The Art of Mending (14 page)

It is a travel advertisment in a newspaper, a half-page picture of an older couple in their late seventies or early eight-ies, floating in a pool on rubber rafts with built-in pillows. The water is crystal clear and shot through with jagged lines of sunlight. The man wears black bathing trunks that come almost to his knees, funny, in their way. The woman wears a beautifully designed swimsuit in a Hawaiian print with a plunging neckline that—unbelievably—looks sexy. Her necklace is made of shells that coordinate with the bathing suit. She wears a bathing cap covered with flowers but has left uncovered one perfect wave of streaked hair. Her hus-band holds her hand—it is he who has reached out to her; it feels somehow that it is always he who reaches for her. Her face is a study in pride: eyebrows plucked in a graceful arch, cheekbones high and rouged, lipstick perfectly applied. She has a smile on her face; his expression is more serious, nearly anxious.

When I came across this picture, I had an odd reaction to it. “Look at this,” I told Pete, and he looked over and said, “Huh. Cute.”

“It’s not cute!” I said angrily.

Pete looked up, surprised.

“It’s not! Look at her! This is a woman whose been overly cared for all her life. She’s a user; she thinks only of herself. Look at her eyes!”

He looked again. “You can’t even see her eyes.”

He was right. Both people in the photograph wore dark sunglasses.

“Well, I know what they look like,” I said.

“How?” Pete asked, and I did not answer, because I could not say.

21

PETE PICKED ME UP AT THE AIRPORT. HE LEANED OVER
to give me a quick kiss before we pulled away from the curb. I wondered what he’d ask me and what I’d say. I realized I’d fallen once again into uncertainty. I was beginning to think I understood battered wife syndrome: seeing someone as a monster, then as someone not so bad, then as someone familiar and loved. “Damn it!” I said.

“What happened?” He slowed the car, checked the rearview.

“Nothing,” I said, waving my hand. “Sorry. It’s okay, don’t stop. I’ll tell you later. I don’t even know what I’m feeling.” I began to cry, which only made me angrier.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. No. Oh, I don’t know.” I wiped away the few tears I’d shed. “Listen, can we go get a drink somewhere? Are the kids okay?”

“The kids are fine. Your mother’s there. And . . . well, surprise, my parents are too.”

I stared at him, open-mouthed. “When . . . ?”

“They didn’t tell me. They were on their way back from somewhere, and they were only fifty miles away. . . . They arrived just after your flight took off from Minnesota.”

I leaned back against the seat and closed my eyes. “Pete. You know I love them. But so much is going on!”

“Let’s go somewhere and talk.”

“Somewhere close. I don’t know why I’m angry. I’m not angry. I really am not angry.”

THE CROWDED BAR WAS IN AN AIRPORT HOTEL,
and many of the patrons had their carry-ons beside them. I had to squeeze past a large black overnighter to get into my seat. “Oh, sorry,” a young woman said, pulling it in closer to her.

“No problem.” I said this, though what I wanted to say was
Move it!

Pete ordered wine at the bar and brought it back to the table. I said nothing until he reached over and rubbed my shoulder.

“What a mess!” I shook my head.

“Did something else happen?”

“You won’t believe this. Aunt Fran told me—” I stopped talking, aware that the young woman I squeezed past was listening intently. “I’ll tell you in a minute,” I said. And then, pointedly, “Maybe we should switch tables.”

With that, the young woman rose, put money down on the table, and stalked off.

Pete watched her go. “What was that all about?”

“She was eavesdropping.”

“Ah.”

“I hate it when people do that.”

He said nothing, but in his silence I could hear his all-too-correct accusation:
You do it constantly.

“Anyway, Aunt Fran told me it was Caroline who attacked my mother, not the other way around.”

Pete sat back. “Wow. So what do you think?”

“At first, I was absolutely convinced that Fran was taken in by my mother in the same way Dad always was. But now I don’t know. I can’t think straight. I feel like I need to be doing something, and I have no idea what to do. I mean, I feel weird going home to see my mother, when I don’t know if she . . . I don’t know what to believe, Pete. I honestly don’t.”

