What the Family Needed

by Steven Amsterdam

  Janelle called with the number of a local grief group that met every Tuesday. Peter could picture it: some big-eyed facilitator, desperate to connect with a seated circle of men exactly like Peter, each one mute without his interpreter, each suspended in his own amber past.

  Natalie was wrong. Even though he had become some kind of wizard, he was still very sad.

  Ruth said she would come by to see how he was doing. When he told her, “Come for lunch,” it felt like a positive step. Though they had never had reason to speak much—again, that was Natalie’s job, and he had long accepted a slight adversarial component in the sister-in-law role that was beyond anyone rectifying—she was close to Natalie in temperament and instinct.

  Peter sliced bread at the low table in front on the veranda, when he saw her pull into the driveway. Watching her reach into the backseat of her car with a spry twist, she looked more like Natalie than usual. His skin went prickly. It wasn’t until she waved at him through the window that he was relieved to see Ruth’s fuller cheeks and more skeptical eyes. Already, he wouldn’t know what to do if Natalie suddenly appeared.

  She walked up the path carrying her customary foil-wrapped orange cake. Did she give them to her clients too? One day soon he would have to tell her that Natalie was the only one who had ever eaten them. It tasted good to them because it was their mother’s recipe.

  When asked on the front step, he was at a loss to describe how he’d been since the funeral. He wanted to tell her about the senseless power because Ruth might understand why it had come and how long it would last.

  All he managed was a wordless shrug and tears. Ruth wrapped her arms around him and, thankfully, took over.

  “Me too, my dear,” she said, and put the foil package down next to their feet on the concrete. Her embrace was weaker than Natalie’s would have been, but it would do. She didn’t try to lead him inside. He looked over her shoulder at the other homes on the street. The cars in their mindless driveways. Peter wanted everyone to see. This was better than a flag. This is the time when you stand on the front step of your house and cry. He wanted to be like Natalie and Ruth, to express things this way with everyone. He wanted to be the person Sasha called first. He wanted to go to the grief group and wail through a year of Tuesdays until he understood everything about all of them.

  He wished for it.

  Over lunch, Ruth gently suggested a book on the grieving process that Peter might find useful.

  “I would love to see it,” he said.

  “I didn’t expect you’d jump for it. It’s in the car.”

  “Why not? I’m curious. I’ve got the time.”

  Watching her retrieve the book, he thought about her review of a symphony that a friend had recently taken her to. Her simple use of the word “conductor” brought up an incident that he hadn’t thought about in years. When she came back and put the book on the table in front of them, he had to tell her.

  “Our worst argument,” he said, “was right after we married. We were still in the house on Banyan Street. I have no idea what it was about. I had evidently committed an act of bossiness. I could see I was in the wrong so I apologized as fast as I could, but it wasn’t good enough. She said to me, ‘Remember, my friend, you are not the conductor of my life.’ I knew she meant musical, not train, but it hurt. I remember trying to feel better about it, that it was her way of reminding me that she didn’t need me to live, which was a point that she needed to get across. But a decidedly unromantic statement to make to your new husband. There are so many times these days when I see how she was so definitely the conductor of my life. I don’t understand why she would have said such a thing. What else could we have been for each other?”

  Ruth tilted her head. Had he said too much? Even as he waited for her comment, he realized that she wouldn’t have anything to add.

  “The heat of the argument,” Ruth said. “You meant everything to her. That’s not remotely sufficient, but you know what I mean. You had a good life together, whether you were conductors or not.”

  Peter let the answer sit there between them. It wasn’t sufficient. No answer could be. Surely Ruth had questions from all these years of sisterhood. Questions could be a kind of inheritance too.

  “Thank you,” he told her. “I know, but it’s still good to hear it said out loud.” After a helpless pause, he asked, “Are you up to braving the task of going through a few of her clothes?”

  In the upstairs guest room, Ruth rested her arm on the bed so she could lower herself to the stacks that Sasha had made. She sifted through the bags while Peter watched. He wasn’t as upset this time. Was it because he’d been here once before?

  Ruth wrapped herself in Natalie’s pale blue cardigan, saying, “I always loved this, but I don’t know if I could stand to wear it.”

  Peter nodded once, to let her know that it was all right if she did. Natalie used to put it on for gardening. It mystified him, but she always managed to keep it spotless. Would he be able to stand it if Ruth wore it till it was stained and moth-eaten? If she didn’t take it, could he let it go to the Salvation Army—that recycler of lives? Yes, yes. He tried to consider it all. The clothes were there, they were connected to Natalie, but they weren’t her. He saw each garment in crisp detail. They didn’t make her her, any more than Peter had—or any more than she had made him him. Peter had not been her conductor and Natalie had not been his. This was the clarity he had been waiting for. You live your life adjusting the notes, meddling with tempos. You silence the brass, chase crescendos, but only you get to be the conductor. They had stood next to each other on different podiums, waving their little sticks for all those years.

