by Janis Thomas
“Y’ d’ th’ moo, bu’ Aye pi’ th’ gas.” You do the moves, but I pick the games. “Thas ha’ wor’, t’.” That’s hard work, too.
“Oh yeah? Well, then how about I pick the games and you do the moves, huh? Let’s see that.”
“I cu d’ i, Leeah.” I could do it . . . Lisa? Linda?
“Lena,” she tells him, exaggerating the N sound. “Come on, Joshy, Lena.”
“Leeah,” he repeats.
She shrugs. “We’ve been working on his Ns, but he’s such a lazy butt.”
“Am ’ot.” Am not.
“See? Am not. Lazy butt.”
She reaches over and chucks him on the chin, and he gazes at her with absolute adoration. My panic turns cold.
“Dinner’s all ready to go, Mrs. D,” she says, this Lena of the icy eyes and shapely body and disturbing familiarity with my son. My expression must reveal my confusion. “The chicken breasts. I put them in the oven at five, as per your instructions. The salad’s made and the garlic bread only takes five minutes.”
I nod. “Thanks.”
“That’s what you pay me for,” she jokes, then nudges Josh. “And to take care of this lug.”
“Aye ’ot a luh.” I’m not a lug.
“Not. With an N.”
Josh raises his chin, the cords in his neck straining, his mouth stretched into a grimace. I see the exertion, the pain such an effort causes him, and I want to go to him and place my hand on his shoulder and tell him not to worry, not to struggle, because the cost isn’t worth the meager spoils. But I don’t, because he isn’t striving to make the sound for me, but for Lena.
“Nnnnnnah.”
The young woman rewards him with a beatific smile. She leans into him so that their noses are mere inches apart. “I knew you could do it,” she whispers. “Lazy butt.”
They gaze at each other for a long moment, and I stand watching, an outsider, a fifth wheel, a spare prick at a wedding.
“I’m going upstairs to change,” I say. This seems like something I would do. Lena nods, validating my hunch. I turn away from them and head for the stairs, absently thinking that this is the first time I can remember when I arrived home from work and didn’t kiss my son hello. The subtraction of this ritual from my daily routine makes me ache like an addict in withdrawal.
I climb the stairs, thoughts racing—another new normal. We could never afford nighttime care for Josh, not with my executive-assistant salary and Colin’s paltry junior-college wages. But now . . . now. EMMA DAVIES, DIRECTOR OF MARKETING AND BUSINESS ACQUISITION AND RETENTION.
Now we can afford Lena, siren, temptress . . . caretaker.
I steer my way through dinner without betraying the fact that I am stranded in an alternate version of my life. Like the actor’s nightmare, I don’t know my role or my lines or my stage directions. I mostly stay quiet and observe as the play unfolds around me.
Colin emerges from his office after a swift tap-tap from Lena upon his office door. Kate enters stage left through the back door, eyes puffy and swollen and offering no explanation for them. She silently takes her seat next to Josh. Josh, who used to scrutinize each of us, who—before tonight—would have asked Kate why her eyes looked like those of an ill raccoon, barely acknowledges her. His attention is glued to Lena. Lena, who moves through the kitchen—my kitchen—as though she is mistress of the house, plating the food and setting it at each place while Colin compliments her on how divine it smells. I want to tell him that Lena didn’t make the chicken, only reheated it, but I honestly don’t know whether or not she did, I only know it’s my recipe, handed down from my mother, and one of the few things I still undertake to cook on the rare occasion, so surely I made it. But I don’t know, so I say nothing and continue to watch Josh watch her.
Kate pushes her food around on her plate, then suddenly stands up, hand to her mouth. A second later, she drops her arm to her side. “I’m tired,” she announces and hurries out of the kitchen.
Lena takes no notice. She sits beside Josh and feeds him his mashed sweet potatoes and ignores Colin and me.
“Should I . . . go after her?”
“What’s the point?” Lena replies, although the question was addressed to my husband. “I’m surprised she even came to the table in the first place.”
