Families and Other Nonreturnable Gifts

by Claire Lazebnik

  “What about a pool or a workout room?”

  “They’d be nice but they’re not crucial. Really, anything decent and affordable is fine with me.”

  He stares at me with a puzzled frown, like he can’t imagine someone who doesn’t care where she lives. He doesn’t know what to say after that, and we listen to our parents’ conversation in silence.

  Mom and I turn down dessert and coffee and head home early. “There’s nothing wrong with the Evanses,” Mom says on the drive home. “But there’s nothing particularly right about them, either.”

  “You’ll leave me alone about Cameron now, right? I mean, I gave it a shot. Sparks didn’t exactly fly.”

  She nods, then sighs. “I think I’m getting tired of all this dating.”

  “Really? I thought you were having the time of your life.”

  “It was fun for a while. Now I just want to find someone I can count on spending my Saturday nights with. Enough is enough.”

  “Anyone seem like a Saturday night candidate these days?”

  “Not really. Paul and Irv are good guys, but they’re not the men of my dreams.”

  “I used to say Tom was the man of my dreams. Maybe it’s a bad concept. Who can live up to that?”

  * * *

  The next day, Rochelle says she needs to talk to me. I come to her office, which is a real room, not a cubicle like mine.

  “I’m going to hate myself for telling you this,” she says, looking up from her desk. “But I heard about a pretty cool job that I think might be right up your alley. I’m e-mailing you the info right now.”

  “Is this a nice way of telling me you’re firing me?”

  “That’s not even funny. Please tell me you’re not interested in it—I’ll be thrilled.”

  “Let me read your e-mail first.”

  “I’m already regretting this,” she says as I leave.

  She has more reason to regret it a week later when I give her my notice. She was right: the job is right up my alley, a combined editing and sales job with an international trade journal publishing company. They’re based in Boston, but they have offices all over the world, and I’ll probably get to travel a lot. I like the guy I interview with and the several fairly young people he introduces me to at the office, and I guess they like me because they offer me the position the day after I interview.

  Their journals cover pretty much every category, and when Hopkins hears about the job, she informs me she’s on the editorial board of five of their neurology journals.

  When Dad hears about it, he says morosely, “Publishing is a dead industry. You might as well apprentice yourself to an alchemist.”

  “That’s what’s so great about this company,” I say. “They publish even more online than they do in print.”

  “That’s supposed to make me like them?”

  When Mom hears about the job, she says, “You’ll travel a lot for them? I’m so jealous. I want to travel.”

  “What’s stopping you?” I ask.

  When I tell Rochelle I’m leaving, she utters a heartfelt, “Shit! I was afraid of this.”

  “I’m sorry—but thank you for telling me about it. I’m really psyched to be trying something new.”

  She nods and sighs. “I would be, too, if I were in your shoes.”

  When I tell my boyfriend about my new job, he . . .

  Just kidding. I don’t have one to tell.

  20.

  The week I finish up at my old job (and have a really pathetic going-away party because I’m the one who always organizes those kinds of things, and no one else knows how to do it right, so the cake is too small and there’s nothing to drink), our house gets sold to a family of four. They bring an architect in immediately. From the little I overhear, it sounds like he’s planning to gut the entire house.

  Soon after that, Charlie Evans takes Mom to look at apartments in Boston, and she falls in love with a brand-new building overlooking the ocean.

  “They still have two and three bedrooms available,” she tells me as we look through the brochure together in the kitchen booth.

  “So what are you thinking?”

  “I don’t know.” She puts the brochure aside and settles back in the booth, running her finger back and forth along the edge of the table. “The elephant in the room is Milton, of course. I don’t know what to do with him—although he’s doing so much better these days, thanks to you. How many times this week have you gotten him to leave the house?”

  “Three times since last Sunday. My goal is to get him out once a day every day, even if it’s just for a few minutes.”

