by Adam Haslett
“Did you call Bill?”
“Yes, we’re all set,” he says, already scanning the headlines, settling into the chair opposite me beneath the standing lamp.
I’m pleasantly tired enough to trust he got the dates right when he spoke to Bill Mitchell. Why it couldn’t be settled a month ago I don’t understand. I just have to assume we have our two weeks (they arrived a day early one year and we had to check into a motel). John’s absentmindedness is chronic and infuriating. Whereas I remember the dates for everything. It’s embarrassing actually to admit how much I still store in my head: our first visit to John’s parents (April 5, 1963), the day he bought his Morris Minor (March 10, 1964), and on and on. I remember the anniversaries of these events too, but I don’t mention them to people because unless it’s a birth or death or wedding I get quizzical looks, as in, Why have you bothered to retain such trivia, why does it matter? (I tell the children instead; they have no idea what I’m talking about and don’t really listen, but nod anyway before asking their next question.) It was sixteen years ago last month, for instance, that John appeared unannounced on my doorstep with a car already packed with food and wine and drove us all the way to the Highlands, to a friend’s house he’d been loaned for the weekend.
John’s friends’ houses. That’s where we spend all our vacations.
Upstairs, Celia has fallen asleep with her book propped on her chest. She rolls over without opening her eyes when I lift it from her hands. Michael’s still sitting up against the headboard reading his novel, his feet wriggling beneath the blanket. It takes him forever to wind down. Alec and Celia have simpler batteries that burn through and fade. But to Michael this is a new bed and a new room, even if he’s been here three summers in a row, and all the driving and running in the yard aren’t enough to still him. In a few days, out on the island, he’ll unclench a bit, getting into a rhythm closer to the other two, but never entirely. He’s seen me come in but keeps reading, his teeth biting softly at the inside of his cheek. I run my hand through his thick black hair, which needs a cut—it’s coming down over his eyes and ears—and start feeling for ticks. He turns his head away.
“You already did that.”
Alec is so easy to touch. He never doesn’t want to be touched. Celia’s ten now and beginning to notice she lives in a body, so touch is getting more complicated, no more clasping at my leg, more pushing and pulling and long looks. But with Michael it’s been fraught from the start. Babies are scrunched little creatures, but then they splay flat on the crib or floor. Except Michael never quite did. Like a little old man, he remained almost always hunch-shouldered and bent at the waist. He slept blessedly well but when he did cry, holding him rarely helped. I didn’t understand. That’s what a mother was supposed to do, hold her crying child. I thought maybe it was my inexperience, but then Celia came, and then Alec, and picking them up when they cried was like throwing a switch: the wailing ceased. And then I knew the difference. Celia’s and Alec’s discomforts were creaturely and fluid; they passed through them and were gone. But holding Michael had always been like holding a little person, who knew that his feeding would end, who knew that if you were picked up you would be put down, that the comfort came but also went. Without knowing what it was, I’d felt that tension in his little groping arms and fitful legs, the discomfort of the foreknowledge. Was I more skittish in my touches and kisses because I sensed my ineffectuality? I can’t say. With children, everything’s already happening and then over with. It happens while you’re trying to keep up and gone by the time you arrive at a view of things.
“We’re getting up early tomorrow,” I tell him. “You should turn out the light.”
“But I’m not tired,” he says, still without looking up from the page.
I’m sitting beside him on the bed, my arm over his shoulder. That I should notice the position of my body to his at all—that’s the difference.
“What are you reading?”
“Thomas Mann. He’s German. But it’s set in Venice. Have you ever been there?”
“Before I married your father.”
“Did it smell?”
“Not particularly. Do you like the book?”
“I only just started. The poet of all those who labor on the brink of exhaustion. That’s not bad.”
“Is that all you brought?”
“No. I’ve got the one on machine code.” A tiny-print tome he’s ordered direct from McGraw-Hill about computers or the numbers in computers. It’s Greek to me. But there’s another boy at school who’s interested and he doesn’t make friends like the other two, so I’m all for it.
“Five more minutes, all right?”
“Okay, okay,” he says, turning the page, rendering me superfluous.
Downstairs, John has poured himself a glass of Bill Mitchell’s Scotch and moved on to the business section. I must make the children’s lunches for tomorrow, I think, until I remember there’s no school and so no rush.
Suddenly, my eyes are brimming with tears. I wipe them away. John hasn’t seen it. “Spend time with Michael,” I say. “While we’re up here. Take him on the boat, the two of you. Or pack a lunch and take a walk. Will you?”
“What’s the matter?” he asks, not looking up from the paper.
“Nothing’s the matter. He’d never ask for it. Any more than Alec would stop asking. Are you listening?”
“Yes,” he says, meeting my glance now. “That’s fine.”
“Would you get me a glass of that?”
“This?” he says, holding up his highball, surprised.
“Yes.”
He goes to the sideboard and pours me a drink.
I sip it on the couch beside him while he reads a while longer. I’ve seen him at the mirror when he doesn’t see me, glancing at the strands of gray at his temples, trying on the notion that they make him look distinguished, a state he’s always aspired to, tinged with the fear that he hasn’t accomplished enough yet, that the gray means nothing more than getting older.
