by Gae Polisner
“But before all that,” she says, “I want to tell you that I’m sorry. I’m sorry for this tragic thing that happened to you. And I’m sorry for your pain. I can only imagine how awful it must have been.”
Her words sit there between us, kind and gentle and true. The rain has stopped. The room has grown quiet. My eyes shift to the wall, above Dr. Alvarez’s head, where Daubigney’s Garden hangs, constant.
If only I could disappear into it.
I close my eyes and pretend I am the missing cat, slipping beyond the matted edges, skirting along the cool grass. I imagine that inside the white house with the blue roof is my father. My mother and my father. From before. All of us laughing and whole.
But the truth is, even then, before, the picture doesn’t look normal and whole. Something is off, something deeper that is trying to horn in.
“What are you thinking?” Dr. Alvarez asks.
“I’m thinking of trying to see the world the way it really is,” I say. “Or was. Instead of how I remember it, or want it to have been. It makes me think of this picture book I used to love as a kid that my mother read to me. It was called Zoom, I think, and each page, each picture, was a smaller scene from within a bigger scene on the previous page. So that, when you turned the page, the town in the picture on the first page, with its roads and houses and cars and all of the life going on, turns out by the end to not be a real town at all but only a picture on a postage stamp, stuck to a envelope—a letter—in the hand of some kid. And the kid walks down a street with the whole wide universe around him.”
“Fascinating,” she says. “I’d like to see that.”
“A part of me feels that small sometimes. That inconsequential. Like my life is nothing more than a postage stamp. Like nothing I do will ever matter enough…”
“Enough for what?” she says.
“I’m not sure. Enough to hold on to the people I love.”
“Enough to hold on to yourself, maybe?” she asks.
I nod, feeling the tears well up, but also feeling more in control, feeling able, this time, to hold them back if I want to.
“But, now, see, I’m thinking that maybe that’s wrong,” I say. “Maybe I’m looking at it all the wrong way. Maybe it’s good if the little moments don’t matter, and the only thing that matters is what adds up to the whole. Because, that way, that night with Sarah at Dunn’s house, my mother’s letters that I found, and whatever she did or didn’t do … well, those moments just become postage stamps, but they don’t define the whole wide world around me. They don’t define him, or her, or me. And Saturday night, what I did? That’s not me either. It was a moment. A postage stamp. It doesn’t have to mean I’m like him.”
“Like your father?” she says. “Doomed to be him.”
“Right,” I say. “Maybe I’m not him at all. He’s the postage stamp, but I’m the kid with the letter in his hand.”
Dr. Alvarez smiles, but she doesn’t say anything. She waits for me to go on.
“Sarah’s been texting me,” I say, not expecting to. “My mother told me. She’s texted me several times.”
“Is that good or bad?” Dr. Alvarez asks.
I look back at where the small black cat should be, and will myself there. Home. Inside that soothing white house. Will myself back a year, maybe more. Will myself back to that shabby couch, with the three of us laughing in the Village. But now I get that I have to stop looking back and look forward. Forward to Boston and to college. Forward to the whole rest of my life. Because this week, this month, this year, they don’t have to be the big picture. They’re just the postage stamp on one single letter.
And even though I’m not sure exactly what all this means, or if the math of it even adds up at all, it sits squarely in my chest like an answer.
Day 11—Evening
Sister Agnes Teresa stands over me with a box in her hand. Smaller than a board game. Yahtzee. No, not Yahtzee. It reads Boggle on the box.
Never heard of it. I roll my eyes but in a teasing way. The truth is, I’m happy to see her regardless of what kid game torture she plans to put me through.
“I’m sorry to find you sleeping,” she says in her froggish voice. “I thought we were making some progress here.”
“We were. I mean, I am. I mean, we are.” I sit up and push the sheets off my still clothed legs. “In case you don’t know it,” I say, “progress can be pretty exhausting.”