  “Great. Anyway, I don’t feel like he needs me as much as he used to. But I also don’t think he’s ready to be completely on his own. So I guess we’ll stay together.” She tilts her head at me. “And then there’s you—”

  “The baby elephant in the room?”

  “You need to find an apartment. The timing’s perfect—we have so much furniture to get rid of here. You can take whatever you want. Plus there’s all the stuff you tagged.”

  Actually, the cleaning crew had tossed the little dusty Post-its we’d put on the furniture—the ones that hadn’t already fallen off. Not that it matters. I remember who got what.

  “I have an idea,” I say abruptly. It’s something I’ve been revolving in my head for a while, trying to decide whether I’ll regret voicing it or not. “What if Milton and I get a place together? Somewhere central, where there are lots of young people around, and he can walk to restaurants and stores? Like you said, he’s doing so well right now. I don’t want him to backslide.”

  “Which he might if he lives alone with me,” she admits with a slightly pained smile.

  “You’ve said yourself that I’m the only one who can actually get him to do anything.”

  “But living with him…that’s a lot to ask of you, Keats.”

  “You’re not asking, I’m offering. It’s not all for his sake, you know. I don’t like the idea of being all alone in an apartment every night.” Actually, I hate the idea. I’d end up sleeping with all the lights on, terrified of every sound. “And I’m not going to take care of him, Mom. We’ll live together, but I’ll expect him to do his own laundry, dishes, cooking—everything.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  “He’s capable of it all, Mom. But since you’ve always done it for him, he hasn’t tried.”

  She gives a rueful shrug. “It’s always been more work to get him to do things than to just do them myself.”

  “Well, he won’t have a choice with me.”

  “Still, there’ll be bumps along the way. And I don’t want you to have to deal with them all by—” She interrupts herself. “Wait! I have the perfect solution! What if we get apartments in the same building? That way we can lead separate lives—I promise not to interfere on a daily basis—but if you need some backup, I’ll be right there.”

  “But you want to live here.” I tap the brochure. “I think Milton and I should be somewhere that’s more of a neighborhood where you can walk around.”

  She flicks the brochure away. “I’ll live wherever you want. Seriously, Keats, this just makes sense. If you need to travel for work, I can check in on Milton, and if I need to travel—well, want to—you can get my mail and keep an eye on my place.”

  Part of me can’t believe what I’m committing to. I’ve been trying to insulate myself from my family for the last decade, and here I am agreeing to live with them.

  The amazing thing is I’m not even terrified by the thought. It actually seems kind of nice.

  “There’s just one thing,” I say. “If we’re going to be living under the same roof…I promise not to pass judgment if I run into you in the lobby with a different guy every night and you have to promise me—”

  “The same thing? It’s only fair.”

  “No, not to pass judgment on me if you see me with the same guy every night.”

  Her look is piercing. “Got someone in mind,
Keats?”

  “Sadly, no. Just hoping for a better future.”

  “Date,” she says. “Meet lots of new guys. Then meet some more.”

  “More easily said than done.”

  “My friend Zinnia said her son just broke up with his girlfriend. Can I tell her to have him call you?”

  I wrinkle my nose. “Is he named after a flower, too?”

  She’s fairly certain he isn’t but can’t remember what his name is.

  * * *

  So I go out on a date with Zinnia’s son, whose name is Conrad, which isn’t a flower but is arguably even worse. He’s studying to be a chiropractor and actually offers to realign my spine.

  He doesn’t ask me a single question about myself, just goes from one monologue to another, holding forth on the subjects (among other things) of bar nuts, men-scarves, and ex-​girlfriends.

  I’m glad I committed only to drinks and not dinner, because even before I’ve finished my glass of wine, I’m ready to leave.

  “I tried,” I tell Mom when I arrive back home before nine.

  “That’s all I ask,” she says. She’s on her way out to a late date with Paul Silvestri. “The point isn’t to find the perfect guy immediately. The point is to get a sense of what’s out there.”

