We Are Not Ourselves

by Matthew Thomas

  “Yes,” he said. “Maybe. I don’t know anymore.”

  “It is,” she said, practically shouting. “That’s exactly why you are.” Her face had brightened, not with joy but with the glow of an insight. “That’s exactly why. That’s not the kind of kid I raised. I knew it. I knew something was fishy. I should have seen this myself. I don’t know how I missed it.”

  She had a faraway look in her eye, as if she was figuring out the solution to several problems at once. Her expression opened up in a way he hadn’t seen in a while. The stress of the last years with his father had taken some of the fullness from her face and left lines in its place.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you’re angry.”

  “Oh, you’re damned right about that,” she said. “I’m furious. Make no mistake. You had no right to do what you did. I don’t care if it’s your life. There were other lives involved here. Not just mine or your father’s. My father’s, my mother’s. Your father’s mother’s. A lot of people worked hard to put you in the position you were in. There was a lot of money involved.”

  “I’ll pay it back.”

  “What you will do,” she said sharply, “is quit that godforsaken job immediately and go back to that school and take the classes you need to take to graduate. I don’t care if I have to drive you to Chicago myself. I don’t care if I have to sit there and watch you do your work like I had to watch you when you were a child. I don’t give a good goddamn what kind of reasons you thought you had for doing this. Let me tell you what those reasons were. They were bullshit, is what they were. You will get that degree, and you will make a real life for yourself. And I will be goddamned if you think anything will happen other than that.” She clapped her hands. “I can’t believe I didn’t see this. I knew this wasn’t you. I knew it.”

  “What wasn’t me?”

  “This ridiculous life you’re leading.”

  “What if it is?”

  “It’s not,” she said. “I carried you in my womb. I know a thing or two about you.”

  “What’s wrong with the life I’m leading?”

  “Don’t you get superior on me,” she said. “My mother pushed a mop around for thirty years. Understand? She cleaned up the vomit of snot-nosed kids. There’s nothing wrong with hard work. What’s wrong with it is that it isn’t your life. It never was. It belongs to someone else. You’ve been borrowing it. You’re simply not allowed to do that anymore, is all.”

  “You can’t make me go back to school,” he said.

  “I can, and I will, and I don’t care if you’re too thick to see I say that out of love. You can thank me when I’m dead and you’re not getting up to open the door for some goddamned punk. I will be damned if I let that happen to my son. I’m still your mother.”

  100

  When Eileen heard that someone at work was selling a pair of tickets to the Mets game, she remembered the time, the spring before they moved, when Ed told her he’d bought tickets of his own at work. Back then she’d thought of it as a subterfuge, but now she liked to think of it as a troubled man’s authentic attempt to give his family a carefree afternoon, even if he couldn’t share in it fully with them. She had been hard on him in those days, before she understood what was happening. There was room to be easy on him now.

  She bought the tickets and went alone, the empty seat for Ed. It was the first day of October 2000. The leaves had begun to turn. It was warm and a little cloudy—A good day for baseball, she could hear Ed saying. It was the last game of the season. She had been told that not much was at stake. The Mets would be in the playoffs no matter what happened. She arrived late and found the stadium packed. They were playing the Montreal Expos, whom she remembered as being not very good, but it hardly seemed to matter who the opponent was. A palpable energy hung in the air, the kind Ed would have loved, especially if he’d had Connell with him.

  She placed her pocketbook and coat in the empty seat and settled in. A hot dog vendor made his breathless way up the aisle, stopping a few rows below her. She watched him cradle an open bun, deftly spear a floating dog, sift through the bulging apron pocket for change. She was hungry, but she felt too raw for his sweaty humanity, the workaday intimacy of the moment of transfer.

  She had been trying to clear her mind of the interfering noise of everyday life, including the loud silences when she was alone in the house, and this was a good place to do so. She kept her seat when the others stood. She didn’t clap along to the rhythmic thumping coming from the giant speakers, and she didn’t shout “Charge!” when everyone else did, but she allowed herself to siphon off some of their excess spirit.

