The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

by Aimee Bender

  Hey, I said, after a couple minutes. Could you do something for me?

  It was the first of two favors I ever asked my brother, and although this one was far less important, it was still one of the best moments in my whole junior high. The next day, at school, at lunch, while Eliza sat cross-legged and carefully unpacked her brown bag of joy, George turned a corner and came walking over from the high school. His loping, long-legged friendly walk. He’d recently been accepted early admission at Caltech, and it was a soaring lift to see him appear from behind the brick wall that separated the two schools, striding over in his jeans like he had a reason to come over. Which he did. Which was me. He waved as he drew closer. Eliza waved back. A few other middle-schoolers watched from their spots, chewing on the split ends of plastic straws. Any kind of high-school visitation was notable, but this was better than most: by high school, George had grown into himself, and any remnants of isolated nerd-dom had been softened by his easy manner, his good teeth, his comfort with girls, his shopping choices. Lanky, smart, dignifying. He had a rubber band wound around his thumb and was twanging it like a guitar string, something he did sometimes at our house when he was sorting through an idea.

  He nodded at Eliza, and then beckoned me over. We’ll just be a sec, he said. Of course! she said, full of cheer, a moon sticker shining on her inner wrist like tattoo practice. George and I stood by a cement pole, and he leaned closer, voice dropping to a whisper. Joe told me to come by and see you, he said. I glowed at him. All okay? he said. All is great, I said. I just wanted to show off to Eliza, I said, and you are the best show-off person I know. He grunted a little, and glanced over at Eliza, who was several feet away, watching us from under her bangs, biting into her turkey sandwich. And oh. I’d tasted that turkey sandwich before. The whole thing was just a sonata of love—the lettuce leaf, the organic tomato grown on a happy farm, even the factory mayonnaise took on such delicacy of feeling it seemed like an exquisite violin solo. It was difficult, and rude, to hate my friend so much.

  When do you leave for school? I said.

  Usual time, he said. Late August. I’ll come visit, don’t you worry.

  Is your mom happy?

  Oh sure, he said, twanging his thumb. She’s thrilled.

  I could see my brother, far in the distance, perched on a flesh-colored bench, overseeing.

  Joe’s watching, I said.

  George let out a puff of air. Funny guy, he said. So. All okay over here?

  All is fine, I said.

  No bullies in the hallways?

  No, I said. No bullies at all.

  Any boys giving you trouble?

  Not so much, I said. We smiled at each other.

  You wait for a good one, okay? he said.

  Okay.

  Food?

  Same old crap, I said.

  Same, he sighed. Brave girl.

  Eliza was now sorting through her three kinds of homemade cookies: chocolate chip, oatmeal, sprinkle shortbread. George’s eyes started to graze over my head, to move on to other topics.

  Is that enough time? he said. I should get back.

  Sure, I said, bowing. That’s great. Thank you so much. I patted his shoulder. Maybe you could laugh?

  He laughed at the suggestion, which fulfilled it.

  21 When Joseph was born, my mother’s closest friend, Sharlene, the one with wavy tawny hair who’d cooked the glorious French Tunisian feasts of lamb stew and eggplant-tomato tart in their Berkeley days, showed up at the maternity ward right on time wearing a lime-green T-shirt that said Team Baby. Dad outside. Grandma in Washington.

  Sharlene received my waddly mother like a football pass, and for a while, she was the perfect helper—brightening, in command, loving, focused—but Joseph, curled up contentedly in the warmth of the uterine sac, did not feel so motivated or timely. By the fifth hour of heated helping, Sharlene, face red, T-shirt drenched to jade, dragged herself to the pay phone in the lobby and apologized extensively to her boss at a catering company. Mom hollered obscenities so loud you could hear them down the corridors. As soon as Joseph popped his head out, screaming, alive, bluish, squirmy, Sharlene kissed my mother on the forehead, said congratulations, great job, oh happy day, and then hightailed out across town to stuff mushrooms.

