—What’s wrong? he asked, innocent.
—You look different, I said, stepping back.
My mother turned to me; I gasped. In the hard, aching sunlight, she, too, appeared to have plummeted through the years; her hair was lush, dark, around her shoulders, and her face seemed slim as a deer’s.
—I wish you’d cleaned the car, said my mother, smoothing her hair.
—It was clean, I said, a little insulted.
—Not enough, she said. —There was a cup.
—What cup? I asked.
—On the floor. Harold, what are you doing? Let’s check out our room.
My father was standing by the window, practicing his golf swing. His arms gripped an imaginary club, they reached back, and whisk!
I walked with them to the elevator. I touched my arms, my face. Perhaps I had lost my grip on reality, but maybe it felt good to lose my grip. Maybe there was some comfort in having no grip; maybe that was even the answer. Gazing into the mirrored, gold-veined glass of the elevator, I could see that I was still myself, in my forties and worn and sinking south. I was afraid of scrutinizing them too closely; I liked the idea of them as these other beings. My mother tilted my father’s face toward hers and kissed him at length. Thankfully, the elevator door opened.
—Time to get out! I called.
We entered their room. Silence.
—Bad room, said my father.
—Ugh, awful, said my mother.
—What’s the problem? I asked, puzzled.
—Look!
I looked. It was a perfectly decent hotel room. There were mints perched on the swirly gold comforters. There was even a Jacuzzi tub in the middle of the room.
—Lucky you, I said. —You have a Jacuzzi.
—No, but we could trip over it! I can’t see well at night.
—Call downstairs, Laura. Get it changed now—
My mother was already on the phone. Now, in the sour orange light of the bedroom, they were aged, familiar again. Their shoulders stooped slightly, my father shuffling across the room, his beard faded.
I WENT TO THE CAR, CHECKED MYSELF IN THE MIRROR, SAW NOTHING good, tossed the offending cup out of the backseat. After awhile, my parents descended. Now they were in room 126, with no problematic Jacuzzi. They walked, arm in arm, to my car.
—Now I want to show you our home, I said.
I drove for fifteen minutes. What a grand, peculiar sensation, driving my parents. In the various cities where I’d lived, as I cracked thirty and thirty-five and then forty years of age, I had harbored secret hopes of them being my children, of toting them around like this, offering snacks. Now I asked them if anyone would like a peanut butter cracker. This was not the sort of snack to which they were accustomed. However, they accepted them. I pulled up to our house to the sound of crackers being munched.
—Home! I said.
The children ran out of the house, as they had been instructed to do. Burst out of the front door, I said, run like your life depends on it. I had studied our neighbors on national holidays, the way in which they welcomed visiting relatives. They always ran out. Now my children ran out, and they were not acting, I could tell.
My parents clutched their grandchildren. Hello. Hello. You’ve grown so much. Hello.
They walked through the door of our house. Here was my husband, wearing a clean shirt, his hair neatly parted; he stood up, holding out his hand.
I brought them drinks in our finest crystal glasses. My parents sat in our living room. My mother rubbed her hand along the arm of the blue couch.
—That’s the first couch I ever bought, I told them. —I got it in Seattle ten years ago. It was where Jeff and I first sat and talked and thought that perhaps we were interested in each other. We lugged it all the way across the country because it seemed lucky.
How strange the furniture looked, sitting here; it looked like it had been plopped here, without any concern for design or utility. In its randomness, there was, somehow, a sense of shame.
Perched on the couch, my mother brushed her hair. And now the hazy pinkish light of dusk was playing tricks on me. My mother was sluffing off years again! She wasn’t the dark-haired, glossy being from the hotel, but now she looked to be around fifty, a little heavy around the hips, her hair graying with more force. I peered through the room’s dim light.
—How are you doing this? Getting younger? I asked, alarmed.
—Well, thank you, my mother said. —I am using a new moisture cream.
She was scaring me. There was my father, walking around the room, also clocking in at about fifty, his eyes aglow, his stride buoyant, almost a swagger. He had never walked like this at fifty.
I sat down and rubbed my forehead.
—What do you want to do now? my father asked.
I had not thought this far ahead. Here were my parents, sitting on our old lucky couch, and, I thought, veering crazily from decade to decade, while the children ran around the living room and my husband lounged on a chair. It was too much, really.
—I’m making everyone dinner! I said.
The refrigerator was stuffed with foods I had made in preparation. I wanted to make up for thirty years of not having cooked for them. They wandered in.
—What are we having? my father asked.
—Beef Wellington, leek and pumpkin soup, raspberry granita for dessert.
—Is it low-sodium? my father asked.
—Uh, no, I said.
—Oh, he said. —Well, so what! Let’s just celebrate.
They sat patiently and watched as I heated, stirred, poured, etc. The children set the table. The window flushed with the artificial heat. I wanted them to like what I had prepared for them. They waited patiently for their first course. I set the table with the sterling silverware we had received for our wedding. I understood, just then, that I had never set a table with it because no event had seemed important enough.
