The Twoweeks

by Larry Duberstein

  The four of us went sledding at Fresh Pond: I slid, I laughed, I was there. Winnie had no idea she was watching a wounded beast lurch across the landscape.

  But Jake saw it. I’m not so sure about his sister. There was the unforgettable incident at Morning Glory—and I will get back to that—but Hetty is younger and it’s pretty much still the case you can overcome her moods by tossing her in the air. Roughhousing can distract her, hugs and kisses always comfort her. She feels the love, takes it at face value, and goes back to her crayons. Jake is watching me. Blocking out the love.

  That day at Fresh Pond, I happened to notice a couple jogging on the path below. The woman was about the right height. Her hair, streaming out from under a blue wool hat, was about the right color. I was assessing her stride when I heard . . . “Dad?” . . . and realized I had heard it a couple of times before realizing it was being directed at me. By my son.

  There was Jake with arms spread in an interrogator’s stance. What’s up, man? Where’s your head at? Not that he said those things, he just held the pose. What he said was, “Do you know those people?”

  Fair enough. Yet I felt more than curiosity behind the question; I felt accusation. We were supposed to be sledding, not people-watching. How could I let my attention wander when we were enjoying this time together as a family?

  “I thought I might,” I shrugged, and we remounted for our next downhill run. Father-and-son redux.

  The distaff jogger was not Lara Cleary, not even close. I had to laugh when the couple came back around the path and I got a better look at them. The woman was at least forty, with what I call a Barbara Stanwyck face. As appealing as Stanwyck was, you knew that if her lip curled a tiny fraction more, if her nose was a tad bonier or the eyes a pinch smaller, she would have been almost ugly. This one didn’t cross the Stanwyck Line, but she was a far cry from Lara Cleary.

  My relief was disproportionate, over the top. In fact, I couldn’t stop laughing and no one had a clue why I’d started. “I’m just happy,” I told them, “I’m in a good mood. The sun is shining, the snow is sweet”—I gobbled some snow for the kids—“and Hetty hasn’t crashed into a single solitary tree all day.”

  Hetty giggled, Winnie beamed, Jake stared.

  What would I have done if it had been Lara? What would Winnie have done? She had not seen Lara since last April, their friendship had lapsed completely. Was that sufficiently strange for me to conclude Winnie knew more than she let on? Almost. Yet if she knew, if she even suspected, how could she be so easygoing and affectionate?

  One day Carrie Fitzgerald asked her about Lara. Was Lara still abroad? My ears perked up at the odd usage (going “abroad” was what my parents would have said) and the even odder possibility that Lara was gone. I had always pictured her on the back stair landing at Miller Road, with her book, or with Ian, chatting up the nosy old lady from upstairs. I hadn’t even adjusted for the cold weather. To me, Lara was right where I had left her—perhaps because I was right where she left me.

  Winnie told Carrie she had no idea, had been out of touch with Lara, should give her a call. (Which she did not, ever again.) Maybe it was pure paranoia on my part, but I thought I saw Jake’s ears perk up at the mention of Lara’s name. A dog can’t articulate what he’s sniffing after, but he always knows when he is getting close to it.

  I wanted to lift him by the lapels, by the two wings of his winter coat the way I used to, and tell him, Hey, man, lay off will ya? I’m here, aren’t I? We are here. Can’t I be allowed to suffer in silence? Do I have to answer for trying to be good, trying to do right? And silently Jake said, You sure do, Dad. You have to answer for deserting me and for not loving my mom.

  I was trying to do that too. Why couldn’t he grade me A for effort? In my mind I would list all her assets and virtues. I noted the fact that there was absolutely nothing on the negative side of the ledger. Winnie was not merely blameless, she was lovable. As a person, as a mother, as a lover—she was the winner in anyone’s lovability sweepstakes. There was only the one problem, that I could not seem to love her.

  When we saw the Globe’s review of Godot, Winnie marched right back to the Rexford Spa and bought every copy they had, twenty newspapers. “Why?” I smiled, as she started clipping and mailing them out, to family, to friends. Everyone needed to see the original, not a xerox, so they could see my colorful rags, my red wig. She handed me her shortlist and asked, “Who am I forgetting?”

