My father and Dan. My grandfather. My grandmother. All gone. All gone. The words suddenly seemed so significant.
Then I had an idea.
“Mom, do you remember Grandma?” She nodded.
“Ida,” I said. “Her name was Ida.”
She nodded again. “I know,” she said clearly. “Ida.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Do you know the story that she loved The Skipper?” I said, leaning in toward my mother to keep her with me. I don’t know why I asked that. I didn’t know what I expected, but this was my last opportunity. Who knew when the clouds would part again, if ever?
“She loved Grandpa.”
My heart jumped. She did know. She was able to pull that much from the past. I tried again.
“She went on the boat,” I said. “The Man in the Moon. She had a baby.”
“Man in the Moon,” she said.
“Grandma had a baby?”
“A boy,” she murmured. She closed her eyes and lifted her head to the sun, finished. What else could I say? “How do you know?” I managed, praying, praying that the door hadn’t closed, the clouds hadn’t come back, hovering over her mind, layering thickly, shrouding all of its content. “How do you know?” I asked. “Did she tell you?”
“You have to move the rocks.” She pointed at the decorative rocks tucked between the flowers. They had inspirational words painted on them. “Joy,” “Hope,” “Good Journey,” “Smile.” “They’re in the way of the flowers.”
I knew she was gone. She starting dozing now, her face turned up to the sky like a sunflower, and I sat next to her, thinking about what she said, pieces of my family’s history falling into place and out of place. How could I know if what she said was true? How would I ever know?
The aide came over. “It’s getting chilly,” she said. “All the others are being brought inside. I’m going to take her inside, too. Do you want to come in?” I shook my head. “Did you have a nice visit?”
“Yes,” I said, and stood up. I gave my mother a kiss on her cheek and put the empty ice-cream cup and the spoon into the little paper bag. The aide held out her hand. “I’ll take that, honey,” she said. “I’ll take anything that’s been emptied.”
And I watched her, tears streaming down my face, as she wheeled my mother away. If only you knew.
* * *
Mrs. A was in great spirits the next day. Sam had been swimming and came home happy. She hadn’t seen him like that in years. It would open his life up to new things, restore him to the way he was before he joined the navy, assure his future. She could even see him marrying sometime in the near future, Inshallah.
I hadn’t thought of that for us yet. It seemed the two of us, Sam and I, were stepping along a suspension bridge, balancing each and every footfall. Still, I said nothing to Mrs. A: there was nothing to tell her.
But it seemed she was looking at me in a new and different way. From the corner of her eyes, so to speak, as if she were stealing glances at me and trying to figure things out.
“I am trying not to care that Sam stays at your house sometimes,” she finally said to me, as the afternoon wore on. I was making English tea breads to sell for the next day and she had come into the kitchen initially to watch how I made them. “Phyllis tells me that it’s what everyone does nowadays and that I should just accept it.”
“True.”
“I know that family is very important to you,” she started.
“Yes,” I answered.
“And family is everything to Sam.”
I didn’t know where this was going. She was going to either welcome me into the family or warn me away. I sighed and put four loaf pans in the oven before starting a second batch.
“Does he pray?”
“Yes,” I answered truthfully.
She looked satisfied. “May I ask you something else?”
“Of course,” I said.
She handed me the canister of flour. “Are you planning to become a Muslim for my son?”
The question took me aback. I had no problems with Sam’s religion, or anyone’s, for that matter, but I was quite content to remain in my own.
“We aren’t even in that stage of our relationship,” I protested. “We are just friends right now. He hasn’t even thought of proposing or anything.” I thought Sam and I felt a deepening affection for each other—the paper napkin, twisted into a heart—but if I had to twist a napkin to express how I felt, I would have twisted a knot.
“But if he were,” she pursued.
I considered this. “No,” I said truthfully. “I will remain whatever I am and believe in what I’ve always believed in. But I wouldn’t marry him unless I loved him deeply.”