“Maybe you just have to let things sit for a while. It’s not like you have to make any decisions about anything right away. Whoever did what, it happened a long time ago. Caroline’s said what she needed to say, and she’s getting help. Your mother’s okay for the time being. I think . . . well, I might as well tell you now, I think she wants to stay with us for a while. Lots of hints about how she feels glad to have company, how she can help with this and help with that.”

“Help with what?”

“Oh, babysitting—”

“We don’t need a babysitter. We finally don’t need one!”

“Shopping, she mentioned grocery shopping.”

“I like to pick out my own things.”

“Laura?”

“What!”

“It’s not
my
idea. She’s not
my
mother. You know?”

“I know that!” I stared at him. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m just mad. I want to go home and just have it be normal again. I don’t want her there. That’s the truth. And I miss my dad, and I haven’t even been able to take the time to mourn him.” I sighed. “I don’t know, I guess you’re right. There’s nothing to do now but let some time go by. Let’s just go home.”

In the car, with the radio off, the quiet and the darkness and the presence of Pete began to soothe me. “I’m not going back
there
for a while!”

“You don’t have to.” He took my hand. “So. You want to know my thing that happened today?”

“What?” I turned toward him, nearly giddy with relief.

ROSA, SUBBY, MY MOTHER, PETE,
and I were seated at the kitchen table, and the kids were upstairs in their rooms. We were having coffee and the excellent pistachio biscotti that Rosa baked this afternoon, probably fifteen seconds after she set foot in the house. We were all in our pajamas, and despite the strain of everything that had been happening, I felt happy. It was as though I’d awakened from a bad dream, had left behind a pulling darkness to join these familiar faces in this most familiar of settings. Our voices overlapped as we talked; we laughed frequently. What was notable, of course, was my father’s absence, that persistent raw spot: my mother’s smile fading as she rubbed the familiar bump of bone on the outside of her wrist the way she used to rub the knuckles of his hand.

Rosa’s short gray hair was in pin curls, and she wore a black hairnet over them. She was talking about her father, how he used to stuff a sock and call it a cat. “He would hold it in his arms and pet it,
Goooood kitty, goooood kitty,
and then—MEOW!—he’d make it jump out of his arms. Oh, I’m telling you, we loved it. We used to laugh till we peed our pants.”

“Today, these kids need cyberspace to be entertained,” my mother said.

“They use it for their schoolwork too, though,” Rosa said. “It’s all right. They all find new things; every generation has its own new things.”

From upstairs, I heard Hannah calling me, so I excused myself and went up to her room. She had the phone pressed to her chest. “Can I babysit for the Pearsons Saturday night? Their regular sitter canceled.”

Hannah had never done this, though she did take a Red Cross course in babysitting. And the Pearsons lived just down the block and their children weren’t all that young—maybe five and seven. “Sure,” I told her.

Hannah held up a finger, asking me to wait, and said into the phone, “That will be fine. . . . Okay, seven o’clock. Thank you.”

She hung up and beamed at me. “My first job. I’ll get six dollars an hour!”

“That’s great!”

“So . . . what do I do?”

“Do for what?”

“To babysit!’

“Oh! Well, you know, first and foremost, just make sure they’re safe. That’s why people hire babysitters, to make sure their children are safe. You remember what it was like, having babysitters.”

“Yeah, I don’t want to be like them, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“They were boring. I’m going to be a fun one, like Mary Poppins.”

“Okay,” I said. “That’s a noble goal.”

“Did you babysit a lot, Mom?”

“I did.” I went over to her bed, motioning for her to move so I could sit beside her. “I have to tell you, though, I was not one of the fun ones.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I guess I thought I had to be a tough boss.”

“Well, I’ll be the boss, but I’ll be a fun boss. Do you think I could take some things over to show them?”

“What things?”

“I don’t know. Books. Maybe a game or two?”

Of course they would have their own. But I loved her enthusiasm. “I think that would be great.”

“Okay. So . . . would you close my door?”

Dismissed.

I went out into the hall and then stood for a while at the head of the stairs. I could hear my mother talking about my father, describing the way he used to make shadow puppets on the walls for us. How much we used to love that. How none of us would ever agree on what he was making, and he would never tell, so that all of us could be right.

THE NEXT MORNING, I WAS STANDING
at the cutting table in my studio when Rosa appeared. “We’re going to take off in a little while.”

