The Opposite of Maybe: A Novel

by Dawson, Maddie

  “It’s winter, you crazy,” says Tony. “Come and look to see if you think this is enough peanut butter.” He holds up a huge, messy chunk.

  Milo runs over to inspect it and declares it needs a little more on the side. So Tony coats more on, and then puts the two briquettes into a glass microwave-proof dish and slides it into the microwave and closes the door. It has to cook for one hour, according to the Internet.

  “Here goes!” he calls, and Rosie and Milo both come over and stare through the microwave window at the dish turning around and around. Tony shivers and lifts Milo up in the air and runs around the yard with him, with them both yelling and singing at the top of their lungs. When they make a lap close to where Rosie is, she can tell they’re singing, “You’re a Rock Star.”

  Every ten minutes, Tony runs over and turns off the microwave for a bit. Just to keep the thing from blowing up, he says. Every time he opens the door of the thing, smoke comes pouring out, and Tony claps his hands. “This thing is really smokin’ now!” he yells. He and Milo do jumping jacks, play a game of checkers, do some Angry Birds during their ten-minute intervals, and while the smoke clears each time, they run victory laps around the yard.

  “This, ladies and gentlemen, is science at its best!” Tony crows at one point, with black smoke billowing in the background.

  Soapie totters over to the door and says, “What kind of fool nonsense is this?” George joins her, and Tony explains to the two of them that diamonds are being created here. George is interested and comes out and peers (from a safe distance, arms behind his back) into the microwave and declares this to be a scientific marvel, if it works.

  Rosie is cooking supper for all of them when the sixty microwave minutes are up, and a whoop of celebration comes from the outside. Tony takes the dish in his oven-mitted hands and walks it over to the barbecue grill, where, amazingly, he pours lighter fluid on it and sets the whole thing on fire. Milo goes wild.

  “We did it! We did it!” he squeals, coming to the kitchen and pogoing himself through the doorway. “Now we just need some spatulas and a calendar.”

  “A calendar?”

  “You know, to poke the ashes through the holes,” he says. “We’re gonna get all our diamonds now!”

  She laughs and gets him the colander.

  “Are you, by any chance, related to Mr. Tony Cavaletti?” she says, and chucks him under the chin. “Are you happy?”

  He doesn’t answer, just grabs the colander and the spatulas and zooms back outside.

  In the end, it’s not so much a beautiful diamond that surfaces through the black ashes as a lump of some stone that looks—well, kind of yellowish and unclear.

  “It looks—it looks kind of like an old toenail,” says Tony. “Wow.”

  “It does not!” yells Milo. “It’s the best diamond in the world.” Then he screws up his little face and says, “What is a diamond anyway?”

  She can’t stop laughing and eight hours later, when Tony takes her into his arms in the darkened hallway and kisses her soundly on her mouth, she buckles under the weight of what is clearly an overflow of joy. Sometimes, a kiss is just laughter being expressed in a different form, and even though she dimly knows she’s supposed to be pushing him away, she’s so happy, too, and she can’t.

  That’s it. She just can’t.

  She’s no better at pushing him away when he kisses her two more times the next morning when she’s making pancakes for breakfast, and then once after lunch when he comes upstairs to use the computer and finds her already there.

  She’s messaging with Jonathan about Soapie, and then suddenly she’s not typing anymore. Tony has put his hand over hers on the mouse, and just his touch makes her go all swoony—and then there they are, kissing again and she’s out of her mind.

  When she opens her eyes, the cursor is blinking, and Jonathan has written: “So I made my airline reservation. Be there on 12/20. Can’t wait to see you.”

  She and Tony both look at the screen. His hand is still dangling on her shoulder, and she knows that if she shifted just slightly, his fingers would be closer to her breast, and that he would look at her questioningly, and then all it would take is for her to close her eyes slightly and he would get her signal, and that would be that. The truth hits her: he is no longer kissing her out of gratitude, or exuberance, or sympathy. He’s not put off by the fact that she’s nearly seven months pregnant and that right now there’s a baby kicking inside her. He wants her as much as she wants him.

