The Forever Year

by Lou Aronica

  Within a couple of months, we moved in together and for a while we were on one extended passionate high. This was the antidote. This was what I needed. If innocent love could end up in such a devastating way (and I still thought about Georgia daily and wondered where she was), then the right love for me obviously had a much darker cast. But when the sexual energy started to dissipate and when the partying started to take its toll, we began to notice how often we disagreed and how little we cared for each other’s values. At that point, we discovered that we could fight as fervently as we could make love, and for a short while even that had its appeal.

  I’m not sure when I would have started wondering about the friends I’d left behind or the fact that I was turning ugly in my own eyes. I had remade myself for love, and I’m sure at some point I would have had to acknowledge how unnatural it felt. But it didn’t come down to that. While I was out of town on an assignment, Karen departed for the other coast, leaving behind only a note that read, “I’m gone.”

  It was after Karen that I realized that there were many kinds of romantic love and each one had a shelf life. You could be soft and giving and sweet. You could be sharp and self-absorbed and salty. But no matter how you dressed yourself, ultimately the costume fell to the ground in tatters. There was no way to maintain the depth of emotion. And if you cared really deeply, it just hurt that much more when the end came.

  It wasn’t just my own experiences that proved this. All around me, people were having their hearts broken by love affairs gone bad. And I found no hope among those who had managed to stay together. I was surrounded by utilitarian and passionless relationships that had to have had more sparks at some point, though not a flicker was visible now. Darlene married a “solid” man who seemed preconfigured for grandfatherhood. Matty married a woman who could talk about the latest Girl Scout cookie drive with great verve, but fell asleep in front of the television every night at 9:30. Denise married a guy who was so buttoned-down and career-oriented that I imagined they scheduled sex every week only because they’d read that it could lead to quicker professional advancement.

  Even my parents’ marriage, while it lasted for more than fifty years, seemed more like a partnership than a romance. They made a good team and they complemented each other well. But I don’t recall their ever sharing more than a perfunctory kiss, and never saw them join each other in a momentary embrace. There was no doubt in my mind that they cared about each other, and my father had been devastated when my mother died. I surmised from their mutual admiration that they had to have been more romantic at some point before I was born. But there never seemed to be any electricity between them. They simply built a lot together. Like an architectural firm.

  Clearly this was the way all relationships went eventually. You fell in love with someone, you believed that you could have a great life together. Maybe it turned out that you did have a great life together, but somewhere along the line you either burnt out or became roommates rather than lovers. To me, it just wasn’t worth the bother. I wasn’t looking for companionship in my old age. I wasn’t looking for grandkids to bounce on my knee. If love couldn’t last long term, then what was the point of being in a long-term relationship? My feeling was that you simply let everything play out to its natural life, always aware that the inevitable was coming. You had fun until you weren’t having fun anymore and when it was over, you avoided the temptation to stay in bed for a week or create a playlist of all the maudlin ballads on your iPod.

  So with Marina, I just let it go where it was going to go, though I spent a lot less time thinking about the inevitability of the end than I had with any woman in a long time. We were on the same page as far as our feelings about romance went. She had been involved for four years in a relationship that split up horrendously, and I was sure that she was as unwilling as I to take any new affair too deep.

  I had met Marina when we found ourselves seated next to each other at a lecture at the local library. I liked her instantly, and we wound up going for coffee after the event. We returned to that coffee shop more than a half dozen times before I officially asked her out. I went into the relationship more focused on how much I enjoyed her presence than on whether this could last romantically for any length of time. That in itself was a refreshing change. Before Karen, I started every relationship wondering if this could be the Great Love. After Karen, they all started with me telling myself that I had nothing better to do on Friday night.

  I was truly enjoying myself with Marina, but there was still no question in my mind that the chemistry would ultimately combust or fizzle. It had to. It always did. In the meantime, though, we were having a lot of fun. That seemed to be enough for both of us.

  And she understood me. Certainly better than any of my siblings did.

  “Why is this so inconceivable to them?” I said as we sat on a couch in my den. “It’s not like I’m irresponsible. It’s not like I’m living in a one-bedroom dive. I work out of my house. I can cook. I know how to dial 9-1-1. That pretty much covers it, doesn’t it?”

  “I think a lot of people have trouble not thinking of the youngest as the ‘baby of the family,’ no matter how old he is,” Marina said gently. “Your siblings just don’t know how competent you’ve become and how good this would be for both of you.”

  Yes, how good it would be for both of us. That was the inspiration that flashed in my mind in Denise’s apartment that night. Something I hadn’t even considered until that very moment. I believed it would be good for my father to live in a house where his son could offer him companionship and take care of his basic needs. But I also believed it would be good for me.

