Fourth Comings (22 page)

fifty-eight

W
ithout getting too gross and Oedipal, joining my dad at breakfast was kind of like seeing last night’s one-night stand in the harsh, morning-after light. His candor had made him emotionally vulnerable, and so I was fully expecting him to return to the defensive subterfuge that has pretty much defined our relationship thus far.

“Good morning,” he said casually as he came down the stairs.

“There is no news in this newspaper,” I said, leaning into my elbows as I scanned the front-page headlines of the
Ocean County Observer.
(
RARE TURTLE “NUKED” AT POWER PLANT; OCEAN-MONMOUTH GIRL SCOUTS MERGE; LOCAL YOUTHS HEAD BACK TO SCHOOL IN STYLE.
) “No wonder so many people are moving to Pineville. It’s downright Utopian….”

“If you want to get depressed over breakfast, then go back to
New York Times
territory,” my dad sniped.

“I don’t want to get depressed, I just want—” I had looked up to see that my dad was dressed in his cycling gear.
“Dad!”

“What?”

“What?!”

“I’m fine,” he said, waving his hand as if to shoo away a mosquito. “Gotta get back on the bike. Can’t let one setback stop me.”

“Okay,” I said. “But don’t you think you should take it easy today?”

“I
am
taking it easy,” he replied. “It’s almost nine
A.M.
Normally I’ve done twenty miles by now.”

“It’s just…,” I began.

He came over and poked his finger in the wrinkle that always worries itself between my eyes. (Again, at the risk of getting too Freudian, I remember you doing the same thing, warning me about the permanent mark I was creating through all my “face-making.”)

“I’m touched by your concern,” he said. “And it meant a lot to me that you came out here to see your old man in the hospital. But I’m fine. And I promised to meet the guys from the club….”

“Okay,” I said, wondering if I should so much as acknowledge how much last night meant to me. I didn’t have to wonder for long.

“I enjoyed our conversation last night, though I’m afraid I’m not much of a storyteller.” He thrusted his chin as he clicked the strap on his helmet. “That talent must have skipped a generation.”

“You weren’t too boring,” I said, keeping it light. “I kept asking questions.”

A smile softened his hard-boiled face. “Ah, Jessie,” he said, taking my face in his wrist-guarded hands. “You’ve always had more questions than I’ve had answers.”

And before I got a chance to get all sentimental, he handed me an unopened jar of Skippy peanut butter. I mention the brand only because buying nongeneric is a luxury to me.

“I give you permission to take this home with you,” he said. “And you can have the whole-wheat pasta, and the Cap’n Crunch that I bought for you, anyway. And I think there’s a small box of laundry detergent….”

“Uh, okay….”

“This way you aren’t
stealing
from us.”

I was so mortified that I couldn’t even muster a denial. I did indeed ransack their pantry the last time I visited. But I only took items that they had in excess, that I thought they wouldn’t miss.

“It’s okay,” my dad said, handing me a few rolls of toilet paper. (Charmin! My ass will be so happy!) “Just ask next time. Don’t ever feel like you can’t ask us for help.”

He was almost at the door when I had a flash of insight, of inspiration.

“Hey, Dad!”

“Yeah?”

“Darling’s Designs for Leaving needs a website,” I said, slightly overzealous. “You should totally design it for Mom.”

“You think?” he asked, stroking his helmet in consideration.

“She’d appreciate your help.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” he said. “Thanks, Notso Darling.”

And with those parting words and a smile, he was off on another two-wheeled adventure.

Not a minute later, my mom came downstairs, fully coiffed, made up, and dressed in an embroidered linen tunic over caramel-colored pants. I must admit, she looked pretty great. Polyurethaned, but pretty great.

“Dad just left,” I said.
“On his bike.”
I waited for her to express concern, verbally if not facially.

“Typical,” she muttered. “So what time are you going back today?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I think the buses leave every hour….”

“Are you ready to go right now?” she asked. “I can take you right now. Otherwise, unless your father breaks tradition and comes home early, you’ll have to wait until this afternoon.”