  “Tony,” she says softly, summoning from somewhere that other tone—the one that says no. She shifts her body the other way, and he pulls his hand back. “We can’t,” she says. “You know …” She tilts her head toward the computer screen, where it seems the world of Jonathan and the baby and the plane trip and California and all the rest of life are watching her from that cursor.

  He gets up quickly. “No, you’re right,” he says. She doesn’t see his face because he’s already out of there. She hears him in the hallway and then going down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

  She shoves her fist in her mouth and clenches her eyes shut, and then she takes a deep breath and types to Jonathan that she’s looking hard at nursing homes, but she can’t find the right one yet.

  “But are there any truly great nursing homes?” he writes. “Maybe you just have to pick one.”

  There’s no way to explain to him how outlandishly grim most of the places seem—how the smells are the first things to assault her: the oppression of boiled vegetables, tired old people, disinfectant. But the sounds get to her, too: the sadness of metal walkers plunking against the tile floors, the slippered feet sliding down the hallways, the earnest singsong voices of the staff members urging, cajoling, encouraging. The way the residents first look hopeful when they see her coming toward them, and then how they go blank with resignation when they realize she’s not there for them, that she’s not the much-loved daughter who can do something to change their day, that she, in fact, doesn’t even know them. And who will Soapie have to greet her in the hallway? No one, that’s who. No one will be coming for her.

  And how can she possibly explain to him the rightness of Soapie’s demands—for alcohol, for George spending the night, and for a garden, a screened porch, and room for a king-sized bed and throw pillows, Sinatra music?

  “Look, she’s an old lady,” Rosie types. “I want her to be comfortable.”

  “No place is going to be good enough,” he writes back.

  She sits and looks at those words for longer than necessary, and then she writes, “And I know you mean that in the nicest possible way. Gotta go. What time is your flight again?”

  “Red-eye flight. Gets in at eight a.m.,” he writes. After a moment he adds, “And I do mean it nice. Just so you know.”

  But then, later that day, she hears about the Harbor View Assisted Living and Elder Care Home, which seems, on the phone at least, to be a cut above. Spacious rooms, a dayroom with lounge chairs and tables for playing games. The units have their own screened porches looking out over a courtyard with plantings. It also has a pathway outside for walking, and some inviting benches near a pond, and a garden that has large maple trees and shrubs and rosebushes, just like home.

  And best of all, the woman on the phone reassures Rosie that independent-living residents are permitted to have overnight guests—there’s even a foldout couch, not that George would ever sleep on that—and that having alcoholic beverages is perfectly all right. In fact, it’s thought that it helps keep up people’s appetites and spirits—as long as there’s no history of alcohol abuse.

  “She can do things for herself, right?” asks the woman, and Rosie assures her that Soapie can shower and dress herself. She just shouldn’t cook. Or drive. And someone needs to make sure she takes her medication.

  And then, filled with a mixture of relief and trepidation and hope, she makes an appointment to go see this wonderful place, where maybe, maybe, maybe Soapie can spend the last of
her days with George at her side and a gin and tonic in her hands—and a nurse standing by if the worst should happen.

  On the morning she’s to go, it starts snowing, and the radio says the roads are slick and that there have already been a couple of spinouts on the highway. She’s drinking the last of her green tea, tapping on the side of her cup while she thinks, and looking at the snow out the kitchen window when Tony comes banging downstairs and pours himself a cup of coffee from the pot George has made.

  “Where are you going?” he says to her.

  So she tells him about Harbor View, and before she even finishes, he says he’ll take her there.

  “No, you don’t have to,” she says. “I’m fine.”

  “Rosie. Your car doesn’t have snow tires yet. I said I’d take you, and frankly I’d rather drive you there than worry about you. Also, I have something I want to talk to you about.”

