Far-Flung (9 page)

“Wonderful,” says Ellery. “I learned a lot of new things today.”

“I was there,” I say.

“I know,” says Ellery. “Fiona Fitzhugh told me. She said you had your skirt on backward.”

“I didn’t have my skirt on backward. It buttons up the back.”

“Are you sure?” asks Ellery.

Suddenly, I’m not sure. Have I been wearing it wrong all this time? “You can wear it either way,” I rationalize.

“What were you doing in school?” Ellery asks. “Signing up for the bake sale?”

“Is there going to be a bake sale?” I stupidly ask, before I realize he is being sarcastic.

Ellery moans.

“I was seeing Mrs. King. And the nurse. The male nurse.”

“I didn’t know I was diseased,” says Ellery.

“About your sunglasses,” I say.

“Ah,” says Ellery.

“If you don’t stop wearing them, they’ll put you on ICE,” I say, proud of myself for remembering this vernacular. Maybe it makes up for my bake sale faux pas.

“People say it’s actually cooler in ICE. You can put your head down on the desk and sleep if you want.”

“Then it would suit you,” I say. Ellery smiles, but not being able to see his eyes, it’s hard to interpret this smile. I guess it’s a mean little smile, though.

“And you’re doing irreparable damage to your retinas,” I say.

“They can transplant retinas, now, can’t they?” Ellery asks.

I think this is a smug remark, especially with poor Carly sitting here with her egg-white eyes. “If you were Carly, you wouldn’t say things like that,” I say.

Ellery turns away from me, onto his side, so he’s facing the wall. He doesn’t say anything. From this angle he reminds me of Patrick. Patrick always slept on his side, his bony hip tenting the sheet, forming a little alpine mountainscape. Ellery usually sleeps on his back, the blankets rising smoothly over him, like water.

The record finishes. The needle rises, and clicks itself off. The only sound is Carly’s labored breathing. “I’m still here,” I say.

Ellery doesn’t answer.

“Do you want me to turn the record over?”

He still doesn’t answer. And then I notice his back moving: shaking, ever so slightly, the way it shakes when he’s crying, but trying to hold himself still.

I should call Carly and go for a walk, but instead I go into my bedroom and look through Patrick’s things. If I had known he was going to die like that, I would have saved everything: his splayed toothbrushes, his outgrown sneakers, every hair that was ever cut from his head. All I have are report cards, pictures, and some Mother’s Day cards he made me in Sunday school. When he died, my sister, in a well-intentioned but misguided effort to comfort me, said maybe it was good that Ellery and he were twins, so much alike—that having Ellery was a little like still having Patrick. You have to be their mother to know how absurd that is. There was nothing alike about them. Their elbows were different. Their walks. They had their own auras. For instance, the afternoon I found the bathroom door locked, that awful quiet, I knew it would be Patrick I found inside, once the door was knocked down. I was right. Or: If one of them touched me lightly, with one finger, on my back, I could tell, without turning, without looking, whose finger it was.

I start to make (canned) chili for dinner before I remember I sold all my pots. I keep missing things this way. The other night I went to vacuum and the vacuum was gone. I spoon the opened can of chili into Carly’s bowl and call her. She lumbers into the kitchen, smells the food, then sits down, confused, looking at, but not really seeing, me.

“You don’t like it?” I say. “It’s chili.”

Carly just stares. She looks sad. But then dogs always look sad, don’t they? That’s not true. Carly used to look happy. Sometimes she still grins.

Ellery comes into the kitchen. The hair on one side of his head is bouffanted from sleep. “Is Daddy coming home for dinner?” he asks, although he knows his father is on the other side of our planet.

“He should be home any minute,” I say.

“Oh, good,” says Ellery. “It will be nice to see him. Are you cooking us a great dinner?”

“You bet,” I say, grabbing his shoulders and kissing his neck, before he stops playing whatever game it is we’re playing.

Ellery drives us down to Pronto! Pizza!. I’m a little worried about letting him drive with his sunglasses at night, but he appears to see fine, although he’s neurotic about signaling: He even puts his blinker on when he turns into the parking space.

Ellery says he doesn’t care what kind of pizza we get, and to punish him for his apathy, I order pizza with green peppers, which I know he dislikes. He good-naturedly picks the peppers off his slices, making me feel terrible. I had expected he would complain. Children are always magnanimous when you’d rather they weren’t.

“Daddy should call tonight,” I say.

