What the Family Needed

by Steven Amsterdam

  Sasha didn’t expect anyone beside his parents to be blessed with such longevity. They had clocked nearly forty years. A half-century, even six-tenths, would be a no-brainer. For the rest of the lesser beings, though, it was a quaint idea, like a comfortable pension. The institution was impractical. Of course, on your own, you still had to work at the loneliness, but you weren’t stuck. There was the independence. If your stars aligned with someone else’s, you could chirp about it for a bit, but in the end you were always free/alone.

  Sasha and Alek had each mastered the independence part, but their stars had been uncooperative. Alek’s situation was because he was, to give it a charitable frame, too much of a drifter. He could whine about unasked-for solitude all he wanted, but few women—few humans over twenty, really—found perpetual wanderlust and sudden enthusiasms to be either amusing or cute. Alek said he was lonely, but he never held still. What did he expect?

  Sasha’s excuse was that he had found, to give it an equally charitable frame, regular outlets. These men—in the gym, in the produce section, wherever—provided exactly enough daily frisson to counteract nightly ennui. The thrill of the hunt, he believed it was called. The absence of anyone worth keeping.

  Meanwhile, back in the suburbs, their parents sat comfy and warm in front of their gas fireplace, never saying a word to either of their boys about love. Whether Alek was able to secure a girlfriend was the least of their concerns about him. With Sasha, they seemed to know to keep themselves ignorant. They didn’t pry and he wasn’t about to enlighten. Aside from Damon’s brief, early promise, Sasha never stayed with anyone savory enough to bring home, so what would have been the point in making a big fuss?

  Giordana’s preparations for her afternoon delight were spectacular to observe. A professor dithering between a camisole and a T-shirt. She got off her high horse enough to engage Sasha to choose the perfume. He went with faintly woodsy.

  The second she left, he got bored and called the blond from the night before. Sasha forgot the guy’s name as soon as he was reminded of it. As a surer sign of devotion, Sasha made it into the shower and over to the apartment of whoever it was in half an hour.

  There wasn’t even a name on the buzzer. He couldn’t ask again.

  Party had prepped for sex by showering and then going for a run. His armpits tasted more like clean sweat than soap. This flavor was sampled right inside the front door. Sasha felt too tame for having showered, but the guy didn’t seem to hate what Sasha tasted like, so their business evolved over to the sofa. They worked their way through the usual bases, flipping each other for agreeable access to the choicer regions. From the bedroom, their eventual destination, mid-period Madonna thrummed. Cheap sound track for a sunny day. Damon would have asked him to turn it off, but Sasha wasn’t about to complain.

  Their bodies fit together. Party’s strength met Sasha’s solid frame, the blond faux-bad-boy buzz met Sasha’s short brown ringlets. At one breather, Sasha indulged a poetic glance into his partner’s eyes. They were actually a striking gray, if that was even possible. The color was a field of smooth slate. It made his thoughts seem distant and tranquil—appealing.

  Was this what he wanted? A piece who offered some peace? As a match they were reasonable. What if suddenly those gray pupils started shining for Sasha? What if he ended the endless search right there?

  No, he was destined to be what he had always been, an amusing networker. Light diversion for the other folks living actual lives, while he flounced around like some eunuch. All right, not a eunuch exactly. And what if he tried to give himself and Party the depth charge and it only worked halfway? What if he felt nothing and was trapped forever with a sexy stalker? Or vice versa? It could get awkward.

  Sasha had another look at the fringed pillow they were pushing against. It was new, not inherited. He noticed the lily-of-the-valley tea set in the corner, which also looked pristine. Sasha could understand the presence of some genuinely inherited granny decor, but to buy it? It would never work, not even if he was head over heels.

  They ended up in the bedroom a few minutes later, Madonna still bleating—it was a greatest-hits CD, no less—with Party’s heels over his head. Perfect enough, though. A robust sex session on a weekday, the dry afternoon light shining in, and the promise that when it was over he could leave the vacant eyes, the fringe, the wrong music, and all of it, and take himself home.