I do not like this girl at all. How could I have invited her into my family?
Colin asks about my day as I choke down a bite of chicken.
What is the proper response? Ho-hum? Same old, same old? Totally un-fucking-real?
“Fine,” I say. “Good, actually. We landed a new account.”
“SoundStage?” I glance at him, surprised. He knows about SoundStage, but how? Our conversations about work never go beyond the superficial. How was your day? Fine, and yours? Good. Great. Terrific, blah blah blah. Are we now the kind of couple who discuss the minutiae of our occupations? Do I know the particulars of his manuscript? I search my mind but come up short.
“Is it SoundStage, Emma?” he repeats, and I nod. “Well, congratulations. That’s wonderful. Isn’t that wonderful, Josh? Your mom landed a big account at work.”
Josh barely moves his head. “Yaaa, gray, Maah. Cahgras.” Yeah, great, Mom. Congrats. Little enthusiasm. His attention never leaves Lena’s face. I pretend not to notice.
“Thanks, Josh.”
I set down my fork and gaze across the table at my husband. I can’t remember the last time I looked at him closely and for more than a split second. For years, there has been an undercurrent of disquiet between us, almost like a secret we’ve been keeping, and if we allow our eyes to meet and we look too long upon each other, the secret will be revealed and we will have to acknowledge it and, consequently, deal with it. I’ve been an active participant in keeping this secret because I am too weary to explore the consequences of its exposure.
Colin senses my stare and looks at me. He gives me a closed-mouth smile, and I notice that the usual trace of dolor in his eyes has been replaced by contented complacency.
“What?” he asks. “You’re giving me a funny look, Em.”
“Sorry.” I’d forgotten how attractive Colin is. Not handsome in an obvious way, he is neither movie-star glamorous nor dangerously tempting. But his features are comely—strong chin and nose, hazel eyes that run gold, dark-brown hair shaded with gray at the temples. His hairline recedes, but not markedly.
I had begun to see Colin as a stoop-shouldered old man, beaten down by tragedy and an ambivalent wife. Perhaps in this alternate reality, I am not ambivalent and he is not beaten.
My mother introduced us. Colin was a regular guest at her women’s club, the good-looking young bachelor who entertained the bored divorcées with poetry readings and discussions of Steinbeck and Salinger and F. Scott Fitzgerald. He was older than me by eight years and seemed so grounded in his life, even though he’d never been married and had no children of his own. I loved Colin in a calming way, and he accepted Kate into his world with no complaint and no restraint, and I knew that I could do no better, for her or for myself.
And my mother’s handprints were practically visible on my back. She would not admit, not to anyone, how much she longed to have her daughter and granddaughter at a normal distance—down the block or in the neighboring tract of houses or one town over—instead of in her own home. My mother had taken a shine to her empty nest, and although she opened her arms to Kate and me when Owen discarded us, she was more than happy to help us into our new life with my new husband.
“How is the book coming?” I ask him, and he grins, which is a good sign.
“Excellent,” he says but does not expound further.
I rise and begin to clear Colin’s and my plates, but Lena stops me. “I’ll do that, Mrs. D. Soon as I’m done.”
“Yes, hon, why don’t we take a glass of wine out back? It’s such a nice night.”
Wine? Out back? “I shouldn’t. Maybe after I take care of Josh.”
“Horning in on my job, eh?” Lena say
s, and there is a sharpness to her tone, a possessiveness that betrays her irreverent smile.
“No, I . . .” I what?
I always take care of Josh after dinner. I bathe him and put him in his pajamas and read to him. Not anymore. My to-do list has been undone. I should be relieved. I should be grateful. I am neither.
I turn to Colin and nod. “A glass of wine sounds good.”
I try not to think about the prescription in my purse upstairs.
FIFTEEN
I sit on the back patio beside my husband listening to the gentle song of the cicadas. The July night is balmy with a wisp of a breeze, the sky is the color of a lavender blossom.
The wine helps to placate me. If my consumption is unusual, Colin makes no mention of it, just fills my glass as soon as I drain it, which is frequently. At one point, he rises and goes into the kitchen, returning moments later with a fresh bottle.