She laughs and walks to the window to lift the shade. The sky is deepening, but it still holds its full grasp on day. It must be well after six. It’s staying lighter and lighter these days. “That was quite a storm earlier. It’s cleared up nicely,” she says. “Anyway, I thought we might play a few rounds, then go for a swim.”
I move to the table and sit in her chair. “So, what is that?” I ask.
“Boggle. Any good?”
“Probably not,” I say, smiling.
She puts a small blank pad and a mini pencil in front of each of us, then takes out the cube with the clear lid, shakes and shimmies it until the letter dice fall into their squares, and places it in front of me with her hand placed over the top.
“No head starts,” she says, “and words must be at least four letters long. This isn’t amateur hour. No using a letter twice unless it appears twice on the board. No backtracking over a letter once you’ve used it already. Got it? It isn’t brain surgery.” She holds out a sand timer. “You ready?” I nod, trying not to give her the satisfaction of knowing I’m still totally unclear on the rules. “Good.” She takes the lid off and places the timer down, then quickly flips it back again to stop the grains. She squints at me.
“What?”
“They took the bandage off.”
My hand goes to my ear. “Oh, yeah.” She tsks. “What?”
“To tell you the truth, I’m disappointed.” She smiles. “It’s not so bad, you know. All that fuss, and there’s nothing but a glorified nick. Nothing you’ll even get stared at for. No one will even notice that. Grow your hair out a bit. No one will even care.”
* * *
I make my way to the deep end and dive.
The smell of chlorine is a salve.
I swim five laps without stopping, then stroke back to the shallow end without coming up for a breath. Sister Agnes Teresa sits on the edge, dangling her short, heavy legs.
“You coming in?”
“I might,” she says. “You swim for a bit. I don’t want to show you up here, too.”
I laugh a little. “Suit yourself.” I push off again and swim several more laps until I’m winded and tired, then float on my back, staring at the ceiling above me. With the water in my ears, everything grows quiet and calm.
Eventually, I hear Sister Agnes Teresa wade in. She makes her way toward me in an awkward half walk, half dog paddle, her short limbs moving faster than they should to keep her head above water. Watching her, it’s hard to believe that she’s a certified lifeguard.
“How do you do it?” I ask, when she finally reaches me.
“Do what?” she asks, short limbs treading in place.
“Everything. All of it. Go about life like it’s normal and fine. I mean, you always seem happy and content. But it must be hard, right? I mean, with all the…” I search for an acceptable word and settle on “challenges.”
With a flail of her arms, she positions herself upright to standing, her chin barely bobbing above the waterline.
“Whatever do you mean, Mr. Alden?” she asks, then she takes off, easily swimming the length of the pool.
Day 12—Morning
So, I’m doing it, then.
Walking down to Dr. Alvarez’s office where, in a few short minutes, my mother will be joining us, and I will confront her. Tell her what I know, and how I feel.
“Ask questions without fearing the answers,” Dr. Alvarez told me. Tell her I found the letters and ask whether my father knew, too. Whether that had something to do with what happened to him.
“Knowing
is better than imagining most of the time,” Dr. Alvarez had said yesterday, “and, besides, I hate to break it to you, Klee, but married people cheat all the time. Get cheated on. It doesn’t make it right, and for sure it is awful and upsetting, but it is rarely a basis for suicide. So, maybe it contributed to your father’s deep unhappiness, but there were more likely other compounding issues, and an underlying diagnosis of depression. So, you can be angry at your mother all you want, that is fair. But I don’t know that you can blame her for his actions.”
I take a deep breath and plow forward past the god-awful fish mural. Either way, I will confront her. Get this off my chest before I get out of here.
So that I can get out of here.
Even if it means letting my anger free fall, letting my mother see how very much I hate her.
Even if she ends up hating me.
“I doubt that will happen, and you can’t keep walking around with it, Klee. You see that now. You need to get your anger out in the open. I can tell you from experience: It’s never as bad as you think it will be.”
But what if she’s wrong? What if it’s way, way worse?
* * *
I hover in the doorway and breathe a little easier. No sign, yet, of my mother.
