep after a preliminary greeting. I’m tempted to collapse to the floor and howl like a banshee.

  Something other than despair is roiling in my stomach, not hopelessness, not guilt. Anger again. Anger at a son who is screwing up not only his own life, but that of his children, his wife, mine. The only person who is not deserting him is his dead father, who, in a case of arrested fatherhood, came to his rescue, not once but again and again and maybe even now if he is visiting his son’s dreams, too.

  Stop it, I tell myself. You are finished with Art. Art the husband, yes, maybe, but Art the father—perhaps I’ll never know what bloomed between them, and why in those last days he stood by his son’s side and recouped his role as father. This is the mystery that is making me want to send a howl of warning of the death of my family to the moon.

  I pour a glass of dry white wine. Perched on the tall stool at the counter, I take a cautious sip. Another. I look out the window. It’s a gray day, not a day to sit back in one’s blue lounger and dream. And, no banshee howl today. This is a come-to-Jesus day. I feel my lips moving. Silent words, fierce, satisfying as they burst out of my body, seek a target. I hope Art is nearby, listening.

  No, I’m not finished with you, Art. I need to know why I, the mother, was not included in the secret that bound you and your son? Were you afraid I couldn’t deal with it, that I would…what? Collapse in shock, go insane with the truth, hurt someone, become even more of a bitch from hell? Did you believe I wasn’t strong enough to face the truth?

  Well, the truth is right here, right now, and I am facing it, Art. The truth is that our son is a coward. You tried to help him, but all you did was support his cowardice, handing out money, offering your ear, and risking the small amount of trust that I might still have had for you. You failed. Art. And our son is fucked up.

  I pour myself another glass of wine and thank HBO once again for that word.

  “Seems like it, fucked up,” Lynne agrees a few minutes later, “and the best part is that you called me instead of Brian to let off steam.”

  “It’s hard, Lynne, flipping the mother switch off.” I’ve had a third glass of wine and I’ve put the bottle away. In the morning I will be taking a first step into the next ten years with a torte, and I’ll need all my senses to do this.

  “Friend, I suspect as you wait for Brian to grow up, face his wife, become the man you believed he was, I suspect that you will be in for a surprise. Not only about him, but about yourself. This waiting for him to call you, to tell the truth, is the hard part. It will teach you that you are much more than a wife, a mother. You are a…”

  “Stop. I gave a sermon like yours to my son when he was twelve and didn’t get the part of Pinocchio in the school play. ‘It will make you strong,’ I said. ‘Able to persevere in the face of disappointment.’ Whoa. Look where it got him. All I need from you right now is to tell me what an asshole my son is.” The wine is talking but the sentiment seems real.

  “Sorry, I don’t tell drunken ladies anything they want to hear. Except, go to bed. You have lots of puff pastry to conquer tomorrow, and a lovely man to let you know that deep down, you are okay no matter what you’ve thought and said tonight.”

  “I am okay. And I’ve decided at this very moment that I’m through waiting for my son to man up. I will introduce Latisha to her mother and father tomorrow afternoon, they in absentia, of course, at the meeting with Ginnie.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m too old to wait any longer. I’ve got a life, too, you know.” I am a little drunk, but I’ve never felt more sure about a decision. “I’m doing this for me, not Brian. I advised him to take charge, but it is I who needs to take charge. Of my own life, not my son’s.”

  “I’m so glad to hear you say that. About having a life, that is.” I hear her murmur “Migod “ to her Wednesday/Saturday guy as she hangs up.

  I stumble over Brody who rolls his eyes at me and says, Careful. I’m about to explode unless you open the door.

  I do and then we both decide we need to get some sleep.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  I’m beginning to believe that swearing is an important ingredient of good cooking. I do a lot of it when I discover that the puff pastry has to be defrosted before I can unroll it, but it gives me time to chop the potatoes and onions, cook them, whip up the eggs and cook them, twice, and then get to the puff pastry, which turns out okay, puff-pastry-wise. One sheet tears in half, but who cares when it’s all covered up by the time you get it out of the oven? I like the rhythm of chopping peaches, bananas, oranges and pineapple into a compote, and I thank the free trade agreement for allowing these fruits to make it to my local market out of season.