I put down my rotary cutter and started upstairs.

“Oh, no, keep working; I just wanted to sit with you for a while.”

“Good.” I slid a chair over to her and returned to the mat, to slicing off three-quarter-inch strips from a bright yellow cotton print.

“Well, it’s official: Subby is on the last hole of his belt. He’s going to have to get suspenders.”

I laughed. “That’s what you get for being such a good cook. Anyway, I like suspenders.”

“Oh, but he doesn’t!”

“Why not?”

“Because his Uncle Yaya wore suspenders and he was such a mess! His pants wouldn’t button anymore and his zipper was always a little bit open. Little bits of saliva always at the corners of his mouth. He had a banged-up hat he would never take off, and his shirts always had stains on them. He was the kind of man, seemed like flies were always buzzing around him. They weren’t, but it
seemed
like they were. And you know Subby, he likes to be so neat. Every day, with his hair cream and his cologne.”

“Well, he doesn’t have to look like his uncle just because he wears suspenders!”

“You know how it is. You have associations with things. But today I’m going to get him a nice pair of yellow suspenders; he’ll love them. I saw them in Brooks Brothers. He doesn’t know. I told him we had to go to the mall on the way out of town. He’ll wait in the RV for me; he takes naps while I shop.”

“You still like driving around in that thing?”

“Oh, it’s wonderful. You make a lot of friends.”

I smiled, sliced through more fabric, stacked the strips I’d cut into a pile.

“Laura? I want to ask you something. How are you doing with . . . how are you feeling?”

“I’m okay, Rosa. Thanks.” I looked over at her, smiled.

“I remember when my father died, it was . . . I felt suddenly so alone in the world.”

“Yes.”

“It will take time, sweetheart.”

“I know.”

“So! I made you some sauce—it’s in the freezer. Red gold.”

“Thanks. I love your red sauce. I still can’t make it like you.”

“You have your own way. You’re a wonderful cook.”

“Rosa? I want to ask you something. If you heard something from a reliable source about someone else—” I looked at her, her wide gray eyes. “Okay. Suppose your sister told you something about your mother that you had a hard time believing. Would you—”

She held up her hand. “I think I know what you’re going to say.”

“You do?”

“Your mother and I have talked over the years about your sister. Not a lot, but enough so I know it isn’t good between them. And of course I’ve been with Caroline a few times, and she’s . . . well, she’s—”

“I know. She’s kind of hard. But Rosa, can I tell you something in confidence?”

I looked upstairs, guiltily, and Rosa said, “Your mother is sitting outside with Subby.”

“Well, here’s the thing. My sister told me about some things that happened between her and my mother, really terrible things.”

“Show me a parent who says she hasn’t made mistakes, and I’ll show you a liar.”

“But these were big mistakes, Rosa. Damaging mistakes. I don’t know . . . well, the truth is, I don’t know who to believe or how to handle this.”

She sighed. “Okay. Show me a parent who hasn’t made
damaging
mistakes.”

“My sister says my mother came after her with a knife.”

Rosa sat very still, then breathed out. “
Madonna.
Somebody is in big trouble.”

It is someone’s birthday party, I can’t tell whose. There is a big cake in the middle of the kitchen table. My mother has cut a huge piece, the first piece, and is offering it to Caroline. There are butter-cream flowers on the slice she holds; a candle too—it is a prime piece of birthday cake. My mother’s back is to the camera, her hand on her hip. Without seeing her face, you can guess at her expression. That is because you can clearly see Caroline’s face, taut and unsmiling. Refusing what is offered her. It must be my father taking the picture; he is the only one not at the table. What he was attempting to document, I don’t know. For Steve’s and my part, we are tossing a balloon back and forth, over Caroline’s head. For a long time, we have known that sometimes it serves you best simply to work around an obstacle, to make invisible what you are tired of seeing or don’t understand.

22

IT
WAS
A
CROWDED
SATURDAY
MORNING
AT
FABRIC
WORLD
, and Gregory was spending too much time searching out a fabric for me. He’d vaguely remembered seeing a dog-bone print in novelty fabrics, but now it was nowhere in sight. He looked through all the juvenile fabrics, then searched the back room. “Maybe somebody put it in with the black-and-whites,” he said. “Let’s go see.”