I should ask him about the meetings he had this week, about the possible new investors in the fund he’s been trying to raise for over a year now, if he’s still worried about how long they’ll commit for, or, rather, still worried as much. He needs to be asked. He won’t talk about it of his own accord. He imagines that if he can contain it inside himself its resolution will be contained as well. That everything will work out—his upbringing distilled into a superstition.
He puts the paper aside and leans toward me and we touch foreheads. Sometimes this is prelude to a kiss, other times it’s just its own little respite. Giving up effort, letting in the drowsiness which isn’t yet sleep coming on but is the body gaining on the mind.
“Thank you,” I say, combing my fingers through his hair.
“For what?”
“For this. For bringing us here.”
He kisses my cheek. However nervous he was at the beginning about our lovemaking, he’s always been gentle. I suppose some women would find this boring. I don’t. Perhaps because most times between us feel like the overcoming of an unlikelihood, as if I was unsure if it would ever happen again and now here it is, happening. Finding him is such relief.
Celia
We’d already bought the lobsters from the lobsterman off the side of his boat, and the island was already in the distance when Dad turned the sputtering motor off and the little cloud of gray smoke that came out of it each time it stopped floated by me, filling my nose with the smell of gasoline. He tipped the propeller out of the water and took the key from the engine, putting it into the pocket of the pink pants I wished he wouldn’t wear, and the boat stopped going forward against the waves and began to rock back and forth between them instead, like the logs we sometimes saw floating out beyond where the waves broke against the shore. Up the side of each wave and down the other, the boat moving farther out, away from the island. Dad lay down in the bottom of the boat, using one of the life preservers as a pillow. He closed his eyes and sp
oke to us like he did when he was taking a nap, with no expression on his face. All right, then, he said, imagine something happened and I can’t drive the boat and you can’t start the engine. What do you do now? Alec said, Why can’t you start the boat? And Dad said, Imagine me gone, imagine it’s just the two of you. What do you do? There weren’t any boats around or much wind but the water made its own noise and the house was too far away for anyone to hear us if I yelled. I asked him if this was some kind of test. But the way he plays games is to be really serious about it, like it isn’t a game, which makes the games he plays with us more exciting than anything else because everything matters the whole way through and you never know what’s going to happen. It’s never boring. Is it a test? I asked him again, and he just said, Imagine I’m not here. What’s happening? Alec said. The back of his red life preserver came up above the top of his head because there weren’t any small enough for him. When he had put it on the first time, Michael said he looked like an albino rabbit in a Soviet body cast, which made Dad smile and Alec cry because he didn’t understand. What do you think is happening? I said. We have to figure out what to do if Dad is gone. It’s like a safety drill at school. I don’t want to, Alec said. Can you sit up now, Dad? But Dad kept his eyes closed and didn’t say anything. He can take a nap anywhere and it was even possible he was actually already asleep. The lobsters in the canvas bag next to him were trying to get out but couldn’t fit more than a claw through the knotted handles. We have to row, I said. If there’s no engine, we have to use the oars. I picked up the one nearest me. It was long—much taller than I was—and heavy. I had sat between Dad’s legs before and held both oars with his hands over mine so I knew how it worked but I needed both hands to lift one oar and when I put it over the edge of the boat, the water grabbed it, sliding it almost out of my hands, and I had to pull it back in again. Then I remembered they were supposed to go in the little metal horseshoes that hung on the chains either side of the middle bench. I told Alec to take the little horseshoe hanging on his side and put in the holder. For once, he did as he was told. When I got the oar in the holder, I put just a bit of the paddle in the water so it wouldn’t get pulled down in again and I moved it back and forth. That’s not how Dad does it, Alec said. You’re doing it like a girl. In the direction the boat faced I saw only water and sky ahead of us and I had to turn to make sure that I could still see the island, which I could, but it looked even farther away than a minute ago. Dad, she can’t do it, Alec said, shaking Dad’s ankle. Get up now, please. We have to do it together, you little whiner, I said, or it doesn’t work. I pulled my oar in and moved across the bench to pick up the other one. Here, I said, showing him how to hold it. Use both hands. Start out in front of you and then pull it toward you. You have to make sure it’s in the water but not too much. He put his little freckled hands on the handle and sat there pouting. I slid back to my side—you’re never supposed to stand up in small boats because you might lose your balance and fall—and put my oar in the water. Now put yours in the water, I said. We have to do it at the same time or it doesn’t work. He put his paddle in the water but then he pushed the handle forward, which would make us go backwards, and because I wasn’t looking at mine it splashed water and clanged against the side of the boat right next to where Dad was lying. His expression didn’t change at all, like he really was asleep. It wasn’t fair that he was doing this with Alec and me instead of me and Michael because if Michael had been here, even if I had to tell him what to do at least he’d be strong enough to use the oar and we could have moved the boat. But Alec was just too little and he was a crybaby. I don’t want to play anymore, Dad, he whined. She doesn’t know how to do it. Open your eyes, Dad. He’s not here, I said. You can’t whine to him because he’s not here, didn’t you hear him? We have to make the boat move, so stop whining. I showed you how to do