She knit her brows and set her lips in a tight line. “I have to tell you,” she said quietly, “I want my son to marry a nice Muslim girl to please his father. It’s very important that he pleases his father. Don’t ever forget that.”
Chapter 34
How could I forget that?
There it was. My sort-of boyfriend’s mother speaking for him in matters of the heart. It was disconcerting. I bit my tongue because I wanted to be respectful, but I felt like the floor was shaking under my feet. Religion had never come up between me and Sam. I knew he was observant, but I just assumed that if it had been important he would have mentioned it earlier. What a fool I had been! To think that things were going to be that easy. Boy meets girl; they fall in love; everything works out. Fool! Fool! Hadn’t my life with Dan showed me that nothing works out? Death intervenes. Things are waiting in the wings for the sole purpose of breaking your heart!
I needed to talk to someone.
I needed to call someone.
Someone who knew how to navigate the crap that falls into your world. Someone who cared about me and knew all about me and how I think and could tell me what to do or not do. Someone who had common sense and experience. Someone whom I hadn’t spoken to for a few days and whom I missed like crazy and whose voice I craved and whose face I missed.
Shay.
I left Mrs. A tidying up the kitchen and slipped behind the counter in the front of the store to pull out my phone with shaking hands. Shay was delighted to hear from me and fell into a torrent of loneliness as soon as she answered the phone.
“I’m going crazy,” she said. “Terrell spends all day giving music lessons or working in his garden and I sit here all day planning to eat everything he grows. I’m hungry all the time. I haven’t eaten since breakfast an hour ago. I need lunch. I am even starting to eye Dude’s cat food. It’s got rice and these little slices of shrimp.”
I interrupted her. “I need to talk to you. Let’s go somewhere.”
“Let’s have lunch. I love lunch.” Then her voice rose in surprise. “Wait! It must be something bad. You never leave the Galley.”
“It’s not terrible. At least, I’m not sure.”
“Let’s go to P-town,” she suggested. “I’m jonesing for clams.”
“Give me two seconds and I’ll pick you up.”
“Hurry,” she replied. “The cat is giving me funny looks.”
I told Mrs. A that I needed to run errands and asked her to close the Galley sometime in the afternoon.
“I was going to leave early,” she said. “Sam is taking the boat out for the first time and my sister and I are going to be his first passengers.”
I felt a pang of jealousy but reminded myself that I had refused to go.
“Have a great time,” I said. “Wish Sam good luck for me and tell him to call me later.”
“I’ll try to remember,” she said evenly.
* * *
With Shay’s wheelchair and Vincent squeezed into the backseat and Shay in the front seat, trying to adjust the seat belt around her burgeoning figure while urging me to drive faster so she wouldn’t pass out from hunger, we got to P-town in record time and parked at the first clam shack we saw.
At Shay’s insistence, we ordered four dozen clams, two ba
ked potatoes, a big salad, and a pitcher of iced tea. I added a hamburger for Vincent and we settled down at an empty table facing the wharf.
“So what’s going on?” she asked, propping her legs up on a nearby chair.
“Stuff,” I said, now wondering if I was making a big issue out of nothing. “How are you feeling? You look great.”
“I feel terrific. I just know that everything is going to be fine,” she answered, rubbing her basketball stomach with great satisfaction. She looked so contented and settled in. Her face glowed with an inner joy. Creating life, I thought. Is there anything more sacred?
The waitress struggled with the huge tray she was bringing us and went back for more. The clams were artistically arranged on platters of shaved ice, decorated with lemon slices and horseradish sauce. I just managed to squeeze the lemon juice on everything before Shay slid a dozen onto her plate.
“Whose hamburger is that?” she asked.
“Vincent’s,” I said, handing it to him. She looked disappointed.
“So, what’s going on? Did you break up with Sam?”
“Were we ever really together?”
She shook her head. “I could never figure that out. So, who broke up with who?”
“Whom.”