“Oh,” says Ellery.

If I hadn’t ordered the green peppers I would remove them from my slices, too. They taste rubbery and inorganic.

“Will you stay up and talk to him?”

“Maybe,” says Ellery. “I’m kind of tired.”

“You slept all afternoon.”

Ellery shrugs. We eat for a while in silence. Ellery, the fastest eater I’ve ever known, finishes first and watches me. Or at least I think he’s watching (the sunglasses).

“Do you want one of my slices?” I ask. “I can’t eat all of this.”

“I’ve made up my mind,” Ellery says, ignoring my offer.

“About what?”

“The Philippines,” Ellery says.

“What do you mean?” I’m not following him.

“I’m not going.”

I put my slice of pizza down, and seeing it, half-eaten on the paper plate, nauseates me. I wipe my greasy hands on a napkin, and cover the remaining pizza with it. “What are you talking about?”

Ellery doesn’t say anything. How I wish he would take those sunglasses off.

“What are you talking about?” I repeat, and for the first time, I realize I’ve been waiting for this: I know.

“I’m not going to move to the Philippines. It just doesn’t make sense.”

“But I thought you wanted to. We’ve discussed all this. You’re the one who thought it would be so great …”

“I’ve changed my mind,” says Ellery. “I still think you should go. I still think it makes sense for you and Daddy.”

“And it doesn’t make sense for you?”

“No. I have one more year of high school. I’ll finish it here, and then get a job. Or go to college, or something.”

“And where will you live?”

“Well, at the rate you’re selling the house, I can live there. And if you finally sell it, I can live with someone, or something. Or get an apartment.”

“And I’m supposed to move to the Philippines and just leave you here?”

“I’m almost eighteen,” Ellery says. He begins to stack our refuse on the tray.

“Wait,” I say. I take my paper cup of soda and drink from it. Ellery takes the tray and dumps it in the garbage can. He studies the jukebox. I don’t know what to do. I feel as if I might start crying, but something about flexing my cheek muscles to sip through the straw comforts me, helps hold my face together. I drain the soda and keep on sucking, inhaling nothing but cold, sweet air.

We drive for a while in silence. Punky-looking kids stand under the streetlights drinking beer.

“Can I drop you off and take the car?” Ellery asks.

“Where are you going?”

“To Fiona Fitzhugh’s. We have a physiology lab practical tomorrow and Fiona has the cat.”

“What cat?”

“The cat we’re dissecting.”

“You’re dissecting a cat? That’s disgusting. Why can’t you dissect frogs?”

“One does,” Ellery says patiently, “in biology, in ninth grade. In physiology, one dissects cats. Fiona and I are going to quiz each other.”

“It sounds romantic,” I say.

“It’s not a date,” Ellery says.

“You’re allowed to take the cats home?”

“Not really. But Mr. Gey says that as long as he doesn’t see you take it and as long as it’s back in the refrigerator by 8:30 he doesn’t mind. Fiona has this huge pocketbook. It was easy. Want to hear something?”

“Is it about dissecting cats?”

“No,” says Ellery. “People.”

“Sure,” I say, brightly.

“Mr. Gey was telling us, in the lab where he studies—he’s getting his Ph.D. or something—they’re dissecting cadavers, and they keep them in this big walk-in freezer and inside the freezer, on the door is a sign that says “YOU ARE NOT LOCKED IN!” Who do you think it’s for?

“What do you mean?”

“Do you think it’s for the cadavers, you know, if they come back to life, or something, or the people dissecting them, like if they freak out in there?”

“I have no idea,” I say. “Who?”

Ellery chuckles. A strange, forgotten sound. “No one knows. Mr. Gey had us vote. With our heads down and everything.”

“Does Mr. Gey have a problem?” I ask.

“Mr. Gey is cool,” Ellery says.

“Oh,” I say. “Well, who did you vote for?”

For a second Ellery doesn’t answer. Then he turns to look at me, the streetlights reflecting across his sunglasses. “I voted twice,” he says. “I think the sign was there for everyone involved.”

Ellery drops me off, and I walk across tufted, crab-grassy lawn, the only imperfect one on our block. There’s a note stuck in the front door. It says: “Brought my daughter to see your furniture. Sorry to miss you. We’ll come back tomorrow eve. (Wed) If you won’t be here will you kindly call?” It’s signed Doris Something and underneath that is a phone number. On the other side is a P.S.: “You should leave lights on to discourage burglars.”