  Was she daring me to say Lara’s name? I bore down on the list and was relieved to discern a pattern. “I guess you are only sending it to out-of-town friends?”

  “Of course. Everyone here will see the Globe. And they damn well better go see the play.”

  “What about the McCarthys?”

  “Yes, definitely. Anyone else?”

  “Shooey Delaney?”

  “God, how could I have forgotten Shooey? This is good, Cal, keep thinking. I can get more papers at Nini’s if I need them.”

  Would Lara have seen the notice? Would she come see the play? For that matter, had she been out there in the dark on opening night, in Seat 12, Row H? For yes, I had scanned the audience hoping to spot her, hoping not to spot her. Why did it matter more to me that Lara hear how well it went than that Winnie was through the roof with pride?

  But this insidious habit of mind was not exactly unfamiliar. Why did the Turtle Café remind me more of Lara than of Winnie? Why did I think of Lara when Winnie read me the headline about a Red Sox trade? The question was more and more a rhetorical one, as I tried to love Winnie and couldn’t seem to. Tried not to love Lara and couldn’t manage that either, by a wide sad margin.

  It was a real shot in the gut when Carrie Fitzgerald dropped the word “abroad” on me that night. Lara and I were done. It should not matter where she was, yet it did help to know her whereabouts, to know we were at least in the same town. There was consolation in our propinquity. To lose that, and have no idea where she was, took loss to another level.

  What if she was “abroad” permanently? I might have no news for a year, for several years, and then learn she had been in Copenhagen the entire time, raising children there, walking dogs. My Estragon, or the upcoming Pinter—my career, which might have served as a point of connection, of indirect communication—would be, in her memorable words, of no more relevance than the news that a man in Sicily had changed his shirt.

  I might find myself reading her reviews. A first volume of poems would appear, then a second, with a spate of readings announced back here in the states. I would ponder the risks of going to hear her. Going to see her—after five years, ten years—and see if I even recognized her. If the germ could still be running rampant in my bloodstream.

  It had not been years, though, it had been months, and the likelihood was that she and Ian were still living on Miller Road. That they had taken a trip, and returned from it. Maybe he had given a paper, or whatever it is academics do. They went, they came back, and the rest was fantasy and fearanoia.

  Five months? Probably she was back to writing poems and sending them to magazines nobody would ever read. “I never read them either,” she had told me. “You find out they exist and you try them, that’s all. If you’re lucky they send you ten dollars and two copies of the issue.” At Out of Town News one afternoon, I leafed through a dozen such magazines, checking for Lara’s name. This was contra-indicated, as the generals say, yet harmless enough.

  Less harmless, for sure, than my scouting outing to her neighborhood. That wasn’t planned, or intended, I just found myself gravitating there. And although I did understand that I was flirting with dangerous boundaries of discretion and sense, I could not seem to restrain myself. It took good old Mrs. What’s-her-name, the nosy neighbor, to restrain me.

  That woman was always either in her apartment or in the backyard. She never set foot off the property, so it was amazing to see her at the corner of Brainerd and Miller—stationed there like a sentry. Or a guard dog: Cerberus at the gate to Hades.
She gave me a silent two-stage scowl. One, Don’t I know you, and two, Sure I know you, you’re the bad seed that tried to replace my Ian.

  I gave her an innocent, friendly wave, to forestall her from coming after me with a scythe or a broom. Then I continued past Miller to Finnerty, as though that had been my trajectory all along. When I sauntered back past the corner fifteen minutes later, she was still at her post, on full alert. She looked like someone who had shooed away a cat and was making sure the mangy animal did not come sneaking back.

  The animal came back much later, under cover of darkness. I needed to confirm that Lara’s ancient Dart was parked in front of her house, as only she could park it, two feet from the curb, at a preposterous angle. As soon as I saw the car, I relaxed. A great weight came off me. She was there. Not in Copenhagen, not gone forever.

  Why, my son Jake demanded to know, should that matter? Wouldn’t it be easier, my son pointed out, if she was gone forever? This would happen sooner or later, after all. They would move on. Ian had no shot at tenure here, but he would get it elsewhere, in Iowa or Indiana, at some college where they were not quite so stingy with tenure, and that’s where they would go. Tenure was the goal. After that, Ian was fond of saying, Higher Truth could come back into focus.

