Three days later I awoke at five and headed south to Portland, reporting as agreed at an early hour to go through the usual employee registration process: being photographed and fingerprinted, being issued an ID and parking sticker, doing all the paperwork to transfer me to the hospital’s health scheme, being given a complete checkup by a staff doctor, then spending much of the day being taken around by a soon-to-be-retiring technologist named Ruth Redding – who, in her own quiet way, made it clear that this was the closest Maine came to a high-pressured urban hospital. Radiography operated day and night, ‘and though we might not be Mass General, the pressure is always on. But, trust me, it’s never less than interesting – and from what I saw in your file, you can handle the pressure.’
Pressurized it was, especially as we were very much an adjunct of the ER and seemed to be dealing with at least a dozen bad accidents per day. Then there was the booked-full stream of scheduled procedures – and the need to maintain time-management efficiency (in Damariscotta we might have an entire forty-five minutes twice a day when no patient was scheduled, and accident cases usually were rushed to the bigger hospital in Brunswick). The head of radiology, Dr Conrad, was hyper-rigorous and exacting. But I had worked with this sort of boss in the past – and decided to show her, early on, that I would match her professionalism and clinical cool. Though she was notoriously closed-lipped when it came to praising others (as the other technologists in the department told me), she did turn to me after a few weeks on the job and say: ‘Hiring you was a good call.’
End of praise. But it still touched me.
‘So it’s all right accepting praise from others?’ Lisa Schneider asked during a session a few days later.
‘I’ll tell you something rather interesting – the crying fits that used to characterize so much of the last year have largely stopped. Yes, I can still get deeply affected by a patient. There was a sixteen-year-old girl in last week with what was clearly a major malignancy in her uterus – and that was a tough hour. But I didn’t break down afterwards, as I had done so often last year.’
‘And why do you think that is?’
I shrugged, then said:
‘I don’t know . . . maybe the fact that I am no longer in an unhappy marriage. I can’t say I am in a happy place myself . . . but then again, as you keep telling me, this is a period of serious transition, so don’t expect “inner peace” or zen-like calm.’
Lisa Schneider looked at me quizzically.
‘Now I think you’re putting words in my mouth.’
‘Actually, those were Sally’s words – when I settled her into her dorm room at U Maine last weekend. “You’re looking a little happier, Mom. Don’t tell me you’ve gone all inner peace and zen on me.”’
‘How did all that go with Sally?’
‘It was a wrench, seeing my youngest child now starting college, for all the obvious reasons. Then again, having moved out of the house a few weeks before, there wasn’t that terrible silence of coming home afterwards to the proverbial empty nest. Dan suffered that, however. We agreed by email that I would settle Sally in on Friday and Saturday, then leave Sunday morning – and he’d come up and see her then. Around ten o’clock that night, long after Dan usually goes to bed, I got a call on my cellphone. It was my soon-to-be ex-husband. Sounding beyond sad. Saying that coming home to this empty house was beyond awful. Telling me how stupid he had been. How if he could turn back the clock . . .’
‘And how did you reply to all this?’
‘I was polite. I never once mentioned how he had talked about my affair with our children, and how monstrous I thought that all was. But when he asked if he could come over now and see me – that he really wanted to try and work things out – I was very definitive. I simply said no. That’s when he started to cry.’
‘How did you feel about that?’
‘Sad, of course. But – and this was an interesting change – not guilty at all.’
‘That is an interesting change,’ she said.
‘It’s all interesting change, isn’t it?’
‘You tell me.’
‘Something else happened a few days ago. During coffee break at the hospital I picked up the Portland Press Herald that is always left for us in the staff room every morning. Turned a page, saw a small item in the “In State” columns – the suicide of a prisoner at the State Psychiatric Prison Hospital in Bangor. William Copeland, age twenty-six. Richard’s son.’
‘What terrible news,’ she said with studied neutrality.
‘I was very shaken by it.’
‘Because?’
‘Because . . . Billy would have been my stepson, had everything worked out as we – I – had hoped. Because I felt so sorry for Richard. Because I still feel so insanely confused about my feelings for him. Part of me still loves him. Part of me is finally somewhat angry about it all – which I know you will tell me is “good”, because you think my inability to express anger has caused me to throw up these blockages that have stymied my life, right?’
‘You tell me.’
Oh God, how she wielded that line all the time like a scalpel.
‘I am still so incredibly hurt by what happened, and how his panic cost us both so much. Part of me thinks, What a coward. Part of me also thinks, What a sad man. Part of me also thinks, Thanks to Richard I was able to get out of my marriage. Right now, I so feel for him. He loved Billy. His son’s life was such a tragic one.’
I fell quiet for a few moments. Then:
‘A day or so after reading the piece about Billy’s suicide I sent Richard an email. Short. To the point. Telling him how what he was now going through was the worst thing that could befall a parent, and how I was thinking about him as he negotiated this very terrible period.’
‘Did he reply?’
I shook my head.
‘Did that bother you?’