I slogged along behind him, carrying an armload of bolts of fabric that had nothing whatsoever to do with what I was working on. “Put those
down,
” he told me—again—and again I told him no. “What do you think, someone’s going to come along and buy a whole bolt?”

“It could happen.”

He bent down over a row of black-and-white prints and started going through them. “You know, my partner does that in bookstores. He always buys a lot of books at once, and he carries them around the whole time, this big stack of books. I tell him to put them
down,
and he says no, somebody might buy them. Like there’s not more. Like he’s holding on to the last copies. And even if he were, like he couldn’t order others.”

“I understand completely,” I said. “That is the way things should be done.”

He looked disapprovingly over his shoulder at me. “Hmmm. I suppose you’re a firstborn.”

“I am!”

“So is Raymond. You all are so bossy.” He pulled out a bolt of fabric, a white printed with tiny black dog bones. “Voilà!”

I snatched it from him. “Oh, perfect! Thank you!”

“Come over to the table, I’ll cut it for you myself.”

“To what do I owe this great honor?”

He shrugged. “Friendship.”

It was true. We were friends. And yet I’d never exactly thought of it that way. I sought out Gregory every time I came to Fabric World; I was disappointed when he wasn’t there; we sat in his office and talked fabric and gossiped, yet until now I’d never really thought of him as a friend. It felt vaguely greedy to think of him that way, as though one were appropriated a certain number of friends and should not cultivate relationships beyond that. But that was ridiculous! And so, “Hey, Gregory,” I said. “Would you and Raymond ever like to come to my house for dinner?”

“Ever? Is this a tentative invitation?” He whispered this last.

“No. It’s a definite invitation.”

“What night?” He began unwinding one of the bolts of fabric. “How much?”

“Three yards of each. And . . . I don’t know. Any night.”

“How’s tonight? Because I know we couldn’t do it otherwise for a couple of weeks. We’re very popular, as you can imagine.”

“I can.”

He looked over the top of his glasses at me. “You’re so easy. Actually, it’s that we’re going on vacation tomorrow. Two weeks in San Francisco, and I can’t wait.”

“Tonight? . . . Well, sure, why not? I have to warn you, though, my mother is staying with us.”

He folded up the fabric he’d cut for me, leaned forward to say, “She’ll love me.”

“I’m not worried about that part.”

“I’m sure I’ll love her too.”

I said nothing. Finally, he laughed and said, “Oh, so what?”

“Seven o’clock?” I said and he nodded, then rolled his eyes as he heard himself paged. “I hate it when you’re at work and they make you work!” he said. “It’s so unfair!”

AT FOUR O’CLOCK, I CALLED MAGGIE
and asked her if she and Doug wanted to come to dinner as well. “Can’t,” she said. “We’re already going out—with Doug’s boss. I have to wear nylons and everything.”

“Sorry.”

“Has to be done.”

“So tell me,” I said. “If I use my mother-in-law’s red sauce, do I have to confess it’s not mine?”

“Who’ll ask?”

“Gregory will. I can feel it in my bones.”

“What’s so wrong with saying it’s not yours?”

“I don’t know. I feel like if you invite people to dinner, you should make it yourself.”

“That was in the olden days.”

“Okay. Thanks for the reality check.” I hung up and the phone rang immediately. It was Caroline.

“Hey,” I said. “How are you doing?” I looked at the clock on the kitchen wall; I had to get busy on the lasagna. I should have let the machine pick up.

“I’m okay,” she said. And waited.

I waited too, then finally asked, “So . . . things are going well?” I could hear the tension in my voice; I hoped she could not.

“Have you . . . do you know when she’s coming home?”

“Mom?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t. Soon, I would expect. I think she just felt like she needed to have people around her for a while. Why?”

“Oh, just—”

“Are you thinking you need to . . . do something with her?”

“I’m thinking I need to spend some time with her, yes.”

“I don’t know, Caroline. She hasn’t said much about when she’s going back. Listen, I’m sorry, but this is a really bad time. I’m having company for dinner, and—”

“Oh! Why didn’t you say so? Never mind.”

“Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“Look, I’m sorry, I just don’t have time right now.”

