Saturn's Return to New York

by Sara Gran

  “Mary?” she says. “Is this Mary?”

  “It’s me, Mom ”

  “Oh, honey I’m so confused.” She starts to cry. “Where am I?”

  “You’re in the right place Mom The restaurant’s closed, that’s all.”

  “Closed? I was here a few days ago. I had the lobster soup. Oh, honey, I’m so confused ”

  “It’s okay, Mom. Just go on home ”

  She sobs a little before she answers “I don’t think . I don’t know the way ”

  “Okay. Just wait there, I’ll come and pick you up. We’ll go get lobster soup somewhere else ”

  “Well, it doesn’t have to be lobster.”

  At the leather shop Evelyn and Aaron, a good-looking white man somewhere in between my age and Evelyn’s, are sitting behind the counter smoking cigarettes and talking away like old friends. A few customers—some tourists, some serious-looking—browse the dazzling array of dildoes, harnesses, and restraints in the dimly lit store.

  “Mary!” says Evelyn

  “Mary!” says Aaron. “We were just talking about you I can’t believe you work for one of those awful computer companies You know they’re ruining small businesses like ours.”

  Everything, it seems, is back to normal “Mom, how are you?”

  “Oh, I feel so much better now, honey I was a little confused, that’s all. Can you imagine? Five blocks away from home ”

  “It is such an honor,” says Aaron, “to have your mother here I was just telling her, I read all of your father’s books when I was at Columbia He’s still such a legend there And I’ve subscribed to GV for years. You’re so lucky to have this amazing woman for your mother.”

  “Oh, stop,” says Evelyn “So what did your parents do, anyway?”

  “My father owned a gas station in the Bronx. My mother died when I was a baby. I don’t remember her ”

  “Oh, and look at you now,” says Evelyn “You’ve got a master’s degree in sex studies, you own your own store on Christopher Street She would be so proud ”

  “No . ”

  Evelyn puts a hand on his leather-clad knee. “Of course. I’m so proud of you. You’ve got a real success here People can’t get this stuff just anywhere.”

  “Well, that’s true.” Aaron is smiling large and I see the start of a tear in one eye

  “Honey,” Evelyn says to me, “let me show you around this place. You wouldn’t believe what they’ve got in here.” She comes out from behind the counter and leads me to the back of the shop, between a wall display of whips and a rack of leather miniskirts. Evelyn whispers in my ear, “Pick out whatever you want. I’ll buy it for you.”

  “Mom, I don’t need anything from here.”

  “We have to buy something,” she hisses “I’ve been here all night”

  “We don’t have to buy something.”

  “Of course we do He’s been so nice, this man is trying to make a living here Look at these skirts.” She pulls out a mini less than twelve inches long. “They’d be so cute on you.”

  “These skirts are pretty short, Mom ”

  “So get something else Are you into any of this stuff?”

  “Mom!”

  “Okay, okay, so pick out a skirt.”

  “We do not have to buy something.” And then I can see by the look on her face that we do need to buy something. She needs something to put her back on solid ground, take away the awful debt she has to this man. So I let Evelyn buy me a leather halter top for one hundred dollars and a variety pack of condoms for twenty “You have such nice things here,” she says to Aaron. “She couldn’t help herself “ Aaron beams.

  On Christopher Street I thank Evelyn for my skirt and condoms with a peck on the cheek She ignores me We get takeout from Empire Szechuan and she doesn’t talk again until we’re back at her apartment.

  “I don’t know what happened tonight,” she tells me She’s bitter, angry. “I don’t know what to say. I was getting dressed to go out. I felt so good, I was going to go someplace nice for dinner. I thought, tonight I’m going to treat myself All the problems I’ve been having lately. So I got dressed and I went out I went over to Christopher Street, I got there just fine, but it wasn’t there L’Escargot, I mean. It just wasn’t there. So I thought, well, it must be on Tenth Street. So I went over to Tenth Street And then I got confused. I got so fucking confused. Everything was I didn’t recognize anything. All my life I’ve lived in this city, and I didn’t even know where I was. Everything was so fucking different! So I went back to the leather store, where it was supposed to be. I asked where the restaurant was, and then I could tell, I could tell from the way he looked at me something was wrong. That something had changed Oh my God, I started to cry This is all so embarrassing I don’t understand why everything had to change ”