  The doctor left to attend to another patient. The nurse clipped the umbilical cord and went to bury her face in tulips and roses.

  Once she was holding the baby close, my mother slowly sat up and swung her legs around. Her body ached. She stepped off the bed and trundled to the window, where she held up the blanket and watched in silence as small Dad jumped up and down. He lit a cigar. He danced a jig. It was like the silent-movie version of her life. He did this whole routine several times through until he was too tired and squinty and then he blew kisses goodbye and headed off to ready the house. Mom was left, all alone, with her son. It was a private room. And even with the women yelling nearby, and the clicking and beeping of machines, she told me that something seemed to empty out at the ward then, and everything grew very quiet, and still, and there was a window of time and calmness, when Mom and the new baby had several hours together, just staring into each other’s eyes. His eyes, wobbly and new; hers, weary, alone, depthful.

  She told me this story for the first time when she was combing out my hair after a weekly shower. I was seven, or eight. I saw in him, she said, and her voice drifted off. I saw, she said. She hung her head. We sat together on the floor of the bathroom, on the fluffy damp lavender rug, and she had shaken my hair dry with a towel and held the comb high over my head, ready to nudge it through the snarls. To copy her, I had grown out my hair as long as possible, down to the butt, and washing it was a major hour-long ordeal of shampoo, conditioner, toweling, combing, and maybe a blow-dry if I was lucky.

  She was best with activities, and I cherished this time with her, warmed like baby chicks by the orange-red coils of the wall heater. If this kind of time with Mom meant hearing often about my brother, it was worth it. Plus, I had my own good story; when I was born, she said, I had laughed within minutes, even though the doctors assured her that infants did not laugh. You chuckled! she told me, beginning to pull the plastic teeth through wet hair, scoring lines into my scalp. A big belly chortle! she said.

  Really?

  Really, she said. She worked the comb down, caught full drops of water in the towel as it collected at the ends, and as she did, her shoulders sank again, a graceful sinking. She glanced through the crack in the bathroom door.

  With Joseph, she said.

  I waited, dripping.

  With Joseph, she said, he saw all the world.

  Her hand paused in the middle of my hair.

  As a baby? I said.

  He was like a wee old prophet in the shape of a baby, she said.

  She did not cry when she told this story, but her voice grew smaller, humbled. When Joseph heard it, he would usually leave the room. We fell in love in seconds, Mom continued. Literally, seconds! Boom! She smiled at him, and he would pass through the room, whatever room we were in, and go to his own, gently closing the door. I had a memory of him passing through every room in the house this way, as if all my mother did was retell his birth story, over and over and over again. In truth, she probably only told it a few times, but in my memory replay, I could picture him passing through the kitchen, the TV room, the bathroom, my bedroom, and the front lawn, Mom sitting with me for some reason—hair, homework, wedding album—him walking straight through without a response.

  I knew, Mom said, that he would guide me.

  Joseph’s door clicked shut.

  She wrapped the towel around my head, pressing down on the skull.

  Do I? I asked.

  Do you what, baby? she asked.

  Do I guide you too?

  Oh sure, she said, drying my ears. All of you do! You help me all the time, of course!

  When my hair was dry and combed enough, she took her time with the three damp strands on either side, her f
ingers deft and accurate, doing the French style of braids that started high on the scalp. At dinner, running a hand over the bumps in my hair, I tried to catch Joseph’s eyes to see what was so special in there, but he just dodged his around. What? he said, when I kept trying. What is your problem?

  I’m trying to be guided by your eyes, I said.

  He closed his. Long orbs of pale lids, black rims of lashes.

  My eyelids are my own private cave, he murmured. That I can go to anytime I want.

  He ate that whole meal with his eyes closed and somehow didn’t spill a thing. Mom thought he was trying to intensify the flavor of her dinner, so she closed hers too, concentrating. Yes, she said, bringing the fork to her lips. Mmm, it’s true. I can taste the thyme much better this way, she said.

  Dad looked over at me and shook his head.

  We can see you guys, I said, but no one seemed to hear anything either.