Over the last several hours, I have come to a place in this not-right world where I no longer have expectations. For the first time in my life, I am adhering to the rules of Zen, living completely and fully in the moment. A Zen master would spit on me; I live in the moment not because I want to or strive to but because there is no alternative. Whatever this is, I have no choice but to endure it until it stops or I’m thrown into a padded cell.
I breathe deeply and let out a sigh. “This is nice. It’s been a long time since we’ve done this.”
Colin chuckles conspiratorially. “Yes. Last night was ages ago.” I glance at him and he winks. A running joke?
It strikes me as odd that in this new now, with my salary that affords us Colin not teaching and full-time care for Josh, that we are still sitting on the rickety wooden chairs we’ve had since we moved in, in a backyard with the same plain strip of yellowing grass, gray concrete patio, and no embellishments, horticultural or decorative.
I let the thought go.
“I’m worried about Katie,” I say. A neutral subject and one that would plague me under any circumstances, new life or old.
“I know,” Colin agrees. “I am, too. But you know what her school counselor said.”
I have no idea. When did we meet with a counselor? A hazy vision materializes: a corner antechamber in the high school attendance office, an olive-skinned woman with adult braces and mousy brown hair seated behind her utilitarian metal desk, peering down at two report cards.
“We can’t coddle her anymore,” Colin says. “We have to let her sink or swim.”
“We don’t coddle her, Colin. I don’t even know how to talk to her anymore.”
“That’s it. You can’t talk to her. Neither can I. She’s unknowable to us. She’s only knowable to her friends and to—”
“Him. I do not like him at all.”
“There’s the understatement of the year.” He smiles at me as I take another sip of the wine. I can’t taste the fruity undertones or the tart, dry overtones anymore, but the pinot noir is doing its job. A numb warmth has spread through me like a subdermal electric blanket. I relax against the wooden slats.
“She’ll move past him,” Colin says, sliding a hand across the sleek fabric of my lounge pants.
“But how much damage will he do before then?” I ask. “Her grades are in the toilet, Colin. Her SAT scores were abysmal. She’ll be lucky to get into the JC.” If he is offended by this denigrating remark regarding the junior college he works at (worked at) he doesn’t show it. “All her dreams and aspirations and plans, down the crapper because of a stupid boy.”
“She still has a year before college, Em. She has a chance to pull out of this slump. She can retake the SATs, and if her grades improve . . .”
His voice trails off. These so-called improvements will only be made if she breaks up with him. Somehow, knowing my daughter, if even a little at this point, I don’t see her letting him go just yet.
“How about we talk about something else,” he suggests as I finish off my third glass. Or is it my fourth? I’ve lost track.
“Do you like Lena?” The question pops out of my mouth without my thinking about it.
“She’s terrific. Josh positively lights up around her, doesn’t he?”
“He has a crush on her.”
“Of course he does. He’s fifteen.”
“That doesn’t bother you? That he’s infatuated with his caregiver? I’m afraid for him.”
“Em. He has few pleasurable diversions in his life, doesn’t he?”
I nod and set my glass down. I need to take a break. The wine is doing funny things to my head. Memories, both old and new, are waging a war against one another.
I see Lena on her first day, peering at me speculatively, figuring out how overbearing an employer I will be. Did this happen?
I see Raina, offering to stay late because I am exhausted to the point of collapse, and me thanking her profusely for granting me the respite I need, a sixty-minute nap to recharge. Did this happen?
“A Bitcoin for your thoughts,” Colin says. I allow myself a smile.
This is our joke, his and mine, in this and every other world.
“How long has Lena been with us now?” I ask, using a tone that suggests I merely have to think about it for a moment and the answer will come to me. It won’t because I have no idea. My faux memories only take me so far.
“Two years?” Colin says. “Two and a half, right?”
“Right.” Two and a half years this woman has been in my home, watching my son grow from a prepubescent to a man-child, bathing him and changing his diaper and—God.
