God and Jetfire (39 page)

*   *   *

That spring, my grandfather died in his recliner, beside my grandmother in hers. I got the news at work and left immediately. I cried all afternoon, and then Caleb and I planted tomato seeds out beside the garbage cans in front of our apartment. I decided I would save the seeds from those tomatoes and replant them every year, and every spring I would think of my grandfather.

At the funeral, Grandma rolled to the front of the tiny church and insisted we stop crying. She couldn't find it in herself to want anything for Grandpa that he didn't want himself. Once he could no longer build things or plant things or fix things, it was no longer a life. She tried to make us laugh by reminding us about the time she fell in the driveway and couldn't get up. Grandpa ran to the barn to get the backhoe and carefully bounded toward her—careful because the brakes were shot, the edge of the steel bucket was sharp, the ground was bumpy, and he didn't have such a good view of everything from his seat. But he rolled to a stop just behind her, lowered the bucket, scooped her up, and returned her to her feet like a gentleman.

After the funeral I sat in the sunroom with her. His chair had been moved out and there was a giant emptiness there. I talked about my love life, asking her advice as a way of inviting her to talk about Grandpa if she wanted to. Caleb and I had been fighting about the marriage-and-kids question, and because I worked all the time and Caleb wanted me to relax. Grandma said that I was like my grandpa, who thought having fun was a waste of time. “But I don't think Walter and I fought much,” she said. “The way I remember it was: He bossed if he was right, and I bossed if I was. And if he wanted to boss the times when I was right, he just yelled louder.” She seemed hollow and drained. “Just remember, all the time you spend fighting takes time away from doing things you'd really rather be doing.”

Things like playing Wiffle ball in the park, Caleb pitching and Reginauld covering outfield. Or walking down to the lake, where Reg's full-bodied abandon as he leapt into the water gave me a vicarious feeling of physical strength and freedom that made me sure I would run again. These were the things I should think about.

*   *   *

I used all eight inches of our countertop to chop onions to make vegetarian chili according to Paula's recipe, in preparation for my son's visit that fall. All five of them stayed with me while Caleb was overseas visiting his mother. We took the Staten Island Ferry tour of the Statue of Liberty and wandered through Central Park in the rain. And before I knew it, they were gone, just a pile of towels and sheets and sofa cushions in their place.

And within a week, Jevn came to New York on his own business. He was moderating a panel discussion related to his recent book. I hadn't seen him in four years, but from the back of the room in Midtown he looked the same, except for the bright lights and his suit jacket, and except for the way he adjusted the microphone, as if adjusting microphones was now something he did all the time. He was half-hidden by the lectern, and I was a safe distance away, concealed in shadow in the back. It seemed right, to be standing in the audience. I was always, in a way, merely a fan. Jevn spoke in the understated way he always had, about the same things he used to, but now it was his professional persona. I studied his face and realized that now Jonathan's was more familiar to me, and I could see how different they actually were. Jevn was sharp and stern, but Jonathan was soft and smiley.

I couldn't listen. I was too busy watching him stand, and move his jaw, and shift his weight, and pause with care, and hold his thumb and index finger half an inch apart. I took breaks in the lobby, browsing the architecture books for sale as the caterers set wineglasses in neat rows.

When the lecture ended, people stood and got their coats and made their way to the wine and cheese and unwashed grapes, and Jevn and I made eye contact over their heads, across the room. He came over.

“Amyseek,” he said in the way he always had, as if my name was a single word with no accented syllables.

“Hi! How are you?—great job!” I said, heart thumping but telling myself to breathe.

“Thanks!” His same open-mouthed smile.

“Shouldn't you be schmoozing?” I asked. I felt self-conscious about monopolizing his time.

“Yeah,” he said, and continued to look at me, waiting for the next thing I might say.