it. You have to hold it out in front of you first and then pull it back. Don’t be such a weakling. Just put it in the water and pull it toward you when I say go. We put our oars in and I said go and then the wave coming toward Alec’s side lifted his oar out of the holder and it went into the ocean. Get it! I shouted. He tried but his arms were too short and I had to slide over again, tipping the side of the boat just a few inches from the water, and by then another wave had gone under us, taking the oar with it. I could see it a yard away and then more. Alec started sniffling. He shook Dad’s leg again but Dad didn’t move or open his eyes. It was hot in the sun and it hurt my eyes to look at the water because the light on it was blinding white. I looked back and we were getting farther away from where we’d been when Dad waved down the lobster boat and farther away from the island too. It was so unfair of him, leaving me with the crybaby. I lifted my oar out of the holder and crouched up to the front of the boat onto the little thin bench where you’d normally get wet from spray. This is what Dad did when there was fog and we were getting close to landing. He’d turn off the engine and row from the front, one stroke on one side, one stroke on the other, poking through the mist to find the jetty. He could do it sitting down, but I had to kneel on the bench to get high enough for the oar to go in the water. At least I could see the house from here so I knew what direction we should be moving in but it didn’t do any good because mostly all I could manage was to keep the oar in my hand and not let it get sucked down by the weight of the passing waves. After a few minutes of kneeling like that, rocking from side to side, looking into the water, I began to feel seasick. I turned around and sat on the bench to try to make my stomach feel better. Alec was crying. He crouched on the floor of the boat next to Dad and shook his limp arm back and forth. He’s not here, I said. Though now that I’d given up I knew the game was almost over.
Margaret
“You’re contemplating something,” Michael says, watching me from the top of the steps, holding his computer tome down at his side. He’s thin as a beanpole, which is only more apparent in shorts and a T-shirt. It’s one of the reasons he’s unhappy at school, being teased for it.
“Am I?”
“You’re staring fixedly into space with an expression of mild bemusement. That’s how people are described when ruminating.”
“Where’s your father?”
“He’s mucking around in the boat. He took Celia and Alec.”
“Why didn’t you go?”
He glances over the shimmering water, ignoring my question. “What are you cogitating about?”
It’s been a week and John hasn’t spent ten minutes alone with him yet, and now he’s gone off with the other two. Michael plays with his brother and sister some, but fills most of his hours with reading and sketching out his elaborate parodies, the latest one being of our local newspaper. I found it on his bedside table this morning. The Pawtucket Post-Intelligence: Local Family Goes on Holiday by Accident, Returns. A special joint-investigation with the 700 Club, plus weather.
In my generous moods, I think John just forgets what I’ve asked him to do, and, being freedom-loving, thinks the children should all do as they like, but at other times my frustration intuits that it’s more than absentminded. He doesn’t know what to say to his elder son; it’s sticky and awkward, and he’d just as soon glide over it, flicking the switch from treating him like a child to treating him like an adult who can teach himself how to cope with the world. John was sent to boarding school at eight. He’s enlightened enough to believe that was and is a form of organized cruelty, but having gone through it himself, some remnant of the fear of being associated with weakness remains lodged in his gut. Michael gets the silent brunt of it, Celia and Alec none at all.
“What about Sand Dollar Beach?” I say. “We haven’t been there yet.”
“Are you suggesting a divertissement?”
“I’m suggesting a walk. It’ll be cooler in the woods.”
“Cooler, but treacherous in the event of a hurricane.”
“Come on,” I say, “let’s go.”
He puts his book down on the bench and with a pensive look of h
is own passes by me into the house. They’re polite, my children. We’ve raised them to be polite. It never occurred to us to do anything else. It’s not the British relegation of them to silence in the presence of adults. But manners teach them the forms of kindness. The way to greet a stranger, and eventually how not to make a scene over every little feeling because there are other people to consider. Overdo it and it will stifle them. I don’t think my mother ever stopped to wonder what good form costs a person, because the cost could never be greater than someone having a poor opinion of her. It could never exceed the failure to live up to the standards of propriety. John’s mother is more hidebound still, appalled that we don’t better contain the children’s energy. She told John it’s my American influence. She blames me for her son being in the States, as if I’m the one in control of where we live.
We didn’t discuss raising our children differently than we were brought up, it’s just a natural softening, I suppose. As if Celia would ever be a debutante, even if we had the money; it’s absurd. Of course I want others to think well of my children but they already do and through no great labor of mine. It’s just a matter of pointing out what’s rude and what’s the proper way to thank a person, and the importance of imagining yourself in someone else’s shoes, that’s all. John spanked Michael and Celia when they were much younger, and he’s spanked Alec two or three times, but it was only when they lied or refused repeatedly to obey. And now with the older two it barely arises. They’ve learned how to behave. We’re not a formal family, but we set the table for meals, and we eat meals together, and they have to ask to be excused when they’re done. I suppose some people would consider it dated. I should encourage their whims in case they are the seedlings of genius. But that doesn’t make sense to me. Whatever they do, there will be other people around and they’ll have to converse with them and be polite. I want them to be happy. That’s the point.