  This was why he couldn’t bring her back. It was as if the power itself had come to underline this point: that it was his life to master. The thought that they were truly different people didn’t depress him now. No, it made his mind rise, excited that they had stayed in tune for as long as they had. They had done well.

  He wanted to tell Ruth all of this, but she was immersed in clutching every item to keep her sister close. She’s confusing emotions with materials, he thought, newly enlightened. On impulse, he thought a treat might distract her from this project, or at least console her.

  “Would you like some fresh peaches?” he asked.

  She looked up, baffled by the suggestion. “What? Where would you get those at this time of year?”

  “I don’t know where they come from, but here—” and by simply opening his palm he created a plate of sliced peaches, pale pink and sweet. The power was still with him.

  Unstunned, she put down a blouse and tried a slice, saying, “You must have had to hold up a bank to buy these.”

  “How about another wish?” he asked, with a child’s glee in his eyes. “What would you like more than anything?”

  “I’d like to not be rifling through Natalie’s clothes,” she said. “I’d like my sister back.”

  “That’s not an option. I’ve tried,” he said. “But I can help with the first one. Come with me to the garden.”

  And they were in the garden.

  The sun was already behind the house, but the air hadn’t begun its nightly chill. Ruth went along with the change in scene. She crouched over, pinching some ivy that had crept through the fence from the neighbor’s yard. “There. You don’t want this popping up,” she said, as she tore it into tiny pieces.

  Peter looked at her oblivious face. As far as she knew, they had come downstairs and out through the kitchen. Back upstairs, the clothes would be partially sorted whenever she went back to them. As far as she knew, a garden at the beginning of winter, or this garden at the beginning of this winter, would still be lush and in flower. It wasn’t inexplicable to her.

  This was how it worked: The things that were, this was the way they had always been. There was no convincing anyone otherwise. You were responsible for yourself, for what you had done. Enjoying that ice cream sandwich was part of his life. Taking Natalie to the emergency room
or buying a bottle of wine that night, or going rowing in sunshine that first weekend was not. To spend time in those places made up by regrets was folly. Wishing for them until they were distinct as memories wouldn’t make them true. He could mull over the alternatives for the next twenty years, shuffling and reshuffling, but it wouldn’t touch what had been real between them. His pigheadedness, done; the afternoons they didn’t spend reading together, done; every mistake they made with Alek, done. And not to be undone.

  It was like being absolved. It was like being held up to the sky.

  The first person he wanted to tell was Natalie. The crush of remembering her came and went a little faster this time. She wasn’t there. Wherever she was, he was sure she would have been proud.

  He had been too self-absorbed these last few weeks. He wanted to call Sasha and hear how he was doing since his mother died.

  Where did he put the number for the grief group? The men there would understand.

  “She was so in love with this jasmine,” Ruth said, running her finger over a dark shiny leaf. “I’m sure it would take over my garden, but I’d love to have a cutting. Would you mind?” she asked, grabbing a sprig.

  “Of course not.”

  He was distracted by the thought of his singular history, as if he had finally discovered a place to keep it. He glanced over the fence at the dried leaves in all the other yards around and felt irresponsible. We need to catch up. The jasmine would wither if he let the seasons in, but in a few months it would come back, whether he was there or not. With Ruth’s cutting, it would continue somewhere else, maybe even take over.

  “Let me get the clippers,” he said.

  Walking over to the low ledge by the house where Natalie kept her tools protected from the rain, he started to wonder what he would do after Ruth left. The question dissolved and he didn’t even notice.

  This was new, Peter without a plan. He was thinking about jasmine, wondering why its fragrance was so overwhelming in the evening. What insects were around to be attracted after dark when the air was so cool? One night he would sit out in the garden and watch. What an excellent idea. He picked up the clippers, snipped them twice at the air to make sure they hadn’t started to rust, and headed back to the center of the garden. Here, finally, was the man Natalie had married.

  Alek

  What was up with these kids? They were making him edgy. The girl was rocking in wide circles, pushing into her brother with each rotation. A wire snaked from her ear to her back pocket. The boy stared ahead, stiff. He wasn’t about to let himself be distracted from his fierce watch over the traffic circle. It was like they were hanging out for pickup too, bags at their feet, anxious about some new chapter about to start.

  The kids’ faces didn’t show the ease of a spring holiday. They were being sent away because of a divorce or a death. They were in the middle of a downgrade. As soon as their lift appeared, they’d be okay; Alek was the opposite.

  It was the bus station’s fault that he was thinking like this. The stains on the pavement, the empty sky. Leaving Technicolor for this black-and-white day was taking a toll. The any-second-now arrival of his own family, he had to admit, was part of the equation too.

  A minor adjustment would lift things. He put cobalt-blue ceramic planters by each doorway to the station. He planted gardenias in some and camellias in the others. He made the plants grow bigger, swiftly pressing them from bud into flower. Their fragrance would wisp to the brother and sister, providing the mildest sedative effect. The visual shift wouldn’t lead to any repercussions. It would be for his benefit alone. The boost for the kids might make them face their future with strength. It also might mellow him out.