  Everyone carries around a lot of unresolved stuff with his or her parents. In my case, the unresolved stuff with my father was that I had virtually no “stuff” with him at all. He was fifty years older than I was and I’m sure that I’d never figured into his plans. He always seemed confused by my being around. It was like he’d revved himself up to be an active parent for only a certain length of time and he wasn’t sure how to re-start the motor. He wasn’t negligent or insensitive, but he spent a lot of time at work. We pretty much led separate lives under the same roof. As a result, I had a completely different relationship with him than any of my other siblings had. I learned that my father had become seriously engaged in his children’s lives only once they were old enough for reasonable conversation and interaction. He wasn’t much for changing diapers or getting down on the floor to play, but he was great at going camping or building models or taking long drives – and especially good at deep, probing discussion. I believed that my time would come, that he hadn’t been any more involved with Darlene or Matty or Denise when they were six than he was with me, and that he would really show up when I was ten. By the time I was ten, though, he was sixty, and I guess he no longer had the energy required to have an involved relationship with a preteen. Most of our dealings came via my mother, whether it was his giving me twenty dollars to “pick out something nice for your mom’s birthday” or her telling me, “Now that you’re twelve, your father would really appreciate it if you started cutting the lawn.” I had friends with grandparents my father’s age, and I essentially thought of him that way. Your grandfather didn’t play catch with you or ride bikes with you. He came around fairly regularly, dispensed advice, passed you a few bucks, patted you on the back, and left.

  After I moved out, my father and I would talk when I came over to visit or if he answered the phone when I called. But the conversations were always brief, rarely more substantial than a review of the headlines, a comment about the weather, a query about my work, or his observation about the stock market. I never felt neglected, and I never believed that I would have been a better, more well-rounded person if I had received more attention from him. But those stories from Darlene and Matty and Denise nagged at me a little. And seeing my father interact with his three eldest children at family dinners made me a bit jealous. There was a big piece of Mickey Sienna that I never had
access to, and because of that, I felt like something was missing.

  Now this opportunity was sitting in front of me, a chance for a little substance in our relationship after thirty-two years. If Marina could understand that with only a passing knowledge of the players involved, why couldn’t three people who were much closer to the situation?

  “What does your father think about the idea?” Marina said.

  “Why would I talk to my father about it?”

  She snickered. “Sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that Matty and the others are kinda like the gatekeepers here. If I can’t get the idea past them, there’s no chance I’m going to be able to get it past my dad.”

  Marina reached over to the coffee table to retrieve her glass of wine and then pulled me closer. She was the first woman I’d ever been with who I sat with that way. All other women leaned into me.

  “How much do you want this?”

  “It surprises me how much.” I said animatedly. “I keep asking myself if it’s just because the others blew me off about it. But it isn’t that. I think that something really good could come out of this. It’s all very romantic. You know, the whole thing about father and son forging this deep connection after all these years.”

  “Then it seems like you have to do something about it. And there’s only one thing you can do.”

  I cringed. Of course she was right, but the notion of discussing this with my father directly seemed about as natural as asking the old lady down the block if she wanted to move in. In fact the old lady would probably be more receptive.

  “I was kinda hoping that all of this would just happen. You want to go talk to him for me?”

  “Gee, I would Jesse, but since we’ve never met, he might find it a little strange.”

  “Yeah. I’m worried about him having the same reaction if I go to see him.”

  “This could be a great thing for you. Even if he doesn’t take you up on it, you’re going to feel differently about yourself and your place in the family after you ask him.”

  I snuggled a little closer to her, took her free hand and kissed it.

  “I could wind up feeling really empty and foolish,” I said.

  “You could if you decide to go into it that way. But unless you think your father is going to mock you every time you see him afterward, there really isn’t anything to lose. You said it yourself: the ‘gatekeepers’ aren’t going to let this happen. So if you strike out with your dad, you aren’t any worse off. But I’ll bet he’ll be moved that you even brought the subject up. What parent doesn’t want to be wanted by his kids later in life?”

  I leaned up and kissed her softly.

  “You’re very good at this, you know?”

  She kissed the top of my head. “You would have figured it out on your own.”

  “No, I think there’s a really good chance that I would have just let it go and then been pissed off about it for years.”

  She hugged me closer to her.

  “I think that might have been true if this was about something else, but you know how important this is to you. You wouldn’t have gone down without a fight.”

  I took another sip of wine and settled into Marina’s arms. Two thoughts crossed my mind. The first was how refreshing it was to be with someone who actually paid attention to what I was thinking. The other was that talking to my father was going to redefine awkwardness for me.

  Chapter Three

  The scent of smoke was still bad in the kitchen. It had taken the contractors only a couple of days to make the repairs, and they had done what they could to air it out. But it was still there.

  Right now what Mickey really wanted was a BLT, but he settled for a ham sandwich. Mickey didn’t want to be afraid of the stove. He didn’t want to believe that he was going to have a hard time even boiling water without wondering if he was going to do something wrong and kill himself. It had just been a stupid thing that morning. He’d been tossing and turning in bed all night and he was still tired and he’d fallen asleep on the couch. It was an isolated incident, even if his kids were making a really big deal about it. Still, a ham sandwich would do just fine.

