Conundrum (5 page)

But if I didn’t try, who would? What did I have to lose?

I’d already lost so much. And, it was clear at that moment, as my stomach cramps turned into serious pains, as blood dripped from my body like spirit leaking from my soul, that I was about to lose this baby as well. My third miscarriage in three years.

“
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.
”

I looked at my ring finger as I sat on the toilet. It felt naked and stripped bare without the gold band, the way my life felt when I thought about Jeremy sleeping on some neighbor’s couch. Jeremy had forgotten to give
the ring
back. Or maybe not.

Chapter 3

When I was five and Neal only two, my mother,
busy
unpacking boxes, told me to
canvass the neighborhood and
find a friend for my little brother. What was she thinking?
Granted, my father had just died
,
and my mother was distraught, relocating from Los Angeles to a new town, burdened with three small children. And I was a hyper bundle of energy, always needy, always underfoot.

We had moved to Mill Valley
only days earlier
, halfway up a steep road that ended at the base of Mount Tamalpais
—
or Mount Tam, as the locals called it.
Just north of San Francisco Bay, the sleepy community of Mill Valley
featured
a tiny downtown neighborhood of
dark wood-sided
shops surrounded by towering redwood trees
and punctuated by
wisps
of fog that drifted like ghosts through the streets
.
Aside from the main flat thoroughfare, most of the residential areas spread up into the hills by way of single
-
lane potholed roads
,
replete with blind curves.
Cars whipped around the sharp
bends
,
their drivers always in a hurry,
and the houses all sat at the base of rutted narrow driveways, buried in
trees and giant shrubs that proliferated in the abundant rainfall
.

Not that I noticed. I was on a mission to find Neal a playmate.

D
utifully, I made myself scarce, and taking Neal’s chubby hand in mine, went door-to-door, knocking until some stunned neighbor opened up and listened to my cheerful inquiry. Did they have a
ny little kids that
Neal
could
play with?

Fortunately,
I hadn’t had to dodge traffic for long. For
less than a block away, Anne’s mother, Sarah
—
no doubt horrified by the thought of two small unaccompanied children gallivanting around the neighborhood
—
ushered us into her plushly carpeted
living room. I don’t remember the scolding she gave to my mother over the phone, but
when I brought it up
that Wednesday
,
Anne seemed to remember every word.

“Oh yeah,”
she
said,
munching
on an apple as
she
got
her shoes
out of her car. “I remember Mom clenching her fists while asking you to recite your new phone number.
S
he did a great job keeping her cool. I think she was ready to hand you and Neal over to child protective services right then and there. You looked like two little waifs, to her. But I was glad you showed up. It was meant to be.”

Anne and I
had a standing date each
Wednesday at noon
, there in that parking lot
on the south end of Mill Valley
. Although jogging was still the big craze, Anne would not deign to humiliate herself by wearing coordinated jogging outfits and expensive Adidas sneakers. A few inches shorter than me and at least fifty pounds heavier, Anne’s
exercise
regiment excluded anything that worked up
too much of
a sweat. Unless it involved chasing after deadbeat dads or pedophiles. Then watch Anne run.

Anne slipped out of her heels and into her walking shoes. The
paved
road we
pounded
each week to the beach was
part of the Golden Gate Recreation
A
rea—
and cars filled
every space in
the lot.
The trail was a
one
-
mile walk each way. Physically, I felt much better
that day
. The nausea had vanished along with my budding new life. Hormones were returning to normal
not even a week later
, even if the rest of my life wasn’t.
Every muscle in my body felt stiff,
as if
I had been beat up in my sleep.
Emotionally
, I was in denial—about everything.

The air was
cool and
moist, with a hint of salt spray. It tingled my face as I waited next to the car.
The coastal range wrapped around us
,
and the blue sky shimmered.
Rolls
of clouds
oozed
over the tops of hills and spilled in slow motion to pool in the fields hugging the hills. The fog that frequented Marin seemed to have personality, reminding me of T. S. Eliot’s fog that rubbed its back and muzzle on windowpanes and curled up around houses and fell asleep.
I
drew in a long breath. I
would make myself enjoy the beautiful
Marin County summer
day
.

Anne set the pace, determined and focused—as she was in all aspects of her life.
She looked
straight ahead at
her
goal and never waver
ed
. I valued her clear head, her analytical mind. She often supplied the voice of reason my own brain so sadly lacked.
I had come to depend on her over this lifetime of friendship to be honest and forthcoming with me. Although today, that was the last thing I wanted.

