Emily, Alone

by Stewart O'Nan

  “You can use mine,” Emily said. “Come on, time’s a-wastin’, Pokey Joe.”

  “Just let me close this.”

  By the time he did, the water had stopped. He unplugged his adapter and wound the cord around it, tucked the laptop under his arm and slumped upstairs.

  “Can he move any slower?” Emily asked.

  “They’re in vacation mode,” Margaret said.

  “Is that it?”

  “I don’t think either of them gets enough sleep.”

  Emily had to laugh. “They certainly did this morning.”

  When Sarah came downstairs, pink-eyed and sneezing fitfully, Emily relented. Having battled migraines her entire life, she forgave illness. She plied her with soup and coffee, setting a box of Kleenex next to her place. It was all right if she’d rather stay home than go pick out a tree, but to Emily’s relief, she was game.

  Emily had saved the process of buying a tree not simply because she needed help but because she thought it would be a fun thing to do as a family. She’d envisioned them tramping through the rows of fragrant Scotch pines and blue spruces in the snow, choosing their favorites and then voting, as the children had when they were little, except it was sunny and close to fifty, and they’d waited too long. The trees the School for the Deaf had left fit into one corner of the basketball court. The survivors leaned against the fence, scraggly, misshapen rejects not worth half the asking price. Even the best had massive holes. The question wasn’t which one to choose, but whether choosing any of them made sense, and though she cast about for rescue, as the leader of this misconceived expedition, the decision fell to her.

  “Justin, honey, can you hold that one up? Thank you, that’s it. What do you think? Maybe if we put that side in the corner?”

  “It’s not going in the window?” Margaret said with disappointment.

  “I don’t think there’s anything here that could go in the window. I think this is the best we’re going to do.”

  For a moment no one spoke, their passivity total, as if Emily was the sole motive force. Why had they bothered coming? Was it just to humor her?

  Finally Arlene stepped forward and ruffled the branches. “It’s a little uneven, but I suppose it could work.”

  Justin stood with his head down, bored.

  “Sarah?”

  “It could be like a Charlie Brown tree.”

  That was enough of a consensus for Emily. She was done trying to encourage them. She paid the attendant, asked for a fresh cut of the trunk and then helped him center the blanket she’d brought so the branches wouldn’t scratch her roof.

  At home there was only time to get it into the stand on the back porch before they had to change for The Nutcracker, leaving her with the feeling—as she sat in the darkened Benedum Center—of a job left undone. The matinee was packed with families, which was as it should be, but one had made the mistake of bringing a baby, and compounded their error by not removing the child when it first started squalling. Several times it subsided only to begin again, a near-comedic form of torture Emily couldn’t believe the ushers condoned.

  With the unseasonable warmth, the theater was stuffy, a chronic problem. Midway through the second act, Justin reached across Margaret, tapped Emily on the arm and pointed to Arlene. She was unconscious, her face slack, hands upturned and limp in her lap, and a shock seized Emily, remembering the Eat ’n Park, until she realized Arlene was just snoozing, lulled by the heat and the ballet’s glacial pace. Rather than let her remain an object of fun, Emily had Justin nudge her. Arlene woke and looked down the row, and Emily nodded like a proctor.

  On her right, Sarah cleared her throat over and over, mashing tissues to her nose, and Emily thought that maybe she should have stayed home. They’d seen this same clunky production a dozen times. Justin wasn’t interested, if he’d ever been. While she was no fan of Tchaikovsky, Emily couldn’t imagine Christmas without The Nutcracker, just as she counted on the trees at the Carnegie and the Messiah sing-along, but, sitting there, barely following the plot, she decided that this might be their last year.

  In the car, the children thanked her, though Emily suspected Margaret had prompted them.

  “Yes, thank you, it was lovely,” Arlene said. “What I saw of it.”

  “I was fading in and out there a little too,” Margaret said.

  They could have all done with a nap, but Emily had budgeted only enough time to freshen up and feed and water Rufus before they had to hop in the car again and head off to the club. She was actually glad they’d made the early seating, especially after last night. Sarah didn’t look like she had much left.