  Mickey was slicing a tomato when his head pricked up at the sound of someone approaching the front door. The hearing’s still as good as ever. As the bell rang, he wondered who might be there. He wasn’t expecting any deliveries. Maybe Laura had sent another one of her CARE packages. He was pretty sure that Theresa wasn’t supposed to come over today.

  He was very surprised when he opened the door and found Jesse there. Not that it was odd for him to come over, just that he usually called first. Jess seemed to be coming around more often since Dorothy died. He was a good kid. Mickey liked telling his friends that he had a son who was younger than some of their grandchildren. It made him feel younger himself.

  “Hey, Jess. I didn’t expect you. I was just making myself a sandwich. You want one?”

  Jesse shook his head as he walked in the door and kissed his father on the cheek.

  “It’s a little early for lunch,” he said.

  “Is it? I was feeling pretty hungry. Want some coffee or something?”

  “Yeah, thanks. Coffee sounds good.”

  “Good,” Mickey said as he worked his way back toward the kitchen. “Why don’t you make it while I finish cutting this tomato?”

  Jesse went over to the refrigerator, pulled out a can, and shook it.

  “You’re pretty low on coffee here, Dad.”

  Mickey looked up from the cutting board and nodded.

  “Yeah, I gotta go shopping. They closed the A&P. That’s where your mother used to go for groceries. All of the other places seem pretty annoying.”

  Jesse spooned the coffee out into the coffeemaker and then returned the can to the refrigerator.

  “It looks like you could use a lot of stuff here. You want me to take you shopping? We could go out to lunch afterward.”

  Mickey thought he wouldn’t mind a little help with the shopping. There were things that Dorothy always used to buy that he couldn’t remember. He wasn’t too sure about spending all of that time in a restaurant, though.

  “Yeah, if you could take me to a store, that would be great. Let me just finish my sandwich first.”

  They didn’t say much while Mickey ate. It seemed to him that Jesse had something on his mind, but if he did, he wasn’t talking about it. That pretty much described Jesse in Mickey’s opinion. He knew the kid was smart – all of his kids were smart – and he was at least moderately successful as a writer, so he had to be good at expressing himself. But when Mickey was with Jesse, he could never tell if his thoughts were occupied elsewhere or if he just didn’t have much going on in his head. He wondered how any child of his could have turned out that way. But things had always been so different with Jesse than they had been with the others.

  They listened to an all-news station on the way to the supermarket with Mickey making a comment about the Dow Jones average and Jesse saying something about going to college with the announcer. Other than that, they drove quietly.

  Supermarkets had always seemed a little daunting to Mickey. Way too much selection, way too many labels calling out for his attention. This was entirely Dorothy’s domain when she was alive. If they needed milk or something, Mickey would go to the convenience store about a half-mile away from the house. At least he could make his way around the A&P, having gone there enough times with his wife in their retirement. But now both Dorothy and the A&P were gone and Mickey had no idea how much broccoli he would eat in a week or how to buy enough orange juice so that he didn’t run out and it didn’t go bad. And then the fire happened and further complicated matters.

  “What do you do with kale?” he said to Jesse, picking up a bunch after a few minutes in the produce aisle. He wondered if it was something he could eat without cooking it.

  “I don’t do anything with kale,” Jesse said with an exaggerat
ed grimace. “Not my kind of thing.” Mickey put down the greens and turned to another item.

  “What about kohlrabi?”

  “Are we going to do this alphabetically? Let’s see, we’re on k, next is l – lemons, lettuce, lima beans. I can tell you what to do with all of those.”

  Mickey returned the kohlrabi to the shelf. “Thank you, Mr. Green Jeans.” He looked around him, thinking he would have more salads in the future.

  Jesse started walking. “Dad, I think we have a lot of produce in the cart already. What else do you need?”

  Surprisingly, Jesse turned out to be more helpful than Mickey thought he would be. Jesse reminded Mickey about things like raisins and dishwashing liquid, which he had been out of for weeks but kept forgetting to buy. He even showed him all of these frozen foods that Mickey could heat up in the microwave, a prospect that seemed considerably less daunting than cooking on a stove. Jesse moved around the aisles with efficiency and purpose, as though he had a clear plan. He must have learned that sort of thing from his mother.

  “Listen, Dad, there’s something I want to talk to you about,” Jesse said as they walked down the dairy aisle. “You know that, since the fire, all of us have been concerned about whether you should stay in the house.”

  Mickey’s mood pivoted instantly. He threw up his arms and looked toward the ceiling.

  “Don’t tell me they sent you to have this conversation with me. Did they think that if they sent the kid I wouldn’t give him a hard time?”

  Mickey looked at his son disapprovingly while he considered how cowardly his other children were being. Jesse looked a little flustered, and Mickey realized he might have come on a little strong. It was so easy to get Jesse to back down. Mickey wondered how he hadn’t instilled more toughness in him.