*   *   *

I wondered if he had forgiven me, or if I still owed him, somehow. I wondered if I would still be under his spell. He left me for a few minutes to schmooze, and then he asked if I'd like to go get a drink. Everything felt strange: his height, trying to keep up with him as I walked beside him on the sidewalk, entering through the door, sitting so close, side by side, together at the bar, angling myself to talk to him. All things that had once been old habits. Jevn ordered a beer, as he always used to, and I ordered a whiskey, which I'd only started to do after Jonathan was born.

“May I have a Jameson, neat, please?” I said, because Caleb had kicked me at a hundred countertops in coffee shops and bars before I got used to saying,
May I
. People behind bars are people, he said, and proper English and the opportunity to say no are the least you can offer. He would also stick his finger in my mouth if I yawned without covering it; I imagined these were his mother's techniques.

Over the course of several hours Jevn and I talked about our professional lives and our romantic lives. I insisted on addressing his love life because I didn't want to get any more information inadvertently from Jonathan. I asked him about the girl Jonathan had seen him almost
kiss
! When he confirmed she existed and they were serious, I could see her immediately. Someone mature and sophisticated and confident and sensitive and beautiful and careful with words. Dark, voluminous hair. Tall. A hearty, full-throated laugh. Wide-legged slacks. Big sunglasses. A watch and a proper purse. Someone who buys flowers at the farmers' market and fish at the fishmonger. And puts them all bountifully in the basket of the bike she rides glamorously in heels.

And I was surprised by how it sank me. Not just imagining her; I was sad that we could talk casually, as if the past had no presence and our son was just an accident. I wanted us to brush away the weightless things—just years, just geography and experiences, just other boyfriends and girlfriends. Some part of me still felt a claim on him, because we were once together and we might have stayed together, or because we were together, and always would be, in Jonathan.

*   *   *

Jevn still spoke of Jonathan with the deepest reserve and care. It seemed to be difficult for him, but I could not make out precisely why. He said Jonathan was one of the most intense people he knew and that they were already “good friends.” He said that finding Paula and Erik remained one of his proudest achievements.

I agreed, but then I mentioned a frustration I'd had when they visited, that Paula wanted to find a McDonald's or Starbucks to duck into, out of the rain, but Jonathan wanted to find a hot dog stand, and I wanted to help him have a real New York City experience. Fortunately, I didn't know where any McDonald's or Starbucks were; the closest place I knew of was the caf
é
by the model boat pond in Central Park, so we went there.

Telling the story to Jevn, I just wanted a moment with the only person who lost the same son I did to take stock of the particular things we lost. But Jevn wouldn't indulge me. He said he imagined my relationship with Paula wasn't simple, but that he didn't make any assumptions about anyone. He said he was just grateful to know Jonathan. And grateful for Paula and Erik.

Looking at him, I remembered a river. The Ohio River, as it flooded the valley the year I met him. Highway ramps looked like boat ramps; overpasses interlaced underwater. Collapsed buildings were saggy skins, mouths ripped open, gaping with driftwood. I'd ridden my bike beside it, still heaving heavily like the fat barrel of a horse, its obedience generous. The river, that stream of gut certainty Jevn had always told me to tap into—but rivers could overflow their banks and destroy the city, and still my son was the only river I'd ever had.

For a second I felt my old anger. People were always impressed with Paula and Erik's generosity, and it was as if I should just pull a blanket of gratitude over all the loss. But recognizing their generosity undermined my own. I was still, every moment, every day, giving them my son. Surely Jevn could see that; surely he felt it, himself! It trivialized the care we took to find them and create this arrangement, which we'd all done together, and the pain and guilt and exhaustion I experienced all the time—didn't Jevn feel those things, too? Letting us see our child was part of the deal; it was the least they could do, and it didn't compare to what we'd sacrificed. Grateful as I was, I wouldn't tell myself it solved anything.

But I didn't say any of that. I just agreed that we were very lucky. Jevn was a blank, blunt wall that wouldn't be penetrated. His friendliness and warmth, the particular give I could see he had for me, did not lead to an opening. I hugged him goodbye, but I couldn't find his edges. He was a smooth, warm white wall, going to infinity in all directions, and my eyes still could not make out whether he was near or far.