  Under the crystal chandeliers they took their places, Justin conspicuously the only male. He slouched, hiding behind his hair as Kenneth had when he was a teenager, shifting to the side to let the busboy fill their water glasses. He so obviously didn’t want to be there that Emily couldn’t resist prodding him about school.

  “It’s good,” he said, as if that might satisfy her.

  “What was your favorite course this semester?” Arlene asked.

  “I don’t know. Quantum mechanics was okay.”

  “Are there any girls in your classes?”

  “Not ones you’d want to go out with.”

  “None?”

  “None that want to go out with me.”

  “A different matter altogether.”

  In the middle of this interrogation, a waitress with her hair gathered in a saggy bun arrived to take their drink order, looking to Emily and Arlene to start.

  “Go ahead,” Margaret said with a flip of her hand. “Get what you usually get.”

  “Are you sure?” Arlene asked.

  “I’m driving,” Emily said, “so I’ll stick with water.”

  “I’ll just have water too,” Arlene said.

  “Club soda with a lime, please,” Margaret said.

  Sarah had green tea, Justin a Sprite. Conversation resumed, yet for Emily the question lingered. Would it really not bother Margaret if she ordered a glass of Chablis? Around them, people were tipping martinis and Manhattans, but they were strangers. To watch those who knew how hard and constantly she’d fought her disease raise a glass seemed a needless test, just as there was something unfair to all of them in her offer, though Emily couldn’t see another alternative besides silence, of which they’d had enough. She thought her worry was perverse. Here, again, she was second-guessing Margaret when she should have been giving her credit.

  “So, Sarah,” Arlene said, “how are you liking the City of Big Shoulders?”

  “I like it.”

  “It beats Silver Hills, I imagine.”

  “Your job sounds interesting,” Emily said.

  “Not really. It’s pretty basic. It’s just setting up network stuff.”

  “I’m not even sure what that is.”

  “Virtual conferencing. I make sure people from the different offices can talk online. It’s not really new.”

  “It’s beyond me,” Emily said. “Now, I’ve heard rumors that there’s a gentleman in the picture, is that right? Or is your mother making him up?”

  Sarah gave Margaret a put-upon look.

  “Does he have big shoulders?” Arlene asked, and Justin laughed.

  “I can see this is a painful subject,” Emily said.

  “It’s not serious, we’re just dating.”

  “What does that mean?” Arlene asked Emily.

  “It means they’re not boyfriend and girlfriend, or am I off base?” She wasn’t.

  “He took her to Charlie Trotter’s,” Margaret objected.

  “What’s that?” Arlene asked.

  “It’s a four-star restaurant. You have to make reservations months in advance.”

  “Who is this lucky boy,” Emily asked, “or shall he remain nameless?”

  “Max.”

  “Maxwell?” Arlene asked.

  “Maximilian, sorry.”

  “Max Power,” Justin said, a joke Emily didn’t ge
t and that Sarah didn’t appreciate.

  His name was Max Howard. He helped run the main website for the Obama campaign. Margaret offered that he was older than Sarah, in his mid-twenties. He was a graduate of DePaul, though Margaret wasn’t sure if he was actually a Catholic.

  “Jesus, Mom.”

  “Well, these are the kinds of things you have to find out.”

  “Somebody please kill me,” Sarah said.

  “We’re just joking,” Margaret said.

  “It’s not funny.”

  “Oh, please. After the grief you two have given me about Ron.”

  “I think I’m ready for some salad,” Emily said, eyeing the line. “Shall we?”

  The buffet held no surprises, though Arlene cooed over the cream-ofchicken soup, a childhood favorite. Justin skipped the salads completely while Emily went back for seconds, feeling virtuous as she loaded her plate with leafy greens. By the time she was ready for her main course, he was on to the dessert table. She and Margaret chose the chicken Florentine, which they both found a little dry. Sarah barely ate, leaving half of her salmon. She wiped her nose with a bedraggled tissue, and though Emily wanted to know more about her life in Chicago, she held off. Margaret’s man-friend she didn’t consider polite dinner conversation, and so they picked at inconsequential topics—the economy, the war in Iraq, Guantánamo Bay. The waitress refilled their drinks and recapped the Steelers game for Arlene, a welcome intrusion, as no one seemed to have anything to say.