  I’ve set the table with my old china, the kind fifty years ago we almost-married young women chose for our trousseau and received as wedding presents, one plate at a time. I love my pattern. I rarely use it, except at Thanksgiving. Birds in Trees. It was a hopeful theme for a marriage from which the actual birds disappeared, and most of the trees. Stop it. Cloth napkins. I smell something burning.

  At the knock at the door, Brody stands up to defend me.

  I can’t see his face because it is blocked by a riot of yellow, purple, and orange tulips. I rise up on my toes in order to meet his eyes and say hello. He peeks over his offering. “Thanks for having me.”

  I’ve never received a bouquet before. African violets back when I set them on my windowsill and someone noticed, but not like this. I don’t have a vase, so I take out one of my grandmother’s dusty pitchers that didn’t make it to Goodwill and wipe it off.

  “You might want to cut off a few inches on the bottom,” Seth says. “Lets them get to the water easier.” Is there no end of ways this man will surprise me? I get the kitchen shears, and he clips off the stems, arranges the flowers and sets them in the middle of my lovely china setting. “Perfect,’ he says, and it is. Except that something still seems to be burning in the kitchen.

  “Oh, oh,” I say as I open the oven door. Looks okay except for a smoking puddle of black crust on the oven floor. Leftover Thanksgiving cherry pie, maybe. “We’re okay.”

  And indeed we are. We start with a fruity South American drink, thanks to the recipes that came with the blender, and we end up laughing and…well, I am limp, all parts of me, enthralled by his eyes that send lovely signals as we knife into the torte I’ll be eating for the next week. And that will be just fine.

  “I like your house, Edith. It speaks of you.”

  I’d like to say, “You should have seen it a few weeks ago when it screamed of me, antimacassars and all.” But I just say, “I like it, too.”

  We move to the sofa for coffee and quiet calm fills me. I just want to lean back, sip my coffee and imagine. Seth disrupts my mood. “Latisha came by the restaurant last night, and she’s excited about meeting her birth mother soon.”

  I don’t like not understanding whatever he’s talking about, so I tell him that I’m meeting with Ginnie and Latisha this afternoon. “Really? I thought I’d be able to help her move in that direction.” I don’t go on. I
don’t like the way Seth is sitting up a little straighter, holds his cup to his lips, doesn’t speak.

  “What?”

  His beautiful eyes close. He knows something I don’t.

  “What?

  “This has nothing to do with us, Edith.”

  Well, it kind of does, I want to say. He knows something about Latisha. About her birth mother. About plans to meet her. About Brian, too, maybe. It’s obvious that Ginnie and her brother have been sharing information behind my back, maybe since the beginning. About Patsy? About Art? About Brian? About things I don’t know?

  “You’re not telling me everything, are you?” I can’t bear to look at him. I get up and move to the window. I want to raise my voice, but I swallow my words, try to sound sane. “Any person I might want to get close to needs to know that I, for the next ten years at least, am going to demand No Secrets. Secrets are what screw up people. My family has been victimized by secrets.” I give up on the swallowing. “How many secrets do you and keep, about my son, my husband, my granddaughter, me? What damage shall I expect next? ”

  He stands. “I’m not sure I understand…Latisha seemed so thrilled…” He reaches out to me. I push his hand off my arm.

  “Thank you for the flowers, but I’m finished with secrets. Please leave.” Seth is silent as he pulls on his coat, looks at me for moment and then walks out to the porch and away from me and my anger. Even Brody is confused by his abrupt departure. He paws at the door and sniffs. He likes this man who scratches his head under the dining table.

  I’m not sniffing, but I also stand at the closed door for a minute, remind myself that I cannot trust a man who holds secrets. And maybe that’s every man.

  Something to consider, but first, I have to clean up the kitchen and get ready for a meeting with a teenage granddaughter and a social worker, and who knows what secrets that woman is holding, what side that woman’s on? Why sides? I stop in the middle of scraping the rest of the torte into the disposal, the water running until I lower the handle. If there are sides, whose side am I on?