The Gretchen Question

by Jessica Treadway

  I could just picture the two of them having their first conversation at school, sometime after that awful day I dropped him off. Was it in a class? Over a vegan meal in the cafeteria? They hadn’t said how they met, exactly.

  But I had a clear vision of her telling him she was interested in the secrets people in families kept from each other, and Will’s ears perking up because what she was saying struck his most basic chord. Or maybe it happened the other way around—maybe he told her about the conflict between him and me, and it gave her the idea for her thesis. However it happened, I was pretty sure that his resentment toward me had, if not created, then sealed the bond between them. So it was my own fault this cheeky redhead had invaded our Thanksgiving.

  A heavy silence fell over the table, and Sosi must have realized she was responsible, because she apologized. Will and Grettie and Cam rushed to assure her that she had nothing to feel sorry for. Then Will said, “How ’bout those Mets?” and I laughed, longer than I should have.

  We fumbled our way back to benign territory. Jack, God love him, asked Will what his plans were for the summer, once classes ended. “I’m not sure,” Will said, and I saw Sosi, under the table, slap his pant leg. “Actually, I think I might be staying out there, near school. Sosh already signed up to do research for one of her professors. I might be able to get a job like that myself. So we might get a place together, or something—we’re not sure yet.”

  I felt Grettie look at me before I saw her do it. Her look was what I was concentrating on, instead of what Will had just said. Twenty minutes later as we cleared the table together, she grasped my wrist as I set down a stack of plates on the counter and said quietly, “You haven’t talked to him yet, have you?”

  “I haven’t had a chance. We haven’t been alone except for when she was in the shower, and there wasn’t enough time.”

  She made a sound with her lips that I’ve gotten used to, over the years—a kind of pucker-smack, meaning that she understands why I’m saying or doing something, even as she thinks I shouldn’t be. “You need to, Bert. He’ll probably want to … be here, this summer.”

  “I know.” I said this, but did I really know it? I hadn’t even started the treatments yet. Grettie and I both understood it was a long shot, the treatments working this time around, and yet—as Will had put it—a long shot is still a shot. And doctors make mistakes; I saw them all the time in the files I coded. I picked up a fork from one of the plates and began moving the dinner remnants into the center, only slightly aware that the action served no purpose at all. “It didn’t sound as if they’d actually made plans already, did it? I think they’re just tossing the idea around. And anyway, there’s a long time between now and then—anything could happen. They could break up. Or …” But I couldn’t bring myself to say that maybe I wasn’t going to die, after all. I tried not to say things like that.

  “Bert.” Grettie made the sound again, but she was standing at the dishwasher with her back to me and I only barely heard it. We rinsed and loaded in silence for a minute or two, after which she might also have felt like crying, because she changed the subject. “I know it’s a cliché for us to be the ones cleaning up, but we know why we’re doing it, right? It’s not because we’re women. It’s because we know that if we do it, it’ll get done right.”

  “And because,” I said, and in unison we shouted, “It’s tradition!” The smiles we gave each other then spoke so much, more than I can bear now to recall. For the three Thanksgivings that we lived together while I was in college and she was in grad school—before she met Jack, and before Friendsgiving was a thing—we hosted a holiday dinner for anyone who didn’t have any other plans. It was potluck and we always ended up with more desserts than dinner food, but nobody cared. We ate and drank with friends and strangers, hiked up Mount Greylock, came back to eat and drink more, then danced all night until the police came or the last one standing had finally collapsed. The next morning we had leftovers for breakfast before we all said good-bye, and then Grettie and I split the cleaning-up duties, as we were doing now.

  “Hey, keep it down in there,” Cam called to us from the dining room. “You’re mothers. You’re supposed to be working when you’re in the kitchen, not having fun.”

  Grettie and I wince-laughed together. I started to return to the rest of the party, but she caught my arm again. “Maybe you and Will can take a walk together later. Just the two of you.”