Dr. Alvarez has the Van Gogh book on her lap. When I walk in, she turns back a few pages and taps at it with her finger. On the glossy page, a swirling lavender sky meets a sturdy green tree in a stretch of golden grasses.
“Wheat Field with Cypresses,” I say, sitting. “One of my favorites of his.”
“It’s a very hopeful one, don’t you think? You can almost smell the trees and feel the sun on your face, hear the wheat rustling in the wind. I’d like to find a print and add it to my wall.” I nod. “And this one?” She points to one with a chartreuse sky and bold yellow sun, a man in blue gathering something in his arms beside a knotty tree limb. “I flagged a few of the ones I liked best, but what interests me, too, is how very different they all are, some so free and almost whimsical, and others so much heavier and dark.
“The Sower,” I say. “And that one,” I add, pointing to the opposite page, “is The Potato Eaters.” I shudder for effect. “I never liked that one. At all.”
“The Potato Eaters,” she repeats, running her finger along the center of a dark, bleak painting of a peasants sitting at a wooden kitchen table.
“Les Mangeurs de Pommes de Terre is the actual title, which translates to ‘Potato Eaters.’ It’s one of the few I actually hate. My dad had a print of it hanging in his studio. I used to pretend it wasn’t a Van Gogh.”
Dr. Alvarez chuckles. “Well, I can certainly see why you weren’t a fan. It isn’t an easy painting to take in.”
“My dad loved it, though. He was taken by its skill. He would try to explain to me—to show me how Van Gogh could make the viewer feel the peasants’ dirt and grime and unhappiness. ‘To feel austerity through paint, to smell the loam of the earth,’ he would say. ‘It’s as if the peasants are painted not from oils but from the very dirt they sowed.’”
“He made a good point. It’s incredible. You must miss sharing art with him.”
“I do,” I say. “I miss lots of things.”
“Yes.” She closes the book and says, “Yes. I do love how the commentary, the extra information, makes me like the painting better. Or at least helps me to appreciate it more. I also love how we can learn so much about a person by the art that moves them. Not just paintings, but the books they read, the movies they watch over and over again. And, the inverse, too: how we presume to know so much about something—someone—by those external factors, when so often we know very little. But it seems notable that your father was drawn to this painting and you are not. Perhaps that speaks to some differences in your nature. Either way, I’m grateful you’ve shown me how to look at Van Gogh’s work more closely, in a different way, and that comes from you, through him. So, in some small way, I feel like I knew him, too. You’ve taught me something here, something that seems very much worth knowing.”
I open my mouth to respond when a knock sounds at the door. I swallow hard. Dr. Alvarez’s eyes flash to mine, and I say, “Speaking of learning things that may—or may not—be worth knowing.”
* * *
My mother perches on the edge of the couch in a green sweater set, jeans, and dress loafers with a fat heel, trying to appear more casual. She looks especially uncomfortable in the jeans. I didn’t even know she still owned a pair.
Her eyes dart nervously from Dr. Alvarez to me, back to Dr. Alvarez. Finally she turns back to me and says, “How are you doing, Klee? Any better?”
“Actually, a little. Yes. Hanging in pretty well, I guess.”
“That’s good!” She turns to Dr. Alvarez. “Right? That’s very promising?”
Dr. Alvarez smiles. “Yes, Mrs. Alden, very.”
My mother nods and wrings her hands as if she can sense the shitstorm coming, then twists to look out the window. “Finally nice out again. Enough already with all the rain!”
Maybe it’s because I’m feeling better, stronger, but my mother seems kind of fragile right now. Weak and frail, like some of her usual Ice Queen exterior has melted. Or maybe it’s just that I know I need to confront her, and the guilt has settled in my bones.
But she’s the one who should feel guilty here, not me.
“So, Klee has been working hard in here,” Dr. Alvarez says, shifting her feet under the table. My mother seems to make Dr. Alvarez uncomfortable, too, and her words feel careful and measured. “Really good work. And, I think he has been making solid progress. But there are some things we agree might help to get off his chest, and out in the open, so we might try to work through them all together.” She studies my mother to assess her participation, but my mother’s face is placid and unreadable. She has located and put up her ice shield.