My mom was tapping her keys against the countertop. She had somewhere more important to be. I felt like an unwelcome distraction.

“Give me five minutes to get dressed and brush my teeth,” I said, already headed to the bathroom.

“Okay,” she said, grabbing her bag as she headed to the garage.

It didn’t occur to me until my mouth was rabid with toothpaste that I hadn’t even thought to mention her shotgun wedding. More significant, my mom hadn’t grilled me in such a manner that would have revealed the content of last night’s conversation. Nor was there an intense investigation to uncover your proposal, Bethany’s request for legal guardianship, my bombed job interview, the awkwardness with Hope, Bridget and Percy’s wedding deferment, Manda and Shea’s breakup, Scotty and Sara’s baby, even the crack-of-dawn pot-smoking girls next door. Back in the day, she would have interrogated me on these topics without even extending me the courtesy of a “Good morning!” But my mother had shown not one iota of interest in my life, nor in the lives of those who overlap it. For years, I had made fun of my mother for living for such gossip, living through me. But her indifference made clear to me this morning what must have dawned on Dad months ago: She was living just fine without me.

Though my father had done the talking last night, I had learned so much more about my mother. She had missed out on the sixties sexual revolution because she was faithful to my father. She missed out on all the bra-burning fun in the 1970s because she got pregnant and married…
in that order.
She missed the working-girl eighties because her baby boy—of whom she has
never
spoken—succumbed to SIDS. Then she had me and devoted herself to the helicopter-parenting style of the nineties. Only now, in the 2000s, as a hot-flashing fiftysomething, is she living an uncompromised life. I’d be unabashedly supportive of her late-midlife liberation if it weren’t for its most unfortunate consequence:

My father, left behind. On his bike. Blindsided, bewildered, bereft.

She honked impatiently in the driveway. I sprinted down the stairs, grabbing my overnight bag with one hand and the shopping bag filled with supplies in the other. I made it to the SUV’s door just before she took off without me.

“Jeez, Mom,” I said, still buckling my seat belt as she backed out.

“There’s a lot of traffic at this hour,” she said. “You wouldn’t believe how congested Route 9 can get.”

Usually I couldn’t think of anything to say to my mother. Today I had too much to say, but no right place to begin.

“Well, I’m in no rush,” I replied. “I don’t have anywhere to be until tonight.” I waited for her to ask me what I was doing tonight, but she was too busy honking her horn at the Prius that was going five miles below the speed limit. “I’m going to this, uh, karaoke party benefit thing with my friend Dexy from Columbia.”

“Oh, to be twenty-two years old and so unfettered,” she breathily singsonged. “All that freedom….”

Normally I would have spat back a snotty response about how I’m plenty fettered, but in light of my last night’s revelation about how completely fettered she was at my age, I held my tongue. “But when you have freedom you want security,” I said. “It’s the dichotomy of desire.”

“The what?” My mom’s face would have wrinkled if it were capable. “Jessie, you think too much.”

How many times have I heard that this week?

“You know, Mom, there are some people who look forward to their retirement years so they can be so unfettered,” I argued. “Being twenty-two isn’t all that great. You’re romanticizing my age because…”
Because when you were twenty-two, you were already a wife and mother.
I stopped myself.

“You can say it.”

“Say what?” I asked innocently.

“I know your father told you that I was pregnant with Bethany when we got married.”

If I had been driving, the car would have screeched to a dramatic halt. But my mother was behind the wheel, so we continued to gas-break our way down Route 9.

“Dad
told
you? When? After he went to bed?”

“Contrary to what you believe, Jessie, your father and I do talk to each other.” The SUV stopped at a red light and she turned to look at me. “I think you need to explain why you never mentioned Marcus’s proposal.”

I shrunk in my seat. “Dad told you that, too?”

“Obviously.”

“I didn’t tell you,” I said, “because I wasn’t sure what to do about it.”

I still don’t.

“How do you feel about Marcus?” my mom asked.

“I love him,” I replied. “How do
you
feel about Marcus?”

My mom tapped the steering wheel with her palm. “I think he is shaping up to be a fine man.”

“And?”

