Refund (19 page)

“Why do you keep bothering us?” Clarissa asked.

“You were lucky,” said Kim. “You weren't where you were supposed to be.”

“You weren't either,” said Clarissa. “You went the wrong way—”

“Maybe it wasn't the wrong way. Maybe the Towers were the mistake. Why would I have wanted to go there, anyway? Maybe I was supposed to meet someone there, and they never showed up. What do you think of that?”

Clarissa felt cold. “Were you supposed to meet someone there?”

“Would I get my $54,200?”

“Were you meeting someone there?” asked Clarissa. “Were you?”

“She is named Darla,” said Kim.

“Why didn't you say this?” asked Clarissa.

“Will you pay me money?”

Clarissa's throat felt hot.

“I was talking to her on my cell phone,” said Kim. “She was on the elevator to the observation deck.” She paused. “She wanted to go to the Empire State Building, but I thought at the Towers we would get a better view.”

What did one owe for being alive? What was the right way to breathe, to taste a strawberry, to love?

“Kim,” said Clarissa, “I—”

“Do you know how long I'm going to charge you?” Kim said, her voice rising.

Clarissa closed her eyes.

“Do you know?” said Kim.

This Cat

L
et me say at the beginning: it was not the cat's fault. We were at the PetSmart adoption carnival to buy a pet; we had that look of determined acquisition. A cloud of cat rescue people came upon us, presenting their candidates. They started with their hopeless cases. The blind cats. The ones that had tested positive for feline leukemia. The one missing an ear from a fight. The children looked upset. They just wanted a nice cat.

Nice? We have nice. This one is nice but it has six toes. And cat herpes. But that just means it has a runny eye. Give it vitamins.

—That one, said the children.

The cat was skilled at being adorable, stretching and yawning with a tiny squeak. That did it; the children were sold. They were ten and six; by this time, they had stored up enough love to offer it to another being. They mauled him, patting him, making guttural sounds of affection. He was, thank god, tolerant. He stretched again, made that yawn, and I was suddenly, unexpectedly tearful.

—We'll take him, I said.

He was small enough to fit into the crook of my arm, like a football. I had, in fact, asked for him, though I blamed it on the children, who liked the fact there was someone here more powerless than they. They pressed their faces into his black fur, which was so soft it felt as though you were melting into him. We could not come up with an agreed-upon name. Furry. Fluffy. Midnight. Alan. Fred. Licorice. None seemed quite right. We decided that we would name him later. Now he was just The Cat.

In the morning, they went off to school in a big rush, after they had treated us, the parents, like dirt. They were beautiful and holy and problematic. Do you want cereal? No. Can you brush your teeth? No. Can you make your bed? No. The boy rushed upstairs, in a sly, efficient way, to root out the Nintendo where we had hidden it. The girl ate her cereal with slow, elegant mouthfuls, as though we were her servants and school for her would start at 10:00
AM
instead of eight. Why did we keep bothering them, and why did we have to rout them into this glaring, strange thing, a day?

When they were finally out of the house, I took the cat into my arms. I felt purring under his thin ribs. His stomach was as soft as a balloon filled with water. He looked at me with tenderness, me, his savior. There was a familiar fullness in my breasts, a sense of heaviness, dropping, a sensation I had not felt in six years. The cat was looking at me with a pert, intelligent expression. It knew. The fullness got worse.

I wasn't sure what to do about it; I lifted my shirt and squeezed the right breast. A droplet came out of my nipple. I imagined the cat opening its tiny mouth and latching on. His little paws would bat gently against my arms. It seemed a pure impulse, not strange at all. It seemed perfectly natural.

I
WAS A LITTLE BIT PROUD OF THE DROPLET, AS THOUGH IT REVEALED
my great prowess as a mother. It had been six years since I nursed an infant, but I could still do this, even if I was closing in on forty-five. Frankly, at this point, I was a little desperate for things to be proud of. But perhaps I was getting younger in some miraculous way. I passed this information on to my gynecologist the following week. She grew pale.

—What? she asked.

—There was a drop.

—Was it bloody?

—No.

—Was it discolored?

—No.

—We have to get this checked out.

She scribbled something on a sheet.

—Go to Havensworth Radiology tomorrow, she said. —We'll figure it out.

The appearance of the droplet, my apparently perverse desire to nurse the cat, led to a battery of painful tests. I went to Havensworth Radiology center, a giant building full of various X-ray machines. People gathered in the various sections. Knees. Lungs. Breasts. No one looked happy to be in Breasts. The waiting area for the Breast region was decorated in muted greens and blues, clearly designed by someone whose assignment was: create an environment so that patients forget they could lose their breasts or die. The technicians' voices were too calm. Come here, dear. Put your breast on this ledge. We will squish it so it resembles a flattened donut and take a picture. Let me leave the room while the machine floods you with radioactive waves. Thank you. Let's take another. The room flashed its poisonous light.

D
RIVING HOME
, I
NOTICED POLICE CARS EVERYWHERE
. I
WAS NOW
aware of them, floating in their calm and menacing way, down the street. I saw the bulky cars, their metal bodies, the officers inside in their buggy sunglasses. There were no apparent crimes in the city, but they were following me. They were. I gripped the wheel, feeling guilty. I was not young anymore, yet I had many desires, one of which was my yearning to nurse the cat. What did this mean, besides the fact that the gynecologist wanted to diagnose it? The police cruised by, circling.