  Giordana came in quietly a few minutes past eleven, as if she had breached curfew. Sasha looked up from filler on the Net to watch her get some water. She drank and planted the glass back on the counter with a decibel too much noise. The Jonah energy had clearly dispersed itself.

  She sat down in the comfy chair, adjacent to his desk, leaned back, and folded her hands on her stomach. The vibe was definitely going in the direction of their old-time therapy sessions. Or she was pregnant.

  After a pause, she spoke. “Well. My thesis statement is solid.”

  Sasha tilted his head for more information. None came. “That’s breathtaking news,” he said.

  Ignoring sarcasm was another one of her strengths.

  “When you work on a single project,” she said, “you never fully understand what you’re doing. Most of the time you’re playing with blocks. You put things together and then you put them into the right order till they can stand up on their own. The basic shapes are known from the beginning. You can find yourself close to the final chapter and you may have constructed a major argument, but in the back of your brain you haven’t quite entered it. No new knowledge has occurred. While you’re struggling through all the necessary tasks, you’re secretly waiting for a unifying theory to emerge that will allow you to inhabit the structure.”

  “Is Jonah going to be in the acknowledgments?”

  She took another drink of water. “When your city is nearly wiped off the map, what does that leave you?”

  “Damp?”

  “It leaves you with less than nothing. I’ve never understood why someone would stay behind with nothing to call their own and all the rubble around. ‘Better to have loved and lost’ doesn’t apply. To have lost is serious business. Why wouldn’t you simply change your city, change your name, start over? An enigma.

  “Well. It seems there are places in life—not necessarily physical—where moving on isn’t an option. Not because you’re trapped, but because that’s where you find your foundation. It’s where your life became viable. Visible. There’s no choice but to stay.” Giordana looked across to Sasha as she stood up. “That’s how the date went. So thank you for everything, Cupid.”

  “I see.” Not only was he going to score major with Ruth for having introduced them, but it would also give her and Natalie some fresh meat to chew on.

  “I came to get my bags,” Giordana said.

  “So you’re moving in together?”

  “I’ll stay a night or two. I need to finish the section I’m writing. He’s got a big desk. We can share.”

  “This is not you, do you understand?”

  “Who is it?” she asked, daring him to bring up any alternate theories.

  “You don’t know Jonah.”

  Giordana wasn’t moved. “I’ll stay here tonight if it’s going to rile you so much, but I’m going back tomorrow.”

  “It’s not that. What if this is a tickle? It can go away just as suddenly.”

  “Sasha. Duh. I am not only an adult, I’m an historian. It may not work out. Do you want me to sign a waiver so you don’t feel liable? Here’s what I’m telling you: You can rebuild your city but no one wants to live there; or they do want to live there but the crops are toxic; or the water is somehow still drinkable but the parks are haunted by a thousand ghosts. There are already a zillion reasons why this enterprise won’t last. Why anything continues when all it should really do is fall in a heap is a mystery. In the end you may be the one who stays or you may be the one who goes, but this is where you are and you have no choice but to try.”

  The streets were fill
ed with lovers. Sasha was the single most single person out there, like there’d been some sort of romantic pandemic and he’d been stuck below in a shelter. He sketched out a Twilight Zone episode, with him wandering the street, the last uncoupled man on the planet, searching, searching until he would finally meet the other loneliest man in the world and that would be—? Alek?

  Sasha walked faster, counting the streets and keeping his eyes on the pavement.

  There was a final pause at Damon’s front door.

  He had been the one to bail on Sasha with little notice or reason.

  People made mistakes.

  He was didactic about vegetables and recycling.

  That didn’t constitute an actual flaw.

  He wasn’t friendly with Sasha’s friends unless he liked them himself.

  Which Sasha admired.