AFTER ABOUT AN HOUR, THEY WERE READY TO GO BACK TO THE hotel. I drove, hands trembling, afraid to leave them there for the night. They seemed reluctant for me to depart, too. My mother had a sudden, anxious craving for potato chips. My father wanted dental floss. They flipped through the hotel directory, wondering where to get these items. I went to the gift shop downstairs and purchased the chips and dental floss, and then they wanted to shoo me out. They were ready to enjoy their hotel room. I hugged them, feeling their slim shoulders under my hands, and left.
I wondered what age they would wake up in the morning. Sixty? Thirty? One hundred? Did they remember what it was to be forty, fifty? Their faces at that age were a blur to me. What did they look like before I was born?
My car passed the restaurants, businesses, movie theaters of our city. The developments carved out of pine forests, the office buildings, shadowed in the darkness, seemed like they could, at any moment, be stomped by a giant. Our home, bathed in little spotlights, clung to its patch of lawn.
Was this all a joke? What was it?
Hurtling into the house, I found my husband calmly reading a copy of Consumer Reports.
—What are you reading about? I asked.
—There are good deals on lawn mowers, he said.
He sat on the couch, innocent and precious, eating some Cheez-Its, but I was now curdling with dissatisfaction and wanted to pick a fight. In his zeal to find a decent lawn mower, he had forgotten to check the dryer, which had wet clothes in it. Now the clothes smelled like wet dogs.
—I asked you to do this small thing! I burst out.
—No, you didn’t, he said. —Why do I have to be the one to check the dryer?
—Why not you?
—You’re being self-centered.
—No, you.
We sunk into one of those silent, glum familial nights in which every glass we rinsed seemed about to break, every lampshade unfortunate, our breath too loud and alien. We climbed into bed and I felt my husband’s leg, a fine, muscular leg, a leg I knew very well, wrapped around mine, then rubbing again
st mine, and despite ourselves, our obstinate rightness, of course, all that followed.
This was all I had hoped for, all I thought I would be denied.
Afterward, I lay in bed and wondered how long any of us had to live.
THE NEXT MORNING, I SLID DOWN THE CHUTE OF OUR NORMAL activities—dropping the children off at school, washing the breakfast dishes. I took the day off from work and went to check in on my parents. My breath paused as their hotel room door opened. There they were, in their bright tourist garb, ready for their tour.
—Show us around, my father said.
I drove them around to the important sights in town. This was the museum where I was employed. This was the hospital where the children were born. This was the soccer field where our daughter won an award for best goalie. Here was the elementary school track where our son was first in a race in third grade. Here was the house of Benny Rosenthal, who had the birthday party everyone talked about for weeks, the party to which both children got an invitation. Here was the bar where my husband and I went the first night both our children were off on sleepovers. I went through sites of hope and triumph. Then I wanted to keep going. Here was the Olive Garden where my husband and I ate numerous garlic knots and had a stupid fight over the amount of time each was able to get to the gym. Here was the spot where our son, racing to keep up with Tony Orillo, tripped over a tree root and broke his leg. Here was the spot when that devil girl, Marie Swanson, said to our daughter, “Don’t wear that headband. You copied me.” Here was the corner where I learned the news that the Iraq war had started, the gas station where I got the call that my best friend had died in Tallahassee, the street where I realized that my hip was forever screwed, the field in which we lost our cat. Here was the place where I got the phone call in which you said you were going to visit me.
When we got through that, I just showed them foliage I liked. Here was an important bush. In the winter, it was dotted with pink camellias like knotted satin bows. Here was a sewage drain where orange leaves got clogged but looked pretty in the fall. Here was a stretch of pine trees that had not been knocked down for a housing development.
I kept driving and driving. I had pretty much covered the city, the joys, the defeats, the memorable foliage, and I wondered what was next.
—I think that’s enough, my father said.
—What do you mean, that’s enough? I asked.
—I’ve had it. We should go home.
—What do you mean, you’ve had it? Are you bored?
—What else are we supposed to see?
I didn’t know how to answer that. Everything. I wanted them to see everything they had missed, the events, the recitals, the graduations, all. If they could turn back decades, why couldn’t any of us? But they were not asking to turn back decades. They had probably digested the meal I had made for them, perhaps the last one I would make for them on this soil.
—I want you to want to see more, I said, softly.
I could not help this; I just said it. There was a lot I wanted to say. My father coughed, annoyed.
—I can’t, my father said.
I looked back, and they were themselves again; my father, white hair wispy on his head, beige patches on his forehead, my mother, shoulders stooped, steel hair curled in a perm. They were old, and I was too, frankly, and I was ashamed because I had wanted this—just to see something different.
I drove the car, my palms damp, tight on the wheel. I wanted to apologize, for something—the crooked stubbornness of my existence—but I didn’t.
—Take us back to the hotel, my father said. I drove them back to their hotel, taking the long way, and walked them up to their room. They would be here for about fourteen more hours.
—What else can I do? I asked; I felt like I was begging. —Do you want coffee, mints, magazines, what?
Now they were getting older before my eyes. I thought I could see the translucent white hair of eighty, the slow wither of ninety. I closed my eyes.