She gave me a snarky look. “You can’t be grammatically correct when you’re pregnant because you’re speaking for two. In my case, three. I’m guessing Sam was the initiator.”
I let out a long, heavy sigh. “Actually, it was his mother.”
She looked shocked. “His mother?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t know she was part of a package deal. She told me she decided that Sam is going to marry a Muslim. To be handpicked, I’m guessing, at some future date.”
I waited while she slurped up three or four clams, then slipped one to Vincent. “What did Sam have to say?”
“I haven’t spoken to him yet.”
“Ohhh,” Shay said, opening her baked potato and covering it with sour cream. “You got to give the guy a chance to explain. Do you love him?”
“I think so,” I said. “I mean, he’s a great guy, but he’s so careful. He just has a lot of baggage.”
She hooted. “And you don’t? You have more baggage than an airport.”
She was so right. I hung my head. “I don’t want to look like I’m pressuring him into something both of us may not even want.”
“Call him,” she said, “and tell him you want to talk to him.” She was piling salad on her plate now. “Invite him to the house for dinner or something.”
“I can’t,” I said miserably. “I don’t want to invite him to the house because—”
“Because you don’t want it to lead to sex, now that you know his mother is looking over his shoulder. Big ick factor there, true.”
“And I really like being with him.” I said. “But if his future is all sewn up . . .”
“Listen.” Shay took my hand in her clammy one. “Here’s a good reason to call him. There’s an eclipse tonight. Invite him to watch it with you. Act like his mother never said anything to you and give him a chance to speak for himself.”
Then she scooped up all the remaining clams and both baked potatoes before I could get to them. “Problem solved. Let’s get dessert.”
* * *
I left Sam two messages as soon as I got home. He didn’t call me back and wasn’t on the pier later when I left my house to sit by the water and watch the eclipse. The seals quietly went about their business, dipping in the early evening water like sea nymphs, barking softly to one another while the gulls bobbed up and down on the gentle waves, dozing. A cool, light wind busied itself around my shoulders as I sat on the edge of the pier, dangling my feet over the water. Vincent sat next to me, smelling like clams—dogs always seem to magnify the aroma of whatever they’ve eaten.
There were a few Fleeties sitting along the beach, far from the shoreline, in chairs and staring expectantly at the sky. We were all waiting for the moon. It had taken its place in the sky early in the evening, large and pale gold in a dusky pink sailor’s sky, slowly rising, rising above the water and the boats and the birds below, commanding the day to retreat. Now it sat, shining brightly, waiting for the moment it would be obscured by the penumbral shadow of the Earth. For the first time this year, the light of the full moon was being diminished, its dominion challenged, and I watched, feeling a little bit triumphant. Though it wouldn’t be totally darkened, I would know by its bronzed glow that it was sitting in the outer shadow of the Earth, chastened, its luster and beckoning luminescence fading. Its power to move the seas and create madness in people’s souls momentarily weakened.
We waited on the pier, Vincent and I. The moon waited in the heavens. I couldn’t take my eyes from it. My husband and father had been lured by its promise to light the night sky for them, its promise to light the seas for them, but were only lured to their deaths.
I was waiting for the apology.
“Aila!” A voice rang out. “Aila!” It was Sam, making his way across the beach in his familiar swinging walk, using his cane for support. “Aila!”
He climbed the stairs to the dock and made his way to stand over me. “Sorry I didn’t call you back. I took the boat out!” His voice was jubilant. “There was no cell service and my radio keeps crapping out. I gotta order a new radio. I didn’t know you had called until I got back. Come sit next to me.” He headed for a bench and I followed with Vincent at my side.
“Sit down. Sit down.” Sam patted a place next to him. I sat warily. He immediately put his arm around me and leaned over to give me a kiss. I allowed it.
“How did it go?” I asked.
“Perfect,” he enthused. “The boat is in perfect shape. I took my mother and my aunt. It was great.”