  I spend the night in my old room in my old bed. It doesn’t feel like home. Since Twelfth Street, no place has ever felt like home. The next morning I call Dr Snyder while Evelyn sits in the living room and tries not to listen. He gives me the name and phone number of a nursing agency Then I call Harry Stromer, Evelyn’s financial planner Dr. Snyder, Harry Stromer—I’ve known these men as long as I can remember They seem as surprised as I am that I’m an adult now, making these phone calls. I explain the situation to Harry and ask if we have enough money for Evelyn to keep the house with all the medical bills, which I see will grow and grow He laughs a little before he catches himself.

  “Enough money? Of course there’s enough money. Don’t you have any idea what kind of financial condition your mother is in?”

  “What are you talking about? There’s money left over from my father?”

  “Well, it’s a little more complicated than that. No, it’s not money left over from your father. Your father left like, two million. You know that, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. So your mother bought the house, she put some money into the magazine, she wanted to have some money available for living expenses, she wanted guaranteed, low-yield bonds for your education fund. So this is not good investing. Except for the house, the house has been an excellent investment If she would only charge a reasonable rent, these people are paying less than they would in a welfare hotel—”

  “Harry ”

  “All right, the point is, of that two million, one little piece of it, like one hundred thousand, we invested in stocks. We picked them out together, Evelyn and I And all these years, your mother has put almost every penny we’ve made back into the fund. And—”

  “Harry.”

  “All right, all right You mother is worth, what, like close to two million now. Very close to two million, not including the house, which is worth at least that alone. You really didn’t know this?”

  I have to sit down on the sofa, phone in hand “No, I didn’t.”

  I swear I can hear him smirk over the line. “What did you think your mother was going to live off of when she retired?”

  What did I think? Air, water, books I knew that when I first started working at Intelligentsia my mother went to a computer store and bought me the most top-of-the line model they had—and I thanked her but also chastised her for spending the money. A few grand.

  “Listen,” says Harry. “I know you don’t want to talk about this. No one wants to talk about this. But the two of you have to come by the office, soon, before it’s too late. You have to deal with this now.”

  “Deal with what?”

  “Well, there’s power of attorney. There’s a living will. Resuscitation orders. The trust. You, me, Evelyn, and the lawyer We need to sit down together and work all this stuff out. You know, it’s funny. I still think of you as such a little girl ”

  Yeah. Me too. So this is adulthood a living will, a resuscitation order, a trust

  I don’t bother to sublet my apartment, now that I know we’re rich. I just pack up my cherry-red suitcase and move back downtown We hire a woman through the nursing agency, Jeanne, to come in a few afternoons a week to help
. Jeanne is my age, twenty-nine, beautiful, Haitian, and speaks lovely lilting Creole French and beautifully accented English. She sends most of the meager paycheck from the insurance company to her own two children, who live in Haiti with Jeanne’s mother

  On Tuesday evenings Evelyn and Jeanne take a painting class together at a studio in Westbeth Jeanne’s paintings are wonderful, bright and complicated surreal landscapes of Haiti and the Upper East Side, where she worked before she came downtown to live with us She’s a real talent Evelyn’s paintings are strange and brown, like books She’s working on a portrait of Michael from memory Sometimes she doesn’t remember the work from week to week but that’s not bad, she comes to the studio, appraises it with new eyes, and decides what it needs. She never forgets what Michael looked like

  Jeanne has Thursday nights off She hasn’t made many friends in the city and she used to go alone to the Haitian restaurants in Flatbush; now Evelyn goes with her. My mother is now an expert on goat curry and rice and peas Restaurants, she can always remember

  Chapter 21

  I did what I could, after he died. I sent Mary to live with the Angletons after he killed himself I didn’t want her back in that house again, not ever, not after what we had put her through there. But then she didn’t like the new place, either. She cried and cried when she saw the apartment. I put so much into that place, I tried so hard, and she hated it. I sent her to a psychiatrist, she wouldn’t talk, I made play dates with other kids, she wouldn’t play. All she would do was read. Well that’s what I had done, after Eva died, so in a way I understood. I stuck my nose in a book after she died and I never took it back out, and after Michael died I did the same thing with the magazine So she stayed in her books and I stayed in the office and she grew up and I never knew her I never knew her at all. She hated me One day she was reading Narma, the next day she came home with pink hair, dressed like a hooker, then she left school, and God only knows what she does now. God only knows She hated me.”