“It really seems like he’s getting his act together. It says a lot about a man’s character to overcome addictions. And it showed real initiative for him to apply to Princeton.”

I pressed my hands to my mouth in amazement. “Oh my God.”

“What?”

“Dad said the exact same thing.”

“Really?”

“Like the
exact same words.”

“Hmm,” she said, nonplussed. “I also think that if I try to tell you what to do, you’ll do the opposite. And if I try reverse psychology, you’ll outsmart me. Do you, by chance, remember that punk kid Bethany dated in high school?”

I couldn’t believe it. The conversation was following the same pattern as the one I’d had with my dad two weeks ago. My parents certainly had their differences, but after thirty-four years together, they worked as opposite sides of the same brain.

“When does Marcus get back from his Orientation program?”

“The day after tomorrow.”

My mom considered this but said nothing more on the subject.

“Do you ever think about leaving Dad?” I blurted.

My mom was unruffled by this outburst. “You can’t be together as long as we have and
not
think about it, Jessie.”

“But are you
more
than thinking about it?” I asked. “Because—”

“Because Bethany has seen the Signs?” She said the last two words derisively.

“She
told
you about that?”

“Of course she did,” my mother said. “She tells me everything. She even told me that she asked you to be Marin’s legal guardian.”

And here I was, all this time thinking that the Blonde Bond had been broken.

“Have you given
her
an answer at least?” she asked.

“Not yet.” I shook my head. “I don’t want to make commitments I can’t keep.”

Mom pursed her lips and hummed, as if her unspoken words were darting around the inside of her mouth.

“What?” I asked.

“That’s the problem with your generation. No commitment. Taking responsibility for Marin would mean the end of your carefree lifestyle.”

I took offense. “My life is not carefree….”

“Yes it is.
Carefree.
Free of care. Young people today want to keep their options open just in case a better opportunity comes along.”

“That’s not true….”

“You’ve got a temporary job, a temporary apartment,” my mom said. “How can you care about
anything
when you treat
everything
like it’s only temporary?”

I opened my mouth to protest the obvious: Everything
is
only temporary. She lectured on.

“None of you seem to be in any hurry to grow up….”

My mom’s comment shed light on one of the most peculiar paradoxes of living here. New York City is the mythical realm of possibilities, where young people venture to
do big things
and
make their mark on the world.
And yet, in many ways, this city infantilizes the very people who are looking to do such big and important and mark-on-the-world things. Why grow up when you can outsource just about any “adult” responsibility you can think of? Why drive when you can take the subway? Why cook when you can get cheap takeout? Why learn how to fix the clogged toilet when it’s the landlord’s job? Why grocery shop when there’s Fresh Direct? Why trust your own intuition when you find love while waiting in line for the restroom when you can pay iLoveULab to scan your brain and analyze your instincts for you…?

“And I don’t want you to think I’m picking on you,” Mom said. “From what I hear, it sounds like your friends are even worse.”

I leaned back into the seat and closed my eyes to the maligning of an entire generation.

“Your roommate can’t decide if she’s gay or straight. And just look at Sara. She lives with Scotty, the father of her child, but has no plans to marry….”

“Actually, she does have p—” I began, before stopping myself. I refused to use Sara’s psychotic wedding stratagem as proof that our generation could stay focused on a goal, could, for example, go ahead and organize a lavish wedding without letting anything stand in our way, not even, say, the lack of a willing, would-be groom, because that’s what it means to
make a decision and stick to it, goddammit!

“And what about Bridget and Percy?” she asked. “They’ve been engaged for a year. What are they waiting for?”

“Actually,” I began again, “Bridget and Percy are waiting until marriage is legal for gays….”

My mom snorted. “Oh, they’re just spinning their wheels with that kind of talk….”

I refused to admit that I had been thinking along those same lines.

“I get it, Mom,” I groaned. “You were married at twenty-two, so you think everyone should be married by twenty-two.”

“You think I was ready to be a wife and mother at twenty-two? I hadn’t gone to college, hadn’t traveled anywhere outside New Jersey, hadn’t dated anyone, hadn’t slept with anyone besides your father!”