The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

by Rebecca Miller

  *

  She did not know how she had gotten to the other side of the shell. She was zipping up her sweatshirt. ‘I have to go back to the hospital,’ she said.

  She said nothing on the drive; words seemed distant as the stars. She didn’t dare look at him, now that he had regained his human form. When they arrived at the hospital, she ran out of the truck; the glass doors slid open to let her in, then glided shut behind her.

  Herb was breathing deep, difficult breaths, the plastic elephant’s trunk strapped to his face, eyes closed. Ben was sleeping, curled up on the narrow cot by the window. Pippa shook him awake. Clutching the pillow, he jerked his head up to check his father. ‘It’s okay,’ Pippa said. ‘It’s just time now. Go call your sister.’ Ben pulled on his jeans, his shirt, and padded out into the hall in his socks. Then he turned. ‘I’ll go get her.’

  ‘She can take my car,’ said Pippa.

  ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘Just call her, sweetheart.’

  He walked off.

  Pippa sat with Herb for a moment. ‘I love you anyway, you know. I’ll always love you, you bastard.’ She stroked his head. Husband. Always and forever.

  Ben came back in the room. He sat on the other side of Herb’s bed, and they each held one of his big hands until Grace came in. She was already crying. She knelt and put her face on her father’s arm.

  A figure opened the curtain, a stocky lady with teddy bears printed all over her nurse’s smock. ‘Are you ready now?’ she asked gently. Pippa nodded. The children were keening. The nurse removed the oxygen mask from Herb’s face. His lips were blue. He took in a long breath, his chest straining. Another breath. His eyes snapped open, seeing something distinct, it seemed, just ahead. He began breathing hard, terrible breaths, as if he was in a battle, as if it was very difficult to die. His hand pawed the drip in his arm. He wanted it out. He wanted his dignity, Pippa knew. He wanted to go out whole.

  ‘Can the drip … come out?’ Pippa asked. The nurse gingerly eased the needle from Herb’s arm, leaned in very close to his face, looked into his eyes. He focused on her, expectant. She held his arms and said firmly, ‘It’s okay.’ Pippa squeezed his hand. The nurse moved to the corner of the room. A long moment of quiet. Then, finally, one long, gushing exhalation, as if a great animal were breathing his last. The nurse set the stethoscope on his chest for a moment. ‘He’s gone,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’ Then she slipped past the curtain. Ben and Grace came to Pippa and held her and wept. She kept her eyes on Herb’s face. It was already changing, becoming sharper, meaningless, a mask.

  Chris was waiting outside the hospital when they walked out, after Herb had been taken away to the crematorium, and the papers had been signed. He was standing by his truck. Pippa halted, seeing him, and Ben looked at him curiously. Then she got into her son’s car, deeply embarrassed by what had happened in the truck. A fifty-year-old woman, fooling around in a pickup truck with the strangely spiritual, feckless son of her neighbor in the old folks’ home! How Herb would have laughed. The whole thing was grotesque. She wished she could erase it.

  ‘Stephanie and I want you to come stay with us,’ Ben said.

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘We want you to live with us, Mom, Stephie and I. For as long as you want. We’re going to take care of you.’

  ‘Oh. Thanks, honey,’ she said vaguely, imagining the clouds of cat hair that would rise up as she opened the foldout couch in their study, made ready to lie down. There you go. Yes. She would pack up their things as fast as possible, she would sell that death trap of a house, and she would stay with Ben and Stephanie, find a little place near them. Wait to be a grandmother.

  Hopper

  That night, Pippa dreamed she was driving into a dense cloud of white moths, thousands of them beating their wings against the windshield. Then she woke up, and she was driving inside a cloud of white moths. She felt blinded, claustrophobic. She stopped the car. But how would she get out? What if she was in the middle of the road? Someone would crash into her. She crept along, panicking, disoriented, trying to see the edges of the road so she could figure out where she was. She wondered if this could possibly be real. Had she had gone insane? Was she dreaming? Or maybe she was dead.

  At last the creatures were thinning out. She could see through the fluttering wings, into the night. She was driving along her own narrow road, toward the intersection. She could see the convenience store across the road. It glowed with the cool blue light of a Hopper painting. So that’s where she’d been headed. She tapped the gas pedal, rolled the car across the road tentatively, pulled in, and parked. She could see Chris inside. He was alone, leaning back, arms crossed, staring out the window, his skin stark white under the fluorescent light. She looked down at what she was wearing. Sweats and a T-shirt. Thank God, no nightgown. She got out of the car. The sound of tree frogs outside was shrill, continuous. She walked up to the store, swung the glass door open. As he saw her, his eyes followed her, but he didn’t move, his expression didn’t change. She walked up to the counter. They looked at each other. ‘I’m awake,’ she said.