  The Mets held a narrow lead until the seventh inning, when the Expos tied it up. The score remained tied heading into the bottom of the ninth; after the third Met out, she slammed her hand down on her knee and looked at her bitten nails and realized that it mattered a great deal to her that they win this game, even if it didn’t matter to the team. It would have pleased Ed to see it head into extra innings: the decision of fate forestalled awhile, both teams working on borrowed time. The outcome’s importance rose with every out, as if all would be right in the world if the Mets prevailed.

  She understood what had made these games so compelling to her husband: every day could bring the breaking of a new record, but the larger world would persist undisturbed. There was always news, even if little of it was newsworthy. Every pitch was different, every swing, and yet they all were variations on a familiar theme. The lines on the field, the fences around it, the neat geometry suggested that these, for a discrete but somehow infinite period, were the limits of the world.

  The tenth inning gave way to the eleventh. A pair of base hits and a sacrifice bunt—she could never forget that term, because the sacrifice bunt, when executed perfectly, was nearly Ed’s favorite play, surpassed in his esteem only by the hit-and-run and the triple—put runners on second and third with one out, and they walked the next batter, but the Met pitcher got the last two men out without incident, and she allowed herself a deep breath. After two quick outs in the bottom of the eleventh, the next batter hit a single, and the one after him followed with a thrilling line drive to center, but the center fielder threw to the shortstop, who threw to the catcher, who tagged the runner at home for the third out. The Met pitcher struck out three straight batters in the top of the twelfth—struck out the side, she could hear Ed saying while pumping his fist—and the Expo pitcher retired them in order in the bottom half of the inning. No one reached base in the top of the thirteenth, and she heard someone behind her say that this was the longest game the Mets had played that year, and she thought, Of course it is, and that her heart would not be able to take it.

  When the first batter up in the bottom of the thirteenth walked, she could hear Ed saying, It’s the leadoff walks that kill you, and then the next batter was the pitcher, and she knew pitchers couldn’t hit and the team usually pinch-hit for them in situations like this or had them bunt, but somehow he was swinging away, and somehow he got on base safely with a little ground ball that didn’t leave the infield, and she found herself standing and shouting “Go! Go! Go!” as her voice was swallowed in the mounting chorus of thousands of others. The next batter squared up for a bunt—she remembered Ed calling it that, squaring up, facing your fate head-on—and when he lay it down, the third baseman came rushing in for it and made a bad throw and the runner on second came all the way around to score. She squeezed her hands into fists and felt her throat constrict as the cheering cascaded around her.

  It mattered so little that they’d won, and yet nothing mattered more. A fugitive joy stole through her as the players cleared the field. She sat in her seat and watched the fans leave, the emptying stadium growing quiet. Shades of runners lingered on the base paths. When the groundskeepers began sweeping dirt into piles and smoothing them out, she made her way to the car.

  101

  She rang the buzzer for the apartment number she had listed in her address book. A shy a
nd small-framed woman answered the door, speaking Spanish. Eileen could see a crib in the living room behind her and a shirt spread out over an ironing board. She asked about the Orlandos, but the woman didn’t seem to know what she was talking about. Eileen excused herself and went back downstairs. The Orlandos’ name wasn’t anywhere on the lobby registry.

  She went around the corner to the Palumbos’ house. Mr. Palumbo came to the door. In the eight years since she’d last seen him, he had aged considerably; he must have been pushing eighty by now.

  “It’s me, Mr. Palumbo,” she said. “Eileen Leary. How are you doing?”

  She couldn’t tell whether he didn’t recognize her or didn’t want to let on that he did. She’d never talked much to him, but he’d been her next-door neighbor for years, and she wanted that to count for something. When he extended his left hand, palm down, she took it gratefully in her own. The knuckles were like ball bearings, but the skin was smooth. He squeezed her hand tighter and started patting it with his other one. His hands felt like little furnaces.

