Refund (15 page)

—I'll check you in, I said. —You go wait in the lobby.

I watched them settle into some plush beige armchairs, and then I went to the front desk.

The lobby held the wonderfully false, cheerful odor of maple syrup, even though a coffee shop was nowhere to be seen. The concierge was done up in gold braid, as though he were part of an army for a cause that none of us were supposed to know. Two people. Mr. and Mrs. Kaufman. Welcome. Room 234. Queen bed. We have continental breakfast 6:00 to 10:00
AM
.

How beautiful those words were, complimentary breakfast, queen bed!

Then I strolled—casually—over to the armchairs to hand my parents their room keys. My mind was already making plans. I imagined all of us here, for holidays, in Hawaii. By the time I got to the chairs, I had us all flying, driving around the country, the world.

But no one was sitting in the chairs.

Where had they gone? Was this the wrong set of chairs? In the other beige armchairs were a pair of excited hikers. I rushed around the lobby. Was this all a joke? Had I imagined their stroll in the airport? Had I driven no one to the hotel?

Turning, I smashed into a bellboy.

—Ma'am?

—Did you see a couple? Sitting in those chairs? They were there a second ago . . .

The bellboy stared at me.

—What did they look like?

—I don't know. Short. Gray-haired. Navy blue coat.

—How about them?

He pointed to a man and woman standing by the window. They were chatting happily, gazing out at a view of the parking lot. The man was wearing the same coat as my father. I ran over.

—My god! Don't run off like that! I didn't know where you had gone, I said.

—We're just looking out the window, my father said. He put his hand on my shoulder. —What do you see? he asked.

I looked outside; the light through the window was harsh, metallic. There were a couple hawks floating over the parking lot.

—There are some birds, I said.

—Can you believe we're seeing the same thing? he exclaimed.

He turned around. The light behind him was bright white. I
blinked and could not see for a moment; when I could, I thought my father looked peculiar. Suddenly, he appeared to be forty years old. His arms were slim but muscular in the navy coat. He was pert, stalwart as a captain of a ship, his eyes bright and devoid of any defeat. I had almost forgotten how that expression looked on his face. His skin was glowing, and his beard appeared to be dark brown. His teeth were absurdly white.

—What's wrong? he asked, innocent.

—You look different, I said, stepping back.

My mother turned to me; I gasped. In the hard, aching sunlight, she, too, appeared to have plummeted through the years; her hair was lush, dark, around her shoulders, and her face seemed slim as a deer's.

—I wish you'd cleaned the car, said my mother, smoothing her hair.

—It was clean, I said, a little insulted.

—Not enough, she said. —There was a cup.

—What cup? I asked.

—On the floor. Harold, what are you doing? Let's check out our room.

My father was standing by the window, practicing his golf swing. His arms gripped an imaginary club, they reached back, and
whisk
!

I walked with them to the elevator. I touched my arms, my face. Perhaps I had lost my grip on reality, but maybe it felt good to lose my grip. Maybe there was some comfort in having no grip; maybe that was even the answer. Gazing into the mirrored, gold-veined glass of the elevator, I could see that I was still myself, in my forties and worn and sinking south. I was afraid of scrutinizing them too closely; I liked the idea of them as these other beings. My mother tilted my father's face toward hers and kissed him at length. Thankfully, the elevator door opened.

—Time to get out! I called.

We entered their room. Silence.

—Bad room, said my father.

—Ugh, awful, said my mother.

—What's the problem? I asked, puzzled.

—Look!

I looked. It was a perfectly decent hotel room. There were mints perched on the swirly gold comforters. There was even a Jacuzzi tub in the middle of the room.

—Lucky you, I said. —You have a Jacuzzi.

—No, but we could trip over it! I can't see well at night.

—Call downstairs, Laura. Get it changed now—

My mother was already on the phone. Now, in the sour orange light of the bedroom, they were aged, familiar again. Their shoulders stooped slightly, my father shuffling across the room, his beard faded.

I
WENT TO THE CAR, CHECKED MYSELF IN THE MIRROR, SAW NOTHING
good, tossed the offending cup out of the backseat. After awhile, my parents descended. Now they were in room 126, with no problematic Jacuzzi. They walked, arm in arm, to my car.

—Now I want to show you our home, I said.

I drove for fifteen minutes. What a grand, peculiar sensation, driving my parents. In the various cities where I'd lived, as I cracked thirty and thirty-five and then forty years of age, I had harbored secret hopes of them being my children, of toting them around like this, offering snacks. Now I asked them if anyone would like a peanut butter cracker. This was not the sort of snack to which they were accustomed. However, they accepted them. I pulled up to our house to the sound of crackers being munched.

—Home! I said.

The children ran out of the house, as they had been instructed to do. Burst out of the front door, I said, run like your life depends
on it. I had studied our neighbors on national holidays, the way in which they welcomed visiting relatives. They always ran out. Now my children ran out, and they were not acting, I could tell.

My parents clutched their grandchildren. Hello. Hello. You've grown so much. Hello.

They walked through the door of our house. Here was my husband, wearing a clean shirt, his hair neatly parted; he stood up, holding out his hand.

I brought them drinks in our finest crystal glasses. My parents sat in our living room. My mother rubbed her hand along the arm of the blue couch.

—That's the first couch I ever bought, I told them. —I got it in Seattle ten years ago. It was where Jeff and I first sat and talked and thought that perhaps we were interested in each other. We lugged it all the way across the country because it seemed lucky.