  Part Four

  Yellow

  Pippa stood at the threshold of the door to the bedroom and watched the children down the hall in the kitchen. They were sitting across from each other on stools, elbows on the counter, speaking softly, so as not to wake her. Grace was weeping, shaking her head. Ben was talking, looking out the window. He was telling her about Moira, Pippa was sure of it. To think they had once been inside her, those two people. She picked up the canvas bag at her feet and walked down the hall. She couldn’t remember when she had packed such a light bag. Ben and Grace looked up at her.

  ‘Hi, Mommy,’ Grace said softly.

  ‘Hello, my darling,’ Pippa said.

  ‘What’s the bag for?’ Ben asked.

  ‘I’m going on a little trip,’ Pippa said.

  ‘A trip?’

  ‘Yes I – I was wondering if you would mind – just go through the house and take whatever you want, then call these movers here.’ She took a card from a drawer. ‘They’ll pack up the rest and take it to Goodwill.’ The kids were watching her carefully. ‘I left a check for them on the desk in my room. I don’t want any of it,’ she said.

  ‘What about the memorial service?’ Ben asked. Pippa hooked the Rolodex with her index finger and let it swing there. ‘Pick a date and invite everyone on here. Except for Moira. Or invite Moira. What the hell.’

  ‘Mom. You’re actually leaving right now?’ Ben was looking at her with a mix of disbelief and concern.

  ‘Sweetheart. Your father was about to run off with a woman I cooked for practically every other night over the past four years. I gave her advice on her love life, listened to her endless, egomaniacal complaining until I thought my head would explode, and then it turns out she’s crying about my husband. I am not organizing his memorial service. I mean, I’ll come to it. I’m just not buying the flowers.’ Righteous outrage felt exhilarating and unfamiliar. Pippa took a breath and saw that Grace was staring at her with a trace of a smile, something dawning. Could it be – admiration? Just then, Chris’s truck drove up.

  Ben stood and went to the window. ‘Who is that guy?’ he asked, turning.

  ‘My friend,’ Pippa said.

  ‘Your friend? What is going on here?’

  ‘I’m sort of … hitching a ride,’ Pippa said.

  Ben put his head in his hands.

  ‘I’m not driving off into the sunset, sweetheart,’ Pippa said. ‘I’m just … seeing what happens next.’

  ‘I don’t believe this,’ Ben said.

  Grace turned to him. ‘She gave us half her life,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think she deserves a vacation?’

  *

  Filtered through the dusty glass, the landscape looks smeared and faint, like a yellowing photograph. I roll my window down and watch the picture go vivid: flat, sandy land the color of rust; great, hulking slabs of brick red cliffs against the deep b
lue sky. I am skimming over pure planet, cut loose again. I glance over at him staring ahead into the clear distance as he drives. I feel as though he is driving me across a bridge of rock and sand. I don’t know what is on the other side. I see little towns along the way. As I pass each one, I wonder, Could I live here? I try to imagine my other life, the one I left, but it is evaporating from my mind. I can remember images – Herb, the house in Marigold Village, my favorite vegetable knife – but they are bloodless and unreal. I will go back, of course. Ben, Grace, the memorial service. But I feel an unfamiliar story unfurling in me. I have no idea how it will go, I don’t know who I will be in it. I am filled with fear and happiness.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to my editor, Jonathan Galassi, for his subtlety and intuition; to my first readers: Cindy Tolan, Julia Bolus, Mary Ellen Peebles, Michael Blake, and Honor Moore, for their honesty and time; to my stalwart friend and agent, Sarah Chalfant; to David Turnley for lending me his experience; to Jane and Tom Doyle for getting lost with me; to Robert Miller for his memories; to the Jesuit Brothers of New Jersey for their kind help; to the Galway Literary Festival for giving me a chance to present Pippa to an audience; to Claire Hardin, Kate Brady, Charissa Shearer, Emma Wilkinson, and Angela Trento for giving me the peace of mind to write; to Ronan and Cashel, for the lines, and all they’ve taught me; to my mother and father.

  Also by Rebecca Miller

  Stories and Film

  Personal Velocity

  Films

  Angela

  The Ballad of Jack and Rose

  Copyright

  First published in Great Britain in 2008

  by Canongate Books Ltd,

  14 High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1TE

  This digital edition first published in 2008

  by Canongate Books Ltd

  Copyright © Rebecca Miller, 2008

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available on

  request from the British Library

  Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyrighted material. The publisher apologises for any errors or omissions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book

  ISBN 978 1 84767 356 5

  www.meetatthegate.com