  The boy pushed the girl away. “Stop play-ing!” he said, stretching the word as far as it would go.

  Alek couldn’t keep himself from adding to the scene. He filtered the music from the girl’s pocket through the station’s sound system so that everybody could hear. It was outrageous to play anything stronger than “Yesterday” in a public place, but he chanced it—the harder rock corner of The White Album. Two women in suits with wheelie bags chugged by, one of them turning her head in tune with the guitar riff.

  The sister took out her earpieces and continued bopping. Her brother even joined in. They looked like two kids who had gone off on an adventure and were returning, full of tales to tell.

  That was better.

  Every journey had an invisible midpoint. Of his, Alek could see the first part. The people who were warm, the people who weren’t. The haphazard decisions he’d made on the way; the ones he’d stuck with, the ones he changed. At some halfway point, though—not in miles or time, but in some other material—he started to leave where he was and come back to his family.

  His parents, sitting peaceably on the screened porch, turning pages in harmony. Ruth with her aqua-aerobics, teaching the twist at the senior end of the pool. Sasha and Damon, hosting a bridge night. He lingered in their space, as silent and curious as any voyeur. The urge to fiddle with their lives had disappeared. He was content to just watch. After each trip, when he returned to visibility and whatever new home he had found, nothing seemed as real as where he’d been. Home always waited, solid. His travels away from them had only been a short walkabout.

  Then the call from Giordana came.

  “Enough. You’ve been gone too long. It’s time for a visit.”

  Alek confessed, “I’d love to see you.”

  “I would love to see you too. And so would your parents. If only for a glimpse.”

  “I’m happy,” he told her.

  “I believe you, but people like to witness these things for themselves. People like me. You don’t even know Jonah.”

  After that, the trip back was one straight stroke. The six-hour bus ride to the city, the three flights and two passport stamps, followed by one more bus from the airport to arrival bay fourteen and, finally, this bench.

  The brother and sister were still fidgety, but definitely more relaxed than before. He could look at them and believe their lives were settled. They were returning from camp or a visit to a favorite aunt. His little touches had made the difference. The feeling let him imagine that his whole trip would turn out to be one big beautification project.

  No. What if their parents arrived and saw their son and daughter so relaxed? What if it gave them a pang? What if it altered the way they treated them?

  This was why he had to be careful. One ripple pushed into another. Without even intending it, there would be waves, curling larger and larger, pulling all of them far from solid land.

  In a blink, he stripped away the planters and turned the music all the way down.

  Alek had to leave things as he found them. That was his condition for this trip.

  In a few minutes, his family would be there and happy to see him. The feeling would be mutual. That was all that was required for the day.

  The old tan Toyota pulled up to the traffic circle. His father drove slowly, scanning the benches, not sure exactly what he was looking for. Alek had to remember that they hadn’t seen him in years. He had left at twenty-nine. He had become forty-one. What would they see?

  On the bus from the airport, he had switched his drawstring pants for chinos, just for them. He had shaved downward then upward, the way his father taught him. There were distinct creases on his face, but these couldn’t be helped. It would remind everybody of the passage of time. After they took in the superficial, they would be anxious to see if he was all there. His conversation had to be coherent. That meant keeping reality continuous. No meddling.

  His father parked at an odd angle to the curb and, with minor exertion, got himself out of the car. He stood in the road beaming and waving at Alek. His mother struggled to get out of the passenger seat, using her strong side to guide the weak side. It was still so hard for her, even after all the rehab. She had been tireless, doing every exercise she’d been given, whatever they told her to do. When he saw her face, he was glad he had stepped
in that time.

  Two months had already passed when Sasha’s letter found its way to Alek, telling him that she had died. He was touched to see the familiar handwriting on the envelope. Like the invisible visits back there, the letter provided another satellite signal, however faint and flickering, to guide him home.

  In it, Sasha apologized for the delay and for sending anything as last century as a handwritten note. It wasn’t the kind of thing he could put in an e-mail, though, and there didn’t seem to be a reason to rush bad news. There was Sasha’s ever-critical eye on their mother’s pitiful funeral. The stranger with hay fever who presided, and the pointless gathering at home afterward. Aunt Ruth had played the host while Dad stayed in the kitchen fretting about how much everyone was eating. Sasha suspected their father was taking some potent antidepressant and denying it. Giordana, he also reported, had gone quiet. Worst of all was Ruth, who shrank overnight into an old woman. She had stopped her practice, stopped everything. There were only fragments left. Sasha said he barely considered himself to have a family. Their mother had orphaned them all.

  There had been many, many pledges to not tamper, but Alek went back there—to his parents’ house on the afternoon of the stroke, when the blood was still pooling in her brain. They were bringing groceries in from the car. His father put a new bag in the garbage can while she put a dozen items away, reaching into the fridge and the cupboard. Every gesture demanded and received the cooperation of her body. Alek followed her out of the kitchen and upstairs to their bedroom, wondering if he would be able to get it right. In the bathroom, she washed and patted her face dry. The clear box of cotton balls, the smell of the cucumber cleanser on her skin.