  “What’s out there is depressing me.”

  “Keep trying. Meanwhile, there are boxes to pack.”

  She’s right about that last part. I’m theoretically on vacation right now, on break between the two jobs, but I’m working hard to get us ready for the move.

  I’m also working hard to get Milton out of the house on a daily basis. If we don’t run errands during the day, then I come up with something fun for us to do at night. We go out for dinner or for frozen yogurt or to the library when it’s open late or to the Gap to buy him some new jeans and shirts, which he desperately needs.

  At first, I have to generate all the ideas and cajole and threaten him into going, but after a while, he starts coming up with excursions of his own, like driving out to see the apartment building we’re going to be living in soon, a recently renovated building on the border between Central Square and Harvard Square. Another day he asks me to take him to a comic book store in Brookline, where he gets into a passionate argument about Jonah Hex with the guy who works there, who has fair hair and blue eyes but otherwise resembles Milton with his pale skin and stooped shoulders and general air of having been living underground for an indeterminate period of time.

  “We should go back there again,” Milton says when we leave the store.

  “You should learn to drive, so you can go on your own when I’m at work.”

  “There’s also the T. I checked it out online. Once we move, we’ll be really close to a stop.”

  “I know. That’s part of what I liked about the new place.”

  “Hey,” he says, “I was thinking…I’d like to see Dad’s apartment. Since I haven’t yet.”

  So we make a plan to visit Dad the next day. When Mom hears about it, she tells me she has some boxes for him.

  “I doubt he actually wants any of this stuff,” she admits as she lugs a carton across the kitchen, “but I don’t see why I should have to figure out what to do with everything he left behind.” She puts the box on the counter and stops for a moment to catch her breath. “Of course, he’ll just make Jacob deal with it. But at least Jacob gets paid for his time. I don’t.”

  “True.” I’m in the breakfast booth, spreading peanut butter and jelly on a rice cake. We’ve basically stopped cooking anything fresh for dinner since we’re trying to use up all the food in the pantry before the move.

  “Speaking of Jacob—”

  “Yes?” I say because she pauses.

  “I was just wondering… Whatever happened with all that?”

  “Nothing.” I’m glad she doesn’t know about my visit to his apartment. “Actually, he’s been seeing my friend Cathy. I hear from her occasionally, and it sounds like it’s going pretty well.”

  “Is she good enough for him?”

  “She’s great,” I say firmly.

  “Here’s the thing,” Mom says. “I want to have everyone come home for one last dinner in the old house, including your father. We’ll plan around Hopkins’s schedule, of course—”

  “Of course.”

  “Anyway, I’ve been meaning to ask you: Would it be okay if I included Jacob? Or would it make you uncomfortable?”

  “It’s fine,” I say with a breeziness I don’t feel. “Really. He should be here after all he’s done for us.” I struggle with myself for a moment and my nobler side wins. “And you should tell him he can bring Cathy. I think they’re probably pretty serious by now.”

  “I’d like to meet her.”

  “Seems like this is your chance.”

  “And you’re really okay with this?”

  “Mom,” I say with a forced laugh. “He’s not the guy I lived with for ten years. I’d be freaked out if you invited Tom. That would be awkward. But Jacob’s always welcome. The thing with us was no big deal. I’m sorry I even mentioned it.” There were several truthful phrases in there and maybe a lie or two.

  “Good.” She takes up the box again. “And don’t worry. I’m not inviting Tom.”

  “I never for a second thought you were.”

  She shifts the weight of the box onto her hip. “You know, Keats, I have to admit, I was worried you’d go running back to Tom the second you felt lonely or bored. But you’ve stayed the course. You’ve been open to meeting new men, and you haven’t been desperate or self-pitying. You’ve been a good sister to Milton and a wonderful daughter to me. I couldn’t be prouder of you.”