  Justin and Sarah were both ready to go. Rather than prolong the agony, they decided to have coffee at home. The Carnegie could wait, and she could use the tiramisu. In the car, for the second time today, they thanked her. Driving at night tired her eyes, and when, with great concentration, she’d pulled safely into the garage, Justin knocked his door against the wall.

  Inside, Margaret apologized for him. Emily shrugged as if it were nothing.

  Sarah went straight up to bed, but came down minutes later to announce that Rufus had eaten her toothpaste, which explained why he was hiding under the dining room table. Somehow he’d snitched the tube off the bathroom counter. He’d also gotten into her wastebasket and shredded her used tissues all over the carpet.

  “Honest to God,” Emily said, as Margaret knelt beside her and helped clean up the mess.

  “That can’t be good for his stomach.”

  “I hope it hurts,” Emily said, scrubbing at the bath mat with a wet washcloth.

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “I just wish I knew why he does these things.”

  “He’s probably angry that you left him home alone.”

  Emily told her about him gnawing the chair leg and peeing on the carpet in front of her.

  “How old is he?”

  “That’s why it upsets me. I’m afraid he’s going to die soon, and I really don’t want him to.”

  “I’m surprised he’s lasted this long.”

  “I know,” Emily said. “We’ve been very lucky with him. He’s still a jerk.”

  “He’s better than Duchess ever was.”

  “Remember what Dad used to call her?”

  “The Worst Dog Ever,” they said in tandem.

  Downstairs, Arlene had dessert ready, and the conversation continued, spreading backward into the past, making stops at Panther Hollow and Chautauqua, her parents’ house in Kersey and Calvary Camp. Dogs, vacations, boyfriends, neighbors. The Millers’ grog parties. Sleepovers at the Pickerings’ House of Fun. Emily was mildly surprised to hear Margaret recall those years with laughter. To Emily they’d been a running battle, one that even now she had to concede she’d lost, and yet here was Margaret beside her, reminiscing wistfully on Christmases past. Going downtown to see the windows at Horne’s and Kaufmann’s with the crowds, then meeting Henry for a leisurely dinner at Klein’s. She still had the wooden blocks he’d crafted for her. She was saving them for her grandchildren, whenever that might be—making them all turn to Justin, speechless and suffering above his empty plate.

  “Justin will take care of the dishes,” Margaret said, and without a word, he did, then vanished.

  Outside, the Coles’ lights strobed over the yard.

  “I wish we had our tree up,” Emily said.

  They’d all do it tomorrow, Margaret promised. She’d wake up early and make French toast. If it was cold enough, they could have a fire like old times.

  Arlene needed to leave; she was falling asleep. When should she come by in the morning?

  They saw her off, waving from the doorway. “Drive safe!”

  Margaret wanted to read her book, and though Emily would have liked to stay up and talk, she was pleased with the way the night had ended.

  “Maybe tomorrow we can sit down and go over a few things Gordon’s been putting together for me.”

  “Did you want to do that now?”

  “No, tomorrow’s fine.”

  “All right. Sweet dreams.”

  “Sweet dreams, dear.”

  Margaret went up, leaving Emily to put out Rufus and close the downstairs. As a young mother, she’d required a kiss from her children before sending them off to bed—Henry had gotten one too—but had stopped the practice when they were teenagers. Now she wished she could hold Margaret’s face in her hands the way she used to, delivering a theatrical smack on her pursed lips—“Mmwa!”

  She was wrapped in this daydream when she walked by Henry’s office and saw Justin at his desk, tapping on his laptop. She’d thought he was upstairs. In profile he reminded her of Henry, the same strong jaw, and she imagined that somewhere there was a girl who would love him despite his awkwardness and terrible hair.

  “Hello?” she said. With his earbuds in, he didn’t hear her, and she had to flick the light switch.