“Yes, I know. You told me. I heard.” She hung up.

I stood for a while with the receiver in my hand, then put it back in the cradle.
Not this time,
I was thinking.

I took out the things I needed from the refrigerator and began chopping onion and garlic. Maggie was wrong; I had to make my own sauce. The door burst open and Anthony came in, followed by Hannah and my mother. In a way, my mother had moved from being my mother to another one of the kids. I kind of liked her like this. “Where have you guys been?” I asked.

“We took Grandma to Sam Goody’s,” Hannah said. “She got us CDs.”

My mother leaned on the kitchen counter, watching me chop the onions. “What’s for dinner?”

“Lasagna,” I said. “We’re having guests.”

“Who?” Hannah asked, and when I told her, she wailed, “Nooo! I can’t be here! I have to babysit!”

I’d forgotten, but I didn’t want to admit this, so I said, “Well, there’ll be another time.”

“How do you know? You’ve never had Gregory here!”

“There will be,” I said. And then, as the phone rang yet again, “Answer that, will you?”

Hannah picked up the phone, listened, and then said, “Oh, hi, I’m so happy you’re coming!” Then, listening more, she said, “Oh, no! Really? Well, tell him he’ll get better if he comes here!”

I wiped my hands on a dish towel and reached out for the phone. “Here’s my mom,” Hannah said. She grabbed her CDs and ran toward the stairs and her room.

“Who’s Gregory?” I heard my mother ask Anthony at the same time that Gregory told me, “I’m going to kill Raymond. Don’t tell anyone I did it. I’ll try to be humane.”

“What’s up?” I said.

“He is
such
a hypochondriac! He’s convinced he’s having some
respiratory
problem. I have to take him to the ER, his home away from home.”

“But
is
something wrong?” I asked, alarmed, and Gregory said, “No, no. It’s nothing. It’s never anything. He always does this before we go on trips. He gets anxious when we leave home. It is never anything, and it won’t be this time either. He’s always got something. And it’s always something with a very grim prognosis.” I hear him cover the phone with his hand and then he shouts, “I’m coming! Just start the car.” He lowered his voice. “Last time the doctor said, ‘Mr. Haley, why don’t you just go home and get on with your life?’ Listen, I’m so sorry to cancel at the last minute. . . . Although I also invited myself at the last minute.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “We’ll do it another time.”

“Can we?”

“Of course. Call me when you get back from vacation. We’ll set something up.”

“His real problem,” Gregory said, “is that he just quit his job and now he’s
between.
He doesn’t know what to do with himself. He runs around vacuuming all the time. I mean, I’m gone all day and then I come home and I’m returning phone calls and he has to go and
vacuum.
I say to him, ‘Uh, Raymond? Can you see that I’m
—Hold on, I’m coming!
”

“You’d better go.”

“Yes, on to macaroni surprise at the hospital cafeteria. I can’t wait.”

I hung up the phone, crossed my arms, stared at the lasagna pan. “Well, that’s that.”

“What? He can’t come?” Anthony asked. “But can’t you make it anyway?” Lasagna was Anthony’s favorite food. He could easily put away half a pan for a single serving.

“I’ll make it,” my mother said. “Why don’t you and Pete go out to dinner? You two could use a night out.”

The idea of going out with Pete was very appealing—a dress-up date with my husband. Time alone.

“Go ahead, I’ll feed the kids,” my mother said. “Pick Pete up at work and surprise him.”

I looked at my watch, then at her.

“Go!” she said.

Anthony stood and raised his arms up high, stretching. “Okay with me,” he said. Fewer people equaled more lasagna.

I went upstairs and into Hannah’s room. She was listening to her new CD with her headphones on, her eyes closed. I lifted up the headphones and told her, “I’m going to go out to dinner with Dad, okay? I know I said I’d be here when you babysat, in case you needed anything.”

“I’m fine,” she said. “I’ve got everything planned—they’re going to love me, they’re going to want me all the time. And anyway, Grandma will be here.”

I changed clothes and all but skipped down the steps. I wouldn’t tell Pete anything except that he had to come with me. Then I’d take him for a steak the size of Russia. We would talk about everything but the stone in my shoe.