How strange the furniture looked, sitting here; it looked like it had been plopped here, without any concern for design or utility. In its randomness, there was, somehow, a sense of shame.

Perched on the couch, my mother brushed her hair. And now the hazy pinkish light of dusk was playing tricks on me. My mother was sluffing off years again! She wasn't the dark-haired, glossy being from the hotel, but now she looked to be around fifty, a little heavy around the hips, her hair graying with more force. I peered through the room's dim light.

—How are you doing this? Getting younger? I asked, alarmed.

—Well, thank you, my mother said. —I am using a new moisture cream.

She was scaring me. There was my father, walking around the room, also clocking in at about fifty, his eyes aglow, his stride buoyant, almost a swagger. He had never walked like this at fifty.

I sat down and rubbed my forehead.

—What do you want to do now? my father asked.

I had not thought this far ahead. Here were my parents, sitting on our old lucky couch, and, I thought, veering crazily from decade to decade, while the children ran around the living room and my husband lounged on a chair. It was too much, really.

—I'm making everyone dinner! I said.

The refrigerator was stuffed with foods I had made in preparation. I wanted to make up for thirty years of not having cooked for them. They wandered in.

—What are we having? my father asked.

—Beef Wellington, leek and pumpkin soup, raspberry granita for dessert.

—Is it low-sodium? my father asked.

—Uh, no, I said.

—Oh, he said. —Well, so what! Let's just celebrate.

They sat patiently and watched as I heated, stirred, poured, etc. The children set the table. The window flushed with the artificial heat. I wanted them to like what I had prepared for them. They waited patiently for their first course. I set the table with the sterling silverware we had received for our wedding. I understood, just then, that I had never set a table with it because no event had seemed important enough.

A
FTER ABOUT AN HOUR, THEY WERE READY TO GO BACK TO THE
hotel. I drove, hands trembling, afraid to leave them there for the night. They seemed reluctant for me to depart, too. My mother had a sudden, anxious craving for potato chips. My father wanted dental floss. They flipped through the hotel directory, wondering where to get these items. I went to the gift shop downstairs and purchased the chips and dental floss, and then they wanted to shoo me out. They were ready to enjoy their hotel room. I hugged them, feeling their slim shoulders under my hands, and left.

I wondered what age they would wake up in the morning. Sixty? Thirty? One hundred? Did they remember what it was to be forty, fifty? Their faces at that age were a blur to me. What did they look like before I was born?

My car passed the restaurants, businesses, movie theaters of our city. The developments carved out of pine forests, the office buildings, shadowed in the darkness, seemed like they could, at any moment, be stomped by a giant. Our home, bathed in little spotlights, clung to its patch of lawn.

Was this all a joke? What was it?

Hurtling into the house, I found my husband calmly reading a copy of
Consumer Reports
.

—What are you reading about? I asked.

—There are good deals on lawn mowers, he said.

He sat on the couch, innocent and precious, eating some Cheez-Its, but I was now curdling with dissatisfaction and wanted to pick a fight. In his zeal to find a decent lawn mower, he had forgotten to check the dryer, which had wet clothes in it. Now the clothes smelled like wet dogs.

—I asked you to do this small thing! I burst out.

—No, you didn't, he said. —Why do I have to be the one to check the dryer?

—Why not you?

—You're being self-centered.

—No, you.

We sunk into one of those silent, glum familial nights in which every glass we rinsed seemed about to break, every lampshade unfortunate, our breath too loud and alien. We climbed into bed and I felt my husband's leg, a fine, muscular leg, a leg I knew very well, wrapped around mine, then rubbing against mine, and despite ourselves, our obstinate rightness, of course, all that followed.

This was all I had hoped for, all I thought I would be denied.

Afterward, I lay in bed and wondered how long any of us had to live.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, I
SLID DOWN THE CHUTE OF OUR NORMAL
activities—dropping the children off at school, washing the breakfast dishes. I took the day off from work and went to check in on my parents. My breath paused as their hotel room door opened. There they were, in their bright tourist garb, ready for their tour.

—Show us around, my father said.

I drove them around to the important sights in town. This was the museum where I was employed. This was the hospital where the children were born. This was the soccer field where our daughter won an award for best goalie. Here was the elementary school track where our son was first in a race in third grade. Here was the house of Benny Rosenthal, who had the birthday party everyone talked about for weeks, the party to which both children got an invitation. Here was the bar where my husband and I went the first night both our children were off on sleepovers. I went through sites of hope and triumph. Then I wanted to keep going. Here was the Olive Garden where my husband and I ate numerous garlic knots and had a stupid fight over the amount of time each was able to get to the gym. Here was the spot where our son, racing to keep up with Tony Orillo, tripped over a tree root and broke his leg. Here was the spot when that devil girl, Marie Swanson, said to our daughter, “Don't wear that headband. You copied me.” Here was the corner where I learned the news that the Iraq war had started, the gas station where I got the call that my best friend had died in Tallahassee, the street where I realized that my hip was forever screwed, the field in which we lost our cat. Here was the place where I got the phone call in which you said you were going to visit me.

When we got through that, I just showed them foliage I liked. Here was an important bush. In the winter, it was dotted with pink camellias like knotted satin bows. Here was a sewage drain where orange leaves got clogged but looked pretty in the fall. Here was a stretch of pine trees that had not been knocked down for a housing development.

I kept driving and driving. I had pretty much covered the city, the joys, the defeats, the memorable foliage, and I wondered what was next.