  He was capable of sitting and reading for hours on a weekday evening. He had focus that Sasha could only dream of. Damon could beat Sasha at Scrabble. And sexually, there were no complaints—though he was trying not to let that factor into the equation.

  Damon opened the door, as if he’d heard him thinking about sex.

  “Were you just going to stand there heavy breathing on my doorbell?” He was wearing torn tracksuit pants and no shirt. “You want a beer?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Come in anyway. Catching up on dishes, three days’ worth. I’m in the zone.”

  “No problem,” Sasha said, following him through the cramped hallway into the kitchen.

  If he did this, if it lasted, whose take would they get? Damon’s first five minutes of connection, replaying on endless loop, or Sasha’s picket fence fantasy? Or would it be bona fide, some forgiving view onto their ever-expanding hearts?

  “Did you come by for a quickie?”

  “A slowie, maybe.”

  From the sink, Damon gave him a skeptical glance.

  The open CDs spilled onto a shelf by the stereo. The laptop, open to a sex site. Touching. The scraggly ficus Damon had taken from their place wasn’t getting enough water. The painted tile they had bought together at a garage sale, a square of perfect blue that under any light wavered like a swimming pool, was propped against the wall, right next to the sofa. If anyone was careless, it could fall and crack. How did he get away with calling himself a perfectionist?

  Damon watched Sasha’s inspection. “You don’t want a beer?”

  “No, I’m all right.”

  “Are you certain about that fact?”

  “Yes.”

  Damon returned to the dishes.

  Sasha slowed down and looked at Damon’s back. It was bare, still innocent. His face was at ease, engrossed in removing some carbonized gunk from a pan with his thumbnail, like it was the most important project in the world.

  After buffing it to a polish, he rinsed the pan, turned off the water, and shook his hands dry, wiping them on his pants. He turned them up, palms toward his face, like a doctor ready for surgery.

  “Okay now. What can we do for you this evening?”

  Peter

  What you do with your grief should be your own business. You can weep if you like, but it won’t make any difference. If you do, make sure it happens with decreasing frequency, until the departed doesn’t cloud your presence at all. Sudden tears in a restaurant or excessive mention of their name, especially if you slip into the present tense, may cause discomfort among your loved ones. Friends—couples especially—stay away. Those who have survived similar loss hover around sickly. Most, however, find an apparent inability to let go depressing. After the sympathy is over, if you haven’t moved on, the phone quietly stops ringing, as if you had died too. All in all, it’s best to avoid discussion of your loss and, when asked, offer the appropriate lie: I’m fine. Anything more is what the kids call “too much information.”

  Natalie, whom Peter was thinking of in the present tense, once said that a person would have to be a witch or a wizard to keep from falling into a pit of sadness after losing their spouse. He had never imagined that she would go first, so he hadn’t fully thought out his own grief before now. What was so surprising at the funeral that morning, where he cried so ferociously that only Ruth was brave enough to stand by his side, was how little he cared about anybody else. The funeral belonged entirely to him.

  With Natalie buried just a few hours ago, he braced himself on the kitchen counter and allowed that it might be early yet. There were live people eating and drinking and talking in the next room. They were a relief. Anything so that he wouldn’t be stuck alone with nothing.

  After forty-one better-and-worse years together, Natalie had died of an unheralded aneurysm. There had been talk of a headache the afternoon of his birthday—his seventy-third—four days earlier. She hadn’t thought much of it, so neither had he. For dinner, they had gone to a new seafood place nearby, with white tablecloths and packets of crackers in the center of the table. It was fancy enough for an ordinary birthday, but it was their last meal together and they had wine by the glass. They could have ordered a bottle. As soon as they were home, she said good night and went upstairs to sleep off the headache, while Peter stayed downstairs to read the next day’s editorials online. Two hours later, he came into their bedroom and found her curled on her side, looking nearly comfortable, with her mouth hanging open at an odd angle. She was still and her color had already drained away. In a sweat, Peter looked around at the dresser, at the door to their wardrobe, to see if the real Natalie was hiding somewhere, but when he looked back to her, he could see that she was completely as she was when he walked in. He didn’t say her name. He touched her hand and it was cool.