  She sighs. She hasn’t seen him much lately. He’s been working long hours, painting some guy’s addition, but she knows that he’s also been avoiding her and finding reasons to stay out of her way. There’s a heaviness between them that she hates. And it seems so unfair, too, if this is just about the kisses she turned away from. After all, he’s the one who talks about how important fathers are—and what’s she supposed to do, just reject Jonathan’s attempts to get back into her and the baby’s lives? How would that help anything?

  They ride mostly in silence, until he asks her about Harbor View and why she likes it. She turns down the radio and tells him all its good features and why she thinks Soapie might be reasonably happy there. But then she runs out of things to say, and he stays quiet. She looks at his hands drumming on the steering wheel.

  “Listen,” she says finally. “Did you have something you wanted to talk to me about? Because I just want to say that I’m sorry about everything that happened.”

  “Don’t be,” he says. “You did the right thing.”

  “Well, then, can we be friends again?”

  “We’re fine, Rosie. It is what it is.” He takes in a big inhalation. “I guess I’m just pissed off lately. Dena has asked me to be her sperm donor.”

  “What? When did this happen? What did she say? And it was Dena? Not even Annie?”

  “Well, Dena’s going to be the one who gets pregnant this time. You knew that.”

  “Well, I knew it, but I didn’t know she wanted you. Holy God.”

  “Yeah, right? This is a bad, bad idea. But Dena said it would be just great because then at least the children would be related. Milo would have a real sibling, you know. The kick in the head is that they’re asking for full custody of Milo, and yet it was like we’re all together in this fucked-up little family or something, like I’m supposed to be thrilled that I’m creating this band of children for her pleasure. That’s the part that really got me. It was like, ‘Oh, Tony, I just think you’re so wonderful, and I want to have another child that I can keep you away from.’ And then she said we could sit down and draw up contracts. Contracts! Babies don’t come with contracts.”

  “Ideally, no.”

  “Well, they shouldn’t. That’s not who I am. I’m not a contract guy. Jesus Christ! And all I could think was then there’d be another baby whose life I’d want to be part of, but I’d still be just pushed out. I mean, what’s the deal? Do I look like somebody who’s just got a bull’s-eye painted on his dick?”

  “I wouldn’t know about your dick,” she says.

  “Well, apparently there’s something there that says, ‘Kick me.’ ”

  “Wow. You’ve got to get that removed.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m supposed to be so flattered. They’re like shocked that I’m so negative. That’s what they said. ‘When did you get so negative? You’re such an upbeat kind of guy! That’s why we want you to be the father of our new child. You’ve got the happy genes.’ Then they both get on the phone, and Annie is begging me to do it, saying that we’re already all family, so why not just continue that? And I said, ‘Sweetheart, you two pushed me the hell out of your family, and were pretty goddamn firm about it, too!’ I’m not doing it. I can’t.”

  “You said that?”

  “I did. I don’t want to be part of their family anymore. That’s the killer thing. I’m done. And she’s all about maybe they won’t ask for full custody if I agree to this new baby situation, and I’d be a real stand-up guy to do this for them, and it would be good for Milo. I said no way.”

  “This is stupendous!” she says. “Look at you! Up on the hind legs! First the derring-do with the microwave and now saying no to being their dick-boy!”

  He smiles at her for the first time, and she feels as though she’s gone back into the sunshine after being in a cave. “Did you just call me a dick-boy?”

  “No. I believe I carefully said you were not a dick-boy.”

  He pulls into the parking lot of Harbor View, a massive place with pillars and a fence and large pine trees, all frosted with snow. She cranes her neck and can see a fountain spraying up from behind the hedges. His hand rests on the back of the seat as he backs into a parking space next to a haphazardly parked Saab wagon. She looks at his tanned hands, one on the seat and one on the steering wheel while he’s concentrating on steering the truck backward. God, she loves those hands. Two days ago he had put his arms around her and touched her face with those hands as he brought his lips to hers, but she’s not going to think about that now.

