by Amy Lapwing
Teresa showed the ceiling her palm, lifting her eyebrows and the corners of her mouth. “We had broken up. You know how it is when you break up. You don’t know how to act toward each other, so you don’t have anything to do with each other.”
Your family wouldn’t tell me where you were, Michael was thinking.
“So, what made you get back together? Why’d you go see him, Mom?”
“Because I wanted to!” she said, as if it were obvious. “Whit and I were having troubles, as married people do sometimes, and I just was sick about it and I thought I wanted to leave him. The first of many times I thought that. I was feeling so lost. And I remembered how much Miguel and I had loved each other, and I wanted to see him. So I did.”
“And so you made me,” said Derek.
“Honey, you were not planned, sorry,” said Teresa, patting Derek’s knee.
“Nobody in their right mind would plan to have me, Mom,” said Derek with the air of a child who knows he is treasured.
The interplay between his son and Teresa touched Michael and made him feel left out. He wanted instant intimacy with the boy. “If I had known you existed, Derek, I would have been very proud. I would have had you with me, and your mother, as much as I could.”
Derek’s smile vanished as he tried to think of the appropriate response. He imagined his Costa Rican abuelita prodding him, ‘What do you say to the kind gentleman?’ “Thank you, sir,” he said.
“It was not a simple situation, Derek, I don’t know how to make it clear to you,” Teresa said. “I wanted to make my marriage work, and it did for a few more years. But then, you know what happened, so I had to leave him, and get you away from him.” There was no need to recall the melodrama in detail. She went on, “By that time, Miguel had started a new career and I—” She did not know how to make this sound reasonable. “Well, I know it doesn’t make sense to say it now, but I didn’t want to weigh him down with us. I didn’t know how he felt about us, but I was afraid he’d feel compelled, you know, to be—”
“I would, at the very least, have wanted to contribute to his upbringing. Financially, if nothing else.” His tone betrayed his impatience. “I owed you that, Teresa. And Derek. That much I could have done from a distance, if that’s how you wanted it.”
To her contrite look he added, “But, you’re right, I would have wanted him with me. Both of you. Maybe you knew that and you didn’t want things that way.” He dipped his head and raised his shoulders and looked at her. “That’s all right, I can understand that.”
The food had arrived, thankfully. Derek was intrigued by this love affair. Clearly, it had lasted more than the two years at university, since they must have still been in love when he was conceived, eight years later. He could not help but wonder how much longer it had lived on in the heart of one or the other of his parents.
Michael pulled his old white Buick slowly into Teresa’s driveway, gravel popping beneath the tires. She invited Michael in; he checked his watch and said he should be getting home. Derek thanked his father for dinner and cracked open the door. Teresa said for him to go ahead in, she wanted to talk to Miguel a little more.
“I can come in for a minute if you want me to,” he offered.
“No, I won’t keep you, I just want to clear up something,” she said.
He switched off the car and turned to face her more comfortably.
“It wasn’t that I wasn’t ready, Miguel. I was ready, but I knew you would suffer if you married me.”
“What, suffer?”
“Your sister told me, what your father said,” she explained. “I couldn’t marry you knowing it would mean you would lose your inheritance.”
He felt as if everyone was running out of the room in a panic, and he did not know why, he wanted only to bring them all back. “Oh! He would never have done that!”
She was looking at him as though he lived in Never Neverland. “You would have had nothing, Miguel. All of that money, think about it.”
“I didn’t have it anyway. I still don’t have it,” he said. How could she have believed that old threat? “I’ve never touched a penny of it. It’s tied up in the farm anyway. Papá and Mamá have to die before I get anything, and then it’s just a share, it’s not money. Teresa! Jesus! That was the reason?”
“What did you think? You thought I didn’t love you?”
“Yes!” The mystery was solved, the solution too farfetched for him to believe he had spent all these years trying to figure it out. “Why didn’t you just say?”
