Admission (30 page)

Frieda’s fingers, Portia noted, were drumming the tabletop. They tapped lightly, quietly, but in a rhythm.

It took a moment, but eventually she understood that she was supposed to sit down. This was important, apparently. She took
the seat opposite. “How’s it going?” she said.

“I’ve been waiting for you to come. I need to talk to you about Susannah.”

Portia thought right away about Burlington, the appointment. Was it Susannah? Was Susannah sick?

“Is she okay? What is it?”

“Oh, healthwise, fine. I’m sorry if I worried you. She never gets sick at all, it’s very demoralizing to the rest of us,”
Frieda said, making a small attempt at humor. “And her cholesterol is something disgusting, like one sixty. Without medication.
But I’m worried about her because I think this thing with the girl—you know, the baby—it’s just crazy. I mean, don’t you think
it’s crazy?”

Portia, who wanted to be quite sure what they were talking about before answering such a dangerous question, said: “Which
part of it, exactly?”

“Which part?” Frieda said with notable irritation. “Jesus, all of it. I mean, okay, I think it’s fine that we’re putting her
up. Her family obviously couldn’t deal with this. Did she tell you they’re Mormons?”

Portia nodded.

“So I can absolutely understand that she needed to find somewhere to go. I’m totally supportive of that. And she’s a nice
girl. She’s dealing with something really hard. You know, I actually like her. But I was barely on board with her coming here
when your mother told me she might actually end up raising the baby. I mean, Jesus Christ, Portia,
she was thinking about raising the baby
.”

“I know,” said Portia, motioning with her hand that the girl in question was upstairs and quite possibly within earshot. “But… she
thinks Caitlin will change her mind when she sees the baby. She thinks Caitlin will end up keeping it.”

“Well, that may be. God knows it wouldn’t be the first time a mother has fallen in love with her child. But it’s a lot to
stake on a ‘maybe,’ and this isn’t just about her. This is my life, too. And she didn’t
ask
me, Portia. She
let me know
. She
kept me in the loop
.”

“Okay.” She nodded.

“And she’s older than I am! Portia, what the fuck is she thinking?”

This last was said softly, but with a hiss of pure vitriol. Portia was momentarily taken aback.

“I guess what you’re telling me is that you don’t want to do this.”

Frieda sat back in her chair. She gave Portia a look of profound disgust. “I’m not doing it. And this is
my house,
” she said, visibly enraged.

“Well, Frieda, you’ve been here together for… what is it?”

“
My house
. I found it. I bought it. Carla and I were here since 1979, for fuck’s sake. When Susannah came, we did some financial maneuvering
so we each owned a third. And then Carla left, so we did another transaction, and we changed the papers again. But she has
no right to do this, even if it weren’t completely insane. And I’ve raised my kids, Portia. I have no intention of starting
over again.”

“Have you told her?” Portia said, struggling to stay calm.

“
Have I told her?
Every day. Every fucking day. I’m not doing it. I’m not staying for this.”

“Wait,” Portia said, readjusting, “you mean… are you telling me you’re going to kick her out?”

“I can’t,” she said unhappily. “I’ve looked into it, believe me. Legally, it would take years for one of us to oust the other.
And a fortune—which, unlike your mother,” she said nastily, “I do not have. Plus I have no desire to spend however many years
I have left in litigation. I’m sixty-five. There are other things I need to do. I
want
to do.”

“Of course,” said Portia. “You have to do what’s best for you. But…”

“What?”
Frieda said combatively.

“Well, what
are
you going to do?”

“I’m moving to Boston. Carla’s been living in Somerville for the past couple of years. There’s an apartment in the house.
Someone’s in it, but she can get them out with three months’ notice. Most of my drumming circle’s in Boston now.” She pushed
up the sleeves of her blue sweater and laced her fingers together again. Then she sat for a long moment, clearly wrestling
with how indelicate she ought to be. Portia, half-curious, half-afraid, waited for her to make up her mind.

“You know,” said Frieda at last, “I think… well, I’ve felt this for a long time, that Susannah’s just at loose ends.”

Portia, who had thought the same thing for most of her life, merely nodded.

“It’s a quiet place, Vermont. I mean, we’ve got things more or less in hand here, there aren’t so many battles left to fight,
do you understand? It’s not like when we were all in Baltimore or Susannah was in Harlem, and women couldn’t get abortions
or health care or child care. Even in Northampton, she was always running around, setting things up or keeping people on their
toes. That clinic in Holyoke, we never would have got that moving if it wasn’t for her. And when Springfield tried to get
rid of that lesbian teacher, do you remember that? That was Susannah in her element.”

“It was my history teacher’s girlfriend,” Portia said, smiling. “Of course I remember.”

“I never really thought she’d be happy here,” Frieda said, studying her hands. “But here we are, all these years later, and
I have to be honest, it does surprise me. Not that I don’t love her, of course, but for her, I’m surprised. She’s a warrior,
okay? I always saw her on the ramparts. And here… no ramparts. Peace has been declared. Forever.” She laughed shortly. “Even
a couple of years ago, with the gay marriage stuff—‘Take Vermont Back’ and ‘Move Vermont Forward’—all it amounted to was a
war of lawn signs. It’s done.”

“Nirvana of the Green Mountains.”

“Well, we like it,” Frieda sniffed. “It suits us. It suits me. But I’ll leave if she goes ahead.” She shook her head. “I wouldn’t
if I didn’t have to. I love my life here. I’ve
built
my life here,” she said with a new infusion of umbrage. “I’d like you to talk to her while you’re visiting. I think she might
actually listen to you. I think there’s a lot going on here. Mortality. Regrets about you. All the big stuff, you know?”