I turned away from him to watch the sky.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “The eclipse. Is anything happening yet?”
“It’s just starting.”
“I wished you had come with me today,” he said. “I wanted it to be you who came with me.”
The Earth had started moving into place, into perfect alignment with the sun behind it and moon in front.
“Look.” I pointed at the shadow stealthily creeping across the face of the moon, starting to dim its bright silver light into a pale yellowed pewter.
“I think I see it,” he said, then pulled me closer to him. I didn’t curve into him, didn’t fill the hollow of his arm and body. I just sat there, watching the moon.
It was barely perceptible, but the eclipse was inching itself across the surface. There was a shadow, creeping slowly, just the whisper of a shadow, bronzing the surface below.
Sam kissed the side of my face. I didn’t respond.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, puzzled.
“Your mother had a long talk with me today,” I said. “She wants you to marry a Muslim woman. Obviously not me.”
I could hear him pull his breath in.
He dropped his face into his hands and groaned. “Oh, I’m so sorry! We had an argument. I don’t want to disobey her, but I care about you so much. I don’t know what to do.” He took my hands in his. “She gave me life. She was with me, sat with me—lay next to my bed at night for almost two years. Can you understand?”
“I’m trying,” I said.
The shadow was deepening, the moon grew darker.
“And my father. My father is so proud of me. How can I hurt him?” Sam was pleading with me now. “He’s lost everything.”
“So that’s your decision, too?”
He didn’t answer me, which was an answer.
“When were you going to tell me this?” I asked angrily. “You, with the paper napkin heart!”
“I care so much for you,” he said, pressing my fingers. “I don’t want it to be like this. She came to me a few days ago and begged me not to tear the family apart. I don’t know what to do. I never thought she would be like this.”
“Being with me would tear your family apart?”<
br />
He nodded. His face was a study in misery. “You don’t know how it is. Our religion is very strong in our lives.”
The eclipse had done its job, dimming the moon, holding it in the shadows.
“I guess I don’t know how it is,” I said. “I thought you were being on the level with me.” My stomach was churning. I had actually started allowing myself to . . . love him. What a fool I had been to think that the universe would allow this for me. “We can be friends,” he added. “We can always be the closest of friends.”
“Closest of friends while you’re off dating someone else and planning to marry? How does that work? I don’t want to be your fuck buddy,” I said, my anger growing. “I don’t do that.”
“It wasn’t my intention to make it into that.” He dropped his face into his hands again. “Oh God. I don’t know what to do. Don’t leave me.”
I sat next to him realizing there was nothing more to say. I couldn’t promise him anything, and now I could see that he couldn’t promise me anything, either.
“I didn’t want it to be this way,” he said. “I don’t want it to be like this. But it was how she raised me. I have to honor and respect my parents.”
“I suppose you’re lucky to have her,” I said, rising from the bench. “I wish I had my mother. But I need someone to honor and respect me. I wish you all good things, Sam.”
The people below us were standing now, folding their chairs, ready to leave. “It’s all over,” someone was saying. “It’s all over. The moon is dark. What else is there to see?”
“Let’s go home,” someone else said.
And I stood up. Vincent went to my side and we walked the pier together, starting for the beach and home, leaving Sam sitting there, him and the darkened moon, to come out of the shadows by themselves.
Chapter 35
Vincent was starting to smell. Just around the edges.
It wasn’t surprising since he spent a great deal of his personal time rolling around on the beach or rooting in house garbage. Since he was going to attend the impending court date of Cordeiro v. Biljac, the car salesman, he definitely needed to be spiffed up. It’s not good to have your star witness emitting the pungent odor of food scraps and dead fish. I made an appointment to bring him to the dog groomer at Dr. Susan’s office, where he was booked for the full treatment: a scented bubble bath, skin conditioner, a tasty snack, a mani-pedi, or in his case a pedi-pedi, all the luxurious things that any human would like to be pampered with, except for maybe the flea and tick medication at the end.
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