  “I doubt it. He’s not going to spend any time with me if he can spend it with her.”

  “Not even if you tell him it’s important?” When I didn’t answer, she sighed and reached up to brush a piece of hair away from my eyes. It was everything I could do not to cry out and crumble into her arms. “Listen, do you want me to tell him? I am his godmother, after all. Would that be easier for you?”

  I shook my head, but I couldn’t speak an answer. She drew me into a hug and I wanted to stay in the feeling of it, in the scent of her skin and lips and hair, but I knew I couldn’t, so I forced myself to step out of the hug and we rejoined the others at the table.

  After dessert, Jack said as he did every year that it was time to go outside and walk off the bird. We went for our traditional post-Thanksgiving ramble through the part of the woods that hadn’t been razed yet for the new development. I tried not to think that it would probably be my last one. Secretly, I hoped that Trudy Foote and the others fighting the developer would win, so there’d always be a place for Grettie to walk and think of me.

  Maybe Sosi would stay in the picture and maybe she wouldn’t. It wasn’t for me to say. I just wanted my son to be happy, that’s all. That’s all I want.

  Grettie sent us home with lots of leftovers, as she always did. I tried not to notice Bella’s tearfulness when she kissed me good-bye, or the way Cam made a point of looking directly into my eyes when he said, “I’m so glad to see you, Burp”—he’d never given up his childhood name for me—before having to clear his throat. Sosi fell asleep in the car on the way home, even though it was only a ten-minute drive. In the rearview, I saw her lean her head against Will’s shoulder. He reached around with the other arm to close her in. I suppose I could have said something to him then, but it wasn’t the right time. And who knew how lightly she might be sleeping?

  I had thought that telling Will about the cancer returning would make me feel less alone in what was happening to me. But watching him pull Sosi snug to his chest, I saw that they were a closed system. I understood: between them, they could identify only one of their four biological parents. Of course that must have been fertile soil for the seeds of their attachment. I was happy for him, but it made me feel all the more acutely that I was on the outside looking in. I realized that whenever I did tell him about the recurrence, it probably wouldn’t bring me the relief I’d hoped for.

  At home, helping me put the food away while he was in his room, Sosi murmured, “You love Grettie, don’t you?”

  I wondered if she noticed that my hands jumped a little as they placed the foil wraps in the fridge. “Of course I love her. She’s my best friend. And Will’s godmother.” It was all I could do not to take one of those hands and press it against my chest, because of the flutter I felt there. But I wouldn’t have wanted Sosi to see this—it would have given her information I didn’t want her, of all people, to have.

  “No, I don’t mean just that.” She shook that red hair of hers. “Not like a friend. You love her, I think. That’s what it looks like to me.”

  Was she trembling inside when she said this? I couldn’t tell if it intimidated her in any way, to assert such a thing to the mother of her boyfriend. How was she so confident of herself, so young? Or was it just that the wine had given her courage?

  Doing my best to keep my voice steady I told her, “I’m not sure why you’re saying these things to me.”

  She gave an expression I interpreted as a smirk, until I saw that it was not mean. �
��Does he know?” she asked, as she nodded in the direction of Will’s room. “Does she?”

  Thank goodness Will came out of the bedroom then, and asked what all the whispering was about. “Girl talk,” Sosi said, shrugging, leading me to feel reassured (though how could I be sure?) that she wouldn’t mention her suspicions to him.

  Couldn’t she have asked me something else, like what Will had been like as a child, or where I had grown up, or whether I liked my job? But no. “You love Grettie, don’t you?” No one, not even Grettie, had understood me so well after so little time.

  The next morning, maybe because I’d had a chance to sleep on it, I felt bad about the resentment I held toward Sosi. Yes, she’d asked me those questions about Grettie, but wasn’t she right, after all? Maybe she just wasn’t used to drinking so much wine.

  And didn’t it—shouldn’t it—mean something that Will loved her? Even if she and I weren’t immediately attracted to each other as people, she was obviously important to his life. It would only benefit us all if I could at least act like a bigger person than I felt like being, and at least pretend to warm up to her more than I had.