 

THIRTY-ONE

“Hi.” My son's name appeared in the lower right-hand corner of my screen at work, overlapping my drawing. My heart raced, surprised at his sudden appearance, completely unencumbered by planning, or packing, or traveling to see him.

“Hi!” I responded. I smiled and then glanced around the room and then waited anxiously.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Working,” I told him. “I work every day, from morning to night!” When I'd arrived in New York, there were twenty-five staff; now we were down to five. Those of us who had survived the economic collapse were just trying to keep our jobs, despite increased workloads, pay cuts, and mandatory unpaid days off.

“Man! You have a lot of work.”

I told Jonathan he should be outside instead of on the computer, and he told me I should be, too. He said he had to go.

I closed my chat and returned to work. I was trying to finish a layout for a park in London that was already under construction; landforms were being built at the speed we could design them. The project was enormous, fast-tracked, and understaffed, but I was accustomed to working under pressure. I knew how to time production for color calibration, for file size handling, for last-minute concept overhauls. I had work-arounds for every issue, and I'd seen enough sunrises over Tribeca to be confident I could produce efficiently around the clock.

I tore off a piece of trace to go over the contours again and paused for a moment to think. I gazed down at my tabletop; I adjusted my lamp and paused in its warmth. And then I said it to myself:
I love him
. I looked all around me, trying to orient myself. The windows still facing south, the last moments of sunset passing between the buildings, car horns sounding the early end of Friday. What I felt was beautifully automatic; it leapt ahead of me, holding and claiming him. I
love
him, I said to myself again and smiled, surprised that my feeling was persisting, that I hadn't found a way to shut it down.

*   *   *

Those words felt new; I hadn't said them to Jonathan since before his adoption, and I didn't think them to myself when I pictured him. I might tell friends I loved him as a shorthand for the many feelings I felt for him that were too complicated to name, but I always knew it wasn't love, exactly. Love was something different from desire, or pain, or guilt, things that rose easily to the surface when I thought of my son. Love was light and free; it was among my many feelings, but it was held down by heavier things. Love felt good, and I wouldn't normally allow myself that indulgence.

I thought I remembered saying I love you in my mind as I held him when he was still a baby. But my love had no arms to wrap and keep him. I'd pushed that feeling forward like a birthday wish, or like a boat I was shoving off a sandy shore that scrubbed the surface of the ground, lightened, and was gone. I trusted it would go somewhere, but I had no control, and I didn't watch to see it disappear. If I'd tried to say it out loud then, only Paula and Erik would have understood, Jonathan still so little, and I thought it might undo Entitlement. I thought if they heard me tell him
I love you
, they might think I was claiming my motherhood, or experiencing regret, or flaunting a feeling they were working hard to achieve.
I love you
did damage. I stayed silent and smiled at him, weighting my love till it floated forward and away.

When he got older, I could have said it, but how? After he took my pawn and I took his bishop? When we were playing basketball? Or riding bikes? No, those were words you whisper to your child as he's falling asleep. Or when you're sending him off to school, to remind him you'll be there when it's time to come home. Love was a comforting already-known, a balloon you tap easily, to keep it in the air. The right time would have been as I was leaving, when everyone was gathered in the foyer, saying things like “so good to see you,” “good luck next semester.” But then, that was not the right time to say it. “I love you,” directed at my son, was completely unlike “Goodbye, thanks for having me.” Instead of giving gracious closure to my visit,
I love you
would rip this structure wide open and point directly to my unique relationship with Jonathan. It would beg the question, If I loved him so much, why was I saying goodbye at all?

And since his adoption I hadn't felt a thing that was light and free, or that compelled me to say it. I had sedated my instincts, and there were no secondary instincts for a surrendered son that would bubble spontaneously to the surface with an appropriately timed and tempered statement of affection. My son was always examining me with narrowed eyes, and I thought he knew that the feeling I felt for him wasn't simply love. Saying I loved him would make him doubt my love; he would think I just threw words around carelessly. It was enough for him to see that I was there, committed and available.