‘We can’t script anything, can we? I mean, it’s not a novel, where the writer can make happen anything actually happen. But, yes, there was a big part of me that wanted Richard to call me up, tell me he had never stopped loving me, that the loss of his son had finally freed him from any sense of ongoing emotional guilt when it came to the wife he’d never really loved, and – then – he shows up on my doorstep and, voilà, the happy ending that never really arrives in life.’
‘But say that did happen? Would you open the door to him now?’
‘Yes, I would. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be a little wary as well. But what we discovered in each other that weekend, what we shared . . . I am not going to diminish it by saying I spent those three days living a middle-aged romantic hallucination that had no bearing on actual reality. Better than anyone – because I have taken it apart so much with you – you know that, for me, this was so completely real. As I know it was for Richard as well. So I can say something really obvious like, “Life is sometimes so unfair.” But the truth is, we are usually so unfair to ourselves.’
‘And knowing that now . . .?’
I shrugged again.
‘I still mourn what should have been. Just as I know that I can now do nothing about it. Maybe that’s the hardest lesson here – realizing I can’t fix things.’
‘Or others?’
‘That too. And now you’re going to tell me, “But you can fix yourself.”’
‘Can you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘An honest answer.’
The only answer.
* * *
I moved into the new apartment. All the furniture I’d ordered from assorted secondhand shops around Portland arrived over a forty-eight-hour period. Ben and his two friends – Charlie and Hayden (both stoners, but sweet) – chipped in and bought a bottle of champagne to mark the occasion. Charlie had a van. He kindly drove up to Damariscotta to collect all my clothes and books. I had arranged with Dan a time when I could return to the house and pack up my library – maybe four hundred volumes – and the things we had agreed in principal that I could take
with me. Charlie then transported them down with me to the new place – where the three boys also insisted on lugging everything up the stairs for me. Then we opened the champagne and toasted the great job they had done (the place really did look airy and light). After paying them each $1,000 cash I insisted on taking them all out to a local pizza joint. When I slipped off to use the washroom at the end I came back to find the bill had been paid.
Walking back to the apartment afterwards with Ben – Charlie and Hayden had decided to head off to a late-night rock joint – he let me know that ‘my friends think I have a cool mom’.
‘I’m hardly cool.’
‘That’s your take. But I’m with Charlie and Hayden – you’re cool. And the stuff you’ve chosen for the apartment – way cool. But hey, if you want to think otherwise . . .’
‘Thank you.’
‘Berlin in three days.’
‘You excited?’
‘Excited, terrified, worried, a little cowed by the idea of me at the art academy there.’
‘“Cowed ”,’ I repeated. ‘Good word.’
‘Like mother like son.’
‘I am going to miss not having you down the road. But I also think this is going to be fantastic for you.’
‘And I’m going to insist that you come spend a week with me over in Berlin.’
‘I won’t be able to ask for any time off until the New Year.’
‘Easter then. The academy’s closed for a week. I sent an email to them last week. They will rent out dorm rooms to family members of students for very little. If you book now you can find a Boston–Berlin airfare for around five hundred bucks.’
‘You’ve really researched this, haven’t you?’
‘Because I know you, Mom. And I know that, though you would empty your bank account in a second for me and Sally, you hate spending a dime on yourself. And if allowed you’ll talk yourself out of this trip.’
‘You do know me too well, Ben.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
Four days later, Sally arrived down in Portland by bus. We went out for Japanese food – and she stayed the night at my new apartment, telling me:
‘So you’ve been secretly reading design magazines for years, Mom.’
‘It’s hardly designer. Everything came from junk shops.’
‘Which makes this all way cooler. My only question now to you is, why didn’t we live this way when we were a family? Why didn’t you do this for us?’
Did I feel a stab of guilt? Initially yes. But then another thought came to me; a thought which was, for me anyway, an articulation of a certain truth.
‘Because I didn’t realize we could live this way. Because I spent years stymieing my imagination, my horizons. I don’t blame your father for that. It was me, myself and I who kept myself so hemmed in. And I feel bad about that.’
‘Well, it’s not like I’m going to blame you for the rest of my life. But when I finally get my own place I am going to demand payback . . . and get you to help me design it.’
The next morning we drove up to Farmington to collect Ben. He had just one duffel bag of clothes and one case full of art supplies for his year in Berlin. En route to Boston he announced that he wanted to stop by Norm’s Art Supplies to pick up a half-litre of Tetron Azure Blue to pack along for Berlin.
‘You mean,’ Sally asked, ‘you don’t think they sell paints at that way-too-cool Berlin art school you’re heading to?’
‘I’m sure I can easily get an azure blue over there, but not Norm’s. So indulge me here.’
‘What do you think I’ve spent my life doing?’ Sally asked.
‘So speaks the refugee from cheerleading.’
‘By the time you get back next summer I’ll be a Goth with a shaved head and a biker boyfriend.’
‘Is that a promise?’ Ben asked.
Traffic into Boston was terrible. We only had a few minutes to spare by the time we reached Norm’s. Ben had phoned ahead – and when he explained he was leaving for Berlin that night, Norm broke a rule and agreed to have the paint mixed and ready to go before getting paid for it.
I found parking outside his shop.