  “Hey, Gram.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Checking out the Hubble.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The Hubble telescope? They’ve got this site where you can see what they’re looking at.”

  He leaned aside so she could see the screen. It was supposed to be a galaxy, but all she could make out was a white smudge in the night sky.

  “Is that what you want to do—explore space?”

  “If I could,” he said. “Not many people get to.”

  “If you want to, you will.” She laid a hand on his shoulder. “Now, don’t stay up too late.”

  “Okay.”

  “Sweet dreams.”

  “Sweet dreams,” he said.

  She had to leave the front hall light on for him, and the one in the stairwell, and the night-light in their bathroom, which bugged her, accustomed as she was to turning everything off. The bathroom wastebasket was a mass of Sarah’s tissues, easy pickings for Rufus in the morning, and with a sigh she lifted out the plastic Giant Eagle bag, knotting its handles together, took it downstairs and brought up a new one.

  In her own bathroom, patting her face dry before applying her moisturizer, she heard a voice and froze, holding the towel to her chin. From the hot-air register in the corner came the sound of the TV in Margaret’s room. In bed she could still hear it faintly, a pitched conversation, and covered it with her radio. Hadn’t the day gone on long enough? It was her fault, she thought. She was too used to living alone. While she loved them all dearly, she’d forgotten how exhausting other people could be.

  EARTHLY POSSESSIONS

  One of the sorrows of her life was that her children were not good with money. While the economy rose and fell, their losses were constant. No matter how well they were doing, or how many hours they worked, they couldn’t save.

  Having come from a town where there was literally a wrong side of the tracks, Emily had friends in grade school who wore patched and faded hand-me-downs and used oaktag to plug the holes in their shoes. There was no shame in it. An honest propriety obtained. No matter how poor they were, mothers didn’t allow their children to leave the house wearing ripped or dirty clothes (a point Margaret as
a teenager refused to understand or honor, leading to much screaming).

  It was not poverty or its semblance that Emily was afraid of as much as the loss of opportunity. Her father, who’d dreamed of being an architect, had had to leave school for a lack of money. He worked, comfortably enough, for forty-five years as a building inspector, approving the visions of other men. She never heard a bitter word from him, but after her mother died, while she was cleaning out his desk, among his mechanical pencils and rubber stamps she found tubes full of grand, intricate plans for a courthouse he’d designed. The date in the legend was 1931, the year she was born, a decade after he’d quit school, and she imagined him coming home nights and conjuring up this gaudy monument to the Second Empire—in Kersey, in the midst of the Depression—knowing it would never be built.

  Emily didn’t want her children to be rich, or even professionally successful. She wanted them to fulfill their responsibilities to others and to themselves, that was all. They both had so much promise (she would never believe she was mistaken in this), and yet they seemed so unhappy, so easily defeated. While she was openly skeptical of Kenneth ever making a living with his photography, she understood it was his love. No one was more upset when suddenly, as if time had expired, he decided to quit it altogether and throw himself into selling advertising for Lisa’s father, a field anyone could see was a bad match for his gifts. He knew he was wasting his talent. It was clear when they spoke on the phone, his accounts of his workday full of self-deprecating jokes. She found herself encouraging him to pick up his camera, in what must have seemed an about-face from her earlier position. When pressed, he was defensive, which she read as resentment—of her as well as the job. Maybe things would change when the kids were through with school, but for now this was his solution.

  Margaret had never discovered her true vocation. Like many of her generation, she’d dropped out of college, a mistake Emily blamed for her later troubles. Through her twenties, she hung around East Lansing, waiting tables and tending bar, sharing cramped apartments with friends of equally dubious means and a succession of men who disappeared before anyone could meet them. She was thirty when she met Jeff, and spent the next twenty years as a full-time if not always dedicated homemaker. Now, alone in their old house, she worked as a receptionist at a suburban hospital, where her status as a recovering alcoholic wasn’t a problem. The divorce settlement had been equitable. She’d gotten the house, but now she was solely responsible for the mortgage. Between alimony, child support and her paycheck, often she couldn’t cover her monthly expenses, and Emily had to help.