I got home and resumed normal activities. The cat pretended he had no part in this. He trotted around, arrogant and tiny. I followed him. I waited for the phone. I wanted to hear some good news. But no. There was a call from the school principal, who wanted to talk about our son.

—Something good? I asked, hopeful. —Is he doing well in math? Silence.

—Then what?

—There have been accusations, he said.

—Of what?

—Thievery.

Was this a word?

—Come in tomorrow.

I hung up the phone. The cat coughed and leapt upstairs, two stairs at a time.

T
HE NEXT STOP WAS THE BREAST SURGEON
. T
HOSE WERE TWO WORDS
I did not want to hear in the same breath. She decorated her office with a poster that said, horrifyingly:
Courage
. I did not want to have courage. Who needed it? I wanted Shallowness. Materialism. Sloth. I did not want to be dignified. The surgeon sauntered in. She was young, wearing a ponytail, and looked glossy and trim, as though she had just come from aerobics.

—A droplet? she said. —Can you show me?

I squeezed. There was another. Now I did not look at it so fondly.

—We just got a kitten, I said.

—What type? she asked.

—A very cute one.

—I see.

—Do you have children? I asked, wanting to bond in that way.

—No.

She was kneading my breast as though she were a baker.

—Do you have a pet? I asked.

—I have an iguana, she said.

What kind of emotion can
that
elicit? I thought. An iguana seemed a cold, silent thing.

—I made mistakes raising them, I said.

—Oh, she said.

—I ignored them when they wanted things. I didn't set limits. They hit each other, sometimes with objects. Now there are calls from the principal.

She had an expression on her face. It could have been admiration, or it could have been concern.

—Does your iguana do any tricks? I asked, trying to be cordial.

—We need a biopsy, she said.

N
OW THERE WAS FEAR
. I
T WAS A COLD, SOUR FEAR, INVADING MY
skin. I could not get it out. I opened the car windows, which did not help. That fucking cat. What had it wrought? Why this, now? When I got home, I picked it up, gripped its small, thin body. I was afraid to hold him for too long. What would happen next? Where would this embarrassment stop?

The cat was following me, I told my husband, that night.

I did not tell him about the droplets. It would be a stupid secret
between the medical personnel and me. The news would not go over well, anyway; he was busy at work. Perhaps he was having an affair. It would make him more understandable if he were having an affair. It would clarify everything. As it was, there was a general gray haze of distraction. He wanted to get away from us. He was in a hurry, to get out of the house, to go to the gym, to flee. He wanted, at midlife, hey, at early life, as we all do, to be somewhere else.

—He's hungry, he said. —Just give him more kibble.

We fell into each other with a kind of relief, that we could find each other through the blind, sweaty maze that made up our days—we were startling, an oasis. The children slept in the other room, moral and forceful as parents; they could not discover us. I locked the door and put a chair against it, for good measure. We had invited them into the world with this act, and now we wanted to keep them out. His hands felt my breasts; he detected nothing; with the deepest gratitude, we held each other down.

I did not tell him the news about the call until we were finished.

—The principal called, I said. —There was thieving.

—Thieving? Of what?

—He didn't say.

I wanted to just lie there beside him, pretending we had only this to deal with. I rubbed his arm; it was hard as an apple; it looked no different than it had when we met fifteen years before, but its ability for combat would soon reach its limits.

—It's nothing, my husband said, reaching and lifting a piece of hair from my forehead with an unwarranted tenderness.

—Don't worry about it, he said. —It's nothing.

T
HE GRIM WALK INTO THE PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE
. I
SMILED AT OTHER
parents in the hallway, as though we had been invited here for another sort of conference. Invited. We all wanted to be invited to
hear a beautiful future. We wanted the school principal to know more than we did. He would tell us that our child had been identified as supremely gifted and would be shot through a funnel to glorious success. Your child is particularly admired by his/her classmates. Your child . . . but no. We were here for the other conference. The bright fluorescent bars in the ceiling spat and buzzed. My husband's hand was a knot in mine.

We said hello to the principal. He was worn out as a piece of flannel. Our son sat in a chair, not wearing his cleanest shirt. Was that his fault or mine? Hi, our son said, his eyes travelling the ceiling; he pretended not to know who we were.

—Well, said the principal. —I am sorry to say that your son has been thieving. Here's a list. A donut, a pen, $2.25. And the crowning glory, the teacher's diamond bracelet. Wanda Jenkins found it in his desk.

I wondered if the principal could run the school effectively because he used this word:
thieving
.

—Could this Wanda have slipped it into his desk by accident? I asked.

—No. She saw it in there. Other kids did, too.

The principal clasped his hands as though he were trying to hold himself from some other frenzied movement. We all did; we were the epitome of politeness.

—So. Do you understand the seriousness of this?

Our son was frozen. His head barely moved. He was this other thing now, a defendant, and he took to it like a character in a movie. We all sat there, perched on our chairs in this moment of history. We were barely real.

—What do you say? asked the principal.

—I didn't do it, said our son.

—But you did, said the principal. —We have proof.

—What did you want? I asked our son.

He assumed a blank expression, as though he did not understand this question.

—I don't know, he said.

This was not the right answer, for the principal said, —He has to go home.

—You mean we have to take him home? Now?

—For two days.

—But we have to work—

—Sorry. You have to figure that out.