  Even after their dutiful attention to doctors’ warnings, the brisk walks, medications in the morning, not to mention all the broccoli and grains, they were blindsided by this. It might have been avoided, their doctor casually mentioned, by a trip to the emergency room instead of up to bed.

  One of Peter’s tasks would be to concentrate on never replaying the evening again. And not thinking about her every time he entered the bedroom, or not tearing up every time he came home to an empty house. From this point onward, his primary job was recovery. That required focus, he thought, involuntarily wrinkling his forehead. Natalie would have laughed at this twitch of intensity. The meaning between his brows was always clear to her.

  Sasha came into the kitchen holding an empty platter. The living room door swung open behind him and the swells of conversation came in, the people who had come back to the house after the funeral. He heard Ruth, with her ever-effusive voice, saying, “She always wanted—” as the door swung closed again. Peter caught himself wondering what Natalie had always wanted. To avoid that line of thinking or, indeed, contact with anyone else who could lead him into tears, he started to rinse the dishes piling up in the sink so that there wouldn’t be too many to do later.

  He looked at Sasha, who was taking care of the things that Peter couldn’t, and found himself thinking, Good boy, as if his son were a dog.

  “Dad. What’s up?” Sasha took the sponge from his hand. “You’re worse than me. Cut the cleaning. People are still here. They’re not even slowing down. That ham is half gone. I can cut up more vegetables if we’ve got them.”

  Peter’s hands rested on the ledge of the sink. He wasn’t sure if there were any more vegetables. Natalie had brought some home from the market last week, but even if they were still in the house, it wouldn’t be right to serve them. One should not do the shopping for one’s own funeral.

  What was he going to do with the vegetables—let them rot until they turned into soup? Seal them in plastic for archiving?

  “I don’t know what’s there,” he told Sasha, who was already scouting out the pantry.

  Peter didn’t want to slice a carrot. Only Natalie would have known how angry he’d become. She had died. Where was Sasha’s respect?

  “Should I make a run to the shops?” Sasha said.

  He thought, Go away.

  And
Sasha vanished.

  Peter turned to see if he had walked around the corner into the pantry, but he wasn’t there. The cupboards were all closed. Only the sound of the kitchen door, swinging to a stop. He pushed it open enough to peer out into the living room. No one. No used plates stacked up on the table, no damp glasses abandoned without coasters on bookshelf ledges.

  All he could see was the bouquet of yellow freesias from the couple across the street, which they had left on the front step that morning. They were younger than Peter and Natalie, by maybe five years. He imagined them putting the flowers down in a hurry and running away as if the house had been cursed. The freesias had ended up in a vase that was far too big for them. A drugstore condolence card was tied with blue twine to one of the stems. He hadn’t unknotted it, so it rested against the vase. Natalie would have made it all look less pathetic.

  Otherwise, the room was empty. The ham was wrapped, still in the box on the floor, in the spot he had left it when he brought it in from the car. Intact.

  Bewildered, Peter paced the living room and front hall. No cars were parked on the street in front. He went back through the study and into the kitchen, too disturbed even to say Sasha’s name aloud.

  When the search proved futile, he picked up the phone and called him, expecting a ring to come from somewhere in the house. It didn’t.

  Sasha answered.

  Peter asked, “Where are you?”

  “I’m ten minutes away, I can still come back. What’s the matter?”

  “I’m fine,” he said, not entirely convinced. “Listen. There’s this enormous ham to eat. Any suggestions?”

  Sasha laughed. “Dad, I tried.”

  “Did I resist?”

  Sasha had no idea of his father’s confusion. “A touch. You said you didn’t want everyone coming over to feel sorry for you. You booted us all out.”