“What could I say? ‘No, I won’t marry you, I won’t stand between you and your money.’ You would have convinced me it was a lie, but I would have never known the truth. Did I keep him from his success because he didn’t have the opportunities he should have had? If he fails, is it because of me?”
“I could have proved it to you! My God, Teresa!” He slammed his palm against the steering wheel. He was sick with regret, his failure to convince her he loved her, his failure to raise his own son. “I could kill my father, I can’t believe this!”
A few ashamed tears slid down Teresa’s cheeks. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
She was from a poor family, his was rich. She thought he would come into all kinds of money once he was out of school, wasn’t that how all rich families worked? And his family didn’t like her, she knew that, she could feel it the first time she’d met them, Michael had felt it too. When he told them he was going to ask her to marry him, his father had said something about not wanting her family to have any share in his family’s good fortune, they did not deserve it. So, his sister— was it Marisol or Catalina?— had told her he would be written out of the will if she married him. Naturally, Teresa took that to mean that it would be his ruin if she became his wife.
He opened his arms to her in an uncomfortable embrace over the nubby stick shift, the windshield had begun to fog up with their speech.
“Come in for some coffee,” she coaxed.
He held her close to his side as they walked up to the house, the lit windows hanging in air, the blood red clapboards a dark gray, almost invisible against the yard. In the kitchen he went up behind her as she loaded the coffee maker. “You’ve suffered, because of me,” he said.
She turned around quickly. “We both suffered, Miguel, we were both young and naïve. But we’re okay, now.”
His hands were fairly tingling, anticipating the feel of her back and shoulders. He let himself hold her, he thought he could squeeze her into the young woman she had been, when she had said she would be forever his. ‘Por siempre a ti.’ “Forever I asked myself why, why did she go? And why did she come back? And why did she go again?” He loosened his hold enough to look at her. “For years, Teresa. I couldn’t stop thinking of you.”
“I never forgot you either, Miguel. Always you had a place in my heart.”
He held her again and kissed her hair. She looked exactly to him as she had when he had first known her, only sadder. Because of him. He kissed her. The feel of her cheekbones and chin, the softness of her arms, the angle from her shoulders to her waist, and then her lips were the madeleine that instantly transported him to the music classroom, the backstage rehearsal room, the cafés, the grassy picnic meadow, the narrow rows between the cane plants where he ran with her to come out on the other side into the empty field of high grass, invisible to the campesinos working in the distance, their entire world reduced for a few dangerous moments to the surface of their joined bodies lit by the nova of their eyes. She was succulent like a fruit, the patina of moisture on her skin simply said life to him. He was a quick young man with a big dream and a simple plan. He would marry her and they would go to New York and he would build a career as an opera singer. Everyone said he could do it, he was the biggest talent to come through that school in a long time. He wore an always smile of confidence in himself and trust in the future. The old ache of ambition reassembled itself in his chest.
Derek came in and stood looking a
t them, trying to figure out what they were doing. He actually took a step toward them, he thought he could help Mr. C— Papá, Papá, he reminded himself— get out whatever it was that was in his mother’s eye. He realized his error and turned sharply on his heel and got the hell out of there.
At the sound of the boy’s step they zoomed out of the past to the here and now, from nubile to nuptialed, each to another. The tropical succulence was gone from her face; the dryness he saw around her eyes and her mouth made too stark a contrast. Had he lived those years with her, the lines would have a sentimental meaning to him, they would represent shared travails. “I’m sorry,” he said, turning away from her, trying to take back the previous moment. Had he really kissed her? Was it just a friendly kiss? I’m dreaming. Oh, God.
Teresa went with him to the door. “Derek’s birthday is this Sunday. I’m having a cake for him. He’d love for you to come,” she said. “And Justina. We would like to meet her, Miguel.”
“Of course,” he said and his brain sent “Smile!” to his lips.