  “I never hated you, Mom I loved you so much.”

  “She never forgave me. Me or her father, never forgave us for what we put her through in that house The doctors, the crying, all day on the couch like a zombie. Of course she was neglected, I put everything I had into making him better. Why would she forgive us? We fucked it up, we fucked it all up royally. She hated the house, she hated me, so I let her alone, first with the books and then with her friends. Veronica and Suzie Nitwits, those girls, real honest-to-God bimbos, but very sweet. I let her alone. What was I supposed to do, beg her forgiveness? I would have, if I thought it would work. I can’t blame her. I stayed with the magazine and did what I could. It was Michael’s baby and I wasn’t going to let it die

  “No one thought I could do it All the men, the great literary fuckers, they were all coming around, and it certainly wasn’t to help They all thought I would appoint a new editor-in-chief and besides, I was only thirty-six, I still had my looks, I had money They wanted the magazine and they wanted to fuck me They certainly weren’t there to help. God almighty, were they surprised when it sold I didn’t come from money, I didn’t come from books. When I was girl I had to hide books from my mother, and I was reading True Romance This is where I had come from, a fucking Polack reading True Romance with a flashlight. No one thought I could do it Jesus, were they surprised when it sold

  “Roy Montauk and Jack Jameson and Nelson Chandler, they sure as hell didn’t think I could do it. Nelson Chandler, not two months is Michael gone and he’s asking me out. Like he could ever—like he could even hold a candle to him, like he could even breathe the same fucking air as him. Imagine being with a man like Nelson, flabby, stuck, dead, after Michael I can’t On his worst day, at his sickest, Michael was a hundred times the man that any of those schmucks were. They don’t get it, I just can’t do it I went on one date, though, with Tony Chinerase I don’t know. I could never bring another man home, not after what she’s been through.

  “I went out with Norman Chambers, I went out once with Eli Peterson. Jack Merchant took me to the National Book Awards. But I’ve been with Sid for a while now and I like it the way it is We see each other when we see each other and we have a good time I don’t want anything else Two marriages is enough

  “He helps with the magazine, Sid. Helps with decisions He knows it’s everything to me and it’s awful, because he knows why it’s so important to me But he’s a widower too, and he’s got a big portrait of his wife in the hallway, she’s the first thing you see when you walk into that house. So he understands Of course time goes on, but it doesn’t mean you forget You stop talking about it but you don’t forget. You never forget I wouldn’t marry him anyway, though—two marriages is enough And I’m certainly not bringing another man home I’m never putting her through that again, never.”

  “Sid’s here, Mom He’s out in the waiting room He wants to see you ”

  “Really? That’s nice Everyone is so fucking nice, when you’re in the hospital Everyone wants to visit, they want to send flowers, they want to call on the telephone. Get well soon. Like anyone ever got better in a place like this I don’t think they’re helping at all. I hate the hospitals, honestly, I really hate them.”

  “I’m sorry, Mom, I’m so sorry I wish we could go home ”

  “What are you sorry for? It’s not your fault. It’s no one’s fault, you hear me? It’s nobody’s fault that he’s so sick When my father died they kept him in for six weeks Cancer My mother, too. It’ll be a miracle if I don’t get it. They kept them both alive on those machines—it’s like what they’re doing to Michael now They’re not helping him, they’re just keeping him alive, just keeping him alive long enough to pay the bills. I could kill those doctors, honestly, I could fucking murder them.”

  “I’m so sorry, Mom. I’m so sorry we have to be here.”