‘You’ve got to see this place,’ I told Sally, and we ducked inside.
‘So I get to meet the whole family,’ Norm said.
‘Just about,’ Ben said, and there was an awkward moment thereafter which Norman cleverly broke.
‘Now I have to say that I am flattered to be having my own Tetron Azure Blue accompanying you to Berlin. And if you need a refill while there . . .?’
‘I can always pay for it,’ I said.
‘You don’t have to do that,’ Ben said.
‘Here’s my email address,’ I said, writing it down for Norm.
‘And here’s my card,’ he said, all smiles. ‘Drop in any time you’re next in Boston.’
I smiled tightly.
Once back in the car, Ben noted:
‘My mother has an admirer.’
To which Sally added:
‘And even though the shop’s a little too deliberately weird and I’d get rid of that goatee if I was him, he’s kind of cool.’
‘I’m not in the market,’ I said.
‘You will be,’ Sally said.
‘Oh, please,’ I said.
‘All right, live the life of a nun then,’ Sally said. ‘All pure and sad.’
‘Haven’t you noticed,’ Ben said, ‘Mom doesn’t do sad much anymore.’
But an hour later I was very much alone. We got Ben to Logan just seventy minutes before his flight. As rushed as it was to get him checked in and over to the security checkpoint, one good thing about the lack of time was the fact that it made saying goodbye less tortured (for me anyway). Ben hugged his sister. He hugged me and promised to email as soon as he was settled in and online tomorrow. Seeing the tears in my eyes he hugged me again and said:
‘I guess you could say this is a rite of passage for us all.’
Then he headed off, turning back once after he cleared the boarding-pass check to give us a fast wave. A moment later he headed into the security maze. Other passengers crowded in behind him. And I had to cope with the realization that I would not be seeing my son until Easter of next year.
Sally had prearranged to meet a group of friends that night in Boston. I’d offered to drop her off at the café on Newbury Street where she was due to hook up with them, but was relieved when she insisted on taking public transport into the city. Newbury Street still had too many shadows for me.
‘You going to be OK?’ she asked as we parted in front of the international terminal.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘And anytime you want to escape Orono for the bright lights of Portland . . .’
‘You’ll be seeing me often, Mom. Especially because of your cool apartment.’
Then, with a final hug, she jumped the bus to the nearby T-station. She waved again as the vehicle headed out into the early-evening traffic. Then she too was gone.
A few hours later I walked back into my apartment. All the way north I was dreading the moment when I first stepped inside, shutting the door behind me, thinking: I am very much by myself. Though I had no desire whatsoever to be back in the place once called ‘our house’, returning to this empty apartment tonight was more than a little hard. Ben was correct: this was another rite of passage. And life is, verily, like this. The ties that bind are inevitably picked apart – by biology, by change, by disaffection, by the inexorable forward momentum within which we all travel. With the result that, at some juncture, you do come home to an empty home. And its silence is as huge as it is chilling.
* * *
The next morning I awoke late (by which I mean nine a.m.) to a text from Ben:
I’m here. Jet-lagged and weirded out. Sharing a room with a crazy sculptor from Sarajevo. Hey, it’s not Kansas, Toto. Love – Ben
There was also, surprisingly, an email from the famous Norm of Norm’s Art Supplies; a rather witty missive in
which he hoped I wouldn’t consider him a stalker for dispatching this communiqué to me, and that he isn’t in the habit of hitting on customers (let alone mothers of customers), but he was wondering out loud now if we might be able to meet up for dinner the next time I found myself in Boston. Or I could meet him somewhere between Portland and Boston like Portsmouth (‘the only non-fascist town in New Hampshire’). He went on to explain that he was divorced with a sixteen-year-old daughter named Iris, and ‘an ex-wife who married a mutual funds guy as a way of refuting all those bohemian years with yours truly’, and that he wasn’t going to tell me that his favorite color was black, his favorite Beatle was John, the person in history he identified with wasn’t Jackson Pollock (‘I don’t drive drunk’), and this was the offer of a dinner, no more. ‘Or maybe movie and a dinner, if there’s something interesting playing at the Brattle Street . . . the last great revival house holdout.’
I smiled a bit while reading the email. He did have a nice, self-deprecating comic touch. But the mention of the Brattle Street Cinema was like the mention of Newbury Street yesterday: a remembrance which triggered a flash of sadness that, though dissipated, still had, all these months later, the ability to unsettle me; to remind me that, as much as I felt myself ever freer from the bonds of despair, the grief could still reassert itself out of nowhere.
There was only one solution to such an unsettling moment: a run. I squinted out my window at the day outside. Overcast, dark, but the impending rain had yet to fall. Five minutes later I was in my running clothes and shoes, pounding the pavement, each stride an attempt to distance myself further from the heartache that, like a stubborn stain, simply would not wash clean.
When I returned home from my five-mile cascade I sent a brief note to Norm:
I’m flattered . . . but am not in a place to even entertain the idea of a nice dinner with a clearly nice and interesting man. When and if that changes, I’ll send you an email . . . though, by that time, some smart woman will have snapped you up.
Five Days Page 32