“You have to admit, she’s much better than Frau Gewürztraminer.”
I assume that this is an ironic play on the woman’s name. I should know of whom Colin speaks, but no faux or real memories come to mind.
“She was a piece of work, huh?”
I shrug.
Colin eyes me. “Look, he likes her, Em. He’s comfortable with her. I know you have issues, but I think she’s good for him, don’t you?”
My foot taps against the concrete. The sky is darkening to amethyst. When was the last time I saw the stars blink to life in the night sky? Before Josh was born? A tremor passes through me. I should not be here, relaxing against the uncomfortable wooden chair. I should be upstairs, tending to my son, stroking his forehead, sponging his pasty-white skin, reading to him from The Hobbit or Harry Potter. We were three chapters into The Goblet of Fire.
I ache with the sudden realization that someone other than me is reading that book to him tonight. That’s my job, I think, although God knows why I continued the ritual—he started reading well past my level ages ago. But he always loved the sound of my voice, that’s what he told me. He loved hearing me procure accents for the different characters and catch my breath at the scary parts and sigh with relief at the resolutions. We giggled in unison, my son and I, at outlandish plotting and unforeseen twists and certain characters’ foibles. We critiqued the stories we read and wondered aloud about the authors’ motivations. A book club of sorts.
I always considered reading to Josh a chore, one more check on my to-do list, but now, in this moment, I feel the shame of an overdue epiphany.
Josh and I will never climb a mountain together or go waterskiing or paddle surfing or hiking or camping or bungee-fucking-jumping. But through the books I read to him, we shared adventures vast and wide.
I really want to know what happens to Harry in The Goblet of Fire.
“Wow. I guess I’ll have to up it from a Bitcoin to actual money. You seem miles away tonight.”
“I’m sorry,” I say again. “I have a lot on my mind.”
“I know.”
No you don’t, no you don’t, NO YOU DON’T! I briefly consider confessing to Colin the craziness of the past thirty-six hours but immediately suppress the urge. I know my husband. He would pretend to understand and pat my knee and make the appropriate inquiries to assure me that he believes every word I’m saying, when in fact he has the asylum on speed dial and his bathroom-break
excuse is only a cover to make that call.
“I think I know something that will help,” he says, his voice low and sly. He slides his hand farther up my thigh, bringing it to rest at the border of my pubis. The antipathy I expect at my husband’s touch fails to materialize. Instead, my pulse quickens.
“Colin.” There is warning in my voice but no conviction.
He stands and takes my hand and gently tugs me to my feet. “Come on,” he says, a lascivious grin playing at his mouth.
I allow him to lead me back into the kitchen, where the table has miraculously been cleared, the dishes washed, and the counters wiped to spotless.
“Wow.” This must be how an amnesiac feels, I think. Everything is recognizable, but the foundation upon which the familiarity rests has been deleted.
“Wow, what?” Colin draws me closer and slips his arm around my waist.
“The kitchen is so clean,” I murmur.
“Yes, Lena’s good.”
I bite my lip to banish the reflexive frown inspired by his praise of the young woman. She cleans my kitchen, she cooks our dinners. She tends well to my son. How can I begrudge her my husband’s praise?
And here she is, emerging from the hallway, her eyes raised and her lips already open with the promise of speech even before she sees us.
“I’m taking him up,” she tells Colin and me. “He seems a little tired today, so I might keep it to one chapter.”
Does Josh seem tired? I was only granted limited access to him this evening, was never close enough to him to touch him or kiss him or scan his face for signs of fatigue. What else am I missing?
“Thanks, Lena,” Colin says, his voice oozing appreciation.
Lena looks at me expectantly, waiting for something, but what? My thanks? Further inquiries about my son’s current state? Compliments on a dinner well-cooked/served/cleaned up after? Acknowledgment that she is now the leading lady in Josh’s life?
I settle for simplicity. “Thank you, Lena.”
“No problem,” she replies, satisfied.
“I’ll be up in a minute,” I tell her, and she cocks her head to the side.