  22 By my thirteenth birthday, I had collected over eighty dollars from being the consenting babysittee. I used most of it to buy my favorite packaged foods for snacks, or for a few cans of tennis balls that I liked to throw down the street as hard as I could (returned, on occasion, by a neighborhood dog), but with the last bit, I went to the music/video store and bought a copy of Brigadoon—audio and video, both. I listened to the music on my own and snuck the videotape into the TV when my father wasn’t looking, on another night of my mother’s errands. He looked up when the overture and credits began, in swirling violins, and at the first number, he put his ledger aside and sang out a line or two of broken lyrics. He burst out for the chorus. After a few minutes, I joined in, because I knew the words by then, too, but instead of making it all less exposing, the entrance of my voice had the unfortunate side effect of calling attention to what we were doing. Midway through that chorus, my father picked up the remote and clicked off the TV. I have to work, he said, returning to the red ledger. Shaking his head. Funny, he said.

  On a Saturday afternoon in April, fair and light, a thin envelope arrived in our mailbox. Inside was one neatly folded piece of stationery paper from the admission offices of Caltech, stating that, although impressed by his application, unfortunately Caltech had an especially fine crop of candidates this year and would not have room for Joseph Edelstein this fall. They wished him all the best in his science endeavors of the future.

  I hand-delivered the envelope into Joseph’s lap, where he was sitting outside reading a book on Kepler and the arrival of new enlightenment with the orbital change of thinking. Elliptical orbits, perihelions, equal areas in equal time.

  When I gave it to him, he closed the book and took the letter directly to his room, which then he did not leave for two days. Dad said to leave him be, that we should give him space. The trays of food my mother left outside the side door were eaten by birds and bugs.

  Two more letters arrived in the mail. All of Joseph’s envelopes were thin. He did not get into UCLA, or USC. He hadn’t applied anywhere else. The competition had stiffened and his grades had been erratic: some strong A’s in sciences, some C’s in Spanish and English, little to no extracurricular activity, an uneven SAT. He could not write But I’m a GENIUS as his application essay and leave it at that. You need to show your genius, the college counselor had said, crossing her legs. How many young men had she seen going through her office with big ideas and complex skills and no way to get any of it on paper?

  They’re wrong! Mom said, pacing the house. She called up George, who called up Caltech. She demanded to see the college counselor. She compiled lists of visionaries who had dropped out of high school and started world-changing companies or invented vaccines. She slipped those lists under Joseph’s door.

  Her outrage was so large it carried with it a tinge of presentation, the way a person feigning surprise at a known surprise party will make a grander expression than one truly surprised.

  Finally, we had to pick the lock with a hairpin. Inside, we found him lying on his bed, reading a textbook, jotting down notes for an assignment due. Can I still move out? he said, when Mom and I clamored around.

  23 My brother’s first formal disappearance—formal meaning someone else was around besides me—happened right before his high-school graduation. The day of. It was a gloomy June afternoon, skies a dirty white, tree leaves drooping. Joseph had been both focused and distracted since the school rejection letters, but he had done his usual thorough overly cozy job with my mother’s splinters on Sunday evenings, and he attended his classes until the last day. Our parents had not gone out to any events, or dinners, so there had been no disappearing on any subsequent babysits, to my disappointment. No more laughing, no discussions. On this day, he was supposed to be getting ready to go, trying on the sizing of his cap and gown, manipulating bobby pins, and in my role as younger sibling/domesticated shepherd, I was supposed to herd him into the car to get to school in time for rehearsal. The lambs, however, were loose. I couldn’t find him anywhere.

  Joe’s not in his room, I told my mother, who was outside, retouching her lipstick in the side mirror of the car. It’s that thing I told you about, I said.

  She peered up, her lips re-pinked. Maybe he’s in the bathroom? she said.

  I looked, I said.

  It was nearly noon, time to go, sun burning behind the cloud layers, and right on time, George turned the corner at Vista and walked up. He was wearing his black graduation hat perched on his head, the ironed coat folded over his arm. He did a little jaunty bow.