  “It’s nothing to be sorry about. What was I saying? Oh, Mary, I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve got one of those headaches again ”

  “I’ll get the nurse ”

  “No, don’t Please don’t go. I don’t want to be alone ”

  Chapter 22

  “So,” Kyra says. “You’ve lost your mother Your loss is the universe’s gain “ Today Kyra is wearing a pale violet halter top and a long gold skirt, with the same high platform heels she was wearing when we first met

  “I just want to know that she’s okay ”

  “She’s okay Trust me The dead are always better than okay. But you miss her, eh?”

  I nod my head, ashamed. It’s so selfish to want her back

  “So you want me to speak with her You want to hear it from her, you want her to let you know this herself ”

  I nod again

  “And your father too He passed when you were very young, and all your life you’re never sure, did he love you? Does he miss you as much, one fraction as much, as you miss him?”

  I’ve never told her about my father, but she’s right, of course.

  “They’re happy,” Kyra says emphatically. “I tell you right now, the dead are always happy. And they don’t miss us, like we miss them, because they can see us whenever they like. This would be like me missing you right now. It’s impossible. It isn’t like that. Sometimes they let us know and sometimes they do not, but the dead are always here. They’re all around us. My master, Vispanna, every day I miss him Sometimes he speaks to me. I hear his voice and I know that he is with me always, but still—” She shrugs her shoulders. “This is what we bear, the living. They are spirits, they do whatever they like, they know all and they see all and live in pure love, but us? We’re stuck here in this shit Samsara. Not knowing, not seeing, having to struggle for just a little of that love If we’re lucky we get just a little now and again And on top of this we worry about those who have passed. We worry about the dead, and they get off scot free. We wonder if they were happy, if we did the right thing and said the right words. Most of all we wonder if they loved us, right? We want to know if they loved us.”

  I
nod again I’m crying, and my face burns hot and red

  “Mary, your mother and father loved you. In this way the living and the dead are the same; sometimes we know what they are feeling, most of the time we don’t. I feel it here, now. I can tell you they loved you. This is all you need to know.”

  I’m sobbing, now. She moves her chair closer and puts her arm around me.

  “It was an accident, Mary, for you to find him the way you did. He thought he was doing the right thing, to leave you. He loved you with all he had. That was why he did it—to spare you ”

  We sit in silence for a minute or two, just an occasional undignified snort from me as my crying subsides.

  “Now you know. Now you are sure. So, it is time to move on. In this shit, samsara, no one goes before his time, even if he tries You know this. You have a long time, Mary. Enjoy yourself. Don’t worry about the dead. Because they sure as hell aren’t worrying about you.”

  Chapter 23

  Evelyn would have been so happy with the funeral. It’s just like she always said about Michael’s Everyone was there Allison took care of everything—the casket, the cemetery, the obituaries I did not know that my mother had already chosen and paid for her plot, next to Eva’s. The crowd at Greenwood Cemetery is overwhelming, three hundred at least I can’t feel anything All I can think is that my shoes hurt. It’s not until the ceremony ends that I realize, this is real, and I start to cry and cry and then, I think, I faint and someone, I don’t know who, carries me to the car and up to a bedroom in Allison’s house in Park Slope, where the reception takes place on the parlor floor below I wake up and Veronica is in the room with me, sitting at a Victorian dressing table and drinking white wine “It’s okay, honey,” she says “It’s all okay.”

  Downstairs, everyone wants to pay condolences. Round-shouldered Columbia men in their sixties take my hand and then turn away so I don’t see them cry. Women with short hair and lined faces hug me close. People say, She published my first story, She introduced me to my husband, She was my best friend in high school. They say, She was my best friend in college, She was the smartest woman I ever met, Your mother was a genius. She gave me a job when no one else would. She lent me money when no one else cared. She called when my mother died, when I had the heart attack. She called when my son passed away, my Jonathan, the light of my life She gave my daughter an internship, She gave my son a job, She introduced my husband to his agent, She got my wife a book deal. It’s a tragedy. It’s such a loss to the world. It’s a tremendous loss to the city. The city won’t be the same without her