“Regrets about me?” Portia said, instantly on guard.

“Oh, nothing terrible. I’m sorry, Portia, you have to forgive me. I’m very upset. I think I must be coming at this with a
sledgehammer, and I don’t want to. Not, you know, about you. I mean, you’re great. You’ve become a very strong woman. You’ve
got a great career and a solid relationship with Mark, obviously. You’re a force for good in the world. She knows that. But,
you know, I think she wishes you were closer.”

“Physically closer?” Portia said hopefully, but she knew the answer.

“No. I mean, it was the same when you were just up the road in Hanover. She expressed the same… sadness, really. Look, it’s
not uncommon for mothers to feel this way. I miss the relationship I had with my boys when they were small. Of course, they
call me, and we visit, but you do lose something. Well, you lose your kids, really. You get them in another form, as adult
children, but you lose what you had. It’s part of life, so you have to accept it, and I mean, what’s the alternative? That
your children never grow up? That’s unacceptable. But you know, you find other things. Your grandchildren. Or other interests
unrelated to children, whatever. And I’ve been really lucky because I have my grandkids, and my music.”

Portia nodded dumbly.

“I remember, when she moved up from Northampton, you were still an undergraduate and it seemed sort of obvious that she wanted
to be nearer to you. She used to talk about what it was like when you were little, how close the two of you were, but then
whenever you came to visit, it was obvious to me that you needed more distance. And she just couldn’t make that adjustment.
I kept telling her, ‘Portia can’t come back until she leaves. You have to let her leave.’ But she felt that something had
actually happened between the two of you. There was a thing, like a rift. It was too hard for her, do you know what I’m saying?”

Portia did but couldn’t respond. This was not precisely news, but it was a topic of molten heat. She looked away. They sat
in silence. It was nearly six-thirty, and outside, a light snow had begun.

“Will you talk to her?” Frieda asked. “While you’re here? I’ve never been able to change her mind about a single thing, but
you might have a chance. Besides, it’s your business, Portia. This concerns you, you know.”

“I don’t see that,” Portia said, surprised. “She’s of age, obviously. And generally sound mind.”

“Yes, and good health. But what if that changes? What if she dies? Who gets to raise this child if she dies?”

Portia felt as if the breath were being extracted from her, slowly and carefully, almost clinically. It was suddenly plain
to her that she had failed—utterly failed—to really engage with this notion of her mother’s. Of course she would be responsible
for the child if Caitlin did not fall in love with her baby and take it away with her, and if Susannah did indeed end up fostering
or, God, even adopting this child, and then if something happened to Susannah. Of course she would have to… what? Inherit?
School conferences. Roald Dahl. Legos. Swimming lessons. Driving lessons. College applications. The commandments to love and
nurture and discipline and safeguard. Who else could there be? How long would she have before the torch passed? How much more
of her life could she expect to live, on her own terms, before it happened? And did Susannah truly understand what she was
asking of her? Or… and the new idea came to her in a powerful wave. Was this what it was ultimately about, actually for? Some
disjointed, backhanded, unacknowledged effort to ensure that Portia have a child, some child, any child?

She was so full of rage that she could barely form thoughts, let alone words, but speech also required breath, and breath
was still impossible to come by. She felt heat pound in her cheeks. She simply stared at Frieda, openmouthed and gasping.

“Talk to her,” said Frieda. “I’m not very hopeful, but I haven’t given up. You’re the only person she might listen to.”

Long after I have forgotten what’s in the Magna Carta or the Krebs’s Cycle, I will remember the lesson learned from my former
best friend, Lisa, who betrayed my trust and unilaterally ended our friendship one day when we were in tenth grade.

S
usannah, however, was not interested in listening. She lasted barely five minutes the first time Portia tried to raise the
matter, late that very night as Caitlin slept upstairs and Frieda, whose dinner out did not end until nearly ten, lurked in
her room, undoubtedly straining herself to listen. Then she bolted from the living room, with Portia gaping after her in serious
annoyance and disbelief. There was, she would later think, a definite smack of adolescence to the scene, albeit with this
comical reversal of roles, though she could not remember ever participating in such a classically juvenile exit. Susannah
would not be coaxed back, neither that night nor in the days that followed. She did not care to hear the myriad reasons why
she should, at the very least, think again, think carefully about what she was doing. She did not want to hear Portia’s areas
of concern. She did not wish to consider whether the interests of a newborn baby might not, in fact, be best served by a single
mother in her (almost) seventies or whether caring for an infant might not, indeed, be the best focus for her own life. Portia
approached these conversations with great care, but care did not save her. Although she managed several times to lure her
mother with innocuous queries and tender concerns (about Frieda’s health, the state of fund-raising for the battered women’s
shelter in Rutland, the always damp corner of the basement), the drift of her true interests would be altogether too clear,
altogether too quickly, and Susannah, aggrieved, would rise and depart. So the first days passed in anger and shared but silent
meals.

Portia, who now had two very distressing things to avoid thinking about, was grateful she had brought so much work with her.
She spent her days on the living room couch (her mother having laid claim to the kitchen as her own territory, and the dusty
office upstairs too uncomfortable to spend any more time in than necessary), making her way through folders as Susannah prepared
food for their holiday meal and Caitlin lurked in her room and Frieda made herself absent whenever she could. The atmosphere,
Portia couldn’t help thinking, was like that of a commune in its final days, the sum of its parts deconstructing, inexorably,
into shards of individual lives, individual agendas. She had heard enough of these stories, or read them in memoirs, to imagine
that this was what it must have felt like: not the impacted bitterness of an angry family, but a simple heading for the exits.
Except for herself, of course, because she was more afraid to be home than she was to be here, as dispiriting as here was.