Anne’s
birthday was exactly a month before mine, but she always seemed years older and wiser. I didn’t find a playmate for Neal that day
her mother invited us in
, but I
’d
made a fast friend. And Raff ended up best friends with Anne’
s brother, Kyle—another serious intellectual. Nerds, the both of them—before nerds were ever cool or respected.
While Anne and I w
h
iled away hours playing jacks
i
n the smooth
linoleum
hallway, Raff and Kyle were writing some satire
of
Dante’s
Inferno
or coming up with
trick
questions for their next car rally. The door to Kyle’s room stayed shut
,
and we girls we
re
threatened on penalty of hamstringing not to enter—ever. We did spen
d
some giggling hours peeking through the window slats at their antics,
hidden in the bushes outside,
but after a while
we
invariably
grew bored.

Anne panted as she walked.
Joggers passed us on both sides, going to and from the beach.
Bicyclists pedaled, weaving through the current of bodies.
Anne
breathed hard, pushing herself, but I knew she wouldn’t slow down. I had a hard time keeping up with her.

“So, what’s the latest with Rafferty?” Her voice oozed compassion. She had watched the gradual descent of my brother’s sanity
into madness
in stages at her very own house. “He still in the hospital?”

“I think he plans to stay there until they get his meds right. His
psychiatrist
wants him to go home. Kendra wants him home. No doubt my mother has put in her two cents.”

“
Ha, n
o wonder he wants to stay put. A lot safer in there—on all
fronts
.”
She slowed to a less frantic walk.
“And Jeremy?” She turned to meet my eyes, knowing my tendency to hedge.

“He’s moved out. Temporarily, he says. To clear his head.”

“Hmm.”

I knew that look of hers. The professional assess
ment
of a social worker. Weighing what to say, what advice to give, knowing most of it would be ignored.
But gearing up to say it, anyway.

“Sassy had triplets this week
—
”

“Lisa, you know I don’t
give a
damn
about the
goats or
ducks
or sheep.” She halted in her tracks. Joggers whizzed by; their slipstreams whipped
my
ponytail
,
whereas
Anne’s frizzy thick hair
lay
pinned to her head
,
and her forehead was
dotted with beads of perspiration.
Flashes of colorful fabric caught my attention, but Anne brought
my attention
back around.

“
He’ll
come home
, Lis. He loves you. It’s your mother he can’t stand.”

“I know that. But I can’t take sides—”

Anne grabbed my arm and pulled me
off the path and out of traffic. “
Yes, you have to. He’s your husband—”

“And she’s my mother. She came first.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Anne said with some disgust. “Your mother is trying to destroy your marriage. Look what she did to Raff and Kendra. They’ll be divorced after this whole thing shakes down.”

“Anne!
How can you say that?”

She grunted and scowled in my face.
T
he same expression she’d
display
when I used to beat her a
t
gin rummy.
“
Because
it’s true. Lis, you know it’s true.”

I scowled back.
“Is not.”

Anne clamped her mouth shut and
resume
d walking the path. We slipped into the flow
,
just like merging on the freeway.
I could hear the ocean
soughing
mingling with
the slapping of shoes on asphalt.

I thought about Sarah, Anne’s diminutive and always
-
smiling mother, dressed in her Hawaiian muumuus and never far from the kitchen, where glorious aromas drifted into all the rooms of the house, an ambiance quite absent from my childhood home, which had housed a lone parent who could cook a passable meatloaf and little more. My memories of Anne’s house all centered on those tantalizing scents, which included the weird cooking experiments I’d be invited to participate in. We’d bake Aunt Rose’s crescent almond cookies, and some obscenely sweet concoction we called “Anne’s Decadence”—nine layers of chocolate and butterscotch chips, flaked coconut, condensed milk, pecans, raisins, and a few more ingredients I couldn’t recall. No wonder we’d stay up late after midnight watching old black-and-white movies on her little TV set, unable to fall asleep. Hundreds of hours I spent on their living room floor, playing endless card games with Anne, lounging by their big stone fireplace, reading books together, playacting scenes from Jane Austen. Sarah, to me, was the consummate doting mother. Every time I stayed overnight, they always had roasted chicken and mashed potatoes for dinner. Big warm oatmeal cookies for dessert.

Sarah had never failed to give me bear hugs, something I craved and was denied by my mother. I tried hard, as I walked fast to keep up with Anne’s short but speedy legs, to recall any instance when my mother had hugged or kissed me when I was a child. All I could dredge up was an occasional touch of my hair, a slap on my face, a belt smacking the seat of my pants.

“Why would my mother want to destroy my marriage
?
She loves Jeremy.”

Anne sighed and picked up her pace. I
went
back to half
jogging to keep up. We were nearly over the final rise with the stretch of sand in view when she answered softly, “
Lisa, just don’t see it. You have blinders on. You want to believe your mother is some kind of saint, but she’s far from it. You
’re
too close to the trees.”

“So, explain it to me.” I trie
d
to keep the anger out of my voice, but all those arguments with Jeremy had
frazzled
my finesse.
Her argument was dismantling me.