  I think about that first weekend after my breakup. How I threw myself at Jacob and how, when that didn’t work, I headed back to Tom and only stopped myself at the last second. I’m not nearly as tough or wise as she’s making me out to be. One word from Jacob, a moment’s less reflection in the car, and she would be shaking her head right now, not congratulating me.

  Somehow I stumbled or was shoved into making the right choices. It doesn’t give me a lot of faith in my own judgment.

  * * *

  If I thought Dad would exclaim in surprise and delight at the sight of Milton at the entrance to his apartment, I was in for a disappointment.

  He opens the door and says, “Ah, Milton, too,” so calmly that you’d think his son visited him every day. He pats our arms as we enter and offers us a half a muffin left over from his breakfast that morning. “I’m afraid I don’t have much else. Jacob’s going to go to the supermarket for me in the morning.”

  “How is Jacob?” I ask casually as we all sit down around the coffee table. Dad’s gained some weight in the last month, and his gut is spilling out over his belt again, which can’t be good for his heart health. So much for Mom’s hope that he’d start exercising and getting in shape.

  “He’s fine. He’s hoping to get his dissertation done before December, so he’s been working hard and hasn’t been around quite as much. But we work quite effectively by e-mail. He’s still the best researcher I know.”

  “Have you met his girlfriend?”

  “Jacob has a girlfriend?”

  “He does?” Milton says. “You didn’t tell me that, Keats. What’s she like?”

  “She’s nice. Oh, wait, Dad, you met her! I totally forgot. She was at my birthday dinner. Cathy. With the red hair.”

  “Oh yes. The rawboned girl.”

  Only my father would describe someone that way. “Yeah.”

  “He hasn’t mentioned her.”

  I’m stupidly glad to hear that. At least she hasn’t invaded this part of his life yet. Not that she shouldn’t. Just…I’m glad she hasn’t. Especially since my being glad doesn’t hurt anyone.

  21.

  At first, Hopkins says she’s way too busy to come to Boston at all this summer, but Mom puts her foot down and says she has to. For once in her life, she’s feeling sentimental and needs to see us al
l under the roof of that house one last time. Hopkins grumbles to me in e-mails about how annoying Mom’s being but finally says she can fly in on a Saturday—our last one in the house before we move the following Thursday.

  Because we’ve already packed up her room and thrown out her horrible mattress, Hopkins says she’ll stay at Dad’s and bring him over to the house with her. They arrive while Mom and I are carrying in the Italian food she picked up for dinner and I run upstairs to tell Milton they’re here. He joins us in the kitchen a few minutes later.

  Hopkins eyes his clothing: jeans, shoes, a shirt with buttons. “Look at you,” she says. “You’re practically a member of the human race.”

  “Practically,” he agrees and sits down next to Dad in the breakfast booth.

  I laugh.

  It’s different being with my family now. Easier.

  It’s funny. I always thought Tom protected me from them, and in a way he did, but only by creating a wall between me and everyone else. Now as I stand in the kitchen, pouring wine into plastic cups because all the glasses are packed, I feel comfortable with my family again. I mean, they’re all crazy as lunatics. That won’t ever change. But where they are feels like home again.

  “It’s good to see you down here.” Dad pats Milton on the arm.

  “Uh-huh,” says Milton. “What are we having for dinner?”

  “Pasta,” Mom says. “But we’re waiting to eat until Jacob gets here.”

  “Can I have some wine?” Milton asks. “I’ll be twenty-one in three months.”

  Mom says, “I thought you’d never ask,” and pours some into a small glass. “See what you think.”

  He takes a sip and makes a face and puts it down. “The reason why I wanted this is that I’m sort of celebrating.”

  “What are you celebrating?” I ask.

  “I won something.”

  “What?”

  He doesn’t look at anyone in particular, but he’s smiling. “A game design contest. It’s cool because professionals look at your work and critique it, and one of them said he wanted to talk to me more about mine.” He nudges my arm. “That guy at the comic book store told me about it in the first place.”