He felt so wrong, he was doing everything wrong. He just wanted to go home and feel good again. But they were here to stay, they belonged to him, and they owned a piece of him. He did not understand his role, only that he had one with this other family. His family, but not Justina’s family. Justina! He felt like he was his child’s own father and grandfather, it was unfathomable how to behave. He would have to adjust.
She had an eight-thirty tomorrow, Friday. She lay in bed in the dark beside Michael, stealing glances at him. He’s staring at the ceiling, blinking his eyes, like he’s thinking something through. Dinner was fine, they talked about the old days, again. He didn’t ask him to take the blood test, he forgot, he’ll tell him next time he sees them. He’s going to see them again, then, and they’ll talk about the old days, again. They were supposed to get that all talked out by now and stop wanting to see each other anymore. And we still have the trial to get through. This is taking too long. I forbid you to see her, Michael.
She turned her head and looked at him again. He darted a glance at her and said, “Goodnight,” and turned his back to her.
“Thanks, Papá.” Derek held his wrist over his plate so his mother and father could see the new watch. He played with the features. The clock face lit up. “Nice. Makes a good flashlight.” He smiled at his father, and went to him and kissed his cheek, dropping his eyes to the floor after he did so and going back to his seat.
“What about me?” Teresa held out her hands and held his face while he kissed her cheek.
Michael reached across the table and grasped Derek’s watch-bearing forearm. He reached with his other hand and held Teresa’s and sat a moment, clinging and smiling to them. “Well!” he said, “I have another date to enter on my calendar. October eighth.” He let go of them and sat back. “Of course, I’ll have to ask Justina, I never can remember how to do it. On my computer, I mean.”
“You have a computer?” asked Derek, laughing. “No, I just didn’t peg you as a computer nerd.”
“I’m not, but Justina is, I mean, she knows how to use them, even though she says she is very low tech.”
“You should see Derek’s system,” said Teresa. “It’s very high tech.” Derek showed Michael his computer and keyboard in his bedroom. He showed him how he composed on it, recording different voices and playing them back together, making changes and replaying them. “It makes things a lot faster.”
“But,” said Michael, “I imagine sometimes working fast doesn’t help.”
“What do you mean?” Derek asked.
“I mean, that no matter how fast you work, it’s still not the way you want it to be. You have to wait. Don’t you? You have to think, you have to let it develop in your mind.”
“Yeah, but with this, I can quickly see if an idea isn’t working. While if it’s just in my head, I’m not sure, till I write it down and try it.”
“That’s the marvelous thing about a true composer.”
“What?” asked Teresa, pleased at Michael’s choice of words. “What’s the marvelous thing?”
“There’s always music in his head. Original music. His own,” answered Michael. “It’s a great gift. You’re lucky.”
Teresa detected a wistful note in Michael’s last statement. “And you’re lucky, you have a gift, too,” she said to Michael.
He wobbled his head and looked at his eyebrows, as though she were mocking him.
“I heard you singing, that day I met you at your classroom. You have a voice, Miguel, still.” He was shaking his head. “No, you do. There are many singers whose best years are after they turn fifty. You know that. There was Johanna Meier, remember her? No one had ever heard of her until she was in her fifties. And Richard Tucker was even more brilliant when he was older than when he was young. The voice is rich and strong, the person is experienced in life, he brings nuances to his performances that would never have occurred to him as a younger singer.” She sat on Derek’s bed, her eyes on Michael. “You have all those things, Miguel, a great sound, a great vigor, and a wonderful depth of experience.”
At first he thought she was merely trying to flatter him, trying to be a good hostess. But as she talked he found an echo within himself of all she was saying. He felt his voice was strong, perhaps not concert quality at the moment, but workable. And he had physical vitality, he even had grace. Someone had told him that once. Justina.
Teresa was talking on, her eyes big on him, trying to let him know how he excited her, and expecting him to respond, willing her excitement to infect him. He recalled the woman in Salzburg, he did not know why.