—Stop, I said, in a panic. I stepped forward and gripped his shoulder; I could feel the bone.
—Stop what? my father said. —What’s wrong? I have to lie down now. Let go.
He reached forward and carefully peeled my hand from his shoulder.
I began, ridiculously, to cry.
—What’s wrong? my mother said. —It’s nothing new. He’s resting. You know how it is.
—Yes, I said. —But.
—But what? Honey.
They stood, staring at me, somewhat bewildered. I pretended I was sneezing and started to edge my way out.
—Just pick us up at 9:00 AM for the airport, my father said. —Bye.
AT NINE, THEY WERE READY, WAITING WITH THEIR SUITCASES OUTSIDE the hotel, and I picked them up and drove them, slowly, to the airport. I tried to dawdle, go down unnecessary streets, engage them in conversation, but they were already melting from the visit, talking about the movies on the plane and how my father could best nap on the coach seats.
—Just drop us off, my mother said. —So we can go.
I dropped them off by the curb and spent twenty minutes trying to find a place to park. After I found a spot, I hurtled through the airport, looking for them. It felt important to say goodbye, this last minute they would be in this place where I lived. The flatly polite announcer shouted out gate changes. I was the obnoxious linebacker of the airport, knocking past suitcases, tripping over rolling baggage, bumping shoulders with the other passengers. My parents were standing in the security line, clutching their shoes.
—Here you are! I said, breathing hard.
—What are you doing here? my father asked.
—I just wanted—I don’t know. To make sure you were okay.
—We’re okay.
In their trim navy uniforms, the Homeland Security guys glared at me.
—Goodbye, honey, my mother said.
—Well, thank you for everything, my father said.
There was remoteness to their voices; they were moving on. We put our arms around each other, and I could feel their hands gripping my sweater. I stepped back, lifted my sweater off my shoulders, and handed it to them.
—Can you hold this a sec? I asked.
My mother took the sweater. My father grasped a sleeve. I looked at them, standing, holding my sweater. How small they looked, and, simultaneously, looming. Why had I moved away? Why had they not tried to come to see me earlier? Why had my father become ill? Why had I not been good enough to stay, and why had they not found a way to come? How long would we have, on earth, together?
My parents and I stood by the security gate in a sort of polite standoff. Around us was the anxious, determined roar of the airport, the passengers standing on escalators, their faces composed into travel faces, distant and with a sort of grandeur. To my surprise, my parents were assuming this expression too, and suddenly I could recognize it; it was a form of hopefulness.
The Homeland Security crew flanked the entrance to the metal detector.
—Come on through, one announced.
—We have to get going, my mother said. —My feet are getting cold.
They stood, barefoot, each clutching a boarding pass. And my sweater.
—Spit on it, I said.
—What! Your nice sweater? my mother said.
—I have to wash it anyway. Just do it, please.
They looked at each other, bewildered. Who was this weird child they had spawned? Then my mother, slowly, daintily, spit into my sweater. She passed it to my father, who leaned forward and spit, too.
—Okay, I said, somehow relieved. —Thank you.
We kissed again, lips touching cheeks, softly; then we released each other, and they walked through the metal detector, heading toward their gate.
The sweater smelled like them, their peculiar salt, their sweet fragrance. I did not know how long the sweater would smell like them, how long I would remember the way they gingerly walked inside the airport terminal, how long it would take me to drive home, h
olding onto the wheel, turning through street after street, how long it would take me to go visit them again, how long it would be before they died, and then how long I would own this sweater, how long I would recognize it as a sweater, how long my children would keep it after I was gone. I held onto the steering wheel, and I wondered how long before the tracks from the tires would disappear and it would be as though none of this, none of it, had ever really happened.
Refund
They had no contract. It would be a simple transaction. A sublet in Tribeca for the month of September. Two bedrooms and a terrace: $3,000.
They were almost forty years old, children of responsible middle-class parents, and they had created this mess out of their own desires. Josh and Clarissa had lived for twelve years in a dingy brick high-rise in the Manhattan neighborhood of Tribeca. They had been lonely, met, married, worked at their painting for years, presented their work to a world that was indifferent, floundered in debt, defaulted on student loans, began to lie to their parents about their financial status, and lived in a state of constant fear. They decided once to do miniature medieval paintings that no one would care about but themselves, for the art was just for themselves, anyway, or taking the other tack, decided to do something so deplorable it would have to sell for a truckload of money. They decided to go into pet portraiture, which could fund their real art, and bought ads in local papers—whereupon they found that pet portraiture was a crowded field, and one in which the local masters were competitive and vengeful. In high school, she had wanted to have a painting in the Met. Now she was trying to figure out how to borrow paints from her artist friends and cleverly not give them back.
They lay in bed at five thirty in the morning, listening to their three-year-old son, Sammy, hurtling toward the first sunbeam with the call: “Hello. Ready now. Hello.” The wistful, hopeful cry made their blood go cold. One of them stumbled toward the relentless dawn, inevitably tripping over the trucks that Sammy had lined up in hopeful parades, convinced that there was somewhere wonderful to go.
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