  My son was right, and I rooted hard for his preferred outcome. For a month after I had chalked Lara’s tire, so to speak, I steered wide of the entire Grayling neighborhood. For two months, possibly. Now and then I contemplated a stroll over that way, to see how we were doing. See if the Dart was gone, if Lara and Ian (freshly tenured) were happily relocated to Indiana.

  “I’m coming with,” Jake would say, whenever I broached it. “I want to walk too.”

  He came with me everywhere. If I started toward the closet, he was up and zipping his coat. If I insisted he wear boots, he would not protest (as in the past) “But you’re not wearing boots,” he would simply jam them on. He accompanied me to places he had traditionally disdained, the post office and the grocery store. Come on, bud, I used to say, we’ll hit the Stop & Shop (Winnie going, “Do not let him choose the cereal”) and he would head for the bathroom with a sudden bellyache.

  Not these days. These days he was waiting for me by the door: booted, coated, mufflered, mittened. Always happy to mail a letter, or help me capture the bread and milk.

  Hetty, meanwhile, had laid her qualms to rest. She had relented. Initially, immediately after The Twoweeks, she was the scary one. The worst of it, the low point of my entire domestic history, came on my first visit to her new daycare center. She had started going to this place during my time with Lara, so I had not yet seen it. More to the point, it had not yet seen me.

  Morning Glory, it was called. Jacqui and Lesli, they were called. They greeted me warmly, smiled at me approvingly, for here was Dad getting involved in his little girl’s education. To Jacqui and Lesli this was not “daycare,” it was school. They were not glorified babysitters, they were teachers. Fair enough. As a parent, I honored their profession above all others.

  Then Hetty did her thing. I was the guy who had made the oatmeal to her specifications at seven A.M. I had squashed her banana precisely as she required it be squashed, and I had tied her shoes, in clear violation of Winnie’s Rules and Regs about Making Her Do It For Herself. Then Winnie had whisked her away, six hours had passed, and here I was picking her up. Me, Cal, Daddy. The same guy who had squashed the banana and tied the shoes. I looked the same, hadn’t aged a day.

  Yet my daughter said to Jacqui—with absolute conviction—“That’s not my daddy.”

  Jacqui flinched as though lightning had struck her crotch. Inside her skull, keening sirens tore through the quiet afternoon. Lesli was back in a flash, kneeling, taking both my daughter’s hands in hers and asking, “Are you sure, Hetty? You’re kidding us—right, sweetheart?”

  “I don’t know him,” said Hetty. “He’s not my daddy.”

  A dazed child woken from her nap at a new daycare might well be disoriented. She might not know who anyone was, herself included. But my darling daughter appeared clear of eye that afternoon. She stood calm and firm in her testimony. The best lawyer in the world could not have shaken her on cross.

  Lesli looked as though she might know a little jujitsu, Jacqui looked like she was ready to call the cops. If I wasn’t the daddy, then geesh, who the hell was I? This could be a serious, dangerous moment.

  “Call my wife,” I pleaded, and for brownie points recited without hesitation the inside line at Winnie’s office. “Please call her.”

  Hetty was transported like delicate crockery to a cot where she lay facing the wall, while a young teaching aide named Brandi stroked her back and cooed. I was advised not to approach. “Why don’t you wait over here,” said Jacqui, taking me by the arm (bravely, I suppose, if she truly believed I was some sort of molester psycho creep) and guiding me to the holding cell, a kitchenette, where I set about washing a sinkful of pots while awaiting the verdict.

  Finally Jacqui appeared and summoned me to the office. They had Winnie on the line and wanted to listen in on our conversation. Winnie must have been busy and hassled by the interruption, because she sounded uncharacteristically impatient. “Can’t you just bribe her with an ice cream?” she said.

  “Well no, dear, the problem falls well shy of ice cream. They won’t give her to me; won’t let me take her home. They think I’m a child stealer.”

  “I vouched for you,” she said, softening. “I told them you were probably wearing a brown tweed overcoat. Were you?”

  “I were,” said I. My best molester outfit.