  So at breakfast, I asked if she wanted to do a little Black Friday shopping with me, “just us girls.” I saw her stiffen slightly at the word “girls,” though of course she had used it herself the night before. Then in the next moment I saw her decide to let it go.

  Was I also thinking that she might, like me, have been brought up by a mother who sought out sales and discounts and deals whenever possible? Maybe. It occurred to me that part of the negative feeling I had about her might be nothing more or less than a familiarity with the way I assumed she had grown up, which was the same way I’d grown up, and not my favorite thing to remember.

  Sosi accepted my invitation and thanked me, which made me feel better; I’d already started regretting my offer. Will said he’d stay home and go through the garage to see if there were old things of his that could be donated or thrown away. It was something I’d asked him to do before he left for college in the summer, but the task got lost in the fight we had back then. When he said he’d do it now, while Sosi and I were out together, I let myself feel hopeful that it meant he might be willing to forgive me and make up. Or at least start talking to me again—if not the way he used to, then at least something close.

  As we drove to my preferred shopping center, not the fancy plaza with all the boutiques but the one with the chain stores near the highway, Sosi said, “You haven’t always lived here, have you.” It had the air of a challenge rather than a question, but I was determined not to rise to her bait.

  Or maybe she was just seeking kinship with me, since we both came from towns much poorer than this one? It felt better to make the more generous assumption. I wondered if Will had told her my background, or if she just recognized it in me.

  “No. I lived in an apartment in Allston before I had Will. They called it the student ghetto.” Sosi cringed a little, and I realized you probably weren’t supposed to say ghetto anymore. I decided not to acknowledge the cringe. “But I thought it would be better to bring up a kid out here.”

  “Why?”

  I figured she had to know the answer—she just wanted to make me say it. Admit to my own snobbishness. Well, I wasn’t embarrassed about the choices I’d made for my son. “Better schools, for one. More space.” Then, because I knew she was thinking it, I robbed her of the chance to ask. “Mainly, we live here because of Grettie. I knew I’d need help if I was going to be a single mother.” Even as I said those last words, I thought No, no no! understanding only then, instinctively, that Sosi would take this as another invitation, this time to pursue the subject of my single motherhood.

  She stuck her nose up to the crack to breathe deep, as if, in the absence of the wine available the day before, she sought the nerve she needed from the atmosphere instead. “Listen, I probably shouldn’t do this, but I wanted to ask you something. Will keeps saying you won’t talk to him about it—his father. He said you promised to tell him when he turned eighteen, but then you backed out.”

  For the first time—because I was looking at her more closely than I had before, focusing on what I saw rather than what I heard—I noticed all the freckles she had on her face. Cute, really. She probably didn’t think so, but it wasn’t the kind of thing I could ask. “I didn’t promise him that, Sosh.” His nickname for her slipped out, and she frowned a little. “Sorry. Sosi. I’m not saying he was lying—I’m saying he misunderstood. He misunderstood for all that time, all his life, so of course it upset him when I couldn’t give him what he thought he was going to get.”

  He and I had had the conversation—was it fair to call it that, instead of a fight? Fight was more like it—in August, a week or so before he left to go to school. We had three things to celebrate last summer: his graduation from high school; the year’s anniversary of my surgery, which we believed had cured my cancer; and, in August, his big birthday. Though part of me dreaded living alone again, as I had before he was born, I was also excited for him. So I felt pretty upbeat when he and I went to dinner, at his favorite sushi restaurant, on the night of his birthday. The air conditioning was on full blast, and because I’d lost a few pounds during my illness and treatment that I hadn’t gained back yet, I couldn’t stay warm even though I’d brought a sweater. But I did my best not to shiver, to conceal my chill from him.

  “I’m so glad you’re all better,” he said, looking shyly at his plate as if he were afraid he might not be doing the right thing by telling me this. “I can’t tell you how scared I was, when you were going through all that.”