  He said his wife had died. Eileen offered condolences but couldn’t bring herself to tell him about Ed. He said his son had moved out of the apartment upstairs. “It’s hard to be a landlord at my age. My daughter wants me to sell the house and move out with her family in Hackettstown. I think about it, but what am I supposed to do out there, in the middle of nowhere? Watch the grass grow? The kid on the third floor, nice Colombian kid, he takes care of the handyman work. I go up there and play poker.” He laughed. “He takes all my money.”

  She asked after the Orlandos. Mr. Palumbo started to speak about Donny and then disappeared inside for a long time. When he came back, he handed her a business card for an auto body shop in Garden City. He explained that Donny had opened it a few years back and now he had a few locations, with car washes.

  “Very successful,” he said. “He got remarried too. Nice lady. He has two girls with her.”

  She felt a joyful smile spread across her face. Beleaguered Donny of the inauspicious circumstances had made a miracle happen. Ed would have been so proud.

  “Wonderful,” she said.

  “I went out to see them. Beautiful neighborhood. Gary lives in a carriage house on the property. Brenda keeps the books for the shops. You should see Sharon. What a beauty. She could be a movie star.”

  “My goodness,” she said. “And Lena?”

  “She passed right after my wife.”

  Mr. Palumbo crossed himself, so Eileen did too. When Mr. Palumbo asked about her family, she spoke vaguely, sparingly. She felt like a fool not admitting Ed was gone, but she couldn’t help herself. She needed this man to believe Ed was still alive.

  They said their good-byes. As Eileen turned to leave the stoop, she heard the sound of something falling inside the apartment, and she had an eerie sensation that Mr. Palumbo had keeled over, dead. She knocked on his door again in a panic that surprised her. When Mr. Palumbo answered the door, she said the first thing that came to mind, which was that she wanted to wish him a happy Thanksgiving in case she didn’t see him before then. He looked a little bemused and thanked her for the wishes and she was left alone again. A sudden thunder overtook her heart and the tinny taste of fear stole into her mouth. She sat on his stoop to calm herself. She decided that she was afraid of getting left behind—but that was impossible; she had left before that could happen. Happy as she was for Donny, it unnerved her to learn that he hadn’t been living in the neighborhood all this time. She’d never imagined he would get his act together enough to make the radical moves he’d made. She had derived a certain comfort from thinking of him as living out the trajectory of his known life, keeping her past in place by staying put for her, even if he didn’t know he was doing it. It was much more frightening to think of the world in a state of permanent flux.

  She hadn’t built a dynasty. She wasn’t even sure there would be a continuation of the line. Her son had gone back to Chicago to school, but she couldn’t help worrying about him, and in a more elemental way than she’d ever worried before. She’d begun to worry less about what sort of foundation he was laying for her future grandchildren—God willing, he would meet a nice girl and settle down and have kids—and more about his own future.

  She wanted to rejoice with Donny, but she didn’t know how to begin to reach out to him after all this time and silence. She fingered the business card and then put it in her wallet. She thought, I hope you have a wonderful life. I hope you have a lovely big backyard. I hope you flip steaks and watch your daughters run around and think, I could die in peace.

  She rose and walked over to stand in front of her old house. The new owners had let the garden grow up over the garden box and had restained the doors, and new drapes hung in the window in a style she didn’t prefer, but it was unmistakably her house. She’d stood so many times where she now stood, appraising it, and a surge of affection shamed the memory of her desperation to escape it. She stepped onto the stoop.