  I can’t believe you kids are graduating! Mom said, holding her forehead. She hurried over to give him a hug.

  Together, we oohed over his hat and touched the soft golden tassel with the plastic date hanging from it. The phone rang. Mom ran inside. She left the front door open, and I couldn’t tell words but her voice dropped down, low, to the hushed tone of urgent intimacy I heard sometimes when she picked up in the afternoons. I turned to George.

  Congratulations, I said.

  Hey, Rose, he said. He re-adjusted a bobby pin. How are you?

  He looked newly older suddenly, with college admission in his pockets. Smoother at the edges.

  Joe’s missing, I said.

  Where to?

  Don’t know.

  So where is he? Mom asked, returning outside, her eyes a little lighter.

  Somewhere other than his room, I said.

  Did he just go on his own? George asked, still fiddling with his cap.

  Joseph? I said, incredulous.

  I guess not, said George, laughing.

  My mother zipped up her purse and stepped back inside. We followed her in. Despite the awkwardness, I was glad for all of it, that they were both around while Joseph was not, that George was over, that the same thing was happening, but with witnesses. George walked through the living room, with long strides of assurance. Brownies cooled on the kitchen counter, for the party later. We called out his name like he was a lost dog.

  That it was graduation day seemed notable. The very beginnings of the fork. Joseph and George still spent multiple afternoons together, and the roads named Joseph and George still appeared to be facing the same direction, but soon the angle at the base would reveal itself as large. Over the last couple of months, while George had been settling linen napkins in his lap, sipping from crystal goblets of ice water at celebratory luncheons for early-admission honors students, my mother had registered Joseph for classes at Los Angeles City College on his behalf. Sure, he’d said, when she and my father had suggested he try out school anyway. But can I still have my own place? he said, as he leafed through her piles of forms.

  It’s graduation day! I called, clapping my hands. Time to go!

  Mom walked through the backyard, stepping carefully in her tan graduation heels, making divots in the lawn.

  George stood in the front of the house, scanning the street. He traced fingers over the bark of the ficus tree whose roots made arches and bumps and broke up the sidewalk.

  Jo-seph! my mother called, striding
through the living room.

  I joined George. Will you still be his friend? I asked.

  He looked over. Startled. He reached out and pulled me in close, scrubbing my hair.

  What’s with you, he said. Joe and I will always be friends, he said.

  A neighborhood kid rode across the street on a bike. I rested on George’s shoulder, for a second. He leaned his head on mine. He smelled of citrus soap.

  Will I see you? I said.

  Of course, he said. I’ll come by all the time.

  His cheek was warm on my forehead, but even as he spoke, it was like the opposite was forming underneath his words, like letters shaped backwards in the reflection of a pool.

  My mother stuck her head out the door. Find him? she called.

  Not yet, I called back.

  She rustled outside, carrying Joseph’s cap and gown, wrapped in plastic. In the kitchen, the phone rang again. Mom had started asking George polite questions about Caltech, so I ran in to pick it up.

  Hello?

  It was a man’s voice. Hello? May I speak to Lane?

  Who’s this?

  This is Larry, from the co-op, said the voice.

  I picked out a pen from the pen cup, and drew a circle on a pad of paper. I didn’t expect him to give his name so easily.

  She can’t talk, I said. We’re about to go to my brother’s graduation, I said.

  Ah, right, he said. He had a friendly voice, easygoing, medium-pitched. Just tell her I called, he said. This is Rose, right?

  I doodled a demon head on the pad. Who?

  Rose? Her daughter?

  I gave the demon head bloodshot eyes. I could just imagine my mother telling Larry all the things in her day. Going over every detail of every piece of wood. Telling him the names of each member of her family. I hadn’t been able to stop myself from thanking him every night before I went to sleep, as I watched tray after tray go to the co-op covered in cookies and pies and return the next day, empty.

  I scribbled wiggly hair on the demon head. Yes, I said. This is Rose.