  And at that point I felt a tug at the hem of my frayed tweed overcoat and saw Hetty reaching up her arms, waiting to be lifted. Joke over.

  Well, it was a big relief being sorted out and released from custody, and it was useful to learn I was far from the best actor in the family. We were all accomplished thespians, it seemed, all except for Winnie, who was there to keep us grounded. To vouch for us.

  Away we went, Hetty and (yes, confirmed) her dad. I figured we would need to do some further sorting out at the playground, begin dealing with this troubling incident. (What was that about, you little twerp?) I was prepared to meet it head-on (discuss it, resolve it) because it was not a joke at all; it was serious and it had to be about my absence, about my being a stranger to this school she had attended for all of four days. Apparently, this was grounds for punishment.

  I was okay with punishment. My concern was making sure Hetty understood how much I loved her, because the stunt she pulled struck me as an expression of doubt, or anxiety. That can’t be my daddy because my daddy loved me. My daddy would never miss fourteen whole days of my life.

  But Hetty had no interest in addressing it head-on, or even acknowledging it had occurred. (Maybe she really had been a dazed child, or a sly joker.) If there was no way to address the stunt directly, there was still a need to address its wellsprings, to banish any underlying anxiety by loving my daughter extravagantly. And this I could do because, thank God, I did love her extravagantly.

  So Hetty got unlimited songs and stories until the repair seemed complete. Unlimited everything. If she wanted a hoist-up to touch the ceiling, then up she went. If she wanted ten more hoist-ups, ten it was. Was I a terrible parent for behaving this way, for spoiling her? Maybe so, but doubt was put to rout.

  She did not reprise her “That is not my dog” routine, knowing that Jacqui (not to mention Lesli and Brandi) could vouch for me now. I had what the courts call standing in the community. There would be no further disturbances at Morning Glory, but none at home either. Hetty was mine again, my special baby who would fly up to my neck in greeting, whose hand would find its way to my hand as we walked. Her eagerness to show me the world (look at this, look at that) was fully restored.

  We did hit one small bump during preparations for the Pinter. That got pretty intense, the schedule tightened like a noose, and as opening night approached and rehearsals ran later (specifically,
when I was missing in action at bedtime), my standing became shakier. One night Hetty tackled me outright, entangling my legs like heavy rope as I tried to leave.

  “I want you to tuck me in,” she said. “You papa, you you.” We were two hours shy of tuck-in time at that point, and I was already late for the first dress rehearsal.

  That time it was Jake who rode to my rescue. He played the man for his little sister. “I’ll tuck you in, dust-mouse,” he said, and then whispered, “And I’ll trick Mom into giving us extra cookies.”

  Well done, lad. Winnie had baked a tray of peanut butter cookies, the cookies Hetty would kill for. The standard dose was two cookies and then (after the spate of fraudulent firmness) one more. Jake would push the total to four, maybe even five cookies. He would make it a numbers game. A few kisses later I was out the door and clumping through the slush to the Klein Theatre. I could address the resurfacing of Hetty’s separation anxiety in due course: message received. For the moment, I was being allowed to work.

  The price for this liberty was mild enough. At breakfast the next morning, Jake grilled me over our raisin toast. Not quite seven years old and he wants to know if the lady in the play is “as pretty as mama.” Wonders if he should perhaps attend tonight’s rehearsal, just to see how things are going. Is greatly relieved to learn that although there is not one lady but four in the play, none of them are exactly pretty (sorry Cora, sorry Jennifer, especially), much less as pretty as his mother.

  “Are they nice?”

  “Now that is the right question to ask.”

  “What’s the answer?”

  “Well, there are four of them, so some are nicer than others. But none of them,” I smiled as I poked him in the ribs, “is half as nice as your mama.”

  The Pinter wasn’t half bad. We sold the seats, we were liked, Barry and Joan seemed pleased. It ran just a week, though, eight performances in all, and I had nothing else lined up until the spring.

  I read for a part in New York (waste of train fare), worked some stuff up on my own, and helped reconstitute our Thursday night ensemble. We had no stage, just the big back table at Cronin’s, where either we were all the business they had or we scared their other customers away with our stentorian tones.