  The lights had come on in the streetlamps, but the evening hadn’t yet submitted to night. She wanted to be transported back to a time when this had been her life. The birds in the trees made their entreaties, cars flew down the street, and the smooth paint of the banister brought the skin of her palm to life. She closed her eyes and listened to the familiar sounds of a disappearing plane and a distant horn and breathed in that strangely appealing mix of car exhaust and leaves. She could have been arriving back after a long day at Lawrence, or following Ed and Connell up the stoop after Sunday dinner at Arturo’s. She could go inside and find Ed on the couch wearing the headphones. She would say to him, Listen as long as you want. Listen to all your records. I’ll be right here when you’re done. I’ll wait years if I have to. She would take his hand in her hands and kiss the back of it with enough tenderness to show him it wasn’t a gambit. Let’s just stay right here, she would say. Let’s stay here forever.

  She didn’t know these people, but she was beginning to feel she couldn’t return home without seeing the house. She’d spent a lifetime running, and she was tired. There had to be some way to fit the past into the present, even if she’d turned her back on it.

  She took the knocker in her hand and gave the door three quick, emphatic taps. A young man answered. It was hard to reconcile him with the boy—he must have been seven or eight then—she’d seen standing out front when his parents were leaving the open house. He was tall and broad, and his hair was neatly brushed. He had the bright, white smile of an elected official.

  “Can I help you?”

  It unsettled her to be greeted as a stranger at her own house. She had to squelch the pride that threatened to ruin this venture before it had even begun.

  “My name is Eileen Leary,” she said. “I used to live here.”

  She felt like one of those furtive talkers who went from door to door proselytizing for obscure faiths and doomed causes. She wouldn’t have been surprised or blamed him if he’d closed the door before she finished her halting appeal. But he invited her inside.

  “I don’t want to be a bother,” she said as she crossed the threshold.

  “Not at all,” he said. “Would you mind taking off your shoes?”

  It was a custom she’d long thought of putting into practice in her own home, but she’d never found a way to introduce it. The vestibule tiles were cold on her stockinged feet, but the plush carpet sank pleasantly under her as she entered the living room. They kept a television where her armchair used to be. The set looked so inviting that she wondered why she and Ed had deprived this space of one for so long. She watched the father, Mr. Thomas as she remembered it, slap his elegant hands on his knees and stretch his long body as he rose from the couch.

  The boy began to introduce her, but his father cut him off. “I know who you are,” he said affectionately. “Welcome back! Does it look the same to you? My wife is making dinner. Anabel! Come in here.”

  The décor was so different that she had trouble gauging the depth and wid
th of the room; it seemed that the space itself, which had given her so much trouble in her decorating efforts, being always a foot too wide or too narrow, had compliantly shifted its dimensions to fit the needs of the new owners, finding its natural harmony in the process, as if it had been waiting for them to arrive. When she looked into the dining room, though, and saw the old wall-sized mirror, she was seized by a pang so strong it made her stomach lurch. There was a greater profusion of things both big and small, the kind that would have nettled her in her own home but that here suggested a fruitful multiplication.

  “I like what you’ve done with the place,” she said, and felt instantly foolish. It had been almost eight years. They hadn’t “done” anything with it; they’d simply made it their own, or what they’d done with it had been done so long ago that it was absurd to speak of it.

  They stood around in one of those benignly awkward circles that obtained whenever men were responsible for making introductions. She saw the boy sneak a look at the television and felt her heart bloom with an instant affection, because it was what her son would have done in the same situation.

  Casting about for something to say, she noticed, on an end table, a trophy capped with a winged figure arching her arms in triumph. “What’s this?” she asked brightly, picking it up. It was heavier than she expected, not like the flimsy trophies for dance recitals or participation in Little Leagues.

  “He won it in debate,” the father said. She remembered that his first name was Thomas too. “The state championship. We’re very proud of him.”

  “Don’t let him fool you into thinking I was the champion,” the boy said. “I came in second.”

  “This year he will be,” the father said.

  She saw that the boy was uncomfortable with the attention, and she put the trophy down. She remembered they were Catholic. “Did you go to St. Joan of Arc?” she asked.

  “I did,” the boy said. “From third grade on.”