  “When we were going through it,” I said, reaching to put my hand over his. “I don’t mind telling you I was scared, too. But everything’s good, now. Right?”

  He started to nod, then stopped abruptly and cleared his throat. “Actually,” he said, and I steeled myself, intuiting suddenly what was to come. “I wanted to ask you something. I guess my birthday being now, in August, means I was conceived in December, right? Like, around Christmas?”

  From out of nowhere came the smell of peppermint mocha, and I almost gagged on the food in my throat. Then I tried to change the subject, but Will was on to me. “Mom, I’m eighteen now. You told me I’d find out when I was eighteen. I have a right to know who my father is.”

  It wasn’t exactly true, that I had told him that. I might have let him believe that I’d tell him. But I’m sure I never said it outright.

  “Honey. I’ve told you a million times, I can’t say.”

  Of course he must have been expecting this, but he remained undeterred. If it hadn’t been for what we were talking about, I would have told him I admired his persistence. His grit—I think that’s the new word.

  “Just give me something,” he begged. I’d never heard quite such a desperate tone in his voice, even when the emetophobia was at its worst. I thought he might be about to cry.

  If only I could have told him—and made him believe—that it’s for his own sake, not mine. That it’s not myself or an anonymous donor I’m protecting.

  Was I tempted to give him the name of the cryobank I’d researched back then? Of course I was. Anything to stop the questions.

  But it was too risky. Instead I only told him I could see, from how upset he was, that I’d made a mistake in deciding to use a donor who preferred not to be identified. But at the time, I said, I thought it was the right decision.

  “Well, it wasn’t.” Will blew air through his lips, the sound he makes when he’s dismissing something I’ve said. “Can’t you understand why I’d want information about the other half of my genes?”

  “Knowing everything about where you come from isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” I said, more sharply than I’d intended. “And a lot of fathers aren’t so great.”

  He sat back and shook his head—just a little shake, but it was enough to make me catch my
breath. “The only person who could say something like that, and not realize how it sounds,” he said, overenunciating even though I’d told him what an annoying habit it was, “is a person who knows.” Then he must have registered my reaction, and concluded that if he had any hope of persuading me, he had to back off. He made an obvious effort to smile. “I promise I can handle whatever I might find out. Like if the guy turns out to be a drug addict or something. Or a Republican.” He let the smile grow, but when I didn’t respond, it faded and he tried another tack. “You know I’m going to find him someday. Somehow. So you may as well tell me now.”

  I didn’t know or believe this, but there seemed no point in telling him so. Needless to say, the dinner ended on a much worse note than it started on. For the week between then and the day I drove him to school, it’s not as if we didn’t speak to each other, but it wasn’t the same as it had been, especially during the time I was sick. It took everything in me not to start crying until I left his dorm building, which I ended up having to lean against because I was doubled over with the pain of it. Groups of other new students and parents walked by me and some mother called out gently, “I know how you feel.”

  But of course, she didn’t—not really. At her side was her son’s father, toting an electronics box on his shoulder. Another mother approached and asked if I needed help, and forcing myself to stand up straight and suck the tears in, I told her No, I just needed to get back to my car. She patted me on the shoulder, reached into her purse, and handed me a ribboned cellophane bag of homemade cookies. “You need these more than she does,” she told me, nodding at the cheerful daughter beside her, who smiled and wished me luck.

  I thought Will might call me, homesick, once I left campus and drove back home (shoving the cookies in my mouth as fast as I could chew and swallow, hoping the gluttony of it would make me feel punished—it did). But not only did I never receive such a call, he sent me an email after he’d been there a week, telling me that he thought it might be best for both of us if we “took a break” from each other. He needed to test himself, he wrote. It had been just him and me for so long, he realized now that he’d depended too much on me, it was time for him to see what it felt like to be on his own. He ended by asking if I would please not call or text or respond to this note.