“Yes, fine, of course,” she says, smoothing an imaginary wrinkle in her jeans.
“Klee, would you like to start?”
Already? I’m not prepared yet. My heart bangs so hard I think it might break through my ribs. I shift my weight away from my mother and stare out Dr. Alvarez’s office door into the waiting area. I could leave now and not do this. Get up and walk out the door. I only have to spend a few more months with her and I’m gone. Off to Boston, or if I’ve fucked that up already, then wherever. I don’t need to do this. I don’t need to have a relationship with my mother.
Dr. Alvarez says, “Klee, would you like my help broaching what we spoke about?”
“No,” I say, turning back. “I’ll do it.” My heart drums over my words, the rhythm of my pulse rushing into my ears. I turn to face my mother squarely.
“Who is A?” I ask, my voice breaking.
“Who?”
“‘A.’ Your ‘dearest man.’” I spit the words, making air quotes to help jog her memory. Her face stays a mask of confusion.
She can do this, my mother: make you believe she’s innocent, that you’re the one who doesn’t know what’s going on.
“In your emails,” I clarify. “In the box in the guest room. ‘My Darling M … How I miss you…’” My voice rises singsong and sarcastic. “I heard you talking about him, at the funeral. ‘He shouldn’t ever find out. He can never know.’ That he would be me, I assume? Of course, I was standing right there!”
Her face goes white with recognition. Her lower lip starts to tremble. “Jesus, Klee. That’s what this is about? Dear God, now I understand. Now I—Oh, God…” She turns to Dr. Alvarez. “I tried to save him from all this.”
“I’m sure you did. But you didn’t save Dad, now, did you?” My rage propels me off the couch. I need to move away from her or I might lash out. Break something.
Dr. Alvarez moves toward me, catches my arm, and tries to calm me. But I don’t want to be calmed. I want to say my piece. I don’t give a shit anymore who hears it.
“You acted like you were broken up when Dad died, but you didn’t care at all, did you? You were h
appy to move on! You were cheating on him. You did this to him! You were probably happy he was gone!”
“Klee, my God, please don’t say that!”
My mother stands now, too, but Dr. Alvarez nods for her to sit again, so she does, not able to stop the tears from streaming down her face.
“How could you do that to him?” I shout. “To us? How could you hurt him like that?”
“Klee, please, I hear you, and I’ll answer, but you’re not going to like the answer. You’re going to have to listen anyway. Please. You don’t know what you’re talking about … There are things you don’t understand…”
Dr. Alvarez hands my mother a tissue, but she doesn’t take it, waves it off. Her lip trembles worse, and her voice is barely more than a whisper now. “I’m sorry. I should have told you. It wasn’t like that. Your father was, that is … those emails weren’t mine.”
She leans forward, reaching for my arm, but I whirl away from her.
“Please, don’t touch me. Not ever again.”
“Klee, please. Jesus, you have it all wrong.” My mother looks to Dr. Alvarez, helpless. But she’s got that wrong. Dr. Alvarez is my ally, not hers. She’s here for me, and she knows the truth. So the Ice Queen thing isn’t going to work anymore.
“He did everything for you,” I say. “Gave up everything! His painting … his art…” My voice shakes, but the solidity of my alliance with Dr. Alvarez—with what she knows—gives me courage to keep going. I’m finally saying what I’ve wanted to for years. “His art, our old apartment, everything he loved and cared about. For you. So you could have your fancy shit, your expensive apartment, your nice clothes. But even that wasn’t enough. You had to cheat on him. You betrayed him. You might as well have held the gun to his head—”
“Klee! Stop!”
“No, you stop—”
“Klee!” My mother shouts loudly this time, enough to make my name echo and reverberate, and me listen. “Those weren’t mine! The A was a man named Armond,” she says, more softly now. “Those letters were your father’s…”