  “Hey,” she says. “Here’s something I never told you. This is funny. Did you know that I invited Leila to Thanksgiving because I thought you two might hit it off? Guess I was sensing the impending change in you.”

  “Who’s Leila?” He frowns. “Oh, that pregnant chick?”

  “Woman, but yeah.”

  “The one with the maniac boyfriend. Thanks a lot.”

  “Yep. Of course I didn’t know she was going to bring the maniac with her, but I figured she could dump him and you could get over the two mommies, and the two of you could go off and raise her baby together and live happily ever after. It seemed like such a good idea at the time.” She’s saying all this in a lighthearted tone that she knows he’ll realize is funny any second now. Instead, he goes so ominously quiet that it’s as though a soundproof wall has come up between them.

  He turns off the motor. She looks at the sidewalk by the entrance lined with potted evergreen trees, being slowly decorated with snow. “I’ll wait here for you,” he says in a weird voice.

  “You’ll what? No, please come in with me. You can help me decide if this is a good place.”

  “No. I want to wait here.”

  “Tony! Oh, come on, Tony! I need you in there.”

  “I don’t feel like it. I’m sick of being needed right now. Okay? You go in there and figure it out for yourself.”

  “Come on. Are you mad that I tried to fix you up and didn’t tell you about it?”

  He’s silent.

  “Is it that I used the highly offensive term dick-boy, for which I owe you a huge apology?”

  “No.”

  “So, um. You didn’t like Leila?”

  “I liked her fine. It’s you. You think you can manipulate everything to your liking. Don’t you even get what’s going on? What thought process made you think it was your job to set me up with that woman? Tell me that.”

  “What are you talking about?” She can feel her eyes widen. She hears her heart in her ears, drumming like hoofbeats.

  “You know what I’m talking about,” he says in a low voice. He turns to face her, and she wants to hide from the expression on his face. She should just get out of the car right now, not hear what’s coming. “Listen, I gotta tell you this,” he says. He looks full-bore right into her eyes, refusing to even show a flicker of hesitation. “You know full well that every single breath I take is all about you, and that it takes everything in me to keep from throwing myself at you every single minute. And that you think you can just play God and set me up with somebody else—when you
know how I feel—well, it’s offensive, is what it is. And you know it.”

  “What?” she breathes. “I—I didn’t know it.”

  “Rosie, don’t be ridiculous. People in other time zones can see how I feel about you! People in other galaxies get this. Insects and one-celled organisms know it. I am in love with you. Okay? Do you hear this now? I love you. You, you, you.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Yes, you do know, and you know how you know? Because when I say your name, it’s not like when any other person says it, because when somebody loves you, it’s like your name is safe in their mouth.”

  She stops breathing and puts her head in her hands.

  “I love the way you look in the morning when you wake up and you’re all discombed and walking around, rubbing your belly. And I love how you walk across a room. And I love how you laugh, and how you take care of Soapie, even when she’s horrible to you. And how you eat those stupid kale omelets and pretend you like them, even though no one could because kale was only meant to be a decoration on plates and not something people really eat. And I love how you talk about your students, and how you miss your mom, even though your mom has been dead for so—”

  She looks up. “Wait. Kale is good—”

  “—for so many years and you never even knew her, but how you think she’s right here with you. And kale is not good; it tastes like stems and grass. But that’s okay, because it’s nice to see you pretending. And, Rosie, I love how brave you were that day you went to have the abortion, and then how much braver it was when you didn’t have it—and the way your eyes filled up with tears when we saw the baby’s face on the ultrasound, and how you think you can turn Jonathan into a father, and how hard you’re trying—”

  “Tony, Tony, you’re going to be so sorry you said all this to me. We can’t. We just can’t.” How is it that he doesn’t have the filters and shields that come as standard equipment on most of the other humans?

  “I’m not going to be sorry.” He smiles at her. “I thought I’d be sorry, but I’m anything but. This is me, Rosie, falling at your feet. Ka-boom.”