I’m counting the money in the dog biscuit box when the phone rings. I’ve counted three hundred dollars, and there’s still more. Ellery came home about an hour ago, smelling faintly of formaldehyde, took a shower, and went to bed.

It’s tomorrow morning in the Philippines. When I talk to Leonard in these circumstances—he a day ahead of me—I feel as if I’ve lost him somehow, as if he’s lived longer than I; that in the hours he’s gained he’s learned something I don’t know. It’s the time, not the distance, that separates us. In the Philippines, Leonard goes home for lunch. He has a chauffeur and a housekeeper. I’m going to love it when I get there. That’s what he tells me, when we talk, once a week.

The operator asks for me, and I say I’m me, and then Leonard gets on, and says hello. Sometimes he sounds far away, and sometimes he sounds like he’s calling from next door. Tonight he sounds far away. He says he misses me; that he loves me.

Then he asks about Ellery and Carly—I lie and say they’re both doing fine—and then he asks about the house. I lie again and tell him someone’s about to make an offer.

We talk for a while and then Leonard tells me again how much I will love the house; he bangs the telephone on the floor so I can hear the green slate tiles in the kitchen, and then he starts to hang up.

“Leonard?” I say.

“What?” he says.

“Wait,” I say. I’m not sure how I’m going to say what I know I want to say next. We both listen to the static for a moment.

“I don’t think I’m going to come,” I finally say, listening to my voice unravel across all those miles of cold, dark cable.

“What?” Leonard says.

“Maybe it would better if Ellery and I stayed here.”

“What are you talking about?” Leonard asks. “What’s happened?”

“Nothing. Nothing’s happened. But Ellery doesn’t want to move. I think that’s good, don’t you? I mean, I think he’s a little happier here, now. He went on a date tonight.”

“Really?” Leonard says. “That’s wonderful, great, but that doesn’t mean you can’t come to the Philippines, Arlene. That’s crazy.”

“I know,” I say. “But … maybe you can get transferred back, or something …”

“Arlene, I’ve taken this job. I’ve got to stay here at least a year, now. At least. I owe them that. And this house …”

“I know,” I say. “I know that. But it will be O.K. A year … I mean, it will only be for a year. That’s not too long.”

“What are you saying? I don’t believe this,” Leonard says. “What’s happening, Arlene? What about us? I miss you.”

“Stop calling me Arlene,” I say. Whenever Leonard talks to me on the phone, he keeps inserting my name into the conversation, as if, since he can’t see me, he might forget who he’s talking to.

“What?” he asks.

“Nothing. I miss you, too,” I say. “I do. But …”

“But what?”

“I don’t think I can move again,” I say.

“But Arlene—honey—you’re the one who wanted to get the hell away … this was your idea.”

This is true, but it’s not the point. I think for a moment, and then, carefully, say, “No. Not without Ellery.”

Leonard doesn’t say anything. I listen to our chorus of static.

“Well, this is a real shock,” he finally says. “I’m going to have to think about this. Have you thought about this?”

“Yes,” I say. “I mean, not really. Ellery just told me.”

“Well, why don’t we both think about this then? Maybe there’s another way to work this. I’ll call again tomorrow.”

“That sounds good,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Leonard says. He pauses. “Is Ellery there? Can I talk to him?”

“He’s sleeping,” I say. “Do you want me to wake him?”

“Oh, no,” says Leonard. “Don’t wake him up. Tell him I said …”

“What?”

“Tell him I said hi,” Leonard says. “Tell him I love him.”

After I hang up the phone I let Carly out and stand in the dark backyard with her, watching her squat. I walk down the slope to the clothesline and take down the sheets that have been hanging for a couple of days. They still smell clean, and they feel cool, slightly damp. I think about putting them on my bed: It would be a little like sleeping outdoors. Carly, disoriented, starts to whimper. Her eyesight is especially bad at night. I call her. She walks over to me and inserts her muzzle between my legs: Safe.

We go through the house and I turn all the lights off, burglars or not. I make my bed with the clean, cool sheets, but instead of attempting to sleep, I go into Ellery’s room. He doesn’t wear his sunglasses in bed. I was very relieved, the first night I came in here, to discover that. It makes it not so bad, somehow. That may sound sick, but you have to measure these things. It’s how you bear it. Ellery is lying on his back, his arms akimbo, with one loosely curled fist resting in each eye socket, as if even in sleep there is some bright light he cannot bear.