ON THE WAY HOME FROM THE RESTAURANT,
Pete turned off the radio and looked over at me. “Hey. Want to go make out?”

“I knew you’d like this outfit.” I’d worn a red dress with a low neckline that I still looked pretty good in, and heels high enough to cause pain. All through dinner, I’d left them off my feet.

“I mean it. I know a place right near here.”

“How do
you
know a place?”

“Watch.” He made a few turns, and we pulled into the back lot of a grocery store.

“Very romantic,” I said, gazing over at rows of wooden crates stacked up against a concrete wall, at a massive-sized Dumpster, the lid yawning open, heads of what looked like cabbage strewn across the top of a small mountain of garbage.

“This is what constitutes romance at our stage of the game: It’s dark, and there are no other people.” He tuned the radio to what passed as a jazz station and raised an eyebrow. “There will be absolutely no interruptions.”

“You must have had more wine than I thought.”

He pulled me to him. “I love my wife.”

“Well. That’s very nice.”

Very slowly, he ran his hand up my leg. I started to laugh, to say, We’re too old, this is ridiculous! But we weren’t, and it wasn’t.

When I was in grade school, I, along with the other girls, wrote boys’ names on my notebook paper, wrote myself as
Mrs.
a hundred times in a dreamy script. But I did that in the same way that I wore whatever clothes were in style—I had no real belief that I would ever meet in the middle with someone. And indeed it did take a long time for me to find someone I wanted to marry. But I’m so glad I waited. What I know about Pete and me is that the flame will never go out. I do not look up from tossing the salad and think,
Oh, God, how the hell did I ever get here?
I do not look at the back of his head and think,
I don’t know you at all.
I wake up with my pal, and go to sleep with my lover. He still thrills me, not only sexually but because of the way he regards the life that unfolds around him. I am interested in what he says about me and the children and our respective jobs, but I am also interested in what he says about the Middle East and the migratory patterns of monarchs and the amount of nutmeg that should be grated into the mashed potatoes and the impact that being a thwarted artist had on the life of Hitler. I believe Pete is a truly honest and awake and kind individual. If we live more than once, I want to find him again. The family I have made with him are my bunker and my sword. They are another form of oxygen: Without them, everything in me would shut down. It is terrifying to know that love can have such power. It is also gratifying.

AS WE TURNED DOWN OUR STREET,
I saw the spastic flash of ambulance lights. I sat up straight and leaned forward, alarmed. “What’s that?”

“It’s not our house,” Pete said. And then, “It’s the Pearsons! Isn’t Hannah babysitting for them?” Reflexively, a little drama played out in my head: me, telling Maggie,
Pete said, Isn’t Hannah
.
.
.

We pulled up outside of the Pearsons and ran out of the car. There on the lawn were Hannah, the Pearson boy, and my mother. My mother was kneeling beside Tyler, talking to him. The ambulance attendants were putting a gurney with a small figure—Nicki—strapped in place into the back. There was a big bandage on her forehead. I ran over to them and asked breathlessly, “What happened?” The attendant who climbed in with Nicki leaned forward to close the door. “Not as bad as it looks, but we’ve got to go.” The door slammed shut and the ambulance took off, siren wailing.

Hannah wept loudly, and Pete stood beside her, speaking quietly to her. I went over and put my arms around her. “Hannah, what happened?”

“I was giving Nicki a piggyback ride to bed,” she gulped. “She leaned back, trying to reach for her stuffed animal, and I dropped her and she fell and cut her eye on the coffee table.”

“She cut her eye?”

“Right beside her right eye,” my mother said.

“Oh, Hannah.” I pulled her closer, rubbed her back. She was crying so hard she was hiccuping. I looked over at Pete, who nodded at me, meaning he’d stay. I took her hand. “Come on, let’s go home.”

“I’ll stay here,” I heard my mother tell Pete. “You go with them.”

Hannah cried until she exhausted herself. Nothing Pete or I said seemed to console her. Finally, leaving her in her room, Pete and I went downstairs. Just as we were collapsing into the sofa, the door slammed and my mother came into the room. “Mrs. Pearson is at the hospital; Mr. Pearson just came home. They said the girl will be all right. She can come home tomorrow.” She sank into a chair.