“You could start out with one of the smaller companies, learn the repertoire. And then you’ll see, the offers will come in. The critics will say, ‘Miguel Calderón, where have you been all our lives?’” Teresa held her hands together upon her knees, as in prayer, her eyes in his.
Miguel decided that she was being funny. He took a look at Derek, who shrugged.
“It’s never too late to try something new,” the young man said. “Fifty, forty, thirty, what difference does it make?” Derek twisted his wrist and opened his hand up, the matte watch crystal obscuring the digits beneath it. “Maybe you’ll live another thirty years, maybe you’ll die tomorrow. But if you don’t, why spend the next thirty years wondering if you could do it?”
“My son the philosopher!” cried Teresa.
“There is more competition than you think,” said Michael to Teresa.
“So what?” shrugged Teresa. “There’s always competition. I didn’t say it would be easy.” The computer finished assembling the pieces of Derek’s composition. He pressed Play and keyboard sounds filled the room. It sounded like the work of a two-year-old child, then the fabric of notes shaped itself into a pleasing, sophisticated pattern before tearing into confusion again. Derek stared at the attached keyboard as his composition played. When it concluded, he selected Pause from his computer’s screen and swiveled his head up for Michael’s reaction.
“Interesting,” he said.
Derek smirked. “That’s what Mom always says.”
“I wasn’t giving it a fair listening, really, I’m a little tired.”
Teresa stood up. “We’ve kept you so late, I’m sorry.”
“No, no!” said Michael and he said goodbye and Happy Birthday again to Derek and followed Teresa downstairs.
“Thank you for coming,” she said as she handed him his jacket. “Derek is really, so happy to get to know you. Especially after thinking all this time that Whit—”
“Teresa,” began Michael. He wanted to ask her why she had never told him about Derek before, but perhaps this was not the time. And he needed to ask about the blood testing. “I’m happy to know him, too,” he said.
“He should probably be angry with me for keeping you a secret all this time, but I think he forgives me, now that he sees how good you are, and how kind, and how honorable.”
“I’m proud of him,” said
Michael. He felt gratitude to her for producing him, he supposed, for the gift of him. He embraced her. How small she was, he felt powerful next to her. He kissed her cheek and said goodnight.
Chapter Ten
Comfort Zone
He had a half hour before Men’s Chorus. He sat at his computer terminal, an ancient Zenith some packrat in facilities had been unable to give the boot to, and checked his mail. There was a note from [email protected]. A thank you note from Derek for the watch. That’s nice, he already thanked me once, and I’ll see him today in class, but this is nicer. Really, I like him.
He sat staring at the plastic frame around the screen on the heavy old display. The sheen was gone from the black plastic, as though it had been left out in the sun. The letters in white were dirty with uncleanable dust. It was a wonder, looking at instant communications conveyed by state-of-the-art software through this old box that must have excited someone when it was first hauled into their office and placed on their desk. The pleasure of having new things. He had a new son who was not new, but he was pleased with him. He sat up in his chair and opened an email text window.
“Dear Teresa,” he typed on the sturdy old keys, “Why did you come to New York? —M.” He pressed control-s and a string of 352 ones and zeroes, give or take eight or sixteen, zipped from one sector on a magnetic disk installed on a mainframe computer across a phone line to a magnetic disk on another computer. He taught Men’s chorus and then composition. Derek had turned shy with awareness of his teacher’s special link to him, and he asked no questions. Michael met Justina and the others for lunch and they talked about old television commercials. Justina wondered why none of the detergent ads decried the scourge of ring around the collar anymore. Pascale said it was because so few men wore ties these days. Say that to ODB, said Justina. Michael said Pascale was right, when he visited ODB in Atlanta, not all the men wore ties. Justina asked Pascale how to say hair gel in French. Charles asked Michael if they were on for swimming that afternoon. He said yes, and so did Helena. Justina preferred to go running, and she reminded him she would be working late at the library tonight.
